Biography

He was born in Canterbury in 1564, the same year as William Shakespeare, and attended King’s School where he received a classical education like all Elizabethan writers. He subsequently entered Corpus Christi College, Cambridge on a scholarship that earmarked him for a career in the Church. This, of course, was not to take place, since Marlowe was perhaps already in his early works, Dido, Queen of Carthage, and her monumental work Tamerlane; his existing poems also date back to this period in his life. Subsequently, Marlowe launched himself as a playwright and became a member of the renowned “University Wits.” Unfortunately, his career and life ended abruptly when he was killed in a tavern fight in Deptford in 1593; Christopher Marlowe was only 29 years old!

His works and his legacy.

This playwright was completely forgotten and neglected during the 18th century until he was rediscovered by writers such as William Hazlitt and Charles Lamb in the following century. From the 20th century on, Marlowe acquired a comfortable place in the English literary and dramatic scene as his works were no longer comparable to those of Shakespeare. In his short and turbulent life this great poet playwright innovated the blank verse that aroused the admiration of his contemporary Ben Jonson who hailed his “mighty line”. Iambic pentameter existed in English poetry since Chaucer, but Marlowe turned the break into a “realistic” form of human speech that was true in all of his works and is particularly evident in his four outstanding masterpieces.

His first work “Tamburlaine”, a heroic epic in two parts never written in white verse contains the noblest passages of literature as a whole. The prologue was a self-confident opening with the Scythian shepherd, Tamerlane, moved by an ambition far beyond the circumstances of his state, he becomes a powerful figure with: “I am a lord, because my works will show it; and yet a pastor because of my affiliation. ” Tamerlane was a sensation when it was first performed because the playwright actually exemplified Elizabethan drama with his pompous language, exquisite imagery with spectacular expressions and characters. As one of the greatest teachers of poetry, his Dr. Faust in dramatic verse is perhaps the most exceptional work in this vision of Helena that reveals an intense perception of beauty in the passionate and spontaneous selection of words: “Was this the face, who launched a thousand ships And burned the roofless towers of Illium. ” Edward II, a king torn between love for his friend Gaveston and the revolt of his lords, notably illustrated the unrestricted homosexual relationship. Pity and sympathy for Edward II are emphasized by the stark cruelty of his treatment when incarcerated. “What are kings, when the regiment is gone, but perfect shadows on a sunny day?” It outstandingly describes Edward’s downfall. While their Maltese Jew Barabas is apart due to their differences; he is Jewish and his only motivation seems to be money.

He is presented as a comic character who “smiles when he sees how full his suitcases are”; while, in contrast, he later becomes a scheming manipulator and a greedy old man who jealously guards his wealth. At the end of the play, Barabas declares his own fantastic notions of destroying the world and dies saying: “It would have brought confusion on all of you / Damn Turkish Christians, dogs and infidels.” He personified all the traits that an Elizabethan audience would have understood as essentially Jewish and anti-Christian.