OLD ENGLISH DRAMA SELECT PLAYS MARLOWE'S EDWARD THE SECOND EDITED BY OSBORNE WILLIAM TANCOCK, M. A. Assistant Master of Sherborne School Oxford AT THE CLARENDON PRESS M DCCC LXXIX [All rights reserved] INTRODUCTION. § 1. CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE1, the son of John Marlowe who is described as 'a shoemaker' and 'clarke of St. Maries' in the city of Canterbury, was baptized on February 26, 1564, according to the register of the church of St. George the Martyr, at Canterbury. He received his education at the King's School in that city, where he was a pupil, certainly between Michaelmas 1578 and Michaelmas 1579, and perhaps for some time before and after those dates. He matriculated on March 17, 1581, as a Pensioner of Benet (i. e. Corpus Christi) College, Cambridge; and took the degrees of B.A. in 1583, and M.A. in 1587. It appears that on leaving Cambridge, Marlowe, like Robert Greene and Thomas Nash and George Peele, came to London. There he was one of a group of university men who for a livelihood wrote poetry, especially plays and translations of classical authors. It is not unlikely that he was at times an actor as well as a writer of plays. If we may believe the traditions of him, he was somewhat wild and unsteady, known as a man of small religious belief and of a scoffing tongue. This is borne out by the manner 1 The poet's name, like almost all other names at that time, is spelt in many ways. We find Marlo, Marloe, Marlow, Marlen, Marlin, Marlyn, Marly, Marley, Marlye, besides the usual form Marlowe. As Dr. Ingleby says of Shakespeare, there was no such thing as the orthography, or correct spelling, of a man's name.' Shakespeare, The Man and the Book, part i, ch. 1. of his death, and to some slight extent by satirical allusions to puritans in his plays. But he was beloved and regretted by friends and fellow-poets, and his memory probably suffered from the general contempt and dislike of actors and play-writers during the rise and prevalence of puritan opinions. Marlowe died at the early age of 29, being killed by 'one Francis Archer,' in the last week of May 1593, in a brawl at Deptford, where he was buried on June 1, as is recorded in the register of the parish church of St. Nicholas 1. § 2. The literary life of Marlowe is contained in the short space of time included within the years 1587-1593. During these years he wrote and placed on the stage five plays :Tamburlaine the Great, Part I; Tamburlaine the Great, Part II; The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus; The Jew of Malta; and Edward the Second. There remain also three Acts of a tragedy called The Massacre at Paris; and a portion of another, Dido Queen of Carthage, which was afterwards completed by Thomas Nash. Besides these tragedies Marlowe wrote an unfinished poem called Hero and Leander; translations of part of Ovid's Elegies, and of the first book of Lucan's Pharsalia; some epigrams; and a lyric piece of great beauty, The Passionate Shepherd to his Love, which is very well known. It no doubt suggested the name under which Shakespeare alludes to the poet in As You Like It, iii. 5. 80: 'Dead shepherd, now I find thy saw of might, 'Who ever loved, that loved not at first sight?" for the latter line is quoted from Marlowe's Hero and Leander. § 3. The following dates may be assigned, on the authority of Mr. J. P. Collier and Mr. Dyce, to Marlowe's plays. 1 Cf. Collier, Annals of the Stage, iii. p. 113; Dyce, Marlowe's Works (1850), Preface; Ward, History of Dramatic Literature, i. p. 173; The Works of Marlowe, ed. Cunningham, Tamburlaine, Part I, was written about 1585-7, and acted with great success; and Part II was performed very soon after with equal popularity. The production of such a poem as Tamburlaine was an extraordinary feat for a young man of less than twenty-three years of age. Although it is, to a modern reader, too grandiloquent and bombastic, 'a ranting play, after the old style of tragedies,' the vigour of its language and the poetical spirit and passion of very many passages gave it at once high rank among the plays of the time, and sufficiently account for its great popularity. The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus was written and acted in 1588 or 15891. And in 1589-90 there followed The Few of Malta, a play that gave many hints which Shakespeare has used for the surroundings and the character of Shylock in The Merchant of Venice. Edward the Second, the best and most finished of all Marlowe's plays, was acted about the year 1590, before Shakespeare, who was born in the same year as Marlowe, had produced any play worthy of his name, or of comparison with the masterpiece of his contemporary. § 4. The style of Marlowe's tragedies is so marked an advance on that of his predecessors, as to justify us in saying that they begin a new era in the history of dramatic poetry. He was the earliest writer who used the new blank verse for a drama to be performed on the public stage and before a general audience. The metre was first used by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (born 1518?; executed Jan. 19, 1547), in his translation of Books ii and iv of Virgil's Eneid, published 1557The author says it is 'translated into English, and drawn into a strange metre.' 'The earliest instance of its application to the purposes of the drama was in the tragedy of Ferrex and Porrex [or Gorboduc], by [Thomas] Sackville [Lord Buckhurst, born 1536, died 1608] and [Thomas] Norton 1 Cf. Ward's Dr. Faustus (Clarendon Press Series). |