A light-hearted interview with Dr. Robin Williams

Ph.D., plus facilitator of Shakespeare reading groups.

1. When or where did you first become intrigued with the Shakespearean works?

Golly, I don't even remember. Certainly past high school. I didn’t go to college until I was 24, so maybe it was in that college course that I became intrigued.

2. At what point did you begin to question the authorship of Shakespeare’s works?

Long before I actually started studying the works. When my kids were little, I learned that there was a question, but the Oxfordian argument didn’t make much sense to me—it seemed like their arguments could apply to just about any nobleman. Then I found Mary Sidney and began researching her life. But it was thirty more years before I had time and money to spend on research.

3. What is your favourite Shakespearean word or phrase, and what does it mean?

At the moment my favorite is something Thersites says in Troilus & Cressida—he calls Achilles “thou idol of idiot-worshippers.” I find myself muttering it under my breath quite often these days. I also often use “Shall we shog?” as Nym says in Henry 5. It means, “Shall we be on our way?” My favorite quote is something else altogether.

4. What is most memorable Shakespearean performance you have seen?

A performance by the RSC in 2018 of Troilus and Cressida. They seemed to really get what is going on in that remarkable play.

5. What is your favourite Shakespearean insult or term of endearment?

“My dearest partner of greatness,” which Macbeth calls his wife.

6. Who is your favourite Shakespearean male character? Why?

Titus Andronicus. Such a heart-wrenched father who has seen his children brutalized and betrayed and grieves to the stones: “When I do weep, they humbly at my feet receive my tears and seem to weep with me.”

7. Who is your favourite Shakespearean female character? Why?

I find I often think about Claribell. In The Tempest, the ship is returning from Africa where the King of Naples has married his daughter Claribell to the King of Tunis. I wonder about this young Italian girl being married off to a foreigner in a foreign land so far from home. Did she want to go? Did she speak the language? Did she like the King her husband? Did this Italian Catholic girl convert to Islam? Did she have children? Did she ever see her father again? Someone needs to write her story.

8. Do you have a favourite play? If so, what appeals to you about it?

Probably Measure for Measure. I like it because the situations are so difficult and have no perfect answers. No, maybe my most favorite is Troilus and Cressida—so rich and contemplative and thought-provoking. Or maybe Richard 3 for its delicious irony. Hmm, I do love Titus Andronicus, the tale of two parents who have each seen their children brutalized—how would I respond if that happened to my oldest son or my only daughter? And its poetry is so poignant. “I have no more tears to shed.”

9. What is your least favourite play? Why?

Timon of Athens. Timon is too foolish to believe or to feel empathy for. I'm not even convinced the same writer wrote this play.

10. What piece of evidence, or lack thereof, convinced you that the authorship of the Shakespearean canon may be in doubt?

That the daughters of William Shakespeare of Stratford were functionally illiterate, based on documented evidence that one daughter signed her name with an X and the other daughter could not recognize her husband’s handwriting. Every woman in the plays is literate, even the Nurse and Phoebe the shepherdess. The only three characters who are clearly illiterate are male.

11. What is the first sentence you use when introducing the authorship question to those who probably don’t know much about it?

“No, it's not about snobbery—it’s about the lack of any documented evidence that William Shakespeare of Stratford was a writer.”

12. What is the one book, talk, paper, movie, or television presentation you consistently suggest to those new to the authorship question?

Sweet Swan of Avon: Did a Woman Write Shakespeare. ;-)

13. What is your favourite piece of Shakespeare trivia?

That the man William Shakespeare of Stratford did not teach his own daughters to write. And that there is not a scrap of writing in that man’s hand.

14. Who is your favourite candidate as author?

Mary Sidney Herbert, the Countess of Pembroke.

15. What do you imagine might happen if your candidate is proved to be the author?

If a woman is proven to be the author of the most influential works on the planet? It would change the world.

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