Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593),[1] English playwright and poet,[2] has appeared in works of fiction since the nineteenth century. He was a contemporary of William Shakespeare,[3] and has been suggested as an alternative author of Shakespeare's works, an idea not accepted in mainstream scholarship.[4] Marlowe, alleged to have been a government spy and frequently claimed to have been homosexual, was killed in 1593.[3]
Marlowe first appeared as a literary figure in 1825 in the first part of Ludwig Tieck's novella Dichterleben . In it, Tieck addresses, among other things, the conflict between Romanticism, represented by Shakespeare, and Sturm und Drang, represented by Marlowe.[5] The opposite view was held by Richard Henry Horne, in whose 1837 drama The Death of Marlowe Marlowe first appeared as a fictional character in English literature. Horne's Marlowe is Romanticism personified.[6] Although numerous authors have since had Marlowe appear in a wide variety of literary genres, this has been done with astonishing unimaginativeness. He is usually the homosexual outsider who rebels against the establishment and fits perfectly into the Elizabethan theatre world, which is described as a gathering place for alternative lifestyles.[7]
In The Marlen of Prague: Christopher Marlowe and the City of Gold (2022), a historical fantasy by Angeli Primlani, Marlowe appears as one of the Queen's mages who casts the Armada Spell and changes the fabric of reality itself.[28]