The Second Maiden's Tragedy

The Second Maiden's Tragedy is a Jacobean play that survives only in manuscript. It was written in 1611, and performed in the same year by the King's Men. The manuscript that survives is the copy that was sent to the censor, and therefore includes his notes and deletions. The manuscript was acquired, but never printed, by the publisher Humphrey Moseley after the closure of the theatres in 1642. In 1807, the manuscript was bought by the British Museum.

Title

The play's real title is unknown. On the manuscript, the censor, George Buc, has added a note that calls the play 'This second Maiden's Tragedy (for it hath no name inscribed)...'. Buc is comparing the play to Beaumont and Fletcher's The Maid's Tragedy. This name has stuck. However, recent editors of the play have preferred to call it by another name, such as The Maiden's Tragedy, or The Lady's Tragedy.

Authorship

The play's authorship is also complex. On the manuscript, three crossed-out attributions in seventeenth century hands attribute it to Thomas Goffe, William Shakespeare, and George Chapman. However, some believe that stylistic analysis indicates the true author was Thomas Middleton, as the play fits very well with Middleton's other work.

In a further complication, a professional handwriting expert Charles Hamilton has claimed in a recent book that The Second Maiden's Tragedy play is in fact Shakespeare's manuscript of the lost play Cardenio, but most literary scholars reject his argument. . The position of mainstream literary scholarship is that the play is by Middleton; however, on the rare occasions when the play has been revived on the stage, producers often name it Cardenio - Shakespeare's name helps to sell tickets.

The main argument against the identification is this: that, if The Second Maiden's Tragedy is Cardenio, then Lewis Theobald's Double Falsehood cannot be. This is unlikely for the following reasons:

• Double Falsehood is actually based on the "Cardenio" story in Don Quixote, while The Second Maiden's Tragedy is based on a different part of the same book.
• If he had not possessed the manuscript as he claimed, it is highly unlikely that Theobald would have known Cardenio existed, as he shows no awareness of the earlier sources which refer to the play.
• There is no good reason to think that Theobald would indulge in literary fraud.
• If Theobald were to forge a "lost" Shakespeare play, it would make more sense to publish it as Shakespeare's text. Instead, Theobald admitted that Double Falsehood was a free adaptation, and that despite the manuscript's ascription to Shakespeare he thought the original was mostly by John Fletcher.
• Given the extreme unlikelihood of Theobald knowing of the play's existence any other way than the way he claimed, it is extraordinarily unlikely that he could have known that Fletcher was a co-author of the original.

Plot

This wildly bizarre play has two storylines. The main plot is the tale of a sadistic and necrophiliac tyrant's love for the lover of his ousted rival. The subplot is based on a tale by Cervantes ("El Curioso Impertinente", included in Don Quixote, part I), and depicts a jealous husband's tragic attempt to test his wife's virtue by persuading his best friend to seduce her.

The climactic plot device of the corpse's poisoned kiss, used earlier in The Revenger's Tragedy (1606), another play most likely by Middleton, was employed again by Philip Massinger in his The Duke of Milan (ca. 1621-2).

References

• Martin Wiggins, ed. Four Jacobean Sex Tragedies. Oxford University Press, 1998.