Journal of English Literature and Language Research Article

The Shakespeare Authorship Question: A Case Study in Bourdieuian Class Maintenance

Dr. David Christopher Sessional Instructor in Department of Art History and Visual Studies at the University of Victoria. *Corresponding Author: Dr. David Christopher, Sessional Instructor in Department of Art History and Visual Studies at the University of Victoria.

Dozens of papers and books have been that our judgements about art are disinterested, written on the subject of the authorship of arguing instead that cultivated sensibilities both Shakespeare’s plays. Calling into question the arise from and produce a ‘cultural capital’ that is probability or even the possibility of the man named Shakespeare being the true author, ‘anti-stratfordians’ have made the case for such fortied high-art to economic is culturally and social acquired advantages” by an elite (Leitch class authorship candidates as Christopher Marlowe, educatedet al on Bourdieu to understand 1806). For the Bourdieu, analytical a “taste” codes Sir Francis Bacon, Queen Elizabeth I, and Edward de Vere the Earl of Oxford. The body of naturalize and legitimize the cultural authority evidence supporting Shakespeare’s authorship ofto thoseidentify privileged it as such. enough Efforts to have are beenthen educated made to is convincing but not conclusive and the question to do so by claiming for these judgements a continues to produce passionate responses from “disinterested” objectivity in “good” taste that both pro- and anti-Shakespearean supporters. attempts to subvert a more hedonistic measure The doubter’s motives within the ongoing of pleasure. Ostensibly “low” art becomes the debate have only been explored incidentally as scapegoat in this construction. ‘Cultured’ taste a function of discrediting the argument against has little to do with pure pleasure and more to Shakespeare. If the answer to the question do with the pleasure derived from recognizing is unprovable, why has it continued to be oneself as a member of the elite class that is ‘in asked?The Shakespeare Authorship Question has been motivated by elitist sensibilities, personal ambition, academic insecurity, and a the know’ (Leitch 1807, Bourdieu 1814). In this form of worship called bardolatry. way, Bourdieu insists that“[t]aste classifies, and othersit classifies by theirs. the classifier” From this (Bourdieuperspective, 1813). it is easy We toare understandclassified by how our classifications members of aand bourgeois classify These symptoms reflect the social and class, or those who aspire to it, might be uncomfortable with the idea of a working-class Distinction:ideological effects A Social of what Critique Pierre of Bourdieu the Judgement refers Shakespeare. ofto as Taste “cultural capital. ” In his influential book argues that, under the conditions of capitalism In her lectures at the University of “[t]here ,is Frenchan economy sociologist of cultural Pierre goods, Bourdieu but it Shakespeare that we understand as the the appreciation or production of cultural goods working-classVictoria, Dr. Jenniferson of a sheepWise herderinsists wrotethat the inhas the a specificcategory logic” of ostensibly (Bourdieu ‘high 1809) art’ in endows which texts. Yet, she concedes that “[m]any scholarly the subject with a “cultural capital” that works scandals have emerged out of a lack of due to legitimize class distinctions. According to diligence in determining authentic external Vincent Leitch, “Bourdieu challenges Kant’s claim

Journal of English Literature and Language criteria” (Wise). In Nina Baym’s 1996 article1 in The Shakespeare Authorship Question: A Case Study in Bourdieuian Class Maintenance

History’s Odd Woman Out, Baym had already agreed with the New England Quarterly, entitled repeatedly rebuffed during her lifetime” (Baym It is easy to ascribe questionable ulterior to become infamous for her anti-stratfordian 223). Wise regarding Delia Bacon, the first author They “had belief that good interpretation could substitute motives to Delia Bacon. Her family was suffering text. Baym finds fault with Delia Bacon’s naive for historical research and reveals a pattern of “Restoringfrom social Francis and financial Bacon to slippage.his imagined place at personal ambition couched in political beliefs theslid forefrontfar down of thehistorical social progress, scale” (Baym Delia Bacon225). she felt she could foster under the banner of laid claim to a similar place for herself in her Shakespeare’s plays. In his preface to Delia . One might be inclined Bacon’s book, The Philosophy of the Plays of to interpret a personal ambition to elevate Shakspere Unfolded herown family time” name(Baym by 248) appropriating the glory of that “External evidence, of course, will not be Shakespeare on to her descendants. In his essay, wanting; there will be, Nathanial enough and Hawthorne to spare, states if the Freud and the Controversy Over Shakespearean Authorship, H. Trosman quotes ““Jones” - in the theory of Delia Bacon, [who] “suspected a vested regardingdemonstration the correctness here be correct” of the (The demonstration Philosophy interest” based on the coincidence of her name was7). wellHawthorne’s founded. Baymconditional points outuncertainty that Delia If Baym is to be taken at her word, then Delia Bacon sought lacking in external evidence, and was based thewith most Francis likely Bacon’s candidate (Trosman for a popular 475). response almostBacon’s exclusively ‘research’ onwas a politicalactually interpretation significantly of Shakespeare’s original texts. Baym quotes critical acclaim. as a topic for her “opus” to fulfill her dream of Hawthorne also says that Bacon “chose Bacon’s “magnum opus” as a text which “fell her readings over her religion - indeed, she made withNathaniel a dead Hawthorne’s thump at the descriptionfeet of the public of Delia and her readings into her religion. Shakespeare’s plays as she read them were nothing less than Sadly, for Delia Bacon, Hawthorne’s contention a new gospel which she had been appointed [which] has never been picked up” (Baym 223). proved untrue. The text was picked up by many In her article, critics as a paradigm example of the ulterior Print Culture as an Archive of Dissent: Or, Delia motives and poor scholarship which they found Baconto make and known” the Case (Baym of the Missing225). Hamlet characteristic of the Shakespeare Authorship Glazener commends Bacon’s rhetorical attack Question. of Shakespeare worship. “Bacon’s debunking, Nancy of Shakespearian hagiography was astute” motives ascribed to a somewhat troubled mind. Baym’s article is effused with the ulterior voice of those loyal to Shakespeare who had Delia Bacon not so heavily coloured by her later come(Glazener to fully 3). identifyBacon sarcastically their British takesculture on with the insanityNevertheless, and her Baym attempts tries toto posit paint Francis a picture Bacon of him. “If you dissolve him do you not dissolve us as the candidate for Shakespearean authorship. with him?If you take him to pieces, do you not An Inquiry a string of publication failures and with a deep fails to recognize is that Bacon was equally undo us also?” ( 5). What Glazener needIn the toessay, prove Baym herself depicts academically a woman afflicted in order by guilty. Baym indicates that in Bacon’s mind, to acquire “the approval of the people whose Shakespeare’s plays functioned perfectly which “These “implied the perfection of the deity, who was applause she coveted” (Baym 224). whether she ascribes Shakespeare or God as the the cause of it all” (Baym 236). Baym is unclear anddreams “an ambitionwere significantly to excel in underwritten literature that by it washer cause inspiration but clearly, Baym locates Delia Bacon squarely in the arena of religious worship boundconviction to frustrate that she and was an a eventualgenius” (Baymbelief in 226) her of Shakespeare’s texts. she failed utterly. “Delia Bacon’s [. . . ] repeated attemptsown divine to mission” forge a literary (Baym 224).career Unfortunately, were just as Magazine, William Shakespeare and his Plays: In Bacon’s own 1856 article in Putnam’s Journal of English Literature and Language 2 The Shakespeare Authorship Question: A Case Study in Bourdieuian Class Maintenance

