It's been a while since Stephen Greenblatt's Dark Renaissance came out (it's now out in paperback!), and it's also been a while since I read it.
But I was looking up something in it the other day, and I was reminded how clearly and convincingly Greenblatt writes.
The book is scholarly, but it's also very accessible. The cover of the hardback edition even shows Kit Marlowe as a puck being shot straight at the reader by a hockey stick that's on fire. It's very down-to-earth.
But I do worry about how speculative Greenblatt becomes with his straightforward, convincing prose. It's likely to leave the impression that what Greenblatt says [might have] happened actually did happen.
By way of example of both the good prose and the tendency to slip into speculation, here are a few pages from Chapter Fourteen:
And it goes on from there. In the chapter on Doctor Faustus, it goes even further—leading, I dare say, into some serious misreadings.
Dark Renaissance is well worth reading—just keep a shaker of salt handy as you do so.
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