edward ii christopher marlowe summary sparknotes

The main materials of Marlowe’s plot- the king’s conflict with his lords over his favourite Gaveston, the military operation of Isabella and Mortimer against him, his deposition and murder and Mortimer’s fall and execution have all been taken by the dramatist from Holinshed. It stands out, as a rich Storehouse, for literary materials and a good many Shakepearean plays, history plays in particular, have been based on this great chronicle of much significance. Holinshed’s Chronicle, a memorable work of history in English in the Elizabethan age, contains a continuous narration of English history, particularly the history of English kingship. New methods have been adopted to make the tragedy look more real. His old ‘rant and bluster seems to have been subdued in it. No doubt history contributes to the forming of the infrastructure of the drama but it cannot be said that Marlowe has not added to it the substantial dollops of his fancy and imagination. Perhaps, it is wrong to say that the tragedy is not the poet’s. It is said that the tragedy is not the poet’s it is a part of history. The fact may be unhistorical but it serves as an artistic recipe. Though we also find that he is not totally Greek in the presentation of the murder of the king, yet he presents it with the modern cunning of an artist. Perhaps Marlowe saw that the results would be substantially fruitful if he acted on the Greek dramatic principle of pity and terror, and it really worked.

The compression and the processes of elimination have been deployed with courage and foresight. The historical truth has been sacrificed on the altar of artistic convenience. As a conscious artist he visualizes the tragic possibilities in re-arranging facts of history, and for this the method of condensation is employed by him. It takes away the chronological dreariness from the bare frame of history and adds to it the pathos and the fictitious tragic circumstances of his own imagination. The tragedy of Edward II has been imaginatively intensified by Marlowe basing the substance on the historical facts.

Edward ii christopher marlowe summary sparknotes