The Age of Shakespeare

"The Age of Shakespeare" by Algernon Charles Swinburne is a literary review from the early 1900s that examines the playwrights and poets of Shakespeare's time, such as Christopher Marlowe, John Webster, and Thomas Dekker, and how they impacted Shakespeare's works and the culture around them. At first, the book praises Christopher Marlowe as the first great English poet to show how powerful blank verse could be. Swinburne focuses on how innovative Marlowe was, especially in tragedies like "Tamburlaine" and "Doctor Faustus," and explains how Marlowe inspired other writers like Webster and Dekker, who helped shape English theater. The beginning shows great respect for Marlowe's talent and the literary changes of the period, which sets the stage for the rest of the critical analysis.