Marlowe's "Dr. Faustus" and "Tamburlaine": Theological and Theatrical PerspectivesWithin the context of Elizabethan critical theories on tragic drama and, more generally, on form and content, style, rhetoric and moral meaning in theatrical performance, Marlowe's major plays raise important questions about the possibility of innovation in poetics and dramaturgy on a stage which was hardly prepared to sustain the subversive self-display of the new Marlovian hero. After discussing two recent approaches (v. Balthasar; Derrida) to the definition of -orthodoxy- and -theology- in drama, Birringer examines the forms of ethical challenge inscribed within the Tamburlaine plays and Dr Faustus. Detailed analyses of the performance dynamics and dramatic styles in Marlowe's plays also help to clarify their particular status in relation to contemporary theatre practice and, especially, Shakespearean drama." |
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action actor aesthetic ambiguities Angels aspiration audience B-text become blasphemous Calvinist Cambridge Univ Christ Christian Christopher Marlowe comic conception context Cosroe's course create damnation damnd deed despair devil diabolical pact dialectic divine Doctor Faustus doctrine Dr Faustus dramatic dramaturgy effects Elizabethan emphasis ethical expression fantasies Faustian God's haue heauen heauenly Helen hell hero hero's heroic human idea imagination implications interpretation Jew of Malta language lines logic London lowe's Lucifer Macbeth magic man's Marlovian Marlowe's Marlowe's drama Marlowe's play meaning Mephostophilis metaphor mind mode moral morality play Mycetes Oxford paradox performance perspective play's poetic poetry Press question Ramist Ramus Renaissance repent reprobate rhetorical scene seems sense Seven Deadly Sins Shakespeare Sins soliloquy soule spectacle speech stage structure style symbolic Tambur Tamburlaine Tamburlaine plays theatre theatrical thee theological thou tradition tragedy tragic trans transcendence verbal verse vision visual words Zenocrate