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Christopher Marlowe

 

"Hell is just a frame of mind"

Christopher Marlowe  was  a writer of the elizabethan era. He is known as a great elizabethan tragedian. He was an English playwright, poet, dramatist and translator of the Elizabethan era. Christopher Marlowe is also known as Kit Marlowe. He was father of English dramatic poetry. He was true founder of English drama. Ben Jonson called his black verse as Marlowe's mighty line. Christopher Marlowe was most shining star among the university wits. Marlowe was the first to achieve critical notoriety for his use of blank verse, which became the standard for the era and also His free verse is very famous at that time. Marlowe was serving the government in some secret capacity. Some scholars also believe that he greatly influenced William Shakespeare, His place is very next to  William shakespeare.

Golden MCQs

Life

Christopher Marlowe was born in Canterbury around February 26,  Kent, England in 1564. Which is the same year of William Shakespeare's birth. He was about two months older than William Shakespeare, who was baptised. His father was a shoemaker and his name John Marlowe and his mother name was Katherine, daughter of William Arthur of Dover.

Education 

By age 14, for his early education, Marlowe attended The King's School, Canterbury on scholarship. two years later, he was admitted to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he also studied on scholarship and received his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1584. in 1587, the university hesitated in granting him his master's degree. It is said that university offered him an early masters degree because of his plan to visit France as a Roman catholic priest and it was an illegal act in the era of queen Elizabeth 1. There were violence on a large scale throughout the Europe between catholics and Protestants because of anti catholic laws of the Protestant queen. Later he joined the royal court and started literary work under the influence of poet sir Walter. 

Work 

All his plays around in violence, no doubt reflecting many of the violent scenes in which he lived. 

Dido, Queen of Carthage, in 1586,  his first play, play in five acts, was not published until 1594, he wrote it in collaboration with Thomas nashe. According to records, the play was performed by the Children of the Chapel, a company of boy actors, between 1587 and 1593.

The play is based on the story of Dido and Aeneas. In the play, Dido, the queen of Carthage, is in love with Aeneas, who has taken refuge in Carthage after the fall of Troy. He refuses to marry her, however, and as he sails from Carthage, the despairing Dido kills herself.  Iarbas, a barbarian chieftain who himself wants Dido for his bride.

Marlowe's second play was the two part Tamburlaine the Great, in 1587 to 1589. This was Marlowe's first play to be performed on the regular stage in London and is  the first English plays in blank verse. It   was the last of Marlowe's plays to be published before his untimely death.

Tamburlaine wins the battle against the sultan and the king of Arabia. While the king of Arabia dies, Tamburlaine spares the sultan and gives him more territory than before. After the battle with the sultan, Tamburlaine returns to Zenocrate and crowns her queen of Persia, thus ending the first part of the play.

The Jew of Malta (fully The Famous Tragedy of the Rich Jew of Malta), wrote in 1589. The original story combines religious conflict, intrigue, and revenge, set against a backdrop of the struggle for supremacy between Spain and the Ottoman Empire in the Mediterranean that takes place on the island of Malta. 

Edward the Second is a Renaissance or Early Modern period play written by Christopher Marlowe. It is one of the earliest English history plays, and focuses on the relationship between King Edward II of England and Piers Gaveston (fully The Troublesome Reign and Lamentable Death of Edward the Second, King of England, with the Tragical Fall of Proud Mortimer) is a play about the deposition of England's King Edward II by his barons and the queen. 

The Massacre at Paris is a short and lurid work, in 1593, a history play. It was written during a period of great sociopolitical upheaval between Protestants and Catholics in Europe. 

Marlowe's most famous play is The Tragical  History of the life and death of Doctor Faustus, known as Doctor Faustus, as is the case with most of his plays, it has survived only in a corrupt form. 

Based on the German Faustbuch, Doctor Faustus is acknowledged as the first dramatized version of the Faust legend, in which a man sells his soul to the devil in exchange for knowledge and power.

Doctor Faustus is a famous German scholar, and he is not satisfied with the limits of knowledge and decides that he wants to learn to how to practice magic. His friends Valdes and Cornelius instruct him in the black arts, and he begins his new career as a magician by calling Mephastophilis, a devil. Despite Mephastophilis’s warnings about the horrors of hell, Faustus tells the devil to return to his master, Lucifer, with an offer of Faustus’s soul in exchange for 24 years of service from Mephastophilis. Meanwhile, Wagner, Faustus’s servant, has picked up some magical ability and uses it to get a clown named Robin into his service.

Poetry 

The passionate shepherd to his love, pastoral elements. He gives beautiful description on country love which is so pure and better than court love.This poem is a celebration of love, innocence, youth, and poetry.the purpose of such a pastoral poem is to idealize the harmony, peace, and simplicity of the shepherd's life. 

His incomplete work was hero and leander,  which was completed by george Chapman. This poem starts with the description of the young lovers. Hero is a priestess or devotee of Venus (goddess of love and beauty). 

Death 

Before getting arrested, he had an argument with his friend. As Marlowe was a short tempered person grew angry. His friend drew out a knife in his defense and stabbed Marlowe. Marlowe was killed by Ingram Frizer. Arrest warrants for Christopher Marlowe were issued but he died before facing allegations. He died on 30 May, in Kent, England in 1593. He is perhaps secretly buried. 

More

While Christopher Marlowe's literary career lasted less than six years, and his life only 29 years, his achievements, most notably the play The Tragicall History of Doctor Faustus, ensured his lasting legacy. He is the real author of William Shakespeare's plays. 

In 1587, he started living with Thomas Kyd's home in London. In 1589, he spend some time in prison with murder allegations. In 1590, he wrote the passionate shepherd to his love as a reply to Walter Raleigh's work the nymph's reply to shepherd. Marlowe had become a secret agent working for Sir Francis Walsingham's intelligence service. power and ambition were major themes of  Christopher Marlowe's drama. 

His plays are distinguished by their overreaching protagonists. Themes found within Marlowe's literary works have been noted as humanistic with realistic emotions, which some scholars find difficult to reconcile with Marlowe's "anti-intellectualism" and his catering to the taste of his Elizabethan audiences for generous displays of extreme physical violence, cruelty, and bloodshed.


Comparison With William Shakespeare 

Both writers were the great writers of English literature and broke traditions of English drama. Marlowe had a great name but after his death william shakespeare got prominent. It can be estimated that Marlowe paved the path for shakespeare's fame. Marlowe is regarded as the father of English tragedy and his tragedies are called Marlovian tragedies. Shakespeare's tragic heroes influenced by Marlovian style. As compared to shakespeare, Marlowe's plays are low in style, form and language. 


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