During many years, nearly two centuries, many literary critics and lovers of the literature are pointing out the great similarity between the works of William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe. Some people approve that this is the one and the same person. Others claim that Marlowe is one of the predecessors of Shakespeare. But some critics have another point of view. They claim that Marlowe is one of the predecessors of Shakespeare. And the thing is that these wonderful writers have also the differences in their styles and their manners of writing.
Both of them were writing with their own poetic diction which pays attention to the auditory. Both writers used irony and drama to keep the readers and the auditory in suspense during all the play.
They used the blank verse in their works, and this thing combines them.
In their plays: “Macbeth” and “Edward the Second”, the writers took as a basis the historical events, the rule of the Kings of England and Scotland. The writers described the political and economical situation at that time.
But the aim of Shakespeare was to warn the audience of such people, who wanted to take the throne at any cost, but he proved that such people paid for that dearly.
On the opposite, Marlowe described us a person who had everything, but who did not know how to control his wealth and authority. And Marlowe’s heroes were dominated by passion and love much more then the desire of power and wealth. That is, Marlowe’s superiority is the description of Edward the Second’s wild life, his kindling of passion.
The way I see it, Shakespeare has beaten Marlowe in the usage of mysteries and unnatural creatures in his play.
To begin with, I would like to say that the adoration and the nobility of these writers is the first similarity that does not need any arguments. But these two writers of tragedy had many differences in their behavior, manners, education, etc. Marlowe was absorbed by Renaissance features and his background was not from the lower social strata. He was well-educated and followed the principles of that period. On the contrary, Shakespeare was self-learning and self-confident, but he was sure to become successful.
Further on, there is an argument that early Shakespeare’s style is much more alike with Marlowe. And it is obvious, that the early Shakespeare studied and developed, thanks to the works of Marlowe. He was impressed and influenced by Marlowe. Even in the first Shakespeare’s plays, one can see some Marlowe’s lines. And I have the impression that they had something like battle at that time. Shakespeare had such a desire to go better than Marlowe and achieved his goal. As J. A. Symonds justly remarks: “What Shakespeare would have been without Marlowe, cannot even be surmised. What alone is obvious to every student is that Shakespeare designed from the first to tread in Marlowe’s footsteps that Shakespeare at the last completed and developed to the utmost that national embryo of art which Marlowe drew forth from the womb of darkness, anarchy and incoherence.”(NEO English System)
I must admit, that it was Christopher Marlowe who contributed to the development of drama. That was his blank verse. And as one of the literary critics, Mr. A. C. Swinburne points out about Marlowe: “the father of English tragedy and the creator of English blank verse was therefore also the teacher and the guide of Shakespeare” (Eliot 33-34). Then, it was Shakespeare who developed the method of blank verse. For example, a following line from “Macbeth” contains this literary device: and wash this filthy witness from your hand…(Shakespeare 2.2.44).
Then, analyzing the tragedies “Macbeth” and “Edward the II”, we see that these plays were written about the reigns of the Kings (Edward the Second, King of England and Macbeth, King of Ireland), their fall, death and consequences. And the similarity is that both tragedies carried political and social patterns.
These two plays are tragedies and that is why they have the same features. The actions in “Macbeth” and in “Edward the Second” are moving from the very beginning into the denouement, the moral lacks of the main characters lead to fall.
And there we can see one more similarity. Both heroes have some tragic mistakes in their characters that lead them to death. But the difference is that in Marlowe’ s play we can trace the course of events without any difficulties, and there are some hidden mysteries, such as the witches, in Shakespeare’s play, which make the reader think a lot and deeper. It is inherit for Marlowe to absorb in his heroes, but Shakespeare likes to be unnoticed.
“Edward the Second” was Marlowe’s play where he simply wanted to tell about English history and to get political tragedy. Edward the Second is interested in Gaveston and does not hide his feelings. As a result, it leads to the growing indignation and tragedy is increasing.
Marlowe describes tournaments, masques, sports and pleasures in this work. It makes a hint that Edward the Second was interested in pleasure and love at the expense of the governance. He did not pay much attention to political and economical situation of his country. The play is inspired with satire. But the only thing Edward needed to do, was to stop playing his affection to the audience and then he wouldn’t have got his fall.
