Edward II: A Critical Reader

Description

Edward II: A Critical Reader gives students, teachers and scholars alike an overview of the play's reception both in the theatre and among artists and critics, from the end of the 16th century to the beginning of the 21st. The volume also offers a series of new perspectives on the play by leading experts in the field of early modern history and culture. Bolstered with a timeline tracking Marlowe's life and work, an up-to-date bibliography and an extensive index, this collection is an ideal and definitive guide to Edward II.

Kirk Melnikoff is Associate Professor of English at UNC Charlotte, USA. He has published numerous articles and chapters on Elizabethan literature and culture, has edited two volumes on the late sixteenth-century pamphleteer Robert Greene, and is the 2013 co-winner of the Calvin and Rose G. Hoffman Prize for a Distinguished Essay on Christopher Marlowe.

In gathering together chapters rich in detail and brimming with critical vigor, this recent Arden Early Modern Drama Guide fulfills the goal, set out by the Series Editors, of offering "a clear picture of the critical and performative contexts" of Marlowe's tragedy. Taken together, these chapters offer a plethora of original arguments that will inspire new critical responses to Edward II in scholarship, performance, and teaching. The high critical calibre of these chapters position Edward II at the centre of what Melnikoff calls 'a larger Marlowe moment' (5). Melnikoff's succinctly and persuasively argued Introduction makes it clear that this moment arises from both the play's 'theatrical vitality' (4) and the work of scholars who address important topics in rigorous and accessible ways ... This volume compiles plenty of fresh evidence and many new insights in carefully organized chapters moving from general to specific themes. By this criterion alone, the collection is excellent ... By blending original research of new evidence with rigorous and accessibly presented surveys of the main areas of the historiography of Marlowe's tragedy, Melnikoff's superbly edited book offers itself as an indispensable contribution to the collections of new essays that indeed created and extended the Marlowe moment in criticism. * The Marlowe Society of America *