Marlowe, Christopher (1564–1593)

English playwright and contemporary of William Shakespeare who wrote moving, tragic plays in the new medium of blank verse. Born in Canterbury, he prepared for the ministry at the University of Cambridge. Some historical documents indicate that Marlowe was engaged by the minister Sir Francis Walsingham, Queen Elizabeth's secretary of state, to serve as a spy in France. After earning a master's degree at Cambridge, he moved to London, where he joined the Lord Admiral's Company and soon ran into trouble with the law. He was arrested and jailed in 1589 for taking part in a deadly brawl. In 1593, he was arrested again under the charge of atheism.

Historians are still piecing together the obscure details of Marlowe's life and writing career. In the course of his short life, he wrote only one extended poem and six plays. His earliest work, Tamburlaine the Great, was written in two parts and printed in 1590. The play describes the career of a cruel Mongol tyrant. This play was followed by Dido, Queen of Carthage; The Massacre at Paris; Edward, II ; and The Jew of Malta, which presents a deviously ambitious central character presented quite sympathetically among a hostile milieu of Christians. All of Marlowe's works involves a powerful man who is laid low by his own outlandish personality and ambition. His best-known play is Doctor Faustus, which recounts the familiar story of a brilliant scholar who sells his soul to the devil.

Marlowe died in the town of Deptford on May 30, 1593, during a brawl in a private home. The circumstances of his murder are shrouded in mystery, and some historians believe it is connected to his shadowy double life as a spy and government agent. According to some accounts, his killer, Ingram Frizer, was working on instructions of a more powerful man or on the government's wishes for Marlowe's death. Others believe Marlowe's own fiery temperament and penchant for physical assault brought about his death at the hands of Frizer, who was judged by the authorities to have acted in self-defense.

See Also: drama; England; Shakespeare, William