Life — April 20, 1916 — page 11: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# Explanation for Modern Readers The main cartoon depicts a "Boston Lady" interrogating what appears to be Shakespeare's Ghost. The caption plays on a literary mystery: "ARE YOU SHAKESPEARE, OR BACON, OR AREN'T YOU?" This references the historical authorship debate—some scholars argued that Francis Bacon, not Shakespeare, wrote the plays. The joke satirizes Boston's intellectual pretensions: even encountering a literal ghost, a Boston intellectual would obsess over academic disputes rather than appreciate the work itself. The cartoon mocks pedantic literary criticism and the tendency of educated elites to prioritize scholarly debates over genuine engagement with art. The page's accompanying text discusses Shakespeare's enduring literary significance and compares British military costs to other nations, but these appear unrelated to the cartoon's satire.