You know Shakespeare. Or you thought you did.
You love his writing, so it's got to hurt to see all the evidence that exists in support of the idea that good ol' Willy Shakes wasn't the man you thought he was.
You can ignore me when I tell you that it wasn't Shakespeare who wrote Shakespeare, but Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford.
You can refuse to accept the valid evidence that deposes him, and all very nearly conclusive evidence that puts Oxford in his place.
But then you would be claiming that a man with illiterate parents and illiterate children (which means, by the way, that were are uneducated), who never owned a book, and, that's right, never continued past a grammar school education, composed what is arguably the greatest literature in the English language. The odds are that he was barely literate, if at all, and, let's be honest, how many grammar-school-educated people do you know who could have written anything even remotely as masterful as Romeo & Juliet or Macbeth? Coming out of grammar school, children can barely write about their summer vacations, let alone compose plays in iambic pentameter.
Oh, and don't forget that he never traveled to the foreign lands of which he allegedly wrote, or even left Merry Old England.
And then there's Oxford. The case for him is based on such circumstantial evidence as a thorough education. And travels to foreign places like Italy. And a homosexual affair with the man to whom the sonnets are supposed to be addressed. But then there's the Geneva Bible. This was a heavily annoted Bible that de Vere owned, and over 250 of its marks appear as Biblical allusions in the Shakespearean works.
So you can deny logic in favor of tradition, but then you'd be missing out on the opportunity to look at the literature as something other than a miracle of uncanny genius. You could look at it as great literature that anyone, with the proper education, could have composed.
And then you wouldn't feel like such a useless ignoramus when you're trying to translate Hamlet to real English.
About Me
Friday, March 28, 2008
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
C'est Vrai! (It's True!)
And now presenting a list of the TOP 10 OXFORDIAN FACTS:
10) Shakespeare didn't mention the plays, poems, or theatre that he is supposed be known for
9) Shakespeare only had a grammar school education, and it not known to have traveled outside of Stratford and London
8) Six years after Shakespeare was buried in an anonymous grave, a book by Henry Peacham titled The Compleat Gentleman (1616) listed the greatest poets of the Elizabethan era (when Shakespeare lived). Shakespeare, in any variation of spelling, is not mentioned in this or three subsequent editions of the book. (Edward de Vere, however, heads the list.)
7) Henry Wriothesley, the Third Earl of Southampton, is thought the be the person to whom most of the Shakespearean sonnets are addressed. Oxford knew him closely: they lived in the same home.
6) De Vere had two master's degrees, spent three yeas studying law, traveled throughout Italy (where some Shakespearean plays are set), and knew politics and court life.
5) Oxford's life mirrors Shakespearean works in multiple ways, including:
- He was once captured by pirates, like Hamlet.
- He, like King Lear, inherited three daughters.
- He was put in jail for siring an illegitimate child, like a character in Measure for Measure.
4) Oxford was the author of poems and plays. In 1586, Queen Elizabeth began paying him $:1,000 a year without evident reason. King James continued paying the sum until Oxford's death. In the 1660's, Rev. Dr. John Ward noted that Shakespeare wrote two plays each year "and for that had an allowance so large that he spent at the rate of $:1,000 a year."
3) De Vere published plays and sonnets under his own name, but stopped doing so in 1593. That very year, manuscripts began appearing under the name "William Shake-speare."
2) Over 1/4 of the 1,066 marked passages in de Vere's Bible are found in Shakespearean works; this includes strange names and phrases like "Achitopel" and "weaver's beam."
(And the moment you've all been waiting for! ...)
::TA-DA!::
#1) The name "William Shake-speare" indicates de Vere: on his family crest, there was a lion SHAKING A SPEAR!!
10) Shakespeare didn't mention the plays, poems, or theatre that he is supposed be known for
9) Shakespeare only had a grammar school education, and it not known to have traveled outside of Stratford and London
8) Six years after Shakespeare was buried in an anonymous grave, a book by Henry Peacham titled The Compleat Gentleman (1616) listed the greatest poets of the Elizabethan era (when Shakespeare lived). Shakespeare, in any variation of spelling, is not mentioned in this or three subsequent editions of the book. (Edward de Vere, however, heads the list.)
7) Henry Wriothesley, the Third Earl of Southampton, is thought the be the person to whom most of the Shakespearean sonnets are addressed. Oxford knew him closely: they lived in the same home.
6) De Vere had two master's degrees, spent three yeas studying law, traveled throughout Italy (where some Shakespearean plays are set), and knew politics and court life.
