Gentle Readers, Patty of Brandy Parfums frequently contributes articles of interest to this blog. Her latest post is about Anonymous, the film about the authorship of Shakespeare’s plays, which recently opened in theatres.
Film Poster
Introduction – Instead of writing a traditional plot-spoiler review of Anonymous, which can be found in many newspapers and magazines, I’ve written what I think will be more useful – a short guide to Shakespeare authorship. Enjoy! – Patricia Saffran
Jamie Campbell Bower as the young earl of Oxford
A Guide to Shakespeare Authorship
Jane Austen knew Shakespeare’s plays well and based a number of her novels on Shakespeare’s characters and plot devices. Stephen Derry writes about these many references in his paper for the Jane Austen Society of North America, ‘Jane Austen’s Use of Measure for Measure in Sense and Sensibility.’ Derry begins his paper by saying -In Mansfield Park, Edmund Bertram declares that one is familiar with Shakespeare in a degree from one’s earliest years. His celebrated passages are quoted by everybody we all talk Shakespeare, use his similes, and describe with his descriptions.
Tudor England
Knowing of Jane Austen’s profound knowledge of Shakespeare should give those who love her works a keen interest in all things Shakespeare – and in this new movie, which brings the Elizabethan period to life. This is the first time a major movie studio has taken a leap, with an elaborate period production, costumes, and star-studded cast, to delve into the question plaguing scholars for centuries, as to who the author of Shakespeare’s plays really was.
Joely Richardson as a young Elizabeth I and Jamie Campbell Bower as a young Earl of Oxford
The gamble has payed off, as this is a truly sensational
movie. It takes place during the succession of Queen Elizabeth I, and the Essex Rebellion against her – a period of turmoil and political instability. During this period, being the author of a play with politically loaded or satirical material was dangerous. Some authors chose anonymity………
Shakespeare authorship as an area of inquiry is not new. While making a list of the greatest Elizabethan poets, Henry Peacham in The Compleat Gentleman published in 1622, when the First Folio was being created, lists Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford, first on his list and does not include Shakespeare at all. Many believe that this was Peacham’s way of hinting that Edward de Vere, not William Shakespeare, wrote the plays and poetry.
Rafe Spall as William Shakespeare
More recently, in the past 150 years, there have been many notable actors, writers, and Supreme Court judges who have questioned William Shakespeare as the author of the plays. Among them are Mark Twain, Leslie Howard, Charlie Chaplin, Orson Welles, Sigmund Freud, Charles Dickens, Walt Whitman, Henry James, J. Thomas Looney, Michael York, Sandra Day O’Connor, Harry A. Blackmun, and John Paul Stevens. Besides de Vere and William Shakespeare, the other main candidates to have written the plays are Bacon, Marlowe, and Neville.
Rhys Ifans as the mature Earl of Oxford
A fantastic short video by the director of Anonymous, Roland Emmerich, summarizes ten reasons why it is implausible that the Stratford William Shakespeare wrote the plays. For some, the main reason is that unlike all other great authors of the period, no letters exist either to or from Shakespeare.
Preview: Was Shakespeare a Fraud?
A new book coming out November 8th continues to examine the question of Shakespeare authorship – The Shakespeare Guide to Italy by Richard Paul Roe, paints the Stratford man who never left England as an improbable author of the many distinctively Italian plays.
Vanessa Redgrave as the mature Elizabeth I
Current scholars, and by extension many of their now journalist proteges, who defend William Shakespeare as the author of the plays, are extremely defensive and say there is no room for doubt. Time will likely make the world more receptive to exploring Shakespeare authorship, but for now Anonymous will inspire interest in this fascinating field. I highly recommend this film.
For more on Shakespeare and Shakespeare Authorship:
- A great debate is available on line between Professor Stanley Wells and Mark Rylance at this link.
- Jane Austen’s Use of Measure for Measure in Sense and Sensibility, Stephen Derry
- Henry Peacham on Oxford and Shakespeare
- Shakespeare By Another Name
- Shakespeare Authorship from doubtaboutwill.org
- The Shakespeare Guide to Italy
- Shakespeare Suppressed: The Uncensored Truth About Shakespeare and His Works, Katherine Chiljan
- The Man Who Was Hamlet
About the film:
Anonymous, the new movie about Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford, as the true author of Shakespeare’s plays. With Rhys Ifans, Vanessa Redgrave, David Thewlis, and along with those who actively support authorship studies, Derek Jacobi and Mark Rylance. Directed and produced by Roland Emmerich, released by Columbia.
