Talk:Shakespeare authorship question

"First alluded to in the early 18th century"

Need I point out that this claim is part of the anti-Stratfordian theory? There were no explicit questions raised until 1848, with the publication of Hart's The Romance of Yachting. Every other so-called "allusion" to it is an anti-Stratfordian interpretation of an obvious joke or allegory, and not a matter of history. Tom Reedy (talk) 20:39, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Tom this is really stretching your point. "An obvious joke or allegory." Example, please? And what does that phrase even mean? Do you intend to say that because something is a joke or an allegory, it doesn't ispo facto, "obviously," constitute commentary on the authorship question? Or is that it that all the examples you can think of "obviously" do not constitute such a commentary? If the former, I suggest you review 16th century conventions of public discourse. Very often matters of great consequence were, "obviously," discussed in print only through means of jokes or allegories. This means that they require interpretation. If the later, the burden of proof is on you to produce examples which are "obvious" to all concerned. Is it your position that only explicit and unambiguous evidence be permitted in this discussion? If so, you are really throwing the baby out with the bathwater.--BenJonson (talk) 20:42, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I suggest you actually read the texts. The burden is upon you to demonstrate that they are actual commentaries on Shakespeare's authorship. And why would I need to "review 16th century conventions of public discourse" when the two texts were published in the 18th century? More Oxfordian scholarship, no doubt. Tom Reedy (talk) 21:17, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Tom, your assumption is in error. I have read, and continue to read, many texts that implicate a discourse of authorship debate starting in the 1590s. The extent of this discussion is still poorly understood even in the general public's mind, let alone within the rather insular world of English literary studies, where there is a more or less blanket agreement not to discuss anything that threatens to upset the applecart. As for the issue of chronology, its possible that I misunderstood what you intended as a specific reference only the Romance of Yachting, etc., for a more general claim. In that case there is no need for you to refer to the realities of Elizabethan times. But if you are saying that the author of the Romance of Yachting was not serious in his remarks about Shakespeare, I think you are quite wrong about that. I also wish, Tom, that you would stop your snide comments like "more Oxfordian scholarship, no doubt." As you know, I have published extensively in both Oxfordian and orthodox journals on matters relevant to the authorship question. The count is over sixteen articles. So there's no need to continue your pretense that there is any leverage to be gained in discussion through such snide comments. You have made yourself something of an expert of sorts, one supposes, on William Strachey. But I will match you any day of the week on depth and breadth of general knowledge on authorship and related topics, and I think that my record of publication, which includes major articles on several plays and poems of Shakespeare, and enough articles on the Tempest to complete a book, is so far beyond yours that it is only natural that you must have recourse to insults to try to level the playing field. I'm sorry that's so. I respect your commitment to the shared process of discovery. I do not respect the extent to which that commitment is so often impeded by your partisan faith that orthodoxy=truth. The history of ideas suggests that this is a questionable point of departure for real investigation of real problems.--BenJonson (talk) 21:38, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Tom was referring to the three pre-Wilmot 18th century texts commonly trotted out by Oxfordians, as you would know if you'd read the debate: An Essay Against Too Much Reading; the Learned Pig; Life of Common Sense. BTW, why do you have to endlessly parade your alleged achievements while claiming to be anonymous - and objecting when other editors use your real name? You can't have it both ways. Either you're an anonymous nobody who cannot claim unspecified publications, or you're somebody specific. Paul B (talk) 22:23, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Mr. Barlow: My real name is Dr. Roger Alan Stritmatter. I was born in 1958. I hold a Masters Degree in Anthropology from the New School for Social Research and a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Massachusetts.

I will not repeat what I have already said about my publications, except to add that they include articles in journals in disciplines in four or five academic disciplines, including psychoanalysis, anthropology, law, literature, and literary history. You can verify this information on the internet. Are you now satisfied?

Not that its really any of your business that I chose to contribute to Wikipedia under a handle. It enables me to do things like remove unwarranted references to myself in various articles, which on occasion I have done. Tom and most other editors here know perfectly well my identity. But I am not surprised that you felt that it was so important you needed to make an issue out of it.

Nor can I fathom how anyone who has actually been paying attention to this conversation would need to ask a question, which is a little like "when did you stop beating your wife?" such as why do you "endlessly parade your alleged achievements?" If you will kindly review the record you will see that I have done no such damn thing.

I have mentioned the achievements, today alone in this talk section, of over half a dozen individuals (Sir George Greenwood, Dr. Felicia Londre, Dr. Jack Shuttlework, Dr. Ren Draya, Dr. Michael Delahoyde, Dr. William Leahy among them) -- all of whom have a voice and a stake in this discussion but none of whom any of you guys who profess to be such experts seem to have ever heard of or know anything about.

I mentioned my own accomplishments, and those of these individuals, only in response to the perverse and wholly fallacious insinuations of user Nishidani, that no "scholars" believe that there is something rotten in the orthodox view of Shakespeare (and Tom's perhaps unintended snide remarks). Nishidani, ironically, apparently did not have a clue who he was talking to, or for that matter what he was talking about. He wanted to believe that no scholars take this subject seriously. He's wrong. Satisfied? If you have any other questions, I'd be happy to answer them. --BenJonson (talk) 23:32, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes I know perfectly well who you are, and have done for years. So can you you now stop referring to your own publications in the third person as you have so often done. "Endlessly" was just hyperbole for "at length", but it also implied "repeatedly". There are no major scholars who think as you do, only very very marginal ones. And yes, we know all about them, thank you. BTW, since you seem to like bandying about titles, you should call me Dr Barlow, not Mr Barlow. Paul B (talk) 00:05, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Wow, prof or BenJonson! What a, in Prof.Leahy’s words, a ‘triumphal procession’. 7 names, snorting in Donne's 'seaven sleepers' den', denoting the dazzling luminaries, a Pleiade of stars, in the English academic firmament over a century, including a retired soldier who taught marines to speak English. No I haven’t heard of 'Jack Shuttleworth, PhD chairman of the Department of English at the U.S. Air Force Academy for many years before his retirement.’ I guess I’m an ignoramus for that, and I spent a restless night tossing (not in the slang sense) in my bed in remorse for the yawning gap in my intellectual Bildung caused by this exposure of my nescience concerning Ogburnian theories in Pentagonic circles. As the grunts cried 'havoc' and unleashed the dogs of war, with a crackling artillery barrage over Falluja, no doubt many thought of deVere's impressive farting before Queen Bess.

To get, as you say, ‘real’ (ugh!) I wrote:

(1)‘virtually all serious professional scholarship on Shakespeare says with regard to it?Nishidani (talk) 11:37, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

(2)I then edited the page using the precise words of the RS introduced by User:Smatprt, namely Niederkorn, which says ‘the vast majority’ of Shakespearean specialists do not accept this wild theories. I.e. my nuanced words reflected the precise phrasing of a text deVereans wish on the page.

Now in the normal world of scholarship, my remark and my edit would lead any professionally literate mind to rightly infer that, as an editor, I subscribe to the view that you can count the number of dissenters from the mainstream interpretation on the fingers of one hand. This is what ‘virtually all’, and ‘the vast majority’ imply in English.

No. You create, as is the convention in the fringe, a caricature, what people call a ‘strawman argument’, making out that my remarks deny a possibility which I explicitly allowed for. I.e. in ostensible rebuttal of my perversity you replied:-

(a)‘ like your assertion that no scholars support this "fringe theory," anyone should take you seriously?

(b) ‘the perverse and wholly fallacious insinuations of user Nishidani, that no "scholars" believe that there is something rotten in the orthodox view of Shakespeare.’

I’ve absolutely no problem in accepting that a handful of scholars over the span of a century have embraced the snob theories. After all Einstein wrote a letter expressing interest in Immanuel Velikovsky's work, but astronomers don’t think, for that, the edifice of celestial physics, by virtue of that solitary endorsement, is under threat. If you can’t understand my simple remarks on an elementary point of semantics, it gives me no confidence in your ability to construe a classic author like Shakespeare. Nishidani (talk) 10:18, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I've already adjusted the article to point to mid 19th century. A footnote mentions an orthodox RS that shares the anti-Stratfordian theory. This stuff is for the history section.Nishidani (talk) 20:50, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

I think the article should be adjusted to include reference to William Plumer Fowler's 1827 book, De Vere: Or the Man of Independence. But I will wait to press this case until after an article that I have currently under review is actually published in a peer reviewed journal. Tom might want to read up on it, in the meantime,as it is a good instance of 19th century allegory. If there is no wiki article entry, I will start one. Also, Tom, regarding Herman Melville, I'll make sure that if and when the article is accepted, you have some advance notice so that you can read it and learn something about the whole history of Melville's engagement with the authorship question, which was very extensive. --BenJonson (talk) 21:38, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I would have no objections if the book does indeed suggest that Oxford wrote Shakespeare. Could you point to a specific place in that book that supports the idea? It is set in the mid-1700s, and the De Vere written about is not the earl, but calls himself Mr. De Vere, a descendant. In fact, he mentions that Oxford was not a very good poet. There is a Wikipedia entry on the author. Tom Reedy (talk) 16:36, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Of course it doesn't, as you and I and Roger all know. But in true Da Vinci Code manner, Roger will insist that the novel is filled with coded references to the Authorship Question which were completely unnoticed by contemporaries and remained invisible until Roger typed "de Vere" into Google books, found the text and began to discover secret signs in every word. Paul B (talk) 23:23, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Copying this info here as well. The 18th century "first" reference is not Willmont or Common Sense. It's Goulding, and it is cited to two mainstream RS. McMichael, George, and Edgar M. Glenn. Shakespeare and His Rivals: A Casebook on the Authorship Controversy (1962), 56; and The Great Controversy", Friedman, pgs 1-4, Cambridge University Press. Here is the direct quote from the original source to which the references refer: "Shakespear has frightened three parts of the World from attempting to write; and he was no Scholar, no Grammarian, no Historian, and in all probability could not write English. Although his Plays were historical, as I have heard, the History part was given him in concise and short, by one of these Chuckles that could give him nothing else." This is the "first" reference to the issue according to two mainstream reliable sources. Whether one agrees with them or not is immaterial. Trying to move the beginnings of the issue to the 19th century just would not be accurate.Smatprt (talk) 14:30, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

If you actually take the trouble to read the book (which almost certainly was not written by Goulding, btw), you will see that it is a satire in which the author claims that too much reading creates all sorts of problems. He jokingly speaks of Shakespeare employing an historian to provide his scenarios, which he then built upon with flights of poetic fancy. That's what "the History part was given him in concise and short" means. And why would he be given this precis unless he was the one writing it up as a play? The passage makes no sense otherwise. The phrase "could not write English" refers to the fact that his language does not conform to 18th century scholarly ideals of proper grammar and diction, a familiar argument at the time, and fairly obvious if you read the context. It's clear that he in no way denies that Shakespeare wrote the plays, since his satirical point is to say that many young men of his own day could write as well if they were not intimidated by his reputation: "Why may not another be better than him? There are ten thousand better Scholars, for he was none; and I am assured there are an hundred Shakespears in England at this time; but this way of talking frightens them. I don't tell you they are at the University; their beautiful thoughts are being driven out by being stuf with History." This is the standard 17-18 century view that Shakespeare was an untutored poetic genius whose creative fancy overcame his lack of scholarship. It's essentially no different from Milton's contrast between the "learned" Jonson and the "native" Shakespeare, but given a comic-satirical spin. The fact that RS's refer to the book does not mean that they endorse the claim that it asserts that Shakespeare did not write the plays, and it certainly does not mean it can be presented here as undisputed fact.Paul B (talk) 15:57, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I have read it, and I agree with most of what you say. But, Paul, isn't that beside the point? The question that need sourcing is "when did the authorship issue begin", and we have two reliable sources that say it started with Golding (yes -probably not his real name, but that is not the issue). The sources say the issue started then and that is exactly what we are trying to source. We can all interpret the original source however we want but that is pointless. It's what the reliable sources say, isn't it? Be fair, isn't that what you have argued in the past?Smatprt (talk) 16:56, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

You seem to think that if an RS says something then it can be presented as undisputed fact. If that were so we could assert as fact that Oxfordianism is wrong, since several RS's say so. RS's can also contradict each-other, of course. That's why we only present as fact what is undisputed - which is that authorship debate started in the mid 19th century. We can then say that some writers argue that earlier texts can be interpreted to imply a debate. What's wrong with that? In any case you have not provided evidence that either of your RS's say that authorship debate began with this publication, indeed Tom has provided evidence below that one says no such thing. Paul B (talk) 17:13, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

To quote page 56 of McMichael/Glenn "It seems that the first man to question Shakespeare's sole authorship of the plays was a certain 'Captain Golding'. In a small book called An Essay Against Too Much Reading, published in 1728, he hinted at one of the anti-Stratfordian arguments." This is the beginning of the chapter "Signs of Doubt and Their History", which is a chronological history of the controversy. It then goes on to 1769 (Common Sense), and then 1785 (Wilmont). McMichael/Glenn document the entire controversy in this chapter. Smatprt (talk) 17:28, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

It refers to sole authorship, and in any case, as I say, that's one person's view. Other sources say that the opposite, as Tom has shown, hence the reason for saying what I just suggested. Paul B (talk) 17:35, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

289 words, not counting notes.

The Shakespeare authorship question refers to a debate over whether the works traditionally attributed to William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon were actually composed by another writer or group of writers. The query arose in the mid-19th century and has recently won a small but thriving following, though almost no academic endorsement. "Anti-stratfordians" believe that "William Shakespeare" was a pseudonym used by the author to hide the writer's real identity. Major nominees include Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe, William Stanley, the 6th Earl of Derby and Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, the most popular alternative candidate.

Sceptics claim orthodox scholars have a vested interest in the traditional view, and think the man baptised as "Shakspere" lacked the education to create the body of work attributed to him. They argue the personal qualities they infer from the works, and attribute to the author don't fit the known biography of the Stratford man. They also argue that it is hard to understand how an Elizabethan commoner could familiarize himself with the foreign languages, court life, politics, mythology, law, and contemporary science evinced in the plays.

The vast majority of academic specialists, called "Stratfordians" by sceptics, generally ignore or dismiss these alternative proposals as fringe theories, arguing they fail to comply with standard research methodology, lack contemporary evidence to support them and are elitist. They hold that sceptics underestimate the quality of learning available at provincial grammar schools and that they discard the most direct testimony regarding William Shakespeare in order to favour their own theories.

In 2007, actors Derek Jacobi and Mark Rylance unveiled a 'Declaration of Reasonable Doubt', signed by over 1,300 people, to spur research into the question.Nishidani (talk) 12:42, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

"Despite this, interest in the debate is growing, particularly among independent scholars, theatre professionals and some academics." I've got a problem with this. I was going to bring it up while methodically discussing each sentence but apparently that is not going to happen.

Where does the data for this statement originate? I know of no survey done among independent scholars, theatre professionals or academics that indicates growing interest in the question. As far as I know, the NYTimes survey was the first of its kind, and no comparative data exists. Just because the most vocal adherents are independent scholars, theatre professionals and some academics, does not mean that interest in the debate is growing among those groups. Is every person who's read a book on it an "independent scholar?" I'll wager interst is growing faster among theatre amateurs than professionals. And exactly how many academics are we talking about among those who bothered to answer an e-mail survey? Tom Reedy (talk) 15:20, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't know of evidence that "interest is growing", but there is clearly an increasing attempt by Oxfordians to claim respectability for their case by creating conferences, publishing etc. In this respect there is more literature being created. Also 'mainstream' academics do show interest to the extent that sociology of interpretation is incresingly an aspect of scholarship, so the authorship controversies take their place as an aspect of the historical reception and interpretation of Shakespeare. Paul B (talk) 15:30, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Well you're both right of course, interest is growing because of the internet and networking by publicitarians, but the allusion there was to the Jacobi show, which, as above, I wished to synthesize in a line for the last line of the lead, and then send that whole paragraph on 2007 to the bottom of the page, where it properly belongs.Have adjusted to my original proposal for the last line, which I've now found. That is documented. I elided '250 academics', which is deceptive, since most of them have no competence in the field, and with the figure there the lead would be insinuating these names constitute the minority of academics in mainstream scholarship.Nishidani (talk) 15:52, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I actually think this version is a bit too specific in some places and that some information is not in its proper place. I'm busy cutting trees today that were downed by the snowstorm, but sometime this evening or tomorrow I'll chime in with some suggestions. And the declaration was a flop. 1,300 people signed it the first year and they've added 400 in the two years since. I suppose you could call that "growing," but as far as a percentage of the three groups named I doubt it even approaches 1 per cent. The mortality rate is probably higher than that. Tom Reedy (talk) 16:38, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Tom, feel free simply to edit my proposal (without of coure abandoning your own). If on the date of declaration it was only 1300 undersigned, then I will have to adjust, for that date, then.Nishidani (talk) 16:44, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Tom and Nishidani, we agreed to take it one sentence at a time, starting from the top. You both contributed, then abandoned the effort without consensus, raising multiple issues out of order. Tom says, "I was going to bring it up while methodically discussing each sentence but apparently that is not going to happen," but he gives no reason for saying that. Smatprt and I both responded to his and Nishidani's last comments to the first sentence above, but neither has responded. I have no problem if you want to move on to the next sentence, one sentence at a time, but we'll have a hard time reaching a consensus if you're going to insist on ignoring our agreements on process.

Moving on to the second sentence, Nishidani (above) proposes the following:

"The query arose in the mid-19th century and has recently won a small but thriving following, though almost no academic endorsement."

I have a problem with "query." Tom, Smatprt and I agreed to "controversy," above, so that's what it should be called here. I also think we should add "modern" in front of "controversy." I have a problem with "recently won a small but thriving following." That makes it sound like the controversy did not have even a "small" following until recently, which isn't true. I also disagree with "almost no academic endorsement." That was true initially, but now it would be more correct to say "little" academic endorsement. So I propose the following:

"The modern controversy arose in the mid-19th century and has continued with little interruption to the present day. It now has a small but thriving following, but little academic endorsement."

How's that? Schoenbaum (talk) 18:30, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Forget that 'modern'. It assumes the unproven and hypothetical view, based on circular textual inferences, that there was a debate when no historical documents refer to one. Sources your side introduced say 'vast majority' re academia. It is euphemistic to spin this into 'little academic endorsement'.Nishidani (talk) 18:53, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

The theory of alternate Shakespeare authorship dates back to the mid-19th century. It has almost no academic support, but it has gained a small but vocal advocacy. Tom Reedy (talk) 20:39, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree to drop "modern." Tom, your first sentence above is okay with me. I still find "almost no academic support" too strong, with a total of 17% of Shakespeare professors saying it has some legitimacy per the NY Times survey. I still prefer "little" academic support. Saying "it has gained a small but vocal advocacy" is unacceptable to me. That trivializes the number, prominence and quality of scholarship of many doubters. What's wrong with "but has gained a small but thriving following"? Schoenbaum (talk) 21:17, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

The theory of alternate Shakespeare authorship dates back to the mid-19th century. It has little academic support, but has gained a small but thriving following. Schoenbaum (talk) 21:17, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Answer me these questions: How many academics have written books that support the authorship cause? Now how many have written books that support the traditional attribution?

Do you know what that means? It means "almost no academic support." Answering a survey does not translate into support, academic or otherwise. It's an opinion sampler, nothing else.

Now let's assume that all 300 academics who signed the declaration were English professors or instructors. Do you know how many English teachers or professors are in the United States alone? The other day Nishidani said there were 7,000, IIRC. I think that's low, counting the non-PhD instructors who do a lot of the grunt teaching, but let's use that number. Do the math, and you'll see that 4.3 per cent of English professors (and that's assuming they all are English professors) signed the Declaration of Reasonable Doubt.

Do you know what that means? It means "almost no academic support."

And 17 per cent of those polled did not say it had some legitimacy. 6 per cent said yes; 11 percent said "possibly". "Possibly" is not "yes"; "possibly" is "possibly"; it means conceivably or imaginable.

Do you know what 6 per cent means in a poll with a margin of error of 5 per cent? It means "almost no academic support."

And please tell me how small but vocal advocacy differs from small but thriving following in meaning, or how the former trivializes the number (how do you trivial 6 per cent?), prominence, or quality of the (not so many) doubters. I'll tell you one way they differ: your phrase is awkward, with a verb turned into an adjective by the use of -ing that modifies a gerund, a verb turned into a noun by the use of -ing. In addition, one is not a "follower" of anti-Stratfordism; one is an advocate of it. Look them up in a dictionary.

My phrase, on the other hand, is pure poetry. It sings! (Not that I'm immodest about it.)

We're supposed to be writing an encyclopedia article on the Shakespeare authorship question, not debating it. Will you and Smatprt please get over the fact that it is what it is, not what you wish it to be in some shining future. and yes, this article is supposed to reflect the scholarly consensus. If anyone has trouble defining what that is, he or she doesn't need to be editing this article. Tom Reedy (talk) 01:38, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Tom, it obviously depends on the meaning of "academic support." The number of books published by Strat vs. non-Strat academics is not a good measure because the issue is stigmatized in academia. Also, the major publishers have a vested interest in the status quo. So not only do dissenters have little to gain for their efforts, they risk their academic careers. It isn't a level playing field in academia. That's why a better measure of the true support of academics is a confidential survey by a reputable firm under the auspices of an organization like the NY times. It's an objective measure by measurement specialists, unlike your biased alternative. Re: the 300+ academic signatories to the Declaration of Reasonable Doubt, the number is infinitely greater than the number of signatories to the Stratfordian declaration of the reasons why there is "no room for doubt" about the identity of the author because orthodox scholars have never written such a declaration, put it before the public, and asked those who agree with it to sign it. They would rather continue bilking the public with an endless stream of so-called "biographies," like Will in the World, which are pure fiction. So until you write a counter-declaration and get at least 300+ orthodox Shakespeare scholars to sign it, my response to your claim that there is "almost no academic support" for the authorship question is "put up or shut up." It's easy to just assume, without evidence, that all Shakespeare scholars who haven't signed our declaration agree with you, but prove it. Let's see how many Shakespeare scholars are willing to sign your declaration, if you can even write one. Schoenbaum (talk) 05:37, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't think I've ever read a better example of the speciousness and special pleading of anti-Stratfordian reasoning. It's too bad you can't enjoy the irony. "infinitely greater", eh? Tom Reedy (talk) 18:12, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Personal accusations aside, it looks like we'll be at sentence number two for a little while unless we all give a little! This is the current line:

• "Recorded debate on the issue goes back to the mid-19th century[2] and, in recent decades, the subject has gained a thriving following, though little academic support."

Back when we were still talking about the 18th century, I had previously suggested:

• First alluded to in the early 18th century, the issue has gained wide public attention, though little support from the academic community.

Taking into account the latest versions by Tom and Schoenbaum, as well as the earlier version, I have some comments and suggestions. First, "Thriving" sounds a bit like an ant colony and "vocal advocacy" (beautiful as it is) sounds too much like the squeaky wheel syndrome. Looking at the comments about the different kinds of supporters the issue does have, and the various walks of life they represent, it struck me that its the diversity of the supporters that is what is notable. From noted writers and artists to supreme court justices strikes me as a pretty diverse crowd. I would therfore like to suggest the term "diverse following". I do feel we should mention the extensive media (public) attention which is well documented and notable as well. And we can cut "Shakespeare" from the line, as the first line tells us that quite clearly. I would also offer a compromise to "very little" to break the stalemate between Tom and Schoenbaum so the sentence would read:

The theory of alternate authorship dates back to the mid-19th century. It has very little academic support, but has gained wide public attention and a diverse following of proponents.

