The Complete Plays

The complete plays of Christopher Marlowe, in which the lure of dark forces drives the shifting balances between weak and strong, sacred and profane

Marlowe’s seven plays dramatise the fatal lure of potent forces, whether religious, occult or erotic. In the victories of Tamburlaine, Faustus’s encounters with the demonic, the irreverence of Barabas in The Jew of Malta , and the humiliation of Edward II in his fall from power and influence, Marlowe explores the shifting balance between power and helplessness, the sacred and its desecration.

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