Christopher Marlowe: The Complete Poems

Rating:
Summary: the sun's flame-bearing chariot
Review: Marlowe's gifts as a dramatist are easily matched by his poetic accomplishments in other genres. While some may find his declamatory style and tendency toward bombast wearying in the plays, it is perfectly suited to the frieze-like beauties of HERO AND LEANDER, and particularly to the rhetorical excesses of Lucan, whose first book Marlowe translated "line for line." And few translations of Ovid AMORES capture his eroticism and wit as well as Marlowe's. A must-have selection of poems, convenient and affordable, although the apparatus and notes are not as helpful as those in the Penguin edition (now sadly out of print) edited by Stephen Orgel.