Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Book Description
This book gathers all seven of the dramas of Christopher Marlowe, in which the lure of dark forces drives the shifting balances between weak and strong, sacred and profane. Supported by textual notes and featuring modern punctuation and spelling, they include:
- Dido, Queen of Carthage
- Tamburlaine the Great, Part One
- Tamburlaine the Great, Part Two
- The Jew of Malta
- Doctor Faustus
- Edward the Second
- The Massacre at Paris

With a critical introduction, a chronology of Marlowe’s life, extensive commentary, and a glossary, this will remain the authoritative anthology of Marlowe’s plays for years to come. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Excellent
I just had a brief comment. I don't consider myself an expert on Elizabethan era literature, but I've read a fair amount of Shakespeare and a number of the other authors of the period, and I have to say I was quite impressed with Marlowe. He certainly deserves to be better appreciated than he is. One of the lines from Edward II has stuck with me. I think I have it more or less correct, which was: "...and as for the multitude, they are like sparks--caught up in the embers of their poverty." You have to like an author who can write like that, but unfortunately he's been so overshadowed by the great Will that he doesn't get as much attention as he should. Anyway, by way of doing what I can, however, modest, to increase Marlowe's popularity, I'd like to say he's a damn good playwright, and that I have no qualms about throwing my own not inconsiderable bulk behind his reputation.

Not quite Shakespeare, but good--great Compliation
The Complete Plays includes all of Marlowe's plays (well, obviously.)As a bonus it includes the rather fragmentory Massacre at Paris (which many critics theorize is a corupt, unfinished, or damaged text) in a scene division only format and both editions of Doctor Faustus.

Marlowe's plays, while not on the same level as Shakespeare's best, are far and away superior to any other Renaisance era dramatist (See also, Thomas Kyd, Ben Johnson, or Richard Wharfinger--if you can find him hehe.)

The best thing about Marlowe's plays is the level of respect for the audience.Judgement of the characters is (for the most part) left to the reader.Tamburlaine can be viewed as hero and/or villian.

And, it being Renaisance drama, there are some spectacular death scenes--Edward II's anal cruxifiction, Brabas's boiling alive, Faustus's dismemberment, and the Admiral's hanging/shooting to name a few.

One complaint, and this is really more of a preference, but the textual notes are in endnote format, rather than footnote format, and they're not numbered notes--all of which makes finding latin translations a little more time consuming.
But, for fans of the genre, this is the way to go.

Not quite Shakespeare, but good--great Compliation
The Complete Plays includes all of Marlowe's plays (well, obviously.)As a bonus it includes the rather fragmentory Massacre at Paris (which many critics theorize is a corupt, unfinished, or damaged text) in a scene division only format and both editions of Doctor Faustus.

Marlowe's plays, while not on the same level as Shakespeare's best, are far and away superior to any other Renaisance era dramatist (See also, Thomas Kyd, Ben Johnson, or Richard Wharfinger--if you can find him hehe.)

The best thing about Marlowe's plays is the level of respect for the audience.Judgement of the characters is (for the most part) left to the reader.Tamburlaine can be viewed as hero and/or villian.

And, it being Renaisance drama, there are some spectacular death scenes--Edward II's anal cruxifiction, Brabas's boiling alive, Faustus's dismemberment, and the Admiral's hanging/shooting to name a few.

One complaint, and this is really more of a preference, but the textual notes are in endnote format, rather than footnote format, and they're not numbered notes--all of which makes finding latin translations a little more time consuming.
But, for fans of the genre, this is the way to go.

Good accessible edition
This is a generally good and easily available, inexpensive edition of Marlowe's plays. My only reservation about it is Steane's edition of Dr. Faustus. He makes the worst of both major texts, taking the general outline from the 1616 text but throwing in a lot of corrupt scraps from the 1604 edition for the clown scenes. I would advise anyone who wants to read Dr. Faustus to look elsewhere. I'm convinced that the 1604 version is on the whole a corrupt and truncated version of the play, but if you prefer it you might look into the Folger Library edition. If on the other hand you would rather read the play more or less as I think Marlowe wrote it, try the Signet edition edited by Sylvan Barnet.

