Talk:Shakespeare authorship question

EXTREME PERSONAL AND REFERENCE BIAS

The peer review submission by Tom Reedy is anything but neutral. Reviewing the footnotes he used to support his contentions, I read some of the most misinformed and bilious remarks about other scholars and other scholarship that I have ever seen. Kathman's and Nelson's in particular are little more than polemic, with Shapiro, Bate, Smith, and Wadsworth also characterized by summary judgment, unsupported by any specific factuality. The basic point of departure into polemic is their common assumption that Gulielmus Shakspere of Stratford and William Shake-Speare/Shakespeare of literary renown were one and the same person. Since this cannot be asserted without numerous contradictions collapsing the argument, it throws into question the (lack of) scholarly motives of the individuals involved. There can be no neutral discussion under these terms, and in this case Tom Reedy's neutral point of view is a travesty. The defensive posture of asserting that Elizabethan authors did not write out of their own experience and social frame, for instance, is clearly disproven by their individual biographies. The only biography to work chasm is that of the subject in discussion, Gulielmus Shakspere of Stratford. --Zweigenbaum — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zweigenbaum (talk • contribs) 16:52, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Simplify the article!

There is too much talk and little gist in the current article. The only thing that matters is the boot-shaped country.

1., Commoner William Shaksper of Stratford has never been to Italy. 2., The italian-themed "Shakspeare" works were written by a person who had been to Italy for a lenghty period. 3., Game over for stratfordians! 4., Optionally choose your favourite Oxenford or else to take the commoners place.

This is about as much as anybody needs to know about the authorship issue and any further words are futile. Computerized textual analysis proves the royal dramas about the english kings were written by the same person who wrote the italian-themed plays, therefore W.S. remains merely an amateur theatre performer and the real bard was? (probably Oxford). 87.97.98.167 (talk) 20:22, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Nice and short. I like it. I will replace the current article with your concise version as soon as you explain to my satisfaction how you came to know point 2. Bishonen | talk 23:18, 21 November 2010 (UTC).

And indeed how you know 1. Paul B (talk) 23:26, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

George Wilkins

The section on "Personal testimonies by contemporaries" includes the sentence "Inn-keeper and part-time dramatist and pamphleteer George Wilkins collaborated with Shakespeare in writing Pericles, Prince of Tyre, with Wilkins writing the first half and Shakespeare the second" Surely this needs some qualification. At least something like "believed by some authorities to have collaborated" needs to be inserted. In any case it is not an example of a "Personal testimony" and probably doesn't belong in this section. Tigerboy1966 (talk) 00:34, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

No one has defended the Wilkins section since I highlighted the problem. I am hesitant to delete as the author is obviously more knowledgeable than I am. I will give it another few days- till 10 December. Tigerboy1966 (talk) 08:01, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Check the article. The section was deleted the very day you suggested it [1]. There is no longer any Wilkins section! However, the known personal link between Wilkins and Shakespeare plus the good evidence of collaboration is relevant, though maybe too specific to include here. Paul B (talk) 10:37, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

You are quite correct about Wilkins ,Tigerboy. And beware the term "inn-keeper" Wilkins was a plain pimp and at least once convicted in court of viciously beating one of his tricks.Some of the documents were discovered a hundred years ago by Alfred Wallace who discreetly printed them only in a publication from his local university.Leslie Hotson discovered a second document linking Shakspere (to use Will's own preferred spelling) to the skin trade and other gangland connections(Leslie Hotson"Shakespeare vs. Shallow" 1936)but Hotson chose to ignore the obvious link to the earlier Wallace discoveries.These were fully utilized by Alden Brooks in "Will Shakspere,Factotum and Agent"(1937),"Will Shakspere and the Dyer's Hand"(1943),and "The Other Side of Shakespeare"(1963) and incorporated by myself into John Michel"s "Who Wrote Shakespeare?"(1995).Diana Price independently arrived at exactly the same conclusions a couple of years later.

In 2008 Stratfordian Charles Nichol published a book length documentation entitled "The Lodger",which was most enthusiastically received by the main stream press but not by David Kathman and his ever faithful Tom Reedy over at Hlas and at their definitely non-"mainstream" Shakespeare Authorship Page.They are still printing the Wilkins was an inn-keeper blarney.

By the way,a considerable number of apparent Shakespeare lines show up in the Wilkins novel,"Pericles".If the appearance of Shakespearean matter there proves that Shakespeare collaborated with Wilkiins than Paul should be arguing,if he is in any way capable of consistent logical argumentation,that the novel was likewise a collaboration between Shakespeare and Wilkins.

I have posted this information before but Tom keeps censoring it in hopes of concealing their slight intellectual mendacity.

Hope you get to read this before it goes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Charles Darnay (talk • contribs) 22:26, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Well well well. If it isn't my old buddy from out of the past. I thought that was you when I read your first comments on the Alden Brooks page, but I wasn't sure until now. I read an interesting paper of yours just yesterday about the history of Baconism in the Oxfordian, I believe it was. Your essays at least have the virtue of not being boring, which is rare for anti-Stratfordian literature.

