Overview

Christopher Marlowe is a writer of energy and extravagance. Plays such as Doctor Faustus, Edward the Second, The Jew of Malta, and Tamburlaine continue to challenge and startle modern readers as much as they did the Elizabethan world. Marlowe’s writing in both style and substance questions received norms, transgresses safe boundaries, proposes new possibilities about the conditions under which humanity lives. This is the first study for some time which explores the whole range of Marlowe’s writing. Using recent ideas about the relations between literature and history, popular and elite culture and the nature of the Elizabethan theatre, the book reassesses the significance of Marlowe. Adopting the advantages offered by recent theoretical perspectives, the book demystifies many of the traditional myths about both writings and writer. Written with clarity and without obfuscating jargon, this book is an ideal introduction to one of the most exciting and innovative writers in English. It provides assessment of all Marlowe’s important works, fresh insights into the plays and poems and a detailed bibliography for further study.

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9780746307076

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Dr Thomas Healy is Senior Lecturer in English at Birkbeck, University of London. He has written widely on the early modern period and is the author of Richard Crashaw, New Latitudes: Theory and English Renaissance Literature and is the editor (with Jonathan Sawday) of Literature and the English Civil War.

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