With The Marlowe Papers- A Book Review

The Marlowe Papers, published by Ros Barber as part of her PhD is a collection of poems written in blank verse depicting the story of Christopher Marlowe.

Christopher Marlowe, is a *real* English author, poet, and translator from the 16th century. It is said that Marlowe was a great inspiration to Shakespeare. The premise of this book, however, is that William Shakespeare is Marlowe's pen-name, as Marlowe was a spy, wanted for treason, so he fled, faked his death and changed his name.

To start off I was excited, a novel in verse, I thought, a nice long poem. Except I soon realized that the Iambic Pentameter is not the most pleasant of meters. And that keeping the verse sometimes meant losing meaning and depth. While reading, my instinct was to read to the beat of the meter. But that meant that normal punctuation went out the window. Sentences broke in wrong places and merged, just to keep the meter up.  On the other hand, when I upheld the rules of English punctuation I found traces of systematic rhythm that I couldn't ignore. Perhaps I am not sophisticated, or smart enough for this style, but I found myself at loss as to how to read, that I found it hard to comprehend what I'm reading. However there are a few poems where punctuation and meter were in sync and I could truly appreciate the beauty of the verse.

The plot, like most Elizabethan novels, features themes of identity of betrayal that seem, to a modern me, incredibly vulgar. Kit Marlowe was a victim of his own beliefs, or lack thereof. As a renown atheist, he was persecuted for treason so he changed his name and started writing under a pen name, William Shakespeare. However, Marlowe didn't like this brand new life, and longed for his former life and friends. The whole book is a collection of letters, addressed to (from what I understood) the love of his life.

It is worth mentioning that while reading this book my thoughts were all in the Iambic Pentameter-which I despise. So I felt I was going to go crazy if I don't cleanse my thoughts.

The plot is nice, but I'm not sure the whole verse thing was the best of ideas. In general the book is okay. The idea is exciting but perhaps not the most interesting.