Hostname: page-component-54dcc4c588-scsgl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-09-21T10:05:11.480Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Christopher Marlowe's Wound Knowledge

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Matthew Greenfield
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

When poisoned or fatally wounded, characters in Marlowe's plays often develop an uncanny knowledge of what is happening inside their bodies, including the precise anatomy of their injuries and the physiology of the onset of death. In effect, they conduct their own autopsies. These moments of peculiarly physical self-knowledge pose a useful challenge to our conventions for the representation of pain, embodiment, and interiority. Marlowe's wounded speakers deploy these anatomical selfdescriptions in a metatheatrical competition: in a struggle for the attention of the audience, describing one's wounds can be a powerful strategy.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 119 , Issue 2 , March 2004 , pp. 233 - 246
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 2004

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Works Cited

Ariès, Philippe. The Hour of Our Death. Trans. Helen Weaver. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1991.Google Scholar
Johannes, Birringer. “Marlowe's Violent Stage: ‘Mirrors’ of Honor in Tamburlaine.” ELH 51 (1984): 219–39.Google Scholar
Burnett, Mark Thornton. “Tamburlaine and the Body.” Criticism 33 (1991): 34–47.Google Scholar
Judith, Butler. Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex. New York: Routledge, 1993.Google Scholar
Bynum, Caroline Walker. Fragmentation and Redemption: Essays on Gender and the Female Body in Medieval Religion. New York: Zone, 1992.Google Scholar
Camden, Carroll Jr. “Tamburlaine: The Choleric Man.” MLN 44 (1929): 430–35.Google Scholar
Andrea, Carlino. Books of the Body: Anatomical Ritual and Renaissance Learning. Trans. John Tedeschi and Anne C. Tedeschi. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1999.Google Scholar
William, Clowes. A Prooved Practice for All Young Chirurgians, concerning Burnings with Gunpowder, and Wounds Made with Gunshot, Sword, Halberd, Pyke, Launce, or Such Other. London, 1588. Early English Books Online. UMI. 14 Nov. 2003 <http://wwwlib.umi.com/eebo/>. STC (2nd ed.) 5545..+STC+(2nd+ed.)+5545.>Google Scholar
Coats, Catharine Randall. “Reconstituting the Textual Body in Jean Crespin's Histoire des martyrs (1564).” Renaissance Quarterly 44 (1991): 62–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Douglas, Cole. Suffering and Evil in the Plays of Christopher Marlowe. New York: Gordian, 1972.Google Scholar
Karen, Cunningham. “Renaissance Execution and Marlovian Elocution: The Drama of Death.” PMLA 105 (1990): 209–22.Google Scholar
Frances, Dolan. “‘Gentlemen, I Have One Thing More to Say’: Women on Scaffolds in England, 1563-1680.” Modern Philology 92 (1994): 157–78.Google Scholar
Maryann, Feola. “A Poniard's Point of Satire in Marlowe's The Massacre at Paris.” English Language Notes 35.4 (1998): 6–13.Google Scholar
John, Ford. Love's Sacrifice. The Works of John Ford. Ed. Gifford, William and Dyce, Alexander. Vol. 2. London: Toovey, 1869. 3 vols.Google Scholar
Michel, Foucault. Discipline and Punish. Trans. Alan Sheridan. New York: Pantheon, 1977.Google Scholar
Frank, Arthur W. The Wounded Storyteller: Body, Illness, and Ethics. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1995.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jonathan, Goldberg. Sodometries: Renaissance Texts, Modern Sexualities. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1992.Google Scholar
Stephen, Greenblatt. Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1980.Google Scholar
