The Complete Works of Christopher Marlowe - Hardcover

Marlowe, Christopher

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0521227593 ISBN 13: 9780521227599

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 1981

Synopsis

Marlowe's highly controversial Edward II concerns the conflicting claims of love and politics, the urgency of homoerotic desire, and the cruelty with which unscrupulous authority can exert control. The boldness with which the work confronts these issues makes it unique in the period, yet this is the first critical edition of the play with full scholarly apparatus for twenty-five years.

Richard Rowland's edition presents an old-spelling text which adheres more closely to the first quarto of 1594 than any edition hitherto. The present volume is the third in the Oxford English Texts Complete Works of Christopher Marlowe. A full commentary and introduction contextualize the play and give an entirely original account of the relationship betweeen the play, Marlowe's own age, and events which immediately followed it. By re-examining textual cruces, new interpretative possibilities are opened up, and the play is related to the language and ideas of Marlowe's contemporaries. A generous selection from Holinshed, Marlowe's principal source, is also included.

As critics and historians continue to debate attitudes to love, sexuality, and politics during the English Renaissance, this edition of Edward II extends that debate, offering a new understanding of the eroticism and violence of the play.

About this title

Review

Richard Rowland's sophisticated introduction. ...excellent texts for scholars of Marlowe at all levels, marrying precision and provocative readings together with appurtenant material for further analysis. (Anthony P. Bale, Septmeber 2000)

Fuller ... offers an elegant and precise reading of the play. (Anthony P. Bale, Notes and Queries, Vol.47, No.3, Sept. 00.)

sensitive interpretations ... Fuller's commentary is, likewise, extensive and by far the most capacious in this group of editions. Anthony P. Bale, Notes and Queries, Vol.47, No.3, Sept. 00.

The Massacre at Paris is probably Marlow's most neglected works ... Esche's edition provides the necessary resources in order that the intricacies of the play's history need no longer be an obstacle to is accessibility. (Anthony P. Bale, Notes and Queries, Vol.47, No.3, Sept. 00.)

excellent texts for scholars of Marlowe at all levels, marrying precision and provocative readings together with appurtenant material for further analysis. (Anthony P. Bale, Notes and Queries, Vol.47, No.3, Sept. 00.)

It is pleasing to have a reasonable 'old-spelling' text of this play, with a good commentary and an exciting ... introduction. The commentary contains much that is valuable and illuminating. (Joolst Daalder, The Flinders University of South Australia, Review of English Studies, Vol. XLVIII, No. 189, Feb '97)

About the Author

Editor of ten texts in the Oxford School Shakespeare and The Plays of Christopher Marlowe (OUP 1971). Formerly a General Editor of the New Mermaid Texts, and Reader in English Literature at the University of Sheffield

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 1981
• ISBN 10: 0521227593
• ISBN 13: 9780521227599
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 1005