www.whyville.net Nov 4, 1999 Weekly Issue


Christopher Marlowe

Users' Rating
Rate this article
 
FRONT PAGE
CREATIVE WRITING
SCIENCE
HOT TOPICS
POLITICS
HEALTH
PANDEMIC

    Have you noticed that the streets of Myville are all named after famous scientists and artists from the Renaissance? In case these folks aren't so famous to you, you might want to follow along this series of articles, and get to know the person on whose street you're living. This week's article features the murder, mystery and mayhem surrounding a famous poet.

by Lois Lee
Times Staff

Christopher Marlowe
1564-1593

Christopher Marlowe's life was more like a James Bond movie than that of a 16th century writer who wrote the first English tragedies and paved the way for another famous author, William Shakespeare. 

He was born in 1564, in Canterbury, England. When he was ready to go away to college, the Archbishop of Canterbury gave him a scholarship to attend England's famous Cambridge University, with the understanding that he would study for the Anglican ministry.

In 1587, however, the university refused to give Marlowe his masters degree, because he had visited a Catholic seminary (minister's school) in Rheims, France, and they thought that he was going to become a Catholic priest instead. Luckily, the Queen's Council stepped in and said that Marlowe had been sent to Rheims on business relating to national security. This succeeded in convincing the university to give Marlowe his degree, but it also made many people suspect that he was a spy for the government.

Then, instead of taking a job with the Anglican Church or becoming a Catholic priest, Marlowe went to London and became a playwright. While he was making a name for himself in the budding London scene, Marlowe also managed to get into all sorts of trouble with the law: he was charged with counterfeiting, homosexuality, blasphemy and even murder. He was never convicted of murder. 

In 1593 (the year Shakespeare was born), a friend of Marlowe's revealed, under torture, to the Queen's Council, that Marlowe was an atheist, someone who doesn't believe in God. In those days in England, this was a punishable offense, and so the same Queen's Council that had helped Marlowe get his degree issued a warrent for his arrest.

People thought that his connections to the English Seceret Service was the only thing that kept him from being jailed immediately, but before a hearing could take place, Marlowe was stabbed to death in a fight, supposedly over the bill, at a bar in Deptford, England.

The timing and murky circumstances surrounding his death, as well as the fact that no one was ever punished for his murder, led many to suspect that something fishy was going on. Some people believe that Marlowe was murdered for religous and political reasons. Others believe that Marlowe had faked his own death and taken up another identity to escape from going to jail.

In Marlowe's 29 short but mysterious years, he wrote many poems and plays, like Dr. Faustus and The Rich Jew of Malta.

Click here or here or here to learn more about Christopher Marlowe. 

 

  Back to front page


times@whyville.net
48