An Inquiry Concerning Them, she deploys a claims that “the exigencies of making a living” religious language to describe the author and his texts. She calls the author “superhuman popular notion of quarrelling theatre companies An Inquiry fostered “company affiliation” rather than the An Inquiry An been the primary motivation of Shakespeare’s Inquirygenius” ( 3), “enthroned king of muse,(Knutson as unappealing 39). These andexigencies unpoetic may as that well seems. have thought” ( An Inquiry 4), and “master spirit” ( Delia Bacon requires Shakespeare to be more 5). SheAn refers Inquiry to his textsShe even as “miraculous suggests a poetically god-like. She assumes Shakespeare’s similarityinspiration” between ( the mysterious5) and “the monumentslife of Jesus behavior based on knowledge he could not have andof a thegenius” bard. ( Bacon notes 1). that Shakespeare, like had. Considering Hamlet’s speech to the players Jesus, left us with only a text for our greatest advising them on their performing, Bacon claims that Shakespeare “would, at least, know enough their golden hours, year after year, in groping of the value of his own works to avail himself critics (she names Pope and Johnson) “to wasteAn of the printing press, for their preservation” Inquiry Her language becomes increasingly An Inquiry biblical.after and “He,guessing at whose out his feet hidden all meanings” men else ( are true, Shakespeare would have had to anticipate 7). An Inquiry the( date of his6). ownIn order death, for the this canonized statement status to be of mortal names, the most awe-inspiring” and his texts would attain, and the increased stock whoproud has to “thesit” blood( of a new 8), Adam “whose bubbling name is,in placed in printed copies of plays that had barely An Inquiry emerged in his own time. that Shakespeare worship had been the cause of unquestioninghis veins” ( loyalty to9). the Bacon myth was of thesuggesting man as In her elitism, Bacon attempts to gain it stood. However, the language she uses is one the complicity of her reader. Calling on a sense of complicity and in so doing she reveals her of civic pride, she refers to Shakespeare as “our” own worship of the texts and a deeper need to An Inquiry reconcile their worship with a worthy author- poet and his loss as a loss to “us”( god. An Inquiry 5). She uses the genitive “her” to describe the In her need to reconcile the author-god bookBritish release Isle’s ownership and attempting of the poet to establish( a with the texts she worshipped, Delia Bacon sensibility12). She was that setting the the man stage from for Stratfordher imminent is a was guilty of severe elitism. Glazener claims ridiculous candidate that is both anti-critical that Bacon “got the authorship wrong partly and anti-British to accept. But she doesn’t stop there. She goes on to claim that “there were Bacon boldly refers to the man from Stratford men in England, in the age of Elizabeth, who because of her elitist prejudices” (Glazener 3). An Inquiry had mastered the Greek and Roman history” stupid, ignorant, illiterate, third-rate play-actor” An Inquiry as “that wretched player” ( 14) and “a An Inquiry Bacon suggests that it would candidate in this article, her book, which came be impossible to fully appreciate the glory of out( the following 16). Although year focuses she never exclusively submits on a ( 19). Francis Bacon as her champion. hisAn textInquiry if we are confined in our thinking to define the author as this “vulgar, illiterateAn Inquiry man” reconcile her religious worship of the texts ( To mitigate 13). “[H]ow these claims, could any she one attempts dare to Delia Bacon suffered from a need to soothesee what readers is really with in words [the texts]?” obviously ( intended She reiterates a need to discover, on behalf of to13). garner complicity. She states that “we all Shakespeare’swith a candidate texts, that theirsatisfied “sources, her sensibilities. beginning know that to the last hour of his life, this fellow and end – for the modern critic, that is surely now cared never a farthing for [the plays], but only An Inquiry An Inquiry the question” ( 1). But her fanatical book,for his Playinggains at Companies their hands” and ( Commerce 4). in emulate582-page volume Shakespeare is almost more entirely than void debunk of any Shakespeare’sWhat “we all know” Time, Roslynis not indisputable. Knutson describes In her him.verifiable Much research. to Bacon’s Her endless chagrin, poetic Hawthorne musings commercial motives in the Elizabethan era and rationalizes the inconclusive nature of Bacon’s

Journal of English Literature and Language 3 The Shakespeare Authorship Question: A Case Study in Bourdieuian Class Maintenance book in its preface. He states that “the author of discovery”. The “results” he refers to represent the discovery was not willing to rob the world of the investment of research he had made and this great question; but wished rather to share dedicated to producing his lengthy text. Even more obvious is his self-protectionism. Like a school-boy with a precious secret or a competing with it the benefit which the true solutionAn Inquiry of the InherentProblem offers-theto his statements solution is prescribed both the admission by those new idea, he is evidently eager to reveal his thatwho propounded the “solution” it to provided the future” by ( Delia Bacon 7). “discovery”inventor rushing as quickly to the aspatent possible office in with order some to requires further research, and that the entire protect his “priority” before it is credited to value of Bacon’s book is to continue the life of someone else. Like Delia Bacon’s argument for the question. Francis Bacon, Looney’s desire to posit Edward de Vere as the real author comes two hundred Bacon was also strongly motivated by years after his death. Looney’s motives can only a need to make a critical name for herself, and be ascribed to personal ambition and not some to demonstrate her genius, which required her noble quest to champion the poor unaccredited to maintain some mystery about her answer Earl of Oxford. to the question: “here in this daylight of our modern criticism, in its noontide glare, has he Looney also demonstrates a Freudian not contrived to hide himself in the profoundest insecurity in his attempts at self-validation. An He begins his book with a short ‘dedication’ Inquiry which is actually a list of people whom he has quitedepths secretive of that stuff about that her myths ideas are -made not becauseof?” ( convinced, complete with their inscrutable she doubted 4). Baym them suggests but because that she “Bacon was afraidbecame of academic accreditation, against an active admission that many might not be. He posits her claim to Shakespeare was an ulterior motive the “complete acceptance of my solution” by his shebeing shared scooped” with (BaymMr. J. Thomas 238). Her Looney. fear of losing “brother-in-law, Mr. M. Gompertz, B. A., Head Master of the County High School, Leystone” page volume entitled Shakespeare Identified in Edward John de Vere Thomas. Admittedly, Looney a manwrote with a 536- such “adoptedand to one its“Mr. conclusionsW. T. Thorn” (Looney with enthusiasm” 5). He lists a moniker is truly dedicated to take a position the publisher, a “Mr. Cecil Palmer” as having “not the slightest doubt” as to the success of his(Looney plans 5-6).to prove Looney Oxford then the states author. that His he voice, has that has resulted in his name being identified however, reads as not much but self-assurance sheeras both volume “unfortunate” of the textand “significant” indicates a fanatical(McRea, against an insecurity about which he notes it obsessionLester, Hurst). with Asproving with EdwardDelia Bacon’s de Vere book, was the will be “another matter” to “present the case as man responsible for the plays that we ascribe to establish an equally strong conviction in the to Shakespeare. Almost every scholar that mentions the case for Edward de Vere since Looney’s new candidate represents a minds of others” (Looney 17). recurrence of elitist thinking so evident with Delia Bacon. The entire argument is imbued takenthe publication aim at Looney’s of Looney’s arguments book identifiesand evidence. it as with a strong desire for Shakespeare to be more However,the definitive it appears text on thatthe subject. no-one hasCriticism bothered has than a mere peasant. The only reasonable basis for this desire is that it is uncomfortable that a justify his dedicated motivation. to examine the text specifically in an effort to low-bred candidate be the locus of worship and In the preface of the book, there are genius. Unfortunately, as with all the arguments subtle indications of his personal ambition that founded on this discomfort, Looney’s book are similar to Delia Bacon’s ‘scoop’. He eagerly relies heavily on conjecture and evidence of states that “steps had to be taken to ensure that what is not there as ‘proof’. The lack of evidence the results achieved should not be lost, and also regarding Shakespeare is tantamount to the to safeguard what I believed to be my priority of lacking evidence for all Elizabethan writers,

