As theaters moved into permanent buildings and some actors at least gained a degree of respectability, the profession of playwright also improved dramatically. In "Midsummer Night's Dream" Shakespeare writes a parody of the overblown language of the plays in the early days of English theater. There was little subtlety in the character development or beauty in the language.

The first writer to really revolutionize the language of drama was Christopher Marlowe (1564 - 1593). The same age as Shakespeare, Marlowe had studied at Cambridge University and had arrived on the London theater scene a few years before Shakespeare. The first talent that Marlowe brought to his scripts was his gift as a poet. The author of the famous love poem "A Passionate Shepherd to His Love," Marlowe wrote beautifully. He made the blank verse in his plays at once more natural sounding and grander. His classical education at Cambridge enabled him to fill his plays with references to Greek and Roman subjects and to write plays about heroic figures from different cultures. He burst on the scene with the melodramatic spectacle Tamburlaine. He went on to write The Jew of Malta, Edward II, and his most famous work, Doctor Faustus. All Marlowe's heroes defy conventional morality and seek to control their own fates. They all end in tragic self-destruction.

Marlowe's life demonstrates two of the obstacles Shakespeare faced in his career. First, life in the theater could be unsettled and even violent. Marlowe sold his plays to acting companies and, since he was not an actor, had little control over how they were staged. Marlowe, who had worked undercover for Elizabeth's secret police while a student, was killed in a barroom brawl before he was 30. Second, writing plays was considered a job for the educated elite, for men like Marlowe who called themselves "University Wits." The rigid English class structure even influenced the theater, where playwrights looked down on actors as lower class ruffians. And Shakespeare was an actor.