Talk:Marlovian theory of Shakespeare authorship/Archive 1

Archive 1

NPOV Needed

Please note that I am putting this page up for a POV-check, since several of the sections (The Sonnets, the section about the monuments) are clearly from the Point of View of someone who is a Marlovian. Statements that suggest that all it takes is simply reading the sonnets or interpreting inscriptions in commonsense ways would clearly show the sense of the Marlovian theory are simply poor uses of the Wikipedia. The Marlovian theory is held by a minority of scholars and should not be written of as something taken for granted by anyone with half a brain. Hate to be so stern, but it must be done... Zerobot 05:50, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

As the original author, I am quite happy for it to be amended in this way by someone who does not share my 'point of view'. It is far easier for them to see where the mark has been overstepped than it is for me.

If I may just defend my statement about only having to take "take what the Sonnets actually say", I was thinking about the fact that Marlovians can, for example, take "a wretch's knife" to mean a wretch's knife, rather than assume, as most scholars have to, that he must have really meant Old Father Time's scythe; can take an "outcast state" literally to mean an outcast state, not just a feeling that nobody likes him; and can accept that when he says his "name receives a brand" it means that his reputation has been permanently damaged, and not simply that acting is considered a somewhat disreputable profession.

As regards that bit about the monument, I think it would be wrong not to mention it, but would welcome advice on how it might be reworded to make it more neutral! Peter Farey, 193.237.254.37 06:06, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

I have now tweaked the article in various ways to make the neutral POV more obvious. My own view is that any further change in this respect will be excessive, but would nevertheless welcome other people's thoughts on the matter. Peter Farey 193.237.254.37 04:26, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Sonnets Section

This section reeks of POV. There is no place in Wiki for interpretting Shakespeare's sonnets, perhaps outside of an article called "Interpretations of Shakespeare's Sonnets, Various." I am afraid I am going to go ahead and remove this section, replacing it with some comment that some hold that particular interpretations of Sheakespeare's Sonnets may parallel some elements of Marlowe's personal life, or some such. Zerobot 05:33, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Deleting that chunk is fine by me. Peter Farey, 193.237.254.37 06:08, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Stratfordian?

It would be nice if somebody actually explained this term in the article, or linked to an article that did. - RW 63.21.75.12 20:27, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

citations

It's mostly improper formating for external links. But right now I' a bit busy, will probablycome back and fix it later. Circeus 00:56, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Also needs toplace refs after punctuation and strip the spaces before Circeus 00:58, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Editing needed

Someone has apparently hacked or editiied the history of the theory portion of this page. The line reads:

"However, the creator of the most detailed theory i sfgkijhtpjdgoix this theory stats that the dude is a piece of royal crap and that he cant of Marlowe's authorship was..."

Historical evidence

"According to history, Marlowe was killed in 1593 by a group of men including Ingram Frizer, a servant of Thomas Walsingham. Facing the death penalty for heresy, arranged the entire affair by use of his theatrical arts and the spying network of his patron."

This doesn't make sense. Please revise. TheMadBaron 21:32, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Planned revision

I am about to offer a new version of this page, to make it more comparable with the length of the Baconian and Oxfordian entries, to add more complete information about the subject, and (I think!) to improve the argument's structure a bit. I have sent a copy to the person I believe to be the author of the existing entry and await his comments. Meanwhile, if there is anything anyone thinks I should bear in mind, please let me know. Peter Farey 04:39, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I think it was a good idea to expand the article, as it needed more detail, but I must admit it seems like the article has gained a POV slant now. I don't think the goal should be to make the argument for Marlowe, but rather explain to someone unfamiliar what the arguments for and against Marlowe are. norm77 21:23, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Added a touch about the speed of Frizer's pardon. (Felsommerfeld 14:53, 15 July 2007 (UTC))

December 26 '07 changes

Certain additions were made on 26th December, which I'm afraid I have felt obliged to remove, for the following reasons:

1) In the section on the Sonnets, the insertion of the comment about Sonnet 86 is in my view unnecessary, as well as turning the paragraph into gibberish. In order to achieve a NPOV we have already removed two paragraphs on the apparent relevance of various other sonnets to the theory, and this one is far less appropriate than most of those which were deleted at that time.

2) The graph showing the time spans of various authorship candidates is relevant to the article on the Shakespeare authorship question as a whole, but in my opinion adds little of value to this article, the thrust of which is to explain the reasons why Marlovians believe that Marlowe survived 1593 and made a major contribution to Shakespeare's works, and not why anyone else did not.

3) The opening paragraph of the "External Evidence" section up to "Shakespeare's grave etc." was written as a counter to the argument of whole "Marlowe's Death" section. To then add a counter to that is illogical, even if it had had something to do with external evidence, which it doesn't, and wasn't so obviously written by someone whose first language is not English.

Peter Farey 193.237.254.37 (talk) 07:58, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Hoffman Prize

Thanks for the kind words, but I think the information about my win is better placed in the notes, where I had in fact already somewhat cryptically referred to it, and without the (very welcome) comment, which looks a little strange given that most of the entry can be identified as mine! Peter Farey 193.237.254.37 (talk) 07:58, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Re January 16 '08 changes

I have restored all of the em-dashes (used in accordance with the Style Manual) which someone misguidedly replaced with ordinary hyphens, and also put back the full stops after the initials in the names (as illustrated by the 'J.R.R. Tolkien' in the Manual). I've gone back in several cases to the UK English I had used originally and which is no less correct than the American. However, I have also now used italics rather than bold where I still think special emphasis is helpful and corrected the way in which I have been showing dates. Some of the changed wording I have left if it did seem to offer an improvement. Peter Farey 193.237.254.37 (talk) 05:39, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

"Nonsense"

From the second paragraph: "This means that the Marlovian theory is dismissed as nonsense by almost all professional Shakespearian scholars."

Though I would happily agree with that judgement, surely "dismissed as nonsense" is an inappropriate way of phrasing it? Lfh (talk) 12:02, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree - its not a phrase that should be included. In fact, isn't the whole sentence rather redundant?Smatprt (talk) 16:41, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Proposed revisions

Having some three years ago written the entry upon which this current one is based, and last had a really good look at it two years ago, I thought that it might by now be in need of a bit of a spring-clean, and I think I was right.

In particular there is the comment "This article may need to be wikified to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please help by adding relevant internal links, or by improving the article's layout. (October 2008)" with which I completely agree. Mind you, it seems to me that if someone notices a relevant internal link it is up to them to indicate it, since few of us can be aware of everything which has a Wikipedia entry of its own! External links and citations are of course the responsibility of the author.

The structure of the article as I first presented it was based upon the important fact that the theory consists of two quite separate arguments, and that whilst the second (Marlowe wrote Shakespeare) must depend upon the validity of the first (Marlowe survived 1593) this doesn't necessarily mean that if he survived 1593 he wrote the works. It would have been quite possible for him to have done so and never written another word. I therefore tried to keep the two arguments (and the reasons for rejecting each of them) sufficiently separate for them to be considered separately.

This structure has unfortunately been compromised by the introduction of a whole lot of Stratfordian (and Oxfordian) arguments under the "mainstream" heading, and by the addition of various bits and pieces which appear to be quite unrelated to this approach, or even to the text as it already stood. (An example is the "timescale chart" which is quite unrelated to anything in the text, is in quite the wrong section anyway, has no obvious logical basis, and is in rather bad English.)

Having been examining Wikipedia guidelines I have also been struck by the following recommendations concerning the Neutral Point of View:

"Segregation of text or other content into different regions or subsections, based solely on the apparent POV of the content itself, may result in an unencyclopedic structure, such as a back-and-forth dialogue between proponents and opponents. It may also create an apparent hierarchy of fact: details in the main passage appear "true" and "undisputed", whereas other, segregated material is deemed "controversial", and therefore more likely to be false — an implication that may not be appropriate. A more neutral approach can result from folding debates into the narrative, rather than distilling them into separate sections that ignore each other."

