by Bryan H. Wildenthal (August 22, 2023)
(See Copyright & Permissions Note on Vita & Contact page.)
Since my July 29 post, I made the mistake of checking once at the “Oxfraud” Facebook page and was bemused to see Jay Hoster (of all people) joining the puerile pile-on of personal denigration of anyone daring to question the traditional theory of Shakespeare authorship.
I wish I could say Oxfraudsters have been attacking the relevant substance of my writings (please, bring it on), but as far as I’ve seen — in notable contrast to my careful and substantive debunking on July 29 of several things they wrote — not a single Oxfraudster has attempted any detailed substantive response.
I think that speaks volumes. As usual, readers will judge for themselves.
The main purpose of this post, ironically, is to praise Hoster’s scholarly work on Greene’s Groats-Worth of Wit (GW for short). I’ll get to that in a minute.
As it happens, Jay and I exchanged several courteous emails in July 2019. He let me know he adhered to the traditional (Stratfordian) authorship view but neither of us harangued the other on the subject. I don’t publicly quote the personal communications of others without permission, but it’s fair to note the emails concluded on a friendly first-name basis with Jay looking forward to obtaining my 2019 book (I mailed him a free copy).
So yeah, it’s disappointing, four years later, to see him joining the “Oxfraud” chorus of ad hominem bloviation. His contribution is an absurd taunt about my blog’s copyright notice (of all things), suggesting it shows pompous self-regard on my part. (I note he copyrights his own work, which last I heard is a normal thing for any writer to do.) Anyone bothering to read my notice will see it merely reflects my desire to make it easy for anyone to copy and distribute my writings (for which I grant permission subject to a few standard conditions).
Was this intended to impress the “Oxfraud” bullies that Hoster is still one of the gang despite what they may view as his suspiciously deviant heresy on GW?
Performative showing off to peer groups is a common factor in bullying, though granted this is a ludicrously petty and mild example. Hoster’s silly taunt by itself doesn’t really rise to the level of “bullying.” I’m referring more to the cumulative nature of the “Oxfraud” discourse (if it can even be dignified by that term). As an authoritative website notes, juvenile bullying often occurs to “maintain” or “elevate … status in [a] peer group,” to “show … allegiance” and “fit in with [a] peer group,” or “to exclude others.” (Update: See my August 28 post on “Bullying in the Shakespeare Authorship Debate.”)
In the context of Shakespeare authorship, a familiar aim of many defenders of the traditional view is to define and exclude doubters on an ad hominem basis. Regardless of the substance or merits of skeptics’ arguments or scholarly credentials, defenders will often not even read what they write and may even boast about that.
Doubters are deemed categorically undeserving to be part of any community of rational discourse. Rather, they are to be ritually scorned and humiliated — if possible silenced, but failing that, symbolically shunned.
I noted on July 29 the telling pattern that Oxfraudsters seem shamelessly (even boastfully) unwilling to simply read what they mock or attack. David Kathman (who high-fived Hoster’s taunt), claims (like other Oxfraudsters) that he “bailed early on” trying to read my July 20 essay on Elizabeth Winkler’s book on the authorship debate.
Kathman expressed dismay at my “10-part table of contents.” Rest assured, some of the parts are very short (often just one or two pages long). Honestly, I was trying to make it easier to digest!
If anyone has difficulty reading a 22-page essay which I carefully peppered with a lot of very short paragraphs and sentences, I’m thinking early modern English literature may not be something they want to spend their time on.
Enough of that. Let’s move on to the far more pleasant main subject: the merits — imagine that, what a concept! — of a crucial and truly fascinating slice of early modern literary history.
1993: Jay Hoster’s Scholarly Breakthrough
Hoster’s groundbreaking, insightful, and witty book Tiger’s Heart was published 30 years ago. Half a lifetime — how time flies! It’s also admirably concise, just 69 pages of text. Jay is an independent scholar and author with a master’s degree in journalism from Ohio State University.
No one should speak above a whisper about Groats-Worth (GW) without carefully reading his book.
I have increasingly come to think his study marks the single most important breakthrough in the entire 245-year history of scholarly evaluations of the infamous and mysterious “Upstart Crow” (said to think of himself as “the only Shake-scene”), targeted in the GW pamphlet by Robert Greene, or whoever else may have written it under Greene’s name.
Yes, LOL, another authorship question! But that’s incidental to the pamphlet’s primary importance.
