Who else than Marlowe could have written the "B-version" of Doctor Faustus in 1616?
If a student wants to know, how it happened that after the A-Version (first printend 1604) of Marlowes Dr.Faustus 12 years later a second B-Version was printed (1616), but now enlarged by a third of its volume in the middle part of Dr.Faustus. - He would ask:
a) Who could have written the B-Version?
b) Did the B-version already exist 24 years earlier in 1593, the official death of Marlowe?
b) Did the B-version already exist 24 years earlier in 1593, the official death of Marlowe?
c) What could it mean that 1616 ( the death year of Shakspere from Stratford!) Faustus is exclaiming:
»Knew you not, traitors, I was limited
For four and twenty years to breathe on earth?
And had you cut my body with your swords,
Or hewed this flesh and bones as small as sand,
Yet in a minute had my spirit returned,
And I had breathed a man made free from harm.«
Is this metaphoricall or autobiographical?
»Knew you not, traitors, I was limited
For four and twenty years to breathe on earth?
And had you cut my body with your swords,
Or hewed this flesh and bones as small as sand,
Yet in a minute had my spirit returned,
And I had breathed a man made free from harm.«
