Christopher Marlower, the English dramatist, was born February 6, 1564, in Canterbury, Kent, England; he died May 30 1593 in Deptford, London.
His father was a shoemaker and his mother was the daughter of a clergyman. He was educated at King's School, Canterbury until he was 15, and then he took a scholarship at Benet (Corpus Christi) College, Cambridge. His Tamburlaine the Great was a considerable improvement on any tragedy that had been produced in England. Although blank verse had been used before he gave it strength and variety. He prepared the way for William Shakespeare. While at Cambridge, Christopher Marlowe met Thomas Watson who was visiting the university. They became close friends and made plans to live together after Marlowe's studies. Thomas Watson introduced Christopher Marlowe to Sir Francis Walsingham, the Secretary of State, who operated a network of spies throughout Europe. Marlowe offered his services and he was sent to Rheims where he spied on the Roman Catholic seminary and sent back information on the priests and the students who were secretly planning to return to England. Also while at Cambridge, Marlowe met Francis Walsingham's nephew, Thomas, who was then about 17. They became close friends and they often spent time together at Thomas's country house, Scadbury, near Chislehurst, Kent. Christopher Marlowe moved to London in 1587 and began to write seriously. His plays became popular and he became established as a leading dramatist. His play Edward II was the first English play to deal openly with homosexuality and tells the story of Edward II's loev for the French knight Piers Gaveston, and their deaths at the hands of enemies. A film adaptation of the play was made in 1991 by Derek Jakman; it is in modern dress and is an attack on current anti-gay prejudices in Britain.
Christopher Marlowe lived a colourful and perhaps reckless life. After Marlowe's death Richard Baines quoted him as saying "all they that love not tobacco and boys are fools". Baines also claimed that Marlowe repeated what seems to have been a common heresy at the time, that Jesus Christ and St John the evangelist were lovers. In 1593, Christopher Marlowe was due to be arrested for treason and perhaps charged with sodomy. However, before this could take place, Thomas Walsingham's business managed invited him to dine with him on May 30 at Eleanor Bull's tavern in Deptford, south-east London. During the evening, marlowe was killed by stab wounds to the head. At an inquest afterwards it was claimed that the stabbing was the culmination of an argument about the bill. It has been rumoured that this could have been an assassination related to spying activities. There is a brass tablet at St Nicholas's Church, Creek Road, Deptford, London, SE8. Marlowe is said to have been buried nearby, although in an unmarked grave.
EditWork
The Tragedy of Dido, Queen of Carthage, 1586. . (Finished by Thomas Nashe.)
Tamburlaine the Great, in two parts, c1587, printed in 1590.- Revels Student Editions, (1998), Manchester University Press, 226 pages, ISBN 0 7190 5436 2.
The Tragical History of Dr Faustus, c1590, earliest edition 1604. (Some scenes are apparently not by Marlowe.)Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, edited and with an introduction by Harold Bloom, (c1988), New York: Chelsea House, 149 pages, ISBN 087754915x.The Jew of Malta, c1588, published 1633.Edward II, c1590- Edward II, edited by Henry Buckley Charlton and R. D. Waller, (1955), London: Methuen, 244 pages.
- Edward the second, edited by Charles R. Forker, (1995), Manchester University Press, 369 pages, ISBN 0719030897,SBU Library Main Bookstock 822.3
The Massacre at Paris, c1589Probably contributed to William Shakespeare's three parts ofHenry VIandTitus Andronicus.Hero and Leander, unfinished poem, published 1598.Re-published byStephen Coote, (1983)., page 148.Translation of Ovid'sAmoresTranslation of the first book of Lucan'sPharsaliaChristopher Marlowe, edited byHavelock Elliswith a general introduction on the English drama during the reigns of Elizabeth andJames IbyJohn Addington Symonds, (1887), London: Vizetelly, 431 pages.Christopher Marlowe, containsTamburlaine the Great,The Tragical history of Dr Faustus,The Jew of Malta, andEdward the Second, edited byHavelock EllisandJohn Addington Symonds, (1947), London: Ernest Benn, 430 pages.The complete works of Christopher Marlowe, volume 1All Ovids elegies, Lucans first booke, Dido Queene of Carthage, Hero and Leander, edited by Gill Roma, (1987), Oxford: Clarendon Press, 480 pages, ISBN 0198118783.The complete works of Christopher Marlowe, volume 2Dr Faustus, edited by Roma Gill, (1990), Oxford: Clarendon, 146 pages, ISBN 0198127693.The complete works of Christopher Marlowe, volume 3Edward II, edited by Richard Rowland, (c1994), Oxford and New York: Clarendon Press, 150 pages, ISBN 0198122780Christopher Marlowe: the plays and their sources, edited by Vivien Thomas and William Tydeman, (1994), London and New York: Routledge, 400 pages, ISBN 0415040523.
