Aliens and anxiety: insurrection and religious violence in Marlowe’s Edward II and The Massacre at Paris

Emma de Beus

doi:10.1093/english/efaf005

Aliens and anxiety: insurrection and religious violence in Marlowe’s Edward II and The Massacre at Paris

Emma de Beus^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

School of Arts, English and Languages

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

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Abstract

In the 1590s, England was viewed abroad as a haven, a sanctuary, and many of those facing political instability or religious violence fled to England. England’s attitude toward this early modern version of immigration was a mixture of both social anxiety and dramatic empathy. Two plays by Christopher Marlowe from the time bring these various threads of anxiety, immigration, and political control together: Edward II and The Massacre at Paris. Analysing these two plays in concert enables a better understanding of the anxieties they present as well as Marlowe’s proffered response to them. As this essay will demonstrate, these understandings play out with particular clarity in the figure of Queen Isabella in Edward II.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	262–276
Number of pages	15
Journal	English: The Journal of the English Association
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1093/english/efaf005
Publication status	Published - 19 May 2025

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG 10 Reduced Inequalities
SDG 16 Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions

Keywords

insurrection
religious violence
Christopher Marlowe

Access to Document

10.1093/english/efaf005Licence: CC BY-NC-ND

Aliens and anxiety: insurrection and religious violence in Marlowe’s Edward II and The Massacre at Paris
Copyright 2025 The Authors. This is an open access article published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits distribution and reproduction for non-commercial purposes, provided the author and source are cited.
Final published version, 882 KBLicence: CC BY-NC-ND

Shakespeare and light: a new, interdisciplinary paradigm for reading adaptations through physics
de Beus, E. (Author), Burnett, M. (Supervisor), Arredondo-Arechavala, M. (Supervisor) & Lamb, E. (Supervisor), Jul 2026
Student thesis: Doctoral Thesis › Doctor of Philosophy

Cite this

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title = "Aliens and anxiety: insurrection and religious violence in Marlowe{\textquoteright}s Edward II and The Massacre at Paris",

abstract = "In the 1590s, England was viewed abroad as a haven, a sanctuary, and many of those facing political instability or religious violence fled to England. England{\textquoteright}s attitude toward this early modern version of immigration was a mixture of both social anxiety and dramatic empathy. Two plays by Christopher Marlowe from the time bring these various threads of anxiety, immigration, and political control together: Edward II and The Massacre at Paris. Analysing these two plays in concert enables a better understanding of the anxieties they present as well as Marlowe{\textquoteright}s proffered response to them. As this essay will demonstrate, these understandings play out with particular clarity in the figure of Queen Isabella in Edward II. ",

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KW - religious violence

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DO - 10.1093/english/efaf005

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JF - English: The Journal of the English Association

ER -

Aliens and anxiety: insurrection and religious violence in Marlowe’s Edward II and The Massacre at Paris

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Shakespeare and light: a new, interdisciplinary paradigm for reading adaptations through physics

Cite this