{"product_id":"dark-renaissance-by-stephen-greenblatt-9781847927149","title":"Dark Renaissance","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eDark Renaissance\u003c\/em\u003e is the thrilling story of the writer who transformed culture in Elizabethan England, bringing it out of the darkness and into the light.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003ePoor boy. Dark star. Spy. Transgressor. Genius.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFrom one of the greatest writers on the Elizabethan era, \u003cem\u003eDark Renaissance\u003c\/em\u003e is the thrilling and subversive life story of Christopher Marlowe—Shakespeare's inspiration and rival, who helped to bring England out of the cultural darkness and into the light.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn brutally repressive Elizabethan England, artists are frightened; foreigners are suspect; popular entertainment largely consists of coarse spectacles, animal fights, and hangings. Into this crude world comes an ambitious cobbler's son from Canterbury with an uncanny ear for Latin poetry—which to him is a secret portal to beauty, visionary imagination, transgressive desire, and dangerous scepticism.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWhat Christopher Marlowe finds on the other side of that door, and what he does with it, brings about a spectacular explosion of English literature, language, and culture, enabling the success of many others, including his youthful collaborator William Shakespeare. By the time of his murder in a Deptford tavern in 1593, the 29-year-old Marlowe will be the most celebrated dramatist of his time.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eStephen Greenblatt grippingly reconstructs the involvement with the queen's spy service that shaped Marlowe's brief, troubling life and gave us his masterpieces about power and its costs. And he explores how the people Marlowe knew, and the transformations they wrought, gave birth to the economic, scientific, and cultural power of the modern world—involving Faustian bargains with which we reckon still.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eDark Renaissance\u003c\/em\u003e is a scintillating life of a writer whose blazing talent catapulted England from cultural backwater to crucible of creativity.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House NZ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46850336325868,"sku":"9781847927149","price":40.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/52bfec6f63e0f99c1f33b3fca506b7e8_4cd09cca-a9b2-49b9-8584-f47d3c0adc0f.jpg?v=1759082472","url":"https:\/\/bookhero.pro\/products\/dark-renaissance-by-stephen-greenblatt-9781847927149","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}