By Filings on
Society & Culture
Literature
Shakespeare
History

“First, I’ll write about this book and why it is attracting so much attention. Second, I’ll consider why some people are always maintaining that William Shakespeare is actually someone else and why they are wrong. Finally, I’ll write about Emilia Bassano, who, though she’s not Shakespeare, is interesting in herself.” - Veith

Discussion

Wed, 02/18/26

...it's an example of how in the liberal arts, there is only so much truth out there, so one must get one's PhD by publishing something risible at times....

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.

Fri, 02/20/26

Gene Veith is a consistently interesting guy to read.

More of the article…

Her evidence? Codes and ciphers hidden in the texts. Alleged parallels between her and Shakespeare’s characters. An anagram (the letters in “shakespeare” can be re-arranged to spell “a she speaker”). If you fold Shakespeare’s portrait in a certain way you can sort of see a resemblance with Emilia’s portrait. She had a dream about it.

British author Andrew Doyle has read an advance copy and is incredulous, to the point that he suspects a hoax. In a review for Unherd, he writes,

We should not dismiss the idea that Irene Coslet is a pseudonym for a humorist seeking to excoriate the fraudulence of academics with a monomania for identity politics. The Real Shakespeare is so shoddily written and evidence-free that it seems implausible it would have reached the publication stage unless there was some kind of mischief afoot.

So I guess there is some chance the whole thing is someone trolling.

Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.