Bassanio recently inquired as to what shall or should become of this once thriving but now tumbleweed-strewn arena and archive.

The archival element alone makes it worth maintaining. Many if not most of the key arguments and issues in the authorship debate have been analyzed at length here by keen scholarly minds (a number of them key contributors to the movement at large), and there's plenty of gold to be mined by visitors looking for perspective on, say, the William Cecil/Polonius correspondences, or "The Policy of Plays" (Thomas Nashe's clear indication of the regime's propaganda arm), or on Diana Price's seminal work on the unique documentary void for a personal, contemporary, literary paper trail to validate the Stratford case, or on any of a hundred topics - the list is voluminous.

A search button is a wonderful thing!

As to its future as an arena of active debate, we shall see. Many of us expect that in the wake of the upcoming feature film, many newcomers will enliven the forum with questions sparked by what we all hope and pray will be a compelling film. And perhaps some veterans will be tempted back to welcome them, and to have their own assumptions challenged by fresh perspectives.

That is my hope. I will do what I can to encourage that outcome.

Feste

Are most members too busy to participate currently or is everyone waiting for the movie? Other?

I expect, LAL, that it will take a coordinated effort on someone's part, in the wake of the film, to invite curious newcomers to the SF site to learn from its resources, and to post questions on the forum. If some key contributors tune back in (I'm thinking of our stalwarts: Bassanio, Mouse, Joe, Michael Delahoyde, and others....oh, how we miss Katharine!), things could get lively again. I will certainly be encouraging visits to the site itself in my appearances with my one-man show. In any case, the archives are full of gems...let's please preserve it!

Feste

Hello Discussion! The film seemed to me to be a way to liven things up. From the advance bruit it is clear that many of the SF regulars will find, and enjoy having (minor, I hope) differences in what Emmerich has to say. I am using the film to challenge viewers to watch my hour with Oxford and Mary Sydney Wroth in 1604. It is not meant as an evangelistic douche. I seem to care less about who wrote anything; but I want Mary to keep my family together, and (as I manage to point out) there are those that would destroy the story of my interesting life.

But the unsuspecting Islanders eager will get enough to begin to wonder at the many coincidences.Mary is my daughter Susan's best friend; wrote the first English novel by a woman; and (with Susan) was shacked up with the incomparable brethren.

Viewers will have a day before and several after to consult a few of the major books on the subject and take home a bibliography listing this site and any others those reading this now might recommend.

Finally I ask for interest in starting a discussion group here on the Vineyard similar to the one on the Cape by Richard Whalen. With luck it could fund a selection of reference books to be kept on reserve here at the excellent West Tisbury Free Public Library.

By the way, I do allow a short question period, but people are given to understand that the question (one each) has to be one that Mary could have asked in 1604. For instance, no queries about what I think of Freud's admiration for my work. Or, there are sufficient reasons for me to defer "Mary's" questions about someone from Stratford-on-Avon to a more private time. I plan to keep up my humility pose, vere-y appropriate for the founder of hUMILITY pRESS.

Joe

A second part of my answer is just that SF can develop a catechism of questions from the film, with answers (in multiplex, if necessary) to which most questioners can be referred. This could be done on a volunteer basis, or if the film makes a lot of money on its first Hairy Pauper long weekend, there are scholars enow to be deftly subsidized in a program that could only benefit the films producers. Joe

I'm glad I'm declared to be a stalwart, perhaps a desultory stalwart anyway, here. I'm certainly not feeling very stalwart each morning on emerging back into horrific consciousness. My health is back on track, and once I plow through the nightmarish fall-out from this previously long-undiagnosed misery, I expect to be back here more prominently.
I'm also trying to move through the remainder of the major Antony and Cleopatra editing for what, if I keep going at my recent pace, will still be third among the Oxfordian editions. So that's my "busy" excuse.

Finishing up my Master's project this month.

On top of 50-hour work week, the last couple of years have been brain melting...May need months to recover...

It helps to keep the brain deep frozen before using it in normal climes. Try this for a week, and then, when you get back from Stratford, give it a try. Joe