An Evening with Stephen Greenblatt in Conversation with Henry Walters

An Evening with Stephen Greenblatt in Conversation with Henry Walters

Presented by The Toadstool Bookshops, Historic Harrisville and The Peterborough Players.

Join us for an evening with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Stephen Greenblatt, one of the world’s foremost literary scholars and a master storyteller whose work has shaped the way we understand the Renaissance and the modern world.

Greenblatt is the author of fifteen books, including The Swerve: How the World Became Modern (winner of both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize), the New York Times bestseller Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare, and the seminal text Renaissance Self-Fashioning. He serves as the Cogan University Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University and has dedicated his career to the exploration of Renaissance literature.

On this special night, Stephen Greenblatt will be in conversation with writer, naturalist, teacher, and falconer Henry Walters to discuss Greenblatt’s latest release:

Dark Renaissance: The Dangerous Times and Fatal Genius of Shakespeare’s Greatest Rival

Poor boy. Spy. Transgressor. Genius.

In repressive Elizabethan England, artists are frightened into dull conventionality; foreigners are suspect; popular entertainment largely consists of coarse spectacles, animal fights, and hangings. Into this crude world of government censorship and religious authoritarianism comes an ambitious cobbler’s son from Canterbury with a daring desire to be known—and an uncanny ear for Latin poetry. A torment for most schoolboys, yet for a few, like Christopher Marlowe, a secret portal to beauty, visionary imagination, transgressive desire, and dangerous skepticism.

What Marlowe seizes in his rare opportunity for a classical education, and what he does with it, brings about a spectacular explosion of English literature, language, and culture. His astonishing literary success will, in turn, nourish the talent of a collaborator and rival, William Shakespeare.

Dark Renaissance illuminates both Marlowe’s times and the origins and significance of his work—from his erotic translations of Ovid to his portrayal of unfettered ambition in a triumphant Tamburlaine to Doctor Faustus, his unforgettable masterpiece about making a pact with the devil in exchange for knowledge.

Introducing us to Marlowe’s transgressive genius in the form of a thrilling page-turner, Stephen Greenblatt brings a penetrating understanding of the literary work to reveal the inner world of the author, bringing to life a homosexual atheist who was tormented by his own compromises, who refused to toe the party line, and who was murdered just when he had found love. Meanwhile, 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—including Faustian bargains with which we reckon still.

EVENT INFORMATION

• Historic Harrisville — The Spinning Room, 69 Main Street, Harrisville
• Wednesday, October 16 2025
• 6:30-8:00 PM

Reserve your seat now—space is limited!