Malcolm Page, in a recent article [see excerpt above], suggests that in Sergeant Musgrave's Dance John Arden is asking the question "why pacifist ideas have not had more influence" and that the answer, or moral, that the play expresses lies in the uncertain motives of the pacifists themselves. Since the play ends with a defeat of the four soldiers and a triumphal dance celebrating the continuity of the status quo (however uneasy and factional it may be) it would appear that Arden's ultimate position is one of pessimism. Though I agree with much of Dr. Page's commentary, I think that the play is a little more hopeful than he indicates. For one thing, it seems to me that Musgrave is less about pacifism than it is about anarchism, a doctrine which the play tentatively (as Arden himself might put it) urges.

To start with, the key event in...