EditBibliography
Frederick S. Boas, (1940), “Christopher Marlowe: a biographical study”, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 336 pages.
Bruce Edwin Brandt, (1992), “Christopher Marlowe in the eighties: an annotated bibliography of Marlowe criticism from 1978 through 1989”, West Cornwall, CT: Locust Hill Press, 215 pages, ISBN 0933951450.
Douglas Cole, (1995), “Christopher Marlowe and the renaissance of tragedy”, Westmort, Conn: Greenwood Press, 176 pages, ISBN 0313275165.
Tom Cowan, (1996),Gay Men and Women Who Enriched the World.
Mark Eccles, (1967), “Chistopher Marlowe in London”, New York: Octagon Books, 185 pages.
Elliman and Roll, (1986), pages 130-131.
Kenneth Friedenreichwith a forward byRichard Levein, (1979), “Christopher Marlowe, an annotated bibliography of criticism since 1950”, Metuchen, New Jersey and London: Scarecrow Press, 150 pages.
Darryll GrantleyandPeter Roberts, editors, (c1996), “Christopher Marlowe and English Renaissance culture”, Aldershot: Scolar, 281 pages, ISBN 1859282601.
Thomas Healy, (1994), “Christopher Marlowe”, Plymouth: Northcote House, 86 pages, ISBN 0746307071,SBU Library Main Bookstock 822.3 MAR.
Della Hilton, (1993), “Christopher Marlowe and the new London theatre”, Edinburgh: Pentland, 76 pages, ISBN 1858210038.
Malcolm Kelsall, (1981), “Christopher Marlowe”, Leiden: Brill, 199 pages, ISBN 9004064133.
Paul H. Kochner, (1946), “Christopher Marlowe: A Study of His Thought, Learning, and Character”, Durham, N. C. and Chapell Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 344 pages.
H. Levin, (1954), “The Over-Reacher”.
Virginia Mary Meehan, (1974), “Christopher Marlowe, poet and playwright: studies in peotical method”, The Hague: Mouton, 100 pages.
A. L. Rowse, (1964), “Christopher Marlowe: a biography”, London: Macmillan, 220 pages.
A. L. Rowse, (1977), “Homosexuals in History”.
Paul Elliott Russell, (1994), “The Gay 100”
Roger Sales, (1991), “Christopher Marlowe”, Basingstoke: Macmillan, 177 pages, ISBN 0333453514.
Simon Shepherd, (1986), “Marlowe and the Politics of Elizabethan Theatre”, Brighton: Harvester.
Samuel A. Tannenbaum, (1937), “Christopher Marlowe (a concise bibliography)”, New York: Scholars Facsimilies and Reprints, 95 pages.
M. J. TrowandTaliesin Trow, (2001), “Who Killed Kit Marlowe?”, Sutton Publishing, 240 pages, ISBN 0 7509 2689 9 (hardback).
Synopsis:“This book explores the conspiracy that surrounds the death of Kit Marlowe, the Elizabethan dramatist, a contemporary and competitor of Shakespeare. But alongside the death of Marlowe, this revisionist examination by a leading crime writer, also explores the full life of the crash-and-burn bard whose wayward ways and bad-boy reputation led to his death at 29, stabbed through the eye by a twelve-penny dagger in a tavern brawl in Deptford in 1593. An Elizabethan James Dean, Marlowe lived fast and died young, a man before and out of his time.This book suggests that, rather than being caught up in a feud between two of Elizabeth's favourites - Essex and Raleigh - after Marlowe's death a cover-up was engineered by three of the Tudor age's most powerful players: Robert Cecil, Elizabeth I's chief minister; Baron Hunsdon, a leading member of the Privy Council; and Howard of Effingham, the Admiral who led the English fleet against the Armada. There were plenty of motives for Marlowe's death and plenty of enemies waiting in the wings to assume of the mantle of pre-eminence he had quickly gained in London's theatreland. In the seething melting pot of Elizabethan England, plots, real and imagined, were everywhere. . . .
Born the son of a Canterbury shoemaker, Marlowe studied theology at Cambridge, but turned to playwrighting and poetry. The author of Tamburlaine, The Jew of Malta and Doctor Faustus, Marlowe was soon the leading literary light of his generation. But he was also mixed up with politcal intrigue, spying and counter-spying, interested in witchcraft, alchemy and the School of the Night, and a doubtful underworld. It is likely that Marlowe was employed by Walsingham as part of his Elizabethan 'secret service'. It was while awaiting trial for atheism that he was drawn to meet three companions, among them Ingram Frizer, at the Deptford victualling house.
