Focus on Marlowe Memorial and analyze the Memorial.
Victorian sculptor Edward Onslow Ford was commissioned to create the memorial; there being no surviving image of Marlowe known at the time, Ford decided on an allegorical representation in the form of The Muse of Poetry, a scantily-clad lyric muse surmounting a square pedestal having statuettes of four notable players of Marlowe characters in niches on each side. These were to be (according to Rogers) Irving as Tamburlaine, George Alexander as Faustus, Herbert Beerbohm Tree as Edward II, and W. S. Willard as The Jew of Malta.Funds were insufficient to realise this plan, and the memorial, situated in the Buttermarket, was unveiled on 16 September 1891 by Irving, with his statuette as the sole plinth decoration. Rogers  asserts that the Memorial awakened a new interest in Elizabethan literature, and quoting Gosse – "Marlowe had been successfully neglected for three-hundred years" noted that "he suddenly became the subject of leading articles in the chief newspapers and magazines, and of paragraphs and leaderettes in minor ones". Although the statue earned the nicknamed Kitty (the playwright was known as Kit), some objections were raised to the statue's dishabille, especially so near the Cathedral. Shrubbery, railings and four lanterns were erected around the statue in 1892.
Much later, additional funds were raised to complete the vision, and a second unveiling was conducted by the novelist Hugh Walpole, who had briefly attended Marlowe's alma mater, The King's School, Canterbury. A contemporary source lists the statuettes on the plinth as Irving (Tamburlaine), Sir Johnston Forbes-Roberston as Faustus, James Keteltas Hackett as Edward II, and Edward Alleyn as The Jew of Malta.The statue has been resited on a number of occasions; first to King Street to make way for a World War I memorial; thence to Dane John Gardens in 1921. The memorial was damaged in a 1940 (or 1942) World War II bombing of the city, the muse being thrown to the ground. She was remounted, but facing in a new direction, an error corrected only in 1964. Two statuettes were stolen in 1977. Most recently the statue was again relocated to stand outside the Marlowe Theatre, Ian McKellen performing a rededication ceremony in 1993.
Edward Alleyn Hugh Walpole Sir Johnston Forbes-Roberston World War I Ian McKellen George Alexander Herbert Beerbohm Tree Edward II The Jew of Malta Cathedral Marlowe Theatre World War II Edward Onslow Ford Canterbury muse Faustus Tamburlaine The King's School, Canterbury