tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366909960546184927.post3573754218194006468..comments2023-06-11T02:19:27.429-07:00Comments on Academic Cog: Anonymous, the movieSisyphushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09880634753539329199noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366909960546184927.post-44414392639065833672011-10-08T10:49:07.878-07:002011-10-08T10:49:07.878-07:00A lot of Shakespearians are in fact weirdly invest...A lot of Shakespearians are in fact weirdly invested in Shakespeare's unitary authorship, and in leaping to all kinds of ridiculous conclusions about him and his personality from the plays (this is not the same thing as Fretful's position, which I basically share). And this is despite the fact that Renaissance studies has taken very happily to post-structuralist theory.<br /><br />A professional friend has <a href="http://www.dispositio.net/archives/449" rel="nofollow">a good post</a> on this movie (which I myself haven't seen yet, but suppose I'm professionally obligated to see).Flaviahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17832765671541392835noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366909960546184927.post-78741088563082480682011-10-02T00:14:01.621-07:002011-10-02T00:14:01.621-07:00The funny thing to me is that no one doubted Shake...The funny thing to me is that no one doubted Shakespeare's authorship until the 19th century, and it was an American who started this absurd business. <br /><br />What I tell my students is that a lot of people like the idea of Shakespeare not writing the plays because it's a conspiracy. And aren't they fun?? But the truth is, it would have had to have been a pretty deep conspiracy. Shakespeare had rivals, after all. Don't you think they would have "outed" him if there were any way to undermine his success? Of course they would have. Plus, the conspiracy would have involved everyone from the crown to the peasants. There's just no way a secret like that could have remained, well, secret. <br /><br />I also tell my students about a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/22/education/edlife/22shakespeare-survey.html" rel="nofollow"> NYT survey </a> from 2007 that asked Shakespeare professor about the authorship question. The question that stands out the most to me is this: Do you think that there is good reason to question whether William Shakespeare of Stratford is the principal author of the plays and poems in the canon?<br /><br />6% Yes<br /><br />82% No<br /><br />11% Possibly<br /><br />1% I don't know<br /><br />82% No?? If we had that much consensus on anything else in the nation, we might have a completely different world. <br /><br />I'm probably going to see Anonymous. But the reason why is because I know I'm going to spend the next decade of my career arguing against its idiocy. Sigh.Fie upon this quiet life!https://www.blogger.com/profile/12047096700049201873noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366909960546184927.post-72046145944987599392011-10-01T08:11:38.629-07:002011-10-01T08:11:38.629-07:00No no no, Fretful, Marlowe didn't die, but wen...No no no, Fretful, Marlowe didn't die, but went to Italy and kept writing plays that were produced as Shakespeare's.<br /><br />But I care, because all the canons of historical scholarship (or maybe just most of them) are violated by the authorship folks. There is a reason that there are no early modern historians among the doubters!<br /><br />Oh, and for historians it does matter who is speaking...Susanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09716705206734059708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366909960546184927.post-37361547972095681952011-09-30T16:37:00.341-07:002011-09-30T16:37:00.341-07:00Hey, I care who wrote the plays! It's not so ...Hey, <i>I</i> care who wrote the plays! It's not so much that I'm super-invested in the idea of "Shakespeareness," as such, but it annoys me when people believe things that are unsupported by any of the available evidence. (This is not to say that I spend much time tilting at this particular windmill in the classroom, but I do make damn sure my opening lecture includes plenty of pics of title pages with Shakespeare's name on them, and examples of what his contemporaries had to say about him.)<br /><br />BTW, we actually do know a lot about Shakespeare's biography, it's just that most of the stuff we know is pretty boring. (I really think that might be the impulse behind authorship conspiracy theories, more so than snobbery. I mean, Marlowe wasn't an aristocrat either, but nobody doubts he wrote his own plays. Heck, some people even think he wrote Shakespeare's plays. But Marlowe was a gay atheist spy who got stabbed to death in a bar brawl and / or assassination before he was thirty, whereas Shakespeare ... got married, had three children, and invested in real estate. Not so much fun.)Fretful Porpentinehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11165078003123517013noreply@blogger.com