"In articles specifically about a minority viewpoint, it is appropriate to give the viewpoint more attention and space. However, such pages should make appropriate reference to the majority viewpoint wherever relevant, and must not reflect an attempt to rewrite content strictly from the perspective of the minority view. Specifically, it should always be clear which parts of the text describe the minority view, and that it is in fact a minority view. The majority view should be explained in sufficient detail that the reader may understand how the minority view differs from it, and controversies regarding parts of the minority view should be clearly identified and explained."

and about Fringe Theories:

"Such claims may contain or be followed by qualifiers to maintain neutrality — e.g. "Although Halbronn possibly knows more about the texts and associated archives than almost anybody else alive (he helped dig out and research many of them), most other specialists in the field reject this view." — but restraint should be used with such qualifiers to avoid giving the appearance of an overly harsh or overly critical assessment. This is particularly true within articles dedicated specifically to fringe ideas: Such articles should first describe the idea clearly and objectively, then refer the reader to more accepted ideas, and avoid excessive use of point-counterpoint style refutations. It is also best to avoid hiding all disputations in an end criticism section, but instead work for integrated, easy to read, and accurate article prose."

I have therefore tried to follow these guidelines very closely, as well as removing unnecessary detail and updating the information presented, in a re-edit of the whole thing which I will post within a day or two. I would be most grateful if we could discuss and agree any unacceptable changes here before anyone decides simply to revert the whole thing. Thanks. Peter Farey. 86.29.78.149 (talk) 16:30, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Thought I should respond as it was I who added the "Mainstream view" section. So you know the circumstances - during the GA process for the Baconian theory article, it was raised that it (and other theory articles) needed a mainstream view added to balance the article and avoid excessive POV. In response, I added the mainstream view graph to all the authorship articles. For what it is worth, if you want to delete the final graph of that section (criticism of Mainstream view"), feel free to do so. But I imagine the mainstream view itself should stay, or you run the risk of accusations of lack of neutrality. I agree with you about the timeline chart and greatly appreciate your quotes of the relevant policies on articles such as this. I look forward to your new draft and agree that if there are any issues, they should be discussed here and not simply reverted in whole. Good luck! Smatprt (talk) 17:03, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Thank you! No I wasn't aware of the general reason for the inclusion of the "mainstream view" as I saw no discussion of it here on this page. That it was intended to improve the neutrality of the whole article was nevertheless fairly clear - and that's fine. By using the same wording as for other candidates, however, you appear to me to be arguing for things which most Marlovians would accept anyway (other than the "Groatsworth" bit) and I felt that by "folding debates into the narrative" I could make the reasons for Shakespearean scholars rejecting specifically Marlovian arguments both more pointed and more relevant. I know that Wikipedia says that "[fringe] articles should first describe the idea clearly and objectively, then refer the reader to more accepted ideas," but I do not understand this to mean that all of the arguments against the fringe view should be given right at the start, only where the areas of disagreement are and the fact that they are the "accepted ideas". How do I post it so that you can see what I've done, without reverting the actual entry itself? Peter Farey.86.29.78.149 (talk) 11:51, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Then I'd say just go ahead and replace it with what you have come up with and see what the reaction here is. There is no rule that all authorship articles have to use the same paragraph on mainstream views, just as long as mainstream views are given an adequate airing.Smatprt (talk) 14:29, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Peter, you say the theory consists of 2 separate arguments, (1) Marlowe survived 1593, and (2) Marlowe wrote Shakespeare. Shouldn't (2) be dependent upon one other argument, that Shakespeare didn't write Shakespeare? How do you account for his non-authorship, or is that just assumed? Tom Reedy (talk) 03:46, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Hi Tom, I would see that as being covered by (2) which is essentially the whole of the authorship bit. The possible faking of Marlowe's death is really a biographical theory in its own right and need have nothing to do with Shakespeare. Since the authorship theory does rather depend upon it, however, it obviously needs to be covered within the same article. As it happens, we concentrate far more on why we think Marlowe did do it than on why Shakespeare didn't, and you'll find very little space given to the latter in most Marlovian publications. Peter Farey.86.29.78.149 (talk) 11:51, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

I would say that Shakespeare of Stratford's non-authorship is covered in the main SAQ article so all that is needed here is a summary of those arguments that Marlovians believe in, and then a link back to the main SAQ article. Smatprt (talk) 14:29, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Both comments very helpful. Thanks. Peter Farey. 86.29.78.149 (talk) 15:09, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

I also think the lead needs to summarize the article better, as per wp:LEAD. It should summarize the main points raised in the article, and be 3-4 paragraphs long. Let me know if you want any help. Smatprt (talk) 18:16, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I may well need some, but for the time being I've tried to follow the guidelines as best I can; see what you think. Meanwhile we seem to have got a bit out of sync, with you editing it before I had actually submitted the new one! I have therefore tried to incorporate your changes (which disappeared with my wholesale update) into my revised version. Not worth fighting over, but I'm fairly sure that Foster's reasons for claiming that the "begetter" was (with one explicable exception) invariably the author are indeed still unrefuted, but I'd love to hear of any evidence that has been found to the contrary! Peter Farey. 86.29.78.149 (talk) 15:52, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Stylometry

This type of thing should be 100% resolvable by stylometry. The statistics of word length usage by Mendenhall are not mentioned here--- but they are easily reproducible, and wrongly dismissed. Late Marlowe and tragedy+history Shakespeare are indistinguishable, and in a way that is not consistent with a chance event--- Shakespeare and Marlowe are the only two authors that use 4 letter words more often then 3! Across the centuries, even.

What bothers me is that there are no unequivocal stylometric differences between the styles, and this article states unequivocally that there are. In particular, there is no machine that will differentiate early Shakespeare from Late Marlowe, and there is a machine which will differentiate any other two 16th century authors. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.24.127.154 (talk) 10:11, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

We would need to overcome the strong reservations in very many subsequent assessments of Dr Mendenhall's results. Just one at random: "...the figures that seem to have startled Professor Mendenhall were those produced by almost every writer in English."—The Shakespeare Claimants, Gibson, ISBN 9780415352901.

--Old Moonraker (talk) 11:34, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

This is complete nonsense. The peak at four letter words is weird, and does not appear in hardly any writer of English other than the Shakespeare/Marlowe pair. It might be explained by meter choice, but it doesn't match Kid at all. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.86.195.242 (talk) 12:16, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Having looked at "The Shakespeare Claimants," it seems to me that Gibson's dismissal of Mendenhall is based on (foornote on page 142) Gibson's's own sampling of "short passages of English prose" from works in his own library. In the footnote, Gibson acknowledges that his methodology was less than ideal.Arnold Rothstein1921 (talk) 19:28, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Improvements

I have removed the two criticisms at the head of the article not because I disagree with them but to encourage whoever put them there to be a bit more specific about just which parts need sorting out. Simply saying that there is something wrong without being clear about exactly what that is and where it is evident doesn't really help! Peter Farey, 86.29.76.146 (talk) 14:55, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

NPOV

I'm sorry, but my having bent over backwards to present as neutral an account as I can of what Marlovians believe (following the entirely justified rap over the knuckles I got to start with!), I find it hugely irritating to find "Peter cohen" having changed my completely accurate statement that "The Marlovian theory with regard to the Shakespeare authorship question holds..." to "The Marlovian theory with regard to the Shakespeare authorship question is a conspiracy theory that holds...". Peter tells us that this change will "reflect mainstream scholarship and not give credence to conspiracy theory". So, given the entirely negative image which "conspiracy theory" suggests, where is the Neutral Point Of View we all agree to be desirable? Peter Farey (talk) 15:00, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

