Christopher Marlowe



Born in 1564 in Canterbury, Kent.
Attended King’s School and later Corpus
Christi College, Cambridge (theology and
ancient languages).
While a student at Cambridge Marlowe
travelled abroad on Government business,
from which information scholars conclude he
was spying for Sir Francis Walsingham’s
secret service. He may have infiltrated the
Catholic Jesuit Community at Rheims in
France.
Christopher Marlowe



However, it is also speculated that he may
have become a Catholic sympathiser and a
double agent while in France.
Marlowe left for London in 1587 and took up
the profession of playwright.
Dates of composition are not certain:
Dido, Queen of Carthage
Tamburlaine the Great
The History of Doctor Faustus
The Jew of Malta
The Massacre at Paris
Edward II
Christopher Marlowe



Marlowe’s lifestyle in London was that of a single
man who lived amongst a crowd of similar friends,
including Paywright Thomas Kid. His contacts
included intellectuals, con-men and spies. He also
had political connections, including the spymaster
and Secretary of State to Queen Elizabeth I, Sir
Francis Walsingham.
At the time of his death (May 1593) some
contemporaries claimed that Marlowe expressed
atheistic views and often tried to persuade men to
Atheism.
However we cannot take this as straightforward
truth.
The Faust Story

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 astrologers, the most learned
chemist of all times, a palmist, a crystal gazer,
and a man who could perform miracles
greater than Christ (121). 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 occurrences 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 poltergeist 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.


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.
Faust's own legend did grow, however, to the
point of his banishment from the city of
Ingostadt for being a soothsayer. Faust
brought this on himself though.

Unlike the Faustus in Marlowe's play, the real
Faust went out of his way to inform people of
his pact with the devil. According to Johannes
Weir, Faust once came up to him and said, "I
surely thought that you were my brother-inlaw and therefore I looked at your feet to see
whether long, curved claws projected from
them" (124). Faust had to know that such a
statement would not be taken lightly by many
in the sixteenth century, a time connected
with great fear of Satan.
Other Literary Sources

The theme of human being whose ambition
and vision lead him or her to challenge or
disobey a god is widespread in most
cultures.
Your turn!

Can you think of any examples
(religious or not) of human ambition
leading to a challenge of God or gods?
Literary Sources




Marlowe’s play derives specifically from several of
these:
The Adam and Eve myth from the Judaeo-Christian
tradition, is referred to in scene 1: Original sin is
what the human race is supposed to have inherited
from Adam.
The fall of Lucifer from heaven to hell as a
punishment for wishing to be equal with God.
The Ancient Greek myth of Dedalus and Icarus,
where Icarus disobeyed his father’s instructions and
perished because he flew too high.