Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Artaxerxes (talk | contribs) at 21:46, 15 October 2011. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Recreated article

This article was deleted due to NPOV issues. Noting this comment from the closer, "There is a substantial agreement that the topic is notable, and there is no prejudice to the creation of an appropriately neutral article", I have recreated the article and have attempted to address the NPOV issues.

Specifically, I have added the following mainstream disclaimers that were missing from the original article:

• First graph of lead: "while the great majority of mainstream scholars reject all alternative candidates for authorship, popular interest in various authorship theories continues."
• Third graph of lead: "Most mainstream Shakespeare academics pay little or no attention to the topic and dismiss anti-Stratfordian theories, noting that both the Folio and the Stratford monument bear witness to a correlation between the theatrical author and the provincial Shakespeare; that scarcity of biographical data was normal for his milieu; and that deducing a writer's identity from his works may constitute a biographical fallacy. Title pages, testimony by other contemporary poets and historians, and official records are also cited to support the mainstream view."
• Second section of "overview": "Mainstream view" (Main article: William Shakespeare) "Some mainstream scholars, including Jonathan Bate, assert that the idea that Shakespeare revealed himself in his work is a romantic notion of the 18th and 19th centuries and anachronistic to Elizabethan and Jacobean writers. When William Wordsworth wrote that ‘Shakespeare unlocked his heart’ in the sonnets, Robert Browning replied, ‘If so, the less Shakespeare he!’

• Second section of "overview" (graph 2):"Although little biographical information exists about Shakespeare compared to later authors, mainstream scholars assert that more is known about him than about most other playwrights and actors of the period. This lack of information is unsurprising, they say, given that in Elizabethan/Jacobean England the lives of commoners were not as well documented as those of the gentry and nobility, and that many—indeed the overwhelming majority—of Renaissance documents that existed have not survived until the present day. Supporters of the mainstream view dispute all contentions in favour of Oxford. Aside from their main argument against the theory — the issue of Oxford's early death — they assert the connections between Oxford's life and the plots of Shakespeare's plays are conjectural. Terence Schoone-Jongen, writing in Shakespeare's companies: William Shakespeare's Early Career and the Acting Companies, 1577-1594, asserts that biographical interpretations of literature are invalid for attributing authorship."

I hope this addresses the NPOV issues that were raised and welcome any additional improvements. Smatprt (talk) 04:25, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

'Most mainstream Shakespeare academics'

'Most mainstream Shakespeare academics' seem to believe the greatest writer in the English language would:

• not leave a single document--play, poem, letter--in his own hand;
• not educate his daughters to the point where they could read and write;
• have difficulty signing his own name;
• not reflect the facts of his own life in any poem or play;
• mention no literary works in his will.

If so, why should we listen to them? Artaxerxes (talk) 21:46, 15 October 2011 (UTC)