Christopher Marlowe as "overpeerer": Espionage, vision, and the Actaeon myth.
Item
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Title
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Christopher Marlowe as "overpeerer": Espionage, vision, and the Actaeon myth.
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Identifier
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AAI9830776
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identifier
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9830776
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Creator
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Wessman, Christopher John.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Patrick Cullen
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Date
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1998
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Literature, English
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Abstract
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As both playwright and spy, Christopher Marlowe was an "overpeerer." This unusual term, which the dramatist appropriates from Golding's translation of Ovid's Actaeon in the Metamorphoses, initially describes one who stands above and looks over or down upon. However, "overpeering" in Marlowe comes to entail visual competition for sexual pleasure, political power, and theatrical display. The playwright passionately engages this charged realm of the eye, and his fascination with spying and forbidden vision helps to account for the very nature of his drama. To understand the importance of secret sight in Marlowe's work, it is necessary to examine his career in Elizabethan espionage, to consider the dynamics of illicit gazing, and to appreciate the myth of Diana and Actaeon that he uses as a paradigm of "overpeering." These visual aspects are pervasive components of the self-conscious, metatheatrical drama that Marlowe forged.;The First chapter of this dissertation describes Marlowe's professional life as a spy within the fledgling institution of Elizabethan espionage. The second connects espionage to the sexual and voyeuristic aspects of overpeering, the pleasures and dangers that comprise the forbidden gaze. Chapter Three explores the dynamics of surveillance and Baconian "simulation" within The Massacre at Paris, while Chapter Four considers voyeurism and exhibitionism in Dido Queen of Carthage and Hero and Leander. Finally, the last two chapters scrutinize the use of the Diana and Actaeon myth amid the veritable orgies of spying and viewing that take place in Doctor Faustus and Edward II. The former play demonstrates the workings of what Sartre has called an "Actaeon complex," while the latter is an experiment in what might be termed "Actaeonesque history." Throughout, "seeing" of this sort leads to "making" for Marlowe--"making" in both its sexual sense, and also in the respect of creating and constructing drama. The theatrical thrills of espionage and vision are crucial to the work of this pioneering playwright.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
