WSJ.com: In his 34 years on the Supreme Court, Justice John Paul Stevens has evolved from idiosyncratic dissenter to influential elder, able to assemble majorities on issues such as war powers and property rights. Now, the court's senior justice could be gaining ground on a case that dates back 400 years: the authorship of Shakespeare's plays.
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Justice Stevens Renders an Opinion on Who Wrote Shakespeare's Plays
WSJ.com: In his 34 years on the Supreme Court, Justice John Paul Stevens has evolved from idiosyncratic dissenter to influential elder, able to assemble majorities on issues such as war powers and property rights. Now, the court's senior justice could be gaining ground on a case that dates back 400 years: the authorship of Shakespeare's plays.
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So this is what supreme justices do for fun...an interesting article, though a bit long-winded. I'm genuinely surprised to see so much doubt in Shakespeare having written the plays we call his from people so high up. I see no reason why the work is beyond the capabilities of a common man. Shakespeare lived in London and observed his surroundings, he had friends in high places who could have lent him inspiration, and he was clearly devoted to his theatre. I tend to agree with those in the article who took the "democratic view" as it is called: that it's nice to believe Shakespeare himself wrote the plays because it gives us faith that an every day commoner is capable of great things. This has been proved true by so many great minds in society, from Joseph Papp to Charles Darwin, both in and out of our industry. It would be interesting to see if there is a connection between justices' opinions on Shakespeare and their judging tendencies (whether liberal or conservative), but it might just be delving too far into a point that is already totally niche.
Somewhere in college, perhaps in an Medieval literature class, I remember hearing about a council of the smartest men of the day coming together and using logic and deduction to find answers to the mysteries of the universe. The thought being that based on known facts and accepted collective knowledge anything could be deduced. An example they could determine how many teeth a horse had without counting the teeth. This became problematic when religious ideas were introduced: here we have the famous how many angels can fit on the edge of pin conundrum. (Or something like that.)
Here we have another example of the brightest men (and some women) of the day unless facts, deduction, and ulitmately their gut reaction to try to prove a mystery that may be impossible to solve. But more likely it's a mystery that doesn't really need solving. What defines a man, his work or his person? Most people don't care about who Shakespeare was, his plays are bigger than his identity. Why can't it be left at that? Who knows?
This is an intriguing article. Unfortunately I would need the aid of Doc Chemers to explain the nuance of this article fully but I did enjoy Matt and Becca’s responses. I do disagree with Matt however. Dealing with social commentary as poignant as the writings of Shakespeare, I think the source is crucial to interpretation. The author stated that Shakespeare’s commentary of Court was too specific for an outsider. If this commentary was made by the 17th earl of Oxford, then the interpretation of this social commentary is skewed. Needless to say, the justices should spend more of their time sending Veronica Home than participating in this charade.
Ugh. This question always irritates me a bit. Who wrote Shakespeare's works? Well we just are not quite sure. We never have been and we probably never will be. Dale is correct in that the perspective of the writer colors the subject matter which does effect interpretation. However, I think we are at the point where it is no longer productive to speculate. We're only traveling farther away from Shakespeare's time and no one is going to rise from the dead and take some credit. We just don't really know. So let's just move on and try to understand the text despite the slight blurriness regarding the original author. Like we've been doing forever.
What I don't get is why this issue is being brought up so many centuries after the fact that these works have been written, produced, and highly revered as famous works of both theatre and literature. Who else would write William Shakespeare's works other than the man himself, and what reason would anyone else have to write them? While the thought of this kind of scandal is intriguing, I highly doubt there's any real truth behind it.
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