Jane Austen's World 
The ‘who was Shakespeare’ industry seems to be a good money pot for academicas etc.
Who wrote “1984”, Eric Blair or George Orwell? Both, of course.
Perhaps the name on “As you Like It” and all the others is Edward de Vere, writing as William Shakespeare. Perhaps it was unthinkable to hide behind an invented name (clearly a very suspicious and subversive actiivity worthy of the chopping block) but not that dangerous to use that of another living person.
The author of all those plays was…the author, whatever he called himself.
Just looking at my post and noticing the typo for ‘academics’, I realized I’d missed the best post ending of all.
“Shakespeare” answered the identity question himself.
‘What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.’
Vic and Patty, I prefer to believe Shakespeare wrote the works attributed to Shakespeare. But I intend to see this movie anyway. If for no other reason than to see Vanessa Redgrave as QE1. One of my fondest memories of a trip to England in the 80s is a brief conversation I had with her in Haworth.
I have found that this debate about authorship- stirred into the mainstream by the movie has the effect of generating more people’s interest in the writings of Shakespeare than any other. I don’t like to see someone pitch a shocking question into the ring just to generate revenue, but I have heard this subject quietly debated for years.
I plan to see the movie for the costume drama it is and not as a scholarly piece per se.
Thanks for the post.
I will see this movie because I don’t know enough about Shakespeare anyway. I had never heard that there was controversy as to his authorship so I’m really curious. Plus, give me a period drama any day!
I just can’t bear to think of anyone else as the author. To imagine that someone falsely took credit for the work of the greatest writer of all time, well it’s just heartbreaking!
The Oxfordian theory, developed by Thomas Looney in the early 20th Century posited that Shakespeare could not have written the plays because he did not go to Oxford, but only attended a village school. The curriculum at that village school contained Greek and Latin, but of course, it wasn’t Oxford. On the other hand, if we want to think that de Vere wrote those works, he was even more talented, because he died in 1604; long before the George Somers Bermuda expedition in 1609, which was the basis for The Tempest, and before the Gunpowder plot in 1605, which is the basis for Macbeth.
Conspiracy is always fun, but it is dangerous to clear thinking to get too carried away. The idea that someone not prestigiously educated could not write loses its strength when we consider John Keats, or Charles Dickens, who were even less educated than William Shakespeare, the glovemaker’s son.
I wrote my senior thesis at Dana Hall 1948 on Edward de Vere and I got an A- because my teacher said” Although you have made an excellently written argument for de Vere versus Shakespeare I still believe in Shakespeare so therefore the -“
Although I have been waiting all year to see this film, and finally will do so tomorrow night, I will never be budged in my belief that only William Shakesepeare himself wrote the entire canon, just as Fanny Mendelssohn did not write her brother’s music! A friend in London, who reviews films for a major London broadsheet raved about it, and told me in a private email that it was “…gloriously enjoyable and brilliantly acted tripe.” My dad, a true Shakespeare savant who in the early 30’s was one of the last students of George Lyman Kittredge, always quoted this:
A Question Of Values
Christopher Marlowe or Francis Bacon
The author of Lear remains unshaken
Willie Herbert or Mary Fitton
What does it matter? The Sonnets were written.
Noël Peirce Coward
1899-1973
For a very readable exposition of the evidence that Shakespeare did indeed write Shakespeare, I can heartily recommend Bill Bryson’s book on the man, which I think is called simply “Shakespeare”.
I favour Henry Neville as the author: http://www.henryneville.com/
The topic fascinates and begs further exploration, however, I stay firmly in the Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare camp. I believe it is not about education, but imagination. I’m looking forward to escaping into the Elizabethan world via Anonymous.
This does cause quite a stir in many about so many different views on so many different accounts. I have been keeping an eye on this particular production as I do plan to see it. I am a Shakespeare fan and it would really not surprise me at all to find out that he did not write all of the works he is attributed to. After all he is very clever and witty himself – a jester of words comes to mind. However I would find it hard to believe that he was not the author of some of his works.
