Primrose Road

In his response to Nancy Glazener's American Literary History article on Delia Bacon as significant dissenter, Zachary Lesser offers an excellent comparison of anti-Stratfordianism to intelligent design theory:

"In a very real (if no doubt less important) way, the "authorship debate" is for academic Shakespeareans what creationism or intelligent design is for evolutionary scientists: frustrating and almost impossible to know how to engage, since the other side is not amenable to the usual disciplinary standards of evidence and argumentation, and since any attempt to make one's case is taken (both by the opposition and by the media) as evidence that there is, in fact, a real and ongoing "debate" over the matter" (350-51).

Lesser usefully (especially in light of some of the claims behind the Declaration of Reasonable Doubt) points out that it's too simplistic to attribute all anti-Stratfordianism to snobbery or elitism: outside the Oxfordian and Baconian camps, anti-Stratfordians argue in favor of "disreputable, marginalized" Marlowe (353). Ultimately, the anti-Stratfordian argument is quite similar to the intelligent design argument:

"They seek a solitary creator behind the complex, messy processes of cultural production and canon formation, processes that in fact are neither “designed” nor wholly random or accidental and that transcend any individual" (354).

What we know as Early Modern plays were collaborations between authors, actors, and printers. It's not some big, highly guarded, "unorthodox" secret that William Shakespeare is not responsible for every word ever published under the name "William Shakespeare." A quick readthrough of the A and B texts of Doctor Faustus will suggest to any reader that Marlowe isn't responsible for every word published under the name "Christopher Marlowe." The same goes for all of the Other Early Modern Dramatists Who Aren't Will Shakespeare. There is no Shakespeare-and-only-Shakespeare vs. Some-other-individual conspiracy at work.