June 20, 2002
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A Scholar Recants on His 'Shakespeare' Discovery

By WILLIAM S. NIEDERKORN

In 1995 Donald Foster, a professor of English at Vassar College, made a startling case for
Shakespeare's being the author of an obscure 578-line poem called "A Funeral Elegy." After a front-page
article about his methods of computer analysis in The New York Times — and after his reputation was
further burnished by unmasking Joe Klein as the author of "Primary Colors" — the poem was added to
three major editions of Shakespeare's works.

Now, in a stunning development that has set the world of Shakespeare scholarship abuzz, Professor
Foster has admitted he was wrong. In a message dated June 12 and quietly left last Thursday on the
Internet discussion group Shaksper (www.shaksper.net), he said that another poet and dramatist was the
more likely author of the poem. He was joined in his recantation by Richard Abrams, a professor of
English at the University of Southern Maine, who has been his close associate in the Shakespeare
attribution. In their messages, both conceded the main point of an article in the May issue of The Review
of English Studies by Gilles D. Monsarrat, a professor of languages at the University of Burgundy in
France, a translator and editor of Shakespeare's works in French, and a co-editor of "The Nondramatic
Works of John Ford."

The article compares the text of the poem with Ford's known work and concludes that the writing is
Ford's. Professor Montserrat's method seems to derive from a close reading of the texts, rather than the
kind of computer analysis Professor Foster uses.

John Ford (1586-1640) is best known for his later dramatic works, like " 'Tis Pity She's a Whore,"
but earlier he was a writer of memorial verse.

"I know good evidence when I see it and I predict that Monsarrat will carry the day," Professor Foster
told the more than 1,300 members of Shaksper. "No one who cannot rejoice in the discovery of his
own mistakes deserves to be called a scholar."