The Professor Doth Protest Too Much, Methinks: Problems with the Foster ”Response“

Abstract

In “Response to Elliott and Valenza, 'And Then There Were None'”, (1996) Donald Foster has taken strenuous issue with our Shakespeare Clinic's final report, which concluded that none of the testable Shakespeare claimants, and none of the Shakespeare Apocrypha poems and plays – including Funeral Elegy by W.S. – match Shakespeare. Though he seems to accept most of our exclusions – notably excepting those of the Elegy and A Lover's Complaint – he believes that our methodology is nonetheless fatally flawed by “worthless figures ... wrong more often than right”, “rigorous cherry–picking”, “playing with a stacked deck”, and “conveniently exil[ing] ... inconvenient data.” He describes our tests as “foul vapor” and “methodological madness.”

We believe that this criticism is seriously overdrawn, and that our tests and conclusions have emerged essentially intact. By our count, he claims to have found 21 errors of consequence in our report. Only five of these claims, all trivial, have any validity at all. If fully proved, they might call for some cautions and slight refinements for five of our 54 tests, but in no case would they come close to invalidating the questioned test. The remaining 49 tests are wholly intact. Total erosion of our findings from the Foster critique could amount, at most, to half of one percent. None of his accusations of cherry–picking, deck–stacking, and evidence–ignoring are substantiated.