Shapiro to Write Authorship Book
James Shapiro, Columbia University Professor and author of the much- acclaimed minimalist bardography, 1599: A Year in the Life of Shakespeare has not only noticed the authorship question (see the May 15 News Note Below) he even plans to write a book about it. Well, sort of, anyway.
A June 18 interview of Shapiro by Jasper Gerard in the Sunday Times reports that “for his next odyssey, Shapiro intends to examine why so many people do not believe that Shakespeare wrote, well, Shakespeare: ‘People I respect are fascinated by this: Sigmund Freud and Henry James both believed it was someone else.’ . . . He admits that this populist project alarms academics, who fear a Da Vinci Code-style thriller. ‘My friends tell me I am going over to the dark side,’ he laughs, ‘but I doubt I am going to change my mind [about Shakespeare's identity]‘. ”
Meanwhile, the Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature, the quarterly journal of the Northwest chapter of the Modern Language Association, the leading academic organization of literary scholars in North America, has some articles that Shapiro may want to check out if he really wants to understand what is behind the current authorship ferment. In ‘What’s In a Name? Everything, Apparently,” Shakespeare Fellowship Vice-President for Outreach and Education Roger Stritmatter outlines the shape of the paradigm shift.
That essay is complemented by an in depth review of several current authorship books in the same issue, from the pen of Michael Delahoyde, Assistant Professor of English at Washington State University in Pullman, WA, Shakespeare Fellowship member, and editor of the Rocky Mountain Review. Delahoyde’s “Recent Publications in Oxfordian Studies,” covers Great Oxford : Essays on the Life and Work of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, 1550-1604 , edited by Richard Malim; and Hank Whittemore’s, The Monument , and Mark Anderson’s “Shakespeare” By Another Name.