Marlowe's Ghost
"Did Christopher Marlowe write Shakespeare's plays?"
© DARYL PINKSEN 2009
Find Out More
Explore news items about the Shakespeare Authorship debate in publications from around the world.
OCTOBER 20, 2009
Plagiarism Software Finds a New Shakespeare Play
By GAËLLE FAURE
Plagiarism-detection software was created with lazy, sneaky college students in mind — not the likes of William Shakespeare. Yet the software may have settled a centuries-old mystery over the authorship of an unattributed play from the late 1500s called The Reign of Edward III. (Full Story . . . )
AUGUST 13, 2009
Gone Forever: What Does It Take to Really Disappear?
By EVAN RATLIFF
JULY 8, 2009
William Shakespeare, Businessman - Forgotten Genius
By ANTHONY KELLETT
The world’s libraries are awash with portraits of Stratford’s William Shakespeare, contrived through painstaking, line-by-line analysis of the literary works he supposedly wrote. This is frequently clever stuff and very laudable . . . but somewhat irrelevant if you have the wrong man. (Full Story . . . )
MAY 4, 2009
A Towering Playwright's Tiny Library
SOUL OF THE AGE: A Biography of the Mind of William Shakespeare
By Jonathan Bate. Illustrated. 471 pages. Random House. $35
By MICHIKO KAKUTANI
Because so few facts are known about Shakespeare’s life, biographers have had to rely on speculation and extrapolation to flesh out his story, while writers focusing on his ideas and ideals — like Mr. Bate, who proposes in this volume to give us “an intellectual biography” of the playwright — face a similar difficulty, grappling with the plural truths and willful ambiguities that proliferate throughout his work. (Full Story . . . )
APRIL 18, 2009
Justice Stevens Renders an Opinion on Who Wrote Shakespeare's Plays
It Wasn't the Bard of Avon, He Says; 'Evidence Is Beyond a Reasonable Doubt'
By JESS BRAVIN (Full Story. . .)
In his 34 years on the Supreme Court, Justice John Paul Stevens has evolved from idiosyncratic dissenter to influential elder, able to assemble majorities on issues such as war powers and property rights. Now, the court's senior justice could be gaining ground on a case that dates back 400 years: the authorship of Shakespeare's plays.
Read the whole story: Wall Street Journal
APRIL 26, 2009
More Atheists Shout It From the Rooftops
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
Despite changing attitudes, polls continue to show that atheists are ranked lower than any other minority or religious group when Americans are asked whether they would vote for or approve of their child marrying a member of that group.
Over lunch with some new atheist joiners at a downtown Charleston restaurant serving shrimp and grits, one young mother said that her husband was afraid to allow her to go public as an atheist because employers would refuse to hire him. (Full Story . . . )
JULY 31, 2005
The Last of the Indies
By LYNN HIRSCHBERG
Jim Jarmusch on Shakespeare authorship - "I think it was Marlowe."
The acclaimed independent filmmaker behind such films as Broken Flowers, Ghost Dog, and Dead Man, thinks Christopher Marlowe probably wrote the works of Shakespeare. Read his interview with Lynn Hirschberg in the NY Times July 2005. (Full Story . . . )
JANUARY 4, 2009
History Play: a question for author Rodney Bolt
BY CARLO DI NOTA
We caught up with writer Rodney Bolt, whose immensely enjoyable 2004 speculative biography, History Play: The Lives and Afterlife of Christopher Marlowe, imagines Christopher Marlowe faking his own death, escaping England, and going on to write the works we attribute to Shakespeare. (Full Story . . .)
Honoring Truth: An Interview With Jonathan Bate
Here, in a Web-exclusive FRONTLINE interview, Bate offers his perspective on what's at stake in the authorship question and why he believes it has persisted. This is serious business to Bate. Asked why the authorship question matters, he replies, "Partly it's to do with honoring truth, honoring fact. And, you know, without being melodramatic about it, you deny the reality of Shakespeare one moment, you can deny the reality of the Holocaust the next." (Full Story . . .)