Jacques, Guillemeau. The Frenche Chirurgerye, or All the Manualle Operations of Chirurgerye, with Divers, and Sundrye Figures, and among the Rest, Certayne Nuefownde Instrumentes, Verye Necessarye to All the Operationes of Chirurgerye. Trans. A. M. Dort. Isaac Canin, 1598. Early English Books Online. UMI. 11 Nov. 2003 <http://wwwlib.umi.com/eebo/>. STC (2nd ed.) 12498..+STC+(2nd+ed.)+12498.>Google Scholar
Heffernan, Thomas J. Sacred Biography: Saints and Their Biographers in the Middle Ages. New York: Oxford UP, 1988.Google Scholar
Hillman, David, and Mazzio, Carla. The Body in Parts: Fantasies of Corporeality in Early Modern Europe. New York: Routledge, 1997.Google Scholar
Hodges, Devon L. Renaissance Fictions of Anatomy. Amherst: U of Massachusetts P, 1985.Google Scholar
Homer. Chapman's Homer: The Iliad. Trans. George Chapman. Ed. Allardyce Nicoll. Rev. ed. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1998.Google Scholar
Ralph, Houlbrooke. Death, Religion and the Family in England, 1480-1750. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000.Google Scholar
Jones, Leonard Chester. Simon Goulart, 1543–1628, étude biographique et bibliographique. Geneva: Georg, 1917.Google Scholar
Dennis, Kezar. Guilty Creatures: Renaissance Poetry and the Ethics of Authorship. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2001.Google Scholar
Knott, John R. “Foxe and the Joy of Suffering.” Sixteenth Century Journal 27 (1996): 721–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kocher, Paul H. “François Hotman and Marlowe's The Massacre at Paris.” PMLA 56 (1941): 349–68.Google Scholar
Thomas, Kyd. Soliman and Perseda. The Works of Thomas Kyd. Ed. Boas, Frederick S. Oxford: Clarendon, 1901. 161–229.Google Scholar
Thomas, Lacqueur. “Crowds, Carnival, and the State in English Executions, 1604-1868.” The First Modern Society. Ed. Beier, A., Cannadine, D., and Rosenheim, J. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1989. 305–55.Google Scholar
Lake, Peter, and Questier, Michael. “Agency, Appropriation, and Rhetoric under the Gallows: Puritans, Romanists, and the State in Early Modern England.” Past and Present 153 (1996): 64–107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lucan. The Civil War. Trans. J. D. Duff. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1997.Google Scholar
Christopher, Marlowe. Doctor Faustus and Other Plays. Ed. Bevington, David and Rasmussen, Eric. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1998.Google Scholar
Christopher, Marlowe. Hero and Leander. Marlowe's Poems. Ed. Martin, L. C. New York: Gordian, 1966. 1–13.Google Scholar
Christopher, Marlowe. The Massacre at Paris. The Complete Plays. Ed. Steane, J. B. New York: Penguin, 1986. 535–84.Google Scholar
Maus, Katherine Eisaman. Inwardness and Theater in the English Renaissance. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1995.Google Scholar
David, Morris. The Culture of Pain. Berkeley: U of California P, 1991.Google Scholar
Friedrich, Nietzsche. Ecce Homo. On the Genealogy of Morals and Ecce Homo. Trans. Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale. Ed. Kaufmann. New York: Vintage, 1989. 217–338.Google Scholar
Ovid. Ovid's Metamorphoses. Trans. Arthur Golding. Ed. John Frederick Nims. Rev. ed. Philadelphia: Dry, 2000.Google Scholar
Katharine, Park. “The Criminal and the Saintly Body: Autopsy and Dissection in Renaissance Italy.” Renaissance Quarterly 47 (1994): 1–33.Google Scholar
Paster, Gail Kern. The Body Embarrassed: Drama and the Disciplines of Shame in Early Modern England. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1993.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
“Pericranion.” The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. 1989.Google Scholar
Kristen, Poole. “Garbled Martyrdom in Marlowe's The Massacre at Paris.” Reformations: Religion, Rulership, and the Sixteenth-Century Stage. Ed. Tiffany, Grace. Kalamazoo: Medieval Inst., 1998. 1–25.Google Scholar
Oliver, Sacks. A Leg to Stand On. 1984. New York: Harper, 1987.Google Scholar
