The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 24.0355  Tuesday, 23 July 2013

 

[1] From:        Harry Berger Jr <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>

     Date:         July 22, 2013 2:16:16 PM EDT

     Subject:     Re: SHAKSPER: Stylometrics 

 

[2] From:        Larry Weiss <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>

     Date:         July 22, 2013 8:02:37 PM EDT

     Subject:     Re: SHAKSPER: Stylometrics

 

 

[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------

From:        Harry Berger Jr <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>

Date:         July 22, 2013 2:16:16 PM EDT

Subject:     Re: SHAKSPER: Stylometrics

 

I applaud Hardy for his tolerance, but Michael Egan keeps digging himself deeper and deeper into a hole of nastiness. At what point, one wonders, will he disappear?

 

[2]-------------------------------------------------------------

From:        Larry Weiss <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>

Date:         July 22, 2013 8:02:37 PM EDT

Subject:     Re: SHAKSPER: Stylometrics

 

Michael Egan says that my latest comment about 1 Richard II is full of straight lies, including the claim that the panel he hurried to set up to evaluate my original argument “was selected in accordance with procedures agreed upon by Egan.” Not so. Not so!

 

The rules governing the procedure were negotiated between Egan and Ward Elliott. After they reached an understanding, Elliott set them out in an email dated October 31, 2010, which contains the following paragraph:

 

“Panel: Larry Weiss, convener, and two non-anonymous members of my Golden Ear panel chosen and recruited by him as he thinks best.”

 

Egan responded to this email with one word: “Agreed.”

 

After the panel was completed in this fashion and the identities of the members reported to both sides, Egan requested modifications to the rules relating to the materials the panel would consider. At no time did he object to any member of the panel or to the manner of their selection. After extensive back-and-forth, the parties reached an amended agreement to satisfy Egan’s demands. The amendment was reflected in an exchange of emails on February 14, 2011, three and a half months after the initial stipulation (“hurried”?). The February stipulation explicitly “confirmed” all other provisions of the October 31 agreement. These emails are set out at large in Appendices A and B to the panel’s opinion, which is in the SHAKSPER archives. It was only after he and Elliott had both completed their submissions to the panel that Egan purported to withdraw, and his excuse was that he was personally affronted by a comment in an email by Elliott, not that the procedure was unfair to him in the slightest.

 

In what way is my statement a “lie,” or inconsistent with this record in the slightest particular?

 

Egan then says: “Secondly, despite Weiss’s characteristic sneer, there are in fact those who do accept my attribution, and the momentum is growing. Many Shakespearean scholars have said so in print, some in passing and others in considerable detail.”

 

Who? Where? Citations please.

 

This assertion reminds me of an email Egan sent me on December 9, 2010, which asserted that his “thesis is slowly gaining acceptance” and referred to an article in The Oxfordian which he said contained a “devastating rebuttal” to MacDonald P. Jackson’s contrary view. Egan did not cite any other support for the “growing acceptance” or identify the author of the Oxfordian article. It turns out that the author was none other than Michael Egan, who is also the editor-in-chief of The Oxfordian. And he questions my scholarly integrity!

 

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