Some Anomalies Dissolved by the Shakespeare-X Message
Which historical Shakespeare anomalies are dissolved by the revelation that Marlowe is Shakespeare?
My interest is not to make a complete list, which would number in the dozens. This is the work of academics for the coming decade. Shakespeare-Marlowe’s works are riddled with allusion to his complex personal situation.
The metanarrative of the complete works of Shakespeare is the story of a man in anguished exile in Italy. He suffers from a public identity problem, caused by his banishment at the hands of political powers beyond his control, and it manifests in the literary works in relation to mistaken identity, social disgrace and usurped honor.
These are the obsessions of the writer who wrote these plays, as clearly evidenced by the texts. This is the precise real life story of Christopher Marlowe and it bears no relation to the life of William Shakespeare, the successful theater actor of London.
Some major anomalous aspects now solved by the Shakespeare-X Message Proof:
1. Why are so many plays set in Italy, when Shakespeare was never there, and the plays show an intimate knowledge of the country and its literary sources.
Marlowe lived there in exile for many years. The Renaissance was flourishing there and it was a center of art and thought.
2. Why do the plays and poetry constantly allude to exile?
Marlowe was in exile and longed for England.
3. Why do so many of the plays turn on the matter of identity and mistaken identity?
Marlowe was traumatized by his situation of banishment. And he was using the theme of mistaken identity to direct attention to the authorship imposture.
4. Why do so many of the plays concern themselves with royal usurpation?
Marlowe's reputation as a writer was being publicly usurped by the name Shakespeare.
5. Why are there such similarities in Marlowe and Shakespeare’s poetic and theatrical styles? Including theme, subject and historical approach?
One man wrote them all.
6. Why are the love sonnets so allusively homosexual?
Marlowe was at least bisexual.
7. How did the First Folio come to have 18 of 36 plays which are not available from any other source?
Marlowe probably supervised the publication using his own manuscripts. He was then 57 years old and possibly ill and no longer writing original plays, (possibly by agreement with the new King James I under the terms of his return from exile).
This is also why there are text improvements in the First Folio over the previously published versions.
8. How did Shakespeare manage to write at least 36 long plays in less than 20 years? As well as have a career as an actor and businessman at the same time? It is an impossibly prolific level of literary production.
Marlowe wrote the plays in perhaps 20-30 years, while living peacefully in exile and in hiding. He had no other theatrical career business to occupy his time.
9. Why did Shakespeare produce or publish absolutely nothing until he was 29 years old, beginning only 2 months after Marlowe’s sudden disappearance, at which time he published a fully formed poetic masterpiece, Venus and Adonis similar to Marlowe’s book of poetry, Hero and Leander, registered only a few months later.
Marlowe wrote both books in the same period. One published before his faked murder and one after. The books together probably were originally intended to be a single book with resonant love themes.
Shakespeare is not mentioned before he was 29 years old because he did not exist until Marlowe created him at the age of 29.
10. Why was there no literary obituary published for Shakespeare when he died? It was a great loss to the country and the small London theatrical community.
No writer of note in London thought that the actor William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon was the writer of the plays. Everyone of importance knew that W Shakespeare was a pseudonym. It is even possible that no-one in London knew that the actor William Shakespeare had recently died in a distant provincial town. Marlowe was alive and at the London theater and the actor William Shakespeare had been sent home some years before.
Furthermore it would mean political trouble for Marlowe, and the writer himself, if there was any public suggestion that Marlowe was the true author of the Shakespeare plays. Marlowe was a much admired playwright and probably a friend to many.
And so there was no reason to say anything, and good reason to say nothing. Elizabethan England was an authoritarian state and the Crown and government could not be defied in any way. Queen Elizabeth I herself had settled and sealed the matter of Marlowe's exile, and her will could not be opposed, even after her death.
When Marlowe himself died, his name still could not be mentioned without Crown punishment. But still there seem to be oblique references to his death surrounding the publication of the First Folio.
11. Why are there so few mentions of William Shakespeare in the historical record?
It is not that he was considered merely another unimportant playwright of his day, as literary historians claim. It is that those who would write the historical record already knew that it was secretly Marlowe writing the plays. And so there was no reason to mention Shakespeare, and it may have been dangerous to do so. Bacon’s writings indicate that both he and Queen Elizabeth I knew Marlowe was alive in exile and still writing plays.
Writers and publishers could not mention Marlowe publicly, although they quite frequently subtly allude to him being alive, and the historical record shows this, in the writings of Ben Jonson and many others, often in the dedications of various play publications.
12. Why did Shakespeare write no poem for the death of Queen Elizabeth I? As the leading poet of England and a frequent performer at the court it was his place to write an elegy, and others did so.
Shakespeare was not a writer, and Marlowe could not because he was in exile and officially dead. And he probably harbored resentment towards Queen Elizabeth I for her unwillingness to release him from exile. Therefore Marlowe allowed the moment to pass unremarked.
13. Why do the plays of Shakespeare contain so many echoes and references to Marlowe.
Marlowe wrote the plays and deliberately directs our attention towards himself and the authorship imposture.
14. Why do the sonnets make such little sense when applied to the life of Shakespeare ?
Because they make clear sense when applied to the life of Marlowe in exile.
