I think most people in Shakespeare’s day, and 
for at least two centuries afterward, would have been 
surprised by the notion that his plays were “learned,” 
which would have meant that they displayed consid-
erable classical erudition (and even imitated classi-
cal models). In this sense, the most learned plays of 
his time were closet dramas, and the most learned 
writer for the public stage was usually considered to 
be Ben Jonson, who studied under Camden at West-
minster School. In fact, Jonson’s “learned” art was 
sometimes contrasted with Shakespeare’s “natural” 
art, as in Milton’s “L’Allegro”:

Then to the well-trod stage anon, 
If Jonsons learned sock be on, 
Or sweetest Shakespear fancies childe, 
Warble his native Wood-notes wilde.

That distinction may no longer be relevant 
today, but what is relevant is the failure of the Ox-
fordians, both old and new, to produce any positive 
evidence for their argument, which would consist 
of examples of “learning” in the plays that Shake-
speare could not have acquired from his Stratford 
schooling or his reading or his experiences in 
London and therefore must be credited to Oxford 
the earl or the university. No such evidence exists. 
What is even more significant, I believe, is that 
these Oxfordians ignore the negative evidence, 
which really does exist and which consists of exam-
ples in the plays showing that their author was not 
so learned after all. I am not speaking here about 
the many minor anachronisms in dress (ancient 
Greeks or Romans wearing hats, gloves, scarves, 
doublets, etc.) that a number of commentators 
have pointed out, and that may have been the re-
sult of simple carelessness, but about a much more 
serious ignorance of geography and chronology. 
Thus the author of The Winter’s Tale believed that 
Bohemia has a seacoast, and the author of Hamlet 
believed that the way to lead an army from Nor-
way to Poland is by marching through Denmark. 
Moreover, in the first part of The Winter’s Tale 
Leontes consults the Delphic oracle, which was 
closed down in AD 390, while in the second part, 
which follows by sixteen years, a courtier refers to 
Julio Romano, an artist of the Italian Renaissance. 
And in Troilus and Cressida Hector cites Aristotle, 
who was born many centuries after the end of the 

Trojan War. Is this the kind of learning that could 
only be acquired at a university?

Richard Levin 
Stony Brook University

To the Editor:
The Forum section of the October PMLA in-

cludes a letter from Robert F. Fleissner with the 
following reference to me: “A London Shakespear-
ean, Gil Elliot, in her letter in the Times Literary 
Supplement (25 July 2003), also defended the view 
that Shakespeare went ‘to university,’ citing Peter 
Alexander, the well-known Shakespearean au-
thority from Scotland, to this effect.” I would like 
to point out that I am not a Shakespearean or a 
scholar of any kind, nor did my letter defend the 
view that Shakespeare went to university, nor, to 
complete this review of errors, am I female.

I am male and a writer, and my letter to the 
Times Literary Supplement was meant to suggest 
that academics like my old professor Peter Alex-
ander, in common with many others through the 
ages, tend to configure Shakespeare in their own 
image. I happen to believe that Shakespeare’s edu-
cation at Stratford Grammar—along with the vo-
racious reading to be expected of such a protean 
mind—was perfectly adequate to feed his genius.

Gil Elliot 
London

Reply:

I am aware of the anti-Stratfordian approach 
endorsing Edward de Vere as Shakespeare, but that 
connection did not appear germane. I certainly 
agree that the so-called Oxfordians have no real pos-
itive evidence favoring de Vere as the playwright.

The existence of errata in Shakespeare’s plays 
might be explained by Shakespeare’s having possibly 
been only an auditor of some sort at Oxford (although 
I have been reading again of his father’s having been 
a local “high bailiff” or chief magistrate—in certain 
towns a son of such a person was supposed to receive 
free tuition at Oxford). The playwright simply may 
not have registered all the facts he heard.

Robert F. Fleissner 
Central State University (retired)

578 Forum [ P M L A