Editing Christopher Marlowe (section)

===Sexuality===
[[File:Hero-und-Leander.jpg|right|thumb|upright=0.8|Title page to 1598 edition of Marlowe's ''[[Hero and Leander (poem)|Hero and Leander]]'']]
It has been claimed that Marlowe was homosexual. Some scholars argue that the identification of an Elizabethan as gay or homosexual in the modern sense is "[[Anachronism|anachronistic]]," saying that for the Elizabethans the terms were more likely to have been applied to homoerotic affections or sexual acts rather than to what we currently understand as a settled sexual orientation or personal role identity.<ref>{{cite book|last=Smith|first=Bruce R.|title=Homosexual desire in Shakespeare's England|publisher=University of Chicago Press|location=Chicago|date= 1995|page=74|isbn=978-0-226-76366-8}}</ref> Other scholars argue that the evidence is inconclusive and that the reports of Marlowe's homosexuality may be rumours produced after his death. Richard Baines reported Marlowe as saying: "all they that love not Tobacco & Boies were fools". [[David Bevington]] and [[Eric C. Rasmussen]] describe Baines's evidence as "unreliable testimony" and "[t]hese and other testimonials need to be discounted for their exaggeration and for their having been produced under legal circumstances we would now regard as a witch-hunt".<ref>Bevington, David, and Eric Rasmussen, eds. ''Doctor Faustus and Other Plays''. Oxford English Drama. Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. viii–ix. {{ISBN|0-19-283445-2}}</ref>

Literary scholar [[J. B. Steane]] considered there to be "no evidence for Marlowe's homosexuality at all".<ref name="steane"/> Other scholars point to the frequency with which Marlowe explores homosexual themes in his writing: in ''[[Hero and Leander (poem)|Hero and Leander]]'', Marlowe writes of the male youth Leander: "in his looks were all that men desire..."<ref>{{cite book |editor-last=White |editor-first=Paul Whitfield |title=Marlowe, History and Sexuality: New Critical Essays on Christopher Marlowe |publisher=AMS Press |location=New York |year=1998 |isbn=978-0-404-62335-7}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |author=Christopher Marlowe |chapter=Hero and Leander |title=The works of Christopher Marlowe |editor=A. H. Bullen |year=1885 |volume=3 |place=London |publisher=John C. Nimmo |pages=88, 157–193 |url=http://www.gutenberg.org/files/21262/21262-h/21262-h.htm |via=[[Project Gutenberg]] |access-date=21 May 2009 |archive-date=21 September 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080921083327/http://www.gutenberg.org/files/21262/21262-h/21262-h.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> ''[[Edward II (play)|Edward the Second]]'' contains the following passage enumerating homosexual relationships:
{{blockquote|<poem>
The mightiest kings have had their minions;
Great [[Alexander the Great|Alexander]] loved [[Hephaestion]],
The conquering [[Hercules]] for [[Hylas]] wept;
And for [[Patroclus]], stern [[Achilles]] drooped.
And not kings only, but the wisest men:
The Roman [[Cicero|Tully]] loved [[Augustus|Octavius]],
Grave [[Socrates]], wild [[Alcibiades]].<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eGvavCqLW2AC&pg=PA128 |title=The Routledge Anthology of Renaissance Drama |author=Simon Barker, Hilary Hinds |publisher=Routledge |date=2003 |access-date=9 February 2013 |isbn=9780415187343 |archive-date=29 December 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191229075917/https://books.google.com/books?id=eGvavCqLW2AC&pg=PA128 |url-status=live }}</ref>
</poem>
}}

Marlowe wrote the only [[Edward II (play)|play]] about the life of [[Edward II]] up to his time, taking the [[Renaissance humanism|humanist]] literary discussion of male sexuality much further than his contemporaries. The play was extremely bold, dealing with a star-crossed love story between Edward II and [[Piers Gaveston, 1st Earl of Cornwall|Piers Gaveston]]. Though it was a common practice at the time to reveal characters as homosexual to give audiences reason to suspect them as culprits in a crime, Christopher Marlowe's Edward II is portrayed as a sympathetic character.<ref>{{Cite book|title = Edward the Second|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=axTzkFP9IHoC|publisher = Manchester University Press|date = 1995|isbn = 9780719030895|first1 = Christopher|last1 = Marlowe|first2 = Charles R.|last2 = Forker|access-date = 4 November 2015|archive-date = 21 May 2016|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160521190848/https://books.google.com/books?id=axTzkFP9IHoC|url-status = live}}</ref> The decision to start the play ''[[Dido, Queen of Carthage (play)|Dido, Queen of Carthage]]'' with a homoerotic scene between [[Jupiter (mythology)|Jupiter]] and [[Ganymede (mythology)|Ganymede]] that bears no connection to the subsequent plot has long puzzled scholars.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Williams|first=Deanne|date=2006|title=Dido, Queen of England|journal=ELH|volume=73|issue=1|pages=31–59|doi=10.1353/elh.2006.0010|jstor=30030002|s2cid=153554373}}</ref>