Two Noble Kinsmen, The, is a play that most scholars believe was written by the English playwrights William Shakespeare and John Fletcher. In the past, scholars regularly excluded it from the Shakespeare canon (list of accepted complete works). They felt that Shakespeare wrote little of the play. However, since the mid-1900’s, Shakespeare has been generally recognized as the author of several sections of the play.
The Two Noble Kinsmen is a romance. Shakespearean romances are dramas that are generally serious in tone, set in remote times and places, and happily resolved at the end. The play is based chiefly on “The Knight’s Tale” from The Canterbury Tales (about 1386-1400) by the English poet Geoffrey Chaucer. The Two Noble Kinsmen was probably first performed in 1613 or 1614 and published in 1634.
The play tells the story of two young nephews of the king of Thebes, Palamon and Arcite. Both cousins fall in love with Emilia, the sister-in-law of Theseus, Duke of Athens. Much of the plot deals with the competition between the two men for Emilia.
The Two Noble Kinsmen emphasizes courtly ceremony and pageantry. However, the play’s central focus is on a friendship between two men that is jeopardized by their rivalry for the same woman. Some of the play’s best dialogue concerns the qualities and claims of friendship.
See also Canterbury Tales; Shakespeare, William.
