The achievement of Christopher Marlowe, poet and playwright, was enormous, second only to that of his precise contemporary,William Shakespeare. A few months older, Marlowe was often the leader, though Shakespeare was able to take his art to a higher level of perfection. Most of the dramatic poets of the 16th century followed in Marlowe's footsteps, particularly in their use of language and empty verse. Marlowes' ForewordTamerlane the Great(1587-1588) proclaims its author's disdain for stage verse of the period in which the "vain jygging of riming mother wits" featured the "conceit [of] paid antics": instead the new work promised an alien hero barbarian who "scythian tambourine threatening the world with lofty and astonishing terms." English drama was never the same again.
The son of John and Catherine Marlowe, Marlowe was born in Canterbury in 1564, where his father was a shoemaker. He received part of his early education at King's School, Canterbury, and an Archbishop Parker Scholarship took him from that school to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge University. In 1584 he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts. The terms of his scholarship allowed for another three years of study if the holder intended to accept holy orders, and Marlowe seems to have fulfilled this condition. But in 1587 the university initially refused to award the corresponding master's degree. University records indicate that Marlowe was away from Cambridge for extended periods during his second year, and the university evidently had good reason to suspect his whereabouts. However, Marlowe was not without influence on this point: Archbishop Whitgift, Lord Burghley and Sir Christopher Hatton were among the members of Queen Elizabeth's Privy Council who signed a letter stating: "While Christopher Morley was reported to be determined to go beyond the Seas to Reames and stay there, Your Lordships believed it well to confirm that he had no such intention, but that in all his actions he had behaved so neat and discreet, giving His Majesty a well-served and well-deserved reward for their faithful treatment. The reference to "Reames" makes it all clear. The Jesuit Seminary at Reims was the refuge of many expatriate Catholics believed to be planning the overthrow of the English monarch: the Babington Plot was planned here, and its frustration in 1586 it was achieved through the efforts of secret agents employed by Sir Francis who were deployed to Walsingham.
In 1587 Marlowe obtained his master's degree at Cambridge and moved to London. Over the next six years, he wrote plays and associated with other writers, including the poet Thomas Watson and the playwright Thomas Kyd. His friendship with Watson brought difficulties: the two friends were arrested in 1589, charged with the murder of William Bradley, and sent to Newgate Prison. Marlowe was released a fortnight later, and Watson (whose sword had killed Bradley) claimed that he acted "in self-defense" and "not out of crime"; After five months in prison he was released. His connection to Kyd also caused trouble a few years later. In the spring of 1593, Kyd was arrested on charges of inciting mob violence in riots against Flemish Protestants. His house was searched and documents were found there containing "vile heretics Conceiptes Denyinge the Deity of Jhesus Christ our Saviour". Kyd denied that the document belonged to him, claiming that the papers belonged to Marlowe and "had gotten mixed up with some of my papers (unknown to me) when we wrote on a camera two years in a row." Perhaps Kyd, a professional scribe, had transcribed the manuscript for Marlowe, who was not the author (the ideas had been published by John Proctor in 1549 under the titleThe fall of the late Arrian). Plague-related riots made the spring of 1593 an unusually tense time; and the privy council (Archbishop Whitgift and Lord Burghley were still members, as they had been in 1587) reacted swiftly to Kyd's information, ordering a court messenger "to the house of Mr. Tho: Walsingham in Kent, or any other place where you are supposed to understand Christofer Marlow as the survivor and... arrest him and bring him to justice in your company. And ask for Ayd if necessary. Marlowe, who may have retired to Kent to escape the plague that had shut down London theatres, was ordered to report daily before the Council.The deal was befitting of a gentleman: a lesser person would have been imprisoned.
Attempting to excuse himself from the charges of heresy and blasphemy and denying any lasting friendship with his former roommate, Kyd sent two letters to the Lord Chancellor Sir John Puckering. In the first, he confirmed Marlowe's ownership of the papers, which had been 'mixed' with his, stating: 'For me to love or know someone so irreligious was very rare... moreover, he was intemperate and cruelly harsh. ." In the second, he elaborated on the subject of "Marlowe's monstrous views", giving examples of how Marlowe "sneered at prayers and struggled to thwart and refute what is sacred about prophets and such." said or written to men. ".
Kyd wasn't the only one to make such accusations at the time. Puckering also received word of one Richard Baines, who may have been a government informer and who had previously been arrested with Marlowe at Flushing in 1592. On this occasion the Governor of Flushing commented in a letter he sent with the prisoners to Lord Burghley that "Bains and he [Marlowe] accuse each other of trying to go to the enemy or to Rome, both, as they say, of mutual malice." .” In 1593, Baines denounced Marlowe for his "accursed judgment on religion and contempt for the word of the gods." Marlowe, he said, had declared
That the first beginning of religion was only to amaze people...
That Christ was a bastard and his mother dishonest...
If there is a god or a good religion it is with the papists because the ministry of god is carried out with more ceremonies such as the raising of the mass, organs, men singing, shaved crowns &cta. that all Protestants are hypocritical donkeys...
It is perhaps understandable that the Elizabethans, fearing for their Church and State, should give credence to these wild claims, but it is amazing to find that some readers of Marlowe's works are, to this day, willing to accept Kyd's slanders. and Baines and believe in Marlowe's "atheism."
Although such slanders damaged the playwright's reputation, they did not harm the man. When Puckering received the second letter from Kyd and the note from Baines, Marlowe was probably already dead.
Marlowe's death and the events that preceded it are fully documented in the Investigation Report (discovered by Leslie Hotson and published inThe death of Christopher Marlowe). The report tells of a gathering at the home of Mrs Eleanor Bull in Deptford, not a public house, but a house where meetings could be held and food delivered. On May 30, 1593, Marlowe spent the whole day there, talking and walking in the garden with three "gentlemen". In the evening there was an argument, supposedly about who should pay the bill."recognition"; in the ensuing fight, Marlowe is said to have drawn his dagger and wounded one of his companions. The man, Ingram Frizer, snatched the weapon and "in defense of his life, with the said 12d dagger" inflicted on him in at that time and there to Christopher a fatal wound over his right eye, two inches deep and one inch wide; of which fatal wound said Christopher Morley died at that very instant." Ingram Frizer was pardoned within a month and returned to the service of the Walsinghams.One of his accomplices was Robert Poley, the man largely responsible for uncovering the Babington Plot in 1586. The third man was Nicholas Skeres, possibly the " Skyrres", who was with Poley and some of the conspirators shortly before the discovery. Such a combination of events and personalities makes it unlikely that it was a mere bar fight.
