LONDON BRIDGE, Lake Havasu City, Arizona (GlossyNews) — In a recent, controversial paper for The Journal of Cultural History and Aesthetic Identity, historian Leonard Zelig claims that the works of late sixteenth century cultural giants Christopher Marlowe and Francis Bacon were actually written by a contemporary, a playwright named William Shakespeare, from rural Stratford-on-Avon. “This is going to shock a lot of people,” Zelig said in an interview with Gravier magazine, “But the evidence is pretty clear that this playwright named Shakespeare did all the writing. Two men could not have produced the vast amount of material attributed to them in so short a time.”

For further evidence, Zelig pointed to the differences in style between Marlowe’s and Bacon’s writing as a sure indicator that they were not the authors of their reputed works. He also noted that two well-educated and worldly men like Marlowe and Bacon could never have written the sophisticated and erudite material that appeared under their names. “Marlowe’s death and Bacon’s further career as a government official and diplomat proves this conclusively,” said Zelig.

Marlowe expert and biographer Carl Young has refuted Zelig’s claims in numerous articles and during appearances on The News Hour, C-Span’s Book Talk and Jimmy Kimmel Live. “Zelig has failed to use proper methodology and primary sources. Much of his theory comes from research done at a Soviet collective farm in the 1970s that attempted to delve into Marlowe’s subconscious using the psychotropic effects of bread mold. In many scholarly circles, this collective subconscious research is now viewed with suspicion.”

Other literary historians have been quick to point out that this same technique was used in the 1990s to prove definitively that most of the works of Carl Sandburg were, in fact, penned by Abraham Lincoln.

Despite the controversy, Zelig is adamant and says a dramatic film is in the works, with Tom Hanks, Gwyneth Paltrow and Tony Hayward of BP signed on to play major roles.