Christopher Marlowe was born in 1564, the same year as William Shakespeare. Marlowe's father worked in Canterbury, England, as a cobbler, and Christopher was one of many children born into their middle-class household (Bakeless 3-30). Marlowe attended the Kings School and Corpus Christi College at Cambridge on scholarships, then stayed on at Cambridge to work towards an Master of Arts. Students who did so were granted an extended scholarship--and were expected to take Holy Orders.
During the following three years, Marlowe began to absent himself from the college for weeks on end. Although such absences were not uncommon among Bachelor's students, Marlowe's spotty attendance seems to have...