GW was first published 431 years ago in 1592. The first scholarly reference dates to 1778. It is difficult to exaggerate its significance for Shakespearean studies, as I think many on all sides of the Shakespeare authorship debate would agree.
So you can see this is high praise for a self-published scholar like Hoster (especially given that he gratuitously insulted me on Facebook — but hey, no hard feelings).
Hoster’s book, in a nutshell, demonstrated 30 years ago that the Upstart Crow was almost certainly the famous actor and theatrical manager Edward Alleyn — not William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon (he was far less famous as an actor during his own time, as even orthodox scholars agree; “Shakspere” or some variation is actually how he and his family spelled that surname).
Hoster has always been modestly careful to note that he did not originate the Alleynian reading of GW (see pp. 44, 82–85). That honor goes to one C.A.C. Davis in a 1951 letter to the Times Literary Supplement. Hoster has also cited Alleynian arguments by several Marlovians, notably A.D. Wraight in books published in 1965 and 1993.
But I have come to think Hoster’s 1993 book is the best and most thorough among several powerful arguments for this reading. It is important because of its relatively early timing and because he is an orthodox Stratfordian on the broader Shakespeare authorship issue and thus cannot be suspected of motivated reasoning on GW.
As it turns out, however, the Shaksperean identification of the Crow works just as well for doubters as the Alleynian reading. Either way, GW is a very early data point undermining the traditional Stratfordian authorship theory, as my 2019 book, Early Shakespeare Authorship Doubts, discusses at length (pp. 71–112, especially 93–100).
Hoster’s book preceded by years (even decades) important follow-up analyses on the same and related issues by Stratfordian scholars like Professor Lukas Erne and skeptical scholars like Stephanie Hopkins Hughes, W. Ron Hess, Diana Price, Professor Roger Stritmatter, Frank Davis, Katherine Chiljan, Rosalind Barber, myself, and many others (apologies for inevitable omissions, but I’m trying without success to mimic Hoster’s conciseness).
Whether Hoster has gotten anything remotely close to the recognition he deserves from established orthodox Shakespearean academics is another story.
Indeed … so how’s that goin’ for ya, Jay?
Have your fellow Stratfordian scholars (let alone Oxfraudsters) been citing and recognizing your work? Are they treating your Alleynian reading of GW with any serious respect (much less agreeing with it)?
Hoster’s “Oxfraud” high-fiver David Kathman has for many years posted an undated article on the internet (not clear if he ever bothers to update it) in which he not only ignores Hoster’s work but claims Henry Chettle’s famous apology for GW “is generally taken to be [directed to] Shakespeare” (identified as the Crow).
Chettle transcribed and published GW soon after Greene’s death. Some scholars think Chettle actually wrote it, using the deceased Greene as a pseudonymous cover. It is undisputed that the Elizabethan-Jacobean era was a golden age of pen names, though Stratfordians conveniently forget that when it comes to the Shakespeare authorship debate. In any event, Chettle apologized for publishing GW in the preface to his own 1592 book Kind-Heart’s Dream (see my book, pp. 73–76).
As my book notes (p. 88), Kathman’s analysis of Chettle’s apology “fails even to pass muster as an accurate summary of orthodox views,” since he ignores Professor Lukas Erne’s classic 1998 article showing the apology was almost certainly directed not to the Crow (whoever that was) but only to one of the unnamed playwrights that GW warned about the Crow.
Kathman also ignores the acceptance of Erne’s conclusion about Chettle by such orthodox luminaries as Sir Brian Vickers in 2002 and Sir Jonathan Bate in 2008 (see my book, p. 86).
The issue of Chettle’s apology still divides Stratfordians, but Erne’s conclusion is gaining ground. For reasons my book summarizes (pp. 80–82), it is virtually compelled, almost beyond reasonable doubt, by any attentive reading of the explicit text. I think the overwhelming majority of anti-Stratfordians who have considered the issue join me in agreeing with Erne’s reading.
Erne, Vickers, Bate, and most Stratfordians apart from Hoster still cling, however, to the view that the Crow was Shakspere the actor (and supposed playwright “Shakespeare”). They think he was the target of GW, even though Erne, Vickers, Bate, and many others no longer think Chettle apologized to him for that.
Oxfordian scholars have often cited Hoster’s book. My book does so prominently (pp. 100–01, 358). My 2019 analysis embracing the Alleynian reading of the Crow (pp. 100–10) was heavily influenced by the brilliant work of my fellow Oxfordian Katherine Chiljan (though she and I disagree on some points, both about GW and Chettle and on some aspects of the broader Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship).
