The Play |
The Playwright |
TIME: 1307-1327
PLACE: Gloucestershire, England First performed by the Earl of Pembroke's Men |
TIME: 1592 PLACE: Canterbury, England |
Marlowe
- 1564 born in Canterbury, England
- 1578 attends King's School in Canterbury on scholarship
- 1581 attends Corpus Christi College at Cambridge where he obtained a classical education.
- it was expected that he would become an Anglican clergyman by those who supplied his scholarship. He did not become an Anglican clergyman.
- c. 1582 he pens The First Book of Lucan and Ovid's Amores
- 1584 receives his B.A. from Cambridge
- c. 1586 he pens Dido, Queen of Carthage and The First Part of Tamburlaine the Great
- 1587 receives his M.A. from Cambridge and pens The Second Part of Tamburlaine the Great. This is the play that made him famous.
- he was almost unable to graduate due to suspicion that he had gone to Rheims to become a Roman Catholic missionary.
- this suspicion was put to rest by the Privy Council, who wrote directly to Cambridge to clear Marlowe's name.
- Many assume Marlowe was a spy, due to a line in the aforementioned letter from the Privy Council which stated that Marlowe, 'had done Her Majesty good service.'
- 1589 Marlowe is involved in a violent attack in which a man is killed. He also pens The Jew of Malta as Doctor Faustus which is arguably his most famous work.
- 1592 Marlowe is arrested in Flushing (Vlissingen) for counterfeiting. This is also the year that he pens The Massacre at Paris and Edward II
- 1593 he pens Hero and Leander. Later that year, Marlowe is stabbed to death in a tavern
More about Marlowe:
- He was accused of being an atheist and a sodomite. Apparently, a colleague of Marlowe's named Richard Baines claimed that Marlowe had said Jesus was the lover of St. John.
- A significant amount of Marlowe's works involve homoeroticism as a central theme.
- Many people think this means that Marlowe was probably gay
- I agree. Who am I to argue with historians?
- Many people think this means that Marlowe was probably gay
- The majority of the historical information Marlowe used to inform Edward II came from the 1577 Holinshed Chronicles, a collaborative and comprehensive account of British history. (Available here)
Small disclaimer: the timeline of his plays is uncertain, but this is close to accurate.