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BOOK REVIEWS Chris Fitter, Majesty and the Masses in Shakespeare and Marlowe: Western Anti-monarchism, the Earl of Essex Challenge, and Political Stagecraft. New York: Routledge, 2021. x + 364 pp. If any scholars remain who cleave to the “pernicious myth” (viii) that the divine right of kings was an explicit and unquestioned belief held by William Shakespeare and his contemporaries, they will find in Chris Fitter’s recent Majesty and the Masses in Shakespeare and Marlowe evidence that such a notion had long been fraught. The first part of the book contains a very broad survey of what Fitter typically calls “demystifications of kingship” and sometimes “anti-monarchism” (3). This spans the first two chapters (134 pages), which review Greek, Roman, Biblical, and medieval sources as well as an international set of humanists. The range here is impressive: more than forty writers, some of whom are represented in multiple texts. It would require more knowledge than I possess to determine what, if any, complicating details have been omitted from these writers’ oeuvres. The big three humanists for Fitter are Erasmus, More, and Elyot, though Castiglione, Starkey, Ascham, and Buchanan all have their moments. The idea that humanists cared only to produce
Ben Jonson Journal – Edinburgh University Press
Published: Nov 1, 2022
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