5) Oxford's life mirrors Shakespearean works in multiple ways, including:
- He was once captured by pirates, like Hamlet.
- He, like King Lear, inherited three daughters.
- He was put in jail for siring an illegitimate child, like a character in Measure for Measure.
4) Oxford was the author of poems and plays. In 1586, Queen Elizabeth began paying him $:1,000 a year without evident reason. King James continued paying the sum until Oxford's death. In the 1660's, Rev. Dr. John Ward noted that Shakespeare wrote two plays each year "and for that had an allowance so large that he spent at the rate of $:1,000 a year."
3) De Vere published plays and sonnets under his own name, but stopped doing so in 1593. That very year, manuscripts began appearing under the name "William Shake-speare."
2) Over 1/4 of the 1,066 marked passages in de Vere's Bible are found in Shakespearean works; this includes strange names and phrases like "Achitopel" and "weaver's beam."
(And the moment you've all been waiting for! ...)
::TA-DA!::
#1) The name "William Shake-speare" indicates de Vere: on his family crest, there was a lion SHAKING A SPEAR!!
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Experts!
People have been questioning Shakespeare's authorship for longer than you may have thought! The very first skeptic began doubting around 1785, and others include Walt Whitman, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry James, Mark Twain, Orson Welles, Sigmund Freud... and Keanu Reeves!
More from those who know more:
subtopic 1: WHY IT WASN'T WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
-- "... as an attorney, I find Shakespeare's will most telling. The original document survives, is three pages long and lists specific bequests. Among the items mentioned are a sword, a silver-gilt bowl and his 'second best bed.' There is not mention of the plays or poems which made him rich and famous. No mention of books, no mention of the Globe Theatre." - Joseph Racioppi, writer and attorney
--Dr. James Wilmot, a clergyman who could be considered the very first anti-Stratfordian, couldn't find any books or manuscripts written by Shakespeare. (This was around 1785).
-- "Shakspere [William Shakespeare was baptized Gulielmus Shakspere] at best had only a grammar school education, and he is not known to have traveled beyond Stratford and London... How, say skeptics, could he have accumulated the vast knowledge of royalty, court life, politics and foreign lands - particularly Italy, where several plays are set - woven through such a sophisticated body of work? Whoever wrote the plays and sonnets had a rare breadth of knowledge in numerous disciplines, including physical sciences, medicine, the law, astronomy, and the Bible." - Lewis Lord, author of "Mysteries of History: Mortal Secrets," published in U.S. News & World Report.
-- Six years after Shakspere/Shakespeare died, Henry Peacham published The Compleat Gentleman (1616), which listed the greatest poets of the Elizabethan era (when Shakespeare lived). Shakespeare, in any variation of spelling, is nowhere to be found in this or three subsequent editions. Edward de Vere, however, heads the list!
subtopic 2: HOW DE VERE'S BACKGROUND INDICATES THAT HE WAS THE AUTHOR
--Mark Rylance, playwright and artistic director of the Globe and leader of its exploration into the authorship question, has said, "With Oxford, what I've read - the comparisons of his life to Hamlet's life, the wildness, the fact that he's very much complimented for comedy - I find it difficult... to... remove Oxford from the writing of these plays."
-- Sigmund Freud, who often looked at Shakespearean works for psychological insights, wrote, "The man from Stratford seems to have nothing to justify his claim, whereas Oxford has almost everything."
-- William S. Niederkorn, playwright and an editor a The New York Times, wrote, in an article that discusses the authorship controversy, of J. Thomas Looney. Looney was a grammar and high school teacher in England who could be considered the first Oxfordian, having suggested de Vere to be the author in 1920. W.S. Niederkorn writes: "J. Thomas Looney... could not reconcile the traditional image of the Stratford figure with the noble Renaissance man he saw behind the plays. Looney made a list of characteristics he expected Shakespeare to have, then perused the works of Elizabethan poets for a writer whose style, language and use of poetic form had something in common with Shakespeare's. He found only one: Oxford."
In Looney's book Shakespeare Identified (1920), Niederkorn writes that "Looney states that in one category after another Oxford had the characteristics he had projected: classical education, sympathy for the House of Lancaster in the War of the Roses, Roman Catholic learnings, aristocratic point of view, literary tastes, a love-hate attitude toward women, knowledge of Italy, and interests in drama, music and sports."
subtopic 3 - A PSEUDONYM FOR DE VERE (THE WHAT AND THE WHY)
-- Lewis Lord writes, "Playwrights were... held in low esteem because public theaters like the Globe were the rowdy province of commoners, the audiences laced with prostitutes, cutpurses, drunkards, and scoundrels of every stripe." De Vere could have needed a pseudonym for this reason alone.
