Review by Choice Review
Sales's first three chapters incorporate the details of Marlowe's life into a larger discussion of Elizabethan society, which Sales interprets in dramatic terms. Plagues, prisons, trials, and public executions are read as dramatic texts, with particular attention paid to the Babington conspiracy and to Sir Francis Walsingham and the Elizabethan secret service. This effort "to recover some of the distinctive features of the Elizabethan mentality" is followed by chapters on Tamburlaine, The Jew of Malta, Edward II, and Doctor Faustus. Here Sales emphasizes the ways in which Marlowe's plays may have provoked their audiences to a questioning of ideological orthodoxies even as those orthodoxies were ostensibly maintained. Intended for students, theater-goers, and general readers, the book provides no notes and only minimal reference to earlier criticism. The selected bibliography is useful and up to date. Highly readable and reflecting current uses of cultural history without a daunting critical vocabulary, the book will prove very accessible to undergraduates and will interest more advanced readers as well. Recommended for any academic library and larger public libraries.-B. E. Brandt, South Dakota State University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
