ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -Marlowe’s poem relates the Greek legend of Hero and Leander, young lovers living in cities on opposite sides of the Hellespont, a narrow stretch of the sea in what is now northwestern Turkey, and which separates Europe and Asia.

Detailed explanation-2: -”Hero and Leander” is an epyllion, a short epic poem, in which Hero and Leander are lovers separated by the Hellespont, a narrow strip of water between Sestos and Abydos, the towns in which Hero and Leander live. The lovers first meet at the yearly festival of Adonis, one of Venus’ lovers, and fall in love.

Detailed explanation-3: -Hero and Leander, two lovers celebrated in Greek legend. Hero, virgin priestess of Aphrodite at Sestos, was seen at a festival by Leander of Abydos; they fell in love, and he swam the Hellespont at night to visit her, guided by a light from her tower.

Detailed explanation-4: -Marlowe for his narrative poem Hero and Leander (1598) and by John Donne in the early 17th century for his satires, his elegies, and his longer meditative poems.

Detailed explanation-5: -Despite the brevity of his career, Marlowe made an indelible mark on English literature. He is considered by many to have established blank verse as the preferred meter of Elizabethan and Jacobean writing, and he was also a major influence on William Shakespeare, who was born in the same year.