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- Publisher
- Brill
- Copyright
- © Copyright 2008 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
- ISSN
- 0098-2474
- eISSN
- 2352-6963
- DOI
- 10.1163/23526963-90000348
- Publisher site
- See Article on Publisher Site
Abstract
Personal, Paternal, and Kingly Control in Marlowe's Edward 11 H. David Brumble Marlowe's Edward II has been described as a bleak play about the inimical relationship between love and power. Some fifty years ago, for example, 1rving Ribner argued that the play presents a dichotomy: A ruler incapable of exercising power will be destroyed, as Edward is destroyed--but to exercise power is to be dehumanized, as Mortimer is dehumanized by his quest for power. L.L. Brodwin worked out a similar dichotomy, arguing that the play opposes love and Machiavellianism: Edward II loves but is too weak to rule; Mortimer is strong enough to rule, and so is incapable of love. Derek Jarman's 1991 film of Edward II sharpens this focus, insisting that it is not love in general, but homosexual love in particular that is opposed by those with power. For Bruce Smith the play asks us to decide, "What ... is 'natural'?" Is it "the conventional order of society? Or a man's emotional needs?" Marlowe, he concludes, "does not make it easy to decide" (220).1 While such interpretations allow the play to enter into contemporary discussions of gender politics, they obscure much that would have seemed important
Journal
Explorations in Renaissance Culture – Brill
Published: Dec 2, 2008