I can speak to with authority, but it does not seem to me that, in the past, people were keen to read the memoirs of some insignificant person as they are now, much more judge a novel by whether or not it could have been a true story or a memoir of the person who wrote it.

Uh...what time was this exactly?

Is Shakespearean criticism some special sort of genre that bestows its blessing upon anything it includes? Anyway, Shakesperean criticism includes all sorts of things. There is Shakespearean criticism that is written with no regard, or pointed disregard, of the author, just as there is Shakespearean criticism written with pointed disregard of the text.

My little point was that even though we know next to nothing about Shakespeare, you still have scholars like Shapiro using what little we do know as evidence for points

Pop artists make most of their royalties from touring and radio/TV appearances, rather than record sales, because of the piracy problem.

You do know Pop music doesn't mean Beyonce and Katy Perry, right?

Again, why is this applicable to literature? And why is this "natural"?

So we're being pedantic and doing the "I'm going to need proof for common sense" thing? Nah, I'll pass.

Well, from how I understand the article, it is discussing whether writers are allowed to write about people who are not them. The fetishization of the author is an important issue, but tangential to the question posed.

Oh, really. Am I suppose to care that my question was "tangential" or are we not allowed to branch off discussions. Are you just in a shitty mood to today and decided to make shitty arguments?