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MARLOWE, CHRISTOPHER (1564-1593)

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Originally appearing in Volume V17, Page 744 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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MARLOWE, See also:CHRISTOPHER (1564-1593) , See also:English dramatist, the See also:father of English tragedy, and instaurator of dramatic See also:blank See also:verse, the eldest son of a shoemaker at See also:Canterbury, was See also:born in that See also:city on the 6th of See also:February 1564. He was christened at St See also:George's See also:Church, Canterbury, on the 26th of February, 1563/4, some two months before See also:Shakespeare's See also:baptism at See also:Stratford-on-See also:Avon. His father, See also:John Marlowe, is said to have beenthe See also:grandson of John See also:Morley or Marlowe, a substantial See also:tanner of Canterbury. The father, who survived by a dozen years or so his illustrious son, married on the 22nd of May 1561 See also:Catherine, daughter of Christopher See also:Arthur, at one See also:time See also:rector of St See also:Peter's, Canterbury, who had been ejected by See also:Queen See also:Mary as a married See also:minister. The dramatist received the rudiments of his See also:education at the See also:King's School, Canterbury, which he entered at Michaelmas 1578, and where he had as his See also:fellow-pupils See also:Richard See also:Boyle, afterwards known as the See also:great See also:earl of See also:Cork, and Will See also:Lyly, the See also:brother of the dramatist. See also:Stephen See also:Gosson entered the same school a little before, and See also:William See also:Harvey, the famous physician, a little after Marlowe. He went to See also:Cambridge as one of See also:Archbishop See also:Parker's scholars from the King's School, and matriculated at Benet (Corpus Christi) See also:College, on the 17th of See also:March 1571, taking his B.A. degree in 1584, and that of M.A. three or four years later. See also:Francis Kett, the mystic, burnt in 1589 for See also:heresy, was a fellow and See also:tutor of his college, and may have had some See also:share in developing Marlowe's opinions in religious matters. Marlowe's classical acquirements were of a See also:kind which was then extremely See also:common, being based for the most See also:part upon a See also:minute acquaintance with See also:Roman See also:mythology, as revealed in See also:Ovid's See also:Meta-morphoses. His spirited See also:translation of Ovid's Amores (printed 1596), which was at any See also:rate commenced at Cambridge, does not seem to point to any very intimate acquaintance with the See also:gram-See also:mar and syntax of the Latin See also:tongue. Before 1587 he seems to have quitted Cambridge for See also:London, where he attached himself to the See also:Lord See also:Admiral's See also:Company of Players, under the leadership of the famed actor See also:Edward See also:Alleyn, and almost at once began See also:writing for the See also:stage. Of Marlowe's career in London, apart from his four great theatrical successes, we know hardly anything; but he evidently knew See also:Thomas See also:Kyd, who shared his unorthodox opinions.

See also:

Nash criticized his verse, See also:Greene affected to shudder at his See also:atheism; See also:Gabriel Harvey maligned his memory. On the other See also:hand Marlowe was intimate with the Walsinghams .of Scadbury, Chiselhurst, kinsmen of See also:Sir Francis See also:Walsingham: he was also the See also:personal friend of Sir See also:Walter See also:Raleigh, and perhaps of the poetical earl of See also:Oxford, with both of whom, and with such men as Walter See also:Warner and See also:Robert See also:Hughes the mathematicians, Thomas Harriott the notable astronomer, and See also:Matthew Royden, the dramatist is said to have met in See also:free converse. Either this free converse or the licentious See also:character of some of the See also:young dramatist's tirades seems to have sown a suspicion among the strait-laced that his morals See also:left everything to be desired. It is probable enough that this attitude of reprobation drove a See also:man of so exalted a disposition as Marlowe into a more insurgent attitude than he would have otherwise adopted. He seems at any rate to have been associated with what was denounced as Sir Walter Raleigh's school of atheism, and to have dallied with opinions which were then regarded as putting a man outside the See also:pale of civilized humanity. As the result of some depositions made by Thomas Kyd under the See also:influence of See also:torture, the Privy See also:Council were upon the See also:eve of investigating some serious charges' against Marlowe when his career was abruptly and somewhat scandalously terminated. The See also:order had already been issued for his See also:arrest, when he was slain in a See also:quarrel by a man variously named (See also:Archer and See also:Ingram) at See also:Deptford, at the end of May 1593, and he was buried on the 1st of See also:June in the See also:churchyard of St See also:Nicholas at Deptford. The following See also:September Gabriel Harvey referred to him as " dead of the See also:plague." The disgraceful particulars attached to the tragedy of Marlowe in the popular mind would not seem to have appeared until four years later (1597) when Thomas See also:Beard, the Puritan author of The See also:Theatre of See also:God's Judgements, used the See also:death of this playmaker and atheist as one of his warning examples of the vengeance of God. Upon the embellishments of this See also:story, such as that of Francis See also:Meres the critic, in 1598, that Marlowe came to be " stabbed to death by a bawdy servingman, a See also:rival of his in his lewde love," or that of William See also:Vaughan in the See also:Golden See also:Grove of 1600, in which the unfortunate poet's See also:dagger is thrust into his own See also:eye in prevention of his felonious See also:assault upon an See also:innocent man, his See also:guest, it is impossible now to pronounce. We really do not know the circumstances of Marlowe's death. The ,See also:probability is he was killed in a brawl, and his atheism must be interpreted not according to' the ex See also:park See also:accusation of one Richard See also:Baines, a professional informer (among the Privy Council records), but as a See also:species of rationalistic antinomianism, See also:dialectic in character, and closely related to the deflection from conventional orthodoxy for which Kett was burnt at See also:Norwich in 1589. A few months before the end of his See also:life there is See also:reason to believe that he transferred his services from the Lord Admiral's to Lord See also:Strange's Company, and may have thus been brought into communication with Shakespeare, who ih such plays as Richard II. and Richard III. owed not a little to the influence of his romantic predecessor.

