SOURCE: Howard, Douglas. “Massinger's Political Tragedies.” In Philip Massinger: A Critical Reassessment, edited by Douglas Howard, pp. 117-37. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.

In the following essay, Howard sees The Roman Actor and Believe as You List as evidence of Massinger's increased political involvement in the Caroline period and of his shift towards more appropriate subject matter for tragedy than he had treated in his earlier plays.

The death of Fletcher in 1625 marked an obvious turning point in Massinger's career as a playwright, since thereafter he occupied Fletcher's place as chief dramatist for the King's Men. Massinger had been associated with this company as Fletcher's collaborator as early as 1616, but before 1625 only two of his unaided plays, The Duke of Milan (?1621-2) and The Unnatural Combat (?1624-5), were written for audiences at the Globe and indoors at Blackfriars. The remainder of his extant unaided works from the years before...