The other plays present no major textual problems (except for The Massacre at Paris, which is pretty hopeless) and this is a fine place to meet them.

NON-ACADEMIC'S TAKE ON MARLOWE
This book is a treat.Very reasonably priced, and it's all there.The plays sweep you along (I always envision darkening Puccini-like chords in the background) images and crackling dialogue abounds.My problem is: 1) I have never seen the plays produced.This is *such* a handicap.I actually yawned through Shakepeare's "Tempest" until I saw a fine production.Now it is hands-down my favorite play and 2)I have to get in the swing of reading Elizabethan English for every reading.Therefore, I do not recommend reading in short snippets if you are also dialect challenged.

Do keep in mind Marlowe (as Shakespeare) was trying to make a living, not write for the ages.He's trying to entice you to buy a ticket and be charmed.He succeeds admirably. There is something for everyone: action, derring do, comedy, and sharp insights.

Marlowe is your mysterious, wild, sometimes trecherous friend; brilliant, but can you trust him?Probably not.If he was a vintage southern American, he might say "I didn't take you to raise."Would he lie to you? mislead you? Of course. But in everything I have read of Marlowe's I hear his voice; he is *there.*With Shakespeare, I do not have that certainty.

Recommend reading "The Reckoning" by Charles Nicholl for an excellent biography on Marlowe. It reads like an excellent mystery, which he was. ... Read more

Book Description

Customer Reviews (4)

fiction, but what fun
Farfetched, but lots of fun to read.Very imaginative and I, for one, would be happy if it were true that poor Kit was not murdered, but lived on to create.

I enjoyed the descriptions of the politics and personalities of the time, especially my favorite villain, Sir Robert Cecil.

Clever, witty, ENTERTAINING!
If you're a fan of Shakespeare, and want a way to experience the flavor of life in his times (Elizabethan England), there is no better book from the standpoint of entertainment and thought-provoking suppositions. Fiction? OF COURSE! And the author admits it. But what FUN! (This book has for me a lot of the exciting "you are there" of the film Shakespeare In Love: wildly informative and entertaining quasi-fantasy.)

Shakespeare Demeaned....
This disturbing 'biography' is pure fiction and shows that anyone can write a book and get it published if you have connections.This is the silliest thing I have ever heard.The writer spent a lot of time making comparisons when there are none to be made.

Marlowe wrote only seven plays in his young life, 'Dr. Faustus' the best known, and his poem "Hero and Leander" the only poem to outlive him.Perhaps with his interest in the occult and Satanism, a rumor has run amok that he returned in the adult human form of a famous playwright and literary figure, the prolific William Shakespeare.It's the darnest thing I ever saw.The majority of the fiction is about Shakespeare and very little about the man himself.

Having been murdered at such a young age, there will always be speculation as to the cause."Afterlife" -- I don't think so!It is all foolish hypothesis, and to dignify it at all in print is preposterous.

A well-imagined alternative history
If you've ever been bemused by the fuss about who wrote the Shakespeare plays, this book will set you straight.The foreword reprints Sam Clemens' (aka Mark Twain's) inventory of all the positively known facts about Shakespeare, and it's a scanty list. Most striking is the fact that Will's children were illiterate, that he left no literary bequest but carefully distributed physical goods down to old furniture in his will, and that we know more about his life as a trader and bean counter than we do about his acting.

Bolt takes as his premise that Shakespeare couldn't have written the plays attributed to him, and that he acted as a front for Christopher Marlowe who was writing from exile after narrowly escaping assassination; a stand-in died in his place in the infamous "tavern brawl".Bolt readily admits that this is a fiction, but argues that even supposedly reputable Shakespearean history is mostly invention, too.As he says in his Afterword: "Other writers have looked at the evidence and deduced a story; I have imagined a story, then supported it with the same sparse evidence."

The book weaves a persuasive and instructive tapestry of Elizabethan life. (Bolt does a good job of signaling what's his invention, and what's based on accepted sources.) It gave me with a good sense of the intrigue and insecurity at the heart of the regime, of the making and staging of plays in that time and of the constant flux as people and ideas flowed freely across war-torn Europe.There are frequent references to, and reinterpretations of, Shakespearian poetry and plays, and many witty asides.I sense that I missed many of the puns, anagrams, and in-jokes, but they were done with such a light touch that this didn't bother me.

