Harvard Magazine Feature: "Shakespeare's Greatest Rival"

Harvard Magazine explores how Christopher Marlowe—the son of a poor Canterbury cobbler who became a radical playwright, spy, and victim of murder—sparked England's Renaissance and made Shakespeare's career possible.

In this in-depth feature, Stephen Greenblatt reveals how Marlowe "cracked something open" and enabled Shakespeare to walk through "over his dead body." The article highlights Marlowe's revolutionary innovations: his invention of blank verse that gave English drama a new expressive power, and his creation of complex internal psychology on stage through works like Doctor Faustus—innovations that Shakespeare would later master in Hamlet and Macbeth.

Read the full feature: Harvard Magazine - Shakespeare's Greatest Rival