Have you seen the trailer for the new movie
Anonymous? It's about how Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford is actually the author of Shakespeare's works. See aristocrats shouldn't be messing around with the theater. That's for trashy people. But Edward just had to
dance write. So he wrote the stuff but got this poor player William Shakespeare to be his front man.
I don't plan on seeing this movie. Not because "how dare they" or anything but more because there are a bunch of other movies I'd like to see but I'm lazy and don't make it to the movies that often. Also cheap. So I guess I'm saying if it's someday on TV and there's nothing else on or the remote is really far away I might watch it. I believe Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare (kooky idea, right?) but I like a good conspiracy theory as much as the next person. But really, if you're going to make an
anti-Stratfordian movie, let's at least go all out.
By that I mean, if you're going to make a movie that says Shakespeare didn't write Shakespeare, why not go with Marlowe as the actual writer? I don't believe it anymore than I believe de Vere or Bacon or any of the
other 70+ candidates for Shakespearian authorship. It's just that at least it makes a good story. Here are the basics
Marlowe is a successful dramatist, with his plays
The Jew of Malta and
Doctor Faustus bringing in all the groundlings. But he's also a spy! (Dun dun duuunn) He was a spy for the Queen, who got him out of a couple tight situations, so it seems he had some powerful friends. But powerful friends can only help you so much when blasphemy is on the line and your roommate Kyd sells you out. Marlowe is reputed to be an atheist so even the Queen is having trouble making this thing go away. What to do? Oh, a faked death you say? Perfect! Marlowe gets in a bar fight over a bill and is stabbed in the eye and killed. Just days before he's supposed to go on trial for heresy. They probably went with the eye-stabbing because you can't cut the breaks on a horse. Now he hangs out in Italy for awhile and let's things back in London blow over. But he also must
dance write. So he gets an old contemporary of his to take his works and claim them as his own. And
that is how you do an anti-Stratfordian conspiracy theory
See how much better that story is? Spies! Atheists! Faked death! Also there's a chance Marlowe might have been gay, so there's that to. So what would you rather: a guy who was too fancy to write or an Elizabethan James Bond for whom even faked death couldn't stop his need to write? Exactly.
