CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE
 
 

(1564-1593)
 
 
 

Christopher Marlowe was born on 6 February 1564, the eldest son of a
shoemaker. Apparently he was never really meant to follow in his father's
footsteps, because he was very well educated, which, back then, meant that he
could read and translate Ovid. At 23, he went off to London and became the
dramatist for the theatre company owned by Lords Admiral and Strange.

Kit's plays include works such as The Famous Tragedy of the Rich Jew of Malta,
Edward the Second, and the infamous Dr. Faustus. His most ambitious work was
the heroic epic Tamburlaine the Great, a play in two parts of five acts each. This
was in poem form, as all plays were then, but it has the added distinction of being
the first play written in English blank verse. He was the first to write a genuine
tragedy in English, again paving the way for Shakespeare. Kit also wrote one of the
most famous lyric poems in the English language, "The Passionate Shepherd to his Love".

In the spring of 1593, a friend of Kit's was captured and tortured by the
Queen's Privy Council. Based on this 'evidence,' the Council was preparing to
arrest Kit. But before this arrest could take place, Kit was killed in a brawl at a rooming-house in the town of Deptford. He was staying there with three of his friends. Ingram Frizer
was a known con artist and (even worse) a moneylender. Nicholas Skeres was Frizer'
frequent accomplice and probably a fence. Robert Poley was an occasional
courier/spy for Her Majesty's secret service, who had boasted of his ability to
lie convincingly under any circumstances. Frizer's master, Thomas Walsingham,
was a cousin of the noted spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham. On the night of 30
May 1593, the four of them had just finished eating when Frizer and Kit began
arguing over the bill. Kit eventually grabbed Frizer's dagger and attacked him from
behind, and in the ensuing fight, Frizer regained his dagger and stabbed and killed
his friend. He was quickly pardoned on grounds of self-defense, and his employers
did not fire or otherwise ostracize him.

Both the timing of Kit's death and the lack of any retribution against his murderer
have led some scholars to theorize that his death was faked and Kit himself took
up a new identity to escape the Privy Council. Some go so far as to state that
this new identity, was, of course, obviously, that of William Shakespeare.
 
 

The assumption that Marlowe survived for an unspecified
number ofyears to write plays under a pseudonym seems a  fragile
hook from which to hang the authorship issue, especially since all
the Marlowe plays were both attributed to him and published
posthumously.