[open-literature] More Volunteers, Garden Party Aftermath, The Oxfordian Authorship Interpretation

Tue Jun 15 10:17:21 UTC 2010

Good Afternoon,

...And welcome to all the new volunteers that I've added to this list.
That said, the list still remains very small, so do not hesitate to
post any questions/banter/news here. Talking of volunteers, how was
the Garden Party? I'm sorry I couldn't attend, but very eager to know
who did, and whether there are any strawberries left.

I write also regarding a volunteer with whom I've been in touch for a
while, and from whom I have just received an interesting introduction
to The Phoenix and the Turtle, which raises questions about the
identity of Shakespeare. Alan Tarcia, the contributor, supports the
Oxfordian Authorship Theory, i.e. that the plays said to be by
'Shakespeare', were in fact written by Edward de Vere who used
Shakespeare as a cover (more details on wikipedia). Obviously, this
gives a very unorthodox reading of the poem, and raises the question
of just what we want our introductions to be like.

My suggestion is that we ask Alan to modify his introduction to take
into account both theories of authorship in a baanced manner, as well
as adding less controversial material such as different critical
perspectives on the poem (i.e. contextualise the poem's imagery in
respect to other works of the period, and of antiquity). Further to
this, we then invite Alan to write a longer account of the Oxfordian
Authorship Theory to be published on the blog, again taking in both
sides of the argument. What do people think of this solution? My
concern is that I'm being a bit too dictatorial, and maybe we should
instead just let Alan write what he likes...

For those interested, the introduction in question can be accessed
frome the google spreadsheet planning document.

Best wishes,

James

-- 
OPEN SHAKESPEARE
'The Marriage of Text and Technology'
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