Skip to main content

AP touts anti-Stratfordian actors

Here is my note to Jos. Harker, Response Editor of The Guardian, after The Associated Press scooped The Guardian on the anti-Stratfordian actor issue raised in my letter to the editor -- see text in Sept. 7 blog below. Note: The coalition referred to in the AP story is the Shakespeare Authorship Coalition. Tom

To Joseph Harker, Response Editor, The Guardian

Dear Joseph,

I followed your suggestion of Wednesday, Sept 5 and sent the letter below to letters@guardian.co.uk correcting Prof. Bate's misinformation passed along by your reporter. Apparently nothing was done about correcting the error.

Apparently my letter was not printed.

Apparently The Guardian has not bothered to look into the error.

Now Yahoo has run a story by Associated Press writer D'Arcy Doran providing accurate information about famous actors who have doubted the traditional attribution of Shakespeare authorship which you can link to here:

"Coalition Aims to Expose Shakespeare" by D'Arcy Doran, Associated Press Writer

I don't understand why the press, which is supposed to be seeking out the truth, allows so called authorities like Bate to go on with their errors and not even bother to correct them--or at least look into them--when they are pointed out.

What is The Guardian guarding? Is it tradition and the status quo which have misled us all these years, or is it the truth? I would think that your newspaper would at least be interested in looking for the truth. You can see that if this keeps up, the unsatisfied will be looking for their news from the Yahoos of the world and will bypass The Guardian because it doesn't seem to care about the first commandment of journalism: accuracy.

If I am wrong and you indeed have confirmed and corrected Prof. Bate's misstatement and your publication of it, I would be most gratified if you would write back and show me the error of my ways and that your publication is indeed interested in the truth after all.

By the way, my list of famous actors challenging Shakspere authorship omitted Charles Chaplin. Yahoo got that right, too. Thank you again for your response of Sept. 5.

R. Thomas Hunter
Independent Shakespeare Scholar

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

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 the naug

Winkler lights the match

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

Dudley nails it to the door

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