Happy UN-birthday to Shakespeare today. Anti-Strats get a nice present from the traditionalists at Wikipedia with the main page devoted to today's featured article on the Shakespeare Authorship Question at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page. Despite Wiki's elimination of all anti-Stratfordian voices from editing the article, the essay's prominent placement indicates the vitality of the issue and provides a slap in the face to Stratfordians on what is traditionally celebrated as Shakespeare's natal day.
An example of the biased SAQ essay:
Wiki says: "By contrast, academic Shakespeareans and literary historians rely on documentary evidence in the form of title page attributions, government records such as the Stationers' Register and the Accounts of the Revels Office, and contemporary testimony from poets, historians, and those players and playwrights who worked with him, as well as modern stylometric studies. All these converge to confirm William Shakespeare's authorship."
Stratfordian research contrasts absolutely. Their highly touted title pages, register pages, accounts, and testimonies refer to a writer, but never to a writer from Stratford. And, as for as stylometric studies -- there is nothing to compare the style of the Stratford man with, because nothing exists that he wrote. If traditionalists want to eliminate candidates based on the fact that they do not meet the criteria of stylometric analysis, the Stratford man would not even be in the running.
"All these converge to confirm William Shakespeare's authorship."
Yes, all their "documentary evidence" confirms that William Shakespeare was a writer -- but that evidence says absolutely nothing about who was behind the pseudonym, William Shakespeare. The academy cannot continue to pretend that the argument for the traditional attribution will hold.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page. Despite Wiki's elimination of all anti-Stratfordian voices from editing the article, the essay's prominent placement indicates the vitality of the issue and provides a slap in the face to Stratfordians on what is traditionally celebrated as Shakespeare's natal day.
An example of the biased SAQ essay:
At the core of the argument is the nature of acceptable evidence used to attribute works to their authors.[26] Anti-Stratfordians rely on what they designate as circumstantial evidence: similarities between the characters and events portrayed in the works and the biography of their preferred candidate; literary parallels with the known works of their candidate; and hidden codes andcryptographic allusions in Shakespeare's own works or texts written by contemporaries.[27] By contrast, academic Shakespeareans and literary historians rely on documentary evidence in the form of title page attributions, government records such as the Stationers' Register and the Accounts of the Revels Office, and contemporary testimony from poets, historians, and those players and playwrights who worked with him, as well as modern stylometric studies. All these converge to confirm William Shakespeare's authorship.[28] These criteria are the same as those used to credit works to other authors and are accepted as the standard methodology for authorship attribution.This is inaccurate because those who write about the authorship in no way rely on circumstantial evidence; they are assiduous in their search for truth through primary sources and rigorous analysis. Even a casual perusal of the work of Charleton Ogburn, Joseph Sobran, Mark Anderson, Roger Stritmatter, Diana Price, Bonner Miller Cutting, Earl Showerman and Nina Green to name only a few authorship researchers prove the mendacity of this commentary.
Wiki says: "By contrast, academic Shakespeareans and literary historians rely on documentary evidence in the form of title page attributions, government records such as the Stationers' Register and the Accounts of the Revels Office, and contemporary testimony from poets, historians, and those players and playwrights who worked with him, as well as modern stylometric studies. All these converge to confirm William Shakespeare's authorship."
Stratfordian research contrasts absolutely. Their highly touted title pages, register pages, accounts, and testimonies refer to a writer, but never to a writer from Stratford. And, as for as stylometric studies -- there is nothing to compare the style of the Stratford man with, because nothing exists that he wrote. If traditionalists want to eliminate candidates based on the fact that they do not meet the criteria of stylometric analysis, the Stratford man would not even be in the running.
"All these converge to confirm William Shakespeare's authorship."
Yes, all their "documentary evidence" confirms that William Shakespeare was a writer -- but that evidence says absolutely nothing about who was behind the pseudonym, William Shakespeare. The academy cannot continue to pretend that the argument for the traditional attribution will hold.