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We are deeply grateful to The Scandinavian Psychoanalytic Review and its editor for their courage in publishing our controversial article (Waugaman & Stritmatter, 2009). Some “Stratfordians” in Britain (who believe that William Shakespeare of Stratford wrote the canon) dismiss the “Oxfordian” position (supporting the authorship of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford) as a mostly American phenomenon, as though they view it as a gratuitous literary after-skirmish of our Revolutionary War. Yet traditional Stratfordianism is not as sacrosanct on the European continent as some wish it to be in Britain. Germans, who fondly call the author “unsere Shakespeare”, have been relatively open-minded about the authorship question. The Scandinavian Psychoanalytic Review continues to defy the literal taboo on discussing the authorship question that still holds sway in much of academia.
Zachrisson, who, we hope, rejects academic censorship, correctly observes that Freud's opinion that de Vere wrote Shakespeare's works “is of special interest for psychoanalysts.” Zachrisson has written previously on the relevant topic of the “Validation of psychoanalytic theories” (Zachrisson & Zachrisson, 2005). Naturally, we are dealing here with precisely the methodology for evaluating two competing authorship attribution theories. However, we are concerned that Zachrisson's present essay goes on to explore the wrong question: why did Freud make this “error.” Assuming it is an error exemplifies the circular thinking that plagues the Stratfordian authorship hypothesis and argumentation.
Zachrisson misleadingly claims that “For 200 years there were no known expressions of doubt concerning Shakespeare's authorship.” Elsewhere, we have published evidence that de Vere's contemporary Sir John Harington wrote several epigrams lambasting de Vere; and that Harington hinted at de Vere's authorship of the anonymous Arte of English poesie and of several Shakespearean plays (Waugaman, 2010a, b). However, even if