June 27, 2020
In a word — evidence.
I was in the stacks of Southern Oregon State College in Ashland, Oregon (now Southern Oregon University), in the late 1980s, killing time before going to an Oregon Shakespeare Festival matinee. Idly picking material from a shelf I came across an Oxfordian publication and the name Charlton Ogburn. I bought his book and then J. Thomas Looney’s. That’s all I needed to give me a framework for looking for evidence.
I have a degree in physics and taught it for 45 years before retiring. It’s a subject for which, in the end, “it’s all about the data.” It’s also a subject that disdains authority as the ultimate arbiter of truth. We’ve all noticed that the case for Oxford attracts a large number of people whose jobs center around evidence — lawyers, judges, engineers, scientists, et al. I am no different.
But — “Where is the evidence that I’m wrong?” is a question I constantly ask myself. There is no clear contemporaneous evidence (during his lifetime) that Shakspere was a writer. There is no contemporaneous evidence anyone else thought he was a writer. There is no contemporaneous evidence he was anything but a successful petty businessman. Why would that not prompt a question of reasonable doubt? Or am I missing something? Of course I am — it’s what Churchill was supposed to have said when he was asked about the Shakespeare authorship question: “I don’t want my myths tampered with.”
As for Oxford — everything fits. It doesn’t fit perfectly but neither do the contenders for the composition of Dark Matter.
I confess that my interest in the SAQ has shifted somewhat to acknowledging the many forms of bias we all have when we instinctively resist an apparent attack on the beliefs that shape us or pay our salaries. And as an aside, I encourage everyone to read what could be one of the most important books published in the last hundred years and might challenge your own deeply held beliefs, AKA the truth as you know it: The Deficit Myth by Stephanie Kelton. Nothing to do with Shakespeare, but everything to do with: “How do we know that what we’re told is the truth is the truth?”
But I digress.
Contentious topics don’t become really interesting for me until we get to the counter-arguments to the counter-arguments. But where is the intellectually honest (as opposed to ad hominem sniping) Stratfordian response to John M. Shahan’s and Alexander Waugh’s Shakespeare Beyond Doubt? Ditto the work of Bryan H. Wildenthal, Tom Regnier, Kevin Gilvary, Mark Anderson, Roger Stritmatter, Bonner Miller Cutting, Earl Showerman, and all the others I am offending by forgetting their names?
If the other side won’t engage, we will be temporarily stymied, but always remember what Henri Poincaré said: “Progress is made by funerals.”
— Tom Woosnam
To hear more from Tom Woosnam, listen to his interview on the SOF podcast program “Don’t Quill the Messenger” hosted by Steven Sabel.
“How I Became an Oxfordian” is a series edited by Bob Meyers. You may submit your essay on this topic (500 words or less in an editable format such as MS Word), along with a digital photo of yourself, to: communications@shakespeareoxfordfellowship.org. Also include a sentence about yourself, e.g.: “John J. Smith is a businessman in San Francisco.” You must be an SOF member to submit an essay.
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