Was Marlowe a Violent Man?

Barber, Ros. 2010. Was Marlowe a Violent Man? In: Sarah K Scott, ed. Christopher Marlowe the Craftsman. Ashgate, pp. 47-61. ISBN 978-0-7546-6983-8 [Book Section]

No full text available

Abstract or Description

Literary biographers, novelists, and filmmakers have routinely described Marlowe as a rash and hot-headed young man, an assessment that many scholars appear to accept without question. Roy Kendall, for example, in his biography of Richard Baines, confidently refers to “violent characters such as Christopher Marlowe,” yet the playwright was considerably less violent than other young men of the era, including Ben Jonson. Marlowe’s reputation for violence arose only posthumously, as a result of his alleged cause of death, which is still frequently mischaracterised as a “tavern brawl.” If the official record is likely untrue, as this essay theorises, it invites us to challenge the accepted view of his nature and personality

Item Type:

Book Section

Departments, Centres and Research Units:

English and Comparative Literature

Dates:

DateEvent
July 2010Published

Item ID:

10916

Date Deposited:

17 Nov 2014 16:08

Last Modified:

11 Jul 2017 10:19

URI:

https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/10916

Edit Record Edit Record (login required)