Hunter on response to 1839 review of "Disquisition on . . . Shakespeare's Tempest"

Yesterday Oberon Chairperson R. Thomas Hunter, PhD, commented on Nina Green's Phaeton e-mail list on the topic of Stratfordian intransigence toward honest inquiry on the Shakespeare authorship question:

The following is a remarkable piece of early Stratfordiana which I found today while looking for something else. I believe that you will agree that the sentiment is quite remarkable in contrast to the unyielding, uniform Hardy Cook pap we have been used to. It was a Google scan of a review in The Gentleman's Magazine of A Disquisition on the Scene, Origin, Date etc. of Shakespeare's Tempest by Rev. Joseph Hunter [in which Rev. Hunter argues for an early dating of The Tempest].

No publishing information for the Gentleman's Magazine appears per se, although a detached reference to "Vol XIII" probably refers to that specific issue. The article must have appeared somewhere in the vicinity of 1839, since that is the date Hunter's book was published.

So imagine how, having just read Elizabeth Imlay's powerful statement [on the Phaeton email list] of the intransigence of the Shakespeare deity, this sentence stood out: "The name of Shakespeare is so justly and deeply loved by Englishmen, that it only stops at this side of idolatry." Here is, 171 years ago, the very thing Elizabeth described. It is stated as a given, and it appears within a lifetime of the Stratford Exposition!

But here is the surprise. Immediately following are these words: "and the minutest inquiries are not discouraged, and mention of the most trifling circumstances is endured, which tend in any way to cast a glimmer of light on the obscurity of his history, or the interpretation of his thoughts."

In other words, long before these current times requiring declarations of reasonable doubt to penetrate the Stratfordian fog, at least some Stratfordians came dangerously close to open-mindedness. Perhaps Hardy Cook might some day himself read about those days in which the minutest inquiries were not discouraged which tended in any way to cast a glimmer of light on the history of Shakespeare.

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...

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...

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