New American publishes review of antiStrat book

Marlowe-Shakespeare Connection by Samuel L. Blumenfeld

Raven Clabough reviewed Samuel L. Blumenfeld’s two-year-old book, Marlowe-Shakespeare Connection: a New Study of the Authorship Question (McFarland, 2008), in yesterday’s edition of The New American Magazine, published bi-weekly by American Opinion Publishing — a wholly owned subsidiary of the John Birch Society.

Clabough’s review, “Who Authored the Shakespeare Canon?”, highlights the shortcomings of the Stratfordian authorship theory and places Blumenfeld’s Marlovian thesis within the controversy.

Clabough says:

Blumenfeld, like most anti-Stratfordians, makes use of the lack of information recorded about Shakespeare as a means to justify that Shakespeare could not have written the plays. Scholars cite Shakespeare’s failure to mention any manuscripts or books in his will to justify the claim that he could not have been the author, since the plays reflect an author who had access to historical, political, and geographical sources. Yet Shakespeare seemingly had none.

While it is certainly reasonable to question the authorship of the plays, given the lack of historical documentation, the solution proposed by Marlovians leaves several questions unanswered.

. . .

Despite the lingering questions, Blumenfeld’s book proves to be an intriguing read. His use of English history and close analysis of Marlowe’s plays are vital to the reader’s understanding of his theory, which is to convince the reader that Stratfordians have been duped for nearly 400 years.