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Christopher Marlowe, Renaissance Dramatist R e n a i s s a n c e D r a m a t i s t s SERIES EDITOR, SEAN MCEVOY An invaluable resource for all students of Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre, each volume in the series provides an authoritative and up-to-date survey of a major dramatist’s work with a focus on the plays in performance on stage and screen. Each guide provides: • An informative account of the writer’s entire dramatic output, with an emphasis on those plays most frequently studied at university, college and school CHRISTOPHER • Detailed and relevant contextual information on history, culture, politics and biography • A lucid survey of important recent criticism • Original critical readings of the major plays MARLOWE Christopher Marlowe, Renaissance Dramatist LISA HOPKINS Renaissance This book offers a comprehensive and accessible introduction to all of the plays of Christopher Marlowe. It explores Marlowe as a playwright whose work taps into the central concerns of his age, and our own: religious uncertainty, the clash between Islam and Christianity, the discovery of America, ideas of sexuality and gender identity, and the rôle of Dramatist the marginalised individual in society. Each of the six chapters focuses on a specific aspect of Marlowe’s work and its cultural contexts: Marlowe’s life and death; the Marlowe canon; the theatrical contexts and stage history of the plays; Marlowe’s distinctive interest in old and new branches of knowledge; the ways in which L he transgresses against established norms and values; and the major issues which have been ISA raised in critical discussions of his plays. Each chapter allows the reader to see the significance, H scope and distinctive contribution made by Marlowe in all his plays, and his place in the development of Renaissance drama. OPKINS Lisa Hopkins is Professor of English at Sheffield Hallam University. Edinburgh Cover design: Cathy Sprent Edinburgh University Press 22 George Square Lisa Hopkins Edinburgh EH8 9LF www.eup.ed.ac.uk ISBN 978 0 7486 2473 7 Christopher Marlowe, Renaissance Dramatist Titles in the Series Christopher Marlowe, Renaissance Dramatist Lisa Hopkins Ben Jonson, Renaissance Dramatist Sean McEvoy Forthcoming Thomas Middleton, Renaissance Dramatist Michelle O’Callaghan John Webster, Renaissance Dramatist John Coleman Christopher Marlowe, Renaissance Dramatist Lisa Hopkins Edinburgh University Press © Lisa Hopkins, Edinburgh University Press Ltd George Square, Edinburgh Typeset in ./ Monotype Ehrhardt by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Manchester and printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wilts A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN (hardback) ISBN (paperback) The right of Lisa Hopkins to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act . Contents Acknowledgements vi Chronology vii Marlowe’s Life and Death The Marlowe Canon Marlowe on Stage, –: Theatrical Contexts and Dramaturgical Practice Marlowe as Scholar: Old and New Knowledges in the Plays Marlowe the Horizon-Stretcher: Daring God out of Heaven and Conquering New Worlds Critical Issues Bibliography Index Acknowledgements I would like to thank my colleague Matt Steggle and my student Andy Duxfield for all their help and support with this. Thanks are also due to Annaliese Connolly and to Sean McEvoy. Chronology Plays and playwrights Theatre and politics Shakespeare born Marlowe born Queen Elizabeth excommunicated by Pope Pius V Jonson born Bartholomew’s Eve Massacre in France James Burbage opens The Theatre Webster born (?) Middleton born Last performance of miracle plays at Coventry Kyd The Spanish Tragedy Mary Queen of Scots Marlowe Tamburlaine executed. Rose Theatre opens Marlowe Dr Faustus Defeat of Spanish Armada Marlowe The Jew of Malta viii , Plays and playwrights Theatre and politics Marlowe Edward II Azores expedition Marlowe Massacre at Paris Shakespeare Richard III Marlowe killed Shakespeare The Taming of the Shrew Shakespeare First of four bad harvests Titus Andronicus Shakespeare Richard II Spanish raids on Cornwall. O’Neill’s revolt in Ireland Jonson The Case is Altered Private Blackfriars theatre Shakespeare The Merchant constructed of Venice Shakespeare Julius Caesar Satires proscribed and burnt. Globe Theatre opens Marston Antonio’s Revenge Fortune Theatre opens. Shakespeare Hamlet East India Company founded. Children of the Chapel at the Blackfriars Dekker Satiromastix Essex’s rebellion and Jonson Poetaster execution. Shakespeare Twelfth Night Defeat of joint Irish/ Spanish army in Ireland Jonson Sejanus Death of Elizabeth; Marston The Malcontent accession of James I. Lord Chamberlain’s Men become The King’s Men ix Plays and playwrights Theatre and politics Chapman Bussy D’Ambois Shakespeare Measure for Measure Shakespeare Othello Middleton A Mad World, Gunpowder Plot My Masters Shakespeare King Lear Jonson Volpone Middleton Michaelmas Term Middleton The Revenger’s Tragedy Shakespeare Macbeth Shakespeare Antony and Cleopatra King’s