I understand how that would be frustrating, but please understand that your frustration in this case should be directed at mainstream scholarship and not at Wikipedia editors. The weight of opinion is overwhelmingly that all the alternate authorship theories are entirely without merit (note that I here take no position on whether that is a correct assessment or not; I merely observe that this is the attitude of mainstream scholarship). Thus for Wikipedia to present it as anything other than a “conspiracy theory”—which includes not mentioning it at all—would be non-neutral. I'm sure there's room to quibble over nuances such as whether it is considered a conspiracy theory or a fringe theory, but the overall thrust of how it should be presented is given by the mainstream scholars irrespective of whether they are right or wrong. In other words, what NPOV here actually means is that the article should be written to reflect what, say, a Schoenbaum, or Stanley Wells, or Chambers thinks of it; and in particular it should carefully reflect the opinions of (e.g.) Shapiro and Matus since they are the most recent mainstream surveys of the subject. If these sources are entirely wrong, or dismissive, or shoddy scholarship, or biased, &c., then that needs to be corrected outside of Wikipedia (that is, through journal articles, books, etc. that either correct the consensus view of these scholars' reliability or which demonstrate that they are in error). The criteria for inclusion on Wikipedia is not truth but verifiability; NPOV isn't an absence of POV, it's reflecting the POV of the reliable sources without Wikipedia editors imposing their own POV.
Note that, as I've often said, this places an immense burden on editors adhering to such a minority view: on Wikipedia they have to edit from the point of view of a mainstream that (right or wrong) they feel is entirely dismissive of their perspective. By analogy this is like asking an Atheist to edit from a Catholic point of view, or a Jesuit from the Atheist POV (or you can mine Godwin's law for the examples from the extreme end of the spectrum). And note that the strain of doing this is no less just because the editor in question happens to be a sensible person with competence in the field and a scientific mind, or that the theory in question happens to not require anywhere near the same level of willing suspension of disbelief as the latest Hollywood blockbuster. It requires immense intellectual discipline and angelic patience.
Which is why I'm glad to see your continued contribution here, and would like to encourage it and help as best I can. But there's no escaping the fact that you will run into this problem again and again; and it will be compounded by the suspicion of other editors that has been engendered by far too many people who have used Wikipedia as a platform to champion their cause (and I don't just mean in the SAQ area: there are racists, holocaust deniers, flat-earthers, religious extremists, political extremists, etc. etc. that have poisoned the well for anyone attempting to work in even minimally controversial areas). Suggesting that “conspiracy theory” should be removed will automatically make other editors assume an ulterior motive (i.e. POV pushing), which tends to make it hard to have a constructive discussion of the merits. This is, of course, not right or how it should be; but it is, I'm afraid, unavoidable (see “poisoned the well” above). I'm willing to bend over backwards to help, but the heavy burden will still inevitably be on you to make it work in spite of these problems.
So… If, in light of the above, you still feel “conspiracy theory” is wrong, please present an argument for it (that does not rest solely on the perceived negative connotation of the term) and suggest an alternative. In particular, please make an argument that reflects an understanding of why Peter cohen made the change he did and attempts to find a different, mutually acceptable, way to achieve the same end. For example, as alluded to above, I would here inuitively accept an argument revolving around whether conpiracy or fringe is the most accurate term. One could argue also for minority, but that would require showing that mainstream scholarship treats the Marlovian theory substantively different from the other alternate authorship theories (which I don't believe is the case). I will do my very best to not fall in the trap of being dismissive just because I don't happen to hold much stock with the Marlovian theory, and to do whatever I can to keep other editors on track there too, so that we can discuss this issue constructively, objectively, and with mutual respect. I know this is making you jump through hoops (and perhaps with little hope of succeeding), but I am offering to jump through them with you, because I am hoping you will continue to contribute to this article in spite of all that! --Xover (talk) 09:52, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

I've done some editing based on the fact that when I tried to read it I found it almost unintelligible. I haven' added anything but bits of linkage and rewording, cut some repetitions, tried to make the arguments on both sides more seamless and coherent. Hope I haven't left out anything important. --ElviraCardigan (talk) 12:35, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

I can't believe someone has actually said 'mainstream scholarship is king of NPOV'! No, mainstream scholarship is, by definition, a POV! We aren't supposed to take any side at all, not even the 'right 'one! --ElviraCardigan (talk) 12:39, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

That's a remarkably emphatic assertion about interpretation of policy from an editor that registered an account a mere week ago and with a grand total of 22 edits to their name. In point of fact you are both right and wrong: mainstream scholarship is indeed a point of view, but it's not true that we should not be “taking sides”. As I wrote in my message to Peter Farey just above: NPOV isn't an absence of POV, it's reflecting the POV of the reliable sources without Wikipedia editors imposing their own POV. In particular, this means that our article must reflect what mainstream scholarship's opinion of the theory is regardless of whether that is true or not. If mainstream scholarship is wrong or biased etc. then that's a probem that must be addressed outside Wikipedia, and our article on the subject can only then be equally wrong. I realise that this may appear to be nonintuitive or downright illogical depending on what your frame of reference for this is, but this is actually a deliberate choice on the project (it may be easier to think about this if you substitute holocaust denial or flat-earth theories as the example instead of the Marlovian theory). --Xover (talk) 13:31, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, we must represent the opinion of mainstream scholarship, but we also have to represent other opinions too. And we have to offer them all without bias. That is the only possible meaning of NPOV. To make the current mainstream view clear we simply have to say 'current orthodoxy says..." which is weighting the argument enough. To go further and either suppress or misrepresent counter-arguments is simply propagandising and is contrary to all ideas of scholastic fairness and freedom of expression. Let's not be guilty of that. Let's just present all he facts and all the shades of opinion and let people decide for themselves. --ElviraCardigan (talk) 16:08, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

NPOV and the SAQ Arbcom case.

There have been a number of recent edits pretending to be in accordance with WP:NPOV when they are anything but. As the recent Arbcom case determined, the policy requires that the article must not treat policies outwith those common in the academic Shakespearian establishment with undue weight. If someone, for example, persists in equating the views of fringe theorists, who lack support in the academic Shakespearian establishment, as in any way equal with those held within the establishment (for example on the matter of Marlowe and Shakespeare having distinct literary styles) then that person is violating WP:TE. If their styles are thought by experts to be impossible to distinguish, then you should be able to find evidence in the mainstream academic literature to that effect. If you can only produce evidence from Marlovians, then it is a fringe view and should not be treated as on a par with the views of the academics who can distinguish the too.

I will revert such edits on sight and if they are entangled in a series of edits by the same person in such away that I cannot just use the undo function to remove the changes, then I will rollback the whole series of edits. --Peter cohen (talk) 18:31, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

This article is about the Marlovian theory, and the only way to fairly address it is to present that theory as it stands, warts and all, strengths and weaknesses. And that was all I did. I'm no Marlovian, I'm just an interested reader, who came to this article for information and found it rendered almost unintelligible through the tortuous prose inflicted by too much wiki-warring! I tried to smooth out the prose, deleted repetitions and present as fair and honest a review of the data as is possible.

if this is not enough to be accepted here then something is very very wrong with Wikipedia.

What should the article do in your view? Should it lie about the available evidence? Should it pretend that those bits of data that just might offer some support the Marlovian argument don't exist? Isn't that propaganda not information?--ElviraCardigan (talk) 16:17, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Oh Peter Cohen...I've just checked your reversions. They haven't made the article any more NPOV, they've just put back a lot of the verbosity and confusion I tried so hard to eliminate! If anything I succeeded in making the numerous weaknesses of the case more apparent, because the whole thing was clearer. But if I try and re-do it I guess you'll just undo it again, So, I give up. But it's a shame. --ElviraCardigan (talk) 16:26, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Looking more closely, I think I am duty bound to ask for some kind of arbitration here, from someone other than Mr Cohen. His edits just seem below the level of acceptable scholastic discourse. Please compare these two versions of the page

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Marlovian_theory&action=historysubmit&diff=443218938&oldid=443004597

Can this in any way be termed a revision for NPOV? Plus, I think there's evidence Mr C is not even adequately reading these edits before deleting them. He says;

"If their styles are thought by experts to be impossible to distinguish, then you should be able to find evidence in the mainstream academic literature to that effect. If you can only produce evidence from Marlovians, then it is a fringe view and should not be treated as on a par with the views of the academics who can distinguish the too.(sic)"

But even a brief reading of the link I provided (http://www.themarlowestudies.org/scholars_quotes_marlowe.html) shows it is a list of quotes from non-Marlovians and mainstream academics who have seen strong similarities between Marlowe's work and Shakespeare's ( or is Peter C contending Peter Ackroyd and Algernon Swinburne were secret Marlovians?). Yes the list appears on a site that also has some pro-Marlovian argument, but it's still a list of sourced quotes of reputable scholars who see a similarity between Shakespeare and Marlowe. If this can be discarded for non-NPOV, then I'm afraid New Speak is alive and well and living in Wiki-land!

