(About Marlowe : one of the University wits, studied at Cambridge - a shoe maker's son - atheistic and homosexual -poet, translator and playwright - he was killed in a quarrel in a tavern - -George Peele's "Marley, the Muses' darling for thy verse", the dead shepherd in Shakespeare's As You Like It and Ben Jonson's words "Marlowe's mighty line" are tributes to Marlowe- best known for his blank verse and ambitious heroes in his play)
1. Dido, Queen of Carthage (1594):
Marlowe's first play - based on books 1,2 and 4 of Virgil's "Aeneid" - some portions of the play written in collaboration with Thomas Nashe -Summary : Aeneas, son of Venus and a Trojan hero, after fall of Troy, escapes with his son Ascanius and other survivors and is got lost in the storm. They reach Libya where Venus, in the disguise of a mortal guides him to meet Dido, Queen of Carthage who has already shown hospitality to such survivors. Venus also disguises Cupid as the son of Aeneas to touch Dido with his love arrow. Thus Dido falls in love with Aeneas and makes love to him in a cave. Larbas, king of Gaetulia who is already in love with Dido wants to take revenge on Aeneas but Anna, sister of Dido who is in love with Larbas encourages the love between Dido and Aeneas so that her route will be clear. Mercury advises Aeneas to follow the order of Jupiter and leave Libya to fulfill his destiny in Italy. The followers of Aeneas too suggest the same. Dido doubts his fidelity but Aeneas promises not to leave her. As a precaution, she removes sails of ships of Aeneas and keeps his son under the custody of her nurse. But Larbas provides sails to escape and Dido realises that son of Aeneas under custody is just Cupid in disguise who disappears soon. In utter despair, at the departure of Aeneas, Dido committs suicide by jumping into fire. Larbas, at the loss of Dido kills himself and Anna who deeply loves Larbas also dies after him.
Critical appreciation: Did Dido commit any sin that leads to her death? Is death the reward for her love? She is wise in hiding the sails but destiny is more powerful than her love and wisdom.
2. Tamburlaine the Great (1590):
Loosely constructed on the life of Central Asian Emperor, Timur (d.1405) - modeled on Pedro Mexia's "Spanish Life of Timur"- strongly expressing the spirit of renaissance humanism to rise to power - the first Elizabethan stage play to excel in blank verse - Summary : Part One of the play begins with the order of Persian emperor Mycetes to his troops to dispose of Tamburine the Scythian shepherd-robber. By making false promise to Cosroe, brother of Mycetes for the throne, joining with him and his soldiers, Tamburlaine defeats Mycetes and becomes the Persian emperor. Tamburlaine's next target is Bajazeth, emperor of Turks whom he defeats, puts in a cage, feeds him with table scraps and uses him as his footstool. Hearing upon the next victory of Tamburlaine, Bajazeth strikes his head against the bars of the cage and dies. His wife zabina too dash out her brain against bars of the cage after knowing his death. After conquering Africa, Tamburlaine proceeds to Damascus, capital of Syria that puts him in direct conflict with Egyptian sultan who is but Tamburlaine's would-be father-in-law and at the request of his love Zenocrates, he doesn't harm sultan and the first part of the play ends with Tamburlaine wedding zenocrates who now becomes the Persian empress.
In the Second Part, it is apparently seen that Tamburlaine wants his sons victorious like him and kills his oldest son Calyphas for not fighting and being in his tent at the time of war. Nobody can stand against Tamburlaine. Even Callapine, son of Bajazeth who gathers some tributory kings to fight against gets defeated by Tamburlaine who grows so arrogant now that he commands his defeated kings to pull his chariot to the battlefield. Tamburlaine never forgives cowards. Upon reaching Babylon, he hangs the governor of the city just for the reason that he wanted to save his life by revealing the treasury of the city. He grows so mad after power that he binds men, women, children of the city and throws them into the nearby lake. He also reveals the atheistic spirit of Marlowe by burning the copy of Quran and calling himself greater than God. Even at the time of death, though having fallen ill, he defeats his foe, and dies after commanding his sons to conquer the remaining part of the world left for them.
Critical appreciation: Tamburlaine suffers from powermania till his death. Ego blinds him to see that even the defeated has heart. Tamburlaine is but Marlowe himself since he is as cruel, merciless, atheistic and restless as the playwright who ended his life in frivolous fight.
3. The Jew of Malta (1592):
First performed in Rose Theatre in 1592 - carrying the theme of antisemiticism(prejudice against jews) - Summary : The play begins with the prologue by a Senecan ghost Machevill who narrates how a Jew of Malta called Barabas became rich by using Machiavelli's teachings. 'Eye for eye' is the policy of the Jewish merchant Barabas. When he loses half of his estate to the governor of Malta Ferneze to pay tribute to Turks, he seeks justice. But the governor confiscates all his wealth and even turns his home into a convent. Barabas takes revenge by putting a trap for the governor's son Lodowick who eventually gets engaged in a duel with his friend Mathias for the hand of Abigail, daughter of the Jew and both friends die. Barabas, being a Jew hates Christians that is evident from the very fact of buying a slave called Ithamore from slave market who too hates Christians. When his daughter Abigail joins nunnery to get coverted, he poisons and kills all nuns there. When Abigail reports to two priests Jacomo and Bernardine about her father's role in Lodowick's death, Barabas strangles Bernardine and makes the crime fall on Jacomo. Any kind of treachery is unbearable to Barabas who kills even Ithamore and his prostitute -lady love Bellamira and her pimp when his slave revealed all about him to the prostitute who confessed this to the governor. Barbaras pretends to be dead and escapes but aids the Turkish leader Calymath to defeat the governor and eventually he himself becomes the governor. Finally the over ambitious Machiavellian Barabas becomes a prey to his own plan to boil Calymath alive in a cauldron by joining hands with the governor who but plots against Barabas and makes him fall into the cauldron.
