later admirers worshipped his works andrncame to eonclude, as the Oxfordiansrnhave, that no common Ehzabcthanrnman, a modestly educated glover’s sonrnfrom a backwater community, no matterrnhow gifted he might have been, couldrnpossibly have created the plays attributedrnto Shakespeare. Incidentally, Matus offersrnan accurate portrait of the Earl ofrnOxford, a man, himself, to be reckonedrnwith and remembered, though not,rnby any means, as the secret author ofrnWilliam Shakespeare’s works. Moreover,rnMatus’s method allows him to take noternof “the great transformations of Shakespeareanrnstudies over the past tworndecades or so.” What he sees is the increasingrnemphasis, call it a kind of resurrection,rnon the Shakespearean plays asrnperformances on the stage and on filmrnand videotape. Shakespeare, hi Fact reallyrnshould dispose of the authorship problemrnfor a good while. CertainK- it is thernbest written, most accessible, and livelyrnaccount of the whole matter.rnIf classic scholarship is marked bv rigorrnand precision, qualities which at oncernlimit and inteirsifv the (inevitable) speculativernelements, and if popular scholarshiprndepends upon rhetorical authorityrnand converts speculation to entertainingrnconjecture, there is another form, whatrnmight be called imaginative scholarship,rnwherein speculation, though ccjuallyrnfounded upon facts, takes place in a narrativerncontext and is tested in differentrnways. The best of historical fiction canrnREADERS!rn/ Ifrnyou havernfriends or relativesrnwho may enjoyrnChnmkies,rnplease send us theirrnnames andrnaddresses.rnWe would bernpleased to sendrnthem arncomplimentaryrnissue!rnsometimes achieve this status. The laternAnthony Burgess had already done thisrnwith Nothing Like the Sun (1964), a novelrnabout Shakespeare’s “lost years,” thernblank time between his departure fromrnStratford and his appearance on thernLondon scene. Now in his final novel.rnBurgess returns to the Elizabethan Agernwith the story, factually sound wherernthere are facts and highly imaginativernwhere there arc mysteries, of the life andrnsudden death (murder) of ChristopherrnMarlowe. The “lost” parts of Marlowe’srnbrief life are the stuff of thrillers. Hernseems to have been a spy at home andrnabroad, one of some value and importance,rnin the service of Sir Francis Walsingham.rnHe was involved in a homicidernin London. He may have been a homosexualrnand an “atheist”—a radical skepticrnin Elizabethan terms. Burgess hasrnplenty to work with.rnJust as Brownlow’s book emergedrnfrom an unpublished dissertation.rnBurgess’s novel began in 1940 as a universityrnthesis on Mariowe which was destroyedrnby the Luftwaffe passing overrnMoss Side, Manchester. Burgess had tornwait more than 50 years to get back to itrnand, as it were, finish it in novel form.rnHere, in an appropriately vivid narrativernlanguage. Burgess sticks close to factsrnwhen they are known and (often in Marlowe’srncase) does his frcefalling andrnskydiving where there are enigmatic mysteriesrnto deal with. One need not agreernwith all of Burgess’s speculations, norrnwith his interpretation of Marlowe’srncharacter, to enjoy this book which, withrnthe grace of art, plunges us into the ebbrnand flow of Elizabethan life and is, asrnmight be expected, about as fine-tuned arnstudy of “the creative process” of a poetrnas you will find anywhere. The detailsrnare right, the surfaces are sensuous, thernage rises from the dead.rnAll three of these books are, each in itsrnown way, dedicated to the propositionrnthat the past is alive and deserves to bernpreserved and protected against thernforces of barbaric ignorance and indifference.rnEach and all of these books offersrnoccasion for the hope that scholarship isrnholding its own in difficult times.rnGeorge Garrett is I lenry Hoyns ProfessorrnofEnghsh at the University of Virginiarnand author, most recently, of Whistlingrnin the Dark, a collection of stories. Hisrnforthcoming novel is The King ofrnBabylon Shall Not Come Against Yourn(Harcourt Brace).rnMirror & LabyrinthrnbyJ.O. TaternThe Mystery to a Solution:rnPoe, Borges, and the AnalyticrnDetective Storyrnby John T. IrwinrnBaltimore: The Johns HopkinsrnUniversity Press;rn48} pp., $36.95rnThe topic of Poe and Borges is asrncompelling as it is restricted, andrnProfessor Irwin has made sure we understandrnthat what is narrow may also berndeep. Indeed, he peers through an aperturernwhich in his perspective opens torntake in a universe. But before I speak tornthat fullness of vision, perhaps a glancernover the shoulder may be useful.rnI have noticed laterally that ProfessorrnHarold Bloom, casting wide his net, hasrnalso had something to say recently aboutrnPoe and Borges in his transumptionrnof hysteria and whimsy. The WesternrnCanon: The Books and School of the Ages.rnIn some words on the canonical Americanrnwriters. Bloom has declared in whatrnwe may interpret as a repressed referencernto his own works, “Poe is too universallyrnaccepted around the worid to be excluded,rnthough his writing is almost invariablyrnatrocious.” On the other hand.rnBloom celebrates the work of Jorge LuisrnBorges, though not con incingly, and inrnparticular one Borgesian fable glossed byrnhwin: “Death and the Compass.” ProfessorrnIrwin does not share Bloom’s estimaternof Poe—far fronr it. He knows thatrn”the care with which Poe constructed [a]rnpassage in ‘The Murders in the RuernMorgue,’ indeed, suggests a poet’s attentionrnto word and image,” and he is tirelessrnin pursuing the implications of thatrnthought.rnBloom and Irwin know what Borgesrnhimself declared: “The fact is that eachrnwriter creates his precursors.” But Borgesrnowed so much to Poe, just as modern literaturernowes so much to Poe, that I cannotrnsee him as a mere precursor of anyone,rnbut rather as a puissant imaginativernforce in his own right. Irwin of coursernnever deprecates Poe, but approachesrnhim through Borges, and after an extensivernexposition, circles back to where hernbegan.rnJohn T. Irwin has written notablyrn40/CHRONICLESrnrnrn