Journal of English Literature and Language 4 The Shakespeare Authorship Question: A Case Study in Bourdieuian Class Maintenance with the exception of Ben Jonson who was been a dream of mine to share with others a man “much concerned with his historical However, there is nothing in the movie to even how I feel about Shakespeare” (Pacinothe 11:39). man thereputation fantastical and desirestook efforts to make to make a normal his memory life of named Shakespeare at all. The movie focuses on reasonableknown” (Trosman explanation 487). legendary What is left, to align then, with are thehint thrilling that Pacino process has anysurrounding knowledge the of decoding the worship his texts have projected on to the of Shakespeare’s text Richard III in anticipation man. Shakespeare to refer to the works ascribed to In Roland Barthes’ text The Death of the thatof staging man. The it. nameClearly, ‘Shakespeare’ Pacino uses is thetherefore word Author, he refers to the misconception of the an idea which ostensibly refers to a man but by Barthes and Michel Foucault were amongst several“Author-God” in the critical(Leitch discourse 1468). Theories of the twentieth posited toeffectively the genius refers of one to aman. specific canon of texts in a century that threatened to marginalize the specific era in a specific cultural setting ascribed importance of the author. The fanatical backlash Looney conveniently overlooks the impossibility of his own claim and the agency worship the idea of the author Shakespeare, given to the idea of authorship. The name thewas inevitable. threat to hisWhen divine generations position had called come for to Shakespeare, whether accurate or not, cannot nothing shy of open revolt. Ironically, by taking simply be erased from a worshipped canon of part in this very discourse to try and discredit texts. Foucault quite accurately hypothesizes Shakespeare, the anti-Stratfordians achieved that “[d]iscourse that possesses an author’s two results against the death of the author. First, name is not to be immediately consumed and they demonstrated the very problem Barthes was observing, that the importance of the author that Looney’s ‘proof’ were conclusive to the is not central. Anti-Stratfordians were simply pointforgotten” of being (Leitch undisputable, 1627). Even it would in ultimatelythe event displacing authorship into another candidate. result in the name of Oxford being transferred Secondly, that by questioning Shakespeare, they into the idea of Shakespeare and not the name ensured his continued relevance within the new of Shakespeare being universally replaced critical framework. So much for the death of the author. dewith Vere that become of Oxford. the Prince Earl formerly became knownthe-artist- as The name of the author thus works to Shakespeare.formerly-known-as-Prince Looney attempts as would to address Edward this confuse the texts with the person. Roland Barthes problem with modesty. “[I]t will be impossible notes that “The image of literature to be found in ever totally to dissociate from the work and ordinary culture is tyrannically centred on the author, his person, his life, his tastes, his passions while criticism still consists for the most part in however,personality is ofonly the overshadowed great one, the figure by the and obvious name saying that Baudelaire’s work is the failure of of his helper” (Trosman 486). His modesty, Baudelaire the man. [. . . ]The explanation of a prove anything, but has successfully injected his work is always sought in the man or woman who ownfact that name his into ‘definitive the history volume’ of thehas doneShakespeare little to myth for all time. the discourse and states that “a number of texts wereproduced attached it” (Leitch to a single 1466). name Foucault [which] expands implies One need not even read his exhaustively detailed academic arguments on Oxford’s behalf to discover hidden motive in his publication. commonthat relationships utilization of were homogeneity, established amongstfiliation, In his introduction he self-aggrandizes and them.reciprocal Finally, explanation, the author’s authentification, name characterizes or of fantasizes about a legendary contribution a particular manner of existence of discourse” to the literary canon of critical works. “The Looking transference of honour of writing the immortal for Richard Shakespeare dramas from one man to another, the(Leitch name 1627). of the Al author. Pacino, He in states, his movie, “It has always (1996), demonstrates this use of if definitely effected, becomes not merely a Journal of English Literature and Language 5 The Shakespeare Authorship Question: A Case Study in Bourdieuian Class Maintenance national or contemporary event, but a world of a provincial citizen of Stratford” was the true event of permanent importance, destined to author“or whether it was, rather, the nobly-born leave a mark as enduring as human literature and highly cultivated, passionately wayward, to some extent declasse aristocrat, Edward de Vere, some point, Looney seems to have confused the hereditary Lord Great Chamberlain of England” actand of the ascribing human Shakespeare’s race itself” (Looneywork to another13). At obvious in the statement. First, that Freud had of the introduction reads like the false-modest doubts.(Trosman Second, 477). that Three he consideredthings are deimmediately Vere as the musingsman with of the a man discovery who has of fire.volunteered The remainder to take only other acceptable candidate. Third, and most important, is the language which demonstrates excursion that has ever been undertaken. He a pre-occupation with Shakespeare’s low- proposeson the most that momentous the “greater self-sacrificing responsibility literary had to breeding and Edward de Vere’s aristocracy, with particular mention of their father’s stations in both cases. Freud becomes his own example of be incurred” (Looney 14) and that if he can see the oedipal complex. He is pre-occupied with “judgment”the “truth prevail”, and “imperil” he “shall as be he content” fully envisions (Looney the fathers of long-dead icons to the point of 6). Looney uses epic poetic language such as personal anxiety which he appears to need to that “he is bound to implicate himself so deeply resolve conclusively. ashimself to stake being publicly sacrificed his reputation to the critical for godssane and sober judgment, and thus to imperil the credit of He Freud is a problematic Pandora’s Box. At least he got that right. his opinion on every other subject” (Looney 13). sonhad partly Hamnet, used to the explain life of William oedipal Shakespeare, phenomena Thomas Looney and Delia Bacon are inspecifically Hamlet. the In death An Autobiographicalof his father and Study,of his both easy targets out of which critics could Trosman quotes Freud as having written that make ‘straw-men’. The coincidence of her “Shakespeare wrote Hamlet very soon after his actual insanity with his unfortunate name is rhetorically and emphatically repeated within pivotal textual example that Freud employs in his the discourse. Each of the major candidates for Oedipalfather’s Theory.death” “The(Trosman issue of478). the ShakespeareanHamlet is the alternate authorship, Bacon and Oxford, now authorship controversy appears to be a long- standing unresolved preoccupation with doubts Bacon and Looney respectively. The ensuing criticismhad singular focused identifiable on weaknesses champions inin Delia their The ‘fathership’ of the texts, so to speak, was a arguments, rather than original document proof locusconcerning of anxiety rightful for Freud. paternity” “He responded (Trosman to495). the and the question of Shakespeare’s authorship poor historical documentation as a challenge moved even farther away from the source. The expected result is that the discourse would lose As such, he seems guilty of a sort of oedipal momentum, which is exactly what it did until to his psychological skill” (Trosman 479). Sigmund Freud’s loyalty to Looney’s thesis another candidate, he needed to make the life of caused a disruption in psychoanalytical theory bardolatry. Now, having convinced himself of that brought the question back to the discursive foreground. reportsde Vere fit that into Freud his oedipal transferred model, biographicalor abandon In the newspaper article entitled, We’re evidencehis life’s workfrom asde evidentiallyVere’s life in flawed. to the modelTrosman to Not a Lot of Mad People, Lynda Hurst quotes replace the Shakespeare example. In An Outline Freud as echoing both Looney and Bacon. “The of Psychoanalysis, “he related Hamlet’s Oedipus man of Stratford seems to have nothing at all complex to the fact that the Earl of Oxford’s to justify his claim, whereas Oxford has almost father died when the presumed author was a Trosman quotes boy and shortly thereafter his mother whom he

Freudeverything”(Freud reports doubts in Hurst). that“the untutored son this biographical coincidence is more similar to Freud’s 1930 Goethe Prize acceptance speech. repudiated remarried” (Trosman 479). Although

