Product Description

Key Features:

• Study methods
• Introduction to the text
• Summaries with critical notes
• Themes and techniques
• Textual analysis of key passages
• Author biography
• Historical and literary background
• Modern and historical critical approaches
• Chronology
• Glossary of literary terms

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #224199 in Books
• Published on: 2001-07-31
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 136 pages

Customer Reviews

All the stuff you need
Edward II is horrible & confusing, but it's got a weird sort of fascination if only you can find your way through it. If you find yourself trapped in the middle of it, or if hard-hearted teachers have dumped it on you & told you to write about it, Jill Barker's York Notes Advanced are your lifeline. It's all there - plot, characters, imagery, historical background, what those guys found funny & we don't, & all the rest of it, along with some nifty hints about trendy interpretations & what the posh critics are saying. If you want to impress the examiners, here's your chance. You might even get to like the thing.

Gay for sure but not very jolly
This historical play is better than some other plays by Marlowe because the events it is based on are, by themselves, well built and full of suspense. But Marlowe insists on the negative side of things. He sees Edward as a perverted King who only revels in carnal pleasure with his minions. He wastes the money of the crown and irritates all the Barons and the Queen. This leads to his death. Marlowe then shows Mortimer, the Queen’s lover, as a tyrant, a dictator, a criminal, an unpolitical figure, and that leads him to his fatal end. Marlowe likes gross events and bloody acts. He has all his « victims » executed on the stage and even Edward is killed in full sight of the audience in a most disgustful way in a dungeon that is the receptacle of all the rejects of Berkeley Castle, particularly from its toilets and its water closets. The only moment of epiphany is the sudden revelation of Edward III as a King of justice. But here again this new teenage King goes to some extremes and has his mother sent to the Tower of London, though, we know, she will survive thirty one years. Marlowe probably invented Elizabethan drama, but he could not – and did not have enough time to do so – bring it to the level it will reach only with Shakespeare. His language definitely is the « blank verse beast » that Bernard Shaw rejected. It flows marvellously and fluently but it has none of the poetry, beauty and embroidery that Shakespeare’s will master and illustrate.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

A basic introduction to the central themes of Edward II
While there is little attempt to relate the issues in the play with the issues of Marlowe's own times these notes provide a surprisingly comprehensive starting point for anyone studying Edward II. The notes provide a scene by scene guide and a review of the themes which the play deals with. Great if you're encountering Marlowe for the first time or have come to revise the play and it has been a while since you originally read it.