William Shakespeare: The Two Noble Kinsmen

The Two Noble Kinsmen has only relatively recently achieved recognition as a legitimate part of the Shakespeare canon. For years it stayed within the now largely dispersed category of “Shakespeare apocrypha”, partly because the earliest records of the play make it clear it was collaborative and partly because, until very recently, critics have found it hard to accept that Shakespeare collaborated with “lesser” playwrights. But now, included in the Arden and other major series of Shakespeare editions, with critics beginning to take it seriously both as the last play in which Shakespeare had a hand and as a dark and unsettling analysis of gender relations, and with productions taking place with increased frequenc