Anne of the Thousand Days
by Maxwell Anderson
- 3 Members Following
Follow a topic to see new activity, such as homework help questions and answers, in your personal feed on the homepage.
Navigate
At a glance:
- Author: Maxwell Anderson
- First Published: 1948
- Type of Plot: History; memory play
- Time of Work: 1526-1536
- Setting: England
- Characters: Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII, Cardinal Wolsey, Thomas Cromwell, Thomas More, Jane Seymour
- Genres: Drama, Biographical drama, History play, Memory play
- Subjects: Marriage, England or English people, Adultery, Kings, queens, or royalty, Ambition, Sixteenth century, Biography
- Locales: Europe, England, United Kingdom
The Play
Anne of the Thousand Days begins as the curtain rises to reveal a dark stage in the prologue of act 1. The lights come up on a young woman sitting in a room with a barred window. It is Anne Boleyn on the eve of her execution in May, 1536. She speaks, ruminating on her imminent death as the just end of her bloody career as Henry VIII’s second wife and queen. Anne wonders out loud how many days there were from the day she first gave herself to Henry to the last day she saw him at her trial; she falls into a reverie as she begins to remember and count the days....
(The entire page is 2934 words.)
Want to read the whole thing?
Subscribe now to read the rest of this article. Plus, get access to:
- 30,000+ literature study guides
- Critical essays on more than 30,000 works of literature from Salem on Literature (exclusive to eNotes)
- An unparalleled literary criticism section. 40,000 full-length or excerpted essays.
- Content from leading academic publishers, all easily citable with our "Cite this page" button.
- 100% satisfaction guarantee READ MORE
