Edward II: Besties With Testies

Bruce Smith, in my opinion, successfully conveys the significance of Marlowe's intermingling of class-ism and eroticism in Edward II by focusing on the inversion of the "Myth of Master and Minion." Using the following passage (lifted from Act I, Scene IV), I hope that we may shed some light on the distinction between class and gender in Marlowe's work -- if there is a distinction to be contended with at all:

Uncle, his wanton humor grieves not me,

But this I scorn – that one so basely born

Should by his sovereign’s favor grow so pert [naughty; cheeky; disrespectful]

And riot it with the treasure of the realm

While soldiers mutiny for want of pay.

He wears a lord’s revenue on his back,

And, Midas-like, he jets it [struts] in the court

With base outlandish [foreign] cullions [low fellows, “testicles”] at his heels

Whose proud fantastic liveries make such show

As if that Proteus, god of shapes, appeared.

I have not seen a dapper jack so brisk;

He wears a short Italian hooded cloak [Machiavellian politics/homosexuality and sexual deviance]

Larded with peal, and in his Tuscan cap

A jewel of more value than the crown.

Whiles others walk below, the king and he

From out a window laugh at such as we,

And flout our train and jest at our attire.

Uncle, ‘tis this that makes me impatient.

(1.4.401-418)

Smith suggests that it is "Gaveston's lowly birth, not the sexual relationship between Edward and Gaveston, that truly enrages the lords," and that for Edward's lords and nobles, "the question of Edward’s sexual desire is at bottom, then, a question of political power" (It is worth noting that the nobles of Edward II are hardly sympathetic figures -- their snobbery, lack of "dazzling" rhetoric and association with the oppressive shadow of Catholic Church emphatically divest them of any likability) (215). Focusing on the Gaveston-Edward relationship, if "male bonding is a phenomenon that transcends class distinction," then "what seems to be eroticized in Edward II is not likeness, as it is in the myths of friendship and romance, but difference, as it is in satire" (Smith 216). This "eroticized difference," as enacted through homosexual desire "in the person of Edward II exemplifies the reality that power structures are not in fact linear, "that poetic discourse about sexuality can raise questions beyond the reach of moral discourse and legal discourse" (222). Edward II introduces the "possibility of a homosexual subjectivity," as Smith puts it, but what are we to make of the three separate questions of power at work in the play? How do we reconcile the role of class, gender and the individual v. society in Edward II, and more importantly, are we even able to? Does Marlowe even want us to? Marlowe invites the reader to demonize, empathize, ironize, satirize (a lot of "ize-ing" in general)...and what is the effect of this tactic -- this exorbitant "ize-ing" -- on his reader(s)?

...And here is a link to a trailer for Derek Jarman's Edward II (film) just because...WOW! (and also because I cannot link video for some reason): http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/78502/Edward-II/trailers