The Tragical History of

Christopher Marlowe

February 1564-May 30, 1593

Of “Common Stock”

Parents John and Katherine Marlowe

Father shoemaker Canterbury, England Scholarship to

Corpus Christi College, Cambridge University

Education & Religion B. A. in 1584; M. A. in 1587 Scholarships were with understanding

that he would take holy orders in Anglican church

Cambridge battlefield for Calvinists and anti-Calvinists in 1580s; difference was damnation

Religious convictions? Anglican? Catholic? Atheist?

Arrests for Fights & Religion• Arrested 1589, brawl resulted in

homicide; poet Thomas Watson self-defense; both released

• 1593 his roommate, dramatist Thomas Kyd arrested for inciting riots against Flemish Protestants; officers found papers denying deity of Christ; Kyd said they were Marlowe’s; Marlowe had to report daily to Privy Council--like house arrest

More on Marlowe’s “Reputation”

• Kyd reported on Marlowe’s “monstrous opinions,” saying he would “gybe at praiers, & stryve in argument to frustrate & confute what hath byn spoke or wrytt by prophets & such holie men.”

• Bains, a former fellow prisoner and possible informer, accused Marlowe of “Damnable Judgement of Religion, and scorn of gods word” and of saying “the first beginning of Religion was only to keep men in awe.”

More on Reputation

• Bains also accused Marlowe of saying that if there is “any god or religion, then it is in the papistes. . . . [A]ll protestantes are Hypocritical asses. . . .”

• Why would this be alarming in 1593?

• What reasons would Kyd and Bains have had for lying about Marlowe’s beliefs?

Work History• 1587 Cambridge first refused to grant his

master’s because of Marlowe’s absences from college, but Queen Elizabeth’s Privy Council sent a letter stating “that in all his accions he had behaved him selfe orderlie and discreetlie wherebie he had done her Majestie good service, & deserved to be rewarded for his faithful dealinge. . . .”

• Frequent trips to Rheims, France--to visit or spy on Catholics?

Work History, cont.

• Other unexplained absences

• Espionage for Sir Thomas Walsingham, head of Elizabeth’s secret service?

• 1592 letter from prison governor describes Marlowe as “by his profession a scholar.”

Performance of Plays

• Dido Queen of Carthage (1586)• Tamburlaine, I and II (1587-88)• The Jew of Malta (1590)• The Massacre at Paris

(1590)

• Edward II (1592-93)• Dr. Faustus (1594)

Translations of Latin Poetry & Writing English Lyric Poetry

• Certain of Ovid’s Elegies & Amores (1595 with John Davies)

• Lucan’s First Booke (1600) • “Hero and Leander”

(1598; unfinished)• “Passionate Shepherd

to His Love” (1600)

Importance to Poetry

• A. C. Swinburne, critic: Marlowe was “the father of English tragedy and the creator of English blank verse.”

• Tamburlaine Prologue shows Marlowe’s contempt for stage verse of the period: “jygging vaines of riming mother wits” presented the “conceits [which] clownage keepes in pay.”

• Dramatic poets of 16th c followed where Marlowe led; lyric poets of 17th c imitated him.

Importance to Tragedy

• Episodic treatment of events • Multi-dimensional protagonists• Humorous subplots

that parallel larger themes• Poetic language• Blank verse

Death as Reported at Inquest

• Died May 30, 1593 at age of 29, before all reports got to authorities.

• Spent day with 3 men in a house leased for meetings

• Fight over “le recknynge”; Marlowe pulled his dagger, Ingram Frazir got it away and stabbed Marlowe over right eye 2” deep and 1” wide; died instantly.

Cover up or not?

• Some scholars argue that the Earl of Essex ordered murder of Marlowe because he was an associate of Sir Walter Raleigh, Essex’s rival.

• Walsingham ordered murder because Marlowe was becoming a liability to the privy Council?

• Just typical Marlowe “rashness in attempting sudden privy injuries to men”?

Wacko Theory• Marlovians assert that

Marlowe didn’t really die in 1593 but lived to write Shakespeare’s plays, which couldn’t have been written by someone who wasn’t university-educated!!

• Or that Marlowe was a nom de guerre assumed by Shakespeare during the “lost years”!

