Bibliography
Sep. 16th, 2009 08:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_lady_lilyChristopher Marlowe : Poet and Spy – Park Honan
I think this was one I picked out of the pages of the Times Higher Education pages, out of interest. I know quite a bit about Shakespeare, and I figured I probably should know a bit more about Marlowe.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
bardcamp features his Doctor Faustus this time around, so I figured it would be a Good Thing to have a bit of background handy. I also was curious about the 'new evidence' that proves Marlowe was working as a spy for the government, or at least what passed for the government - it all sounds a bit shady.
In fact, the whole book is a bit of a strange cross between a popular biography and a properly footnoted and indexed scholarly work. There are leaps of inference made without any apparent support from primary evidence, and discussion of various scholarly theories and interpretations of events. It's all A Bit Odd - you find yourself reading something and going 'what on earth is this doing here?'. A lot of speculation, dressed up as something a bit more respectable. Now, I don't know quite how well this sort of thing goes down in studies of writers from this period - I know that some of the hypothesising I saw would need much firmer backing if one were writing a classics book about a similar topic. But, again, there's this strange crossover between the general and specialist audience that seems to have put the style of the book slightly askew - I can't tell whether assertions of fact are asserted because they're generally accepted, or because they're bold conjectures from the limited evidence that's already been laid out.
That said, I am possibly being A Bit Picky. As a general outline of Marlowe's life and his general movements, and an introduction to the themes and concerns explored in his major surviving works, this is a very readable book to spend some time with, and I'm glad I bothered.
I think this was one I picked out of the pages of the Times Higher Education pages, out of interest. I know quite a bit about Shakespeare, and I figured I probably should know a bit more about Marlowe.
bardcamp features his Doctor Faustus this time around, so I figured it would be a Good Thing to have a bit of background handy. I also was curious about the 'new evidence' that proves Marlowe was working as a spy for the government, or at least what passed for the government - it all sounds a bit shady.In fact, the whole book is a bit of a strange cross between a popular biography and a properly footnoted and indexed scholarly work. There are leaps of inference made without any apparent support from primary evidence, and discussion of various scholarly theories and interpretations of events. It's all A Bit Odd - you find yourself reading something and going 'what on earth is this doing here?'. A lot of speculation, dressed up as something a bit more respectable. Now, I don't know quite how well this sort of thing goes down in studies of writers from this period - I know that some of the hypothesising I saw would need much firmer backing if one were writing a classics book about a similar topic. But, again, there's this strange crossover between the general and specialist audience that seems to have put the style of the book slightly askew - I can't tell whether assertions of fact are asserted because they're generally accepted, or because they're bold conjectures from the limited evidence that's already been laid out.
That said, I am possibly being A Bit Picky. As a general outline of Marlowe's life and his general movements, and an introduction to the themes and concerns explored in his major surviving works, this is a very readable book to spend some time with, and I'm glad I bothered.
