(358) Shakespeare‘s obvious lack of autobiographical information.

The predominant disguise motif (= Loss of identity) of Shakespeare's plays 

clearly had autobiographical roots!

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K.A:Quarmby

Kevin A. Quarmby , Assistant Professor of English at Oxford College of Emory University, investigates in his book " The Disguised Ruler in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries (Ashgate, 2012) the "disguised ruler motif" . In single chapters his analysis  includes Shakespeare's “Measure for Measure”, Marston's“The Malcontent”/“The Fawn”, Middleton's “The Phoenix” and Sharpham's “The Fleire”.

Web reviews of Quarmby's book tell us that  (whereas "disguised ruler plays are typically interpreted as synchronic political commentaries about King James") "Quarmby destabilizes some idée fixes of the Shakespeare field – for instance, the idea, often promulgated, that the Friar in "Measure for Measure" is a reflection of James I."

It has long been known that no plot device is more constantly recurrent in Shakespearean drama than is disguise.- Shakespeare injects masquerade into 25 of his comedies, tragedies and chronicle plays.- His intent in bringing a disguised figure onto stage is always to conceal the identity of one ore more characters from other persons in the play.-

To those "Non-Stratfordians" accepting the enlarged authorship Thesis of Marlowe's life catastrophy'

(In brief: after a state-supported "false flag" life rescue operation  feigning his death, May 1593 , Marlowe was permanently forced to change identity and name and write  under many Pseudonyms throughout his longlasting life).

 ......it becomes evident that a) not only the  disguise motif itself, but  b) also the motif of constantly alternating "pseudo-author-names" has belonged to the predominant autobiographical literary influences and topics  of an author, who permanently  had lost his identity and name.-

What may Quarmby have led to  his escapist results? Is he aware of the complex problems of Marston's/ Webster's, Middleton's and Sharpham's authenticity and of the missing "disguise motifs" of Shakspere, the Stratford  business man ?

Will anybody make us really believe that the predominant disguise motif (loss of identity) of Shakespeare's plays had no autobiographical roots?

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