Christopher Marlowe in the Eighties: An Annotated Bibliography of Marlowe Criticism from 1978 through 1989 by Bruce E. Brandt

Abstract

Reviews263 ed. Stanley Sadie [London: Macmillan, 1980], XX, 154-55). It should read "Wait [wayt, wayte] (from old Fr. gaite, a watchman)." The article does distinguish clearly between the various meanings of the English word. Bruce E. Brandt. Christopher Marlowe in the Eighties: An Annotated Bibliography ofMarlowe Criticismfrom 1978 through 1989. West Cornwall, Connecticut: Locust Hill Press, 1992. Pp. xvi + 215. $30.00 All scholars owe debts—especially debts of gratitude—to the compilers of annotated bibliographies. Such works receive little attention but much use; they are rarely cited themselves but are the ultimate sources of many citations. They take years to compile and save hours of labor, and some of them, such as the exemplary volumes by John R. Roberts on various Renaissance poets, will never lose their value. The best ones can be equally useful in teaching and in research; it would not be hard to imagine, for instance, how the nearly fifty pages this book devotes to Marlowe's Doctor Faustus would benefit students of that play at any level. Reading those pages would instantly expose a student to interpretive cacophony and consensus, and perusing Brandt's book could not help but stimulate an alert and thoughtful mind. Such reading would reveal, for example, that Doris Adler has argued that "the 1616 version of Doctor Faustus contains numerous allusions to John Foxe's Acts and Monuments which are not in the 1604 version"; she therefore "concludes that their presence suggests the greater authority" of the later text (p. 67). Or that Celia Barnes traces the play's allusions to "the Bishops' Bible, the Geneva bible, and the 1559 Book of Common Prayer" (p. 67). Or that Bernard Beckerman, contrasting Marlowe's play with Richard III, argues that while "Marlowe is content to perfect an older, more settled binary form . . . , Shakespeare seems to contest the limits of that form repeatedly" (p. 68). Or that William Blackburn believes that Faustus confounds black magic and "the perfection of natural philosophy," making the play a "metaphor, not for the failure of language as an instrument of transformation , but for man's failure to understand it and use it wisely" (p. 69). Or that because Michael Boccia believes that Faustus "repented during the final soliloquy and was not damned," he also believes that the play "thus endorses the heroism of [Faustus'] quest for knowledge" (p. 70). Or that Brandt himself, the compiler of this volume, has argued that Helen's kiss in the final act "draws upon the liturgical kiss of peace, the chaste kiss of Castiglione's Pietro Bembo, and the use of the kiss to symbolize mystical rapture" (p. 71). One might assign almost any one of these ideas to an intelligent student with the injunction "prove it" (or "refute it") and then compare the student's arguments with those of the original scholar. Such an assignment would not be a sterile intellectual exercise, since it would force a student to reconstruct an argument (or deconstruct it) while relying mainly on his own initia- 264Comparative Drama tive and independent investigation. This is only one way in which the ideas contained in a bibliography like Brandt's could be used in classroom teaching as well as in personal research. For instance, students in courses on critical theory might read the section on Doctor Faustus with an eye not only for the different specific arguments each critic makes but also for the different theoretical assumptions each one takes for granted. To read Brandt's book is to be reminded that there are not only different arguments but different ways of arguing—not only, that is, different specific interpretations but different ways of reading. To be exposed to such differences in such rapid-fire fashion can be exhilarating or frustrating, but in either case it is enlightening. Not the least value of such a book is that it makes it easy to listen to many more voices, and consider many more possibilities, than one might otherwise seek out on one's own. Plowing through a work such as Brandt's can help keep a reader both current and alert, both honest and humble. The worth of a work like this depends mainly on...