Paradise Lost and Edward II Flashcards
Edward II performance date
1592 towards end of Elizabeths reign
Paradise lost publishing date
1667 - 6 years after the restoration of the monarchy
Edward II Key historical context
Plotting and deception, machiavellianism, babbington plot, Elizabeth and her favourites Rovvert Dudley etc
Paradise Lost Key historical context
Civil War and revolution, attempted assassination of James I and execution of Charles I
PL Changes in social system
feudalism to capitalism, Marlowe and Milton were both aspiring middling sorts but in Marlowes time there is far more security In rule
Machiavelli and Hobbes
The Prince, how rulers should maintain rule, works on the basis of divine right where as Hobbes’s Leviathan advocates divine right but doesn’t take it for granted ‘the war of all against all’
Milton strongly opposed to Hobbes but Marlowe takes ideas from machiavelli
Spying and treachery
Marlowe himself was suspected of being a spy for elizabetharrested in 1592
Marlowe vs Milton attitude towards life
Marlowe - pragmatic/cynical (Levin ‘ethos of loving dangerously’ Milton - dissenter but backs up views based on reason and god fearing judgements, far more moral
Aims in writing
Marlowe - to make money, , he sold his play to the Earl of Pembrokes Men
Milton didn’t have to worry about money, he sold intellectual property rights to Paradise Lost for only £20.
Instead Milton was conscious of a heroic task to ‘justify the ways of god to man’
Education
Both were erudite and well educates, both went to Cambridge although Milton hated it there
time of scientific revolution, Galileo and Milton’s trip to India
Use of Primary Sources
Holinshead for Marlowe and Genesis for Milton but they both twist their sources No satan in genesis and Marlowe certainly overdramatises events
Allegory of Satan
is he Cromwell or Charles (Roverts “the danger of these readings is that they quickly loose their specificity”
Tillyard Paradise Lost
“fallen before the fall”
Theological issues discussed by Acquinas, omniscence and omnipotence
omniscence and omnipotence, Evans - Satan’s rile is equivalent to “fate” but in which case, if god new about it and could do something and cared why did he not help, is it the fault of god himself??
Blake
Milton “of the devils party”
Bryson
Milton “puts the Protestant rhetoric of legitimate rebellion against a king”
Milton political tracts
Justifys regicide in Defense oft the People of England
Coleridge and Evans
Satans “motiveless malignancy” he “does evil not for the sake of any relief it will bring him but simply because it is evil”
Problematic as evil is “not just destructive, it is self-destructive”
Edward II stymeist
“Homoeroticism is empowering”
Kay on Love in Edward
“King becomes a subject in and to love”
Stocker on Edward II politics
The play underlines the “chaos which results from the collapse of political order”
“Marlowe breaks all links with the orderly world”
Ian Mckellen version
Edward falls to his knees hugging Edwards waist - reclaims Marlowes work for the gay community
Ribner on Kingship in Edward
“kingship is based on human merit”
Jarman 1991 adaption
Overtly sexual and glorifies Edward and Gavrston’s homosexuality
Edward III at the end presented wearing high heels and lipstick
Stocker on god and Edward
“No place exists for divine guidance and aid”
Brecht interpretation
Overtly political and self-examining
Gaveston as the son of a butcher- overtly about hierarchy and social order
Isabella quotes
a "dissembler" according to Kent "I am forever miserable" She "dare not speak a word" against Mortimer "French Strumpet "Melancholy life
Quotes on Gaveston
“Bare and obscure Gaveston
“The mightiest kings have had their minions”
“So basely born”
Edward quotes
“should a king be subject to a priest”
“Pliant king” compare with “mild judge” in Paradise Lost?
Edward quotes
“should a king be subject to a priest”
“Pliant king” compare with “mild judge”
“Am I a king and must be overruled”
Contemporary view of female rulers
Sign of displeasure (Bacon and Calvin
Comment on Elizabeth
Plotting and treachery in her court, the babington plot, walsingham, absence of women in public roles and the impact of he one women who is powerful in Edward II
Issabella
Assumes the role of the Machiavel
Divine right of kings
Right to rule, argued agains by Milton The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates
Divine right vs fortune
Great chain of being
disorder as in Troilus and Cressida where “degree is shak’d” and the “untuned string harps discord”
