The World of Christopher Marlowe"Riggs brings it all together brilliantly, assembling all evidence of Marlowe's life and adding to that a wider and deeper focus . . . Superb."--Los Angeles Times The World of Christopher Marlowe is the story of the troubled genius, raised in the stench and poverty of Canterbury's abbatoirs, who revolutionized English drama and poetry, challenging and scandalizing English society before he was murdered in his prime. David Riggs, a prizewinning Elizabethan scholar, evokes the atmosphere and texture of Marlowe's life from his birth to his ties to the London underworld and his triumphs onstage. It was a time when nothing was sacred, and no one was secure. Espousing sexual freedom and atheism, Marlowe proved too great a threat to the religious and political leaders of the time, who were struggling to maintain their tenuous grip on power. In the wake of his untimely death, Marlowe would leave behind a shadowed legacy of undeniable genius. This magisterial work of reconstruction illuminates his enigmatic, contradictory, and glorious life with immense richness. "The book engrossingly narrates the circumstantial details of Marlowe's life against a richly detailed backdrop. Riggs writes with scholarly yet conversational elegance . . . Enjoyably provides fresh insights into the life and work of this important poet and playwright." --San Francisco Chronicle "A worthy book . . . if you want an exhaustive account of the life and times, Riggs is your man."--The New York Times Book Review |
Contents
Reinventing Marlowe | 1 |
Citizen Marlowe | 9 |
Lessons Learned in Childhood | 25 |
Speaking like a Roman | 45 |
Scholars and Gentlemen | 63 |
Thinking like a Roman | 78 |
The Teacher of Desire | 98 |
Plots and Counter Plots | 127 |
He is like Dr Faustus | 232 |
Double Agents | 250 |
The Counterfeiters | 274 |
Waiting for the End | 293 |
In the Theatre of Gods Judgements | 316 |
Epilogue | 339 |
Notes | 351 |
Works Cited | 377 |
Proceeding in the Arts | 159 |
In the Theatre of the Idols | 190 |
Notoriety | 221 |
398 | |
399 | |
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Common terms and phrases
actors Admiral's Men Aeneas agent Allen Amores Archbishop atheism Babington Baines's Bakeless Barabas blank verse boys Burghley Cambridge Canterbury Catholic Cholmeley Christ Christian Christopher Marlowe Church Corpus Christi counterfeiting court death dialectic Dido divine Dr Faustus Drury Earl Edward Edward II Elizabethan England English Father Faustus's fellow Frizer Ganymede grammar Henry Hero and Leander Jew of Malta John Marlowe Kendall King King's School Kuriyama Latin learning letter lines literary live London Lucan Marlowe's Mary Massacre at Paris Master murder Nashe Nicholl Ovid Ovid's Oxford parish Parker performed play players playhouses playwright plot poem poetry poets priests Privy Council Protestant Puritan Queen Elizabeth quoted religion Renaissance Rheims Richard Baines Robert Poley Roman Scholars scholarship secret Secretary Walsingham Shakespeare Sidney Skerres Spenser Strange's Tamburlaine theatre Thomas Kyd Thomas Nashe Thomas Walsingham tion took tragedy translation University Press Urry Virgil William words write wrote