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31 December 2004: At present, I'm trying (pretty valiantly, I think) to finish writing my Shakespeare authorship book, Shakespeare and the Rigidniks. I've been working on it in one way or another for something like twenty years. It's partly a set of arguments against the notion that Will Shakespeare of Stratford did not write the plays attributed to him. I'm using it mainly as a way of introducing my theory of psychology in what I hope will be an entertaining way, for the central question of the book is not who wrote the works of Shakespeare but what can cause a seemingly sane person to believe, fervently believe, that we haven't known the answer to that for over four hundred years. My answer to that is that they're nuts. The final few chapters of my book provide the details on that.
The book is the reason my entries here have been anaemic of late. Another reason for my bringing it up now is that I've come up with another coinage that I think relates to poetry: "nullaesthesia." By this, I mean a condition of insensitivity to the aesthetic (and related) aspects of a work of art. I believe many anti-Stratfordians, as those who won't accept Shakespeare as Shakespeare are called, are crippled by this condition. It far from accounts for it but does contribute to it. Because of their nullaesthesia, I theorize, they can't get the aesthetic pleasure from a mere poem or play, so need to read extra values into it, like its proported political importance or, as is the case with most anti-Stratfordians, its intimate relationship to their True Author's life. Horatio thus is not just a secondary character in a play, he's Oxford's cousin Horace! And Polonius is Lord Burghley. Every play has two plots, one the trivial overt one, the other the intricate, vastly important historical one. And the words the author uses don't merely boost a kalosperuser into sensually-rich images, and/or gorgeous verbal music, and/or buoyantly bring a character or plot to life, none of which the anti-Stratfordian can appreciate (to any significant extent), but convey secret messages. (Some Oxfordians actually believe that "ever," "never," "every" and other words with "ever" in them were, in many cases, put in Shakespeare's plays by "E. Vere," the Earl of Oxford, as secret self-references!)
I believe many academics suffer from nullaesthesia with regard to poetry, even the ones who can list all the aesthetic values of poems--because they've memorized them, not because they've experienced their effect. They are the principal stasguards blocking the way to the recognition of the newer forms of poetry, I think. (Note: I'm not saying all stasguards are nullaestesiacs; I'm sure many are, though. Some poets are, too.)
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