Month: February 2014

Was Marlowe Faustus? Talk at Marlowe 450, Canterbury.

Ros Barber
Facebooktwitterlinkedinrss

Wednesday 12th March 2013, 6pm

Ahead of Fourth Monkey’s production of Doctor Faustus at The Marlowe Theatre at 8pm, a talk on the extent to which Marlowe’s life and work are inter-related.

We do not know exactly when Doctor Faustus was written, but Robert Greene’s 1588 allusion to Marlowe associates him, very early in his career, with a famous magician.  Faustus is the protagonist with whom Marlowe is most often conflated: the scholar A.L.Rowse said ‘Faustus is Marlowe’.  Is this simply a case of reading the author’s life backwards through the lens of his public atheism and subsequent sticky end? Were elements of Marlowe biography written in to the play after his death?  Did those who knew him personally think of him as Faustus?  This talk explores evidence that illuminates Marlowe’s relationship with his most famous protagonist.

£5

For full details, and to book tickets, go here: http://www.marlowetheatre.com/page/3249/Was-Marlowe-Faustus/649

First Fictions Festival 11-13th April 2014

Ros Barber
Facebooktwitterlinkedinrss

First Fictions is a bi-annual boutique literary festival designed to celebrate and champion new writing and innovation in fiction, organised by Myriad Editions and the University of Sussex.

I’ll be resident all weekend at the First Fictions Festival at West Dean College Chichester, and taking part in two events.

Sat 12th April 9.30-10.45am

NEW FORMS OF WRITING
Ros Barber, Nina de la Mer, Natasha Soobramanien, Nye Wright
Chaired by Peter Boxall

Sunday 13th April 

REINVENTING HISTORICAL FICTION
Ros Barber, Philippa Gregory, Alison MacLeod, Sally O’Reilly
Chaired by Professor Andrew Hadfield

For the full programme and detail of how to book for the full weekend, or just part of the programme, see the website: http://www.firstfictions.com/first-fictions-home

 

33 Shakespeare Characters Wrongly Believed To Be Dead

Ros Barber
Facebooktwitterlinkedinrss

The very belated second half round up of 2013 may have to wait.  2014 has begun with a flurry of activity around the release of the US paperback, including my first articles for the Huffington Post.  The first, 7 Brilliant Writers Who Were Overshadowed by a Contemporary was quite a hit, with over 900 social media shares to date, and the usual flurry of comments from people who would have written it differently.  This week, a post dearer to my heart: the question of whether Christopher Marlowe might have faked his death.  I mention in that article about Shakespeare’s obsession with false death and resurrection:  thirty-three characters in eighteen Shakespeare plays are wrongly thought dead for anything from a few seconds to almost the whole of the action, and seven of those deaths are deliberately faked.  I thought I’d put the full list up here for anyone who is interested.

Read more →