Marlonve^s Damnations
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hese effects are intimately associated with his life. It is true thatonce, briefly, in Edward^ Marlowe was enlightened and drawn out ofhimself into emulation of the dexterous apportionment of interestamong various characters as well as the concentration achieved byShakespeare when he enlarged and rewrote the “Contention” plays (aand 5 Henry F/) , so that this play treats characters other than the singleMarlovian hero-figure. But by the end of it he is back with his hero(Mortimer rather than Edward)— to whom in Faustus he thenwholly returned. Putting It once more: the umon of the seductive and the atro-cious has for its purpose an insolent defiance of salvation. We maydisagree about Marlow’s “atheism,” depending on what we take theword to mean, but about his hostility to Christianity there can belittle question except for churchmen reluctant to give him up. Notunnaturally, the service which his work shows him most sensitivetoward, and most harshly satirical of, is the Commination Service.But I ought to add that it is just possible, if the unfinished Hero a?idLeander followed Faustus and was his final production, that Marlowehad begun to grow out of his hatred of God, or had become lessinsistent upon it. This poem is still obsessedly inverted (II, iSiff.,which Miss Tuve tries in vain to explain away), but its satire, such asthat in the passage quoted earlier, nowhere deepens to blasphemy. When Frizer’s dagger entered his arrogant and corrupt brain,Marlowe was twenty-nine— an age at which Congreve had retired.Marlowe’s dramatic accomplishment stands that comparison poorly.Some recent revivals cited by Levin tend to prove rather, as Poiriersays, that his works have not survived on the stage than that theyhave. Kyd was a greater dramatist, as Eliot decided long ago. ButMarlowe was a great poet, which Kyd was not, and his dramaticstrokes were grander. He lives, however (the academic interest andhis poetry’s spell for a few readers, apart), and the same is true of hiscontemporaries, for a reason better still’ that he helped in the initialformation of the most powerful artist the race has produced. Levininclines to feel that Marlowe has received some injustice by beingbracketed with Shakespeare. But in the first place he does certainlynot deserve to be so bracketed, and in the second place what higherhonour is conceivable^ His role in Shakespeare’s early developmentwas not less vivid for having been exaggerated by most critics. Heestablished a musical and strong verse on the stage; Tamburlaine andthe rest eased the births of York and Richard III and the rest, Barabasof Shylock, Edward 11 of Richard II, his murderers of Shakespeare’s, 7
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