Marlowe's Empery: Expanding His Critical Contexts by Sara Munson Deats , Robert A. Logan (review)

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764 Reviews knights Spenser forces his readers to continually question what they are reading, to remain alert for suggestions that the likes of Guyon, Satyrane, Marinell, or Calidore might be more than they at firstappear' (p. 87). 'Deconstructing' is a characteristic touch: on the one hand, Woodcock ascribes agency to Spenser as the writer of the poem; on the other, the word seems to betoken theoretical ambitions which the study does not completely fulfil. A deeper concern is Woodcock's overall conceptualization of The Faerie Queene. He relies throughout on the 'Letter to Raleigh', yet only seldom does its problematic status emerge. Though Woodcock wisely eschews conjecture about what a twelvebook Faerie Queene might have looked like, it is equally hazardous to ground the excavation of Spenser's intention on a document which at best represents a sketchy outline written at the time of the publication of the first quarter of the projected poem. Though Woodcock writes illuminatingly about the complexity of Spensersian allegory, it is puzzling that he never uses the most suggestive phrase in the 'Letter', which describes the poem as a 'darke conceit'. Though this image has been considered by older scholars like Edwin Honig, it nevertheless remains crucial to understanding what Woodcock rightlycalls 'The inchoate nature of the poem as a whole' (p. 82). In this context, I suggest, the difficultyof reading Spenser's fairy is also a difficultyin reading the poem as we have it and in coming to terms with the readerly implications of its unfinished condition and the factthat the poem, like its readers, never ultimately arrives at the fairycity of Cleopolis. Though the 'Letter' is not a clear enough guide to Spenser's intentions, 'darke conceit' continues to be the most pithy and suggestive way of describing the poem's effects. Fairy in 'The Faerie Queene' is an intriguing addition to Spenser studies. Through its detailed contextualization of early modern fairy lore and its valiant reconceptualization of how we should read that lore in The Faerie Queene, it offers new and generous ways into the poem. Inevitably, it fails to answer every question about the ways in which Spenser adapted his sources, and does not fullyengage with the poem's murkyprofile as fantasywriting. Yet itis a readable way into the poem, which, through its informed sense of the reception history of fairyland, insists both on its folkloric contexts and on its literary and rhetorical grounding. The Open University Richard Danson Brown Marlowe'sEmpery: Expandinghis Critical Contexts. Ed. by Sara Munson DEATSand Robert A. Logan. Newark: University of Delaware Press; London: Associated University Presses. 2002. 210 pp. $40; ?20.93. ISBN 0-87413-787-x. These nine essays originated at the fourth international Marlowe Society of America Conference at Cambridge University in 1998. They reflecta good deal of the openness and diversity that characterize those convivial events, held every five years. As I discovered in 1998 and again in 2003, the poet continues to attract a wide variety of admirers to his alma mater, from celebrity scholars to secondary-school teachers, under the care ofdedicated and congenial organizers such as the editors ofthis volume. The firstpart features three essays on performance. Roslyn L. Knutson's 'Marlowe Reruns: Repertorial Commerce and Marlowe's Plays in Revival' examines perfor? mance dates between 1592 and 1597, when Marlowe's plays were in almost constant production. Orchestrating a welter of information with her usual blend of caution and insight, Knutson hypothesizes that The Jew of Malta, The Massacre at Paris, 1 and 2 Tamburlaine, and Dr Faustus were at the core of marketing strategies that spawned the production of a series of imitative or responsive plays. All the companies sought to benefit from producing and scheduling plays to complement or compete MLRy 100.3, 2005 765 with Marlowe's Machiavel, revenger, weak king surrounded by turmoil, irresistible warrior, magician, balcony scene, ete. Knutson's account thereby comprises a par? tial checklist of Marlowe's influence on his contemporaries, especially Shakespeare. David Bevington in 'Staging the A- and B-Texts of Doctor Faustus' also emphasizes commercial considerations, ones that led to the B-text's later, more elaborate pro? duction. Insightfully inferringthe staging requirements for each version, Bevington...