Chiljan’s 2011 book Shakespeare Suppressed (pp. 115–16, 418) also prominently cites Hoster’s book. So does Alias Shakespeare (Free Press [Simon & Schuster], 1997, pp. 34, 298), by the late Oxfordian newspaper columnist Joseph Sobran (yes, I’m well aware Sobran was a far-right bigot; see my 2019 book, p. 337 n. 38, which, be that as it may, notes that Sobran’s “book … is deeply thoughtful and gracefully written” and there “seems no basis whatsoever to link his views [on Shakespeare] with his unrelated ideological views”).
Stephanie Hopkins Hughes, founding editor of The Oxfordian, also cites Hoster’s book in her fascinating article “Robert Greene: King of the Paper Stage” (1997, rev. 2009) (p. 8 n. 20).
2020: Peter Bull’s Article and Hoster’s Follow-Up
A 2020 article by Peter Bull endorses the Alleynian reading of GW while unfortunately overlooking Hoster’s book (of which he was apparently unaware). Bull’s 25-page article is another brilliant analysis of GW.
In February 2020, Peter Bull and I (like Jay Hoster and I in 2019) exchanged some friendly emails. (Update, Sept. 9, 2023: When I first posted this essay on August 22, I had not been in touch with Peter since 2020 and was still unaware what his broader views on the authorship question might be. I’m pleased to note I’ve now gotten back in friendly email contact with him. It turns out he is a Marlovian like several other scholars who have written about the Alleynian reading of GW. He published a book earlier this year about that which I have purchased and look forward to reading. I have long taken a skeptical view of the Marlovian theory, for reasons summarized here on the Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship website. But I always try to keep an open mind and will take another look.)
Memo to Oxfraudsters: It’s really not that hard to communicate civilly with respect for the views of others.
During 2020, Hoster himself followed up on his 1993 book with a 40-page article published independently online. (Update: It is no longer available at the link where Jay originally posted it and I don’t know where he moved it or if it’s still available online. He ignored my friendly follow-up emails after the publication of this essay devoted largely to a celebration of his work.) The address where it was formerly posted suggested (“2020/09” was part of the URL) that it was published in September 2020, seven months after Bull’s article in February (which Hoster did not cite). But we all recall the horrific distractions of the Covid pandemic exploding that spring and summer, so I assume Hoster simply missed it.
With regard to the comment in GW that the Upstart Crow thinks of himself as “the only Shake-scene,” I pursued in my 2019 book (pp. 103–09) a theory that this was simultaneously a reference to Alleyn and also an oblique allusion to Shakespeare. I now see this as mistaken: too clever by half in a lawyerly way. I can’t blame Hoster for suggesting it was “anomalous” (2020, p. 39).
By February 2020, actually, I had already come around to the conclusion — strongly influenced by re-readings of Hoster’s 1993 book — that not only do the “Crow” and “Shake-scene” references pertain to Alleyn but that neither refers at all to “Shakespeare” the author or Shakspere the actor.
Based on the text and the broader linguistic, cultural, and social context of 1592 — before the authorial name “Shakespeare” was even published — “Shake-scene” is much more naturally and persuasively read as simply a generic reference, not a pun on any specific person’s name (see Hoster 1993, pp. 52–59, 87–88; Bull, pp. 22–24; Hoster 2020, pp. 7–10). Its capitalization has no significance, as many nouns in early modern English were somewhat randomly capitalized (see Bull, p. 23, and my 2019 book, pp. 104–05 n. 117).
In addition to being a bombastic actor who literally “shakes” the stage, for which Hoster notes Alleyn was famous (1993, pp. 53–55), could a “Shake-scene” also be a “scene-stealer”?
As Hoster notes (1993, pp. 58–59), “shake” is a very common English verb. And one of its familiar meanings in Elizabethan times and today is to steal or extort, as in “shakedown.” Hoster suggests that “shake” only means “steal” today in “Australian slang” and “once had that meaning in England” (p. 59). Perhaps it is more familiar in Australia (deferring to Hoster and the Australian scholar he cites on that), but I think it’s mistaken to view it as otherwise archaic. “Shakedown” certainly remains in common parlance in both British and American English.
More to the point, I salute Hoster for noting what I’ve never seen cited anywhere else (p. 87): that the author “Shakespeare” uses “shake” in the common generic sense of theft or extortion, in my favorite of the little-known plays of the canon, King John (act 3, scene 3, lines 7–8, spoken by the king himself to Philip the Bastard): “And ere our coming see thou shake the bags / Of hoarding abbots ….”
