A question that may or may not interest you: did Shakespeare write all those plays?

Are you a Stratfordian, or an Oxfordian?

Let me explain.  The question to ask here, is whether or not Shakespeare actually wrote Shakespeare.

Now, I grew up with Shakespeare.  No, my parents weren't at all enamored of his works.  I was.  As a young teenager, I once saw Romeo and Juliet with Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whittington (?).  I fell in love with those two teenagers, thinking that this was the mostest romanciest thingie ever.  Though it is also true that I thought that those two crazy kids could have survived, by taking their show on the road, and leaving fair Verona for parts unknown. From watching the film, I then continued on to reading the play and fell further in love with it.  I remember mopping my parent's hall floor (white terrazzo, if you're at all interested), and reciting the balcony scene at the top of my lungs.  I know, I know.  But, what else can you expect from an historian in the making?

The next play I fell in love with, was Hamlet--and this has been a favorite of mine ever since.  At this time, (1970s), the BBC was producing televised renditions of every single Shakespeare play.  I mean every single one.  And, no I didn't watch them all.  When they finally got to Hamlet, I watched it for the first time--this was the version with Derek Jacobi, and boy was it good.  Of course I had to watch it--after all, I was in love with Jacobi from his portrayal of the emperor Claudius, in Masterpiece Theater's production of I Claudius, by Robert Graves.  Who didn't love his interpretation? Of course, then I'd yet to see Lawrence Olivier's version, and had yet to experience Kenneth Brannaugh's take (this last one I have to tell you I prefer, although it was somewhat over the top in parts).  Many of you might notice that I am leaving out another well known film adaptation--Mel Gibson--and I am just not going to go there.  I can't.  I just can't.

OK. You might be saying to yourself about now 'Yes! I get it! She likes Shakespeare!' And you would be right.  But never did I ever learn, or hear of, a question as to the authorship.  No, I just took it for granted that the man from Stratford wrote all of the plays, and this I did without ever asking myself about the life of the man behind the plays--which is unusual for me, because as an historian, I am usually more interested in that sort of thing more than their published works.  Like I said, I just took it for truth.  But, I do have a hideously innocent streak, until I am forced to question--and this usually happens when I am exposed to an idea in written or cinematic form.  In this case, it was a film produced by Roland Joffe called "Anonymous," which finally exposed me to this question of whether or not Shakespeare actually wrote the damned plays and sonnets.  I thought to myself: whaaaaat?  I thought:  'you;ve got to be kididng me!'

And, then, being the obsessive compulsive that I was, I began paying attention to what the film actually said, and I began to think.  I began to question.  For me, this was a classic case of an ostrich having its' head ripped out from the sand.  I protested, but then I began to think.  And to learn that there was a hell of a lot of intellectual weight lent to the argument that the man from Stratford may have been an actor, but was probably not a prolific writer.  

Check this out:

this is what first clued me in to the question, and I found the film compelling.

A man with a limited education? The son of a glove maker,  becoming perhaps the greatest, if not the greatest and most prolific writer in the English language ?  Hmmmm.  Even I had to pause at that. I mean genius only takes us so far, people, and a writer especially must have the basic tools from which to hone his craft.  

Take a look and listen to this:

A man with a grammar school education? Not likely.  And not a single play that survives in Shakespeare's documented handwriting? Nope.  The case gets stronger and stranger from there.

And what about the name "Shakespeare"? Well it could have been a last name of the author.  Obviously there was a family living in Stratford-Upon-Avon with that surname. However, the term seems to have also meant something else as well, to the Elizabethans:

“Shakespeare,” as a pen name, could be a reference to Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom who came to be viewed during the Renaissance as a patron of the arts and learning. She is often depicted shaking a spear. Pseudonyms were used because writings that offended the authorities could subject an author to punishment.

        from the Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship Website:

https://shakespeareoxfordfellowship.org/top-reasons-why-edward-de-vere-17th-earl-of-oxford-was-shakespeare/

 In all fairness, there are arguments to be made on both sides of the aisle, but let me first make my case for Edward DeVere.

Yes, that's him.

And, this is not him:

Edward De Vere, the Earl of Oxford born 12 April, 1550.

His parents died while he was still young, and at a tender age, he was sent to live with William Cecil (puritan extraordinaire), who was to serve as his tutor.  Of course, Cecil did this at the Queen's behest, but Cecil certainly charged the young Earl an arm and a leg for his education.  What we believe, is that during this time De Vere took advantage of the library of Cecil--one of the largest in England, with volumes from nearly every subject imaginable.  This last, was most likely his intellectual playground.  

We know that De Vere wrote plays for the Elizabethan court.  We also have some surviving sonnets and poems attributed to De Vere, but what we do not have, are manuscripts in his handwriting.  Not that it would make much difference anyway--we don't have any surviving scripts of the immortal plays.  One interesting tidbit, is the Guttenberg Bible (currently located at the Folger Institute, for the study of everything Shakespeare), owned by De Vere, which has a lot of passages marked out, many of which can be found in the various plays--yet even this is not proof.  What it does, however, is lend a bit of fuel to the fire of this argument.

De Vere, at some point, married Anne, daughter of William Cecil.  Oh boy, whoopie.  It is indicated by some histories of his life, that this marriage was not a happy one, and was most likely arranged by his 'benefactor' William Cecil.  But, as I stated, the relationship did not exactly scream Harlequin romance, you know? Shortly after this, Edward made his way to the continent, for nearly the next two years.  There, he traveled extensively, spending most of his time in Italy, where he appears to have visited nearly every city, or site that appears in the Shakespearean collection.

