Christopher Marlowe's EDWARD II

date of E2

1594

what is the general influence of materialism over E2

E2 destabilises any notion of immaterial divine power through compulsive reminder of materiality of sovereign body

Quotes that show Edward’s flippancy with material goods particularly with Gaveston

“Wants thou gold? Go to my treasury” 1.1

“live where thou wilt, Ill send thee gold enough” 1.4

WHat are the two factors that contribute to good kingship

moderation and largesse

How does the play exemplify the ways this economic flippancy destabilises rational order

Gaveston sitting beside Edward in the expected place of a Queen 1.4 - disrupting courtly procedure.

Necklace given to Edward

“take my picture and let me wear thine” 1.4

Necklace given to Isabel - tongue parodies physical intimacy - meaningless next to excess of gifts Edward exchanges with Gaveston.

“golden tongue about thy neck” 1.4

Do the gifts do anything against the barons

“Not the riches of my realm/ can ransom him” 3.1

How is the meaningless of crowns encoded in E2 - Preedy

E’s flippancy about money and materials

mutiny endangers notion of crown as “changeless, mythical talisman” - 2014

Edward prepared to commercialise his crown for Gaveston - exchanging sacral value of divine kingship to be in Gav’s material presence

“could my crowns revenue bring him back,/ I would freely give it to his enemies/ and think I gained.” 1.4

How is the dissonance between the sacral symbolism of crown and wretched material of vulnerable body

A5S1 - the act of taking on and off of the prop crown

crown as “transitory pomp” A5S1

Meaningless of the crown as a symbol of power - contradiction in collocation of active and passive voice.

“I wear the crown but am controlled by them [nobles]” 5.1

What scene demonstrates that tainting of the crown

tainting of crown and kings body with sewage water in A5S3 - King shown to be as materially animal as other characters in the play.

How is the crown shown to maintain some sense of power

Ed 3’s hesitance to wear it in 5.2 - the object bestows inherent responsibility and power integral to material act of wearing it

Even when E2 realises the meaningless of sovereign crown but also sees it as only thing proteting his life “Where is my crown?/ gone, gone! And do I remain alive?” 5.5

crown both meaningless material and culturally necessary guarantees of power.

while E2 dies in squalor and suffering that power is resettled hereditarily through E3.

Helay - what kind of rhetoric Marlowe enjoys

rhetoric of contradiction. 2004

WHat is the paradoxcial status of coins and crowns

both objects that cannot adequately embody value they are said to, and yet as signifiers they need to do so regardless - ultimate meaningless doesnt prevent them needing to maintain meaning for societal structures of authority and order.

WHat is the significance of bodily materiality in E2

the paradoxical manifestation of divine power in the vulnerably material body

the boundaries between subject and object complicated by the presence of the living actor underneath the dead character

How does Marlowe emphasise the paradox between the living actor and dead character in E2’s final scene

the potential presence of E2’s funeral hearse 5.6 and the historical memory of the effigy.

E3 referring repeatedly to his fathers hearse and plays w sense of body as material by placing the decapitated head of Mortimer atop the hearse

What can Marlowe allude to through this funeral procession and why is this marked - Anderson

the historical reality of the funeral ceremony as related in Holinshead - first english history to feature effigy of dead king of royal hearse

What does Thomas Anderson opine?

2014 - the presence of the actors body enacting the effigy - fulfils audience’s desire to see a dead body after witnessing the extent of its suffering - showing the wretched ease w which a divine body succumbs to objectification across the final act.

King ordering handkerchief for Isabel - materiality of text = way of suggesting emotional honesty

“instead of ink, I’ll write it with my tears” 5.5

WHat status do letters have in E2

insistent materials - communicate the broader political landscape in which the court is imploding (cf. letter from Scotland 2.2), permits the imprisonement and killing of a king (5.1).

How does Marlowe foreground the paradoxical relationship between the meaninglessness of paper and ink, and the power inscribed atop it foregrounded - connection to letter as embodiment of self, written in tears.

King exclaiming “so may his limbs be torn, as is this paper!” 5.1

Threats of objects against the bodies materiality - Mortimer Jr threatening Gaveston

“upon my weapons here shouldst thou fall,/ and welter in thy gore” 2.5

WHat does Ed 2 spend money on for Gaveston

Masques and theatrical shows - immaterial but also material forms of entertainment.

WHat is the ultimate issue people have w Gaveston

he has access to the Kings body

What is Marlowe’s principal source

Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles 1587 - emphasises the unattractive reign of Edward II because of his connection to Piers Gaveston and probable homosexuality

Marlowe stays close to Holinshed but embellishes it with the character of Lightborn (anglicised Lucifer) as Edward’s assassin

Where can one see Marlowe’s interest in homosexuality in his other work

Jove and Ganymede in Dido, QUeen of Carthage 1587-93. Henry and the minions in The Massacre at Paris 1593. Neptune and Leander in Hero and Leander (completed by George Chapman posthumously in 1598)

Homoeroticism as Gaveston discusses a masque

‘a lovely boy in Dian’s shape … an olive tree/ to hide those parts which men delight to see’ 1.2

Emily Bartels - ‘spectacles of Strangeness

1993

comments on tensions between sodomy hidden in the play and sanctioned as a way to kill Edward II

‘sodomical leanings … are not politically corrupt. Though large unspoken, they are not unspeakable’.

Sodomy not clear defined.

Kitamura Sae - what disgusts Mortimer about Gaveston

2025 - ‘it is not homosexuality or promiscuity but Gaveston’s upward mobility that most disgusts Mortimer’

Paulina Kewes ‘Marlowe, History, and Politics’ - what is Marlowe’s principal target of criticism

2013 - ‘the widespread use of religion to justify political heterodoxy’

How do Gaveston and Edward II mock the Bishop of Coventry as they attack him and strip him of possessions

1.1 - use mock symbols of catholic power

Gav - ‘saving your reverence, you must pardon me’

E2 ‘Throw off his golden mitre, rend his stole, and in the channel christen him anew’

Edwatd about the dynamic between king and priests

1.4 - ‘Why should a king be subject to a priest?’

What is significant about Roger Barnes’ 1612 version of Edward II

the play was revised to emphasises King James’ controversial promotion of male favourites = contemporary relevance.