SOURCE: Martz, Louis L. Introduction to Hero and Leander, by Christopher Marlowe, pp. 1-14. New York: Johnson Reprint Corporation, 1972.

In the following essay, Martz differentiates Marlowe's Hero and Leander from George Chapman's continuation of the poem.

This publication provides an occasion for attempting to persuade all admirers of this poem to avoid speaking of Marlowe's “fragment” and Chapman's “continuation,” or of a poem “Begun by Christopher Marloe; and finished by George Chapman,” as on the title page of the first combined edition of 1598. I would even avoid speaking of Marlowe's “part” and Chapman's “part,” as though each in some way belonged to what is sometimes called “the entire poem” or “the composite poem.” Above all I wish to avoid speaking of Marlowe's “two sestiads.” I should like to think instead of the work entered in the Stationers' Register for September 28, 1593, as “a booke intituled Hero and Leander, beinge...