Literary Criticism

*The Cambridge Companion to Christopher Marlowe

  • Editor: Patrick Cheney
  • Contributors: Various incl. David Riggs, Prof. Mark Burnett and Lisa Hopkins.
  • Published: Cambridge UP 2004.
  • Details: Paperback. 336pp. [Contents List]
  • ISBN: 0521527341
  • Summary: A series of essays by various contributors on his life, an appraisal of each of Marlowe’s works and its context, and his poertry.
  • Reviews: Cambridge University Press

 The Cambridge Companion to Christopher Marlowe (Ed. Patrick Cheney)

*Marlowe: A Collection of Critical Essays

  • Editor: Clifford Leech
  • Published: Prentice-Hall, NJ 1964.
  • Details: Paperback. 184pp.
  • ISBN: 0135583535
  • Summary: Intro by Leech and 14 essays incl: Christopher Marlowe (T.S.Eliot); Marlowe’s Map (Ethel Seaton); The Damnation of Faustus (W.W.Greg); Marlowe’s Atheist Lecture (Paul H. Kocher).

 Marlowe: A Collection of Critical Essays (Ed. Clifford Leech

*Marlowe: A Critical Study

  • Author: J.B.Steane
  • Published: Cambridge University Press 1964; 1970.
  • Details: Hard cover; Paperback. 390pp.
  • ISBN: 0521065453; 0521096243
  • Summary: A brief review of Marlowe’s life (‘Facts & Theories’) followed by critical studies of Marlowe’s 5 main plays (plus a note on The Massacre) and 3 poems (Lucan, Elegies, Hero & Leander)
  • Reviews: David Cope

 Marlowe: A Critical Study by J.B.Steane

Christopher Marlowe: Merlin’s Prophet

  • Author: Judith Weil
  • Published: Cambridge University Press 1977.
  • Details: Hard cover, Paperback (2008). 226pp.
  • ISBN: 0521215544
  • Summary: A series of essays on each of the plays challenges common views of Marlowe as a dogmatic moralist, and a dramatist of heroic energy with his outrageous heroes. Rather, argues Weil, he is an ironic writer of riddling plays, cunningly manipulating our responses to his characters.

 Christopher Marlowe: Merlin's Prophet by Judith Weil

*Christopher Marlowe: A Literary Life

  • Author: Lisa Hopkins
  • Published: Palgrave Macmillan 2000.
  • Details: Paperback. 177pp.
  • ISBN: 0333698258
  • Review: classiclit.about.com
  • Summary: Marlowe’s literary career, incl. his use of foreign locations, scholarship, his portrayal of family relations, and the challenge he posed to the establishment.
  • Buy Online: Palgrave Macmillan.

 Christopher Marlowe: A Literary Life by Lisa Hopkins

Christopher Marlowe: Renaissance Dramatist

  • Author: Lisa Hopkins, Sean McEvoy (Ed.)
  • Published: Edinburgh University Press April 2008.
  • Details: Hard cover. 192pp.
  • ISBN: 0748624732
  • Summary: An accessible introduction to Marlowe’s plays, exploring themes such as religion, the New World and sexuality. Six chapters cover: life & death; his canon; theatrical context; knowledge; transgressing established values; common critical issues.

 Christopher Marlowe: Renaissance Dramatist by Lisa Hopkins

Christopher Marlowe at 450

 Christopher Marlowe at 450 Ed. Sara Munson Deats & Robert A. Logan

Placing the Plays of Christopher Marlowe

  • Editors: Sara Munson Deats, Robert A. Logan
  • Published: Ashgate Publishing Feb 2008.
  • Details: Hard cover. 256pp. [Contents]
  • ISBN: 0754662047
  • Summary: A collection of essays on Marlowe the playwright, covering aspects such as “the anti-theatrical debate”, Machiavellian ideology, violence, addiction and Marlowe’s influence on Shakespeare. Contributors incl. C.B.Kuriyama and Bevington.
  • Buy Online: Ashgate Publishing.

