Earlier I posted a Google link to a book by McCrea, and asked for comments. My question wasn’t rhetorical. If people check the book and don’t understand or agree with what I meant about it using the same circular reasoning it condemns, then I’ll know not to waste time publishing my own summary of an Oxford case. And my own summary wouldn’t be particularly interesting anyway: what little I’ve gleaned just came from webpages.
And let me repeat myself again. I’m agnostic about the Authorship. There are strong arguments against Oxford, but also (I think) strong arguments against Stratford. The thread title arose because, if for some silly reason I were “making a betting book” on the Authorship, while I might even make Stratford the “favorite” I’d be reluctant to make him the “odds-on favorite.”
I’m suspicious of many claims I see on Oxfordian webpages, and would love to hear experts provide simple answers to simple questions, for example
[ul][li] Are John Hall’s collected letters (or a summary) available on-line?[/li][li] Is there a paper detailing astronomical references in Shakespeare’s works?[/li][li] What are the ten earliest mentions of one or more of Shakespeare’s plays? (It’s easy to find the first one or two mentions, but what about 3rd or 4th?)[/li][/ul]
It may sound like I’m cynical about how this thread is progressing, but I expect no answers to these questions, but instead complaints that the questions themselves are “wrong”! :dubious:
Out of curiosity did you notice that I specifically indicated at least twice that I do not intend to make such a connection?
I’ve admitted already that there are strong arguments against the Oxford case. As to the dating of plays, I’m not qualified to comment but will note that some consider them controversial.
Look: Rightly or wrongly some people believe “William Shake-speare” was a sort of pseudonym. Because of this, references to “Shakespeare” become misleading or ambiguous. In this thread I’ve been ridiculed for the terms “Shaksper”, “Stratfordian”, and “Man-from-Stratford”, all intended to eliminate ambiguity rather than to be “cute.”
In now appears that any language choice which follows from the assumption that “Shake-speare” might be a pseudonym will be rejected (or called “cute” or “precious”). No matter how strongly you may believe that the pseudonym hypothesis is false, can you not agree that rejecting any English phrase required by that hypothesis serves to stifle debate?