The Man Who Was Not Shakespeare

Paper Summary:

This paper looks at the life of the Elizabethan playwright Christopher Marlowe. It discusses how, unlike Shakespeare ,the other main playwright of the time has plays which tend to be character-driven. The author finds that Marlowe wrote extremely rhetorical, highly poetical works with elevated language and elaborate feats of stagecraft. It analyzes how Marlowe's concern with power and society's elite is reflected not only in the language of his plays, but also in terms of his play's subject matter. This is reflected in his most famous works, such as "Dr. Faustus" and "Tamburlaine." It looks at how Marlowe is often studied as an example of a literary influence upon the early Shakespeare but because Marlowe's style is so different in tone and so divergent in subject matter, he exists more as an interesting historical curiosity in his own right, as an individual playwright of note, outside of Shakespeare's own theatrical history.

From the Paper:

"The fascination with Catholicism evident in "Dr. Faustus" should not come as much of a surprise, even despite Marlowe's avowed atheism. Catholicism was a despised and outlawed religion in the England of his time. But Marlowe did not contemplate converting to the faith. Rather, in one parodic document he wrote, he stated that Catholicism was a good religion, "merely because it embraces the fictions of ceremony rather than indulging in the Protestant hypocrisy which pretends to a literalism it will not see through." In other words, Catholicism is a better religion because it pretends the "bell, book, and candle" of exorcism and the physical rites of the mass do have supernatural powers. This is unlike Protestantism which avows itself as a more spiritual, ascetic faith, stating that humanity will not be saved by physical acts, but by a system of theology and belief alone. Marlowe thus embraced the theatrical nature of religion, while defying the central tenants of religion itself, much like his great hero."

More papers on The Man Who Was Not Shakespeare:

• Comparison Essay # 49261 : "The Concept of Power in British Literature"
• Analytical Essay # 58754 : "Othello" vs. "The Tempest"
• Analytical Essay # 64880 : "Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice?"

APA Citation:

MLA Citation: