In speaking of The Jew of Malta as “farce of the old English humour, the terribly serious, even savage comic humour, the humour which spent its last breath on the decadent genius of Dickens …” T. S. Eliot set the pitch for modern Marlovian criticism. We are reminded of Coleridge's remark about a critical dictum by Milton: “Speaking of poetry he says (as in a parenthesis), it is ‘simple, senuous, passionate.’ How awful is the power of words! fearful often in their consequence when merely felt, not understood….” When Eliot called Marlowe's play “farce,” he was saying what, in effect, most previous critics had said—the word can be “understood.” But when he added (as in a parenthesis) that this farce is “terribly serious” in the manner of the “decadent genius” of Dickens, the words can be “merely felt.”