2023: Winkler’s Book
Elizabeth Winkler’s brilliant survey of the Shakespeare authorship question provides a compellingly concise and persuasive summary of the Alleynian reading of GW (pp. 38–40). As my essay on her book notes (p. 8), “the traditional argument that Greene’s Groats-Worth of Wit refers to [Shakspere of Stratford] in 1592 has largely collapsed.”
As Winkler correctly observes (p. 40), the “argument for Alleyn as the upstart crow is so strong that it was published in 2020 in English Studies, a thoroughly orthodox journal.” That refers to Bull’s article (cited in Winkler’s endnotes, p. 345).
Winkler twice mistakenly typecasts the Alleynian reading as “anti-Stratfordian” (pp. 39, 40). The two issues are distinct, as Hoster has persistently noted. It is true, however, as mentioned above, that most anti-Stratfordians embrace the Alleynian argument. Winkler overlooks Hoster’s book and article, perhaps not surprisingly since both are self-published. Nothing in Bull’s article suggested he was anti-Stratfordian either. Winkler herself (as just quoted) notes the journal that published it is “thoroughly orthodox.” (Update, Sept. 9, 2023: As noted in the update above, however, it turns out Bull is in fact an anti-Stratfordian — specifically, a Marlovian.)
Indeed, “so strong” is the Alleynian reading that it has an interesting feedback consequence in my view. Given the known connections between Greene and Alleyn, it reinforces my sense that Greene is indeed the true author of the pamphlet bearing his name (see my book, p. 77 n. 34).
I thus remain dubious about arguments that GW may have been ghostwritten by Chettle or Nashe (as various Stratfordian scholars have suggested) or by an alternative Shakespeare authorship candidate like Oxford (as some Oxfordians have proposed) or Sir Thomas North (as advocates of the North theory have suggested).
I sympathize very much with the “ground truth” asserted by Hoster’s 2020 article (p. 1, his emphasis): “Greene put his heart and soul into [GW],” “his complaint against the upstart crow is valid,” “Greene’s anger makes sense when placed into the known facts of his life,” and we “will never — can never — understand [GW] unless [we] read Greene as if Greene matters.”
More Reflections on Chettle’s Apology
Ironically, Hoster agrees in both his 1993 book (pp. 15–17) and 2020 article (pp. 34–36) with Chiljan’s 2011 book Shakespeare Suppressed (pp. 125–29), in adopting the curious and counterfactual view — disproven almost beyond a reasonable doubt by Erne in 1998 — that Chettle apologized to the Upstart Crow.
Hoster and Chiljan thus remain aligned on that issue with the older Stratfordian consensus now partly overturned by Erne (but still contested). They each seem increasingly isolated from their respective Stratfordian and anti-Stratfordian camps on this point.
Yet, at the same time, Hoster and Chiljan are both aligned with the anti-Stratfordian consensus that Chettle, at any rate, did not apologize to “Shakespeare” (at least not to the actor Shakspere) — because they and most anti-Stratfordians (an overwhelming majority of those who have addressed the issue, I think) believe the Crow was actually Alleyn.
Many thoughtful Stratfordian scholars — Erne, Vickers, Bate, and others — now agree that Chettle did not apologize to “Shakespeare” or Shakspere (author or actor). That is because they recognize that Chettle — as his text explicitly and unambiguously says — was apologizing to one of the playwrights warned about the Crow by GW. A heavy majority of anti-Stratfordians who have addressed the issue agree (I think) on this point as well.
Curious coalitions indeed! I know, it’s more than a groat’s worth of confusion. Sorry!
There is less consensus, and much more room for reasonable debate in my view, about exactly who those playwrights warned about the Crow were and to which one Chettle apologized.
Bull (pp. 2, 26) cites Erne’s article but does not address to whom Chettle apologized. Hoster’s adherence to the old dogma that he apologized to the Crow was understandable in 1993, since he did not then have the benefit of Erne’s article published five years later. Yet even then it was a bit odd.
Hoster’s book, in a way refreshingly distinct from the vast majority of Stratfordian scholarship, pervasively recognizes that GW targeted the Crow not as “one of Greene’s fellow playwrights” (p. 16, my emphasis) but as a cruel, powerful, and bumptious actor and fake would-be writer (pp. 1, 9–15, 19–23, 29–36, 44–56; compare my 2019 book, pp. 89–93).
