Marlowe's Homecoming or "Edward II" Crosses the Atlantic

The paper analyzes and evaluates Eric Bentley's English rendition of the Brecht/Feuchtwanger adaptation of Marlowe's chronicle play Edward II. It notes that even where the German authors used the text of the English original as their model (in ca. 10-15% of the total number of lines) the American re-translator did not restore the original passages, and that largely for the sake of homogeneity. To be deplored is Bentley's habit of straightening out some of the programmatically inserted syntactic creases. The clarifications, in some cases, amount to "creative treason." Bentley also glosses over a number of vulgarisms used, in the German version, to bring out the bestial nature of characters or events. Occasionally, colloquialisms and idiomatic expressions are poorly reproduced. The most serious objection raised concerns the translator's preface, in which the allegedly pansexual nature of Edward II is stressed at the expense of the theme of man's isolation in a world that does not allow for heartfelt communication.