What do we all think of that?Smatprt (talk) 03:48, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I like it. Well said, Smatprt. It's both true and relevant that the issue "has gained wide public attention and a diverse following" despite having relatively little academic support. I support this version. Schoenbaum (talk) 04:39, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Nope. There's no indication of the size of the following, and coming right after "wide public attention" gives an impression of wide acceptance among the population at large. Tom Reedy (talk) 05:07, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Tom, the extent of the following and public interest can in fact be gauged by any number of measures, including, for example, the large body of discussion which has taken place on these wikipedia forums, or the number of articles in various types of journals, popular an academic, which have appeared on the subject. I disagree that the wording proposed "gives an impression of wide acceptance among the public at large." It means just what it says; that the public is intrigued by the issue. --BenJonson (talk) 14:46, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

That's easy to address: The theory of alternate authorship dates back to the mid-19th century. It has very little academic support, but has gained wide public attention and a small, diverse following of proponents. Schoenbaum (talk) 05:50, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Enthusiasts or supporters would be a better term, since only a small percentage of the group actively promotes the cause. Tom Reedy (talk) 17:22, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Tom's version is fine by me. As to your suggestion above, (a) 'Very little' = 'virtually no' (RS say this). (b) 'Wide public attention' is a fantasy, no independent RS support it (c) there's no need for 'a small, diverse following of proponents'. Outside the magic circle, and I've asked around quite a bit over the decade, no one seems to know much if anything about Looney, Ogburn and co. But then again, very few seem to know much about Shakespeare, or what is entailed by the exercise of scholarly method. Nishidani (talk) 17:25, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Tom about dropping "proponents." If "'very little' = 'virtually no'" means they're equivalent as far as you're concerned Nishidani, then you should have no objection to the former, and I strongly prefer it because I think it's more correct. I agree that "wide publish attention" is overstatement, but "increased public attention in recent decades" would be accurate. Hope and Holston's The Shakespeare Controversy documents the increase in attention since 1984. So I propose: The theory of alternate authorship dates back to the mid-19th century and, in recent decades, has gained increased public attention and a diverse following, but very little academic support. Schoenbaum (talk) 18:53, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I used = as a translating =, not as an equivalence =. 'Very little' is quite distinct, semantically, from 'virtually no' which is my way of paraphrasing the WP:RS referring to the 'vast majority' (Niederkorn). Hope that clears things up.

Schoenbaum and BJ, could you please least endeavour to suggest article text that conforms to polished English (I've given up on the other chap). I.e, 'alternate authorship'. All that phrase does is inform literate readers that its drafter can't distinguish the quite distinct meanings of 'alternate' and 'alternative'. 'Alternate authorship', fa Chrissake, means 'one author succeeding another in the composition of Shakespeare's works', meaning, for you guys, that de Vere was succeeded by Bacon, was succeeded by Marlowe, and Doiby, etc. Nishidani (talk) 20:20, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Nishidani, that does clear things up. I'm willing to accept Wm. Niederkorn's "vast majority," but not your paraphrase, "virtually no," which I think overstates it. Re: "The theory of alternate Shakespeare authorship," that was Tom's suggestion, which I accepted; but I agree it's incorrect, so I propose the following: Open debate of the issue dates to the mid-19th century and, in recent decades, it has gained increased public attention and a diverse following; but the vast majority of academic Shakespeare scholars dismiss it. Schoenbaum (talk) 23:05, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes - Thanks Nishi for point that out - and thanks to Schoenbaum for pointing out the the horrible writing that Nishi complains of actually originated with Tom! Rather funny turn, don't you think?? In any case, I would agree to the latest wording as proposed by Schoenbaum. By the way, Nishi - who is Doiby???Smatprt (talk) 23:30, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Once there's agreement on the second sentence, hopefully there will be less debate over the third. I propose the following: Those who question the traditional attribution believe that "William Shakespeare" was a pen name used by the true author, or authors, to keep the writer's identity secret. I've dropped "known as 'anti-Stratfordians'" from this sentence because I think it belongs further down in the lead. Schoenbaum (talk) 23:41, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I think this solves all problems:

The theory of alternative Shakespeare authorship dates back to the mid-19th century. The vast majority of academic Shakespeare scholars dismiss it, but it has attracted extensive public attention and a diverse non-specialist following. Tom Reedy (talk) 16:22, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

"Non-specialist" doesn't really work, as some followers are indeed specialists. It's not needed anyhow since we've gone with "the vast majority of academic Shakespeare scholars" (specialists). I think Schoenbaums last alternative still works best. It's a bit shorter and is a tad more accurate, as you have demonstrated that it's "debate" that dates to the 19th century. The theory itself, dates to the 18th (according to the references supplied). Also, we don't need "theory of alternate Shakespeare authorship", as it's repetitive of line 1. And in this version, "diverse following" is directly followed by "vast majority..." so the "non-specialists" addition is not needed.

• Open debate of the issue dates to the mid-19th century and, in recent decades, it has gained increased public attention and a diverse following; but the vast majority of academic Shakespeare scholars dismiss it.

However, if Tom insists on the dismissal first, we could go with:

• Dismissed by the vast majority of academic Shakespeare scholars, the issue, which dates to the 18th century, has gained increased public attention and a diverse following.

That one is shortest, compacted to a single sentence, and gets away from when "debate" started. The references say it dates back to the 18th century, so I'm not sure why we just don't say that and get away from when "public debate" started. If we do that we could also shorten Schoenbaums and go with:

• The issue dates to the 18th century and, in recent decades, has gained increased public attention and a diverse following; but the vast majority of academic Shakespeare scholars dismiss it.

I could do with either one, and the more I think about it, the more I support saying 18th century and losing the whole "public debate" issue. It's more accurate and reflects what the mainstream references on the William Shakespeare page actually says. Smatprt (talk) 17:42, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't care if the academic consensus comes first or last, as long as it complies with WP:FRINGE (“Articles which cover controversial, disputed, or discounted ideas in detail should document (with reliable sources) the current level of their acceptance among the relevant academic community," and "The prominence of fringe views needs to be put in perspective relative to the views of the entire encompassing field.”) and WP:UNDUE (“In articles specifically about a minority viewpoint, the views may receive more attention and space. However, such pages should make appropriate reference to the majority viewpoint wherever relevant, and must not reflect an attempt to rewrite content strictly from the perspective of the minority view. Specifically, it should always be clear which parts of the text describe the minority view, and that it is in fact a minority view. The majority view should be explained in sufficient detail that the reader may understand how the minority view differs from it, and controversies regarding parts of the minority view should be clearly identified and explained.”)

Stating that the idea goes back to the 18th century is not correct, though, so we have to stick with the 19th century debate origin. (I think it is unknowable when the idea first began, anyway.) Both John Rollett and Dan Wright have given good evidence that the Wilmot material is a 20th century forgery, and proof will soon be published, as you know, so we shouldn’t have it wrong just because sources that say so are still out there. According to WP:IRS, “some scholarly material may be outdated, superseded by more recent research, in competition with alternate theories, or controversial within the relevant field.”

Also the word “increased” is vague, without context, and implies upward movement (however slight) that is not quantified in any reliable source that I know of. “Extensive” I think describes it adequately without implying anything further than that.

I do agree with your other comments about unnecessary verbiage. But I insist there be some indication of the relative size of the following, as I said above in regards to WP:FRINGE. And somehow “diverse” doesn’t really seem like the right word; it has come to mean multi-ethnic. How about another type of descriptor, such as “energetic” or “committed?” So trying again:

• The theory dates back to the mid-19th century. The vast majority of academic Shakespeare scholars dismiss it, yet it has attracted extensive public attention and a small but committed following.

• The vast majority of academic Shakespeare scholars dismiss the theory, which dates back to the mid-19th century. Even so, it has attracted extensive public attention and a small but committed following.

• The theory dates back to the mid-19th century. It has attracted extensive public attention and a small but committed following, although it is dismissed by the vast majority of academic Shakespeare scholars.

What I don’t like about the last one is the passive tense. 12.69.177.21 (talk) 21:44, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Smatprt, don't jump the gun on this process. If you want to count "An Essay against Too Much Reading" as a pioneer anti-Stratfordian work, I suggest you read this. Tom Reedy (talk) 13:44, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I have read it. Odd that Matus ignores this quote about Shakespeare: "in all probability, could not write English". That's a direct statement. More importantly for this discussion, Matus makes it look like the reference is Oxfordian. It's not. I am citing 2 mainstream RS and (besides) it reflects what is actually in the article:

• The first direct statements of doubt about Shakespeare of Stratford's authorship were made in the 18th century, when unorthodox views of Shakespeare were expressed in satirical and allegorical works. In An Essay Against Too Much Reading (1728) by a "Captain" Golding, Shakespeare is described as merely a collaborator who "in all probability cou'd not write English".[59] In The Life and Adventures of Common Sense (1769) by Herbert Lawrence, Shakespeare is portrayed as a "shifty theatrical character ... and incorrigible thief".[60] In The Story of the Learned Pig (1786) by an anonymous author described as "an officer of the Royal Navy", Shakespeare is merely a front for the real author, a chap called Pimping Billy.

As we have both reminded each other, it's not whether we agree with the sources. In fact the 1728 reference comes from 2 mainstream RS: McMichael & Glenn, pg 56, and "The Great Controversy", Friedman, pgs 1-4, Cambridge University Press. So here are 2 mainstream sources that say the first direct statements date to the 18th century. We simply can't ignore them. We need to use 18th century (but I agree - not the word "debate") Smatprt (talk) 13:52, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

"small" does not work for me - how is that defined? In relation to what? We could be specific and say "thousands of", since the declaration is over 1700 and that is only one group. Regarding "committed" or "energetic", neither is really a cause for notability. For that reason, I still like diverse - which I can't see being taken as multi-racial in this context. It's the diversity of the proponents that is often commented on, isn't it? I do support your use of "extensive", though. That's one more word, at least :)

So here's a shot:

• The theory dates back to the 18th century. It has attracted extensive public attention and thousands of diverse proponents, although it is dismissed by the vast majority of academic Shakespeare scholars. Smatprt (talk) 13:52, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

No, the theory most certainly does not date back to the 18th century, unless your definition of theory has upended the accepted English definition. A few comments in allegorical and humorous chap books does not a theory make.

You write: "Odd that Matus ignores this quote about Shakespeare: 'in all probability, could not write English'. That's a direct statement."

What's really odd is that you ignore the rest of the passage and its context, which Matus furnishes:

But men of very good understanding are frightened after reading so many beautiful things so well done. Shakespear has frightened three parts of the World from attempting to write; and he was no Scholar, no Grammarian, no Historian, and in all probability could not write English. Although his Plays were historical, as I have heard, the History part was given him in concise and short, by one of these Chuckles that could give him nothing else. Then Shake| spear, like the swift hawk that wings his way in pursuit of his game, takes his flight, and soars so much higher, that his vast lengths, with such variety, turns, and delightful changes, ravish all Spectators with admiration and amazing wonder.

It doesn't seem to me he says Shakespeare didn't write his plays. And another passage from the same book:

I will give you a short Account of Mr. Shakespear’s Proceeding; and that I had from one of his intimate Acquaintance. His being imperfect in some things was owing to his not being a Scholar, which obliged him to have one of those chuckle-pated Historians for his particular Associate, that could scarce speak a word but upon that subject; and he maintained him or he might have starved upon his History. And when he wanted any thing in his [the historian’s] Way, as his Plays were all Historical, he sent to him, and took down the heads what was for his purpose in Characters, which were thirty times as quick as running to the Books to read for it. Then with his natural flowing Wit, he worked it into all shapes and forms, as his beautiful thoughts directed. The other put it into Grammar; and instead of Reading, he stuck close to writing and study without Book. How do you think Reading could have assisted him in such great thoughts? It would only have lost time. When he found his thoughts grow on him so fast, he could have writ forever, had he lived so long.

Nor does that passage say Shakespeare didn't write his works, nor is Shakespeare "described as merely a collaborator", as the article states. Nor do the Friedmans reference call him such; in fact, they say it is a "probable reference back to Jonson's remarks about Shakespeare's scholarship, Heminge and Condell's testimony to his facility, and Shakespeare's own comment on the poetic imagination," and that "The trouble is that it is difficult to decide whether Goulding is in earnest; some scholars have declared the Essay to be an exercise in early eighteenth-century deflationary anti-heroics," so using them as a reference for your statement is wrenching their commentary out of context and is unacceptable, since WP:RS states that "Sources should directly support the information as it is presented in an article."

I don't have McMichael & Glenn to hand; I'd appreciate a direct quote.

In The Life and Adventures of Common Sense (1769) by Herbert Lawrence, yes, Shakespeare is portrayed as a "shifty theatrical character ... and incorrigible thief", but nowhere is it stated or even implied that he didn't write the plays and poems. In fact, it specifically states that he did so. And The Story of the Learned Pig is a work of fantasy, and "Pimping Billy" is only one of the several incarnations of the soul of a pig, so I suppose you would say that the work could be used as a serious reference to the theory of reincarnation, since you want to use it as a serious reference to this article. Is that correct? And is your interpretation of Wikipedia WP:RS is that the accuracy of the source is irrelevant as long as it is published in an WP:RS publication, despite other sources to the contrary?

Tom - I provided the direct quote above.

As far as "diverse", I don't care if you use it; I was just hunting for a better description. You and I both know what it means, but to the average person on the street it has come to mean ethnic diversity. But as I wrote earlier in this conversation, I insist that there be some type of description of the relative size of the anti-Stratfordian community, in accordance with WP:FRINGE, "The prominence of fringe views needs to be put in perspective relative to the views of the entire encompassing field.” What would you suggest in place of "small?" Because I don't know of any other word that describes it without bringing in disparaging connotations. Tom Reedy (talk) 16:20, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Then why not just say "thousands"? I simply don't know how to qualify "small", "growing", "an increasing number", etc. And we could always qualify the 18th century reference:

• The first direct statements of doubt about the standard attribution were made in the 18th century, when unorthodox views were expressed in satirical and allegorical works. Since that time the issue has attracted extensive public attention and thousands of diverse proponents, although it is dismissed by the vast majority of academic Shakespeare scholars.

or:

• The first direct statements of doubt about the standard attribution were made in the 18th century, when unorthodox views were expressed in satirical and allegorical works. Since that time the issue has attracted extensive public attention and an increasing number of diverse proponents, although it is dismissed by the vast majority of academic Shakespeare scholars. Smatprt(talk) 13:52, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

You are not listening. You need to provide a reference from a reliable source acceptable to Wikipedia (IOW, not sources that promote anti-Stratfordianism) that explicitly agrees with the statement. Apparently you don't really understand WP:RS or how to use the sources, because you are taking them out of context and synthesizing sources for your statement.

You also fail to address any of my points above, i.e. random jokes and allegories don't constitute a theory and that outdated or wrong scholarly material can't be used, no matter how scholarly the source. You also keep returning back to versions that have already been rejected as unacceptable, such as the inclusion of "increasing" and "proponents." That indicates to me that you are not editing in good faith, which you need to mend immediately. Tom Reedy (talk) 19:33, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Almost nothing in either version is acceptable. You are fobbing off as established facts in mainstream RS, what are idle opinions by the usual mob in some fringe RS.Nishidani (talk) 18:44, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Most of your sources are compilations of documents that simply include documents that have been used by commentators. That does not mean that they endorse any particluar interpretation of them. Your text interprets this as an endorsement of fact that there were "direct statements of doubt". You know this to be untrue. This is both inaccurate and a downright mirepresentation. Paul B (talk) 19:03, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I can see both sides of the 18th vs. 19th century issue. Two documented sources mention possible doubts expressed in the 18th century. I agree that the lead should be consistent with the article, which mentions them. On the other hand, there was no open, continuous debate, and no "controversy," until the mid-19th century. Since the first sentence refers to it as a "controversy," the second sentence should refer to when the controversy began (I proposed "modern" controversy; Tom objected). That means referring to "open debate" beginning in the "mid-19th century," while still mentioning 18th century doubts in the history section. I hope this an acceptable compromise. I think this should be first because it gives historical perspective before describing the present state. If there's no basis for estimating the number of doubters, we should say something to that effect, while mentioning notable supporters. I agree that "diverse" is ambiguous and associated with racial and cultural diversity. Better to mention the notables. Saying that the "vast majority of academics" dismiss the issue meets the WP fringe requirement without otherwise characterizing doubters, either in number or qualifications. So my proposal, slightly revised from my last, is as follows:

Open debate of the issue dates back to the mid-19th century. In recent decades it has gained increased public attention and an unknown number of supporters, including prominent ones; but the vast majority of academic Shakespeare scholars dismiss it. Schoenbaum (talk) 19:55, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

"Unknown number of supporters" sounds quite odd. I wouldn't support that. Let's keep working...Smatprt (talk) 20:16, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Over 1,700 have signed the Declaration of Reasonable Doubt, and there are surely many more who haven't yet read and signed it. That supports an estimate of "a few thousand." So that yields, "Open debate of the issue dates back to the mid-19th century. In recent decades it has gained increased public attention and perhaps a few thousand open supporters, including some prominent ones; but the vast majority of academic Shakespeare scholars dismiss it. Schoenbaum (talk) 21:01, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Misrepresentration again. People who say that doubt is reasonable are not necessaarily people who support the theory that someone else wrote Shakespeare's plays, as is asserted in the phrase "few thousand open supporters". Is honesty so very difficult here. Why not just say that som many people have said that doubt isr reasonable? In itself it's just a generic assertion that debate is legitimate. Paul B (talk) 21:26, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

No. This is getting beyond ridiculous. Since it appears we're never going to agree on the reference to the supporters, which wasn't in the original version anyway, let's just cut it.

Every word of this sentence is backed up by a WP:RS reference:

The theory dates back to the mid-19th century. The vast majority of academic Shakespeare scholars dismiss it, but it has attracted extensive public attention.

Whether theory or debate, there is no doubt that the 18th C. references don't qualify (and even in the history section as it stands now), and as hints they can be mentioned in the history section.

As Smatprt reminded us earlier today, whether you like it or not is beside the point as long as it's based on reliable, up-to-date and accurate sources and accurately reflects the scholarly consensus of the topic. So let's close this one out and move on to the next sentence. At this rate it will be five years before we get done, if then.

You can stop misquoting me. I never used the language you are attributing to me.

You wrote "it's not whether we agree with the sources." My expansion is explicitly based on your comment, and I added the Wikipedia policy qualifications because I assume you want to comply with them.

But you can quote me on this - I do not agree to your latest rewrite and you do not have anything near a consensus for it. So we keep going....Smatprt (talk) 21:39, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't know if there ever will be a consensus. One thing for sure, your usual tactic of wearing out your opponent is not going to work.

And let's archive this page while we're at it. Tom Reedy (talk) 21:18, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

As you well know, we are supposed to state what the minority view is first, and when the topic first arose is certainly part of the minority view.

Could you restate that so it makes sense? Are you saying that since the minority claims that some early comments in allegorical and satirical books constitute "debate" or a "theory" that this article should state that as fact?

Or do you doubt that as well?

I doubt that very much. I suggest you read WP:FRINGE, which applies to this article, and pay special attention to such statements as "The notability of a fringe theory must be judged by statements from verifiable and reliable sources, not the proclamations of its adherents." and "Claims derived from fringe theories should be carefully attributed to an appropriate source and located within a context, which context for this case is impossible to include in the lead.

In any case, here is what that would look like, along with some further tweaks to the rest of the sentence:

Skeptics believe that the first indirect statements of doubt were expressed through satirical and allegorical works in the 18th century. Since that time the issue has attracted extensive public attention and many notable supporters, although it is dismissed by the vast majority of academic Shakespeare scholars.

So "small" is unacceptable to you because of its vagueness but "many" is perfectly fine. Again, I hate to question your good faith, but it doesn't seem to me that you really want to move forward on this, because you keep returning to language that has already been rejected.

And we're not writing about "indirect statements" in the lead, or at least we're not supposed to be. You can't jump abruptly from "indirect statements" to "extensive public attention"; it's nonsensical. We're supposed to be writing an article based on the documented history of the Shakespeare authorship question, not a promotional tract that uses innuendos and vague suppositions. Tom Reedy (talk) 22:28, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Good point about stating the minority viewpoint first. Smatprt's latest version is acceptable to me. Otherwise, if we still need to compromise, we do have documented facts about authorship doubters, so something could be said about them. If you want to stick strictly to facts, here's a version that does so: Open debate of the issue dates back to the mid-19th century. In recent decades it has gained increased public attention. Over 1,700 people have registered their doubt about the author's identity, including over 300 academics and a number of notables; but the vast majority of academic Shakespeare scholars dismiss the issue. Schoenbaum (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 22:20, 25 February 2010 (UTC).

open debate is unacceptable, as said above. The adjective' is a trojan horse to sneak in an innuendo that disguises an unproven hypothesis entertained by non-academic fringe writers. It presumes there was a 'debate' hidden from public purview. There were 18th. doubts and debates about Shakespeare of Stratford's authorship of some things, scenes and acts, which didn't however imply that he was the author of the works (Two Gentlemen of Verona is a case in point). This is all fudged.

(2) the 1700 notable and nondescript (for Shakespearean studies) people detail should go in the last line of the lead, if it is to be included. Such detail, showcased on line 2, is frowned on, esp. at the outset of a lead.

(3) notable makes one laugh. Really you guys, we know that you aficionados of this fringe theory are all entranced by the seductions of an elite, whose amateurish opinions trounce science, but notable in English usage is distinctly dated, and smacks of the ancien regime in its death throes, of the well-heeled gentry (gentry that like dogs 'heeled' to the beck and call of their 'betters') or of 19th. orientalist literature on India, China and Japan, which customarily referred to pandits, rajas, provincial magnates in Han or Ching China, and Japanese samurai as 'notables'. It's accepted in historical writing about past societies, but not, to my eye and ear, customary for contemporary people in the limelight, since it implies to modern readers that those not under the strobe lights are not 'notable'. To call a group of modern names in the theatre, 'notables' is a pathetic anachronism.Nishidani (talk) 10:39, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

I think you are reading rather too much into the word. "Notable" and "non-notable" are terms in the lexicon of wiki-jargon, which is why they appear in many articles. We tend to absorb and regurgitate the jargon. Paul B (talk) 10:46, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, Paul, unlike some folks in other quarters, I think it healthy among people who on a general question agree on what constitutes method and the state-of-the-art of any scholarly discipline, to vigorously disagree on details. It's true that 'notable' and 'non-notable' recur in wikitalk, but in the adjectival sense, not as substantives referring to a class of people. This article is about a 'notable' fringe theory: but to talk of its public supporters as 'notables' uses language the OED, now that I've checked, identifies with 18th century usage (Southey, Scott, Gladstone) or, in a secondary sense with the Ancient Regime, equally in 18th century historical writing, though one example cites it for England (Macaulay) speaking of the 17th century. It's not niggling. Shakespeare was careful about this kind of precision of language, unlike de Vere, and articles on him should strive to respect quality of style. Nishidani (talk) 11:40, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

I meant that you are reading a snobbery into the choice of the word which may not be there. I would be happier with "well-known individuals" or "public figures". "Notables" does sound slightly silly. Paul B (talk) 16:59, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Yep. 'Public figures from all walks of life' is what is meant, but that is not succinct, and rather colloquial, even if it is precisely what is meant here.Nishidani (talk) 17:10, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Actually, Tom, if we use "skeptics believe" then it should not be "indirect" - it should be "direct" - but it could also be cut. And we could simply say "thousands" since 1,700 falls within that word's definition. Since you agreed to diverse, that could be restored in place of "notable". "Since that time was vague and cold be misconstrued, but "more recently" is accurate and brings it up to date, leaving:

Skeptics believe that the first statements of doubt were expressed through satirical and allegorical works in the 18th century. More recently, the issue has attracted extensive public attention and thousands of diverse supporters, although it is dismissed by the vast majority of academic Shakespeare scholars.Smatprt (talk) 15:40, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Skeptics believe that the first statements of doubt were expressed through satirical and allegorical works in the 18th century.