It is funny how history recasts itself every generation or so by giving the public doubts or at the very least it makes the public question itself about what really happened or who really wrote it or what was really said.
Great post Vic! Lots of great info here that has been pointed out.
Thanks for all the interesting comments. To answer Lady Anne, take a look at Mark Anderson’s Shakespeare by Another Name, latest edition – he answers the shipwreck question. I urge everyone to look at the links, including the fantastic debate between Stanley Wells and Mark Rylance, and you might want to order The Shakespeare Guide to Italy, coming out in paperback soon. At doubtaboutwill.org, you can see a video of Michael York reading the Declaration of Doubt – his voice is so beautiful……..
Wonderful post. I am seeing the movie tonight, so I appreciate the background. Thank you!
I think the movie is going to be great, I am going this Sunday to it and later I will comment………..Thank you…:)
I’ve not seen the movie yet. I might do one day. However the discussion over who really is the author of Shakespeare’s works falls down on a couple of counts when it comes to suggesting it was Edward de Vere.
First the earl of Oxford wrote and produced inferior plays and poems under his own name. Why give all the best ones to to somebody else to publish under their name? The Earl lead a dissolute life. He was forever in debt. He seems very unwise in much of what he did. The wisdom and knowledge of life that comes across in Shakespeare’s plays doesn’t fit . The intimate knowledge of the working class, for instance in Midsummer Nights Dream,wasn’t part of de Vere’s experiences of life. And then it comes down to what de Vere published under his own name and what “Shakespeare” published. Here is a part of a poem by de Vere.
I think it is schoolboyish,
Who taught thee first to sigh, alas, my heart ?
Who taught thy tongue the woeful words of plaint ?
Who filled your eyes with tears of bitter smart ?
Who gave thee grief and made thy joys to faint ?
Who first did paint with colours pale thy face ?
Who first did break thy sleeps of quiet rest ?
and now Shakespeare’s first sonnet.
From fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty’s rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory:
But thou contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed’st thy light’s flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thy self thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel:
Thou that art now the world’s fresh ornament,
And only herald to the gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud buriest thy content,
And, tender churl, mak’st waste in niggarding:
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world’s due, by the grave and thee.
No comparison:
I rest my case!!!!!!!
Tony
“Steven May credits Oxford with only sixteen poems.
For a discussion of the likelihood that many of these poems are actually songs, and that at least half of them were written before Oxford was sixteen years of age, see issue #18 of the Edward De Vere Newsletter.” – The Oxford Authorship site.
Here’s a better de Vere poem.
When wert thou borne desire?
In pompe and pryme of May,
By whom sweete boy wert thou begot?
By good conceit men say,
Tell me who was thy nurse?
Fresh youth in sugred ioy.
What was thy meate and dayly foode?
Sad sighes with great annoy.
What hadst thou then to drinke?
Vnfayned louers teares.
What cradle wert thou rocked in?
In hope deuoyde of feares.
While these poems seem to be youthful attempts, there are also 72 letters in existence by de Vere, which show a mature hand, some on the de Vere Society site.
As to Shakespeare, it is well known that there are no letters in anyone’s collection from him. He may have had a dissolute life in London or may not. He never wrote to his illiterate wife, even for someone else to read to her. The plays are certainly about passion, human foibles – and scholarship in many areas, and include a detailed knowledge of Italy in the Italian plays. It is hard to imagine, someone writing them without leaving England.
As for the depiction of classes in the Shakespeare plays, many feel the nobles are depicted in detail while the lower classes are seen more as buffoons. Ben Jonson’s plays show more color in the lower class characters.
Now that Anonymous is out, with huge ad campaigns, it is hopeful that those professors who had been so stubborn about allowing authorship studies will relent and allow students to explore this field.
Hi Vic,
I love Shakespeare but I don’t know if the movie “Anonymous” I like.
Thanks for sharing!
The reason that most academics are not open to discussing this conspiracy theory is that the evidence against it is so totally overwhelming and the evidence in support is so terribly lacking. It is an exercise in frustration to entertain arguments about Shakespeare authorship. By and large, people invested in conspiracy theories cannot be convinced by rational evidence and will not listen to it. In my opinion, no one should encourage more openness to exploring the authorship question. It’s not terribly different from asking us to explore with more openness the idea that Jane Austen could not have written the books she wrote because she was a woman and that her books, published anonymously during her life, were later attributed to her as part of a vast conspiracy theory perpetrated by her family to disguise the true author.
