Christopher Marlowe in the German-speaking world

Percy E. Pinkerton summarized Marlowe’s significance at home and abroad in his 1885 edition of Marlowe’s works:

"Marlowe has not yet got the ear of Europe. In England even, few comparatively give him high regard; abroad, he still counts as a barbarian. Germans may sympathize, perhaps, with one who first touched their great Faust-legend; the French have never seen more in him than a wild pioneer and road-breaker for Shakespeare. A distinguished modern Italian poet and critic, in verses made by him while reading Marlowe, expressed the belief that his author seemed to have been inspired by the fumes of beer.1 Truly a fine criticism, a subtle inference this, to deem all Marlowe’s 'mighty lines' as but the outcome of beer! From such a singular judgment we may conclude that foreigners, with their curious slowness to appreciate any Anglo-Saxon poets but Byron and Shakespeare, have not yet got at the true Marlowe."2

Not much has changed since Pinkerton’s 1885 observation. However, if one compares Marlowe’s reception in the German-speaking world with other European countries—excluding England, of course—Austria and Germany fare relatively well. In France, Marlowe gained attention through François-Victor Hugo’s translation of Doctor Faustus (1858) and Alfred Jean François Mézière’s Contemporaines et Successeurs de Shakespeare (1863). By 1889, Félix Rabbe had translated all of Marlowe’s dramas into French. Although Arturo Graf introduced Doctor Faustus to Italians in 1878 in his Studii drammatici, a full translation by Eugenio Turiello did not appear until 1898. It took another sixteen years for Raffaele Piccoli to translate Edward II into Italian. Spain, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, and Poland only became acquainted with Marlowe in their respective languages in the second decade of the 20th century.3

There is evidence of early contact between the German audience and Marlowe. In Frankfurt, an English touring company is said to have performed his dramas in 1592.5 Performances may also have occurred in Nuremberg in the late 1590s.6 In 1607, Archduke Ferdinand summoned a company of English actors led by John Green to the Graz court. When Ferdinand left for the Imperial Diet in Regensburg, the actors accompanied him at least to Passau, where his brother Leopold resided as bishop. There, they performed Comedi von dem Juden—almost certainly The Jew of Malta—at the end of November. The following year, during the engagement celebrations of Ferdinand’s sister, Maria Magdalena, to Cosimo II de' Medici, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Green’s company performed again in Graz. Maria Magdalena wrote to her brother: "am Sonntag haben sy gehabt von dem dockthor Faustus, […] am pfingsttag haben sy die von dem Juden gehalten, die sie auch zu passau gehalten haben; […]".7

There is a high probability that parts of these plays were shown in translation. Both dramas persisted in the German-speaking world. Green’s company performed Doctor Faustus alongside The Jew of Malta in Dresden in 1626, and in May 1651 Johann Schilling requested permission to perform these two dramas in Prague.8 Over time, performances merged several plays and different storylines into new works that were further altered through translation or adaptation, as shown by the manuscript Comoedia Genandt Dass Wohl Gesprochene Uhrtheil Eynes Weiblichen Studenten oder Der Jud Von Venedig. This manuscript, dating from the end of the 17th century, contains elements from The Jew of Malta and The Merchant of Venice, among others.9

Distorted beyond recognition, Barabas eventually fell into obscurity. Faustus, however, remained popular in both theatre and puppet shows. The extent to which Johann Wolfgang von Goethe knew of Marlowe’s drama or considered it for his Faust will be discussed elsewhere. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing acknowledged Marlowe’s influence in his 17th literary letter from 1759:

"Daß aber unsre alten Stücke wirklich sehr viel Englisches gehabt haben, könnte ich Ihnen mit geringer Mühe weitläuftig beweisen. Nur das bekannteste derselben zu nennen; »Doctor Faust« hat eine Menge Szenen, die nur ein Shakespearesches Genie zu denken vermögend gewesen. Und wie verliebt war Deutschland, und ist es zum Teil noch, in seinen »Doctor Faust«!"10