My only quibble with the book is that Marlowe is a cardboard figure around whom the history turns. The peripheral characters are better drawn, from Shakespeare as a ambitious and venal minor talent, to Marlowe's friends and mentors in the spy world, to the puppetmasters like Sir Francis Walsingham and the slimy Sir Robert Cecil. This book is a history, as the title promises; it's not really a biography, even an imagined one. ... Read more

Book Description
Marlowe's highly controversial Edward II concerns the conflicting claims of love and politics, the urgency of homoerotic desire, and the cruelty with which unscrupulous authority can exert control. The boldness with which the work confronts these issues makes it unique in the period, yet this is the first critical edition of the play with full scholarly apparatus for twenty-five years.Richard Rowland's edition presents an old-spelling text which adheres more closely to the first quarto of 1594 than any edition hitherto. The present volume is the third in the Oxford English Texts Complete Works of Christopher Marlowe. A full commentary and introduction contextualize the play and give an entirely original account of the relationship betweeen the play, Marlowe's own age, and events which immediately followed it. By re-examining textual cruces, new interpretative possibilities are opened up, and the play is related to the language and ideas of Marlowe'scontemporaries. A generous selection from Holinshed, Marlowe's principal source, is also included.As critics and historians continue to debate attitudes to love, sexuality, and politics during the English Renaissance, this edition of Edward II extends that debate, offering a new understanding of the eroticism and violence of the play. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

As good as it could get
well i thought that the book was good, and even though it was introduced to me in high school, i think that maybe it is for the more mature crowd. if you can get passed the text then you will really enjoy the book. it isbest to read the book along with its footnotes.not only is it a littleeasier on the reader, but it is also more enjoyable when you can actuallyunderstand what it is you are reading.but over all the book wasexcellent.i think of it as one of marlowe's greatest works. ... Read more

Book Description

Customer Reviews (6)

Interesting book on the life and times of Marlowe
I enjoyed the history in this book, and not just about Marlowe's own past. Unlike other biographies I have read, this one sometimes gets off of Marlowe and looks at other factors which influence him, either directly or indirectly, and how they might have had an effect on his work as well as his life, right up to the end!

A Remarkable Book
Christopher Marlowe, the Elizabethan poet and playwright, was one of the most talented members of his generation. He helped pioneer the use of blank verse in dramatic poetry and used it to produce five masterpieces while William Shakespeare--who was only two months younger than Marlowe--was still finding his dramatic footing. Who can say how great he might have become if he were not cut down (possibly on orders of the Queen, herself) at the age of 29.

As a man, Marlowe was the "unShakespeare". Where Shakespeare was a prudent man who invested his money wisely and was careful not to offend authority, Marlowe was a risk-taker both in his personal life and in his plays. In an age where not toeing the official ine was punishable by death, Marlowe never met a line he was not tempted to cross. If this is what got him killed, it also makes him a fascinating person to read about.

David Riggs weaves Marlowe's personal tragedy into an exciting volume that I found as hard to put down as any thriller. It is a book I can heartily recomend.

great forenglish lit...but skim some
I agree with the reader who says the book is often abstruse. The chapter on double-agenting had my eyes rolling and I was constantly looking back pages to see who's who. Add to this the fact that these Brits (or their elite) can be referred to by a seemingly endless list of tiles each (and, then, their names, as well) and that the minor functionaries and offices of government aren't on everyone's tongue and one often feels mired in the mud. I think this could have been alleviated with chapter introductions or summaries or just a more prudent handling of the proper nouns. Anyway, when I get to that point in any book, I just try to make sure I'm getting the main point and head thru at a trot.... Life is short, and there's so much to read!

What I got that was positive from this book, and it was very positive indeed, was a sense of M's contribution to blank verse and the development of Elizabethan drama. I went to my shelves to look at some earlier stuff, and yeppir, there's Marlowe at the dividing line. This certainly gave me a whole new appreciation of him as a figure in English literature and has got me back to sampling some other Elizabethan writing, including his ,comparing and contrasting, which is a nice trip. Very interesting to see how these boy'sclassical education trained them to snap off large amounts of magnificent English poetry. (The last British governor of Chad remarked in the NYRB that he had zero training when assigned, but the underlying assumption of his superiors was that if you translate Latin poetry to Greek poetry ad lib you could surely run a country! I suppose history has dimmed that conceit, but as a liberal artser, I liked it anyway.)