Hoster also recognizes (p. 15), quoting Chettle, that Chettle recognized what is obvious on the face of the GW warning about the Crow — that it was (my emphasis) a “letter written to … play-makers” and was “offensively by one or two of them taken,” to one of whom Chettle apologized.
Yet without explanation, seemingly oblivious to the contradiction, Hoster’s very next sentence (p. 16) treats “the upstart crow” as “one of Greene’s fellow playwrights.”
Hoster’s 2020 article acknowledges Erne’s article (p. 35) and quotes Chettle’s apology in full (p. 34), but follows that lengthy quotation with the still more oblivious assertion: “We all agree that Chettle’s apology to the upstart crow is glowing.”
No. Perhaps we all find it “glowing” but we do not “all agree” it’s directed to the Crow. As my book notes with regard to Kathman’s article (p. 88), that “fails even to pass muster as an accurate summary of orthodox views.”
Hoster (pp. 35–36) disputes the secondary and concededly more debatable conclusion of Erne, Bate, and others that Chettle may have directed his apology to George Peele, without attempting any response to Erne’s primary argument (based on compelling textual and contextual evidence) that Chettle did not, at any rate, apologize to the Crow.
This is, in my respectful view, an unfortunate missed opportunity in an article that otherwise helpfully elaborates on Hoster’s landmark 1993 book.
I would add, to Hoster’s likely horror, that part of his 2020 discussion resonates very strongly with a view promoted by some Oxfordians that one of the unnamed playwrights addressed by GW (the one to whom Chettle apologized) might be none other than Edward de Vere (Earl of Oxford).
I agree with Hoster (pp. 35–36) that it seems “quixotic to suggest that the impecunious Peele, described … as ‘driven … to extreme shifts’ and someone who ‘dependest on so mean a stay’ (i.e., [on] London’s leading actor-manager [Alleyn]), could have mustered support from important people who would come forward to vouch for [him, as cited by Chettle].”
Hoster states (p. 36): “That’s the achievement of a well-connected actor-manager who fancies himself a writer and who, in the timeless way of showbiz moguls, écrivait comme un cochon, comme un vrai cochon, c’était incroyable, ce qui sortait de sa plume.” (The latter is Hoster’s quotation, p. 29, of French novelist Romain Gary’s view of Darryl Zanuck. Translation: “He wrote like a pig, like a real pig, it was incredible what came from his pen.”)
But this could also be the “achievement” of a closeted poet-playwright (perhaps explaining why Chettle doesn’t name him?), with genuine “grace in writing” (Chettle’s words), a high-ranking aristocrat with powerful friends but also known to be bad at managing money — i.e. Oxford. (I’m agnostic on this particular offshoot of the Oxfordian theory; see my book, p. 82 n. 49.)
Certainty, Doubt, and Cognitive Bias
Hoster should reflect on why (as his 2020 article notes, pp. 39–40) the only people paying serious (if any) attention to his 1993 book — or more broadly, the substance of his conclusions about GW and Alleyn — seem to be anti-Stratfordians.
I respect Hoster’s adherence to the traditional view of Shakespeare authorship. But I have more trouble with his refusal to concede there’s at least reasonable doubt about it. How can he be so certain?
The same question, of course, applies to so many thoughtful and well-intentioned scholars in the field of Shakespeare studies. But Hoster’s hang-up seems especially puzzling given the eloquence and force of comments in his 1993 book skewering the folly of excessive certainty within the Stratfordian camp.
For example (p. 9) (all bracketed additions in all quotations hereafter are mine):
Hoster rightly mocks (my emphases) “what an eminent [Stratfordian] commentator [Halliday] has written” about GW: “The passage is ambiguous, but there can be no doubt that ‘Shake-scene’ is a punning reference to Shakespeare.”
As Hoster correctly observes (his emphases): “For [most Stratfordian] Shakespeareans the no doubt always trumps the ambiguous: they simply know that ‘shake-scene’ refers to Shakespeare.”
Yes, “they simply know.” Just as Hoster and most Stratfordians simply know that the traditional authorship story must be true.
As Hoster notes (p. 8), this incantatory five-word mantra — “there can be no doubt” — originates with Tyrwhitt’s very first commentary on GW in 1778.
