16 Nov 2015

(331) Are we really to believe that Heywood did dramatize Shakespeare's Lucrece?

In  1594, the epic poem "Lucrece"  was printed 

with  the name of the dedicating author William Shakespeare .


There is evidence (in  Draytons Poeem " Matilda" 1594, line 36-42 ) that  a tragedy of "The Rape of Lucrece" by Thomas Heywood was acted on the London stage.

 A Print of this  play  does exist from 1608 



                                         



Are we really to believe that Lucrece, appeared in the same year 1594 as a narrative Poem by William Shakespeare , as a stage Play (tragedy) by  Thomas Heywood, and as a Poem by Michael Drayton?

Isn't it more plausible and likely in 1594 (the first year after Marlowe's Life catastrophy) that the author / inventor of the poetic metaphor of the crime of Tarquin versus Lucrece was always the same who published  his (auto) biographic parable as different literary Genres.    

Why there isn't a  more consistent explanation  for these strange observations  by Shakespeare experts?

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