Explain about the maid's tragedy by Beaumont and Fletcher in simple language.
Answers
Melantius, a young general, returns from a military campaign which he has just concluded, winning peace for Rhodes. He is greeted by the King's brother, Lysippus. Melantius expects to have returned to witness the wedding of his friend Amintor with Aspatia, his betrothed, but instead the King has ordered Amintor to marry Melantius's sister, Evadne, in order to honour her brother's military achievements. Aspatia is very melancholy at this, but the whole court is about to celebrate the wedding with a masque.
The Maid's Tragedy, written by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher and published for the first time in 1619, is one of the plays that is often called a love tragedy due to the fate of the lady Aspatia, who is about to marry young Amintor, before the king forces Amintor to marry his own mistress, Evadne, to cover their sexual affair. Having such a plot, The Maid's Tragedy is a typical one for Jacobean theatre, which is explained by Marie Axton, quoted by Kristin Bezio stating “the playhouses of late Elizabethan and Jacobean London were a 'freer' place for political discussion than court or Parliament, and this drama actively participates in the ongoing Jacobean debates about the viability of tyrannicide.”2 This idea puts the king's acting into the play's focus, rather than the love between Aspatia and Amintor and their tragedy