The Declaration of Reasonable Doubt is an Internet signing petition which seeks to enlist broad public support for the
Shakespeare authorship question to be accepted as a legitimate field of academic inquiry. The petition was presented to William Leahy of
Brunel University
Brunel University London is a public research university located in the Uxbridge area of London, England. It was founded in 1966 and named after the Victorian engineer and pioneer of the Industrial Revolution, Isambard Kingdom Brunel. In June ...
by the actors
Derek Jacobi
Sir Derek George Jacobi (; born 22 October 1938) is an English actor. He has appeared in various stage productions of William Shakespeare such as ''Hamlet'', ''Much Ado About Nothing'', '' Macbeth'', ''Twelfth Night'', '' The Tempest'', ''Kin ...
and
Mark Rylance
Sir David Mark Rylance Waters (born 18 January 1960) is a British actor, playwright and theatre director. He is known for his roles on stage and screen having received numerous awards including an Academy Award, three BAFTA Awards, two Laurence ...
on 8 September 2007 in
Chichester
Chichester () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and civil parish in West Sussex, England.OS Explorer map 120: Chichester, South Harting and Selsey Scale: 1:25 000. Publisher:Ordnance Survey – Southampton B2 edition. Publi ...
, England, after the final matinee of the play ''I Am Shakespeare'' on the topic of the bard's identity, featuring Rylance in the title role. As of 23 April 2016, the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death and the original self-imposed deadline, the document had been signed by 3,348 people, including 573 self-described current and former academics.
[ As of December 2022, the count stood at 5,128 total signatures.
The declaration has been met by scepticism from academic Shakespeareans and literary critics. For the most part, they disparage the idea that Shakespeare is a pseudonym for one or more individuals who wrote the works attributed to him and characterise the doubt as an exercise in the ]logical fallacies In philosophy, a formal fallacy, deductive fallacy, logical fallacy or non sequitur (; Latin for " tdoes not follow") is a pattern of reasoning rendered invalid by a flaw in its logical structure that can neatly be expressed in a standard logic syst ...
of ''argumentum ad populum
In argumentation theory, an (Latin for "appeal to the people") is a fallacious argument which is based on claiming a truth or affirming something is good because the majority thinks so.
Alternative names
Other names for the fallacy includ ...
'' (appeal to popularity or the appeal to numbers) and argument from false authority.
The declaration has been signed by prominent public figures, including U.S. Supreme Court Justices John Paul Stevens and Sandra Day O'Connor, in staged signing events followed by press releases in order to gain publicity for the goal of the petition.
Doubters claimed in the declaration
The declaration named twenty prominent figures from the 19th and 20th centuries who the coalition claim were doubters:[
* Mark Twain (1835–1910): "All the rest of hakespeare'svast history, as furnished by the biographers, is built up, course upon course, of guesses, inferences, theories, conjectures – an Eiffel Tower of artificialities rising sky-high from a very flat and very thin foundation of inconsequential facts"][
*]Henry James
Henry James ( – ) was an American-British author. He is regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. He was the ...
(1843–1913): "I am 'sort of' haunted by the conviction that the divine William is the biggest and most successful fraud ever practiced on a patient world."
*Walt Whitman
Walter Whitman (; May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among ...
(1819–1892): "Conceived out of the fullest heat and pulse of European feudalism—only one of the 'wolfish earls' so plenteous in the plays themselves, or some born descendant and knower, might seem to be the true author of those amazing works".[
*]George Greenwood
Sir Granville George Greenwood (3 January 1850 – 27 October 1928), usually known as George Greenwood or G. G. Greenwood, was a British lawyer, politician, cricketer, animal welfare reformer and energetic advocate of the Shakespeare authors ...
(1850–1928), lawyer and first president of the Shakespeare Fellowship, an anti-Stratfordian organization.
*Sir Tyrone Guthrie
Sir William Tyrone Guthrie (2 July 1900 – 15 May 1971) was an English theatrical director instrumental in the founding of the Stratford Festival of Canada, the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and the Tyrone Guthrie Centre at h ...
(1900–1971) – Anglo-Irish theatrical director and writer. First Artistic Director of the Stratford Festival of Canada
The Stratford Festival is a theatre festival which runs from April to October in the city of Stratford, Ontario, Canada. Founded by local journalist Tom Patterson in 1952, the festival was formerly known as the Stratford Shakespearean Festival ...
.
*Sir Charles Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin Jr. (16 April 188925 December 1977) was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer who rose to fame in the era of silent film. He became a worldwide icon through his screen persona, the Tramp, and is consid ...
