Merkel tutors Cook

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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Waugaman named Oxfordian of the Year 2021

by Linda Theil Waugaman taking his first selfie in his home office in Potomac Maryland The Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship named Richard Waugaman, MD, Oxfordian of the Year 2021 at their annual conference on October 9, 2021. Waugaman is a clinical professor of psychiatry on the faculty of Georgetown University, a training and supervising analyst emeritus with the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute, and is in private practice of psychiatry and psychoanalysis in Potomac, Maryland. For over a decade Waugaman has published extensively on the topic of Shakespeare authorship including work in journals outside the normal reach of the subject such as Psychoanalytic Quarterly , the International Journal of Psychoanalytic Studies , and Contemporary Psychoanalysis . He has presented on the topic before such diverse venues as the International Psychoanalytic Congress, the New Directions Conference, the Shakespeare Association of America, the American Shakespeare Center, and the Cosmos Club in ...

What's a popp'rin' pear?

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...

“Shakespeare’s Shylock and The Merchant of Venice” by Showerman and Delahoyde presented at Folio: Seattle Athenaeum Tuesday

Earl Showerman, MD and Michael Delahoyde, PhD at Folio: Seattle Athenaeum, March 13, 2018 by guest correspondent Tom Townsend March 14, 2018 Two Shakespearean scholars, Earl Showerman, MD and Michael Delahoyde, PhD discussed critical topics about Shakespeare’s impressive work The Merchant of Venice . Dr. Showerman discussed a real person, Gaspar Ribiero, as the likely model for Shylock; Dr. Delahoyde showcased the need to view different perspectives in Merchant. These presentations took place Tuesday, March 13, 2018 at Folio: The Seattle Athenaeum where approximately 50 people attended. These conversations are timely because The Seattle Shakespeare Company is producing Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice March 20-April 15, 2018. Showerman’s thesis: Ribiero is Shylock Earl Showerman clearly presented many excellent reasons why Gaspar Ribiero, a Sixteenth-century, Portuguese Jew living in Venice — and forced to convert to Christianity — could likely be the...

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