OUP and the Marlowe truthers are pandering to the lowest form of Shakespeare populism

Back in 2007, Derek Jacobi and Mark Rylance delivered a petition, pompously titled ‘Declaration of Reasonable Doubt’, to that august seat of learning, Brunel University. The petition was the continuation, and perhaps culmination, of centuries of debate over what is known as the ‘authorship question’, an obsessive pursuit – undertaken almost entirely outside of academia – of the real author of Shakespeare’s plays.

For conservative folk, that answer has always been, simply, Shakespeare, but for the clear-sighted geniuses of the Shakespeare Authorship Coalition, the answer has ranged from Edward de Vere to Sir Francis Bacon. Despite long being seen as the birther movement of literature, the authorship questioners have this week won their greatest victory: Oxford University Press has announced that it will be offering Christopher Marlowe a co-writer credit on Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Parts I, II and III.