The reason I was initially drawn to the theory that Christopher Marlowe wrote the works of Shakespeare - having faked his death in Deptford and fled into exile abroad - was primarily because of a wise old lady (sadly no longer with us) called Dolly Wraight. She'd been the final speaker at the first Shakespeare Authorship Trust conference I attended, and proceeded to eclipse those who'd gone before her with restraint and reason. I'd begun to feel rather weary until then, especially after one particularly fanciful lecture, purporting the sonnets were written by a woman. The academic in question had little to base this sensational hypothesis upon except for 'overwhelming gut feelings' (for which I would have suggested Milk of Magnesia had I any mischief left in me at the time). It also provided an opportunity for said academic to overshare details of their seemingly moribund romantic life and accrimonious divorce however, which hopefully provided them (at least) with some comfort. I'm all for personal connections, but can't imagine such diversions add credibility to an already stigmatised debate.
Perhaps that's a bit harsh though, as Ms Wraight herself wasn't averse to a few confirmation biases and hypothetical detours of her own. She appeared somewhat unconvinced about the suggestions that Marlowe might have been gay or bisexual for instance; to some degree eager to santise his bad-boy image and dwindle it down (or romance it up) to a mere rogueishness. It seems to me though that if Marlowe wasn't sexually interested in men (at least partially) he'd a funny way of showing it. Should Edward the Second (gay royal biopic), Hero and Leander (gay erotic poetry), and the prologue to Dido Queen of Carthage (Jove and his mortal rent-boy Ganymede in a scene that wouldn't be out of place in gay soft porn) not be influenced by the writer's own particular proclivities, it's hard to imagine why he'd write such things.
There is also this bizarre and astonishing fact. The careers of Shakespeare and Marlowe, both born in the same year, perhaps even on he same day, all too conveniently dovetail. As Marlowe (the most celebrated poet and playwright of the age) supposedly dies, Shake-Speare (totally unheralded) springs into the fray with Venus and Adonis. This particularly courtly, intellectually flashy and racy (in its confessions of a cougar way) bestseller is dedicated to our old friend Henry Wriothesely. Imagine, friends, you are a young poet, with no credentials or standing in society, and you choose to approach a famously arrogant and vain member of the aristocracy with a poem that shows him being essentially sexually assaulted by a woman old enough to be his mother as well as an utterly absurd personal familiarity. And as implausable (and utterly without proof) that theory is, there are also clear connections to other contenders (as we have seen in the case of Edward de Vere). In terms of theme and style, the poem is clearly in the domain of Marlowe, stylometrically and thematically sitting alongside his Hero and Leander, to name just one.
Despite DW Wraight's desire to keep Marlowe in the closet however, her tireless investigative research kept the torch burning for him and inspired others (as others before her) to undertake all manner of unchartered territory and research (some of which even ended up disproving her own). The trail that leads from Deptford strand to Europe (France, the Netherlands and Italy) where Marlowe had supposedly fled may not have turned up absolute proof as yet. But nonetheless it's a fitting and deeply intriguing narrative that mirrors the almost obsessive focus on themes of exile, reconciliation and forgiveness - of coincidences and magical, miraculous restorations, resurrections, interventions and reaquaintances - of the late plays. In addition, the preponderance of sonnets (over half) that seem to deal with painful ideas like exile, banishment, scandal and absence from those beloved by the poet seem justified and clarified.
Perhaps that's a bit harsh though, as Ms Wraight herself wasn't averse to a few confirmation biases and hypothetical detours of her own. She appeared somewhat unconvinced about the suggestions that Marlowe might have been gay or bisexual for instance; to some degree eager to santise his bad-boy image and dwindle it down (or romance it up) to a mere rogueishness. It seems to me though that if Marlowe wasn't sexually interested in men (at least partially) he'd a funny way of showing it. Should Edward the Second (gay royal biopic), Hero and Leander (gay erotic poetry), and the prologue to Dido Queen of Carthage (Jove and his mortal rent-boy Ganymede in a scene that wouldn't be out of place in gay soft porn) not be influenced by the writer's own particular proclivities, it's hard to imagine why he'd write such things.
There is also this bizarre and astonishing fact. The careers of Shakespeare and Marlowe, both born in the same year, perhaps even on he same day, all too conveniently dovetail. As Marlowe (the most celebrated poet and playwright of the age) supposedly dies, Shake-Speare (totally unheralded) springs into the fray with Venus and Adonis. This particularly courtly, intellectually flashy and racy (in its confessions of a cougar way) bestseller is dedicated to our old friend Henry Wriothesely. Imagine, friends, you are a young poet, with no credentials or standing in society, and you choose to approach a famously arrogant and vain member of the aristocracy with a poem that shows him being essentially sexually assaulted by a woman old enough to be his mother as well as an utterly absurd personal familiarity. And as implausable (and utterly without proof) that theory is, there are also clear connections to other contenders (as we have seen in the case of Edward de Vere). In terms of theme and style, the poem is clearly in the domain of Marlowe, stylometrically and thematically sitting alongside his Hero and Leander, to name just one.
Despite DW Wraight's desire to keep Marlowe in the closet however, her tireless investigative research kept the torch burning for him and inspired others (as others before her) to undertake all manner of unchartered territory and research (some of which even ended up disproving her own). The trail that leads from Deptford strand to Europe (France, the Netherlands and Italy) where Marlowe had supposedly fled may not have turned up absolute proof as yet. But nonetheless it's a fitting and deeply intriguing narrative that mirrors the almost obsessive focus on themes of exile, reconciliation and forgiveness - of coincidences and magical, miraculous restorations, resurrections, interventions and reaquaintances - of the late plays. In addition, the preponderance of sonnets (over half) that seem to deal with painful ideas like exile, banishment, scandal and absence from those beloved by the poet seem justified and clarified.
