Dialogues : Fitting the Bill.

Amitava Roy THE character, identity and personality of William Shakespeare have always been shrouded in a mystery. Periodically critics, scholars and looneys come up with various candidates to sit in for Shakespeare. Was it the dashing and debonair double-agent Kit Marlowe who wrote Shakespeare's plays? Or was it the poet, courtier and globetrotter Sir Walter Raleigh? Or the philosopher Francis Bacon? Or even Queen Bess herself? Questions and candidates proliferate across the centuries while the man himself remains the Mona Lisa of literature. While the Bard's 438th birthday looms large on us this April, a scholarly-but-trendy young M.Phil student and a tongue-in-cheek professor match wits over this …