PlayShakespeare.com: The Ultimate Free Shakespeare Resource
PlayShakespeare.com: The Ultimate Free Shakespeare Resource
PlayShakespeare.com: The Ultimate Free Shakespeare Resource
PlayShakespeare.com: The Ultimate Free Shakespeare Resource
  Friday, 30 May 2008
  1 Replies
  1.6K Visits
  Subscribe
1593: Leading Elizabethan playwright Christopher Marlowe is stabbed to death in a pub brawl in Deptford.

(BBC, Today in History)

Tragic for the English Stage, not much fun, I imagine, for Mr Marlowe himself.

This is supposedly an 'unusual event': A cover-up story for re-branding Marlowe as Shakespeare; for removing a distinctly colourful young man with extreme views on a number of sensitive issues (religion, politics and sex) and turning him to a quiet, gentle scribe.

I think events in the UK at the moment might give a clue as to the very usualness of the events.

http://www.itv.com/img/157x104/Graphic-ads-target-knife-crime-ef6f5bed-dedc-404c-8d1d-be740e6414bf.jpg

If the newspapers are to be believed, violent crime in the UK is actually going down. What is rising is the number of young men being killed or seriously wounded through knife attacks.

Taking a knife, to a pub, and getting into an argument when you are drunk can easily cut off a very promising career.

That was as true for the first Elizabethans as it is for the second, modern Elizabethan generation.
15 years ago
·
#2485
The same thing happened to Ted Healy, founder of the Three Stooges. When his son was born, he went out and got drunker and drunker and finally died in a bar fight in Los Angeles. He was only 41 years old.
  • Page :
  • 1
There are no replies made for this post yet.
Get the Shakespeare Pro app