The Drama of John Marston
Critical Re-Visions

This is an invaluable collection of critical essays on the work of dramatist John Marston.

T. F. Wharton (Edited by)

9780521651363, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 29 January 2001

248 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.6 cm, 0.5 kg

"...much needed contribution to the critical fortunes of Marston..." Sixteenth Century Journal

Celebrating the 400th anniversary of John Marston's debut as a professional playwright, this collection of critical essays on his work by leading scholars in the early modern field discovers, in the de-centred, hilarious, but unsettling work of this idiosyncratic Renaissance dramatist, an uncannily post-modern voice. Always at odds with his contemporaries, the censor and sometimes his own audience, Marston is shown to be a deeply conflicted figure but the qualities which estranged him from previous critical eras are precisely those that are now instantly accessible. This volume's essays, the themes of which coincide both in contemporary currents in literary theory and criticism and in the plays of John Marston, reveal at every turn the full extent of his ambiguity towards politics, gender and the very medium he wrote for and in.

Notes on contributors
Acknowledgements
Note on the text
Introduction T. F. Wharton
1. John Marston at the 'mart of woe': the Antonio plays Rick Bowers
2. John Marston: a theatrical perspective W. Reavley Gair
3. Varieties of fantasy in What You Will Matthew Steggle
4. Safety in fiction: Marston's recreational poetics Patrick Buckridge
5. Insatiate punning in Marston's courtesan plays Richard Scarr
6. Touching the self: masturbatory Marston William W. E. Slights
7. 'Two parts in one': Marston and masculinity Sukanya B. Senapati
8. The Malcontent: hunting the letter Kiernan Ryan
9. The Dutch Courtesan and the profits of translation David Pascoe
10. Sexual politics in Marston's The Malcontent T. F. Wharton
11. Marston: censure, censorship and free speech Janet Clare
12. Ill-mannered Marston Michael Scott
Index.

Subject Areas: Theatre studies [AN]