The Two Noble Kinsmen is now generally accepted by most Shakespearian scholars to have been jointly written by the Bard and another well-known Elizabethan dramatist, John Fletcher. The date of composition is not properly established but there is some evidence to suggest that it may have been around 1613-4, which would place it in the late stage of Shakespeare’s career. One of the reasons that scholars have been previously generally unwilling to accept that Shakespeare had a hand in writing the play has been the often mediocre quality of the writing and plotting (nearly all of which is borrowed from Chaucer’s The Knight’s Tale). However, writers for the stage often had to collaborate, it seems, rapidly and against deadlines to produce works which pleased the crowd and in any case Shakespeare himself was quite capable of writing some poor quality work.

The action centres on the eponymous kinsmen Palamon and Arcite, who are busy fighting for Thebes against Athens (which the audience might consider to be the monarchy against the democracy or the aristocracy against the people). The two swear eternal friendship vows to each other but then, as is the way of the world, quickly thereafter encounter Emilia, the available (i.e. unmarried) sister of Queen Hippolyta. The latter’s husband, Theseus, is then presented with a series of problems when Palamon and Arcite both resolve to woo Emiliana and spurn their previous vows of friendship. Arcite is exiled and Palamon jailed. The former disguises himself as a peasant and spies on his newly beloved (there cannot be much of a relationship between them since they have scarcely met – more likely it is a case of the noble class seeking to monopolise all the scarce resource of high class women for their own use). The latter, meanwhile, finds an unlikely ally in the form of the prisoner’s daughter who immediately falls in love with him (possibly dazzled by proximity to inherited wealth or else seeing an opportunity to escape from a life of being a prison-keeper’s daughter, which cannot have been much fun). She is unnamed and is soon pronounced mad after Palamon, whom she frees, shows no interest in her – this was a common fate for women who had outlived their usefulness to the nobility.

There follows more conflict between Palamon and Arcite and a fight to the death is organised. This is interrupted when a doctor, representing the professional classes, attempts to palm off the suitor of the jailer’s daughter as Palamon himself in order to return her to sanity – the audience may feel a little sympathy for this also unnamed man but at least he gets his girl in the end. Subsequently, Arcite defeats Palamon who is, as a result, condemned to death. Alas for Arcite, he then falls off his horse inopportunely and with his dying breath is forced to place Emiliana’s hand in that of Palamon. The potential bride seems indifferent to the two suitors, perhaps being reassured that her privileged role as a high class brood mare is guaranteed in any case.