SEPTEMBER 4, 2005
Shakespeare Doubters
To the Editor:
Re "The Shakespeare Code, and Other Fanciful Ideas From the Traditional Camp" (Essay, Arts pages, Aug. 30):
The idea that William Shakespeare's authorship of his plays and poems is a matter of conjecture and the idea that the "authorship controversy" be taught in the classroom are the exact equivalent of current arguments that "intelligent design" be taught alongside evolution.
In both cases an overwhelming scholarly consensus, based on a serious assessment of hard evidence, is challenged by passionately held fantasies whose adherents demand equal time.
The demand seems harmless enough until one reflects on its implications. Should claims that the Holocaust did not occur also be made part of the standard curriculum?
Stephen Greenblatt
Cambridge, Mass., Aug. 30, 2005
The writer is a professor of English at Harvard and author of "Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare." (Full Story . . .)
SEPTEMBER 18, 2006
Latin Lover: Angelina Jolie and Marlowe
By DAVID K. ISRAEL
Angelina Jolie has a curious connection to Christopher Marlowe. One of her many tattoos is the Latin inscription from the well known 1585 Cambridge Portrait of Marlowe. The inscription,"Quod me nutrit, me destruit," translates to,"that which nourishes me destroys me." (Full Story . . . )
A Portrait of Marlowe?
The 1585 portrait discovered at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, in 1953, believed to be of the 21-year-old Christopher Marlowe. (Full Story . . . )
The Marlowe Society is patronized by a long list of distinguished academics and is dedicated to promoting academic study of Christopher Marlowe. The Society prints a Newsletter and a Research Journal. Books about the Shakespeare authorship question are listed here.
APRIL 19, 2009
Unlocking Shakespeare's sonnets
By BILL VARDLE
What Hank Whittemore had in mind was an entertaining little play that would provide a new framework for understanding Shakespeare's sonnets. And his identity. In 90 minutes.
Meet "Shake-speare's Treason." It's a one-man show in which Whittemore, a New York actor and writer, dramatizes the theory that Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, wrote not only the Bard's dramatic canon but the sonnets, those 154 little enigmas wrapped in riddles that give fits even to those who know and love the plays. (Full Story . . . )
AUGUST 25, 2009
Website launch for The International Marlowe-Shakespeare Society
Our Belief is that Christopher Marlowe – in his dayEngland's greatest playwright – did not die in 1593
but survived to write most of what is now assumed
to be the work of William Shakespeare.
Our Plan is to present accurate information and
well-reasoned argument related to this belief.
Our Aim is to have this theory accepted by
Shakespearian scholars and others as the only
plausible alternative to the traditional 'Stratfordian'
position. (Full Story . . .)
AUGUST 2, 2009
Skeptic's Take on the Life and Argued Works of Shakespeare
By MICHAEL SHERMER
The anti-Stratfordian skeptics are back, and this time they have a Supreme Court justice on their side. For centuries, Shakespeare skeptics have doubted the authorship of the Stratfordian Bard's literary corpus, proffering no fewer than 50 alternative candidates (Full Story . . .)
JUNE 26, 2009
Heretic's Foundation VI: Supreme Court Pricks Shakespeare Bubble
By JOHN HUDSON
In the May 3 Sunday Express, actor Kenneth Branagh was quoted as saying: “If someone could find conclusive proof that Shakespeare wasn’t the author of the plays then it would cause a seismic shock — not least to the economy of Stratford-upon-Avon.” Significantly, the original article has been removed from the Express’ website and “repudiated,” but such a shock is precisely what is happening. Like the bubbles in the financial and housing markets, the Shakespeare industry, one of the major foundations of the modern theater, is turning out to have been a bubble built on false assumptions. And we are just beginning to feel the 400-year-old shock waves. (Full Story . . . )
APRIL 24,2009
An Irishman's Diary
Chief among the doubters is a critically-acclaimed Hamlet and the former artistic director of the Globe Theatre, Mark Rylance, who this week again voiced his scepticism about the issue and reiterated a call for more investigation. (Full Story . . . )
APRIL 23, 2009
Shakespeare did not write his own plays, claims Sir Derek Jacobi
By MARK BLUNDEN
TWO leading Shakespearean actors have joined the doubters who believe the bard did not write the plays.
