The cloak-and-dagger poet

It is almost impossible to write a good biography of Shakespeare. His plays contain at once too much and too little for the biographer; his extraordinary impersonality means that he hardly ever reveals his hand. Every voice has its counter-voice; no single character speaks on behalf of the author.

Christopher Marlowe, by contrast, is a biographer’s dream. Whereas Shakespeare vanished into each of his characters, Marlowe stamped his trademark onto his singular anti-heroes: Tamburlaine the Great rising from Scythian shepherd to conqueror of the world, Dr Faustus making his contract with Mephistopheles, King Edward II putting his desires above his crown (with Piers Gaveston in the role of Mrs Simpson). Shakespeare quietly withdraws himself from the worlds he depicts in his plays, just as he eventually withdrew himself from London to his handsome house in Stratford-upon-Avon. Marlowe throws himself into his dramas of power, sex, intrigue and ambition, just as he threw himself into the dangerous world of religious controversy, counterfeiting and espionage.