Journal of English Literature and Language 6 The Shakespeare Authorship Question: A Case Study in Bourdieuian Class Maintenance the story in the text of Hamlet, it is actually a less the sonnets in which Freud says, “I am indeed convincing argument for the Oedipal Theory as almost convinced that none but this aristocrat Freud presents it in the Oedipus Complex section of his The Interpretation of Dreams phrase “almost convinced” resounds with was our Shakespeare” (Trosman 478). TheAn however, is Freud’s actions of fatherly (Leitch pre- Autobiographical Study, he adds a footnote that occupation,922-3). The especiallycoincidence projected of greater into relevance, the lives repeatsuncertainty. the In phrase the 1935 “almost second convinced” edition ofof his of long-dead icons, and his transference of their belief in Edward de Vere. It all sounds like a man biographies into his theory. seeking to gain external support to alleviate the anxiety of his own doubt. The interpretation of text as a sort of psychological mystery to be solved was a method There is a clear pattern of anxiety that must have appealed to Sigmund Freud amongst the anti-Stratfordians pertaining to evidence that is not there. Early in his book, texts as a point of departure and in them makes Bacon and Shakespeare: An Inquiry Touching (Trosman 493). Looney uses Shakespeare’s Players, Playhouses, and Play-Writers in the read as necessary biographical knowledge Days of Elizabeth, onefforts the to part provide of theevidence author that coincides what can most be Shakespeare is indeedWilliam a Smith negative presents history” a interpretation coincides with the methodology followedone-page by second three sentenceschapter that about insists Shakespeare. “William ofspecifically psychoanalysis with the that life of Freud Edward writes de Vere. about This in many of his texts, and its use of interpretation of text is highly reminiscent of The Interpretation of ofEach knowledge begins with, pertaining “We do to not Shakespeare’s know. . . ” (Smith birth, Dreams. “Jones observes of Freud that two of the death,2). Specifically education, Smith marriage, targets and a suspiciousdates of textual lack great mysteries that had ‘always perplexed him production. Delia Bacon and Thomas Looney to distraction’ were telepathy & the Shakespeare are both guilty of academic anxiety based on what we do not know and what feels as though “Freud did not settle on any one claimant until it is missing. They chose to reveal what they authorship controversy” (Lester 4 – footnotes). deemed ‘proof of identity’based on their own The Author in Shakespeare, interpretations of Shakespeare’s texts. Freud 1923, when he was sixty-seven years old” needed to relieve an oedipal anxiety that had(Trosman found 475). a relief In to his own longstanding stemmed from a lack of information regarding oedipalPaul Lester anxiety, claims and that a in published Looney’s book, practitioner Freud the father-author-god. of his methodology to soothe his ego further Lester argues that “Realism” is the movement that has caused the question to remain. “There was as a consequence a quest - which (Lester 5 - column 2). little too convenient. But in his vein of thinking, was a prominent motive in the Shakespearean I discovered I find Lester’s that Freud’s interpretation language to sounds be a author-as-source debate - to re-write history much like the rhetoric of a person trying to & re-read literature in realist, & essentially convince themselves of a convenient solution to an irksome problem, which they know to be ith it was enshrined a particular conception of otherwise untrue. In his Goethe prize speech, ‘consumerist’ terms” (Lester 1 - column 1). “[W] he demonstrates an awkward uncertainty. He Lester suggests that in examining the texts, uses the phrase “whether it was in fact” and many‘the author’ academics & his properties” had a “need (Lester to apply 1 - column to a concrete1). situation before their meaning can be follows both of these phrases with descriptions of“or the whether candidates it was aimed rather” at questioning(Trosman 477). the one He concrete situation could be found in “the author and propagating for the other. He includes the securely determined” (Lester 2 - column 2). The phrase “It is undeniably painful to all of us” in an attempt to gain complicity. Trosman quotes eventswhose orgenius places liesor people behind [are] [the picked text]”(Lester out from throughout2 - column the 2). text “References & then the tochosen knowledge candidate or a 1930 letter to a German translator regarding Journal of English Literature and Language 7 The Shakespeare Authorship Question: A Case Study in Bourdieuian Class Maintenance is shown to have known about or been at these things, known or been with these people” little we know of the supposed ‘great author’ - a enigma that it inevitably creates. “We have what & detective quest that services it needs not only (Lester 2 – column 2). “This reductive criticism thegnawing enigma, & irritating the “literary enigma” detectives (Lester [. . 1. ] - marshal column all2). Inthe order biographic to fill the evidence void and satisfyfor their the particular itching of a source, the fixed author or fixity of authors, candidate to the exclusion of all evidence to the detectivesbut a reason to construct for the text” a more (Lester plausible 4 - columnpicture 2). The texts are then a mere source for the what he deems to be the fundamental rationale A pattern emerges in which, it appears, that forcontrary” the authorship (Lester 2 -debate. column “The 1). Lester author reiterates cannot manyof the academicauthor as writerssource” attempt(Lester 3to - pincolumn down 1). a be the Stratford man because he could not have their academic integrity and authority on the author of Shakespeare’s works could not just be subjectdefinitive is identity impervious for Shakespeare to future re-evaluation. from which abeen country literate yokel enough” or litigious (Lester 2 bumkin - column or 1). a “The ham “Everything is locked into a safe place - the actor from Stratford; he must, as it were, justify mystique of authorship, the consumerisation his consummate literary genius by his royalty or

of academic writers are replete with comments of thereadership, texts could and be language “securely itself” determined” (Lester and4 - regardingnobility” (Lester the desire 2 - columnto mould 1 Shakespeare& 2). The words into column 2). Once the author is stable, the meaning the myth we would like him to be. Cyril Connoly Lester also suggests that academics were presented to students with confidence. aware that the “discourse of the Shakespeare Shakespeare contributes little or nothing to the imagestates thatwe should “[e]verything like to form we know of Europe’s about greatestWilliam by the multiplication of possible authorship authorship debate [was] regularlyHe states fortified that the perceived disparity between the Stratford new candidates, enigmas, and interpretations manwriter” and (McManaway the literary legend1). For createsanti-stratfordians, a problem werecandidates” regularly (Lester emerging. 1 - column The inability 1). to locate already seen in the elitism of Bacon, Looney and Freud. This Bourdieuian maintenance of class fortifythe authorship the academic definitively insecurity had causeda twofold by aeffect lack distinctions in the arena of historical narrative ofon authoritativethe academic Shakespearian community. evidence,Not only itdid also it is perhaps best exemplifed in the ideological ensured the ongoing production of academic implications underpinning two post-modern text around a self-perpetuating question. “From the Freudian perspective it may be postulated Shakespeare in Love that the literary detectives - most frustrated asfilms a concerned vehicle to with demonstrate Shakespeare’s contemporary life and times. authors themselves - are trying to [. . . ] atone sensibilities that valorize (1998) the uses working Shakespeare class hero while Anonymous propagandistic attempt to relocate Shakespeare for orthodoxy’s literary parricide” (Lester 2 - garnered the passionate debate and published amongst an aristocratic (2011) elite. In responds Teoria e withStoria a column 2). Never in history has a single author della Storiografia, Benedetto Croce suggests that have texts been revered so wholly as to merit “every true history is contemporary history” as thecomment debate. that Shakespeare has. Never before it is enacted in the historian’s mind and retold Lester introduces “bardolatry”as both a source and a result of the ongoing debate. He its own cultural sensibilities, language, beliefs, sees amongst academics an “unquestioning, through that filter – a filter thatCultural is laden Theory with unproblematical worship of the accredited and Popular Culture, John Storey agrees that ‘source’ that has [. . . ] helped provoke the “itand does fantasies not really (Croce matter 12). whether In Hollywood’s excesses of the self-styled literary detectives” bridge between worshipping an author and the representations are ‘true’ or ‘false’ (historically (Lester 1 - column 2). Lester draws a specific accurate or not); what matters is the ‘regime of truth’ (Michel Foucault …) they put into Journal of English Literature and Language 8 The Shakespeare Authorship Question: A Case Study in Bourdieuian Class Maintenance written the ideology of the day over the scant is indeed a negative history” followed by three historicalcirculation” record (Storey in 173). order Thus, to film appropriate auteurs have the sentencessecond chapter about that Shakespeare. insists “William Each Shakespeare begins with, cultural capital that Shakespeare represents. A Smith targets a lack of knowledge pertaining a perfect vehicle to put contemporary ideologies to“We Shakespeare’sdo not know . . birth, . ” (Smith death, 2). Specifically education, infilm to narrative circulation of forShakespeare’s a number of life reasons. and works Firstly, is this blank slate of history surrounding such an Shakespeare and his works represent substantial importantmarriage, and icon, dates authors of textual are ableproduction. to construct With culturalas a major capital. icon of Secondly, the Western Shakespeare’s literary canon, life narratives regarding Shakespeare based on is a sort of cultural tabula rasa onto which their interpretations of his work that are contemporary ideologies are easily written. commensurate with contemporary ideologies. In Simulacra and Simulation, Jean Baudrillard claims that what is simulated in artistic theseThirdly, reasons the indoctrinating provide substantial power of impetusfeature film for representations, which certainly includes in Western culture is immeasurable. In concert He states that simulation is “the generation ideologies.filmmakers to use Shakespeare as a vehicle with byfilm, models has no of cultural a real referent without in origin the real or reality:world. which to reflect, establish, or valorize cultural . In this light, a canon, Shakespeare and his works represent readilya hyperreal” generate (Baudrillard a ‘reality’ or1) ‘truth’ even in the As a major icon of the Western literary substantial cultural capital. In her book absencefilmic simulation of any historical of Shakespeare’s record with life which might to Shakespeare and Modern Culture Marjorie substantiate such claims. which “Shakespeare makes modern culture The lacking historical record might Garber describes Western culture as one in also elucidate the reasons such narratives seemsand modern to reiterate culture Croce’s makes Shakespeare” contention that (xiii). all formats. In his essay “The Historical Film: historyUsing Shakespeare is contemporary. as a specific She describes example, the Garber ways appear in fictitious rather than documentary in which Shakespeare’s revered works have A. Rosenstone outlines what he deems the been appropriated by cultural forces throughout Looking at the Past in a Postliterate Age,” Robert history since they were received and “almost “Varieties of Historical Film” (Rosenstone 52). always seemed to coincide with the times in based on documentable persons or events or He lists 1. ) “history as drama” (52): a. ) “film which they are read, published, produced, and movements” (53), b. ) “those whose central plot modern cultural factions from advertisers to setting is intrinsic to the story and meaning and characters are fictional, but whose historical academicsdiscussed” have(xiii). tried Garber to appropriate also highlights the “cultural how ‘Q’ value” Shakespeare has come to represent withof the the work” “social (53); problem 2. ) “History documentary as document” of the (53) which Rosenstone suggests participates can be used as a powerful indoctrinating weapon Shakespeare in Love and in(xviii). an arsenal Surely of such contemporary a fundamental ideologies. cultural icon Anonymous thirties” (53). Both Shakespeare’s life is a sort of cultural persons” but fall their somewhere “events between or movements” 1a and tabula rasa onto which contemporary ideologies 1b. The narratives are “based on documentable are easily written. Academic research has failed that historians put more stock in “History as to produce any substantial objective historical are entirely fictional. Rosenstone claims of Shakespeare’s life. Early in his book, Bacon Moreover,document” with films a but lacking the objective historical voice record, they thetry andrecord Shakespeare: upon which An to base Inquiry a definitive Touching narrative Players, documentaryto establish is claimencumbered to truth with lacks “nostalgia” integrity. There (53). Playhouses, and Play-Writers in the Days of are few facts upon which to rely. In the case of Elizabeth, Shakespeare’s life, only an entirely constructed,

