ABSTRACT

In spite of Mortimer's apparent mastery of language's proteanism, the Latin riddle precipitates a rather unexpected ending. Mortimer's paradoxical view of identity foregrounds one of the play's key textual questions: whether or not the will of a sovereign dies with him or persists. When Mortimer wants to legitimize his authority, he attempts to appropriate Edward's name. Mortimer characterizes the animate Edward as the possessor of an eternal identity, while describing the inanimate letter in mortal terms. The identification of Mortimer's guilt from the handwriting of the letter is somewhat surprising, not because character was not thought to be conveyed in inscriptional style, but rather because Mortimer claims that the letter has been 'written by a friend'. The instability of inscription, which Faustus fatally ignores in his own plays, is the very source of its usefulness in Edward II.