Customer Reviews

Approaches to the Drama

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This is without a doubt the most interesting and useful new book published on Christopher Marlowe, the Elizabethan dramatist and poet, for many years. Harraway's sophisticated theoretical approach re-examines each of the major plays in turn, building upon (and often disagreeing with) previous critics' work. The many unhelpfully biased approaches to Marlowe - concerned only by his relative 'greatness' vis-a-vis Shakespeare, or pruriently attracted or repelled by Marlowe's homosexuality - are stripped away to reveal an incredibly powerful writer on his own terms. Neglected plays such as the _Massacre at Paris_ are reappraised and revealed to be powerful, original and questioning pieces of stagecraft. Marlowe, in Harraway's vital book, steps out of Shakespeare's shadow, and the myths that have grown up around his private life, to show himself as perhaps the greatest Elizabethan playwright of them all, filled with humour, wonder and intellectual power. Dr Harraway's book deserves to be first on any reading list.