53 pages • 1 hour read
AnonymousArden of Faversham
Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1592A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Cultural Context: The Theater-Based Culture of Elizabethan London
In the late 1500s and early 1600s, London had a vibrant culture of live theater. From 1550 to 1600, the population of London doubled from 100,000 to 200,000. Along with this centralization of people came a centralization of entertainment. Itinerant acting troupes that traveled from town to town putting on “pageants” in the medieval period established permanent organizations housed in one location, such as the theater company called Lord Chamberlain’s Men, which William Shakespeare wrote for. Because these companies were now stationary, they could build larger theaters with more elaborate sets, costumes, visual effects, and sound effects.
Theaters became important social venues where one could interact with a great variety of people. Because London was a center of trade, it housed nobles, merchants, laborers, actors, artisans, and beggars alike from all over Europe, as well as from southwest Asia and northern Africa. A noble might pay extra to get a private box high up in a theater, while poorer people could pay one penny to be admitted to the theater’s yard as a “groundling,” standing for the duration of the play.
This theater culture had many detractors who believed that the mixing of peoples that happened in theaters was immoral and led to societal chaos. Anti-theatrical tracts were penned by Protestant and Catholic sects and certain government officials. Religious groups were wary of the close and oftentimes intimate proximity of so many human bodies. They also thought that audiences would not be able to discern the fictive elements of the theater and would be aroused or enchanted into dangerous passions by what they saw on stage. Government officials thought that spending money on public entertainment was frivolous, and was better spent on military, governmental, and religious undertakings.
Historical Context: The Real-Life Murder of Arden of Faversham
Arden of Faversham is based on real-life events. On February 14, 1551, a woman named Alice Arden killed her husband Thomas so she could continue her affair with her lover, a tailor named Richard Moseby.
The main source available to the writer of Arden of Faversham was an account of the murder and trial given by Raphael Holinshed in The Chronicles of England, Scotlande, and Irelande, which the author touted as a comprehensive account of British history; it is commonly known as Holinshed’s Chronicles. It consists of three volumes, and the first edition was published in 1577. Holinshed’s Chronicles was an important source for British dramaturges.
The plot of Arden of Faversham follows Holinshed’s account very closely; even most of the names are the same. In both accounts, there are multiple bungled attempts on Arden’s life throughout various regions of England before the conspirators finally murder him in his home. Arden’s real-life murder was particularly gruesome: He was strangled, fatally bludgeoned, and then stabbed more than eight times by Alice before his body was dragged outside. Upon its discovery, Alice was immediately suspected. Due to her poor job cleaning up and hiding the instruments of murder, she was eventually compelled to confess and name her conspirators. Alice and her maid Elizabeth were tried, found guilty, and burned at the stake. Richard Moseby and his sister were hanged. All other co-conspirators were found guilty and executed in various ways. At the time it occurred, this murder was a scandal, and Holinshed’s Chronicles ensured that it would continue to be. Since Arden of Faversham was performed in the early 1590s, people in its audience may have remembered the murder firsthand.
Literary Context: England’s First “Domestic Tragedy”
Arden of Faversham is the first known “domestic tragedy.” Standard, classical tragedy was established as far back as ancient Greece and involved an upper-class character such as a king or noble experiencing a reversal of fortune based on a fatal character flaw. In his Poetics, the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle wrote that the purpose of tragedy was to incite pity and fear in the viewer, which eventually led to “catharsis,” or the release of emotions. Aristotle thought that watching elites undergo this fall would produce a greater emotional reaction in the audience.
In the early modern period, classical ideas and genres experienced a resurgence throughout Europe, including England. Domestic tragedy is a subgenre of the more general tragedy genre, in which the people experiencing a reversal are middle-class or lower-class people. In the 1500s and 1600s, there was a rising middle class in England due to the shift from a medieval feudal society to one based on trade and capitalism. Genre conventions also changed: The domestic tragedy featured the rise and fall of members of this new middle class. Unlike classical tragedy, the emotional effect of domestic tragedy is heightened because the viewers experience the downfall of a person who is not dissimilar from themselves.
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