Critical appreciation: If Tamburlaine is mad after power, the Jew here has his soul poisoned by gold and money that he admires as "infinite riches in a little room". Like Macbeth, he too has vaulting ambition and rises to the level of governor of Malta but only to fall into a cauldron as a victim of his own plan. He is of course Shakespeare's Shylock in Merchant of Venice in his vengeance against Christians.
4. Edward II (1594):
A historical play by Marlowe - Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles (1587) as the main source - Summary : After the death of Edward I, Edward II starts his reign and his favorite Piers Gaveston returns England to celebrate this. King's nobles who don't like Gaveston plot and make the king exile Gaveston to Ireland. King's nobles, instigated by the Queen Isabella and her lover Mortimer, bring Gaveston back and execute him before the King sees and so the King in turn executes those responsible lords. Isabella with her son flies to France to seek allies against Edward II and gets the support of Sir John of Hainault. Edward II is a coward and he takes refuge in an abbey, gets arrested and is taken to Kenilworth. His brother Edmund who pleads for him is also executed by Mortimer and Isabella. The imprisoned king is then taken to Berkeley castle where he is assassinated by Lightborn. Edward III who is son of Isabella born to Edward II discovers this plot, orders the execution of Mortimer and the imprisonment of his mother. The Play ends with the coronation of Edward III as the new king.
Critical appreciation : Is not Edward II as homosexual as Marlowe? It's this relationship between Edward II and Gaveston that should be the source of Isabella's affections for Mortimer. Edward II is a coward till his death but his son is the opposite who strikes the deathbell for Mortimer and fulfills poetic justice. Edward II resembles Shakespeare's Richard II both in his captivation in jail and in assassination.
5. The Massacre at Paris (1592):
Nathaniel Lee has written a Restoration drama with the same title in 1689 -based on Saint Bartholomew's Massacre that took place in Paris in 1572 in which all important leaders of Huguenots(French Calvinist Protestants) were assassinated -summary : the play stages a number of murders and assassinations rooted on the conflict between Huguenots(protestants) and Catholic Royal family. During the wedding of Henry of Naverri(a Huguenot noble) and Margaret of Valois, sister of Catholic king, a group of Catholics under the leadership of Duke of Guise poisons Queen Naverri and murders her admiral. Most of the major Hueguenots are murdered in the massacre led by Duke but Henry of Naverri escapes to his home territory and gathers his own army and manages significant defeat on the side of Duke of Guise who is murdered by Henry III of France for Duke's alliance with Naverri against him, though Queen Mother of France condemns him for this. The two kings of France and Naverri forces join against the Catholic League. Meanwhile Friar Jacobin, instigated by Dumaine, dead Duke's brother stabs Henry III who in turn manages to kill the Friar in struggle. The wounded king at death bed declares Naverri as his heir to the throne who crowned as Henry IV decides to revenge the Catholic League as the curtain falls.
6. Doctor Faustus (1594):
Performed in 1594 and published in 1604 -A play based on German legend Faustbuch and Goethe's Faustus - main scenes written in blank verse and comic scenes in prose - Summary : Dr. Faustus, a doctor of University of Wittenberg, having already mastered the subjects he studied, and dissatisfied with Logic which is just meant for argument, Medicine which is useless till it breathes life to the dead and offers immortality, Law which is used for money making and Theology which illogically punishes sinners with death though everybody has to die one day, finally chooses necromancy to study since it promises enormous power even to rise to the level of emperor of the world. He sends his servant Wagner to summon the necromancer Vaides and magician Cornelius so as to master this art. Neglecting the warnings of good angels and captured by bad angels, conjures up the devil Mephistophilis who is the servant of Lucifer and dares to strike a deal with it in his own blood for the devil's assistance in the fulfillment of wishes for 24 years at the expense of his own soul that shall be surrendered for eternal damnation in hell after the expiry of the contract.
Mephistophilis answers all scientific questions of Dr. Faustus except the one-who created the world? and to make Faustus forget about this he along with Lucifer and Beelzebub brings up seven deadly sins in human forms to dance for Dr. Faustus. The frivolous feats executed by Faustus include conjuring up an image of Alexander the Great to surprise the German emperor Charles V, tormenting Pope Adrian for his judgment, journey through heaven on a wild chariot, selling an enchanted horse, raising antlers on a knight's head as a punishment for sneering at his magical skill and finally waking up Helen of Troy seeking consolations in her beauty to forget the nearing damnation. The climax in which Dr.Faustus, filled with fear and remorse, in utter anguish cries for mercy in vain while a group of devils come to collect his soul at the expiry of the contract is poignantly described by Marlowe in mighty lines in blank verse. The next morning, his colleagues find his body torn limb to limb and arranges for a proper burial.
Critical appreciation : The play is best remembered for the description of Helen of Troy by Faustus:
"Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships,
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium--
Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.--
''[kisses her]''
Her lips suck forth my soul: see, where it flies!--
Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again.
Here will I dwell, for heaven is in these lips..."
Supernatural elements such as conjuring up devils, Mephistophilis, Lucifer, and personification of seven deadly sins are a great feast for groundings in Elizabethan Theatre. Faustus reveals thirst for knowledge and fame on par with Tamburlaine who is after power and Jew of Malta who is after money. These are their traffic flaws. Marlowe excels in the use of blank verse especially in describing the beauty of Helen just as Shakespeare does for Cleopatra but underperforms in portraying the magical accomplishments of Faustus. Wages of sin is death and Fear of God is the beginning of wisdom - the Bible says. Marlowe, being an atheist, strangely proves this through the tragic end of Dr. Faustus.
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