Plot Source
The play's subplot deals with Swetnam, who is brought to trial before a court of women for his offenses against the gender and ends up recanting his bias. The play's main plot, a story of political intrigue and courtly love, derives from a novel by Juan de Flores called the Historia de Aurelio e Isabella (also known as Grisel y Mirabella), written c. 1495. (The same novel provided John Fletcher with plot material for his Women Pleased.) De Flore's novel was popular, and had been published in English translation five times between 1556 and 1586. It has been argued that the play also shows specific debts to earlier dramas, notably George Peele's The Arraignment of Paris and John Lyly's Endymion.
The tone of de Flores' novel is strongly chivalric, a trait that carries over into the play. "Swetnam the Woman-Hater is remarkable for the unusually high moral tone it adopts with regard to women."
Read more about this topic: Swetnam The Woman-Hater
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