Literary Similarities Between Marlowe And Shakespe

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Literary Similarities Between Marlowe and Shakespeare Many readers, critics, and biographers have remarked on close similarities between Marlowe’s works and Shakespeare’s poems and plays. The following material is summarized by Alex Jack, editor of the 400th anniversary edition of Hamlet by Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare (Amber Waves, 2005). It is sincerely hoped that this material will contribute to ongoing dialogue, research, and mutual respect among historians, critics, and everyone else who has been touched by the beauty and magic of the Marlovian and Shakespearean works. 1. Literary Influence: Marlowe’s literary influence on Shakespeare has been universally accepted. “In seven of his plays Shakespeare is clearly and probably consciously copying Marlowe and in eleven other plays there are faint traces and suggestions of Marlowe’s influence,” notes John Bakeless in The Tragicall History of Christopher Marlowe (Harvard UP, 1942). “The exact relationship of these two major figures is one of the chief puzzles of literary history. That it existed—that it was very far-reaching in its effect upon Shakespeare and through him upon all English letters ever after, there is no possible room for doubt.” “He [Marlowe] first, and he alone, guided Shakespeare into the right way of work . . .”declared critic Algernon Charles Swinburne. “Marlowe is the greatest discoverer, the most daring pioneer, in all our poetic literature. Before Marlowe there was no genuine blank verse and genuine tragedy in our language. After his arrival the way was prepared, the path made straight for Shakespeare” (The Age of Shakespeare, Harper, 1908). 2. 1. 2. 3. 4. Line and Verse: Christopher “Kit” Marlowe’s “mighty line” revolutionized the Elizabethan stage. Tamburlaine, Dr. Faustus, Edward II, The Jew of Malta, Dido Queen of Carthage, and The Massacre at
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