Christopher Marlowe

BORN: February 1564 • Canterbury, England

DIED: May 30, 1593 • Deptford, England

English playwright

Christopher Marlowe was the most influential dramatist of the Elizabethan Era, the period associated with the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603) that is often considered to be a golden age in English history. He was the first English playwright to show the dramatic possibilities of blank verse, the form that William Shakespeare (1564–1616; see entry) perfected in his own plays. Marlowe's work also introduced exciting new themes in Elizabethan drama by focusing on tragic protagonists who dared to challenge traditional ideas about morality. In his private life, too, Marlowe defied convention. Evidence suggests that he worked as a secret agent for the English government. At the same time, he was often accused of holding anti-religious beliefs, a serious crime in Elizabethan England. Some accused him of being a homosexual. Marlowe was killed at age twenty-nine. The official report of the incident determined that he had been killed in a fight that he had started. Some historians, however, believe he was assassinated by the government. Marlowe died before he had reached the height of his

"I hold the Fates bound fast in iron chains."

artistic powers. Many believe that, had Marlowe lived longer, his works could have equaled or even surpassed those of Shakespeare.

Early life and education

One of nine children born to shoemaker John Marlowe and his wife, Katherine Arthur, Christopher Marlowe grew up in Canterbury, the site of one of England's oldest cathedrals. Though not actually poor, the family never quite achieved a comfortable standard of living; nevertheless, it was stable and happy. As a boy Christopher received a scholarship to attend the King's School, a prestigious choir school under the cathedral's administration. Here he studied Greek, Latin, religion, music, and history. He also obtained a thorough knowledge of poetic structure, and he was expected to be able to compose his own poems in Latin. Students at the King's School often performed plays in Greek and Latin, and they were required to speak in Latin at all times, even during their free time.

At age sixteen Marlowe enrolled as a scholarship student at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge University. Here he deepened his knowledge of Latin and began writing his own poetry and plays. He completed his bachelor's of arts degree in 1584 and received his master's degree in 1587. The university officials had been reluctant at first to grant Marlowe's master's degree because he had been absent from the university for an extended period of time. They suspected he may have gone to Europe to meet with Catholic exiles there who had fled Protestant rule in England. If Marlowe had Catholic sympathies, they judged, his loyalty to the English government might be in question; if this were the case, they would withhold his degree.

Marlowe may very well have been in Europe, but if so his purpose was probably quite different from what the university authorities suspected. Many historians believe that, during his university days, Marlowe was recruited by Francis Walsingham (1530–1590; see entry) as a secret agent for the English government. There was intense religious conflict in England at this time, and Elizabeth I (1533–1603; see entry), a Protestant whose right to the English throne was disputed by Catholics, was vulnerable to Catholic plots to assassinate her. Walsingham sought intelligent and educated men like Marlowe to work as spies in England and Europe to help expose anti-government conspiracies. Marlowe's frequent absences from the university in the mid-1580s may have occurred while he was on undercover missions for Walsingham. The details of any such assignments, though, are not known.

The queen's Privy Council sent a letter to the university in Marlowe's defense. (The Privy Council was the board of advisors that carried out the administrative function of the government in matters of economy, defense, foreign policy, and law and order, and its members served as the queen's chief advisors.) It informed the authorities that any rumor about Marlowe working for the English Catholic cause in Europe was false. As quoted in The World of Christopher Marlowe by David Riggs, the letter also told the university to grant Marlowe his degree because "it was not her Majesty's pleasure that anyone employed as he had been in matters touching the benefit of his Country should be defamed by those that are ignorant in the affairs he went about." The authorities granted the degree.

Moves to London

Soon afterward Marlowe moved to London, where he settled in the neighborhood of Norton Folgate just outside the city walls to the north. This was a suitable location for an aspiring playwright because it was free from city government control. Playhouses, of which the stricter Protestant faction called Puritans disapproved, could operate freely there. So could taverns, gambling dens, and houses of prostitution. Performances at playhouses often drew rowdy audiences, and robberies and fights were common.

