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Marlowe's texts and oral transmission: towards the Zielform.(Christopher Marlowe)(Critical essay)

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From: Comparative Drama
Date: 20050622
Author:Pettitt, Thomas

The Elizabethan popular theater was the product of a uniquely intense and creative encounter between literary art and traditional culture, and the plays of Christopher Marlowe offer as powerful an instance of this interaction as could be wished. (1) It is not so much that Marlowe's plays sometimes reflect or encompass folklore, as that in significant and intriguing ways, they are analogous to folklore. There is nothing romantic, arcane, or subversive in this, and no appeal will be made in what follows to distant origins, deep structures, or carnivalesque inversions. Rather, the ...

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