Gale Researcher Guide for: Edward II: Sexuality and Politics in Christopher Marlowe's Play (1593) and Derek Jarman's Film (1991) is selected from Gale's academic platform Gale Researcher. These study guides provide peer-reviewed articles that allow students early success in finding scholarly materials and to gain the confidence and vocabulary needed to pursue deeper research.
Gale Researcher Guide for: Playwright as Historian: From Christopher Marlowe to David Hare is selected from Gale's academic platform Gale Researcher. These study guides provide peer-reviewed articles that allow students early success in finding scholarly materials and to gain the confidence and vocabulary needed to pursue deeper research.
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.
The narrative re-tellings of the life, reign, and death of the English King Edward II (reigned 1307–1327) present a unique opportunity for scholars of sexuality in the early modern era. This is because the works of authors like Christopher Marlowe, Michael Drayton, Sir Francis Hubert, Elizabeth Cary, and Richard Niccols were all inspired by the public, cultural memory fashioned from Edward’s same-sex love affair with Piers Gaveston. As such, each of them presents a particular representation of and a specific discourse about male-male sexual relations in the Renaissance. In other words, what these works present is a concentrated body of literature about same-sex love in the early modern era: works that openly and frankly explore the possible origins of the love, the reasons and causes for it; works that explore the ramifications of male-male romantic relationships; works that explore the sexual politics and sociocultural dynamics of same-sex romantic partnerships; and works that describe and denote same-sex love from an English Renaissance perspective. This study looks at each of the major Renaissance texts about Edward II and examines the means through which each text understands and analyzes the nature of male-male same-sex love. From Marlowe’s crafting of a lover-identity for Edward to Drayton’s obsession with Marlowe’s version of (gay) history; from Hubert’s Augustinian construction of Edward’s nature to Cary’s identification with the fallen king to Niccols’ inspired exemplum, what each of these works demonstrates is that the “love that dare not speak its name” would not be silenced, at least not in the case of Edward and Gaveston. When one sees the name Edward II, one also sees his same-sex loves. The correlation has become ingrained into our public recall of history. Thus, as far as the world is concerned, Edward II was—and ever will be—the gay king.
Gale Researcher Guide for: Overview of Politics in the Gilded Age is selected from Gale's academic platform Gale Researcher. These study guides provide peer-reviewed articles that allow students early success in finding scholarly materials and to gain the confidence and vocabulary needed to pursue deeper research.
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.
When one sees the name Edward II, one also sees his same-sex loves; this correlation between Edward and sexuality has become ingrained into our public recall of history. This text explores the discourses of sexuality that surround Edward II in Renaissance-era works by Marlowe, Drayton, Hubert, Cary, and Niccols, arguing that, as a result of this very public conversation, Edward II emerges as a unique construction of an identity based on same-sex desire--the veritable once (and future) gay king.
Seminar paper from the year 2005 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 2,7, University of Münster (Englisches Seminar), course: Christopher Marlowe – Performing Power, language: English, abstract: Let me introduce the structure outline of my paper: In a first step, I’m going to have a close look at the nature of homosexuality and male friendships in Elizabethan England. In this part, I will mainly refer to theories put forward by Paul Hammond in his essay “The Renaissance“ as well as in Mario DiGangi’s essay “Marlowe, Queer Studies, and Renaissance Homoeroticism“. The Elizabethan “concept” of homosexuality actually differs greatly from what we might expect and may even seem bewildering at first. However, to create in our minds a picture of the Elizabethan culture, we will have to make an effort to let go of the clichés that are anchored in our own. In doing so, we can only rely on the few historical sources we have about Elizabethan culture. Therefore, we have to remember that we can never truly recreate the big picture. Here, Thomas Laqueur’s milestone book Making Sex as well as Ina Schabert’s chapter about the one-sex model from Englische Literaturgeschichte. Eine neue Darstellung aus der Sicht der Geschlechterforschung will come in support of my theories. The following chapter will be devoted to the status of sodomy in Renaissance England. It is vitally important to understand its political dimension, as suggested by both Alan Bray and Mario DiGangi, and the threat it was said to have exercised on the Elizabethan order of the universe. In a final step, I’m hoping to offer a new explanation for the allegation of sodomy against Christopher Marlowe as expressed in the Baines Libel. I will try to further the debate about this doubtful document by establishing a connection with Sara Munson Deats and Lisa S. Starks’s article “’So neatly plotted, and so well performed’: Villain as Playwright in Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta”. The notion of the theatre will thus come to play an important part in my interpretation of the Baines Libel. Each part of my work will also include a substantial amount of text analysis in support of the interpretations offered.
Seminar paper from the year 2015 in the subject English - Literature, Works, grade: 1,7, University College Dublin, course: Hauptseminar: Writing and Performance in the Age of Shakespeare - Renaissance Literature, language: English, abstract: The play "Edward II" by Christopher Marlowe is a tragedy that depicts King Edward's reign, his forced abdication, and his death as well as the rise and fall of King Edward ́s opponent Mortimer Junior. The respective relationships of these men play a major role in their development, which is why this paper focuses on the homoerotic relationship of King Edward and Gaveston as well as on the relationship of Queen Isabel and Mortimer Junior. Analyzed will be sexual and social transgressions as well as their effects which drive the plot forward.
