Rise Up, Oh Heart, For There is Another Battle to Win

dukeofbookingham:

mr-craig:

lorddarker:

English Literature now: Shakespeare. Debate. Arguments. Mostly polite.

English Literature in the future: Harry Potter: Yelling. Unfettered Fury. Duels at Dawn. Blood.

Ahhh but there’s nothing polite between the Stratfordians and the Oxfordians. I love Ian McKellen’s story about Derek Jacobi refusing to discuss his Oxfordian beliefs with him because “you’ll only shout at me.” McKellen promised he would do no such thing, but the story ends with him bellowing “OH REALLY DEREK!” (Which, to be honest, is probably how I’d react too.)

Let me offer a small sample of real things that have happened in the world of Shakespeare scholarship recently: 

• There was a bloodbath over the digital rights to the Oxford Complete Works which ultimately resulted in an entirely new Norton edition
  
• The new artistic director at the Globe was savagely torched by the Guardian
• Stephen Marche said of Contested Will that “using a brain like [James] Shapiro’s on the authorship question is like bringing an F-22 to an alley knife fight”
  
• Jonathan Dollimore wrote this paragraph
• A prominent Jewish scholar was asked about Anonymous and basically called Roland Emmerich a Nazi
  

It’s an industry full of people who spend their days picking apart plays about cannibalism, gang murder, and dismemberment. Trust me, there’s nothing polite about it.