The Massacre at Paris: By Christopher Marlowe

by Christopher Marlowe, Mathew R. Martin (Editor)

This volume presents a modernised edition of Christopher Marlowe’s critical engagement with one of the bloodiest and traumatic episodes of the French Wars of Religion, the wholesale massacre of French Huguenots in Paris in August, 1572. Sensorily shocking and intellectually gripping, the play’s dramatic action spans a tumultuous two decades in French history to unfold for its audience the tragic consequences of religious fanaticism, power politics, and dynastic rivalry.

Comprehensively introduced and containing full commentary notes, this edition opens up this frequently neglected but historically significant and dramatically powerful play to student and scholar alike. The introduction examines such topics as the history of the massacre, the play’s treatment of its sources, the play’s dramatisation of trauma, and the play’s exploration of notions of religious toleration.

168 pages, Hardcover

Published August 3, 2021

About the author

Christopher "Kit" Marlowe (baptised 26 February 1564) was an English dramatist, poet and translator of the Elizabethan era. The foremost Elizabethan tragedian next to William Shakespeare, he is known for his magnificent blank verse, his overreaching protagonists, and his own mysterious and untimely death.

The author's Wikipedia page.

Reviews

[Hal · Rating 4 out of 5]

this play is a testament to marlowe’s (lack of) subtlety and his ability to make every thing at least a little bit homoerotic.