Some contemporary moralists took up the story with impious glee; In 1597, for example, Thomas Beard recognized this as "a clear sign of God's judgment...by forcing his own hand, which had written these blasphemies, to be the instrument with which to punish him, and that on his brain, she had devised the same thing." The poets were more generous:Thomas Nassehe described Marlowe as "a more divine muse" than Musaeus;george peelehe called him "the darling of the muses"; YMichael Draytonhe observed in him "those brave translunar things that the first poets had". This initial appreciation has expanded over the years so that today most critics, who share the benefits of hindsight, A.C. Swinburne would agree that Marlowe was "the father of English tragedy and the creator of English blank verse". According to Havelock Ellis, "Marlowe's place is at the heart of English poetry"; and TS Eliot even predicted "the direction in which Marlowe's verse might have moved... [which was towards]... a more intense, serious, and undoubtedly magnificent poetry."
In his 1592 letter to Lord Burghley, the Governor of Flushing described his prisoners, saying that Marlowe was "a scholar by trade". Marlowe's early writings are certainly what one would expect of a learned man, early in his career. Marlowe began writing verse translating the Roman poets Ovid and Lucan. He might as well have met Lucan when he was in high school; and even in school he would have read some of Ovid's verses-but not thatorthat I wanted to translate
Latin poems are written in elegiac meter: a line in hexameter followed by a pentameter. They show Ovid in his most refined form, loving to write in many different aspects with full confidence in his linguistic brilliance. Marlowe's translations of these elegies are not consistently successful; but they still put together an impressive performance. Marlowe replaced the Latin elegiac couplet with the rhyming pentameter couplet: whatJuan Donnehe followed afterwards, imitating Marlowe with his own elegies. Instead of the refined art with which Ovid manipulated his inflectional language, Marlowe wrote with the directness of the spoken voice, using range and variety of tones to approximate the "masculine force of persuasiveness" for which Donne is so prized. The couplet and speaking voice often combine to bring dramatic immediacy and wit to lines like these from Book II Elegy 18, where the poet finds excuses for him to write about love when he should be thinking of epic things:
Often, my girl leaves at last, I order it,
Shee on my lap sits as still as before.
I Said It Annoys Me: Half Framed Too Crying,
Yes, she cries of love, why are you ashamed?
Then around my neck she wraps her twisted arms,
And give a thousand kisses that hurt me:
I scream and bring back my wits
Domesticke performs, and I sing my own wars.
Here the closing of the couplet completes the resignation of the speaker and closes the first section of the poem.
There are 48 poems in the collection.Alle Ovids-Elegien, and many are less satisfactory than this. At times, Marlowe seems bored with his work and snaps at the most obvious English word without considering its appropriateness ("admonished" byadmonished); at other times, the necessities of rhyme force the English language to take strange new forms ("forbod" rhymes with "god"); and often the attractive paraphrases from the Latin are rendered with the pedantry of an ignorant reader (the worst example being the translation of Ovid's pretty reference to the Birth of Bacchus in III. iii"the father would not have the work of the mother in Bacchus' becomes 'Father's waist should not be wornSpleenpaintings"). More often, however, we see the commendable attempts of a young poet to master the foreign language.yhis mother tongue - and occasionally we see an idea come up that will develop later in his career.
The translation of the first book of Lucan's epic poem TheFarsaliawas in many ways less demanding than the translation of theor: The narrative line and the middle of the poem (blank verse) were better guides for Marlowe, and when his grasp of Latin was inadequate, he had a richly annotated commentary to help him. Neither this translation nor that of theorit can be dated with some precision, but it seems likely that such academic - and apprenticeship - work was undertaken in a period of (comparable) leisure such as the Cambridge years. For the nation, these were times of political tension with events such as the exposure of the Babington Plot, the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, and the threat of the Spanish Armada. In literature, the national malaise manifested itself in works such as Lodge's play.The wounds of the civil warand of ShakespeareHenry VITrilogy. In this context, the first book ofFarsaliatakes on a new dimension: it is not just an academic and personal exercise, but a bitterly timely warning of the horrors and dangers of the slaughter of civilians. Lucan's centurion vows to wage war in his city at Caesar's command, even if he must “bury my sword in my brother's bowels; / Or Fathersthroate ... [.]" The lines can be compared to the stage direction that for Shakespeare heralded the greatest of civil (and natural) disturbances: "Enter a son who killed his father... and a father who killed his son.” (Henry VI,Part Three, II.v).”
In the preface to his translations ofovid's letters(1680)Juan Drydenhe distinguished three types of translation, the first of which was "that of metaphrasis, or an author's translation word for word and line for line from one language to another". Marlowe's translations of Ovid and Lucan are of this nature, which is good reason to believe that they are early works in which Marlowe might be reluctant to take too many liberties, without the confidence to use them. Dryden's second method offers more latitude: "paraphrasing or translating with latitude," which is a useful term to describe Marlowe's handling of Virgil.Aeneasfor what was probably his first work,Dido Queen of Carthage.
Dryden explained "paraphrasing" by saying that in this type of translation "the translator has the author in mind, so that he never gets lost, but his words are not followed as strictly as their sense, and that too is certainly reinforced, but not altered." .” Marlowe took the plot of his play from the sixth book of Virgil's poem, but moved effortlessly through the epic, borrowing details from books one and two for his dramatic purposes.His translation converts the Latin to English, turning the epic tale in stage action and assuming the role of the whole: Dido's story occupies only one twelfth of the story.Aeneasto watch the episodein the shape of eternity.
Another difference, which is important for the appreciation of the work, is that Virgil's characters are superhuman and of appropriate epic proportions, while Marlowe's characters are somewhat subhuman: they were meant to be played by children. The title page of the first quarto edition announces that the piece was "performed by the sons of His Majesty Chappell." Works written for these highly professional children obeyed different conventions than those written for adults:Mischiefit compares more appropriately, in terms of technique, with Peele's works than with them.Antony and Cleopatra(whose theme is comparable).
