Title of Cormoran Strike 5 Released; Readers Jump in with Speculation About Its Meaning

Chris C. quickly picked up the Chapman mantle after recognizing the name from an earlier book:

I thought I remembered Rowling using quotes from Chapman in “The Silkworm”. I went back to that book and there he was, fresh from obscurity and everything. After typing in Chapman’s name, along with the phrase “Troubled Blood”, a little searching leaves me convinced that it’s indeed Chapman that JKR has referenced by her title.

It turns out Chapman’s play has a lot of relevant material with Rowling’s own protagonist. For instance, here is how Bussy D’Ambois is described by Wikipedia. “(An) unemployed soldier and an accomplished swordsman, is reflecting on the corrupt, avaricious, and violent society in which he lives. In the third line of his opening soliloquy, he expresses the radical view that “Who is not poor, is monstrous.” From there, however, Chapman’s hero finds himself joining forces with the very Ruling Class he condemned, only to rebel and wind up the victim of their revenge.

The main character reads like a crazier version of our peg-legged friend. It is interesting to speculate how D’Ambois’s predicament could be related to Strike’s in “Troubled Blood”. That’s an aspect I’m still not sure of, however. What I did find very interesting, and maybe somewhat rewarding was reading the following, also from Wiki.
“As Chapman’s arguable masterpiece, Bussy D’Ambois has attracted a large body of critical commentary, discussion, and dispute. Scholars have debated Chapman’s philosophical and dramaturgical intentions in the play, and whether and to what degree those intentions are successfully realized.[9] Though no true consensus has been reached, many commentators regard Bussy as Chapman’s idea of a moral hero at war with his own lower tendencies, wrapped in a conflict between his idealistic urges and the sheer power of his personality — a Marlovian hero with more conscience than Marlowe ever gave his own protagonists.

Or at least, that appears to have been Chapman’s intent. Critics have complained at how the moralizing protagonist of the opening scene becomes the ruthless passion-driven anti-hero of the rest of the play. Some have argued that in Bussy D’Ambois Chapman sacrificed logical and philosophical consistency for dramaturgical efficacy, for “force and vehemence of imagination” (to quote Algernon Charles Swinburne). His succeeding French histories are more consistent intellectually, but also far more dull (web)”. The information can all be read here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bussy_D%27Ambois

I found that connection to Marlowe something of a relief, because it “could” mean my theory of Rokeby as both a sellout (in the thematic vein of “Dr. Faustus) and the series Moriarty still has some wind in its sails, at least until it doesn’t. It also raises the possibility that the same Marlovian tendencies might be a problem Strike has to deal with as well. It could be a very troubling case of like father like son. However beyond that, it also fits in with my theory that Keats will have some thematic role to play in the new book. According to the Poetry Foundation website, “the nineteenth saw a marked revival of interest in Chapman’s works, perhaps best summed up in John Keats’s well-known sonnet “On First Looking Into Chapman’s Homer” (1816)”. The upshot is that I’m willing to add Keats’ “Chapman” poem to the list of possible header quotes we could expect to see in Rowling’s book. The information for that quote can be found at this link:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/george-chapman

One final piece of information that I believe is relevant can be found once more in the wiki link above. It has to do with the rest of Chapman’s own creative compost heap. “Along with historical sources on the life of Louis de Bussy d’Amboise, Chapman, like Ben Jonson, makes rich use of classical allusions. Bussy features translated passages from the plays Agamemnon and Hercules Oetaeus of Seneca, plus the Moralia of Plutarch, the Aeneid and Georgics of Virgil, and the Adagia of Erasmus.[7] The characters in the play quote or refer to the Iliad and to works by Empedocles, Themistocles, and Camillus.[8]” Along with the mention of Jonson, the name that really jumped out was that of Virgil and his “Aeneid”. That’s another text informing the nature of the Strike saga. What we are seeing here is a technique Beatrice Groves discussed about at length in “Literary Allusion in Harry Potter”. A series of textual references and allusions are once more brought together by the author under the roof and between the covers of a single text. It remains to see exactly what she’ll do with all this wealth of material. One thing is for sure, I’m definitely looking forward to it.

To be fair though, I wouldn’t have learned about any of this if Nick Jeffery hadn’t sunk the well in the first place. So credit where it’s due. Thanks Nick!