Biographies of the Big Boys -

William Shakespeare
written/compiled by Pat Dooley

1564 - Born
1582 - He is going to marry Anne Whateley
1583 - He marries Anne Hathaway instead
1583 - They have a daughter, Susanna
1585 - They have twins, Hamnet and Judith
1587 - He is named in a suit over his mother's property
1592 - He lends £7 pounds to John Clayton in London
1592 - His name is parodied as Shake-scene in a pamphlet
1595 - He receives a court payment of £20 for play performances
1596 - His son dies
1596 - He and/or his father apply and then re-apply for a coat of arms
1596 - He and Francis Langley are involved in a fracas
1597 - He owes taxes from 1593 in Bishopsgate but has moved elsewhere
1598 - He buys a big house in Stratford
1598 - He owes more taxes in Bishopsgate
1598 - He hoards grain
1598 - Sturley and Quiney discuss a deal with him; Quiney writes to him but doesn't send the letter
1598 - He sells a load of stone
1598 - He acts in Every Man in His Humour (cast list of 1616)
1598 - He owes taxes again, but has relocated to Surrey
1599 - He applies to augment the design of his coat of arms
1599 - He is a founding shareholder in the Globe
1599 - He is listed as one of the Globe occupants
1599 - George Buc questions him and Edward Juby about the authorship of George a Greene
1600 - He owes more taxes in Bishopsgate
1600 - He sues John Clayton to recover his 1592 loan of £7
1600 - He owes taxes for the last time
1601 - He and Richard Burbadge are named as Globe occupants
1601 - The shepherd Whittington's will seeks to recover 40s from him
1602 - He buys 107 acres from the Combes for £320
1602 - He buys a cottage in Chapel Lane.
1602 - A heraldry official complains about the coat of arms
1603 - He acts in Sejanus (cast list of 1616)
1603 - He is listed in the Letters Patent as a member of the King's Men
1604 - He rents lodgings from the Mountjoy family in Cripplegate
1604 - He is issued red cloth on the occasion of James's procession
1604 - He sells malt in Stratford to Phillip Rogers, lends him 2s, sues to recover £1-15s
1605 - He purchases £440 in tithes from Ralph Hubaud
1605 - Augustine Phillips' will leaves him a piece in gold.
1607 - Susanna marries physician John Hall.
1608 - Hubaud's will seeks to recover £20 from him
1608 - He sues John Addenbroke for debt of £6 plus damages, then takes action against his security
1608 - He becomes a partner in the Blackfriars Theatre
1610 - The Combes transfer property to him
1611 - He leases a barn from Robert Johnson
1611 - He files a complaint to protect real estate interests
1611 - He is noted in a road improvement fund
1612 - He testifies in a Mountjoy domestic dispute and signs his deposition
1613 - He invests £140 in a gate-house near the Blackfriars theater, signs the document, mortgages it for £60 and signs that document
1613 - He and Richard Burbage are paid for an impresa.
1614 - He is approached by Stratford corporation officials concerning the proposed Welcombe pasture enclosures
1615 - Litigation over legal title to the gate-house shows he has made improvements.
1615 - He is named as an original shareholder in the Globe and Blackfriars
1615 - John Combe leaves him £5 in his will
1616 - He signs his will and dies.

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE

The Muses Darling. With thanks to the Marlowe Society

Introduction

George Peele, the dramatist, a contemporary of Christopher Marlowe, called him the Muses Darling and Alfred Lord Tennyson in the nineteenth century wrote of him: If Shakespeare is the dazzling sun of this mighty period, Marlowe is certainly the morning star. Critics and scholars through the centuries have lavished praise on the dramatic brilliance and poetic genius of one, who like Shakespeare, began life in humble circumstances, but who achieved undying fame in a very few years.

Marlowe has been honoured among poets and playwrights as the real founder of English drama, and the perfecter of dramatic blank verse. He was loved and honoured too by his contemporaries for his love poetry, and his translations of Lucan and Ovid. Without Marlowe as guide and leader Shakespeare and the other Elizabethan poets and dramatists would certainly not have achieved the reputation they enjoy today.

