Review

Author(s): J. H. P. Pafford
Review by: J. H. P. Pafford
Source: The Modern Language Review, Vol. 64, No. 3 (Jul., 1969), p. 635
Published by: Modern Humanities Research Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3722067
Accessed: 29-12-2015 23:05 UTC

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 Reviews 635
Tamburlaine the Great. Parts I and II. By CHRISTOPHER
MARLOWE. Edited by
JOHN D. JUMP. (Regents Renaissance Drama Series) London: Arnold.
I967. xxvi + 205 pp. 15. (paperbound 7s. 6d.)
Edward the Second. By CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE. Edited by W. MOELWYN MER-
CHANT. (The New Mermaids) London: Benn. I967. xxx + Io8 pp.
I5s. (paperbound gs. 6d.)
Dramatic Uses of Biblical Allusionsin Marlowe and Shakespeare.By JAMESH. SIMS.
(University of Florida Monographs: Humanities, 24) Gainesville: Univer-
sity of Florida Press. I966. 82 pp.
In continuing here his valuable work on Marlowe, Mr Jump acknowledges his
debt to that great Marlowe scholar Una Ellis-Fermor, although he disagrees with
her on at least one point. It was in her book of I927 rather than in her edition of
Tamburlainethat she lamented (p. 29) what she and others have considered the
bathos of 'The sweet fruition of an earthly crown' (Part I. 11.7.29). Mr Jump
rightly points out that to the contemporary mind the place of the throne in the
world order was such that there would have been no bathos. Furthermore, Mar-
lowe's careful dramatic build-up here of the semi-divine importance of the crown
has perhaps not been sufficiently noticed; and one answer to the 'Marlowe is a
poet, not a dramatist' criticism could lie in a consideration of 11.5.I-7; 50-64;
II.7. 2-29. Mr Jump provides a sound, straightforward edition, although some of
the footnotes seem unnecessary: few students reading Marlowe should need to be
told, for example, that 'stout = bold' or 'not a whit = not a bit'; but if this is a
fault it is on the right side: scholarly superiority can make too little of language
difficulties. Mr Jump's straightforward reading is surely healthy. Idealistic inter-
preters of Marlowe see too much intellectual and spiritual complexity and pro-
fundity, particularly in Faustus, a play which gives a powerful exhibition of an
extreme form of die schliessende-Tiir Panik. Much of Marlowe's genius lies in his
marvellous and wonderfully varied verse, his pageant-drama skill and its drum
music - with the brass not far in the background. He is also a skilled opportunist
in catering for topical interest - as in the Faust legend and necromancy, anti-
Jewish feeling and the St Bartholomew massacre and its aftermath.
EdwardII used to be regarded as the latest and most mature of Marlowe's
plays. The chronology was changed when F. S. Boas in I940 saw that Marlowe
must have used the English Faust book. It was then held that a statement made in
December 1592 that a claim had been made in May 1592 for the right to print the
book, meant that the book had in fact been printed then, and so Faustusmust have
been written after May I592. But this is an unjustifiable assumption: the claim
could have been made months after the book was printed, and this lost translation
of the German of 1587 could have been printed at any time after that date, and the
original placing of Faustusbefore EdwardII may well be right. At all events, in spite
of the important view to the contrary of Mr J. C. Maxwell and Miss Muriel Brad-
brook, Mr Merchant considers EdwardII to be the most mature of Marlowe's
plays, and I agree with him. This edition has a good introduction, but notes are
kept to a bare minimum.
Mr Sims acknowledges his debt to Richmond Noble's Shakespeare'sBiblical
Knowledgebut deals also with early and minor dramatists and extensively with
Marlowe, and concentrates on dramatic effect. He believes that Marlowe's use of
the Bible in Dr Faustusand TheJew of Malta influenced Shakespeare. The business
of tracing 'echoes' is always dangerous, and some put forward by Mr Sims seem
rather faint. There is a bibliography but no index. T* H
J. 11.
PL1. . PAUrn
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LONDON

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