Upon his return, Edward seems to have settled into a quiet life with his wife, but his fortune was greatly diminished, due to his spending on the Continent, and perhaps William Cecil draining away his resources, but we'll really never know.

Now, De Vere dies in 1604, and yet, certain plays ("The Tempest" being one of them) date from after his death.  How do we reconcile this? Well, we don't.  All we can do is make inferences, which is dangerous from an historical standpoint.  But, this is my blog, and I don't think I am going to be stood up against a firing wall by angry Strafordians!

So, what do we do about these pesky plays supposedly written after his death? Like I said, let's take "The Tempest," ok? Now, this is a play about voyages, storms, magic, and the dynamics of family.  Voyages.  Hmm. to a new world beyond the sea, with fantastic creatures, and an inhospitable land.  Uh, I'm sorry, did anyone forget Roanoake?  It seems somebody did, when they castigate us for believing (OMG!) that De Vere could have been our mystery guest.  And, did anyone forget the Spanish voyages? And did anyone forget the Portuguese voyages?  Uh, it seems so.  I think that some of these plays could have been written before De Vere's death.  

But, it is possible that we'll never really know.  

For those of you who wish to believe the Stratford thesis, there is a lovely and long documentary done by Michael Woods (whom I both respect and admire):

Well, one has to at least try to present both sides, yes? Particularly with a vexed question as has been posed in this epistle.

If we believe that Shakespeare wrote these plays, then why isn't there more evidence supporting this? Why? The son of a glove maker, with a primary school education, who travels to London, becoming the greatest dramatist of the English language? Nothing from his childhood to suggest future endeavors or curiosities? 

I am going to quote a fellow blogger here:

why would William of Stratford not sign his name ‘Shakespeare,’ the way it’s spelled on the plays? One answer, plain and simple, is that he wasn’t Shakespeare; rather, ‘William Shakespeare’ was a pseudonym for the actual author.

The top candidate for the true Shakespeare is Edward de Vere, a nobleman in Then the thing happened which has happened to more persons than to me when principle and personal interest found themselves in opposition to each other and a choice had to be made: I let principle go, and went over to the other side.  Not the entire way, but far enough to answer the requirements of the case.  That is to say, I took this attitude, to wit: I only believed Bacon wrote Shakespeare, whereas I knew Shakespeare didn’t.  Elizabeth’s court. De Vere meets all the criteria for being the real Shakespeare. His life experiences closely match the stories, settings, and characters of the plays, and he was praised as a playwright during his lifetime. In a foreword to Charlton Ogburn’s book, The Mysterious William Shakespeare, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David McCullough states: “The strange, difficult, contradictory man who emerges as the real Shakespeare, Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, is not just plausible but fascinating and wholly believable"  http://richardagemo.com/tag/david-mccullough/

OK.  So, I'm not alone at least.  

Mark Twain was also skeptical:

Then the thing happened which has happened to more persons than to me when principle and personal interest found themselves in opposition to each other and a choice had to be made: I let principle go, and went over to the other side.  Not the entire way, but far enough to answer the requirements of the case.  That is to say, I took this attitude, to wit: I only believed Bacon wrote Shakespeare, whereas I knew Shakespeare didn’t.

                                        https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2431/2431-h/2431-h.htm from "Is Shakespeare Dead?" by Mark Twain.

(hey folks, sorry if the formatting is a little nuts on this post...I am having trouble with the total lack of word processing on this site!!)

Here is a little more from the same essay:

I ... waited until he [this would be the man with whom Twain was having the argument about the question of authorship.  This individual was a thorough believer in Shakespeare's being responsible for the plays, etc.] brought up for reasonings and vituperation my pet position, my pet argument, the one which I was fondest of, the one which I prized far above all others in my ammunition-wagon, to wit: that Shakespeare couldn’t have written Shakespeare’s works, for the reason that the man who wrote them was limitlessly familiar with the laws, and the law-courts, and law-proceedings, and lawyer-talk, and lawyer-ways—and if Shakespeare was possessed of the infinitely-divided star-dust that constituted this vast wealth, how did he get it, and where, and when?

“From books.” 

[now this last reply was from his friend, the Shakespeare enthusiast, who completely discounted the Oxfordian theory, or that Francis Bacon could have written the plays.  [Frankly, I can't get behind those who advocate for Bacon, because, how could I? Bacon once tried to freeze some chicken meat by stuffing ice down the carcase's throat during deep winter.  He caught a cold, which turned into pneumonia, and later died from performing this experiment]

I am going to borrow from another blogger, and I hope he doesn't mind, but his thinking mirrors my own: that Shakespeare was a pseudonym. . 

Here is a link to Agamo's website:  http://richardagemo.com/bio-degradable-shakespeare/

Agemo also singles out an excerpt from a bio that appeared in a playbill for a production of Shakespeare' plays in America from 2007:

No man’s life has been the subject of more speculation than William Shakespeare’s. While Shakespearean scholars have dedicated their lives to the search for evidence, the truth is that no one really knows what the truth is. [Emphasis added].

I don't think we shall know, at least in this day and age, who wrote those immortal plays.  I wish that evidence would surface, providing us with irrefutable proof that Shakespeare was indeed the author.  Until then, we must wait...and watch.