Can someone help sanity prevail here? I'm no Marlovian, just a person who likes to see fairness and enlightenment triumph ;-) --ElviraCardigan (talk) 17:31, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

For heaven's sake, of course there are similarities. There are similarities between the styles of Mozart and Haydn, or Thackeray and Dickens, or Cimabue and Giotto. Any two artists in the same medium, writing in the same period and culture will have similarities. Comopare Shakespeare to any of his contemporaries and you will find similarities. The same phrases and conventions were in common usage. The fact that there are similarities is not the issue. The issue is the degree of similarity and the nature of the differences. Marlowe's style is clearly distinct from Shakespeare's, but you can't tell that from any one single line; it's the overall use of words, rhythm, syntax, verse-structure etc (not to mention the content). That's what scholars study. A cherry-picked list of quotes demonstrates nothing - especially as Shakespeare is actually quoting Marlowe in some of them (Pistol's bombast is a parody of Tamburlaine). It would be like listing lines from Thackeray and Dickens that use similar words and phrases. We use serious studies, not this or the "Benezet test". All the scholars quoted in that link say that Marlowe's work was a big influence of Shakespeare. Nobody denies that. Cimabue was a big influence on Giotto; Haydn was a big influence on Mozart. That's not an argument that they are the same person. Paul B (talk) 19:22, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

This is incorrect. The similarities between Marlowe and Shakespeare are greater than between Mozart and Haydn, they are more like the similarities between early Beethoven and late Beethoven. There is no similarity at all to Kid, who writes at the same time with the same method, and Shakespeare and Marlowe both are very distinctive, and distinctive in the exact same way, a way that is not echoed by anyone else before or since.

The quotes are not cherry picked. Any random selection of Marlowe will match some portion shakespeare in style, so much so that Shakespeare would have to be immitating Marlowe slavishly for his entire carreer. Immitators don't do genius. This is the only case in history.

The false distinction between Shakespeare and Marlowe has led people to conclude that "people back then just wrote like that", instead of appreciating Marlowe/Shakespeare's singular genius for producing something new essentially from nothing, and continuing methodically until he produced works that exceed the greatness of the ancient authors by about as much as the ancients exceeded nothing at all.

It is also important that the religious authorities wanted to silence Marlowe by putting him to death. Who knows how many authors in the middle ages of similar genius were successfully executed? In this case, Marlowe's life is saved, and he produces the works that define the modern era, but I think the thing about this that defines the modern era more is that the church is successfully beaten--- they wanted to silence this guy, and they couldn't, because a secular network of nobles and bourgeois hide and support him.

Marlowe's atheism and contempt for religious authority is echoed throughout Shakespeare, who is non-Christian to the point of outright paganism. This is very obvious in all the works, and it is strange to read such areligious writing coming from that era. Marlowe's contemptuous sensibility is somewhat muted in the elder Shakespeare, who writes with more self awareness and less self-centeredness. The coincidence of vocabulary alone makes the identity case airtight. The only reason this is not accepted by everyone is because of the documentary evidence that Marlowe is dead, which is clearly made up bullshit.

From the works, it is possible to conclude also that Marlowe was a front for Shakespeare, so that Shakespeare authored all the works supposedly penned by Marlowe. In this way of looking at it, only when Marlowe died did Shakespeare feel free to put his own name on the works. This idea was common in the early 19th century, and probably earlier, when the Shakespeare cannon was not as firmly established in the public mind, so that who wrote what was a matter of dispute. It is obviously not right. It doesn't match the history of Shakespeare's movements, or his education, or his lack of books, or his granddaughter's testimony that her grandfather was not a man of letters. It doesn't match the sonnets, it's just wrong. But people suggested that Marlowe was Shakespeare's early pen name since forever. Nobody would suggest that of Kid, or anyone else at the time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.59.193.49 (talk) 00:18, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Umm, Paul you seem to be missing the point. It's not about whether the Marlovian case is a good one, and it's not about whether this evidence proves anything in your or my estimation. It's about whether the evidence should be allowed to be quoted. I tend to agree with you, on its own such evidence can prove very little, but I don't think that is sufficient reason to suppress it, do you? This page is devoted to the Marlovian case, and it is citing well-sourced evidence. The fact that you or I or anyone doesn't think this evidence proves their point is entirely beside the point. If we don't think the case has a right to be made at all, then just delete this page, but there's no point in letting it remain while denying it the right to use any available evidence to make its case.

What are we doing if we think the only claims that can be made here are ones we personally approve of? --ElviraCardigan (talk) 19:55, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Umm, Elvira you seem to be missing the point. You are not being very clear about what exactly you want. You need to say what exact statements you think are 'well sourced' and what is supposedly being suppressed. The links you provided are not sources, and quotations from various writers are not Marlovian arguments. Many of your own changes are pure unsourced personal opinions. You changed "For Marlovians, the arguments about his death have changed over the years" to "Critics of the theory allege the Marlovian argument has changed over the years". But it's not critics who "allege" this at all. The sentence in its original form was written by Peter Farey, a Marlovian who is keen to emphasise that Marlovianism has evolved and has dropped old, poor arguments. You are making up content that you think must be true, but isn't. Paul B (talk) 20:05, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Paul - I'm sorry, I thought I was being entirely clear. A few days ago I made changes to this article in order to try and clarify the very jumbled text (check out the earlier versions and you'll see what I mean). I did this, not as a Marlovian believer (I'm not any such thing), but simply as an interested reader. Peter C reverted the changes claiming bias, and also claiming a link i added (as a source for scholars seeing similarities between Shakespeare and Marlowe) was invalid as it was a list of quotes from 'Marlovians'. I then posted the link above to demonstrate this was completely untrue, and to suggest it implies Mr C is not reading carefully before making revisions. I'm therefore appealing to more unbiased editors (hopefully like yourself) to help sense prevail.

Not sure Peter Farey is any more entitled to know for sure than a 'critic', but I'm not going to argue about that. I'll remove the 'alleges' thing if that helps--ElviraCardigan (talk) 20:24, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Okay, I've redone the changes, got rid of the offending 'alleges' (in fairness to me, it does seem a very bizarre claim for a pro-Marlovian to make - "Oh our old arguments were rubbish, but our new ones are much better"! Not exactly confidence-inspiring) and added even more clarification to make it absolutely clear the Marlovian view is very speculative and to make it absolutely clear mainstream scholars do NOT accept it. I have however preserved the layout I created as I think it's just a lot easier to read and understand. If anyone STILL has a problem can we discuss before simply wiping it all out again? --ElviraCardigan (talk) 20:32, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Edits between 3 August and 11 August 2011

First of all, I must apologise to Xofer for not having responded to his helpful comments of 3 June. Fact is that I have been simply taking an occasional look at the article's history and, seeing each time that the last edit was still my own of 2 June, I had just assumed that my removal of the term "conspiracy theory" had been accepted for the reasons I gave. Silly me! Whilst I would (naturally) still prefer it to have said nothing of the sort, "fringe theory" is certainly more acceptable.

I am happy with most of the restructuring ElviraCardigan has done, and I can see how some possible confusion has been removed, but there are some points in the earlier version I felt were important which have now disappeared, and a few places where I would disagree with the changes that have been made. Furthermore, not all Marlovians agree about everything (no, really?!) and the balance which I had tried to maintain from that point of view has in my opinion now been tilted a bit too much in favour of one particular version. When I have the time I'll try to do something about these things.

Paul B. is quite correct in his interpretation of my words "For Marlovians, the arguments about his death have changed over the years...", although maybe I need to make it a little clearer. I certainly don't "acknowledge" it since it is, in my opinion, something to be pleased about. The more new things we learn about the circumstances surrounding Marlowe's death, and we do keep on discovering new stuff, the more confidence we can have in claiming the faking of it to be the most logical explanation regardless of the authorship issue. Well, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it! Peter Farey (talk) 09:28, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Hi Peter Farey--- I want to thank you for bringing Marlovian Theory to my attention. I never heard of it before running across your website while googling. I picked up a copy of Tambourlaine the Great many years ago, on a lark, and read about 5 pages in, when I began to get a queasy feeling. At 20 pages, I had to stop reading. It was obviously written by Shakespeare, and yet I knew it was by Marlowe, and I couldn't reconcile the text with the known history.

I concluded that Shakespeare was the greatest rip-off artist that ever lived, and since rip-off is the opposite of genius, that he must have been a fraud and a fake. But I love Shakespeare! What to do? I was completely at a loss for reconciling the obvious genius of Shakespeare, with the obvious identicalness to Marlowe, in style and borrowings so numerous, they would get an immediate successful lawsuit today.

