Shakespeare-Marlow co-productions?

Which is the more devastating revelation of ‘new scholarship’ on English literature last week: that Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare were really not the same person? Or that the great Bard actually collaborated with not only Marlowe but several other playwrights, known and unknown, in as many as 17 of his 44 plays? The first theory certainly added a frisson of mystery to this Elizabethan conundrum that has exercised scholars since the 18th century, considering Marlowe’s sudden exeunt was followed by Shakespeare’s ascent to centre stage.

But now Marlowe and other writers threaten to reduce him to the rank of a mere clever collator and presenter — not unlike today’s late-night talk-show hosts whose fame rides on the anonymous genius of backstage writing teams.

That the two will appear this month as co-authors on the three title pages of the Henry VI trilogy in the definitive New Oxford Shakespeare published by Oxford University Press could be seen vindication of a line spoken by Warwick in Part III, perhaps actually written by a seething Marlowe, “Tell him from me that he hath done me wrong,/ And therefore I’ll uncrown him ere’t be long.”

This gives rise to the question of whether the authorship of dozens of English idioms credited to Shakespeare will now be open to dispute too.