The Second Maiden's Tragedy
Victorian poet and critic, Algernon Swinburne, was the first to attribute this work to Thomas Middleton; this judgement has since been joined by most editors and scholars.
It was the opening production at the newly refurbished Hackney Empire studio in 2006 starring Alexander Fiske-Harrison and Jos Vantyler.
The manuscript bears no title, and the censor, George Buc, added a note beginning "This second Maiden's Tragedy (for it hath no name inscribed)...".
Buc's comment confused a seventeenth-century owner of the manuscript, Humphrey Moseley, who listed the play in the Stationers' Register as The Maid's Tragedy, 2nd Part.
[4] In Thomas Middleton: The Collected Works, Julia Briggs goes further: pointing out that the word "maiden" never appears in the play, she retitles it The Lady's Tragedy, after the unnamed female protagonist.
For example, in 1984, the first, modern professional production at London's Upstream Theatre called it The Tyrant's Tragedy, after the play's primary protagonist.
[1] Julia Briggs points out that as "Shakespeare's Cardenio" the play received greater awareness and acquired new theatrical life, with several productions in the 1990s.
When examining the manuscript, there are slips of paper that were added to the prompt book, which shows revisions or notes.
The plot contains a "blameless protagonist whose wholly undeserved catastrophe is caused by the persecution of a villain and is treated as triumphant martyrdom".
Govianus states, "Come thow delitious treasure of mankinde to him that knowes what vertuous woman is" as a way of honoring the Lady one final time.
After her death, Anselmus states, “"The serpents wisdome is in weemens lust"[15] because he believes that the devil takes part in all that the Wife goes through in the story.
Necrophilia was brought up when the Tyrant wanted to have sex with the dead body of the Lady whom he was trying to preserve, this could be viewed as attachment.
The Female corpse can be seen as a prominent theme in The Second Maiden's Tragedy because it was the center of attention after the Lady's death.
[18] The use of Lady's lips poisoning the Tyrant can be seen to draw attention to sexual corruption.This also relates to the belief that those in power were corrupted during the time of The Second Maiden’s Tragedy.
This play "concerns characters who are fundamentally blind, who fail to understand the world in which they live, who insist on undoing themselves.
Chaste within this text is symbolic because the female body is seen as an idol and being unfaithful outside of the marriage would be a big deal.
For the male characters in the text such as the Tyrant having sex with multiple people wasn't a problem because he had a lot of power.
Even though the play may demonize the Tyrant as a monster, the presumed forces of virtue ultimately prove complicit in his transgression.
A ruler who is after a pure, beautiful, woman was a very popular theme and used often during this time The story of a Christian martyr named Sophronia can be viewed as an influence to the plot line of The Second Maiden's Tragedy.
There is a specific reference to a Talmudic legend in The Second Maiden’s Tragedy named Mariamme, which can be seen as a direct influence in the play.
Iii 115–120,"I once read of a Herod, whose affection/pursued a virgin's love, as I did thine, who for the hate she owed him killed himself, as thou too rashly didst, without all pity “.
The woman, Mariamne commits suicide, throwing herself off a roof, in order to save herself from marrying Herod, who killed everyone else in her family.
This is similar to The Second Maiden’s Tragedy because the Lady kills herself in order to escape the Tyrant, and she has no other family besides her imprisoned father, Helvetius.
Once the Tyrant discovers that Lady has killed herself, he is determined to still have her as her wife, and orders an artist to paint her face with makeup so she can appear alive and have sex with the body.