Marlowe's death has been the subject of conjecture for over 400 years. In 1992 Charles Nicoll maintained that Marlowe had been killed as a 'sprat' to implicate the 'mackerel' Raleigh in a power game between Raleigh and Essex. Trow, however, predicates that it was Marlowe himself who was the target - a desperate measure to prevent him revealing the names of those who were also atheists, among them those at the top of Government, perhaps even Lord Burghley himself. The coroner's jury that investigated the death was in Burghley's control; the Deptford house belonged to Burghley's kinsman. These and the re-examination of key evidence, point to conspiracy at the highest levels. It was a conspiracy that killed Kit Marlowe.”
William TydemanandVivien Thomas, (1989), “Christopher Marlowe”, Bristol: Bristol Classical Press, 134 pages, ISBN 1853990108.
William Urry, editor, with and introduction byAndrew Butcher, (1988), “Christopher Marlowe and Canterbury”, London: Faber, 184 pages, ISBN 0571145663.
A. D. Wright, (1993), “Christopher Marlowe and Edward Alleyn”, Chichester: Adam Hart, 503 pages, ISBN 189776300x.
EditPress cuttings
Rival Marlowe films focus on poet's sexualityby Dalya Alberge inThe Times, 10th. May, 2000, page 7. “The Elizabethan playwright and poet Christopher Marlowe is the subject of two new films - one which portrays him as an ardent ladies' man, the other as a homosexual.”“Most scholars have long agreed that he was homosexual. Academics cite the homosexual erotic subject matter and imagery in his plays and poems. The producer Robert Jones is preparingA Dead Man in Deptford, which depicts Marlowe as 'non-heterosexual action hero'.”
“The script has been inspired by Anthony Burgess's novel and the film is being written and directed by Michael Ellis.”
“As well as the two rival productions about Marlowe to be made by British companies, two more are said to be under consideration. John Maybury, the director whose version views Marlowe as heterosexual, said that it was annoying that several projects about him should turn up at once, rather like buses.”
“Maybury's screenplay - co-written with Alex Ayers, an American scholar, and John Brownlow, a British writer - was very different from the Burgess version, he said. 'I haven't gone for the homosexual angle. There's no real credence to that'. ButAlan Sinfield, Professor of English at the University od Sussex, said: 'It is generally recognised that there are strong homosexual images in Marlowe's writing. I think that it is clear that he was gay or that he was interested in both men and women'.”
Pass notesinThe Guardian: G2, 11th. May, 2000, page 3.Killed to hide the fact that he was author of the so-called 'Shakespeare' plays?Conspiracy theories have kept the biographies coming: was he a secret agent? Was it revenge for his athiest views (the privy council had just issued a warrant for his arrest)? Was it the lone killer in the book depository? Or was it, more mundanely, a bar brawl?Looked at someone's bird?More likely the bloke holding the pint, if you believe the movies.
I don't.Fair enough, but scholarly opinion agrees that Marlowe was gay. One new film, to be announced at Cannes this week, will have a stab (ho ho) at painting him as a ladies' man. But a rival pic, A Dead Man in Deptford, aims to give the playwright a 21st century makeover as 'a non-heterosexual action hero'.
The rake's progress: Marlowe to be honoured at the abbeyby Nicholas Pyke and Jonathan Thompson inThe Independent on Sunday, 17th. June, 2001, page 15. “Overshadowed by Shakespeare, damned by his reputation for drunken promiscuity and atheism, the playwright Christopher Marlowe is likely at last to overcome a 400-year ban and be admitted to Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey. A campaign by senior academics including the Poet Laureate, Andrew Motion, and Nobel Prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney, is on the verge of persuading the abbey to recognise Marlowe as a giant of English letters.”“There are plenty of high-profile supporters willing to vouch for it as well as well as Motion and Heaney, includingSir Antony Sher, famous for his roles in Marlowe plays, and Dr Eric Anderson, Provost of Eton College, who are campaigning for a stained-glass window dedicated to the playwright. They have been joined by world experts on Elizabethan and Jacobean drama including Professor Anne Barton of Trinity College Cambridge, Professor Dame Gillian Beer from Clare Hall Cambridge, and the noted Shakespearean scholar Professor Stanley Wells.”
“Marlowe has generated new interest sinceRupert Everett's cameo portrayal of him in the filmShakespeare in Love. Natural Nylon, the film production company formed by actors Jude Law and Ewan McGregor, is about to begin shooting a film about his life.”
“The campaign for his recognition has been led by Dr Colin Niven, president of the Marlowe Society and headmaster of Alleyn's School, south London, which is named after Edward Alleyn, Marlowe's leading actor and the first Dr Faustus.