CAN SHAKESPEARE BLUNDER? Although Tony Tanner gives a reason for defending Shakespeare’s choice in the last scene, he acknowledges that he rejects the notion that Shakespeare can blunder. He says: “I hold it as axiomatic that, if we find something ….cruel, unconscionable, intolerable…. in Shakespeare’s plays, then so did Shakespeare. I think the same goes for anything which we find implausible or unacceptable.”
Tanner concludes: “…I believe, and thus assume, that he always knew what he was doing.”
I agree with Tanner. Shakespeare did not blunder.