William Smith presents a one-page Journal of English Literature and Language 9 The Shakespeare Authorship Question: A Case Study in Bourdieuian Class Maintenance

Film is out of control of historians. Film shows we do not own the past. Film fictitious narrative could fill the time-space of creates a historical world with which toola feature with recoursefilm. Additionally, to both a clearlyfictitious articulated feature books cannot compete, at least for narrativefilm may causalitybe a more and efficacious the voice indoctrinating of characters popularity. Film is a disturbing symbol of an increasingly postliterate world carries other inherent advantages as well, such aswithin wider the distribution, narrative. The more fictitious universal feature audience film appeal, and an appeal to emotion and nostalgia (in which people can read but won’t) (Rosenstone 50). as an indoctrinating tool rather than logic and “Arguments call for a logic that words are better fact. able to Moreover, convey than film are images.has no Images negative. lack The indoctrinating power of feature Shakespeare tense and negative form, for example” (Nichols critics have gone so far as to suggest that popular in Love and Anonymous film in Western culture is immeasurable. Many say30). it What didn’t is happenlacking thatin movies way? Thislike seems to be is the negative. Who is to for millions of viewers. Echoing Baudrillard’s amongst the grievances of historians to historical film actually creates a false truth of history dramas in general. The voice of argument is illusion of presence generated is such that a erased and the indoctrinating illusion of reality newassertion, kind of Rey realism, Chow one states that viesthat with in filmlife itself, “the outlined above replaces historical interrogation. known facts and ongoing critical analysis. A theory pioneers Theodor Adorno and Max A new history (that fits the times) overwrites Horkheimeraggressively assertsidentify itself” “The old(Chow experience 169). Cultural of the the ideological hegemony of the day. movie-goer, who sees the world as an extension “truth” about Shakespeare can become fixed in In the absence of fact, supposition is intent on reproducing the world of everyday of the film he has just left (because. the Allardyce latter Shakespeare in Love and Anonymous. In her essay “Ondefines the the Lame,” trajectory and referring of the narratives to her historical of both perceptions)” (Horkheimer 126) Le Retour de Martin Guerre, Nicoll articulates this thesis most clearly when Suchshe states, a powerful “What tool we of haveindoctrination witnessed might on the be thatadvisory depends on the on film supposition and conjecture. consideredscreen becomes the near the perfect real for vehicle us” (Nicollwith which 38). “INatalie worked Zemon as a Davisdetective, defends assessing a new myhistoricism sources to propagate contemporary ideologies. and the rules for their composition, putting together clues from many places, establishing As a powerful indoctrinating tool, the a conjectural argument that made the best the academic historian because it cannot be thus: “In the absence of the full depositions history fiction is fundamentally dubious to andsense” testimony (Davis 575). from She the defends trials andher ofmethod rural diaries and letters, this is the best one can do fewchallenged who saw in its the own movie medium Le (without Retour de recourse Martin in the study of a primarily illiterate, sixteenth- Guerreto big budget film production). For example, conjecture is required by the lacking historical (1982) as a popular cultural product recordcentury and peasant fosters society” the writing (Davis of 575). history The to use align of are likely to have read the two essays by Natalie with contemporary agendas that make “the best Zemon Davis (“On the Lame”) and Robert Finlay sense. ”Supposition deployed in the context methodology(“The Refashioning respectively. of Martin In Guerre”) “The Historical which of a culturally loaded contemporary language explain and challenge the film’s purpose and Robert A. Rosentsone discusses the source of the Shakespeare in Love uses the power of romantic discomfortFilm: Looking that at historiansthe Past in have a Postliterate with historical Age,” melodramacannot help but to overwritereflect contemporary history with ideologies. working class sentimentality. That is not to say that films. Journal of English Literature and Language 10 The Shakespeare Authorship Question: A Case Study in Bourdieuian Class Maintenance

Shakespeare in Love as a piece of popular did become a member of the Chamberlain’s entertainment necessarily has a political Men, but there is little concrete evidence to support a characterization of Shakespeare as Introduction to Documentary, “Even the most a romanticized working class hero with either agenda, but as Bill Nichols points out in his economic or romantic aspirations of grandeur. In order to maximize the impact of this whimsical of fictions gives evidence of the opens with expository captions that clearly narrative, Shakespeare’s life is depicted in the culture that produced it” (Nichols 1). The film identify capitalist competition as the context polarized language of modern melodrama. The in which the narrative will unfold. “In the glory romantic working class hero and his helpless days of the Elizabethan theatre, two playhouses heroine are pitted against an irrationally evil

