Christopher Marlowe: Poet & Spy [Hardcover]

Park Honan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 5, 2006 | ISBN-10: 0198186959 | ISBN-13: 978-0198186953

Christopher Marlowe's life was the most spectacular of any English dramatist. One of the great playwrights of his age, second only to Shakespeare, he was also a secret agent as well as the central figure in a murder mystery. Now, Park Honan offers the most thoroughly researched and detailed biography of Marlowe to appear in over fifty years.
Honan, the acclaimed biographer of Shakespeare, takes us from Marlowe's childhood in Canterbury to his mysterious death in Deptford, shedding much light on this shadowy individual. The book features new information on Marlowe's six-and-a-half years at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, his shocking blasphemy and his street fights, his methods of preparing himself for writing, and his alleged atheism. The book includes new facts about Marlowe's adventures on the continent, where he was caught with a counterfeit coin, a hanging offense, but talked his way out of the noose and was returned to England in irons. Honan describes his attraction to scientists such as Thomas Harriot and other hard-headed realists bent on innovation and free thought. In addition, there are new details on spies and business agents that Marlowe knew, a more exact account of the circumstances that led to his murder, and a fresh description of his evolving relationship with Shakespeare.
The author of Tamberlaine the Great and Doctor Faustus, Christopher Marlowe changed the nature of the English stage. Researched in archives in England, Europe, and the United States, this superb biography paints an unforgettable portrait of one of the most remarkable figures in English literature.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

When it comes to the accumulation of apocryphal legend, few poets can compete with Christopher Marlowe: Scholars have long ruminated over evidence of his activities as a "spy, unceasing blasphemer, a tough street-fighter and courageous homosexual," not to mention his murder at age 29. In this well-crafted biography, Honan (Shakespeare: A Life) sheds light on the much-speculated (and previously erroneously reported) aspects of Marlowe's life without neglecting its more ordinary features (his stable two-parent upbringing, his diligent scholarship at Cambridge) or destroying the poet's aura of intrigue. Honan engages with the work of prior scholars, but draws his own conclusions, employing Cambridge University records, unpaid bills ("he still seems to have owed for lamb chops and beer"), and "suddenly acquired" documents to freshly reconstruct Marlowe's activities, which included arrests, brawls, imprisonments and his involvement in a counterfeiting operation in the Netherlands. Honan writes that "as a poet, Marlowe had interested himself in clandestine power, tricks, abasement, and immoral force," and by infusing his account with close readings of Tamburlaine, The Jew of Malta, Dr. Faustus and Hero and Leander, Honan explores the fascinating convergence of Marlowe's dual professions. Finally, revisiting the coroner's report and the facts surrounding Marlowe's final hours (he died after being stabbed in the face), Honan handles the poet's murder with the same attention to detail he brings to his life. The care and depth of this biography honor Marlowe's complexities-as Honan writes, "Our lives do not fit into the conventional genres of the stage, as he knew."
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From Booklist

*Starred Review* The year ends as it began, with a splendid book about the man who launched the miracle that is Elizabethan-Jacobean drama. In The World of Christopher Marlowe (2005), David Riggs immersed readers in the power struggles of Elizabethan England to convince them that Marlowe's violent death wasn't out of the ordinary and that the religion-tinged political mayhem Marlowe put onstage reflected lived reality. Honan educes more of the person. For instance, whereas Riggs says there are no portraits of Marlowe, Honan allows that at least one portrait, discovered in 1952, just may be authentic. To fully conjure Marlowe's personality, Honan analyzes his great plays--the two parts of Tamburlaine the Great, Doctor Faustus The Jew of Malta, and Edward II--to reveal their heroes' psychological complexities and powerfully suggest that their creator possessed a mind as modernly sympathetic as Shakespeare's. If anything, Marlowe preferred flawed and even villainous protagonists more than Shakespeare did, and he rather encourages seeing their sins and dark deeds as reactions to a cruel and unjust world that ultimately destroys them. Honan's Marlowe, especially read in tandem with Riggs' World, makes the Elizabethan ambience palpable. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 448 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (January 5, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0198186959
• ISBN-13: 978-0198186953
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,045,543 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Uneven & frustrating, March 27, 2006

By 

Q (Q Continuum) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Christopher Marlowe: Poet & Spy (Hardcover)

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.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Poetic License on Kit, March 4, 2006

By 

Christian Schlect (Yakima, Washington/USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Christopher Marlowe: Poet & Spy (Hardcover)

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.

13 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Antithesis of Shakespeare, January 28, 2006

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C. Hutton "book maven" (East Coast, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Christopher Marlowe: Poet & Spy (Hardcover)

Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare were both born in 1564 during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Shakespeare lived until his 52nd year and authored over 30 plays, the acknowledged master of London theatre. But during Mr. Marlowe's lifetime, he was considered the equal of Shakespeare with the production of his plays (four of which are revived to this day, especially "Dr. Faustus"). The equality didn't last long as he was killed in a tavern brawl at the age of 29.

Mr. Marlowe was a social and religious rebel. He populated his plays with the outsiders of his day (non-Christians, homosexuals, et al) and created the anti-hero, predating John Milton's Satan in "Paradise Lost" by seven decades. And here is the rub : there is scant documentation of his life, so Mr. Honan is forced to create facts out of his interpretation of Mr. Marlowe's plays and suppositions out of the English culture of that day. There is nothing wrong with this as writers of the Elizabethan period are constantly forced into doing so (see Stephen Greenblatt's "Will in the World"-2004) but the number of "qualifiers" for the speculations on each page is staggering. This leads to superb research on the actual facts known about the Elizabethan era and a lot of guesses about Marlowe's life. All-in-all, "Christopher Marlowe : Poet and Spy" gives the reader the sense of the man, if not definitive knowledge of his days. An accurate but fictional take of the playwright is Lisa Goldstein's fantasy epic, "Strange Devices of the Sun and Moon" (1993) where Mr. Marlowe's spy career is a major plot device.