Poor Shakespeare
I know this is mightily old news over the Czech border, but in our bookstores, poor old Will is currently facing a giant attack. Just a few months after the publication of the newest Marlovian book (John Underwood's Shakespeare Chronicles), there's a Baconian one on the market.
While I really appreciated Underwood's book, which is an excellent summary of Marlovian arguments (I leave aside the mediocre frame story), I think it is a bit problematic when published in Czech and here. Hardly anyone of our general public knows the Shakespeare authorship debate has been going on for years. The book comes with a big "banned in England" on the cover. It IS well argued. I wonder how many people will take it at face value. Well, actually, we can't know for sure, it's hard for me to accept that three years of grammar school in Stratford shoulod indeed be enough of an education for SHAKESPEARE. But then, he might have gotten education of which simply no evidence survives. As an Egyptologist, I know just how important the preservation factor may be.
I have bought the Baconian book, The Shakespeare code, as well. This time I am mightily disappointed by the overall level. I haven't finished the book yet and I wionder if I ever will, because, let me say it frankly, it's a pack of nonsense. Perhaps I was expecting a reasonbale argument such as the one I found in Underwood. Virginia M. Fellows, though, has given up any attempt at reason.
I could accept the possibility, given enough evidence, that Bacon might have been the author of Shakespeare. I'm not inclined to believe it, but I am willing to give it a try to be persuaded. All the plays being a cipher for Bacon's life, encrypted because he was a secret son of Queen Elisabeth? Theoretically possible. The same text being encoded in the plays TWICE, in two different ciphers? Why? And how do you keep sense in a doubly encrypted text? Bacon being the author of Shakespeare? Theoretically possible. Bacon being the author of ALL period literature and poetry of any value? Excuse me?
To cap it all, she repeats endlessly that Bacon has "esoteric interests". Well of course he had, every intellectual of that era had, and this was true for some time later as well. The founder of Czech Egyptology in the 1920, Frantisek Lexa, was also a leading Czech practitioner of magic. To repeat in on every tenth page is stupid.
What's Summit University btw? I can't imagine a serious university funding that kind of "research". But then, she might just have used the name, I guess.
While I really appreciated Underwood's book, which is an excellent summary of Marlovian arguments (I leave aside the mediocre frame story), I think it is a bit problematic when published in Czech and here. Hardly anyone of our general public knows the Shakespeare authorship debate has been going on for years. The book comes with a big "banned in England" on the cover. It IS well argued. I wonder how many people will take it at face value. Well, actually, we can't know for sure, it's hard for me to accept that three years of grammar school in Stratford shoulod indeed be enough of an education for SHAKESPEARE. But then, he might have gotten education of which simply no evidence survives. As an Egyptologist, I know just how important the preservation factor may be.
I have bought the Baconian book, The Shakespeare code, as well. This time I am mightily disappointed by the overall level. I haven't finished the book yet and I wionder if I ever will, because, let me say it frankly, it's a pack of nonsense. Perhaps I was expecting a reasonbale argument such as the one I found in Underwood. Virginia M. Fellows, though, has given up any attempt at reason.
I could accept the possibility, given enough evidence, that Bacon might have been the author of Shakespeare. I'm not inclined to believe it, but I am willing to give it a try to be persuaded. All the plays being a cipher for Bacon's life, encrypted because he was a secret son of Queen Elisabeth? Theoretically possible. The same text being encoded in the plays TWICE, in two different ciphers? Why? And how do you keep sense in a doubly encrypted text? Bacon being the author of Shakespeare? Theoretically possible. Bacon being the author of ALL period literature and poetry of any value? Excuse me?
To cap it all, she repeats endlessly that Bacon has "esoteric interests". Well of course he had, every intellectual of that era had, and this was true for some time later as well. The founder of Czech Egyptology in the 1920, Frantisek Lexa, was also a leading Czech practitioner of magic. To repeat in on every tenth page is stupid.
What's Summit University btw? I can't imagine a serious university funding that kind of "research". But then, she might just have used the name, I guess.