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 have needed to create the works.
In a 2020 article for the International Journal of Applied Analytical Studies, Richard M. Waugaman, MD opined:
In 2012, [Honorary president of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, Sir Stanley] Wells claimed that “Shakespeare was not all that learned.” But evidence of Shakespeare's exceptional learning keeps mounting, as past skepticism is being refuted with examples of his deep knowledge of many languages and subjects. He was a true Renaissance man. For example, the Arden series of “Dictionaries” demonstrates Shakespeare's close familiarity with medicine, music, plants, religion, political and economic theory, and many other specialized subjects. A highlight of the series is Stuart Gillespie's 2016 Shakespeare's Books, an incomplete listing of some 200 writers whose works influenced Shakespeare.
. . . Wells illustrates the tendency to dumb down Shakespeare, so that the putative author, his ostensible education, and his life experience better fit the evidence.
Won't work ever again.
Ka-boom.
*July 30, 2023 K. Sharpe's SOF Bookclub Zoom presentation
