Christopher Marlowe was an English poet, dramatist and Shakespeare’s most important predecessor in English drama. Marlowe's plays are known for the use of blank verse.
Background
Christopher Marlowe was born in Canterbury, Kent; the son of John Marlowe, a cobbler and freeman of the city, and his wife Catherine. Though the particular date of Christopher’s birth is unknown, it is generally thought that he was born about 2 months before Shakespeare and baptized on February 26, 1564.
Education
Christopher received his early education at the King's School in Canterbury and at the age of 17 went to Cambridge, where he held a scholarship requiring him to study for the ministry. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1584 and a Master of Arts degree in 1587, though at first, the university hesitated to award him the latter because of a rumour that he had converted to Roman Catholicism and intended to go to the English college at Rheims to prepare for the priesthood.
Career
Marlowe's career as a poet and dramatist spanned a mere 6 years. He wrote only one major poem (Hero and Leander, unfinished at his death) and six or seven plays (one play, Dido Queen of Carthage, may have been written while he was still a student). Since the dating of several plays is uncertain, it is impossible to construct a reliable history of Marlowe's intellectual and artistic development.
Tamburlaine the Great, a two-part play, was first printed in 1590 but was probably composed several years earlier. The play itself is a bold demonstration of Tamburlaine's rise to power and his single-minded, often inhumanly cruel exercise of that power. The hero provokes awe and wonder but little sympathy.
Although written sometime between 1588 and 1592, The Jew of Malta was not printed until 1633. The chief figure, the phenomenally wealthy merchant-prince Barabas, is one of the most powerful Machiavellian figures of the Elizabethan drama. Unlike Tamburlaine, who asserts his will openly and without guile, Barabas is shrewd, devious, and secretive.
Doctor Faustus, which is generally considered Marlowe's greatest work, was probably also his last. Its central figure, a scholar who feels he has exhausted all the conventional areas of human learning, attempts to gain the ultimate in knowledge and power by selling his soul to the devil. The high point comes in the portrayal of the hero's final moments, as he awaits the powers of darkness who demand his soul.
The constant rumors of Christopher Marlowe's atheism caught up with him on Sunday May 20, 1593, and he was arrested for just that "crime." Atheism, or heresy, was a serious offense, for which the penalty was burning at the stake. Despite the gravity of the charge, however, he was not jailed or tortured but was released on the condition that he report daily to an officer of the court.
On May 30, however, Marlowe was killed by Ingram Frizer. Frizer was with Nicholas Skeres and Robert Poley, and all three men were tied to one or other of the Walsinghams - either Sir Francis Walsingham (the man who evidently recruited Marlowe himself into secret service on behalf of the queen) or a relative also in the spy business. Allegedly, after spending the day together with Marlowe in a lodging house, a fight broke out between Marlowe and Frizer over the bill, and Marlowe was stabbed in the forehead and killed.
Religion
Being often charged with heresy and blasphemy, Marlowe was reputed to be an atheist. However, some historians consider that his professed atheism, as with his supposed Catholicism, may have been no more than an elaborate and sustained pretence adopted to further his work as a government spy.
Views
In each of his major plays, Marlowe focuses on a single character who dominates the action by virtue of his extraordinary strength of will. Marlowe's thundering blank verse, although for the most part lacking the subtlety of Shakespeare's mature poetry, proved a remarkably effective medium for this kind of drama.
Quotations:
"Money can't buy love, but it improves your bargaining position."
"Goodness is beauty in the best estate."
"Excess of wealth is the cause of covetousness."
"Virtue is the fount whence honour springs."
"You must be proud, bold, pleasant, resolute, and now and then stab, when occasion serves."
"O, thou art fairer than the evening air clad in the beauty of a thousand stars."
"Why should you love him whom the world hates so? Because he love me more than all the world."
"What are kings, when regiment is gone, but perfect shadows in a sunshine day?"
"It is a comfort to the miserable to have comrades in misfortune, but it is a poor comfort after all."
"Lone women, like to empty houses, perish."
Personality
Various myths and legends have grown around Marlowe since his death. For example, the intervention by the Privy Council to award Marlowe his Master of Science degree, has led many to believe that Marlowe was a secret agent working for Sir Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth’s spymaster. It is believed one of the “affaires” he was involved in may have been the thwarting of the Babington Plot, a plot to assassinate the Protestant Queen Elizabeth and her chief ministers and put the Catholic Mary Queen of Scots on the English throne.
While there is no direct evidence to support the theory that Marlowe was a spy, there is plenty of circumstantial evidence. Along with long absences from university, accounts from the university show that he spent lavishly on food and drink at a time when his own income would not have supported it.
He was also arrested in 1592 for his alleged involvement in the distribution of counterfeit coins in the Netherlands. He was sent to be dealt with by the Lord Treasurer but there was no charge or imprisonment. This may have been because it was another one of his spying missions.
It is believed that Marlowe was also a friend of Sir Walter Raleigh, and may have been a member of an organisation known as The School of Night, made up of men like Raleigh who discussed philosophical and scientific matters and had no time for the Church’s superstitions.
There are as many conspiracy theories about Marlowe’s death. It’s suggested that his death was a government-sponsored assassination. It’s also suggested that his death may have been ordered by Raleigh and other members of the School of Night, who may have feared that, during torture, Marlowe might give up their secrets. Another theory is that members of the Privy Council were responsible because they feared that Marlowe might reveal them to be atheists. Queen Elizabeth herself has even been named as being behind the assassination.
Another legend runs that like William Shakespeare, Marlowe is frequently claimed to have been homosexual. Some scholars argue that the evidence is inconclusive and that the reports of Marlowe's homosexuality may simply be exaggerated rumours produced after his death.