{"id":6238,"date":"2022-09-10T00:07:06","date_gmt":"2022-09-10T00:07:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/?p=6238"},"modified":"2024-12-13T18:49:27","modified_gmt":"2024-12-13T18:49:27","slug":"marlowes-dr-faustus-freedom-censorship-and-speculation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/marlowes-dr-faustus-freedom-censorship-and-speculation\/","title":{"rendered":"Marlowe’s “Dr. Faustus,” Freedom, Censorship and Speculation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"(left)<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, Sir Francis Bacon and Queen Elizabeth I all lived in England during the late 1500s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An odd lot of history and literature buffs have said that Marlowe, Bacon or someone else wrote Shakespeare’s plays. I suspect their roster overlaps the roll call of folks who seem convinced that the Queen, Sir Walter Raleigh or some other VIP had Marlowe killed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My thoroughly tongue-in-cheek contribution to the weirdness was that Shakespeare was Marlowe’s ghostwriter, and had Marlowe killed. Or that Marlowe and Shakespeare were both really Queen Elizabeth I, who let off steam by masquerading as a playwright.1<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adding to the fun, or confusion, we don’t actually have Marlowe’s script for “Dr. Faustus.” What we’ve got is one version, published in 1604 and reprinted in 1609; and another printed in 1616.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My weekly posts often don’t go in quite the direction I had in mind at first. But this week’s took a longer-than-usual-detour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n