Work record

The Jew of Malta

Name: The Jew of Malta
Author: Christopher Marlowe

Christopher Marlowe

c. 1589-1590 (printed 1633) · Renaissance Early Modern · Drama · English

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Abstract

Written: c. 1589-1590
Setting: 16th century; Malta
Author: Christopher Marlowe
Country: England
Language: English
Genre: Elizabethan revenge tragedy
Form: Tragedy in five acts with prologue
Recommended: Grades 11–12 (Contains antisemitic stereotypes of its time; see note. High school only.)

Prologue. The ghost of a notorious Florentine political writer mocks religion and introduces the tale of a merchant enriched by cunning.

Wrong. When Ottoman envoys demand tribute, the island's Christian ruler confiscates the merchant's whole fortune and turns his home into a convent.

Revenge. The merchant recovers hidden gold through his daughter, tricks two young suitors into killing each other, poisons the convent, including his own child, and with a slave strangles a friar.

Reversals. Betrayed by the slave, he fakes death, opens the gates to the Turks, rules briefly, then plots with the old governor against them.

End. The governor double-crosses him, and he plunges into the boiling trap he designed.

Reading. The play relies on the antisemitic caricatures of its age, when Jews were barred from England, and also satirizes Christian hypocrisy. It should be taught only to mature students with careful, neutral historical framing. Comparison with Shakespeare's Shylock helps students see how a later dramatist complicated the same stereotype, and discussion can turn to how theatres today stage such works responsibly while still learning from them about prejudice, power, greed and religious hypocrisy.

Main characters

Barabas: A rich Jewish merchant who turns to revenge.
Abigail: A loving daughter who becomes a nun.
Ferneze: A hypocritical Christian ruler.
Ithamore: Barabas's Turkish accomplice.
Machiavel: The ghost of Machiavelli.
Calymath: The son of the Turkish emperor.

Summary

The Jew of Malta, written around 1589-90 and first printed in 1633, is Christopher Marlowe's dark, savagely comic tragedy of revenge, and it should be read with an understanding of the antisemitic stereotypes of Elizabethan England, where Jews had been expelled since 1290. The prologue is spoken by Machiavel, the ghost of Machiavelli, who declares that he counts religion but a childish toy and introduces the play as the tragedy of a Jew who has grown rich by Machiavellian means. Barabas, a wealthy merchant of Malta, gloats over his wealth as infinite riches in a little room. When the Turks demand tribute from Malta, the Christian governor Ferneze seizes half of every Jew's estate and, when Barabas protests, all of his. His house is turned into a nunnery. Barabas, enraged, recovers hidden treasure with the help of his daughter Abigail, who pretends to convert. He then plots revenge. He sets Lodowick, the governor's son, and Mathias, who loves Abigail, against each other so that they kill each other in a duel. Abigail, grieving, becomes a real nun, and Barabas poisons the whole nunnery, including his daughter. He buys a Turkish slave, Ithamore, who becomes his accomplice, and together they murder two friars. Ithamore betrays him to a courtesan and her accomplice, and Barabas poisons them too. Arrested, Barabas feigns death, escapes, and helps the Turks capture Malta, becoming its governor. Then he plots with Ferneze to destroy the Turks, but Ferneze turns the trap on him, and Barabas falls into a boiling cauldron he prepared for others. The Christian governor's hypocrisy is as plain as Barabas's crimes, and critics read the play as a satire of religious hypocrisy and of Machiavellian politics as well as a portrait of a stage villain. Teachers should frame its antisemitic caricature historically and neutrally; the play is suitable only for mature high-school students in a guided setting.

Virtues in this work

Justice: The play exposes injustice on all sides.
Prudence: Students learn to read critically and to recognize how a stage stereotype works.

