8-2Marlowe

Who was Christopher Marlowe, and what role did he play in Shakespeare's life? //Answered By Nishad A.// Christopher Marlowe was a brilliant student and writer from Cambridge University who was recruited by Sir Francis Walsingham as a part-time secret service agent. Sir Francis Walsingham was a Secretary of State for the Queen, and also Chancellor of the University of Cambridge. Because of this, he used the University for recruiting ground to enlist bright, patriotic young men to serve as secret agents. Marlowe was born in Canterbury in 1564, about the time Shakespeare was born, to a family that was from Ospringe, today part of Faversham (East of London). He spent the majority of his six year long literary career in London. Throughout his life Marlowe went against the common ways of writing and was highly critizised by the government. As quoted from, the website, “In Search of Shakespeare from PBS”, “Marlowe popularized a change in the way poetry was written, and by the late 1580s his way of writing was the state of the art, to which almost all other writers aspired. While his work could show terrific empathy with a morally ambiguous character, Marlowe in person could be caustic and quick to rage. He certainly wasn't afraid to speak his mind and criticize other writers and their techniques.” The most interesting part of his life was probably his death, because no one knows the true story. On May 30, 1593, a murder was supposedly committed in a hired room in Deptford, owned by Dame Eleanor Bull. As the story goes, Robert Poley, Ingram Frizer, Nicholas Skeres were the three other men at the meeting with Marlowe. A fter a bacchanalian party and an argument over the bill, Skeres was the one who stabbed Marlowe between the eyes. And that is how Christopher Marlowe’s life came to an end, but no one knows if he really died that day, because no official death record was kept in his name. The world of theater was a small one in the late 1500’s, and there is a very likely chance that Shakespeare would have gotten to know Marlowe personally , around 1591 at the Rose Theatre. Shakespeare undoubtedly learned a lot from Marlowe's work, because he used a variation of the style of writing that Marlowe used. Eventually, Marlowe never ended successful , because he could not hold his top spot on the box office with consistently great works like Shakespeare. However, according to the book Shakespeare and Co., Marlowe should be considered as greater writer because he was smarter from a younger age, and when Shakespeare went to London after his “lost years” he viewed Marlowes work before begining his own. Marlowe has left us with seven plays of his own, of these Tamburlaine Parts One and Two have been the most popular among his contemporaries. His other notable works include: “The First Book of Lucan”, “Ovid's Amores”, “Dido, Queen of Carthage”, “The Jew of Malta”, “Doctor Faustus”, “Edward the Second”, “The Massacre at Paris”, and “Hero and Leander”. Marlowe must have felt horrible due to the fact the he had a university education yet this man from Stratford-upon-Avon was writing more successful plays with less of an education. If you look deeply into the works of both, you can find connections, such as their writing style , or their historical references, when Shakespeare was reffering back to Marlowe’s work. They seemed very similar writers, but their greatest difference was that as Marlowe’s tragedy turns into a comedy, Shakespeare’s comedy turns into a tragedy. Which basically means that Shakespeare’s funny play became a sad one and the opposite for Marlowe.

Works Cited Bolt, Rodney. History Play: The Lives and Afterlife of Christopher Marlowe. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2004. Print. "Christopher Marlowe: An Encomium." The Marlowe Society. The Marlowe Society. 14 Apr 2009  <  http://www.marlowe-society.org/marlowe/view/encomium.html >. "Christopher Marlowe." Famous Elizabethans - Major Figures & People during Elizabethan Times. Elizabethan Era. 14 Apr 2009 < http://www.elizabethan-era.org.uk/christopher-marlowe.htm >. "In Search of Shakespeare: Christopher Marlowe." PBS.org. PBS. 14 Apr 2009 < http://www.pbs.org/shakespeare/players/player24.html >. Wells, Stanley. Shakespeare & Co.. New York: Random House Inc., 2006. Print.