Firstly, I’d like to clearly state here for the record that this blog is a private record of opinion, and that in no way, manner, shape, or form conceivable is the CLCWA, TIG or their affiliate organisations responsible for its content. Any future responses to the posts submitted on this blog should please be entered through the comments section or communicated via my email address (maestro2000ng@yahoo.com).

Secondly, I unreservedly regret offending Dr. Etokidem’s sensibilities over a difference in opinion concerning my recounting of the TIG conference, specifically the entry wherein he was referenced. There was absolutely no intent to misrepresent the gentleman doctor; in fact, I did confess to having thoroughly enjoyed his informative presentation in the contentious post in question (http://zonerator.tigblog.org/post/269261), and consider the accuracy of his medical observations unimpeachable. I also regret whatever discomfiture was experienced by the TIG/CLCWA team as a result of this unfortunate misunderstanding.

Now to the topics of contention. The first I want to handle is a medical question where I intimated of the respectable doctor thus: “He denounces habitual egg-eating which induces obesity.” The assertion itself that the inveterate eating of eggs contributes to obesity is not incorrect. Japanese sumo wrestlers have been known to build up bulk in this manner. The gentleman doctor nevertheless maintains he was not the source of that fact. A closer look will reveal that the adjunct “…which induces obesity…” does not in the least ascribe him as the source, but is simply parenthetical. Perhaps I should have enclosed it for clarity, definitely an oversight on my part.

But where the ‘cauldron boils and bubbles’ is the Shakespeare question, where I labelled the doctor’s conviction that Shakespeare was indeed Francis Bacon as “utterly erroneous”. Now this, in retrospect, was a strongly worded opinion, and appropriate alterations have since been made to redress this. But it was never designed to be irreverent, and remains an opinion I still strongly hold to academically, even in the face of the “Declaration of Reasonable Doubt” undersigned by such notables as Mark Twain, Sir John Gielgud and Charlie Chaplin, which cited several reasons why they believed Shakespeare hadn’t written his plays, one of which was that very little was known about him, suggesting instead that better-recorded authors such as Francis Bacon must have written the plays and used ‘William Shakespeare’ as a ‘nom de plume’.

To my mind, however, these protestations are for the most part speculative, and there is extensive incontrovertible evidence to substantiate the true authorship of Shakespeare. Whereas there is little surviving correspondence by the playwright, William Shakespeare was regularly referred to by well-known contemporaries such as English writer and lexicographer, Ben Johnson, who remarked that he “loved the man” and complained of his wordiness, a self-evident reputation of his plays. He was even satirized by poet J. Marston in “The Scourge of Villainy” and several other works of his time give mention of one such playwright distinctly known as Shakespeare. He had a wife Ann and a daughter Judith, and the grave monument in his hometown Stratford clearly depicts his vocation. Furthermore, the individuals that doubting scholars assert to be the real Shakespeare change inconsistently with the prevailing times, from the eminent statesman and philosopher Francis Bacon in the 18th and 19th centuries, to a lesser known blue-blood Edward De Vere in the 20th century, until present. Their arguments are not helped either by the fact that the writing styles of these respective candidates are by stark contrast inferior to Shakespeare’s distinctly free-flowing, superlatively flamboyant compositions, however intersected their chronologies were with the playwright’s.

There is talk of anagrams, queries concerning his literacy and class, and several other shadows of doubt cast on his true origins, some creditably diligent, some curiously dubious. In the end, nonetheless, it is merely a question of opinion and counter-opinion, and purely from an academic standpoint, I find it untoward that anyone should infer fact from the hypothetical musings within a literary debate, however persuasive. Personally, I elect to disagree.

But that is what I think. To make up your own minds, check the following links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakespeare_authorship_question, http://www.shakespeareauthorship.com, http://www.shakespeare-oxford.com, http://www.shakespearefellowship.org.

Again, these are merely my informed impressions, no more, no less, and I implore everyone, including the estimable doctor, to view them as such.