Introduction 2 Life and literary career Christopher Marlowe’s 4

4.Main features of Christaphore Marlowe's Carpe Diem poetry

Marlowe was born in Canterbury in 1564 of a family that originated in Ospringe, today part of Faversham. His father, John, was a cobbler. Christopher went to King’s School, and was awarded a Matthew Parker scholarship which enabled him to study at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, from late 1580 until 1587, when he was awarded his MA. Like other brilliant students and writers he was recruited by Sir Francis Walsingham as a part-time secret service agent. His literary career, spent, as far as we know, mainly in London, lasted for only six years from 1587 to 1593. As far as his contemporaries knew he simply disappeared in May 1593, though rumours began to circulate of his death.We now know that he had been arrested by the Privy Council in May 1593 and released on bail. It was not until 1925 when Dr. Leslie Hotson discovered in the Public Record Office details of an inquest conducted at Deptford by the Queen’s Coroner, William Danby, concerning an affray in which Marlowe is said to have lost his life, on 30th May 1593, that an explanation was offered about his death. Use the image links (right) to read more about Marlowe’s life and times. Marlowe has left us from his short, but brilliant, career seven plays, and in several of them he was a pioneer in that particular genre. Of these Tamburlaine Parts 1 and 2 caused the greatest excitement among his contemporaries. The heroic nature of its theme, coupled with the splendour of the blank verse and the colour and scale of its pageantry led to its constant revival, with the great actor Edward Alleyn taking the part of Tamburlaine.Alleyn was to take the lead in other Marlowe plays, and to share in their triumph, notably The Jew of Malta and Dr. Faustus. The Jew of Malta may be termed the first successful black comedy or tragi-comedy, and provided Shakespeare with his inspiration for Shylock. Dr. Faustus, though a moral drama brought about by the overreaching of the human spirit and of free thinking in a superstitious age, is a delightful blend of tragic verse and comedy[⁸].
Edward II is probably the earliest successful history play, and paved the way for Shakespeare’s more mature histories such as Richard II, Henry IV and Henry V. It too is a moving tragedy, and contains fine verse, and an impelling characterisation of a weak and flawed monarch. Marlowe’s Dido, Queen of Carthage is an early work derived in part from Virgil’s Aeneid, which, though rarely performed, contains much fine and moving verse. The Massacre at Paris was much admired by the Elizabethans, with its near-contemporary depiction of the murders and scandals instigated by the French Court. Sadly only a severely mutilated version has survived.Hero and Leander is the greatest poem of Marlowe’s that has come down to us, though much of his love poetry apart from the well-known Come Live With Me, and Be My Love has been lost. George Chapman completed the unfinished Hero and Leander, and it was published finally in 1598.Shortly afterwards the memorable verse translations of Ovid’s Elegies, the Amores, and of Lucan’s First Book of the Civil War, called Pharsalia appeared in quick succession. The translation of Amores was a massive task, and all forty-eight of Ovid’s poems were turned into elegiac couplets. Much of the verse is exceedingly beautiful, though the quality is sometimes uneven. No one has ever attempted the task since. The blank verse of the Lucan translation is at times very powerful, and it is thought this work dates from Marlowe’s university days.
The Muses’ Darling Christopher Marlowe’s friends and contemporaries were quick to honour him, with the dramatist George Peele referring to him as “the Muses’ Darling”1 in a tribute printed less than a month after the events at Deptford. Thomas Nashe moved quickly to organise a Quarto edition of Dido, Queen of Carthage which was published in 1594, perhaps a little cheekily attributing himself as co-author, but writing an elegy to Marlowe inserted in some copies which is sadly no longer extant. The colourful dramatist, pamphleteer and prose writer Robert Greene who died in 1592 had seemingly been critical of Marlowe’s atheism, but had recognised “Thou famous gracer of Tragedians”.
The printer Thomas Thorpe, best known for his dedication of Shakespeare’s Sonnets to Mr. W.H., also praised Marlowe as “that pure Elemental wit … whose ghost or Genius is to be seen walk[ing] the [St Paul’s] Churchyard in (at the least) three or four sheets”2. Henry Petowe was inspired to pen a continuation of Hero and Leander (as was George Chapman) by “Marlo admir ‘d, whose honey-flowing vaine No English writer can as yet attaine”3. Francis Meres thought Marlowe, along with Shakespeare, was “one of our best for Tragedie”4, Thomas Heywood noted him “renown’d for his rare art and wit,” whilst Michael Drayton was perhaps most eloquent concerning
Marlow, bathed in Thespian springs
Had in him those brave translunary things,,
That the first Poets had, his raptures were
All air, and fire, which made his verses clear
For that fine madness still he did retain,
Which rightly should possess a poet’s brain.5