Marlowe, History, and Sexuality: New Critical Essays on Christopher Marlowe (review)

472Comparative Drama direct additional attention to a dramatic historian and spokesman for the Left still very much with us today. Indeed, Griffiths's sheer staying power, reminiscent of some his own historical characters, suggests the strength of will necessary for re-envisioning an effective political theater practice in the new century. Ienny S. Spencer University of Massachusetts at Amherst Paul Whitfield White, ed. Marlowe, History, and Sexuality: New Critical Essays on Christopher Marlowe. New York: AMS Press, 1998. Pp. xxi + 257. $59.95. Introducing this volume ofessays, Paul WhitfieldWhite observes a"remarkably consistent, if somewhat sensationalized" picture of Christopher Marlowe in English literary history—a picture encompassing his mighty blank verse and personal and social rebelliousness. It is as though, White notes, this Marlowe were constructed "almost by design [as] a fitting contrast to the perceived orthodoxy and quiet conformityofShakespeare" (xi). This collection, culled from sessions at MLA in 1990 and 1993 and from the third International Marlowe Conference at Cambridge in 1993, sets out to interrogate the portrayal of"sensational " Marlowe. Its purpose—to suggest the range and intensity of interest in Marlowe in the 1990s—is richly fulfilled in fourteen essays, which include substantial and exciting contributions from such traditional and recent critical perspectives as textual and editorial exegesis, new historicism, cultural studies, feminism, and queer theory. The first two essays, by Charles Nicholl and David Riggs, emphasize biography in order to broaden our knowledge of an author and his culture generally —and of an espionage society and theater particularly. In "'Faithful Dealing': Marlowe and the Elizabethan Intelligence Service," Nicholl focuses on the unstable relations between Marlowe's roles as a spy and as a playwright. Tracing fragmentary documents, Nicholl speculates that Marlowe posed as a renegade Catholic to spy on his fellows at Cambridge in the late 1580s, that his position as a poser was at the core of his political and authorial roles, and that the keynote of both is a "non-commitment" that offered "perilous freedom" from conventions (11). Riggs refocuses the issues ofbiography and authorship in "Marlowe's Quarrel with God" by placing Marlowe in an early modern culture of"disbelief." The question, Riggs argues, is not whether Marlowe was or was not an atheist, but " 'Why Marlowe?' Why was he chosen by history to fill Reviews473 this role" of the nonbeliever (19). Riggs answers by tracing a range of institutions —Church, grammar school, university, state intelligence apparatus, and playhouses—that "taught individuals how not to believe" (19). The argument culminates in Riggs's turn to the infamous (but not ideologically unique, as the essay shows) Baines Note, which "defines the moment when blasphemy unites with sodomy, steps out of the closet, and coalesces around an actual figure of opposition" (31), and when open atheism acquires a real subject in Marlowe. Ioiningrecentworkmat illuminatesacentraldynamic ofrivalryin earlymodern notionsofaliterarycareer,tiiree essaysfocus specificallyon Marlowe's place within the literarycultures ofthe latesixteenth century. In" "ThondringWords ofThreate': Marlowe, Spenser, and Renaissance Ideas of a Literary Career," Patrick Cheney finds in Spenser's Octobereclogue"an importantbut neglected origin ofMarlowe's project [in Tamburlaine]: Spenser's mapping of Renaissance ideas of a literary career" (39). As a poet, Marlowe, self-consciouslypositioning himselfas a rival to Spenser, satirized the pretensions of die epic poet and created a new, dynamic equation"betweenlaureate, amateur,and professionalclassesofpoets"(40). Georgia E. Brown finds an equally competitive poetic Marlowe in "Breaking the Canon: Marlowe's Challenge to the Literary Status Quo in Hero and Leander'' Although the poem has traditionally been interpreted as an essay on love, Brown argues that it"is reallyabout poetry,youtii, and shame" (59). Here, as elsewhere, Marlowe capitalizes on the scandalous appeal ofhis topic,but Brown also finds that he uses the erotic material "to redefine the role of author and reader," to "explore the nature ofliterary morality," and to promote "a shamelessly self-indulgent authorial voice" (59) that links Marlowe to a late-Elizabethan literary avant-garde. Citing a 1599 book-burning in "'Printed Abroad and Uncastrated': Marlowe's Elegiesand Davies'Epigrams!'IanMoulton arguesthatMarlowe'selegies, likeDavies's epigrams, were perceived as subversive not primarily on political but on sexual bases: these erotic lyrics "raise potentially troubling issues of sexual power and masculine...