Then I came across your website, and all became clear. I want to point out that any assiduous reader of Marlowe and Shakespeare would have come to this conclusion independently, and it is probably much more common than you would think from reading the literature on direct Marlovian theory. It was obvious as day to me, with no expertise, without even knowing the theory existed, after 20 pages of Marlowe. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.86.195.242 (talk) 12:24, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Edits

The current page is unacceptable, since it maintains that no mainstream scholars takes this position seriously. This is false. At least one mainstream scholar, Ros Barber, takes it seriously and researches it, and wrote a PhD about it. This implies that her committee takes it seriously too.

The academic work regarding Shakespeare is an outright fabrication, which is embarassing to read. Differentiating Shakespeare from Marlowe gives a false impression of Shakespeare's singular genius, turning him into a common copycat and plagiarist. I removed the crappy stuff and put in new stuff, but some guy is reverting the page.

A theory supported by a mainstream non-tenured scholar cannot be a fringe theory, by definition, since it must have enough support to maintain the scholar's position. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.59.193.49 (talk) 00:21, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

To add a little, the existence of Ros Barber, and her three peer reviewed publications on the authorship, and this video: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/mtl/video.php?id=72 , takes this out of fringe-theory land and moves it to tiny minority position-land. It is notable that Ros Barber is a scientist originally, not a humanities person. The science work on this wholeheartedly supports the position that Marlowe and Shakespeare are the same person. The humanities people tend to be kind of brain-damaged regarding this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.59.193.49 (talk) 00:31, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Here is a reference describing Ros Barber's paper "The Shakespeare authorship question in 1593". Here is the quote:

The fourth and final article, Rosalind Barber’s “Shakespeare Authorship in Doubt in 1593,” quietly throws down the gauntlet to the popular academic myth that the Shakespearean authorship question is an invention of the nineteenth century. On the contrary, Barber’s essay analyzes the Harvey-Nashe pamphlet war to show that Harvey was already in 1593 writing about the author of Venus and Adonis as a concealed “mummer” whom he threatens to “dismaske.”

This is taken from here: http://shakespeareoxfordsociety.wordpress.com/2009/11/24/critical-survey-published-authorship-issue/ . The existence of Shakespeare authorship doubts in 1593 is a significant new discovery by Barber. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.59.193.49 (talk) 00:36, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Please read Wikipedia's content policies and guidelines such as WP:DUE, WP:Rs and WP:FRINGE. The content of this article needs to reflect the over-whelming view of mainstream scholars who specialise in the subject not those of people not trained in the discipline.--Peter cohen (talk) 03:06, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

The only mainstream scholar who specializes in the subject of "Marlovian theory", the title of this article, is Ros Barber. The article is about a non-mainstream topic, and therefore is supposed to explain the content of this topic. I don't believe that you should edit this, because you are obviously incompetent to do so. Marlovian theory is a soundly established, obvious, historical fact, and anyone who disagrees with this is a dimwit.69.86.195.242 (talk) 03:32, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Articles at Wikipedia are based on scholarly sources, not claims by enthusiasts. Attempts to improve the article could start with a small proposed change with a suitable source, then allow time for a response. Johnuniq (talk) 03:53, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

How would you know how Wikipedia was written?69.86.195.242 (talk) 04:25, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Sarcasm and rudeness are hardly the best tools to convince people that you are here to help. As for your hyping of Barber, she is a specialist in creative writing and the largest part of her doctorate submission was a work written in blank verse. Therefore, it should not be assumed that she has a higher status than hostorians of literature specialising in the period. Also please be aware of WP:3RR. The fact that you use multiple IP addresses does not exempt you from this restriction. --Peter cohen (talk) 01:22, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Claims that such secret messages are concealed among the Harvey-Nashe pamphlets are as old as the anti-Strat hills, and involve the usual highly 'creative' readings of obscure in-jokes from the period. This stuff is utterly commonplace in anti-Strat literature. In fact scientific evidence of word-use overwhelmingly supports the mainstream view thast Marlowe and Shakespeare are two very different writers. Paul B (talk) 11:37, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Peter Cohen, I have no intention of persuading anybody, since it is impossible to persuade Stratfordians--- you just have to wait for them to die. I am just doing my duty, as far as is possible, until people like me outnumber people like you.

For Paul Barlow: there are no "claims of secret messages". The guy says "The author of Venus and Adonis is a mummer who I plan to publically unmask". What is secret or subtle here? He is plainly doubting the authorship of Venus and Adonis, and he is obviously attributing it to another well known writer. The response of Stratfordians to this 1593 doubt is that the dude was just mistaken. But it does show that doubts of authorship go this far back.

The scientific evidence of word-use does not support the idea that Marlowe and Shakespeare are two different writers. Peter Farey did an analysis of various stylometries, and came to this supported conclusion. I agree with him, because my own personal favorite stylometric method is reading the darn work and seeing if it sounds like the same person. I urge you to do so for yourself, and not trust the brain-damaged expert opion on this.

By this method, it is very clear that Shakespeare and Marlowe are one writer divided by a trauma. I should point out that, although the whole work has consistency, the early stuff like Richard III, and the later Marlowe, like Edward II are the perfect matches. But even Tambourlaine is Shakespearean enough to identify the author. It's primitive, but not so much more primitive in relation to Faustus as Titus Andronicus is to Macbeth. As many mainstream Shakespearean scholars have noted, late shakespeare is more different than the early shakespeare than early Shakespeare is from Marlowe.

As far as getting the authorship resolved, this is going to be difficult. The main difficulty is that Faustus is so much in the Alistair Crowely/Kenneth Anger/Anton Levay Illuminati style "Magick" spell-casting modern-era anti Christian tradition, that it is difficult for a religious society to give the author credit for the Midsummer's Night Dream, or the Tempest. These late works are just as pagan, but they are not Magick-y or gimmicky or Led-Zeppelinesque heavy-metal satanism, but truly insightful non-Christian works of religious beauty. Compared to Marlowe, J and E are hacks.

So religious tradition prevents the author from getting credit, and that's not likely to change. But here you can tell it like it is.69.86.195.242 (talk) 01:37, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't know where any "guy" says "The author of Venus and Adonis is a mummer who I plan to publically unmask". Perhaps you can tell me where those rather unlikely words are to be found. I'm thrilled to discover that Faustus is too Led-Zepplinesque. There was I thinking it was more like Genesis, with The Tempest having a kind of late 60s-period Dylan flavour. Do you read the works of Alfred Dodd by any chance? Paul B (talk) 18:31, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Here's what the dude says: “here dismask such a rich mummer and record such a hundred wise tales of memorable note with such a smart moral as would undoubtedly make this pamphlet the vendablest book in London and the register one of the famousest authors in England. But I am none of those that utter all their learning at once. And the close man.... may per-case have some secret friends or respective acquaintance that in regard of his calling or some private consideration would be loathe to have his coat blazed or his satchel ransacked."[20]. In other words, Harvey is saying, “I have lots of scandalous information concerning a rich actor and a high-ranking person (with a heraldic coat of arms), which would make this pamphlet a best-seller and me famous – but I am too discreet and too loyal to tattle”.

There is a widespread belief that he is referring to Shakespeare. I do agree it is more ambiguous than what I let on. I couldn't get at the quote directly because Barber's article is paywalled. Sorry for misleading, this might not be referring to Shakespeare.

As far as Led-Zeppelinesque, and Crowley-ish, Marlowe is! At least in Faustus, which is what seems to have gotten him the devil-worshipping reputation that makes him such a bad-boy of literature. There is a long occult British pagan tradition that went on through the modern era, and gives rise to a lot of hand-wringing. Bob Dylan is not occult at all, nor is he British, although I get a sense that you were employing a tool called sarcasm. I'm not a big fan of this occult stuff, but it seems to be a modern era way of getting around the Church, and it appears today.

Early Genesis might be a little bit like Marlowe, although the closest match perhaps is King Crimson.128.59.193.49 (talk) 02:57, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

"There is a widespread belief that he is referring to Shakespeare."

