Shakespeare Authorship Doubt in 1593 ROSALIND BARBER Beliefs acquired from authoritative sources and maintained over time, tend to achieve the status of truths. As a result, though there are many possible ways of interpreting historical data, consensus beliefs are so powerful a determinant of interpretive outcomes that new interpretations of historical evidence will tend to be rare. In addition, any evidence that conflicts radically with a belief that has achieved the status of a truth will logically be dismissed. Such, historically, has been the status of the Shakespeare authorship question. Since we know who wrote the Shakespeare canon, there is no apparent point to research. Evidence from the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century that there was any doubt, at that time, about those things we take to be certainties – Marlowe’s death, for example, or the authorship of Shakespeare’s works – are therefore quite naturally overlooked. But in overlooking evidence and interpretations that conflict with the prevailing consensus belief system, we can miss valuable insights that are uncovered by adopting a different perspective: insights into the period, into the nature of authorship, and into ourselvesas authors and interpreters, constructors of our own realities. Fiction is the most effective method by which we may temporarily suspend our beliefs, and in order to avoid the triggering of neural mechanisms which will lead to the instant dismissal of evidence at odds with a mainstream belief paradigm, I ask that the reader accept the following premise as a fiction. Imagine if we were not sure who wrote the works of Shakespeare. Imagine if some scholars believed there was a possibility it might be Christopher Marlowe, using the Stratford-born man as a front in order to escapestate persecution.What primary source evidence can be interpreted to support this theory? ThemainargumentagainstMarlowe’sauthorshipofthe Shakespeare canon is his death in 1593. The inquest document Critical SurveyVolume21, Number 2, 2009: 83–110 doi: 10.3167/cs.2009.210205ISSN 0011-1570 (Print), ISSN 1752-2293 (Online)
84Critical Survey, Volume21, Number 2 appears to be proof of this, yet the veracity of the official documentation has been doubted ever since it was discovered in 1925. Despite recent defences of the official verdict by Constance Brown Kuriyama and J. A. Downie, the consensus of scholarly opinion appears to be that the verdict of the inquest into Marlowe’s death conducted by the Queen’s Coroner, William Danby, was false. Though a majority of scholars believe that Marlowe was murdered rather than killed in self-defence, the fact that this official document is now widely believed to be untrue is enough reason to dismiss it as certain evidence of Marlowe’s demise.
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