The Tragic Element in Edward II and Sir Thomas More

This is a study on Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II (1591 or 1592) and Sir Thomas More ( a play ascribed to Antony Munday, Henty Chettle, Thomas Heywood and William Shakespeare, 1600 or 16010). This study proposes to analyse these plays as both chronicle drama and ,tragedies. Earlier literary research tended to see these plays as mainly propaganda and didactic histories. Of course, this leaves out the aura of tragedy, which permeates these plays. In intending to attend to the plays‘ tragic elements, this study offers a balanced analysis of these plays. The choice of Edward II as an early play and Sir Thomas More as a late one is deliberate because it reveals that the concerns of the English chronicle play are the sam