I Finished A Book!

 No way am I getting things read as I did in prison, so I feel like having accomplished something by finishing with Wilbur Sanders. The Dramatist and the Received Idea, Studies in the Plays of Marlowe & Shakespeare. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968. I must admit that I did skip over a chapter on Macbeth. 

In some ways it was a rough sledding, but I put that down to the distractions of work and paying too much attention to the news. I have found only this bit of biographical information on Sanders:

Wilbur Sanders grew up in Australia and has taught English literature at Cambridge for the last 18 years. He has written books on Marlowe, Shakespeare and Donne, and a novel, Like the Big Wolves (1985).

The style, the diction, I took to be English University of some sort. What also took time was in my taking the time to read carefully.

What I got from this book had little to do with Shakespeare. (Although this book has made me want to re-read Troilus and Cressida and I had to give up on Macbeth for fear of getting sidetracked into a fascinating examination of that play.) No, Sanders has given me an idea of Marlowe as more mercurial, more conflicted than Shakespeare. Sanders left thinking Marlowe handled his material less thoroughly than Shakespeare because Marlowe was working through his own preoccupations in his plays.

I have spent most of the morning looking up background information on this book (it appears often enough in several course readings, remains in print, and seems generally accepted), but could access only this review. The reviewer concentrates on Shakespeare, but I agree with the assessment.

Now to dress for work!

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