MARLOWE: The Father of English Tragedy & the Creator of English Blank Verse

Marlowe’s Poetic Language Inverted structure Blank verse Elaborate comparisons Imagery Rhetorical symmetry

Inverted Structure  “O what a cozening doctor was this!” (4.5.31).  “Learn è d Faustus, / To find the secrets of astronomy / Graven in the book of Jove’s high firmament, / Did mount him up to scale Olympus’ top: / Where, sitting in a chariot burning bright / Drawn by the strength of yok èd dragons’ necks / He views the clouds, the planets, and the stars....” (3.Chorus.1- 6).

Blank Verse  “Mephistophilis. Within the bowels of these elements / Where we are tortured and remain forever. / Hell hath not limits nor is circumscribed / In one self place, but where we are is hell, / And where hell is there we ever shall be” ( ).

Elaborate comparisons “Hell strives with grace for conquest in my breast. / What shall I do to shun the snares of death?” ( ).

Imagery  “My God, my God, look not so fierce on me. / Adders and serpents, let me breathe awhile. / Ugly hell, gape not, come not, Lucifer!” ( ).

Rhetorical symmetry “Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight, / And burn è d is Apollo’s laurel bough, / That sometime grew within this learn è d man. / Faustus is gone. Regard his hellish fall, / Whose fiendful fortune may exhort the wise / Only to wonder at unlawful things, / Whose deepness doth entice such forward wits, / To practice more than heavenly power permits” ( ).

Importance to Poetry A. C. Swinburne, critic: Marlowe was “the father of English tragedy and the creator of English blank verse.” Tamburlaine Prologue shows Marlowe’s contempt for stage verse of the period: “jygging vaines of riming mother wits” presented the “conceits [which] clownage keepes in pay.” Dramatic poets of 16 th c followed where Marlowe led

Multi-Dimensional Characters  Is Faustus completely good or bad?  Does Faustus change during the course of the play?  Is Mephistophilis completely evil?  Marlowe’s characters are much more fully developed than the characters in medieval plays.

Importance to Tragedy Blank verse Poetic language Multi-dimensional protagonists Humorous subplots that parallel larger themes Episodic treatment of events

Epitaph for Marlowe “Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight, / And burn è d is Apollo’s laurel bough, / That sometime grew within this learn è d man” ( ).

Sources Barnet, Sylvan, ed. “Introduction.” Doctor Faustus. Christopher Marlowe. New York: Signet Books, vii- xix. Bevington, David. “General Introduction.” The Complete Works of Shakespeare. New York: HarperCollins, Rpt. in Doctor Faustus: Divine in Show. Ed. McAlindon, T. Twayne’s Masterworks Studies. New York: Twayne, Duncan-Jones, Katherine. “Devil May Care.” New Statesman 131 (1996): McAlindon, T. Doctor Faustus: Divine in Show. Twayne’s Masterworks Studies. New York: Twayne, 994. “The Sixteenth Century I ): Introduction.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 6 th ed. Ed. M. H. Abrams. New York: W. W. Norton, Stenning, Rodney. “The ‘Burning Chair’ in the B-text of Doctor Faustus.” Notes and Queries 43 (1996): Stumpf, Thomas A. “Images and Music.” Freshman Seminar: Visits to Hell. (2001). 29 Sept Walton, Brenda. Lessons for Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus. Orlando, FL: Network for Instructional TV, Oct