Style

Marlowe’s oeuvre as a whole is subversive, radical and memorable. It pushes the limits of language and imagination. In keeping with the verses, the plays are characterised by spectacular action, bloodshed and passion.¹ Thus, in his language, the emphasis is on vivid physical sensations and precious, exotic objects. A preference that is equally evident in the unusual, polysyllabic terms for names of people and places.² Both are Marlowe’s means of expressing the striving for power of his characters,³ although he allows this to both sexes, albeit with different motivations.

"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

Hyperbolic comparisons are found alongside images from the classics, astronomy and geography. His verses are characterised by energy, splendid diction, sensual richness, variations in tempo and adaptability to changing emotions.⁵ Again and again there are descriptions of the representational, or as C. S. Lewis puts it: "Marlowe is our great master of the material imagination: he writes best about flesh, gold, gem, stone, fire, clothes, water, snow, and air."⁶ Alongside luxury objects, colours enjoy Marlowe’s attention. He was the first English author ever to use them thematically in his works.⁷ He used mythological allusions very purposefully. Helen or Troy symbolise desire. The heroes' role models, on the other hand, are Icarus, Phaeton and Lucifer, who transgress forbidden limits and are punished for their presumption.⁸ Often the comparisons point to the later catastrophes: Gaveston refers to Leander, the chorus draws parallels between Faustus and Icarus, and Barabas sees himself as Agamemnon and Abigail as Iphigenia.⁹

This language was necessary because Marlowe demanded the imagination of his audience. Even when characters die in conventional ways, they push the boundaries of illusionism. It is difficult to understand how Olympia could convincingly stab herself in the throat or set fire to the bodies of her husband and sons, or how Zabina and Bajazeth could credibly portray a shattered brain.¹⁰

"Seine Charaktere, so unwahrscheinlich sie auch sind, können auf diese Wahrscheinlichkeit verzichten, weil sie dennoch den Atem des Lebens ausströmen. Ihr leidenschaftliches Pathos paßte nur zu gut zu dem Triumph über die Armada, […] und zu dem Stolz auf die Eroberungen in der Ferne, zu all dem, das das Herz des englischen Volkes trunken machte und schwindelig vor triumphaler Kraft. Zusammen mit den Entdeckungen der großen Seefahrer vergrößerten auch diese Figuren auf der Bühne die Grenzen des Möglichen im Geiste der Menschen. Diese Stücke waren ein Hymnus auf die Macht der Waffen, auf die Macht des Wissens und des Reichtums."¹¹

Marlowe used his scenic means to create a connection between the actor and the audience. This is how theatre is connected to society. This is Marlowe’s great contribution to the foundations of Elizabethan drama.¹² In Doctor Faustus, for the first time, a soliloquy required an actor rather than a speaker. It is not only Marlowe’s ability to create a dramatic illusion with his poetry that manifests itself here. He also condenses the entire tragic conflict and dramatises that between man and the superhuman, for which Marlowe saw no possible solution. For years there was to be nothing in Elizabethan drama comparable to Faustus’s final monologue, although it was tried in vain, such as Shakespeare in Richard III.¹³

Most dramas congratulated their audience for having moral standards superior to the main characters. Marlowe’s characters, especially Tamburlaine, require the audience to face the inadequacy of their conventional notions.¹⁴

"Cutting himself off from the comforting doctrine of repetition, he writes Plays that spurn and subvert his culture’s metaphysical and ethical certainties. We who have lived after Nietzsche and Flauber [sic!] may find it difficult to grasp how strong, how courageous Marlowe must have been: to write as if the admonitory purpose of literature were a lie, to invent fictions only to create and not to serve God or the state, […]"¹⁵

University scholars in the London theatre milieu knew from Terence and Seneca that drama had to have a moral purpose. That’s exactly what you can’t find in Marlowe. Thus Robert Greene’s remarks in the preface to Perimedes are not to be seen as a criticism of blank verse, but of the content of Tamburlaine.¹⁶ In Poetics, Aristotle denies that a villain can evoke pity and fear, which automatically excludes him as a central figure in tragedy. With Barabas, Marlowe successfully contradicts this thesis.¹⁷ An Aristotelian catharsis is also completely alien to Marlowe. For him, the terrible and the ugly evoke a wide range of reactions: fascination, astonishment, wonder, disgust and ultimately even laughter. Underlying this is his technique of merging the extraordinary with the banal and the logical with the absurd.¹⁸ Perhaps the audience of Tamburlaine felt the same way as that of Pulp Fiction four hundred years later. One thing must never be forgotten: Marlowe’s language is beautiful, his world is absolutely not. Unfortunately, after more than 400 years, it is still frighteningly realistic and up-to-date.

"Marlowe is relevant because he deals with the real world in all its harshness and cruelty; he is relevant because he comes to terms with hard facts – environment, competition, change. He is relevant because his play describes a world like ours, […]"¹⁹