The authorship question is a relatively new development in Shakespeare studies rather than an argument that has raged for hundreds of years. Questioning seriously began with Delia Bacon, who put forth Sir Francis Bacon as a candidate. Oxford’s history as a contender is even more recent. Peacham leaving out Shakespeare in his 1622 publication is not hard evidence that Shakespeare did not write Shakespeare. It’s a matter of his personal taste, especially as some of Shakespeare’s greatest plays, including As You Like It, Twelfth Night, Macbeth, Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, and The Tempest (among many others) were printed for the first time in the First Folio, published in 1623. It is through the First Folio that Shakepeare’s posterity was ensured, and it expanded readership of his work. In it, Ben Jonson, among others, memorialize Shakespeare. The vastness of the conspiracy theory that had to have been orchestrated in order to hide Oxford’s authorship and attribute his work to Shakespeare boggles my mind.
Additionally, listing famous people who were skeptical that Shakespeare wrote the plays attributed to him is hardly evidence in favor of the theory, any more than listing famous people who believed Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare would be evidence in favor of Shakespeare’s authorship (which is why Stratfordians don’t resort to it). Two other quibbles: Elizabeth had been sitting on the throne for quite some time by the time the Essex Rebellion happened very late in her reign. Shakespeare never wrote anything that got him in political trouble or was considered seditious or critical of the government, at least not by the government, while contemporaries such as Ben Jonson were actually arrested for such (Isle of Dogs, 1597). On the contrary, he often wrote works that presented Elizabeth and James in a positive light (Richard III puts Elizabeth’s grandfather, Henry VII in the role of hero and paints Richard III as villain; Macbeth includes a whitewash of Banquo, believed by James to be his ancestor, as compared to Holinshed).
As Anne has said, the heart of this argument is the snobbery. I highly suggest James Shapiro’s Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare? for a scholarly and fair examination of the claims made by anti-Stratfordians and why and how they fall apart. However, these articles/sites can get you started: http://shakespeareauthorship.com/, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/17/opinion/hollywood-dishonors-the-bard.html, http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/10/16/film-anonymous-doubts-shakespeare.html.
Thank you for your reasoned and clear response. Conspiracy theories don’t merit academic respect, but they are self-perpetuating and self-proving. To challenge them is to :”prove” they are right, according to their proponents.
Another obvious argument is the absolutely naive view of creativity put forward by the conspiracists. They hold that to write about something you can *only* know it directly. That ignores imagination, research, conversation, interviews, a whole range of ways of acquiring knowledge. As an author myself mof 21 books, though no genius, I understand this process of “acquisition.”
It’s amusing, though, that the conspiracists don’t claim Shakespeare was a murderer since so many people are killed in his plays.
Another scenario Patty, because de Vere really doesn’t appear to be a competent writer, he’s not in “Shakespeare’s” league at all, is that the plays were amalgamations of various peoples ideas and input, working documents, in other words. Shakespeare, I think, wrote the plays but they were then worked on by the actors taking part in the plays,the theatre managers, Shakespeare’s friends, etc., until they fitted the stage. That was the practice of the day. Before the first folio was published, some of the plays had been published in quarto form. It does appear that Shakespeare himself was not too bothered about publishing them. They were theatre documents. He was interested in the theatre production. That was his job writing for the theatre after all. I am sure the plays were not written once, but developed in the way I suggested above, over time.
When Hemmings and Condall got round to saving many of the plays for posteriy and published most of then together in what is called the first folio, they dedicated it to William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke and his brother Philip Herbert, Earl of Montgomery (later 4th Earl of Pembroke), not The Earl Oxford. Probably these two were theater sponsors at the time. I suppose as in advertising, it’s whos paying you at the time gets mention.
Two things, if I am right about a more collaborative approach, then things like Italy would not prove an obstacle would they.
I’m not sure a Hollywood film is going to force the arm of academics into taking the de Vere argument seriously by the way. It would demean the work of academics if it did.
But enough of this.
I love Shakespeare and just want to read and see his plays performed. The language is absolute magic..
Oh, one more thing. If you look into the lives of many of the actors who acted with Shakespeare, they lead very sober lives, especially later, becoming churchwardens and founding schools. Very mature and wordly wise things to do.
