The Lone Oxfordian

Saving Southampton

WEBoyle — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 22:11:59 GMT

It's not everyday that anyone can say that a real bombshell has landed in the Shakespeare authorship debate. And, as some of our readers may be aware, the term bombshell has been thrown around loosely by some Oxfordians in the past year in discussing their theories about how and why the authorship problem came to be. But now, with the discovery of a poem apparently written by the 3rd Earl of Southampton shortly after his conviction for treason in the Essex Rebellion in 1601, such a bombshell may indeed have landed, and it's for real.

In the Winter 2011 issue of the journal English Literary Renaissance researcher Lara M Crowley has reported on this discovery in her article, Was Southampton A Poet? A Verse Letter to Queen Elizabeth. In the article she reports that she found this heretofore unknown poem in a folio of manuscript copies of miscellaneous verses, compiled sometime in the early 17th century.

My friend and colleague Hank Whittemore has already written several posts about this article on his blog during the past week. I invite readers to check out what Hank has to say about how this discovery fits perfectly with his Monument Theory about Shakespeare's sonnets, particularly that Sonnets 27 to 126 were written to Southhampton while he was in the tower following his conviction and death sentence in the Essex rebellion. I do not wish to repeat here what Hank is posting on his blog about this discovery. However what I do want to do is call attention to what the author Lara Crowley has to say in her article about the Essex rebellion, Southampton's death sentence and reprieve, and the all-important question of how it came to be that Southampton was not executed. In other words, who saved Southampton?

In the first paragraph of her article Crowley notes the key question. She writes,

"Southampton was the only conspirator tried with Essex and both men were convicted of treason and sentenced to death. Essex was executed soon after, followed by several other participants, but, surprisingly, Southampton was spared ." (111)

When Crowley uses the word "surprisingly" she cuts right to the chase: why was Southampton not executed when most assuredly he should have been?

Just a few paragraphs later Crowley writes (after noting that it would seem unlikely that Robert Cecil would have interceded on Southampton's behalf):

"It seems possible, even likely, that someone or something else influenced Elizabeth's decision, making one wonder if, at his time of greatest need, Southampton -- a 'dere lover and cherisher of poets' -- composed what could be his lone surviving poem." (112)

The first part of the article is spent considering the question of whether this poem was actually written by the Earl of Southampton. She present strong evidence that indeed it was, evidence that includes the similarity in the language and arguments of the poem to the language and arguments used in Southampton's letters to the Privy Council asking for mercy. This is tremendous supporting evidence for the Monument Theory, for a key part of Whittemore's argument has also been how much the language and argument of the Sonnets is similar to the language and arguments in these same Privy Council letters.

But it is towards the end of her article that Crowley, in a concluding section, really digs into this key point about "saving Southampton." She notes, quite correctly, that what is missing for the years 1601-1603 is any record of who made the decision to spare Southampton, and why that decision was made (remember, the pardon was issued by King James -- not Elizabeth -- in April 1603). This section of the article (Section IV) is actually the longest section, running from pages 123-141, which is 19 pages in a 34 page-long article. It is in these pages that Crowley explores the question of whether it was Southampton's writing alone (in either this poem or his Privy Council letters) that saved him, or, as she noted earlier, whether it was "someone or something else."

To those of us who have been following this story for years this is extremely interesting, because Crowley arrives at the same conclusion that Hank Whittemore and I arrived at years ago -- that there is no good reason for Southampton to have been spared, at least not based on the record handed down to us in history. The idea that Robert Cecil interceded to save Southampton out of sympathy alone is questionable, and Crowley herself does question it. She directly analyzes this historical notion that Cecil saved Southampton out of "sympathy," and concludes that it is unlikely. In looking at Cecil's letters to others about Southampton (letters in which he expressed some sympathy towards him), Crowley characterizes the letters as "self-serving," and in talking about them as evidence she puts the word "evidence" in quotation marks, indicating her skepticism that these letters alone are proof that Cecil saved Southampton -- or at least saved him out of "sympathy." Especially revealing is this observation in a footnote:

" ...while Cecil might have intervened for purely benevolent reasons, he likely expected some sort of compensation for his assistance, perhaps in the form of information, assurance of position under James I, or even money. " (138, fn69)

This is exactly what the Monument Theory proposes is being recorded and passed down to posterity in the Sonnets. The final couplet of Sonnet 120 is the key:

But that your trespass [i.e., your treason conviction] now becomes a fee,
Mine [my fee] ransoms yours, and yours [your fee] must ransom me.