The historical/political background was already well known to me and as far as who might have or could have done this or that, I like my speculation with the facts.

(The book is unfortunatly cheaply produced, though not more so than many, and and the illustrations are really muddy. A book can be handsomely done for $30. Check out, for instance, Who Murdered Chaucer - St. Martin's Press - for a sad contrast in book production, also a $30 dollar item.)

Astonishing
I'm not an Elizabethan scholar, I knew next to nothing about Marlowe or the times, and this isn't an area of particular interest to me. Nonetheless, I found this to be an incredible read. It's an absolutely fascinating sketch of an age. The first part of the book includes a rivting examination of Marlowe's education, complete with an in-depth analysis of current intellectual trends and their effects on English cultural and political life.

But this book is well titled: its chief object is the world around Marlowe, not Marlowe himself. As noted in another review, we are given very little information about Marlowe the man. While the thorough detail surrounding his life at each step is fascinating, I came away feeling like I knew next to nothing about the man. Perhaps this is simply honest, as we may not know much about him. But it was an odd feeling.

I also disagree with the reviewer who feels that this book seeks repeatedly to defame Marlowe. I found the book even-handed and uncritical of Marlowe. Perhaps that's because I don't know the "other" stories that were not included, but I don't feel that this is a brief for the prosecution.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who's intellectually curious.

The play's the thing
This is a very absorbing, sometimes astonishing, short bio of the playwright Christopher Marlowe, with a lot of detail of the time and place. The harshness of the times, the austere educational system that Marlowe survived all the way to an MA, his mysterious activities as a spy, all make for an exotic picture of a world that seems, for all its lingering barbarism, more attuned to poetry that our own. This has to be one of the most seminal eras of history, soon to produce the rarest of the rare periods of tragic drama. In that emerging sequence, Marlowe stands out for his bold embrace of the iambic pentameter, the at first poor cousin of the Latin hexameter, yet soon to shine in Shakesperean glory. Marlowe's short but brilliant career ends ambiguously, his murder more than what appears on the surface, perhaps a government assassination. The image of Faust. ... Read more

Book Description
Sixteen leading scholars provide authoritative chapters on relevant topics of Marlowe's life and works in this complete introduction to the famed pioneer of both the Elizabethan stage and modern English poetry. The essays cover his texts and style, use of classicism, and representations of sexuality and gender, as well as of geography and identity. The volume also considers the religious, political, courtly, and literary contexts of Marlowe's authorship, his presence in modern film and theater, and his influence on subsequent writers. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Cambridge companion to Christopjer Marlowe
This is a highly intellectual study of the life, times and works of Christopher Marlowe and well done as the Cambridge companions usually are.I highly recommend it to the student who wishes to learn in depth of Marlowe. ... Read more

Book Description
This volume, which completes the Oxford English Texts edition of The Complete Works of Christopher Marlowe, contains the two parts of Tamburlaine the Great, edited by David Fuller, and The Massacre at Paris, edited by Edward J. Esche. It is the first time that either text has been presented in an old-spelling edition with a full critical commentary and textual annotation. The introduction to Tamburlaine gives a detailed account of the plays' sources, stage history, and text. The critical discussion considers the fundamental clashes which Marlowe dramatizes; the differing interpretations - often involved with opposing views of the Renaissance - to which these have given rise; and how new critical methodologies, and recent research into occult traditions in the Renaissance, might affect our reading of Marlowe. The commentary brings together the extensive modern scholarship on the plays, offers some new suggestions about their probable stage action, and cites new material from the period to contextualize Marlowe's treatment of war, medicine, religious controversy, and many other subjects. It also draws on scholarship on Elizabethan pronunciation to clarify Marlowe's poetic rhythms, and uses the revised edition of OED to investigate more fully than has previously been possible the originality and inventiveness of Marlowe's language. The Massacre at Paris survives only in a severely mangled version, which bears many of the signs of a `reported text'; nevertheless, it provides us with the unique example of Marlowe using contemporary French history as his subject matter. The play has been edited from the copy of the Octavo once belonging to Edmund Malone, now held in the Bodleian Library. The edition also presents the single extant leaf of Massacre (Folger MS. J.b.8) in an authoritative form with apparatus, and argues for its legitimacy as a genuine playhouse document, although not Marlowe's autograph. ... Read more

