Editing Christopher Marlowe (section)

==Literary career==
{{more citations needed section|date=May 2017}}

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|Description = [[Edward Alleyn]], lead actor of [[Lord Strange's Men]] was possibly the first to play the title characters in ''[[Doctor Faustus (play)|Doctor Faustus]]'', ''[[Tamburlaine]]'', and ''[[The Jew of Malta]]''.
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===Plays===
Six dramas have been attributed to the authorship of Christopher Marlowe either alone or in collaboration with other writers, with varying degrees of evidence. The writing sequence or chronology of these plays is mostly unknown and is offered here with any dates and evidence known. Among the little available information we have, ''Dido'' is believed to be the first Marlowe play performed, while it was ''Tamburlaine'' that was first to be performed on a regular commercial stage in London in 1587. Believed by many scholars to be Marlowe's greatest success, ''Tamburlaine'' was the first English play written in [[blank verse]] and, with [[Thomas Kyd]]'s ''[[The Spanish Tragedy]]'', is generally considered the beginning of the mature phase of the [[Elizabethan theatre]].<ref name=":N">{{cite web|title=The Sixteenth Century: Topics |url=http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nael/16century/topic_1/welcome.htm |postscript=. See especially the middle section in which the author shows how another Cambridge graduate, Thomas Preston makes his title character express his love in a popular play written around 1560 and compares that "clumsy" line with ''Doctor Faustus'' addressing Helen of Troy |work=The Norton Anthology of English Literature |publisher=W.W. Norton and Company |access-date=10 December 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111010193423/http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nael/16century/topic_1/welcome.htm |archive-date=10 October 2011 |url-status=deviated}}</ref>

The play ''[[Lust's Dominion]]'' was attributed to Marlowe upon its initial publication in 1657, though scholars and critics have almost unanimously rejected the attribution. He may also have written or co-written ''[[Arden of Faversham]]''.

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|Description = [[Ferdinando Stanley, 5th Earl of Derby]], aka "Ferdinando, Lord Straunge," was patron of some of Marlowe's early plays as performed by [[Lord Strange's Men]].
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===Poetry and translations===
Publication and responses to the poetry and translations credited to Marlowe primarily occurred posthumously, including:
* ''[[Amores (Ovid)|Amores]]'', first book of Latin [[elegiac couplet]]s by Ovid with translation by Marlowe (''c''. 1580s); copies publicly burned as offensive in 1599.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Steinhoff |first=Eirik |date=2010 |title=On Christopher Marlowe's 'All Ovids Elegies' |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23065705 |journal=Chicago Review |volume=55 |issue=3/4 |pages=239–241 |jstor=23065705 |access-date=13 November 2022 |archive-date=13 November 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221113211928/https://www.jstor.org/stable/23065705 |url-status=live }}</ref>
* ''[[The Passionate Shepherd to His Love]]'', by Marlowe. (''c.'' 1587–1588);{{sfnp|Cheney|2004a|p=xvi}} a popular lyric of the time.
* ''[[Hero and Leander (poem)|Hero and Leander]]'', by Marlowe (''c.'' 1593, unfinished; completed by [[George Chapman]], 1598; printed 1598).{{sfnp|Cheney|2004a|pp=xviii, xix}}
* ''[[Pharsalia]]'', Book One, by [[Lucan]] with translation by Marlowe. (''c.'' 1593; printed 1600){{sfnp|Cheney|2004a|pp=xviii, xix}}

===Collaborations===
Modern scholars still look for evidence of collaborations between Marlowe and other writers. In 2016, one publisher was the first to endorse the scholarly claim of a collaboration between Marlowe and the playwright William Shakespeare:
* ''[[Henry VI, Part 1|Henry VI]]'' by William Shakespeare is now credited as a collaboration with Marlowe in the [[The Oxford Shakespeare|New Oxford Shakespeare]] series, published in 2016. Marlowe appears as co-author of the three ''Henry VI'' plays, though some scholars doubt any actual collaboration.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Freebury-Jones |first=Darren |title=Shakespeare's Borrowed Feathers: How Early Modern Playwrights Shaped the World's Greatest Writer |date=2024 |publisher=Manchester University Press |isbn=978-1-5261-7732-2 |edition=1st |location=Manchester}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last1=Shea|first1=Christopher D.|title=New Oxford Shakespeare Edition Credits Christopher Marlowe as a Co-author|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/25/books/shakespeare-christopher-marlowe-henry-vi.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220101/https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/25/books/shakespeare-christopher-marlowe-henry-vi.html |archive-date=1 January 2022 |url-access=limited|access-date=24 October 2016|work=The New York Times|date=24 October 2016}}{{cbignore}}</ref><ref name="cowrite">{{cite news|title=Christopher Marlowe credited as Shakespeare's co-writer|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-37750558|access-date=24 October 2016|publisher=BBC|date=24 October 2016|archive-date=25 October 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161025055153/http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-37750558|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|last=Freebury-Jones|first=Darren|date=|title=Augean Stables; Or, the State of Modern Authorship Attribution Studies|url=https://www.archivdigital.info/ce/augean-stables-or-the-state-of-modern-authorship-attribution-studies/detail.html|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200723141523/https://www.archivdigital.info/ce/augean-stables-or-the-state-of-modern-authorship-attribution-studies/detail.html |archive-date=23 July 2020 |access-date=23 January 2021|website=www.archivdigital.info}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Freebury-Jones|first=Darren|date=3 July 2017|title=Did Shakespeare Really Co-Write 2 Henry VI with Marlowe?|url=https://doi.org/10.1080/0895769X.2017.1295360|journal=ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes and Reviews|volume=30|issue=3|pages=137–141|doi=10.1080/0895769X.2017.1295360|s2cid=164545629|issn=0895-769X}}</ref>

[[File:Charles Howard, 1st Earl of Nottingham Procession Portrait detail.jpg|thumb|right|upright=0.9|[[Charles Howard, 1st Earl of Nottingham]], Lord High Admiral, shown here ''c.'' 1601 in a procession for [[Elizabeth I of England]], was patron of the [[Admiral's Men]] during Marlowe's lifetime.]]

===Contemporary reception===
{{more citations needed section|date=February 2021}}
Marlowe's plays were enormously successful, possibly because of the imposing stage presence of his lead actor, [[Edward Alleyn]]. Alleyn was unusually tall for the time and the haughty roles of Tamburlaine, Faustus and Barabas were probably written for him. Marlowe's plays were the foundation of the repertoire of Alleyn's company, the [[Admiral's Men]], throughout the 1590s. One of Marlowe's poetry translations did not fare as well. In 1599, Marlowe's translation of [[Ovid]] was banned and copies were publicly burned as part of [[John Whitgift|Archbishop Whitgift]]'s crackdown on offensive material.