Shakespeare and Me: The Man or the Myth?

Marlowe: A Mysterious Death

The next theory is one that I was not going to include in this book because of its sheer impossibility, however it does offer up some evidence based on comparisons which may be drawn between other literary works in the Elizabethan era.

Christopher Marlowe, like Shakespeare, was at the forefront of Elizabethan literary esteem creating such wonderful works as 'Dido, Queen of Carthage', 'The Jew of Malta' and 'Dr Faustus'. Unlike the other candidates, Marlowe was not of noble blood but was educates at Cambridge University, where it is suspected that he was recruited as a secret agent. It would have been at Cambridge where Marlovian theorists would suggest that he gained all of the relevant knowledge to write both his plays and  those attributed to Shakespeare. In addition to this, unlike the other authorship theories, we indeed know that Marlowe had written plays of reputable quality so therefore would have had the capacity to write the works of Shakespeare.

Marlowe's intellectual and literary ability is not in dispute, in fact it is this that would ultimately make him one of the strongest candidates if it were not for his lack of physical ability: Marlow dies in a brawl at a Deptford pub in 1593 thus making it impossible for him to have written such wonderful Shakespearean works as 'The Tempest'. For many Shakespeare doubters this fact really put the nail in the coffin for the Marlovian theory. However, this has not stopped many theorists in their tracks, theories have emerged from the likes of Wilbur. G. Zeigler (1865),  Henry Watterson (1916) and Archie Webster (1923) explaining an excusing Christopher Marlowe's untimely death at the age of twenty nine. These authors, critics and historians contest that Marlowe did not in fact die as recorded, after being stabbed just above his right eye, but died much later. According to them, records and reports of Marlowe's death were falsified by him and his associates to avoid his imprisonment on the charge of atheism. It is claimed that, Marlowe then went into hiding and assumed a fake identity (very fitting for someone who was recruited as a secret agent). In order to continue writing plays and poetry he would be unable to put his own name to them. His new literary name? William Shakespeare.

Though this tale of false identities and faked deaths sounds as though it had just come from the latest crime or spy thriller, there is some limited evidence to support the Marlovian theory further. Many comparisons made between the work of the two writers, Marlowe and Shakespeare, appear to be very intriguing with regards to their similarities. When examining the style of writing in depth, Marlowe has been given credit for almost half of the Shakespearean works in whole or in part by literary critics who accept Marlowe's death in 1593. Literary names such as Edmund Malone, William Hazlitt and F. C. Fleay, credit Marlowe with Titus Andronicus. Alexander Dyce,  founding member of London's Shakespeare Society, has said that, "There is a strong suspicion that [Henry VI, Parts I, II, and III] are wholly by Marlowe." Samuel S. Ashbaugh made the observation that, "Shakespeare . . . must have taken a Richard III, written by Marlowe but now lost, and revised it into the Richard III subsequently ascribed to him by the pirate publishers. . . . There is far more of Marlowe than of Shakespeare in Richard III." Jane Lee agrees with this saying that, "Richard III is full of . . . Marlowe's soul and spirit." ("Transactions of the New Shakespeare Society 1875-76") Richard II, King John, and other plays have also been credited to Marlowe. So, why do so many literary authorise think this is the case? Well, as well as the similarities in classical and religious imagery, modern studies of Shakespeare and Marlowe have allowed us to compared the works with more of a scientific approach known as 'Stylometric Studies'.

Dr Thomas Medenhall (pictured above), the 'father' of stylometric studies.

Dr. Thomas Mendenhall, developed this scientific method to answer the many authoriship questions which inhabit our bookshelves along with determining who wrote some of the great anonymous works. The Stylometric method is based upon the idea that every writer had their own 'literary fingerprint' which is unique to them alone. By plotting and calculating how frequently an author uses words in various lengths in any example of their work, Medenhall was able to identify if other works were written by them. This is done by plotting a graph of the word length frequency which displays a unique 'ration curve' for that writer. This curve can then be compared with other anonymous or disputed words to establish if the author wrote it. On examining the work of Marlowe and Shakespeare Dr. Medenhall found that the ratio-curves matched perfectly: "Christopher Marlowe agrees with Shakespeare as well as Shakespeare agrees with himself," (see Thomas Mendenhall, "A Mechanical Solution for a Literary Problem," Popular Science Monthly 60.7(1901):97–105). More recently a study by Peter Farey developed Mendenhall's research and found that authors may vary over time and between genres and that the two canons of work were consistent with each other (see Farey, "Stylometrics: Mendenhall's Graphs Revisited").

As convincing as this scientific evidence may be, there is still no getting away from the fact that Marlowe was, on record, dead long before the final published work of 'William Shakespeare'. Calvin Hoffman, the late American theatre critic, would not accept that Marlowe had dies at all. He was determined to open the tomb of Marlowe's patron and, according to Hoffman, his lover, Thomas Walsingham. He was convinced that some clue may be found in the tomb or in fact some copies of the plays attributes to Shakespeare. After much difficulty, Hoffman was allowed to open the chest on the family vault in Chislehurst, Kent. He found nothing but sand. Much later, in 1984, he was given permission to drill through the floor to allow him to peer into the tomb. Again, he found nothing. Despite the advancements in technology which allow us to draw comparisons, there is no evidence that Marlowe was alive post-1593 which for many makes this theory unconvincing. What do you think? Did Marlowe die in 1593? Or is it a coincidence that Shakespeare and Marlowe's work exhibits such remarkable similarities?

If you enjoyed this chapter, please consider giving it a vote. Many thanks, M.R.W