-- Joseph Sobran, in his book Alias Shakespeare (1997), explains that the Shakespearean sonnets may have started out as a playful way to get the Earl of Southampton to marry de Vere's daughter, but became homoerotic. (Thus, de Vere could have had this reason for an alias - at that time, homosexual affairs were criminal.)
subtopic 4 - THE GENEVA BIBLE! CONCLUSIVE EVIDENCE THAT DE VERE WAS THE AUTHOR?
-- Dr Stritmatter, who recieved his Ph.D in comparative literature, conducted a study on de Vere's copy of the Geneva Bible. He is a member of the Shakespeare Oxford Society. He used handwriting analysis and forensics to conclude that it is quite probable that Edward de Vere wrote the annotations in the Bible.
-- De Vere purchased this Bible in 1570. Thematic parallels and specific wording from Shakespearean works are marked and annotated in the Bible.
-- As he was using scholarly writings on biblical references in Shakespeare while studying the Geneva Bible, Dr. Stritmatter says that, "one by one, I began to tick off a growing list of verses marking in the de Vere Bible which these scholars had identified as influential on Shakespeare."
-- According to Stritmatter, of the biblical references in Shakespeare that are cited by writers on the topic, 10 Psalms and 158 verses were marked in the de Vere Bible.
-- Mr. Stritmatter feels that the Bible proves the Oxfordian case.
-- Some, like Alan H. Nelson (a professor at the University of California at Berkeley), feels that the handwriting of the annotations in the Geneva Bible are not in de Vere's handwriting, and so, these people are not convinced by the alleged"proof." To this, Dr. Stritmatter contends, "Why would one of the richest peers of the realm buy a used and marked-up Bible?"
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Are you not convinced yet? Perhaps you agree with the Stratfordians, who argue that Oxfordians are snobs for thinking that Shakespeare couldn't have written the works because of his background. If that is the case, then consider what Mr. Wright, a member of the Shakespeare Oxford Society and a professor of English at Concordia University) had to say:
"The Stratford myth... tells students who themselves would be writers, 'you'll never be a great writer like Shakespeare. Shakespeare only accomplished what he did because he was s genius. And absent such genius, you have no hope for the future.' ... And in any other discipline... could there be such an anti-intellectual, anti-educational myth as this that would not be derisively dismissed as an offensive against the very raison d’être of the educational enterprise?"
More from those who know more:
subtopic 1: WHY IT WASN'T WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
-- "... as an attorney, I find Shakespeare's will most telling. The original document survives, is three pages long and lists specific bequests. Among the items mentioned are a sword, a silver-gilt bowl and his 'second best bed.' There is not mention of the plays or poems which made him rich and famous. No mention of books, no mention of the Globe Theatre." - Joseph Racioppi, writer and attorney
--Dr. James Wilmot, a clergyman who could be considered the very first anti-Stratfordian, couldn't find any books or manuscripts written by Shakespeare. (This was around 1785).
-- "Shakspere [William Shakespeare was baptized Gulielmus Shakspere] at best had only a grammar school education, and he is not known to have traveled beyond Stratford and London... How, say skeptics, could he have accumulated the vast knowledge of royalty, court life, politics and foreign lands - particularly Italy, where several plays are set - woven through such a sophisticated body of work? Whoever wrote the plays and sonnets had a rare breadth of knowledge in numerous disciplines, including physical sciences, medicine, the law, astronomy, and the Bible." - Lewis Lord, author of "Mysteries of History: Mortal Secrets," published in U.S. News & World Report.
-- Six years after Shakspere/Shakespeare died, Henry Peacham published The Compleat Gentleman (1616), which listed the greatest poets of the Elizabethan era (when Shakespeare lived). Shakespeare, in any variation of spelling, is nowhere to be found in this or three subsequent editions. Edward de Vere, however, heads the list!
subtopic 2: HOW DE VERE'S BACKGROUND INDICATES THAT HE WAS THE AUTHOR
--Mark Rylance, playwright and artistic director of the Globe and leader of its exploration into the authorship question, has said, "With Oxford, what I've read - the comparisons of his life to Hamlet's life, the wildness, the fact that he's very much complimented for comedy - I find it difficult... to... remove Oxford from the writing of these plays."
