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Loading... The Malcontentby John Marston
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. A weirdly post-modern play that was pretty funny. ( ) This is one of the plays we were supposed to read in a revenge tragedy course that I took, but after I had purchased it, the professor dropped it from the syllabus in favor of Titus Andronicus. My interest in Tudor revenge tragedy was sparked by the (brilliant) cinematic adaptation of The Revenger's Tragedy, and none of the other examples of the genre have ever quite lived up to that one-- full of wit, melancholy, and cheerful violence. (Well, Hamlet is better, of course, but it's not exactly a typical revenge tragedy.) Still, I was looking forward to this one, but as I was reading it, I was struck by the fact it sure was taking a while for the revenging to happen. Well, it never did. Marston wrote a subversive take on the genre, where everyone reconciles in the end. I don't know if it was good or not; I just wanted my bloodbath! (originally written January 2008) no reviews | add a review
Belongs to Publisher SeriesIs contained inThe Anchor anthology of Jacobean drama by Richard C. Harrier (indirect)
"This Malevole is one of the most prodigious affections that ever conversed with nature: a man, or rather a monster, more discontent than Lucifer." The Malcontent is a striking example of the new satiric tone and moral seriousness in English comedy of the early 1600s. The play's vision of a fallen humanity driven by lust and ambition is created partly by its depiction of Machiavellian intrigue in the court of Genoa, and partly by the disaffected Malevole, the malcontent of the title, who is actually the deposed Duke Altofronto in disguise. Marston's tragi-comedy is full of reversals, surprises and moral transformations and offers a thin disguise for the Jacobean court and its vices. This new student edition contains a lengthy new Introduction with background on the author, date and sources, theme, critical interpretation and stage history. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)822.3Literature English English drama Elizabethan 1558-1625LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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