Research Catalog

Title

Majesty and the masses in Shakespeare and Marlowe : western anti-monarchism, the Earl of Essex challenge, and political stagecraft / Chris Fitter.

Author

Fitter, Chris

Publication

• New York : Routledge, 2021.
• ©2021

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

x, 364 pages; 24 cm.

Summary

"This book is a landmark study of Shakespeare's politics as revealed in his later History Plays. It offers the first ever survey of anti-monarchism in Western literature, history and philosophy, tracked from Hesiod and Homer through to contemporaries of Shakespeare such as George Buchanan and the authors of the Mirror for Magistrates, thus demonstrating that anxiety over monarchic power, and contemptuous demolitions of kingship as a disastrously irrational institution, formed an important and irremovable body of reflection in prestigious Western writing. Overturning the widespread assumption that "Elizabethans believed in divine right monarchy", it exposits the anti-monarchic critique built into Shakespeare's Histories and Marlowe's Massacre at Paris, in five chapters of close literary critical readings, paying innovative attention to performance values. Part Two focuses Queen Elizabeth's principal challenger for national rule: the Earl of Essex, England's most popular man. It demonstrates from detailed readings that, far from being an admirer of the war-crazed, unstable, bi-polar Essex, as is regularly asserted, Shakespeare launched in Richard II and Henry IV a campaign to puncture the reputation of the great earl, exposing him as a Machiavel seeking Elizabeth's throne. Shakespeare emerges as a humane and clear-sighted critic of the follies intrinsic to dynastic monarchy: yet hostile, likewise, to the rash militarist, Essex, who would fling England into permanent war against Spain."

Series Statement

Routledge studies in Shakespeare

Uniform Title

Routledge studies in Shakespeare.

Alternative Title

Western anti-monarchism, the Earl of Essex challenge, and political stagecraft

Subject

• Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 > Criticism and interpretation
• Marlowe, Christopher, 1564-1593 > Criticism and interpretation
• Essex, Walter Devereux, Earl of, 1539-1576 > In literature
• Essex, Walter Devereux, Earl of, 1539-1576
• Marlowe, Christopher, 1564-1593
• Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616
• 1500-1700
• Monarchy in literature > Political aspects > History > England > 16th century
• Politics in literature
• Political plays, English > 16th century > History and criticism
• Politics and literature > England > History
• English drama > Early modern and Elizabethan, 1500-1600 > Political aspects
• English literature > Early modern, 1500-1700 > Political aspects
• Populism in literature > Political aspects > History > England > 16th century
• Aristocracy (Social class) in literature > Political aspects > History > England > 16th century
• Politics and literature
• Political plays, English
• Literature
• Monarchy in literature
• England

Genre/Form

• History.
• Criticism, interpretation, etc.
• Literary criticism.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages [341]-359) and index.

Contents

Part I. The divine rout of kings? : Western traditions in negation of monarchy -- Surveying the inheritance of indictment -- Collapsing the foundations of sacral kingshp : Ernst Kantorowicz, Erasmus, and Sir Thomas Elyot -- Countering monarchic propaganda : Shakespeare and royalism, Marlowe's Massacre at Paris, and Shakespeare's Richard III -- Part II. Kingship and the Essex challenge -- Richard II as Elizabethans received it : dating, dissidence, and Essex 1596 vs. Essex 1601 -- Richard II and the politics of stagecraft : audience relations and the negative dialectic -- "Opposed eyes" : popular crisis, class-surveillance, and the turn against kingship in I Henry IV -- King Henry, Hotspur, Essex : negating the negation, and the plebeian commonweal paradigm.

Call Number

JFE 21-3367

ISBN

• 0367482088
• 9780367482084

OCLC

1150942748

Author

Fitter, Chris, author.

Title

Majesty and the masses in Shakespeare and Marlowe : western anti-monarchism, the Earl of Essex challenge, and political stagecraft / Chris Fitter.

Publisher

New York : Routledge, 2021.

Copyright Date

©2021

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Series

Routledge studies in Shakespeare

Routledge studies in Shakespeare.

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages [341]-359) and index.

Chronological Term

1500-1700

Other Form:

ebook version : 9781000190953

Research Call Number

JFE 21-3367