Marlowe quickly developed a reputation for drinking and quarreling. He was arrested in 1589 after a street fight in Norton Folgate that resulted in the death of an innkeeper named William Bradley. Marlowe and Bradley were fighting in an alley when Thomas Watson, a poet, drew his sword to intervene. Bradley then attacked Watson, and Watson stabbed him to death. A jury ruled that Marlowe had not been involved in the killing, and that Watson had acted in self-defense. In 1592 authorities in Shoreditch, near Norton Folgate, demanded that Marlowe provide them with a guarantee that he would not disturb the peace. Later that year he was charged with damaging property in Canterbury.

A new age of drama

From his earliest days in London Marlowe became associated with a company of actors, the Admiral's Men, whose star performer was Edward Alleyn (1566–1626). Soon the Admiral's Men were staging the young dramatist's works. In late 1587 Marlowe's Tamburlaine, Parts 1 and 2 was performed in London. According to James E. Ruoff in Major Elizabethan Poetry & Prose, this play "heralded in spellbinding cadences [rhythms] a new age of drama." It was the first play in English to exploit the full potential of blank verse, a type of poetry with regular meter (the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables) but no rhyme. Theatergoers as well as Marlowe's fellow writers were entranced by this innovative use of blank verse; poet Ben Jonson (c. 1572–1637) called it "Marlowe's mighty line."

Tamburlaine also excited audiences with its subject matter. The play told the story of Tamburlaine, a poor shepherd from Scythia (a region near the Black Sea) who conquers the world. He is a cruel and pitiless tyrant, and the play is filled with scenes of graphic violence. For example, a captured emperor kills himself by smashing his head against the bars of the cage in which Tamburlaine exhibits him. Tamburlaine, played by Alleyn in a performance that brought him great fame, shocked Elizabethans because he openly enjoys his cruelty. Furthermore, he refuses to accept any social order that might limit his power. Though he was born poor, he decides to make his own destiny. "I hold the Fates bound fast in iron chains," he declares. This insistence on his own power to do as he chose made Tamburlaine a new type of hero, one who completely rejected the traditional virtues of Elizabethan England. As Ruoff explained, this play and Marlowe's other works glorified the new ideas of the Renaissance, which emphasized individual freedom. (The Renaissance was the era beginning around 1350 in Europe, in which scholars turned their attention to classical Greek and Latin learning and shifted to a more rational [based on reason rather than spiritual belief or church authority] approach to philosophy, religion, and science.)

Between 1588 and 1592 Marlowe wrote at least four other plays; another, Dido, Queen of Carthage, may date from his years at Cambridge University. Tamburlaine was published in 1590, but the dates of Marlowe's other plays, which were performed but not published until after his death, are not certain.

The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, published in 1604 but first produced around 1589, was based on the German story of a magician who sells his soul to the devil in order to gain forbidden knowledge. Marlowe's play, scholars believe, was the first dramatization of this story. The play features Faustus's famous speech about his fear of death, and his descent into hell. The few of Malta, first produced around 1590 but published in 1633, was considered a major influence of Shakespeare's TheMerchant of Venice. In Marlowe's play, a Jewish merchant, Barabas, embarks on a violent campaign of revenge after authorities in Malta deprive him and other Jews of their wealth in order to pay a tax demanded by the Turks. The Massacre at Paris dramatized the events of the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre in 1572, when Catholic mobs in Paris murdered thousands of Protestants. The Catholic Duke of Guise, one of the leaders behind the massacre, is the play's hero. Edward II, considered Marlowe's best-constructed play, is based on the reign of King Edward II of England (1284–1327), a homosexual ruler who struggled against powerful barons who eventually assassinated him. It focuses more closely on character development than previous examples of history plays, or plays about historical figures and events. It is also one of only a very few plays from this period that dealt with the subject of homosexuality.

