Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 7, 1994 TAG: 9404070304
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Joel Achenbach
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
A: As you know, every 11 years there is a sunspot eruption, which causes static on CB radio transmissions (CB radio is now more commonly known as the ``Internet'').
Why would sunspots be so regular? It's like they're alive, like the 17-year locusts. We called up a sunspot expert, Sallie Baliunas of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and she said it's a mystery.
``The problem is they're so darned regular,'' she said. There's no theory that easily accounts for it and it's certainly counterintuitive. Many theories actually precede observation (such as when Einstein predicted that light would be bent by the gravity well of a star and it was then observed a few years later). But Baliunas says of the sunspot cycle, ``No theorist would ever dream that up.''
Theories about the cause of the sunspot cycle include the ``portional oscillation'' theory and the ``dynamo'' theory, both of which seem to involve some kind of peculiar churning or twisting or throbbing of magnetic fields within the sun. Baliunas assures us that no one can see inside the sun so it's all guesswork anyway.
Let's all decide that we favor the portional oscillation theory. For reasons of multi-syllabism.
Q: Why is there doubt about whether Shakespeare really wrote Shakespeare's plays?
A: Nothing is as strong in human beings as the craving to believe in something that is obviously wrong. Nonsensical beliefs are surely unique to our species: Dogs and rabbits and squirrels haven't evolved to the point where their brains could possibly come up with something as stupid as the movie ``JFK.''
Nevertheless, many learned, decent people fiercely believe that William Shakespeare didn't write Shakespeare's plays and sonnets. This notion first appeared in the 1800s, when the ``Baconians'' argued that Sir Francis Bacon really wrote ``Hamlet'' et al. Today the most vocal group is the ``Oxfordians,'' who say that Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford, wrote the plays and allowed Shakespeare to put his name on them.
Why do they think this? Because, as with almost any other controversial historical event, the official record has huge gaps which invite speculation and alternative theories.
The official history of Shakespeare is based on sparse information: some land and tax records and a few contemporaneous references in the writings of others. But he was no celebrity by modern standards, because there was no celebrity machinery, no Entertainment Tonight, not even The New York Review of Books.
We know that there was a ``man from Stratford'' who was known variously as Shaksper, Shaxpere, Shagspere, Shakespere, Shackspeare and Shakespeare, and that he was an accomplished actor. That he wrote plays is clear: His name is on a bunch of them that were printed and sold during his own lifetime. Moreover, in 1623, seven years after his death, his colleagues put together a ``folio'' of his collected works, which featured a glowing introduction by fellow playwright Ben Jonson.
The skeptics point to the gaps in the record: Hardly a word of praise or homage during his lifetime and nothing at all upon his death in 1616. The skeptics say the man from Stratford was weirdly unheralded. Samuel Pepys, the famous diarist, recorded his attendance at 38 performances of Shakespeare's plays and only once mentioned Shakespeare's name. (That's like seeing the Beatles perform ``Get Back'' on the roof of the Abbey Road studios in 1969 and that night writing only that four men sang some pop tunes.)
``A genius that is obvious to us could hardly have been wholly hidden from the cultivated persons who made the Elizabethan age synonymous with an outpouring of poetry, drama and music,'' writes Charlton Ogburn in the seminal Oxfordian text, ``The Mysterious William Shakespeare,'' which is on the far side of 900 pages long.
``It is scarcely conceivable that they could have failed to appreciate in Shakespeare the supreme voice of their generation - the soul of their age.''
The Oxfordian theory is that Edward de Vere, as a nobleman, couldn't allow his name on something so vulgar as a stage play. So he recruited this sap Shakespeare as the beard. One key element of the anti-Stratfordian theories over the years has been that Shakespeare wasn't well-educated enough to have written such great plays. (Just like Oswald wasn't a good enough marksman to have shot Kennedy, we add sarcastically.)
Barbara Mowat, editor of Shakespeare Quarterly, says, ``I think it shows with what reverence these people hold the plays, that they want to find someone more important or more educated or richer to have written them, but all the documentary evidence that has come down to us links the plays to William Shakespeare.''
David Bevington, a professor of English at the University of Chicago, says Shakespeare's notoriety - the cultish immensity of his stature - contributes to these fringe theories.
``It's clearly a cult. When you have cults people are going to get suspicious and resentful,'' he said.
We should note that there is one major colossal hitch with the Oxfordian theory. This de Vere fellow died in 1604. This is an inconvenient fact given that someone apparently continued to write plays for roughly another decade under the name ``William Shakespeare.''
Call us crazy, call us wild-eyed maniac ding-dongs, but we have a hunch that ``William Shakespeare'' and William Shakespeare were one and the same person.
Washington Post Writers Group
by CNB