Memorial Reconstructions: Christopher Marlowe, Cultural Memory, and the Royal Shakespeare Company

"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."

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Theatre

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2015

Author dc:creator

• Godwin, Laura Grace

Contributors dc:contributor

• Graves, Robert

• Literature, English

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

(MiAaPQ)AAI3182270

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/86495