Changes in Dramatic Productions

• Professional actors who attached to powerful patron for protection from vagrancy laws

• Professional theatres move outside London to avoid official sanctions

• Universities produce Latinate comedies: Ralph Roister Doister, Grammar Gurton’s Needle (1550s)

Humor & Subplots• Parts modeled on Roman comedies of

Terence and Plautus.• Puns, slapstick, irony—it’s got it all!• Action of the comic characters parallels

the action in the main plot. • Example: Faustus gets a servant;

Wagner gets a servant. Faustus learns to conjure; Wagner learns to conjure and teaches his servant. This also develops the themes of power and submission and knowledge.

Attitudes toward Witchcraft• To Elizabethans,

witchcraft was very real.

• Malleus Maleficarum• Plague• Burnings; religious

persecutions• What replaces scientific

cause and effect when disease and natural disaster strike?

http://virtual.park.uga.edu/cdesmet/tiffany/faustus.htm

Humanism• Included study of classics

and theology• Interest in education for

public service• Distrust of vernacular

languages because wanted eternal fame for writings; English too changeable—who could read in 200 years? Latin and Greek eternal(?!)

• National pride eventually legitimizes vernacular English.

Erasmus

Reformation

• Martin Luther originally intended simply to pose questions for discussion (1517).• Issue: Bible translated into vernacular so

people could decide for themselves. • Issue: individual should believe and do what

his personal reading of Bible and personal enlightened conscience tell him to—not what church leaders say.

• English Reformation was forced by dynastic concerns not religious ones.

English Protestantism

• Henry VIII executed Wm. Tyndale for translating the Bible into English.

• After splitting with the Catholic church to get a divorce and remarry for an heir, he authorizes an English translation of the Bible!

• Queen Mary-Bloody Mary, Spanish Catholic• Queen Elizabeth I – the Politique, middle

ground; beliefs ambiguous to accommodate individual conscience. Prohibited controversial preaching.

• The Great Chain of Being

• Universal Catholicism

• Agriculture• Anointed Kings• Preparing for

Imminent Death• Nobility

• The Individual• Reformation• Humanism• Manufacturing• Queen Elizabeth-

the Politique• Living for worldly

accomplishments • Rise of Middle

Class

Medieval

Renaissance

Medieval or Renaissance?1. London cultural

center2. Scientific

experimentation3. Change social

class4. Some religious

freedom5. Land/feudal

obligations

6. Writers had to have noble patrons or be nobles themselves

7. Challenge; ask questions

8. Could not change social status

9. Professional writers10.Follow tradition and

authority completely

Theatres and Free-thinking

• Avoidance of authority, discuss anything that could escape censors• QE I seeing Richard II after Essex revolt: “I am Richard II, know ye not that?”• Marlowe’s view of man: “. . .But his dominion that exceeds in this / Stretcheth as far as doth the mind of man” (Faustus.1.1.57-58).

• Act of 1545 classed any person not a member of a guild as a vagabond and subject to arrest

• Patronage of an important person, a servant and not charged with being a vagabond.

• QE1 gave permission to perform in London in spite of local rules if met the approval of the Master of the Revels

• Highly operatic with flamboyant expressions stylized according to certain rhetorical traditions

Themes• Individualism• Ambition, power• Good and evil• Knowledge and ignorance• Choices and consequences• Appearance and reality• Success and failure• The human condition or meaning of life• Manipulation/Machiavellian action

Marlowe’s Over-reachers

• “Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp,Or what’s a heaven for?”

--Robert Browning (1812–1889)

Renaissance Attitudes Towards Faustus as a Magician

• Elizabethan Perspective on the Occult • Lawrence Stone said the Elizabethan age

was "the greatest age of religious difference before the 20th century."

• During Faustus' time there were an estimated 900,000 atheists in a population of four to five million, although the estimate was made by a Spanish ambassador. Puritans felt that even the litany was a "conjuring" of God and the Pope and priests were magicians. Modern magic possibly dates from the publishing of Giambattista della Porta's Natural Magic in 1558.

Elizabethan Perspective on the Occult

Elizabethan Perspective on the Occult

• Nature was thought to be a secondary cause of occurences, God always being the first cause. The study of Nature bypassed God, causing suspicion of atheism.

• Magic changed from medieval times when magicians tried to stop or reverse natural processes and began a more scientific approach of finding ways to work in harmony with Nature.

