The Virgin Martyr - Collaboration

Collaboration

Scholars have disputed the nature of that collaboration: it has been suggested that the extant text may be a revision by Massinger of the lost play Diocletian (1594). Others have doubted this hypothesis, since it supposes that Dekker wrote the lost Diocletian, a conclusion for which there is no evidence. And since Diocletian is a secondary figure in The Virgin Martyr, it can make as much sense to suppose that the two are completely different plays.

Critics have tended to argue that Dekker most likely wrote the prose comedy scenes in the play, while Massinger concentrated on the main plot. Some have also seen Dekker's hand in the title role of Dorothea. Massinger would return to the subject of Diocletian's reign two years after this play, in The Prophetess, one of his collaborations with John Fletcher.