This paper explores how, with England’s history as narrative vehicle, performance becomes an opportunity to locate past in present in early modern England--redefining past’s significance in the now and to the now of the audience. However, as Richard Mulcaster’s The Queen’s Majesty’s Passage and Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II illustrate, the political projects historical dramatization can serve vary greatly in the sixteenth century. In The Queen’s Majesty’s Passage, all of London turns into a civic stage that, through allegorically re-conceiving historical figures, reaffirms existing hierarchical structures and presents their new monarch as the fulfillment of England’s mythic past: as tradition and national identity exemplified. In Edward II, the playhouse becomes a place which re-imagines the past to problematize the very same concepts that the Passage seeks to unify by leaving concepts of monarch, royal authority, and Englishness open and ambiguous. So, while both performances blur lines--doubling and troubling distinctions between past-present-future and spaces in performance--these historical dramatizations diverge at the site of the spectator: on the role of individuals in defining identity, nation, community, and king for themselves.

中文翻译：

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放置和播放过去：理查德·马尔卡斯特的《女王陛下的通道》和克里斯托弗·马洛的《爱德华二世》中的历史、政治和空间歧义

本文探讨了以英格兰的历史作为叙事载体，表演如何成为在近代早期英格兰定位过去和现在的机会——重新定义过去在现在和对观众现在的意义。然而，正如理查德·马尔卡斯特 (Richard Mulcaster) 的《女王陛下的通道》和克里斯托弗·马洛 (Christopher Marlowe) 的爱德华二世 (Edward II) 所说明的那样，16 世纪历史戏剧化可以服务的政治项目大不相同。在女王陛下的通道中，整个伦敦变成了一个公民舞台，通过寓言式地重新构思历史人物，重申现有的等级结构，并将他们的新君主呈现为英格兰神话过去的实现：作为传统和民族身份的例证。在爱德华二世，剧院变成了一个重新想象过去的地方，通过让君主、王室权威和英国性的概念保持开放和模棱两可的方式，对通道寻求统一的概念进行质疑。因此，虽然两种表演都模糊了界限——表演中过去-现在-未来和空间之间的双重和令人不安的区别——但这些历史戏剧在观众的现场出现分歧：关于个人在定义身份、国家、社区和国王为自己。