Dark Renaissance

Recommended by Sean Kelly, Teresa G. and Ferdinand F. Martignetti Professor of Philosophy, FAS

Cogan University Professor Stephen Greenblatt, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “The Swerve” and “Will in the World,” returns to 16th-century England to tell the story of the swashbuckling playwright Christopher Marlowe. Greenblatt has written a book that has the page-turning vigor of a thriller, but along the way he creates intrigue about Marlowe’s likely work as a spy for Queen Elizabeth while providing details of student life at Cambridge University almost 500 years ago and the classic role of the humanities in higher education at that time.