To Be a King: A Novel about Christopher Marlowe - Tapa blanda

Shakespeare's rival, brilliant poet, heretic and spy, was murdered in a tavern in Deptford in 1593. In this biographical novel he talks about his art:

"Poetry is the longest arm of the human mind. As we strive for knowledge absolute, which is impossible, of course, everything eventually fails us: logic, science, and even words. The aspiration is our blessing and our curse. Our victories are brief but wonderful; our failures tragic, but still, in a way, wonderful. When we can no longer phrase in syllogisms what we fell we want to say, we turn to metaphors. Imagination leaps into the darkness beyond the small circle of logic's light and brings back sparkling fragments of truth. So you see, it is not for entertainment alone that I labor at my art and craft -- though, God knows, I have entertained some several thousand people in my time. In the public theatres, I mean. No, it is for something far more ambitious, though far less nameable. And in any case, I have very little choice, being, like the nightingale, uncontrollably excited by the darkness to sing my song".

Duncan Wu is a Fellow of St Catherine's College, Oxford, and University Lecturer in English Literature.