Description
This edition is of the best-known play by one of Shakespeare's chief predecessors and early contemporaries, Christopher Marlowe. The Jew of Malta was enormously influential on Shakespeare when he came to write The Merchant of Venice, and for good reason, since the play explores anti-Semitism and revenge. An introduction discusses the significance of this formative and brilliant play, with detailed commentary provided for meanings of difficult words, lines and references. Distilled from the insight and learning found in the fuller Revels edition but updated and streamlined, this is the most contemporary commentary now available.
Read More
First performed in 1592, The Jew of Malta was one of the most popular plays of its day and has been a treasure of the Elizabethan Renaissance ever since. Set on the island of Malta when it was a center of Mediterranean trade, it deals with power and power struggles on several levels: between individuals, groups, and empires, and between money, family, and political authority. The title figure of the play is Barabas, grown wealthy by successful overseas trade. Depicted as the personification of Machiavellian ideas (as Machiavelli was understood in Elizabethan England), Barabas feels loyalty solely to his daughter and himself. His wealth makes him vulnerable to more powerful men. Threatened by the arbitrary rule of princes, he attempts to contend with them as best he can.The ensuing plots and counterplots present a spectacle of cunning, in which one machination inspires or justifies another. As an example of dramaturgy and as a record of England's expanding attention to European power politics, the play is rivaled only by Shakespeare's best.
Read Less