As rephrased (endlessly) this is a recent inframural issue in de Verean 'studies', unless I am mistaken. It is therefore detail for the maintext and not the lead. Squirrilling it in there is inappropriate. The versions yonks back were on this relatively uncontroversial. (b) there is absolutely no support for 'extensive public attention' in any normal acceptance of that phrase (i.e. it is not a 'public' issue like WMDs or Michael Jackson's possible murder: it is a fringe rumour, with a lot of net hype, but negligible impact on broad public opinion) (c)'thousands' again, like the Declaration gambit,in the context of a Western public of some 500-700 million peoples is rather cute, but pathetic special pleading. The more this is revised, the worse it gets. All I see is a case for going back to the original proposals for the second sentence.Nishidani (talk) 16:20, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

We cannot reasonably say "sceptics believe", as if it were an article of faith. Individual "sceptics" believe different things, and may accept or reject any particular argument (just as Price rejects the arguments about the monument). Indeed these particular claims are all quite recent. The majority of significant writers on this topic never refer to these texts, nor did they play any role in the development of Baconian, Oxfordian and other theories. It would be more accurate to say that some writers have made these claims, and, at the appropriate place, to describe how and when they came to be made. Paul B (talk) 17:11, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

I concur. 'sceptics believe' indeed sounds like an oxymoron to anyone with an ear for English prose style, and your point's well-taken. As you make clear, there is a deep problem here in the practice of making a movement of collective opinion what are in fact many highly individual, or sectarian theories. I suggested before, and on the tails of Paul's comment here, suggest again, that, outside the lead certainly, all specific opinions from the fringe school be referred intext to their authors. The problem with the lead is that it is being written as though we were discussing deVere. Baconians and cipher fiends of various descriptions, who must be covered, do not generally engage in these historical polemic. The lead must reflect the whole world of dissent, and not the specific ideological positions of the de Verean cohort.Nishidani (talk) 17:20, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

I do not support dating the start of the modern "controversy" to the 18th century in the lead. Nishidani, if you don't like "open debate," putting too much detail in the lead, "notables," etc, fine, but please offer constructive alternatives rather than just taking potshots at what the rest of us propose. Otherwise it appears that all you have in mind to do here is impede progress. I've tried to take your issues into account in the following version: The controversy dates back to the mid-19th century. Since then many prominent people have expressed doubts about the traditional attribution. In recent decades the issue has gained increased public attention, but the vast majority of academic Shakespeare scholars dismiss it. Schoenbaum (talk) 18:01, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

potshots at what the rest of us propose

Who is 'us'?

My objection to 'open' is not a matter of likes and dislikes. It is a reasoned objection, and please take note of the distinction. It has nothing to do with detail, but with history, and the way a lead describing history can be distorted by careless use of language.

This place abounds in unconstructive alternatives. I am deconstructing some of them. But if you're interested, my own take on your suggestion would rewrite it thus:-

The controversy dates back to the mid-19th century. Since then, from time to time, prominent people from all walks of life have expressed doubts about the traditional attribution. In recent decades, the issue has gained increased public attention, though the vast majority of academic Shakespeare scholars dismiss it.

Nishidani (talk) 18:10, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Now we're getting somewhere. I think we're not far apart. I don't see the need for "from time to time." As opposed to what? All of them speaking out at once at some point during the last 150 years? It adds nothing, so let's drop it. Re: "from all walks of life," that's overstated. "From a variety of backgrounds" is accurate. Incorporating those changes yields the following:

The controversy dates back to the mid-19th century. Since then prominent people from a variety of backgrounds have expressed doubts about the traditional attribution. In recent decades, the issue has gained increased public attention, though the vast majority of academic Shakespeare scholars dismiss it.

Schoenbaum (talk) 19:01, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

It might help readers if we were to give them a few representative examples of the "variety of backgrounds" of the prominent people we're talking about. The main ones would be "writers, actors and lawyers," I believe. We specify a lack of support from orthodox Shakespeare scholars, so it seems appropriate to specify typical backgrounds of prominent doubters. That would yield the following:

The controversy dates back to the mid-19th century. Since then prominent people from various backgrounds, especially writers, actors and lawyers, have expressed doubts about the traditional attribution. In recent decades, the issue has gained increased public attention, though the vast majority of academic Shakespeare scholars dismiss it.

Comments anyone? Just trying to move the process along. Schoenbaum (talk) 21:40, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

While I like the addition, I just think it's getting too long. Part of the goal here is to make the lead more compact. Since that group is listed in the section about the declaration, just below, I just don't think we need it here as well. I think the closest we have is what you and Nishidani seem to have worked out, although I agree that the "time to time" and "all walks of life" are not needed. Smatprt (talk) 22:01, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

On the 18th/19th century debate, I can see the closest consensus we have is not to use it in the lead, and leaving it to the history section where it is now. I will join that consensus so we can move on.Smatprt (talk) 22:01, 26 February 2010 (UTC

There is no consensus on leaving that out so don't try to act as if there were. The theory/question/controversy started in 1848. That is a documented fact. There is no controversy over that except from people who try to push it back in an attempt to make it appear that even Shakespeare's contemporaries knew about the conspiracy. It is an important part of the lead and should stay in. There is relatively small group of believers in the theory/question/controversy. That is a fact, attested to by your own poll, which puts it at 6 per cent. ("Maybes" aren't believers.) Nobody is contesting that except for those who want to make it appear as if the group were larger. The vast majority of Shakespeare academics/professionals agree that the theory/question/controversy is nonsense. That is a fact. Nobody is questioning that, and in fact your own sources say so.

So what is so hard about admitting to reality and putting those facts on the page? You can even have "thriving" back, since it follows the wording of the source.

The theory dates back to the mid-19th century. It has attracted public attention and a small but thriving following, but it is dismissed by the vast majority of academic Shakespeare scholars. Tom Reedy (talk) 00:13, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Calm down, Tom. I wasn't clear. What I meant about "leaving it out" was the 18th century bit - leave it out of the lead and just keep it in the history section. I was extremely unclear and I apologize. I'm joining the consensus to use "19th" - and that is what I meant. "Small" isn't going to fly - that was already dismissed as you know. Neither is "theory" since we don't know when the first time the "theory" was developed by someone, only when "public debate" or "controversy" (which implies public) actually started. So the rest of the sentence is still up for grabs. You have taken a step backward from where Nishidani and Schoenbaum were headed. Maybe the two of us should leave it to the two of them and cool down?Smatprt (talk) 01:14, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Okay, let's not refer to "writers, actors and lawyers" to keep it short. Schoenbaum (talk) 23:58, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Tom, the first sentence refers to it as a "controversy," not a "theory," so I think we should use that language in the second sentence. That's what Smatprt, Nishidani and I did; but you changed it without explanation. Unless you can offer a good reason for the change, I'd like to stick with "controversy" here. Otherwise, I can accept most of your latest version above, except it's insufficient to say only that it has "attracted public attention and a small but thriving following," without mentioning that the "following" includes prominent public figures. If we're going to mention the views of a group described as "the vast majority of academic Shakespeare scholars," it's insufficient to describe doubters merely as a "small but thriving following." In fact, we don't know the size of the "following" because there has been no survey of the general public to determine the level of awareness, interest and support. We know the number of activists is small, so I'm willing to accept the use of "small" on that basis; but only if we also mention that this "small following" includes some prominent public figures. Since that's something we do know for sure, it should be mentioned here. Nishidani found this acceptable in the version he proposed, and I think you should accept it too. So I propose the following:

The controversy dates back to the mid-19th century. It has attracted public attention and a small but thriving following, including some prominent public figures; but it is dismissed by the vast majority of academic Shakespeare scholars.

How's that? Schoenbaum (talk) 18:20, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

I think if you go back you'll see I questioned 'controversy'. One cannot use controversy twice in the first two sentences,(besides other considerations, it's bad prose style). A theory is advanced, and then a controversy may, or may not, arise. A controversy does not arise spontaneously, it follows closely upon a 'theory' or 'hypothesis' or doubt. Thirdly, 1848, then 1856, 1857 (note how many Americans underwrote this stuff), a newspaper kerfuffle for a while, then every now and then people popped up with new angles, like Donnelly in the 1880s, making a splash like Basho's frog (mizu no oto), and the waters calmed. That is why I take exception to any attempt to set a mid-19th century date, and then follow it up immediately 'public attention'. It's only a nuance, Schoenbaum - generally, something like the sentence you propose is acceptable. But nuances are important, and the nuance I want to avoid is that there was some incremental rise from 1948 to 1990s. I think that nuance could be eliminated by simply adding 'Recently/in recent decades'. I've been reading Shakespeareana since the early 1960s, and only came across Looney and Ogburn in the 1990s (apart from reading allusions to the theory in works on Freud, or in Harold Bloom's famous psychoanalytic reduction of Freud's misprision, in the 1970s).Nishidani (talk) 18:37, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Nishidani - here is the source you are quoting: "The traditional theory that Shakespeare was Shakespeare has the passive to active acceptance of the vast majority of English professors and scholars". Please show us, oh Master of all things english, where it says the vast majority dismiss the theory.Smatprt (talk) 18:58, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

The controversy dates back to the mid-19th century. It has attracted public attention and a small but thriving following, including some prominent public figures. However, the vast majority of academic Shakespeare scholars accept the traditional identification.

That is how the one source we have used is to be paraphrased here, restricting ourselves to that alone. Anything else you need help with?Nishidani (talk) 22:59, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Nishidani, I can agree with some of the above. I'll try to translate your views into specific wording, since once again you've left that to others. If you don't like using "controversy" twice in the first two sentences, I suggest we go back to calling it a "debate" in the first, and say that it's "controversial" in the second. I like your suggestion of using "in recent decades," which I used before, but Tom dropped. I also agree with Smatprt, however, that it's overstatement to say that the issue is disimissed by the "vast majority" of academics, based on the actual quote. I can agree to "great majority," based on the NY Times survey. I don't like saying "small" thriving following, because we really don't have any numbers. That leaves us with the following for the first two sentences:

The Shakespeare authorship question is the debate about whether the works traditionally attributed to William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon were actually composed by another writer or group of writers. Controversial since the mid-19th century, in recent decades it has attracted increased public attention and a thriving following, including prominenent public figures; but it is dismissed by the great majority of academic Shakespeare scholars.

How's that? Schoenbaum (talk) 20:57, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

No. We've already agreed on sentence one. "Controversy" includes whatever debate there is. And as Nishidani points out, theory precedes controversy. And up above you said you were fine with The theory of alternate Shakespeare authorship dates back to the mid-19th century. It has little academic support, but has gained a small but thriving following. Now you say you don't like it and insist that some mention of prominent believers. And now Smatprt, who originally was OK with the vast majority of scholars dismissing the theory, is now splitting hairs. What gives? It appears to me that neither one of you are editing in good faith. There has been 9,000+ words written on this one sentence because you two think this article is supposed to be a debate and are jockeying for advantage, and Smatprt is not in any hurry to have this article tilted away from being an Oxfordism promotional piece. Go back and look at the original page as it was created on 31 Dec. 2005, and you'll see that the current page is not much of an improvement. The main difference is that the current page pushes Oxfordism instead of being WP:NPV.

This is the sentence I will go along with:

The theory dates back to the mid-19th century. It has attracted public attention and a small but thriving following, including some prominent public figures; but it is dismissed by the vast majority of academic Shakespeare scholars.

If Smatprt doesn't like "some", I suggest "a few" would be more accurate. Tom Reedy (talk) 23:14, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

For the moment, I am content with letting you two try to finesses these first two sentences. Now that you have reached this stage, I would suggest you look at the guideline at WP:Words to Avoid: WP:AVOID. I believe some of the words you are discussing are mentioned there. Also, please review WP:WEASEL which address some of your remaining issues as well (like how do you define "some", "many", etc. ) Good luck! Smatprt (talk) 22:19, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

'Some' and 'many' are standard words in English, and are required often because much of this text is vitiated by a synthesis of diverse claims by sects or schools which otherwise disagree over numerous details, and this synthesis classifies many views attributable to one school (de Vereans) as the views of the fictive, all-embracing ghost-category (Gilbert Ryle The Concept of Mind, 1949, if you can't figure that one out) authorship doubters, which I repeat, is cleft-thumbed English. As I have said several times, specific views must be cited to those who propose them, and not bundled up as 'authorship doubters'.Nishidani (talk) 22:59, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

And I have fixed them as you brought them up. What is your point?Smatprt (talk)

Do a word check on 'many' and if you really believe what you are saying, put 'who' everywhere in the text, and not just in one or two passages you dislike. I.e.

Many anti-Stratfordians, including Charles Wisner Barrell, Roger Stritmatter and Diana Price, believe the first indirect statements suspecting the authorship of Shakespeare's works come from the Elizabethans themselves

Both can play that game, Smatprt, but it is rather jejune to do so, since the point at issue is to nuance the text so that it reports individual perspectives, once the general 'anti-Stratfordian' and 'mainstream' distinction is made.Nishidani (talk) 23:06, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

I've gone about to correct the ones on my side. You have not. Stop whining and do the fixes. You and Tom have filled this article up with so many weasel words WP:WEASEL you have a lot of work to do. I've been catching up on attributions for a week or so. What have you been doing? Arguing between "a" and "the". Smatprt (talk) 23:57, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Nishidani, I believe we have an agreement to take it one sentence at a time from the top, and we're still on the first two sentences. Unless you can explain how your latest comments relate to them, I'd like to ask you, once again, to focus your attention on the topic at hand and either agree to my latest proposal (above) for the wording of those two sentences, or propose a specific alternative. If you want to discuss the history of authorship doubts, please do it under that section, not here. Thanks. Schoenbaum (talk) 23:21, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

I beg your pardon, Schoenbaum but do you mean by this constant reiteration that I am not as focused as you think I should be, that I should refrain from replying to, or commenting on Smatprt's messages as they crop up here? If you have a problem here, then take Smatprt aside and tell him or her not to interrupt the sequence of the talk themes. I can't be blamed if he does so, and it is rather curious that you remonstrate with the driven accomplice rather than the driving culprit, while ignoring the latter, who happens to share your perspective.Nishidani (talk) 23:39, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Wow - you just make stuff up. I suggested you look at those two guidelines as to how they relate to these two sentences. "Some", "Many", "Small", "Vast" - they are all weasel words and you know it. Instead of addressing these two sentences, though, you went off on a tangent, like you do. And Tom accuses me of stalling? It's you, Nishi, that have brought this page to a standstill. If I didn't know better, I'd think you were Barry in disguise, because you have achieved the same result. Smatprt (talk) 23:57, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

And for the record, Tom, Nishi, at all - I no longer agree with the use of "vast". I agreed because I believed you when you said it reflected the source. Now that I see that was a deception, I will have none of it. Your source does not say that, so you cannot say that. Period. Besides, the use of "vast", "small", "large", etc. are weasel words and go against policy. WP:WEASEL must be addressed now. When it gets to claiming amounts of something, you need to be specific, have data, or write it another way. Period. Smatprt (talk) 23:57, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Tom and Nishi - you have not responded to this. Are you going to ignore these policies completely or not?Smatprt (talk) 16:44, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

These kinds of weasel adjectives are typical of arguments which have little actual substance to support them. This is because they often quantify the unquantifiable. I would suggest that the closest thing that we have to a truly quantifiable view of what higher scholars think about this subject is the NYT poll -- but that of course is only a snapshot of what the academicians thought at a given time. It may be subject to confirmation bias, but just as importantly, it lacks full historical contextualization to determine how rapidly or in what numbers the defections from the orthodox view are taking place -- or why they are.--BenJonson (talk) 13:49, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, Smatprt, would Stephen Greenblatt's authority be good enough for you?

like the vast majority of scholars who work on Shakespeare, I find the DeVere hypothesis wildly implausible. Harvard Professor Stephen Greenblatt cited Steve Bagley, ‘Local scholar believes William Shakespeare was a man of few words,’, Wickedlocal.com, 4 Nov, 2008

or do we require an email from Hades from Strat's Will, authenticated by a notary? When one of the leading Renassance scholars qualifies the deVere hypothesis as 'wildly implausible' and says this is what the 'vast majority' of Shakespearean scholars think, he is 'dismissing' the trash. The point is obvious, and you are quibbling.Nishidani (talk) 14:28, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Dismissing one theory and dismissing the entire issue is completely different. It is you who has demanded precision yet failing to live up to your own decree. Quibbling? This coming from the guy who argues with his own team over "the" and "a"? You never fail to amuse... Smatprt (talk) 16:44, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't belong to a 'team'. You are wikilawyering to stall. For your objection means that unless Greenblatt uses 'all 57 alternative candidate theories' he cannot be taken as dismissing the alternative authorship question (dominated the strongest candidate de Vere) as ludicrous. Make intelligent comments, please, don't quibble to stall, disrupt, split hairs.Nishidani (talk) 16:50, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Nishidani, is the Stephen Greenblatt you cite the same one who in an interview in Harvard Magazine (Sept-Oct 2004), referring to the authorship controversy, said: "... the process of writing the book [Will in the World]... has made me respect that preposterous fantasy, if I may say so, rather more than when I began ... because I have now taken several years of hard work and 40 years of serious academic training to grapple with the difficulty of making the connections meaningful and compelling between the life of this writer and the works that he produced."? It sounds to me like Greenblatt talks out of both sides of his mouth on this question -- supporting orthodoxy in his book, for which he reportedly recieived a $1 million advance from Norton Publishing, and then slipping up and committing an act of candor in an interview with the editor of Harvard Magazine. Pray tell, which Professor Stephen Greenblatt are we to believe? Schoenbaum (talk) 21:24, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

It is indeed the same man, as you know. The simple difference is that what he said in the snippet you quote from 2004 is, after 4 years, clarified in the email he wrote in 2008. Evidently, though it is not for me to speculate, 4 years of looking through stuff led him to the drastic conclusion I cite. Note he called it a 'preposterous fantasy' in 2004, and 'wildly implausible' in 2008. But this apparent dyscrasia is merely a problem of literary construal, man. To 'respect' what you call a 'preposterous fantasy' is not thereby to honour it, but simply to suggest that fantasies of this extravagant kind arise because it is difficult to connect the exiguous knowledge we have of the real Shakespeare with the extraordinary universe of Shakespeare's works. Of course it is difficult, because a few records like playbills, payments, court cases, and wills, can by their nature and sparseness never tell us of the man, any more than the little (though quite a lot more) we know of Dante, can explain how on earth he versified bewilderingly intricate architectonic museum of memory and the omne scibile of his age. The pathology here is to wish to know what cannot be known, from sheer lack of records. But there is nothing intrinsically improbable in the story that patches up those exiguous records with the theatrical output of Shakespeare. Like Dickens, Balzac, Kipling and many others, he was evidently a 'quick study'. Dickens once surprised a fellow traveller on a journey from Dover to London by recounting minutely the whole architecture, flowers, windows, nameplates, and bonnets, and dress of the place they had travelled through in a minute. His companion had asked him if he had noticed something that had caught his own attention, and Dickens, impromptu, came out with a panoramic verbal description of everything from chimneys to tiles. This is rare, but not among many great writers. Were you all less taken with Shakespeare, and better read in the literature of the world, you would realize that the premise ignores what we know exists. Dante read few books, they were rare (Chaucer only had 48). But when he chanced on one he had heard about, he borrowed it, and, while standing all day, slowly read it from cover to cover, and retained most of it, just as Coleridge would. It is not just however booklearning, it is the rapid comprehensive glance at a landscape and a social scene that so many great authors take in, and we, who are dumb, think it impossible. There are far too many testimonies, and I am not going to waste this page on listing the one's I have, that such creative temperaments exist. Only you guys say an alderman's son couldn't possibly have had such a one, and only a noble ponce whose poetry is, for the age, passing mediocre, could have. Rubbish, and pure elitism.Nishidani (talk) 21:36, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

You wrote: "Were you all less taken with Shakespeare, and better read in the literature of the world, you would realize that the premise ignores what we know exists." You mean "better read in the literature of the world" like Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William and Henry James, John Galsworthy and Mortimer J. Adler, all of whom doubted Shakspere? You also wrote: "Only you guys say an alderman's son couldn't possibly have had such a one, and only a noble ponce whose poetry is, for the age, passing mediocre, could have." This is false, and a blatant mischaracterization of our views. Of course great writers come from humble beginnings; happens all the time. That's not the issue. Here's how it is stated in the Declaration of Reasonable Doubt: "Scholars know nothing about how he acquired the breadth and depth of knowledge displayed in the works. This is not to say that a commoner, even in the rigid, hierarchical social structure of Elizabethan England, couldn't have managed to do it somehow; but how could it have happened without leaving a single trace?" That's the issue. It would have been a remarkable achievement, and it should have attracted a lot of attention, and left records. That's what at least one noted historian thought: "Hugh R. Trevor-Roper, Regius Professor of History at Oxford University, found Shakespeare's elusiveness “exasperating and almost incredible... After all, he lived in the full daylight of the English Renaissance in the well documented reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King James I and... since his death has been subjected to the greatest battery of organised research that has ever been directed upon a single person. And yet the greatest of all Englishmen, after this tremendous inquisition, still remains so close to a mystery that even his identity can still be doubted" (“What’s in a Name?” Réalités, 11/62). And you say there's no room for doubt, and attack anyone who disagrees as a snob and an elitist. What nonsense! Please stop mischaracterizing our views about whether commoners write works of genius. Schoenbaum (talk) 22:46, 28 February 2010 (UTC

Please note that Greenblatt committed another "act of candor" in reviewing Jonathan Bate’s book, Soul of the Age, in the December 17, 2009 issue of the New York Review of Books ("Shakespeare’s no-Man’s-Land"; 56:20). Greenblatt criticizes Bate for being overly inhibited in writing a biography that’s insufficiently imaginary. "Given the paucity of evidence, the enterprise demands speculation, imaginative daring and narrative cunning," Greenblatt says. "Do it with color. Work in all you can. Make them (your readers) accomplices." "Never mind that he left so few traces of himself. Never mind that none of his personal letters or notes or drafts survive; that no books with his marginal annotations have turned up; that no police spy was ordered to ferret out his secrets; that no contemporary person thought to jot down his table talk or solicit his views on life or art. Never mind that Shakespeare—son of the middle-class provincial glover—flew below the radar of ordinary Elizabethan and Jacobean social curiosity. The longing to encounter him and know him endures." I don’t know Greenblatt could have made it any clearer that his motives in writing his own imaginary biography, Will in the World, were entirely mercenary. He openly criticizes Bate for his qualms about doing likewise! And you think his work is serious scholarship? But of course his views qualify as WP:RS. A sense of shame isn't required. Schoenbaum (talk) 01:29, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Tom, I made a good faith effort to accommodate Nishidani's views, including his expressed desire to include "in recent decades," which I see you've omitted. If the two of you can't agree, it's pretty hard for me to accommodate you both. I agree with Nishidani that it's more accurate, and so I want it in. I have no problem with using "controversy" in the first sentence, and "theory" in the second. Re: "vast majority," Smatprt pointed out that the referenced quote doesn't actually say that the theory is "dismissed by the 'vast majority' of academic Shakespeare scholars." I now think that's an overstatement. Can't I change my mind when something is pointed out that I hadn't noticed? I've said that I'm willing to agree to "great majority" based on the NY Times survey. That's hardly unreasonable. The only thing I'm "jockeying" for is accuracy and neutrality, and I am certainly not trying to promote a specific candidate. You are the one "jockeying for advantage," and making what appear to be non-negotiable demands, such as "This is the sentence I will go along with:" You don't see me doing that. Here's my latest attempt to please your majesties:

The theory dates back to the mid-19th century. In recent decades it has attracted increased public attention and a small thriving following, including some prominenent public figures; but it is dismissed by the great majority of academic Shakespeare scholars.

Schoenbaum (talk) 00:12, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Pseudonymous or secret authorship in Renaissance England

I added new material to bring this section up to date and made some edits for clarity. It is important that this page reflect both a sound history of the authorship issue and also the insights which are being generated by contemporary scholarship. These changes include ommitting the name "Martin Mar-Prelate" from the list of hyphenated pseudonyms. To my knowledge, the name was never hyphenated. If someone has good evidence to the contrary, we can add the name back in. But for now, its out. More importantly, I added reference to Oxford's probable authorship of the Pasquill pamphlets. For those interested in a direct link to the new wiki entry which documents this, you can find it here: Pasquill Cavaliero.--BenJonson (talk) 14:50, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

This material is not relevant to this particular article, and is more suitable to the Oxfordian article, although I think it's probably already been inserted there without checking.

