Dab hands

Abstract

Shakespearian scholarship is the science-fiction of the intellectual classes. Like sci-fi, it regularly boards its flights of fancy and soars into the highest stratospheres of conjecture, regaling its readers with leaps of the imagination and elaborate excursions into fantasy. Unlike sci-fi, which does not seek to prove anything beyond its own fanciful inventions, Shakespearian scholarship is constantly validating its premises and propounding its arguments. It is none the less diverting for doing so, and indeed when it is most earnestly involved in ‘proving’ its points it is often at its most entertaining.