[David Callin]

Originally Posted by E. Shaun Russell

One could made a compelling speculative argument that had Shakespeare not existed, there are several candidates for playwrights who would have held a similar place in literary history.

I think your comments have been a model of good sense throughout, Shaun, but I draw the line at that one. Without Shakespeare, would we have thought of Marlowe, or Webster, or Jonson, as we do of him? (Maybe Marlowe if he'd survived, sure, but not as we have him.)

I think not.

[Carl Copeland]

Originally Posted by David Callin

Maybe Marlowe if he'd survived ...

Ah, but he did survive and wrote Shakespeare’s plays in French exile! That’s my favorite non-Stratfordian theory, though it seems as farfetched as it is colorful. BTW, I’d be interested in knowing what Shaun or anyone else thinks of “The Marlowe Papers,” an award-winning novel in Elizabethan blank verse by Ros Barber, who’s a card-carrying Marlovian.