Shakespeare a Fraud?

The other day in acting class, we were going over Theatre History. As we talked about the Elizabethan era, my teacher told me that the top three theaters were run by William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, and Ben Johnson. As I was about to fall asleep on my notes, my teacher said something that caught my attention. He said there was a theory that Marlowe and Shakespeare were the same person.

"Ludicrous!" That's what I thought.

Wrong! I decided to go home and do some research and I found several sites that offered information supporting this theory. One site claimed that, "Marlowe was 29 when he died, except that “he didn’t die” and “HE wrote Shakespeare thereafter... and that Shakspeare was a provincial nonentity, some-time actor and scribbler.”" (Jarvis par 1). I was completely shocked at what I was reading. Could it be true that the famous Shakespeare who wrote so many plays that we look up to is a fraud?? The site also claims that Marlowe could have been a payed spy, hiding away for who knows what reason. Then, I had to ask myself, why would Marlowe want to 'become' Shakespeare? Why couldn't he keep his own name? In several other sites it says that Shakespeare and Marlowe were friends. How could the same person be friends? Of course, this happened quite some time ago, so the story might be altered. Who knows! I thought it was really interesting myself and kind of gave me a scare! Check out the site and tell me what you guys think!



Works Cited
Jarvis, Brian. "Candidates for Shakespeare." Rogues, Vagabonds, and Sturdy Beggars: A Beginners Guide to the Shakespeare Authorship Mystery (2007) 3 Sep 2008 .