Marlowe took from Virgil the account of Dido's passion for Aeneas, the Trojan hero who was shipwrecked on the Carthaginian coast after the destruction of Troy, and added a subplot about the unrequited love of Dido's sister Anne for one of Dido's suitors, her name. - Iarbus - rarely mentioned in theAeneas. Virgil's hero is a man of destiny destined by the gods to sail to Italy and find there the Roman lineage, the true descendants of the Trojans. The interlude with Dido is only part of the divine plan, and Aeneas must not allow himself to be detained in Carthage, even if his departure is a tragic catastrophe for the queen. Virgil's gods are always in control of events.
Marlowe introduces the gods early in his work, daringly presenting them as a rather seedy group of immortals who succumb to very human emotions: Venus is concerned for the well-being of her shipwrecked son, Aeneas; Juno is jealous of Venus and irritated by her husband's infidelity; and Jupiter is possessed by a homosexual passion for Ganymede. This is a "domestic" grotesque comedy that could jeopardize the tragic status of the play's heroine and the epic status of its hero, since both Dido and Aeneas are at the mercy of such deities. The character of Aeneas has drawn mixed reactions from critics of the play (one sees him as "an Elizabethan adventurer", another takes the medieval view that he is the traitor of Troy, and still others see him as the "man-in-bit" heroic). -the-street" who has no desire for great deeds). Dido, however, is clearly sympathetic. A regal queen at first, she is nearly speechless as she struggles with a passion she does not understand; her grief over Aeneas's departure returns eloquence and then, as she prepares to die, achieves the isolated dignity of a tragic heroine.The inarticulation was corrected by Virgil (it begins to accentuate, and the medium resists in the voice),and Marlowe adds the immediacy of language when Dido is overwhelmed with love in III.iv:
AENEAS. What's wrong with my queen, is she sick lately?
MISCHIEF. Not sick my love, but sick: - I have to hide
The torment of not revealing myself
And yet I speak, and yet I remain silent,
Shame worse, I will reveal my pain:-
Aeneas,you are the one i said
It was something I have now forgotten.
At the end of the play, Marlowe does not translate into Latin, and has been described by Harry Levin as "a subterfuge that smacks of college". Rather, it shows Marlowe's respect for both its author and his audience. The verses he took from Virgil are beautiful and well known: he could not hope to equal them. Firmly obeying Dido's pleas, the Aeneas stage utters the epic hero's words (containing one of the most famous half-lines in all poetry): "Stop burning me and your complaints / I don't go on to Italy of my own free will." ("Stop inflaming you and me with your wailing. It is not of my own free will that I seek Italy.") And Dido's last words, as she curses Aeneas before his self-immolation, are the words of Virgil, but the dramatic moment is heightened by the insertion of a line in English:
Shore opposite shores, waves with waves
I curse: pistols with pistols: they quarrel with nephews:
live badlyAeneas, very sureMischiefdyes,
So it helps to go in the shade..
("I pray that shores meet shores, waves against waves, and cannons against guns; may they and their descendants always fight... So I rejoice to step into the shadows.")
In these lines there is an implicit tribute not only to Virgil's verses and the understanding of the audience, but also to the skills of the child actors, chosen from among the (already highly selected) children of the royal choirs and specially trained for their theatrical roles. . Sixteenth-century writers such as Peele and Lyly (and Johnson and Middleton in the seventeenth century) took pride in writing for such corporations, acknowledging the special demands placed on them to utilize the fortunes and limitations of Minimize's child actors.
Immaturity was the most obvious limiting factor: veracity was not to be sought, and description of "character" (in the modern sense of the word) was clearly impossible. Instead, the stagings made up for the shows, where the emphasis was always on artistry and where the imitation was always ready to call attention to itself as an imitation, expecting applause for the excellence of its craftsmanship, just as (and, if is possible, surpassing) that of nature) is. For example, in 1583 a boy's performance at Oxford in 1583 was reported with astonishment, for there was "a fine sight of hunters, with the full cry of a kennel... The storm, in which little sweet hails hailed, rained rose water and snowed a kind of artificial snow, totally strange, wonderful and abundant" (in John Nichols,Queen Elizabeth's advances and public processions,1788-1807). The playwrights' choice of subjects also emphasized the artificiality of the performances: children with unbroken voices assumed the roles of the great figures of classical mythology: "Hercules and his burden too," as Rosencrantz says of Hamlet.
The great strength of the children was theirs.Phrase, taught as part of the discipline of rhetoric in all Elizabethan high schools. He included not only the training of the voice, but also the practice of the corresponding gestures and facial expressions. And the child actors, of course, were much more successful than the average schoolboy. Marlowe's work requires such talent, particularly in Aeneas's tale of the fall of Troy, where more than 60 lines are only occasionally interrupted by comments from the other character, orchestrating pity and horror into one thin narrative verse.
The work was published in 1594, and the title page states that Thomas Nashe was partly the author, but there is no trace of his hand in the composition. Nashe may have obtained or even transcribed the manuscript for publishers who wanted to take advantage of the publicity of Marlowe's death and were unable to take possession of the other works, all of which were prized property of adult theater companies.
However, the first of these pieces had already been published: the two parts ofTamerlane the Great, Subtitledtwo tragic speeches, appeared in print in 1590, two or three years after the plays had been performed by Admiral's Men. The first of these "speeches" seems complete in itself, triumphantly leaving the eponymous hero alive at the end of the fifth act, where he proclaims that he now "Tamerlanemakes truce with everyone.” The second “speech” begins with a prologue that attests to the popularity of the first and explains its very raison d'être:
the general salutestambourineget,
When did you last arrive on our stage?,
Our poet has made his second part [.]
