Christopher Marlowe
Christopher Marlowe (baptized February 26, 1564 - May 30, 1593) was an English dramatist, poet and translator of the Elizabethan era. He is known for his magnificent blank verse and overreaching protagonists.
Christopher Marlowe
| Table of contents |
|
2 Playwright career 3 Marlowe's death 4 Works 5 Additional reading 6 External links |
Born in Canterbury the son of a shoemaker, he attended Corpus Christi College, Cambridge on a scholarship and received his bachelor of arts degree in 1584. In 1587 the university hesitated to award him his master's degree because of a rumor that he had converted to Catholicism and gone to the English college at Rheims to prepare for the priesthood. However, his degree was awarded on schedule when the Privy Council intervened on his behalf, commending him for his "faithful dealing" and "good service" to the queen[1]. The nature of Marlowe's service was not specified by the Council, but their letter to the Cambridge authorities has provoked much sensational speculation, notably the theory that Marlowe was operating as a secret agent working for Sir Francis Walsingham's intelligence service. No direct evidence supports this theory, although Marlowe obviously did serve the queen in some capacity.
Marlowe's first success on the London stage was in 1587 with Tamburlaine, the story of the conqueror Timur. Tamburlaine Part II soon followed. His next play may have been Doctor Faustus, the first dramatic version of the Faust legend. His other known plays are: The Jew of Malta; Edward the Second, an English history play about the fall of Edward II and the accession of Edward III; and The Massacre at Paris, portraying the events surrounding the Saint Bartholomews Day Massacre in 1572. Dido, Queen of Carthage seems to be an early work, possibly written with Thomas Nashe.
His other works include the minor epic Hero and Leander (unfinished, published 1598), the popular lyric The Passionate Shepherd to His Love, and translations of Ovid's Amores and the first part of Lucan's Pharsalia.
The two parts of Tamburlaine were published in 1590; all his other works were published posthumously. In 1599 his translation of Ovid was banned and copies publicly burned as part of Archbishop Whitgift's crackdown on offensive material.
Marlowe's plays were enormously successful, thanks in part, no doubt, to the imposing stage presence of Edward Alleyn. He was unusually tall for the time, and the haughty roles of Tamburlaine, Faustus, and Barabas were probably written especially for him. Marlowe's plays were the foundation of the repertoire of Alleyn's company, the Admiral's Men, throughout the 1590s.
In early May 1593 several bills were posted about London threatening protestant refugees from France and the Netherlands who had settled in the city. One of these, the "Dutch church libel"[1], written in blank verse, contained allusions to several of Marlowe's plays and was signed "Tamburlaine." On May 11 the Privy Council ordered the arrest of those responsible for the libels. The next day, Marlowe's colleague Thomas Kyd was arrested. Kyd's lodgings were searched and a fragment of a heretical tract was found. Kyd asserted, possibly under torture, that it had belonged to Marlowe. Two years earlier they had both been working for an aristocratic patron, probably Ferdinando Stanley, Lord Strange, and Kyd assumed that at this time, when they were sharing a workroom, the document had found its way among his papers. Marlowe's arrest was ordered on May 18. Marlowe was not in London, but was staying with Thomas Walsingham, the cousin of the late Sir Francis. However, he duly appeared before the Privy Council on May 20 and was instructed to "give his daily attendance on their Lordships, until he shall be licensed to the contrary." On May 30, Marlowe was murdered.
Various versions of what happened were current at the time. Francis Meres says Marlowe was "stabbed to death by a bawdy serving-man, a rival of his in his lewd love" as punishment for his "epicurism and atheism". In 1917, in the Dictionary of National Biography, Sir Sidney Lee wrote that Marlowe was killed in a drunken fight, and this is still stated as fact today.
The facts only came to light in 1925 when the scholar Leslie Hotson discovered the coroner's report on Marlowe's death in the Public Record Office [1]. Marlowe had spent all day in a house (not a tavern) in Deptford, owned by the widow Eleanor Bull, along with three men, Ingram Frizer, Nicholas Skeres and Robert Poley. All three had been employed by the Walsinghams. Skeres and Poley had helped snare the conspirators in the Babington plot. Frizer was a servant of Thomas Walsingham. Witnesses testified that Frizer and Marlowe had earlier argued over the bill, exchanging "divers malicious words." Later, while Frizer was sitting at a table between the other two and Marlowe was lying behind him on a couch, Marlowe snatched Frizer's dagger and began attacking him. In the ensuing struggle, according to the coroner's report, Marlowe was accidentally stabbed above the right eye, killing him instantly. The coroner concluded that Frizer acted in self-defense, and he was promptly pardoned.
A number of fanciful scenarios have been proposed by those who question the coroner's report: they speculate that Marlowe's death was faked by his powerful friends to save him from prosecution for heresy, or that he was the victim of a "hit" to silence him because he knew something about someone. These theories are not supported by any direct or compelling evidence. No one in the Renaissance considered Marlowe's death suspicious, although they were quick to believe rumors about other sudden deaths, or to circulate other kinds of rumors about Marlowe's death. Speculative theories about Marlowe's death are strictly a twentieth-century phenomenon.
Background
Playwright career
Marlowe's death
Works
Plays
Poetry
Additional reading
External links