Christopher Marlowe has been identified as the most important of Shakesphere's predecessors. "The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus" remains the most celebrated and most often anthologized of Marlowe's plays. Christopher Marlowe was born in Canterbury, England, on February 6, 1564. Marlow is the eldest son of John Marlowe a Shoemakers Guld and Katherine Arthur, a Dover girl of yeoman stock. Christopher Marlowe was baptized at St. George's Church, Canterbury on February 26, 1564. Christopher's intermediate and extended family had a reputation of getting into quarrels and trouble with the law. For example, his sister was known for being a selfish person seeking the unjust vexation of her neighbors. His father was continually engaged in lawsuits, most of the time as a defendant for debt. Christopher Marlowe entered the King's School, Canterbury, at the New Year, 1579. He was elected a Queen's Scholar. The school, which enjoyed a brillant reputation, was a center of theatrical interests. The school contained a large library filled with a number of volumes which have been claimed as sources for Marlow's plays. There Marlowe uncritically read medieval romances, which contained enough bloodshed and rapine for any adolescent.
After two years, in December 1580, Marlowe moved to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he studied for the next six years.
He received a scholarship founded by Mathew Parker, master of the college from 1544 to 1553 and later archbishop of Cnterbury. The scholarship was for six years and was granted more or less on the understanding that those holding it should study for church. Marlowe's acedemic career was uneventful, except for mysterious and increasingly long absences after his second year. Marlowe was absent from college for weeks even months at a time. It is now assumed that in some of these periods he ws involved in yet undiclosed government service either as a secret agent or as a confidential messanger. The first mention of Marlowe's involvement is some type of espionage mission, perhaps among the English Catholics at Rheims, occurs in a letter from the Queen's Pravacy Council to the University in 1587, asking that Marlowe be granted his master's degree. For it appeared that not only had Christopher Marlowe given up all idea of going into the church,but it was rumored that he intended to join Dr. Allen's Catholic seminary at Rheims. However, the Privy Council assured the worried university authorities that "in all his actions Cristopher Marley had behaved himself orderly and discreetly whereby, he had done her Majesty good service."
The dispatch, concluded, "Because it was not her Majesty's pleasure that anyone employed as he had been in matters touching the benefit for his country should be defamed by those that are ignorant in th' affairs he went about." It is not known whether Marlowe's government service was confined to carrying dispatches to and from ambassadors and courts abroad, or whether he was one of Sir Franci's Walsingham's regular spies. It was most likely that he was a spy. In 1587, Marlowe received his M.A. and moved to London, where he spent most of the rest of his life.
Evidently, in his brief, tragic, and passionate life, Marlowe was the kind of man who could not help making enemies. He seems to have lived, as he thought, dangerously. The history of Marlowe's remaining six years of his life traces a series of violent clashes with the law.
By 1589 he was living in Norton Folgate, near the theaters, close to Thomas Watson, the poet. In September, Marlowe and William Bradley fell to fighting in Hog Lane, where upon Watson came to Marlowe's rescue. In the ensuring brawl Watson fatally stabbed Bradley. Though Marlowe fled the scene, both he and Watson were imprisoned in Newgate, Marlowe for two weeks and Watson for a longer time. On December 3, 1589 Marlowe and Watson appeared for trial and discharged with a warning to keep the peace. This he failed to do, for three years later he was summoned to appear at the Middlesex sessions for assaulting two shoreditch constables in Holleywell Street. The constables said that they went in fear of their lives because of him. There is no evidence that Marlowe ever answered this particular charge.
In the early part of 1592 Marlowe appears to have been at the siege of Roven, where English troops had been sent to uphold the Protestant cause against Catholic League, for on 12 March a "Mr Marlin" arrived at Dieppe with a letter from English Garrison at Roven to Sir Henry Unton. From Dieppe, Unton sent Marlowe back to England with a letter to Lord Burghley.
In the early summer of 1591 Thomas Kyd and Marlowe shared a room which they used as a study for writing. Two years after sharing the study with Marlowe, on May 12, 1593 Kyd was arrested and interrogated concerning heretical papers "denying the deity of Jesus Christ", which he said belonged to Marlowe and must have accidentally been shuffled with his own "waste and idle papers" when they had shared a room together. On May 18, a warrant was issued by Privy Council for Marlowe's arrest. On May 20, he appeared and instead of being prisoned and tortured as Kyd was, he was "commanded to give his daily attendence on their Lordships until he shall be licensed to the contrary." Marlowe was not yet out of trouble. A certain Richard Baines delivered a "note" to the Privy Council later in May concerning this "atheist" Marlowe. Before he could answer these new accusations, Marlowe met his violent death.
On May 30, 1593, Marlowe went with friends and acquaintances of the Walsingham circle to Deptford, a village downstream from London. Marlowe and three others, Ingram Frizer, Robert Foley and Nicholas Skeres spent the afternoon quietly talking and later ate supper. A dispute occured and in passion Marlowe drew Frizer's dagger and gave him a couple cuts on the head. In the struggle that followed Marlowe received his death wound above his right eye.
It is difficult to underestimate the poetic and dramatic achievements of Marlowe. Although his career was short, Marlowe wrote plays that applealed to an emerging popular audience and strongly influenced other dramatists. During Marlowe's stay at Camberidge and London he wrote many plays and poems including "Tamburine 1 and 2"," The Jew of Malta "," Edward II", "The Passionate Shepard to his love", "Hero and Leander", "The Tra0gical History of Doctor Faustus", and others.
next...
previous...
home...
