Marlovian Hero

Marlovian hero is a collective term for the entirely new characters Marlowe first brought to the stage. These are sociopaths with – if at all – disturbed family ties who cross all limits with unrestrained individualism, unbridled brutality, self-indulgence bordering on the absurd, as well as remarkable professionalism. They are: "[…] ins Gigantische gesteigerten Helden […]" with "[…] hemmungsloser, zur Ausbeute des Diesseits bis zur Aufgabe der Seele bereiten Natur."¹ The fact that they were partially successful with this and admired by the audience completely negated the moral educational value that the theatre of the time was supposed to fulfil.

It is passion that brings his characters to greatness and downfall.² They have breaches, but do not experience development.

"For Marlowe, character is completed in the spectacle. He does not graph the development of a personality, but projects its internal conflicts into dramatic images. This explains why many of his scenes are unsatisfactory when regarded as psychological studies."³

In Marlowe, the pursuit of power transcends gender, albeit with different goals.

"Where Marlowe’s men tend to seek power for the purpose of determining the destinies of others, those of Marlowe’s women who pursue power more often do so in order that they may determine their own destinies. […] Marlowe allows many women of his female characters to intervene in, and offer resistance to, the male orientated social structures which govern the worlds of his plays."⁴

Already in his first great play, Tamburlaine, Marlowe manifested a kind of programme to which he remained committed in all his plays. Always a grandiose language is juxtaposed with the merciless deeds of his characters,⁵ who are addicted to a beauty of horror⁶. Each of his heroes, devoid of kindness,⁷ will strive for self-realisation with brutal tenacity,⁸ which puts them at odds with a higher authority⁹. Marlowe’s heroes are larger than life, immoderate in their faults as in their qualities. They want to conquer the whole world, gain unlimited wealth, possess all knowledge. Their verses, accordingly, are powerful, rhetorical, rich in metaphors and effects.¹⁰ Marlowe’s protagonists are obsessives, driven by the desire for land, money, power or knowledge.¹¹ And they live beyond religion. The marlovian hero is non-denominational. Once he has realised this, it does not matter whether his origins lie in Islam, Judaism or Christianity. In this respect, Marlowe is completely free of prejudice. None of his plays ends – quite unlike Shakespeare – with a renewal or even hope for a better, ordered world. His basic atmosphere remains a pessimistic one throughout.¹² Another difference to Shakespeare is his relevance to the present. Marlowe has an unusual predilection for the word "now", especially at the beginning of sentences.¹³ This very "now" is an important feature of all his heroes. They do not cling to the past and do not worry about tomorrow. Each of them wants to live to the full the one moment in which they exist. Marlowe’s heroes are:

"[…] large in imagination, restless in spirit, incisive in logic directed against Christian dogma, hungry for truth, superbly self-confident, and desirous of being held to be a god."¹⁴

They throw down the gauntlet to the order of the universe. Their disregard is reminiscent of Prometheus, their goals of Icarus and their demands of the Titans.¹⁵ Strictly speaking, he was reacting to the developments of his time. The late 16th century was an era of gigantic contradictions. Europe’s rulers elevated divine grace to international dogma and yet witnessed the first execution of an anointed queen. People insisted on a strict hierarchical system of order, while individualism began to transgress all limits without restraint. On the one hand, bloody battles were fought for the one true God, who was admitted to be serving only political ends. Superstition, astrology and alchemy did not stop their followers from discovering new scientific territory. Spain, one of the largest and richest countries, has had to declare national bankruptcy several times. Women were regarded as subordinate beings, although at the same time three women were leading the destinies of European countries. It was the time when simply everything was possible and that should also be reflected in art. Marlowe created characters who are fascinating and repulsive, imaginative and narrow-minded, heartbreaking and hateful, orthodox and modern, at once gods and men, geniuses and losers, heroes and cowards, believers and atheists. In this way, Marlowe anticipates important trends of the 20th century.

"Ich bin frei. Jenseits der Angst und der Erinnerung. Frei. Und mit mir eins."¹⁶

Tamburlaine, Faustus, Barabas or Guise could easily claim the same. In fact, this self-description of Orest comes from Jean-Paul Sartre’s Les mouches. Besides freedom, Marlowe’s characters share another quality with the heroes of existentialism.

"Ich bin verurteilt für immer jenseits meines Wesens zu existieren, jenseits der Antriebe und Motive meiner Handlung: ich bin verurteilt, frei zu sein."¹⁷

In the end, they are all lonely. Any family ties are problematic at best.

Marlowe’s anticipation of a trend in the entertainment industry in the late 20th century is even more extensive, as he practised what Quentin Tarentino became famous for at the time. He combined the old with the new, broke with traditions and role models, mixed the trivial with the intellectual, created powerful and violent heroes who, from today’s point of view, could be described as sociopaths, increased the violence to the absurd and thus inspired the masses. By asking the audience to judge the play as they see fit, as early as the prologue of Tamburlaine, Marlowe does not, as before, regard the theatre as a place of moral example or educational presentation.¹⁸ John Barry Steane¹⁹ and A. L. Rowse²⁰ saw The Massacre at Paris in the mid-1960s as a tawdry play that would at best serve as an inspiration for the makers of bloodthirsty, lurid movies. In 1998, Kristen Elizabeth Poole wrote in response that nothing Steane and Rowse criticised would make Akira Kurosawa or Quentin Tarantino blush.²¹

Marlowe had proved for the first time on stage that anything was possible. What the Elizabethans could learn from Marlowe’s characters was that ruthless individualism, anti-authoritarian behaviour and social arrogance lead to results with impunity. They did not think of imitating it, but they admired it – another commonality with the film and television sector of the 1990s, when characters of the so-called "Generation Q" fascinated audiences. Its namesake was the omnipotent entity from the TV series Star Trek – The Next Generation, who exists beyond all ethical precepts and interpersonal rules. That was the place for the true sociopaths, whose question was no longer: "What is allowed?" but "What do I allow myself?". The negation of all maxims led to total freedom and absolute self-realisation. One’s own needs and desires became the measure of all things. Arbitrariness and unpredictability had become the principle of life. People may still have known about good and evil, but they no longer cared.²² Of course, this philosophy was not entirely new. Its roots can be found in hedonism, surrealism and existentialism. Ultimately, all these tendencies cumulated in movies like The Silence of the Lambs, Natural Born Killers, From Dusk Till Dawn, The Usual Suspects or Se7en. Serial killers, professional killers, psychopaths – creatures who stand apart from society of their own free will – became the new sympathisers and identification figures. Marlowe can claim to have established this trend as early as the 1590s.