Christopher Marlowe
1 book analyzed
Biography
Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593) was born the same year as Shakespeare and killed in a tavern brawl at twenty-nine — possibly assassinated, possibly over a bar tab, definitely before he finished changing English literature. Son of a Canterbury shoemaker, he won a scholarship to Cambridge, likely served as a government spy (the Privy Council intervened to ensure he received his degree despite long, unexplained absences), and wrote the plays that invented English dramatic blank verse. He was publicly accused of atheism and blasphemy by his former roommate Thomas Kyd under torture. Twelve days after the accusations, he was dead — stabbed above the right eye by Ingram Frizer in a house in Deptford, ostensibly in a dispute over the bill ('le recknynge'). He left behind six plays, two narrative poems, and the foundation on which Shakespeare built everything.