Also the refs are not RS. Tom Reedy (talk) 17:18, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Its interesting that you only noticed this now, Tom. The section has been part of the article for some time, albiet not very well worded and missing critical factual details, such as the fact that the Oxfordians have alleged a solution to the "Pasquill" question. As the anti-Stratfordian case is substantially based on the view that the use of the alleged pseudonym would be an instance of the evasion of censorship. As someone who is not an anti-Stratfordian, and therefore cannot be expected to understand the nature of the case, it is not surprising that you would object. You remind me that I need to add a link to Professor Winifred Frazer's recent Brief Chronicles article, which more fully explains the connection. Once I add the link, perhaps you could read the article and we could discuss your objection further. I have already added a link to the new Pasquill entry to the Oxford page. However, let's be clear about this: as far as I am concerned, a section on this page which discusses the prominent role of pseudonymous publication in the early modern period is simply not negotiable. --BenJonson (talk) 17:37, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I noticed the section a long time ago, Roger, but for some reason have been forced to spend an inordinate amount of time on the introductory material. In fact, I've got notes for re-writes on most of the sections in this article. the one I have for that section begins "During the life of William Shakespeare and for more than 200 years after his death, no one seriously suggested that anybody other than Shakespeare wrote the works nor indicated that the name was a pseudonym. Despite this, anti-Stratfordians interpret . . . ." But all this in good time. Tom Reedy (talk) 18:07, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

No, Tom, you won't be able to begin a section that way. Explain the article theory first, than present the more "accepted ideas". And saying that a section on the role of pseudonymous publication in the Elizabethan age, in an article about an Elizabethan writer who may have published under a pseudonym, should be deleted or is irrelevant is just silly. I sincerely doubt you will be able to form a consensus to delete that section.Smatprt (talk) 18:32, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Once again you demonstrate your lack of basic reading comprehension. Very well, you boys have fun while you can. Tom Reedy (talk) 19:24, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Threaten all you want.--BenJonson (talk) 03:13, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Here is an example of the hyphenated Mar-prelate.[[1]]Smatprt (talk) 16:55, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Nope. It might be a clue to one, but that's a 19th century title page. We need an Elizabethan example. For now I'll let your reversion stand, but I think we're on thin ice without a better example. See my point? coda: I was able to check a modern facsimile of the original title page of "Pap with a Hatchett (probably by John Lyly), and it is very different from the one given in that reprint and does not even include the name "Marprelate," let alone in hyphenated form. I think we should redelete this and leave it off unless something better is found to justify it. --BenJonson (talk) 17:39, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Can you check this one then? [[2]]? thanks. Smatprt (talk) 18:21, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

O, Stephen, now we're getting warm. This is a modern facsimile, but it looks to be pedantically reproducing the original text, which is what we need. I would say that to be entirely sure, someone needs to go to the EEBO text and verify that the hyphens are in the original. But I think you've got a good witness to the point. Note, though, that the examples (at least those I saw), are "Mar-Martin," not Martin Mar-prelate."

A few other comments on this section. As promised, as I added the citation to the very fine article by the late Professor Frazer. I also checked and verified the basis for the Elizabethan tradition of Terence as a front. Nishidani could not be more wrong. Roger Ascham, in the explanatory quote that I added to the section, clearly articulates the belief, attributing it to Cicero, that at least some works under Terence' name were written by aristocrats. Please let us all note and agree to stipulate that whether or not this is true or can be proven is totally irrelevant. The point is that it was believed by so prominent a figure as Roger Ascham, the most important classical scholar and educator of his generation. I also refined some other language in the section to make the materials fit more appropriately within the present article, in response to Tom's concerns. --BenJonson (talk) 19:10, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

The text you guys were editing said Terence was seen by a plurality of Elizabethan scholars to be a frontman. I corrected the two errors. One of you guys bungled. In Ascham there is a distinction between a foreigner's Latin (Terence's in four of his plays) and a native Roman noble's. Ascham nowhere supports the view that Terence was not a playwright but a merely funnel for 'aristocratic' playwrights. Terence himself laughs at the rumour. Modern scholarship has a good explanation for this. Poets and writers at that time, as in Elizabethan times, were often locked up, exiled, and punished by the authorities. All the patrons whose influence is associated with Terence had magistratal functions. He was protecting his rear by cultivating friends. But, of course, this is 'orthodox' scholarship, and you people, with 'virtually no', sorry, 'small Latin and lesse Greek', know better. Nishidani (talk) 20:38, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Nishidani -- what the text once said is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is whether you are going to join us in making it better, or continue your harassment with these kinds of inappropriate comments, which seek to make the present editors responsible for wording that was supplied by others and to throw dust over the fact that your categorical pronunciamentos of yesterday have been proven wrong in the space of a couple of days. I'm sorry that you don't feel that you are getting your way here, but life is tough. Ascham is a very good witness to the fact that Elizabethans associated the idea of disguised authorship with the name Terence. That is all that is required. We have no way of assessing how widely this view was held. The rest is you creating straw men and then splitting their hairs. Let me once again suggest that you may wish to actually familiarize yourself with the topic in question. I recommend Ogburn or Anderson as good places to begin, although if you want to learn about Oxford,aside from the case for his authorship of the plays, B.M. Ward is still an excellent read. I would take you much more seriously if you could demonstrate a knowledge of even one of these works which transcended hearsay.--BenJonson (talk) 03:20, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, but nothing published by Brief Chronicles is WP:RS. Read [[WP:PARITY|this], especially the sentence, "Note that fringe journals exist, some of which claim peer review. Only a very few of these actually have any meaningful peer review outside of promoters of the fringe theories, and should generally be considered unreliable. Examples: The Creation Science Quarterly, Homeopathy, Journal of Frontier Science . . . and many others." If you insist on its use, we can take it to WP:RSN for an opinion.

Tom, aren't you the guy who a couple of days ago were arguing that Dave Kathman and Terry Ross's private website, which once contained abundant material supporting the superstar shooting star Donald Foster, should be considered an acceptable source? Your lack of consistency is pathetic--BenJonson (talk) 00:09, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

In addition, you need a ref for this edit or you need to delete it: "At least two of the proposed candidates for authorship, the Earls of Oxford and Derby, were known to be playwrights but have no extant work under their own name. Moreover, Oxford has been identified in some studies as the real author of three clearly pseudonymous publications which appeared in 1589-90 under the colorful nom de plum of 'Pasquill Cavaliero.'" The one you originally cited is not acceptable. If you wish we can take that for an opinion also, but I think you know what the objections are and how it will fare. Tom Reedy (talk) 19:41, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Tom, I'm surprised that you don't know these references, but I would be happy to supply them. They are both common knowledge for anyone who has studied the authorship question, and while you may be pedantically correct that the should be added, their absence in the context of the many other edits required by the page, is hardly a matter for major concern. Why don't you supply them yourself; since you know so much about the history of the topic, it should be like taking candy from a baby for you. The citation that is provided is to two publications by Elizabeth Appleton, the second published by an academic press. It is not a citation intended to justify the fact that Oxford and Derby were known to be playwrights, as you should be able to see from its location, but to the theory that Oxford is the author of the Pasquill pamphlets, which was Appleton's argument. If you don't like her theory, your recourse is to write and publish a rebutall, and if it meets the appropriate scholarly standards, the page can link to it, to indicate the matter is not settled. Until you or someone else does that, the matter is in fact more or less settled, at the stage indicated by the new entry on "Pasquill" -- which notes that existing authorities like EEBO still cling to the Nashe attribution but that Roland McKerrow himself did not accept it. That being the case, at this point in time the only case for authorship of the pamphlets which consists of anything more than mere blind acceptance of tradition, is Appleton's.--BenJonson (talk) 00:09, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

You know damn well what I was referring to when I called for cites. Elizabeth Appleton has a phony PhD and her book was published by the Mellen Press, the bottom-feeding press of last resort used when nobody else will publish your book. She is not RS for anything, as you well know. Either supply a good ref or cut it. Tom Reedy (talk) 03:26, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

No, Tom, I don't "know damn well..." that Appleton has a "phony PhD," whatever that means. You don't have any kind of PhD, however, so I don't really know where you get off passing judgment on other people's qualifications. Appleton's technical qualifications are not at issue here. The issue is that she has made a powerful case for Oxford's authorship of the Pasquill pamphlets. Now, I can understand why this would upset you, since if she is right, it establishes a pattern of pseudonymous publication by Oxford, and that is something which, above all else, would be problematic for your dogma. You can cite RS all you want, Tom, but unlike you have I have not only read Appleton's book (and reviewed it, as you may know), but have read the Pasquill pamphlets themselves, Roland McKerrow's scholarship on them (he says they are not by Thomas Nashe), and Oxford's correspondence. I'm not really that interested in getting into a pissing match with you about whether Appleton's reference can stay on this page. There are far less reliable references -- e.g. your buddy Kathman -- about which you have raised no objection. Appleton's work will not be the last on the Pasquill question, and -- mark my words, Tom -- will be upheld by other scholars. So go ahead and revert all you want. It might make you feel better but it will not affect the final outcome.--BenJonson (talk) 02:10, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Tom I've supplied two references, one for Oxford and the other for Derby, indicating that they were known as playwrights. These are not to be taken as comprehensive, as they are not. For instance, I did not supplement Meres with William Webbe, who also notes Oxford's reputation as a comic dramatist as early as 1586. When I get some more time, I'll add this as well -- the present refs should alleviate your concern. As mentioned, I'm a bit surprised that someone who professes to have the knowledge you claim of this subject is not aware that these are common knowledge among scholars of the authorship question. But I do agree with you that the article is better with the cites, so I spent some time looking them up and carefully providing them. --BenJonson (talk) 03:13, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I think Tom is incorrect and doubt if he has checked the Brief Chronicles editorial review board here [[3]]. Hardly the same as the examples listed at WP:PARITY (note the correct way to link, Tom)where one used "blogs" as the peer review. BC is one of those "few" that actually has "meaningful peer review". And after all the criticism heaped on me for opposing the Kathman website for my attempts to stifle knowledge, it's surprising to see just how much hypocrisy is coming from the mainstream side.Smatprt (talk) 21:04, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I think three of you are abusing 'peer review'. All I have seen is a dozen odd de Verean names, some attached to universities, or graduates of them, sitting on boards for internet sites or newsletters of their own 'anti-stratfordian' cut and then reviewing each other. This is not what is understood in English or WP:RS as peer review. It's fringers reviewing their own marginalia. Tom is correct therefore. This article must distinguish between RS for a fringe viewpoint, which are fringe websites and pamphlets and books, and RS for critical scholarly peer review and sources on Shakespeare. The distinction is being blurred by sleight-of-hand and the slow tenacious drift of the momentous drivelling in here.Nishidani (talk) 21:13, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Nishidani, actually, you are abusing our patience with your gratuitously condescending and insulting claptrap. Its time for you to start specifying what your own qualifications are. Have you published in this field? If not, how dare you pass judgment on the distinguished scholars who comprise the editorial board of *Brief Chronicles* by calling them "fringers reviewing their own marginalia"? Actually, very few journals in the humanities practice to the standard used at BC, of double-blind peer review. But please tell us something about yourself. Paul asked who the hell I was, and I told him. How about you? Where do you *stand*, guy? Unfold yourself. This is 2010, not 1995. Do you have a clue? Apparently not. What is your publication record? What anti-Stratfordian books have you read? Have you ever heard of Professor David Richardson? Is he a "fringie"? For my part, I have participated regularly, both as a reviewer and reviewed, in a range of academic publications (about eight or ten in all). I can assure you that the standards of review that are used at Brief Chronicles equal those found at any academic journal and are in fact considerably more balanced than those currently prevailing at a number of publications. The only difference is that the reviewers, all established academicians, have at least got a clue about the actual dynamics and history of the authorship question. You persist in arguing through labels that are wholly irrelevant. There is no sleight of hand, just as there is no "fringe viewpoint." There is fight between established belief and a well articulated, coherent and credible alternative. It is clear where you stand in that debate, and that's fine. You don't have to like the alternative. You damn well DO have to respect it if you want to have any impact on editing this page. --BenJonson (talk) 00:09, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

'our patience', the pluralis maiestatis, again. The judgements I pass, as a wikipedian, are those I formed on my reading widely in this area, and which I found confirmed by the best scholars in the field, who say people who embrace this crackpot nonsense 'give the Baconians a run for madness' (the real Schoenbaum), some tall order. Who am I? None of your, or wikipedia's business, and you break protocols to insist I reveal my identity to justify my edits here. Your personal indiscretion only invites unfortunate ripostes, of the kind, 'I haven't lectured at Coppin State University where you teach, but I have done so, by invitation, at Oxford', the real place, not the fictional world of de Verean 'Oxfordians' who appropriate the historic name to fudge up the impression to a gullible and not too attentive public that somehow they are connected to one of the highest centres of learning in the world. So enough of this bragging. For, 'I'll cite no further than the initiate know', to quote Gerard Manley Hopkins, bearing in mind Montaigne's advice:

Car de servir de spectacle aux grands et faire è l'envy parade de son esprit et de son caquet, je trouve que c'est un mestier tres-messeant à un homme d'honneur' ( Albert Thibaudet (ed.), Montaigne: Essais, Pléiade, Paris 1937 p.894)

As to Professor David Richardson, what's he got to do with the price of fish? Not one page of Looney or Ogburn, or Price would withstand more than 5 minutes of critical analysis in any reputable school of humanities, in terms of methodological coherence and rigour. I'm not impressed with English departments these days, crammed stiff as they are with people who no longer, as was once the case, have a thorough secondary education grounding in Latin and Greek, nor acquire at least reading fluency in German, French, Italian and Spanish, when they venture into premodern textual studies. So pal, don't come the raw prawn with me. This self-promotion is a bluff, as is the whole fringe theory shebang it represents. It is not conducive to intelligent dialogue if one approaches it with resentment and offended honour, which is a bad thing to carry into a technical discussion. Neither I nor anyone else has to 'respect' the subject of a page to 'have an impact' as editor. Were that so, we would have no WP:NPOV pages on Hitler, Mussolini, Lenin, Ignatius Donnelly, Torquemada, Berlusconi, George W. Bush, Ayn Rand, Hirohito or Ariel Sharon or any other of tens of thousands of historical figures. We would only have fanpages, on a par with the present travesty you are collectively composing. Nishidani (talk) 13:31, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Ive said it before, and I'll say it again, you do go on and on with your irrelevant parallels and your angst about modern education. I'm happy for you that you've lectured at Oxford. But, as you just said, what does that have to do with the price of fish. I enjoy Coppin. But I also enjoyed lecturing at the Huntington Library, the University of Massachusetts, where I got my PhD in Comparative Literature (not English). --BenJonson (talk) 02:10, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Just a final note on Brief Chronicles - you will be interested to note that the publication has been selected for indexing by two international bibliographies in the humanities of which you are all familiar - The MLA International Bibliography and The World Shakespeare Bibliography. I imagine you are also familiar with their standards. Smatprt (talk) 22:32, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

But, Smatprt, are you authorized to say that? Don't bother Nishidani with facts. The fact that the contents of the journal are accepted by the World Shakespeare Bibliography is irrelevant. We're talking about Wikipedia here. Our standards are professional ones....[slaps forhead] "Ay Carumba." --BenJonson (talk) 00:09, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Regardless, I have posted an opinion request here. Tom Reedy (talk) 03:19, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I made further edits to this section, mostly for clarity and brevity. Nishidani is correct about at least one thing, although wrong about most: the article as presently written is stylistically handicapped in a way that does no good to anyone. We will not correct this overnight, but I made a few more edits in this particular section toward that end, which cut out of a lot of extraneous deadwood which had accumulated. I also added a reference to Detobel and Ligon's article on Meres. I'm not really sure that it belongs here; Stephen, what do you think? Thanks for your clarification on this point.

I also put in a link to for the name "Martin-Marprelate," which we should do to link this discussion to the Marprelate page. However, because of the hyphen it doesn't work. We need to figure out a strategy for dealing with this. Since we still don't have an authenticated hyphenated form of the name (only a hyphenated alternative, which actually refers not to Martin himself but to one of his opponents), we should keep our options open. --BenJonson (talk) 19:34, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I think you missed this one - it's in the first graph of ther reference linked:

Wherein the rash and vndiscreete hea-

dines of the foolish youth, is sharp-

ly mette with, and the boy hath his

lesson taught him, I warrant you, by

his reuerend and elder brother,

Martin Senior, sonne and heire vnto

the renowmed Martin Mar-prelate

the Great.

Hopefully this solves it. Smatprt (talk) 20:38, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I did indeed. If this is verified, then what we need to do is make the version "Martin Mar-Prelate" resolve to the "Martin Marprelate" page. Do you know how to make this happen? Thanks for setting me straight.--BenJonson (talk) 21:14, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

History of authorship doubts

I have restored my edit to the first paragraph that Smatprt reverted. I said on Feb. 21 that I was going to edit that section and even gave the first line here. After an orgy of undiscussed edits by BenJonson and Smatprt over the weekend, I don't think it is Smatprt's place to tell me that I have to get every word approved by the same process that has slowed the lead revision to a standstill. The edits I made are all referenced and accurate, and get rid of the frothy, newsletter style of reporting every up-to-the-minute anti-Stratforidan minutia that has no place in an encyclopedia entry. Nor am I aware of any "guideline" that says we have to present the minority view first followed by the academic consensus.Tom Reedy (talk) 18:56, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Tom, I repeat my request that you refrain from using phrases like "an orgy of undiscussed edits." None of the "fringe theorists" here uses that kind of language about you, except possibly in response to your abuse. I'm sorry you lack the self control to be more respectful,but your use of such phrases tends to confirm my negative opinion of you. You have made numerous undiscussed edits to the page. Do you not see the hypocrisy in accusing others not only of doing what you have done, but also throwing in vicarious insults of this kind. Cut it out. Thanks.--BenJonson (talk) 03:06, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

I cannot understand how you can not be aware of the very guideline you keep talking about: WP:FRINGE. To assist you further here is the link to section 3, Evaluating Claims: [[4]]. You need to look at the whole section, as it touches on many of the areas I keep mentioning. Presently, it is this sentence you have asked about:

• " This is particularly true within articles dedicated specifically to fringe ideas: Such articles should first describe the idea clearly and objectively, then refer the reader to more accepted ideas, and avoid excessive use of point-counterpoint style refutations."

And how exactly is my edit a violation of that? Is not the anti-Stratfordian idea clearly described in the article before the history section? Are you saying that each separate detail of anti-Stratfordism is a fringe belief unto itself?

No, and you are making up your own definition. Each section should start with the minority viewpoint, then refer the reader to more accepted ideas.

This quotation does not mean that a section within an article must begin with the particular fringe idea detailed, and then be followed by a "Stratfordians respond . . ." This is quite evident from reading the entire section from which you quoted:

No it is not. Smatprt (talk) 15:19, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

"In general, Wikipedia should always give prominence to established lines of research found in reliable sources and present neutral descriptions of other claims with respect to their historical, scientific, and cultural prominence. Claims that are uncontroversial and uncontested within reliable sources should be presented as simple statements of fact — e.g. "An electron has a mass that is approximately 1/1836 that of the proton." Claims derived from fringe theories should be carefully attributed to an appropriate source and located within a context — e.g. "There are extreme academic views such as those of Jacques Halbronn, suggesting at great length and with great complexity that Nostradamus's Prophecies are antedated forgeries written by later hands with a political axe to grind." Such claims may contain or be followed by qualifiers to maintain neutrality — e.g. "Although Halbronn possibly knows more about the texts and associated archives than almost anybody else alive (he helped dig out and research many of them), most other specialists in the field reject this view." — but restraint should be used with such qualifiers to avoid giving the appearance of an overly harsh or overly critical assessment. This is particularly true within articles dedicated specifically to fringe ideas: Such articles [not every section in an article! TR] should first describe the idea clearly and objectively, then refer the reader to more accepted ideas, and avoid excessive use of point-counterpoint style refutations. It is also best to avoid hiding all disputations in an end criticism section, but instead work for integrated, easy to read, and accurate article prose."

In my edit, I presented an uncontroversial and uncontested claim as a simple statement of fact: "During the life of William Shakespeare and for more than 200 years after his death, no one seriously suggested that anybody other than Shakespeare wrote the works nor indicated that the name was a pseudonym," which is sourced with three different reliable sources. I followed that with a neutral and accurate description of the anti-Stratfordian interpretations of hints being present in contemporary allusions to Shakespeare. I did not include any type of rebuttal or response, and in fact my first statement is not a rebuttal to what follows.

Yes, every section. Or, Tom, point out to me where it says "not every section" as you claim above. Smatprt (talk) 15:19, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

These are worth quoting, as well:

• "Fringe theories that oppose reliably sourced research — denialist histories, for example — should be described clearly within their own articles, but should not be given undue weight in more general discussions of the topic."

"Clearly" is definitely where you fail in execution.

Your contention is that by cutting a majority of examples you make the history more clear? That's laughable. Smatprt (talk) 15:19, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

No, my point is that your writing is not very good. You should probably take a composition course at your local junior college. As for the rest of your responses, I won't bother, because it appears to me that you actually believe your confused ad hoc replies--or at least I can't tell the difference between when you do and when you are cynically feigning belief in order to promote your obsession. Tom Reedy (talk) 16:19, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Tom I have to suppress the urge to laugh here, after your wholly undiscussed edit to the Mosher and Taylor passage. Is misrepresenting the context of Taylor and Mosher's remark, garbling up a perfectly legible and accurate signal phrase introducing a bunch of qualifying phrases that were not merely irrelevant but profoundly misleading, your definition of "good writing"?--BenJonson (talk) 03:06, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

• "Claims derived from fringe theories should be carefully attributed to an appropriate source and located within a context — e.g. "There are extreme academic views such as those of Jacques Halbronn, suggesting at great length and with great complexity that Nostradamus's Prophecies are antedated forgeries written by later hands with a political axe to grind."

Are you serious? Please don't tell me that you believe that this article begins with Halbronn's view. (The section does, but it is not in a WP:FRINGE article espousing Halbronn's belief as true.)

Such claims may contain or be followed by qualifiers to maintain neutrality — e.g. "Although Halbronn possibly knows more about the texts and associated archives than almost anybody else alive (he helped dig out and research many of them), most other specialists in the field reject this view." — but restraint should be used with such qualifiers to avoid giving the appearance of an overly harsh or overly critical assessment. " Smatprt (talk) 21:30, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

I also changed the format from the he-said-she-said debate style to a style more in line with an encyclopedia article. I stated the facts, and then neutrally outlined the anti-Stratforidian assertions with a sufficient example. We don't need to pile on every little detail; this is not an exercise in persuasion, but a dispassionate description of the topic. More edits to the section are being written, and they will be written in a neutral manner with references that comply with Wikipedia requirements. Tom Reedy (talk) 18:56, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Which gives you no right to delete material, existing or added, by other editors. Or to choose from the anti-Strat arguments, which stay and which go. How is that an example of the Good Faith you keep espousing? Smatprt (talk) 21:30, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Read this: "Conjectures that have not received critical review from the scientific community or that have been rejected should be excluded from articles about scientific subjects. . . . The same holds true for conjectures and theories in other academic disciplines."

This is not an article about the mainstream subject. This is an article about a minority subject. You keep mixing the two. Smatprt (talk) 15:19, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia policies aren't suspended for fringe subjects. Tom Reedy (talk) 16:19, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

And this: "Efforts of fringe-theory inventors to shill on behalf of their theories, such as the offering of self-published material as references, are unacceptable."