Marlowe's career as a dramatist lies between the years 1587 and 1593, and the four great plays to which reference has been made were Tamburlaine the Great, an heroic epic in dramatic See also:

form divided into two parts of five acts each (1587, printed in 1590); Dr Faustus (1588, entered at Stationers' See also:Hall 16o1); The Famous Tragedy of the See also:Rich See also:Jew of See also:Malta (dating perhaps from 1589, acted in 1592, printed in 1633); and Edward the Second (printed 1594). The very first words of Tamburlaine See also:sound the See also:trumpet See also:note of attack in the older order of things dramatic : " From jigging See also:veins of riming See also:mother wits And such conceits as clownage keeps in pay We'll See also:lead you to the stately See also:tent of See also:war, Where you shall hear the Scythian Tamburlaine Threatening the See also:world with high astounding terms And scourging kingdoms with his conquering See also:sword." It leapt with a See also:bound to a See also:place beside Kyd's See also:Spanish Tragedy, and few plays have been more imitated by rivals (Greene's Alphonsus of See also:Aragon, See also:Peele's See also:Battle of Alcazar, Selimus, See also:Scanderbeg) or more keenly satirized by the See also:jealousy and See also:prejudice of out-distanced competitors. (T. SE.) The majestic and exquisite excellence of various lines and passages in Marlowe's first See also:play must be admitted to relieve, if it cannot be allowed to redeem, the stormy monotony of Titanic truculence which blusters like a See also:simoom through the noisy course of its ten fierce acts. With many and heavy faults, there is some thing of genuine greatness in Tamburlaine'the Great; and for two See also:grave reasons it must always be remembered with distinction and mentioned with See also:honour. It is the first poem ever written in English blank verse, as distinguished from See also:mere rhymeless decasyllabics; and it contains one of the noblest passages, perhaps indeed the noblest, in the literature of the world, ever written by one of the greatest masters of, See also:poetry in loving praise of the glorious delights and See also:sublime submission to the See also:everlasting limits of his See also:art. In its highest and most distinctive qualities, in unfaltering and infallible command of the right note of See also:music and the proper See also:tone of See also:colour for the finest touches of poetic See also:execution, no poet of the most elaborate See also:modern school, working at ease upon every consummate resource of luxurious learning and leisurely refinement, has ever excelled the best and most representative See also:work of a man who had literally no See also:models before him and probably or evidently was often if not always compelled to write against time for his living. The just and generous See also:judgment passed by See also:Goethe on the Faustus of his English predecessor in tragic treatment of the same subject is somewhat more than sufficient to counterbalance the slighting or the sneering references to that magnificent poem which might have been expected from the See also:ignorance of See also:Byron or the incompetence of See also:Hallam. And the particular note of merit observed, the See also:special point of the praise conferred, by the great See also:German poet should be no less sufficient to dispose of the vulgar misconception yet lingering among sciolists and pre-tenders to See also:criticism, which regards a writer than whom no man was ever born with a finer or a stronger See also:instinct for perfection of excellence in execution as a mere See also:noble See also:savage of letters, a rough self-taught sketcher or scribbler of crude and See also:rude See also:genius, whose unhewn blocks of verse had in them some veins of rare enough See also:metal to be quarried and polished by Shakespeare. What most impressed the author of See also:Faust in the work of Marlowe was a quality the want of which in the author of See also:Manfred is See also:proof enough to consign his best work to the second or third class atmost. How greatly it is all planned!" the first requisite of all great work, and one of which the highest genius possible to a greatly gifted See also:barbarian could by no possibility understand the nature or conceive the existence. That Goethe " had thought of translating it " is perhaps hardly less See also:precious a See also:tribute to its greatness than the fact that it has been actually and admirably translated by the matchless translator of Shakespeare—the son of See also:Victor See also:Hugo; whose labour of love may thus be said to have made another point in common, and forged as it were another See also:link of See also:union, between Shakespeare and the young See also:master of Shakespeare's youth.

