Customer Reviews

Christopher Marlowe: The Complete Poems

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Marlowe's gifts as a dramatist are easily matched by his poetic accomplishments in other genres. While some may find his declamatory style and tendency toward bombast wearying in the plays, it is perfectly suited to the frieze-like beauties of HERO AND LEANDER, and particularly to the rhetorical excesses of Lucan, whose first book Marlowe translated "line for line." And few translations of Ovid AMORES capture his eroticism and wit as well as Marlowe's. A must-have selection of poems, convenient and affordable, although the apparatus and notes are not as helpful as those in the Penguin edition (now sadly out of print) edited by Stephen Orgel.

The Everyman's Poetry edition of Christopher Marlowe's poetry is a nice collection. With extensive notes and a lengthy introduction dealing with Marlowe's work and life, it is an excellent resource for students and admirers of Marlowe alike.

As for Marlowe's poetry itself, it can be quite tedious. Steeped in rhetoric and mythology, the long poems drone on for page after pretentious page. Personally, I prefer Marlowe's plays to his poetry but both formats show him to be a cerebral and skilled author. In short, the book is not for the casual reader.

Also of note, the vast majority of the book is made up of Marlowe's translations of other works.