Dark Renaissance

Poor boy. Dark star. Spy. Transgressor. Genius. This is the thrilling and subversive life story of Christopher Marlowe – Shakespeare’s inspiration and rival, who helped to bring England out of the cultural darkness and into the light. ’Sparkling, addictive reading' MAGGIE O'FARRELL 'Brilliant' JAMES SHAPIRO 'As evocative as any novel' PHILIPPA GREGORY 'An unforgettable literary biographical tour de force' INDEPENDENT In brutally repressive Elizabethan England, artists are frightened; foreigners are suspect; popular entertainment largely consists of coarse spectacles, animal fights, and hangings. Into this crude world comes an ambitious cobbler’s son from Canterbury with an uncanny ear for Latin poetry – which to him is a secret portal to beauty, visionary imagination, transgressive desire, and dangerous scepticism. What Christopher Marlowe finds on the other side of that door, and what he does with it, brings about a spectacular explosion of English literature, language, and culture, enabling the success of many others, including his contemporary and collaborator William Shakespeare. By the time of his murder in a Deptford tavern in 1593, the 29-year-old Marlowe will be the most celebrated dramatist of his time. Stephen Greenblatt grippingly reconstructs the involvement with the queen’s spy service that shaped Marlowe’s brief, troubling life and helped fashion his masterpieces. Along the way we discover how the people Marlowe knew, and the transformations they wrought, gave birth to the economic, scientific, and cultural power of the modern world – involving Faustian bargains with which we reckon still. Dark Renaissance is a scintillating life of a writer whose blazing talent catapulted England from cultural backwater to crucible of creativity.
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The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Will in the World reveals the daring and subversive life of Christopher Marlowe--Shakespeare's contemporary, inspiration, and rival.
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Poor boy. Spy. Transgressor. Genius. In repressive Elizabethan England, artists are frightened into dull conventionality; foreigners are suspect; popular entertainment largely consists of coarse spectacles, animal fights, and hangings. Into this crude world of government censorship and religious authoritarianism comes an ambitious cobbler’s son from Canterbury with a daring desire to be known—and an uncanny ear for Latin poetry. A torment for most schoolboys, yet for a few, like Christopher Marlowe, a secret portal to beauty, visionary imagination, transgressive desire, and dangerous skepticism. What Marlowe seizes in his rare opportunity for a classical education, and what he does with it, brings about a spectacular explosion of English literature, language, and culture. His astonishing literary success will, in turn, nourish the talent of a collaborator and rival, William Shakespeare. Dark Renaissance illuminates both Marlowe’s times and the origins and significance of his work—from his erotic translations of Ovid to his portrayal of unfettered ambition in a triumphant Tamburlaine to Doctor Faustus, his unforgettable masterpiece about making a pact with the devil in exchange for knowledge. Introducing us to Marlowe’s transgressive genius in the form of a thrilling page-turner, Stephen Greenblatt brings a penetrating understanding of the literary work to reveal the inner world of the author, bringing to life a homosexual atheist who was tormented by his own compromises, who refused to toe the party line, and who was murdered just when he had found love. Meanwhile, he explores how the people Marlowe knew, and the transformations they wrought, gave birth to the economic, scientific, and cultural power of the modern world including Faustian bargains with which we reckon still.