SOURCE: “The Date of John Heywood's The Spider and the Flie,” in Modern Language Notes, Vol. LXX, No. 1, January 1955, pp. 15-18.

In the following essay, Hauser argues that The Spider and the Fly becomes more comprehensible when read as social commentary rather than a historical allegory.

Heywood's magnum opus has been a constant source of bewilderment to readers attempting to pinpoint its allegorical referents. The confusion has arisen from these lines near the end of the poem:

I have, (good readers) this parable here pende: (After olde beginning) newly brought to ende. The thing, yeres mo then twentie since it begoon. To the thing: yeres mo then ninetene, nothing doon. The frewte was grene: I durst not gather it than, For feare of rotting: before riping began.(1) 

The poem was published in 1556, and thus the poet presumably began the work about 1536. Two views based on this statement have...