I'll look up the Hotson paper; it sounds interesting, but Wilkins is referred to as a victualler and tavern keeper by Nicholl, see pp. 198-9. Why you find it surprising that an actor, playwright, and theatre sharer would rub shoulders with prostitutes, pimps, and gangsters is beyond me; the industry is still full to bursting with them. And just FYI, every comment and every edit on Wikipedia is archived and readily accessible by clicking on the "history" tab or the archive page link. Tom Reedy (talk) 05:21, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Obviously the novel was a de facto collaboration between Wilkins and Shakespeare, even if Shakespeare was not personally involved in its publication. As for whether or not Wilkins was a pimp, what difference does it make to his or Shakespeare's authorship? Is there some law that says pimps can't write? Paul B (talk) 19:19, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

I had a look at Hotson. Fascinating stuff. There's nothing in there that I can see about "the skin trade". Why you seem fixated on commercial sex is something of a mystery. Hotson's evidence suggests that a dispute between the thoroughly unpleasant William Gardiner and the slightly dodgy Francis Langley got out of hand and Shakespeare got caught up in it. Big deal. Paul B (talk) 20:07, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for drawing my attention to the change.Tigerboy1966 (talk) 03:46, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Can some good soul here point non-initiated novices on where to look for/(find?) the "Hotson paper" being alluded to above? Thanks. warshy^talk 00:48, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

It's called Shakespeare versus Shallow. It was published as a book, and can be found in several libraries. It can also be read online in whole or in part. [2] [3]. There is a summary of the argument on the Francis Langley page. Paul B (talk) 01:18, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

I got the book today from the remote stacks and have been reading it. So where's the gangland connection? I haven't found it yet. Tom Reedy (talk) 04:57, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

It's a bit of a mystery. I guess you promote Gardiner and his hapless stepson Wayte to the status of a mafia don and his henchman. With a bit of imagination Lee and Soer can become gum-chewing gangster's molls, on the basis of zero evidence. Paul B (talk) 12:38, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank you very much! warshy^talk 02:41, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Missing sentence

In the second paragraph of Shakespeare authorship question#Sir Francis Bacon part of a sentence is missing. It's between Sir Toby Matthew and Jesuit Southwell; a citaiton/footnote seems also to be damaged. Buchraeumer (talk) 17:30, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

That was introduced by one of Tom's edits. I've tried to give what I think was the intended sense and cited the Feil article, which first argued that Matthew was referring to Thomas Southwell. Paul B (talk) 20:41, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Looking good

As much as I abhor the edit warring and the incivility which has gone before, I must say... the article actually looks pretty good now! --GentlemanGhost (talk) 03:55, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it's amazing what can be done to a page when edit warring stops and peace reigns for the first time since its creation!

Thanks for the kind words. If you have the time, your input would be appreciated at the peer review.

Cheers GG. Tom Reedy (talk) 13:08, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Need to discuss edits

Nina, I welcome any edits or suggestions that tighten up the accuracy of this article, but you should discuss edits to this page, since almost every change is subject to challenge on this type of page. As per the Wadsworth cite, a vast conspiracy certainly falls under the category of "some type of conspiracy", and neither does he say all conspiracies are such. Also please double check your page numbers; all cites have to be accurate so that reviewers can check them easily.

One item I wish you would help with is the summary of the Oxford case. It is around 750 words right now, which is really about 50 words too much. Anything you could do to condense it further and weed out any inaccuracies would be appreciated, but it has to be a description of the case, not an argument for it. Tom Reedy (talk) 02:56, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Nina I asked you to please discuss any changes on the talk page. Ogburn is not the only anti-Start who makes that argument. This article is a tertiary source, and Ogburn is a primary source as far as this article is concerned, so the statements pertaining to the SAQ arguments have to be cited from secondary sources. You might want to take a look at how this article looked a year ago; that's what we don't want. We also don't want any edit warring, so please discuss your edits when they might be subject to challenge. Tom Reedy (talk) 03:45, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

You cannot delete sources, leave only one, and then write "according to [that one source]". The statements you attribute to Shapiro are cited in Schoenbaum and other sources. Tom Reedy (talk) 04:04, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Standards of Evidence Reedy writes: "By contrast, academic Shakespeareans and literary historians rely on the 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 of which converge to confirm William Shakespeare's authorship.[24]"

This is false, as there is no documentary evidence whatever that William Shakspeear of Stratford wrote anything at all. In fact, no literary manuscripts in his hand exist. Bibliographic evidence - such as title page attributions - does not constitute documentary evidence. Modern stylometric studies are also not documentary evidence, but analyses of bibliographic materials (the printed plays and poems) conducted by scholars. Further, there is no "testimony" by Shakespeare's contemporaries in legal documents that Shakespeare of Stratford wrote the plays, poems and sonnets--there is the "testimony" of legal records of a William Shakespeare as an actor and theater investor-owner, but not playwright. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.176.71.250 (talk) 05:29, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

There are in fact 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—all which are classified as documentary evidence by historians. Tom Reedy (talk) 09:27, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Tom, I'm happy to discuss specific edits, but it's a lengthy and time-consuming process, and what seems to be needed, according to IronHand's comments on the Peer Review page is an overhaul of the entire article to make it more neutral:

