Shakespeare and Marlowe: centuries old debate about Shakespeare's authorship continues

Shakespeare and Marlowe? Shakespeare or Marlowe? The centuries old debate about Shakespeare’s authorship continues. The debate about the real author of William Shakespeare’s plays has a new dimension. Gary Taylor, professor and senior editor of the project, Big Data, at the Florida State University, says that certain questions can now be answered.

Christopher Marlowe, born in the same year as Shakespeare, was also a British playwright, noted for his tragedies. In fact, his plays were said to be ‘enormously successful.’ He wrote ‘The Jews of Malta’ (1589 or 1590), ‘The Massacre at Paris: With the Death of the Duke of Guise’, ‘Doctor Faustus’ and ‘Edward the Second‘ (1593, registered five weeks before his death). He is pictured above in 1585 at the age of 21.

A long-held conjecture was that Christopher Marlowe wrote Shakespeare’s plays – a notion rejected by Shakespeare scholars. The idea that British playwright, William Shakespeare (1564-1616), collaborated with Marlowe (1564-1593) on the ‘Henry VI’ (Henry the Sixth) plays has been debated for centuries, but it had not been possible to demonstrate any proof of this – until now.

Scholars used databases of plays and other writings from the Elizabethan period, not just by Shakespeare and Marlowe, to search for distinctive words or phrases. The academics who worked on the New Oxford Shakespeare, and others, who provided peer reviews of Taylor’s findings were extremely confident about Marlowe’s authorship of some parts of the ‘Henry VI’ plays, said Taylor.

The Henry the Sixth plays are three plays: Part 1 (1591-1592), Part 2 (1590-1591, and Part 3 (1590-1591). It is thought that Part 2 and Part 3 were written before Part 1. These three, often bundled into one play, are Shakespeare’s first plays, written when he was 26 years old.

The New Oxford Shakespeare includes 44 of Shakespeare’s plays, 17 of which are identified as having been written by Shakespeare in collaboration with other authors. The publisher’s previous 1986 edition of Shakespeare’s complete works identified 8 of the 39 plays as collaborative.

Taylor said there are parts in the ‘Henry VI’ plays that are ‘very clearly’ by Shakespeare and there are parts that are ‘very clearly’ by Marlowe, adding that most of the best passages were by Shakespeare.

Taylor said that collaboration between playwrights was ‘entirely normal in the Elizabethan period, and there was no suggestion of any great secret or conspiracy regarding Shakespeare’s work with Marlowe.’ Taylor added that their famous rivalry was speculation: ‘It’s possible they loved each other, it’s possible they hated each other. We have no way of knowing. Rivals can collaborate.’

[Martina Nicolls has presented two lectures on Shakespeare at the Tbilisi State University’s International Conferences: Shakespeare and Medicine at the Shakespeare 450 Conference in May 2014, and Shakespeare and Gerontology at the Shakespeare 400 Conference in September 2016.]

Photograph: William Shakespeare 1610

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/entertainment/books/big-data-finally-proves-shakespeare-plays-were-cowritten-by-christopher-marlowe-20161025-gsam9f.html

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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