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Christopher Marlowe
Life Time
23 February 1564 - 30 May 1593
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Christopher Marlowe (1564-1592) was Shakespeare’s greatest predecessor in the field of drama and his contemporary, the true creator of the English Renaissance tragedy. He, despite his non-aristocratic origins (from the family of a master shoemakers and tanners), received an excellent education at Cambridge and was awarded a master's degree, but connected himself with the theater and became a playwright. This was unusual because more often than not people from not very wealthy families, like Marlo's,
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Christopher Marlowe (1564-1592) was Shakespeare’s greatest predecessor in the field of drama and his contemporary, the true creator of the English Renaissance tragedy. He, despite his non-aristocratic origins (from the family of a master shoemakers and tanners), received an excellent education at Cambridge and was awarded a master's degree, but connected himself with the theater and became a playwright. This was unusual because more often than not people from not very wealthy families, like Marlo's, after graduation took the priesthood and became priests, but he did not go down this path. He was also not destined to become an actor. According to legend, he broke his leg and had to quit acting. Then he started writing plays. Marlo was called one of the representatives of the so-called "university minds" along with Robert Green, Thomas Kid, John Lily and Thomas Lodge. It is now established that Marlowe belonged in London to a circle of prominent scientists - astronomers, mathematicians, geographers, famous for their freethinking, as well as poets and artists, gathered around the favorite of Queen Elizabeth Walter Raleigh, a man of wide education and free thought. Marlowe himself was distinguished by striking free-thinking views: he preached atheistic ideas and said that religion was created by politics. At the same time, Christopher Marlowe was on a number of secret government assignments and possibly a spy. Shortly before Marlowe's death, a case was brought against him by the Privy Council (the body that served Queen Elizabeth for political surveillance and political cases) on charges of atheism. But the trial on this charge was never destined to take place: on May 30, 1593, Christopher Marlowe, in his thirtieth year of life, was killed in a tavern.