Christopher Marlowe
(1564–1593)

Though not the first English poet to write in blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter), Christopher Marlowe's brilliant use of it in his plays established blank verse as the preeminent meter for verse drama and ultimately for epic poetry in English. Marlowe is the author of one of the world's immortal tragedies, Dr. Faustus, as well as several other notable plays and poems.

Born in Canterbury, Marlowe was the son of a shoemaker. He went to Cambridge University on a scholarship usually awarded to students studying for the ministry. However, he spent much of his time writing plays and serving as a government agent. He never took holy orders. He is, indeed, reputed to have been an atheist, or at least to have held highly unorthodox religious views.

While at Cambridge, Marlowe wrote Tamburlaine—the play that made the public aware of his dazzling abilities. It dramatizes the exploits of a 14th-century Scythian shepherd who conquered much of the known world. As Marlowe portrays him, Tamburlaine personifies energy and ambition and thus a character eminently suited for the dramatist's powerful blank verse. In the remaining six years of his life, Marlow wrote five more plays, including Dr. Faustus and a sequel to Tamburlaine. On May 30, 1593, Marlowe was killed by a dagger thrust in a tavern. His death may have been the result of a fight over the bill, or it may have been a political assassination.

Marlowe's fame rests primarily on his plays, especially on his "mighty line," as Ben Jonson described his dramatic blank verse. Dr. Faustus has been a classic of dramatic literature for 400 years. However, Marlowe's nondramatic poetry alone would be enough to secure him a permanent place in English literature. His Hero and Leander is one of the finest narrative poems ever written in English, and "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" is one of the best-known and most popular lyrics of the English Renaissance.

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