Changing the Question

As I discovered over Christmas (and this initial discovery can be found in my last post), the question I had writ for myself was far too vast and vague. "Is The Two Noble Kinsmen a Conventional Shakespeare Play in Regards to its Authorship (which I was going to assimilate into the introduction) and Characters?" would mean I'd have to deeply read some thirty plays and understand them so ubiquitously that I could drop comparisons in with little thought. This would take a considerable amount of dedication and (more importantly) time - the latter of which I certainly don't have, and the former of which I have to divide between several pursuits.

However, a similar question that would still rely on my previous research came to me some time around four in the morning, when the brain's idle chatter manages to splutter forth something surprisingly coherent in its maddened effort to keep you from sleep. This was during the holiday (so there was no loss to these early hours spent listening to the rhythmic lapping of the waves against the hull) so hasn't been confirmed with my supervisor yet. This is the question that I composed:

"Is The Two Noble Kinsmen Conventional of Shakespeare's 'Late' Plays in Regards to its Authorship, Characters, Themes and Narrative?"

This question gives me wide (but not mind-shatteringly vast) parameters, as the 'Late' period can be considered to be composed of around 4-5 plays (Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, The Tempest, and King Henry VIII depending on which critic you ask) excluding The Two noble Kinsmen. While this is still quite a few plays, I have given all of them a cursory read (bar King Henry VIII; hopefully I will only need to cite criticism regard its dubious authorship) and have a collection the late plays coming shortly; this is the same volume of Everyman's Library's William Shakespeare: Romances that I read on holiday, so should already be familiar with its layout. Giving myself a defined period in the Shakespeare apocrypha greatly benefits both the essay and the state of my mind.

The subsequent aspects of the question (authorship, characters - both intrinsic to my original essay - themes and narrative) give myself broad headings with which I could expose the 5-6 plays in comparison, and also bring in outside research.

An example of that would be in authorship, where I could look at both Henry VIII and Pericles in regards to dubious authorship (Nicholson asserts that the former manuscript was passed from Shakespeare to Fletcher, while Quiller-Couch argues that the latter's first two acts were written by a different poet or written substantially earlier than the subsequent acts) and also reference the lost play The History of Cardenio, which was supposedly a collaboration between Shakespeare and Fletcher, much like The Two Noble Kinsmen is supposed to be.

In regards to characters, I could reference the fact that Shakespeare had already given Theseus and Hippolyta a platform before in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Furthermore, the most obvious matter in this segment would be comparing the characters in each play, and whether there are any striking similarities or differences: for example, Pericles' Marina and TTNK's Jailer's Daughter would undoubtedly be foils if they were in the same play due to opposition perspectives on sexuality, but neither are demoted to being unsympathetic because of this. It would also be wise to mention that these characters aren't Shakespeare's or Fletcher's: they are Chaucer's, but other performances of the tale (Waith's Introduction mentions that there are at least two other lost performances) may have influenced their decision, just as Tatlock's essay on Trolius and Cressida's poor treatment of the mythical character relates it to the contemporary portrayals at the time.

The predominant themes of the late plays are reconciliation, redemption, and resurrection - at least, I observed these on my readings of them. It would therefore be chiefly in my interest to compare these themes and their execution to the ones in TTNK. There is specifically an interesting point I've already established in regards to resurrection: three of the plays have heroines who are risen from the dead -Pericles' Thaisa, The Winter's Tale's Hermione (although she has only been thought of as dead) and Cymbeline's Imogen - who are then reconciled and reunited with their lovers for a "happily ever after". In The Two Noble Kinsmen, neither Emilia or the Jailer's Daughter are risen from the dead, but Palamon and Arcite have a heart-wrenching reconciliation on the brink of death: Palamon is going to be executed for losing the tournament, and Arcite is succumbing to his injuries from being bucked off his steed. While Palamon survives to marry Emilia, Arcite isn't raised from the dead. He remains a sacrifice to the death of friendship in the quarrels for love, and both his cousin and would-be wife have to life with those consequences. This is a sharp swerve from the happy endings given to all other protagonists in the late plays, but it can be argued this is so because they do not follow a narrative already laid out.

The narrative ties in closely with the themes, especially in relation to the bittersweet happy endings and dramatic climaxes, of which TTNK is called a "sketch" by William Spalding at the end of his 1834 letter to his friend in regards to the play's dubious authorship. Of course, it would again have to referenced that Shakespeare and Fletcher are adapting a different author's work.

Overall, I think the change is definitely warranted.