Knowra Christopher Marlowe Christopher Marlowe Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593) was an English playwright, poet, and translator of the Elizabethan era. His blank-verse tragedies, including Tamburlaine and Doctor Faustus , helped shape English drama.
Elizabethan theatre : English professional theatre during the reign of Elizabeth I, marked by public playhouses and repertory companies. Its playhouses and companies provided the setting in which Marlowe’s dramas were performed.
Tamburlaine the Great : A two-part tragedy by Marlowe about a Scythian shepherd who conquers a vast empire. Its protagonist’s rise made overreaching ambition the engine of a landmark blank-verse drama.
William Shakespeare : An English playwright and poet of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Shakespeare worked in the theatrical world Marlowe helped shape and followed his example in dramatic verse.
Corpus Christi College, Cambridge : A constituent college of the University of Cambridge, founded in 1352. Marlowe studied there and earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees.
Mighty line : A term for the powerful, expansive blank verse associated with Marlowe’s dramatic writing. The phrase captures the verse style that made his protagonists’ ambition theatrically audible.
Blank verse : Unrhymed poetry written in iambic pentameter, a meter widely used in English drama. Marlowe’s forceful use of unrhymed pentameter helped establish its dramatic authority.
Doctor Faustus : A tragedy by Marlowe about a scholar who sells his soul to Lucifer for knowledge and power. Faustus embodies the conflict between intellectual aspiration, Christian doctrine, and damnation.
Edward Alleyn : An English actor and theatrical impresario who became a leading performer in Elizabethan London. Alleyn’s commanding performances were closely associated with Marlowe’s heroic protagonists.
Privy Council of England : A body of advisers to the English monarch that handled government business and issued official orders. Its 1593 intervention helped secure Marlowe’s degree after questions arose about his absences.
English revenge tragedy : A dramatic genre centered on vengeance, often featuring murder, delay, and violent retribution. Marlowe’s tragedies helped shape the theatrical conventions that later revenge plays developed.
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