In other words the Monument Theory proposes that Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, paid a ransom to Robert Cecil to save Southampton, and this couplet records that fact. And the ransom? Hank and I believe that the ransom payment was Oxford's agreement to be consigned to oblivion for eternity ("My name be buried where my body is," Sonnet 72), and to accept -- and participate in as "40" -- Cecil's secret correspondence with James of Scotland, resulting in James' peaceful accession to the English throne ("Incertainties now crown themselves assur'd," Sonnet 107). The ransom deal most likely followed close upon a "great reckoning" in a "little room" (AYLI, III.ii). Crowley, in her ruminations on the key question of how Southampton was saved, gets very close to the same conclusion in so far as she believes that more than just sympathy must have been involved.

This is why, in my opinion, both the discovery of this poem and the article written about it constitute as close to a bombshell as anything I've encountered in 30 years of studying the Shakespeare authorship debate and considering that the Essex rebellion is at the center of it all.

Readers should visit both Hank Whittemore's blog and his Shakespeare's Monument website for further information on this new poem and an overview of the Monument Theory. Readers are also invited to read my essay Unveiling the Sonnets in which I present some of the historical background that is integral to the argument that the sonnets are telling us the story of how Edward de Vere ("Shake-speare") sacrificed himself to save Southampton, which is why there came to be a Shakespeare authorship mystery.

Bill Boyle

The Nowhere Boy and the Never Writer

WEBoyle — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 18:28:32 GMT

As a longtime Oxfordian it has been an interesting experience to watch the build up to the Roland Emmerich film Anonymous. For the past year amid Oxfordian circles the greatest concern about this film has been that a major part of the plot would be focusing on the sexual escapades of Edward de Vere as Shakespeare and Queen Elizabeth as his putative mother and lover. In other words, incest.

Vanessa Redgrave as Queen Elizabeth and Rhys Ifans
as Edward de Vere (aka "Shake-speare") in Anonymous

Now that the film is out and the reviews are flooding in we can see that this concern was really misplaced. The greater shock remains that the authorship debate exists at all. If anyone doubts that, check out the review and the articles and op eds at the New York Times (Brantley, Shapiro, Marche). Outrage that this film was made at all is paramount. Outrage over incest barely makes a peep.

I have seen the film twice in the past month and it is a good film. I've had my own reservations about a director such as Roland Emmerich making this film, because I love going to films, and I have seen all his previous efforts. He is mostly a B-list director. He does not get great performances out of his actors. But as we Oxfordians have learned from our perspective about Shakespeare, when an artist becomes passionate about something in his life, his art reflects it. So it is with Anonymous. Most critics, even those who hate the authorship issue, acknowledge that this may be Emmerich's best film. It's too bad most of the negative reviews are reviewing the authorship debate and not the film.

Which brings me to the title of this post: the Nowhere Boy and the Never Writer. Last weekend I was watching a 2010 movie on cable TV --- Nowhere Boy --- a biopic about John Lennon. As someone who came of age in the 1960s I have vivid recollections of the impact of the Beatles on the popular culture scene. It transformed rock 'n roll from outsider status to the cultural mainstream. And anyone who knows the history of the Beatles knows it was John Lennon who made it all happen. But what few people know is how John Lennon became John Lennon. This is what Nowhere Boy is all about, and it's a revelation for anyone who loves the Beatles but wasn't aware of John Lennon's childhood and upbringing.

