This is my response to an essay by Joseph Atwill in which he applies his ‘Shakespeare’s Secret Messiah’ theory to The Tempest.
https://thelethaltext.me/2016/07/22/very-like-a-whale/
Several of Mr Atwill’s followers have bleated at me that I can’t possibly judge the theory without reading the whole 300-page book. Since Shakespeare’s Secret Messiah mirrors the theory developed in Caesar’s Messiah, The Roman Conspiracy to Invent Jesus, I would have to read that too. Oh, and I’d better read John Hudson’s book about the Dark Lady as well, because Atwill imports his arguments wholesale to compensate for his woeful ignorance of the writer and the period.
Only then would I be qualified to have an opinion.
So, if I ate a little bit of faeces and spat it out, retching, they’d chorus, ‘You haven’t eaten the whole turd! How can you possibly know it’s shit?’
Please check out my effort to identify this substance. See how it smells to you.
Hahaha ‘You haven’t eaten the whole turd! How can you possibly know it’s shit?’ – Brilliant. I’m probably going to quote that many times in life. The argument of urging people to be familiar with the contents before criticising certain work is somewhat valid. Yet, I must say, telling others to waste their time on being “completely” familiar with the subject matter is simply childish.
I think they’re just desperate to sell their stupid books.
Paul, I can’t speak for others, but I never challenged you to read Atwill’s books, or Hudson. I asked what you were familiar with, because I was intending to fill in any missing information.
A further reply to “Very Like a Whale” is posted here:
http://postflaviana.org/was-shakespeare-jewish/