Middleton: the Censorships of A Game at Chess

Abstract

I will preface this chapter with something I wrote in the introduction to my recent edition of A Game at Chess: ‘because the play is unique in so many ways, it is difficult to determine what terms of judgment to apply to any of its features. Was it the play that was unusual, or the manner or timing of its performance, or the way it was published in manuscript, or the political context within which it was written and received, or a mixture of these? We actually know so much about it (by contrast with virtually every other play of the period) that we finally have nothing with which we can properly compare it. And all judgements are ultimately a reading of the ideology of early modern theatre history as a whole, rather than of this single play’ (Dutton 1999, p. xxxiii). This applies to the censorship of the play (or lack of it) as much as to any other feature.