The Two Noble Kinsmen: A Late Tragicomedy - Hardcover

by William Shakespeare (Author), John Fletcher (Author)

The Two Noble Kinsmen is a late Jacobean tragicomedy traditionally attributed to William Shakespeare and John Fletcher, blending courtly rivalry, romantic obsession, and fatal honour.

First performed in the early seventeenth century and published in 1634, the play draws its principal narrative from Geoffrey Chaucer's "Knight's Tale." It recounts the story of two imprisoned cousins, Palamon and Arcite, whose bond of brotherhood collapses when both fall in love with Emilia. What follows is a stylised contest of loyalty, jealousy, destiny, and martial spectacle, framed within a classical and chivalric setting.

The play occupies a distinctive position within the Shakespearean canon. Generally regarded as a collaboration with John Fletcher during Shakespeare's final creative period, it reflects the shifting theatrical tastes of the Jacobean era-combining romance, tragic rivalry, masque-like ceremony, and moments of psychological intensity. Its themes of honour, fate, and the fragility of friendship situate it alongside Shakespeare's late romances while retaining a harder edge of tragic inevitability.

Long debated in questions of authorship and style, The Two Noble Kinsmen remains an important text for scholars of Shakespeare's final phase and the collaborative practices of early modern theatre.

Back Jacket

The king of Thebes is a tyrant but his young relatives, Palamon and Arcite, defend him anyway. The two noble kinsmen find their loyalty rewarded with imprisonment when they end up on the losing side of a battle with the great hero, Theseus of Athens. From the window of their jail they observe Emilia, the sister-in-law of their conqueror, whose stunning beauty shatters their vow of eternal brotherhood. Now the former friends must find a way to evade their captors and pursue the alluring princess, an undertaking that will conclude with a fight to the death.
First published in 1634, this Jacobean tragicomedy features a plot derived from "The Knight's Tale" in Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales." The play was originally attributed to both John Fletcher and William Shakespeare; its association with the latter is a longstanding source of controversy that is now generally accepted by scholarly consensus.
Dover (2015) reprint of a standard edition.
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Author Biography

William Shakespeare was born to John Shakespeare and Mary Arden in late April 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon. He wrote about 38 plays (the precise number is uncertain), many of which are regarded as the most exceptional works of drama ever produced, including Romeo and Juliet (1595), Henry V (1599), Hamlet (1601), Othello (1604), King Lear (1606) and Macbeth (1606), as well as a collection of 154 sonnets, which number among the most profound and influential love poetry in English. Shakespeare died in Stratford in 1616.