For those of us who have taken more than our fair share of Shakespeare in school, and / or done our independent study, there was a fascinating story in a recent issue of the Wall Street Journal.
Someone, this time Mr. Shapiro at Columbia University, has picked up the challenge:
Why did you decide to explore the roots of the controversy rather than writing a straight rebuttal?
For two reasons. I didn't write this book to be read by the people who don't believe that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare, and nothing, nothing I could say will change what is for them a matter of faith. And I know that because they've been reading and responding to the book in their online reviews and in the occasional hate letter to me, and they just feel that I haven't come over to their side. The book's really written not as a rejoinder to them, but to mainstream Shakespeare scholars who teach and write and believe that they know Shakespeare well enough to find his life in the works. The book really is about when the writing of Shakespeare's life went off the rails.
Why do you think projecting the author's life onto the plays is so problematic?
People say: What difference does it make who wrote the plays? It's because either you believe he's recycling bits and pieces of his life, or you believe that he imagined them, and I like to think that he had the greatest imagination of any writer in the language. And I don't want that belittled.
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