MARLOWE, r'16, sTomIER 93). A great English dramatist, the must im portant of Shakespeare's predecessors. and in some sense his master. Ile was horn at Canter bury, probably in February, 1564, and educated at the King's School there and at Corpus Christi College. Cambridge, where he graduated in 1583. Here lie made a thorough acquaint a nee with the Latin classics, and translated Ovid's Amores into English verse. 1Iis life after leaving Cambridge is hard to trace in detail. It seems to have been spent chiefly in London and to have been char acterized by a revolt against conventional moral ity and established religion which makes itt close in a drunken brawl at the age of twenty-nine an unhappily fitting climax. His reputation for heresy and irreligion (possibly grounded origi nally on his association' with his old Cambridge tutor, Francis Kett, who was burned as a heretic at Norwich in 1589) had caused a warrant for his arrest to be issued a few days before lie thus passed beyond the jnrisidiction of the Privy Council. It is pleasanter to dwell on his inter course with the chief men of letters in his time, including Kyd, Nash, Greene, Chapman, Ral eigh, and probably Shakespeare. Whatever his life may have been, there can he no question of the magnificence of his genius :Ind the far-reach ing influence which he had upon the development of the English drama.
Not only did he establish the iambic pentam eter as the recognized vehicle for serious drama, but lie made it something more than it had been in various experiments since Oorbodue (1562). The metre became a living thing in his 111111d ; by skillful variation of pause and accent, by the swift and smooth carrying along of the thought from line to line, it grew to lie that blank verse which Milton perfected into one of the glories of English poetry. But his work was wider than this. Dropping the imitation of Seneca which had been trying to naturalize itself in England. lie struck out boldly to create Eng lish tragedy by the laws of his own genius. The prologue to Tombucluine contains what is really a manifesto. not only promising to lead his audi ence away From jigging veins of rhyming, mother-wits by his blank verse, but proclaiming, a doctrine of unity far more healthful than the classical tradi tion which was endeavoring to impose itself upon England—the unity which comes from centring the action about one great passion, one mighty character. Great as was the age, stupendous as were its flights beyond what had been thought the uttermost limits of the possible, Marlowe is able to keep up with them, th find for them the 'high astounding, terms' which lend his tragedies such sublimity. In humor he was deficient: his
touch is not always sure. and in his search for effect he sometimes overleaps himself and falls into bathos; hut as a daring pioneer he won, and now more than ever. since Lamb and Ilazlitt restored him to his place, keeps a rank among the very highest. 11 is hard to set limits to what he might have been had his life been prolonged; hut after all his achievement is ample in that lie made Shakespeare possible. After TnInburlaine ( /1587; printed 1590), cones prob ably the first dramatic rendering of the Faust legend in Doctor Faustus (?1549; printed 1604) ; The Jew of Malta, specially noteworthy for its relation to the of Venice (?15S9; printed 1633) ; his most successful at tempt at English historical drama, Edward II. (':1592; printed 1594). The probable sources of Marlowe's important plays may be indi cated here. In his rumharlaine he seems to have relied mainly on Fortcsene's translation (1571) of Pedro Mexias's Spanish life of Timur (1543), supplemented by hints from the 1' t a Magni Tamerlanis of rond i no (1551). Doctor Faustus was based on a story familiar enough in the Middle Ages. and used in a variant form by Calderon in El Magic° Prodi gioso : its earliest literary form appeared at Frankfort in 15S7, and was soon translated into English as The History of the Damnable Life and Destrrcd Death of Dr. John Faustus. The source of The Jew of Malta is unknown, but Symonds conjectures that it was taken from a Spanish novel. For Eduard II.. like Shake speare. he makes free use of the chronicles of Stowe and Dolitished, witb some slight indebt edness to Fabyan. In other works he collaborated with Nash. and possibly with Shakespeare. a share in at least the second and third parts of Henry VI. being plausibly attributed to him. Of his non-dramatic work the most impor tant things are his unfinished paraphrase of the Hero and Leander of Musams. and the famous lyric, "Conte live with me and he my love." Con sult his Works, ed. by Dyee (3 vols., London, by Bollen (3 vols., Boston. ISMS) ; four plays. ed. by Ellis, with au introduction by Sy monds, in the (London, 1887) also Symonds. Shakespeare's Predecessors (ib., Ward, History of English Dramatic Lit erature (2d ed., ih., 1899) ; Lewis, Christopher Marlowe (ib., 18911; Verity. Marlowe's Influence on Shakespeare (lb., 158h1: Fiseher, Zur Charac tcristik der Dramen Marlours (31'11114. is!-:9).