Comments from Ironhand41 This article is not written from a neutral point of view and therefore is not ready for peer review. First, it is biased rhetoric. For example, the authors of the article go to some length to make those who don't accept the traditional attribution look odd and quirky by using negative adjectives to describe them. Second, the article casts the dispute as between academics and non academics. But there are a few academics who agree with the doubters and their number is growing. Additionally, there is a significant list of non academic intellectuals who have looked into the controversy and decided that the academics have it all wrong. The "us-versus-them" framework of the article as presently written creates a false dichotomy. Good arguments don't rely on appeals to authority and the claim that scholars and academics are neutral is an insult to anyone who has attended a university. Third, there are those of us who don't have a large stake in the authorship controversy, but whose interest and participation has increased precisely because of the underhanded ways a few academics and traditionalists have attempted to skew the argument in their favor. It would seem that waving a hand and declaring there is no doubt about who wrote the Canon doesn’t work well anymore. This probably explains Plan B; the effort to dress the skeptics’ arguments in a Stratfordian pinafore and claim with a straight face that it represents a neutral point of view.

I think you might be surprised at the extent to which you and I agree on many of the major issues concerning the authorship question. For example, for years I've been perhaps THE strongest opponent of the Prince Tudor theory and any of its variations because of the lack of historical evidence for it. I therefore find it odd that the SAQ article (and Shapiro's book) give the Prince Tudor theory such prominence without citing Christopher Paul's article which refutes it on the historical evidence (Shapiro cites Paul's article on p. 313 ('For an Oxfordian critique of the theory etc.'), but doesn't even mention evidence against the Prince Tudor theory in the text of his book). If anything will eventually overwhelm the Stratfordian position on the authorship, it's acceptance by the general public of the Prince Tudor theory when Roland Emmerich's film Anonymous is released next year. Hardy Cook realized this, and asked on his Shaksper list for suggestions for strategies which academics could use when the film is released. In the interest of neutrality, the SAQ article should mention the evidence against the PT theory, not merely the claims for it.

But on a more general note, it seems to me that the SAQ article doesn't come to grips in a neutral way with the real issue, which is the fact that the reason the controversy has existed for so long, and simply won't go away, is that although the evidence in historical documents for Shakespeare of Stratford's career as an actor and theatre shareholder is strong (a strength in the Stratfordian position which Shapiro barely mentions), the documentary evidence for Shakespeare of Stratford as the author of plays and poems is much weaker, and subject to endless argument because when Stratfordians argue that a particular document (such as an entry in the Stationers' Register) refers to Shakespeare of Stratford as the author of plays and poems, anti-Stratfordians argue that it refers to the pen-name. The SAQ article doesn't really focus on these two key points.

On another more general note, it seems to me that the SAQ article is living in the past. I haven't read Wadsworth, but however valuable his book might have been in 1958, it's not going to be read much today by anyone. Even Schoenbaum is pretty outdated. Shapiro now holds the field, and although his defense of the Stratfordian position is strangely weak, he provides a good overview of the authorship controversy.

I definitely don't want to get into revert wars, so if there could be some agreement by editors of this page on the two general key points mentioned above, we could all edit along the same lines without having to discuss each individual edit on the Discussion page beforehand, and if a problem develops because of a particular edit, that edit could move to the Discussion page and be reverted until agreement is reached. What do you think?

NinaGreen (talk) 15:58, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Tom, I've noted your comments below on this topic. Since the main problem with the page seems to be neutrality, I've deleted the non-neutral personal comments from the lengthy footnote on the 'fringe theory', and added a 'citation needed' note. The fact that Alan Nelson knows no-one in a particular organization who supports an anti-Stratfordian authorship theory can't be cited in a neutral Wikipedia article as a reliable source, and in any event, Alan knows Dr. Dan Wright, who runs the authorship studies program at Concordia, and presumably Dr. Wright belongs to the organization in question, so the accuracy of Alan's statement is debatable, even putting aside the issue of neutrality. And David Kathman's statement that most university professors devote as much attention to the subject as they do to creationism is belied by the 2007 New York Times survey which found that 72% of those surveyed covered the authorship issue in their classes.NinaGreen (talk) 17:46, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Tom, I've also removed the Dobson footnote which termed the authorship controversy 'an accident waiting to happen'. It's statements such as this which give the article its non-neutral tone. I've left the Bate citation in the footnote.NinaGreen (talk) 17:56, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Nina, you can't remove WP:RS references that directly support a statement and then tag it with "citation needed". Tom Reedy (talk) 19:35, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Tom, as I've said in the section below, I don't want to get into revert wars over this. The issue is not whether these are reliable sources. The issue is whether the statements quoted from those sources comply with Wikipedia's policy of neutrality. The SAQ article will never get past peer review, never mind be granted FA status, unless it's neutral. Would it be better if you went through the article first and deleted all the non-neutral statements since you take exception to my doing it?NinaGreen (talk) 20:47, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

How Should Shapiro Be Cited?

