Sara wrote:-
> The more I read these messages, the more I am convinced that some among
> us view Marlowe as a James Bond kind of figure, or maybe an early-modern
> version of "The Third Man".
He was a spy, working for Walsingham's Secret Service. Ratting
on Catholics. Homosexual -- spy -- Cambridge University. It seems
that he started a trend that has carried on until more recent times.
(Burgess? McLean? Philby? Blunt?)
>I do not know much about all this and so I will
> not say whether I agree or disagree
Do you know enough about it to have an opinion? I would not
dream of passing an opinion if I didn't know what I was talking
about.
>but it seems to me that much weight is
> being placed on the poetry to find evidence for his being Shakespeare and
> all the rest.
It depends who you are listening to. Some people don't give-a-damn
either way. My interest lies one way and yours doesn't -- does that
mean that we can't discuss it on this mail-list? It is to do with Spenser
and much of the work in the Spenser works appears to be by or about
Marlowe.
> This leads me to the question: why? Why must poetry be taken as
> directly representative of someone's life?
It doesn't have to be -- but in Marlowe's case it was. The story that I
found is confirmed in the writings of Marlowe under his various names.
I find that interesting and some people may agree with me. Others
may prefer to bury their heads in the sand. Please yourself...
>Are not conventions just that?
> Just because a poem is written in the first-person, does that "I" have to be
> the poet him/herself? My answers to these questions would be no.
I agree with you -- but not in Marlowe's case. His poems were about
true people and events and the characters in his plays were based
on real life people and events. That's what makes him the greatest
writer ever -- and I happen to believe that he should be credited with
his works.
>I think
> it a little symplistic to try to reduce everything in a poem to an
> allegorical representation of the life of the poet.
I am not interested in allegory and metaphor, Sara. I have been
trying to piece together the life of a man who no longer officially
existed. Luckily for me, he wrote the details of that life into his work.
I really do believe that he hoped that, one day, he would receive the
recognition that he deserves.
>I'm not saying that
> anyone here is doing this but I had wondered about it, all the same.
Oh?
> Let's use an example. Many people take for granted that Wordsworth is
> the "I" in Tintern Abbey. However, the poem itself was composed on the way
> to Bristol after he had sat with Dorothy by the "sylvan Wye" and not written
> till their return to their lodgings. So, though the poem is written in the
> present tense, as though the "I" was viewing the scene, it could not be
> Wordsworth. We can say that the poem is inspired by a life-event, but in no
> way does it accurately portray that life-event. It is a construction. The
> scene, the figures in the scene and the mind of the speaker are all
> constructs. This is my view, at least. I hope no one minds this.
Not at all -- but that is not the case with Marlowe. His 'Shakespeare'
sonnets are specific memoes written to specific people about specific
events. There was no need for names to be inserted because he knew
who he was sending them to and they knew who had sent them. He kept
copies and those copies, numbered in sequence, were published eight
years after the composition of the last one.
No names, no pack drill -- and he got paid. 'Pelf' was the main motive
behind the publication of his work. Have a look at his 'Barnfield' poems
of 1598, when he was impecunious after being booted out by his patron.
Can you feel the vitriol? He was not a happy cat...
Peter Zenner
+44 (0) 1246 271726
Visit my web site 'Zenigmas' at
http://www.pzenner.freeserve.co.uk
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