Serjeant Musgrave's Dance is largely an exploration of the place of violence in society and our varying responses to it. Although the setting of the play is nineteenth-century England, the contemporary relevance of Arden's theme is obvious as increasingly in our twentieth-century society violence is becoming accepted as an inescapable mode of political expression…. Arden is very much aware of the dilemma facing many thoughtful and morally responsible persons in a liberal society [who recognize the need for change but are unwilling to accept the means and ends of violence]…. It is with this dilemma and the consequences of the tragic antitheses of our responses to the social challenge that Arden is primarily concerned.

The moral-political question is given sharpest focus and most acute and challenging dramatic expression through Serjeant Musgrave, a zealot so convinced of the absolute rightness of his cause that he is willing to adopt...