Let me quote from one of the reviews of Nowhere Boy to get an idea of what the story is all about:

"Because of his accomplishments as a musician and a peace activist and his senseless death, it’s easy to put John Lennon on a pedestal. The truth is that Lennon couldn’t have written or co-written such captivating songs if his personal life wasn’t occasionally torrid. Opening on the 70th anniversary of the singer’s birth and the 30th anniversary of his murder, Nowhere Boy proves the flesh-and-blood Lennon is infinitely more fascinating than the saint." (review by Dan Lybarger on Reel Reviews)

Ah, yes, the flesh and blood Lennon is infinitely more fascinating than the saint. Well, doesn't that resonate with comments we have heard in the Shakespeare authorship debate lately? Leave our saint alone! And even more emphatically, leave our Virgin Queen alone!!

But the story that Nowhere Boy tells us is that it it was Lennon's relationship with his birth mother, a woman he had been estranged from for almost 10 years and reconnected with as a teenager, that is at the heart of his story. John Lennon was raised by his mother's sister, Aunt Mimi, and so did not know his mother as the woman who raised him in his formative years. What the film shows, and his friends and biographers have confirmed over the years, is that Lennon's teenage relationship with his mother Julia sometimes bordered on the relationship of lovers, not parent and child. That is what drew my attention as I watched Nowhere Boy ---how this relationship was portrayed in the movie. More than once I said to myself, "Well, Julia can't be his mother ... look at how they're carrying on."

Aaron Johnson as John Lennon and Anne-Marie Duff
as his mother Julia in Nowhere Boy

But Julia was his mother, and she is the one who turned him on to rock 'n roll. And she is the one who taught him to play the guitar. And as some of John's friends, such as Peter Shotten, have recollected, Julia would often hang out with John and his friends like she was one of the boys.

There are some comments from fans of Lennon and the movie at Yahoo Answers under the heading "Do you think John Lennon was in love with his mother?" that give an intriguing sense of what this was all about:

QUESTION: John Lennon was many things. He had an affair with Brian Epstein. He would hang out at the transvestite bars in Hamburg. And he was in love with his own mother. What?
Do you think that John Lennon was in love with his mother? Did John Lennon have an Oedipus Complex?

FIRST COMMENT:

It does happen, you know. He was raised by his mother's older sister, his Aunt Mimi. Julia had abandoned John in the care of her sister when John was very young and married another man. His father had been a cook on a merchant ship and abandoned his young son John and his wife Julia. When John was a teenager, he reconnected with his mother. She was not that much older than John and had him quite young. The other boys, including Paul McCartney, remarked about how attractive John's mother was. And she was very casual with the boys, very sexual and flirtatious, including her own son. She would smoke and drink with John and encourage his wild behavior.

I even heard a story in which Julia arranged for John to have his first sexual experience with a girl that she picked out for him and John and the girl made love in a spare room while the mother watched on from another room. After John and the girl finished making love, they all got drunk and she called people to come over to announce that John had earned his manhood. This scene was not shown in the movie "Nowhere Boy."

However, in that movie, and in some of the books I have read about the Beatles, John and Julia were as close as a young man and an older woman can get. It was almost like a cougar-cub relationship.

By contrast, his adult guardian Mimi, was very strict. She was a traditional British matron who didn't even allow John to cry in the house when his mother died. Mimi was very much the British lady who reserved her emotions. Her younger sister, John's mother, Julia was known to drink at the pubs and would be the life of the party.

SECOND COMMENT:

I read in a book, I believe it was in a book written by Pete Shotten, who was an original member of the Quarrymen and a close friend of John Lennon, that his mother Julia arranged for him to have his first sexual experience with a girl. She watched him do it and then got drunk and celebrated her son's loss of virginity with a neighborhood party. Julia and Mimi fought over John but the deflowering of John arranged by Julia was the last straw for Mimi who forbade John from seeing his mother after that. There was some legal thing because John was a minor that Mimi threatened to report Julia to the police about it. She didn't but she threatened her sister with it.