Excellent point, Tony, and much more likely to be true than a huge conspiracy theory. I would imagine he made many errors that were caught by the others (thinking of landlocked Bohemia as a desert coast in Winter’s Tale or clocks in Julius Caesar), and I imagine some changes were made on the fly. He seemed much more interested in having his poems preserved in print than the plays for sure. Still, I imagine he did the bulk of the writing. Actually, this is not too different from how books are written, then edited, today (although perhaps not by as many people).
HI Dana,this is the trouble with trying to understand Shakespeare through a 21st century lens.
Playwrights were seen differently in Elizabethan times. They lived from hand to mouth working for a theatre company like The Kings Men, producing plays to order.They were payed little more than artisans. If they sold their plays to publishers they would not be payed much for their efforts and they would lose control of their creation.There wasn’t much incentive. People went to see plays and didn’t generally buy them to read. Often plays were not good enough to reach the stage and were discarded. A theatre company might produce a different play everyday of the week. Some were only staged once.There are many examples of collaborations where a number of people would write a play. There is less evidence for Shakespeares works being collaborations but that doesn’t mean he didn’t input from his friends.Plays generally evolved. It just means that Shakespeare was the primary writer who pulled all the ideas together. You can imagine a mate sitting with Shakespeare in a pub somewhere on the Southbank discussing ideas for his next play and our Will desperate for a new angle.. “I”ve just got back from Italy.” His mate tells him.. “It was like this……” Ha! Ha!
[Patty] your post its great, I am going to see the movie next weekend, I thought is was here today but is on the next weekend here in Henderson, Nv.
I will comment about the movie when when I see it.
Thank You for your post……:)
The review makes a factually untrue assertion. The “question” of authorship did not plague *anyone* for centuries. Reviewers should know their facts.
It was only 2+ centuries *after* Shakespeare died that the crackpot theories about other authors arose, led by a woman who was institutionalized (see Contested Will, linked above). Strange that nobody in his own day, not even his rivals, thought he was a fake…..
One newer theory says the author was a Jewish woman, as described in my column for the on-line magazine Bibliobuffet.com:
http://www.bibliobuffet.com/book-brunch-columns-322/1304-anyone-but-shakespeare-062010
Queen Elizabeth has even been claimed to be the “true” author by people who 1) love paranoid conspiracy theories and 2) have a very naive view of authorship.
I don’t intend to see the movie, not merely because it’s based on sloppy thinking, or because this reviewer here gets history wrong, but because reviewers I respect, like David Denby in the New Yorker and A.O. Scott in the New York Times says it’s an incoherent mess.
Here’s a passage from the de Vere Society to clear up misunderstandings about the connections to the First Folio –
“We do not know who instigated publication of the First Folio Edition of the Shakespeare Plays in 1623, but there is no mention of any executor or relative of Shakspere of Stratford in connection with it. However, of the two brothers who financed it and to whom it was dedicated, one, Philip Earl of Montgomery was the husband of Oxford’s daughter Susan, while the other, William Earl of Pembroke, had once been a suitor for her sister Bridget. Pembroke was Lord Chamberlain, the supreme authority in the world of theatre, and thus in a position to decide which plays were to be published and which suppressed. We also know that Ben Jonson, who wrote much of the introductory material, was an intimate associate of the de Vere family after Oxford’s death. The First Folio was therefore very much a family affair, but the family was not the one in Stratford-on-Avon.”
I recommend everyone see Anonymous as it’s exciting, and entertaining. The production and costumes are authentic and the acting is fantastic.
Does anyone have a comment about why there are no surviving letters to or from Shakespeare?
Well, Patty, we are obviously not going to agree on this one.
The evidence available is not enough to make any definite proof one way or the other, but there is really no reason why it shouldn’t be Shakespeare and generally the evidence and tradition is that it was him. Don’t, knock tradition by the way. there is always a reason for it.
As for watching the film, it has received some damning reviews over here. The producer, what’s his name, is not renowned for his literary analysis and his academic pursuits. He’s more of a CGI man.. ha ! ha! I just think he is out for the sensational and making a few quid. But then aren’t we all.
I am interested in how you came to side with the de Vere viewpoint, Patty. Have you done some research?
