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Extent of Scholarly Consensus on Shakespeare Authorship Question


In response to the growing popularity of anti-Stratfordism, a series of academic works attacked its methodology as unscholarly and the conclusions as ridiculous.[1] American cryptologists William and Elizebeth Friedman won the Folger Shakespeare Library Literary Prize in 1955 for a study of the arguments that the works of Shakespeare contain hidden ciphers. The study disproved all claims that the works contain ciphers, and was condensed and published as The Shakespearean Ciphers Examined (1957). Soon after, four major works were issued surveying the history of the anti-Stratfordian phenomenon from a mainstream perspective: The Poacher from Stratford (1958), by Frank Wadsworth, Shakespeare and His Betters (1958), by Reginald Churchill, The Shakespeare Claimants (1962), by H. N. Gibson, and Shakespeare and His Rivals: A Casebook on the Authorship Controversy (1962), by George L. McMichael and Edgar M. Glenn. In 1959 the American Bar Association Journal published a series of articles and letters on the authorship controversy, later anthologised as Shakespeare Cross-Examination (1961). In 1968 the newsletter of The Shakespeare Oxford Society reported that "the missionary or evangelical spirit of most of our members seems to be at a low ebb, dormant, or non-existent".[2] In 1974, membership in the society stood at 80.[3]

During the period from 1991 through 2005, a number of scholars dismissively mentioned the Shakespeare authorship question, treating the matter as settled. For example, David Kathman wrote: "...antiStratfordism has remained a fringe belief system"[4]; also see Schoenbaum[5]; and Paster said: "To ask me about the authorship question ... is like asking a palaeontologist to debate a creationist's account of the fossil record."[6] Some professors went so far as to claim that a unanimous consensus prevailed. For example, Nelson: "I do not know of a single professor of the 1,300-member Shakespeare Association of America who questions the identity of Shakespeare..."[7]; Carroll: "I have never met anyone in an academic position like mine, in the Establishment, who entertained the slightest doubt as to Shakespeare's authorship of the general body of plays attributed to him."[8]

Others expressed similar sentiments, while qualifying their remarks with the stance that even if some anti-Stratfordians still existed, such persons had no "standing" or were not "great". For example: Sutherland & Watts: "There is, it should be noted, no academic Shakespearian of any standing who goes along with the Oxfordian theory."[9]; Gibson: "...most of the great Shakespearean scholars are to be found in the Stratfordian camp..."[10] In general, an Ad_hoc attempt to retain an assertion of universality in the face of evidence to the contrary, is known as the No True Scotsman fallacy.[11]

During this time, professors within the Stratfordian camp went so far as to acknowledge or even recommend an open conspiracy to maintain the academic consensus. Nelson: "... antagonism to the authorship debate from within the profession is so great that it would be as difficult for a professed Oxfordian to be hired in the first place, much less gain tenure..."[12]; Pendleton: "Shakespeareans sometimes take the position that to even engage the Oxfordian hypothesis is to give it a countenance it does not warrant."[13]


On 14 April 2007 the Shakespeare Authorship Coalition issued an internet petition, the "Declaration of Reasonable Doubt About the Identity of William Shakespeare", coinciding with Brunel University's announcement of a one-year Master of Arts programme in Shakespeare authorship studies (since suspended). The coalition intends to enlist broad public support as well as academic support, so that by 2016, the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death, the academic Shakespeare establishment will be forced to acknowledge that legitimate grounds for doubting Shakespeare's authorship exist.[14] More than 1,200 signatures were collected by the end of 2007, and by March 2016 the number of signatures had increased to 3,300, including those of 561 who were verified by the Coalition as current or former academics. On 22 April 2007, The New York Times published a survey of 265 American Shakespeare professors on the Shakespeare authorship question. To the question of whether there is good reason to question Shakespeare's authorship, 6 per cent answered "yes", and 11 percent "possibly". When asked their opinion of the topic, 61 per cent chose "A theory without convincing evidence" and 32 per cent chose "A waste of time and classroom distraction".[15]

In 2010 James S. Shapiro surveyed the authorship question in Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare? Approaching the subject sociologically, Shapiro found its origins to be grounded in a vein of traditional scholarship going back to Edmond Malone, and criticised academia for ignoring the topic, which was, he argued, tantamount to surrendering the field to anti-Stratfordians.[16] Shapiro links the revival of the Oxfordian movement to the cultural changes that followed the Watergate conspiracy scandal that increased the willingness of the public to believe in governmental conspiracies and cover-ups,[17] and Robert Sawyer suggests that the increased presence of anti-Stratfordian ideas in popular culture can be attributed to the proliferation of conspiracy theories since the 9/11 attacks.[18]


Citations

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  1. ^ Shapiro 2010, p. 229 (202).
  2. ^ Quoted in Shapiro 2010, pp. 228–9 (201).
  3. ^ Shapiro 2010, p. 230 (202).
  4. ^ Kathman 2003, p. 621
  5. ^ Schoenbaum 1991, p. 450
  6. ^ Paster 1999, p. 38
  7. ^ Nelson 2004, pp. 149–51
  8. ^ Carroll 2004, pp. 278–9
  9. ^ Sutherland & Watts 2000, p. 7
  10. ^ Gibson 2005, p. 30
  11. ^ No True Scotsman, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  12. ^ Nelson 2004, pp. 149–51
  13. ^ Pendleton 1994, p. 21
  14. ^ Shapiro 2010, pp. 248–9 (218–9); Hackett 2009, pp. 171–2.
  15. ^ Niederkorn 2007.
  16. ^ Shapiro 2010, pp. 4, 42 (5, 39).
  17. ^ Shapiro 2010, pp. 231–32, 239–41 (203–4, 210–2).
  18. ^ Sawyer 2013, pp. 28–9.

References

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