 Placing the Plays of Christopher Marlowe Ed. Sara Munson Deats & Robert A. Logan

Doctor Faustus: A Critical Guide

  • Author: Sara Munson Deats
  • Published: Continuum Publishing Group Ltd 2010.
  • Details: Paperback. 224pp.
  • ISBN: 9781847061386
  • Summary: A comprehensive introduction to Marlowe’s most popular play, introducing its critical history, performance history, current critical landscape and new directions in research, and surveys notable stage productions.

 Doctor Faustus: A Critical Guide by Sara Munson Deats

Christopher Marlowe (The University Wits)

  • Author: Robert A. Logan
  • Published: Ashgate Publishing, 01 Feb 2011.
  • Details: Hard cover. 554pp.
  • ISBN: 0754628574
  • Summary: Examines the characteristics of the six Wits and their influence on Elizabethan drama. Placing Marlowe in their context, and by assessing a selection of important essayson Marlowe, Logan finds his reputation the most prominent.
  • Buy Online: Ashgate Publishing.

 Christopher Marlowe (The University Wits) by Robert A. Logan

Christopher Marlowe the Craftsman

  • Editors: Sarah K. Scott and M.L. Stapleton
  • Published: Ashgate Publishing 1 August 2010.
  • Details: Hard cover. 264pp. [Contents]
  • ISBN: 0754669831
  • Summary: Essays under the categories Lives, Stage, and Page explores the idea of Marlowe as a working artist, how he conceives an idea, shapes and refines it, and refashions it further in his writing process. The volume reflects the flourishing state of Marlowe studies in the 21st century. [Read Introduction]
  • Buy Online: Ashgate Publishing.

 Christopher Marlowe the Craftsman; Edited by Sarah K. Scott and M.L. Stapleton

Marlowe’s Ovid: The Elegies in the Marlowe Canon

  • Author: M.L. Stapleton
  • Published: Ashgate Publishing June 2014.
  • Details: Hard cover. 272pp. [Contents]
  • ISBN: 9781472424945
  • Summary: An unique perspective on the Marlowe canon as Stapleton examines Marlowe’s Elegies in the context of his seven known dramatic works and Hero and Leander, exploring how translating the Amores profited Marlowe as a writer.
    [Read Introduction]
  • Buy Online: Ashgate Publishing.

 Marlowe's Ovid: The Elegies in the Marlowe Canon by M.L. Stapleton

Christopher Marlowe and the Renaissance of Tragedy

  • Author: Douglas Cole
  • Publisher: Greenwood Press 1995.
  • Details: Hard cover; Paperback. 200pp.
  • ISBN: 0313275165; 0275936732
  • Summary: Examines Marlowe’s plays as innovative experiments in redefining renaissance tragic drama.
  • Reviews: Greenwood Publishing Group

 Christopher Marlowe and the Renaissance of Tragedy by Douglas Cole

Marlowe’s Tamburlaine: A Study in Renaissance Moral Philosophy

  • Author: Roy W. Battenhouse
  • Published: Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville, Tennessee 1941, 64, 66.
  • Details: Hard cover. 226pp.
  • Summary: “Tamburlaine as Machiavellian hero-villain”
  • Reviews: David Cope

 Marlowe's Tamburlaine: A Study in Renaissance Moral Philosophy by Roy W. Battenhouse

Christopher Marlowe

  • Author: Thomas Healy
  • Published: Northcote House Publishers 1994.
  • Details: Paperback. 96pp.
  • ISBN: 0746307071
  • Summary: A good, brief, critical introduction to Marlowe’s work.

 Christopher Marlowe by Thomas Healy

Christopher Marlowe

  • Series: Longman Critical Readers
  • Editor: Richard Wilson
  • Published: Longman 1999.
  • Details: Hard cover. Textbook. 288pp.
  • ISBN: 0582237076
  • Summary: Marlowe’s work considered from a variety of angles, incl. historicism, homosexuality and feminism.