Of all great poems in dramatic form it is perhaps the most remarkable for See also:

absolute singleness of aim and simplicity of construction; yet is it wholly free from all possible imputation of monotony or aridity. Tamburlaine is monotonous in the See also:general See also:roll and flow of its stately and sonorous verse through a noisy See also:wilderness of perpetual bluster and slaughter; but the unity of tone and purpose in See also:Doctor Faustus is not unrelieved by See also:change of manner and variety of incident. The comic scenes, written evidently with as little of labour as of relish, are for the most part scarcely more than transcripts, thrown into the form of See also:dialogue, from a popular See also:prose See also:History of Dr Faustus, and therefore should be set down as little to the discredit as to the See also:credit of the poet. Few masterpieces of any See also:age in any See also:language can stand beside this tragic poem—it has hardly the structure of a play—for the qualities of terror and splendour, for intensity of purpose and sublimity of note. In the See also:vision of See also:Helen, for example, the intense See also:perception of loveliness gives actual sublimity to the sweetness and radiance of mere beauty in the passionate and spontaneous selection of words the most choice and perfect; and in like manner the sublimity of simplicity in Marlowe's conception and expression of the agonies endured by Faustus under the immediate imminence of his See also:doom gives the highest note of beauty, the quality of absolute fitness and propriety, to the sheer straightforwardness of speech in which his agonizing horror finds vent ever more and more terrible from the first to the last equally beautiful and fearful verse of that tremendous See also:monologue which has no parallel in all the range of tragedy. It is now a See also:commonplace of criticism to observe and regret the decline of See also:power and See also:interest after the opening acts of The Jew of Malta. This decline is undeniable, though even the latter part of the play (the See also:text of which is very corrupt) is not wanting in rough See also:energy; but the first two acts would be sufficient See also:foundation for the durable fame of a dramatic poet. In the blank verse of See also:Milton alone—who perhaps was hardly less indebted than Shakespeare was before him to Marlowe as the first English master of word-music in its grander forms—has the See also:glory or the See also:melody of passages in the opening soliloquy of Barabbas been possibly surpassed. The figure of the See also:hero before it degenerates into See also:caricature is as finely touched as the poetic execution is excel-See also:lent; and the rude and rapid sketches of the See also:minor characters show at least some vigour and vivacity of See also:touch. In Edward the Second the interest rises and the execution improves as visibly and as greatly with the course of the advancing story as they decline in The Jew of Malta. The See also:scene of the king's deposition at See also:Kenilworth is almost as much finer in tragic effect and poetic quality as it is shorter and less elaborate than the corresponding scene in Shakespeare's King Richard II. The terror of the death-scene undoubtedly rises into horror; but this horror is with skilful simplicity of treatment preserved from passing into disgust.

In pure poetry, in sublime and splendid See also:

imagination, this tragedy is excelled by Doctor Faustus; in dramatic power and See also:positive impression of natural effect it is certainly the masterpiece of Marlowe. It was almost inevitable, in the hands of any poet but Shakespeare, that none of the characters represented should be capable of securing or even exciting any finer sympathy or more serious interest than attends on the mere See also:evolution of.successive events or the mere display of emotions (except always in the great scene of the deposition) rather See also:animal than spiritual in their expression of rage or tenderness or suffering. The exact See also:balance of mutual effect, the final note of scenic See also:harmony, between ideal conception and realistic execution is not yet struck with perfect accuracy of touch and See also:security of hand; but on this point also Marlowe has here come nearer by many degrees to Shakespeare than any of his other predecessors have ever come near to Marlowe. Of The See also:Massacre at See also:Paris (acted in 1593, printed 'Coo?) it is impossible to See also:judge fairly from the garbled fragment of its genuine text which is all that has come down to us. To Mr See also:Collier, among numberless other obligations, we owe the See also:discovery of a noble passage excised in the piratical edition which gives us the only version extant of this unlucky play, and which, it must be allowed, contains nothing of quite equal value. This is obviously an occasional and polemical work, and being as it is overcharged with the See also:anti-See also:Catholic See also:passion of the time has a typical quality which gives it some empirical significance and interest. That antipapal ardour is indeed the only note of unity in a rough and ragged See also:chronicle which See also:shambles and stumbles onward from the death of Queen Jeanne of See also:Navarre to the See also:murder of the last See also:Valois. It is possible to conjecture, what it would be fruitless to affirm, that it gave a hint in the next See also:century to Nathaniel See also:Lee for his far See also:superior and really admirable tragedy on the same subject, issued ninety-seven years after the death of Marlowe. In the tragedy of See also:Dido Queen of See also:Carthage (completed by Thomas Nash, produced and printed 1594), a servile fidelity to the text of See also:Virgil's narrative has naturally resulted in the failure which might have been expected from an See also:attempt at once to transcribe what is essentially inimitable and to reproduce it under the hopelessly See also:alien conditions of dramatic See also:adaptation. The one really noble passage in a generally feeble and incomposite piece of work is, however, uninspired by the unattainable See also:model to which the dramatists have been only too obsequious in their subservience. It is as nearly certain as anything can be which depends chiefly upon cumulative and See also:collateral See also:evidence that the better part of what is best in the serious scenes of King See also:Henry VI. is mainly the work of Marlowe. That he is at any rate the See also:principal author of the second and third plays passing under that name among the See also:works of Shakespeare, but first and imperfectly printed as The Contention between the two Famous Houses of See also:York and See also:Lancaster, can hardly be now a See also:matter of debate among competent See also:judges.

The See also:

crucial difficulty of criticism in this matter is to determine, if indeed we should not rather say to conjecture, the authorship of the humorous scenes in prose, showing as they generally do a power of comparatively high and pure comic See also:realism to which nothing in the acknowledged works of any pre-Shakespearian dramatist is even remotely comparable. Yet, especially in the See also:original text of these scenes as they stand unpurified by the ultimate revision of Shakespeare or his editors, there are tones and touches which recall rather the clownish horseplay and homely ribaldry of his predecessors than anything in the lighter interludes of his very earliest plays. We find the same sort of thing which we find in their writings, only better done than they usually do it, rather than such work as Shakespeare's a little worse done than usual. And even in the final text of the tragic or metrical scenes the highest note struck is always, with one magnificent and unquestionable exception, rather in the See also:key of Marlowe at his best than of Shakespeare while yet in great measure his See also:disciple. A Taming of a See also:Shrew, the play on which Shakespeare's See also:comedy was founded, has been attributed, without See also:good reason, to Marlowe. The passages in the play borrowed from Marlowe's works provide an See also:argument against, rather than for his author-See also:ship; while the humorous character of the play is not in keeping with his other work. He may have had a share in The Trouble-some Raigne of King John (1591), and Fleay conjectured that the plays Edward III. and Richard III. usually included in See also:editions of Shakespeare are at least based on plays by Marlowe. Lust's Dominion, printed in 1657, was incorrectly ascribed to him, and a play no longer extant, The True History of George Scanderbage, was assumed by Fleay on the authority of an obscure passage of Gabriel Harvey to be his work. The See also:Maiden's See also:Holiday, assigned to See also:Day and Marlowe, was destroyed by See also:Warburton'scook. Day was considerably Marlowe's junior, and collaboration between the two is not probable. Had every copy of Marlowe's boyish version or perversion of Ovid's Elegies (P. Ovidii Nasonis Amorum compressed into three books) deservedly perished in the flames to which it was judicially condemned by the See also:sentence of a See also:brace of prelates, it is possible that an occasional bookworm, it is certain that no poetical student, would have deplored its destruction, if its demerits could in that See also:case have been imagined.