There is no proof that Julia actually made love with John but she frequently hugged and kissed him much like an older woman lover. Some women who do not raise their sons do have affairs with the sons. It is not uncommon. John may have reminded Julia of Freddie when he was younger.

THIRD COMMENT

In the movie "Nowhere Boy" John and Julia are lying on the couch together, holding hands and touching each other. It definitely was not a parental sort of love going on.

I have heard stories about this from books and interviews. What is the source for John saying that he touched his mother in a sexual way? Was it Rolling Stone or Playboy?

Now all that I'm saying here is that this is mighty interesting for Oxfordians who have been dealing with the debate over whether the Virgin Queen Elizabeth was in fact Edward de Vere's mother, and even more, whether she had a child with him. It is shocking. There is no doubt about it. But is it unthinkable? Well, given the history of the human race here on planet Earth, I'd say no. Statements about what is or isn't "unthinkable" usually, in my estimation, just tell us something about the speaker's own thinking, but nothing about life in the real world.

What Nowhere Boy accomplishes is to tell us something about how John Lennon became John Lennon. It resonated with me because after thirty years on the Shakespeare authorship beat I have come to realize that the authorship debate is all about understanding how Shakespeare became Shakespeare. That phrase is the subtitle of Stephen Greenblatt's Will in the World. But of course Will in the World in the end tells us nothing to answer that question because, you know, he's got the wrong guy. But the question itself is important. How and why does an artist become an artist? What makes him or her tick?

Charles Beauclerk tries to answer this question about how Shakespeare became Shakespeare in his 2010 book Shakespeare's Lost Kingdom. His point of view throughout is that Queen Elizabeth was Edward de Vere's mother, and that the bizarre life-long circumstances of their relationship was at the center of both the Elizabethan Age and Shakespeare's greatness. Centuries later it can never be proved, so we are left in limbo with a theory that makes sense of a lot of things about Shakespeare, yet is in itself shocking. However, if it is true, then little wonder that the mother of all cover-ups was called for to hide this mother-son saga.

Nowhere Boy ends with one of Lennon's songs, Mother, playing as he slowly walks down a sidewalk, on his way to Hamburg, and then onto fame and fortune. "You had me," he sings, "But I never had you." We have all the Beatle's songs, and all the songs Lennon wrote after the breakup. And you can enjoy all these songs without knowing the circumstances of Lennon's upbringing. No doubt about it. But knowing is so much better. It leads to understanding.

The Shakespeare Oxford Spring Dinner, May 6th

WEBoyle — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 16:38:00 GMT

There will be a gathering of local Oxfordians in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on May 6th at the Elephant Walk restaurant on Massachusetts Ave, just north of the Red Line stop in Porter Square.

Here's a copy of the email notice for the dinner that's making the rounds. Hope to see you there.

The Shakespeare Oxford Spring Dinner

When: Friday, May 6, 2011

Cocktails at 6:30; Dinner at 7:30

Where: The Elephant Walk, 2067 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge

Why: Much to talk about in 2011!

In the spring of 2009 and 2010, we enjoyed a day-long seminar at the Watertown Free Public Library. This year we thought it would be good to relaunch the evening dinner of years past. There is so much news in the Oxfordian community this year, with the upcoming premiere of Roland Emmerich’s blockbuster film Anonymous, the expected completion of two documentaries, Cheryl Eagan-Donovan’s Nothing Truer Than Truth and Laura and Lisa Wilson’s Last Will and Testament (working title), as well as the long-awaited publication of Richard Roe’s The Shakespeare Guide to Italy. Please join us for an evening of good food and good company, in a private room that’s ours till 10 p.m.

Dinner will be $40 per person. This includes dinner, taxes and gratuities and appetizers for the cocktail hour. The three-course dinner includes a choice of appetizer, choice of entree and choice of dessert from the "Tasting Menu," a delightful way to experience The Elephant Walk’s Cambodian and French cuisine. There will be a cash bar for cocktails or other beverages.

