[The Stranger in Shakespeare] can be read in two quite distinct ways. The book may be regarded as epiphenomenal, an outgrowth of his previous theories, assumptions and fixations about American literature, extended back into the Elizabethan past. In other words, it might serve as little more than a rag with which to wipe the ankles of our greatest literary monument. On the other hand, it could be read as the author's most important critical statement, a bold book about the boldest of artists, in which everything the critic holds most dear is thrown into the battle, tried by fire. In his preface Fiedler speaks of writing this book in order to keep a twenty-year-old promise to himself. He asks us, in other words, to consider the book as if it were his major work, the final fruit of a lifetime's exploration of himself and the literary texts he...