13 Oct 2016

(471) How to explain the gigantic [but lost?] literary output of Thomas Heywood compared to Shakespeare ?

The gigantic [but lost?] literary output of Thomas Heywood compared to  Shakespeare ? 


 Thomas Heywood, of the same age than Shakspere or Marlowe, started his literary career [similarly to Shakspere] late, only after the death of  Marlowe (1593) ! Why ?

Title cover of Thomas Heywoods Play 1633
Epistle "To the Reader", ´in Thomas Heywoods Play "The English Traveler"
How can it be that in 1633 Thomas Heywood in his epistle to the Reader of his Play "The English Traveller" told us

a) that that play was one among 220 plays (Tragedies/Comedies) he had written ("beeing  one reserved amongst two hundred and twenty")

b) that he was fully aware of all his publications ("having intelligence therof") even though they appeared "accidentally"  [SOED,"a note or mark that may be retained or omitted  in a coat of arms "1610]

c) that he never had a great ambition that "his playes" to be read in volumes to beare the title "WORKES"  (such as Jonson.) " and

d) that he thought it appropriate that his plays are not anonymous ("thought it not fit that it should passe as filius populi", a bastard without a father) , thus giving each  play a "literary  father,"  appearing under different  pseudonyms (think of e.g. of Beaumont / Fletcher )

The true Shakespeare: Christopher Marlowe (5th Edition 2016)
                                 There are significant reasons to assume that Thomas Heywood belonged to the multiplicity of  pennames of "The true Shakespeare" (C.Marlowe) with  a gigantic literary output, but under many different pennames and  did  write by no means only 2 plays per year in less than 2 decades