SOURCE: "Looking for Shakespeare: Two Partisans Explain and Debate the Authorship Question," in The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 268, No. 4, October, 1991, pp. 43-61.

In his reply to Bethell 's essay (above), Matus disputes the Oxfordian chronology asserted by Bethell and defends the "country bumpkin " from Stratford as the author of the works attributed to Shakespeare.

Tom Bethell's case for Oxford demonstrates once again that in the thousands of works on Shakespeare and his plays, something can be found to support any notion. It also demonstrates that, as usual, Oxfordians must often resort to outdated scholarship to find support for their notions. Apparently, modern scholarship is as discouraging to them as the contemporaneous records of Shakespeare and his theater are treacherous.

These problems are on display in Bethell's assertion that there is "abundant evidence" to support the earlier dating of many plays. The dating of plays after 1604, he writes, is merely...