Many scholars believe that had Christopher Marlowe lived longer, he might have become a greater dramatist than William Shakespeare. Marlowe was born a few months before Shakespeare. in 1564, to John and Catherine Marlowe of Canterbury, where the senior Marlowe was a shoemaker. Marlowe attended Cambridge University, where he received a bachelor of arts degree. Marlowe continued on at Cambridge, using a clergyman's scholarship to fund his studies. Scholars generally agree that Marlowe probably never had any intention of joining the clergy, but he was willing to say that he might be so inclined, in order to continue with his studies. When he was finally awarded his master's degree in 1587, after a great deal of controversy and amid charges that he was secretly planning on becoming a Catholic priest (Catholics could not receive degrees From Cambridge during this lime, and priests were widely suspected of plots to...