“The greatest psychologist? William Shakespeare. No one understood the human mind like him. No doubt.” - Sigmund Freud.
People doubt how a glover's son from little Stratford grew to better Homer after two thousand years on the All Star podium of literature. Why all the questions? It is just too unbelievably asymmetrical!
We are restless monkeys ever obsessed with fairness, order, evenness, balance, and symmetry. The pyramids, Greek temples, Jane Austin novels, and orthodontics proclaim our stubborn craving for tedious symmetry.
We abhor asymmetry. A total loser in Dallas blows away a charismatic President. There must be a meticulously equivalent conspiracy here! Nineteen student-visa hijackers blow up the Twin Towers and Pentagon? It must be a vast inside job! We make the facts fit our need for order.
Yet, there are many imbalanced acts and actors in history. The baby Jesus slept in a manger. Attila the Hun died from an insect bite on his wedding night. A tainted pork chop felled Mozart. Hitler had a cardiac arrest while visiting his physician, but, sadly, was revived and lived on. The Titanic was going two knots too fast Sad but true. Shakespeare seems way too good to be true. What fits? A conspiracy to shield a rich educated white male!
Now there have been conspiracies replete with equivalence. Pearl Harbour, D-Day, or the assassination of Julius Caesar. Big power against big power, surely planned in secret, but acted out in broad daylight. Works for us. But a country yeoman bests the 'university wits of Oxbridge?' Round up the usual suspects: Christopher Marlowe, Francis Bacon, and prime suspect the Earl of Oxford, one Edward de Vere. It is a death match for the ages. It is Oxford versus Stratford! Who wins? Who loses? Who cares? See you in Act Three.
— Robert Light is the Artistic Director Vancouver Island Shakespeare Arts.com