1. the facts that I interpret are things like a monument, a picture of an author in a book, countless names of an author on title-pages, documents written by eye-witnesses–that sort of thing. Your side mainly interprets these facts as forgeries, willful frauds, mistakes, irony, etc. The other “facts” your side comes up with do nothing explicitly to establish anyone other than Shakespeare as the author of the works attributed to Shakespeare. That Bacon may have read some work believed to be a source of some Shakespearean play is meaningless, for example. Too many other writers could have read it, or heard enough about it to use it; other it may not be a necessary source. It does not objectively explicitly establish Bacon as the author of any Shakespeare play. On the other hand, the fact that the First Folio states explicitly that the author of the works the book contains was dead at a time when Bacon was still alive objectively, explicitly establishes (although it does not prove) that Bacon did not write those works.

2. If you really wondered what books I’ve read about the authorship question, you ought to have done a little research. Indeed, if you only know about me because you stumbled on this blog, you prove that you yourself must not know much about the subject. I’ve published a book on the authorship question and been active on the Internet for twenty years or so debating it. I was even a member of an Oxfordian society for five or ten years debating Oxfordians. I haven’t read all the books on the subject, but many of them–more I suspect than you have. But guess what: it doesn’t matter what books I’ve read; what matters are my arguments. Shakespeare and the Rigidniks is the name of my book. I believe it’s available on the Internet. That’s where you’ll find my arguments.

3. I don’t classify all anti-Stratfordians as psitchotics, only those who have actually studied the issue and thus can not be excused as simply ignorant. I give the reasons for my classification in my book.

4. Many scholars argue that Greene’s Groatsworth accuses the upstart Crow of plagiary. However, there are sound arguments against that. The use of the term, “Crow,” is far from conclusive as evidence that Greene considered the Crow a plagiarist since it was standard to call all actors crows–because they made a living from the use of others’ feathers, not because they were plagiarists. Finally, it is near-certain that the Crow was not merely being accused of plagiarism. Read my essay on Greenes Groatsworth for more details. It’s here at my blog.

I’m relatively new to blogging at this site so wasn’t aware of the two or three dozen comments it has drawn in the six months or so that I’ve had it, yours among them. According to where I’m reading your post, you were responding to something of mine in the “About” section of my blog–probably my response to Diana Price’s book. Anyway, I do see myself somewhat as the defender of the “faith” that Shakespeare was Shakespeare. Emotionally, I do strongly identify with his relatively humble background. Mainly, I identify with his having managed to become a great writer without a great deal of formal education. Self-reliance is an important ideal for me. He was also like me in coming from the middle class and in having been born outside a major city–and in having a bald head!

However, all that’s irrelevant. I’d love to find that Oscar Wilde did not write The Importance of Being Earnest because I’m not homosexual, or that Einstein’s theory is poppycock, because I’m not Jewish. Nonetheless, I go with the facts. The facts in the Shakespeare authorship controversy are entirely on the side of my Will. So much so that my real major interest in the question is in determining why apparently sane people believe Oxford or Marlowe or Bacon or someone else wrote the works of Shakespeare. I believe that they are psitchotics, or “psituational psychotics”–sane in most of their lives but insane when it comes to the authorship question. I have a complex neurophysiological theory to explain how their brain works and how it forces them psitchotically to refuse to accept self–reliance and imagination, neither of which they are capable of, as sufficient means to make a man a genius, so write books like Diana Price’s . . . or send Internet messages to those who are sane about Shakespeare suggesting that belief in him is a “faith” grounded on a dream the believer is defending as you have done.

No hard feelings, though. Everyone is defending an outlook on life. Some do it with solid evidence, some with fantasy. Which is more likely right takes a while to sort out, depending as it does on a consensus of knowledgeable persons–like the one that has remained on Shakespeare’s side for the 150 years or so that
anyone has seriously expressed doubt as to his having written the works attributed to him.

–Bob G.