Reasonable Doubt

The Shakespeare Authorship Coalition has formulated the Declaration of Reasonable Doubt About the Identity of William Shakespeare. It’s a document expressing the bona fide issues with the authorship (not actually the identity of the man named William Shakespeare) to educate people about the discussion and to advocate an open-minded examination. As the last line states, “We hereby declare that the identity of William Shakespeare should, henceforth, be regarded in academia as a legitimate issue for research and publication, and an appropriate topic for instruction and discussion in classrooms.”

As you may well know, the subject of authorship is strictly taboo in most colleges and universities—an odd contradiction in institutions that are supposed to explore and question and teach us to think for ourselves.

sigh.

But you have a chance to change all this! You are encouraged to sign the declaration yourself. If you do it by midnight (London time) on April 21, 2007, you will be on the historical list of initial signers. Your name will go down in history. Go to their web site: www.DoubtAboutWill.org and sign on!