Five Reasons Marlowe Is Better than Shakespeare

I didn’t discover Christopher Marlowe until a couple of years ago. I had heard his name vaguely related to Shakespeare and didn’t think much more of it. I guess I felt another playwright full of “thees” and “thous” wouldn’t be my thing.

But one day, I was in one of my used book store haunts and “Dr. Faustus,” one of his plays, caught my eye. The play begins with a chorus focusing on the Doctor:

And glutted now with learning’s golden gifts,
He surfeits upon cursed necromancy;
Nothing so sweet as...