Could the Folger
Shakespeare Library be a ‘ridiculous institution’?
One
writer thinks it could be, or that the directors of the institute are worried
that they might be seen as such. But why?
Well,
as the writer mentions—the field of Shakespeare Scholarship has persisting
within it “a thousand controversies’. And the “hottest of these is the
so-called Authorship Question – the question of whether Shakespeare [meaning
Shaksper of Stratford] wrote Shakespeare.”
Apparently,
the directors of the Folger Library through the decades have been thinking the
unthinkable, because it seems, the unthinkable could happen. We might even say
they have been thinking for themselves. This hot controversy could be “resolved
in favour of one of the many claimants”.
Let’s
pause and think about this a little ourselves. Publicly the library only gives
lip service to the authorship debate. But we know that quite recently one of its
shining scholars attempted valiantly to argue she had proved that Shaksper did
indeed write the Shakespeare works. But we know that it was a feeble attempt,
and the Folger leaders must recognize that also since they continue to see the
need for “risk mitigation strategies” to survive the unthinkable.
One
would have thought though that they must have received ‘the memo’ from the
Stratford Birthplace Trust or some of the leading scholars in the field that
their guy really was the great author, ‘beyond doubt’ . And that they, the
Folger Directors, should just trust them about it.
But
no, too dang risky, apparently. Even a little doubt, in this case, is too much.
The heretics could actually be right. So, quietly, privately, they have their
strategies ready to mitigate this frightful risk. Ready even to--change their
business cards, letterhead, etc. if the unthinkable event they’ve spent some time
thinking about happens.
So
if the Folger Library has its doubts, and it strives “to be the “go to” place
for debating and deliberating on Shakespearean controversies”, doesn’t it seem
rational for everyone else (not dependent on the traditional story for their livelihood)
to also be open to doubt?
Henry
Folger, it turns out, was a big collector of Baconiana and had been “a long
standing member of the Bacon Society of America”. If he was alive today he
might also be known as a member of one of the Oxfordian societies.
And
perhaps Henry Folger knew that it was quite possible for a hidden but connected
writer to work concealed and undiscovered.
This
is described by Oxfordian Michael Dudley in an earlier article:
“Perhaps
the most significant lesson authorship skeptics may draw from the story of
Henry Folger is that, as a case study, it serves to demolish any attempt to
ridicule the Oxfordian case as a “conspiracy theory”, one about which “too many
people” would have needed to have known. We must understand that Henry and
Emily Folger and a close circle of confederates were able to operate an
enterprise on a global scale in secret and at the same time kept his
name out of the newspapers for the better part of four decades – and
all this in an age of mass media, with British newspapers responding with
outrage to the loss of their printed heritage at auctions to a faceless
American millionaire. If, with the right mix of power and influence this could
be accomplished in a democracy during the 20th Century, how much more likely is
it that a similarly secretive and powerful man in an authoritarian 16th Century
could have disguised his actions to contemporary observers—and thus to history?”
More food for thought I’d say.
No comments:
Post a Comment