Marlovian theory facts for kids

The Marlovian theory is an idea about who wrote Shakespeare's plays. The Marlovian theory says that Christopher Marlowe wrote most of those poems and plays. The theory also says Marlowe did not die in Deptford on 30 May 1593. It says his death was faked. Like William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe was an Elizabethan poet and playwright. They were both born in 1564.

Marlovian theory began in the 1800s. The idea is that the Church wanted to punish Marlowe for being an atheist, so Queen Elizabeth's government helped him fake his death, leave the country and continue writing plays by pretending those plays were Shakespeare's.

Images for kids

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  Putative portrait of Christopher Marlowe (Corpus Christi College, Cambridge).

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  The body was buried in an unmarked grave in the churchyard of St Nicholas, Deptford. The plaque shown here is modern.

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  Two Latin lines (arrow) from Ovid's Amores, which Marlowe had completely translated into English years earlier, on the title page of the first printed work of Shakespeare (1593), here reprinted in 1594

See also

In Spanish: Teoría Marlowe para niños