This is definitely one of the lesser known Shakespeare plays, as the tragicomedies often are. And what’s interesting to me is that I’m usually a much bigger fan of reading the tragedies than the comedies but I was actually much more compelled in the comedic to neutral elements. Maybe it’s because I prefer Fletcher’s comedies as a reading experience? 

I know this is a retelling of a Chaucer story so it’s somewhat nonsensical to take up arms with the plot itself but I really felt unsure about the tragical elements when there was so much room for it to end like a comedy, a la The Two Gentlemen of Verona or even Love’s Labour’s Lost. 

But alas. I did really enjoy the characters in this (especially my sapphic queen Emilia who canonically has sex with a woman during the play’s events) and the layers of meaning and symbolism Shakespeare always so brilliantly injects into his work. I’m definitely excited to go read some scholarship on this one while I brainstorm how I would stage this in a way that depicts a lavender marriage situation.