Just checked up on letter writing in the 16th century. There was very little of it. Most it was political comminiques. Communication was seen as something you did face to face or sent a messenger who delivered your messages verbally. Personal information was not entrusted to paper or parchment. It appears that it was very unlikely Shakespeare had the need to write letters.
We mustn’t get mixed up with the 18th century when Jane Austen was writing letters nearly every day of her life. There was a postal service then, The Royal Mail to deliver letters.This service was not available in the 16th century.
Patty, you are looking at his period through contemporary eyes.
1) Letters were not collected and valued then the way they were much later.
2) Tens of thousands of documents, plays, books, letters were destroyed in the Great Fire–book sellers stored their treasures in St. Paul’s, thinking it was safe, but it collapsed and the mss. etc. were lost.
Right on Patty ! Also there is a portrait of De Vere in the National Portrait Gallery in Montacute Hall in Somerset. The portrait of “Shakespeare” at the Folger Gallery in DC was xrayed and underneath was the same face as the one of De Vere at Montacute. His coat of arms shows a hand shaking a spear…..
Patty and Betsy you have one big problem. You are making a judgement based on circumstantial evidence. Shakespeares plays, from the first folio and the few published plays in the earlier quartos were unconditionally assigned to William Shakespeare of Stratford upon Avon. Ben Jonson specifically recorded his admiration for William Shakespeare playwright. The first folio was compiled by two of Shakespeare’s friends and they published them under his name. That is factual evidence and not circumstantial evidence.
Gentle Readers,
I am jumping into the fray. I am by no means a Shakespearean scholar, although I have visited the Bard’s birth place and the reconstructed Globe theatre. In the enormous and exciting world of English Literature, I have confined myself to works written during the Georgian, Regency, and Victorian eras.
But Dainty Ballerina from Shakespeare’s England knows her Shakespeare and she has weighed in on the film. Her opinion is well worth reading, whether you agree with her or not. http://www.shakespearesengland.com/2011/10/bridge-too-far.html
I grew up in the 30’s reading and acting skits from Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare…studied the history plays at Dana and became intrigued with the De Vere theory when studying at the Folger Library….but just because I feel Oxford was very involved with the plays it doesn’t keep me from enjoying watching 5 of my young great-grandchildren acting in Midsummers Nights Dream this summer at the 2 week Shakespeareance Camp in Sandwich, NH.
The Guardian writes: ‘ . . an amusing and mischievous Blackadder-style romp, enlivened by cheerfully OTT performances from Vanessa Redgrave as the Queen, Rafe Spall as Will and Rhys Ifans as the Earl of Oxford . . Shakespeare is a semi-literate chump; the real author is the elegant and well-travelled Oxford, who wrote the plays as coded propaganda against the Cecil family’s Machiavellian plans to put James VI of Scotland on the English throne after Elizabeth has died. He cannot afford to be associated with this incendiary stuff and in any case the public theatre is déclassé. It is entertainingly bizarre: like seeing a whole film asserting that Salieri must have written the music attributed to that moronic yobbo Mozart . . ’
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/oct/27/anonymous-review?
See also:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/oct/27/roland-emmerich-anonymous?
Tony, to answer your question, I’ve read more about de Vere than some of the other candidates. I’ve read Mark Anderson’s book Shakespeare By Another Name. What impressed me about his book is his use of scientific analysis on the circumstantial evidence – and when it comes to Shakespeare there is no hard proof about anything, so all the evidence is circumstantial. I’ve also corresponded with some top scholars and when I ask them about the lack of letters and some of the other arguments in Emmerich’s short video, if you looked at his ten reasons, above, these professors wrote some of wildest things to me – they became very irrational, which made no sense to me. Some academics want to shut down inquiring minds and I don’t agree with that.
Another interesting book is Brenda James The Truth Will Out. I don’t buy her arguments later in the book, but her introduction about authorship and time sequences is sensational. She has a newer book which uses code breaking to uncover the author of the sonnets which I haven’t read or looked at.
I’ve read about Bacon, Mark Twain’s candidate, and saw the word comparison, but many feel his dates don’t match.
Marlowe’s style is very different.
What bothers me most is Shakespeare probably not having enough education to write the plays. Because of the lack of letters or proof of his ever having been paid for the plays and poems, the question arises how could a clever man like William Shakespeare seemed to be a smart businessman and who did sign his name to contracts and was involved with the Globe, not insist on payment for the plays? There’s no answer.
Patty, to tell you the truth I have not got a great deal of interest in exploring to any great depth the possibilities of the authorship of Shakespeares works. His name is on the plays.I believe they were written by the person who is named on them. It is enough for me that his name is on it and he was a merchent and citizen of Stratford upon Avon.The plays are a work of genius and I love reading and saying aloud his words, with passion and feeling.I can’t think of anything better than watching a play by Shakespeare performed.
Your main sticking point is his education. Look at many of the great giants of literature and art. Education has very little to do with their genius.
They are afflicted by their genius and I think some would rather not have been burdened by their abilities.
Jane Austen had four or fives years of what we would call formal education.Charles Dickens spent very little time in school. His parents put him into a blacking factory. They were in terrible debt. Picasso was virtually illiterate but still managed to invent so many new and different ways of experiencing and looking at our world. Thomas Hardy was the son a farm worker in the depths of Dorset. D H Lawrence was the son of miner in Nottingham. Carravagio who drank, murdered and whored his way through life was afflicted with the disease of creating the most amazing renaissance art ever seen. He couldn’t help himself. Dylan Thomas one of the greatest poets of the 20th century tried to drink himself into oblivion to escape his disease of genius. But still produced the most amazing poetry. He came from a very lower middle class family in Swansea South Wales and had a very ordinary local school education. William Shakespeare of Stratford upon Avon, who had the best education a prosperous market town could provide, was no different. He was afflicted and diseased with brilliance like these others.
None of them could help themselves. They were driven and forced to be who they were and what they did by their inner demons.
These literary and artistic geniuses had their brains wired that way. Formal education didn’t have much to do with it.
Just a thought.
Do you think there might be just a little bit of elitist snobbery attached to this reluctance to accept William Shakespeare as the author of his own plays?
tony…Let’s not get into class warfare here…after all …..it could be Shakespeare’s wife who wrote the plays…..to me it’s the mystery that I find intriquing.
Hi Betsy. Class warfare!!!!Perish the thought. Ha! Ha!
Yes, it probably was a woman after all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
As a writer, I’m grateful for any movie that isn’t just about car chases or “meet cute,” but still I found Anonymous disappointing. Vanessa Redgrave’s fine talents were wasted: why should Elizabeth be portrayed as an airhead, the one thing she most certainly was not?
I saw the film this past weekend and really enjoyed it. I have not read a lot of Shakespeare and was familiar with the “Fakespeare” controversy in only a very superficial way. I was a bit skeptical going in since the director is more well known for his special-effects and explosion-laden productions, but I was really pleasantly surprised by the movie. I found it to be well acted with superb sets, costumes and cinematography. The theories put forth in the movie did inspire me to start doing some online research into this controversy and I always think that any film that inspires a viewer to want to learn more about its subject matter is a good thing.
What is surprising to me is the amount of vitriol, name-calling, and general nastiness that seems to arise whenever and wherever this subject is debated or discussed online. The fact that it is coming from seemingly educated and intelligent individuals is all the more surprising.
‘Shakespeare – a fraud? Anonymous is ridiculous’ by James Shapiro
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/nov/04/anonymous-shakespeare-film-roland-emmerich?INTCMP=SRCH is a long essay from Saturday’s Guardian. Read it to get the pro-S case; read its 149 comments to get the anti-S case.
Thank you for that link, Chris! Very interesting reading.
Thank you Patty for starting all this fun! We all have our opinions, we all think we are right and guess what..we are all friends!!!!
I thought Anonymous was a really good film despite the historical inaccuracies. You may like to see the first part of my amateur documentary ‘The Real Edward de Vere,’ about the life of the Real Earl of Oxford which is on my youtube channel at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1MKsQSCMso&feature=channel_video_title
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I thought that the authorship of Shakespeare’s plays was finally confirmed until I saw this curious film. The film is exceptional although the theory that the Earl of Oxford wrote those plays seems more than a stretch. Great acting however. The difficult part was trying to figure out who was who, especially since the older Earl of Oxford did not resemble the young Earl of Oxford. Nevertheless, the movie is so good that it prompted me to google Shakespeare and find your blog!
I looked up Shakespeare on biography.com, which still considers William Shakespeare to be the author of the plays under his name.