At the end of the fifth act of this play, "the land has consumed the pride of all its fruits": Tamerlane is dead. Generally speaking, the action ofTamerlaneIt is simple. The hero of the first part, a Scythian shepherd with unlimited aspirations, meets no serious opposition in his rise to power and majesty. By force, whether through rhetoric or weapons, he overcomes all opposition: he wins allies, conquers kings and kingdoms, and unites the beautiful Zenocrat. The piece ends with a triumph that is as loving as it is martial and anticipates the “solemn rites of marriage”. In the second part, the opposition grows, which is not only of human origin: Tamerlane is disappointed in his children; Zenocrates falls ill and dies; Finally, Tamburlaine himself has to admit that "the disease now shows me that I am a man." The style of the piece adapts to the character. In the verses preceding the first folio edition of Shakespeare's works (1623),
Nature that framed us from four elements,
Fighting on our chests for a regiment
It teaches us all to have ambitious minds:
Our souls whose abilities can comprehend
The wonderful architecture of the world:
And measure every course of wandering plants:
Still climbing through infinite knowledge,
And always moving like bullets at rest,
Do we want to take and never rest,
Until we reach the ripest fruit of all,
This perfect happiness and only happiness
The sweet fruit of an earthly crown.
The verse reaches its climax at the end of the paragraph, verbally expressing the breathless impetuosity of the speaker, captivating the audience just as Tamerlane's personality overcomes all resistance.
But the game doesn't ask for it.uncriticalApplause, either for the character or for the "amazing tears" of his statements. Aware that both ambition and exaggeration are potentially ludicrous, Marlowe encourages laughter in the first scene, thus establishing criteria for the leading lady's appreciation of him.
The opening lines of the play, spoken by Mycetes, King of Persia, make the correct connection between personality and fluidity:
brothers and sistersChosroesI agree
But not enough to express the same:
To do this requires a big, thunderous speech[.]
Marlowe demonstrates the comic range of a "thunderous speech" as Mycetes tries to speak in a manner befitting his dignity. His comedy contains the grimly inappropriate: in the description of "milk-white steeds."
All loaded with the heads of dead men.
and from his knees down to his hooves,
Splattered with blood, that makes for a delicate sight.
There's even one of the crass "conceits [that] antics pay for" scorned in the prologue:
MYCETES. Well, I swear, my royal throne...
COSROE. Then you would do well to kiss him.
MYCETES. Emboss with silk as best suits my condition [.]
The folly and weakness of Mycetes justify Cosroe in his determination to overthrow his brother and wear the crown himself; and this act of usurpation serves to justify Tamburlaine in his later decision.
Tamerlane appears for the first time accompanied by Zenocrates, to whom he offers comfort and protection. Despite being disguised as a shepherd, his demeanor is more like that of a knight in a medieval romance. Before our eyes, he seems to grow in stature as he sheds his lowly robes ("weeds I don't want to wear") and trades them for "more attractive gifts": a "full armor" and a "citizen's axe." . ". Thus endowed, his companions compare him to a lion (the emblem of royalty), and he himself refers to "empires"; but the first impassioned speech is made to Zenocrate, and Tamerlane is thus associated with beauty, the jewels, love and wealth more than with bloodthirsty conquests. The advance of the Persian horsemen also puts Tamerlane in a favorable position to win the sympathy of the audience: he asks the soldier to confirm the number of the enemy: " A thousand horsemen? Us five hundred feet?” Undeterred, he strategizes, declaring his willingness to fight against far greater odds: “We fight five hundred men with arms against one,” and to face the enemy himself: “I myself will bear the brunt of danger. .”
By the end of the second act, Tamburlaine is secure in his position as "superman" because he deserves it and is superior, both morally and physically, to those he has defeated. He reaches the height of his success in the third act when he fights against the Turkish emperor Bajazeth.
The Turk's proud boast surpasses the claims of Tamburlaine himself, and Bajazeth is accompanied by seemingly powerful allies, making Tamburlaine's army seem once again outnumbered. Furthermore, Tamerlane is now portrayed as a defender of the faith, opposing the disbelieving Turks and vowing to do so.
in big
Those Christian captives you keep as slaves
load their bodies with your heavy chains,
and feed them lean, lean food,
This naked paddle across the sea of Terrene.
The fight is excellent. Fighted behind the scenes, their progress is commented on by Zabina and Zenocrate, who also engage in a verbal battle befitting the warriors' conflict. But while Tamburlaine deserves victory once again, his handling of the defeated Bajazeth makes the public suspect that he is starting to get overwhelmed.
For the rest of the first part and most of the second, Marlowe balances scenes of great brutality performed with ritual solemnity with startlingly beautiful speeches in praise of Zenocrates and mourning his death. Themes such as ambition, love, power and justice are introduced in the first part and further developed in the second part, so that the two parts form a symphonic unit.
In the first part and throughout the second, Tamerlane is increasingly presented as "the scourge and wrath of God," the instrument of divine vengeance; this must be accepted by the audience, who must also recognize (as an Elizabethan audience would surely appreciate) that the scourge itself must be scourged and destroyed. Even Tamerlane seems to be aware of this fact sporadically, when he rants against Zenocrate's death in II.iv.
proud rage and unbearable attack,
That dares to torment the body of my love
And whip the scourge of the immortal god[.]
Thus admiration (for bravery) and horror (for cruelty) are tempered with respectful anticipation of inevitable disaster.
the style ofTamerlaneit was immediately contagious: the imitation, however, soon turned into parody and then mockery. InWooden boardsBen Jonson advises his "true designer" that the language of his work must not "fly away from all humanity."Tamerlane,yTamer-Chamsof late age, who had nothing more than thatscenicPacing and shouting with rage they justify the ignorant spectators." The actor responsible forscenicstrutting" was Edward Alleyn, the star actor of Admiral's Men, for whom Marlowe wrote this play. He also created the role of Barabas for Alleyn in his next play,The Maltese Jew.“
Internal evidence (mainly stylistic) suggests that it is.The Maltese Jewit was written about 1589; It was frequently performed by The Admiral's Men in the years immediately after Marlowe's death, and recorded "box office receipts" are a testament to its popularity. There was no printed text until 1633, when a quarto edition was published with new prologues and epilogues written byThomas Hewood; it seems likely that Heywood was also responsible for a complete revision of the work, but the full extent of his revision cannot be determined. In the two new prologues to him, Heywood alludes to the antiquity of the work: he addresses the "graceful and great" in the "prologue spoken at court," he explains.The Maltese Jewit was "written many years ago", adding that it was "unmatched in thought at that time".