Yes, of course. Everything written in the late 16th-early 17th century that someone can't understand is referring to Shakespeare. Tom Reedy (talk) 13:51, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Dear 128.59.193.49 and/or 69.86.195.242. Whilst your enthusiasm for the Marlovian theory is very welcome to me, of course, and your citation of my work very nice, I think it might help you to know that the article as it stands right now is not too far different from how it was when I first wrote it, other than there having been a shift towards the NPOV which my original version had clearly failed to reflect. Some changes I was pleased to accept, and others less happy about - being the price we had to pay for retaining some of the more important stuff. What remains, however, is largely the result of generally friendly interchange between "us" and "them", and if there are any bits remaining where some important bits of the theory have been lost, it is mainly down to the intervention of other Marlovians, rather than any "dimwit" of the Stratfordian persuasion! Peter Farey (talk) 14:15, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Dear Peter, thanks for your comments. The passage from Pierce's Supererogation is, of course, about the participants in the Martin Marprelate saga and part of the Nashe v Harvey pamphlet war. The sentence before the passage quoted makes that clear ("Pap-hatchet talketh of publishing a hundred merry tales of certain poor Martinists, but I could here dismask..."). "pap-hatchet" is, of course, the anonymous author of the anti-Martinist tract Pap with a hatchet. As we all know, numerous pamphlets were exchanged in this literary feud and its spin-offs. Accusations of of various kinds concerning authorship or funding of the writings relating to the controvery are commonplace. None of this has anything to do with Shakespeare, but because claims to reveal the identity of anonymous participants are part of the rhetoric, they have been co-opted by "shakespeare authorship" writers, who simply superimpose them onto their particular model of anti-Stratism, usually by taking passages completely out of context. As far as I am aware, the Baconians did it first, to Pierce's Supererogation followed by the Rutlandites and the Oxfordians. It's an endless recycling process. I don't know what the standard view of the passage is, but looks to me like a dig at Lyly, who is repeatedly slagged off in the pamphlet as the actual author of "pap-hatchet". Paul B (talk) 14:49, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Hello Paul, I'm sorry I missed your lecture, but I'm afraid that High Wycombe-Newcastle and return at my age is no longer feasible! I'm not sure why you have addressed this to me though. I would much prefer to be defending something I have said myself, rather than the version of someone else's argument offered by someone whose intervention I have just criticized, wouldn't you? Choose your seconds and nominate a time and place, and I'll be there! Peter Farey (talk) 17:46, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, I hardly expected you to be there. I wasn't really addressing the reply to you, (though the first sentence was, of course, addressed to you). The rest was for anyone reading, I guess, but mainly the apopleptic IP, and partly because I need to stick this stuff somewhere, having ploughed through Harvey's deathless prose. Still, it did help me to correct an utterly nonsensical passage in the John Lyly article that came about from bad scanning of 1911 EB (attaching a footnote to a passage half way down the page to the end of the sentence at the bottom of the page). It's only been there since 2003. Paul B (talk) 17:51, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Marlowe's sudden and fearful end: Self-Defence, Murder or Fake?

This series of edits depends for its sourcing, in part, on the contributor's own web page MARLOWE'S SUDDEN AND FEARFUL END: Self-Defence, Murder or Fake? , possibly presenting a conflict of interest. Self-published sources are deprecated on Wikipedia, unless the creator is a widely recognised expert (and here the definition is very tightly drawn—prolific bloggers, for example, are certainly excluded). it's good that editors with a specific knowledge and interest in the topic contribute, but this shouldn't be at the expense of disregarding WP:NOR. Views? --Old Moonraker (talk) 15:05, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

I have just gone back over each of my recent edits, and can honestly find nothing I have changed which matches this description. I would therefore be most grateful if you could be a little more specific. Most of the changes were very trivial, other than the relocation of the bit about how the theory has changed over the years back to where it was before Elvira Cardigan's attack on the whole thing last August, and putting back the bit about scholars asking the wrong question which she had also removed. Although the latter does indeed appear in my essay, it has been adopted quite happily by the main organization supporting the theory, as you can see at [1] under "The Great Puzzle". And before you ask, I am neither the webmaster nor the editor of that site! All members of the IMSS were asked to comment upon a piece I recently wrote for the Shakespeare Authorship Coalition which included that point too, and it seems to have been found fully acceptable.Peter Farey (talk) 11:30, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

OK—two examples: Pages from a blog and web pages a contributor has written, edited or published himself are generally not acceptable as Wikipedia sources, notwithstanding the approbation other "organizations supporting the theory" have afforded. The Wikipedia policies are set out here. Rarely, exceptions may be made for authors well-known in their field with a substantial history of conventionally published work on the topic.--Old Moonraker (talk) 12:36, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you, but I was actually asking you to be more specific about exactly how "This series of edits depends for its sourcing, in part, on the contributor's own web page MARLOWE'S SUDDEN AND FEARFUL END: Self-Defence, Murder or Fake?" I would still welcome your advice on this.

Although it isn't clear to me exactly which edits you think come from Marlowe's Sudden and Fearful End, however, I should perhaps mention that it is not my web page you are talking about, but an article of mine which appears there. It is an article solely concerned with Marlowe's supposed death, and makes no mention of the authorship question at all. In fact Park Honan made use of it (and acknowledged having done so) in his Marlowe biography, and encouraged the UK's Marlowe Society (which is neutral on the authorship question) to publish it in their Research Journal. They did so, and the then Chairman of the Society (not himself a believer in the Marlovian theory) actually described it as being "the last word" on the subject of Marlowe's death. I say this not to show how wonderful the article is, but to explain why it is at the heart iof the Marlovian theory which this is supposed to be all about.

Having said that, if you can simply point out out which edits you would want reverted, do please explain why, and I'll be only too happy to discuss them with you. I would also very much appreciate hearing the views of the other editors which you were apparently seeking. Peter Farey (talk) 13:34, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

P.S. The example of "Pages from a blog" which you cite - a 45-minute lecture by Dr. Ros Barber on the Marlovian theory - can now be found on the website of the University of Sussex (hope Paul B. is reading this!) at http://www.sussex.ac.uk/mtl/video.php?id=72 . Peter Farey (talk) 13:57, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Papers/lectures given at universities are not peer reviewed and should not be cited unless the the exemptions outlined under WP:SPS apply. That includes my own lecture and the newspaper reports of it. Paul B (talk) 15:54, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you Paul. It was dear Old Moonraker who cited it, not I. Is it mentioned in the article? Peter Farey (talk) 16:54, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Ah, I see what has happened. The examples given by Old Moonraker weren't added by me during this series of edits as his or her words implied, but were in a section that I simply moved back to where it had been originally. They were first included because someone had asked for evidence to support the contention that the Marlovian theory had changed over the years in the way described. However, since these particular citations are not being used to support any part of the theory itself - which the WP policies are presumably intended to prevent - but simply to reflect the sort of things being argued by Marlovians these days, it seems to me that it is hardly appropriate to apply the policies quite so rigidly in this case. Peter Farey (talk) 05:31, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

That is right; I hadn't noticed that it was a move of existing material rather than an addition—sorry. As User:Peter Farey was editing material sourced to his essay, I jumped to the wrong conclusion. However, the sourcing issues on the examples I gave, and quite widely in the article as a whole, remain unresolved. I haven't the depth-and-breadth knowledge of some contributors here to attempt the wide-ranging fix that seems to be needed (or even the inclination to re-read Nicholl, Hotson, Honan, Haynes, etc, to fix the many {{page needed}} gaps in the footnotes, but that would be a good beginning).--Old Moonraker (talk) 09:48, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

IP edits

The IP has changed the last section of the lede to read:

Marlowe's death was recorded at an inquest held by the coroner to the Queen's household, William Danby, rather than by the local Deptford coroner. Marlovians suggest the state took an interest in the case. While many critics, including Harold Bloom, have cited the similarities and obvious influences of Marlowe's earlier work on the later Shakespeare, Marlowe's style is considered by traditionalist critics to be too distinct from Shakespeare's for the Marlovian authorship case to stand. Some evidence points to Shakespeare as the author of the plays attributed to him, but many leading Shakespeareans, distinguished writers and performers, have disputed this for some two centuries..