What you deleted was not self-published, so your example goes out the window.Smatprt (talk) 15:19, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

I believe those two statements from WP:FRINGE give not only me, but anyone else, the right to remove material that violates them. Tom Reedy (talk) 22:02, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Smatprt, you have a serious WP:OWN problem. You write of another editor that he has 'no right to delete material, existing or added, by other editors', while that is what you consistently do in a manic fashion with everyone else's work you disagree with. Consensus is requires when mainstream scholarship is introduced, but no consensus is required with the tendentious POVing trash you throw insistently into the article. You're an WP:SPA, and show no interest in the goals of wikipedia other than running about to edit a fringe whacko ideological slant into serious pages. I suggest you lay back a while, take a break and reflect on what you want to do here. Most edits of yours I have observed here will, by the natural logic of events, and by reference to WP:NPOV rules, be challenged and eventually elided by committed general editors, no matter how much time you dedicate to showcasing this stuff. Nishidani (talk) 11:21, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Nishi you clearly don't even look at the edits. There is one major difference in the edits to this section that Tom and I made. I tightened up the paragraph without deleting the referenced examples added by various editors over the history of this article. I did not delete one example (and you lie when you say I did). Tom deleted the majority of examples in their entirety, leaving one overly detailed example in its place. Next time, examine the edit before you criticize it, lest you end up looking foolish.Smatprt (talk) 15:19, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps you have a problem with reading English. I made a general observation using just the last of many instances. I was told on joining not to edit the lead until consensus was reached. I stopped doing so, and you kept editing it, for example (WP:OWN), and my edit this morning aimed to restore one line to a semblance of the form it had before edit-creep made it the mess it is. So your answer is empty of content, since you are not addressing the point, and indeed weren't obliged to. It was just a preliminary warning, to stick to the same restrictions you ask others to observe.Nishidani (talk) 16:11, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Tom, your edit was deceiving and you know it. Saying "no one seriously questioned....", when I have supplied you two references from mainstream RS that says otherwise, is simply ignoring any source that you disagree with, and only quoting sources that further you agenda here. It's you saying there is a consensus again, when obviously there isn't. Smatprt (talk) 15:19, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

(a)'your editing was deceiving' = was 'deceptive' (b)'you agenda' = your agenda' (c) 'consensus'means a majority, it does not mean unanimity. Check a dictionary. There can be a consensus of mainstream sources on an issue, and one or two mainstream sources that disagree with that consensus. The existence of that disagreement does not mean a general consensus does not prevail in a given field. But, ah, explain this to schoolchildren. Nishidani (talk) 16:11, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Nishidani, stop making unjustified inferences about other people's "agenda." It merely illustrates your unwillingness to debate in good faith. Thanks--BenJonson (talk) 03:06, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Whatever consensus may emerge, you simply cannot allow lousy lines to stick round like a bad smell in the lead: I.e. after saying that the debate or theory arose in the id 19th century one had:-

Since that time, the issue has attracted increased public attention and a thriving following, but is dismissed by the majority of academic Shakespeare scholars.<

A moment's reflection would tell any normal person that is limp summation of what occurred over 1 and a half centuries, that it is vitiated by tactical POV priming, with its tacit suggestion that since 1848 public attention has been increasing incrementally (were that so, millions around the world would now be openly nodding as doubts were raised from time to time in the media). Thirdly, the source says 'vast majority' and to elide that from the text, which is written by a pro de Verean, is pure bad faith. I've therefore replaced it with a minimal reconstrual which sticks to what the facts are (public interest, in so far as it existed, waxed and waned according to zone and time, and did not incrementally increase etc.) and the source states.Nishidani (talk) 17:14, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Nishidani, please note that the language you're complaining about is no longer on the table. I just proposed new wording accepting most of Tom's latest version (see above under section titled "289 wrods"). I suggest you focus your attention on that rather than dredging up wording that's no longer in play. Thanks. Schoenbaum (talk) 18:36, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Courtesy note. Please note that the language I complained of, and removed, was sitting on the article page in the lead. I was told the lead was not to be tampered with, but it has been, and I have, once more, followed suit to remove this clunky phrasing. Having done so, I explained my reason above. It's called 'good manners' to explain what one has done. So, I didn't 'dredge up language that is no longer in play'. I removed question-begging language from the lead that I think you, and I, and a few others, would regard as silly. The alternatives proposed here are another issue.Nishidani (talk) 23:27, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

I note that overnight Smatprt has reverted en masse again, eliding every edit during the day people other than himself made. The lead is under consensual adjudication, as Schoenbaum says, and the lead we have is not the one we shall have when a line-by-line consensus has been reached. The other edits were perfectly legitimate additions of detail, from reliable sources, certainly subject to challenge, but not mass cancellation by one editor with a patent WP:OWN insistence that every main text adjustment must receive his own assent before being made. Your behaviour is becoming very problematic, Smatprt. In reverting you I am not endorsing the edits made. I am opposing your bossy attempt to impose a veto on everything on this page. If you dislike additions, reason on the talk page and do not make wholesale reversions to your favoured text.Nishidani (talk) 09:23, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, I thought I undid it, but see Tom Reedy came up first, and my revert was cancelled simultaneously by his. I stand by everything else.Nishidani (talk) 09:29, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

In addition to reverting my edits, he also took that opportunity to delete some of the other long-standing material that he disagrees with, even though it also is accurate and reliably sourced. And as you can read in the first discussion in this section, he is being unresponsive to my points and ignoring the larger context of Wikipedia policy, instead blindly insisting that his interpretations of policy are correct and demanding that I prove a negative. The history section is inaccurate and very sparse and needs to be mended so that the topic can be viewed in an historic context. Every important fact about anti-Stratfordism was not discovered by Ogburn nor published in Brief Chronicles.Tom Reedy (talk) 10:32, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Technically the history section should follow the lead, with the 1848 to 2010 sequence, (Baconians dominated the 19th century, as did Americans: of the 255 titles published between 1856 and 1884, two thirds were American), finishing with the new theory that indeed there was a secret debate going on before 1848, and finally the 2007 declaration. As it is, like the rest of the article, it is all round the place like the proverbial manic dowager's excrement.Nishidani (talk) 10:43, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Coleridge

The Coleridge remark needs a citation from a mainstream RS, not from the conspiracy school's literature, which, for direct citations from major writers, is not reliable. It should be in R. A. Foakes's Coleridge on Shakespeare The Text of the Lectures 1811-12, but so far I cannot find it there.Nishidani (talk) 11:08, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

The Poacher from Stratford is a mainstream RS. Its title is ironic; it is a very well written history and refutation of anti-Stratfordism published by the U of California P. The writer, an English professor specialising in English Renaissance literature, was the 1961 winner of the Guggenheim Fellowship in Humanities and English Lit.Tom Reedy (talk) 17:10, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

I wish to account by author and cited page for each piece of information. I saw no citation for Coleridge, but now I see that the ref must be to the text supporting Emerson, hence 'The Poacher'. No problem with that.

The problem is, did Coleridge in his 1811 lecture doubt Shakespeare's identity? No. Is the paragraph framed as though Coleridge had begun to worry over the dissonance between the few biographical facts and the achievement of the man, with a tinge of suspicion (as did Emerson much later)?, and not simply, marvelling at the romantic genius of nature (which a Germanophile like Coleridge was probably doing). The text describes Coleridge as though he were an earlier doubter. He is being cited as if he embraced the theory RS say arose in America in 1848. The text runs him together with what RW Emerson wrote decades later, after 1848. This kind of throwing in names in disorder, ripped out of context, is part of the cancer infecting the article.Nishidani (talk) 17:24, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Notes

Pt one of his recent edit. Smatprt elides a passage that is backed by five eminently respectable RS, with specific pagination, namely Bate 73, Kathman, 622; Martin, 3-4; Wadsworth, Frank W. The Poacher from Stratford, (1958), 8-16 and McCrea, 13: Nishidani (talk) 16:57, 28 February 2010 (UTC) He replaces the text with his own preferred version, :

There is no agreement among scholars as to when the authorship question was first raised. Skeptic Diana Price believes that an authorship debate existed in Elizabethan times; mainstream researchers George McMichael and Edward Glenn reported that the first direct statements of doubt were made in the 18th century; and Stratfordian Jonathan Bate believes that initial doubts arose in the 19th century.

This is wholly unacceptable since, by naming Diana Price, who is an untrained amateur 'independent writer', the editor is suggesting that her book, which is RS for what the authorship doubters like herself might think, is RS for a statement that must be technically sourced to a mainstream volume, by mainstream specialists on the subject. Price, I repeat, is RS for the fringe theory, she is not RS for the history of Shakespearean biography.Nishidani (talk) 16:57, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

This is a complete fabrication. I did not delete the material backed by your 5 sources (which don't even agree among themselves, by the way), moved it to later in the same section (and actually expanded it).

I put the opening graph into neutral language that acknowledges that there is no agreement - even among mainstream critics - as to when the authorship issue first arose. Why are you denying this is in dispute? As has already been noted, when the theory began is obviously part of the theory, and minority viewpoints are certainly allowed to be described by the minority in question. Or are you saying that only people who say there is no theory are allowed to describe it??Smatprt (talk) 20:03, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

I wrote: "There is no agreement among scholars as to when the authorship question was first raised. Skeptic Diana Price believes that an authorship debate existed in Elizabethan times; mainstream researchers George McMichael and Edward Glenn reported that the first direct statements of doubt were made in the 18th century; and Stratfordian Jonathan Bate believes that initial doubts arose in the 19th century." - This is an accurate summary of the dispute over the history. Then, I went so far as to expand the mainstream argument - adding "Contrasting these beliefs, Stratfordian Jonathan Bate states “No one in Shakespeare’s lifetime or the first two hundred years after his death expressed the slightest doubt about his authorship”, and mainstream critic Scott McCrea has said “It was not until 1848 that the Authorship Question emerged from the obscurity of private speculation into the daylight of public debate.” I actually quoted your scholars, instead of rewriting what they actually said into something they did not. Smatprt (talk) 20:03, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

You appear to have removed Tom Reedy's paraphrase completely, and inserted into the maintext the footnote from Bate, which he properly left in a footnote. Fine, indeed I apologize for not seeing this, for the red inking. But the point of your exercise was to get McMichael and Glenn up as 'mainstream researchers' (meaningless and misleading: they are academics but not scholars of the Elizabethan era, which is what is required) as representing a mainstream/countermainstream agreement on the issue of pre-1848 authorship doubts. The Glenn McMichael text, by non Shakespearean experts, from is it 1962 and does not represent the current state of mainstream scholarship, which as Paul Barlow and Tom Reedy have insistently argued, discounts the evidence apparently adduced by the 1962 text. You cannot compose a rational article while ignoring the obvious problem in method involved here. You can quote an RS on Shakespeare from 1890 on anything, but not if you pretend that in the meantime, scholarship has moved on, and often dismantled the points made in the 1890 RS. Doing that creates sheer havoc, and that is what you are doing here. Nishidani (talk) 22:13, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

This is in contrast to the complete deletion of the opening (more neutral) paragraph that I added. I admit to deleting the word "seriously" from "no one seriously suggested" as the addition of the word "seriously" is a perfect example of a weasel word being introduced into the sentence. Smatprt (talk) 19:54, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Smatprt also distorts what Price writes by changing the language of this: "Diana Price speculates that an authorship debate existed in Elizabethan times, arguing that all literary allusions about Shakespeare are to be read as veiled references to that debate, which otherwise was never explicitly stated" to this:"Price believes that that several Elizabethan works hint that Shakespeare’s works were written by someone else, theorizing that many literary allusions about Shakespeare can be read as veiled references to that debate, though never explicitly stated." :The use of "believes" in an effort to imitate scholarly caution is ridiculous. She wrote it; she obviously believes it. And Price does not "theorise"; her language is speculative: "as though" and "suggests". Nor does she qualify her characterisation of the contemporary Shakespeare allusions. She specifically writes that "all the literary allusions with some hint of personal information are ambiguous or cryptic" (her emphasis).

The distortion belonged to TomReedy, who conveniently left out "some hint of personal information". Instead, TomReedy wrote that Price said that "all literary allusions about Shakespeare are to be read..." This is obviously quite different than "all literary allusions with some hint of personal information are ambiguous or cryptic." TomReedy again departs from guidelines by leaving out the context. In his (rewritten) context, the use of "many literary allusions" becomes required. She mentions "ambiguous", so that "can be read" is also appropriate, given the lack of context that TomReedy's edit was responsible for. Smatprt (talk) 18:39, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Here is a good rule to follow, Smatprt: if you don't have the reference, don't change the language of a properly cited edit. And NP:NPOV does not mean that all POVs are equal. YOu might want to school yourself at WP:NPOVT. Tom Reedy (talk) 18:02, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

You seriously want to argue over "believes" and "speculates"? You are just quibbling. As far as rules to follow, I again ask you to review wp:weasel, wp:peacock and other guidelines that talk about providing "context" so as to not mislead the reader. Smatprt (talk) 18:39, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Note on TomReedy and Nishidani. These two editors have embraced the use of weasel words and peacock terms, as well as WP:Avoid. They have been shown the appropriate guidelines and continue to ignore them. TomReedy also refuses to follow standard attribution guidelines, preferring to use the weasel phrase "Mainstream scholars believe" or even worse, "The mainstream view is" instead of telling the reader what scholar actually believes what. Smatprt (talk) 18:39, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Deletions of material

Deletions of material by TomReedy:(last 5 days only)

• [[5]] - Deleted:" The survey was based on a random sample of colleges and universities in the United States that offer degree programs in English. " and "but when asked if they "mention the Shakespeare authorship question in your Shakespeare classes?", 72% answered "yes"."

• [[6]] - Deleted (including tags: "The mainstream view is that during the life of William Shakespeare, no one suggested that anybody other than Shakespeare wrote the works, nor indicated that the name was a pseudonym. Some orthodox critics believe that during the 200 year period after his death, the issue of alternative authorship was never even discussed.

• [[7]] - Deleted: "Anti-stratfordians also note that Shakespeare of Stratford's relatives and neighbors never mentioned that he was famous or a writer, nor are there any indications his heirs demanded or received payments for his supposed investments in the theatre or for any of the more than 16 masterwork plays unpublished at the time of his death."
• [[8]] - Deleted: Price explains that while he had a well-documented habit of going to court over relatively small sums, he never sued any of the publishers pirating his plays and sonnets, or took any legal action regarding their practice of attaching his name to the inferior output of others.
• [[9]] - Deleted: "But Roger Stritmatter argued, in an article published in Cahiers Élisabéthains, that the Edwards passage contains unmistakable reference to a 1583 Blackfriars duel in which Oxford was famously wounded. Elizabethan satirists, Joseph Hall in 1597 and John Marston in 1598 have been interpreted to imply that Francis Bacon was the author of Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece, although such references might also allude to another concealed author of the same works. Around the turn of the seventeenth century, Gabriel Harvey, Cambridge don and scholar, wrote marginalia in his copy of Chaucer's works that are interpreted as implying he believed Sir Edward Dyer was the author of at least Venus and Adonis. Authorship researcher Diana Price hypothesizes that an authorship debate existed in Elizabethan times, and argues that this evidence is to be read as veiled references to that debate, which was otherwise never explicitly stated."

• [[10]] - Deleted: "Anti-Stratfordian researchers also cite one contemporary document that strongly implies that Shakespeare, the Globeshareholder, was dead prior to 1616, when Shakespeare of Stratford died."

• [[11]] - Deleted attributions: "Stratfordian Scott McCrea argues that", "Stratfordian Jonathan Bate argues that the "

• [[12]] - Deleted: "More recent developments include a new academic journal devoted specifically to study of the authorship question, a special issue of a leading established journal, Critical Survey, devoted to authorship, and a leading British scholar, University of Hertfordshire Professor Graham Holderness, endorsing the plausibility of the Earl of Oxford's authorship.

Now who is being accused of deleting material?Smatprt (talk) 21:23, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Revert warring

Reverts by Tom Reedy: (last 5 days)

• [[13]]

• [[14]]

• [[15]]

• [[16]]

• [[17]]

• [[18]]

• [[19]]

And who is being accused of reverting?Smatprt (talk) 21:23, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

I know you're trying to set up your case, Smatprt, but it won't work. The fact of the matter is that you are trying to make it impossible for anyone other than yourself and your allies to edit this page, and rest assured it has been noted and your patterns of interaction have been documented. That's all I will say for now, but if I were you I'd begin to study WP:NPOV, WP:UNDUE, WP:N, and WP:COI, among others, and mend my ways accordingly. It would be much better for everyone if you became a good, unbiased Wikipedia editor. Your ridiculous examples of reverts and deletions you went to all that trouble to gather are laughable when seen in context. I know you've done all you can to resist, but as I told you when I first began editing here, sooner or later this page will be balanced and biased account of the authorship controversy. You might as well face that fact. Tom Reedy (talk) 21:58, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Tom, more false accusations don't help, and listing a series of wiki policies and guidelines, without any context, is a sign of wiki-lawyering. This is far different than me pointing out the use of weasel words, examples, and directing you to that guideline. I was pretty sure you never heard of wp:AVOID, so I provided it to you and Nishi to point the way to several words you two were arguing over. You might still check that out in regards to your use of "controversial" and how it can only be used when it equates to "debate". And I'm not sure why you would want to quote wp:COI when, in reality, you have published an anti-stratfordian article [[20]] on the very SFP website that you fought at the RS noticeboard so very hard to use. What on earth is my conflict - that I direct the occasional Shakespeare play?? Smatprt (talk) 03:11, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for keeping track of this, Stephen. Its important to keep careful records. Tom, unfortunately, has no idea where this whole thing is going, so he keeps fighting battles that he cannot win.--BenJonson (talk) 02:17, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Nietzsche

I hope you de Vereans true-believers do not take my good faith addition of the name of Nietzsche among sceptics as an occasion for ruining the Nietzsche page, which I have just bookmarked, in case the mania for splashing the conspiracy theory everywhere follows this trail. Like Freud, Nietzsche wavered, and in the end embraced the Baconian version, on very complex, and indeed (in the secondary lit on Nietzsche this is often stated) snobbish grounds. You can, see it for example in Ecce Homo:4 'Und, dass ich es bekenne: ich bin dessen instinktiv sicher und gewiss, dass Lord Bacon der Urheber, der Selbstthierquäler dieser unheimlichsten Art Litteratur ist: was geht mich das erbarmungswürdige Geschwätz amerikanischer Wirr- und Flachköpfe an?'(Werke, Carl Hanser, 1994, Bd.2, p.1089). Note however the unkind remarks he has on the American rage for authorship doubters of his time.Nishidani (talk) 18:18, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Don't worry, Nishidani. We stopped beating our wives last week. Thanks for adding the Neitzsche reference. I am going to repeat my request that you stop insulting your fellow wikipedians. It merely makes you look ugly.--BenJonson (talk) 03:39, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

And I'm going to ask that you stop making baseless accusations of "insulting your fellow wikipedians". I know you're trying to build a case that you made an effort to discuss the "problem" with the "offender", but your transparent efforts remind me of the cops who twist a suspect's arm behind his back while shouting "Stop resisting" because they know the dashcam is running. Such accusations from a master of superciliousness is ironic indeed, and will gain you no credibility this time, no matter how many times it's worked in the past. Tom Reedy (talk) 17:04, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

'It merely makes you look ugly'. Well, the truth will out. What's wrong with being ugly? I'm comfortable with it.Nishidani (talk) 14:08, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Tom, you have been asked to refrain from attacking fellow editors going back months and months. No case needs to be mad, as this has been discussed numerous times - and you were warned about this at Wikiquette by an administrator who persuaded you (under threat of a block) to delete your offending statements.Smatprt (talk) 17:23, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Nishidani, I take it from your response that you are just going to continue attacking and insulting fellow editors? Smatprt (talk) 17:23, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

'I take it' means 'I interpret it to mean'. You misinterpreted my responses. I want serious editing, by competent editors ready to inform themselves of the subject under discussion. If you feel insulted by my repeated endeavours to insist you stick to wiki editorial protocols, and stop messing with a text with bad edits that require constant surveillance and correction, well be it. This is supposed to be on the 'high quality scale'. There is no evidence of it, and you've been here far longer than I have. So assume some responsibility. This is not the deVerean aficionados' clubpage. It is a wikipedia page in which even those who subscribe to the fringe doctrine are asked to rein in their partisan belief system to ensure neutrality. I see little sign of any willingness on your part to listen to what editors you disagree with are arguing, saying or demonstrating by reference to real Reliable Sources.Nishidani (talk) 18:23, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Shakesper etc.

In addition, they do not believe Shakespeare of Stratford and the author shared the exact same name,

Well I'm not an expert on the complex fluxes in the fringe sect movements, but I thought, esp. after Altrocchi and Nelson showed that the Shakespeare of Stratford was identifiable with the actor, that Ogburn's suspicions about the link had been overcome? yet the text says as general subject 'Shakespeare doubters' or something like that. Surely there are a large number of sceptics who accept that Stratford Will and the London actor are the same, but deny that the actor businessman wrote the works. If so, this is again deceptive synthesis, and unjustified generalization at work. Comments from insiders would be appreciated to enlighten me on this.Nishidani (talk) 18:28, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

McMichael/Glenn

NOTE: Just moved this conversation down to it's own section. Smatprt (talk) 01:43, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

mainstream researchers George McMichael and Edward Glenn

What does 'mainstream researchers' mean here (apparently 'qualified scholars'?), other than that the two were professors of literature, as far as I can see, specializing in continental biographies and American literature, but not in Elizabethan or Renaissance studies. Again, if they are not trained scholars of the literature of the period, they are not RS, or representatives of mainstream Shakespearean scholarship. I'd appreciate it if anyone who has access to that source might do us the courtesy of transcribing the relevant page section of their book.Nishidani (talk) 18:36, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

This is the perfect example of Nishidani defining RS according to his terms. Professor's McMichael/Glenn's "Shakespeare and his Rivals, A Casebook on the Authorship Controversy" (which comes down squarely on the side of the traditional attribution) is beyond question a reliable source on this issue and their compilation of historic documents relating to the debate has never been challenged. Smatprt(talk) 19:54, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Right. Nishidani, what is your problem, anyway? It has been repeatedly pointed out to you that you can no longer in good faith continue to insist that orthodox or mainstream = qualified scholar. It just doesn't work anymore, except perhaps on this wikipedia talk page. A significant minority of scholars, fully qualified by any reasonable definition of this phrase, either think that 1) There is ground for serious doubt over the attribution of the works or 2) They were written by de Vere.--BenJonson (talk) 02:26, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Not at all. I am asking for you to clarify what McMichael and Glenn's background is as scholars of the Elizabethan period, or as Shakespearean experts. As far as I checked, all I saw was one specialist in American literature, and I forgot what the other's area of expertise was. This page must distinguish between quality RS for all statements regarding the facts of Shakespeare and his times, and RS written from a fringe-theoretical perspective which harvest, twist, spin and comment on these matters. So I await clarification. Can you tell me precisely the material they refer to, and the words they use to introduce it, and their sources. I would appreciate the courtesy.Nishidani (talk) 21:45, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

McMichael and Glenn's background is irrelevant, because nowhere in their book do they make such a statement. Shakespeare and His Rivalsis a collection of materials associated with the authorship question, such as contemporary references to Shakespeare, excerpts from anti-Stratfordian books, reviews of those books, etc. This particular reference is from the first chapter of William and Elizabeth Freeman'sThe Shakespearean Ciphers Examined, so his statement that he has "two mainstream refs" is just another lie, and nowhere do they say what Smatprt wants them to say. They use such language as "the first man to question Shakespeare's sole authorship ', "he hinted at one of the anti-Stratfordian arguments" (An Essay Against Too Much Reading, 1728); "a curious little allegory . . . . contains what has been considered to be one of the first references to Bacon as Shakespeare" (Life and Adventures of Common Sense 1769); "Another allegorical work referred to the authorship of the plays in 1786 . . .The Story of a Learned Pig . . . .It is a small step from a learned pig to that of the learned Bacon; some readers have been willing to make it." They then write about The Romance of Yachting. They also include the Wilmot story, which has been declared a forgery by anti-Stratfordians and Stratfordians alike, and is not admissible as a reference. Tom Reedy (talk) 23:17, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Tom, if you have the book, and it says what you paraphrase it as saying, by all means review that particular section to remove the tendentiousness of Smatprt's manipulations. I cannot because I am not familiar with those sources.Nishidani (talk) 14:15, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Nishidani, Since you and Tom continue to Harp on this question of qualifications, let me again ask what yours are? More to the point, since you seem to think that no one except for a very select group of individuals, which apparently only includes certain individuals who are "scholars of the Elizabethan period," have a right to an informed opinion on this matter, just how do you go about determining that? What is your methodology for establishing who does, or does not have a right to express a credible opinion on this topic? And what is are the long term social and intellectual implications of your cult of expertise. A little humility and self-awareness on your part would go a long way.--BenJonson (talk) 02:26, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Oh, Tom - I have stated that before. But what can be more strong than one researcher verifying the work of another??