Directions: The Elephant Walk (617-492-6900) is just west of Porter Square, a short walk from the Red Line Porter Square Station, and on the 77 bus line. The restaurant is located in the red brick building across from Walden Street. There is free parking in a lot behind the restaurant.

We will meet downstairs in the restaurant’s private party room. Wheelchair accessible through elevator.

RSVP by May 5, 2011. Please include your full name and number attending to: Alex@amcneil.com.

Payment may be made at the restaurant on the day of the event by cash or check only; NO CREDIT CARDS PLEASE! Sorry, but the restaurant cannot accommodate separate cards with a large group.If you’d prefer to prepay, please make your check payable to Alex McNeil and send it to 301 Islington Road, Auburndale MA 02466.

We hope to see you there!

Bill Boyle
Alex McNeil
Marie Merkel

Charles Beauclerk Q&A Video (taped at the Shakespeare Symposium, May 8, 2010, Watertown, Mass.)

WEBoyle — Sun, 23 May 2010 18:28:00 GMT

Charles Beauclerk answers questions following his talk on Timon of Athens at the Shakespeare Symposium from the Oxfordian Perspective (held on May 8, 2010, at the Watertown Free Public Library, Watertown, Mass.). The exchanges are about not only the play, but also the authorship debate itself, with a few choice words directed at Prof. James Shapiro's Contested Will.

Beauclerk's own book (Shakespeare's Lost Kingdom) is the perfect antidote to Shapiro's banality, and his views on Timon couldn't be more apt in demonstrating the difference between Oxfordian interpretation vs. mainstream/Stratfordian interpretation. On pages 275-284 of SLK Beauclerk expounds on his views of the play, views which are not only Oxfordian, but also Oxfordian with the added perspective that the playwright Oxford/Shakespeare was (in Beauclerk's view) Queen Elizabeth's illegitimate son.

"Timon," writes Beauclerk (p. 275), "is raw Shakespeare, a crie de coeur rather than a fully deliberated work of art."

Later (p. 279) he cuts right to the chase when he notes the significance of the opening scene with the Poet:

"The Poet describes Fortune as a 'sovereign lady' enthroned 'upon a high and pleasant hill,' beckoning to Lord Timon out of the crowd of suitors with 'her ivory hand.' ... Timon himself is presented as Fortune's child or minion, 'bowing his head against the steep mount whereon she sits.'"

Later he writes (p. 280-281),

"In Shakespeare's case, Fortune could mean only one figure, the Tudor monarch ... That Shakespeare has the Queen in mind is clear from the way Timon harps upon the whore masquerading as a virgin:

Strike me the counterfeit matron:
It is her habit only that is honest,
Herself's a bawd. Let not the virgin's cheek
Make soft thy trenchant sword: for those milk-pups
That through the window-bars bore at men's eyes,
Are not within the leaf of pity writ,
But set them down horrible traitors (IV.iii.114-120) "

It is when one sees this highly personal authorial perspective as the subtext of the play (indeed, of the entire Shakespeare Canon) that one can begin to appreciate the true importance of the authorship debate, and the simple fact that knowing what the author had on his mind when he wrote a play bears directly upon fully understanding that play.

Symposium: Shakespeare from the Oxfordian Perspective

WEBoyle — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 13:29:00 GMT

The two-day symposium recently held (May 29-30, 2009) in Watertown, Massachusetts, was a great success. About 50-60 people (many of them first timers) turned out for both the play on Friday night and the all-day session in Watertown Public Library on Saturday. There was coverage in the local media both before and after the event.

