AKA Shakespeare

In screenplay format, four characters debate the real identity of Shakespeare, using Bayesian statistics to justify their conclusions.

English professor Beatrice and mystery novelist Claudia learn about statistical analysis and, under the guidance of statistician Martin and engineer/entrepreneur James, use quantitative methods to investigate the likelihood that Shakespeare’s plays were actually written by a man from Stratford. The book is divided into scenes, each focused on a single aspect of Shakespeare’s identity, although the characters use the name Shake*Speare (“The asterisk should remind us that we are dealing with someone whose identity we have not yet decided”) to minimize the bias for or against their candidates: the Stratfordian William Shakespeare, the Earl of Oxford, or some unidentified person or group. For each question—Was Shake*Speare educated? Did he visit Italy? Is there a hidden message in the sonnets’ dedication?—Beatrice and Claudia produce probability matrices to evaluate the factor. (The reader is invited to complete the same matrices and submit their guesses at the companion website.) The frequent criticisms of Bill Bryson’s The World As a Stage (2007) may leave readers wondering if this book is intended as a reply; if so, it’s a curious decision, since Bryson’s brief pop-history is hardly an authority on Shakespeare studies. This book’s characters are determined to keep an open mind about the authorship question, which gives them plenty of discussion fodder but may be off-putting to anyone who sees no cause for dispute. The screenplay format is an unusual choice, but it works well with the content, despite some stilted dialogue: “Well, of course, I am not a betting person, so I am not used to thinking about probabilities.” Readers may also take issue with the characters’ methodology, as they jump from one “admittedly wild conjecture” to another. A more serious shortcoming is the book’s failure to acknowledge the limitations of probability. Like a hitter’s batting average, the odds Beatrice and Claudia calculate for each Shake*Speare candidate might be useful if this were an experiment that could be repeated numerous times, but they reveal little about a single event in the past.

A thought exercise delivered in a unique format that provokes more questions than answers.