ABSTRACT
An article in The Independent in 1992 described a procession of Anglican clergy at the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham. A theoretical history of the trope of camp has yet to be written, but such a project could do worse than begin with Marlowe. In The Jew of Malta and Doctor Faustus, theatricality and theatrical tactics are especially foregrounded, and they suggest themselves as the basis of the subversive project of Marlowe’s work. The essence of these strategies lies in theatricalism, which is the self-conscious use of theatre, and the sabotaging ironies which that produces. Related to the issue of representation is the question of the construction of the hero or central persona of the plays. In her discussion of Faustus, Catherine Belsey identifies elements of interiority and remarks: the shrunken personifications and the pliant Vice are diminished in proportion to the dominance of the human hero whose conflict is largely internalized.
