Q 01/05

In which English city was Christopher Marlowe born in 1564?

A) Canterbury

B) Stratford-upon-Avon

C) London

D) Cambridge

Answer · why

A) Canterbury

Canterbury. He was baptised at St George's Church there in 1564, and a quarrel on a visit home in 1592 brought a legal case against him in the city.

Q 02/05

What was Marlowe's father's trade?

A) Glover

B) Shoemaker

C) Brewer

D) Weaver

Answer · why

B) Shoemaker

Shoemaker. Shakespeare, baptised two months after Marlowe, was a glove-maker's son, so the two great playwrights of the age both grew up in leather-wo...

Q 03/05

In Doctor Faustus, whose is 'the face that launched a thousand ships'?

A) Cleopatra

B) Penelope of Ithaca

C) Helen of Troy

D) Aphrodite

Answer · why

C) Helen of Troy

Helen of Troy. Faustus has her conjured up as his lover, greets her with the line, and begs: 'Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.'

Q 04/05

At which Cambridge college did Marlowe study on a scholarship?

A) Trinity Hall

B) Peterhouse

C) Corpus Christi

D) St John's

Answer · why

C) Corpus Christi

Corpus Christi. In 1952 the college turned up a portrait dated 1585 of a man aged 21, exactly Marlowe's age that year, and it is widely thought to sho...

Q 05/05

Why did Cambridge hesitate to award Marlowe his MA in 1587?

A) A failed Latin examination

B) A debt to the college buttery

C) An arrest for brawling in the street

D) A rumour he would join a Catholic seminary

Answer · why

D) A rumour he would join a Catholic seminary

A rumour he would join a Catholic seminary. The English college at Rheims trained priests in exile, so going there looked like defection; the governme...