ABSTRACT
The game by itself is then a logo—a creative order and rhetorical instrument in Aristotle's sense—in itself, and in playing it an agent enters these logos and keeps faith with its structural and syntactical demands and semiotic intentions. Insofar as the semiotics of communication is common to the linguistically minded species, the play of differences is occurring in the handling of written or spoken texts; it must perforce apply to other texts as well—such as games. Thomas Middleton signifies by the language of the title itself that he is going to use the game of chess as an extended metaphor: this is not a game of chess but a game at chess. The hierarchical structure of the chess game and the binary system that it embodies gave him the leeway to present his case against both Catholicism and its political programs in England.