I just added a citation for Shapiro, and I've noticed that there are two different page numbers given for every Shapiro reference in the article. Can someone explain?NinaGreen (talk) 16:52, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Since the topic of this article is an English subject, in compliance with Wikipedia guidelines the spelling is British and the British edition of the book is cited first with the American edition page numbers in parenthesis (see the book's entry in the bib). I'll get to your comments in the above section later, but it seems that the process is working so far in that I'm editing your edits to tighten up the accuracy and citations. Any disputes I feel sure we can hash out on the talk page. Tom Reedy (talk) 17:13, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I can only cite the page numbers in the copy I have (American edition); hopefully someone can supply the page numbers for the British edition.NinaGreen (talk) 17:42, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Spearing The Wild Blue Boar

A new book out on the authorship controversy. I don't now whether it will be of relevance in editing this page.

http://artvoice.com/issues/v9n50/theater_books_for_christmas

NinaGreen (talk) 18:20, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

That's not new; I've had it for a year or so. It's basically an amateur anti-Oxfordian rehash of all the mainstream SAQ books up to Shapiro. Tom Reedy (talk) 19:15, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

OK. Someone told me it was new. I'd not heard of it.NinaGreen (talk) 20:43, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject Alternative Views

I just noticed that this page is part of WikiProject Alternative Views, and am copying below the statement from the project:

Wikipedia's policy is to write articles from a neutral point of view describing not just the dominant view, but significant alternative views as well, fairly, proportionately, and without bias. Because alternative views lack the widespread acceptance enjoyed by dominant views and often suffer from a lack of coverage in verifiable and reliable sources, fewer editors know or care about them, and this imbalance puts alternative views at risk of neglect, misrepresentation, and a level of coverage not in keeping with their relative notability. This project aims to counter that tendency by facilitating collaboration among interested editors. This should all be done while following our basic content principles. It should not be an excuse to correct supposed suppression from the mainstream orthodoxy, to engage in original research, or to use sources that aren't verifiable and reliable. We are not here to correct real-world coverage. We are here to report real-world coverage. We are not here to counterbalance real-world sources. We are here to balance according to real-world sources.

Doesn't this fact alone dispose of the 'fringe theory' issue?NinaGreen (talk) 18:24, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

"This should all be done while following our basic content principles. It should not be an excuse to correct supposed suppression from the mainstream orthodoxy, to engage in original research, or to use sources that aren't verifiable and reliable. We are not here to correct real-world coverage. We are here to report real-world coverage. We are not here to counterbalance real-world sources. We are here to balance according to real-world sources."

My suggestion is to thoroughly famliarise yourself with what those bolded areas comprise, especially Wikipedia's basic content principles as they have been interpreted through the various resolution procedures. Tom Reedy (talk) 19:13, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Tom, I have no disagreement with anything in the policy. It just seems odd to me that what Wikipedia itself terms an 'alternative view' would be designated in the article as a 'fringe theory'. The statement still lacks a citation. Perhaps when one is found that will help to clarify the situation.NinaGreen (talk) 19:49, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Nina apparently you disagree with WP policies and guidelines since you removed the citation and tagged the statement. The citation is acceptable as per WP:RS, which is why I suggested you familiarise yourself more with WP policies and guidelines. Tom Reedy (talk) 20:03, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Tom, see below. I removed it because I'm following Wikipedia policies, not because I disagree with them! The statements are as far from neutral as can be, and neutrality is a pillar of Wikipedia policy.NinaGreen (talk) 20:35, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Achieving Neutrality

Tom, I see you've restored this citation, and I'm not going to get into a revert war over it, but the statements are a long way from neutral ('creationists', 'UFO sightings','schismatics', 'ignorant of facts and methods', 'dismaying', the patronizing 'touching', 'creationists', 'dark conspiracy','I do not know of a single professor', the dismissive 'like St. Louis it's out there', 'nothing he can say will prevail' etc.)

^ Kathman 2003, p. 621: "...in fact, antiStratfordism has remained a fringe belief system for its entire existence. Professional Shakespeare scholars mostly pay little attention to it, much as evolutionary biologists ignore creationists and astronomers dismiss UFO sightings."; Schoenbaum 1991, p. 450: "A great many of the schismatics are (as we have seen) distinguished in fields other than literary scholarship, and their ignorance of fact and method is as dismaying as their non-specialist love of Shakespeare's plays is touching."; Nicholl 2010, p. 4 quotes Gail Kern Paster, director of the Folger Shakespeare Library: "To ask me about the authorship question ... is like asking a palaeontologist to debate a creationist's account of the fossil record."; Nelson 2004, p. 151: "I do not know of a single professor of the 1,300-member Shakespeare Association of America who questions the identity of Shakespeare ... Among editors of Shakespeare in the major publishing houses, none that I know questions the authorship of the Shakespeare canon."; Carroll 2004, pp. 278–9: "I am an academic, a member of what is called the 'Shakespeare Establishment,' one of perhaps 20,000 in our land, professors mostly, who make their living, more or less, by teaching, reading, and writing about Shakespeare—and, some say, who participate in a dark conspiracy to suppress the truth about Shakespeare.... I have never met anyone in an academic position like mine, in the Establishment, who entertained the slightest doubt as to Shakespeare's authorship of the general body of plays attributed to him. Like others in my position, I know there is an anti-Stratfordian point of view and understand roughly the case it makes. Like St. Louis, it is out there, I know, somewhere, but it receives little of my attention."; Pendleton 1994, p. 21: "Shakespeareans sometimes take the position that to even engage the Oxfordian hypothesis is to give it a countenance it does not warrant. And, of course, any Shakespearean who reads a hundred pages on the authorship question inevitably realizes that nothing he can say will prevail with those persuaded to be persuaded otherwise."; Gibson 2005, p. 30.

