Christopher Marlowe

1564–1593

Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593) was an English playwright, poet and translator whose powerful blank verse helped shape Elizabethan drama. Born in Canterbury, he studied at the King's School and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, before working in the London theatre. His plays explore ambition, power, belief and desire, while his poetry and translations reflect his classical education. He was killed at Deptford at the age of 29; aspects of his life and the circumstances of his death remain uncertain.

Timeline of Christopher Marlowe’s life

Works

• Tamburlaine the Great, Part One (1590)
• Tamburlaine the Great, Part Two (1590)
• Dido, Queen of Carthage (1594)
• Edward II (1594)
• Hero and Leander (1598)
• The Passionate Shepherd to His Love (1599)
• Lucan’s First Book (Marlowe Translation) (1600)
• Doctor Faustus (1604 A-text) (1604)
• Doctor Faustus (1616 B-text) (1616)
• The Jew of Malta (1633)
• The Massacre at Paris
• Ovid’s Elegies (Marlowe Translation)