Though it markets itself as having something fresh and startling to say, Roland Emmerich’s Anonymous is only a crude sensationalist rendition of a century-old dispute: who was William Shakespeare, “really”?
In this rendition an actor, Will Shakespeare, lends his name to Edward De Vere, Earl of Oxford. De Vere’s social standing forbids him to appear in public as an author of popular plays but he is the “real” author of what we know as “Shakespeare”. In this crude and vicious “alternative history” the actor Will Shakespeare is a dim-wit, blackmailing cockney fly-boy who murders at least two of his literary rivals, Marlowe and Kid. But that’s not the half of it.
This De Vere is an illegitimate son of Queen Elizabeth I. Ignorant of that fact, he fathers a child with her. Their son is the Earl of Southampton. Southampton is himself believed by one “who-was-Shakespeare-really” school of thought to have been “the real Shakespeare”. The Earl of Essex is another of Elizabeth’s secret sons. He too is her lover. She has him beheaded.
Essex probably was her lover; and he was beheaded after a feeble attempt at rebellion. Adding the detail that he was also her son is typical of this film’s witless sensationalism.
At the time of the Essex “rebellion”, in 1601, a play by Shakespeare was performed for some of the conspirators, and taken to bear a contemporary political message, that the Queen should abdicate. It was Richard II, in which the king is forced to abdicate, and then murdered. Elizabeth herself is supposed to have said of it: “Know you that I am Richard?”
In Anonymous, the play performed is Richard III, and it carries a political message. What message? Richard III is depicted as a hunchback; Elizabeth’s chief minister, Robert Cecil, is depicted as also a hunchback. This is another measure of the crude witlessness of the makers of this film.
But they take themselves seriously. To go with the film Sony Pictures has distributed study notes to teachers in the USA proclaiming that Anonymous “presents a compelling portrait of Edward de Vere as the true author of Shakespeare’s plays”. It does nothing of the sort.
On one level, of course, it doesn’t matter. Shakespeare was the author of Shakespeare’s plays; the plays are what defines Shakespeare, of whom little else is known. The rest is waffle and speculation. Unprovable speculation. Poisonous waffle.
As many came to believe in the alternative history of early Christianity in The Da Vinci Code, so this awful film will win believers for its vicious fantasies.
Comments
Your review of Anonymous
The film’s purpose is simply to set the record straight, to expose the mythology of the uneducated genius from Stratford, and give credit at long last to the true author. The only issue here is not whether you like the idea that a nobleman wrote the works attributed to William of Stratford but whether it is true. The issue is not about class, but about evidence and I believe that the evidence clearly points to Edward de Vere as the true author.
Mr. Emmerich is a strong supporter of the idea that the orthodox position is full of smoke and mirrors and does not describe the true author of the Shakespeare canon. Questioning the Stratfordian attribution has been around for over a hundred years as you say for one reason alone – because we have little information about Shakspere of Stratford that would in any way designate him as a writer, let alone the greatest writer in the English language. The “personal and historical facts” that are “too numerous to mention” do not stand up upon scrutiny.
Biographies of William of Stratford contain one page of fact and 599 of speculation such as “he might have”, “he could have”, it is probable that”, and so forth. The few facts we know about Shakespeare from Stratford are stretched, pulled, and twisted to make it plausible that he was the author. There is nothing in his biography to connect him with the works. Indeed the opposite is true. He seems merely to have been a man of the world, buying up property, laying in ample stocks of barley and malt, when others were starving, selling off his surpluses and pursuing debtors in court…."
The fact that some works were published under the attribute of William Shakespeare does not identify the man behind the name. There is nothing in his handwriting ever discovered except for six almost illegible signatures. There are no letters, no correspondence, no manuscripts, no paper trail at all to identify the man behind the name, not a single word. Nobody claims to having ever met the man. When contemporaries refer to William Shakespeare, they are referring to the name on the title page and nothing else.
The claim has been refuted by academics whose reputations and possibly their careers are at stake and the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust whose Stratford Tourist bonanza may be permanently derailed.
The list of those who have doubted the Stratfordian attribution contain some of the most prominent authors, actors, and thinkers in American history including Henry and William James, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Mark Twain, Sigmund Freud, Mortimer Adler, Mark Rylance, Derek Jacobi, Charles Dickens, Walt Whitman, Supreme Court Justice Henry Blackmun, Harvard Professor William Y. Elliott, Clifton Fadiman, John Galsworthy, and many others. See http://doubtaboutwill.org/past_doubters.
Anonymous is in no way a “cruel and vicious work”. It is fiction but one designed to begin to set the record straight on the true authorship of the Shakespeare canon. Mr. Emmerich has stated that his film provides one possible alternative explanation of the fact that we know next to nothing about the great Shakespeare, not the only explanation. The film does not present anyone in the abusive terms you mentioned.
Your review makes me wonder if you have ever read a book on the life of Edward de Vere and the case for his authorship which in my view is not only strong. It is compelling.
evidence?
"the evidence clearly points to Edward de Vere as the true author."
So what is your evidence for that claim?
Shakespeare was "uneducated"? Really? As the son of a well to do tradesman, he received an education in Latin and the classics at a grammar school.
Even it it could be shown that Shakespeare did not write the plays attributed to him, it would not follow that those who have doubted his authorship in the last two centuries were not motivated by snobbery, a snobbery that has now developed into a conspiracy theory, albeit a relatively harmless one compared to say the 9/11 "Truth" movement.
Evidence?
First of all, the snobbery issue is a straw man designed to hide the true issues. Is it really snobbishness for doubters to point out that it is highly unlikely that a man who had little or no education, whose children were illiterate, who never left any writing other than six unreadable signatures with his name spelled differently in each one, who never traveled outside of London, who spent much time and effort engaging in petty lawsuits, who could not read books in French, Italian, or Spanish yet used untranslated material as his source material, who never left any books in his will, who left no letters, no correspondence, who did not elicit a single eulogy at his death was the greatest writer in the English language.
There is no evidence that William Shakespeare of Stratford ever spent a single day in school. According to Author Robin Fox. "If he did go to school in Stratford, he most likely would have received a good education, but it is not sufficient to explain the plays and poems, which contain a breadth of knowledge and experience, and an attitude that goes way beyond small-town Warwickshire.
This includes the crucial knowledge of as-then untranslated sources in all the languages that we know Oxford knew, and that were unavailable at Stratford. Also, the author’s reading went way beyond what any grammar school could have provided or afforded. The author must have had access to large private libraries like those of Smith and Cecil, or even his own. A grammar-school education is then not a sufficient explanation of the author’s knowledge and ability."
A comprehensive discussion in favor of Edward being the author would take a whole book, so I will cover a few basic points that convinced me.
ARISTOCRATIC BENT OF THE PLAYS
Of the 37 plays, 36 are laid in royal courts and the world of the nobility. The principal characters are almost all aristocrats with the exception perhaps of Shylock. From all we can tell, Shakespeare fully shared the outlook of his characters, identifying fully with the courtesies, chivalries, and generosity of aristocratic life. Many lower class characters in Shakespeare are introduced for comic effect and given little development. Their names are indicative of their worth: Snug, Stout, Starveling, Dogberry, Simple, Mouldy, Wart, Feeble, etc.
The history plays are concerned mostly with the consolidation and maintenance of royal power and are concerned with righting the wrongs that fall on people of high blood. His comedies are far removed from the practicalities of everyday life or the realistic need to make a living. Shakespeare's vision is a deeply conservative, feudalistic and aristocratic one.
CONNECTION TO THE PLAYS
Essentially, the story of the young prince in Hamlet is scene for scene straight from the life of young Edward. His father died when he was 12, his mother quickly remarried another man, and Edward was placed as a royal ward in the household of William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, where he received the most comprehensive education in literature and history that any individual could have received in all of England at that time. Cecil is commonly thought to be the model for Polonius. Edward married his daughter Anne, who is the model for Ophelia. Edward was dueling with a friend in the yard when a drunk cook behind a hanging dais got stabbed to death by his blade, just as Hamlet killed Polonius. Cecil sent his son as a student to France with a list of rules to follow, and sent spies to keep an eye on his son, all matching Laertes in the play.
Young Edward traveled to Italy and toured through every single city where one of the plays occurs. On his way back to England he saw the marching of an army, like he described the army of Fortinbras. Then while sailing back to England, Edward was kidnapped by pirates, stripped of all his possessions and left with nothing but a shirt on the shore of Denmark, exactly as experienced by Hamlet. Also while he was in Italy, Edward heard that Anne was pregnant, and due to insinuations by one of his servants, Edward came to doubt her faithfulness to him, but later she was proved to be innocent. This exact incident occurs numerous times in the plays of Shakespeare, including when Hamlet doubts Ophelia, and when Othello doubts Desdemona.
In ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL
Oxford became a ward of court in Lord Burghley's household at the age of twelve. Oxford left his widowed mother to become a royal ward.
Bertram left his widowed mother to become a royal ward.
Oxford’s guardian's daughter fell in love with him and wanted to be married.
Bertram’s foster-sister fell in love with him and wanted to be married.
Oxford was of more noble birth than Anne and did not favor marriage.
Bertram argued he was of too high birth for marriage.
Following an ailment, marriage was agreed and the Queen consented to Oxford’s marriage.
Following an illness, the King consented to the marriage.
The wedding was at first postponed, no reason was given.
Bertram attempted to change the King's mind regarding his marriage.
After the wedding, Oxford suddenly left the country.
After the wedding, Bertram suddenly left the country.
A reconciliation between Oxford and Anne is contrived by switching his bed companion for his wife. As a result, a son is born. Confirmation of this reconciliation appears in The Histories of Essex by Morant and Wright: 1836.
A reconciliation between Bertram and Helena is contrived by switching his bed companion for his wife. As a result, a son is born.
THE SONNETS
The Sonnets are written by a man who is clearly much older than William of Stratford. Conventional chronology dates the sonnets to between 1592 and 1596. At this time, William of Stratford would have been in his late twenties and early thirties (Oxford was 14 years older). Even if we up the date to 1599, William of Stratford was still in his thirties. The sonnets tell us that the poet was in his declining years when writing them. He was "Beated and chopped with tanned antiquity," "With Time's injurious hand crushed and o'er worn", in the "twilight of life". He is lamenting "all those friends" who have died, "my lovers gone".
His is "That time of year/When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang/Upon those boughs that shake against the cold." The sonnets that most contradict Will of Stratford's life story are those about shame and disgrace to name and reputation. Here Shakespeare's biographers have nothing to go on.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. The most extensive evidence can be found in books of which I'd recommend the following:
"The Mysterious William Shakespeare" by Charlton Ogburn (1982)
"Shakespeare by Another Name" by Mark Anderson (2005)
"Shakespeare's Unidentified Biography" by Diana Price (2001, not an Oxfordian)
"The Shakespeare Guide to Italy" by Richard Paul Roe (2011)
"Shakespeare's Lost Kingdom" by Charles Beauclerk
More information can be found in a variety of websites like the ones listed below.
www.politicworm.com; http://hankwhittemore.wordpress.com; http://shakespearebyanothername.blogspot.com
Yeah
Yeah but it's an awful film, which starts off with the entirely revolting idea (presented by Derek Jabobi, not his finest moment) that *obviously* Shakespeare couldn't have written his own plays, because he was too lowly and thick.
I think all this drivel has been seen off, anyway, by James Shapiro.
James Shapiro
Following is a letter to the New York Times, replying to Professor James Shapiro of Columbia University, from Helen Heightsman Gordon, M.A., Ed. D., an English professor emeritus of Bakersfield College, California, and author of The Secret Love Story in Shakespeare’s Sonnets [2008].
"Dear NY Times:
If you fact-checked the column by James Shapiro (Oct 17) you would do your readers a great favor. Here are some of the lies in that column that any responsible reporter would have questioned:
Lie #1- The lesson plans by Sony Pictures are being distributed to literature and history teachers “in the hope of convincing them that Shakespeare was a fraud.”
Not true. These plans are being provided to teachers to inform them about the authorship controversy, which has been subject to much censorship in the academic world, and to encourage students to think for themselves on this controversial issue.
Lie #2 - J. Thomas Looney [pronounced LONE-ee] “loathed democracy and modernity” and argued that “only a worldly nobleman could have created such works of genius.”
Not true. Looney was a schoolmaster who was dissatisfied with teaching the traditional biography of Shakespeare, who argued that the Bard’s marvelous works revealed characteristics that we would expect to find in the author. These traits included a superior education, knowledge of several languages, familiarity with European courts and powerful aristocrats, some ambivalence about women, and so forth.
Shapiro’s ad hominem attack attempts to paint this sincere, dedicated teacher as a snob. That oft-repeated accusation has been decisively refuted by many brilliant non-snobs who question whether the Stratford businessman had the background necessary to have produced works of such profound knowledge and literary talent as Shakespeare produced.
Lie #3 – “Promoters of de Vere’s cause have a lot of evidence to explain away, including testimony of contemporary writers, court records and much else that confirms that Shakespeare wrote the works attributed to him.”
Not true. These supposed records either refer to non-literary court records about the Stratford man’s legal problems or they refer to the author by his pen name, “William Shakespeare” — like saying “Mark Twain wrote Mark Twain‘s work.” They do not in any way “confirm” that the Stratford resident is the same person as the author.
Lie #4 – “Not a shred of documentary evidence has ever been found that connects de Vere to any of the plays or poems.”
This one is REALLY a whopper! Demonstrably untrue. Many scholars have provided documentary evidence of de Vere’s writing talent in letters and published poetry. There is also printed evidence that he was regarded by his peers as being a talented playwright and poet. Many scholars have provided evidence that de Vere had the background necessary to write the plays, including ability to read classic Greek and Latin works that had not been translated into English, evidence of travel through Italy in places accurately described in the plays, and so forth.
Researchers are somewhat frustrated by the fact that de Vere’s malicious father-in-law suppressed or destroyed evidence that might have proved one way or the other that he wrote the plays and the sonnets. Ironically, it is the Stratford-worshippers who have never produced one single piece of writing in Shakespeare’s hand, and no documentary proof that Mr. Shake-speare (that’s how he spelled his own name) attended the Stratford Grammar School (those records have been destroyed).
Lie #5 – “The greatest obstacle facing de Vere’s supporters is that he died in 1604, before ten or so of Shakespeare’s plays were written.”
This might be convincing if it were true. The truth is that nobody knows when the plays were written. We only know when they were performed and when they were published (sometimes in pirated quartos as “anonymous” work). Dr. Shapiro cannot explain why Mr. Shaxpere (another way that he spelled his name) did not edit his own plays for publication during his years of retirement, if indeed he were the same person as the famous author.
The First Folio was not printed until 1623, long after Mr. Shagspere’s death (another way that he spelled his name). And the Sonnets were published in 1609, while Mr. Shake-speare was alive, yet the Dedication refers to the author as “ever-living” — which means that the author is dead, but his works are still immortal.
Lie #6 – “Later de Vere advocates . . . claimed that de Vere was Elizabeth’s illegitimate son and therefore the rightful heir to the English throne.”
There are only two strong advocates [Paul Streitz and Charles Beauclerk – HW] for the “incest theory,” and the movie does not give this theory any credence (the subject is mentioned and then dismissed as a lie). On the other hand, there is considerable evidence that Elizabeth had a love affair with Edward de Vere, and at least one noted historian reports a rumor that they had a love-child who was being raised as the Third Earl of Southampton.
Those Oxfordians who find that to be a credible scenario would consider Southampton the possible heir to the throne. The first seventeen sonnets are addressed to the “Fair Youth” that a consensus of Shakespeare scholars believe to be Henry Wriothesley, the Third Earl of Southampton. That makes a lot of sense when you read those sonnets as being from a loving father to the son that he cannot acknowledge, as he says in Sonnet 36:
I may not evermore acknowledge thee
Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame,
Nor you with public kindness honor me,
Unless thou tak’st that honor from thy name.
So let us indeed stop telling lies to school children. Let’s give them the facts — all the facts, not just those carefully selected by the traditionalists who have maintained a taboo over the subject of the authorship for decades. Students can learn to think for themselves, and Roland Emmerich will give them much more to think about than Dr. Shapiro has done."
I'm sorry
Sorry, but these refutations of 'lies' aren't very impressive. The first one, for instance, is just silly. Shapiro writes in the NYT that Sony are distributing lesson plans "in the hope of convincing students that Shakespeare was a fraud"; Ms Gordon responds that actually Sony just want students to "think for themselves." Oh please. The point is that *Sony*, in promoting their film - *in order to promote their film* - are giving teachers hand outs.
What on earth is the point? Why on earth is the question of whether Shakespeare wrote his own plays so important that it merits including it as part of the syllabus in (presumably) high school English and History classes?
The second 'lie' is just a different assessment of the character of this J Thomas Looney - with Ms Gordon rather preposterously referring to Shapiro's assessment (of a man long dead) as an 'ad hominem' attack.
And so on. In any case, Shapiro has written a whole book on the subject (two if you count 1599 which partly deals with the issue), not just an article for the NYT.
On one level I don't much care, and if it turns out someone other than Shakespeare wrote the plays, or some of them, or even the best ones, I don't see what difference it would make - to the plays, or to anything else.
That there has been for so long such a desire in some quarters to say he didn't is quite odd, though. You don't get people running around insisting, you know, 'Just because Oedipus Tyrranus has Sophocles' name on it doesn't prove anything! How do we know Sophocles even existed!'. They don't even do it about, say, Marlowe or Webster.
When you have a film which starts with the contention that it couldn't possibly have been an oik actor who wrote these plays and must have been a clever aristocrat - well, you start to feel that this must be why.
Pseudonyms
By the way, I sincerely want to thank you for publishing contrary opinions to the one expressed in your article. Not all websites do this, especially the World Socialists who rarely ever print a contrary opinion.
Anyway, about the issues you raised, there are many people who feel that both sides of any issue should be discussed in schools. People have been spoon-fed the romantic Shakespeare story for too long without questioning the paucity of facts to substantiate it. In particular, knowing the true author of the canon would expand our knowledge and understanding of the plays and poems 100 fold and would contribute to a greater appreciation of Shakespeare's works. I think SONY had in mind broadening the scope of education on the subject.
As far as why we don't have people insisting that other writers have used pseudonyms, it is common knowledge that many people have, especially during the time of the repressive autocratic monarchy of the Elizabethan age. It was a matter of self protection. The reason we don't question Marlowe or Webster is that we have sufficient documentation to verify that they are who they said they were. In Shakespeare's case, no one during his lifetime ever claimed to have met the man. There are no letters, no descriptions, no diaries, no anecdotes, only a name on a title page.
The attack on Mr. Looney disregards the evidence he raised in his book "Shakespeare Identified" and instead attacks political beliefs and his character. This is typical of Shapiro who ignores the evidence and instead attempts to apply psychology as to why these people think the way they do. If that isn't "ad hominem", I don't know what is."
In the same way, you have not discussed a single piece of evidence I have raised but prefer to ignore them while continuing your attacks. Have you indeed ever read a book or even an article on the life of Edward de Vere and the case for his authorship?
Do You Recognize the Value of Telling the Truth?
"What on earth is the point? Why on earth is the question of whether Shakespeare wrote his own plays so important that it merits including it as part of the syllabus in (presumably) high school English and History classes?"
Does the truth matter to you? Should we be purveying a lie at the very core of our English and historical training of our children? First truth is a value in a sane civilized country just as a basic principle. Thou shalt not bear false witness. Remember?
Then, it is justice itself to recognize who actually wrote a valuable document or work. Oxford knew he would not be so recognized. It is reflected in Hamlet's dying oration. Oxford had made a deal with Robert Cecil (in exchange for not executing his son Southampton) to not have his works published under his own name posthumously, which was the custom among the aristocracy at that time and place.
And finally, the history of the Elizabethan era under the light of correcting this suppression of the true authorship of the Shakespeare canon would be re-formed and revised in a more factual truthful way. With the elite kicking and screaming all the way of course.
In short, the Big Lie didn't start and end with the pitiful Bush administration and its crimes. It was an adjunct of the very first nation-state. To have one of its own, in a high and credible aristocrat position, tell the dirt on the corrupt Tudor regime would just not do. But the same author wrote the Histories, the foundation myth of the nation.
So something in the way of expedient repair had to be done. Since Shakspere of Stratford sounded like the pseudonym Shakespeare, the fix was in and it stuck. Those who knew better knew better than to protest in an authoritarian regime. It became customary truth over the centuries. And now you and I think it IS the truth. But truth does not contradict itself. The life and work of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, does not contradict the Shakespeare canon. It was after all his nickname and pseudonym. A huge historical injustice yes. One that does not have to be perpetuated just because it has been.
Does it sound a lot like any elitist exploitative class? It should. Because it was.
Okham
At least usually conspiracy theories make it reasonably clear who is supposed to benefit from the conspiracy. Who - really - benefits from the 'myth' about Shakespeare? In any case there isn't a 'myth' in this sense. If you ask most people what they know about Shakespeare, they know about his *work* and very little about his life. There certainly isn't a myth which somehow serves some evil interests, or aids in some way a nefarious purpose.
In science there is a concept, Okham's Razor, which is basically that the simplest explanation for something is probably right, and that if an explanation requires more and more dubious assumptions in order to be valid, it probably isn't. That principle seems to me to apply well in this case. Simply: there were plays which seem to have been written by someone called Shakespeare, so they probably were.
Of course I am in favour of the truth. I am also in favour of students hearing different sides of arguments. On one level, if students in schools, colleges, or later in life, want to spend some time looking into this controversy, that's up to them, and good luck to them. But that there is a record which needs to be 'set straight' (never mind the idea that Sony are merely generously trying to put it straight in the interests of high school education) is, shall we say, not yet proven. On the other hand, an enormous number of scholars do not accept this 'conspiracy theory' version of Shakespeare.
So I am not much more in favour of teaching - as in, putting on the syllabus - both sides of this controversy than I am both sides of the controversy on the theory of evolution. Rather better, I think - which is what happens in any case - teach the plays.
The bits of 'evidence' put forward in this debate, and the refutation of 'lies', etc, are extraordinarily unimpressive. I've mentioned two of Ms Gordon's, and didn't go on, because life is too short. (It's not, by the way, an 'ad hominem' attack to make an assessment of the psychology of someone who is long dead. It would be 'ad hominem' if you said 'he can't be right about Shakespeare because he was violent to children' - ie, if the personal detail is personally damning but irrelevant to the issue at hand. Here the psychological assessment - though it's not just that anyway - is entirely relevant).
I'll draw attention to one other 'fact' thrown in here, though. It's a small thing; maybe I'm picking up on a very weak part of the argument, and maybe that's unfair. But it seems to me to illustrate a general point. Someone above mentions that Shakespeare spelled his name differently on different occasions, as evidence for the doubtfulness of his identity and proof of his illiteracy.
But *everyone* used variations in spelling at this time, and not just in names! It proves only that he lived in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries!
If this is the level of your evidence, why should anyone take the rest of it seriously?
who benefits?
Who benefits from the Shakespeare myth? The pub and shop owners of Stratford of course! Wise up, Clive. They'll do anything to keep the hordes of gullible American tourists tramping through their town. I bet the council have bought up all the manuscripts of "Shakespeare" plays in the Earl of Oxford's handwriting and hid them in the crypt of the church where the phony bard is allegedly buried. We clearly need a Dan Brown-style detective to uncover the "truth".
Unimpressive?
Clive, calling the evidence against the Stratfordian attribution "unimpressive" allows you to avoid having to respond to it. If the evidence is so unimpressive, then it shouldn't be difficult to answer the following fifteen questions.
1. The Sonnets were published in 1609 bearing the most personal and intimate details of a man's life. At a time when the author was allegedly still alive, he offered no dedication, took no part in its publication nor did he attempt to stop publication. How do you explain this?
2. The dedication to the Sonnets is written to our "ever-living author", a tribute almost always reserved for someone who is no longer alive. Please explain (and don’t tell me they are acknowledging God)?
3 The first 100 or so verses of the sonnets entreats a fair young man to marry. Scholars agree that the fair young man refers to Henry Wriotheseley, the 3rd Earl of Southhampton. No commoner such as Shaksper of Stratford would be allowed to address an Earl in such manner, for example, to demand of the young but already powerful peer, “Make thee another self for love of me.” (Sonnet #10, line 13). Please explain.
4. Shakespeare without question was one of the greatest if not the greatest writer in the English language, yet his daughters were illiterate. How is this possible?
5. Please explain why none of Shaksper's relatives from Stratford ever claimed that their relative was the famous author.
6. Dr. Hall was the husband of Susan Shaksper, daughter of William. In his journals he refers to famous men he knew and treated, yet never once mentions his wife's illustrious father. Please explain.
7. The sonnets are widely accepted to have been written in the early 1590s at a time when the man from Stratford would have been in his late twenties, yet his sonnets tell us that the poet was in his declining years when writing them. He was "Beated and chopped with tanned antiquity," "With Time's injurious hand crushed and o'er worn", in the "twilight of life". He is lamenting "all those friends" who have died, "my lovers gone". His is "That time of year/When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang/Upon those boughs that shake against the cold." Please explain.
8. The sonnets that most contradict Will of Stratford's life story are those about shame and disgrace to name and reputation. Here Shakespeare's biographers have nothing to go on. The sonnets talk about a man who was in disgrace from fortune and men's eyes. What biographical connection is there to the life of the man from Stratford that would have disgraced him?
9. Thomas Nashe and Gabriel Harvey were literary pamphleteers who wrote about the most prominent literary figures of the day and have many references to the Earl of Oxford, yet are strangely silent on any writer named Shakespeare. Why?
10. After two successful poems were published under the name of Shakespeare (Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece), all the plays were published anonymously for five years until 1598 when William Cecil died. Is there some cause and effect going on?
11. At the height of his popularity, Shaksper retired to Stratford and bought property. It is widely agreed that many of his latter works were collaborations. Why would the greatest author in the language suddenly turn away from his profession, become a wealthy landowner and entrust the completion of his work to lesser writers?
12. Many of the known sources for the plays were books in Italian, French, and Spanish that were untranslated at the time. Scholars agree that these works were primary sources for Hamlet, Merchant of Venice, Othello and Measure for Measure:
Francois de Belleforest Histories tragiques
Ser Giovanni Fioranetino’s Il Pecorone
Epitia and Hecatommithi
Luigi da Porto’s Romeus and Juliet (Italian)
Jorge de Montemayor’s Diana (Spanish)
While Oxford was fluent in those languages, what is there in the known background of William of Stratford that could explain this knowledge?
13. Why do the Shakespeare plays indicate not only the author’s expert acquaintance with the law in general, but also with the language, rules, circumstances and even the most trivial aspects of Gray’s Inn and its twin establishment, the Inner Temple? If Shakespeare was not a member of Gray’s Inn, how could he have known of the various circumstances and wording of the elaborate Gray’s Inn Revels of 1594/5?
14. How did Shakespeare acquire such mastery of the English language and to such an extent that he not only used over 24,000 different words but also invented at least 1700 new words and Latinized others?
15. How did Shakespeare acquire his detailed and seemingly first-hand knowledge concerning both people and places in countries such as Italy and France? How did Shakespeare become so knowledgeable about and influenced by the Italian Commedia dell’ Arte?
All right
All right, I can't answer all your questions. If I could be bothered I would spend some time doing further reading around the issue.
Many of them, however, do not seem to me hard to answer. You wonder how Shakespeare could know things about which he had no personal experience. Well, I have written several police dramas and have never been in the police. The trick is to ask people who *are* in the police. I have written things set in eighteenth century London, and I can assure you I am not quite that old. The secret is to, you know, read stuff. And again, to ask people who know more about it than you do. It does not strike me as a stretch of the imagination that Shakespeare, working at the Globe, had a fairly extensive resource of, say, lawyers, etc, whom he knew personally and could ask. Indeed, as his fame grew they would be falling over each other offering story lines, titbits, etc etc. Someone who was present at the Gray's Inn Revels, for example, might have got drunk with Shakespeare one night and told him all about it. Has such a thing never happened to you? I know a rather shocking amount about how prostitutes operated in London in the 1750s. This is not the result of ever having paid for one.
