User:SOTO/Forum Archive/Inclusion debates/@comment-86.178.203.198-20140629173408/@comment-31010985-20200122131812

I've now read this and A Brief History of Time Lords is more than enough precedent to close this debate.

The in-universe book The Shakespeare Notebooks is entirely contained within and it concerns the titular Shakespeare Notebooks, basically a journal/scrapbook of encounters/dreams Shakespeare has had with the Doctor. After being freed from the influence of the Carrionites, Shakespeare realises several other mysterious strangers he has met could also be the Doctor. "I have traversed the history of my notes and journals. From these and other divers places have I compiled this book of scraps. A volume wherein I do draw together every incident and encounter that may perchance have involved or been influenced by the Doctor. It has been an enlightenment, and I have found the Doctor to have appeared not only in my life, but in my writings too. Can I have forgot so completely whereof my inspirations came, and thought them but the dew of imagination, the sweat upon the brow of diligence and labour?

It is as if the Doctor has somehow traversed my life in retrospect, removing any references and allusions to himself and to the strange world of wonders and magick that is his habitation. And now, save for the sundry items I do gather here, these recollections do remain only in my most private thoughts and the fading tablet of my memory."

- William Shakespeare

This puts to bed any concerns about literal interpretations. The fictionalised versions here come largely from Shakespeare's dreams and fading memories so should not be treated as fact but with caution. As such, pages like Christopher Marlowe should receive rewrites.

Even if we trust Shakespeare here, the academic publication that are actually publishing the contents of the Notebooks encourages that the reader "determine whether you believe the Shakespeare Notebooks are indeed genuine, or an elaborate hoax" for themselves.

Merging the short story articles into The Shakespeare Notebooks (novel) due to the linking narration is not something I would be against but I implore that to take place at Talk:The Shakespeare Notebooks (anthology) instead of here, in which the question is validity.

In fact, that is not even accurate. This thread was started when we still dealt with canon and since then Tardis:Valid sources has become much more clear in what it allows and the only objections from over five years ago came from somebody who admitted they had not read the thing. Hopefully, we can now get this ancient relic closed.