Saturday, July 6, 2013

Shakespeare Beyond Doubt - 4 Barber and Peter Farey

Next is a snippet from Ros Barber again, and this time with one of her Marlovian cohorts, Peter Farey

They primarily take issue with the anti-Marlowe argument in Shakespeare Beyond Doubt. But one of their points is more general:

Thus it is clear that despite the generally improved tone of Shakespeare Beyond Doubt, the defenders of the orthodoxy continue to hold the line that authorship questioners are morally or logically deficient, and the question itself invalid.  Charles Nicholl demonstrates a clear distaste for "the interrogative syntax much favoured in authorship literature."  We, on the other hand, insist that questioning is a legitimate human activity, central to all research in both the humanities and the sciences.  And though it is possible that the Shakespeare authorship question will never be settled, we refer Charles Nicholl and the contributors and editors of Shakespeare Beyond Doubt to this quote from French philosopher and humanist Joseph Joubert:

"It is better to debate a question without settling it,
than to settle a question without debating it."




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