New research of the anti-Shakespeare front

Fame attracts malcontents. And if you are as famous as the Big Bard, you might as well expect a few snides through the ages. But there does seem to be something a wee bit perverse about how people go after poor old Will Shakespeare. Look at, for instance, those post-colonialist types, rummaging through his plays for evidence of bigotry, misogyny and other gory stuff. Trying hard to keep a theater going in the middle ages, with the attitudes of the time, wasn’t exactly conducive for politically correctness, was it? But try telling that to the indignant ones.

Then there are the he-didn’t-writethem lot, who’d rather have anyone from Ben Jonson to an Earl or maybe a blacksmith as the real author of the plays. Now, researchers at an institution called, well, Aberystwyth University say records prove Willy boy was a meanie landlord and generally the equivalent of the modern-day Indian black marketeer. Anything to get some attention, what? “Jealousy,” as he did write, “is the green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on.”

Perhaps, to juggle Groucho Marx’s words, maybe Will would have done something for posterity if he knew posterity was going to do anything for him. In all, these digs recall the words of King George III, who, disapproving of moody stuff in the Bard’s work, said: “Is this not sad stuff, what, what?”