SOURCE: “Crises of Male Self-Definition in The Two Noble Kinsmen,” in Shakespeare, Fletcher and The Two Noble Kinsmen, University of Missouri Press, 1989, pp. 133-44.

In the following essay, Roberts maintains that the way in which the males in The Two Noble Kinsmen define themselves is threatened by female virginity and lasciviousness, represented by Emilia and the jailer's daughter, respectively. These threats, states Roberts, are subdued by marriage.

The appearance of an Amazon in the scenario of a classical or Renaissance tale is an infallible clue to an area of male anxiety, a signal of threatened erosion to a systematically constructed patriarchal world view.¹ As a virginal or only rarely sexual (and then exclusively for procreation) female, the Amazon is impervious to male charms; living without men, she fights them as their equals or superiors; as horsewoman, archer, and hunter, she impinges on and sometimes invades male domains, threatening...