SOURCE: "The High Design of A King and No King," in Modern Philology, Vol. XXXVIII, No. 2, November, 1940, pp. 133-54.

In this essay Mizener argues that rather than seeking to imbue A King and No King with moral significance, Beaumont and Fletcher simply aimed to "generate in the audience a patterned sequence of responses, a complex series of feelings and attitudes so stimulated and related as to give each its maximum effectiveness."

It is A King and No King which [John] Dryden [in "The Grounds of Criticism in Tragedy"] described as "the best of [Beaumont and Fletcher's] designs, the most approaching to antiquity, and the most conducing to move pity." Apparently it was the play's power to move him which determined this opinion, for he added: " 'Tis true, the faults of the plot are so evidently proved, that they can no longer be denied. The beauties of it must...