If the article is ever to be accepted as neutral, this sort of thing has to go. Neither you nor I should be trying to 'prove' our position here. The objective is to present a neutral summary of the authorship controversy so that readers can make up their own minds. Right? There's been a lot of harsh language on both sides, but this article isn't the place to present any of it.NinaGreen (talk) 20:31, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

As per my suggestion above,you should familiarise yourself with WP policies and guideliines, especially WP:NPOV. You might want to begin here.

We report what sources say; we don't say it for them, not do we tone them down or ramp them up. These comments are mild compared to a lot of stuff out there, but the fact of the matter is that the academic community considers the SAQ a fringe theory with no evidence, and they don't think too much about it. Those stats you quoted about Shakespeare professors (as opposed to scholars) are in line with how evolutionists treat creationism: they "cover" it by dismissing it. In no shape or form is the SAQ part of the accepted scholastic curriculum, except to dismiss of disparage the claims. That you know of one or two professors who treat it as a serious theory does not invalidate the scholastic consensus, and in fact the topic is banned from the Shakespeare Association of America as well as Hardy's listserv as a serious topic of discussion.

To recap: we present the various sources of each side by describing what they say neutrally, not by tempering or censoring their comments. Wikipedia's bias is toward the academic consensus, and the objective is not to present a neutral summary of the authorship controversy "so that readers can make up their own minds"; it's to present each point of view accurately and in context. If that entails offending the sensibilities of either side, that's too bad. Tom Reedy (talk) 21:30, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

P.S. If you think those quotations are over the top, I've got lots of "lunatic fringe" and worse if you want me to post them. Tom Reedy (talk) 22:03, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Tom, I disagree. I don't see Wikipedia as a forum for presenting mud slung by both sides and then calling it 'neutrality' because both sides have gotten to sling some mud (and in fact in the article as it stands, only one side has gotten to sling mud anyway, so the article isn't even neutral on that ground :-). Wikipedia is a forum for dispassionately presenting the arguments for both sides, keeping the mud-slinging out of it, particularly on controversial issues. We need to step back from a partisan position so that we can edit the article from a neutral point of view. It really isn't that hard. I don't in the slightest care whether this article 'proves' anything about the authorship one way or another so long as both sides are presented neutrally and impartially, without any pejoratives from the combatants (by 'combatants' I mean the sources quoted, not the editors of this article :-).NinaGreen (talk) 22:32, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Nina, if the academic consensus holds that the SAQ is without merit, it must be stated so and the statement must be reliably cited. That is all. If the SAQ proponents say that William Shakepseare was an illiterate grain merchant who grew up in a cultural backwater and so couldn't have written the works, then it must be stated so and the statement must be reliably cited. That is all. The reason those quotations you object to are there is because any statement liable to be challenged has to be cited, and even with a cite, without quotations it was being challenged every time a new editor read the lede, just the way you are doing now.

And respectfully, you aren't really responding to what I say; you have only said you disagree and then give your reasons—not Wikipedia's—for why you object. Tom Reedy (talk) 23:23, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Tom, you wrote:

Nina, if the academic consensus holds that the SAQ is without merit, it must be stated so and the statement must be reliably cited. That is all.

I agree completely that the majority view must be presented as the majority view, as per Wikipedia policy. I have no argument whatsoever with that. But I have not yet seen a reliable source cited in the article which says 'I speak for the academy, and not for myself, and the academy says the SAQ is without merit'. Instead, I've seen this sort of statement from Alan Nelson cited: 'I do not know of a single professor of the 1,300-member Shakespeare Association of America who questions the identity of Shakespeare'. Does Alan know all 1300 members of the SAA? Has Alan questioned each member personally concerning his/her views on the authorship issue? This is clearly not the consensus of the academy. This is merely Alan Nelson stating what his personal experience suggests to him about the consensus of the academy. And it is flatly contradicted by the results of the 2007 New York Times survey of professors who teach Shakespeare at U.S. universities. So who are we to believe -- Alan Nelson's view based on his personal experience, or the Shakespeare professors who responded to the New York Times survey? I don't disagree in the slightest that 'if the academic consensus holds that the SAQ is without merit, it must be stated so, and it must be reliably cited'. What I obviously disagree with is the reliability of the sources you've cited for that statement. How can you cite Alan Nelson's view of the academic consensus based on his own personal knowledge, and not cite the New York Times survey on the academic consensus? I would be quite happy with a statement on the academic consensus which cited the New York Times survey. That survey shows what the majority of university professors teaching Shakespeare think. Why not just cite the results of that survey and be done with it? That would state the academic consensus fairly, and would meet the Wikipedia requirement of neutrality. At the moment, none of the sources cited is reliable in terms of the issue of academic consensus because each source is simply someone speaking for himself, not speaking for the academy. So the citations are neither reliable, nor neutral.NinaGreen (talk) 00:10, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

So are you arguing that the NYTimes polled every Shakespeare professor in the world, and that's why it should be valued over Nelson's experience of the Shakespeare Association of America (of which he is a very respected member), as well as all the other testimony supporting that statement? (Because you have a habit of picking out one ref and basing your argument on that as if that were the only evidence adduced for the section.)

