Arden of Faversham (original spelling: Arden of Feversham) is an Elizabethan play, entered into the Register of the Stationers Company on 3 April 1592, and printed later that same year by Edward White. It depicts the real-life murder of Thomas Arden by his wife Alice Arden and her lover, and their subsequent discovery and punishment. The play is notable as perhaps the earliest surviving example of domestic tragedy, a form of Renaissance play which dramatized recent and local crimes rather than far-off and historical events.
The author is unknown, and the play has been attributed to Thomas Kyd, Christopher Marlowe, and William Shakespeare, solely or collaboratively, forming part of the Shakespeare Apocrypha. The use of computerized stylometrics has kindled academic interest in determining the authorship. The 2016 edition of The Oxford Shakespeare attributes the play to Shakespeare together with an anonymous collaborator, and rejects the possibility of authorship by Kyd or Marlowe.[1]
It has also been suggested that it may be the work of Thomas Watson with contributions by Shakespeare.[2][3][4]
- ^ "Christopher Marlowe credited as one of Shakespeare's co-writers". theguardian.com. 23 October 2016.
- ^ Dalya Alberge (5 April 2020). "Shakespeare's secret co-writer finally takes a bow … 430 years late". The Guardian.
- ^ Taylor, Gary (2019). "Finding 'anonymous' in the digital archives: The problem of Arden of Faversham". Digital Scholarship in the Humanities. 34 (4): 855–873. doi:10.1093/llc/fqy075.
- ^ Taylor, Gary (2020). "Shakespeare, Arden of Faversham, and Four Forgotten Playwrights". The Review of English Studies. 71 (302): 867–895. doi:10.1093/res/hgaa005.