-- Sigmund Freud, who often looked at Shakespearean works for psychological insights, wrote, "The man from Stratford seems to have nothing to justify his claim, whereas Oxford has almost everything."
-- William S. Niederkorn, playwright and an editor a The New York Times, wrote, in an article that discusses the authorship controversy, of J. Thomas Looney. Looney was a grammar and high school teacher in England who could be considered the first Oxfordian, having suggested de Vere to be the author in 1920. W.S. Niederkorn writes: "J. Thomas Looney... could not reconcile the traditional image of the Stratford figure with the noble Renaissance man he saw behind the plays. Looney made a list of characteristics he expected Shakespeare to have, then perused the works of Elizabethan poets for a writer whose style, language and use of poetic form had something in common with Shakespeare's. He found only one: Oxford."
In Looney's book Shakespeare Identified (1920), Niederkorn writes that "Looney states that in one category after another Oxford had the characteristics he had projected: classical education, sympathy for the House of Lancaster in the War of the Roses, Roman Catholic learnings, aristocratic point of view, literary tastes, a love-hate attitude toward women, knowledge of Italy, and interests in drama, music and sports."
subtopic 3 - A PSEUDONYM FOR DE VERE (THE WHAT AND THE WHY)
-- Lewis Lord writes, "Playwrights were... held in low esteem because public theaters like the Globe were the rowdy province of commoners, the audiences laced with prostitutes, cutpurses, drunkards, and scoundrels of every stripe." De Vere could have needed a pseudonym for this reason alone.
-- Joseph Sobran, in his book Alias Shakespeare (1997), explains that the Shakespearean sonnets may have started out as a playful way to get the Earl of Southampton to marry de Vere's daughter, but became homoerotic. (Thus, de Vere could have had this reason for an alias - at that time, homosexual affairs were criminal.)
subtopic 4 - THE GENEVA BIBLE! CONCLUSIVE EVIDENCE THAT DE VERE WAS THE AUTHOR?
-- Dr Stritmatter, who recieved his Ph.D in comparative literature, conducted a study on de Vere's copy of the Geneva Bible. He is a member of the Shakespeare Oxford Society. He used handwriting analysis and forensics to conclude that it is quite probable that Edward de Vere wrote the annotations in the Bible.
-- De Vere purchased this Bible in 1570. Thematic parallels and specific wording from Shakespearean works are marked and annotated in the Bible.
-- As he was using scholarly writings on biblical references in Shakespeare while studying the Geneva Bible, Dr. Stritmatter says that, "one by one, I began to tick off a growing list of verses marking in the de Vere Bible which these scholars had identified as influential on Shakespeare."
-- According to Stritmatter, of the biblical references in Shakespeare that are cited by writers on the topic, 10 Psalms and 158 verses were marked in the de Vere Bible.
-- Mr. Stritmatter feels that the Bible proves the Oxfordian case.
-- Some, like Alan H. Nelson (a professor at the University of California at Berkeley), feels that the handwriting of the annotations in the Geneva Bible are not in de Vere's handwriting, and so, these people are not convinced by the alleged"proof." To this, Dr. Stritmatter contends, "Why would one of the richest peers of the realm buy a used and marked-up Bible?"
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Are you not convinced yet? Perhaps you agree with the Stratfordians, who argue that Oxfordians are snobs for thinking that Shakespeare couldn't have written the works because of his background. If that is the case, then consider what Mr. Wright, a member of the Shakespeare Oxford Society and a professor of English at Concordia University) had to say:
"The Stratford myth... tells students who themselves would be writers, 'you'll never be a great writer like Shakespeare. Shakespeare only accomplished what he did because he was s genius. And absent such genius, you have no hope for the future.' ... And in any other discipline... could there be such an anti-intellectual, anti-educational myth as this that would not be derisively dismissed as an offensive against the very raison d’être of the educational enterprise?"
Thursday, March 20, 2008
A Pseudonym? What and Why
It would be logical to ask: If Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, was the real author of the great Shakespearean plays, poems, and sonnets--as we Oxfordians contend--then how did William Shakespeare get the credit for them?
Well, "William Shakespeare" was merely a pseudonym that de Vere utilized.
But to fully answer this question (in the Oxfordian way, of course), it needs to be looked at from two angles: a close examination of the pseudonym itself, and of why Oxford would have used it.
