ABSTRACT
Since Eliot's essay was published, it has become commonplace to echo this sentiment in relation to The Jew of Malta, but there has been less regard for its applicability to Marlowe's writing as a whole. In this chapter, the author draws attention to the pervasively comic tone in Dido Queen of Carthage, in The Massacre at Paris, and in Hero and Leander. Ultimately there will come, perhaps, a recognition of the important part played by savage humor in Tamburlaine and in Doctor Faustus: they are tragic plays, but the tragedy is of the sort in which humor is at home, insisting on the bizarre and the puny coexistent with the splendid within the mind and behavior of each man, however single. The chapter urges a fuller recognition of the variety of Marlowe's humor, and its high degree of integration with the fabric of his writing.
