In my youth I actually paid some attention to the famous (and still living disputes): Who really wrote Shakespeare? Note that in this AP report of the latest attempt to prove that someone else wrote Shakespeare; not Marlowe, Bacon, or de Vere, but Henry Neville. A common line in this argument is revealed in this sentence: "James and Rubinstein, a professor of history at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, argue that Shakespeare of Stratford, who came from a modest background and did not attend university, could not have had enough knowledge of the politics, foreign languages and European cities described in the plays to have written them." Now let’s see...how could Abraham Lincoln have written the Gettysburg Address and the Second Inaugural having attended less school for less than one year? By this standard Woodrow Wilson should be our greatest president. Read Shakespeare and learn about this great stage of fools.
The "Shakespeare didn’t drive a Saab, therefore Gore Vidal wrote Hamlet" argument is indeed lame. Herman Melville didn’t go to Yale. And Mark Twain was no buddy of John Kerry’s at Harvard. But both managed to turn out some passable prose.
Contrary-wise, Jacques Derrida had the most elite education France could offer, and his prose is to poetry what Godzilla is to Japan.
Looks like James and Rubinstein should reacquaint themselves with Malvolio in 12th Night... or what you will.
Of course, there’s nothign like reading academic journals to get a real look at human nature.
On a lighter note: in my own elitism, I forgot how to spell correctly.
nothign should read nothing.
On a more serious note, it occurs to me that John Kerry went to Yale, not Harvard. I must have confused him with Al Gore, whoever he was.
Don’t let school get in the way of your education.