Remembering Rollett and Debunking Shapiro (Again)
Bryan H. Wildenthal · SSRN Electronic Journal · 2016
Columbia University Professor James Shapiro, an acknowledged expert on Shakespeare, has made a number of mistaken and misleading claims over the years about the Shakespeare authorship question (SAQ). This pattern continued in comments he made to the New York Times that were paraphrased in a June 2016 article about newly studied documents relating to the coat-of-arms obtained by Shakspere of Stratford-upon-Avon (1564-1616), the traditionally credited author of the works published under the name William Shakespeare. This essay compares Professor Shapiro's questionable contributions to the SAQ (along with those of Professors Stephen Greenblatt and Stanley Wells) to the studies of the late Dr. John M. Rollett, a British scientist and respected independent scholar of the SAQ. The essay concludes that independent scholars (even though sometimes derided as amateurs) have sometimes adhered better to reliable standards of scholarship than credentialed and tenured academics who are supposed experts in their fields.