Sir Derek Jacobi and Mark Rylance, also former artistic director of Shakespeare's Globe, believe his works were written by an aristocrat. They made the claims during a debate at Brunel University. Today is Shakespeare's birthday and also the day he died. (Full Story . . . )
James Shapiro writing book about Shakespeare authorship
Columbia Professor James Shapiro, author of 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare, and Rival Playwrights, is currently working on a book about the Shakespeare authorship debate. Contested Will: The Shakespeare Authorship Controversy is scheduled for a 2010 release.
JULY 3, 2008
Who Wrote Shakespeare's Plays? Debate Goes On
BY RENEE MONTAGNE
There's something that makes modern-day scholars of Shakespeare want to riot: when anyone questions whether the man from Stratford-upon-Avon really wrote the works that bear his name. (Full Story . . . )
One of the best online sources for information about the Christopher Marlowe claim to Shakespeare's works is this website developed by Peter Farey.
See Farey's fascinating study of word length frequencies comparing Marlowe and other writers to Shakespeare.
Read Peter's argument that the body claimed to be Christopher Marlowe's was actually that of another persecuted writer, John Penry, who had been executed the day before.
Peter was a joint winner of the 2007 Hoffman Prize. Read his intriguing explanation of the inscription on the Stratford monument.
You can read his Hoffman prize winning essay here.
JULY 12, 2002
Marlowe given Poets' Corner tribute
Elizabethan playwright Christopher Marlowe has been honoured with a memorial glass panel in Westminster Abbey's Poets' Corner, which places him among the greatest names in English literature. (Full Story . . . )
JULY 11, 2002
Marlowe tribute puts question mark over Shakespeare
By NIGEL REYNOLDS
The project was a little controversial from the start: a memorial window at Poet's Corner in Westminster Abbey to Christopher Marlowe, the Elizabethan playwright, poet, heretic, blasphemer, spy, homosexual and rascal.
But a provocative detail etched on to the window, being unveiled this evening, has turned what promised to be a happy, historic occasion into one fraught with academic disagreement. (Full Story . . . )
MARCH 18, 2007
There's No Doubt It's Will
By STANLEY WELLS
The nonsense started around 1785. That was the year a Warwickshire clergyman fantasized that William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon was not the author of the works everyone had until then supposed he had written. In doing so, he laid the foundations of the so-called authorship question, which has grown into an immense monument to human folly. (Full Story . . . )
A Declaration of Reasonable Doubt
To Shakespeare lovers everywhere, as well as to those who are encountering him for the first time: know that a great mystery lies before you. How could William "Shakspere" of Stratford have been the author, William Shakespeare, and leave no definitive evidence of it that dates from his lifetime? And why is there an enormous gulf between the alleged author's life and the contents of his works? (Full Story . . . )
Shakespeare Authorship Studies - The Shakespeare Authorship Question
II. MODULE DESCRIPTION and AIMS
The Shakespeare Authorship Question will examine and consider the phenomenon of the Authorship Question in all its diversity. After an in-depth consideration of the social and academic significance of the subject, outside speakers will be invited to put their case to the student group. Students will examine the history and cultural relevance of this phenomenon and will assess its cultural raison d’etre. (Full Story . . . )
OCTOBER 29, 2007
More stars declare their doubt of Shakespeare
The veteran stars of stage, film and TV, Michael York and Jeremy Irons, and Roland Emmerich, the director of the Hollywood blockbusters Independence Day, and The Day After Tomorrow, have added their names to the Declaration of Reasonable Doubt About the Identity of William Shakespeare, part of an internet-based campaign, questioning whether Shakespeare wrote the works of Shakespeare. (Full Story . . . )
Retired neuroscientist Bastian Conrad has assembled an impressive wesbite which explores the Marlowe-Shakespeare controversy. It's in German, but Google translate can quickly render it into English.
© DARYL PINKSEN 2009
