Christopher Marlowe: Merlin's Prophet - Softcover

Weil, Judith

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0521090873 ISBN 13: 9780521090872

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2009

Synopsis

Mrs Weil challenges two widely accepted views of Marlowe. He is not the poet and dramatist of heroic energy, 'daring God out of heaven' with his outrageous heroes. Nor is he a dogmatic moralist. Instead, he belongs to Merlin's race, as his contemporary Robert Greene suggested. An ironic writer of riddling plays, he does not endorse his characters, but cunningly manipulates our responses to them. Like Erasmus or Rabelais, he uses the knowledge of his audience in a variety of surprising ways. This approach is carefully argued for each play. The reader – perhaps initially sceptical – will find himself confronted with many features of the drama and the poetry not adequately accounted for in the conventional views, but persuasively explained here. The book may well permanently modify our attitudes toward Marlowe.

About this title

Book Description:

Mrs Weil challenges two widely accepted views of Marlowe. He is not the poet and dramatist of heroic energy, 'daring God out of heaven' with his outrageous heroes. Nor is he a dogmatic moralist. Instead, he belongs to Merlin's race, as his contemporary Robert Greene suggested. An ironic writer of riddling plays, he does not endorse his characters, but cunningly manipulates our responses to them.

About this edition

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0521090873
• ISBN 13: 9780521090872
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 228