The program got under way Friday evening with a performance by Hank Whittemore of his one-man show on the Sonnets, Shake-speare's Treason. The show is based on Whittemore's theory of what the sonnets are all about, as expressed in his 2005 book on the sonnets, The Monument. The theory is, in brief, that the Fair Youth is the 3rd earl of Southampton, the Dark Lady is Queen Elizabeth, the Poet is Edward de Vere, 17th earl of Oxford, and the story being told is of the Essex Rebellion and Southampton's crime in participating, his death sentence, and his reprieve. And the hidden story behind the known story of the Essex Rebellion is that Southampton could have been ---should have been--- Henry IX. Read all about it at The Monument site, or view this YouTube clip of the presentation given earlier this year in Winchester, Massachusetts (there are other clips at YouTube from this same performance).

The first talk on Saturday was given by Bonner Miller Cutting (daughter of Oxfordian stalwart Ruth Loyd Miller), who had come to town all the way from Houston (TX) to participate. Her talk expanded on one she had given at the Shakespeare Authorship Conference last October in White Plains (NY).

Bonner Miller Cutting answers questions after her presentation.

Cutting has been examining Shakespeare's (i.e. of Stratford) will for several years now, and has come up with some insights that are noteworthy. She has looked at upwards of 2000 other wills from this same period to make comparisons with the Bard, and the results are not too flattering. For example, everyone knows about the bequest of the second-best bed to his wife, but Cutting's research makes it unmistakable that this was at least a deliberate insult to his wife, if not an outright attempt to disinherit her by mentioning only the bed and nothing else (for example, he treated his sister Joan much more generously). The well-known absence in the will of books, manuscripts, etc. is accompanied by the glaring omission of any bequests to his daughters for their education in particular, or even to the town in general (e.g., how about something for that famous grammar school that taught him so well?). This is where Cutting's diligent work over several years in comparing the Stratford will to many other wills of the period makes the point that our friend Stratman seemed to have had no literary interests during his life or after it, and furthermore (as some of us joked after the presentation), his will reveals him as, well, cold. Not generous. Cold. But you won't find that in any mainstream discussions.

Mark Anderson spoke on the recent Cobbe portrait story (actually, controversy), and also expanded his comments to bring in the Ashbourne portrait (the one that graces the cover of his 2005 book Shakespeare By Another Name as a split image with the Welbeck portrait of Oxford). The Cobbe portrait is the one that was recently discovered by its owner to be identical to a putative portrait of Shakespeare owned by the Folger Shakespeare Library (the "Janssen"). It was unveiled with great fanfare by Stanley Wells and the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust as being a "true likeness" of Shakespeare, painted in his lifetime (and most likely the model for the Droeshout engraving in the First Folio).

Mark Anderson, author of Shakespeare By Another Name.

Anderson has written about the Cobbe portrait on his blog several times since the story first broke a few months ago, and most of us in the audience were aware of it. He highlighted the story in the Times Literary Supplement by Katherine Duncan-Jones that dismisses the Birthplace Trust claim, and agreed with her that the portrait is most likely of Sir Thomas Overbury. The real story here is that Stratfordians are actually engaged in the authorship debate (sub rosa) when they reach out like this ...anything to make Stratman more real is the name of the game. The second part of Anderson's talk was on the authorship debate itself, including a point he has been making for several years now: that after 1604 no new sources or historical facts are ever used or alluded to in the Shakespeare canon. This is significant since 1604 is the date of Oxford's death.

Marie Merkel led off the afternoon session with a provocative presentation in which she put forth the idea that perhaps The Tempest was actually written by Ben Jonson. This is a topic that Merkel has been pursuing for several years, and there's no doubt that it is controversial, no matter where one stands on the authorship debate itself. But The Tempest is different from the rest of the Shakespeare canon in a number of ways, and the differences have been commented upon for a long time. Oxfordians understand this very well, since J.T. Looney in his 1920 Shakespeare Identified felt obliged to write an appendix in which he claimed that The Tempest was probably not by Shakespeare.

Marie Merkel creates a tempest.

