Christopher Marlowe

Literary history has singularly vindicated itself in the study of Christopher Marlowe 1 (1564-1593). At the beginning of the nineteenth century his works were almost wholly unread and his name was hardly known. 2 The Romantic critics recovered his fame and raised him to a dizzy eminence as the special forerunner of Shakespeare, but as late as 1900 scarcely anything was known of the man, except that he was born, the son of a Canterbury shoemaker, in February, 1564, educated at Cambridge, and slain in 1593 in a tavern brawl. Only during the last generation have the researches of scholars, both laborious and brilliant, thrown such lucky light upon the facts of Marlowe’s life that it is now fairly possible to estimate the personality which moulded his extraordinary and exciting poetry, and which his literary contemporaries hailed by such terms as “translunary” and “divine.” Souls of poets dead and gone continue to speak to the world by two voices: by their achievements and their character. These are never altogether distinct, yet never wholly merge; and it will be useful to consider in both aspects the impression which Marlowe leaves.