c) Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593)

Was born two months before Shakespeare. Son of a shoemaker; went to Cambridge on a scholarship which was awarded to students preparing for the ministry. Held the scholarship for six years (the maximum) but did not take holy orders.

Before he left college he had written his tremendously successful Tamburlaine. The play (which was soon followed by a sequel Tamburlaine, part 2) dramatizes the exploits of a fourteenth-century Scythian shepherd who conquered much of the known world. In Marlowe’s play he is the vehicle for the expression of boundless energy and ambition, the impulse to strive constantly to absolute power. He justifies his bloody cruelty by saying that ambition is embedded in the laws of nature and in basic human psychology.

Marlowe developed the art of blank verse, changing it into a powerful rhetoric instrument.

From his first great success (when he was twenty three) Marlowe had only six years to live. And those were active and turbulent years. In 1593 Marlowe was killed with a dagger thrust in an argument over the bill.

In these violent years he wrote five more plays: The Massacre at Paris; The Tragedy of Dido, Queen of Carthage(in collaboration with Nashe) ; The Jew of Malta, Dr. Faustus, Edward II.

His tragedies portray a hero who passionately seeks power – the power of rule (Tamburlaine), the power of money (The Jew of Malta), the power of knowledge (Faustus). They all strive beyond the bounds of human capacity, or limits imposed by human achievement.

e.g. Faustus seeks the power that comes from knowledge, no matter at what cost it is achieved. To get this power he makes a bargain with the devil. Faustus’s fall is caused by extreme pride and ambition. However, it is characteristic of Marlowe that he makes these aspirations appear magnificent.

Marlowe was an admired and influential figure. Shakespeare’s early histories are strongly influenced by him.

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