Accused of atheism

Marlowe's actions and writings stirred up controversy, and almost from the start of his career he found himself accused of atheism, or not believing in God—a serious crime in Elizabethan England punishable by burning at the stake. In 1588 a rival writer and critic, Robert Greene (c. 1560–1592), published a pamphlet that hinted at atheism in Tamburlaine. Greene also wrote a play, Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, that appeared to criticize the lack of repentance and redemption in Doctor Faustus. In 1592 Greene published another pamphlet that more specifically associated Marlowe with atheism.

The playwright found himself in other kinds of trouble as well. When the plague, a disease that killed nearly one-fourth of the city's population, came to London in 1592, playhouses were temporarily closed. Around this time Marlowe went to the Netherlands, where Protestants had been engaged in a years-long rebellion against Spanish Catholic rule, at times with English military support. Marlowe was arrested in Flushing, a town under English control, and accused of counterfeiting and of intent to aid the enemy. Marlowe was sent back to London but was never punished. This incident has caused historians to theorize that Marlowe had received another espionage assignment.

In early 1593, with the plague still raging in London, Marlowe worked on the long narrative poem Hero and Leander. (A narrative poem is a poem that tells a story.) He died before completing it. The poem was based on a Greek legend about lovers who lived on opposite sides of a narrow strait, the Hellespont. Every night Leander swam across, guided by his lover's lamp. In the ancient legend Leander is drowned one night when a storm extinguishes the light. Marlowe's poem, however, breaks off after the lovers' first night together. The unfinished portion was published in 1598, and a version completed by poet George Chapman (c. 1559–1634) was published later that year. The other major poem for which Marlowe is known is "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love."

A violent death

In May 1593 more allegations surfaced about Marlowe's alleged atheism. Several bills, or pamphlets, had been posted around the city that threatened Protestant refugees from Europe. One of these, put up on the wall of the Dutch churchyard, was written in blank verse, contained references to Marlowe's plays, and was signed "Tamburlaine." Alarmed, the queen ordered city authorities to crack down on the authors of these bills. Thomas Kyd (1558–1594), a playwright with whom Marlowe shared a workroom, was one of those arrested. A search of Kyd's room unearthed papers expressing views that contradicted official religious teachings. The authorities described these views, in a report quoted by Riggs, as "vile heretical Conceits denying the deity of Jesus Christ."

After being tortured in prison, Kyd told the authorities that the papers were not his but Marlowe's. On May 18 the Privy Council issued a warrant for Marlowe's arrest. He was taken into custody at the estate of his powerful patron, Thomas Walsingham, nephew of the secretary of state who was also involved in the English espionage network. The council did not imprison the playwright, but it did insist that he provide daily reports on his activities. On May 26 Richard Baines, an informer, provided the council with a document that became known as the Baines Note. As quoted by Constance Brown Kuriyama in Christopher Marlowe: A Renaissance Life, the note accused Marlowe of "damnable judgment of religion and scorn of God's word." Four days later Marlowe was dead.

On May 30 Marlowe was killed at the house of Widow Bull in Deptford, an area south of the river from London near several theaters. Witnesses reported that Marlowe had picked a fight with his companions about the bill for their food and drink, and he had attacked and wounded Ingram Frizer in the head. Frizer then killed Marlowe with an accidental stab wound just above the eye. Marlowe died instantly. A coronor's jury on June 1 found that Frizer had acted in self-defense. Marlowe was buried that day at St. Nicholas Church, Deptford.

The Passionate Shepherd and the Nymph's Satirical Reply

Although Marlowe is best known for dramas with powerful, violent heroes, his "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" is a very different work. Its first stanza contains one of the best-known opening lines in English poetry.

    The Passionate Shepherd to His Love
    Come live with me and be my Love,
    And we will all the pleasures prove
    That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
    Woods, or steepy mountain yields.
 
    And we will sit upon the rocks,
    Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,
    By shallow rivers to whose falls
    Melodious birds sing madrigals [songs].
 
    And I will make thee beds of roses
    And a thousand fragrant posies,
    A cap of flowers, and a kirtle [skirt]
    Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;
 
    A gown made of the finest wool
    Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
    Fair lined slippers for the cold,
    With buckles of the purest gold;
 
    A belt of straw and ivy buds,
    With coral clasps and amber studs:
    And if these pleasures may thee move,
    Come live with me, and be my Love.
 
