Oberon Shakespeare Study Group

by Linda Theil Early modern literary scholar Gary Taylor, PhD , told Shakespeare authorship researcher Richard Waugaman, MD that he finds Waugaman's arguments unconvincing. In an August 19, 2014 email to Waugaman, Taylor said: " I simply find your reasoning, and your evidence, as unconvincing as those of Holocaust deniers, and other conspiracy theorists." Waugaman told this Oberon reporter: I’m delighted that a prominent Stratfordian has taken dead aim at us and has then shot himself in the foot. There’s now no doubt that for diehard Stratfordians like Gary Taylor, academic freedom means the freedom for them to silence dissent. We will no longer tolerate this. Waugaman's article "The Psychology of Shakespeare Biography: An Update" had been accepted in January 2014 by the editors of the 2015 edition of the English and Italian journal Memoria di Shakespeare: a Journal of Shakespearean Studies , an edition that would be dedicated to the topic of Shakesp...

by Linda Theil An article titled “Come not between the Oxfordian and his wrath to paraphrase Lear”  appeared in the Toronto Globe & Mail on October 16, 2013 -- the day before the Toronto Shakespeare authorship conference began. This piece did not get as much attention as  later articles in the local press criticizing York University and Guelph University for their roles in supporting the conference. In the October 16 article, Stratfordian Kelly Nestruck wrote about an encounter last year between Toronto Shakespeare authorship conference organizer Don Rubin and Ontario's  Stratford Festival  communications director David Prosser at a day-long authorship seminar Rubin convened on April 7, 2012 wherein Prosser compared authorship inquiry with Holocaust denial. According to Nestruck’s October 16 article, Prosser said he regretted his comment. Nestruck wrote: In defending the traditional, fact-based narrative that a fellow named William Shakespeare wrot...

University of Kent at Canterbury emeritus professor David Ellis ’ new book, The Truth About William Shakespeare: Fact, Fiction and Modern Biographies (Edinburgh University, 2012), has been released in the US and received a starred review by Margaret Heilbrun in the May 2012 edition of Library Journal . The short review under the title “New Titles onShakespeare” offers this insight: In this meaty little book, Ellis takes on the spate of biographies of Shakespeare in recent decades. With incisive scholarship and wit, he demonstrates that most have been written in the absence of credible evidence: authors infer details of Shakespeare’s life and beliefs from information about the times, unverifiable anecdotes and jokes, sometimes even the sheer lack of evidence (e.g., Shakespeare must have been “discrete” and “concealing” because his name seldom appeared in the public records). . . . Non-academics and academics alike should pick this it up; it’s a sleeper and strongly recommended. (...