Men lease the Blackfriars Theatre Beaumont and Fletcher The Maid’s Tragedy Jonson The Alchemist Dekker and Middleton Authorised Version of the The Roaring Girl Bible published Jonson Catiline ShakespeareTheWinter’sTale Shakespeare The Tempest Webster The White Devil Overbury scandal begins. Globe Theatre burns down Jonson Bartholomew Fair Webster The Duchess of Malfi Middleton and Rowley A Fair Quarrel x , Plays and playwrights Theatre and politics Jonson The Devil is an Ass Jonson Folio published Middleton The Witch Shakespeare dies Webster Jonson made poet laureate The Devil’s Lawcase Thirty Years War begins Middleton Women Beware Women Middleton and Rowley The Changeling Prince Charles’ unsuccesful visit to Spain to marry the Infanta. Shakespeare First Folio published Middleton A Game at Chess James I dies; accession of Charles I Jonson The Staple of News Middleton dies Failure of La Rochelle expedition Petition of Right Buckingham assassinated. Beginning of Charles I’s personal rule Ford ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore Webster dies (?) Jonson The Magnetic Lady Jonson dies Marlowe’s Life and Death arlowe has suffered more than most authors from the attempt Mto read his works in simple biographical terms, as when, in the middle of his discussion of Doctor Faustus, one of his recent biographers suddenly asks ‘Was Marlowe impotent?’ on the grounds that a number of his works are interested in unfulfilled sex- uality (Honan : –). The attempt to read Marlowe narrowly in terms of his own biography has generated two principal prob- lems. In the first place, it has led to some very crude readings of his plays as little more than personal wish-fulfilment – as Lawrence Danson observes, we mistake the situation if, when reading Tamburlaine, ‘we assume that the Scythian shepherd is really only the Cantabrigian Marlowe in fancy-dress’ (Danson : ), and so regard the play as entirely uncritical of its hero, or if we see Faustus as simply a self-portrait of Marlowe. The view that this gave rise to, of Marlowe as an entirely solipsistic writer obsessed with success at all costs, undoubtedly contributed to the long-held view of him as decidedly inferior to Shakespeare and prevented attention being paid to the breadth and depth of Marlowe’s wide- ranging interests in the world around him, something which I will explore further in Chapter . Secondly, the focus on Marlowe’s life has spawned an entirely spurious industry which attempts to prove that Marlowe did not in fact die at Deptford and actually went on to write the works of Shakespeare. As it happens, however, Shakespeare and Marlowe are entirely distinct in style, and we , have, as will be discussed later, copious evidence of the details of Marlowe’s death. Partly because it has led to such abuses, some critics would argue that we should not consider biography at all when looking at Marlowe’s works. Matthew Dimmock, discussing Tamburlaine the Great, argues that ‘it seems increasingly important to look beyond biographical distractions’ (Dimmock : ). Emily Bartels is more confident that Despite recent skepticism about the validity of assigning a text, and especially a play-text, to a single, identifiable author, I tend to believe that there was indeed an historical figure by the name of Christopher Marlowe, who wrote what we know as “Marlowe’s” plays and whose alienated subject position, as homosexual, a spy, and a playwright at the least, affected them. (Bartels : xvi) Nevertheless, she concludes that ‘the Marlowe we can speak of with most authority . is the one constructed by the texts’ (Bartels : xvi–xvii), and along the same lines J. A. Downie declares that ‘We know next to nothing about Christopher Marlowe. When we speak or write about him, we are really referring to a construct called “Marlowe” ’. Specifically, Downie claims that ‘The recent spate of fictions published about Marlowe, in which category one is forced to include Charles Nicholl’s book about Marlowe’s murder, are merely the latest manifestation of a (dis)honourable tradition’ (Downie : ). It is true that many of the surprisingly numer- ous novelisations of Marlowe’s life are simply bizarre (see Hopkins ). It is also true that Nicholl’s book, The Reckoning: The Murder of Christopher Marlowe, is written in an unusually lively style for a biographer (he says of Marlowe being deported from Flushing, ‘Whatever Marlowe’s mood and intent when he had left England, this is how he returns: a prisoner under escort, cold, scared, dying for a smoke’) (Nicholl : ). Nevertheless, Nicholl is scholarly, alert, and thoughtful and has made an enormous contribution to Marlowe studies, and it seems a pity to dismiss his serious engage- ment with Marlowe in this way, or even to speak of him in the same breath as the authors of novelisations of Marlowe’s life, which are ’ all too often ill-informed or salacious or both. The fact that some people who have written about Marlowe’s life have fictionalised it hardly means that everyone must have done so.

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