Marlowe wrote his plays before Shakespeare's masterpieces had been conceived; but we read him afterwards and in his successor's light. This causes many critical misapprehensions and theatrical mistakes. We stage Marlowe in a theatre accustomed to Shakespeare, with actors, directors, and designers who have all had experience of his plays: talents have been developed and techniques evolved for Shakespeare's dialogue in all its revolutionary subtlety, for Shakespeare's kind of dramatic action and characterization. A careful dissociation is necessary before reading and performing Marlowe for his own sake.

Marlowe had not been dead ten years before these difficulties arose. By the end of the century, Pistol in Henry IV, Part 2, was discharging his “high astounding terms,” which mocked the bragging language of Tamburlaine and other plays of that period.