Plot or Argument

Prologue
Machiavel, the spirit of Machiavelli, introduces the play.
Dispossession
Ferneze seizes Barabas's wealth to pay the Turkish tribute.
Revenge
Barabas destroys Lodowick, Mathias, Abigail and the nuns.
Betrayals
Ithamore betrays Barabas; Barabas helps the Turks take Malta and then plots against them.
The cauldron
Ferneze traps Barabas, who dies in his own cauldron.

Characters

Barabas, protagonist
A rich Jewish merchant who turns to revenge.
Abigail, Barabas's daughter
A loving daughter who becomes a nun.
Ferneze, governor of Malta
A hypocritical Christian ruler.
Ithamore, slave
Barabas's Turkish accomplice.
Machiavel, prologue
The ghost of Machiavelli.
Calymath, Turkish leader
The son of the Turkish emperor.

Lessons

Reading a play in its time
The play reflects Elizabethan prejudice.
- How does the play portray Barabas?
- How are the Christians portrayed?
- How should modern readers handle such prejudice?
Related across the library
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- The Age of Voltaire, Lesson: Voltaire's courage and Voltaire's faults
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- Saint Joan, Scene VI (close)
  De Stogumber returns from the burning in a state of breakdown and the executioner reports that her heart would not burn.
- Paradise Lost, Book IV
  Abashed the Devil stood, And felt how awful goodness is, and saw Virtue in her shape how lovely Rebuked by the young cherub Zephon, Satan feels the force of goodness he has lost.
Hypocrisy
Governor Ferneze uses Christian religion to justify seizing Barabas's wealth.
- How does Ferneze justify seizing Barabas's wealth?
- Who is the true Machiavellian?
- What is Marlowe satirizing?
Related across the library
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  Patience under trial. Like Job, the vicar loses wealth, home, health and freedom but keeps his faith.
- Description of the Retreat, Lesson: Description of the Retreat teaches historical caution
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- Religion and the Rise of Capitalism, Ch. V, Conclusion
  Compromise is as impossible between the Church of Christ and the idolatry of wealth, which is the practical religion of capitalist societies, as it was between the Church and the State idolatry of the Roman Empire. Tawney's own closing judgment as a Christian socialist; readers who defend commercial society have contested it, while others have taken it as a call to the Church.
- Villette, Lesson: Endurance in solitude
  Endurance in solitude. Lucy has no family, money or beauty to lean on, and she says plainly that she must live by her own work. Her endurance is not cheerful, but it is real: she keeps her post, her word and her creed through loneliness that nearly breaks her.
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Revenge
Barabas's revenge destroys even his daughter.
- Why does Barabas kill Abigail?
- How does revenge consume him?
- Compare Shylock in The Merchant of Venice.
Related across the library
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- The Merchant of Venice, Lesson: Injury and revenge
  Injury and revenge. In Act 3 Shylock answers mockery by insisting that a Jew bleeds, laughs and dies like a Christian, then turns that shared nature into a claim to revenge learned from his enemies. Shakespeare gives the injured man eloquence while showing how grievance closes him off to mercy.
- The Oresteia, Lesson: Justice must outgrow revenge
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Context

Jews had been expelled from England in 1290 and few lived openly there in Marlowe's time; stage portrayals drew on medieval stereotypes. Malta was held by the Knights of St. John and besieged by the Ottomans in 1565.

Composition

Written about 1589-90 and performed by Lord Strange's Men and the Admiral's Men; first printed in 1633.

Reception

A popular play; it influenced Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. Modern productions grapple with its antisemitic caricature.

Revenge Faith / Religion Money Wealth Power / Politics Satire Folly

Comparisons

The Merchant of Venice
Shakespeare's play, influenced by Marlowe's, with a more complex Jewish character.
The Prince
Machiavelli's treatise, whose reputation the prologue exploits.