How could he invent all these new words? Whoever invented them, well, invented them. The extraordinary thing is that they were very good inventions, which have stuck. At any given moment there are loads of new words being invented by - often uneducated - young people which become very commonly used. Some of them stick around.
How could he use over 24,000 words? Well, I imagine he was able to *speak* English, and this resulted in him having, you know, a vocabulary.
Why were his daughters illiterate? If this is true, the most simple and obvious answer is that he was a bad father who failed to ensure their education.
Etc. So no, I can't answer all your questions this Saturday evening. But the general tenor of them doesn't make me feel this is something worth taking time out of my life to do so. Sorry.
Tavern wisdom
Thanks for your comments on some of the questions. It seems to me that most of them, however, are more rationalizations than answers, more he "could have", he "might have", "it is possible that," and the like. If he had to consult so many people to get all this information, don't you think it's a bit odd that there is not a single person who, during his lifetime, ever claimed to have met and talked with him, had a drink with him, or offered some description of his looks and personality? I find that not only odd, but given his popularity as a playwright, utterly incomprehensible.
Just as a matter of interest
Just as a matter of interest - serious question, to which I don't know the answer, but I wonder - do we have accounts from people who knew John Webster about what he looked like, his personality, where and when they had a drink with him, and so on?
I'm pretty sure we don't regarding, say, Sophocles. Of course you can argue that this is hardly surprising since he lived so long ago. But it's interesting that there isn't a reading list of books asserting that Sophocles, as an ordinary Athenian citizen, couldn't possibly have written 'Antigone'...
Webster who?
There is definitely a paper trail for John Webster. We know that he was paid in advance in 1602 for the play "Ceaser's Folly." There is no record of Shakespeare ever being paid for a play. Webster was admitted to the Inns of Court which would account for his legal knowledge in his plays. There is no accounting for the breadth and the depth of Shakespeare's knowledge of the law.
Webster has co-written several plays including "Christmas Comes but Once a Year' with Thomas Dekker and has co-written other plays with Thomas Middleton and William Rowley. It is a fair presumption that those he co-write plays with met and talked with him. Besides there is no comparison between John Webster and William Shakespeare who was the greatest writer in the English language. If you cannot see the difference, there is really no point in continuing this discussion.
As far as Sophocles is concerned, there is quite a bit of evidence for him.
In Plutarch, Sophocles discussed his own work and he was known to have entered 30 dramatic competitions in Athens and won 30 of them and never placed lower than second place.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophocles
You sound, like a true believer defending the faith, as if you will grasp at anything except face the obvious.
apply your own standards
"most of them, however, are more rationalizations than answers, more he "could have", he "might have", "it is possible that," and the like."
This to me sums up the anti-Stratfordian approach. Rather than saying that it is possible that Shakespeare did not write the plays attributed to him, you confidently assert that someone else (in your case the Earl of Oxford) did, without any evidence for that claim but merely on the basis of speculation and clumsily trying to link facts about him with the plays.
Connections
There's plenty of evidence which you simply deny, dismiss, or ignore. The connections between Oxford and the plays and Sonnets are too many and too compelling to dismiss as "clumsily trying to link facts about him with the plays." I'm not trying to do anything. The connections are obvious and speak for themselves.
As far as my own position is concerned, I never said that my position is correct beyond a shadow of doubt. That is something you made up. I have, however, been involved in learning about the subject for fifteen years. I did not start out as an Oxfordian but someone with questions about what I considered an unfathomable mystery. Since that time, it has become obvious, as it would be to anyone without blinders on, that the accumulation of circumstantial evidence unmistakably points in the direction of Oxford.
With all due respect, I suggest that you familiarize yourself with the life of Oxford and the case for his authorship (more than I can possibly present here).
The best books I've read are:
"The Mysterious William Shakespeare" by Charlton Ogburn (1982)
"Shakespeare by Another Name" by Mark Anderson (2005)
"Shakespeare Suppressed" by Kathleen Chiljan (2011)
"Shakespeare's Unidentified Biography" by Diana Price (2001, not an Oxfordian)
"The Shakespeare Guide to Italy" by Richard Paul Roe (2011)
"Shakespeare's Lost Kingdom" by Charles Beauclerk