There are several reasons why this is problematic. There is constant special pleading. Whether or not the state took an intrerest in the case is irrelevant to Marlovian theory (if they took an interest it was because of his political significance which is agreed by everyone). Marlowe's earlier work is not influential on the "later Shakespeare" (which is confusing, implying the late works of S). There is no such thing as "traditionalist" critics, just actual experts. In fact detailed scientific analysis of style is quite a recent development in criticism. The last sentence is an outright fabrication. No "leading Shakepseareans" have doubted his authorship, if by that we mean scholars. Also you cannot footnote such a statement to a source that says the opposite. The IP's comparison of deletions of his statements to the bowlerisation of Shakespeare is vanity of a most impressive kind. Paul B (talk) 15:05, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

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I have no wish to comment on 'utter' anything, but if the critic of a factual edit cannot understand the analogy to bowdlerisation, and misspells it as bowlerisation, he does not know anything about the history of Shakespeare texts. Dr Bowdler worked by elimination of chunks of Shakespeare that he considered offensive - he used the 'undo' button, rather than the editing pencil. One of his smaller emendations replaced Macbeth's 'out damned spot' with 'out crimson spot'. He clearly did not realise that crimson is a colour sometimes linked to whoredom and might be considered to have a more offensive connotation than a mere 'damn'. But each to his taste. To condemn serious thinking on Marlowe by resort to ignorant expurgation is to deny the right to speak. A page dedicated to so-called Marlovian theory deserves to stand on its merits as a survey and interpretation of the issue, not as an excuse for peremptory judgement (which incidentally is what the Marlowe inquest was all about, a high-level state intervention designed to save one of the Queen's favourite writers from the same torture in the tower that led to the death of his writing colleague Thomas Kyd, and for the same alleged offence of penning an atheistic document, which also alluded to some biblical whoredom offensive to Puritan ears). 72.137.86.93 (talk) 01:33, 12 January 2012 (UTC)vpcj

Imputing that a contributor "does not know anything about the history of Shakespeare texts" because of a typo ("Bowler" for "Bowdler") exposes the fragility of the IP editor's case, rather than strengthens it. Needing to develop the point by referencing Dr Bowdler's own errors makes its weakness and poverty even more evident. And, incidentally, typos in the first sentence of the IP editor's response have made it incomprehensible; to continue the biblical theme: "motes and beams". --Old Moonraker (talk) 09:30, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

The reference to bowdlerisation was queried as to its meaning by the originator, so the alleged typo is not the point, it's the obvious suggestion of ignorance of the topic. As for spelling, the assumptions of the Shakespeareans are not helped by six radical misspellings by one William Shakespeare of his own name in the only extant signatures. Even allowing for the shifting spellings of the period, an educated man could hardly make the mistake every time he signed. It's more likely that someone else, perhaps Marlowe, used the pen-name and openly mocked it by misspelling, as an anonymous author does to the illiterate wood-kern William in As You Like It. 72.137.86.93 (talk) 18:23, 12 January 2012 (UTC) vpcj

Talking of "ignorance of the topic": Who's the wood-kern in As you like it, please? Is there any connection to the "wretched kerns" besieging Dunsinane in Macbeth 5.7? Reading back a line or two from Touchstone's teasing of "unlearned William" in As you like it, I couldn't help but be amused in this context by the juxtaposed famous aphorism "The fool doth think he is wise", but I couldn't find Marlowe, or anybody else, specifically using a misspelling as part of the mockery. Can anybody help me out?

--Old Moonraker (talk) 20:27, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Of course I know who Bowdler was. Hey, I even edited the article on him a couple of years ago. I'm actually a specialist on Victorian culture. He's much maligned, as he was trying to produce a family-friendly edition that would expand the readership of WS. My query in the edit summary was a comment on the incoherence of your statement. Regarding the spelling I suggest that you read Spelling of Shakespeare's name. A person can't "mispell" their own name in a culture in which there is no such thing as "correct" spelling. Indeed the use of breviographs and other "quick writing" techniques is indicative of someone who writes a lot, as opposed to someone who carefully forms letters because they are slow with their pen. As has been pointed out for a century, scribbly handwriting is typical of people who write much quickly, not a little rarely. Your ridiculous comment about misspelling merely indicates a total ignorance of the cultural context. Paul B (talk) 22:24, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

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Anyone who can find some good in the lunatic expurgations of Bowdler is indeed a gentle wood kern. No doubt Shake-speare approved of the hyphenated but more standarized spelling of his name on his own cover pages, even if that connoted a pseudonym, and did not match any of his own signatures. The wood kern, obviously not a direct reference, might be the one and only 'clown' mentioned in the mocking scene in As You Like It, where this 'William, sir', is asked by Touchstone if he was "wast born in the forest here." The woods in Elizabethan times, if not in the laudanum haze of Victoriana, were a likely place for the unlearned, a class to which William freely admits he belongs. Touchstone drops the mask of humour, alludes to a figure in rhetoric, that filling one glass empties another, and tells William clearly, "for all your writers do consent that ipse is he: now, you are not ipse, for I am he." This 'clown' William is not 'himself' the writer. The clowning turns to threats of violence and 'steel', a subject where Marlowe, for one, had some murderous expertise. 'I will kill thee a hundred and fifty ways," says Touchstone. There are at least that many interpretations of this scene, including a suggestion that Shakespeare on Avon improbably introduces it to mock himself. Before the logic of woodsmen, I tremble and depart. I stay only to look on Marlowe's empty glass. Ipse dixit, but of course it was a utilitarian Victorian who turned that into ipse-dixitism. I might add that one of the greatest Victorians, Dickens himself, doubted the Shakespearean authorship.72.137.86.93 (talk) 02:19, 13 January 2012 (UTC)vpcj

Your comment about Bowdler indicates an ignorance of the 19th century almost as impressive as your ignorance of the 16th. I guess Swinburne was stupid too when he wrote "No man ever did better service to Shakespeare than the man who made it possible to put him into the hands of intelligent and imaginative children." No doubt Marlowe was distressed that his name was not spelled Marley. You clearly know nothing about 16th century spelling. The rest of your message is pure fantasy. I might add that Dickens never doubted the Shakespearean authorship. See Declaration_of_Reasonable_Doubt#Doubters_named_on_the_declaration. I must say, you take self-satisfied ignorance to new levels. Paul B (talk) 15:37, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Anyone who defends Bowdler as a protector of children has the mind of one. At least Swinburne, old puritan fool himself, knew how great Marlowe was: "Crowned, girdled, garbed and shod with light and fire/ Son first-born of the morning, sovereign star!" ----vpcj

No one is defending him as a protector of children, you daft hap'eth. He was being defended for producing an edition that conservative parents could give their children in the cultural context of 19th century middle-class values. You do know how many obscene jokes there are in Shakespeare don't you? No one doubts how good Marlowe was, even though he couldn't spell his own name. He stands on the merits of his own work. He doesn't need to steal someone else's. Paul B (talk) 16:27, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Poor old luvvie. At least you reveal your secret Victorian vice, an obsession with a neo-con parental guide for 19th century children. Get off the pot. Obscene? You're referring to the willy or the shake of the spear? As a pen-name, the Bard's was always the butt of everyone's joke. So is the defence of Touchstone's clown William, the 'fantasy' written with vicious satirical intent, aimed at demolishing that figure of rhetorical fun. The fact you cannot read plain English is enough for me. Over and out.72.137.86.93 (talk) 19:03, 15 January 2012 (UTC) vpcj

If you believe that nonsense about William in As You Like It, you will believe anything. So...he's called William, that's just about it. Nothing in all that ipse dipsy stuff is about writing plays is it? It's about marrying a dozy peasant lass. You take what the scene is actually about and create a complete fantasy about an allegory so far from the actual content and context you may as well be making it up entirely, which, of course, you are. The fact you cannot read plain English is enough for me. Over and out. Paul B (talk) 19:45, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

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To William: "For all your writers do consent that ipse is he: now, you are not ipse, for I am he." Bastinado...72.137.86.93 (talk) 23:03, 15 January 2012 (UTC)vpcj

WILLIAM: Which he, sir? TOUCHSTONE: He, sir, that must marry this woman. Yes, we know the passage. None of this has anything whatever to do with Marlovian theory (indeed the argument you regurgitate was invented by Baconians). If you wish to discuss this particular issue I am happy to do so on your talk page. Any other remarks unrelated to Marlovian theory and the improvement of the article will be ignored here or replied to on your talk page, since you have a stable IP. Paul B (talk) 16:03, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

