Christopher Marlowe: Elizabethan Drama

Christopher Marlowe 

 

Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593) was an influential English playwright, poet, and translator who had a great impact on Elizabethan drama. The son of a Canterbury shoemaker, Christopher Marlowe, was born two months before William Shakespeare. Marlowe attended Cambridge University and was renowned for his aptitude in languages such as Latin, Greek and French. In 1580, he was granted a scholarship to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, which was typically given to those who were studying to become ministers. He was granted the scholarship for a maximum of six years, though he never took holy orders. Instead, he began to write plays. He wrote various plays, including "Tamburlaine the Great," "Doctor Faustus," and "The Jew of Malta." His plays were known for their bold and unconventional themes, such as the pursuit of power, the struggle for identity, and the conflict between desire and morality. In addition to his plays, Marlowe was also known for his poetry, including "Hero and Leander," a tragic love story, and his translations of Ovid's "Amores" and "The Art of Love." Marlowe was a contemporary and rival of William Shakespeare, and his work is considered to have had a significant influence on the development of Elizabethan dram. He is also known for his poetry, which includes the famous poem "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love.". In Marlowe's play, there are few if any glimpses of a transcendent design. His hero is the vehicle for the expression of boundless energy and ambition. The English theatre audience had never heard such a resonant, vastly energetic blank verse. The great period of Elizabethan drama was launched by what Ben Jonson called "Marlowe's mighty line."  

Marlowe was twenty-three when he got his first theatrical success. Marlowe had only six years to live. They were not peaceful years. In 1589 he was involved in a brawl with one William Bradley, in which the poet Thomas Watson intervened and killed Bradley. Both poets were imprisoned, but Watson got off on a plea of self-defence, and Marlowe was released. In 1591, Marlowe was living in London with playwright Thomas Kyd. Later, Kyd accused Marlowe of atheism and treason under torture when he gave information to the Privy Council. On May 30, 1593, an individual named Bichard Baines submitted a note to the Council, claiming that Marlowe had made statements showing atheism, sedition, and homosexuality. Four days later, at an inn in the London suburb of Deptford, Marlowe was killed by a dagger thrust, purportedly in an argument over the bill. Despite his short career, Marlowe's work continues to be studied and performed today, and he is regarded as one of the greatest dramatists of the English Renaissance. 

REFERENCES 

Abrams, M.H., Greenblatt, Stephen, David, Alfred and Lewalski, Barbara K. (1987). The Norton Anthology of English Literature. The Major Athuors (6 ed.). London: Norton & Company Ltd. 

 

History of Britain and Ireland: The Definitive Visual Guide