The letter arose from the conflict between Lessing and Johann Christoph Gottsched, an uncompromising advocate of Aristotelian rules and French classicism on the stage, who wanted to banish the marvelous and imaginative. Lessing, with Shakespeare and indirectly Marlowe, praised authors who represented everything Gottsched rejected. When Christoph Martin Wieland’s Sommernachtstraum, the first prose translation, appeared in 1762, interest in Shakespeare and his contemporaries increased. In his 1808 lectures on dramatic art and literature, August Wilhelm Schlegel gave enormous importance to Shakespeare but devoted just one small paragraph to Marlowe in the 32nd lecture:

"Marlowe hatte mehr wahres Talent, und war auf einem richtigen Wege. Er hat die Geschichte Eduards des Zweiten zwar sehr kunstlos, jedoch mit einer gewissen Treue und Einfalt behandelt, so daß manche Auftritte ihre pathetische Wirkung nicht verfehlen. Seine Verse sind fließend, aber ohne Nachdruck; wie Ben Jonson dazu kommt, den Ausdruck 'Marlowe’s mighty line' von ihm zu gebrauchen, begreife ich nicht. Von Lillys süßlicher Manier konnte Shakespeare nichts lernen oder benutzen; in Marlowes Edward dem Zweiten hingegen glaube ich allerdings das schwächere Vorbild der frühesten historischen Stücke Shakespeares zu entdecken."11

In Schlegel’s opinion, this was too little for Marlowe to be remembered by posterity. Apart from Shakespeare, he only granted this recognition to Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, and Massinger. Also in 1808, Karl Ludwig Kannegiesser translated Marlowe’s drama The Jew of Malta into German for the first time. Wilhelm Müller’s translation of Doctor Faustus followed a decade later.

For the German Romantics, Shakespeare was an infallible god among poets, unmatched in his genius. Long before the Romantic era, he recognized and implemented its key stylistic devices in his dramas. As a Romantic poet, he was introspective, focused on his art, and detached from mundane concerns, despite his disdain for the theatre where he showcased his talent. Only the romantic German soul could truly understand him. Shakespeare became the hero of Romanticism, and Ludwig Tieck portrayed him as such in his 1825 novella Dichterleben, where Christopher Marlowe appeared as a fictional character for the first time. This "berühmt und berüchtigte"12 Marlowe did not fit Tieck’s ideal, but as a playwright, he could not be ignored.

"Auch Marlow findet die befriedigende Harmonie des Green in keinem seiner Werke, er will das Ungeheure, Riesenhafte, und fällt darüber oft in das Schwülstige und Wahnsinnige, seine Tragödie ist mehr blutig und grausam als tragisch, es ist oft, als hörte man einen Verrückten faseln, wenn der Dichter seine tragischen Personen gerade die höchsten Töne will anschlagen lassen. Und doch muß selbst die strenge Kritik einräumen, daß sein Jude von Malta ein großartiges Werk, und sein Eduard II fast eine vollendete Tragödie zu nennen sey. Dieser heftige und wahrhaft poetische Geist, […] erreichte die Periode seiner Reife nicht, […] und starb, auch ein Opfer seines ausschweifenden Lebens, auf eine gewaltsame Art."13

The German audience had no choice but to trust Tieck’s opinion, as only two of Marlowe’s dramas had been translated. In 1831, Edward II was published in Karl Eduard von Bülow’s translation. Friedrich Bodenstedt14 attempted to publish a complete edition of the dramas in 1860. Apart from Doctor Faustus, which was fully translated, the other plays were available only in summaries with translated excerpts. It wasn’t until Margarethe Vöhl’s 1893 translation15 that Tamburlaine 1 was available in German.

Performances of Marlowe’s dramas were and still are rare on German-language stages. In the early 1920s, Karel Hilar and Karl-Heinz Martin attempted productions of Edward II in Prague and Berlin, respectively, but without lasting success. When Bertolt Brecht presented an adaptation of the same drama in Munich in 1924, Christopher Marlowe was almost entirely unknown to his audience. From 1900 to the present, Edward II and The Jew of Malta have been staged only five times in Vienna.

