Martin Wiggins Pořadí knih

The rise of queer theory in the last fifteen years or so has led to a large body of criticism on <i>Edward II</i>, on Marlowe more generally, and indeed on Renaissance literature. This new introduction to the play takes full account of that criticism, offering students a useful and lively overview of the field. While it is often remarked that the writing in <i>Edward II</i> is less 'Marlovian' than his other major plays, no critic has yet fully discussed why this might be the case. The new introduction brings together these topics in order to demonstrate how our understanding of the play is enhanced by considering these aspects of the play together. In addition the introduction also includes a performance history, updating the history given in the previous edition and paying greater attention to Derek Jarman's film, with which the play is often studied. All this ensures the edition meets the needs of students and teachers fully and imaginatively.

Marlowe's play retains its power to shock even today, and this edition gives full value to its three overriding themes of sexual favouritism, political confrontation and sheer cruelty. Critics in the last twenty years, who have focused on the overtly sexual relationship between Edward and his favourite Gaveston, have hailed it as a 'gay classic'; earlier interpretations concentrated rather on the deposition by his subjects of a weak king, reading it in tandem with Shakespeare's Richard II. The introduction shows how the play works to give the audience an equal emotional commitment to opposing points of view and concludes that this is what makes Edward II such an uncomfortable and challenging play.

Jacobean Tragedy explores the tensions between the disruptive energies of sex and seventeenth century social, cultural and political values with an exceptional frankness, and the plays collected in this volume demonstrate the genre at its most sinister and explicit. The plays included are TheInsatiate Countess , The Maid's Tragedy , The Maiden's Tragedy , and The Tragedy of Valentinian .