A king and no king

"A popular and influential play from its first performance in 1611 until the early eighteenth century, A King and No King helped establish Beaumont and Fletcher as leading playwrights of the day, and tragicomedy as the seventeenth century's favoured dramatic genre." "Accompanying this newly edited text, an introduction explores the play's sources, both literary and dramatic, and offers a thorough reconsideration of it social and political context. Lee Bliss finds the entertaining, wish-fulfilment tragicomic form not incompatible with a serious critical engagement with contemporary issues of royal absolutism, good governance, and the political role of the aristocracy. In addition, this edition provides the fullest available account of A King and No King's stage history, tracing the shifts in cultural mores that eroded its popularity and ultimately consigned it to the study rather than the stage."--BOOK JACKET.