Thank you for sounding off. This kind of conversation is exactly what we were hoping for. (and now I'm never not going to see Mercutio as Randall Jarrell . . .)
Now that you mention it, I have, and I wish I'd remembered it when I was writing this piece. "Theory" is always going to be the operative word, I guess, but I always find an idea like this beguiling --- maybe because I can imagine the historical novels writing themselves.
Yeah. As with all such theories tying Shakespeare's fictional characters to real-life people, the evidence is more suggestive than proving. But I like the idea that the Queen Mab craziness is Marlovian. Less so the claim that there's some indictment of Queen Elizabeth, blaming her for Marlowe's death with the scene of Mercutio's death.
Anthony Burgess is interested in the competition between the two poets and Joe Ashby Porter sees Mercutio/ Marlowe more as a psychopomp. To me Mercutio is like Randall Jarrell “wittier than anybody” and the first to go.
Loved this translation. And the chance to sound off a bit about Marlowe and Shakespeare.
Thank you for sounding off. This kind of conversation is exactly what we were hoping for. (and now I'm never not going to see Mercutio as Randall Jarrell . . .)
Have you ever encountered the theory that Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet was Shakespeare's portrait of Marlowe? And as such a kind of homage?
Now that you mention it, I have, and I wish I'd remembered it when I was writing this piece. "Theory" is always going to be the operative word, I guess, but I always find an idea like this beguiling --- maybe because I can imagine the historical novels writing themselves.
Yeah. As with all such theories tying Shakespeare's fictional characters to real-life people, the evidence is more suggestive than proving. But I like the idea that the Queen Mab craziness is Marlovian. Less so the claim that there's some indictment of Queen Elizabeth, blaming her for Marlowe's death with the scene of Mercutio's death.
Anthony Burgess is interested in the competition between the two poets and Joe Ashby Porter sees Mercutio/ Marlowe more as a psychopomp. To me Mercutio is like Randall Jarrell “wittier than anybody” and the first to go.