• Many students of traditional academia turned to scientific research during Marlowe's time as a student at Cambridge. Sir Walter Raleigh typified the 'new man,' whose pursuit for knowledge included both the rational and the occult. Faustus recognizes Hell and the Devil's personal pervasiveness, and he wants the powers of Nature even with its limitations. 

Faustus' Form of Magic

• Faustus originally intends for his magic to do good: to increase his intellect and his power so he may help others and possibly ease his finding a mate so he may start a family.

• Thus, he aspires to be a "white" magician or magus, a rare wise man who could connect with God in order to manipulate objects or events. Yet when he performs his conjuring in Act 1 Scene 3, he does not pray willingly to God but to devils, for they will move willingly and quickly to bring him the same end--power.

Faustus' Form of Magic (cont’d)

• Does he then truly become a demonic or "black" magician in this act?

• Hardly, for Mephistopheles arrives of his own free will, and their relationship continues in the same dynamic, with Mephistopheles as the magician and Faustus as the pawn who has given up what small power he previously has for the pretense of that of another.

Faustus' Form of Magic (cont’d)

• The Renaissance audience, according to Traister, would have recognized this relationship and known that Faustus was not either a white or black magician, or either a true or ceremonial (a distinction made by Eugenio Garin in which ceremonial magic leads to chaos and sin). The type of magician Faustus is allowed to imitate is limited by Mephistopheles as well as what kind of magic he is permitted to perform. Mephistopheles refuses to conjure a wife for Faustus; rather he insists on a lusty paramour, Helen.

Faustus' Form of Magic (cont’d)

• The only magic Faustus does perform are childish tricks against the Pope, unquestionably demonic or "black", for he acts consciously against God, and only because Mephistopheles allows him to be a magician for one fleeting moment. Faustus, of course, pays for this type of magic with his own demise and damnation to Hell.

Faustus as a Subversive Criticism on Religion

• Marlowe himself has been accused of being an atheist, and if this is true, it casts a great deal of doubt on his ability to moralize from a Christian stance. Additionally, there are nagging inconsistencies within the text that might point to a more unconventional reading.

Faustus as a Subversive Criticism on Religion (cont’d)

• Faustus is not damned because he sells his soul; he sells his soul because he is damned, and this is the only avenue left open to him. The lines in the prologue of the play, "And melting heavens conspired his overthrow," suggest that God himself is aligned against Faustus.

• Is it not almost perverse to assume the guilt of a man whom God himself has damned?

Faustus as a Subversive Criticism on Religion (cont’d)

• Faustus is guilty of many sins, pride being the greatest, but perhaps it is his desire for knowledge and power beyond the scope of man that causes God to damn him. It is simply Faustus' audacity in daring to question his place in the universe which turns God against him.

• What solace can anyone take in such an authoritarian, judgmental deity? In light of this admittedly extreme stance, what possible lesson does Marlowe intend for his audience? Is it anti-Christian? Marlowe is quite the radical.

The "Real Faust"• It is now clear to us that the real Dr. Faust, on

whom Marlowe based his play, was not a magician at all but rather an incredible braggart and trickster. His stories were bred in the German inns of the sixteenth century, an environment described by E. M. Butler as a place where "jugglers, charlatans, and quacks of all kinds thrived. . ., the ideal breeding ground for those crass deceptions and knavish tricks associated with the real Faust" (121). Dr. Faust was known to publicize himself as chief of all atrologers, the most learned chemist of all times, a palmist, a crystal gazer, and a man who could perform miracles greater than Christ (121).

The "Real Faust"

• Unfortunately for Faust, he was never able to bring about any of these miracles (unless one wants to argue that such a man achieving a good theological degree is a miracle in itself). The only documented facts that might have given him credibility as a wizard, among his bar-mates, were things that now seem trivial. These include such occurences as his keeping a dog with him at meals (some of the sixteenth century general public considered demons to disguise themselves as dogs), his ability to occasionally obtain out-of-season game, and his threatening a group of monks with a poltergiest because they gave him bad wine. Whenever he would claim to bring someone back from the dead, he always needed a couple of days to prepare, no doubt to hire the right actors and create an eager audience.

The "Real Faust"

• Dr. Faust was not made famous and immortalized in literature by such authors as Marlowe because of amazing acts, but rather because his amazing amount of bragging caused false stories to become exaggerated over time. In truth, the real Faust sounds more like Shakespeare's comically boastful Falstaff than the respectable man unable to avoid temptation that Marlowe creates.