Marlowe remains largely overlooked in local academic research. Aside from a few articles, there is no comprehensive biography or complete translation of his works available in German. In 1999, Eichbornverlag released the first translation of all Marlowe’s dramas,16 notable only for its tastefully simple cover. This publication, which should have been a milestone in German Marlowe reception, instead became an amateurish self-promotion by Wolfgang Schlüter. He demonstrated that the adage "Traduttore, Traditore"17 extends beyond libretto translators, as he severely distorted the style, verse, content, and meaning of Marlowe’s dramas, more so than any translation of Shakespeare’s works, known for their own brutalities.

"Was die Übertragung darüber hinaus an Freiheiten sich herausnahm, ist ebenso wohlbedacht und begründet. […] Aus dem Malteser Juden einen Wiener Jid zu machen (der konsequenterweise statt eines »rice-porridge« eine Mehlspeis backt und sich nicht als »french musician«, sondern als ungarischer Primas tarnt), mag dem zärtlichen Sadismus, der dämonischen Gemütlichkeit, mit der wir seit Karl Kraus und Qualtinger vertraut sind, näherkommen […]"18

It’s hard to imagine how the final product would have turned out without such "well-considered and justified" interventions! The same level and quality of this translation is evident in the only German documentary (2011) on Christopher Marlowe. Given such efforts, the disinterest of the German-speaking audience—both readers and viewers—is entirely understandable.


Carducci, Giosuè. 1893. Delle Odi Barbare. Vol. 2. Bologna: N. Zanichelli.
Honolka, Kurt. 1978. Opernübersetzungen. Zur Geschichte und Kritik der Verdeutschung musiktheatralischer Texte. Vol. 20. Taschenbücher zur Musikwissenschaft. Wilhelmshaven: Heinrichshofen.
Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim. 1970 ff. “Siebzehnter Brief: 16. Februar 1759.” In Werke, edited by Herbert G. Göpfert, 5:69–73. München: Carl Hanser.
Meissner, Johannes. 1884. Die Englischen Comoedianten zur Zeit Shakespeares in Oesterreich. Wien: Konegen.
Mentzel, Elisabeth Schippel. 1882. Geschichte der Schauspielkunst in Frankfurt am Main: Von ihren ersten Anfängen bis zur Eröffnung des Städtischen Komödienhauses. Vol. 9. Archiv für Frankfurts Geschichte und Kunst. Frankfurt am Main: K.T. Völcker.
Schlegel, Wilhelm August von. 1846. August Wilhelm Schlegel’s Sämtliche Werke. Vol. 6. Leipzig: Weidmannische Buchhandlung.
Tieck, Ludwig, ed. 1823. Shakespeare’s Vorschule: Herausgegeben und mit Vorreden begleitet von Ludwig Tieck. Vol. 1. Leipzig: Brockhaus.

  1. The Italian poem is Pe 'l Chiarone da Civitavecchia leggendo il Marlowe by Giosuè Carducci.
    "Io leggo ancora Marlowe. Dal reo verso bieco simíle
    a sogno d’uomo cui molta birra gravi,
    d’odii et incèsti e morti balzando tra forme angosciose
    esala un vapor acre d’orrida tristizïa,
    che sale e fuma, e misto a l’aer maligno feconda
    di mostri intorno le pendenti nuvole,
    crocida in fondo a’ fossi, ferrugigno ghigna ne’ bronchi,
    filtra con la pioggia per l’ossa stanche. Io tremo."(Carducci (1893), 120)↩︎
  2. Marlowe (1885), XXXI↩︎
  3. Brooke (1922)↩︎
  4. Unless otherwise stated, this means "German-speaking".↩︎
  5. Mentzel (1882)↩︎
  6. Castle (1912); Grabau (1913)↩︎
  7. Meissner (1884), 78↩︎
  8. Meissner (1884)↩︎
  9. Meissner (1884)↩︎
  10. Lessing (1970 ff.), 72-73↩︎
  11. Schlegel (1846), 329↩︎
  12. Tieck (1823), XVI↩︎
  13. Tieck (1823), XX↩︎
  14. Marlowe (1858-1860)↩︎
  15. Marlowe (1893)↩︎
  16. Marlowe (1999)↩︎
  17. Italian: translator-traitor. Kurt Honolka used this paronomasia to show that libretto translators are usually traitors to the actual text and thus also to the content of the operas. (Honolka (1978))↩︎
  18. Marlowe (1999), 535↩︎

Aktualisiert am 23.05.2024

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