Like a stuck record, many Stratfordian scholars have been repeating it ever since, e.g., Sir Jonathan Bate in his 1997 book The Genius of Shakespeare (2d ed. 2008, p. 15, quoted in my book, p. 103, emphasis added here): “There can be no doubt that this refers to Shakespeare.” (To give Bate some credit, he was — unlike Hoster — willing to revise his previous view of Chettle’s apology in response to Erne, as my book discusses, pp. 81, 86.)
One is reminded of U2’s lyric in that song from their aptly titled 2000 album, All That You Can’t Leave Behind — have they “got stuck in a moment and now … can’t get out of it”?
Bate often dances tantalizingly close to better insights on authorship-related issues, as my book discusses (e.g., pp. 181–84, 190–91). So too on GW.
Six pages after asserting “no doubt” that GW refers to Shakespeare, in part because it “parod[ies] one of his lines,” Bate concedes (p. 21):
(1) “In the sixteenth century, the selling point of a play was generally … not the name of the dramatist.”
(2) “No writer’s name is included on the title-pages of Shakespeare’s earliest printed plays,” citing the very play from which the “tiger’s heart” line seems to be drawn and that it was not published even anonymously until 1595.
(3) It was not until 1598 (as far as plays are concerned) that anyone thought “Shakespeare’s name had sufficient recognition value for publishers to think it worth a place on their title-pages.”
These all track points made by Hoster and other Alleynian readers of GW to suggest there’s little if any reason to think anyone in 1592 would have recognized the “tiger’s heart” line as “one of his” (Shakespeare’s).
Audiences and readers of the time more probably associated the “tiger’s heart” line with the famous actor — Alleyn — who likely declaimed it playing the title role in The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York (as the then-anonymous play was then known). The play was not published under the name “Shakespeare” until 27 years later in 1619 and then as Henry VI Part 3 in the First Folio of 1623.
As Hoster notes (1993, p. 15), don’t we associate the line “Here’s looking you at you, kid” more with Humphrey Bogart than the screenwriters of Casablanca?
Pay careful attention to Tyrwhitt’s incantation echoed by Halliday, Bate, and who knows how many others. They do not say “there is no doubt” but rather “there can be no doubt.”
They quite literally assert, not that doubts don’t really exist, but that they are forbidden.
The traditional scripture of Shakespeare authorship — with all the chapters and verses like GW conscripted in its service — has become, for many, a quasi-religious set of faith-based beliefs. Doubts therefore become a quasi-religious taboo.
Challenging this legend is often treated like heresy and greeted by circle-the-wagons mockery and online bullying, as I noted at the outset of this post. Hoster himself concedes (2020, p. 1) what may happen to anyone who challenges the orthodox reading of GW: “To use a word that Greene used, you risk becoming a mockingstock.”
Don’t get me wrong. There are reasonable grounds for the traditional view of Shakespeare authorship, as there are for doubts about it. I am a proud signatory of the Declaration of Reasonable Doubt on the subject.
The point of the religious analogy is to raise the concern of motivated reasoning, a problem we must all face.
I am careful not to claim that all or even most Stratfordians fall prey to any particular cognitive bias on this issue. But many clearly do. The remarkably durable appeal of the traditional view of Shakespeare — as an author “who rose from the common people in a small provincial town to take London by storm and become England’s greatest writer” (see my “Snobbery Slander” essay) — is a classic case study in belief perseverance.
None of us is immune from such cognitive biases. I’m well aware that authorship doubters also have them. I certainly do myself. We evolved as emotional animals, not dispassionate supercomputers. Various cognitive limitations are hardwired into our brains and the problem can be greatly worsened by learning and habit.
The best any of us can do is to remain aware of the problem and consciously fight back against it as best we can. That takes hard and often uncomfortable effort. You may risk coming across as annoyingly contrarian (at best) to your family, friends, and peer groups. They may (at worst) question your loyalty to shared values.
I have defined my own philosophy (or aspiration) in this regard as “Responsible Skepticism.” Taking a relaxed, tolerant, and humorous approach to life is a helpful corollary attitude.
As Hoster so aptly warns (1993, p. 11, his emphasis), we must beware “the hazards of assuming that something is simply obvious — when you’re quite sure you know, your mind is effectively closed.”
Indeed!
Yet when it comes to the authorship question, Hoster simply asserts (2020, p. 39, my emphasis) that “there is no question.”
Is he really consistent in that view? My essay on Winkler’s book explores the paradox that many Stratfordian scholars don’t just accept but eagerly embrace doubts and questions and study about the supposed hidden co-authorship of many Shakespearean works (up to one third of the entire canon, some argue). Yet they adamantly (often angrily) dismiss any questions about primary authorship as lacking any rational basis whatsoever (see my book, pp. 57–60).
