The Reconciliation and Submission in a Heroic Manner in Shakespeare-Fletcher’s The Two Noble Kinsmen and W. B. Yeats’s The Death of Cuchulain

Abstract

Not all noticeable literary figures have been opportune enough to be afforded with an all-time opportunity to lead the way as gloriously as they have done at the shining moments of their literary career. When it comes to prominent literary figures like Shakespeare, no blemish appears to have ever tarnished his magnificence; moreover, his impact upon other presumably great literary figures has also been extensively proved and discussed. This study endeavors to trace the Shakespearian influence and echo in  a play by another celebrated poet and dramatist who by his own self has confessed the former’s deep influence both upon his thoughts and works. The parallel is drawn between Shakespeare’s assumed last play, i.e. The Two Noble Kinsmen written in collaboration with Fletcher and W.B. Yeats’s last play of Cuchulain cycle, i.e. The Death of Cuchulain. The resonance detected in these late works reiterates once more that it is not merely in the realm of fantasy that old age does not necessarily blocks the road taken to attain “tragic joy in the sublime” and that even reconciliation and submission can also be treated in a heroic manner. W.B. Yeats’s The Death of Cuchulain is to be scrutinized in this study in the light of the Shakespearian influence upon it regarding its being produced in the late period of his literary career as Fletcher-Shakespeare’s The Two Noble Kinsmen has also been written in a similar stage of life. Once more Shakespeare’s subversive style is to be noted for its capability to mingle both the joyful and the tragic in another tragicomedy in order to display some other manifestation of life and at the same time act as supposedly another stimulus for W.B. Yeats’s  sought for “tragic joy” when he was “old and grey and full of sleep”.