And by the way, Wadsworth is a good reliable reference. He was a very respected published Shakespeare academic and the rebuttals, like the arguments, haven't changed all that much in the past 50 years. Tom Reedy (talk) 04:29, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Tom, no, of course I'm not arguing that the New York Times polled every Shakespeare professor in the world. I'm arguing the very clear and irrefutable point that you can't claim to represent the views of the academy in the SAQ article by citing the comments of three or four members of the academy (and in any event your first citation is by David Kathman, who isn't a member of the academy). If you're going to make a claim concerning the position of the academy in the SAQ article and not violate the Wikipedia pillars of neutrality, verifiability and no original research, you have to cite the best evidence you have of the academy's collective view. The only evidence of the academy's collective view that I'm aware of is the New York Times survey, which is recent (2007) and representative. If there's something more recent and more authoritative which represents the collective views of the academy, by all means cite that. If there's nothing which can be cited which verifiably represents the collective view of the academy, then delete the section from the text of the SAQ.NinaGreen (talk) 17:27, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Core of the Argument

In addition to the neutrality issue, we're going to have to get past this roadblock before we can make much real progress on the article. This paragraph in the current version makes the argument that it is disagreement as to 'the nature of acceptable evidence' which is at the core of the argument.

Standards of evidence

At the core of the argument is the nature of acceptable evidence used to attribute works to their authors.[25] 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 candidates; literary parallels between the works and the known literary works of their candidate, and hidden codes and cryptographic allusions in Shakespeare's own works or texts written by contemporaries.[26] By contrast, academic Shakespeareans and literary historians rely on the 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 of which converge to confirm William Shakespeare's authorship.[27] These criteria are the same as those used to credit works to other authors, and are accepted as the standard methodology for authorship attribution.[28]

The core of the argument actually is the perceived lack of 'fit' between the author and the works, as set out in the lede to the article:

Scholars contend that the controversy has its origins in Bardolatry, the adulation of Shakespeare in the 18th century as the greatest writer of all time. To 19th-century Romantics, who believed that literature was essentially a medium for self-revelation, Shakespeare’s eminence seemed incongruous with his humble origins and obscure life, arousing suspicion that the Shakespeare attribution might be a deception.

We can't argue one thing in the lede, and something completely different later in the article. Agreed? NinaGreen (talk) 21:01, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Where does the second quote say bardolatry is the "core of the argument"? Bardolatry caused the perceived dissonance between the author as imagined from the works and the real life author (much the same could be said for many literary figures, such as Rimbaud or Rousseau). The nature of what constitutes acceptable evidence is what those sceptics fail to comprehend. Anachronistic expectations is what produces "new" arguments based on that type of evidence. Tom Reedy (talk) 22:10, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

The quote doesn't say Bardolatry is the core of the argument. As you say, Bardolatry caused the issue of the perceived dissonance to arise. So the core of the dispute between the two sides is whether the perceived dissonance exists, and 'the nature of the evidence' which can legitimately be used to resolve that dispute is an important consideration, but it isn't the core of the argument itself. That's how I see it.NinaGreen (talk) 22:45, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

An instigating point is not necessarily the core of the argument. I suppose we're actually playing out the differences in perception by this very conversation. Tom Reedy (talk) 22:48, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Tom, you quote Shapiro (via Alter) in one of the footnotes to precisely that effect. See also this from Shapiro in the Alter interview:

[Alter] Are scholars still looking for more evidence that could settle the authorship controversy, or has everything been turned over repeatedly?

[Shapiro] We do find more evidence every few years that points to Shakespeare. I think it would be more valuable if scholars, rather than turning over the evidence again, looked more closely at the assumptions governing the way that they read and teach the works and try to find the life in the works. I think if you turn off that faucet and suggest that others can't engage in that fantasy either, I think that will starve the controversy of a lot of its oxygen.

Shapiro is very much of the view that the core of the dispute is the perceived dissonance, and that the more both sides continue to try to find the author in the works, the more fuel it gives to the controversy. So I'm merely echoing Shapiro's view, which you quote in the article, that the core of the dispute is whether the perceived dissonance exists. Anti-Stratfordians seek to prove their case via the perceived dissonance, while Stratfordians such as Shapiro want to turn away from the perceived dissonance, thereby 'starving the controversy of a lot of its oxygen'.

We're probably essentially saying the same thing, but I think Shapiro's statement has to be taken into consideration when discussing how the two sides differ in terms of evidence because Shapiro is saying, 'We're just not going to look at that type of evidence', while the other side is saying, 'But we have to look at it'. It's not the distinction between circumstantial evidence vs. direct evidence and that sort of thing. It's the two sides disagreeing on whether a particular type of evidence can be looked at at all. Shapiro is basically saying that a certain type of evidence is off limits because 'We tried it (via Greenblatt, Weis etc.), and it wasn't working for us'. :-)NinaGreen (talk) 00:25, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Upon my word this is astonishing. It appears that you truly don't understand what Shapiro is saying, both in the example you give from the interview and in his book.

The "perceived dissonance" is that between the sublimity of the works and the humble origins of the author. That is what started people wondering about the authorship, especially after Bardolatry elevated the author into a universal genius.