The obvious cognitive dissonance of this stance cries out for closer study — a central purpose of Winkler’s book.
Hoster’s book (p. 42, my emphasis) quotes with approval the view of arch-orthodox Professor Gary Taylor — fond of comparing primary authorship doubters to Holocaust deniers and yet a huge fan, himself, of dubious co-authorship theories — that “pending further investigation Shakespeare’s responsibility for every scene of the play [which GW seems to paraphrase in the ‘tiger’s heart’ line] should be regarded as uncertain.”
Hoster accurately observes (p. 43, my emphases) that “this [alone] should have been cause enough for serious doubts” by Stratfordians about their dogmatic reading of GW, but “any doubts that may arise can be expected to do what they’ve always done for the [Stratfordian] Shakespeareans. They’ll simply evanesce.”
Just like authorship doubts simply evanesce for Hoster and most other Stratfordians.
Hoster complains (2020, p. 1) that challenging “the authorship of Shakespeare’s plays” necessarily means condemning Heminges, Condell, Digges, and Jonson (in the First Folio prefatory material) as “a pack of liars.”
But wait … doesn’t that mean Hoster and Taylor are calling that saintly foursome — who, like George Washington, could surely never tell a lie — “a pack of liars” when it comes to the authorship of Henry VI Part 3, credited by the Folio exclusively to “William Shakespeare”?
Let me pause at this point to quote orthodox Stratfordian scholar David Riggs, in his 1989 biography of Ben Jonson published by Harvard University Press (p. 225), reciting examples of supposedly Honest Ben “foster[ing] … illusion,” engaging in “pretense,” and being “exceedingly disingenuous.”
And since when do we dismiss artful literary pseudonyms as “lies” or “dishonesty” anyway? Is Hoster seriously suggesting that writers using pen names (and those who play along and facilitate the practice) are just “a pack of liars”? The Elizabethan-Jacobean era, as noted earlier, is known as a golden age of pseudonyms.
I do appreciate Hoster (2020, p. 36, my emphasis) quoting Sir Stanley Wells (the distinguished orthodox Shakespearean scholar): “The cryptic nature of the attack in [GW] means that we cannot say definitively that it refers to Shakespeare.” I prominently quote this very statement in my 2019 book (p. 88).
I wish Hoster would also pay heed to Sir Stanley’s candid concession that “despite the mass of evidence” available from Shakspere of Stratford’s lifetime, “there is none that explicitly and incontrovertibly identifies [the author ‘Shakespeare’] with Stratford-upon-Avon.” This statement appears in the same 2013 essay (p. 81, my emphasis, quoted in my book, p. 4) as his comment about GW (p. 74).
While the Wells concession is accurate as phrased, there are two or three published references during Shakspere’s life, apart from GW, that may debatably link him to some literary activity. My book carefully discusses them (pp. 172–85, 202–18, 262–72), showing they all add to the early evidence of authorship doubts (one of them, the 1611 Davies of Hereford reference to “our English Terence,” very strikingly so — basically calling him a frontman).
My essay on Winkler’s book (backed by extensive references) summarizes additional points, for example (p. 20), that it’s “extremely difficult to square the Shakespearean works with the known or reasonably inferred education, travels, life experiences, or surviving personal documents of the alleged Stratfordian author,” and (pp. 15–16) that “the traditional timeline doesn’t fit the facts,” “the credited author’s death in 1616 was ignored that year outside Stratford,” “early references to Shakespearean works date to when the credited author was far too young to have written them,” and “multiple references during the dozen years before the credited author died suggest the actual author died years earlier.”
But apparently none of this raises any uncertainty whatsoever for Hoster — even as he rightly castigates his fellow Stratfordians for their unwarranted certainty about GW and the Upstart Crow.
Despite the acceptance of Professor Erne’s 1998 analysis of Chettle’s apology by Vickers, Bate, and others, many Stratfordians — including Hoster — have resisted it (or, like Kathman, they’ve simply ignored it).
They seem certain (against overwhelming evidence) that Chettle apologized to the Upstart Crow.
My book (pp. 83–89) reflects on the lessons we might learn from this textbook example of belief perseverance. Yet Hoster, while persevering in the old belief about Chettle, objects to the precisely analogous belief perseverance about the Crow’s identity. His 2020 article even specifically criticizes Erne for that (pp. 35–36).
