Skip to main content

Falling Roof!

By

Sorry, I just couldn't resist posting this excerpt from the web. It can be found at

It actually refers to a serious problem (and the website does eventually spell "falling" correctly), but it struck me as perhaps a nice summary of the true feeling of some "orthodox" scholars in the face of all the mounting evidence that "their guy" was NOT THE ONE. I think this explains why there are suddenly so many new "biographies" of Shakespeare coming out. It is a direct response to the points being made by Oxfordians and other "Anti-Stratfordians" (I actually don't really like that term).

Anyway, this excerpt and the website it comes from is actually about the real problem that the roof over the bust and grave of William Shakespeare in Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon is in urgent need of repair and that the charity organization "Friends of Shakespeare's Church" is trying to raise money right away to help out. They were founded in 2002 in order to help raise the money to pay for a massive multi-year campaign to preserve and fix the church. This included the 2008 "revamping" of Shakespeare's grave (see my previous blog from May 29, 2008). But now they need immediate funds to fix the roof which was an unanticipated problem.

More information can also be found at these two sites:



I actually think that Stratford-upon-Avon will still have a future after Edward deVere becomes recognized as the "true Shakespeare" After all, the village of Castle Hedingham does not seem to want all the publicity which will come to them when a new Birthplace is proclaimed.

Stratford can still show off their Birthplace and the other Shakespeare Properties. They will just have to refer to the Birthplace as the birthplace of the "Man Formerly Known as the Bard" or "the Bard's Front Man" or "the man who stole the credit for writing the plays" or "the man whose name was similar to the playwright's and just got confused with him" or whatever the real reason for the original attribution of the works to this Stratford local turns out to be.

So don't feel bad about giving a donation to help preserve Holy Trinity Church even if you are an "Anti-Stratfordian" (there's that term again). After all, we need to preserve information about past mistakes, misconceptions, and myths so that we can learn from them.

Let's also hope that the "orthodox" scholars don't get too hurt when the metaphorical "roof over Shakespeare's head" does eventually fall.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What's a popp'rin' pear?

By
James Wheaton reported yesterday in the Jackson Citizen Patriot that the Michigan Shakespeare Festival high school tour of Romeo and Juliet was criticized for inappropriate content -- " So me take issue with sexual innuendoes in Michigan Shakespeare Festival’s High School Tour performances of ‘Romeo & Juliet’" : Western [High School] parent Rosie Crowley said she was upset when she heard students laughing about sexual content in the play afterwards. Her son didn’t attend the performance Tuesday because of another commitment, she said.  “I think the theater company should have left out any references that were rated R,” Crowley said. “I would say that I’ve read Shakespeare, and what I was told from the students, I’ve never read anything that bad.”  She said she objected to scenes that involved pelvic thrusting and breast touching and to a line in which Mercutio makes suggestive comments to Romeo after looking up the skirt of a female. The problem with cutting out...
Post a Comment
Read more

Winkler lights the match

By
by Linda Theil When asked by an interviewer why all the experts disagree with her on the legitimacy of the Shakespeare authorship question, journalist and author Elizabeth Winkler  calmly replied, "You've asked the wrong experts." * With that simple declaration Winkler exploded the topic of Shakespearean authorship forever. Anti-Stratfordians need no smoking gun, no convincing narrative, no reason who, how, when, or why because within the works lies the unassailable argument: Shakespeare's knowledge. Ask the lawyers. Ask the psychologists. Ask the librarians. Ask the historians. Ask the dramaturges. Ask the mathematicians. Ask the Greek scholars. Ask the physicists. Ask the astronomers. Ask the courtiers. Ask the bibliophiles. Ask the Italians. Ask the French. Ask the Russians. Ask the English. Ask everyone. Current academic agreement on a bevy of Shakespearean collaborators springs from an unspoken awareness of how much assistance the Stratfordian presumptive would h...
Read more

Dudley nails it to the door

By
Michael Dudley author of The Shakespeare Authorship Question and Philosphy: Knowledge, Rhetoric, Identity (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2023) Michael Dudley views his vocation of librarian at the University of Manitoba with dialectic rigor. "Librarianship has a duty to inform democracy," he said in Kathryn Sharpe's virtual bookclub on April 27, 2024. Dudley discussed his new book The Shakespeare Authorship Question and Philosophy: Knowledge, Rhetoric, Identity published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing last fall. Update 08/21/24 Dudley's book is also available as an ebook from   Google Play . In SAQ and Philosophy Dudley uses the hammer of logic to nail his accusations against the barricaded door of the Shakespeare citadel. "The question of Shakespeare's authorship is a malformed debate practiced in an unethical fashion," Dudley said. When asked why his book is important, Dudley said: "What sets my book apart from others on the authorship quest...
Read more