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  Questions were whispered in the cloisters as to where she would go to the lavatory, who would cover for her when she was having her period, and even who would sit next to her in the dining room.

  Several former alumni made their feelings clear to the president of Yale, and some even moved their offspring to other universities lest they be contaminated, while another more active group were already plotting her downfall.

  When Dr. Burbage had entered the same theater some forty-two years before to deliver her first lecture, the troops were lined up and ready for battle. As she walked onto that same stage, she was greeted by an eerie silence. She looked up at the 109 students, who were ranged in the amphitheater around her like lions who’d spotted a stray Christian.

  Dr. Burbage opened her notebook and began her lecture.

  “Gentlemen,” she said, as there weren’t any other ladies in the room, “my name is Margaret Burbage, and I shall be giving twelve lectures this term, covering the canon of William Shakespeare.”

  “But did he even write the plays?” said a voice who didn’t attempt to make himself known.

  She looked around the tiered benches, but wasn’t able to identify which of the students had addressed her.

  “There’s no conclusive proof that anyone else wrote the plays,” she said, abandoning her prepared notes, “and indeed—”

  “What about Marlowe?” another voice demanded.

  “Christopher Marlowe was unquestionably one of the leading playwrights of the day, but in 1593 he was killed in a bar-room brawl, so—”

  “What does that prove?” Yet another voice.

  “That he couldn’t have written Richard II, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, or Twelfth Night, all of which were penned after Marlowe’s death.”

  “Some say Marlowe wasn’t killed, but to escape the law went to live in France, where he wrote the plays, sent them back to England, and allowed his friend Shakespeare to take the credit.”

  “For those who indulge in conspiracy theories, that rates alongside believing the moon landings were set up in a TV studio somewhere in Nebraska.”

  “The same doesn’t apply to the Earl of Oxford.” Another voice.

  “Edward de Vere, the seventeenth Earl of Oxford, was unquestionably a well-educated and accomplished scholar, but unfortunately he died in 1604, so he couldn’t have written Othello, Macbeth, Coriolanus, or King Lear, arguably Shakespeare’s greatest work.”

  “Unless Oxford wrote them before his death.” The same voice.

  “There can’t be many playwrights who, having written nine masterpieces, then leave them to languish in their bottom drawer and forget to mention them to anyone, including the producers and theater owners of the day, one of whom, Edward Parsons, we know paid Shakespeare six pounds for Hamlet, because the British Museum has the receipt to prove it.”

  “Henry James, Mark Twain, and Sigmund Freud wouldn’t agree with you.” Another voice.

  “Neither would Orson Welles, Charlie Chaplin, or Marilyn Monroe,” said Dr. Burbage, “and perhaps more interesting, they were unable to agree with one another.”

  One young man had the grace to laugh.

  “Can Francis Bacon be dismissed quite so easily? After all, he was born before Shakespeare, and died after him, so at least the dates fit.”

  “Which is about the only thing that does,” said Dr. Burbage. “However, I acknowledge without question that Bacon was a true Renaissance man. What we would today call a polymath. A talented writer, an able lawyer, and a brilliant philosopher, who ended up as Lord Chancellor of England during the reign of King James I. But the one thing Bacon doesn’t seem to have managed during his busy career was to write a play, let alone thirty-seven.”

  “Then how do you explain that Shakespeare left school at fourteen, was not well versed in Latin, and somehow managed to write Hamlet without visiting Denmark, not to mention half a dozen plays set in Italy, having never set foot outside of England?”

  “Only five of Shakespeare’s plays are set in Italy,” she said, landing her first blow. “And scholars also accept that neither Marlowe nor Oxford, or even Bacon, ever visited Denmark.” Which seemed to send her recalcitrant pupils into retreat, allowing her to add, “However, the distinguished satirist, Jonathan Swift, who was born a mere fifty years after Shakespeare’s death, put it so much better than I could:

  When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.”

  As that seemed to silence them, Dr. Burbage felt she had won the first skirmish, but suspected the battalions were reforming before they launched an all-out attack.

  “How important is it to have a good knowledge of the text?” asked someone who at least had the courtesy to raise a hand so she could identify him.

  “Most important,” said Dr. Burbage, “but not as important as being able to interpret the meaning of the words, so you have a better understanding of the text.”

  Assuming the battle was over, she returned to her lecture notes. “During this semester, I shall require you all to read one of the history plays, a comedy and a tragedy, and at least ten sonnets. Although you may make your own selection, I shall expect you, by the end of term, to be able to quote at length from the plays and sonnets you have chosen.”

  “If we were to, between us, select every play and every sonnet, could you also quote at length from the entire canon?” The first voice again.

  Dr. Burbage looked down at the names on the seating plan in front of her and identified Mr. Robert Lowell, whose grandfather had been a former president of Yale.

  “I consider myself familiar with most of Shakespeare’s work, but like you, Mr. Lowell, I am still learning,” she said, hoping this would keep him in his place.

  Lowell immediately stood, clearly the leader of the rebels. “Then perhaps you would allow me to test that claim, Dr. Burbage.” And before she could tell the young man to sit down and stop showing off, he added, “Shall we begin with something easy?

  Our revels now are ended. These our actors,

  As I foretold you, were all spirits and

  Are melted into air, into thin air.

  And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,

  The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,

  The solemn temples, the great globe itself—”

  Dr. Burbage was impressed that he didn’t once look down at the text, so she obliged him and took up where he had left off.

  Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,

  And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,

  Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff

  As dreams are made on, and our little life

  Is rounded with a sleep.

  One or two of the students nodded when she added, “The Tempest, act four, scene one.” But Lowell was right, he’d begun with something easy. Their leader sat down to allow a lieutenant to take his place, who looked equally well prepared.

  Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;

  Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgement.

  Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,

  But not express’d in fancy; rich, not gaudy;

  For the apparel oft proclaims the man,

  the lieutenant recited, his eyes never leaving her, but she didn’t flinch.

  And they in France of the best rank and station

  Are most select and generous, chief in that.

  Neither a borrower nor a lender be;

  For loan oft loses both itself and friend,

  And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.

  This above all: to thine own self be true,

  And it must follow, as the night the day,

  Thou canst not then be false to any man.

  “Hamlet, Act one, scene three.”

  It was now clear to her that several among their dwindling ranks were not only following the text word for word in open books, but then turning a few pages clearly aware where th