WHAT: The name "William Shake-speare," with a hyphen, began appearing on manuscripts in the same year that de Vere's name stopped appearing on them. And hyphens were rarely used back in the day, so some believe that is a sure sign that it's an alias. Also: it's quite an "a-ha!" moment to discover that de Vere's family crest had in it a lion SHAKING a SPEAR! A coincidence? Perhaps; some Oxfordians think that de Vere may have just known the real Shakespeare and borrowed the name.
WHY: Why would a man not take credit for the greatest works of literature in the world? There are a number of speculated reasons. Back then, playwrights were NOT the most respected people in the realm, and he may have been protecting his reputation. Furthermore, Shakespearean plays were hardly polite, and this would certainly have caused problems for the nobleman. There are some more scandalous theories, including one that claims de Vere wrote much of his work as love-notes to his son-in-law! A homosexual affair in the Elizabethan was criminal. Some nitpicky Stratfordians ask: If the pseudonym was only to protect the man's reputation, then why not reveal his the true identity after his death--why prolong the charade? Oxfordians cite a number of possible--and incredibly juicy--reasons, all conerning the protection of those who were still alive. Maybe de Vere was Queen Elizabeth I's son? De Vere may have committed suicide, which would have created enough problems for his family in an era when heirs of people who killed themselves were harshly punished.
The case for a pseudonym, when taken alongside the case against William Shakespeare as the "true author," already make quite a compelling Oxfordian case, no?
Well, "William Shakespeare" was merely a pseudonym that de Vere utilized.
But to fully answer this question (in the Oxfordian way, of course), it needs to be looked at from two angles: a close examination of the pseudonym itself, and of why Oxford would have used it.
WHAT: The name "William Shake-speare," with a hyphen, began appearing on manuscripts in the same year that de Vere's name stopped appearing on them. And hyphens were rarely used back in the day, so some believe that is a sure sign that it's an alias. Also: it's quite an "a-ha!" moment to discover that de Vere's family crest had in it a lion SHAKING a SPEAR! A coincidence? Perhaps; some Oxfordians think that de Vere may have just known the real Shakespeare and borrowed the name.
WHY: Why would a man not take credit for the greatest works of literature in the world? There are a number of speculated reasons. Back then, playwrights were NOT the most respected people in the realm, and he may have been protecting his reputation. Furthermore, Shakespearean plays were hardly polite, and this would certainly have caused problems for the nobleman. There are some more scandalous theories, including one that claims de Vere wrote much of his work as love-notes to his son-in-law! A homosexual affair in the Elizabethan was criminal. Some nitpicky Stratfordians ask: If the pseudonym was only to protect the man's reputation, then why not reveal his the true identity after his death--why prolong the charade? Oxfordians cite a number of possible--and incredibly juicy--reasons, all conerning the protection of those who were still alive. Maybe de Vere was Queen Elizabeth I's son? De Vere may have committed suicide, which would have created enough problems for his family in an era when heirs of people who killed themselves were harshly punished.
The case for a pseudonym, when taken alongside the case against William Shakespeare as the "true author," already make quite a compelling Oxfordian case, no?
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Shakespeare? Puh-lease!
The more research I do, the more I'm convinced that it was not Shakespeare the man who wrote Shakespearean works, but Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford. And that makes me quite the Anti-Stratfordian-slash-Oxfordian individual. (The Oxfordian designation most likely comes from the fact that de Vere was the Earl of Oxford.)
One of the strongest arguments for my point of view consists of disproving the Stratfordian argument - proving that Shakespeare couldn't have written the literature attributed to him.
The evidence is compelling: Shakespeare, born Shakspere, was the son of a tradesman who was probably illiterate. He only had a grammar school education, and presumably had no way of possessing the knowledge of foreign places, foreign languages, music, medicine, astronomy, court life, and other sophisticated things that are often referred to in his writing. He was a commoner, and was most likely quite ignorant. Furthermore, there exists no documentation that Shakspere ever wrote anything, at all.
Many Stratfordians (the name probably comes from the fact that they believe in Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon) try to make this out to be a snobbish argument, and ask why a common man can't write great works. But the Oxfordians believe the exact opposite. They (we) claim that it is hardly democratic to tell students and writers and anyone who reads Shakespeare that the only reason he was able to write so well was because he was born with genius. And there's no hope for anyone else to write in such a way unless they, too, are born with such genius. If Oxford (or any other thoroughly educated and worldly person, for that matter) was actually the true author, then there is hope for the rest of us: with the right education, we too could write like Shakespeare.