    The shepherd's swains shall dance and sing
    For thy delight each May-morning:
    If these delights thy mind may move
    Then live with me and be my Love.

Several contemporary poets wrote parodies of this poem. The best known is "The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd" by Walter Raleigh (1552–1618; see entry):

    The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd
    If all the world and love were young,
    And truth in every shepherd's tongue,
    These pretty pleasures might me move
    To live with thee and be thy love.
 
    Time drives the flocks from field to fold
    When rivers rage and rocks grow cold,
    And Philomel [the nightingale] becometh dumb;
    The rest complains of cares to come.
 
    The flowers do fade, and wanton fields
    To wayward winter reckoning yields;
    A honey tongue, a heart of gall
    Is fancy's spring, but sorrow's fall.
 
    Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy bed of roses,
    Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies
    Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten—
    In folly ripe, in season rotten.
 
    They belt of straw and ivy buds,
    Thy coral clasps and amber studs,
    All these in me no means can move
    To come to thee and be thy love.
 
    But could youth last and love still breed,
    Had joys no date nor age no need,
    Then these delights my mind might move
    To live with thee and be thy love.

      SOURCES: "THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD TO HIS LOVE," BARLEBY.COM AND "THE NYMPH'S REPLY TO THE SHEPHERD," LUMINARIUM.ORG.

Despite this official version of events, suspicions of foul play later arose. The men who were with Marlowe that day, who included Nicholas Skeres and Robert Poley in addition to Frizer, had all worked for Walsingham, and some historians believe that they may have been part of a secret plot to assassinate the playwright. There may have been powerful individuals who feared what Marlowe might reveal about their own activities if he were brought to trial on the atheism charge. The queen herself may have wished to silence him. But other historians point out that Marlowe had a well-deserved reputation for violence, and he could very well have simply started a fight that turned deadly.

At the time Marlowe's enemies considered his death the logical result of his atheism. His friends mourned the loss of an exceptionally gifted writer. In 1599 Shakespeare alluded to Marlowe in As You Like It, when the character Phoebe addresses the "dead shepherd." Later in the play, the character Touchstone alludes to the quarrel in the small room in Deptford when he says that "When a man's verses cannot be understood … it strikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a little room."

Though Marlowe's artistic career was tragically brief, he gave the English language poems and plays that profoundly influenced the development of literature. As Ruoff concluded, "Marlowe's language towers above any life we have ever known or guessed…. [His] golden declamations were shouted across the narrow streets of London by young apprentices for twenty years after his death. It was perhaps their way of paying tribute to the 'dead shepherd' who had given them during his 'two hours' traffic of the stage' a rare glimpse of life as it is seen from the heady mountaintops of the world."

For More Information

BOOKS

Kuriyama, Constance Brown. Christopher Marlowe: A Renaissance Life. Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 2002.

Riggs, David. The World of Christopher Marlowe. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2004.

Ruoff, James E. Major Elizabethan Poetry & Prose. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1972.

WEB SITES

"Christopher Marlowe." In Search of Shakespeare, http://www.pbs.org/shakespeare/players/player24.html (accessed on July 11, 2006).

"Christopher Marlowe: 16th Century British Literature." Classic Literature Library: British Authors, http://www.classic-literature.co.uk/british-authors/16th-century/christopher-marlowe/ (accessed on July 11, 2006).

The Marlowe Society, http://www.marlowe-society.org/ (accessed on July 11, 2006).

"The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd." Luminarium.org. http://www.luminarium.org/renlit/nymphsreply.htm (accessed on July 11, 2006).

"The Passionate Shepherd to His Love." Bartleby.com. http://www.bartleby.com/106/5.html (accessed on July 11, 2006).

Walton, Brenda. "Christopher Marlowe and the Creation of Dr. Faustus." http://www.teachersfirst.com/lessons/marl-la.htm (accessed on July 11, 2006).