The Maides Tragedy

play by Beaumont and Fletcher

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June 30, 2026

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The Maides Tragedy is a tragedy written by English Jacobean dramatists Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher. It is considered one of their masterpieces and showcases the emerging Fletcherian style, distinct from Shakespeare's. The play is known for its remote, fairy-tale setting, clear language that rises to emotional rhetoric, and sensational plots that present characters with extreme choices. It often sacrifices character consistency for dramatic situations and shifting emotional states. The play explores themes of betrayal, lust, and revenge within a tragic framework, characteristic of the dramatic trends of the Jacobean era.12

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John Fletcher
…the Beaumont and Fletcher collaboration—Philaster, The Maides Tragedy, and A King and No King—show, most clearly in the last, the emergence of most of the features that distinguish the Fletcherian mode from that of Shakespeare, George Chapman, or John Webster: the remote, often pseudohistorical, fairy-tale setting; the clear, smooth speech…
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…the Beaumont and Fletcher collaboration—Philaster, The Maides Tragedy, and A King and No King—show, most clearly in the last, the emergence of most of the features that distinguish the Fletcherian mode from that of Shakespeare, George Chapman, or John Webster: the remote, often pseudohistorical, fairy-tale setting; the clear, smooth speech…
Read More