Your reading skills are deficient. McMichael and Glenn are compilers; nowhere do they make any arguments or offer any conclusions. Tom Reedy (talk) 00:08, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Tom - do you have this book??? They make several conclusions, prepare a prose history, and offer several opinions. Are you sure you have the same copy I am looking at? I admit, it's very light on opinions and conclusions, but -again- that is not the point, is it? I said I wasn't quoting their opinions for this line, I was quoting their accounting of when the first signs of doubt were. For their own prose, see pages 1-3, 63-64, 102, 144, 154 and 159. Smatprt (talk) 01:43, 1 March 2010 (UTC)Smatprt (talk) 23:50, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

No, they offer no opinions or conclusions. I did not say they didn't write any prose; I said they make no arguments or offer any conclusions. They dispassionately outline the major events of the authorship question without any bias, and their introductions to each section should serve as a model for this article. They offer selections from anti-Stratfordian and Stratfordian sources with no commentary. Your belief that they do might be at the heart of your problem with other editors' contributions to this article. Tom Reedy (talk) 03:28, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

They are all certainly in agreement that Shakespeare wrote the works attributed to him. And I have noted any deviations, such as Vickers's monument belief, in this very article. Tom Reedy (talk) 00:08, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

But you only note certain deviations. There's the rub. More often than not, you imply that all Shakespeare scholars are in consensus - yet have no data to support what is an "extraordinary" claim. Sure, I agree that there is general consensus about the overall issue - the mainstream attribution is that the plays were written by Shakespeare of Stratford. But to say there is general consensus on each and every rebuttal is outlandish. There is no valid way to source such an "extraordinary" claim. Smatprt (talk) 01:43, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

You haven't quoted their opinions because they offer none. Tom Reedy (talk) 00:08, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

You know Tom, you are a little right on this pointless point you raise. But you are still (basically) wrong. I erred when I said they dismissed each candidate - they actually let a bunch of their complied data do that! BUT... They DO offer opinions, they just don't offer many of them, which (again) has no impact on this discussion:

• Page 1 - "The controversy over who was Shakespeare exists because many people have feel that the works themselves indicate one kind of individual - a genius - whereas the facts actually known about William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon suggest someone entirely different. (Are they not offering their unbiased opinion as to why the argument exists?)

• Page 63 - "Barely one hundred years after Shakespeare died, the suggestion was being made that Sir Francis Bacon was the real author of the Shakespeare works." (are they not offering their opinion as to when the first suggestion was made about Bacon?)

• Page 102 - "How Hoffman has met the objection is one of the reasons for the great interest his theory has aroused."

• Page 145 - "One of the most interesting theories..." (direct personal opinion, right?)

• Page 154 - "The most popular general theory of the anti-Stratfordians is that the works of Shakespeare were composed by a group of collaborators."
• Page 159 - "The most popular anti-Stratfordian theory of the twentieth century is that "Shakespeare" was written by Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford". (That is their opinion, right? I know plenty of Baconians who have a different opinion!).

• Page 159 - "The most effective - and longest- of the arguments for Oxford is Dorothy and Chrrlton Ogburn's This Start of England" (citing one book as "the most effective" - sure sounds like an opinion to me).Smatprt (talk) 01:43, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it appears that I am correct. You really can't tell the difference between opinion and dispassionate reporting. Tom Reedy (talk) 03:28, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

And anytime a "mainstream scholar" rebuts an anti-Stratfordian point, they speak for the scholarly consensus, which accepts Shakespeare of Stratford as the author of his works, so this argument that they have to be individually named as if they are expressing some type of personal individual belief is specious and just another anti-Stratfordian delaying tactic. Tom Reedy (talk) 23:17, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

That's just crazy. You act as if all Shakespeare scholars are in agreement about everything, which is hardly the case. Just look at Vickers and the Stratford monument for an easy example. "Whenever a mainstream scholar rebuts... they speak for the scholarly consensus?" That's about as weaselly as you can get! It's just so odd that you don't want to attribute anything when that is exactly what the guidelines and policies of Wikipedia say you must do.Smatprt (talk) 23:50, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Tom, there is no "scholarly consensus." There is a dominant view. That is not the same thing. Do you know what "consensus" means?--BenJonson (talk) 02:26, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

To get back to the question Nishidani asked of me, first, you must admit this is strange - you ask for a courtesy, in spite of the uncourteous and insulting language you have used to describe me (and anyone else on these pages who disagrees with you). I have been accused of passive/aggressive behavior, so it is reassuring that I am in good company! To fulfill your request, I ask you to note the following:

• First, McMichael and Glenn, as I have mentioned, come down squarely on your side of the fence. After examining each claim, they dismiss them, and reassure the reader that Shakespeare of Stratford is the guy.

Perhpas you'd like to quote an example of this. Tom Reedy (talk) 03:51, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Regardless of their specific Elizabethan qualifications, they are published academics who took a thorough approach to their task. And please note that I have not quoted their opinions in any way in the wiki article.

In their 4th chapter "Signs of Doubt and Their History" they compile historical documents into chronological order. To quote their process "Unless otherwise indicated, each selection in the text has been transcribed as it appeared in its source. Where translation, explanation, or digest is offered, the fact is so indicated."

• Turning to chapter 4, they cite the Friedman's The Great Controversy - The Shakespearean Ciphers Examined(Cambridge University Press), pages 1-4, and quote, at length, the 1728 book "An Essay Against Too much Reading" as representing the "first" sign of doubt.

• Now if we turn to the Friedman's work we find in the preface (page vii):

• "FOR almost two hundred years the authorship of the plays commonly attributed to Shakespeare has been disputed;

and a good many writers, in contesting the attribution, have made specific claims for someone else as author."

Obviously, 200 years puts us squarely in the 18th century, but to be more specific, turning to page xvi they state:

• "Anyone interested in English literature must know of the dispute, but few know anything of its history; it is therefore useful to summarize it before going on to the cryptographic arguments themselves. Our first chapter touches on the chief stages, the chief writers and the most important publications since 1728, and a selection of the arguments advanced by anti-Stratfordians. "

They say they are summarizing the history, not writing the history. There's a difference. They do not say that anyone in 1728 disputed Shakespeare's authorship. Tom Reedy (talk) 03:51, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Finally, on page 1, they assign the 1728 date to "An Essay against Too Much Reading" where they not only state the work is the "first" to assign doubt, but say:

• "In a small book called An Essay against Too Much Reading, published in 1728, he hinted at one of the anti-Stratfordian arguments. The plays, he said, are so superlative that ' Shakexpear has frighten'd three parts of the World from attempting to write; and he was no Scholar, no Grammarian, no Historian, and in all probability cou'd not write English'. "

Hint to Smatprt: they say "he hinted." They don't say that he suggested that Shakespeare didn't write his works. Tom Reedy (talk) 03:51, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

• "Although his Plays were historical . . . the History Part was given him in concise and short, by one of those Chuckles that could give him nothing else. . . . I will give you a short Account of Mr. Shake- spear's Proceeding; and that I had from one of his intimate Acquaint- ance. His being imperfect in some Things, was owing to his not being a Scholar, which obliged him to have one of those chuckle- pated Historians for his particular Associate . . . and he maintain'd him, or he might have starv'd upon his History. And when he wanted anything in his Way . . . he sent to him. . . . Then with his natural flowing Wit, he work'd it into all Shapes and Forms, as his beautiful Thoughts directed. The other put it into Grammar. . . .

So it appears the "first" doubt was also the first signs of a (small) "group theory". True, I am editorializing, but what I think is certainly not the point. It's the assignment of first doubt/skepticism/whatever that we are discussing.

A "small group theory" that Shakespeare headed? Where does it say that anyone other than Shakespeare wrote the plays? Tom Reedy (talk) 03:51, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Both McMichael/Glen, and the Friedman's, then move on to 1769, with:

• "In 1769 -- some forty years later -- there was published in England a curious little allegory with a historical framework, called The Life and Adventures of Common Sense. It is anonymous [and] contains what has been considered to be one of the first references to Bacon as Shakespeare."

"What has been considered to be" is hardly assent. Tom Reedy (talk) 03:51, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

So to summarize, Glenn and McMichael, while also presenting evidence and opinions on each candidate, also provide a chronological accounting of the history of the debate, quoting, among other researchers, the Friedmans. He has, in essence, verified their work and published it independently.

Unbelievable. You really and truly don't understand how it works? How can you say they "verified their work and published it independently?" Read yourself above quoting their method: "Unless otherwise indicated, each selection in the text has been transcribed as it appeared in its source." Do you consider that "verifying their work?" Tom Reedy (talk) 03:51, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

The Friedman's provided the source material, reprinted in their original form.

• A third reference can also be supplied to "The Shakespeare Controversy - An Analysis of the Claimants to Authorship, and their Champions and Detractors, 1992. In Part II, Chapter 1, it provides a "Chronological Annotated Bibliography" of the issue, beginning on page 149, saying:

• "The following bibliography contains the seminal works, much of the periodical literature of the past several decades, and a selection from the vast literature on the question that has appeared since 1728."

They, too, begin with the 1728 Essay against Too Much Reading, followed by the 1769 Common Sense tracts, followed by the 1786 "Notes on a Tour of English Country Seats".

So there you have it, with a 1992 reference that also confirms the 18th century information. I hope you find this information useful and will agree that to simply state that the issue was never in question/theorized/speculated on/whatever until the 19th century would not be accurate.

None of these sources say that the publications in question suggested that anyone other than Shakespeare wrote the works (except for the transmigrating soul Pimping Billy, who entered a bear after P.B. died (little joke there)), which is what we are discussing. Hints, innuendos--maybe, but those are all interpretations and are presented as such in this article, as they should be. there is no recorded mention of the Shakespeare authorship theory until 1848. Them's the facks. Tom Reedy (talk) 03:51, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

One final point - even though there are mainstream academics that have verified this information, in documenting a theory, including its history, it is well within the guidelines to look to the proponents of that theory. Otherwise, you would be saying that only people who say there is no theory should be allowed to discuss it. That is not what the fringe policy says. But I expect, as an experienced Wikipedian, you know that.Smatprt (talk) 23:50, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

More on Pseudonymous section

I noticed that Tom deleted the following passage, which I have restored. The testimony of Hall and Marston is an important element of the early tradition of veiled discourse on authorship. I noticed that there wasn't a footnote, however -- perhaps that was Tom's objection, since I do not see that he stated one before removing the content-- so I've provided one:

Elizabethan satirists, Joseph Hall in 1597 and John Marston in 1598 have been interpreted to imply that Francis Bacon was the author of Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece,[58] although such references might also allude to another concealed author of the same works.

I also provided internal links about Hall and Marston. The more we can anchor this page in the relevant context of such early modern critics, the stronger we make it. I would appreciate if before he simply cuts this out again, Tom would justify his edit first. If anyone wants to know the relevant passages, I can supply them. Thanks.--BenJonson (talk) 02:52, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

I notice it's not so important that you're specific about what Hall and Marston wrote and how that is interpreted to imply what you say it does. If you want it to stay you need to furnish that information. Otherwise it's just an assertion flapping in the wind, and it will soon fly off the page again. And BTW I've asked for clarification on that and other items quite some time ago, but no explanations have been forthcoming. Tom Reedy (talk) 03:35, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure where you get that impression. I'm merely citing published positions. If I were to cite the actual passages, you would rightly insist that I was padding the article with material which properly belongs on another page. Nothing requires you to accept that the interpretation that has been made of these passages is correct. But to my knowledge the passages in question have not been interpreted in ways other than those cited. If they have, then you should point us to those references and we can include them in the article. However, I will again repeat my request that you stop your abusive tone. I have read the works in question, and there are more of them which are not yet cited in the article. They may or may not mean what they have been interpreted to mean, but if you think that they don't mean that, then there is an equal responsibility on you to explain why. My goal is to provide the reader with a broad exposure to the arguments which have been made on both sides in this debate, Tom. What's yours?--BenJonson (talk) 03:44, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

What passages? You're not making sense. Although you say you've cited them, I can't find them, and if I can't find them I believe it highly unlikely anybody else can, either. "Citing published positions" is not enough. If it were we'd just list all the people who have published on the topic under two opposing columns and be done with it. You need to provide enough detail so the reader can know what it is you're talking about. No reference source in the world mentions an item and then leaves it up to the reader to go chase down the reference, unless it's a bibliography. You're not providing "the reader with a broad exposure to the arguments", you're confusing him. Tom Reedy (talk) 04:01, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Hi Tom, I'm sorry you found my use of the term "passages" to be confusing. I was, of course, referring to the passages in Hall and Marston which the original sentence referred to, albeit not very clearly. The Gibson book is difficult to find, but I traced an excellent discussion of the issue in John Michell's book, which I added to the references for the quote. Surely you have a copy of that book and can look up the passages in question, which refer to someone called "Labeo" as the author of Venus and Adonis. Interestingly, both authors use the same name, so they appear to be participating in a public but veiled conversation. The cite is 126-29, Michell. Gibson himself, writing on behalf of the orthodoxy, seems to concede that the references are to a concealed author, and that the author is Bacon, but argues that even if "it may prove that Hall and Marston were the first exponents of the Baconian theory...it does not, and cannot, prove that the Baconian theory is true." My own view is that the passages clearly are referring to the author of V&A under that sobriquet. I suppose that could in fact be the Stratford William, but you have to admit it raises the question of why they would be discussing him under a pseudonym. If you can't lay your hands on a copy of the Michell book, just let me know and I'd be happy to type out the offending "passages."--BenJonson (talk) 04:15, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

I'll look up the references. I'm not saying the passages are offensive; I'm saying that leaving the reader hanging about the main points of the argument is unnecessary and begs for explanation. Tom Reedy (talk) 16:48, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Taylor and Mosher

Ok, I have to admit I'm a bit pissed. I don't know who made the edits to the citation of Taylor and Mosher, but The book most definitely is NOT just about continental writers. It is a comprehensive survey of the history of anonymous and pseudonymous publication, and there is absolutely no justification in the cited chapter, or anywhere else in the book that I can see, for implying that their generalizations do not include England during the period in question. The chapter is called "Anonyma and Pseudonyma," and it starts off talking about Plutarch and Xenophon, for crying out loud. A footnote on page 87 mentions the Shakespearean authorship question! And the same footnote refers to a book on modern American attribution controversies. The qualifications are tendentious and will not stand.--BenJonson (talk) 03:59, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

I made the edit and I've got the book, too. The context is certainly correct. Taylor was a specialist in German literature of the 15th and 16th centuries. I suppose their generalizations include Egyptian literature of the 16th and 17th centuries too, since they nowhere say it doesn't. You might want to give us a reference on the part about English playwrights. For the peanut gallery, here's the mention of the Shakespeare question verbatim:

"The Bacon-Shakespeare controversy needs only to be mentioned; it seems to be irrepressible." The note is for the sentence in the text, "Interest in discovering the secret of a cryptogram is by no means extinct, and excellent studies are still being made." Tom Reedy (talk) 04:14, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Tom, the problem with your edit is that it quite incorrectly implies that the statement was intended to be limited to those examples cited in the chapter. It is quite clear from the context of the entire book that this is not so. Taylor and Mosher are surveying the entire history of the use of pseudonyms and their chronological analysis in the cited passage is intended to cover the entire European context. The fact that most of their examples in the chapter are continental doesn't change that. And the evidence from England justifies the implication completely that there, as on the continent, these were the "golden ages" of the used of concealed authorship. Earlier you were arguing for editorial economy. Why are you padding the article with irrelevant, and indeed misleading, qualifications? --BenJonson (talk) 04:19, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

So they mention Bacon by name, but Tom is excluding discussion of possibly concealed English authors, is that what you are saying,Tom?? Again, you are taking your "he is a specialist in this, so can't be discussing that" argument way too far and really abusing the RS policy. At the RS noticeboard, did you not take note of the fact that for RS purposes we accept "expert" status fairly broadly? And this isn't even broad - it's pretty darn specific. An expert in 16th century anonymous and pseudonymous publication isn't restricted to just one country, for goodness sake! Smatprt (talk) 04:29, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Smatprt, it appears to me that you are becoming overwrought and your memory is failing. You attribute to me things I've never written, and your accusation of dishonesty is noted. Taylor and Mosher are hardly experts in anonymous and pseudonymous publication; they're bibliographers whose main purpose is to identify such usage, not explain it or seek out the reasons individual authors would use it. And without checking, I don't recall that they even mention the "stigma of print". Half the book is a bibliography of publications on pseudonyms, as the study of pseudonyms is mostly a branch of library science (Mosher's specialization) for book classification. Tom Reedy (talk) 21:06, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Dude - I must be losing my mind. Where exactly did I discuss "stigma of print" and what did I say? Smatprt (talk) 22:55, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

The stigma of print is the standard explanation for Oxford's veiled authorship of the Shakespeare works. If Taylor and Mosher were actual specialists in anonymous and pseudonymous publication instead of bibliographers, one would expect them to mention it, no? Tom Reedy (talk) 15:21, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

It was pretty clear when I compared the simplicity of my original wording with Tom's baroque modifications, which involved long qualifications implying that the authors had no knowledge of English literary history, and his specific qualification about the chapter in question, that Tom was playing the Nishidani game of trying to imply that somehow 1) the authors had no authority to make the claims that they did; 2) their claims did not even cover England during the period in question. It is possible that if one is not a very skilled reader, one could think that the second point is valid, since the chapter in question mainly draws its examples from continental European sources (and that is in general true of the book, no doubt because those were the examples with which the authors were most familiar). However, it the implied conclusion of the reworded version is wholly false: It is clear enough, to anyone who reads the book with any care, that Taylor and Mosher intend their remark to include the entire European theater. This is so because the sweep of their inquiry is in fact global and broadly historical; they comment on ancient, medieval, and modern materials as well as those from the Renaissance, and on Latin, English, and American materials as well as those from the countries Tom mentioned in his edits; their bibliography includes works written in Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, English, Latin,Polish, Hebrew, and Norwegian, among others; works in it refer to the use of pseudonyms in South Africa, Mexico, and China, in addition to the countries in which the previous languages are spoken. Tom's edits give a wholly false impression of what the book is really about and therefore what the quotation in question signifies for Shakespearean studies.--BenJonson (talk) 05:12, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

IIRC I made the edit after one of Smatprt's editing frenzies to whip the wording of the article into the shape he thought it needed to be in, but I can't recall my motivation at the time. Using Smatprt's guidelines (as opposed to Wikipedia's), shouldn't the passage read this way? "Archer Taylor and Frederic J. Mosher believe that the 16th and 17th centuries as the "golden age" of pseudonymous authorship and believe that during this period “almost every writer used a pseudonym at some time during his career." Tom Reedy (talk) 20:57, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Tom, I agree with Ben Jonson and Smatprt on this issue. You are abusing Wikipedia policies re: RS and NPOV with these kinds of edits. You appear to be pushing an agenda to minimize or delete the minority viewpoint whenever possible. It's time for you to stop making such edits and start behaving like a neutral and responsible editor. Schoenbaum (talk) 05:12, 1 March 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Schoenbaum (talk • contribs)

Ha ha ha! You're funny, Schoenbaum. Tom Reedy (talk) 20:57, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

WP:PCTKBNishidani (talk) 15:01, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

What Happened to Nishidani?

He seems to have "retired."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Nishidani

Its a pity, too. I just figured out who he is.--BenJonson (talk) 13:03, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Edit justifications.

• (1) Say = maintain. Scholars write books, they don’t chat.
• (2) ‘point out’ replaced by ‘assert’. Restored ‘point out’, since it happens to be true that more is known about Shakespeare than most other playwrights and actors of the period.

Now you know that you can only use "point out" is a fact is undisputed. This is in dispute so "assert" or "claim" or "believe" would be more appropriate. Smatprt (talk) 16:46, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

'Point out' is what mainstream scholarship says. Fringe kibitzers at least here haven't 'explain'ed anything. They 'assert' or 'claim'. As I showed below in a brief excursus anyone could grub up in a couple of minutes among books, this wild 'claim' or 'assertion' has nothing to do with the verb 'explain'.

• (3)Ogburn asserted that there is no ‘direct evidence’ in 1982 linking Shakespeare of Stratford to the theatre. Since then a de Verean and a mainstream scholar have written a paper that adduces evidence for the equation, and many deVereans now accept this evidence.

The Huntington Library copy of the third edition of William Camden's Britannia (1590) contains a manuscript notation in Latin referring to William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon as "our Roscius." The authors conclude that the annotation was written by Richard Hunt, vicar of Bishops Itchington, Warwickshire, probably during his tenure as vicar (1621–61). Hunt was an Oxford graduate whose family, properties, and social acquaintances link him to towns and villages in the vicinity of Stratford. By employing the term "our Roscius," Hunt apparently meant to characterize Shakespeare as a great actor; since "Roscian" was sometimes used in a broader sense, Hunt may also have meant to characterize Shakespeare as a playwright or, more generally, as a man of the theater. See here and here, where Nelson writes that Altrocchi ‘accepts that this new document proves that William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon was considered by his contemporaries to be or to have been the Roscius of his age, that is, an important actor on the public stage.

I have adjusted to the historic ‘have asserted’ The point of this manipulation of the text is to prepare the reader for the disclaimer. (5 below), later, when it is argued we know more about the claimants to authorship than we do about William Shakespeare. (‘Commenting on this lack of a literary paper trail’), But the argument is false. There is no literary paper trail leading to any of the claimants, according to mainstream RS as opposed to the imaginary trail conjured up by the variety of fringe hypotheses, according to fringe RS. We know more about Shakespeare than most playwrights (understood as practicing writers for the theatre). We know less about Shakespeare than about Lord Bacon or deVere, but this does not mean that, if we hypothesize both the latter as writers for theatre, the mainstream statement is nothing more than a misleading assertion. The mainstream view here hews to the known facts: the fringe view undercuts the known facts with hypotheses.

• (4) ‘Critics of the mainstream view, such as Charlton Ogburn Jr . .Further, anti-Stratfordian Charlton Ogburn Jr, in ‘The Mysterious WS: the Myth and the Reality, states his belief.

Repeating the name, in two sentences one following the other, andintroducing the full title into the text of his second book, mentioned in the notes, is ridiculously poor style-

I have adjusted to Ogburn and uncluttered the repetitition. And made ‘states’ into ‘stated’. The man is dead.

• (5) Diana Price is a ‘researcher’. What’s that mean? She is an ‘independent researcher’ meaning not attached to any school of serious Shakespearean studies.

• (6) shortly before is death = his death

• (7) ‘Commenting on this lack of a literary paper trail’. Removed. There is no literary paper trail leading to any of the claimants. It is untrue to assert that there is no literary trail leading to Shakespeare. The mainstream view is that there is. The way the text has been manipulated makes it appear as if there were a parity between the mainstream and fringe view secondary sources.

• (8) ‘Regarding the lack of evidence surrounding Shakespeare of Stratford

Question-begging. Trevor-Roper’s essay is on the lack of evidence surrounding Shakespeare. ‘The external records show that William Shakespeare was born at Stratford-on-Avon, the son of a local tradesman whose business declined and who was fined for keeping an unauthorized dungheap.’ Note ‘show’, not ‘indicate’, ‘suggest’ etc.

• (9) I have given the proper ref to Trevor-Roper’s essay and provided a link to the site which hosts it.

• (10) Authorship researchers explain that the phrase "Swan of Avon". Deliberate misleading of the readership. They do not ‘explain’ (clarify what is unclear),. They ‘argue’. ‘Can’ = ‘might’. ‘Can’ refers to a real and definite possibility. This is disputed. Hence ‘might’.

Constant accusations of "deliberately misleading" is a form of personal attack. Can you please refrain from this behavior?Smatprt (talk) 16:46, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

• (11) The hammering effect of ‘anti-Stratfordian’ is disastrous stylistically. It is understood from context that we are dealing here, and elsewhere with the doubters’ case. So just ‘Mark Anderson’, unless you can come up with multi fringe sources supporting him.

• (12) ‘many contemporary Elizabethan scholars knew of Terence as, in reality, an actor who was a front man for one or more Roman aristocratic playwrights.’

Again patent and flagrant abuse of protocols. This is not proven or shown. We have Roger Ascham for the view that two of the 6 plays ascribed to Terence were written by Laelius and Scipio. I’ve had to adjust to make the text, which is in the neutral voice, correspond to the known facts.

QUESTION: I know the Ascham quotation includes Scipio, but where did he get that? The translation of Cicero's letter that I've read mentions only Gaius Laelius. Tom Reedy (talk) 15:33, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Sorry I'm late on this, just had to give a tutorial on Shamela. Suetonius.

'Non obscura fama est adiutum Terentium in scriptis a Laelio et Scipione eamque ipse auxit numquam nisi leviter refutare conatus, . .Videtur autem levius (se) defendisse, quia sciebat et Laelio et Scipioni non ingratam esse hanc opinionem, quae tum magis et usque ad posteriora tempora valuit.' Suetonius, de Poetis, ed. Augusto Rostagni, Loescher, Rome 1956 p.35

Actually there are, in the literature, six different names cited for this. Ascham used only one or two sources, while many more classical remarks on this were available, much like Montaigne when he wrote:-

Et, si la perfection du bien parler pouvoit apporter quelque gloire sortable à un grand personage, certainement Scipion et Laelius n’eussent pas resigné l’honneur de leur comedies et toutes les mignardises de delices du langage Latin à un serf Africain. Car, que cet ouvrage soit leur, sa beauté et son excellence le maintient assez, et Terence l’advouë luy mesme. On me feroit desplaisir de me desloger de cette creance.’’ Albert Thibaudet (ed.) Essais de Montaigne, Bk 1 ch.XI p.250-1

• (13) Price argues, or asserts, she does not ‘state’, a word that tends to pass off as an objective fact what is nothing more than a cloudcuckooland suspicion.