The writer shows us Gaveston as sly and foxy person who wants to get welfare from the King. Thanks to some literary devices, which the author uses, we see that:
I must have wanton poets, pleasant wits,
Musicians that with touching of a string
May draw the pliant king which way I please.
Music and poetry is his delight;
Therefore I’ll have Italian masques by night,
Sweet speeches, comedies, and pleasing shows.(Marlowe 1.1.50)
Then, there are some lines that describe homosexuality, Edward’s affection, which has the similarity with Greek love:
The mightiest kings have had their minions:
Great Alexander loved Hephaestion,
The conquering Hercules for Hylas wept,
And for Patroclus stern Achilles drooped (Marlowe1.4.392)
Somehow, the usage of Greek names adds the features of the beauty to the play. And it proves us the professionalism and Marlowe’s manner of writing again. And it is not surprising, because Marlowe was under influence of Renaissance and he was familiar with classical writers, as Ovid and Homer, who used the names of goddesses. For example, Edward’s heart is beating like “Cyclop’s hammer” and Gaveston is compared with Phaeton.
Christopher Marlowe described the reign of the King concisely, because the main point was to show impossibility of the person, in this case, Edward’s lacks to rule the state.
As we know, Shakespeare’s tragedy is his main guard. It expresses his genuine and great thoughts. In comparison with Marlowe’s plays, Shakespeare’s tragedy is a developed, socially and philosophically system with the number of heroes. In “Macbeth”, from the very beginning, the reader is faced with difficulties which the author offers. At once the reader comes to tragedy and mystery, and his task is to understand it through his own emotions and feelings. I can say that some philosophical ideas are needed in order to do this. The scene begins with the superstition which does not keep something good and pleasant. On the opposite, it carries something rude, bad and tragic. In this tragedy, the author wants to show the degradation of the person. The author raises the questions about the bad influence of power, the struggle for power which makes the brave Macbeth, the famous hero, be rude, evil, hated by everybody. In this work the author gives the characterization of the person who expresses his own interests above the interests of the people who are around him. As a result, Macbeth feels pangs of conscience, but he continues to go forward. Shakespeare tries to admit how ambitions can spoil a brave and honest person.
The composition of the tragedy “Macbeth” is very different from previous tragedies of Shakespeare. It has a brief and concrete exposition and a lengthy plot. And it shows that Macbeth makes a mistake not at once, but after some negative changes in himself, in his personality.
Shakespeare puts fantastic images into his tragedy. They are the specter of the murdered Banquo, the witches. It is the unique Shakespeare’s tragedy where supernatural characters begin the play and have a very important compositional role. At the beginning of the action they meant Macbeth the throne, and at the end of the play these witches predicted death and downfall. Thanks to these techniques, Shakespeare uses psychological metaphor that allows visualizing the inner world of the person. This is one of the most important differences between “Macbeth” and “Edward the Second’. As I have already mentioned, Marlowe also uses Greek names in his tragedy, but they do not carry so much information.
To my mind, according to these two plays, we can distinguish some differences and some similarities in the works of two great and famous playwrights.
But I think that each of them is unique and one can not judge who is better and greater.
Eventually, Marlowe is an essential poet who improved playwright a lot during his short period of life, but, nevertheless, he is considered to be one of the first greatest Elizabethan play writers. As people suggest, Christopher Marlowe was man of marked individuality with poetic talent. There are a lot of people who adore him and his literature even nowadays.
Shakespeare is the legend of all world literature, the leader among English Renaissance literature. He was a gifted man of the people who came to the capital and in a few years became the largest literary and theatrical value. He made a new impact in the knowledge of reality, government, bourgeois society. His heroes are still eternal images. Shakespeare belongs to the genius of European and world literature, such a small number of writers who contributes on the development of many national literatures and the entire spiritual culture.
Works Cited
Eliot, Thomas Stearns. The Sacred Wood. London: Methune, (1920). 1996. Web.
Marlowe, Christopher. Edward the Second. Cybraria LLC, 2009. Print.
NEO English System, Marlowe and Shakespeare: the writers of tragedy. 2010. Web.
Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. Neeland Media LLC/Amazon, 2004. Print.