Review by Ron Roffel, first published on Goodreads.com
All students of Shakespeare should be required to read Elizabeth Winkler’s book Shakespeare was a Woman and Other Heresies – How Doubting the Bard Became the Biggest Taboo in Literature before studying the works so they can better understand them. This title question puts an historical perspective to Shakespeare unlike anything else. She offers a history of the Shakespeare Authorship Question which, as she says, has been ignored by generations of scholars.
Lawyers, Supreme Court Justices, actors, and scholars from many generations are cited in order to provide a broader perspective on why people think there is a hidden author behind the most produced plays in history.
Do not be fooled, however, this book is not just about a literary mystery worthy of Poirot or Sherlock Holmes. It is about academic honesty and the search for truth in a more than 400-year-old puzzle. It is a refreshing antidote to the fake news that surrounds us since she teaches how to look at evidence using her objective and critical eye.
Winkler gives us more than just a history of the controversy. She provides reasons why the traditional tale of the rural businessman from Stratford upon Avon who made good is deeply flawed. She delves into how the rise of the English department as a discipline is closely tied to colonialism and the false idea that British/Western culture is superior to all others. Sociologists and anthropologists will find a rich source to mine in those parts of her book.
Her writing is casual yet authoritative, engaging the reader with a familiar, easy-going style without sacrificing journalistic integrity.
Lucid and insightful, Winkler takes us on a fascinating journey to the center of the controversy. From staunch protectors of the Stratford story like Sir Stanley Wells to the delightfully acerbic wit of Post-Stratfordian Alexander Waugh, we meet a cast of characters who tell us their stories. Winkler honors the time they gave her, revealing their understanding on the subject of who wrote the works of Shakespeare. She gives us her own voyage into the deep well that is the Shakespeare Authorship Question.
In one chapter we travel with her to the home of Sir Mark Rylance, the first director of the Globe Theatre in London where the actor and his wife entertain her and us with anecdotes and how they became involved in the question. Of all the chapters, it is one of the best.
Winkler’s book will astound, perplex, and hopefully convince many readers to abandon the flimsy story that a rural businessman became the best writer in the English language. Her history of the authorship question suggests that we should look again at the timeless stories and poems without the bias laid upon it by academics who should know better than to tell us how to interpret them. This is the true heart of Winkler’s ground-breaking book.
She gives us back a Shakespeare we can read and enjoy for ourselves.
Ron Roffel is an independent scholar holding a BA in General Studies (now called Communications Studies) from the University of Calgary and a Library Technician diploma from SAIT Polytechnic who has a passion for solving enigmas.
