I had never thought of Christopher Marlowe and how he was used in Shakespeare's time, so this book was everything that I was wanting and enjoyed learning about him and the rest of the time-period. Stephen Greenblatt has a strong writing style and was able to create something that I was wanting to read this.

More interesting as a social and cultural history of its time and a work of literary criticism than as a life of a shadowy figure, but full of lots of interesting tidbits and some fascinating analysis.

When it comes to popular histories of the Renaissance, there’s no one who can hold a candle to Stephen Greenblatt. He’s one of those writers who wears his prodigious learning lightly, and I’ve yet to read a book of his that wasn’t anything less than brilliant. In his newest book, Dark Renaissance: The Dangerous Times and Fatal Genius of Shakespeare’s Greatest Rival he gives us a fascinating portrait of Christopher Marlowe. In this accessible but deeply researched and eloquently argued book, Greenblatt immerses us in the world of Elizabethan England, a time that was very different than our own but, thanks to his incisive prose, comes to feel almost as familiar as the one in which we now live.

It’s Marlowe’s misfortune that he happened to be writing at almost exactly the same time as Shakespeare, and while the glover’s son from Stratford-Upon-Avon became the most famous playwright and writer in the world, Marlowe has always played second fiddle. As Greenblatt makes clear, however, this is truly unfortunate, because Marlowe was an undoubted genius. He was one of those literary figures who was both very much a product of his own era and yet, thanks to his risky behavior and his even riskier artistic endeavors, pushed drama into new and exciting forms, even as he did the same for the culture at large.

As he has in his previous works, Greenblatt excels at immersing us in the heady, dangerous, beautiful, and cruel world of Elizabethan England. The 16th century was without a doubt a period of significant ferment, one in which Protestantism and Catholicism were still vying for supremacy, and one in which established truths were in constant danger of being overthrown by new ways of thinking and seeing the world. This gave the authorities, including Queen Elizabeth I and her various courtiers, many headaches, and they often resorted to desperate efforts in order to keep people and ideas in their appointed places. For all that they sought to control what people could read and what they could see, however, there were ways of thwarting them, and few were as adept, or as committed, to pushing the boundaries and flirting with disaster as Christopher Marlowe.

Marlowe, arguably even more than Shakespeare, was uniquely positioned to take advantage of the brave new world that was slowly opening up. In part this stemmed from the fact that, unlike Shakespeare, he managed to procure a very good education, even going so far as to earn a Master of Arts degree from Cambridge. Throughout his career as a playwright Marlowe would put this education to magnificent use, and in some important ways he paved the way for Shakespeare, including in his use of blank verse.

He also moved among some very rarefied company. In addition to Shakespeare–with whom he probably collaborated on several works–Marlowe also rubbed shoulders with some very powerful (and very dangerous) men, among whom two of the most notable were Francis Walsingham and Sir Walter Raleigh. Both of these men were very prominent parts of Elizabeth’s court, with Walsingham serving as her chief spymaster and a true maestro when it comes to the arts of spycraft. Greenblatt firmly aligns himself with those who believe that Marlowe was on Walsingham’s payroll, and he is quite convincing in his argument. There’s quite a lot of evidence to point in this direction, not the least of which is the fact that the government intervened to ensure that he got his Master of Arts degree.

While Greenblatt is keen to situate Marlowe in his historical circumstances–he remains, as he has always been, one of the finest practitioners of new historicism working today–he also offers rich, textured, and compelling readings of Marlowe’s poetry and plays. These range from Tamburlaine the Great and Edward II, both with their reflections on leadership and conquest (and, in the latter’s case, with the specter of same-sex eroticism) to The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus and its engagement with the limitations and weariness of knowledge and its toying with atheism The Jew of Malta and its themes of revenge and bloodshed. In his art as in his life, Marlowe was always willing to go where others feared to tread, and it’s easy to see why his works became so popular, even as they tended to earn the opprobrium of those in authority (after all, flirting with atheism and same-sex relations was always a recipe for condemnation in a place like Elizabethan England).

