Essay: the Court Favourite in Marlowe's 'Edward II'

This essay was written by a second-year undergraduate at Durham University. It answers the question:

Gaveston: What greater bliss can hap to Gaveston
Than live and be the favourite of a king?
Sweet prince, I come. These, these thy amorous lines
Might have enforced me to have swum from France,
And, like Leander, gasped upon the sand,
So thou wouldst smile and take me in thy arms.

(Christopher Marlowe, Edward II, 1.1.1-9)

Taking this passage as a starting-point, write an essay on the phenomenon of the ‘court favourite’ in Renaissance literature.

It looks at the ‘court favourite’ figure in Marlowe’s play, Edward II, as well as other contemporary Renaissance literature, mythology, religion, and homosocial bonds within the early modern court.

Can be used for university and A-level examples.