Problems of Rewriting and Appropriating Classics From the Time of Marlowe to that of Samuel Beckett

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

By using the analogy of certain 20^<th> century dramatists' way of alluding to or appropriating classical texts, the investigator of this project has done research on the reception of classics on the English stage from the time of Christopher Marlowe to that of Samuel Beckett. The post-Reformation situation can be likened to what is called the post-Christian situation of the late 19^<th> and the 20^<th> centuries. Although they were commonly working under the influence of Senecan tradition to create new styles of tragedy for the newly established popular theater, Marlowe, Kyd and Shakespeare had different ideas about their anachronistic positions as Renaissance imitators of classical texts, and the ways they coped with these problems revealed very subtle but significant differences among their sensibilities. Two classical traditions of Senecanism and Ovidianism were fused together into sophisticated dramatic poetry by Shakespeare, which seems to have been very effective in representing some post-Reformation sensibilities about the questions like society, family, and maternal roles.