Primrose Road

In my view, the "anti-Stratfordian" argument (i.e. William Shakespeare of Stratford did not write the plays attributed to him; someone else wrote them) needs to be addressed in schools because (1) it's all over the Internet, and students researching Shakespeare are likely to encounter it, and (2) there are parallels between this argument (essentially a conspiracy theory) and pseudoscientific and pseudohistorical theories such as creationism, Holocaust denial, and anti-vaccination. Sites like Doubt About Will concern me as a teacher because of the ways in which they can contribute to the dulling of our students' critical reasoning skills.

The parallels between anti-Stratfordianism and creationism are fascinating at times: this week's Skeptics' Guide to the Universe podcast, for instance, featured an interview with biologist PZ Myers, who noted that creationists arguing against evolution will accuse their opponents of ad hominem attacks, then go on to make their own ad hominem attacks. The victim of most creationist attacks is Charles Darwin, who, according to the creationists, is unequivocally worshipped by "evolutionists." The problem, Myers seems to suggest, is that straw men are being set up everywhere:scientists do criticize Darwin because he (like anyone) wasn't perfect, and "worshipping" any one scientist or theory would be anti-scientific.

Here's an ad hominem attack courtesy of DoubtAboutWill.org:

"Are authorship doubters just conspiracy theorists?
It is absurd to think that all of the many outstanding authorship skeptics are conspiracy theorists. Too many highly credible people have expressed serious doubts, focusing just on this one author. This ad hominem argument is a red herring used by defenders of orthodoxy to change the subject. Those who resort to it should be asked for evidence that independent experts support this charge. It is a convenient way for them to avoid having to deal with evidence that does not support them. In writing our declaration, we have focused on evidence. Those who disagree should do likewise."

Let me take this apart:

1. "Too many highly credible people have expressed serious doubts, focusing on just this one author."
-- The 'doubters' aren't clear here on what they mean by "highly credible." They excitedly report, for instance, that "More stars declare their doubt of Shakespeare". What evidence do these "stars" have for their doubt? (I will return to the issue of evidence momentarily.) And yes, some university professors have signed the declaration; see the National Center for Science Education's Project Steve for an excellent counterargument to what I'll call the argument from "a handful of scholars say so."

2. "This ad hominem argument is a red herring used by defenders of orthodoxy to change the subject."
-- This ad hominem argument is used by proponents of an ahistorical theory to make Shakespeare and Early Modern scholars look like stodgy old men who regularly bow to the bust of Shakespeare sitting on their mantles. Especially since the introduction of film theory and adaptation theory into our field, we are not Bardolaters: many scholars acknowledge the fact that Shakespeare is only "special" because he's the most published (though not the most prolific) Early Modern dramatist. We also acknowledge (unlike Kenneth Branagh ...) the fact that every word printed inside the BOOK we call "Hamlet" was not written by William Shakespeare. Finally, we are aware that the concept of "authorship" in the Early Modern era did not exist in the form it does today: play development was a collaborative process among author(s), actors, and theater managers; the printed versions of plays "belonged" to printers, not to authors. The argument that someone authored the entire text of someone else's plays is ahistorical and simply does not make sense in light of 16th and 17th century cultural practices.

In fact, "orthodox" scholars do make authorship arguments: recently, it was discovered that Thomas Middleton likely wrote parts of Macbeth and Measure for Measure.

3. "In writing our declaration, we have focused on evidence. Those who disagree should do likewise."
-- Unfortunately, unlike our counterparts in the sciences, we can't offer much more than anecdotal evidence; scholars tend to acknowledge, however, that they are piecing together arguments from a handful of documents. But we do have considerable documentary evidence that Shakespeare was indeed who we think he was, and we do have very good reasons for not using the plays themselves as biographical evidence: even supposed 'true believer' Sigmund Freud thought that good authors don't write autobiographical romans-(or dramas-)a-clef.

In sum, anti-Stratfordianism isn't something that teachers and scholars should brush aside simply because we know it's ridiculous; equipping our students with the critical reasoning skills necessary to evaluate arguments like these will also help them to evaluate the conspiracy theories, fundamentalisms, and pseudohistories they're bound to encounter.