Home > EARLYTHEATRE > Vol. 13 > Iss. 1 (2010)
Article Title
Abstract
Robert Greene’s reference in his preface to Perimedes the Blacke-Smith to another writer, apparently Christopher Marlowe, ‘blaspheming with the mad preest of the sonne’ is frequently regarded as associating Marlowe with the philosopher and heliocentrist Giordano Bruno. This essay sets out the evidence for identifying the mad priest with the Roman emperor Heliogabalus (AD 203-22), the subject of a lost play mentioned in the Stationers’ Register in 1594. The early modern reputation of Heliogabalus is delineated with the aim of establishing what Greene may have meant by the allusion.
Author Biography
Tom Rutter (t.rutter@shu.ac.uk) is Principal Lecturer in Renaissance Literature at Sheffield Hallam University. He is the author of Work and Play on the Shakespearean Stage (Cambridge, 2008) and of several journal articles on early modern drama, as well as being an editor of the journal Shakespeare.
Recommended Citation
Rutter, Tom.
'Marlowe, the ‘Mad Priest of the Sun’, and Heliogabalus'.
Early Theatre
13.1 (2010): 109-120 (paper). Article 5.
Available at:
http://digitalcommons.mcmaster.ca/earlytheatre/vol13/iss1/5
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