Memorial Reconstructions: Christopher Marlowe, Cultural Memory, and the Royal Shakespeare Company
Godwin, Laura Grace
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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/86495
Description
Title
Memorial Reconstructions: Christopher Marlowe, Cultural Memory, and the Royal Shakespeare Company
Author(s)
Godwin, Laura Grace
Issue Date
2005
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Graves, Robert
Department of Study
Theatre
Discipline
Theatre
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
Literature, English
Language
eng
Abstract
"Chapter One traces the creation of the Marlowe myth through the critical record and identifies four persistent aspects of that myth: when compared to Shakespeare, Marlowe is repeatedly figured as an atheist, bohemian, ""queer,"" and foreign figure. Chapter Two explores the permanent, physical memorials to Marlowe and contrasts these with Shakespearean monuments to demonstrate that the ramifications of the Marlowe/Shakespeare myths have a distinct impact on perceptions of the two authors outside the scholarly realm. The core of this study focuses on revivals of Marlowe's plays at the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC). The RSC has, throughout nearly thirty years of Marlovian revivals, consistently positioned Shakespeare as ""central"" and Marlowe as ""Other,"" thus reinforcing the Company's position as arbiter of ""official"" culture while simultaneously appealing to a late twentieth-century desire for titillation and fascination with subversiveness. This project focuses specifically on a unique set of revivals mounted by the RSC between 1987 and 1992 to mark the four hundredth anniversary of Marlowe's literary career. Each was paired with a ""corresponding"" Shakespearean revival with the result that a specific aspect of the Marlowe/Shakespeare myths was reinforced. The conclusion examines the RSCs production of The School of Night , a play featuring Marlowe and Shakespeare as characters, and points to avenues of further exploration in the field of Marlowe fiction."
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