So, in conclusion, I confess my loyalty to the most unpopular of academic beliefs: the Oxfordian, Anti-Stratfordian point of view. The "Con" is my "Pro."
One of the strongest arguments for my point of view consists of disproving the Stratfordian argument - proving that Shakespeare couldn't have written the literature attributed to him.
The evidence is compelling: Shakespeare, born Shakspere, was the son of a tradesman who was probably illiterate. He only had a grammar school education, and presumably had no way of possessing the knowledge of foreign places, foreign languages, music, medicine, astronomy, court life, and other sophisticated things that are often referred to in his writing. He was a commoner, and was most likely quite ignorant. Furthermore, there exists no documentation that Shakspere ever wrote anything, at all.
Many Stratfordians (the name probably comes from the fact that they believe in Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon) try to make this out to be a snobbish argument, and ask why a common man can't write great works. But the Oxfordians believe the exact opposite. They (we) claim that it is hardly democratic to tell students and writers and anyone who reads Shakespeare that the only reason he was able to write so well was because he was born with genius. And there's no hope for anyone else to write in such a way unless they, too, are born with such genius. If Oxford (or any other thoroughly educated and worldly person, for that matter) was actually the true author, then there is hope for the rest of us: with the right education, we too could write like Shakespeare.
So, in conclusion, I confess my loyalty to the most unpopular of academic beliefs: the Oxfordian, Anti-Stratfordian point of view. The "Con" is my "Pro."
Sunday, March 16, 2008
It's the Pros (Stratfordians) vs Cons (Ant-Stratfordians) in the Match of the Millenium
In the great Shakespeare Authorship Controversy, it's mainly the "Stratfordians" (those who know beyond a doubt that William Shakespeare, born in Stratford-upon-Avon in England, is truly the author of the works attributed to him) vs. the "Oxfordians" (those who are certain that it was really Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, who wrote under the pseudonym of William Shakespeare). But Oxford is only one of a number of candidates that "Anti-Stratfordian" radicals believe could be the "true Shakespeare." Other contenders include Francis Bacon (an old favorite) and Christopher Marlowe, playwright and namesake of the "Marlovian" side of the debate.
Much of the Stratfordian argument consists of insisting that it's the literature that matters, not the biography of the author; and yet, it's a staunch stance that refuses to cede to the Anti-Stratfordians. These radicals, much slandered by conservative academia, can't fathom that Shakespeare - who would have only had a grammar school education and most likely never left England - could have written the worldly, complex Shakespearean works. And Stratfordians call them snobs.
It needs to be noted that this is not a traditional debate - one of opinion - but one of historical fact; it's more of a question of, "What evidence do you believe more?" But whether Shakespeare actually wrote Shakespeare could have a profound effect on anyone who's ever touched his words - which is nearly everyone. And so the Stratfordians and the Anti-Stratfordians go boldly into academic battle, armed with history, logic, and strong allegiance to the Bard, whomever they believe him to be.
Much of the Stratfordian argument consists of insisting that it's the literature that matters, not the biography of the author; and yet, it's a staunch stance that refuses to cede to the Anti-Stratfordians. These radicals, much slandered by conservative academia, can't fathom that Shakespeare - who would have only had a grammar school education and most likely never left England - could have written the worldly, complex Shakespearean works. And Stratfordians call them snobs.
It needs to be noted that this is not a traditional debate - one of opinion - but one of historical fact; it's more of a question of, "What evidence do you believe more?" But whether Shakespeare actually wrote Shakespeare could have a profound effect on anyone who's ever touched his words - which is nearly everyone. And so the Stratfordians and the Anti-Stratfordians go boldly into academic battle, armed with history, logic, and strong allegiance to the Bard, whomever they believe him to be.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Shakespeare Authorship Controversy!
What's that you say? Shakespeare may not be the man the world has come to know and love? Arguably one of the greatest mysteries EVER, it has been wreaking havoc in the thespian world for quite some time: was Shakespeare, the man, really the person responsible for Shakespeare, the writing? Or was the true author of the most celebrated works in the history of the world another figure from the period, someone who used Shakespeare as a pseudonym in a time when being associated with the theatre was a good way to garner a bad reputation, or worse? There's fact, theory, and opinion both supporting and disclaiming both sides. So who's right? Was Romeo & Juliet, Macbeth, and Hamlet written by someone other than the balding, Elizabethan guy we've all come to recognize? Is debating the authorship of 400-year-old plays a entire waste of time, or only partially so? Vicious debates are raging through academia at this very moment!
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