Atheism

Atheism and sodomy in 16th century England are two highly complex, multi-layered subjects that I can hardly do justice here. In some respects they have similarities, which is why it is beneficial to read the two contributions one after the other. A comprehensive, excellent and highly recommended work on the…

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Cambridge Portrait

In 1952, renovations took place in Cambridge in the part of Corpus Christi College where Marlowe had probably once stayed. Among other things, two oak panels were removed that a student wanted to use to build a Hi Fi shelf. When he discovered that they were painted, he took them…

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Grafton Portrait

The John Rylands Library in Manchester has a portrait said to show both Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare. The Grafton portrait is painted in oil on an oak panel measuring 17.25 x 15.5 inches (44.5 x 38.5 cm). In the upper left corner is the inscription "AE SVAE [aetatis suae]…

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Homosexuality

Atheism and homosexuality in 16th century England are two highly complex, multi-layered subjects that I can hardly do justice to here. In some respects they have similarities, which is why it is beneficial to read the two contributions one after the other. For a comprehensive study of the subject, I…

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Marlovians

Since 1955, Marlovians is a name for the people who believe that Christopher Marlowe survived his death in 1593 to go on to write the works of which William Shakespeare is generally regarded as the author.1 In August 1819, an anonymous review of Nathan Drake’s Shakespeare and his Times appeared…

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Mythography

Reputable literature on Christopher Marlowe has lost some of its reputability for some time now. This does not mean that all these works are scientifically useless in their entirety. Nor do one’s own theses and speculations belong banned from science. It is just that they are hardly ever referred to…

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School of Night

In the autumn of 1591, Elizabeth I issued a proclamation against the priests and Jesuits of the Catholic Seminary. The English Jesuit Robert Persons reacted to this by writingElizabethæ Angliæ reginæ hæresim Calvinianam propvgnantis sævissimvm in Catholicos sui regni Edictvm, which stated that Walter Raleigh would be appointed a member…

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Stylometry

This is not – as one might assume from the etymology – the measuring of pencils, but a method of text analysis. Lorenzo Valle could be described as the first stylometrist, who established the forgery of the Donation of Constantine through stylistic comparisons around 1440. The term itself was introduced…

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University Wits

Christopher Marlowe is considered one of the so-called "university wits". Der Ausdruck lässt sich schwer übersetzen. Das englische "wits" bedeutet "Geist" im Sinne von "Intellekt", "Esprit" oder "Scharfsinn". "Universitätsgeister" klingt allerdings nach einer schlechten Spukgeschichte. The very term is problematic. George Edward Bateman Saintsbury first used it in 1887 in…

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