SOURCE: Baker, Howard. “Gorboduc: Some Fundamental Problems in the Early Dramatic Tradition.” In Induction to Tragedy: A Study in a Development of Form in Gorbudoc, The Spanish Tragedy, and Titus Andronicus, pp. 9-47. New York: Russell & Russell, 1939.

In the following excerpt, Baker argues that the ongoing critical debate about the themes and philosophy of Gorboduc can best be resolved by considering the lives and literary concerns of the play's two authors, Sackville and Thomas Norton.

Gorboduc has been more than usually subject to the vicissitudes of opinion. Composed in 1561 by Thomas Sackville and Thomas Norton and played as “furniture of part of the grand Christmasse in the Inner Temple,”¹ it was acted at Queen Elizabeth's invitation, a month later before her in Whitehall Palace. While its style and morality inspired the encomiums of Sir Philip Sidney, its failure to abide rigidly by Aristotle's precepts of regularity drew his...