Simon and Schuster recently sent me the paperback edition of James Shapiro’s Contested Will, which addresses the very timely authorship question. 

Since I clearly have not had time to read it, I’m reporting long-time contributor Carl Atkins’ guest review that he did for us back in December 2010:

I was actually pleasantly surprised. It was much more readable
than I expected. I had read his “1599: A Year in the Life of William
Shakespeare” and found it to be rambling, disjointed, and filled with
conjecture, so I was not expecting good things from a book about such a
difficult subject. Yet “Contested Will” is, for the most part, tightly
written, well structured, straightforward, factual without being too
dry, and absorbing. It details the history of the authorship
controversy, interestingly laying the blame on one of the most renowned
Shakespeare scholars, Edmond Malone. He notes that Malone, frustrated at
being unable to uncover any documents to help flesh out the biography
he hoped to write about Shakespeare, began to look to the plays for
biographical references. This opened the door for anti-Stratfordians to
launch their only means of attack.

If the book has any fault
it is only in spending a bit too much time detailing the course of the
Oxfordian cause. I found myself getting a bit bored by the end of that
section. But only a bit.

It is a testament to Shapiro’s
cool-headedness that he spends two-thirds of the book discussing the
(circumstantial) evidence against Shakespeare’s authorship and ends with
27 pages debunking it.

What is most impressive is that
Shapiro does not come across as someone with an axe to grind, or as a
scornful elitist. He actually sounds like someone who is presenting the
evidence for all to see. He makes no pretense about what side he is on,
but he makes the evidence very clear.

I did not think I would
like a book about the authorship question because I do not think it is
an important question. But this book is more about understanding the
history of the authorship question than about resolving the controversy.
That is a more interesting topic. This is a book I would recommend to
all interested in Shakespeare. It is fun to read.

A month ago I asked, How should we deal with Anonymous?  In general, other than some assorted Twitter chats, I’ve not said much.

But today it opens, and it’s come to my attention that people (students in particular) may show up here looking for a counter argument.  So I wanted to use this space not necessarily just to present my own position, but to give you readers the opportunity to offer yours as well.

This is a movie, made for entertainment value, made not by academics for the purpose of proving an academic theory, but my moviemakers for the purposes of entertaining you enough to make money.  In this sense it is exactly the same as Shakespeare in Love.

The primary difference is that one movie was made by people who know, love and respect Shakespeare and his works, and were completely open with the fact that their movie was pure fiction. Anonymous wants you to believe that some of it is real.

Personally I don’t think that anybody involved with the actual making of the movie cares one way or the other about Oxfordian theory.  I think that any statements Roland Emmerich (the director) or others make to the press are just glorified trolls, drumming up interest in their project.  I think that the minute the movie is out of the theatres, no one will ever speak of it again.

What troubles me is the idea that there are classrooms where teachers are presenting this movie to their students as if it has any academic merit at all.  If you are a student and your teacher wants you to see this movie, you are almost certainly in one of the following situations, so act accordingly:

* Your teacher actually believes this theory and is trying to convert you.  This is a very dangerous place for a teacher, and is the exact same kind of thinking that would have you learning that we didn’t land on the moon, or that cavemen rode dinosaurs. The freedom to question things does not in any way legitimize the alternate theory you may come up with.

* Your teacher is working off of free educational materials that were distributed along with the movie.  Think about that.  The company that made the movie sent out “educational” materials hyping their movie. Because that couldn’t possibly be a biased source.  So head home and tell your parents *that*.  “My teacher is telling us exactly what the movie company told her to say! Next month we’re learning about the historical accuracy of Shrek’s friends the talking donkey and the sword-fighting kitty.”

* Your teacher wants to teach you the value of questioning “established” fact, and make up your own mind.  I can live with this, this is a good thing to teach.  This is not a good WAY TO TEACH IT, since it’s been made pretty obvious that the motivation here is to make an entertaining movie and not to tell an accurate story.  If you want to teach about the existence of the authorship question, there are many other documentary films to use.

