|
Also Recommended
|
|
|
Life, Work, and Thought
Gordon Campbell, Thomas N. Corns
£25.00
|
|
|
|
|
Christopher Marlowe
Poet & Spy
Park Honan
438 pages
|
Numerous halftones, 2 line drawings, 2 maps
|
234x156mm
978-0-19-923269-7
|
Paperback
|
16 August 2007
|
|
This item is printed to order. Items which are printed to order are normally despatched and charged within 5-10 days.
|
|
|
- An exciting new account of Marlowe's spectacular life as a playwright and spy, based on much new research in England and abroad
- A close picture of his friendships, including his evolving relationship with Shakespeare
- An ongoing murder-mystery, with new information on Marlowe's killer and the events leading to his death at Deptford
- The most thorough and detailed life of Marlowe since John Bakeless's in 1942
Christopher Marlowe: Poet & 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.
Readership: Scholars and students interested in Renaissance Literature and History, actors, theatre directors, and general readers.
|
|
|
Park Honan, Emeritus Professor, School of English, University of Leeds
|
|
|
"Park Honan, who has an appealingly idiosyncratic style, navigates skillfully through the latest research into the mysteries of Marlowe's story." - Sunday Telegraph
|
|
|
I. A Canterbury Youth
1: Birth
2: Petty school and the parish
3: The King's School
II. Scholar and Spy
4: Corpus Christi College, Cambridge
5: Espionage
III. With Shakespeare, Kyd, and the Ralegh Circle
6: The iTamburlaine/i phenomenon
7: iDoctor Faustus/i
8: A spy abroad
IV. Sexuality and Reckonings
9: The keen pleasures of sex
10: A little matter of murder
|
|
|
|
The specification in this catalogue, including without limitation price, format, extent, number of illustrations, and month of publication, was as accurate as possible at the time the catalogue was compiled. Occasionally, due to the nature of some contractual restrictions, we are unable to ship a specific product to a particular territory. Jacket images are provisional and liable to change before publication.
|
|