Book Description
The essential lyric works of the great Elizabethan playwright—newly revised and updated

Though best known for his plays—and for courting danger as a homosexual, a spy, and an outspoken atheist—Christopher Marlowe was also an accomplished and celebrated poet. This long-awaited updated and revised edition of his poems and translations contains his complete lyric works—from his translations of Ovidian elegies to his most famous poem, “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love,” to the impressive epic mythological poem “Hero and Leander.” ... Read more

Book Description
Christopher Marlowe: A Literary Life situates the individual works of Marlowe within the context of his overall literary career. Areas covered include: Marlowe's preference for foreign settings and his unusually accurate depictions of them; the importance of his scholarly background; his consistent portrayal of family groups as fissured and troubled; the challenge that his works posed to contemporary orthodoxies about religion, sexuality, and government; and the long and sometimes spectacular afterlife of his works and of his literary reputation as a whole. ... Read more

Book Description
This collection of essays challenges preconceptions about Marlowe by tackling major aspects of his dramaturgy, his use of magic, the homoeroticism of the plays, his female characters, twentieth-century performances of his plays, and the radical nature of his narrative poem Hero and Leander. Taking nothing on trust, the authors review what is known about Marlowe's life and plays, conditions in Elizabethan theater, and his reputation among his contemporaries and among late-twentieth-century critics. Together they contribute to the critical effort to construct a fuller understanding of the poet and playwright. ... Read more

Book Description
Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593), a man of extreme passions and a playwright of immense talent, is the most important of Shakespeare's contempories.This edition offers his five major plays, which show the radicalism and vitality of his writing in the few years before his violent death.Tamburlaine Part One and Part Two deal with the rise to world prominence of the great Scythian shepherd-robber; The Jew of Malta is a drama of villainy and revenge; Edward II was to influence Shakespeare's Richard II.Doctor Faustus, perhaps the first drama taken from the medieval legend of a man who sells his soul to the devil, is here in both its A- and its B- text, showing the enormous and fascinating differences between the two.Under the General Editorship of Dr Michael Cordner of the University of York, the texts of the plays have been newly edited and are presented with modernized spelling and punctuation.In addition, there is a scholarly introduction and detailed annotation. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

WOW
HAVING BEING A SIXTH GRADE STUDENT WHO WAS ASSINGED TO DO A BOOK REPORT ABOUT A CLASSIC NOVEL OR SHORT STORY.IDECIDED TO CHOOSE AN UNCONVENTIONAL NOVEL .I CHOSE THIS ONE BECAUSE IT IS NOT ONLY DISTURBING BUT AMAZING AS WELL IT IS ONE OF THE BEST IF NOT THE BEST NOVEL EVER WRITTEN. MOVE OVER SHAKESPHERE MARLOWE IS COMING FOR YOR CROWN YOU MAY NO LONGER BE THE GREATEST WRITER WHO HAS EVER LIVED ONCE WORD OF THIS REVIEW GETS OUT.

Yes, the English Renaissance CAN be humorous!
Christopher Marlowe is a genius.This thorough, Oxfordiancompilation of his best known plays contains Tamburlaine the Great parts one and two, the Tragical History of Doctor Faustus in its original A-text and its later B-text, The Jew of Malta, and Edward II. The beauty of these dramas lies in the fact that they're short but powerful reading pieces.In five acts Marlowe was able to generate a story complete with action, classical allusions, and a bawdy humor one might not expect from otherwise generally classified stuffy English Renaissance drama.This book contains an exhaustive introduction that explains many details of the publication dates of the plays and the differences between versions (Faustus).It also contains a thorough section for notes that further explain the texts.Finally, it contains a glossary of the commonly used words from the texts.The bottom line?This book is a great read--it's funny (I can't begin to stress that enough), and you will appreciate Marlowe's wit and talent just as much as William Shakespeare did.Buy it today! ... Read more

