Candidates for Shakespeare
Christopher Marlowe
Christopher Marlowe, playwright, (b. 1564, the same year as
Shakspere, d. 1593 just as Shakespeare ‘materialised’). Marlowe was
29 when he died, except that “he didn’t die” and “HE wrote
Shakespeare thereafter”. As a claim for authorship, it is described
as an elaborate hoax on the part of the aristocracy. It is an
extraordinary claim, based on several presumptive assertions – that
Marlowe wrote Shakespeare BEFORE 1593, and that Marlowe wrote
Shakespeare AFTER 1593, and that Shakspere was a provincial
nonentity, some-time actor and scribbler. Shakspere was not a
University ‘wit’, not ‘tutored in further education’, and someone
who could not possibly have gone on from 1593 to produce a further
flow of plays successful and worthy of genius. And that Marlowe was
a paid spy, in the government’s pocket and willing pridelessly to
hide away and accept this secondary, anonymous role after years of
adulation!
Mind you, Marlowe was the son of a humble village cobbler and his
attaining University was a fine, substantial step in his education.
But hardly to his personal development. He was roisterous and
boisterous, blasphemer, drunk, pederast and still a lyrical dramatic
genius – on that dramatic side, he is often seen today as OTT (over
the top).
His rapid success and an either uncaring or egotistical
understanding that he was indeed ‘the real bridge’ between ‘medieval
and modern’ in Elizabethan terms and therefore very special, leader
of the “new wave” in theatre, could have virtually unhinged anyone –
hence his dark delusions leading into entrapment and employment by
the Elizabeth / Walsingham secret service, and all the blind often
dangerous alleys that ego fascinates us into.
Though some realistically today see his Works as “over-rated”,
his “life and talent were spectacular” and he is the truly
professional candidate in this great Detective Story. His
productive, high quality imaginative work is illustrated by his
Cambridge career. From there emerged “Doctor Faustus”, a secular and
metaphysical vision of a seeker after truth selling his soul to the
Devil.
Questions arose why Marlowe, an atheist not believing in heaven
or hell, worked so hard to depict so convincingly man’s hell “under
the controlling limitations of divine law”?
It was performed in London, while he was at Cambridge. If Marlowe
didn’t believe in hell, and the play was not autobiographical, then
the dramatic picture he painted, it was said, could be only as a
result of tortured visions or a magnificent creative imagination?
(Such questions were asked later, about Shakespeare, particularly
with the Sonnets: actual experience or the abundant, fertile
imagination of the true poet?)
Remarkable poetry and dramatic power inherent in “Doctor
Faustus”, despite an ill-constructed storyline, affected the actors
and well as audiences – some of each even seeing ‘devils’ in the
place of performance. At Dulwich, goes the story, Ned Alleyn playing
Faustus was so shaken he decided there and then to “found a College
to God”... and, true to his word, later Dulwich College came into
being.
Then in 1587 came Marlowe’s Tamburlaine the Great, “blazing
poetry and un-coherent construction” yet 200 performances in London,
the people-stunning event that truly broke with the past and opened
the future: it went on into that long run... influencing
appreciative, and (word of mouth publicity) waiting-to-be
informed/transfixed audiences... Marlowe was “this atheistic gracer
of tragedies”, the genius, the mysterious – the “ultimate
ghostwriter” if he had lived and “become” Shakespeare.
But WHY write “Shakespeare”? It makes more sense that he
contribute to his rivals expanding canon? In the glow of his
(Marlowe’s) current successes... by offering largesse AND thus
influencing more audiences?
Many of Shakespeare’s plays and Sonnets, and even outlines of
Venus, and Lucrece, might well have been completed by Shakspere from
1587-92, but slow to be staged or known. But WHY would Marlowe have
written them, under alias? His own name, garlanded with “provocative
artistry” was grand and secure - why would Marlowe have allowed them
out not under HIS name before/by his death in 1593? Could it have
been that Shakespere’s potential attracted Marlowe’s jealousy? Were
aristocratic names being bandied about, promising the less
difficult, “more attractive and witty” Shakespeare favour and
support?
Concluding the Marlowe career... from Faustus, the The Jew of
Malta, to the Massacre at Paris, his successes resounded before and
during Shakespeare’s emergence. His last play, Edward II, was, say
the modern knowledgeable, his best – near perfect.
He impacted on audiences “ferociously”, but the Works of the
truly gifted Shakespeare were equally impactful and offered even
greater dimensions in subtlety and sensitivity, and in spirituality
(as Marlowe was an avowed, active atheist?).
Whatever truth, Shakspere who followed the great literary and
playmaker Marlowe would have been grateful. His early Titus
Andronicus owes much to Marlowe (and Kyd). How sad, as it has been
noted, that in 1593, “Marlowe died with half his music and
cosmography in him.”
Additional notable points
- Marlowe was a brilliant writer, a seasoned professional, and a
tempestuous character, rather than “a noble sensitive dilettante”
- His writing style can be analysed, on the basis of known works
published. This was done and, just maybe, similarities
Shakespeare-Marlowe can be attributed, ascribed to the aspirant
Stratford man’s admiring competitiveness
- The Mendenhall system, applied to the writing of Marlowe and
Shakespeare, based on a regular word-length which all writers
theoretically display, demonstrated an astounding, almost EXACT
match, just not found with others
- In fact, when applied to Bacon-Shakespeare, the statistical
test involving examination in both cases of 200,000 words, showed
that Bacon used far longer word-lengths. Yet, of all these great
names, Bacon had in his Promus the only ‘working notebook’ extant
to us
- As we would say, today, not exactly space-science, but
interesting, in both cases
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