Download Christopher Marlowe

Christopher Marlowe
Life and works
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1564 – he was born two months before William Shakespeare ;
1580 – 1586 he studied at Corpus Christi College in Cambridge;
1587 – he was in London writing plays;
1592 – he started work as a diplomat and entered the Court
circle of free thinkers with Sir Walter Raleigh( an English
explorer, a pirate and a poet and one of Queen Elizabeth I’s
favourites) for whom he worked as a secret agent;
Marlowe also met other dramatists and actors of the time,
including William Shakespeare.
He was a feisty (= aggressive) character, often involved in fights
and duels;
He was imprisoned at least twice, accused of murder and later of
atheism.
1593 – he was stabbed and killed while gambling at an inn in a
suburb of London.
Marlowe’s works
Tamburlaine
1587
Edward II
1593
Marlowe’s
great
tragedies
Doctor
Faustus
c.1592
The Jew of
Malta
1589
Tamburlaine
• The play recounts the brutal rise to power and
the mysterious end of the bloody
14th-century Mongol conqueror of Central Asia
and India, Timur, or Tamburlaine.
• The prototype of the warrior-king who goes
almost mad for his thirst of power and glory;
• Marlowe’s gifts are displayed:
– in the verbal virtuosity of his poetry
– in his ability to view his tragic hero from several
angles, revealing both the brutality and the grandeur
of the character.
The Jew of Malta
• In order to raise tribute demanded by the
Turks, the Christian governor of Malta seizes
half the property of all Jews living on Malta.
• When Barabas, a wealthy Jewish merchant,
protests, his entire estate is confiscated.
• Barabas seeks revenge on his enemies so
• he plots their destruction, but ….
• in the end, he is betrayed and dies the death
he had planned for his enemies.
Doctor Faustus
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Doctor Faustus is a German scholar and magician
dissatisfied with his studies of philosophy , medicine law
and theology, as he thinks he has learned everything he
can possibly know.
– He turns to black magic and manages to evoke the devil’s
intermediary “(Mephistopheles) and make a pact with
him.
– He decides to sell his soul in exchange for 24 years of
knowledge and power. Mephistopheles will be his servant
during this period.
– In the end, the devils come and carry Faustus to hell,
where he will be eternally damned.
Edward II
• Edward the Second is an English history play about the deposition
of King Edward II by his barons and the Queen, who resent the
undue influence the king's favourites have in court and state affairs.
• Unlike the heroes of other plays , the protagonist of this historical
play, Edward II, is not aggressive but weak and, because of his
weaknesses and indecisions, becomes victim of ambitious and cruel
people.
• In the end, Edward is imprisoned and cruelly murdered.
• The five acts of Marlowe's play cover twenty-three years of English
history, from the accession to the throne of Edward II in 1307 until
the events of 1330 when Mortimer's treachery was discovered.