SOURCE: "The Malcontent: Virtuous Machiavellianism," in John Marston of the Middle Temple: An Elizabethan Dramatist in His Social Setting, Harvard University Press, 1969, pp. 178-94.

In the following excerpt, Finkelpearl explores the moral and political dimensions of The Malcontent, emphasizing Marston's use of the doubling motif in the characterization of Malevole/Altofronto.

Marston modestly admits in the preface to one of his later plays that "above better desert" he has been "fortunate in these stage-pleasings." There is reason to believe that his work was usually well received …, but with The Malcontent in 1604 he momentarily achieved a wider popularity. Three quartos of this playwere required in less than six months, and the King's Men judged it to have a broad enough appeal for production at the Globe. The reasons are not hard to discover. It has an exciting plot with a multitude of surprising twists, and in the Hamlet-like title...