Marlowe Christopher
NAME: Marlowe, Christopher.
ACHIEVEMENTS: Shakespeare’s rival playwright
NICKNAME/ALIAS: None.
DATE/PLACE OF BIRTH: 26th February 1564, in Canterbury, England.
DATE/PLACE OF DEATH/AGE AT DEATH: 30th May 1593, in Deptford, near London, England. Aged 29.
DISCIPLINE: Poet/Playwright.
FIELD: Theatre.
LANGUAGE: English.
PARENTS: John and Katherine Marlow.
SIBLINGS: Thomas, Joan, Margaret, Dorothy and Ann.
SPOUSE: None.
CHILDREN: None.
EDUCATION: King's School, Canterbury; Corpus Christi, Cambridge University.
MAJOR WORK: "Tamburlaine the Great" (c1587), "Edward II" (published 1594), "Dr Faustus" (published 1604), "The Jew of Malta" (published 1633).
LIFE AND TIMES: In 1586, Marlowe was recruited by <spied for> Walsingham*, Secretary to the Privy Council, into Queen Elizabeth's secret service as a spy. At the time, he was still studying at Cambridge University, where he made a translation of "Amores" by the Latin poet, Ovid. He also wrote a play, "Dido, Queen of Carthage," in collaboration with Thomas Nashe.
His MA was granted in 1587, after a letter from the Privy Council to the University, which allowed him to move to London and write for the theatre while continuing his work as a spy. Marlowe’s reputation was made by the London performance of his play, "Tamburlaine the Great," which established blank verse as the medium for Elizabethan dramas.
In September 1589, he was involved in a sword fight with William Bradley. The poet Thomas Watson joined in, killing Bradley, and both men were sent to Newgate prison. Marlowe was released after two weeks and the case against him dismissed.
He returned to his writing and produced "The Jew of Malta", unpublished until 1633, and "The Massacre of Paris", based on the persecution of the French Protestants by the Catholic Duc de Guise and his followers. The Elizabethan audiences were fans of the kind of drama created by Marlowe, depicting massacres, blood and black humor. Marlowe also produced one of the first English historical plays: "Edward II".
Marlow was renowned for getting into brawls and, in 1592, two constables petitioned for him to be sworn to keep the peace. Around this time, one of Marlowe’s patrons is thought to have been the <possible patron was> Earl of Southampton* who may have withdrawn his patronage because of Marlowe's dubious reputation.
On 12 May 1593, the dramatist Thomas Kyd was arrested and the investigators found written evidence of atheism. Under torture, he declared that these were fragments of a disputation belonging to Marlowe and the Privy Council issued a warrant for Marlowe's arrest, to which Marlowe responded by saying that he was ready to face any charges brought against him.
Because an outbreak of the plague had hit London, Marlowe had been staying in Kent with Sir Thomas Walsingham, Francis’ cousin, but, on 30th May, he met Robert Poley, Ingram Frizier and Nicholas Skeres at a house in Deptford. They were all associates of Sir Thomas and two of them, Poley and Skeres, had also worked for the secret service. After a day spent eating, drinking and gambling, there was a quarrel about the bill and Frizier stabbed Marlowe to death, probably by accident.
When he died, Marlowe left his poem "Hero and Leander" unfinished, to be completed and published in 1598 (under both their names) by <published by> Chapman*. Marlowe’s most famous play, "Dr Faustus", based on a man who sells his soul to the devil in return for knowledge and power, was posthumously published in 1604.
He was <rival to> Shakespeare’s* rival
ASSESSMENT: Marlowe was the greatest of the pre-Shakespearean English dramatists.
EXTRA CONNECTIONS: He knew <knew> Raleigh*
ONELINER: Christopher Marlowe, rival to Shakespeare
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Pinciss, Gerald, Christopher Marlowe, Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., Inc., New York, 1975.