"Why, this is Hell, nor are we out of it": The Problem with Marlowe in UK English Secondary Schools (and How to Get Over It)

Abstract

Readers of this journal will need no persuading that Christopher Marlowe is in the pantheon of genius playwrights. Were you to ask students who have gone no further than A-Level English in UK schools about Marlowe, however, their answer would probably be “Who?”

The average English school leaver, even if she has studied English to A-Level, is likely to have studied no more than three or four plays from the early modern period, and all of them by one author.

In this brief paper, I wish to offer some historical reasons for this ignorance, and explain, using examples from my own history as a secondary school teacher of 33 years, how to address and potentially overcome it.