The differences in the nature of the evidence used by anti-Stratfordians and Stratfordians to attribute authorship is the "core of the argument", and it is very clear from that section what that is: anti-Strats construct a personality from the works and then find a match; Strats use the historical record, i.e. title pages, government records, and contemporary testimony. When Shapiro mixes his metaphors by turning off the faucet of biographical readings to starve the authorship theorists of their arguments, he is talking about the difference in evidence, not about Bardolatry.

You have yet to indicate that you've read the cites for that section. For convenience's sake here they are: McCrea 2005, pp. 165, 217–8.; Shapiro 2010, pp. 8, 48, 112–3, 235, 298 (8, 44, 100, 207, 264). the pages in parenthesis are those for your edition. Read those pages and notice every time the word "evidence" is mentioned; that is the section referred to by those cites. Here's an example from p. 207:

"'The Oxfordians have constructed an interpretive framework that has an infinite capacity to explain away information': 'all the evidence that fits the theory is accepted, and the rest is rejected.' When Boyle added that it was impossible 'to imagine a piece of evidence that could disprove the theory to its adherents,' Lardner asked, 'What about a letter in Oxford's hand ...congratulatiing William Shakespeare of Stratford on his achievements as a playwright?' Boyle didn't skip a beat, mimicking an Oxfordian response, '"What an unlikely communication between an earl and a common player! ... Obviously, something designed to carry on the conspiracy of concealment. The very fact that he wrote such a letter presents the strongest proof we could possibly have!"'"

and further down that same page:

"...by having judges rather than scholars with decades of expertise evaluate the evidence, amateurs and experts were put on equal footing, both subordinate to the higher authority of the court, and to legal rather than academic criteria for what counted as circumstantial evidence."

Both Shapiro and McCrea are chock full of examples of the differences in evidence and both say that is key to why anti-Strats and the academy, like east and west, will never meet. Tom Reedy (talk) 04:23, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Tom, you're avoiding one of the principal points made by Shapiro throughout his book, which is his lament that Greenblatt, Weis and others ever got into the biographical interpretation of the Shakespeare canon, and that Stratfordians must stop doing that because it gives their opponents an advantage. In other works, Shapiro is advocating stifling a particular line of inquiry and is declaring a particular type of evidence 'off-limits. Shapiro's position isn't reflected in the SAQ article, which draws a false dichotomy between the type of evidence used by the two sides, claiming that Stratfordians don't use biographical evidence when Shapiro's whole point is that Greenblatt, Weis and other Stratfordians have used biographical evidence, and it has weakened the Stratfordian position and MUST BE STOPPED. In the article you quote Shapiro from the Alter interview on this very point:

Alter 2010 quotes James Shapiro: "Once you take away the argument that the life can be found in the works, those who don't believe Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare don't have any argument left."

The way Shapiro is advocating 'taking away the argument' is by telling Stratfordians to stop using biographical evidence.

I quoted above another comment by Shapiro to the same effect from the Alter interview:

[Shapiro] We do find more evidence every few years that points to Shakespeare. I think it would be more valuable if scholars, rather than turning over the evidence again, looked more closely at the assumptions governing the way that they read and teach the works and try to find the life in the works. I think if you turn off that faucet and suggest that others can't engage in that fantasy either, I think that will starve the controversy of a lot of its oxygen.

This time Shapiro makes his point even more clearly. He's saying Stratfordians have got to stop trying to find the life in the works because it gives their opponents an advantage.

On p. 58 Shapiro says:

Only one thing could have arrested all of this biographical speculation: admitting that a surprising number of the plays we call Shakespeare's were written collaboratively. For there's no easy way to argue that a coauthored play especially one in which it's hard to untangle who wrote which part, can be read autobiographically.

Once again, Shapiro is making clear that his objective is to stop anyone, Stratfordians and Oxfordians alike, from using biographical evidence, and expressing his enormous relief that coauthorship studies have stopped both Stratfordians and Oxfordians alike from engaging in biographical speculation.

Shapiro's position is not reflected in the SAQ article. The creation of a false dichotomy in the SAQ article which states that anti-Stratfordians make use of biographical evidence while Stratfordians don't constitutes original research on your part, which Wikipedia expressly forbids. And the failure of the SAQ article to fairly present Shapiro's attempt to impose intellectual censorship on his colleagues so as to choke off the life from the authorship controversy means that the article is not neutral, again violating one of Wikipedia's policy pillars.NinaGreen (talk) 16:23, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

I should have mentioned that Shapiro's not only upset with Greenblatt and Weis for engaging in autobiographical research. He's upset with everyone from Edmund Malone on down. In the index of his book (p.332) he has this entry for Malone:

autobiographical allusions discovered in Shakespeare by [followed by a list of page numbers]

The SAQ article thus violates the Wikipedia policies of neutrality, original research and verifiability in creating a false dichotomy in which it is claimed that anti-Stratfordians use autobiographical evidence from the Shakespeare canon while Stratfordians don't.NinaGreen (talk) 17:11, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

"The creation of a false dichotomy in the SAQ article which states that anti-Stratfordians make use of biographical evidence while Stratfordians don't constitutes original research on your part, which Wikipedia expressly forbids."

