The Implications of Tucker Brooke's Transposition in Hero and Leander by Christopher Marlowe

Abstract

T n O argue that an appropriate interpretation and appreciation of Christopher Marlowe's Hero and Leander is not possible without an investigation into its textual variants may seem self-evident. Yet, although almost one century has passed since C. F. Tucker Brooke adopted his transposition (the most significant emendation in the poem), the assumptions on which it is based have never been analyzed thoroughly. In this essay, I wish to discuss critically the validity of Tucker Brooke's transposition and its consequences for the interpreta tion of the poem. By analyzing the earliest quarto versions of the text in relationship to Renaissance rhetorical treatises, I intend to demonstrate that the bibliographical assumptions on which Tucker Brooke's emen dation is grounded are highly questionable and the aesthetic criteria that lie beyond it do not conform to Marlowe's depiction of eroticism within the poem. In the 1598 quarto printed for Edward Blount, the narration of Hero and Leander's sexual intercourse is reported as follows:

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