 Christopher Marlowe (Ed. Richard Wilson)

Christopher Marlowe

  • Author: Roger Sales
  • Published: MacMillan Palgrave 1991.
  • Details: Hard cover. 177pp.
  • ISBN: 0312062397
  • Contents: Pt I: The Dramatised Society (1) Educational Stage (2) Theatre of Hell (3) Accidental Death of a Spy. Pt II: The Drama (1) Tamburlaine (2) Jew of Malta (3) Edward II (4) Dr Faustus.

 Christopher Marlowe by Roger Sales

The Overreacher

  • Author: Harry Levin
  • Published: Faber 1954 (Paperback 1967)
  • Details: Hardcover. 231pp.
  • ISBN: 0-57-107028-0 (Paperback)
  • Review: RES Vol.8 No.301
  • Summary: A discussion of Marlowe’s themes, structure, imagery, and stagecraft, and projected psychoanalysis of the author based on his work.

 The Overreacher by Harry Levin

From Mankind to Marlowe: Growth of Structure in the Popular Drama of Tudor England

  • Author: David Bevington
  • Published: Harvard UP 1962.
  • Details: Hard cover. 320pp.
  • ISBN: 0674325001
  • Subtitle: Marlowe’s relationship to earlier theatrical forms.

 From Mankind to Marlowe: Growth of Structure in the Popular Drama of Tudor England by David Bevington

Marlowe and the Politics of Elizabethan Theatre

  • Author: Simon Shepherd
  • Published: Prentice-Hall 1988.
  • Details: Paperback. 256pp.
  • ISBN: 0710813139
  • Summary: Marlowe’s plays read in the context of the Elizabethan theatre.

 Marlowe and the Politics of Elizabethan Theatre by Simon Shepherd

Elizabethan Fustian (Vol I)

  • Author: Eleanor Grace Clark
  • Published: NY Oxford Press 1937.
  • Details: Hard cover. 223pp.
  • Summary: A study in the social and political backgrounds of the drama, with particular reference to Christopher Marlowe.

 Elizabethan Fustian (Vol I) by Eleanor Grace Clark

*Ralegh and Marlowe

  • Author: Eleanor Grace Clark
  • Published: Fordham University Press, New York 1941.
  • Details: Hard cover. 488pp.
  • Summary: Links between Sir Walter Ralegh and Marlowe.

 Ralegh and Marlowe by Eleanor Grace Clark

Free Will or Destiny in Doctor Faustus

  • Author: Viktoria Kiss
  • Published: VDM 2008.
  • Details: Paperback. 64pp.
  • ISBN: 9783639037548
  • Summary: Is human nature conducted by individual impulses or subject to a greater force called destiny? Marlowe analyses this question, says Kiss, but does not try to find Faustus guilty or innocent, rather presenting the pros and cons.

 Free Will or Destiny - The Problem Of Free Will Versus Predestination And Its Representation In Marlowe's Doctor Faustus by Viktoria Kiss

Deathly Experiments: A Study of Icons and Emblems of Mortality in Christopher Marlowe

  • Author: Clayton G. Mackenzie
  • Published: AMS Press 15 December 2010.
  • Details: Hard cover. 152pp.
  • ISBN: 0404623492
  • Summary: MacKenzie carefully analyses the carnival of savagery in the Marlowe’s work. The dismembering devils of Dr Faustus, the Mower of Edward II, the suicides in Dido, the gruesome brutalities of The Massacre at Paris – all reflect the popular Elizabethan conviction that death is at the very center of life. [Synopsis/Contents]

Deathly Experiments: A Study of Icons and Emblems of Mortality in Christopher Marlowe by Clayton G. Mackenzie

  • * Recommended as indispensible reading.
  • Note 1: RES – The Review of English Studies, New Series, Vol. 8, No. 30 (May, 1957), pp. 189-191, review by William A. Armstrong.