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Merkel tutors Cook

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In her new website/weblog The Edward Oxenford Review, Marie Merkel responds to Shaksper electronic Shakespeare conference owner Hardy Cook's plea for strategies to counter interest in the Shakespeare authorship question generated by Roland Emmerich's Anonymous, a film on the topic that will debut September 23, 2011. In her post titled "Academic Response to Anonymous" Merkel presents Cook with a reading list of material and offers in closing:
Finally, I suggest that you portray the movie as Opportunity rather than Disaster.  Ridicule – of the film, of the authorship question, of Oxford himself – may seem to your students like a nervous defense against a devil you don’t dare look in the face.  The way I see it, anything you can say that will send your seeker back to The Bard’s ever-living poetry, with confidence in his or her own ability to discern the truth, may turn out to be a kindness long remembered. 
Sounds reasonable to me. I must say, when I saw the fury and hysteria generated by Stratfordians' fear of people questioning the traditional author, I couldn't help but wonder: Why so worried, gentlemen and ladies? If the Shakespeare authorship question is a foolish notion, only fools will be fooled. If Stratfordians are secure in their ownership of universal truth, let the unbelievers be damned.
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