ABSTRACT
Lord Strange's men in English theatres realised that they had found a new playwright who could write speeches that would draw an audience as well as Marlowe and better than Greene. His name was Shakespeare. Both Shakespeare and Marlowe protested; for Marlowe the accusation of atheism so publicly made was embarrassing and dangerous. William Shakespeare knew much about the new playwright. In a school of drama and acting Shakespeare first learned his art. One of his earliest tasks was in an effort to outdo the horrors of The Spanish Tragedy in a drama called Titus Andronicus. Of its own bloody kind, it was a good stage play, and in some of the speeches there was music and a vigour new to the English stage, particularly in the utterances of old Titus and the Moor Aaron. It was a liberal education for Shakespeare to serve under Alleyn, and to watch him at closest quarters.