You are misrepresenting what the article says. It states that Strat scholars don't use biographical information gleaned from the works to attribute the works, but anti-Strats do. Have and do Strats use biographical speculation from the works to interpret them? Yes. Have they used to works to make biographical speculations? Yes, and that is what Shapiro objects to, beginning with Malone. Do Strats read a work, find a biography in it, and then use that information to attribute a work? No, they don't, but anti-Strats do. If it were a reliable way to attribute works there would only be one candidate instead of 50, 60, 70-something--however many there are. Your objections are invalid because you apparently don't understand the differences between how Strats and non-Strats use the works. Tom Reedy (talk) 17:55, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Tom, that's mere cavilling. Shapiro devotes pages to Malone finding Shakspeare's life in the works. What is that other than attribution? If Malone or Greenblatt or Weis finds Shakespeare of Stratford's biography in the works, of course that strengthens the attribution of the Shakespeare canon to Shakespeare of Stratford. They weren't finding someone else's life in the works. They were deliberately finding Shakespeare of Stratford's life in the works, thus strengthening the attribution of the canon to him. Why else did Greenblatt write his book? You're engaging in original research here, ignoring Shapiro, and substituting your own opinion and synthesis of material to arrive at a dichotomy which is palpably false. It's a clear violation of three Wikipedia policies, neutrality, no original research, and verifiability.154.5.200.46 (talk) 18:03, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

It's not cavilling at all. It's utterly central. If you have documentation saying that a historical person wrote plays, poems, directed films or whatever, then that's the person you attribute them to unless you have some very strong reason not to. Of course if you are writing a biography of that person you might use ther plays/poems/films to get some ideas about their personality, but it's a very dodgy method. If we had Chaucer's Canterbury Tales but no other information about the author how do you think we could identify his personality?: a bawdy miller fascinated by sex and farts; a pious anti-semitic prioress given to improving tales; a sexually ambivalent and amoral Pardoner? If we simply had Ridley Scott's films how do you think we could deduce anything about his life and personality from them, or even his nationality? Paul B (talk) 18:10, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Paul, you consistently take the discussion off track with analogies which merely derail the discussion. No-one has time to explore Chaucer's Canterbury Tales here, or Ridley Scott, or the blood libel, or the claim that Obama wasn't born in the U.S. and is a Muslim, or any one of the off-the-topic analogies you bring up. Please try to stay on topic.154.5.200.46 (talk) 18:18, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

A point which needs to be represented in the SAQ article, and which is ignored in Tom and Paul's responses to my comments, is that Shapiro has deliberately and very clearly in his book and in the Alter interview taken the position that the academy should censor itself. No professor teaching Shakespeare at a university, according to Shapiro, should try to find Shakespeare of Stratford's life in the works, either when teaching his/her classes on whether researching and writing books and articles. Shapiro's deliberate recommendation to his colleagues that they choke off a particular line of intellectual inquiry is shocking, and to omit to mention it in the SAQ article would be a clear violation of the Wikipedia policy of neutrality.154.5.200.46 (talk) 18:24, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Original Research

This statement by Earl Showerman on the peer review page highlights another of the problems with the SAQ article. Not only is the SAQ article not neutral, it engages in original research. Here's Showerman's comment:

This statement regarding anti-Strratfordian research is very misleading: "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 candidates; literary parallels between the works and the known literary works of their candidate, and hidden codes and cryptographic allusions in Shakespeare's own works or texts written by contemporaries." In point of fact, authorship research explores the issues of early dating ("Dating Shakespeare's Plays" - ed. Kevin Gilvary - 2010), Italian topicalities ("The Shakespeare Guide to Italy" - Richard Paul Roe - 2010), political allegory, Shakespeare and the Law, and untranslated Greek sources, a much wider scope of research than proposed by the existing article. A review of on-line articles published in the peer-reviewed authorship journals, "The Oxfordian" and "Brief Chronicles" will attest to these points. The omission of any mention of the work of Mark Anderson ("Shakespeare by Another Name" - 2005), William Farina ("De Vere as Shakespeare" - 2006), or Diana Price ("Shakespeare's Unorthodox Biography" - 2001) suggests the selected references are clearly prejudicial against the authorship challenge. Earl Showerman

NinaGreen (talk) 15:59, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

I am quite capable of reading the PR page, which seems to have attracted lots of attention from your listserv subscribers who have never edited anything on Wikipedia before now. Either Showerman hasn't actually read the article or he has poor comprehension. Anderson was in the article but he was taken out when the history section was shrunk; his contribution only extends Looney's methodology of matching events in the plays to the life of Oxford (and I was thinking about mentioning him in conjunction with the biographical readings, but I am trying to tend to the PR comments that were actually useful before adding anything). Price is included. Nothing that has not received an academic response can be included in the article, which you would know if you had read the policies as you claim to have. Tom Reedy (talk) 18:03, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Tom, I didn't post Earl Showerman's comments from the PR page here so you alone could read them. There are other editors of this page who need to be aware of the violation in the SAQ article of the Wikipedia policies of no original research, neutrality and verifiability. You seem to be exhibiting more and more an attitude which suggests you feel the SAQ article is your own personal site, and that nothing can be done by any editor on it without your specific permission, another contravention of Wikipedia policy. I know you've put a great deal of effort into the SAQ article, but you don't own it, and your insistence that any edit must first be cleared with you, and your instantaneous reversion, without any discussion, of all edits which have been made with which you don't agree, suggests that you feel you do own it.154.5.200.46 (talk) 18:05, 17 December 2010 (UTC)