Shakespeare was the main author of Edward III 'beyond reasonable doubt' — and Marlowe helped write it, scholars say
Computer-assisted analysis of the anonymous 1596 history play attributes the 'lion's share' of it to Shakespeare and, for the first time, finds Christopher Marlowe as his collaborator. The findings would change both writers' canons and suggest a closer working relationship between the two rivals.
Edward III, a history play published anonymously in 1596, should be added firmly to William Shakespeare's canon, according to new research that also identifies his contemporary Christopher Marlowe as a co-author. Scholars have long suspected Shakespeare wrote a few scenes, but Dr Rory Loughnane of the University of Kent told the Guardian that computerised textual analysis now puts his principal authorship 'beyond any reasonable doubt'.
Loughnane, general editor of the Oxford Marlowe project, carried out the study with Brett Greatley-Hirsch, professor of renaissance literature at the University of Leeds. They compared Edward III with securely attributed works by ten dramatists active between the late 1580s and mid-1590s, looking at linguistic features and 'marker' words such as 'martial', which are typical of Marlowe and rare in others. In one test, 23 segments of the play were assigned to Shakespeare and nine to Marlowe.
The analysis attributes to Shakespeare a speech at the start of scene 13, in which a sudden darkening of the sky frightens the French camp, and to Marlowe lines from the final scene. Greatley-Hirsch said the evidence is compelling because it does not rest on a single parallel or statistical test: different methods keep separating Marlowe's writing from Shakespeare's within the play.
The finding matters because a 2016 study had already named Marlowe as a co-author of Shakespeare's three Henry VI plays. Working together on Edward III in 1592 would point to a sustained writing partnership in their mid-to-late twenties, rather than a simple rivalry. Marlowe died aged 29 after a brawl in 1593.
The research will appear in Shakespeare Quarterly later this year. Loughnane's book Shakespeare at Thirty is published by Princeton University Press this week, and his exhibition The Making of Marlowe runs at the Beaney House of Art & Knowledge in Canterbury until 22 November.
Source: The Guardian