grumpy Shakespeare-authorship journalism rant
AARGHH GUARDIAN STOP BEING STUPID!!!
Admittedly, The Guardian is often stupid about Shakespeare, but it's usually in ways that are at least entertaining, like suggesting, on the basis of a wildly out-of-context reading of Sonnet 76, that he preferred pot to the fancy designer drugs of his day. (N.B., "weed" in this poem does not actually mean ... weed, and the "compounds strange" are linguistic ones.) Also, Elizabeth Winkler is exactly the wrong person to hire if you want to make any pretense of doing objective journalism on this particular issue. (And she does, in fact, seem to be ... trying to pretend that she is doing objective journalism? Like, there's enough both-sidesery here that unless you KNOW something about the topic, it sounds superficially like a normal news article, and you miss that the "new research" consists of using a bunch of cabalistic numerology to try to "prove" that a period source is saying the opposite of what it literally says.)
Also ... I dunno why Supreme Court justices and actors are the two professions most prone to embracing this particular brand of weirdness, but you'd think the actors would think twice about it, given that the not-so-subtle subtext is that Shakespeare-the-professional-actor-of-middle-class-origins can't possibly have been smart enough to be Shakespeare-the-poet.
Also-also ... it turns out that Heminges-and-Condell denialism is a thing as well. (Not mentioned in the article -- courtesy of some dude who has been posting his own cabalistic proofs all over a Facebook page that I belong to, until the mods banned him.) It goes all the way back to the late 19th-early 20th century, apparently. Because somebody decided that the Folio dedications are so well-written that they had to be the work of a "man of letters," and came to the conclusion that a couple of actors, one of whom was also a grocer and a pub owner, could not possibly qualify. Never mind that they spent decades in a profession that required you to have some serious rhetorical ability; never mind, also, that these guys were among Shakespeare's chosen circle of close London friends, and one might reasonably expect them to be smart and well-read. (There's a good deal of overlap with Shakespeare deniers, but the Venn diagram isn't a perfect circle.)
Why yes, I do feel all bristly and protective of John and Harry these days, thanks for asking :)
Admittedly, The Guardian is often stupid about Shakespeare, but it's usually in ways that are at least entertaining, like suggesting, on the basis of a wildly out-of-context reading of Sonnet 76, that he preferred pot to the fancy designer drugs of his day. (N.B., "weed" in this poem does not actually mean ... weed, and the "compounds strange" are linguistic ones.) Also, Elizabeth Winkler is exactly the wrong person to hire if you want to make any pretense of doing objective journalism on this particular issue. (And she does, in fact, seem to be ... trying to pretend that she is doing objective journalism? Like, there's enough both-sidesery here that unless you KNOW something about the topic, it sounds superficially like a normal news article, and you miss that the "new research" consists of using a bunch of cabalistic numerology to try to "prove" that a period source is saying the opposite of what it literally says.)
Also ... I dunno why Supreme Court justices and actors are the two professions most prone to embracing this particular brand of weirdness, but you'd think the actors would think twice about it, given that the not-so-subtle subtext is that Shakespeare-the-professional-actor-of-middle-class-origins can't possibly have been smart enough to be Shakespeare-the-poet.
Also-also ... it turns out that Heminges-and-Condell denialism is a thing as well. (Not mentioned in the article -- courtesy of some dude who has been posting his own cabalistic proofs all over a Facebook page that I belong to, until the mods banned him.) It goes all the way back to the late 19th-early 20th century, apparently. Because somebody decided that the Folio dedications are so well-written that they had to be the work of a "man of letters," and came to the conclusion that a couple of actors, one of whom was also a grocer and a pub owner, could not possibly qualify. Never mind that they spent decades in a profession that required you to have some serious rhetorical ability; never mind, also, that these guys were among Shakespeare's chosen circle of close London friends, and one might reasonably expect them to be smart and well-read. (There's a good deal of overlap with Shakespeare deniers, but the Venn diagram isn't a perfect circle.)
Why yes, I do feel all bristly and protective of John and Harry these days, thanks for asking :)