Monday, January 12, 2026

Dark Renaissance: The Dangerous times and Fatal Genius of Shakespeare's Greatest Rival by Stephen Greenblatt


Good but the usual Greenblatt treatment - take a subject about whom almost nothing is factually known, and build out the social/intellectual/historical era around the black hole of the character's existence, and posit how he must have participated.

Marlowe is regarded as being Shakespeare's progenitor with his plays TAMBURLAINE, DR. FAUSTUS, and THE JEW OF MALTA. He was the first playwright to succesfully use blank verse in his works, and though Shakespeare surpassed Marlowe by a stunning margin, it's possible to see how Marlowe had to come first.

Watched SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE again last night, in which Kit Marlowe features.

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