Jonathan, Sawday. The Body Emblazoned: Dissection and the Human Body in Renaissance Culture. 1995. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 1996.Google Scholar
Jonathan, Sawday. “The Fate of Marsyas: Dissecting the Renaissance Body.” Renaissance Bodies: The Human Figure in English Culture, 1540–1660. Ed. Gent, Lucy and Llewellyn, Nigel. London: Reaktion, 1990. 111–35.Google Scholar
Elaine, Scarry. The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1985.Google Scholar
Cornelius, Schilander. Cornelius Shilander His Chirurgerie. London, 1596. Early English Books Online. UMI. 14 Nov. 2003 <http://wwwlib.umi.com/eebo/>. STC (2nd ed.) 21817..+STC+(2nd+ed.)+21817.>Google Scholar
Michael, Schoenfeldt. Bodies and Selves in Early Modern England: Physiology and Inwardness in Spenser, Shakespeare, Herbert, and Milton. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1999.Google Scholar
Serres, Jean de. The Three Partes of Commentaries, Containing the Whole and Perfect Discourse of the Civill Warres of Fraunce, under the Raignes of Henry the Second, Frances the Second, and of Charles the Ninth, with an Addition of the Cruell Murther of the Admirall Chastilion, and Divers Other Nobles, Committed the 24. Daye of August. Anno. 1572. Trans. Thomas Timme. London, 1574. Early English Books Online. UMI. 11 Nov. 2003 <http://wwwlib.umi.com/eebo/>. STC (2nd ed.) 22242..+STC+(2nd+ed.)+22242.>Google Scholar
William, Shakespeare. The Complete Works. Ed. Wells, Stanley, Taylor, Gary, et al. Compact ed. Oxford: Clarendon, 1998.Google Scholar
J., Sharpe A. “‘Last Dying Speeches’: Religion, Ideology, and Public Execution in Seventeenth-Century England.” Past and Present 107 (1985): 144–67.Google Scholar
Alan, Shepard. “Endless Sack: Soldiers' Desire in Tamburlaine.” Renaissance Quarterly 46 (1993): 734–53.Google Scholar
Siraisi, Nancy G. Medieval and Early Renaissance Medicine: An Introduction to Theory and Practice. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1990.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Siraisi, Nancy G. “Vesalius and the Reading of Galen's Teleology.” Renaissance Quarterly 50 (1997): 1–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bruce, Smith. Homosexual Desire in Shakespeare's England. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1991.Google Scholar
Leonard, Tennenhouse. “Violence Done to Women on the Renaissance Stage.” The Violence of Representation: Literature and the History of Violence. Ed. Armstrong, Nancy and Tennenhouse, . New York: Routledge, 1989. 77–97.Google Scholar
Valerie, Traub. “Gendering Mortality in Early Modern Anatomies.” Feminist Readings of Early Modern Culture: Emerging Subjects. Ed. Traub, M. Kaplan, Lindsay, and Callaghan, Dympna. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996. 44–92.Google Scholar
Thomas, Vicary. The Surgions Directorie, for Young Practitioners, in Anatomie, Wounds, and Cures, etc. Shewing the Excellencie of Divers Secrets Belonging to That Noble Art and Mysterie. 1548. Rev. ed. London, 1651. Early English Books Online. UMI. 11 Nov. 2003 <http://wwwlib.umi.com/eebo/>. STC (2nd ed.) V335..+STC+(2nd+ed.)+V335.>Google Scholar
Nancy, Vickers. “Diana Described: Scattered Women and Scattered Rhyme.” Critical Inquiry 8 (1981): 265–79.Google Scholar
John, Webster. The White Devil. The Duchess of Malfi and Other Plays. Ed. Weis, Rene et al. Oxford English Drama. New York: Oxford UP, 1996. 1–101.Google Scholar
Luke, Wilson. “William Harvey's Prelectiones: The Performance of the Body in the Renaissance Theater of Anatomy.” Representations 17 (1987): 62–95.Google Scholar
Ludwig, Wittgenstein. Philosophical Investigations. Trans. G. E. M. Anscombe. Rev. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 1999.Google Scholar
Thomas, Wright. The Passions of the Mind in General. 1598. Ed. Newbold, William Webster. The Renaissance Imagination 15. New York: Garland, 1986.Google Scholar