For the record, I don’t think that Shakespeare was a god among men who wrote perfect plays every time he picked up a pen. I’m quite happy with the theory of collaboration, and have no problem with the idea that there’s plenty of Fletcher and Middleton and others mixed in with his work.  That’s not what the authorship question is about.  The authorship question starts with the idea that Shakespeare could *not* have written the works, because of who he was. And then goes about trying to find candidates to fit who they feel earned the right to be considered for authorship.

In conclusion?  If your teacher is trying to teach you to question authority and to consider alternate theories, I can’t argue against that. It’s a good thing.  If your teacher is trying to argue that this particular theory *is* true, because of what this movie says? Then you are being taught poorly, and your teacher is precisely the authority that you should question. Make up your own mind, but be sure that you’ve got good sources for your information first.

For more information from people who *do* have the academic cred to speak intelligently on the topic, I’ll point you to Blogging Shakespeare, the site run by the Stratford Birthplace Trust.  They’ve put out a free e-book on the subject. Look around the site while you’re there, you’ll also find the 60 interviews that they did with experts in the field.

Ok, I’ll let someone else talk.  This is not the post for debating my position – if you have a different one, post it.  I’d like anyone who comes here to read a variety of opinions.  I’ll disclaim right up front saying that I WILL REMOVE ANYTHING WITH PERSONAL ATTACKS OR OTHER FLAME-WAR GENERATING COMMENTS.  Post your opinion and let it stand for itself. Links allowed.

Ok, so, this has the potential to be highly exciting. Through the magic of Twitter I crossed paths last night with Brian McElhaney, who is part of the cast Joss Whedon’s Much Ado : The Movie and one half of the comedy duo BriTANicK.  (The other half being Nick Kocher, who is also in the movie.)

“Can I interview you?” I immediately asked.

“Joss said yes, so yes!” he wrote back.

Wicked awesome.  (It just dawned on me that I’m now one step away from Joss Whedon. I wonder what that makes my Kevin Bacon number? 😉 )

So, hit me with your questions!  I’ll compile and send them over for both Nick and Brian to answer.  What do you want to know?  The faster we can make this happen the more of a scoop we get ;).

UPDATE – Please note!  We are asking questions of Brian and Nick, not Joss.  I see some questions directed at, well, the director.  Unless Brian and Nick have a direct line to the man and plan on funneling some questions over, you’ll need to keep questions in the realm of what they themselves can answer.

UPDATED — Questions closed!  I’ve batched up and reformatted questions as best I can, and sent them off to Brian and Nick.  If you want to make sure you see their answers the best way is to either follow us on Twitter or Facebook.

So today we had parent teacher conferences for all three of my kids. If you don’t know the drill, basically you sit down in your 15 minute window and the teacher tries to calm all your fears, say nice things, and generally keep optimistic.

So, I find out that my middle child (7yrs old) is off the charts on her reading skills.  “126 words per minute with 97% accuracy,” the teacher says, “Normally at this level we expect to see 50 word per minute and 70% accuracy.”  The topic turns to coming up with challenging books for her, and the difference between “reads a lot” and “can read complex things.”

The teacher explains that she’s not a fan of challenging kids to the point of making them hate reading, and that she’d rather then tear through books that are easy, yet fun, rather than harder for them but boring.  Then she hits me with it.  “It’s not like I’m going to assign them Shakespeare,” she says.  “I hated Shakespeare in school, it was so hard and so boring and I just hated it.”

“Funny you should mention him,” I say with an ear-to-ear smirk.

“Why,” she asks, “Are you a Shakespeare fan?”

“This is his thing,” my wife jumps in with, “He does Shakespeare on the internet.”

“Oh, really? How interesting!”

“I run a bunch of sites about Shakespeare, yes,” I say.  “My kids have been raised on Shakespeare.  Go ahead and ask Elizabeth about the subject, see what she says.”

“She could probably teach me!” laughs the teacher.

She probably could :).

“He could be one of your guest readers,” my wife suggests.

Long story short? I may end up teaching a unit on Shakespeare to my daughter’s second grade class.  Good times!

Long-time readers will remember that this is not my first rodeo — I went into my oldest daughter’s first grade class and tried reading them The Tempest. I think this time would go better.  Not only is it an older class, and not only am I more experienced at this game, but this time would be more about getting butts out of the seats and having *them* act it out, rather than trying to keep their attention while I read it.

I’ll keep everybody updated on where that plan goes.