Beaumont and Fletcher: A Critical Study

First published in 1956, Beaumont and Fletcher offers a compact critical survey of the plays by Beaumont and Fletcher, as well as Fletcher's collaborations with Massinger and Shakespeare.For a hundred years audiences and readers ranked Beaumont and Fletcher with Ben Johnson and with Shakespeare. The successors to Shakespeare as leading dramatists for The King's Men, they set the tone for the Jacobean drama. Consequently, this study of their plays illuminates not only the stage of their time but the period as a whole. It attempts to measure their impact on the Jacobean and Restoration theatre, their subsequent reputation, and their relevance to the theatre of today. It offers to lovers of the theatre an overall view of the two playwrights’ achievement. For the general reader it provides an insight into a period of exceptional interest.