Times Literary Supplement declares Shakespeare a 'Phantom Author'
Director of Research Dr. Barber responds to Feb 23 TLS article
Letter sent to the TLS letters page (but not published by them).
Dear Editor,
Tom Cook's take-down of Stanley Well’s unevidenced fantasies about Shakespeare is perfect ('Phantom Author', 23rd Feb) until he concludes that we should not look into the sonnets to find the man. The long-acknowledged problem of Shakespeare's biography, a problem entirely unique to that author, is routinely met with either the invention of gap-filling fantasies or the exhortation not to look beyond the texts.Â
Doubts about the authorship of Shakespeare's poems began in his lifetime, raised by London writers including the Warwickshire-born John Marston, a friend of the man who would become the Shakespeares' lodger. Yet rather than acknowledge evidence that doesn't fit the myth, scholars like Wells continue to make unevidenced assertions that are anathema to the principles of good scholarship. Cook rightly objects, but his solution is to surrender to ignorance. It is a fascinating study of human psychology (specifically, confirmation bias) to see intelligent people doing anything they can to avoid the possibility that the reason why Shakespeare seems 'unknowable' is because they have been looking for evidence of the wrong person. They have concluded from their failure to find him that the biographical urge is wrong, rather than their underlying assumption.
Tom Cook gets so close to the issue when he describes the sonnets as "a gold mask, like Agamemnon’s, to be looked at, not through." If only he could admit the possibility that the gold mask is not the sonnets, but "Shakespeare". Â
Yours,
Dr Ros Barber
Dr Barber: spot on - the sonnets mirror the plays (and narrative poems); it is reasonable to conclude that whoever Shakespeare was, he (she or they in some instances) wrote all three - plays, poems, sonnets. And careful reading of the sonnets as reflections - somewhat like a diary - reveals the person doing the writing. Read the sonnets, know the writer - then use some evidence to place a name on ‘Shakespeare’. C.Boynton
Dear Ros,
I quite understand your world weary attitude but it does mean SAT is a CLOSED SHOP and will not welcome any new input. You think there isn't any new input worth considering so no further exploration is worthwhile. That is just as bad as the group who blindly support the illiterate from Stratford. Both are contentedly reaching evolutionary dead ends?
I just have to work out the right way to get my carefully researched revelation out there. I think it means going it alone. It probably means going back to basics and publishing a book.
Sue Bell