Description
A new edition of the Elizabethan dark comedy which is seen to be topical in its concern with international politics. The editor's introduction forms a critical discussion and includes a stage history of the play. It features commentary notes on language and staging.
Read More
So popular in its time that impresario Philip Henslowe staged it duringthe plague years of 1592 and '93, this 'tragical farce', as it is bestdescribed, is hard for modern audiences to swallow. The rich JewBarabas fulfils all of the anti-semitic prejudices that had beencurrent in Christian Europe for centuries, but the Christians areequally viciously exposed as vicious despots and hypocrites. Thisedition sets the play in the cultural, religious and political contextof Elizabethan London to show that what Marlowe presented to hisaudience was a shrewd, perhaps cynical, analysis of aggression andxenophobia; it collapses ideological structures of all kinds.
Read Less