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 in the Monthly Review. The author proposed a hitherto unknown perspective on the biography of Shakespeare and Marlowe.

"There is however something very enigmatic about this Christopher Marlowe. Of his birth-place and early years nothing is known: but just at the time when Shakspeare left Stratford, he appears on the London boards as a distinguished actor, and an admirable play-wright […] in 1592, an improbable story was circulated, that Marlowe had been assassinated with his own sword, which attracted no judicial inquiry; and Shakspeare became immediately the same distinguished actor, the same admirable play-wright, that Marlowe had been just before. Can Christopher Marlowe have been a nome de guerre assumed for a time by Shakspeare?"²

The same author referred to his theory again more than a year later.³ In the meantime, the identity of the author is known. This is the man who in 1820 defended the existence of Christopher Marlowe in a letter to the editor of The Monthly Magazine, the rival journal of the Monthly Review.⁴ William Taylor was prone to such jokes. He published opposing views in competing papers in order to initiate a public debate. In this case, he wanted to draw attention to Marlowe, of whose biography little was known and who was in danger of being forgotten in the general Shakespearean enthusiasm of the Romantic period. Taylor, himself not a great admirer of Shakespeare, was keen on a more comprehensive study of English Renaissance literature. Maybe his hoax actually did some good. Some time later James Broughton discovered Marlowe’s entry in the burial register at Deptford.⁵ Taylor referred to this discovery in 1824 and recanted his "theory" of Marlowe’s non-existence.⁶

In the form of a fictional narrative, Wilbur Gleason Zeigler gave expression to his view in 1895 in It Was Marlowe. Under the pseudonym William Shakespeare, Marlowe had continued to write plays after his faked murder in Deptford.⁷ A few years later, Mendenhall published his stylometric investigations, which led him to the question of whether Marlowe was not Shakespeare after all. Afterwards, voices were indeed raised – not always with reference to Mendenhall – insisting on such recognition.⁸ This had all happened before Hotson had found the inquest report of Marlowe’s assassination.⁹ In this light, Calvin Hoffman’s The Murder of the Man Who was Shakespeare from 1955 seems all the more absurd. Because the Privy Council wanted to turn Marlowe in, he fled to the continent after faking his own death. There he continued to write busily and sent the manuscripts to England, where a William Shakespeare acted as a straw man for the publications.¹⁰ Hoffman saw his work neither as a joke nor as fiction, but as a serious contribution.
Compared to the Marlovians' theories, any Dan Brown novel is a profoundly researched report of fact, but on gloomy days, reading what they have to say always lifts one’s spirits. However, one must not say that aloud. Because it is one of those conspiracy theories

"[…] wie sie im Zusammenhang mit Shakespeare seit der Romantik, vorwiegend bei eher literaturfernen Kreisen, üppig ins Kraut schießen. Dafür sorgt eine kunterbunte Fantasy-Abteilung der Literaturgeschichte, die ihr Steckenpferd mit ähnlicher Hingabe reitet wie jene englischen Sherlock-Holmes-Fans, die ewig neue Details aus dem Privatleben ihres Idols zutage fördern – nur meist mit etwas weniger Humor. Denn man sieht sich, ungeachtet aller Divergenzen, einhellig als Opfer einer finsteren Verschwörung, angezettelt von den vermeintlichen Experten, um das Geheimnis des wahren Shakespeare im Dunkeln zu lassen. Und der zu erwartende Spott der Uneinsichtigen schlägt wohl im Voraus aufs Gemüt."¹¹

Hard to believe, but there really are several groups trying to establish their respective desired candidate as the real Shakespeare with a crusading mentality. One sometimes gets the impression that the real opponents of the Marlovians are not the establishment but the Oxfordians (They think Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford would have written Shakespeare’s œuvre.).¹² Among Marlovians and Oxfordians alike, there is a tendency to attribute the authorship of every piece of English (and sometimes other-language) writing from the Act of Supremacy to Hamlet to the cooking recipe to Marlowe or Oxford.¹³ For all those concerned with Elizabethan-Jacobean literature, I propose to agree on a new theory: Only two writers of genius existed in this era: Edward de Vere and Christopher Marlowe. Both wrote independently of each other in identical form all the texts of the period in question. Since Marlovians like Oxfordians lack humour (in this matter), I’m afraid I have to add it separately: This theory is a joke! Please do not go looking for "proof" of it.