Merkel quoted such mainstream scholars as Harold Bloom and David Lindley in support of the view that The Tempest is different from the rest of Shakespeare. She also presented some interesting lists of textual analysis and word usage demonstrating that the play has many characteristics that are not characteristic of Shakespeare, and ---most especially--- that the play to most critics seems more like a Jacobean masque. As anyone involved in the authorship debate knows, The Tempest, its sources, and its actual date of composition are a hot topic in the debate, since any bona fide composition of a Shakespeare play after Oxford's death in 1604 would knock him out of contention. But as Merkel's presentation demonstrated, mainstream scholars themselves puzzle over this play as much as Oxfordians (for more information on The Tempest debate see the Oxfordian Stritmatter-Kositsky essay at the Shakespeare Fellowship website and the Stratfordian David Kathman essay at the Shakespeare Authorship Page).

The final speaker of the day was William Boyle (full disclosure: that's me), reprising a talk he had given last fall at the Shakespeare Authorship Conference in White Plains (NY), and again (with some updates) at the Shakespeare Authorship Studies Conference last April in Portland (OR). This presentation on "Shakespeare and the Succession Crisis of the 1590s" takes a closer look at some of the lesser known historical and publishing events that occurred during the same period that Shakespeare burst upon the scene, and considers that Shakespeare himself (aka Edward de Vere, 17th earl of Oxford) was keenly interested in the succession issue (i.e., who would succeed Elizabeth I) and that the Shakespeare plays and poems published during this period were written (or re-written) with the succession issue in mind.

Two publications were the focus of much of this talk: the political tract Conference about the Next Succession to the Crown of England (1594/95), in which a dedication to the earl of Essex claims that he and his followers will "settle the succession," and Willobie His Avisa (1594), a notoriously enigmatic poem whose front matter contains the first reference to "Shake-speare" as an author (of Lucrece), and even alludes to Avisa and Lucrece as being the same person (both Lucrece and Avisa are "married chastity," which is, Boyle noted, also an apt description for Queen Elizabeth, the Virgin Queen "married" to England). Boyle said that Willobie has been successfully "solved" by scholar B.N. De Luna in her 1970 book The Queen Declined. Her solution is that Avisa is Queen Elizabeth. He noted that in Harvard's Riverside Shakespeare the editors concede De Luna's work and say that Avisa is Queen Elizabeth; they then ---wisely--- say no more. This solution has great significance for understanding Shakespeare's role in the succession crisis of the 1590s, and for understanding how the "Shakespeare authorship problem" may have had its roots in Elizabethan succession politics. The chief example here, of course, is Richard II and its well-known association with Essex and the succession, right up to the disastrous Essex Rebellion.

The day concluded with this final talk, and attendees hung out for a while, with ample time to meet and talk about what had been presented. This was a very well organized, fun event. Thanks to all those involved in putting together this two-day event: Lori DiLiddo, the symposium organizer, Chuck and Carole Berney of Watertown, Barbara Hansen, Anne Atheling, Judith Christianson, and Alex McNeil (president of the Shakespeare Fellowship). We should also note that right before lunch Cheryl Eagan-Donovan showed a clip of her upcoming documentary on the authorship (Nothing is Truer than Truth --information available at the Controversy Films website), which will be available soon and should add more fuel to the authorship fire. Several of those in attendance (i.e. Alex McNeil, Hank Whittemore, Mark Anderson) were featured in the clip shown.

Congratulations to all!

UPDATE: there are two articles available on the web about this event: Caldwell Titcomb at The Art's Fuse, and Thomas Garvey at The Hub Review (Garvey didn't attend, but he responds to Titcomb's article and takes the opportunity to rail at the authorship debate in general and Oxfordians in particular).

UPDATE2: The blog Shakespeare Geek also responded to Titcomb's article ("How did I miss this?"), and, like Thomas Garvey at The Hub Review, was disappointed to learn that a local Shakespeare event was presented by Oxfordians.

UPDATE3: We added a link to the Controversy Films website for more information about the upcoming documentary film, Nothing is Truer than Truth.

Happy 400th Birthday to our dear friend, The Sonnets!

