Christopher Marlowe made significant contributions to English drama in the late 16th century. He introduced higher level heroic subjects, brought characters to life with realistic qualities, refined the use of blank verse, and brought more unity to plays. Marlowe's works are characterized by their pictorial quality in vividly depicting scenes, ecstatic expressions of passion, and a vitalizing energy that animated his stories and characters. Overall, Marlowe advanced drama as an art form and influenced later playwrights like Shakespeare.

1. Christopher Marlowe’s
Contribution to English Drama
Christopher Marlowe as a dramatist.
Discuss marked characteristics of his works.
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2. Introduction
• Marlowe saw clearly enough that the
Romantic drama was suited to the needs of
the nation, and that therefore no other form
of drama could express so well its abundant,
concrete life.
• But he saw also that for the Romantic drama
to be a thing of beauty as well as a force, the
medium of blank verse must be chosen.

3. What did he do?
He initiated change in:
• Subject matter
• Character
• Blank Verse
• Unity to the drama

4. Subject Matter of the play
• He raised he subject matter of the drama to a higher
level.
• He provided big heroic subjects that appealed to the
imagination. Tamburlaine – a world conqueror; Faust in
pursuit of universal knowledge; Barabas with fabulous
dreams of wealth; Edward II with his mingling nobility
and worthless sounding that heights and depths of
human nature.
• His subjects were: the insatiable spirit of adventure;
the master passions of love and hate; ideals of
beauty; the greatness and littleness of human life.

5. Characterization
• He gave life and reality to his characters.
• They were no longer puppets pulled by a
string; but living and breathing realities.
• One can feel the fierce exaltation of the
conqueror, Tamburlaine; the vibrant passion
and rapturous longing of Faust; the fierce
selfishness of his Barabas.

6. Blank Verse
• He took the blank verse of the classical school,
hard and unflinching as a rock, and struck it with
his rod till the waters of human emotion gushed
forth.
• The old rhyming lines of Romantic drama he put
aside; blank verse had little grip, when he took it
in hand, but he fathomed its immense
possibilities, and saw how it could be made the
expression of the finest wit or the most delicate
fancy.

7. Unity
• He gave a unity to the drama, hitherto lacking.
• Plays before has been formless: a succession of
isolated scenes often with no proper connecting
link.
• And although, compared with Shakespeare, the
work of Marlowe seems often turgid and
unwieldy, yet it shows quite sufficient promise to
show us the extent of Shakespeare’s
indebtedness.

8. Thus, his contribution can be summed
up as…
• He glorified the matter of the drama – by his
sweep of imagination. (vide stories)
• He vitalized the manner and matter of the
drama – by his energizing power (vide
characterization).
• He refined verse form and made it suitable for
English stage. (vide Verse).
• He gave coherence to the drama. (vide
Structure)

9. Marlowe’s work has three marked
characteristics:
• Its pictorial quality
• Its ecstatic quality
• Its vitalizing energy

10. Pictorial Quality
* Marlowe has been called the father of English
Dramatic Poetry; just as Defoe is termed as the Father
of English Fiction, and Chaucer the Father of English
Narrative Poetry.
– Marlowe with his instinct for selecting those scenes
that best impress the imagination and those similes
that strike home most effectively made of the drama a
thing of beauty.
• The pictorial quality is no mere visualizing of a
dreamer’s fancy; it shows the inspiration of that
spirit of adventure which was in the air.

11. Ecstatic Quality
– This is well exemplified in the speech of Faustus:
• “Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss. (Kisses her).
• Her lips suck forth my soul! See, where it flies?
• Come Helen, come give me my soul again –
• Here will I dwell, for Heaven is in these lips:
• And all is dross that is not Helen!”
– It is indeed fire that burns through his verse and gives it glow
and radiance, mellowing the harsh crudities and coarse outlines:
• “Had I as many souls as there be stars –
• I’d give them all for Mephistophilis.”

12. Vitalising Energy
– His discarding the classical convention for the
romantic is the culminating proof of his original and
artistic instinct. He saw clearly that his vitalising
energy was better suited to Romantic drama. This
vitalising energy redeemed the ‘Tamburlaine’ from
absurdity, and gave a beauty and lifting power to the
Faust legend.
• He is not content with vague description, but
actualizes his subject - as in the pageant of the
Seven Deadly Sins in ‘Faustus’. Many a medieval
poet had sung of them, Marlowe gives them life
and reality.

13. Conclusion…
• A cursory examination of Marlowe’s work might incline
the reader to think that his nature was highly
passionate.
• Of Passion, however, in the primal, full-blooded sense
of the word, there is really little in Marlowe’s writings.
He is rather excitable and ecstatic, moved to exuberant
expression by certain appeals to the imagination, such
as the appeal of beauty; but not profoundly emotional
as were Shakespeare, or Beaumont and Fletcher, or
Webster.
• He never suggests the man of the world, the student of
human nature; always the wistful visionary; living in a
world of his own, a world of beauty and wonder.

14. • Thank you!
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