SOURCE: "Beaumont and Fletcher," in The Jacobean Drama: An Interpretation, revised edition, Methuen, & Co. Ltd., 1965, pp. 201-26.

In the following essay, originally published in 1936, Fermor places Beaumont and Fletcher in the context of Jacobean drama, addressing questions of genre, character construction, and thematic development.

The work of Beaumont and Fletcher escapes from the tyranny of Jacobean incertitude into a world of its own creating. It is bound neither by the weight and horror which oppresses the tragedy nor by the compensatory pragmatism which binds the comedy to realistic portraiture. It evades the great questions (except as debating topics) and it endows with remoteness all emotions, so that the strongest passions fail to engulf us, however, fiercely the characters seem to be shaken by them. Through the tragi-comedies and the early joint tragedies in particular, there is transfused a colour of such singular beauty that we accept enchantment as...