Quotes

“I count religion but a childish toy, And hold there is no sin but ignorance”

— Christopher Marlowe, The Jew of Malta, Prologue (Project Gutenberg #901).Quote card

Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius, Book I, ch. XII
since we can have no surer sign of the decay of a province than to see Divine worship held therein in contempt. The opening of his chapter on the importance of religion to the health of states.
Veazie Bank v. Fenno, Lesson: Who checks the taxing power?
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Sermons and Letter from Birmingham Jail, Medical lens
King's texts matter medically through racial trauma, jail stress, bodily risk in protest, and the language of social sickness. Readings should avoid turning political coercion into only individual pathology.
Religion and the Rise of Capitalism, Ch. II, The Continental Reformers, sec. 3, Calvin
It was a creed which sought, not merely to purify the individual, but to reconstruct Church and State, and to renew society by penetrating every department of life, public as well as private, with the influence of religion. Tawney contrasts the active, reforming character of Calvinism with the socially conservative piety of Lutheranism.
Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book I, ch. 5, secs. 2-3
Medicine and astronomy as sciences that disclose God's wisdom; Galen's anatomy of the human body; man called a microcosm.

“Infinite riches in a little room”

— Christopher Marlowe, The Jew of Malta, Act I (Project Gutenberg #901).Quote card

No Treason, No. II, § II
A traitor is a betrayer—one who practices injury, while professing friendship. Spooner defines treason by its ordinary meaning before giving Benedict Arnold as his example.
The Last Days of Socrates, Euthyphro 10a
The point which I should first wish to understand is whether the pious or holy is beloved by the gods because it is holy, or holy because it is beloved of the gods. The Euthyphro dilemma, one of the most influential questions in moral philosophy.
On Interpretation, Prior Analytics, Topics and Sophistical Refutations, Full Text
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Gideon v. Wainwright, Lesson: Equal before the law
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Critique of Pure Reason, Table Of The Categories
and without relation to the identity of the subject This relation then does not exist because I accompany every representation with consciousness but because I join one representation to another and am conscious of the synthesis of them Consequently only because I can connect a variety of given representations in one consciousness is it possible that I can represent to myself the identity of consciousness in these representations in other words the analytical unity of apperception is possible only under the pres...

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

Machiavel's prologue.
The seizure of Barabas's wealth.
Abigail's two conversions.
Ithamore's betrayal.
The cauldron in the final scene.

Key terms and names

Machiavellian: Cunning and unscrupulous in politics.
Antisemitism: Hostility or prejudice against Jews.
Tribute: Payment made by one state to another as a sign of submission.
Stage villain: A wicked character whom the audience enjoys hating.

Seminar Questions

Comprehension Why does Ferneze seize Barabas's wealth?
Comprehension How does Barabas take revenge on the governor's son?
Comprehension How does Barabas die?
Interpretation Why does Marlowe begin with Machiavel?
Interpretation Is the play a satire of Christians as well?
Big Question How should we read works that contain prejudice?

Faith Connections

Romans 12:19 (Scripture)
Paul forbids repaying evil for evil and leaves wrath to God. Barabas answers Ferneze’s seizure of his wealth with a chain of murders that poisons a whole nunnery, his daughter Abigail among them, and ends with him falling into the boiling cauldron he set for others.
Matthew 23:28 (Scripture)
Ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: In a world ruled by greed and policy, all factions use religion as a mask; Barabas's revenge only mirrors the hypocrisy around him.

Rhetorical device: irony. The Christian governor quotes Scripture while robbing Barabas.

Debate: Resolved: that The Jew of Malta is more a satire of Christian hypocrisy than of Jews.

Memory Work

I count religion but a childish toy, And hold there is no sin but ignorance
Prologue. Barabas's famous line about concentrated wealth.

Writing Prompts

Essay: How does Marlowe use Barabas to expose the hypocrisy of others?

Comparison with The Merchant of Venice: Compare Barabas with Shylock in The Merchant of Venice.

Creative Prompts

Essay
Who is the greater villain, Barabas or Ferneze?
Classroom
How should a modern theatre stage this play responsibly?
Classroom
Compare Barabas and Shylock in a chart.