Book Description
Christopher Marlowe: Poet and Spy is the most thorough and detailed life of Marlowe since John Bakeless's in 1942. It has new material on Marlowe in relation to Canterbury, also on his home life, schooling, and six and a half years at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and includes fresh data on his reading, teachers, and early achievements, including a new letter with a new date for the famous 'putative portrait' of Marlowe at Cambridge. The biography uses for the first time the Latin writings of his friend Thomas Watson to illuminate Marlowe's life in London and his career as a spy (that is, as a courier and agent for the Elizabethan Privy Council). There are new accounts of him on the continent, particularly at Flushing or Vlissingen, where he was arrested. The book also more fully explains Marlowe's relations with his chief patron, Thomas Walsingham, than ever before. This is also the first biography to explore in detail Marlowe's relations with fellow playwrights such as Kyd and Shakespeare, and to show how Marlowe's relations with Shakespeare evolved from 1590 to 1593. With closer views of him in relation to the Elizabethan stage than have appeared in any biography, the book examines in detail his aims, mind, and techniques as exhibited in all of his plays, from Dido, the Tamburlaine dramas, and Doctor Faustus through to The Jew of Malta and Edward II. It offers new treatments of his evolving versions of 'The Passionate Shepherd', and displays circumstances, influences, and the bearings of Shakespeare's 'Venus and Adonis' in relation to Marlowe's 'Hero and Leander'.Throughout, there is a strong emphasis on Marlowe's friendships and so-called 'homosexuality'. Fresh information is brought to bear on his seductive use of blasphemy, his street fights, his methods of preparing himself for writing, and his atheism and religious interests. The book also explores his attraction to scientists and mathematicians such as Thomas Harriot and others in the Ralegh-Northumberland set of thinkers and experimenters. Finally, there is new data on spies and business agents such as Robert Poley, Nicholas Skeres, and Ingram Frizer, and a more exact account of the circumstances that led up to Marlowe's murder. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Good research but not too engaging
I give the book high marks for the research that apparently went into the book. There were a number of references cited in the book that were new to me. Maybe that was enough to earn it 4 stars, but like another reviewer I found the presentation to be a bit disjointed and uneven.

Mr. Honan previously wrote a biography on Shakespeare, so it appears he was careful to avoid discrediting Stratfordian doctrine, or contradicitng what was prevously written, which may account for some of the inconsistency. I feel the book would have been much more effective if the focus remained on Marlowe, and had not attempted to explore a possible relationship between the two men.

Involved, heavily researched and meticulously presented true-life story.
Park Honan (Emeritus Professor at the School of English, University of Leeds) presents Christopher Marlowe: Poet & Spy, an in-depth biography of the famous literary figure. Chapters cover Marlowe's childhood, his street fighting, his alleged atheism, a thorough examination of the circumstances that led to Marlowe's murder, and much more. A handful of black-and-white illustrations intersperse this involved, heavily researched and meticulously presented true-life story. Also highly recommended are Honan's previous biographies, most notably the acclaimed "Shakespeare, A Life".

A Muse For The Royals.
'The Tragic History of the Life and Death of Dr. Faustus' was perhaps Christopher Marlowe's masterpiece.The hero endeavors to save his soul and trick the devil; his devil, Methostophilis, was no match for Faust who had been tormented with 10,000 hells -- after he had seen "the face of God and tasted the eternal joys of heaven."If we find succor in hate, "neglect reconciliation," 'we shall always carry hell about with us.'Faust had boasted that "a sound magician is a mighty god."

Marlowe was no atheist as believed during his short life, but he did believe in Merlin's magic.His patron, Tom Walsingham, was a former spy who dabbled with magical spirits, (not alcohol, though he did have a brewery.'Dido (Queen of Carthage)' was the play in which Dido's love is like Petrarch's, which Marlowe is said to have inherited.It is limitless; Marlowe portrays the intensity of her desires and playfulness,In his poetic treatise, she expressed herself with "a valid new logic" as she extolls the virtues of the winds and the seas.Marlowe, nicknamed Kit Marloe at Cambridge, was not a romantic, but a "questing realist."Personally, he was excitable, vulnerable and inconsistent.