The play has always been 'unsurpassed' in the sense that nothing in English drama is like it: it has no place in any recognizable dramatic tradition. the theme ofThe root of evil is desire.is not unknown in English drama. Shakespeare's Shylock is a distant relative of Marlowe's Barabas, and Jonson's Volpone shares his interest: but these similarities only emphasize the differences between them.The Maltese Jewon one side andThe merchant of VeniceoVolponein the other one.
Marlowe's work has no obvious source. The action takes place on the tiny Mediterranean island of Malta, which was Spanish in the late 16th century and occupied by the Knights of St John Hospitaller after their expulsion from Rhodes in 1522. Marlowe's Knights (and the public) are reminded this fact in II.ii:
RememberEuropaShame,
The Christian Island ofOccursWhere you come from
Got lost lately and got you here
To be deadly hostile to the Turks.
However, the knights of the play have a truce with the Turks, to whom they owe a tribute. To pay this tribute, the governor of Malta, Ferneze, decides to impose taxes on the island's Jews, who must pay half of their property or convert to Christianity. The richest Jew, Barrabas, rejects both alternatives. To punish him, Ferneze confiscates all his property; The remainder of the play depicts Baraba's efforts to reinstate himself (actually he becomes Governor of Malta) and exact revenge on those who offended him. A rapid succession of murders follows: Ferneze's son, in love with the Jew's daughter, engages in a duel, in which both he and his rival are killed; Abigail, the object of her affections, is poisoned, and an entire nunnery dies with her; two suspicious monks fight: one is strangled, the other is hanged; Ithamore, a rebellious Turkish slave who was Barabas's tool, is poisoned before he can betray his master: a prostitute and her pimp die with him; A monastery housing Turkish forces explodes as its leader prepares to feast with Barabas, but the leader (the son of the Turkish emperor) is saved when Ferneze operates the mechanism that would cause him to fall into a cauldron of boiling water. It's Barabas being boiled to death, caught in his own trap; and he dies with a subtle, melodramatic challenge: "Color life, fly the soul, curse your tongue and color it." The speed with which these crimes are dealt with fosters in the viewer a detachment typical of comedy, which excludes any sympathy for the victims. And only Abigail is presented as an attractive character: "The desperate daughter of a hapless Jew." Her death is miserable: in III.vi she dies in the arms of the monk who converted her, with laudable sentiment
oh sweet friend
convert my father to be saved,
And I testify that I color a Christian.
But pathos immediately gives way to laughter at the monk's response: "I [yes], and also a maiden who saddens me the most." None of the other murder victims turn out to be more than comical stereotypes: the romantic lover, the greedy monk (an anti-Catholic caricature), a slave whose resume includes "burning Christian villages, chaining eunuchs, tying Gally slaves." ". and a prostitute lamenting the decline of trade in Malta ("my profit is growing cold... now I must be chaste against my will").
In contrast to all of these, Barrabas comes across as richly idiosyncratic. As a "bottleneck child," he opens the play as a commercial adventurer, he discovers "in his office, with a pile of gold in front of him.” Immersed in his ventures, he is a businessman who keeps his accounts in order. In I.i he says:
So this from so much that was returned:
and a third of the Persian ships,
There the risk was summed up and satisfied.
But soon he shows frustration and envy:
hahaha; What a nuisance it is to tell this rubbish.
Blessed are the Arabs who pay so richly
The things they exchange gold wedge for[.]
Ambition makes him a dreamer, a visionary he admires
pockets full of fireOpal, Sapphire, Amethyst,
hyacinths,heavytopaz,grasgrünSmaragde,
Schönruby,sparklingdiamonds,
And these precious stones... [.]
The speech builds to a crescendo, building to one of Marlowe's best-known lines as Barabas longs to bring 'inclose/Infinite riches in a little roome'. There are more revelations to come, but we (as the audience or readers) have already begun to understand Barrabas; we are more intimate with him than with any other dramatis personae. This sense of intimacy is developed in the following plot through the use of asides, allowing us to feel superior to the other characters, the Jews for example, when later in I.i Barabas seems to promise his support:
2. JEW. But there is a session in the Senate Chamber
And all the jews clean upMaltaIt must be there.
BARABAS. em; all jews cleanMaltaShould it be there?
I [yes] how enough, so why let any man
Provide for him and be there for the sake of fashion.
If something affects our state
Make sure I'm looking -
to myself.Apart.
Barabas is also a likeable character in the sense that at the beginning of the play he is a man who has sinned against more than he has sinned: a victim of prejudice, his fault lies in his Jewish affiliation, and the Knights of Malta are willing to use religion as a tool, they disguise themselves as robbery when they take Jewish property to pay off the Turks. Barrabas reveals his hypocrisy-"Don't preach to me about my possessions." In this confrontation of Jews and Catholics, Marlowe presents two objects of fear, hatred, and suspicion to the Elizabethan Protestants who made up the play's contemporary audience. As Christians, the Elizabethans believed that the Jews were the race that betrayed and crucified their God; but as English they saw in Roman Catholicism a threat to their church and their monarch. From the beginning of the play there is a complexity of emotional response that is far from balanced by the end of the fifth act.
By trying too hard in his villainy, Barabas, like Tamerlane in the earlier play, has alienated the audience; his ignominious death in the cauldron, the standard Elizabethan punishment for the poisoner, is considered the most appropriate. At the same time, it is impossible to participate in the unctuous piety of Ferneze's last couplet: 'Let all due praise be given/Neither fate nor fortune, but heaven'. It is perhaps the punch line of this early 'black comedy'.
Marlowe seems to be well acquainted with the history of Malta, where the Jews were expelled in 1422 unless they wished to acquire Christian baptism at the price of 45 per cent of their individual property. In the 1580s the island seems to have been of special interest to the English. There were suspicions - still imperfectly understood - of conspiracies and espionage that might have been known to Marlowe, whose interest in politics and current affairs did not end with his Cambridge career.
