Literary Criticism - General & Miscellaneous, English Drama - General & Miscellaneous - Literary Criticism, British Art, General Aesthetics & Philosophy of Art, Politics & Literature, General & Miscellaneous British Philosophy, English Poetry - 16th Centu

Spectacles of Strangeness

Name: Spectacles of Strangeness
Author: Emily C. Bartels
ISBN: 9780812231939

by Emily C. Bartels

Available on Bookshop Write a review

Books.org participates in affiliate programs including Bookshop.org and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.

Overview

Oriental barbarians, black magicians, homosexuals, African queens and kings, Machiavellian Christians, Turks, and Jews - for an English audience of the sixteenth century, these are marginal, unorthodox, and strange figures. They are also the central figures in the plays of Christopher Marlowe. In Spectacles of Strangeness, Emily C. Bartels focuses on Marlowe's preoccupation with "strangers" and "strange" lands, and his use - and subversion - of Elizabethan stereotypes. Setting Marlovian drama in the context of England's nascent imperialism, Bartels probes the significance of the alien as a vital presence on the Renaissance stage and within Renaissance society. Bartels further examines the reasons that Marlowe (himself a marginalized figure as playwright, and reputedly a homosexual, spy, and atheist) turned again and again to the subject. Bartels argues that what makes Marlowe's dramas so remarkable, important, and subversive is that he evokes these cultural stereotypes only to undermine them: to expose the circumscription of difference as a political strategy, designed to advance the self, state, and status quo over and against some "other." By interrogating Marlowe's works and their relation to England's imperialism, the author helps to explain why the "alien" was such a prominent figure in the Renaissance's theatrical and extra-theatrical discourses and how imperialism influenced the development of the early modern theater and the early modern state. Drawing on new historicist methodologies and recent assessments of colonialist discourse, Spectacles of Strangeness is a stimulating study of one of the most important figures in Renaissance literature and drama.

Reviews

There are no reviews yet. Log in to write one.

Editorials

Booknews

Oriental barbarians, black magicians, homosexuals, African queens and kings, Machiavellian Christians, Turks, and Jews--marginal, unorthodox, and strange figures for an English audience of the sixteenth century, and central figures in the plays of Marlowe. The author focuses on Marlowe's preoccupation with "strangers" and "strange" lands, and his use and subversion of Elizabethan stereotypes. Setting Marlovian drama in the context of England's nascent imperialism, the author probes the significance of the alien as a vital presence on the Renaissance stage and within society. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)