The Renaissance Audience • The common man of the sixteenth

century still believed that the devil and his accomplices could be real physical beings. They believed that one could become a magician with an association of the devil. Wizards and magicians were considered men who had made a pact with Satan and, in return for their pledge of allegiance, were given evil aid in performing superhuman acts. Also, Marlowe was regarded as an atheist.

The Renaissance Audience

• Certainly this would cause Marlowe's peers to view him as hazardous both intellectually and morally. These facts surely caused the audience of the sixteenth century to view Doctor Faustus in a much more serious light than that of today's audiences. This was not a play of fantasy or make-believe to a Renaissance audience but one with genuine fears and possibilities.

The Renaissance Audience• The sixteenth century saw a shift in Christian ideals that

added significance to Marlowe's play. • No longer did people believe that God would always be there

to protect them from Satan. The sixteenth century brought about a high level of paranoia that Satan was everywhere and that day to day life was an individual duel with the devil, and the individual was left to fend for himself.

• This way of thinking is far less comforting than the previous view that God acted as a "guardian angel" working to protect Christians from Satan's attacks.

• It is important to note that the devil does not show up to tempt Faustus; he makes his own decision to call for Satan. He destroys his own life. Throughout his play, Marlowe is depicting the Christian ideal of his time, that the individual is responsible for his own fate.

White Magic vs. Black Magic • The distinction between white magic and black

magic was very unstable during the Renaissance. Christian doctrine accepted both versions of magic but scholars argued as to the differences between the two. White magic was seen as a natural science when used for legitimate ends. Also called "natural magic," white magic flourished during the Renaissance and was used as a means of acquiring access to the divine through nature. In the New Testament there is a favorable view of the Magi, or magician. These people used white magic to worship Christ.

White Magic vs. Black Magic• Black magic also used nature but included the

invocation of demons. This was the magic that Dr. Faustus used in Marlowe's great work. Black magic, or witchcraft, implied the use of supernatural powers for a wicked purpose.

• In early Christian history, black magic was seen as idolatry. Paganism was seen as a sin in the Old Testament but this form of black magic was still acknowledged. This exercise of evil was seen as demonic to Christians but, nevertheless, both forms of magic flourished during this time period.

Works Cited• Butler, E. M. The Myth of the Magus. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1948. 121-143. • Marlowe, Christopher. Doctor Faustus and Other Plays. Ed.

David Bevington and Eric Rasmussen. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. 137-246.

• Marshall, Richard. Witchcraft: The History and Mythology. New York: Crescent, 1995.

• McAlindon, T. Doctor Faustus, Divine in Show. Ed. Robert Lecker. New York: Twayne, 1994. 4-7, 33-35.

• Russell, Jeffrey Burton. The Prince of Darkness: Radical Evil and the Power of Good in History. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988.

• Traister, Barbara. Heavenly Necromancers: Magicians in English Renaissance Drama. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1984.  

Sources

Barnet, Sylvan, ed. “Introduction.” Doctor Faustus. Christopher Marlowe. New York: Signet, 1969. vii-xix.

Bevington, David. “General Introduction.” The Complete Works of Shakespeare. New York: HarperCollins, 1992. Rpt. in Doctor Faustus: Divine in Show. Ed. McAlindon, T. Twayne’s Masterworks Studies. New York: Twayne, 1994. 152-170.

Duncan-Jones, Katherine. “Devil May Care.” New Statesman 131 (1996): 42-44.McAlindon, T. Doctor Faustus: Divine in Show. Twayne’s Masterworks Studies. New York: Twayne, 1994.

“The Sixteenth Century I1485-1603): Introduction.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 6th ed. Ed. M. H. Abrams. New York: W. W. Norton,1996. 253-273.

Stenning, Rodney. “The ‘Burning Chair’ in the B-text of Doctor Faustus.” Notes and Queries 43 (1996): 144-145.

Stumpf, Thomas A. “Images and Music.” Freshman Seminar: Visits to Hell. (2001). 29 Sept. 2004.<http://www.unc.edu/courses/2001fall/engl/006m/005/thumbnails.html.>

Walton, Brenda. Lessons for Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus. Orlando, FL: Network for Instructional TV, 1998. 12 Oct. 2004. <http://www.teachersfirst.com/lessons/marl.htm>.