Dear Bob (Darcy),
I have the same questions, and am fascinated by the 1-2 y.o. article in ELS
(? One of the put-on-line journals) on Ivan the Terrible, English
Merchants, and Tamburlaine, which also analyses in careful detail Marlowe's
connection to the Deptford Docks, where he was killed. I'm writing this in
haste and haven't the proper annotations, and a rotten memory, but I
believe the argument is that Marlowe's hit may have been one resulting from
financial scandal involving hemp ropes: England bought its hemp ropes
(essential for the navy) from Russia, stored them in the Deptford Docks,
financial backers were eager to protect their corrupt monopoly, Marlowe had
a relative who was in charge of the Docks, etc. All very shady (any clues,
Mr. Zenner?) and reminiscent of rumors regarding Bofors after Olaf Palme's
assassination.
Anyway, the overall point of the article is that there is good reason to
read Tamburlaine's asiatic roving and capital accumulation as a
wish-fulfilment of the always-up-and-coming English middle class and
venture capitalists in particular. Ivan the Terrible, a contemporary
Tamburlaine, helped the English use the trade route via Archangel, thereby
bypassing the Turkish- and Catholic-controlled routes via the
Mediterranean. Fascinating stuff.
Another connection I'd love to hear more about, and that brings Marlowe's
and Bacon's sexual proclivities within the same orbit, is the Henri III
connection. Bacon visited the famously flamboyant (or perfectly normal?)
French court for a time in his youth, and scholars have suggested that he
learned, discovered and/or refined his homosexual traits there. Marlowe
certainly took a close political interest in the doings of the French
court, witness *Massacre at Paris*, and would have read political
propaganda accusing Henri III of doing everything imaginable with his
mignons: shades of Edward II (Gaveston came from Gascony, after all). My
question to the Spenser List is, do we have any solid evidence that Marlowe
was engaged in espionage in France in the late 1580's, or even visited the
place?
Best, Thomas Herron
Darcy asked:
So my question about Marlowe would be, what marked him as particularly
vulnerable to charges of homoerotic activity or atheism? I would love to
learn definitively that Marlowe was in fleshy fact a lover of boys and an
atheist. But I think it would be even more fascinating in some respects to
learn that the thing that marked him as such was not his private behavior
but his public writing.
>
>
>
>
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|