"argues" is not neutral. You and Tom keep adding "argue" to anti-strats claims, while using "point out" "note", etc. for strat claims. Can you try to be neutral in your phrasing, please? Smatprt (talk) 16:46, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

You argue a position or a speculation; you state a fact. Stating a speculation as a fact is not neutral. Tom Reedy (talk) 15:33, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

• (14) removed the repetition ‘that an authorship debate existed in Elizabethan times.’ One must not, (I repeat) hammer away at a thesis by hypnotic repetitions of the same phrasing, esp. in two successive lines.

• (15) ‘taken to be an allusion to the mythical Adonis in Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis and therefore a nickname for Shakespeare’

I have adjusted to make clear that this is the cited ‘researchers’ view. ‘Taken’ on its own, suggests that scholarship would underwrite what these various ‘researchers’ assert.

POINT: I'm pretty sure the allusion is taken to be to Adonis, and by extension meaning Shakespeare, by everyone, not just anti-Strats. Tom Reedy (talk) 15:33, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

That Adon points to Adonis, a mythical subject of a huge amount of poetry, is not doubted. That Shakespeare is therefore intended, since he wrote a 'Venus and Adonis', Tom? I'll check my books, but I'd like some RS confirmation of this.Nishidani (talk) 19:11, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

This part is overwritten anyhow. Excessive detail for one example is kind of ridiculous. This is supposed to be a summary of the history. Smatprt (talk) 16:46, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

• (16) ‘the Earl of Oxford was possessed with his honorary office of Lord Chamberlain of England.’

Oh, fa Chrissake. The Earl of Oxford posses the honorary office, indeed he may have been ‘prepossessed’ by the office, but he was not ‘possessed with’, i.e. invaded by the spirit of, the office of Lord Chamberlain of England.

Sorry. It's all first-draft stuff is my only excuse! Same for all the other errors in that section. Tom Reedy (talk) 15:33, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

• (17) But a subsequent article argues.

That is extremely clumsy, suggesting an article argues, and not its author. I have put Roger Stritmatter as the subject of the sentence. ‘But’ must go.

This is now questioned by the Dodger (rhyming slang, don't fret!). Why 'Roger Stritmatter' instead of the earlier 'But a subsequent article argues that a passage from the next verse,' is obvious, on stylistic grounds, and because an ambiguity arises if 'subsequent article' is used as the subject.

The preceding sentence has a reference to James and Rubenstein's interpretation of this passage. If their view, as appears to be the case, is challenged, then the name of the author challenging their view should be given ('James and Rubenstein' on the one hand, 'Stritmatter' on the other, two personal subjects in two successive sentences dealing with the same point. Change 'Stritmatter' to 'But a subsequent article' only creates the possible misprision that James and Rubenstein had altered their earlier view, and this change was registered in Stritmatter's paper. 'Subsequent' in context implies the authors of the previous sentence wrote the article. But such an article is not sourced. Instead we are given an article by the deVerean Stritmatter.The result? Confusion and lack of prose balance.Nishidani (talk) 14:58, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

again - argues? Please find a more neutral word. Smatprt (talk) 16:46, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

• (18) Elizabethan satirists, Joseph Hall in 1598 and John Marston in 1598 apparently refer to the author of Venus and Adonis

• (19) ‘another concealed author of the same work’ is impossible. What is a ‘concealed author’, someone whom others hid?

Kind of nit-picky on this. I think everyone knows the context in which "concealed author" is being used. It's an article about hidden authorship, isn't it? Smatprt (talk) 16:46, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

• (20) ‘The first unorthodox views of Shakespeare's authorship were expressed in 18th century satirical and allegorical works’

This is stated as a fact, one which contradicts the other fact earlier, of mainstream scholarship. This is fraudulent. It is a theory, not a fact.

Again - fraudulent? Can you stop attacking editors this way? Smatprt (talk) 16:46, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

I am not attacking editors. I am saying that what I find on the page stated as a fact, despite repeated reminders it is a theory, is the result of a deliberately fraudulent method. There are other hypotheses for why anyone persists in unreason, but I won't mention them.Nishidani (talk) 19:14, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

• (21) ‘Uneasiness about the difference between Shakespeare's reputation and the humdrum facts of his biography began to emerge.’

I have placed this after Coleridge, who subscribed indeed to the Romantic Shakespeare myths. Placed before Coleridge, the line suggested Coleridge was ‘uneasy’ about the difference. I have seen no evidence of this, and checked three bios of him without finding anything to corroborate the innuendo. I’d be happy to be enlightened. Postpositioning in the meantime relieves the text of this tactical ambiguity.

• (22) ‘tells how’ suggests narration of an event or fact. The work properly ‘portrays’ Shakespeare in that light, it does not ‘tell how’ Shakespeare was.

• (23) Added date for Emerson’s remark on Shakespeare. As put earlier it was crammed together with Coleridge 1811. In fact it came 2 years after 1848 and Hart’s pamphlet, a key date, and reflects Emerson’s reaction to the first public polemic. I have also added the direct source in Emerson’s works.

• (24) Stylistic adjustment for Delia Bacon

• (25) ‘published his theory that Bacon wrote the works in a privately-circulated letter’

Oh come now! He published his theory that Bacon wrote the works of Shakespeare within the compass of a privately-circulated letter. Must have been the biggest letter in the history of the epistolary art.

• (26) A year later he enlarged the letter int (sic)a book.

‘Enlarged a letter int(o) a book? The device used to effect the transformation sounds like one of those things sold in seedy stores for the enlargement of an underendowed gentleman’s marital tackle. Have adjusted, eheu.

• (27) Baconian craze. Craze is not neutral, esp. in a text predominantly edited by deVereans. Perhaps ‘fad’. But Schoenbaum’s language is neutral, and thus it is best elided.

• (28) ‘Anti-Stratfordian scholars’. Why scholars? 99% of them are not.

you have data to support that 99% figure? Didn't think so. Smatprt (talk) 16:46, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

• (29) Link ‘Oxfordian’ to the wiki ‘Oxfordian theory’ article, to avoid the lamentable possibility of readers confusing OT with the intellectual rigourism of the University of Oxford.

• (30) the prevailing "stigma of print = ‘a’ prevailing stigma of print. ‘The’ insinuates this is a fact, which it isn’t.Nishidani (talk) 14:03, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

• (31)The Swan of Avon section has this:

, as the distinguishing characteristic of the swan was its silence — hence the name 'Mute Swan'.

This is a WP:OR violation, in the sense that an editor is drawing on his own research and citing a source, which turns out to be just a wiki page, without the support of a reliable secondary source, and makes his own deductions from this to the Swan of Avon theory. So if you want it in, find one of the fringe-sources that argues this, and asserts that the distinguishing characteristic of the swan was its silence. That too is neither here nor there, since one has to find a source that says the silent swan was a literary topos known to this period. Nishidani (talk) 15:20, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Addressed this with ref. Not OR, as you can see. Smatprt (talk) 16:46, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

As expressed the edit is fraudulent if it keeps reintroducing 'the distinguishing characteristic of the swan'. This is not what any Elizabethan would have thought, though deVerean hardscrabble kibitzers might like to think it so.Nishidani (talk) 19:16, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

• (32) I don't know why, out of the blue, Smatprt just reverted to the Feb 25th version. I am not underwriting the text I restored. It is simply closer to the emerging consensual version, and has more of the language, if I recall, that Schoenbaum has accepted. There is no way in the wide world that 'public' or 'recorded' will ever be accepted as a legitimate epithet by myself, and I think Tom Reedy and Paul Barlow, so restoring that phrasing looks like sheer provocation. I have added a few words to note that the controversy, when it went public, gave rise to a considerable literature at the time (1856-1900), particularly in the US. But in any case, this line will itself be re-edited, consensually, according to some minor modifications in the versions being proposed.Nishidani (talk) 16:24, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

"Closer to the emerging consensus? Isn't that just crystal ball gazing? I restored the version that Tom reverted to on Feb 25th because, as he sai, there is no consensus to change it the way you have done. "Small" and "vast" are words you have added without consensus, and, as you know are weasel words that cannot by adequately sourced. If you remove those words until consensus is reached, that would be agreeable at this time.Smatprt (talk) 16:32, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Also, please note this quote from WP:AVOID - "A controversy is defined as "a discussion marked especially by the expression of opposing views", but is often used in place of the words scandal and affair, and often by editors with a strong disposition against the article subject. The term should be used carefully and only when it is interchangeable with the words debate or dispute, for example:" Thus the use of debate to completely acceptable in place of or alongside "controversy", which is used "often by editors with a strong disposition against the article subject". I think that pretty accurately describes what is going on here. ("public debate" is also the precise wording used by McCrae in the reference you supplied further down). Smatprt (talk) 16:54, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

I was trained in 4 universities in three continents. I don't need your little notes on wiki pointers, thanks. They're there for the general public, not all of whose members may be aware of the ABCs of sensible neutral editing.

Don't be so faux clunk-headed. 'Vast' is in the source cited. I don't need a consensus to restore what Niederkorn, your source, actually says. What you are doing is weaseling your way out of source language you dislike. Tutto qua. Nishidani (talk) 16:57, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

It's been pointed out already that "vast" is not used in the context you are using it. Saying the "vast majority dismiss" something, when the source says the "vast majority" support the traditional attribution are two completely different statements. As can be seen from the NYTimes survey, scholars can accept the traditional attribution without completely dismissing the entire issue. I thought you wanted precision in sourcing? This is in no way precise.Smatprt (talk) 17:14, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Wikilawyering. The language was changed in the provisory consensual sentences from dismiss. Vast is in the source to indicate the range of academic opinion. You enjoy babbling. Could you do us the courtesy of trying actually to read up on the subject instead of wasting our time with clunky prose, mispellings and niggling objections?

Again with the personal attacks? Smatprt (talk) 17:26, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

By the way Smatprt. Are you aware that the term 'Mute Swan' evidence for the association of the 'Swan of Avon' with silence in 1623, only entered the English language circa 1785, by a deliberate name change effected by ornithologists?

Are those odd bods on the site you refer to aware that, in literary studies, to make this construal, you are required in mainstream scholarship to lay out the evidence for the use in literature preceding 1600 of the 'swan' as a signifier of mutedness.

Are you aware that retroactive interpretations, using later meanings as though they were present in periods otherwise unattested, is frowned on as nonsensical?

The fact that a raggedy page from the deVereans has this passage suggests to me someone must have made a formal argument about this within the sect. As it is the source looks hopeless.Nishidani (talk) 17:19, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

You asked for an anti-strat source, and I provided it. Smatprt (talk) 17:26, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

This is a wiki page. That fatuous piece of pseud's corner speculation on a page, without authorial attribution, unhistorical, anachronistic, extralunar and extralunatic, should not (dis)grace the aims of an encyclopedia aiming at quality. You haven't answered my questions. Did you know that 'Mute Swan', on this showing, cannot be adduced to read back into a phrase made 160 years earlier, a significance that, until now, has not be shown to be current in Ben Jonson's day. My point is, do you actually think about what stuff can be culled from these unreliable RS without too much discomfort for serious readers, and what stuff, sheer junk, should be weeded out for pure shame, and discretionary awareness?Nishidani (talk) 17:34, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

I hadn't answered your question because you only waited 8 minutes. Ok, now I'm no classical scholar, but have you never heard of the ancient myths regarding swans who are mute their entire life and then sing their one and only (swan) song? Um....isn't it in Ovid? Anyhow, now you know how they came up with the name, mute swan. (We theatre guys like to know about "break-a-leg", "swan song", "raining cats and dogs", etc.) Smatprt (talk) 23:08, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

No I admit, despite a degree in classics, that I hadn't heard of the 'ancient myths' you speak of. I have read Aeschylus's Agamemnon however, where the belief that they sang shortly before they died is attested at line 1444. As Eduard Fraenkel's note will tell you (E.Fraenkel, (ed.) Agamemnon,, Clarendon Press, (1950) 1962, vol.3 p.684), Plato has Socrates allude to it in the Phaedo (84 e, where, tellingly against your thesis, swans are said, when they perceive the imminence of their death 'to sing more fully and sweetly than they've ever sung before:ᾄδοντες καὶ ἐν τᾥ πρόσθεν χρόνᾢ, τὀτε δἡ πλεῖστα καὶ κάλλιστα ᾄδουσι) As I said the 'mute swan' is a term introduced into English ornithology around 1785. When you come across the word κύκνος in classical Greek, or cygnus in Latin, you do not cry out: 'ah, the mute swan!, for the simple reason that swans are of various kinds: the swan at Horace, Odes Bk.20,line ll.9ff. for example, is a noisy whooper (cygnus musicus), not a mute swan (cygnus olor). The swan that legends had keening before carking is the whooper swan - Aristotle mentions it in his 'Historia Animalium'/(615 b4-615b2), but says the death dirge was just more intense than the usual swan song (μάλιστα ᾄδουσι) I don't know if Ben Jonson, the real guy, was familiar with this, but he could have read it in Aelian's de natura animalium, Bk.10,36. All sang, in this account, Only some (tinas) died after the 'sweet, mournful song' (μἑλος...ἡδυ, γοερὀν. That epithet 'goeros' intimates funerary weeping). The 'more sweetly' at death (than usually) goes right through European literature (Giacomo da Lentini, 'E'l cicier(swan) canta più gioiosamente/Quando vene alo suo finimento'. The sacred bird of Apollo was, appropriately for the patron of music, the swan, not for the silence of the 'mute' species, but for the elegiac crooning of the whooper, which use to pass from its Icelandic breeding grounds through Greece, down into Africa.

Of course both Shakespeare of Stratford and Ben Jonson read Ovid, who refers often to swans. The singing as opposed to the 'mute' song, is a classical trope for a poet of distinction. If you want a big list see R.G.M.Nisbet and Margaret Hubbard (eds.) A Commentary on Horace Odes Book 11, Clarendon Press 1978 p.342, bottom of the page)I'm not going to do your homework, your lack of intellectual curiosity doesn't deserve it. Actors are understudies. It wouldn't hurt if, having wider interests in the history of the plays they recite, they took time to overstudy.Nishidani (talk) 15:17, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

I've removed the 'evidence' in this edit by User:Smatprt. Not only is the translation wrong on a key point (the translator gets 'olim' wrong), but I can see no secondary RS source even in the deVerean motherlode, at least in those two pages he cites, which refers to the 'Ovidian evidence'. There is no ancient source cited here saying, as Smatprt tries to fudge up, that

'the Mute Swan (Cygnus olor) is completely silent during its lifetime until the moment just before it dies. Ovid mentions the legend in "The Story of Picus and Canens":

This is Smatprt's 'original research' mugged up Polyphemically to support the deVerean society page assertion. Worse still, as I mentioned above, there is no evidence that any of these passages refer to an ancient belief that the 'Mute swan' sings. A more egregious example of abusing wiki's hospitality in order to smuggle in one's own personal elaborations of shoddy fringe ideas, I've yet to encounter.

More personal attacks? This isn't my research, it's referenced in numerous places.Smatprt (talk) 21:13, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Well fa Chrissake reference it properly!Nishidani (talk) 21:31, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

For the record the Latin lines run

ut olim

carmina iam moriens canit exequialia cycnus.' (Ovid, Metam XIV.429-40)

'just as sometimes (olim) in dying, the swan sings a last funeral-song'

In no commentary consulted can I find this glossed as referring to some 'ancient legend' that the 'Mute Swan' is completely silent during its lifetime'. Nishidani (talk) 20:46, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Isn't "your" translation the OR going on here? The RS says "just as the swan sings once, in dying, its own funeral song" is the translation. So now are you going to argue that the University of Virginia is not RS? Smatprt (talk) 21:13, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Are you just acting dumb, or is this persistence in not understanding what is laboriously explained to you, in absurdly boring detail, a reflection perhaps that English may not be your mother tongue. In short, (a) I wrote as a courtesy that the translation happens also to be wrong. (b) The major point is that the primary source you cited does not warrant the construal you placed on it, (c) that your 'interpretation' of Ovid was a personal one, (d) that it was not filtered through a secondary source that interprets Ovid the way you would like him to be interpreted, as protocols required, and that therefore you were engaged in a gross WP:OR violation. I've told you twice now, and you persist. My presumption is, therefore, that you are a fraudulent editor. Complain if you like, but you are abusing this page, and not only here. Nishidani (talk) 21:22, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

User:BenJonson. Do us a good faith favour. You have a Phd in English, and a doctoral dissertation written under certain strict protocols of method. You cannot but understand the elementary point made here. Write this chap an email, and point out to him privately, that what he did just then is a flagrant violation of the editing rules outlined in WP:OR. The spectre of yourself and Schoenbaum just sitting quietly in the shadows, with nary a word, where obvious breaches of the simplest procedures occur, is not a pretty sight. All good editors take their own to task, if they err, and are likewise contradicted by their peers, even from the same side. This behaviour by Smatprt is getting beyond farcical.Nishidani (talk) 21:28, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

More attacks noted. Must you make a controversy out of every word? All right, here are some more sources for you: "The silver song who living had no note" at the top of this JSTOR article, which I am sure you have access to: [[21]]. "The legend of the dying swan's melancholy song is given its first ...; by WG Arnott - 1977 - Cited by 8 - Related articles; legend of the dying swan he says (393 d-e) that he had actually ... The mute swan, as its name indicates, is normally silent, ... www.jstor.org/stable/642700";

and another: Mute Swans: Species Information and Photos; Mute Swans: Comprehensive information on this bird species, ... refers to this swan and to the famous ancient legend that it is utterly silent until the ...; "The phrase swan song refers to this swan and to the famous ancient legend that it is utterly silent until the last moment of its life, and then sings one achingly beautiful song just before dying; in reality, the Mute Swan is not completely silent." here: [[22]] Now can you finally admit that you are in error here? Smatprt (talk) 21:33, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Jeezus. Go and review WP:OR. You are not permitted to make your own research notes for this article, and add them under the guise of referencing deVerean pages where no such comments are made.

Got that? For safety's sake, I'll repeat.

Jeezus. Go and review WP:OR. You are not permitted to make your own research notes for this article, and add them under the guise of referencing deVerean pages where no such comments are made.

Until an 'Authorship Doubters' RS links Ovid's line with the Swan and Avon, and fakes the usual evidence connecting the two, as you did, passing off the 'Mute Swan' terminology as predating Ben Jonson, though it only came into circulating 150 years later, you cannot step in and do their work for them. So phone your friends, get them to rush up the evidence, and get it on a reliable online site, which you can quote from.Nishidani (talk) 21:44, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Oh, and in case your googling Jstor (1977) led you to think that's where I got my notes from, you're wrong. I have all the sources I cited, and good guides through them, including J.Pollard's Birds in Greek Life and Myth, Thames and Hudson, 1977. On p.144 the classicist Pollard explains that these references to the wild swan's singing are to the behaviour of the whooper swan, not the Mute Swan. Jeezus, even staring at the boobtube's advertisements is more exciting than having to push this stuff uphill against the sheer inertial momentum of obtusity.Nishidani (talk) 21:55, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Nishi, you stated you could find no reference to the legend, so I supplied them for you. In any case, I simply altered the line to provide a direct quote to the De Vere Society along with a ref to that quote. Hope that solves it. Smatprt (talk) 22:30, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

POV tags added

I have added two POV tags for the following reasons:

• The lead states that "the theory" dates back to the 19th century as an undisputed fact. This is, in fact, a disputed assertion (disputed by both mainstream academics as well as those who hold the minority viewpoint).

You use plurals for the singular. You quoted 1 sourcebook, from scholars, citing texts that have been construed as suggesting doubts preexisted 1848. Tom Reedy dealt with this. You have yet to show it is 'disputed by mainstream academics'. Paul Barlow contested this, referring to recent research in the intervening 4 decades which gave the denier to your claim.

• The second sentence uses the weasel words "small" and "vast" without any data to support them. The term "vast" is being taken out of context from its use in the source quoted, which says "The traditional theory that Shakespeare was Shakespeare has the passive to active acceptance of the vast majority of English professors and scholars". In the article the usage says that the entire authorship issue "is dismissed by the vast majority of academic Shakespeare scholars". This is POV and in no way neutral. Smatprt (talk) 17:43, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

I've gone one step further: the whole article is a flagrant POV mess. The problem cannot, as your little intervention suggests, be restricted to the introduction.Nishidani (talk) 17:48, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Neither 'small' nor 'vast' are weasel words. They have data to support them.

• The vast majority of academics accept that the William Shakespere recorded as living in Stratford-upon-Avon, the actor Shakespeare and the playwright Shakespeare are one and the same person
• The vast majority of academics still subscribe to that belief. WILLIAM S. NIEDERKORN A Historic Whodunit: If Shakespeare Didn't, Who Did? NYTimes
• those involved in the Authorship Question, the vast majority of whom were non-academics William Leahy 'The Shakespeare Authorship Question – A Suitable Subject for Academia?,' p.3 (this is the inverse corollary)
• The vast majority of Shakespeare academics express no doubt that William Shakespeare––Stratford businessman, actor, theater company share-holder–– wrote the plays and poems attributed to him.' The International Marlowe-Shakespeare Society
• ike the vast majority of scholars who work on Shakespeare, I find the DeVere hypothesis wildly implausible Stephen Greenblatt

Nishidani - those are not undisputed facts - those are opinions of selected anti-Stratfordians. (And beside, you are still misquoting your source)Smatprt (talk) 08:20, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Smatprt. I don't like using the sign of the cross, and biting my lips, and exhaling the anodynic susurrus: 'be charitable' under my breath, as a prolegomenon every time I have to reply to you. But I'llk try . .bz hs.. uhm..The citations are not meant to be undisputed facts. They are intended to illustrate the widespread use of 'vast majority' which you recalcitrantly refuse to accept, among scholars who describe what mainstream scholarship thinks of the Authorship doubters. To repeat (cross myself, purse my lips), editors are not entitled to complain about what mainstream sources, or RS, say, as you are doing here, and reject that data simply because, apparently, it rubs up against their prejudices. What you've just done is reject four RS sources simply on the grounds of WP:IDONTLIKEIT.Nishidani (talk) 13:42, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

For the truth of the matter, it is not relevant how many people support one argument or the other. It only matters what the arguments are. For example, the author of The Tempest relied on the Strachey letter as a main source. Since at Jamestown, Secretary William Strachey, Deputy Governor Sir Thomas Gates, Governor Lord De La Warr, and in London the entire Virginia Company were under an oath of secrecy then anyone who had handed Shakspere that document would have been prosecuted. Since England were at war with Spain who were gathering intelligence to decide whether or not to take Jamestown, release of that document would also have been treason. The author of The Tempest had to be a member of the Virginia Council and Shakspere was not. These are the facts and orthodox scholars need to do more work on this issue. I can save time by giving a free download link http://barryispuzzled.com/shakpuzz.pdf (see chapter on The Tempest) intended for anyone with the academic integrity not to brush unpalatable facts under the carpet.Temperance007 (talk) 18:50, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

You'd do well, to read the rules of wikipedia, where it does not matter what the arguments are, but matters greatly if they are sourced to quality scholarly, optimally from university presses.Nishidani (talk) 19:46, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

What's your game here Smatprt? I don't think you are just thick. Is the strategy to exhaust our attention by a pattern of manic attrition in which arguments made earlier (see above my discussion with Schoenbaum on Greenblatt) are ignored, and represented as if nothing had be said, proven, or discussed, until the opposition expires from sheer exasperation, and leaves the field to the fringers who otherwise stand by as you harass the place with wikilawyering and dysmnemnonic hair-splitting? Nishidani (talk) 18:10, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

As near as I can figure it out, that's it, or certainly a major strategy. Tom Reedy (talk) 19:02, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Shall we return to discussing the edits instead of the editors? Thanks. You have proved my point - not one of your quotes uses the term "vast" in terms of "dismissing" the entire subject, which is exactly what you are trying to say. After all your requests for precision in sourcing and quotes, I don't know how else to explain to you that you are misquoting your source. Seriously, one last effort here - don't you think there are scholars out there who do indeed accept the traditional attribution but do not categorically dismiss the entire subject? Personally they don't believe it, but they maintain an open mind or have no opinion because they have done zero research? Or the ones who say "I am not convinced" - not "I think you are nuts, dismissed!"? Smatprt (talk) 23:27, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

If you are so tied to using the word "vast", which unless you are very careful can be a peacock term wp:peacock, you need to pick one of those quotes to use and not a different sentence of your own devising. You suggested it once above and I would tend to agree that would be the way to go. How did you phrase it?

