Parody and History in "Arden of Feversham" (1592)

Abstract

Three frames of reference prevail in critical discussions of Arden of Feversham (published 1592), long the most esteemed and most frequently produced play of the so-called Shakespeare Apocrypha. First of all, for better than two hundred years Arden has been a favorite subject for attribution scholarship. A second approach has been by way of generic considerations; from this perspective Arden inaugurates the line of domestic tragedy, both for English Renaissance drama and for its Victorian heirs. More recently, analysis has invoked current views of the sociology of literature to find in Arden such themes as the progress of capitalism or the emergence of the independent woman. Each of these approaches, I want to argue, misses the distinctive parodic tone of the play and thereby precludes a serious contextual appreciation of Arden as a work of the early 1590s. The goal of the present essay is to get beyond the unresolved and in my view misconceived debate about authorship. By making critical use for once of the findings of that debate, we will come to hear in this brilliant play the literary parody that underlies its bold harmonies and bolder dissonances. Once we

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