(1889–1977): "In the work of the greatest geniuses, humble beginnings will reveal themselves somewhere but one cannot trace the slightest sign of them in Shakespeare. ... Whoever wrote hakespearehad an aristocratic attitude".[
*Sir ]John Gielgud
Sir Arthur John Gielgud, (; 14 April 1904 – 21 May 2000) was an English actor and theatre director whose career spanned eight decades. With Ralph Richardson and Laurence Olivier, he was one of the trinity of actors who dominated the Brit ...
(1904–2000), actor, signatory to a petition requesting the Shakespeare Society of America to "engage actively in a comprehensive, objective and sustained investigation of the authorship of the Shakespeare Canon."
*Hugh Trevor-Roper
Hugh Redwald Trevor-Roper, Baron Dacre of Glanton (15 January 1914 – 26 January 2003) was an English historian. He was Regius Professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford.
Trevor-Roper was a polemicist and essayist on a range of ...
(1914–2003), historian: "The available evidence that the plays and poems were the work of William Shakespeare of Stratford is weak and unconvincing".
*William James
William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was an American philosopher, historian, and psychologist, and the first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States.
James is considered to be a leading thinker of the lat ...
(1842–1910), psychologist and philosopher: "The absolute extermination and obliteration of every record of Shakespeare save a few sordid material details, and the general suggestion of narrowness and niggardliness which ancient Stratford makes, taken in comparison with the way in which the spiritual quantity 'Shakespeare' has mingled into the soul of the world, was most uncanny, and I feel ready to believe in almost any mythical story of the authorship. In fact a visit to Stratford now seems to me the strongest appeal a Baconian can make."
*Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts ...
(1856–1939): "I no longer believe that ... the actor from Stratford was the author of the works that have been ascribed to him."[
*]Clifton Fadiman
Clifton Paul "Kip" Fadiman (May 15, 1904 – June 20, 1999) was an American intellectual, author, editor, radio and television personality. He began his work with the radio, and switched to television later in his career.
Background
Born in Bro ...
(1904–1999), noted intellectual, author, radio and television personality. Graduate of Columbia University, chief editor at Simon & Schuster): "Count me a convert ... This ook'spowerful argument should persuade many rational beings, who, well acquainted with the plays, have no vested interest in preserving a rickety tradition."[
* John Galsworthy (1867–1933), English novelist and playwright, winner of the 1932 ]Nobel Prize for literature
)
, image = Nobel Prize.png
, caption =
, awarded_for = Outstanding contributions in literature
, presenter = Swedish Academy
, holder = Annie Ernaux (2022)
, location = Stockholm, Sweden
, year = 1901
, ...
. Best known for ''The Forsyte Saga'' and its sequels. Charles Wisner Barrell said that the late Galsworthy described Oxfordian J. Thomas Looney's ''Shakespeare Identified'' as "the best detective story" he had ever read. No such contemporary quotation by Galsworthy has been found.[
*]Mortimer J. Adler
Mortimer Jerome Adler (December 28, 1902 – June 28, 2001) was an American philosopher, educator, encyclopedist, and popular author. As a philosopher he worked within the Aristotelian and Thomistic traditions. He lived for long stretches in N ...
(1902–2001), chairman of the board of editors of the ''Encyclopædia Britannica'': "Just a mere glance at ispathetic efforts to sign his name (illiterate scrawls) should forever eliminate Shakspere from further consideration in this question – he could not write." "Academics err in failing to acknowledge the mystery surrounding 'Shake-speare's' identity ... They would do both liberal education and the works of 'Shake-speare' a distinguished service by opening the question to the judgment of their students, and others outside the academic realm."
*Paul Nitze
Paul Henry Nitze (January 16, 1907 – October 19, 2004) was an American politician who served as United States Deputy Secretary of Defense, U.S. Secretary of the Navy, and Director of Policy Planning for the U.S. State Department. He is best kn ...
(1907–2004), High-ranking U.S. government official; co-founder of the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. Among his positions were Director of Policy Planning
The Director of Policy Planning is the United States Department of State official in charge of the department's internal think tank, the Policy Planning Staff. In the department, the Director of Policy Planning has a rank equivalent to Assistant ...
for the State Department, Secretary of the Navy, Deputy Secretary of Defense, Member of U.S. delegation to Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, Assistant Secretary of Defense for international affairs, Special Adviser to the President and Secretary of State on Arms Control: "I believe the considerations favoring the Oxfordian hypothesis ... are overwhelming"
*Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston
Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, (20 October 1784 – 18 October 1865) was a British statesman who was twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in the mid-19th century. Palmerston dominated British foreign policy during the period ...