I don't know of any rule or policy that says the phrasing has to follow the source word-for-word. And I really don't know why you're putting up such a struggle about this. As you frequently say, is the statement in any doubt? The only time they don't dismiss the subject is when they're refuting it, which since their time is apparently more valuable than yours or mine, they rarely deign to do.

We could just scrap the "vast majority" wording and go with Kathman's: ". . . the first [the Shakespeare authorship question] is dismissed as the realm of crackpots"(620), or perhaps the gentler ". . . in fact, antiStratdordianism has remained a fringe belief system for its entire existence. Professional Shakespeare scholars pay little attention to it, much as evolutionary biologists ignore creationists and astronomers dismiss UFO sightings" (621). I see no weaseling in those quotes, do you?

Seriously, I could go with "great majority," as Schoenbaum suggested many months ago, or at least that's how long it seems. I'm anxious to spend another 15,000 or so words on discussing the third sentence. Tom Reedy (talk) 04:19, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Cockburn Book

In the External links section for the Baconian part, the Cockburn book link (first one) must be removed because the copyright is held by the Francis Bacon Society who have not given permission. Can someone do this? Thanks. Temperance007 (talk) 18:34, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

The second link was "dead" anyway. The first link merely provides a summary of the contents, which is not, as far as I am aware, subject to copyright. What is the problem? Paul B (talk) 18:41, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Weasel words, POV, personal attacks, and other miscellanea

(Tom - Look at your post below. What is that, like 9 or 10 paragraphs?. You and Nishidani present these long posts, or lists of 20 - 30 items, and then expect some sort of response to each and every issue you raise, lacing your comments with sarcasm, irony, and, eventually, insults. I see BenJonson replyed below and in good faith, I am going to respond as well (in between paragraphs for fear of drowning), but it is hard to even want to carry this further and I pity the poor editors who read through all this stuff:)''

Smatprt, have you even read WP:WEASEL? The use of "vast", "small", "large" is not banned by Wikipedia policy. They are useful words in their proper place, and there is nothing evasive, ambiguous, or misleading about them as long as the context is clear. What other word would you use in place of "small" to roughly describe the size of the anti-Stratfordian population? Little? Diminutive? Tiny? Minute? If the vast majority of academics believe in the traditional attribution, how many of them dismiss anti-Strat theories? Do the two sets not coincide?

Tom, please don't misquote me. I did not say "banned". These words can be (and are being) used inappropriately for a variety of reasons including weasel, peacock, words-to-avoid and good old common sense. To be direct and without linking to a bunch of policies, it's the wayyou are attempting to use them. To a line that says "the majority of scholars" you want to make it "the vast majority of scholars". The problem is adding "vast" when you have no data, no facts, to back it up, only the opinions of scholars you agree with and like to cite wherever possible. The only actual data anyone has on this is the NYTimes survey and it certainly doesn't say anything about a vast majority dismissing it. As I recall, only 35% were dismissive, calling it a "waste of time and distraction." That's pretty dismissive, all right. 60% called it a theory without convincing evidence. Hardly language that is dismissive of the entire subject. The same is true over wanting to add "small" before "thriving following" - what data are you using to come up with the word "small"? You'd have to pole the general public to determine that. And in both these case, you are leaning the article in the direction you agree with instead of keeping the language neutral. "a thriving following" is accurate and neutral. "the majority of scholars" is accurate and neutral.Smatprt (talk) 08:09, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

But frankly, having this discussion is way premature because their is a bigger issue at hand. Before you and Nishidani started edit warring over the line in question, it read (from your edit of Feb. 25 citing consensus building)[[23]]: "and, in recent decades, the subject has gained a thriving following, though little academic support". While trying (endlessly) to build a consensus to change this line, you and Nishidani jumped the gun over the next 5 days and have now changed it without consensus to "The theory dates back to the mid-19th century, and sparked a vigorous public debate. In recent decades, the issue has once more attracted a small but thriving following, but is dismissed by the vast majority of academic Shakespeare scholars". There is absolutely no agreement for all these changes but you and Nishidani have edit-warred to "make" it this way regardless of agreement or not. If you really want to show good faith and cooperation, you will restore the line to your previous "pre-consensus version" until we have something approaching a consensus. Right now, 3 of the 5 (or 6) regular editors have not agreed to this version yet you and Nishidani changed it anyway. Smatprt (talk) 08:09, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Weasel words are comparative words that have no context, such as “improved” (over what?), “better” (than what?). And certainly the word “seriously” is not a weasel word, unless you don’t know the meaning of it. And why on earth do you think “point out” and “argue” are weasel words? You really need to explain that one. "Believes" and "speculates" are two different functions to anyone with a common command of the English language. Trying to turn every “speculates” and “asserts” and “argues” into a “believes” in the name of POV doesn't make sense.

Misquoting me. See below.Smatprt (talk) 08:09, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

You claim that “argues” is not a neutral term. It is true that one side argues more and the other side rebuts more, but they both engage in argument. Your wish to banish the word “argues” is beyond me. Why do you think it’s called a debate?

Again, :You misquote me and, again, to be direct - it's the way you apply each of the words you are citing here. According to your and Nishidani's edits, Stratfordian scholars "note", "point out", "respond", but anti-Stratfordians "argue" and "speculate". It's POV editing and you really need to pull back if you want to promote a true atmosphere of cooperation. Otherwise it looks like you are just trying to say the "right things" while at the same time continuing your disruptive behavior. Smatprt (talk) 08:09, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

And look at all the “point out”s. You’ll find that they indeed refer to undisputed statements. There is no direct evidence for any other candidate of the type that exists for William Shakespeare; all other such candidacies depend on interpretations and suppositions. It was common for certain types of real names to be hyphenated in print in Elizabethan times. There was no standardised spelling in early modern times. There is clearer evidence for Jonson's formal education and self-education than for Shakespeare of Stratford's. Many dramatists of the time wrote a fluent hand, and many didn't. The phrase “ever-living” in fact appears most frequently in Renaissance texts as a conventional epithet for eternal God. Et cetra. Trying to argue that all these should be transformed into “believes” is arguing for inaccuracy.

You are just continuing to warp my language and misquote me. I don't say "all" of anything should be changed. If "point out" is indeed about a verifiable fact (and not just someone's opinion) then it's totally appropriate. But when you "point out" or use other language that implies an undisputed fact that is, in actuality, in dispute, then it's improper usage. Smatprt (talk) 08:09, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Other comments of yours, "‘is dismissed by the vast majority of academic Shakespeare scholars’. This is POV and in no way neutral,” are just incomprehensible. I think you have a problem defining exactly what POV is. From what I've been able to gather it's anything that could be construed as putting anti-Stratfordism or Oxfordism in a bad light.

Explained above. But this raises a related issue. You, an anti-Stratfordian who is completely dissmissive of the entire subject, are picking and choosing what you think are the anti-Stratfordians main arguments. In reality, you are purposely choosing the opposites, or citing only the examples that you can make the most fun of and... present in "a bad light". And now it appears that Nishidani is starting to quote as many negative opinions that he can find (the Freud "note" he just added.) This is, apparently, your shared agenda. It's POV editing at its worst.Smatprt (talk) 08:09, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Another puzzling statement of yours: “Constant accusations of 'deliberately misleading' is a form of personal attack. Can you please refrain from this behavior?” I never knew that a phrase or sentence could be a person. The same with “fraudulent? Can you stop attacking editors this way?” Nishidani is referring to the material, not the person who put the material in. It appears to me that you are over reacting in an attempt to document misdemeanor behavior on the part of your interlocutors.

Tom, you and Nishidani go back and forth calling so many edits "dishonest", "misleading", then calling various editors "dishonest" and "misleading", it's become impossible to even attempt to distinguish the two apart. You did it again down below at your post of 4:25 today (March 1). I'm not sure about "interlocutors" though. Are you saying I'm working with some evil Wikipedia cabal that's out to get you? Sorry, I'm not even going to go there.Smatprt (talk) 08:09, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

We all have biases, and this article needs editors from both sides of the question to keep them in check, but you need to learn the difference between writing an encyclopedia article and promotional pamphleteering. Your edit that corrected my misstatement about Diana Price was a good call; in my bias I overstated what she said. But it’s a shame I can’t say that about most of your edits, which seem to be motivated by a desire to control the content of the article instead of improving the article, because most of your edits either remove properly sourced material you don't like or revert another editor's contribution. I daresay I've never seen you revert or delete an edit from an anti-Stratfordian. Nishidami has deleted several of mine. There is no doubt that the article has benefited from Nishidani’s editing. I know my edits have and I welcome them, even though I don't always agree with his opinion 100 per cent.

I'm sorry, but even while you say this, you and Nishidani continue with the name-calling (your post below), defending POV editing (your post above), and the refusal to achieve consensus before disputed changes (lead, line 2, for example). As long as you refuse to refrain from the insults and name-calling, restore the lead to what it was before you changed it prematurely, and stop the POV editing, you appear to be just gaming the system.Smatprt (talk) 08:09, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

One other thing, the list of reverts and removals you have compiled on me are ridiculous. All one has to do is access the previous or subsequent edits to put them into context. I could go to all the trouble to explain, but I don’t have the time and it is simple enough for anyone to look at those edits and determine whether they were justified.

I agree that all anyone has to do is look and it should be pretty obvious what has transpired.Smatprt (talk) 08:09, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Which brings me to another point: if all the time and energy spent arguing over the second sentence had been spent in actual good-faith efforts to improve this article, it would be well on its way to peer review. But your intransigent and disruptive behavior has wasted everyone's time and worked to keep the article in an unbalanced and pathetic state. BenJonson'scomment to the only editor to make a substantive response to your request of peer review illustrates the problems you two have better than I ever could. You can either keep it up or try to join the other editors who want to improve the article. The choice is clear, and it's all up to you. Tom Reedy (talk) 23:14, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Tom, it is unfortunate that you and Nishidani persist in violating the basic protocol of the wikipedia editing process --to assume good faith-- by your constant personal attacks on one person or another. I would not contest your argument that the article may have benefited from Nishidani (and your) participation. And I agree, for example, with some of your comments in this post (e.g. about "argues"). But the fact is that both you frequently get your way only by being so personally nasty that no one with any sense really wants to deal with you. Your frequent sarcasms, your use of such creative terms as "fake Phd,"you need to learn the difference between an Encyclopedia and pamphleteering," etc. only undermine morale and divide participants. And if a few of your edits have been valid, a number of them have been ridiculous, such as your attempt to qualify the Taylor and Mosher book into irrelevancy. Nishidani came barreling in here a few weeks ago, full of assumptions about the nature of the subject. Its obvious that the resistance he has encountered has forced him to re-examine a few of these, but he persists in his name-calling, as do you. That's truly unfortunate. I've said this before, and I'll say it again, if you think that you are going to have a permanent impact on the unfolding history of this debate by persisting in promulgating the illusion that your critics are morons and "fringe theorists," you're going to be very disappointed.--BenJonson (talk) 02:59, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

That you consider an invitation to cooperate a personal attack tells more about you than me. And your idea that I bully my way by my abusive personality is deliciously ironic. The fillings in my teeth are positively buzzing. And speaking of good faith editing, what do you think of an editor deliberately adding deceptive material to an edit that isn't in the source? How many times would an editor have to do that before you would stop assuming that he's editing in good faith?

And I'm not trying "to have a permanent impact on the unfolding history of this debate by persisting in promulgating the illusion that [my] critics are morons and 'fringe theorists'"; I'm trying to get the work done. Tom Reedy (talk) 04:25, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Tom - you just wrote: "what do you think of an editor deliberately adding deceptive material" - Tom, can you ever reply without making yet another attack a fellow editor? This is exactly what Schoenbaum, BenJonson and I have been talking about. You write your "invitation to cooperate" without ever acknowledging the main problem - except to deny it - and then you proceed to make more accusations, and more disputed edits.Smatprt (talk) 08:09, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

The attacks arise because of frustration with your editing and method of debate by attrition. The fact is that you are not really interested in creating a good article. This article was full of basic errors of fact before Tom intervened. Its account of the history of the subject was a mess. It was little more than a compendium of claims made by Oxfordians. There are still many basic improvements to be made, but neutral-minded editors are put off. Paul B (talk) 11:44, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

'the resistance (Nishidani) has encountered,' BenJonson. Oh dear, now I am cast either as a gendarme of the vicious Vichy, suppressing the legitimate uprisings of maquis partisans, or, if we take the substantive psychoanalytically, as a Freudian practitioner encountering 'resistance' in his neurotic 'analysands'! Come now, loosen up. Consistent factitious editing raises hackles, that is all. Nishidani (talk) 08:21, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Punctuation

Roger, there's probably no sense in correcting all the punctuation until the page is stable, which I estimate will be sometime in 2029 or so at the rate it's going. Wikipedia uses British style punctuation, WP:LP, which I admit I don't fully understand because a lot of what I read in British books and journals doesn't really comply with what I understand the rules to be. Same way with my spelling; it varies between American and English seemingly without any guidance from me. Tom Reedy (talk) 03:41, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Punctuaton is not a big deal, as long as it's not outright illiterate. We only need to concern ourselves with that if and when (oh when...) we are going to put this forward for GA or FA status. As for spelling, we'd probably be better off using British spelling, but it's debatable since this subject was essentially "invented" by Americans. UK publishers have their own house styles, which often use "American" 'ize' rather than 'ise' endings. Older UK publications can use other apparently American spellings (color/honor spellings rather than colour/honour spellings were not uncommon in the 19th century). We should use the spellings in the original publications, though updated spelling of Elizabethan texts can be used if they have been published in that form.

BTW, yesterday I created an article on Joseph C. Hart, an American. I've tried to use US spelling, but may have inadvertantly used some UK spellings, so please check. Paul B (talk) 11:24, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Are we using UK or American standards; you are right, Tom, they're not the same. And I make any corrections required. We should agree on the conventions and continue to improve the article in all ways possible. And I beg to differ, Paul, for anyone with any training in editing, the punctuation alone frequently makes the page look like the work of a gaggle of incompetents. I'm fine with any conventions, as long as we all know what they are and agree that they *are* in factor important.--BenJonson (talk) 12:01, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Suggested Reading

I thought this was an excellent article:

2nd try on the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ravpapa/The_Politicization_of_Wikipedia

"What is to be done? I am the last person to suggest abandoning one of the pillars of Wikipedia. I do believe, however, that true neutrality can only be achieved by granting equal platforms to opposing camps to tell their story as they see it. This does not mean abandoning the principles of comprehensiveness, reliability of sources, and academic rigor. It means allowing opposing narratives free and equal voices." What I have been objecting to all along about this article is the presumption of people who do not agree with the anti-Stratfordian/Oxfordian case presuming to speak for those who do. I think that problem has been partly redressed, and some of the more extreme voices have faded away. But the lingering assumption that because the anti-Stratfordian editors to the page are "lesser breeds before the law" they cannot be trusted to accurately interpret the history and bases of their own skepticism is still unduly influencing page content. BenJonson (talk) 11:59, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

No,we do not grant equal platforms to holocaust deniers and holocast believers, for example. The internet is free for anyone to say whatever they like on their own webpages, but Wikipedia is supposed to be an encylopedia. However, it differs from others in that it gives far more space than is usual to alternative points of view. No-one is a lesser editor, but all editors should respect the rules and not use wikipedia as a promotional tool for pet ideas. Paul B (talk) 12:16, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Did you actually read the article? Please cut out this nonsense. The article in question has nothing to do with your illusions. It is about how to improve an encyclopedia when persons of good faith (which does not include holocaust deniers, obviously, don't agree. Please read the article if you want to discuss it and leave your pecadillos out of the discussion. --BenJonson (talk) 12:42, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I read it. It's one person's opinion, not a policy or a guideline. Who's to say that holocaust deniers are not writing in good faith? Individuals can and do genuinely believe things that are offensive or absurd to most persons. Paul B (talk) 14:47, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

'Pec(c)adillo' is spelled with two c's, and is used as a malapropism here. Explaining wikipedia policy is not a 'minor sin'. Ravpapa, after Nableezy, is one of the wildest eccentrics in Wikipedia, because he belongs to that small, sorry, exiguous minority of a minority that insists on rational compromise and narrative equlibrium. I suspect if you called him over, he'd reply that his links to Shakespeare are mainly via such things as Verdi's Falstaff, which Auden in his New York lectures said brilliantly redeemed the otherwise boringly flat Merry Wives of Windsor written by the Stratford man in one of his less inspired weeks. Nishidani (talk) 13:30, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Lead compromise

We need to chill out on the lead and come to a compromise that will suit nobody 100 percent. Looking over the wording that has been suggested over the past however long it's been, I think Schoenbaum came closest to a workable compromise. Here's an adaptation of his wording that I'll endorse so we can put this dispute behind us and take up another one:

The controversy dates back to the mid-19th century. It has attracted public attention and a thriving following, including some prominent public figures; but it is dismissed by the great majority of academic Shakespeare scholars.

I've deleted "small", which, although Schoenbaum accepted it, I will concede for the sake of progress since it seems to be a sticking point for Smatprt. I've also substituted "great", which Schoenbaum said he accepted on Feb. 27 and 28 and has been accepted for "vast" I think this is about as good as it's going to get. I also don't like stacking the refs, so I combined them into one cite.

Votes? Tom Reedy (talk) 16:36, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

I won't oppose this. It's not bad. I still think however 'vast' is the proper adjective since so many sources confirm it.Nishidani (talk) 19:23, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

I would only suggest one minor tweak. I agree with earlier statements that using "controversy" twice in two adjoining sentences is poor writing. Since "controversy" is only allowed to be used when it is defined as "debate" (The term should be used carefully and only when it is interchangeable with the words debate or dispute)[[24]], I would suggest this:

Public debate dates to the mid-19th century. It has attracted public attention and a thriving following, including some prominent public figures; but it is dismissed by the great majority of academic Shakespeare scholars.

This is supported by your quote from McCrae (McCrea, 13: “It was not until 1848 that the Authorship Question emerged from the obscurity of private speculation into the daylight of public debate.”). The we don't have to quibble on when the "private speculation" to which McCrae refers actually started. Smatprt (talk) 21:05, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Tom, for proposing a compromise. I support it, with Smatprt's minor tweak, which is consistent with Nishidani's point that we shouldn't use "controversy" twice in these two sentences. Also, "Public debate" is supported by the McCrea quote, and leaves it open as to when the earliest doubts first arose, as it should be. Please note that I would have preferred, "In recent decades it has attracted increased public attention ...", but I'll drop it for now because you object, Tom. I should mention, though, that I've heard James Shapiro's Contested Will provides solid support for it, and so I may want to revisit the issue once his book is out. So are we all ready to move on to sentence #3? Schoenbaum (talk) 22:52, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

"Public debate of the issue?" "Public debate of the theory?" "Public debate" by itself seems to me to just be hanging out there, although perhaps that's just me. Tom Reedy (talk) 23:34, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Never mind; I fixed it by beginning the sentence with "The". Tom Reedy (talk) 23:43, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

And Schoenbaum, I'm sure there are any number of sources that say so now, because interest increased after Ogburn published another tome after the mock-court debates and with the growth of the Internet, but my point in leaving it out is that it doesn't give the full picture. There was more public interest in Bacon at the beginning of the 20th C. than there is in Oxford now. Oxford began coming up and then the war began, which had a curious effect of concentrating public attention on more important things, and anti-Stratfordism never recovered its popularity until 40+ years after the war ended. So just saying it has become more popular in recent decades would imply that it hibernated until just recently, and it's too much detail to be completely accurate in the lead. Better just say it has won public attention and explain the details in the text. Tom Reedy (talk) 23:52, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

I realize I'm coming a bit late to this discussion, but either of these is acceptable to me. I actually prefer Tom's original wording the best. "Controversy" is a good word for what we're engaged in, and gets rid of the weasel word "vast." "Great majority" seems far more empirical to me. At some point in the future, the phrase will require changing,but that day is not yet. Thanks for the good suggestion, Tom.--BenJonson (talk) 03:10, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Tom, you say that "there was more public interest in Bacon at the beginning of the 20 C. than there is Oxford today." How are you measuring "public interest." I don't think you are correct, but I'm interested in what sources or methods of inference you would use to defend this claim? Also, I would caution you not to get overconfident about what the next few years will hold. Your bias is very evident in word choice such as Ogburn's "tome." Since then we have had Sobran, Anderson, Farina, etc, just to mention the Oxfordian books, and there's a lot more coming down the pike which will continue to provoke both public and academic interest. So even if you could defend your claim in 2010 (can you?) I doubt that you'll be able to do so in 2012. I agree, however, with your larger point that there is a long and intriguing history to be recounted here, and the present article greatly oversimplifies and in some cases misconstrues that history. So what do you say that you stop flogging Schoenbaum, Smarprt, and myself, with accusation of bad faith or statements that we are "crazy," etc., and get about reading, understanding, and writing about, that history? --BenJonson (talk) 03:17, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Good points you make, Tom. "Public debate" by itself is dangling. I'd prefer "Public debate of the issue" myself. Also, I agree that the history of public interest in the issue is too complex to capsulize in the lead. Your version is fine. 96.251.82.13 (talk) 05:31, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Price

The article states: "Shakespeare of Stratford left behind over seventy historical records, and over half of these records shed light on his professional activities. Price notes, however, that every one of these documents concerns non-literary careers – those of theatrical shareholder, actor, real estate investor, grain trader, money-lender, and entrepreneur. But he left behind not one literary paper trail that proves he wrote for a living. In the genre of literary biography for Elizabethan and Jacobean writers, Price concludes that this deficiency of evidence is unique." I have no idea what this last sentence means. In what sense do these records belong in "the genre of literary biography"? What exactly is supposed to be unique? Paul B (talk) 00:39, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Bait and switch. He didn't write for a living. Back then professional writers relied on patronage for their living. Shakespeare didn't have to, since he was part owner of a lucrative theatre troupe and part owner of the playhouse they leased. Sold at the going rate, all of his plays together wouldn't have brought him as much as he made in a year from his theatrical business. Tom Reedy (talk) 01:26, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

No doubt, but I'm not sure how this helps to illuminate the intended meaning of the relevant sentence. I was asking what Price considers to be "unique" and what is referred to by the phrase "the genre of literary biography". Paul B (talk) 01:58, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

You are right, Paul, that the sentence is badly confused. What is meant, I think, is that when you compare the records of other writers of the period there is a decided lack of evidence for Shakespeare, in numerous categories of evidence which survives in plenitude in the other instances. For instance, over three hundred known books survive from Ben Jonson's library. How many from Shakespeare's? None that have ever been authenticated. What have we learned from the history of Ben Jonson's annotations in his books? A great deal. Shakespeare? Nada. That was Price's method. You may not like it, but it is a sound historical method, based on the effort to wrestle with the problem of anachronism If there is an absence of certain kinds of biographical evidence, what is the likelihood, given the conditions of the time, that such evidence should exist? This is exactly the question (one of them) we should be asking. David Kathman concedes Price's point when he argues that the reason that there is so much apparently missing (books, letters, literary manuscript of any kind, authentic portrait, etc.) is because Shakespeare was a middle class poet. Price's book shows that Kathman's argument is wrong or at least very misleading, since significantly more documentary evidence survives for other middle class writers. I'm not at all sure what user Tom Reedy means by "bait and switch." He seems to be referring only to the question of patronage, which is a tiny slice of Price's argument. Tom's response also assumes a great deal that is not in evidence. What is in evidence is that Stratford man became wealthy. This is a significant fact, given the thematic preoccupations of the plays. Tom, once more, could you please stop this sort of prejudicial language? I know you're addicted to it, but it really makes you look a lot smaller than I think, in your heart of hearts, you really are.--BenJonson (talk) 03:25, 3 March 2010 (UTC)