MARLOWE, Christopher, English poet and dramatist : b. 1564; d. 1593. In 1583 he took the A.B. degree at Bene't College, Cambridge, and in 1587 the degree of M.A. Perhaps in the same year, the first part of his was acted in London; and the rest of his life was spent in active connection with the theatres. His life seems to have been somewhat dissi pated and the daring of his theological opin ions gave color to an accusation of atheism. In 1593 he was killed in a tavern broil and was buried at Saint Nicholas, Deptford.
Numerous plays have been assigned to Mar lowe, including a share in the three parts of 'Henry VP ; and he may very likely have had some part in others besides the following, which can with certainty be ascribed to him: 'The Tragedy of Dido,' of uncertain date of acting, printed 1594; (Tamburlaine) (two parts), acted 1587-88, printed 1590; 'Dr. Faustus,' acted 1588-89, printed 1594; 'The Jew of Malta,' acted about 1590, printed 1594; 'Edward II,' acted 1591, printed 1594; 'The Massacre of Paris,' acted after 1591, printed about 1595. His 'Hero and Leander' was left incomplete at his death and was finished by George Chap man and published in 1598. Marlowe's plays attained a sudden and great popularity and his poetic reputation is testified to by numerous tributes from his contemporaries. Marlowe's dramatic activity came at a time of great emo tional stir and stress. In England the ideas and ideals of the Renaissance and the Reformation had finally gained the ascendency over those of the Middle Ages. The struggle with Spain, which was just ending in the destruction of the Armada, had brought a triumphant conscious ness of national greatness. From this newly discovered England as well as from the newly discovered America and the rediscovered world of Greece and Rome, came countless incentives for multiform activities. In literature as in life opportunity seemed boundless, experiment and innovation easy, voyages of discovery sure of rich reward. The drama had already become in some measure an expression of this national activity, but it still awaited the services of great literary genius. After two generations of precarious struggle, the professional companies had become firmly established in the public theatres and it was already plain that the main development of the drama was henceforth to be popular and professional rather than schol arly and amateur. In comedy, indeed, the plays of Lyly and Peele had already supplied refinement and a literary flavor, but in the popular drama in. the main, and in tragedy in particular, there was neither refinement nor poetry.
Marlowe created English tragedy anew. He threw aside Senecan traditions and devoted himself to meeting the demands of the London theatres, but the prologue to his first play was a declaration of reform, announcing the adop tion of blank verse, heroic themes and ehigh astounding terms" His themes were novel, and his treatment of them seems to have been dictated by a conception of tragedy formed independently of his predecessors,— the heroic struggle of a great personality doomed to in evitable defeat. is hardly a
tragedy at all but rather a chronicle of the hero's greatness; but in 'Dr. Faustus' and 'The Jew of Malta,' heroes with ambitions as boundless and passionate as Tamburlaine's are overwhelmed in the end by the limitations that forever bound human aspiration. These plays mark the formation of the Marlowean type of tragedy, often imitated and long influential in the English drama. A protagonist distinguished by great passions and many crimes absorbs the interest of a series of scenes, brutal and sensa tional, full of violent action, ranting declama tion, bloodshed and villainy affording oppor tunity for elaborate theatrical spectacles and adorned by passages of profound intellectual suggestiveness and extraordinary beauty of dic tion and melody. 'Edward II,' the most ma ture of his plays, illustrates these characteristics and also testifies to his growing power both as a playwright and as a poet. The characteriza tion is less melodramatic, more varied and more human than in the earlier plays: the structure more coherent and organized; the style less bombastic, more even and more dra matic. Shakespeare, who clearly imitated Mar lowe in 'Richard III' and produced 'Richard II' in rivalry of 'Edward IP did not in these two plays surely surpass his master.
Marlowe's faults and deficiencies are appar ent and they cannot all be credited to the immaturity and experimental nature of his art. The banalities that mar his noblest scenes and the absurdities that appear in every phase of his work, theatrical, dramatic or poetic, would doubtless have disappeared in the rapid develop ment of dramatic art which the next 30 years witnessed. But there are no indications that, had Marlowe's life been prolonged, he would ever have excelled in humor or the individual ization of character. His achievement is, never theless, among the most remarkable and en during of the Elizabethan era. His poetry re mains forever impressive with its fine impetuos ity, its splendors of diction and melody. His tragedies, of immense influence on the theatre of his day, continue to rank among the greatest of English literature in their expression of passionate ambition and aspiration. He was the first great English dramatist, and he prepared the way for Shakespeare. See FAUST, Da.; JEW OF MALTA, THE Bibliography,— The best collected editions of his works are by Rev. Alexander Dyce (1850 and 1870), and by A. H. sullen (3 vols., 1885). His four are in one volume of Mer maid Series of Old Dramatists with introduc tion by J. A. Symonds. For biography and criticism: Ward, A. W., (History of Dramatic Literature' (Vol. I) ; Fleay, F. G., Chronicle of the Drama' (Vol. II) ; Ingram, J. H., (Christopher Marlowe and His Asso ciates' ; Fischer, O., Charakteristik der Dramcn Marlowe's' (Munich). Marlowe's life has been the theme of two modern tragedies, R. H. Horne's Death of (1870), and Miss Josephine Peabody's (1901).
AsFILEY H. THORNDIKE, Professor of English, Columbia University.