His translation of the first See also:

book of See also:Lucan alternately rises above the original and falls See also:short of it,—often inferior to the Latin in point and See also:weight of expressive See also:rhetoric, now and then brightened by a clearer note of poetry and lifted into a higher See also:mood of verse. Its terseness, vigour and purity of See also:style would in any case have been praiseworthy, but are nothing less than admirable, if not wonderful, when we consider how See also:close the translator has on the whole (in spite of occasional slips into inaccuracy) kept himself to the most rigid limit of literal See also:representation, phrase by phrase and often See also:line by line. The really startling force and felicity of occasional verses are worthier of remark than the inevitable stiffness and heaviness of others, when the technical difficulty of such a task is duly taken into See also:account. One of the most faultless lyrics and one of the loveliest fragments in the whole range of descriptive and fanciful poetry would have secured a place for Marlowe among the memorable men of his See also:epoch, even if his plays had perished with himself. His Passionate Shepherd remains ever since unrivalled in its way—a way of pure See also:fancy and radiant melody without break or See also:lapse. The untitled fragment, on the other hand, has been very closely rivalled, perhaps very happily imitated, but only by the greatest lyric poet of See also:England—by See also:Shelley alone. Marlowe's poem of Hero and Leander (entered at Stationers' Hall in September 1593; completed and brought out by George See also:Chapman, who divided Marlowe's work into two sestiads and added four of his own, 1598), closing with the sunrise which closes the See also:night of the lovers' union, stands alone in its age, and far ahead of the work of any possible competitor between the death of See also:Spenser and the See also:dawn of Milton. In clear mastery of narrative and presentation, in melodious ease and simplicity of strength, it is not less pre-eminent than in the adorable beauty and impeccable perfection of See also:separate lines or passages. It is doubtful whether the heroic See also:couplet has ever been more finely handled. The place and the value of Christopher Marlowe as a See also:leader among English poets it would be almost impossible for See also:historical criticism to over-estimate. To none of them all, perhaps, have so many of the greatest among them been so deeply and so directly indebted. Nor was ever any great writer's influence upon his See also:fellows more utterly and unmixedly an influence for good.

He first, and he alone, guided Shakespeare into the right way of work; his music, in which there is no See also:

echo of any man's before him, found its own echo in the more prolonged but hardly more exalted harmony of Milton's. He is the greatest discoverer, the most daring and inspired See also:pioneer, in all our poetic literature. Before him there was neither genuine blank verse nor a genuine tragedy in our language. After his arrival the way was prepared, the paths were made straight, for Shakespeare. (A. C. S.) Marlowe's fame, so finely appreciated by Shakespeare and See also:Drayton, vas in obscuration from the fall of the theatres until the See also:generation of See also:Lamb and See also:Hazlitt. A collected edition was brought out by See also:Pickering in 1826. This was greatly improved upon by A. See also:Dyce (1858, 1865, 1876). A one-See also:volume edition was prepared by See also:Colonel Francis See also:Cunningham in 1871. The See also:standard edition of Mr A.

H. Bullen in 3 vols. appeared in 1884–1885 and is now under revision. The " Best Plays " were edited for the Mermaid See also:

series by See also:Havelock See also:Ellis with an Introduction by J. A. See also:Symonds (1887-1889). The best modern text is that edited by C. F. See also:Tucker See also:Brooke (Oxf. Univ. See also:Press, 1910). A See also:sketch in outline of Marlowe's Life was essayed by J. G.

See also:

Lewis (Canterbury, 1891). A not very conclusive monograph on Christopher Marlowe and his Associates by J. H. Ingram, followed in 1904. For further See also:information the reader should consult the histories of the stage by Collier, See also:Ward, Fleay, See also:Schelling, and the studies of Shakespeare's Predecessors by Symonds, See also:Mezieres, Boas, See also:Manley, Churton See also:Collins, Feuillerat and J. M. See also:Robertson. See also Verity's See also:Essay on Marlowe's Influence (1886) ; Mod. See also:Lang. Rev. iv. 167 (M. at Cambridge) ; See also:Swinburne, Study of Shakespeare (188o) ; See also:Elze, Notes, and Hazlitt Dramatic Lit. of the Age of See also:Elizabeth; Fortnightly See also:Review, xiii., lxxi., and See also:Sept.—Oct., 1905; See also:Jusserand, Hist. of English Lit.; the Cambridge Hist. of English Lit. ; Seccombe and See also:Allen, Age of Shakespeare (vol. ii.

3rd ed., 1909), and the separate editions of Dr Faustus, Edward II., &c. The See also:

main See also:sources of Marlowe were as follows: for Tamburlaine, Pedro Alexia's Life of Timur in his See also:Silva (See also:Madrid, 1543), anglicized by See also:Fortescue in his Foreste (1571) and Petrus Perondinus Vita Magni Tamerlanis (1551); for Faustus: a contemporary English version of the Faust-See also:buch or Historia von D. Johann Fausten (See also:Frankfort, 1587), and for Edward II., the See also:Chronicles of See also:Fabyan (1516), See also:Holinshed (1577) and See also:Stow (1580). (T.

End of Article: MARLOWE, CHRISTOPHER (1564-1593)

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