SOURCE: Neill, Michael. “Massinger's Patriarchy: The Social Vision of A New Way to Pay Old Debts.” Renaissance Drama n.s. 10 (1979): 185-213.

In the following essay, Neill views A New Way to Pay Old Debts as a conservative work that seeks to maintain aristocratic values in the face of the demands of the rising middle class.

An Houshold is as it were a little Commonwealth, by the good government whereof, Gods glorie may be advantced, and the commonwealth which standeth of severall families benefited.

John Dod and Robert Cleaver, A Godly Forme of Household Government¹

Strangely, since it is one of Massinger's few acknowledged successes and the most frequently performed of his plays, A New Way to Pay Old Debts, has received scant critical attention. The play's continuing popularity evidently depends on the powerful characterization of Sir Giles Overreach; but the scale of this villain-hero and the violence of...