Last Saturday’s Wall Street Journal carried an article on what the Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court think about the pseudo-controversy over the authorship of Shakespeare’s plays. Justice Stevens naturally got featured billing. His belief that the “true author” was Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford (or, as the man himself preferred, “Oxenford”), has long been known to people who pay attention to such matters, even if it was a surprise to many commenters at the Volokh Conspiracy. Of greater novelty were the revelations about the views of other members and former members of the Court: Justices Scalia and Blackmun are also identified as Oxenfordians, Justice O’Connor as a generalized anti-Stratfordian and Justice Ginsburg as a possible advocate of the very longshot candidacy of John Florio (though she admits to having “no informed views”, a statement that could be applied to other aspects of her thought). The Chief Justice and Justices Thomas, Souter and Alito declined to comment.
Justice Scalia’s heterodoxy may be disconcerting to admirers of his judicial philosophy, but, based on the brief statement he gave to the Journal’s reporter, it is in character. He read an Oxenfordian monograph when he was a boy and apparently maintains his allegiance in order to annoy his wife. The only argument he is quoted as making is, “It is probably more likely that the pro-Shakespearean people are affected by a democratic bias than the Oxfordians are affected by an aristocratic bias” – not exactly compelling.
Justice Stevens’ reasoning – if that is le mot juste – is presented at greater length, and is of such tawdry quality that I’m relieved not to have him on the Stratfordian side. The nadir is an argument that I’ve never before seen from even the least perceptive Oxenford backer:
Shakespeare dedicated two narrative poems to the earl of Southampton, Henry Wriothesley, “who also [like Oxenford] was a ward of Lord Burghley and grew up in the same household,” Justice Stevens says. “The coincidence...is really quite remarkable.” He asks, “Why in the world would William Shakespeare, the guy from Stratford, be dedicating these works to this nobleman?”
For the same reason that hundreds of other Elizabethan commoners penned dedications to the nobility, in the hope of monetary and other rewards. One need only read the what the poet wrote to Southampton to realize that these are not the words of the holder of the oldest title in England to a much younger man whose earldom went back only three generations. From Venus and Adonis:
Rght Honourable, I know not how I shall offend in dedicating my unpolished lines to your Lordship, nor how the world will censure me for choosing so strong a prop to support so weak a burthen; only if your Honour seem but pleased, I account myself highly praised, and vow to take advantage of all idle hours, till I have honoured you with some graver labour. But if the first heir of my invention prove deformed, I shall be sorry it had so noble a godfather : and never after ear [plow] so barren a land, for fear it yield me still so bad a harvest, I leave it to your Honourable survey, and your Honor to your heart’s content, which I wish may always answer your own wish, and the world’s hopeful expectation.
And The Rape of Lucrece:
The love I dedicate to your lordship is without end; whereof this pamphlet, without beginning, is but a superfluous moiety. The warrant I have of your honourable disposition, not the worth of my untutored lines, makes it assured of acceptance. What I have done is yours; what I have to do is yours; being part in all I have, devoted yours. Were my worth greater, my duty would show greater; meantime, as it is, it is bound to your lordship, to whom I wish long life, still lengthened with all happiness.
We are also told that “Justice Stevens admits there’s a ‘fringe’ element of anti-Shakespearians who spin elaborate but unlikely theories.” With a little digging, the reporter might have discovered that the Justice himself has written a complimentary missive to one of the theorists furthest out on the fringe (though not absolutely the nuttiest slice of the fruit cake – that honor belongs to the pair of linguists who claim that Oxenford wrote not only Shakespeare but almost all other Elizabethan literature).
As the saying goes, “The country’s in the very best of hands”. Thanks to a man who is incapable of understanding the prefaces to Shakespeare’s poems, unlawful enemy combatants have habeas corpus rights and homeowners don’t have rights under the Fifth Amendment.
"He never had any correspondence with his contemporaries, he never was shown to be present at any major event -- the coronation of James or any of that stuff. I think the evidence that he was not the author is beyond a reasonable doubt."
OK, as a lawyer tell me you are not troubled by the idea that our senior justice apparently has no clue what the phrase "beyond a reasonable doubt" means.
Posted by: Steven Paulson | Friday, May 01, 2009 at 11:33 AM