(1784–1865), an Anglo-Irish nobleman who was a British statesman and who twice served as Prime Minister
A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister i ...
: "Viscount Palmerston, the great British statesman, used to say that he rejoiced to have lived to see three things—the re-integration of Italy, the unveiling of the mystery of China and Japan, and the explosion of the Shakespeare illusions." – Diary of the Right Hon. Mount-Stewart E. Grant.[
* William Yandell Elliott (1896–1979), Harvard government professor, counselor to six presidents, Rhodes Scholar and noted poet, he studied at Vanderbilt University, Oxford and the Sorbonne; advocate of Earl of Oxford.
* Harry Blackmun (1908–1999) Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, 1970 to 1994: "The Oxfordians have presented a very strong – almost fully convincing – case for their point of view. If I had to rule on the evidence presented, it would be in favor of the Oxfordians".][
*]Lewis F. Powell Jr.
Lewis Franklin Powell Jr. (September 19, 1907 – August 25, 1998) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1972 to 1987.
Born in Suffolk, Virginia, he graduat ...
(1907–1998), Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1972 to 1987: "I have never thought that the man of Stratford-on-Avon wrote the plays of Shakespeare. I know of no admissible evidence that he ever left England or was educated in the normal sense of the term."[
]
Included with caveats
*Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803April 27, 1882), who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champ ...
(1803–1882) is included on the list along with an incomplete quotation that is interpreted as a statement of doubt: "Other admirable men had led lives in some sort of keeping with their thought, but this man in wide contrast".[ However, Emerson did not doubt Shakespeare's authorship, nor did he ever make a statement to that effect. In 2015, a caveat was added to his name on the list.
*]Orson Welles
George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985) was an American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter, known for his innovative work in film, radio and theatre. He is considered to be among the greatest and most influential f ...
(1915–1985) is included on the list on the basis of a comment taken from a collection of Kenneth Tynan
Kenneth Peacock Tynan (2 April 1927 – 26 July 1980) was an English theatre critic and writer. Making his initial impact as a critic at ''The Observer'', he praised Osborne's ''Look Back in Anger'' (1956), and encouraged the emerging wave of ...
interviews: "I think Oxford wrote Shakespeare. If you don't agree, there are some awfully funny coincidences to explain away". In other interviews conducted in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Welles expressed the orthodox opinion that Shakespeare wrote the plays: "He was a country boy, the son of a butcher, who'd made it into court. He spent years getting himself a coat of arms. He wrote mostly about kings." In the 1980s he said "The mystery surrounding Shakespeare is greatly exaggerated. We know a lot about his financial dealings, for example. He was brilliant in arranging his finances, you see. He died very rich from real-estate investments. The son of a bitch did everything! And finally he got what his father had always wanted—a coat of arms. His father was a butcher. And a mayor of Stratford." His listing has since been amended to acknowledge that Welles was not an anti-Stratfordian for most of his life.
2015 changes
In 2015, responding to criticism of the inclusion of some of the names on the list, the SAC removed two names, replaced them with two others, and revised the entries of two other names on the doubters list. The caveats were added to the entries on Ralph Waldo Emerson and Orson Welles. Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ...
(1812–1870) was originally included on the list based upon an incomplete misquotation that was interpreted as a statement of doubt. Stage and film actor and director Leslie Howard
Leslie Howard Steiner (3 April 18931 June 1943) was an English actor, director and producer.Obituary ''Variety'', 9 June 1943. He wrote many stories and articles for ''The New York Times'', ''The New Yorker'', and ''Vanity Fair'' and was one o ...
(1893–1943) was included on the basis of the lines he spoke as the lead character in the 1941 film, '' "Pimpernel" Smith''. Both names have been removed from the list, but the entries remain online in the "past doubters" pages of the website with the heading "Removed from Past Doubters list".Past Doubters: Removed from the List
/ref> These two names were replaced with Hugh Trevor Roper and George Greenwood
Sir Granville George Greenwood (3 January 1850 – 27 October 1928), usually known as George Greenwood or G. G. Greenwood, was a British lawyer, politician, cricketer, animal welfare reformer and energetic advocate of the Shakespeare authors ...
.
Notes
References
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External links
Shakespeare Authorship Coalition
home of th
Declaration of Reasonable Doubt About the Identity of William Shakespeare
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Declaration of Reasonable Doubt
Shakespeare authorship question
2007 introductions
Petitions