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More attempts at editing Marlovian theory by bowdlerising it - and if you still don't know what that means, it means eliminating key texts OR even discussion of them, if they don't happen to sit well with your neo-conservative and Victorian values. This particular Touchstone-William text is vital to understanding all of Shakespeare and all of the alternative candidates for the authorship, including Marlowe. Indeed it is the author's barbed reply to others who were beginning to doubt who he was, even if he is making it clear that contemporary writers knew his true identity. You obviously do not care for Marlowe, Bacon or any of them, so I think you should let Marlovians have their say on this crucial piece of willy-bashing by the true author, whoever you think he is. If it's Shakespeare and you think he's making fun of all willies, so be it. But don't try the reductio ad absurdum, in fact you should remove yourself from discussion of Marlovian 'theory' if only because of bias, if not also because of gross inability to read, which is exactly what Bowdler suffered from, or sought to impose by expurgation on children of a mental age not much younger than yours. Try reading the applied rhetoric of the empty glass text again. It applies to you. 72.137.86.93 (talk) 17:26, 16 January 2012 (UTC)vpcj

response on your talk page. Paul B (talk) 22:19, 16 January 2012 (UTC

Sorry, declining private talk because this is necessarily a public debate about a Wikipedia page that is currently a biased travesty of scholarship or fact. The casual Undos in wikipedia overall, and loose classification of major Galileo-esque paradigms as 'fringe' or 'conspiracy' is unworthy in an open encyclopedia, especially when it is itself threatened by a book-burning fate akin to Archbishop Whitgift's torching of Marlowe's translation, at age 20, of the Ovid 'Elegies'. Hiding behind selective scholarship is just denial by bluster. Consider the problem of undoing the inclusion of the leading Shakespearean Orthodox scholar, Harold Bloom, who is not now represented in Marlovian Theory, in noting that Marlowe and WS styles and world-views are far from incompatible - in fact WS mirrors Marlowe as an "appprentice" learns from his master. Bloom (Christopher Marlowe, 2000) comments: “Marlowe himself, a wild original, was Shakespeare’s starting point...difficult to exorcise...that means the strongest writer known to us served a seven-year apprenticehip to Marlowe, only a few months older than himself." Bloom also notes that Marlowe was London's 'dominant dramatist' from 1587 until his death in 1593, a period during which the early Shakespeare plays were being produced under a no-name authorship claim. The Marlowe-Shakespeare connection is also made by Tom Stoppard, one of the strongest dramatists of the modern period, in his script for the fictional film Shakespeare in Love, where the two are imagined as friends engaged in banter about a work in progress. Bloom, too, imagines Shakespeare sitting in the audience at a performance of Marlowe's Tamburlaine, which ran for 200 performances. It has to be said that there is as much fiction in the portrayal of Shakespeare as there is in Marlovian inquest pathology, a 12d dagger capable of deep trepanning through the cranium (that's a nice metafiction). These ideas are not represented in 'Marlovian theory', a euphemism in itself, because the page is not representative of Marlowe.72.137.86.93 (talk) 18:14, 21 January 2012 (UTC)vpcj

Preposterous bombast about "major Galileo-esque paradigms" will get you nowhere. The rest of this has nothing to do with anything. Tom Stoppard? Please. Go back to John Mortimer's '70s drama Will Shakespeare if you like. The same point is made. No-one has ever doubted there was an artistic and probably personal connection between Marlowe and Shakespeare, just as there was a similar connection between Haydn and Mozart, or Mozart and Beethoven. That doesn't make them the same person. Also your talk page is no more private than this page, or Peter Farey's talk page. All are equally public. But according to WP:TALK, article talk pages are not for general discussion of the topic. Read the policy. They are for suggesting specific content improvements. This is Wikpedia policy. If you want to engage in a general discussion of Marlovian theory or anti-Strat ideas, I suggest you leave a message with User:Peter Farey, who will, I'm sure, be able to direct you to relevant on-line discussion fora. Paul B (talk) 18:55, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Waste of time. You pretend that no one doubts that a Marlowe-Shakespeare influence exists, but the childishly phrased third paragraph of the page lede states that they have completely different styles and world views. I presume you, or someone as mindless, jumped to that conclusion. You don't deal with Bloom's honest concerns about a major scholar like himself being forced to jump through hoops to invent an apprenticeship and a possible appearance by WS at a Marlowe play. If they were in London writing at the same time for rival theatres, it's ridiculous that they would not have met, or that they never indicated that they had. The point is that they didn't. There was no apprenticeship or meeting of minds because Shakespeare did not exist in any documented way as a writer before Marlowe died. Perhaps he never existed in London at all. He was a Stratfordian usurer, if he was anything, whose name was used as a pen-name, as Mark Twain sarcastically pointed out long ago. If you don't appreciate Stoppard's wrong-headed conclusions, neither do I, but at least he's a dramatist. Why cite Mortimer and other old fogies? There are major omissions in Marlovian theory as it sits, and addressing it is central to the debate. What's also central to the debate is the morbid brutalising, and I say again, bowdlerising, of the undoers and conservative gravediggers like yourself, little Englanders who cannot accept that the Bard never wrote a line. If you can't accept that this enormous literary black hole is as warped a paradigm as geocentrism, you might as well get a job for the Stratford tourist trust.72.137.86.93 (talk) 22:49, 21 January 2012 (UTC)vpcj

that this denial of reality about the greatest of writers is tantamount to treating other great ideas as flat earth paradigms 72.137.86.93 (talk) 22:49, 21 January 2012 (UTC)vpcj

Responses to your general discussion points have been placed on your talk page. You still don't get it do you? This is not the page for you to try to convince anyone of your beliefs. BTW, this article is mostly the work of Peter Farey. I do think it's rather idiosyncratic, because it represents his own personal take on Marlovianism, but it has not been 'censored' in any significant way except in accordance with wikipedia policy. Your own additions added no useful content, just spurious claims shoehorned into the lede. Why don't you make specific suggestions for content? I see no sign that you have ever taken the trouble to read the relevant policies (WP:V; WP:RS; WP:NPOV; WP:FRINGE), or, indeed that you know very much about the topic at all - its history, its relation to mainstream scholarship, its relation to other anti-Strat ideas and to the cultural milieu of the Early Modern era. Read some more books. Paul B (talk) 00:11, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Read some books? Try some texts. Who is ipse? You don't get it that wikipedia is not an idea owned by its censors or its schoolmen. It is an open debate, and the routine use of the Undo button by guardian dogs of certain pages is not in the spirit of the times, which are very threatening to any ideas that question standard beliefs, but you hadn't noticed that, had you? I use this talk platform while it's open, because you can't play with your own little private Undo button here. Perhaps you can arrange for a change of policy. Ask the Inquisition. You remind me of an Archbishop Whitgift in drag, defending the rights of so-called Marlovians to burn their man at the stake with Bruno and all the cosmologists of the pre-modern era. But what would a utilitarian consort of the Victorian era know about a Tudor queen and a Stuart king? And you still don't deal with the issue of censorship by the Undo, or the removal of unpleasant evidence we can't seem to place on the page itself, because its custodians are the Undo guard dogs, pro or con. So you or they choose not to include the crucial critical comments by the leading Orthodox Shakespearean, Harold Bloom, that WS must have served a "seven-year apprenticeship" to Marlowe? Not the other way round. You and others on this site are textually tone-deaf, and hide behind policy, in order to practise a blatant denialism that flaunts itself as fraud in this entire debate. A little more of Touchstone's "bastinado" applied to the bumpkin William, maybe, a word if not a torture imported by Marlowe and his fellow-travellers ("how came he by that word, trow?" asks a character in Jonson's 'Every Man in his Humour'). Needless to say, it's a word far beyond Stratford, a tickling of the soles for those too thick to notice the pathlogical flaws in an inquest that thinks the impossible place for a cheap dagger is one of the hardest bones in the body, rather than in the corpus. And this is not a debate about wikipedia policy either, guard dog of that though you also claim to be. It's a discussion of ideas. Wikipedia doesn't need any new policy on free speech, or any censorship devices. It speaks for itself.72.137.86.93 (talk) 14:41, 22 January 2012 (UTC)vpcj

Yet again, you have failed to make any concrete suggestions. The ipse point has been answered repeatedly, as have other points. You ignore the answers. You don't even try to reply to them. You just go round and round in circles repeating youself. You clearly have nothing of subtance to say, so this discussion is over. Paul B (talk) 21:51, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

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Exeunt William, chased by an angry clown, masquerading as the Author:

Touchstone: Therefore tremble and depart.

Audrey. Do, good William.

William. God rest you merry, sir. 72.137.86.93 (talk) 05:24, 23 January 2012 (UTC)vpcj

({{reflist-talk}} inserted by Xover (talk) 08:59, 14 July 2018 (UTC))

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