(Obviously a gay man’s perspective.) But first we get the dish on hunky Leander: It’s not going too far to say that without this Historical Homo, we wouldn’t have had the same Shakespeare.Īnd in case you’re still on the fence – you heterosexual sympathizer – here are some quotes from Marlowe’s gayest poem Hero and Leander, which describes an ancient Greek hottie, Leander, seducing Hero (a confusingly named priestess of Aphrodite), whose poetic description consists mostly of her clothing and shoes. Pity it is that wit so ill should dwell, Wit lent from heaven, but vices sent from hell.īut Kit Marlowe is more than just the Queer Shakespeare - he is a different animal, whose innovations in verse and on stage sounded the arrival of the Golden Age in Elizabethan literature. Marlow, bathed in Thespian springs Had in him those brave translunary things, That the first Poets had, his raptures were All air, and fire, which made his verses clear, For that fine madness still he did retain, Which rightly should possess a poet’s brain. Shakespeare referenced him several times in As You Like It (~1598) and he continued to be imitated by poets who succeeded him. That he was much more open about his counterculture beliefs in matters of religion and sex is easy to forget, but it’s precisely this rebel thinking that’s had such an impact on us today.Īt the time of his death, Marlowe’s legacy was secured by the London glitterati who praised him as a luminary of English poetry, stamped out too soon. His blank verse and innovative dramas paved the way for Shakespeare and others to do their best work. Marlowe never got the chance to truly rival Shakespeare, but he was on the scene several years before him and probably regarded him as a friendly rival. Marlowe rose from garbage-rags to become a highly educated, literary, scheming, brilliant and freethinking poet-dramatist: he wrote 6 plays in 6 years that we’re still reading and performing 4 centuries later.
Marlowe’s poetry is JUST as good as Shakespeare’s and sometimes even wittier (perhaps in the way only a vicious queen could be) - it celebrates male love and beauty with a sensuousness that Shakespeare never matched (though he did try in the Sonnets). Sometime a lovely boy in Dian's shape, With hair that gilds the water as it glides, Crownets of pearl about his naked arms, And in his sportful hands an olive-tree, To hide those parts which men delight to see, Shall bathe him in a spring … Such things as these best please his Majesty.
And in the day, when he shall walk abroad, Like sylvan nymphs my pages shall be clad. I must have wanton poets, pleasant wits, Musicians, that with touching of a string May draw the pliant king which way I please. Marlowe’s greatest poetry is reserved for the spectacle of their relationship, like when Gaveston describes how he plans to keep the new King Edward II interested in him by planning a fabulously gay party at court: They are imprisoned and/or murdered by the end of the show.įor any human heart leaving this play, it is Edward and Gaveston’s love that remains beautifully sticky in the mind. Marlowe makes things even more complicated by painting Queen Isabella and her king-killing lover as just that: killers. When the bill came, a brawl broke out, things were said that should not have been said and daggers were drawn.Īt the age of just 29, the brilliant and boisterous Marlowe was penetrated to death just above his right eye - and not in the fun way.
In late May of that year, with plague ravaging London for the 90 billionth time, Marlowe was invited to a house in Kent (SW England) to spend the day chilling, drinking and eating with two true scammers – Ingram Frizer and Nicholas Skeres – who were likely in the employ of Her Elizabethan Majesty’s Secret Service. Rumors of his heretical views – in religion and sex – abounded, and an order for an investigation was issued while he worked on one of his gayest poems yet: Hero and Leander.
Big wigs like Lord Burghley, Francis Walsingham (the real spymaster) and Sir Christopher Hatton were among the lords keeping this rebel with too much cause out of prison.īy 1593, he was getting out of control. He was often arrested and bailed out by Elizabeth’s higher-ups as a result.