Abstract
Starting from the accepted premise that Marlowe influenced the young Shakespeare, a selection of strongly contextual words characteristic of Tamburlaine are shown to be reflected in Shakespeare's early history plays. Principal components analysis confirms this. A very similar configuration, however, results when the selected Marlowe-preferred words are non-contextual common words. This feature can not be explained by influence in its conventional sense, particularly when the Shakespeare plays closest to Marlowe are those that share with Marlowe a dearth of selected Shakespeare-preferred common words.
Greene, Kyd and Peele are tested to see if they attract to themselves the same plays as those drawn by Marlowe. Marlowe is seen to be the overriding magnet in all cases.
Both conventional and non-contextual words link ten Marlowe works, even though seven are plays, and two of the ten are translations from Latin. Eight Shakespeare plays can be distinguished as somewhat separate from the other 28 Shakespeare plays and having an affinity with the Marlowe works.
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Thomas Merriam has collaborated with Robert Matthews on articles treating the use of neural networks with authorship discriminators, as well as with Gerard Ledger on letter frequency as a discriminator between Shakespeare and Fletcher. He has written articles suggesting that Marlowe and Shakespeare contributed to the anonymous play,Edward III.
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Merriam, T. Tamburlaine stalks in Henry VI . Comput Hum 30, 267–280 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00055110
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00055110