In the following essay, Thompson compares The Two Noble Kinsmen, scene by scene, with its source, Chaucer 's The Knight's Tale, arguing that Shakespeare and Fletcher adapted Chaucer's tale in significantly different ways. Thompson goes on to suggest possible reasons why the two playwrights used the source material in the ways they did.

In the essay that follows, Underwood analyzes the role of the Jailer's Daughter in The Two Noble Kinsmen and studies the significance of the subplot in relation to the main plot. Focusing on the sexual overtones of the subplot, Underwood maintains that through the Jailer's Daughter and her relationship with Palamon, the playwrights emphasize the play's theme of the interchangeability of wooers to the wooed.

In the following essay, Hedrick contends that The Two Noble Kinsmen's thematic exploration of the nature of artistic rivalry suggests that Shakespeare did not collaborate in the writing of the play. Hedrick focuses on the play's treatment of the subject of collaboration, and on the relationship between cooperation and competition explored in the play.

In the essay below, Bruster focuses on the mad speeches of the Jailer's Daughter, asserting that through the "mad language of this otherwise disempowered character" the power structure within the play is revealed, as are the social relationships and cultural changes in the Jacobean playhouse and Jacobean society.

In the essay that follows, Bruster explores the character of the jailer's daughter as "'a pivotal figure in Jacobean drama, " highlighting relations of power in the play and commenting on Jacobean culture and social change.

In this essay, Lief and Radei contend that the parts of The Two Noble Kinsmen which are attributed to Fletcher undercut Shakespeare's language of invocation and reflect "a cynical and problematic world view emerging in Shakespeare's late plays and in non-Shakespearean drama of the early seventeenth century. "

In the following essay, Shannon examines the character of Emilia and claims that she "revises the definitional prejudices of the male model regarding both gender and sexuality. "

In the following essay, Mallette claims that The Two Noble Kinsmen contains two sets of homosocial friendship bonds—those of Arcite/Palamon and Emilia/Flavina. The critic contends that these bonds are destroyed over the course of the drama without being satisfactorily redeemed by the “superficially happy marriage” that closes the play.

In the following essay, Mallette investigates the play's exploration of love, friendship, desire, and marriage, asserting that the dramatists stress the ruin of same-sex desire rather than the ascendancy of marriage.

Below, Herman argues that Shakespeare and Fletcher's adaptation of Chaucer's The Knight's Tale was "significantly influenced" by the recent premature death of the young Prince Henry of Wales in 1613 and by the public disillusionment brought about by this event.

In the following essay, Donaldson studies the differences between the portrayals of Palamon and Arcite in The Two Noble Kinsmen and in Chaucer's The Knight's Tale, observing that Shakespeare and Fletcher eliminated distinctions between the two kinsmen that appear in Chaucer's poem.

In the following essay, originally presented at the Seventh Waterloo Conference in 1977, Wickham briefly surveys the critical history of The Two Noble Kinsmen and examines the similarities between it and A Midsummer Night's Dream, claiming that the former continues themes introduced in the latter.

In the following essay, Abrams argues that The Two Noble Kinsmen reflects the values of the bourgeois class in that the kinsmen, despite their apparent aspirations to antiquarian noble ideals, treat love in a mercantile, commericalized manner.

In the following excerpt, Bertram surveys the arrangement of the play and contends that contrary to common assumption, the play possesses a controlled organization and is consistently developed.

In the following excerpt, Hoy surveys the linguistic evidence that distinguishes the work of Shakespeare and Fletcher in The Two Noble Kinsmen.

In the following essay, Weiler explores the effects of love and sexual desire on friendship as it is depicted in The Two Noble Kinsmen, and examines the play's Chaucerian and Boccaccian roots.

In the following essay, Weller evaluates The Two Noble Kinsmen as a play that examines a fundamental conflict between friendship and marriage.

In the following excerpt, Potter reviews the sources from which Shakespeare and Fletcher drew in penning The Two Noble Kinsmen, focusing on the use the dramatists made of Chaucer's The Knight's Tale. Additionally, Potter comments on Chaucer's source material.

In this essay, Hobday examines Shakespeore's use of flattery-images and concludes that Shakespeare is part-author of both Edward III and The Two Noble Kinsmen.

In the following essay, Frey examines the issue of collaboration in The Two Noble Kinsmen, arguing that the play exhibits a strategy designed to deflect the audience's attention away from the nature of the authors' collaboration (with each other and/or with their source material) in order to direct attention to the more important collaboration between the producers of the play and the audience.

In the following essay, Potter explores the topical allusions in The Two Noble Kinsmen.

In the following essay, Roberts maintains that the way in which the males in The Two Noble Kinsmen define themselves is threatened by female virginity and lasciviousness, represented by Emilia and the jailer's daughter, respectively. These threats, states Roberts, are subdued by marriage.

In the following essay, Magnusson examines the language and style of the eloquent first and last scenes of The Two Noble Kinsmen. In both scenes Magnusson finds that Shakespeare's stylistic ornamentation is designed to conceal a dearth of substance.

In this essay, Hillman explores the relation between The Knight's Tale and The Two Noble Kinsmen, and finds that "[The Two Noble Kinsmen displays a strong stylistic aspiration to forms of decorum reminiscent of [The Knight's] Tale."]

In the essay that follows, Waith explores the conflict between friendship and love in The Two Noble Kinsmen, and examines the differences between Shakespeare and Fletcher in their treatment of this theme.

In the following essay, Stewart investigates the nature of the failure of Palamon and Arcite's idealized male friendship depicted in The Two Noble Kinsmen, suggesting that the relationship was doomed because of the conflict between humanist and chivalric notions of male friendship, and the realities of male relations and kinship bonds in Jacobean England.

In the following essay, Stewart examines the idealized friendship of Palamon and Arcite in The Two Noble Kinsmen and notes that their friendship, which is defined by medieval codes of chivalric honor and kinship, exists uncomfortably among the social realities of Jacobean England.

In the following essay, Simonds contends that The Two Noble Kinsmen provides a “sophisticated and amused” analysis of several different kinds of love. Simonds focuses on the play's treatment of Platonic love—the love and spiritual friendship between two males, and the courtly love between a man and a woman—and argues that as tragicomedy the play's ending celebrates the Platonic virtue of temperance in the lawful marriage between a man and woman. At the same time, S...

In the excerpt that follows, Holbrook examines the relationship between the conception of art in the play and social values, maintaining that the social sphere of the kinsmen reflects the stylized, artificial nature of aristocratic life, while in the Jailer's Daughter subplot, the pastoral and the natural are contrasted with the artificiality of the aristocracy.

In this essay, originally a paper presented at the Themes in Drama International Conference in 1983, Abrams discusses sexual confusion in the play, and examines the character of Emilia "as representative of 'The Powers of all women. ' "

In the following excerpted review of The Two Noble Kinsmen, directed by Tim Carroll for the Globe Theater, Potter comments on the director's excising of the text, noting that Carroll valued simplicity over spectacle.

In the following excerpt, Proudfoot reviews the themes and characters found in The Two Noble Kinsmen, observing that the play's impressiveness stems not from its characters, but from its adroit handling of tragicomic effects.

In the following excerpted review, Wolf assesses Tim Carroll's production of The Two Noble Kinsmen at the Globe Theater, offering his praise of Jasper Britton's performance as Palamon and finding the production as a whole “enchanting.”