A Bridge Too Far

With the imminent release of Roland Emmerich's film Anonymous, which seeks to demonstrate that the real author of Shakespeare's plays was none other than the Earl of Oxford, academics on both sides of the pond are getting increasingly hot and bothered. Debates about the authorship of Shakespeare's plays have raged online for weeks, and most of the major newspapers appear to have written at least one headline-grabbing story about the film.

Anonymous takes its starting point from the pro-Oxfordians, who argue there is insufficient evidence to prove Shakespeare could have written his plays, since he had at best a grammar school education, and was merely the son of a provincial glover. Theirs is just one of the many conspiracy theories surrounding the creation of the body of work traditionally ascribed to Shakespeare.

Up until very recently the so-called Authorship Debate has been limited to enthusiastic amateurs digging around in obscure archives attempting to crack the great mystery of who really wrote Shakespeare's works. However, with Roland Emmerich's new film we are entering dangerous new territory. According to the website Shakespeare Authorship, written and maintained by Dr David Kathman, the company Youth Marketing International has created a set of educational materials based on Anonymous which are to be made available to schools and colleges.

An examination of this educational material is enough to provoke serious concern. The online PDF boasts that the material on Anonymous is designed for 'students in English literature, theater, and British history classes.' It opens with the following:

Dear Educator, 

There’s little debate that William Shakespeare is one of the world’s greatest poets and playwrights. But who is William Shakespeare? 

The answer to that question is the starting point for Anonymous, Sony Pictures’ exciting new historical thriller directed by Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow) and starring Rhys Ifans and Vanessa Redgrave, which arrives in theaters on October 28, 2011. 

Anonymous takes us back to a time when plays and politics were intertwined, and when uncovered secrets reveal how the works we attribute to William Shakespeare may have actually been written by Queen Elizabeth I’s one-time favorite, Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford.

The educational objectives of this program are as follows:  

• 'To encourage critical thinking by challenging students to examine the theories about the authorship of Shakespeare’s works and to formulate their own opinions.
• To strengthen students’ communication skills through classroom discussion and debate.
• To engage students in creative writing exercises.' 

We all want students to formulate their own opinions and to develop their communication skills, but the exercises which follow seem to me to be a determined attempt to make up students' minds for them.

In the first exercise students are encouraged to undertake a survey of the 'historical evidence' for the 'upstart crow':

'THE UPSTART CROW 

Here’s what the historical records have to tell us: 

• William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in1564 to John Shakespeare, a glove maker, wool merchant, and town alderman, and his wife, Mary Arden, the daughter of a local landowner.
• We know that boys like Shakespeare usually attended grammar school in Stratford, where they studied Latin, literature, and rhetoric. There is no reason to believe that Shakespeare ever attended a university.
• In 1582, at the age of 18, Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway, age 26.
• The first evidence that Shakespeare was involved in the theater comes in 1592, when the playwright Robert Greene accused him of plagiarism.
• By the late 1590s, Shakespeare is named as a member of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, an acting troupe later known as The King’s Men. He became part owner of the Globe Theatre when it opened in 1599, and a shareholder in the Blackfriars Theatre in 1608.
• Shakespeare made his first appearance as an author on the title page of Venus and Adonis, a long, erotic poem published in 1593, but the first play to carry his name was not published until 1598. Thereafter, records indicate that he produced approximately two plays a year until 1611.
• William Shakespeare died in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1616. His partners in The King’s Men published a collected edition of his plays in 1623.'

This is followed by the following statement:

'REASONABLE DOUBT 

Skeptics accept all these facts, but they find it impossible to believe that a mere grammar school graduate could have written the plays and poems attributed to Shakespeare. Wouldn’t it make more sense, they ask, to suppose that William Shakespeare was only the stand-in for a better educated author?'

Students are encouraged to watch Anonymous and apply their critical thinking to the following exercise:

'PART A: WHAT DO YOU THINK? 

Are Shakespeare’s plays the work of a highly educated writer with firsthand experience of aristocracy? Or could they be the work of an author with exceptional creative talent and observational skills who borrowed from learned books to enhance his own writing? Divide your class into two teams, the Upstart Crows and the Reasonable Doubters, to weigh the question: Was William Shakespeare really an improbable genius, or just a front man for someone with real ability? 

PART B: WORDS, WORDS, WORDS 

Use the information on this sheet to research the theory that William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon was not the author of the “Shakespeare” plays. Then write a persuasive essay supporting your position.' 

This is hardly an exercise in exploring the Authorship Debate. This is an exercise in encouraging students to 'research the theory that William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon was not the author of the 'Shakespeare' plays', and then 'write a persuasive essay' 'supporting' that position. If this were not enough, the 'resources and references' for this educational course are listed as:

Anonymous - www.anonymous-movie.com  

Young Minds Inspire - www.ymiclassroom.com 

Statement of Reasonable Doubt -
www.DoubtAboutWill.Org

For those requiring further references the following (currently broken) url is provided:

www.ymiclassroom/com/AnonymousReferences.pdf

I'm all in favour of freedom of speech and the right for anyone to express an opinion, however bizarre it may be, and while I'm no fan of those who put forth alternative candidates for the authorship of Shakespeare's plays, I respect their right to indulge in mad conspiracy theories. However this educational material seeks to encourage high-school students to write essays supporting the view that Shakespeare was not the author of his works without them having been given a shred of historical evidence.

Nowhere in the material provided does there appear to be a solid argument in support of Shakespeare as the author of his works. There are no links to websites which argue the case for Shakespeare, nor are there any balanced reading lists which would enable students to research the case for themselves. In my view the material provided is biased entirely in favour of the Earl of Oxford

It's one thing to make a film about Shakespeare riddled with historical inaccuracy and conspiracy theories, but to teach children that those conspiracies might be historical fact is potentially dangerous, irresponsible, and a bridge too far. Until there is conclusive irrefutable historical proof that the Earl of Oxford wrote the works traditionally ascribed to William Shakespeare, I don't believe this material should to be taught in schools.

You can see the Anonymous educational material here
You can listen to academic scholars providing overwhelming evidence that Shakespeare was the author of his works here
Download a free e-book Shakespeare Bites Back by Stanley Wells and Paul Edmondson

Disclaimer:

The views expressed in this blog post are my own personal views. They do not reflect the views of any institution to which I may be affiliated. They are based entirely on my response to information made freely available in the public domain.