This interest is clearly evident inThe Paris Massacre, piece stylistically related to himThe Maltese Jewwith his grim sense of humor. the date ofThe Paris Massacreunknown: it was performed in 1593 and must have been written after the death of Henry III. written by France in August 1589. The opening scenes of the play depict the bloody violence of the French riots in 1572, when more than 30,000 French Protestants were murdered by Roman Catholics led by the Duke of Guise (with the support of Catherine de' Medici ). The play ends after Guise, at the instigation of Henry III. He is assassinated (December 1588) and like Henry himself lies dying and hands over the French crown to Henry of Navarre (Henry IV of France). The accusations against Guise include the rhetorical warning
Didn't you draw some kind of English priest?
From Doway to the Remes Seminary,
To plot treason against his natural queen?
Did he not make the king ofSpanish peoplehuge fleet,
threatenEngland...?
Of course, Marlowe could have gotten this information from the print sources he used; but it must not be forgotten that he may have been in the service of Walsingham and the Privy Council at Rheims. Shortly before his death, Heinrich III. to the "Agent ofEngland,' and ordered him to 'tell your masters what that detested Jacobin [the Duke of Guise] has done'; vow to "ruin this wicked church ofROM,' Pledge allegiance to the Protestant cause, 'and to the Queen ofEnglandespecially / whom God has blessed for hating popery". The "agent forEngland' in the time of Henry III. from France was Walsingham himself.
Unfortunately,The Paris Massacresurvives in woefully confused form, and the undated octave edition cannot provide sufficient material for an evaluation of Marlowe's work. There are traces of subtle theatrics in the first scene, which shows the religious tensions in the Protestant Navarrese's marriage to the Catholic Marguerite, a bond that Catherine de' Medici "threatens to dissolve with blood and cruelty". Guisa's character is portrayed with typical Marlovian ambivalence: a brutal and ruthless killer to be sure, but possessed of an ambition and great disdain that are in themselves commendable:
I like that better, that it flies out of my reach.
let me climb the high peramides,
And put the headbandfragrance,
Or I tear it with my nails,
Or climb the top with my wings flying,
Even if my downfall is the deepest hell.
And although the exploits of Henry III. Sanctioned by his Protestant sympathies, the character is not uncritically acclaimed: his hypocrisy is evident, and we are clearly shown the weakness pointed out by Queen Catherine: "Her mind of hers, you see, runs over the minions." her". the character to the protagonist ofEdward II.
The titular hero of this work on English history is the only one of Marlowe's protagonists to lack entirely the charismatic energy that drives the others, and it is expressed in the "amazing tears" ofTamerlane. This was not a piece designed for Edward Alleyn.
According to the frontispiece of the first edition (1594),Edward IIit was "several times publicly traded in the honorable City of London by the Right Honorable Earl of Pembrooke, his servants." by September 1593 they were penniless and forced to disband, pawning their costumes and selling their playbooks. Marlowe could have written his play specifically for this company: he requires few elaborate costumes and no staging of various settings, and in that sense he would be on a par with a touring troupe. But he doesn't offer roles comparable to those of Tamburlaine, Barabas or Dr. Faustus: the roles Alleyn plays for Admiral's Men.
Most of the events ofEdward IIwere taken by Holinshedchronicles of england(1597). The five acts of Marlowe's play span 23 years of English history, from Edward II's accession to the throne in 1307 to the events of 1330 when Mortimer's treason was discovered. Edward was a weak king, obsessed with his love for his "servant" Piers Gaveston. He neglected, and even abused, both his queen and the kingdom, he was imprisoned and horribly murdered.
The play also describes the rise to power and "the tragic fall of the proud Mortimer". At first, Mortimer is a boisterous patriot who resents the king's honors given to Gaveston because he impoverishes the country. But his ambition leads him to rebellion. He becomes the queen's lover; he forces Eduardo to cede the crown to his son; and he takes over as protector of the young king. For a short time he may rejoice in his power and say in V.iv:
Now all is safe, the Queen andMortimer
Let the kingdom rule, the king, and no one rule us,
I will plague my enemies, my friends advance,
And what I command, who dares to control?
I am greater than whom happiness can harm.
("I am great beyond the damage of Fortune").
He arranged for the murder of Edward, who dies in agony; but the crime is discovered, and the new king sentences Mortimer to the death of a traitor. The sympathies in this play are never established and the characters are unusually complex. A passionate patriot, Mortimer becomes a Machiavellian usurper and sadistic king-slayer. Isabella, the Queen, is first (in II.iv) a cruelly wronged wife, "whose languid heart the inward sighs of hers have broken, / And whose body is ravaged by constant pain." Mortimer's kind courtesy. She soon becomes quite dominated by her lover: in IV.vi, the Earl of Kent (always a useful guide to where our sympathies should go) tells us that "Mortimeryisabelthey kiss while conspiring', and in V.ii the Queen herself recognizes her new love:
DulceMortimer, the life ofisabel,
rest assured that I love you well,
And therefore the prince, my son, will be safe
whom I appreciate as much as these my eyes,
Close against his father what you want,
And I will subscribe with great pleasure.
Isabella's rival for her husband's attention is the young Frenchman Piers Gaveston. He is also a character that develops, or at least changes, throughout the plot of the play. He opens the play with a monologue in which he describes the plans he has devised to "drag the docile king as he pleases me"; Although he speaks fondly of Edward, the truth is that his self-interest is a powerful motivating force. However, as the play progresses, it becomes equally true that his self-interest gives way to a selfless love that overcomes the bitterness of captivity and the imminence of an undignified death; in II.iv, for example, Gaveston awaits a final meeting with his beloved: "Sweet Sovereignty, but I come to see you before I die." Faced with the attitude of Eduardo II Marlowe (and consequentlyourattitude) seems to be ambivalent. Edward is a threat to the stability of the country in his free assignment of office and wealth to a commoner. The King is ridiculous when he complains about Gaveston's departure or stands on tiptoe excited by his return. And the husband who flaunts a lover to her wife and makes her acceptance of Gaveston a condition of the survival of her marriage is utterly despicable. Against such accusations, Marlowe counters the lonely redemptive fact that Edward loves Gaveston:
MORTIMER. Why should you love him, who?
does the world hate like that?
EDWARD. Because she loves me more than anything.
the world.
