Here I will offer only a brief description of Priya’s presentation as her own handout summarizes it better than I could hope to:
· She started by describing the history behind the play. There were in fact widespread rumors about Edward’s homosexuality/bisexuality during his reign.
· Marlowe’s play was published five weeks after his death. It is based largely on Holinshed’s account of Edward II’s reign although Marlowe compresses and dramatizes the historian’s work.
· Some critics have seen Marlowe as highly moral while others see him as deeply subversive.
· She quoted Act I Scene 4 lines 401-418 and discussed Bruce Smith’s argument that the play’s nobles are less angry at Gaveston for his homosexuality than for his social climbing. She held that Smith’s account may underestimate the importance of gender and sexuality in the play’s conflicts.
· She also discussed Smith’s argument that this play is something of a reversal of the traditional master/minion relationship in that Edward seems to be effeminized despite inhabiting the master’s role.
Discussed:
· It was suggested that Priya’s first question should be modified in a way that would require us to also think about the play’s discourse of nationalism. Evidence of this discourse was said to include the nobles’ references to Gaveston’s French heritage. It was clarified that this national discourse was an anachronism that dealt with national rivalries in a way that would have been legible to Marlowe’s audience but would not have made as much sense to Edward II and his contemporaries.
· It was noted that Edward II is a particularly early example of an English history play. It was further noted that this play is closely related to Shakespeare’s Richard II. Likewise, Edward’s choosing of favorites seems analogous to what we currently know about King James I.
· It was explained that Gaveston was the first invented Duke in the history of English royalty. There was the suggestion that such favoritism might not have been unrelated to the rise of Puritanism.
· It was noted that many of the complaints about Gaveston are related to his clothing. The noting of this pattern led to a discussion of sumptuary laws (laws put in place to govern to stop non-Aristocrats from dressing too well and consequently threatening the previously rigid and almost-enforceable stratification of English society). Significantly, these laws also extended to cross-dressing.
· English playwrights often played to their audience’s sense of themselves as common and plainly dressed as opposed to the fancy peoples of the continent. Related to this phenomenon are the previously noted complaints about Gaveston’s clothes, which are often said to be Italian.
· It was posited that while Smith argues that the nobility’s anger is centered around Gaveston’s social climbing rather than his homosexuality, the nobility’s anger about Gaveston’s social climbing might in fact be a mere stand in for a sexual prejudice that couldn’t be directly represented.
· Our attention was drawn to Act 2 Scene 1 Lines 31-43, wherein Spencer Junior argues that masculinity is not defined by show but by action. It was wondered if this sentiment goes against the grain of the rest of the play.
· The discourse of the “natural” and “unnatural” was invoked, and it was suggested that lying, and particularly Isabella’s lying, might be what the play finds most unnatural. This point led to a discussion of Marlowe’s tendency to avoid the naturalizing discourse that Lyly made so popular.
· All of which led to a fuller discussion of Marlowe’s style. Marlowe was noted to be a very savvy stylist, the wielder of the mighty line, in fact, and therefore it was found to be significant that this play tends to avoid figurative language. The play’s music was characterized as dirge-like. It was posited that the play almost demands us to read it with a hermeneutics of suspicion that we might discover where the pleasure in it resides. This idea was given the following strongly-worded formulation: this play is almost determined not to be liked.
· The mutable love of Isabella for Edward was contrasted with the apparently unchanging love between Edward and Gaveston. It was suggested that the play seems to raise the question: how can the viewer tell if a love is authentic? How is such love represented on stage? in life? It was noted that Isabella begs Edward to look at her body and her tears as signification of her authentic love. (Later our attention would be drawn to Act II Scene 3 and we will be asked to consider Kent’s attempt to perform authenticity).
· In response to a comment about the Revel’s edition’s stage directions it was noted that the formalized fawning of court rhetoric is so over the top that it can be difficult to tell when the nobles are being ironic and when they are offering due reverence. Marlowe’s nobles are never sincere—they are either being sarcastic or being forced into outrageous deference.
· Smith takes as part of his discussion the absolutely crucial question: where does Marlowe direct his audience’s sympathies? An answer was ventured: Marlowe only makes the romantic relationship between Edward and Gaveston sympathetic. The problems of government are not really personalized and made sympathetic.
· Much was said on the subject of performing the role of king. It was noted that this subject was a pervasive and popular one and that many plays, from Edward II to Shakespeare’s history plays, got a great deal of mileage out of raising questions about everything from the morality of usurpation to the problems of the marriage of convenience. These plays questioned not only what it meant to be but what it meant to perform the role of royalty.
· With regard to the play currently under discussion, it was argued that because Edward II did not have the respect of his court, when he refused to play the role of king in the “appropriate manner” there was nothing holding his government in place. His failed performance led everything to fall apart—leading to both his chance for a radical self-refashioning as well as the political revolt against him. It was noted that Edward similarly refuses to play the “appropriate” or traditional role of husband/lover with regard to Isabella.
· Here a most interesting distinction was made. While Edward might not play the role of “king” particularly well from a traditional point of view, he nevertheless does possess some rhetorical talent and can be seen as working to forge a new role entirely, to stage manage an entirely new type of rule.
· It was argued that the Edward/Gaveston relationship is childish—childish in a playful way but also childish in a dark, vengeful way.
· It was argued that the Nobles’ decision to rule in Edward’s name mirrors the king’s earlier offer to split up his kingdom.
· A compelling comment was made to the effect that Edward and Gaveston rule together as if they were trying to inhabit one kingly body. (Later it would be suggested that, finding his second, divine body of little use, Edward attempts to replace it with Gaveston).
· The relationship between Edward and Gaveston was further discussed. It was claimed that one of the things that Edward wants from Gaveston is to share some of the stress of kinghood with his friend. Gaveston, for his part, is willing to imagine such a thing, even though in Marlowe’s time such an imaginative leap constituted a thought crime in and of itself. This shared imagining was posited as a crucial part of the play’s erotics.
· Finally, our attention was directed to Act I Scene 4 Lines 272-. Here Marlowe, never a lazy writer, uses bad dialogue to make a point. He registers that something is deeply out of joint in the kingdom, and by emphasizing the insincere language of the court, he challenges his audience to remember to search for moments of authentic desire.
