Scholars Say Shakespeare Was Main Author of Edward III, With Marlowe Collaborating

The play was published anonymously in 1596, and it has long been thought that Shakespeare wrote at least a few scenes. Dr Rory Loughnane, a leading scholar and co-author of the research, told the Guardian that computerized textual analysis pushed the case “beyond any reasonable doubt” that the Stratford-born playwright was the principal writer.

“That’s the new finding, that both Shakespeare, now confirmed beyond doubt, and Marlowe, unexpectedly found for the first time, are present in the play, and therefore it represents a newly found collaboration between the two,” Loughnane said. He added that the result has “massive implications” for understanding the relationship between “the two most important dramatists of this period” and changes both the Shakespeare and Marlowe canons.

Loughnane, a reader in early modern studies at the University of Kent and general editor of the Oxford Marlowe editorial project, worked with Brett Greatley-Hirsch, a professor of Renaissance literature and textual studies at the University of Leeds.

Edward III did not appear in the 1623 First Folio collection of Shakespeare’s plays. Loughnane edited it for the 2016 New Oxford Shakespeare: Complete Works, acknowledging that a couple of scenes had probably been written by Shakespeare, and the play had also appeared in a 2005 volume. Loughnane also co-authored the Canon and Chronology study in the New Oxford Shakespeare: Authorship Companion, which made the case for Shakespeare’s part-authorship but acknowledged a need for further research.

Loughnane said: “Our new research suggests that Marlowe is Shakespeare’s collaborator on Edward III. This is the first time this case has been made seriously.”

The researchers compared Edward III with securely attributed works by 10 dramatists active between the late 1580s and the mid-1590s, using several forms of computerized linguistic analysis. In one test, 23 segments – “the lion’s share” – were identified as written by Shakespeare, while nine segments were classified as Marlowe, whose works include Doctor Faustus.

Loughnane said the findings were particularly significant because a 2016 study had found that Marlowe was a co-author of Shakespeare’s three Henry VI plays. “Their collaboration on Edward III in 1592 suggests a more sustained writing relationship in their mid-to-late 20s,” he said.

Marlowe died aged 29 after a brawl in a lodging house in 1593. Loughnane said scholars had become accustomed to thinking of Marlowe and Shakespeare as rivals, born within a few weeks of one another and making their names in the same theatrical world of the late 1580s and early 1590s. “But we now know that their relationship was much more complicated than that. They were not simply rivals or influences on one another,” he said.

Rather than attributing particular lines to either author, the study focused on linguistic features and the distribution of certain “marker” words, such as “martial,” which are typically present in Marlowe’s plays and correspondingly atypical in the plays of other dramatists. The authors also suggest Shakespeare’s authorship of segments “which may overlap with bits of writing he did not do,” and Marlowe’s authorship of other segments.

The analysis confirms that a speech from the beginning of scene 13 was written by Shakespeare, when a sudden and ominous darkening of the sky causes fear in the French camp and King Jean says: “A sudden darkness hath defaced the sky …” It concludes that a speech from the final scene was written by Marlowe: “Great servitor to bloody Mars in arms, / The Frenchman’s terror and his country’s fame.”

Greatley-Hirsch said: “What makes the evidence particularly compelling is that we’re not relying on a single verbal parallel or statistical test. Different forms of analysis, looking at different features of the language, appear to repeatedly distinguish Marlowe’s writing from Shakespeare’s within the play.”

The research will be published in Shakespeare Quarterly later this year. Insights into Shakespeare’s early career are also explored in Loughnane’s forthcoming book, Shakespeare at Thirty, to be published by Princeton University Press this week. Loughnane has also curated an exhibition about the life and times of Marlowe in the playwright’s native Canterbury; The Making of Marlowe runs until 22 November at the Beaney House of Art & Knowledge.