Edward is a man of extremes, swinging wildly from blackest depression to carefree exuberance without a period of sensible moderation in between. In his death she is the object of intense pity and admiration. Edward's death is a parody of the homosexual act. Details were provided by the story, and collected by Marlowe from various chronicle sources. The king is arrested at Neath Abbey, where he has been trying to find refuge among friends and supporters; in IV.vii Marlowe, the poet of toil and toil, becomes the poet of weariness and despondency:
good father in your lap
I put this head loaded with the pain of Mickel
Oh I might never open those eyes again
Never lift that hanging head again
Oh, never raise this dying deer again!
It's the last comfort you'll find. After his capture, he is swaddled "from one place to another at night", shaved in pools of water, and finally locked in a stinking cell, "the sink/Where the filth of the whole castle falls" and where "you are constantly beating a drum." Edward tells his pathetic tale of Lightborn, a character of Marlowe's own imagination who is in fact the murderer. Lightborn is a subhuman, a killing machine. He is the only character in the play who has no emotional reaction to Edward, and his ruthless efficiency seems to amplify the King's confused and suffering humanity. For a moment, Edward is king again as in V.V, with an almost familiar grace bestowing the final jewel on him: "You know I'm a king." Only when he lost his throne did Edward become king, and the sad eloquence of his later speeches contrasts with the empty rhetoric that precedes them. The 'mighty line' is muted in this piece, whose characteristic modes are irony and deflation: when Isabella begins a peroration to justify rebellion against Edward in IV.iv, Mortimer abruptly silences her:
REINA. ..........................................
Ill-ruled kings are the cause of all this chaos,
yEduardoyou are one of them
Whose madmen betrayed your country to spy,
and made the canals overflow with blood,
You should be patron of your own people.
But you-
MORTIMER. No, ma'am, if you are a warrior,
You shouldn't get so passionate in your speeches[.]
Only Mortimer is allowed to stop the action of the play with a heroic farewell speech, but the words of Stoic courage are preceded and followed by references to Mortimer as 'traitor' and 'murderer', effectively lessening the impact of the speech. .
Frustration and weakness are Marlowe's themes throughout.Edward II. There is no such thing as a Superman hero, and the growing splendor ofTamerlaneThis verse would be inappropriate here. in his next pieceDr. A.S. HERE. Splendor, Marlowe critically balances the powerful lines of heroic endeavor with the chilling tones of experience, achieving a tragedy that, even in the twentieth century, is capable of frightening and terrifying with its thoughtful intensity.
At the beginning of the play, Faust, who has excelled in all fields of human knowledge, finds his intellectual ambitions still unfulfilled: though he has made a name for himself as a doctor treating "a thousand desperate maladies," he longs for it bigger. Energy:
Could you make people live forever?
Or be dead, bring her back to life,
So this profession should be appreciated.
Eventually he turns to God, but upon opening the Bible he is faced with a seemingly intractable dilemma when he juxtaposes two sentences: "The wages of sin is death"; and "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and there is no truth in us." From these two premises he proceeds to the logical conclusion of the syllogism:
so why believe
We must sin and consequently die,
I [yes] must die, an eternal death.
He puts his books aside and decides to study magic, noting that it means "getting a deity."
In I.iii, with his first invocation he conjures the devil Mephostophilis and makes a deal with him: in exchange for 24 years of power and knowledge, when Mephostophilis will be his servant, Faust endangers his immortal soul. Mephostophilis, a surprisingly honest demon, tries to dissuade the zealous conjurer by painting a grim picture of the torments of the damned.
Do you think that I, who have seen the face of God,
And tasted the eternal delights of heaven,
I'm not tormented with ten thousand hels,
Being deprived of eternal bliss?
oFaustoLeave these frivolous demands,
That terrify my impotent soul.
Faust is not intimidated and refuses to believe that "there is pain after this life." At the devil's request, he writes a formal legal document with his own blood, which is "an act of gift, body and soul."
For the next 24 years he strives for knowledge and pleasure, but finds only disappointment. All the time he is accompanied by two angels, the good and the bad; The former tells him to turn to God in repentance and hope for mercy, while the evil angel convinces him that he cannot repent, that he can never be forgiven, and that "the demons will tear [him] to pieces." , when he tries to break the promise he made to the devil. In the final act of the play, he twice evokes the spirit of Helen of Troy, the first time on behalf of her scholarly friends who have asked to see "the most admirable lady that ever lived". The second incantation is for his own joy and comfort; he asks about Helen as his "lover",
whose sweet embraces can erase,
These thoughts that take me out of my vows
And keep my oath that I tookLucifer.
Helen's second appearance evokes from Faustus the most famous lines Marlowe wrote:
Was this the face that launched a thousand ships?
And burned the topless towersillion?
DulceholaMake me immortal with a kiss:
Your lips suck my soul, look where it flies.
Such exaggerations are not uncommon in sixteenth-century love poetry, but there is a cruel irony here. In Helen's embrace, Faust "excludes from [her his] soul the mercy of heaven" (V.i) and, indeed, ensures immortality—"in hell forever" (V.ii)."
The final monologue touches on his last hour on earth, reversing the movement of the first monologue. The proud scholar, who had resented the limitations of human existence and longed for the immortality of a god, now seeks to escape an eternity of damnation. To be physically absorbed by the elements, "to be a creature without a soul", "to be any animal", even -at last- to be "turned into droplets of water": such is the ultimate ambition of the man who had once tried, "to achieve a deity". In this speech he dominates time. The measured regularity of the opening gives way to a frantic two-way jerk as Faust is torn between Christ and the devil: "Oh, I leap to my God: who can strike me down?" The second half hour passes faster than the first. We are eerily aware of the final minutes of Faust's life, slipping like sand through the hourglass with seemingly increasing speed. But with each falling grain that brings Faust closer to his horrifying end, we grow increasingly aware of the deserts of endless eternity and damnation that yawn beyond death.
Critic Leo Kirschaum said in 1943: "There is no more evident Christian document in all the Elizabethan dramas thanDoctor Fausto” (english language review). But his ideology is not simple. The form is, in some respects, that of the old moral works, with two key differences. First, the central character is not the generic Everyman: Dr. Faustus is an individual with history (born in Germany, "in a Towne cal'dWheel,” to “base de stocke” parents) and an impressive resume. And secondly, the fate of this individual is not that of the type of character whose fall from grace is condemned and then, before the end of the play, redeemed.
