Available Formats
Dido, Queen of Carthage: By Christopher Marlowe
By (Author) Ruth Lunney
Manchester University Press
Manchester University Press
1st July 2025
United Kingdom
General
Non Fiction
Literary studies: c 1400 to c 1600
822.3
Paperback
328
Width 138mm, Height 216mm
A city burns, and a queen burns for love: Dido, Queen of Carthage re-imagines one of the great legendary stories.
The encounter between a wandering hero and an African queen engenders love and loss, eroticism and absurdity, childish simplicity and compelling eloquence. Written for children to perform in the 1580s, Dido is nonetheless a remarkable play, revolutionary in its approach to character, blank verse, and audiences.
This volume is the first single-text scholarly edition in English. It is an indispensable resource for scholars, students, and theatre practitioners.
The edition features an accessible text, lightly punctuated for ease of reading and speaking. It incorporates new research into authorship (which indicates that Marlowe wrote the play), a detailed analysis of Dido's sources, and a survey of criticism; it assesses the evidence for early performances and provides extensive information about modern productions.
Ruth Lunney is an Honorary Lecturer at the University of Newcastle, Australia