Shakespeare in Love on, the narrative simply appropriates one of problematisewere fighting it the out binary for writers competition. and audiences” “Across villain. With no historical record to fall back ( ). Capitalist exigencies and writes it over his life. Shakespeare in Love isShakespeare’s a boldly modern texts, reimaginingmodifies it to of melodrama,Romeo and the river wasShakespeare the competition, in Love built by Philip Juliet. Shakespeare takes the place of Romeo Henslowe, a businessman with a cash flow and Viola de Lesseps takes the place of Juliet. modernproblem” stereotype ( of the working). In this class capitalist hero The villainous Tybalt who thwarts their love tryingcontext, to William live out Shakespeare the ‘American is depicted dream’. as The a in Romeo and Juliet character of Shakespeare is introduced in the He threatens Shakespeare for the transgression of “coveting” Viola.is “Ireplaced cannot by spill Lord blood Wessex. in her house, but I will cut your throat anon” ofthroes his of own his signature,literary labours. apparently With lostink-stained in the Shakespeare in Love fantasyfingers, thathe vigilantly it will one writes day be revered.countless The iterations room is littered with crumpled balls of his own discarded based( on romantic inspiration,). The romance and therefore the hero his so parchment. Shortly thereafter, Shakespeare’s economicdesires, which prosperity, is conflated is set with in hisdirect ability opposition to write working class romantic and capitalist desires to the blocking agent of an aristocratic villain. are clearly articulated. He is unable to complete romantic aspect of the narrative. He whisks Shakespeare in Love Juliet/ViolaIn the end, Wessex’saway from villainy Romeo/Shakespeare is fossilized in with the follows-upthe play demanded by stating by Henslowe his second until desire he finds – a marriage and a sea voyage. Romeo/Shakespeare thinlyhis “muse” veiled ( allusion to the ‘American). Shakespeare dream’ is allowed to live, and wins from the villainous in which he wishes to invest his way out of his

aristocrat the financial capital necessary to meworking a partnership class status. in He the asks Chamberlain’s Henslowe, “Will men. emotionalfulfill his professional impact of this dreams, recognizable but only romantic at the you lend me fifty pounds? … Burbage offers taletragic is unquestionable.expense of his romantic However, fulfillment. in this version, The Shakespeare in Love the villain is distinctly aristocratic, and the hero workingFor fifty pounds class status my days is further as a hired emphasized player are in is all too working class. As such, the aristocracy hisover” romantic ( aspirations regarding). Shakespeare’s Viola. During the ballroom scene when Shakespeare becomes working class hero, and as the power that must enamoured of Viola, he voices his attraction. A beis firmly duped coded in order as a forvillainous Shakespeare force against to achieve the musician friend laughs at such a lofty romantic can be read as a response financial Anonymous freedom. Shakespeare in Love to Shakespeare in Love withpursuit. Viola, “Viola Shakespeare de Lesseps? laments Dream his on, status. Will” Shakespeare from the working class and ( ). During theShakespeare balcony scene in relocate him squarely amongst in its effort the aristocraticto remove Love elite. Anonymous is not subtle in this regard. manage“Alas, . . . toI am realize a lowly their player” forbidden ( love. The In Anonymous, the man who wrote the plays, historical). Nevertheless, record indicates Shakespeare that Shakespeare and Viola Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford, holds

Journal of English Literature and Language 11 The Shakespeare Authorship Question: A Case Study in Bourdieuian Class Maintenance land and title. By the end of the convoluted Shakespeare. In Anonymous both the hero and narrative, it is revealed that he is closely related to Elizabeth I, her bastard son. Shakespeare is portrayed as an illiterate charlatan opportunist. the villain are aristocratic, but the film intimates The mise-en-scene depicts the lower classes ofthat villain. the It workingsuggested classthat it ischarlatan Shakespeare William who as a mob of cattle who are easily convinced to murdersShakespeare Kit Marlowemight just for as the well threat fill the he posesposition in exposing Shakespeare as a fraud. Later, de Vere Robert Cecil having been incited to revolution informs Jonson that Shakespeare’s opportunism bystorm the Buckingham play Richard Palace III. The in andialogue effort to is depose just as Anonymous obvious. At one point the otherwise charming In any event, it is clearly with the elegantly and soft-spoken de Vere condescends to a young aristocraticand grandstanding Edward is his de “burden” Vere that ( audience). Ben Jonson based on his working class status as sympathies are expected to align. a poet. “I am Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford, Just as Shakespeare in Love writes Romeo and Juliet over Shakespeare’s life, Anonymous Anonymous unabashedly writes conjecture over the historical to. . . People suggest like a me common do not sensewrite plays. that thePeople author like mustyou do” have ( been aristocratic.). The narrative For example, continues when Shakespeare as an aristocrat on material in the Kit Marlowe interrogates Jonson, he posits the textsrecord that and ostensibly bases its onlyfictitious de Vere refashioning could have of aristocratic status of the playwright as a given. known. For example, at one point in the narrative “So who did write them? A nobleman, yes, a young and impetuous de Vere murders a spy but who?” At another point in the narrative, the assumed aristocratic value of the plays is again set in opposition to the fare of the lower- (who had been tampering with his precious classed rabble. “Jonson is good for the every day mustmanuscripts) be the inspiration hiding behind for the an identical arras with scene a Anonymous inthrust Hamlet of his sword. The film suggests that this scalliwags, but Shakespeare . . . ” ( ). of the staged that plays results to episodesin the death of de of Vere’sPolonius. life locatedTowards as the the end hero of the with film, whom once the de audienceVere has withIn several an audio places, match the that film extends cuts from the momentsromantic isbeen supposed clearly identified to sympathise, as the author the message and safely is musical underscoring of the play drama into de articulated most clearly. “Did you know, Jonson, Vere’s life and intrinsically ties the two together. that my family can trace its peerage back further Anonymous life as a young man highlights a false causality These statements are all part of a construction thatFurthermore, attempts the to lenduse of even flashback more credibility to de Vere’s to ofthan an any ideological family in common the kingdom?” sense ( that reserves). artistic and intellectual genius exclusively for The framing exposition in Anonymous the aristocracy. anthe appealinterpretation to emotion of events veiled offered as an by objectivethe film. report of historical fact. At the beginning offers of Shakespeare in Sir Derek Jacobi attempts to mitigate Love , Anonymous In an effort also to deploys garner melodramatic complicity the propagandistic agenda of Anonymous with characterizationwith the film audience, to amplify like sympathy for its the film, chosen hero. Edward de Vere’s most immediate narrative. During his opening monologue, the nemesis is Robert Cecil, against whom de Vere stagean admission upon which of hethe stands fictional is alive nature with theatreof the is placed in direct political opposition. Robert practitioners preparing to perform their part in the drama that follows. The staged scene blends seamlessly into the classical Hollywood Cecil is instructs a stereo Robert: typified “You melodramatic must compensate villain; realism that characterizes the narrative proper. forhe is your hideous malformation and evil. withAt one . . .point cunning William and However, this technique is not much more Shakespeare in Love it than false humility – a technique to lower the cynical viewer’s guard. More importantly, the ruthlessness” (Jacobi). In framing exposition acts to lend a documentary is an aristocratic villain (Wessex) who is set in oppositionJournal of English to the workingLiterature class and heroLanguage of William 12 The Shakespeare Authorship Question: A Case Study in Bourdieuian Class Maintenance

In these closing two sentences, Jacobi out that “Fiction may be content to suspend attempts to locate Anonymous’ interpretation of disbeliefcredibility to the fiction. Bill Nichols points Shakespeare’s “verse” as an objective historical “monument.” Throughout Jacobi’s speech, the (to accept its world as plausible), but violin underscoring is a lament of pathos that non-fiction wants to install belief (to accept keeps the viewer emotionally involved in the taleits world fades as from actual)” the screen, (Nichols Jacobi’s 2). At expositorythe end of tragedy of the narrative while Jacobi outlines voicethe film, overlaps as the withclosing the scene image of of the a disgustedhistorical Robert Cecil and blurs the distinction between applause as the on-screen curtain closes and the his ‘evidence’. At the end of the film, there is no exposition. In this closing exposition, following the fiction emotional of the impact narrative of proper the melodramatic and Jacobi’s byon-screen the unappreciated audience files de out Vere of in the the theatre narrative – a narrative, Jacobi eliminates all modalising Anonymousfilmic metaphor of the applause never garnered

