Christopher Marlowe has officially been given co-writing credit for three plays previously attributed to Williams Shakespeare. But those of us in touch with immortal vampires already knew that. In the film Only Lovers Left Alive, we learned that Christopher Marlowe — an ancient vampire played by John Hurt — wrote all of Shakespeare’s best stuff.
On October 24, NPR reported that a forthcoming Oxford Edition of Shakespeare’s works will give co-credit to the 16th century poet and writer Christopher Marlowe for all three Henry VI plays. This conclusion was been brewing for some time and is reportedly based on both “old and new research.” Speaking to NPR, editor Gary Taylor said that “All these publications have been subjected to rigorous peer-review.” This means the publisher is standing behind a viewpoint which was once considered pretty frivolous in academic circles.
Still, filmmaker Jim Jarmusch was way ahead on this news back in 2013. In Only Lovers Left Alive, the immortal vampires Adam (Tom Hiddleston) and Eve (Tilda Swinton) are best buddies with a character named “Marlowe” (John Hurt).
Throughout the film, it becomes clear that Marlowe wrote literally all of Shakespeare’s plays, and allowed the lesser man to take all the credit. Marlowe is bitter about this and not just because he’s a vampire.
In the world of Only Lovers Left Alive, regular non-vampire humans are referred to dismissively as “zombies,” which now, more than ever, applies to Shakespeare. And with this new real-world confirmation that Marlowe is really the co-author of at least a few Shakespeare plays, we’re confident the revelation that he and perhaps the Bard himself were also both vampires cannot be far behind.
