Controversy over William Shakespeare and the plays and poetry he wrote – or which appeared under his name – is a hot topic once more. While most literary critics overwhelmingly believe the man from Stratford was indeed the author of those works, in the age of the internet the Shakespeare denial lobby has mushroomed and now James Shapiro has assessed the state of play.
He examines, in detail, the claims of the two best supported alternative candidates: Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford, and Francis Bacon. Shapiro is less concerned about what the Shakespeare deniers say as to why they say it, hoping that if the campaigns of the strongest candidates are countered, then this will also dispose of the weaker candidates, of which there now appear to be more than 50, including the Earl Of Rutland, Fulke Grenville, the Earl of Southampton, Christopher Marlowe and Mary Sidney.
There is a remarkable – and, to those so minded, deeply suspicious – lack of evidence that Will actually wrote the pieces ascribed to him. Sophisticated Shakespeare deniers such as Mark Twain and Henry James could not believe that a provincial actor without a university education could have been a genius. They turned to Bacon, whose world-class mind provided a plausible alternative.
The campaign for Oxford understood a key fact about modern life – it is not evidence which matters, but publicity. They procured a couple of inquiries into the authorship question, and lost both, but their defeats did not matter, as they revelled in the publicity. Remember what George Orwell said? A lie travels the world while the truth is getting its boots on. And the internet reinforces this.
In the blogosphere – all those bloggers with too much time and not enough to do – conspiracies flourish. Shapiro discovered 10 websites dedicated to the authorship controversy; nine devoted to anti-Stratfordian theories, and the one pro-Stratford site commits the ultimate sin. It is boring.
Stratfordians believe that the weight of evidence, such as it is, is sufficient to convince. But plausible propaganda tends to outweigh evidence. And beyond Shakespeare lie the sinister worlds of Holocaust denial and creationism, which use the same techniques. Deniers do not rely on evidence, but on conspiracy theories. Shapiro has produced an admirably rational text about the authorship controversy, but I doubt it will be the end of this particular story.
