Christopher Marlowe (1564–93) was an English playwright and poet. He is best known as “the father of English tragedy and the creator of English blank verse.”
Much of Marlowe’s literary success derives from his capacity to humanize his heroes, such as Tamburlaine the Great (1590,) The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus (1604,) and The Jew of Malta (1633.) His masterpiece was the tragedy Edward II (1592.) His greatest poems are Hero and Leander (1598) and The Passionate Shepherd (1599.)
In The Jew of Malta, Marlowe produced one of drama’s great antiheroes who refuses conversion to Christianity to defend his wealth and then launches a bloody crusade of vengeance and domination. In Doctor Faustus, the disobedient protagonist sells his soul to the devil in exchange for twenty-four years of power and pleasure.
Marlowe died at the age of 29. Soon after a warrant was issued for his capture on charges of atheism, Marlowe was murdered in a tavern in Deptford (near London,) apparently in a pub brawl over a bill.
For a period of six years leading to his death, Marlowe dominated the Elizabethan stage, instituting the themes and literary styles that inspired generations of English dramatists that followed him. Marlowe’s work influenced Shakespeare’s early historical plays. Shakespeare paid tribute to him in As You Like It as the “dead shepherd.” Further, Marlowe has long been speculated as a possible author of some of Shakespeare’s works.
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Goodness is beauty in the best estate.
—Christopher Marlowe
Topics: Integrity
All places are alike, and every earth is fit for burial.
—Christopher Marlowe
Topics: Burial, Death
Nature that framed us of four elements, warring within our breasts for regiment, doth teach us all to have aspiring minds.
—Christopher Marlowe
Topics: Ambition
Nothing violent, oft have I heard tell, can be permanent.
—Christopher Marlowe
Topics: Violence
What are kings, when regiment is gone, but perfect shadows in a sunshine day?
—Christopher Marlowe
Topics: Queens, Kings, Royalty
Was this the face that launched a thousand ships, and burnt the topless towers of Ileum?
—Christopher Marlowe
Topics: Faces, Face
Come live with me, and be my love, and we will all the pleasures prove.
—Christopher Marlowe
Topics: Living Together, Marriage, Love
Is it not passing brave to be a King and ride in triumph through Persepolis?
—Christopher Marlowe
Topics: Glory
Where both deliberate, the love is slight: Who ever lov’d, that lov’d not at first sight?
—Christopher Marlowe
Topics: Love At First Sight, Love
Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?
—Christopher Marlowe
Topics: Love
I count religion but a childish toy, and hold there is no sin but innocence.
—Christopher Marlowe
Topics: Religion
When the world dissolves, all places will be hell that are not heaven.
—Christopher Marlowe
Topics: Hell
O, thou art fairer than the evening air clad in the beauty of a thousand stars.
—Christopher Marlowe
Topics: Beauty
Excess of wealth is cause of covetousness.
—Christopher Marlowe
Topics: Wealth
That perfect bliss and sole felicity, the sweet fruition of an earthly crown.
—Christopher Marlowe
Topics: Leadership, Leaders
You stars that reigned at my nativity, whose influence hath allotted death and hell.
—Christopher Marlowe
Topics: Astrology
Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscrib’d one self place; for where we are is Hell, and where Hell is, there must we ever be.
—Christopher Marlowe
Topics: Hell
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