Marlowe, in other words, was brilliant precisely because he managed to take what was around him and turn it into sublime stage and poetic art. The flip side of this was that Marlowe was often playing with fire when it came to his life, his beliefs, and his drama. As Greenblatt demonstrates time and again, he was always putting his toe right on what was deemed acceptable and, very often, he was putting it over it. After all, you don’t play around with controversial figures like Walter Raliegh and Henry Percy–the latter of whom was known as the Wizard Earl for his dalliances in the occult–without putting yourself in danger. The same was even more true of someone like Walsingham, who played very dangerous games when it came to politics.

To be sure, as Greenblatt himself acknowledges, much of what we know about Marlowe’s life is a matter of speculation. This includes the circumstances of his death, which are just as cloudy now as they were in the 16th century when he perished in a brawl with several other men. Here too Greenblatt draws on all of the evidence at his command, and the later portions of the book are as compulsively readable as any spy novel.

I emerged from Dark Renaissance having learned a great deal about both Marlowe and the world that produced him. This is a rich and fascinating book that combines the best of literary criticism with rigorous historical knowledge. I can’t recommend it highly enough. Be sure to buy it or check it out from your local library when it releases in September!

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me an ARC to review.

So happy to read this preview copy from NetGalley.

Greenblatt as always writes with clarity and an engaging tone. The life of Christopher Marlowe holds so much mystery, but there is no question that this genius was complex, elusive and brilliant. Greenblatt links Marlowe’s breakthrough poetry and subject matter to the works of Shakespeare, but Marlowe is always the star of the show, and deservedly so. Of course, as with the life of Shakespeare, so much needs to be surmised here- there is a lot of ‘perhaps’ and ‘it’s possible that’. This is not an issue for me. Greenblatt never reaches and never gives the idea that he is imposing his idea of Marlowe’s life or grasping at straws. We know that both Marlowe and Shakespeare came from humble origins, and their lives would not have been documented. Playwrights were not stars, their works not published for posterity and their lives need to be pieced together through painstaking research. We are beyond lucky that Shakespeare had friends to publish his works in the First Folio. Sadly, Marlowe only wrote 7 or so plays before his murder at the age of 29, and there exist no original manuscripts or complete works like the First Folio. His short life was exciting & mysterious. We have a picture of a brilliant young boy who managed to win scholarships, earn an MA from Cambridge and pen works of such originality and brilliance that even Shakespeare hustled to keep up with. That he inspired Shakespeare illustrates his brilliance. For anyone interested in Elizabethan England, Shakespeare, most of all the elusive Marlowe and a deep dive into the literature and society of the time, this book is a real treat.

There is a bit of a "tell" in the subtitle of Stephen Greenblatt's Dark Renaissance: The Dangerous Times and Fatal Genius of Shakespeare's Greatest Rival. Please notice that it doesn't bother to name the subject of the book, Christopher Marlowe, probably because Shakespeare sells lots of books while Marlowe will not.

This is not to say that Marlowe wasn't a talented individual. However, the biggest problem about Marlowe is that we know almost nothing concrete about him. Yes, where he was born, grew up, went to college, and his plays. Was he a "rival" to Shakespeare? Not as far as I can see. We don't know for sure. It is highly likely they did and perhaps even collaborated. But like the vast majority of this book, Greenblatt needs to couch nearly every sentence with "probably" or "possibly." In fact, he even conjures an entire conversation between Shakespeare and Marlowe.

My criticism isn't meant to question Greenblatt's scholarship but merely his storytelling choices. He never passes off a supposition as fact. There are very little facts, though, and it made me wonder why bother writing on, for all intents and purposes, a man lost in the fog of history. It doesn't help that like the Shakespeare conversation, Greenblatt will sometimes conjecture so hard that it shows the points he's trying to make as opposed to telling a compelling story.

If you want to learn a bit about English society around the time of Marlowe and some entertaining literary criticism, then you may enjoy this book. Those looking for the book to deliver on its subtitle will be very disappointed.

(This book was provided as an advance copy by NetGalley and W. W. Norton & Company.)