SOURCE: “The Brides' Tragedy and Dramatic Fragments: Jacobean Romantic,” in Thomas Lovell Beddoes, Twayne, 1985, pp. 24-50.

In the following essay, Thompson explores the major themes of The Brides' Tragedy as well as several of his incomplete dramas.

As we approach an examination of Beddoes's The Brides' Tragedy and other dramatic attempts, it will be useful to pause for a brief discussion of the significance of his choice of drama as a vehicle for self-expression, as well as our critical attitudes toward that choice.

“mental Theatre”

The earliest of Beddoes's reviewers and many critics since have treated The Brides' Tragedy and Death's Jest Book as drama, either in some abstract, almost Platonic sense or as an example of a neo-Elizabethan or Romantic version of the form. Such an approach is nearly impossible to avoid, despite the quite undramatic sprawl of Death's Jest Book and Beddoes's own assertion that The...