Reputation (Christopher Marlowe)

Introduction

Reputation is not easy to be defined but it could be referred to as a group of thoughts, views, opinions, ideas, actions and beliefs that are related to someone or something. It could be formed due to the person or the thing real features and characteristics or may be a combination of the real actions and people's opinions. This essay is going to shed the light on Christopher Marlowe's own personal life so as to discuss the theme of reputation and how people could see someone and judge him through his reputation. Reputation is not always a mirror for a person but sometimes it reflects people's thoughts about some actions interpretations. We are going to discuss how interpretations that could be different from a point of view to another could affect people's reputation through looking into the life history of Christopher Marlowe, the author of the great famous play: Dr, Faustus. 

Body

Christopher Marlowe was one of the most famous writers of his time (1564-93), his best known play "Dr. Faustus" was one of the most outstanding literary works in English literature. Marlowe was born in the same year Shakespeare was born in and both playwrights were encountering the same age. He was a government spy. His life was full of mystery as well as the way he died. He was stabbed to death in Deptford and this happened in a tavern. Marlowe's reputation as a writer is very good as he is known to be an important dramatist, he achieved great success on the stage with his great famous work appreciated by Shakespeare. His life despite being short was very turbulent as he began as a humble child who could reach Cambridge University to become a government spy and after that to be a playwright and a poet writing in blank verse yet history tells some things about Marlowe's violent side with breaking the laws actions. It was in 1592 when the court accused him of breaking the laws as threatened two constables. It was also said that he a tailor had been attacked by him with a stick and a dagger and this accident was referred to court. In fact there are many reasons for making Marlowe's reputation a mysterious one as the evidences on his life actions are not enough.

To verify the soundness of Marlowe's reputation, we found many obstacles as neither his life nor his death were clear. There were hostile attitudes related to Marlowe that his reputation was greatly affected with. He was accused by some people of being hostile and violent such as his friend Thomas Kyd, the playwright who accused him to be cruel but it is said that Kyd said what he claimed about Marlowe while he was under torture. It is difficult to know that a person like Richard Baines said that Marlowe was against religion and insulted Christ and his mother bearing thoughts against religion that he thought was a power tool. He also accused him of having homosexual affairs. Thomas Beard thought that his death was a god punishment according to the sins he committed. All these cruel descriptions they made about Marlowe were puzzling when we read other contrasting opinions of Marlowe such as those of his fellow dramatist George Peele as he described him to be a good dramatist and poet that he called him "the Moses darling" and Thomas Heywood who mentioned him as "the best of poets at that age". All these contradictions about him made it hard to make sure who was the real Marlowe.

Yet there are factors that help in favoring one part of opinions over the others and this could share greatly in constructing Marlowe's reputation. Being famous as man is one of these factors as he was not just a famous writer but the personal life participated in building Marlowe's reputation. Gossip was another factor to affect the way in which his reputation was constructed but this gossip had found a basis to be built upon which was the characters of Marlowe's works as they tended to break the law and challenge religion beliefs as well as sexual natural rules, this was clear through the characters of his works, Dr. Faustus who challenged Christian rules and King Edward who was homosexual. He himself provided the public with what they thought evidences for building such a reputation of Marlowe so he was another factor to help in producing his own reputation. These all were factors that contributed in constructing Marlowe's reputation of being cruel, careless to religion and rules, smoker and homosexual. Marlowe shared in fact as a factor himself in leaving such impacts on others.

Cultures and times have their special effects and they influence our interpretations for events with relations to reputation matters. As in the case of Christopher Marlowe, in the sixteenth century period and till the eighteenth century period he was considered as a scandalized writer in the view of critics of that age, his protagonists were seen from a biographical point of view as if he was expressing himself through his protagonists. These views could leave their effects on readers if they are much interested in the eighteenth century criticism. The nineteenth century literary period had different ideas concerning Marlowe, there had been a favorable look to Marlowe as an artist as in that period English studies was established as an academic system which raised interests in the great literary works such as the role of Marlowe in Shakespeare in Love. This shows how much it is important to discuss all different historical opinions when we are going to establish a reputation about someone.

A reputation of someone is usually constructed by many elements, one of them is the source materials that we should be cautious to use them. There are source materials concerning Marlowe whether historical or contemporary. Many authors wrote about him in the past or even in modern times. There is a question here which is: Are we obliged to believe all the news Kyd, Baines and others told us about him? The answer is no, we have to study the materials he and others left carefully. The works of him such as Dr. Faustus and others with their distinguished rebellion protagonist may not reflect his inner attitudes. He might have met characters who affected him and he tried to describe in his works. We have to read the materials without having previous attitudes towards the writer of the materials in order to be fair when we try to measure how far the writer reputation was messaged to us. There are also contemporary writers who used the character of Marlowe as a material for their literary works which needs to be read carefully so as not to misjudge him. Antony Burgess for example, used his character in his works justifying his homosexual affairs which should not be taken as an evidence for Marlowe's homosexuality but to be discussed as if it is just a view of an artist that may or may not be a fact.

Marlowe's life was very ambiguous that there are no records about it but the court records about the cases he was involved in. He had a short life but vivid enough to leave such inquiries in people's minds and souls. It was said he was a spy which left more mystery on his life. Some people thought he was a magician and a heretic who had strange affairs, his plays were also seen as if he was representing himself through his protagonists. People added too many details to the image of Marlowe to leave it hard to be interpreted as a true one or mythical. Dr. Faustus, the play he wrote in 1589 left impacts on readers and critics that Marlowe is Dr. Faustus and he had relations with devils yet these opinions are representing him as a myth or a legendary character which is of no evidence in fact. This leaves great impacts on the process of constructing a person's reputation specially if he was a playwright and a poet, people add their imaginary thoughts they might believe about the person so as to make him a legendary heroic character which may not be favorable for many people.

Atheist is the adjective many fellow writers gave to Marlowe's character in order to despise him and establish a negative reputation of his. Whether he was an atheist or a homosexual, Marlowe was a victim of hostile opinions against him. Authors who accused him of many bad things might have literary jealousy against him or over reactions to his against church attitudes which confirms the idea of competing reputation as authors tried to compete to get the best reputations which required not having rivals such as Marlowe.

Conclusion 

 It was seen that the reputation of someone specially those famous people needs lots of studying before judging those people. In the essay we tried to discuss how Christopher Marlowe's reputation affected him a lot in life and in death which was a strange case. The readers must be careful when discussing a material about Marlowe or a work of his so as not to be unfair in our judgment on someone's reputation.