Currently viewing the tag: "Earl of Oxford"

Shakespearean Mythbusting II: The Fantasy of Astonishing Erudition

By On 12/11/2011 · 9 Comments

Two weeks ago, I wrote an op-ed arguing, among other things, that Shakespeare was not a notably erudite writer, and was not considered especially learned by his contemporaries or by his admirers for a long time after his death. Some of the responses to the piece took me on a guided tour down the [...]

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How Shakespeare Could Write Shakespeare

By On 31/10/2011 · 15 Comments

Or, as my original title had it, “Shakespeare as Usual”:

My op-ed in The Montreal Gazette, responding to Oxfordian Keir Cutler’s piece published last Thursday.

Here’s how it starts:

I don’t think Keir Cutler (“There is method in this madness,” Opinion, Oct. 27) and others who believe Shakespeare wasn’t Shakespeare are certifiably mad. [...]

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Shakespearean Mythbusting I: The Fantasy of the Unsurpassed Vocabulary

By On 23/10/2011 · 18 Comments

As I argued in a post last week, academic Shakespeareans need to confront those who make it their mission to convince the public that Shakespeare didn’t write the plays Shakespeare wrote. We can’t afford to ignore these claims, lest we appear scared, indifferent, or silently consenting. But unlike some of my colleagues, I think [...]

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Enough Already

By On 18/10/2011 · 155 Comments

For the longest time, academic Shakespeare specialists have simply ignored the so-called authorship controversy. In the face of a steady stream of books proposing one supposed “real Shakespeare” after another, we in the academy have largely shrugged and turned back to the kind of work we consider important, relevant, and worthwhile; and most of that [...]

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