Name: Edward II
SKU: 57158130
Price: 3749.00 TWD
Availability: InStock
Author: Christopher Marlowe
ISBN: 9781408133460

Type

Physical Book

Author

Illustrated by

Publisher

Language

English

Pages

336

Format

Hardcover

ISBN13

9781408133460

Synopsis "Edward II"

Critically, theatrically, and politically, the time is ripe for a new edition of Christopher Marlowe's Edward II. Critically, the play has come to be, in the past several decades, a central document in histories and analyses of sexuality in early modern England, with the major figures in gay/queer history and literature of the period contributing to the discussion of male homoeroticism, same-sex friendship, and early modern sodomy in the play. Marlowe - and the relation of his life and death to his writing - has continued to generate interest and controversy among critics as well as the general reading public. At the same time, more traditional questions asked of the play- its contested status as history or tragedy, its status as an early exemplar of the history play, its relation to Shakespeare's histories-have continued to attract critical attention. Edited to the highest Arden standard, the edition gives students a modernised, comprehensively annotated text with a lengthy, illustrated introduction discussing the play's treatment of same-sex relationships both in Marlowe's day and our own, an analysis of the play in performance and in relation to other plays of the period, and a discussion of changing critical views of its themes of obsessive love, power and politics.

Christopher Marlowe

(Author)

View Author's Page

Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593) was an Elizabethan playwright, poet, and translator. His life remains a great mystery surrounded by all sorts of legends. He was born in Canterbury the same year as William Shakespeare into a prosperous middle-class family. He studied at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1584 and completed his Master's in 1587. Initially, Cambridge authorities were reluctant to grant him the degree because they suspected he had converted to Catholicism, but the Queen's Privy Council intervened on his behalf, emphasizing that Marlowe "had rendered good service to Her Majesty" and had been working for the "benefit of the country." However, the exact nature of the service he provided to the crown is unknown. After his years in Cambridge, Marlowe moved to London where he led a dark and turbulent life (he had a couple of run-ins with the law and had a bad reputation) while trying to make his way as a playwright.

He is the author of seven plays and an incomplete poem: the two parts of Tamburlaine the Great, The Jew of Malta, Edward II, Doctor Faustus, Dido, Queen of Carthage, and The Massacre at Paris, as well as the poem Hero and Leander. In 1593, at just twenty-nine years old, he was arrested and accused of being an atheist. He did not go to prison, and before his case was judged, he died during a brawl in a tavern in Deptford.

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