'Tamburlaine' was written in blank verse using Marlowe's 'pathos' and much hyperbole.His views on history, society and social violence began to evolve as he showed the feelings, attitudes, motivation and behavior of humans from a religious aspect.He evokes four or five different religions in this play.In it, his hero was compared to Christ."In dramatizing faith, desire, and our other attributes in their ambiguity, Marlowe belongs to us."For six months in 1594, the year after he was murdered, revivals of these two parts were played out before audiences as large as two thousand.Every foreign locale in his plays had a relation to England.

He had just completed 'Hero and Leander' in 1593 before he was arrested as a spy and met his untimely death.He had portrayed the "gap between his well-disciplined life of art and thought and the loose and easy exuberance of his talk."His mentor was partial to speaking Latin, which he called 'the music of the spheres.'Born in February, 1564, he was only twenty-nine when he died in May, 1593.His memory lingers on.

Uneven & frustrating
This book seems to have been written mainly for an audience of professional Marlowe scholars. General readers will find it frustrating and confusing. His writing often wanders all over the place. For example, in reference to Marlowe's activities as spy, Honan writes, "He involved himself in some duplicity, if not in faithlessness and treachery, with regard to fellow scholars at Cambridge" (109), suggesting that Marlowe may have betrayed some of his fellow students with Catholic sympathies. But the point is frustratingly dropped until some 44 pages later, when Honan observes that "we cannot be certain that he betrayed Corpus [i.e. Cambridge University] men, or lured them as a provocateur" (153), seemingly contradicting his earlier point. Because his writing tends to wander, the story of Marlowe's life is hard to follow in Honan's account. Important contexts, such as espionage under Queen Elizabeth, and patronage, are not well-explained. Honan assumes that readers already have a detailed knowledge of these subjects.

An account like this necessarily involves substantial speculation, since the documentary evidence is quite spotty. Readers need to know exactly what the historical evidence is, and where speculation begins. Honan's discussion of the documentary evidence is quite uneven. In some places he gives a detailed account, but in many other places, he simply leaves this essential information out. As a result, the reader is often wondering about the historical basis for Honan's account. He often fails to distinguish fact from speculation.

One useful feature is an appendix which reproduces some important historical documents including the so-called Baines libel and coroner's inquest of Marlowe's death.

PoeticLicense on Kit
A book best for people with some prior understanding of Marlowe's works and the era in which he lived. In regard to the spying done, most casual readers will be lost in the confusing cross currents of British politics, heavily influenced by religious factors, of the late 1500s. And the fact is much of Marlowe's life is lost to documented history. In a pleasing style, Professor Park Honan fills the lacunae with his informed guesses and conjectures. ... Read more

Book Description

"Playing with Desire" takes a new approach to Christopher Marlowe's body of writing, replacing the view of Marlovian desire as heroic aspiration with a far less uplifting model.Fred B. Tromly shows that in Marlowe's writing desire is a response to calculated, teasing enticement, ultimately a sign not of power but of impotence.The author identifies this desire with the sadistic irony of the Tantalus myth rather than with the sublime tragedy exemplified by the familiar figure of Icarus.Thus, Marlowe's characteristic mis en sc¦ne is moved from the heavens to the netherworld.Tromly also demonstrates that the manipulations of desire among Marlowe's characters find close parallels in the strategies by which his works tantalize and frustrate their audiences.

Closely examining all the plays and the major poems, the author deploys a variety of resources - Renaissance mythography, the study of literary sources (especially Ovid), comparisons with contemporary writers, performance history, and social history - to demonstrate how central Tantalus and tantalizing are to Marlowe's imagination. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Very Accurate and Comprehensible Marlowe Study
Perhaps the best new book on Marlowe's works, which includes references to the classics (Levin's The Overreacher for example).Though Tromly extends some of his arguments beyond their usefulness--his Tantalus image--the work remains entertaining and informing throughout.Students, go to this work first for an up to date exploration of Marlowe's work. ... Read more