His Works

Marlowe has left us from his short, but brilliant, career seven plays, and in several of them he was a pioneer in that particular genre. Of these Tamburlaine Parts 1 and 2 caused the greatest excitement among his contemporaries. The heroic nature of its theme, coupled with the splendour of the blank verse and the colour and scale of its pageantry led to its constant revival, with the great actor Edward Alleyn taking the part of Tamburlaine, Alleyn was to take the lead in other Marlowe plays, and to share in their triumph, notably The Jew of Malta and Dr. Faustus. The Jew of Malta may be termed the first successful black comedy or tragi-comedy, and provided Shakespeare with his inspiration for Shylock. Dr. Faustus, though a moral drama brought about by the overreaching of the human spirit and of free thinking in a superstitious age, is a delightful blend of tragic verse and comedy. Edward II is probably the earliest successful history play, and paved the way for Shakespeare's more mature histories such as Richard 11, Henry IV and Henry V. It too is a moving tragedy, and contains fine verse, and an impelling characterisation of a weak and flawed monarch. Marlowe's Dido, Queen of Carthage is an early work derived in part from Virgil's Aeneid, which, though rarely performed, contains much fine and moving verse. The Massacre at Paris was much admired by the Elizabethans , with its near-contemporary depiction of the murders and scandals instigated by the French Court. Sadly only a severely mutilated version has come down to us.

Hero and Leander is the greatest poem of Marlowe's that has come down to us, though much of his love poetry apart from the well-known Come live with me, and be my love has been lost. George Chapman completed the unfinished Hero and Leander, and it was published finally in 1598. Shortly afterwards the memorable verse translations of Ovid's Elegies, the Amores, and of Lucan 's First Book of the Civil War, called Pharsalia appeared in quick succession. The translation of Amores was a massive task, and all forty-eight of Ovid's poems were turned into elegiac couplets. Much of the verse is exceedingly beautiful, though the quality is sometimes uneven. No one has ever attempted the task since. The blank verse of the Lucan translation is at times very powerful, and it is thought this work dates from Marlowe's university days.

His Career

Marlowe was born in Canterbury in 1564 of a family that originated in Ospringe, today part of Faversham. His father, John, was a cobbler. Christopher went to King's School, and was awarded a Matthew Parker scholarship which enabled him to study at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, from late 1580 until 1587, when he was awarded his M.A. Like other brilliant students and writers he was recruited by Sir Francis Walsingham as a part-time secret service agent. His literary career, spent, as far as we know, mainly in London, lasted for only six years from 1587 to 1593. As far as his contemporaries knew he simply disappeared in May 1593, though rumours began to circulate of his death. We now know that he had been arrested by the Privy Council in May 1593 and released on bail. It was not until 1925 when Dr. Leslie Hotson discovered in the Public Record Office details of an inquest conducted at Deptford by the Queen's Coroner, William Danby, concerning an affray in which Marlowe is said to have lost his life, on May 30th 1593, that an explanation was offered about his death.

Other Tributes

Here are some more of the tributes paid to Marlowe:- Thomas Thorpe, publisher of Marlowe's translation of Pharsalia That pure, Elementall wit, C'hr. Marlow
Robert Greene, the Elizabethan dramatist and poet, Thou famous gracer of Tragedians
Henry Petowe, Elizabethan poet, who wrote a completion of Hero and Leander, Marlo admir 'd, whose honey-flowing vaine No English writer can as yet attaine:
Thomas Heywood, Elizabethan and Jacobean dramatist, Marlo, renown'd for his rare art and wit.
Edward Dowden, critic and scholar, If Marlowe had lived longer and accomplished the work that lay clearly before him, he would have stood beside Shakespeare.
Algernon Charles Swinburne, poet and critic, Of English blank verse, one of the few highest forms of verbal harmony, or poetic expression, Marlowe was the absolute and divine creator.