of an academic offers. essay. By framing It humbly the posits narrative a thesis, with agenda,language the that closing identifies exposition the preceding covertly ‘history’ attempts as Jacobi’s exposition, the film follows the structure tofiction. legitimize Instead it. of Jacobi mitigating lists speciousthe propagandistic historical position at the end. However, this essay is heavily ladenoffers with‘evidence’, appeals and to emotion then firmly rather statesthan fact. its Anonymous facts that blur into the fiction just observed. In Finlay is clear in his position that “speculation, Robert Cecil remained the most powerful so doing he intimates that the fiction is factual. whether founded would probably on intuition offend or Robert on concepts Finlay. man in the court of King James, though drawn from anthropology and literary criticism, he couldn’t prevent the public theatres is supposed to give way before the sovereignty from becoming ever more popular. of the sources, the tribunal of the documents” Shakespeare in Love and the remainder of his days not in the Anonymous attempt to interpret the most reliable playhousesWilliam Shakespeare, of London, buthowever, in the spentsmall documents(Finlay 571). available, Both the plays. However, in so town of his birth, Stratford-upon-Avon, as a businessman and grain merchant that are inextricably informed by contemporary Anonymous sentimentsdoing, the films and cannot ideological avoid agendas.interpretations Both In this last sentence, Jacobi suggests movies write contrasting contemporary ( ). sentiments over the absent historical record of a “businessman and grain merchant” are around cultural icons. Shakespeare in Love inconceivablythat the working congruent class with financial anyone associatedexigencies leisurely champions the working class hero. with the plays. Jacobi concludes with more Anonymous aggressively responds with a tale speciously relevant historical facts and with a that champions the aristocratic genius. These continued bias against the man from Stratford. contradictory ideologies will probably remain unresolved competing factions within modern Ben Jonson succeeded in his desire to be the most celebrated playwright of resolved, however, is that Shakespeare, the man orcapitalist the texts, culture. can be What easily these appropriated movies forhave a variety of competing political agendas, and that dedicationhis time, becoming to the collected England’s works first of poet the the cinematic historical drama, on a thematic laureate, and in 1623 he wrote the level, is more about the ideology of the era in

poet’sman we is not.call WilliamFor his monument Shakespeare. is ever- And ‘history’ it contains. living,so, though made our not story of stone, is finished, but of verse, our establishwhich the a film pattern is constructed, of idolatry than towards the ostensible a literary and it shall be remembered as long as When one is seeking to words are made of breath and breath similarities with deeply entrenched religious Anonymous myths.‘god’ it Theis difficult similarities to overlook between thevery myth obvious and

life ( ). Journal of English Literature and Language 13 The Shakespeare Authorship Question: A Case Study in Bourdieuian Class Maintenance enigma of Shakespeare and those of Jesus are provenance. “This continued familiarity with the contents of one play induced a peculiar sense of intimacy with the mind and disposition too strong to ignore. Whereas Jesus was the character in the book associated with him (i. e. ofthe bardolatry New Testament), have been Shakespeare nothing ifwas not the guilty author of questionedof its author Shakespeare’s and his outlook authorship upon life” is (Looney George attemptingof his texts. toNevertheless, locate Shakespeare those whom in his I accuse texts. Bernard13). Another Shaw. obvious For a man bardolator who claimed who hasto have not Looney himself states “The personality which despised Shakespeare, Shaw wrote exhaustively seems to run through the pages of the drama I about the man and his works, almost to the felt altogether out of relationship with what was exclusion of all other playwrights. Shaw proudly taught of the reputed author and the ascertained made personal comparisons to Shakespeare and even went so far as to stage a festival called messiah within the text, or failing to, relegates the Shak vs. Shav. The unsaid reverence inherent facts of his career” (Looney 14). Finding the in such exclusionary attention is textbook either have faith or you are an atheist. Likewise, psychoanalytical repressed hero worship. withinterpreter Shakespeare to one youof two are camps. either Witha ‘Stratfordian’ Jesus you or an ‘anti-Stratfordian’. The heresy of those in the latter category becomes a matter of risible ever. In his documentary, Looking for Richard, Presently, bardolatry is as pervasive as folly to those in the former and/or vice versa. excursions to the streets to ask the ‘average’ personfilmed in about the early their 1990’s, exposure Pacino to makes ‘Shakespeare’. several Strong atheists find it necessary to disprove He laments at one point that “no-one does!” Jesus and have ‘identified’ a disparity between Similarly,the man of anti-Stratfordians Nazareth who was are a mereloyal tocarpenter an idea idea appears to have lost momentum in popular thatand athe deity likely who uneducated was crucified lower-class and resurrected. man from culture(I. e. knows as ‘Shakespeare’ Shakespeare). became The moreworship and of more the Stratford could not possibly be responsible academically and artistically stigmatized. It for the literary genius that manifests itself in appears that a fear of Shakespeare becoming less the Shakespearean texts. Ironically, atheists revered manifests itself in apparent bardolators. They seem to believe that if the texts are deemed evidence before they will have faith whereas the too inaccessible for worship, refocusing on the seem to take the route of requiring verifiable I daresay that to atheists who feel it necessary to The texts and the man are confused under the disproveStratfordians Jesus need as a it messiah, to lose theirs. Jesus Nevertheless, has become ideaman, of via authorship controversial posed questioning, by Foucault. will Therefore, suffice. as important to them as to those who believe. As using either one as a focus of popular worship such, they are guilty of a certain type of Jesus- meets the needs of the bardolator. worship themselves. Similarly, the identity of Derek Jacobi makes use of the Shakespeare Shakespeare has become a locus of anxiety to Authorship Question in an attempt to rejuvenate both Stratfordians and anti-Stratfordians alike bardolatry for personal gain, and perhaps out of and so I categorize them together under the the fear of Shakespeare losing popularity. Sir same worship umbrella known as bardolatry. Historically, bardolatry has been evident. stage productions of Shakespeare’s plays. His Delia Bacon tipped her hand by using biblical, careerDerek Jacobi is typically has appeared Shakespearean in many and film he and has or at least religious, language. The magnitude of associations with such famous Shakespeareans Looney’s research in order to locate the life of as Ian McKellan and Kenneth Branagh. His Oxford within the canon of Shakespeare’s work professional career was built on Shakespeare’s must have been immense. Looney openly calls back so to speak. Recently Jacobi“unveiled a the texts “the immortal Shakespeare dramas” Declaration of Reasonable Doubt” as to the exposure to Shakespeare’s texts as adequate to Again, preoccupied with evidence that is not empower(Looney 13). him Liketo authoritatively Delia Bacon, questionhe deems their his there,authorship the “documentof Shakespeare’s says works that there (Thespians). are no

Journal of English Literature and Language 14 The Shakespeare Authorship Question: A Case Study in Bourdieuian Class Maintenance

