Oxford University Press
has announced that its new edition of the complete works of William Shakespeare
will credit Christopher Marlowe as a co-author on the three Henry VI plays.
Despite years of
controversy about the authorship of some of Shakespeare's work, this is the
first time a major publishing house has formally named Marlowe as a co-author.
Christopher Marlowe is a
16th century British poet and playwright. The extent of his possible influence
on (or even collaboration with) William Shakespeare is the subject of much
academic scholarship, as NPR has reported, but for many years, mainstream
academics had mostly derided efforts of independent scholars who challenged the
authorship of plays attributed to Shakespeare.
Christopher Marlowe was a contemporary playwright to Shakespeare and a great poet in his
own right. Marlowe and Shakespeare were born the same
year (1564) and Marlowe was a great playwright before Shakespeare. But Marlowe died young at 29 years old,
stabbed to death. A lot of allegations swirled
around Marlowe’s life, but it was uncertain if his murder was related. It was alleged that Marlowe was an atheist
and was to be arrested, but he died before that happened. All those allegations are rather nebulous, if
you ask me, so it’s hard to say what is true.
The NPR article goes on to say:
Much of the authorship
analysis is quite technical because it involves analyzing every word of entire
plays, looking for patterns and clues.
I
would love to see the analysis in some detail. However this is not a consensus
opinion. The article continues:
Carol Rutter, a professor
of Shakespeare and performance studies at the University of Warwick, told the
BBC, "It will still be open for people to make up their own minds. I don't
think [Oxford University Press] putting their brand mark on an attribution settles
the issue for most people.
Rutter
told the BBC, "I believe Shakespeare collaborated with all kinds of people
... but I would be very surprised if Marlowe was one of them."
As for how Marlowe's
vocabulary and style could have made it into Shakespeare's work without direct
collaboration, Rutter said: "It's much more likely that he started his
career working for a company where he was already an actor, and collaborated
not with another playwright but with the actors — who will have had Marlowe
very much in their heads, on the stage, in their voices. ... They were the ones
putting Marlowe's influence into the plays."
Either
way, this is big in the Shakespeare criticism world.
Here’s
a little mini biography of Christopher Marlowe.
