Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    A Study Guide for Christopher Marlowe's "Edward II"
    A Study Guide for Christopher Marlowe's "Edward II"
    A Study Guide for Christopher Marlowe's "Edward II"
    Ebook44 pages31 minutes

    A Study Guide for Christopher Marlowe's "Edward II"

    By Gale and Cengage

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    A Study Guide for Christopher Marlowe's "Edward II," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Drama For Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Drama For Students for all of your research needs.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCengage Learning - Gale
    Release dateJul 27, 2016
    ISBN9781535822442
    A Study Guide for Christopher Marlowe's "Edward II"

    Read more from Gale

    Related to A Study Guide for Christopher Marlowe's "Edward II"

    Related ebooks

    Teaching Methods & Materials For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    Related categories

    Reviews for A Study Guide for Christopher Marlowe's "Edward II"

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      A Study Guide for Christopher Marlowe's "Edward II" - Gale

      2

      Edward II: The Troublesome Reign and Lamentable Death of Edward the Second, King of England, with the Tragical Fall of Proud Mortimer

      Christopher Marlowe

      1594

      Introduction

      Christopher Marlowe’s play Edward II: The Troublesome Reign and Lamentable Death of Edward the Second, King of England, with the Tragical Fall of Proud Mortimer is an intense and swiftly moving account of a king controlled by his basest passions, a weak man who becomes a puppet of his homosexual lover, and pays a tragic price for forsaking the governance of his country. The action takes place in early fourteenth-century England, during a period when England was surrounded by enemies in Scotland, Ireland, Denmark, and France. Edward, preoccupied by the banishment of his lover, Gaveston, barely acknowledges the nascent crises that threaten his realm; he indulges his passions and abdicates his duties, failing to recognize that his willful and persistent refusal to attend to state affairs is eroding his royal authority. It is this resulting loss of power, which he has brought upon himself by his own irresponsibility, that irks him more than the absence of his lover. He picks his battles, preferring those petty skirmishes over Gaveston’s fate to those that would benefit his rule and enhance the power of the state. When a group of nobles has Gaveston executed, Edward’s own execution soon follows, and the play closes by unveiling the Machiavellian vices of the would-be saviors.

      Marlowe found most of his material for this play in the third volume of Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles (1587). He stayed close to the account, but he embellished history with the character of Lightborn (or Lucifer) as Edward’s assassin. First played in 1593 or 1594, Edward II was printed in 1594. It has played sporadically throughout the twentieth century, usually to audiences surprised by the power of a work by one of Shakespeare’s contemporaries.

      Author Biography

      Born in the same year as William Shakespeare, 1564, Christopher Marlowe was the son of an affluent shoemaker in Canterbury. Like Shakespeare, Marlowe eventually migrated to London, where he became a member of an erudite social circle that included Sir Walter Raleigh, Thomas Kyd, and others; these men were regarded as freethinkers, in part because they endorsed the new and controversial scientific thinking. Marlowe spent six years as a Cambridge scholar, reveling in subjects such as rhetoric, logic, and philosophy; he was especially drawn to the works of Aristotle, which he approached not from the religious perspective of most of his peers, but from a more philosophical and literary angle. Marlowe probably attended numerous

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1