are acceptably attached to a mere man from payment or secured patronage for a writing” Stratford. records that any William Shakespeare received artistic director of the new Globe theatre in (Thespians). Mark Rylance, who is the former London, unveiled with Jacobi. The article quotes What is not absolutely certain is that the him as saying, “You get more of a rise if you man named William Shakespeare from Stratford say Shakespeare didn’t write the work than that the man who wrote the plays was named wrote the plays. What is nearly conclusive is ‘unveiled’ suggests intent for a public audience. they are the same man. Arguments against this William Shakespeare. What is highly likely is that Theif you article say there intimates isn’t a that God” “the (Hurst). attackers The word [who likelihood are all based on what is not known are] saying the dramatist was Somebody Else and what can be interpreted as biographical entirely or a Front Man for a group of writers, evidence within the texts. The little evidence we [are] all trying to make a living in the frantic do have strongly favours the one man named Shakespeare and any position to the contrary public unveiling suspiciously followed “the is a losing argument. world of Elizabethan theatre” (Hurst). Jacobi’s shortly to risk academic scorn, if not suicide, by “William Leahy, […] is final matinee of “I am Shakespeare,” a play ofinvestigating the production the bard’s remains identity” to be (Thespians). seen. Either convening the first-ever graduate course on the way,Whether his ‘coming or not Jacobi out’ on cashes the authorship in on a remounting question Shakespeare’ssubject at London’s authorship, Brunel three University” distinct patterns(Hurst). was clearly part of the overall marketing for emerge:In surveying personal the ambition,most influential academic doubters insecurity, of his production: an attempt to capitalize on and the leviathan phenomenon of bardolatry in the authorship question and the bardolatrous which stratfordians and anti-stratfordians alike emotional reactions it creates. have come to worship the text and choose to Trosman refers to bardolatry as the continue the debate so that Shakespeare never becomes stationary; to proliferate a state of perpetual controversy about which to continue arguably“unqualified superior, supremacy ultimately attached that isto a the matter work” of the Shakespearian discourse. critical(Trosman opinion 490). While and cultural Shakespeare’s perspective. works Butare Authors’ Biography “Looney’s reference to the dramatic work as the best in the English language is typical for Dr. David Christopher is a Sessional Instructor in Department of Art History and Visual Studies at the University of Victoria, as well as an Assistant the anti-Stratfordian point of view” (Trosman Faculty Member in the Department of Social, there490). fallsHaving out been a need indoctrinated to reconcile tothe revere god with his Cultural, and Media Studies at the University of hisworks, miracles. like atheists Ultimately, who find all doubtersJesus important, appear guilty of this bardolatry in a Freudian style. The religious belief in the supremacy of the work is atthe UVic Fraser with Valley. a focus In on2019, Critical David Cultural was awarded Studies transferred to the author-god as its source and inthe Media Ph.D. andfrom Cinema. his home His department research and of recentAHVS reconciliation must be made with the miracle publication interests are wide-ranging, and of the text and the man-who-would-be-god include anarcho-Marxist philosophy, media who created them. The truth, however, is that perception and ideology, apocalypse and horror, the author-god responsible for their worship is Canadian cinema and media industries, and only a projection from the minds of those who have become psychologically dependent on broadly. For more information, visit https:// the legendary status ascribed to the man and a uvic.academia.edu/DavidChristopher.science-fiction literature and cinema more fanatical loyalty to the supremacy of the texts. However, the incredible quality of Shakespeare’s References works is only miraculous to those who have [1] Anonymous chosen to worship. To the factual historian, they . Dir. Roland Emmerich. Narr. Sir Derek Jacobi. Anonymous Pictures, 2011. Journal of English Literature and Language 15 The Shakespeare Authorship Question: A Case Study in Bourdieuian Class Maintenance

Dialectic of Enlightenment. Trans. John Cumming The Philosophy of the Plays of ShakspereUnfolded. [2] Bacon, Delia Salter, and Nathaniel Hawthorne. [1972]. New York: Continuum, 1993. London:Bacon, DeliaGroombridge Salter. and Sons, 1857. [17] upon-Avon,Hurst, Lynda. but “‘We’re . . . ‘. ”Toronto Not a Lot Star of Mad People” [3] Putnam’s Magazine “William Shakespeare We have Nothing Against the Man fromStratford- and his Plays: An Inquiry Concerning Them. ” Sep 16 2007: Baudrillard, Jean. Simulacra(January 1856): and 1-20. Simulation . ID.Leitch, 1. Vincent B. The Norton Anthology of Trans. Sheila Faria Glaser. Ann Arbor: University Theory and Criticism [4] [18] . 1st ed. New York: Norton, . of Michigan Press, 1994. Distinction: A Social 2001. The Author in Shakespeare Critique of the Judgment of Taste – Introduction. [19] Lester, Paul. [5] ”Bourdieu, The Norton Pierre. Anthology “From of Theory and Criticism. Birmingham:Looney, J. Thomas. P. Lester, “Shakespeare” 1981. Identified in Edward De Vere, the Seventeenth Earlof Oxford. [20] Eds. Vincent Leitch et al. New York: W. W. Norton Bretzius, Stephen. “Dr. Jacques L. and Martin & Co. , 2001. 1809-1814. London:McManaway, C. Palmer, James 1920. Gilmer. The Authorship of Shakespeare. [6] ” Diacritics 27. 1 [21] Hide-A-Guerre: The Subject of NewHistoricism. Washington, D. C: Chow, Rey. “Film and Cultural Identity. ” The (1997): 73-90. FolgerShakespeareMcCrea, Scott. The Library, Case for 1962. Shakespeare: The Oxford Guide to Film Studies. Ed. John Hill and End of the Authorship Question. [7] [22] Westport, Conn.: Pamela Church Gibson. Oxford University Press, Praeger, 2005. 1998.Croce, Benedetto. Theory and History and the Theater. ”Film: An Anthology. Ed. Daniel of Historiography (Teoria e Storia della [23] Nicoll, Allardyce. “Film Reality: The Cinema [8] Storiografia). Transl. Douglas Ainslie. London: Talbot. Berkeley:Introduction U of California to P, Documentary1959. 33-50. .

The [24] Nichols, Bill. George G. Harrop and Co. Ltd. , 1921. Looking for Richard. Fox Searchlight American Historical Review Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001. [9] Davis, Natalie Zemon. “On The Lame. ” [25] Pacino, Al. , Vol. 93, No. 3 (June, Sir Sidney Lee & Absolute The Shakespeare Enigma. Pictures. 1996 1988). 572-603. Proof : Being the Case for anExhaustive Inquiry [26] Parsons, John Denham. [10] Dawkins, Peter. as to the Full Extent, and Correct Interpretation, London: Polair, 2004. of the SubSurface Signalling about the Poet Edmonton Journal Shakespeare shown by the Author’s FourLetters [11] Fields, Bertram. “Did Shakespeare Really Write in theAthenaeum to have Come Down to Us on Those Plays?” Aug 72005: E. at Least One Page of theFirst Folio. London: 12.Finlay, Robert. “The Refashioning of Martin Guerre. ”The American Historical Review, Vol. [12] PublishedRosenstone, by the Robert author, A. 1920. “The Historical Film: The Garber, Marjorie. Shakespeare and Modern 93, No. 3 (June, 1988). 553-571. [27] Historical Film: History and Memory in Media. Culture Looking at the Past in a Postliterate Age. ” [13] . Toronto: Random House, 2008. of Dissent: Or, Delia Bacon and the Caseof the Ed. Marcia Landy. New Brunswick: Rutgers [28] The Shakespeare Controversy: A Digest of [14] MissingGlazener, Hamlet. Nancy. ”“Print Culture as an Archive University Press, 2001. 50-66. American Literary History Comment in Recently Published Books onStratford 19. and the Shakespeare Controversy. -----. London: 2Halliday, (2007): 329-49. F. E. Shakespeare and His Critics. [15] [29] FrancisShakespeare CarrPublications, in Love. Dir. John 1968. Madden. Alliance London: G. Duckworth, 1958. The

[16] JournalHorkheimer, of English Max Literature and Theodor and Language W. Adorno. Atlantis, 1998. 16 The Shakespeare Authorship Question: A Case Study in Bourdieuian Class Maintenance

Shaw, Bernard. Shaw on Shakespeare: An “Thespians Challenge the Bard. ”Prince George Anthology of Bernard Shaw’s Writings on Citizen [30] thePlays and Production of Shakespeare. [1st ed. [33] Trosman, Sep H. 10 “Freud 2007: and2. the Controversy Over ] Shakespearean Authorship. ”Journal ofthe [34] New York: Dutton, 1961. American Psychoanalytic Association Bacon and Shakespeare: An Inquiry Touching 13 (1965): [31] Players,Smith, WilliamPlayhouses, Henry and Play-Writersand Tobie inMatthew. the Days 475-98. Theatre 500: Methods and of Elizabeth. Materials of Theatre Research. University [35] Wise, Jennifer. Storey, John.London: Cultural J. R. TheorySmith, 1857. and Popular Culture: An Introduction, Fifth Edition [32] ofVictoria. Phoenix rm. 141, Victoria, BC. 19 . New November 2009. York: Pearson Longman, 2009.

Citation: “The Shakespeare Authorship Question: A Case Study in Bourdieuian Class Maintenance”, Dr. David Christopher, (2021), DOI: Journal of English Literature and Language; 2(1): 1-17. Dr. David Christopher, This is an open-access article distributed under the terms Copyright:10.31829/2767-2964/jell2021-2(1)-104 © 2021 of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Journal of English Literature and Language 17