I've been trying to get better acquainted with my classic writers, so I decided to do a bit of digging on Christopher Marlowe this weekend. The only thing I knew about him when I started was that he was a character in "Shakespeare in Love" (lol...I'm sure he would be turning in his grave if he heard that), but after a quick google search, I found loads of gossip on his quite scandalous life. My kind of author:-)
He was born to a well-to-do shoemaker and a clergyman's daughter, yet was almost thrown in jail for religious blasphemy.
He lived a sort of double life - academically exemplary, while all the while acting as a government informant on the sly.
Even the authorship of his plays and poems has been called into question many times, but there are about six or seven plays and countless poems that historians have agreed he penned.
One of his early works Tamburlaine the Great is considered to be the first, popular play to be featured on London's public stage. Marlow was certainly more playwright than poet, but he left the world (well before his time, if you ask me) with the oh-so-famous lines from The Face of Helen -
"Was this the face that launched a thousand ships,
...And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?
Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss."
::SWOON::
According to Theatrehistory.com
"Many details of his life were a source of scandal to some of his contemporaries, and for us are still shrouded in mystery. In May, 1593, a manuscript was discovered in Kyd's possession which he declared to be Marlowe's left' with Kyd in 1591 when he was in the service of a noble lord for whose players Marlowe was writing. The document--merely a copy of part of a theological treatise already published--though unitarian in nature, was atheistic in the eyes of the orthodox. Testimony as to blasphemous conversations on Marlowe's part was also produced. Before the privy council took definite action about the charges, Marlowe was killed. Puritan disapproval of his connection with the stage and of his free-thinking perhaps influenced Meres' statement that he was stabbed "by a bawdy serving-man, a rival of his in his lewd love." Records discovered by Hotson merely show that he was stabbed in a tavern in Deptford by Friser, one of three companions who also were, or had been, in the service of the government."
So, there you are. Not nearly comprehensive, but hopefully enough to wet your whistle:-) Wanna learn more? Wiki!!
Poem Hero And Leander
BY Christopher Marlowe
It lies not in our power to love or hate,
For will in us is over-rul’d by fate.
When two are stript long ere the course begin,
We wish that one should lose, the other win;
And one especially do we affect
Of two gold ingots, like in each respect:
The reason no man knows; let it suffice,
What we behold is censur’d by our eyes.
Where both deliberate, the love is slight:
Who ever lov’d, that lov’d not at first sight.
Of course I've never heard of Marlowe, but, like yourself, I too feel like scandalous lives make for the best authors.
ReplyDeleteI also enjoyed the poem although I had to read it over and over again, slowly each time, to grasp it's essence.