Customer Reviews

Shakespeare: New Evidence

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I had to hunt this down after catching her speak in the incredible PBS/Frontline documentary that left not a doubt in my mind as to Shakespeare's non-authorship. Unbelievable omissions: no public mourning of WS, no mention of "playwright" in his death register. All we know is he left Stratford fuctionally illiterate two years before Marlowe's "death," and returned a few decades later filthy rich. Marlowe, by the way, was "killed" by his patron's servant (convenient) only days before he was scheduled to be executed by the Church in very nasty ways, and Queen Lizzy declared no one could investigate his "murder," or his "killer's" aquittal without going before her private court. She was a big Marlowe fan. There are records of him living in Italy to the ripe old age of 63.

This makes a very convincing case that WH was not the author of the plays and Marlowe was. Wraight very skilfully guides the reader through the new evidence.

This book is a surprisingly and wholly believable alternate view of the so-called Shakespeare authorship problem. Although it is clearly an academic work which does assume at least cursory knowledge of Shakespeare's works and the authorship issue, it is easily read and quite engrossing. Wraight's thesis proposes that the true author of the "Stratfordian's" works is none other than Shakespeare's incredibly popular contemporary Christopher Marlowe. Sound Boring? To this mix add murder, court intrigue, government coverups, con men and poetic cyphers and you've got yourself something that Oliver Stone couldn't think up on his own. After all of the twisting and turning, through which Wraight quite adeptly guides the reader, one is left with a VERY convincing case- one which bears, at the very least, a second look. My only problem with the whole work is Wraight's rather shameless plugging of her other publications. It seems that her english teacher never told her not to use the word "I" in a thesis paper.

The title of this book suggests that there is to be presented in these pages some new "evidence" to the argument that someone other than WS wrote the Shakespeare plays. But there is so little that holds water here that it is quite literally laughable. From misquoating some passages, to misinterpreting meanings of words and/or wording, and only quoating a small fraction of a famous open letter and then shading the meanings to suit her evidence, the author makes her research seem sullied. Her anti-Stratfordian bias runs rampant. If one would believe her, a glovers son couldn't write the greatest plays in history, but the son of an illiterate shoemaker could. As interesting as this book is, it leaves one with a feeling that there is no reason for this sort of hero-worshipping claptrap. Mr. Sam's or Mr Schoenbaum's Shakespeare books are much better.