It is important to remember that Marlowe spent some time as a theology student; and a careful reading ofDr. A.S. HERE. Splendorreveals the playwright's memories of his studio. dr. Faust sins deliberately: he is fully aware of the consequences of his act (even if he does not believe in the reality of impending hell), and takes full responsibility in II.i:
Mephostophilia. to talkFausto, you deliver that
like your work?
SPLENDOR. I [yes] take it and the devil gives it to you
fine this way.
Throughout the play there is a conflict in Faust's mind, encouraged and expressed by the two angels, as in these lines from II.ii:
GOOD ANGEL.Faustorepent, but God will take pity on you.
EVIL ANGEL. You are a ghost, God cannot have mercy on you.
Orthodox theology taught that demons, in this context "spirit" being a synonym, are inherently incapable of repentance and therefore of accepting divine forgiveness; and Faust recognizes this teaching when he hears the two indications and responds:
SPLENDOR. Who's buzzing in my ear, am I a ghost?
I know a devil, but may God have mercy on me.
Yes, God will have mercy on me if I repent.
EVIL ANGEL. I [yes] butFaustonever regret.
SPLENDOR. My heart is hardened, I can't regret [.]
He confesses his despair, a "deep despair" that even drives him to suicide, but is overcome by "sweet pleasure."
The triviality of the play's central scenes has often diverted attention from its profound seriousness. Acts three and four, in which Faust explores his magical powers, feature scenes of buffoonish farce and simple incantations. Part of the inspiration for these scenes might have come from the prose narrative that was the main source of Marlowe's action:Faust's book(1587) to 1592 translated into English asThe story of the cursed life and deserved death of Dr. John Faustus. This prose work was a mixture of a joke book and a moral fable, which also offered a guide to Europe and a tour of hell. But the playwright lacked the narrator's permission and the middle part of the dramaDr. A.S. HERE. Splendorit's a disappointment
But it is unlikely that Marlowe himself was responsible for this error. Perhaps the manuscript of the play, unfinished at Marlowe's death in 1593, ended up in the hands of the impresario Philip Henslowe, who found other writers to complete the play for the 1594 performance. Eight years later, Henslowe noted in his diary a payment to two playwrights, Samuel Rowley and William Birde, for their "additions."Dr. A.S. HERE. Splendor. The work in its earlier form was not published until 1604 (the A text); the later edition, published in 1616 (text B), contains the "additions" of 1602. These complicate writing and printing.Dr. A.S. HERE. Splendorone of the biggest bibliographical problems in English literature.
Before his death, Marlowe had returned to writing undramatic verse and was again working on a form of translation, of the kind Dryden calls "imitation". In Dryden's terms, "imitation" is not aimed at translating an author's words or even their meaning, but rather "setting it up as a pattern and writing as [the translator] thinks the author would have done if he had lived there in our time." and in our country." The “patron” for Marlowe was Musaeus, a Greek poet of the fourth or fifth century AD, whose narrative poemhero and leanderIt earned him the title of 'grammatikos', which distinguished him as an erudite writer, versed in the poetry, rhetoric and philosophy of his time, and an expert in interpreting the great authors of the past. Marlowe's poem is a worthy imitation; and to the necessary qualities of a "grammar" the English writer adds one more: wit.
The Greek poem briefly describes the first meetings between the two lovers, and then tells of Leander's last attempt to swim the Hellespont on a winter's night; the young man drowned and his hero died next to him. However, Marlowe's poem is a comedy that pays close attention to the Hero meeting: "VenusWell”, with the stranger from Abydos. The two lovers are described in detail. Hero is a masterpiece of art; His shoes, for example, are a technological feat:
Shell booties all silver I wore them
And boughs knee-high in coral blush;
where the sparrows pearl, of hollow pearls and gold,
How the world would marvel to see:
who fills his servant with sweet water,
Which, as he walked, would howl through the bills.
The verse admires the splendid luxury and at the same time reveals its absurdity. In stark contrast to Hero's description is Marlowe's portrait of Leander, lingering erotically over the boy's naked body:
The way the meat tastes delicious,
This was his neck when touching and surpassing
the white ofpelopsShoulder. I could tell you
How smooth was his chest and how white was his belly,
And whose immortal fingers imprinted
This heavenly road, with many strange sounds,
This runs down his back... [.]
The mix of comedy (particularly through the rhymes) keeps the sensual and mythological richness from spilling over.
With Ovid's Convictionsor,Leander begins his seduction of Hero; He starts out as a "cunning and bold sophist" but is quickly revealed to be "a novice... rude in love and crude". Hero responds by initially protecting herself with her status as a priestess, but the instinctive attraction soon leads to an unconscious prompt such as "ignorant".(Come here)of his slip.” He shows his true innocence when he opens the door to Leandro, who has just swum across the Hellespont and “sees a naked man, he cries out in fear / Such sights are rare for tender maidens”. Marlowe's poem reaches a climax as the poet slowly describes the meeting between the two lovers that leads to the consummation of their love. The passage is superbly orchestrated. It begins with the human comedy of Leander's appeal to Hero's pity ("This head was pummeled into a rude wow, / And let it rest on your pillow"); a second movement is the sympathetic depiction of Hero's conflicting feelings as he despondently tries to ward off Leander's attacking hands; then, after a brief and 'metaphysical' comparison of Hero's breasts with 'a globe', we come to the moment of Leandro's triumph, when he achieves the status of superman and 'as ThebanHercules' complete your mission.
hero and leanderit reveals qualities in its author that the works seem to repress or deny: tenderness, sympathy and a generous humor that knows how to laugh without cruelty. The poem, of course, is not without its flaws; but the achievement is great in itself and suggests enormous potential for the future, which in the words of the epilogue can only be lamented.Dr. A.S. HERE. Splendor:
Pruning is the branch that might have grown quite straight,
and burnedApollosLawrell Asst,
That eventually grew into this learned man[.]
But Marlowe's real achievement (rather than his unrealized potential) is best summed up in the words of a contemporary; Shakespeare's reference to Marlowe's death (inTo your taste) serves as an epitaph for the writer's work: it was "A big reckoning in a small room.