The newspaper., 1906-11-23
Life Of Christopher MarIowe.

beths reign. He and Shakespeare
were the same age. His father was
a Canterbury shoemaker, and it was
from his shop, crowded with children,
from the straps and avis, that
he found himself studying at Cam
bridge, probably through the pat
ronage of a great man.
On his return to London, in want
and unoccupied, he frequented the
low houses and taverns until his
head was in a ferment and his pas
sions became excited.
He turned actor, but having
broken his leg in scene of de-
bauchery, he remained lame and
was compelled to give up the stage.
In 1887 he produced the bombastic
and extravagant "Tamburlaine the
Great" the extravaganza of which
reaches it's height in a scene where
captive kings, "the pampered jades
OF ASIA" draw their conquerors
across the stage.
Tamburlaine not only indicated
the revolt of the new drama against
the timid inanities OF euphuism, but
gave an idea of that imaginative
daring, the secret of which Marlowe
was to bequeath to the playwrights
who followe him.
His Jew OF Malta was the
herald OF Shylock.
He opened In Edward the Second"
the series of historical plays which
gave us "Cpsar" and "Richard the
Third"
His Faustus is riotous and gro
tesque and full of mad thirst for
pleasure, but was the first dramatic
attempt to touch upon the relations
OF man to the unseen world.
These plays all abound in this
display ofsplendors and exaggerated
colors. this railing Of demoniacal
passions, this audacity, this grand
impiety.
He openly avowed his infidelity
and was, in all probability saved
from prosecution for atheism by
his early death. He was charged
with calling Moses, "A '.iuggler" and
with boasting that, II he undertook
to write new religion 1t should be "A
better religion than the Christianity
he saw around him.
Edward the Second" is another
play In which the shades and furies
clash together like horsemen in
battle. The northen paganism Is
L.. Nartin,nr's a
well to the world. when brought to
the block.
All he saw I'm life was n battle of
unchecked passions and in death n
gloomy sleep.
Such Were the RACES and rash
nesses. the eNcesses which liberty OF
thought gave rise to in these new
minds, who for the first time, after
so many centuries, dared to walk un-
fettered. that 1t Is little wonder that
Marlowe was ill-regulated, disso-
lutte, out rngeously vehement, au-
dacious and rrbelllous In manners
and creed.
The speciality of the men OF the
time. as OF Marlowe's characters,
was the abrupt commission of a
deed. They did not pause to con-
slider. The foundations of the nat
ural man are irresistible impulses,
passions. desires and greeds, and
only by centuries of culture have we
been humanizcd.
EXtravagant. unequal, stooping
even to the ridiculous, there is force
I'm Marlowe. n conscious grandeur of
tone, n range of passion. which sets
him above all his contemporaries
save one. In the higher qualities OF
Imagination as in the majesty and
sweetness OF his mighty line," he Is
inferior to Shakespeare alone.
He perished at the age OF thirty in
n shameful brawl over n low creature
he had made love to. In trying to
stab his rival. his hand was turned,
his blade entered his own brain, and
he died cursing and disappearing.
A few daring jcsts, n brawl, fatal
stab, make up the life of Marlowe,
but I'm his brief career he had struck
the grander notes of the coming
drama.