I myself am not so sure that Erne is as “rock-solid” certain as Hoster thinks he is (p. 36) about the Crow’s identity. While it’s true that Erne’s article does not dispute that traditional view, that’s not its main subject.
Erne’s article does, however, note “a curious echo” of the GW “attack” on the Crow in the third Parnassus play (c. 1601), which levels a similar attack on actors. Very intriguingly, Erne suggests the anonymous Parnassus author was “probably thinking of Shakespeare or Alleyn, or of both” (p. 433, quoted in my book, p. 101 n. 108; for more discussion of the Parnassus plays, see my book, pp. 167–85).
My book (p. 83) describes Erne as “relatively candid, insightful, and even daring among modern Stratfordian scholars,” praise that also applies to Hoster. Both have penned bold challenges to conventional wisdom: Hoster in 1993 on the identity of the Crow and Erne in 1998 on whether Chettle apologized to him.
Both acknowledged they were not the first to do so, but Hoster (unlike Erne) credited the anti-Stratfordians who preceded him. Erne overlooked two important anti-Stratfordian scholars who anticipated his argument and conclusion about Chettle (as my book discusses, pp. 83–85). The first of those, Sir George Greenwood, did so in his classic and hugely under-appreciated 1908 book, The Shakespeare Problem Restated (pp. 308–19), almost a century before Erne’s article was published. (Both Greenwood and Erne cited a 19th-century Stratfordian scholar, Frederick Fleay, who preceded them both.)
As my book notes (p. 83), Erne in 1998 “sounded almost eerily like an exasperated anti-Stratfordian.” Erne asked (p. 435, my emphases): “Is it possible that so many [scholars] were not aware of at least one of the [early challenges to the conventional view of Chettle] … ? Or is it possible … that [orthodox Shakespeare] biographers, aware of the alternative reading [of Chettle’s apology], chose to pass over it in silence so as not to compromise their account of Shakespeare’s early years in London?”
“Could it be?” (I responded in my book, pp. 83–84.) “Welcome to our world, Professor Erne! This is a world in which orthodox scholars routinely ignore post-Stratfordian scholarship or never bother to educate themselves about it in the first place, even as many of them loftily disparage skeptical scholars. … Let me tell you, anti-Stratfordians have been banging their heads against this wall a lot longer than you.”
Could it be that so many scholars resist so obdurately these challenges to the traditional readings of GW and Chettle because they threaten to unravel the few flimsy shreds of evidence before Shakspere of Stratford died in 1616 that even arguably connect him to any literary career?
Could it be that professors, scholars, and scientists, like all human beings, sometimes fall prey to well-known cognitive biases?
A curious feature of the discourse I’ve observed among Oxfraudsters is a credulous inclination to bow down to whatever Very Prestigious Professors at Very Prestigious Universities say about Shakespeare — coupled with a sometimes frantic insistence that all the rest of us tug our forelocks before these pooh-bahs as well.
In particular, independent self-published scholars in the field of Shakespeare studies (like myself or Hoster) seem to be viewed as intolerably impudent, self-important, and out-of-line if we dare to challenge or disagree with these solons of academia.
I was amused to see one Oxfraudster just beside himself that I had the nerve in 2019, the unmitigated gall, to write calm and thoroughly documented emails to the editors of a major magazine urging them not to rely so gullibly on the embarrassing mistakes and tendentious arguments of one particular (especially insufferable) Very Prestigious Professor, James Shapiro of Columbia University.
Puh-leeze … I’ve been a professional academic for almost 30 years. I know academia. I love academia. Many academics are friends of mine. I’ve had so many wonderful colleagues over the years. But I’ve also dealt with professors not unlike Shapiro at multiple institutions for decades, and professors not unlike Bate and Smith, all discussed in my essay on Winkler’s book. (Update: For more on what a charming fellow Shapiro is — not — see my August 28 post.)
If more Oxfraudsters had the actual experience I do as an academic and scholar, I suspect they might not be so credulous and gullible.
As noted in my book (p. 89): “Many people understandably question whether there could be any real substance to the [Shakespeare authorship question], given that most established academics dismiss it so scornfully and adhere so firmly to the Stratfordian theory. Well, here we have an answer. As so often in the field of Shakespeare studies — and in other academic fields that come to mind, such as law (in which I have worked for decades) — established scholars (even very prestigious ones) often do not acquit themselves well.”
This is something Jay Hoster has learned as well as anyone. His 1993 book is yet another proof.
The Skeptical Professor 