Shakespeare and Marlowe: Liberty in Four Plays
This is a Reading List based upon a Liberty Fund Conference on “Liberty in Four Plays by Shakespeare and Marlowe.”
Liberty in Four Plays by Shakespeare and Marlowe
Topic
These four plays examine themes of individual liberty and personal responsibility: William Shakespeare’s The Tempest and The Merchant of Venice, and Christopher Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus and The Jew of Malta. This pairing of Elizabethan contemporaries is especially appropriate, because questions of liberty and responsibility lie at the centers of their imaginative universes, yet the two dramatists approach the topic from vastly different perspectives. There is the contrast between Shakespeare’s Prospero (the seeker of wisdom who neglects his leadership responsibilities) and Shylock (the religious outsider demanding justice) with Marlowe’s Faustus (the seeker of knowledge who neglects his social responsibilities) and Barabas (the religious outsider recoiling against the state).
Guide to the Readings
Editions used:
- Christopher Marlowe, The Works of Christopher Marlowe, ed. A.H. Bullen (London: John C. Nimmo, 1885). 3 Vols.
- William Shakespeare, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (The Oxford Shakespeare), ed. with a glossary by W.J. Craig M.A. (Oxford University Press, 1916).
See also in the Online Library of Liberty:
- Collections: Literature
For additional reading see:
Session I: Dr. Faustus
The Works of Christopher Marlowe
Session II: The Tempest
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (The Oxford Shakespeare)
Session III: Dr. Faustus and The Tempest
See readings above.
Session IV: The Jew of Malta
The Works of Christopher Marlowe
Session V: The Merchant of Venice
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (The Oxford Shakespeare)
Session VI: The Jew of Malta and The Merchant of Venice
See readings above.
Reading Lists
- Addison and Smith: Freedom and Responsibility
- American Liberty in Political Documents before 1787
- An Introduction to the Major Writings of Ludwig von Mises
- Banned Books
- British and French Sources of American Constitutionalism
- Burlamaqui, Bayle: Freedom Tolerance, Natural Law
- Cato’s Letters: Liberty and Responsibility
- Cobden: Liberty and Peace
- Constant’s Principles of Politics
- Emerson on Anti-slavery
- Eric Mack, An Introduction to the Political Thought of John Locke
- Gibbon and the Rise of Christianity and Islam
- Homer’s Iliad: Liberty and Responsibility
- Hume, Smith, and Ferguson: Wealth, Commerce, and Corruption
- Hume: History of England
- James Tyrrell on Authority and Liberty
- Jefferson-Hamilton Debate
- John Milton: Liberty in his Prose and Poetry
- Major Political Thinkers: Plato to Mill
- Mandeville: Vice, Virtue and Liberty
- Mill-Macaulay Debate on Government
- Old Testament and English Political Thought
- Political Sermons of the Founding Era
- Readings from the OLL Reader
- Rousseau and Hume: Contrasting Views of Liberty
- Shakespeare and Marlowe: Liberty in Four Plays
- Shakespeare: Liberty and Responsibility
- Socialist Tracts
- Sophocles and Aeschylus: Blood Justice and the Founding of Legal Order
- Tacitus: Liberty and Tyranny in the Annals
- The Ruling Class and the State: An Anthology
- Thomas Paine and American Liberty
- Thucydides: War, Empire, and Liberty