WEBoyle — Wed, 20 May 2009 13:42:00 GMT

It was 400 years ago today that Shake-speares Sonnets were registered for publication. Funny how it seems like only yesterday.

Still, there have already been some interesting articles and new books coming out based on this milestone, and more are sure to follow. There are two that appeared today that I wish to alert readers about.

First, NPR this morning reviewed a new book on the Sonnets, So Long as Men Can Breath, by Clinton Heylin (the review includes an audio clip, a brief article with some quotes from the author, and an excerpt from the book).

The story on the NPR site (by Lynn Neary) has the headline "Did Shakespeare Want To Suppress His Sonnets?," and the answer is yes, because they're homosexual. Heylin is quoted,

"If the sonnets are interpreted in what I think these days would be considered a fairly normal way, which is that they are about a homosexual affair with a peer, [Shakespeare] was committing several criminal offenses," says Heylin. "It would have been extremely socially sensitive to have a scandal come out that involved him and a male peer ... [The sonnets] are an insight into who the man was, and it is likely going to be as close as we are ever going to get into the mind of Shakespeare"

Well, we can agree with that last line from Heylin, but not with his conclusion that the love being talked about must be homosexual.

Meanwhile, a second story of interest ("400 years young: The magic and mystery of Shakespeare's Sonnets") appears in today's The Independent (London, UK). The image that accompanies the story tells it all:

Pink sunglasses? OK, we get it. (courtesy, Getty images)

Early on in the article we learn that "For every blissed-out 'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?' comes a disgusted outbreak of 'Th'expense of spirit in a waste of shame/ Is lust in action'. ('Spirit' is semen, among other meanings)." But a few paragraphs later in the unsigned article (anonymous authorship??) we find, "However universal the passions they dissect, the sequence has several unusual even unique - attributes. This bard of flesh and soul also knows English law inside out ('summer's lease hath all too short a date')." Well, that's interesting. Law and love? What's the deal with that?

Anyway, the bottom line for both these stories is clearly the homosexual angle. As readers of this site know, there are other ways to look at these verses. I can only suggest that anyone surfing through here today check out Hank Whittemore's The Monument site for an entirely different take on these timeless verses. It involves sex alright (as in, "Who's your Daddy?", not to mention "Who's your Mommy?"), and plenty of law (as in treason, trial, conviction, death penalty, reprieve). But no pink sunglasses.

Actor Kenneth Branagh moving towards Oxford?

WEBoyle — Sun, 03 May 2009 16:57:00 GMT

In breaking news this weekend noted Shakespearean actor/director/producer Kenneth Branagh (Henry V, Much Ado About Nothing, Love's Labors Lost, Hamlet) has apparently gotten off the fence about the Shakespeare authorship question. In a news report in today's Sunday Express in the UK Branagh is quoted as saying, "There is room for reasonable doubt. De Vere is the latest and the hottest candidate. There is a convincing argument that only a nobleman like him could write of exotic settings and that William Shakespeare was a simple country boy ... I am fascinated by all the speculation." [UPDATE, May 13, 2009: The link to the Sunday Express news story is now dead ... click on it and you get a message that "The article you are looking for does not exist. It may have been deleted." with no further explanation. Word on my Internet grapevine is that the paper was asked to take it down and did. This link to the story on a different site still works. Stay tuned.]

Sir Derek Jacobi as Claudius (left) and Kenneth Branagh (center) as Hamlet in the 1996 film.

Well, welcome aboard Kenneth! Although we don't know at this point in time what the back story to all this is, there has been speculation for years that Branagh was sympathetic to the authorship debate but was hedging his bets and keeping mum on what he really thought. Perhaps all the recent news (the portrait, Jacobi and Rylance in the news saying they have doubts, the usual birthday hoopla) finally got him to commit. The comments were made during remarks at the US premiere of his BAFTA-winning Swedish detective series, Wallander.

In any event, this is big news and must be unsettling to the powers that be in the Shakespeare Establishment.

2009 Shakespeare Authorship Studies Conference - Reporting from Portland (Part IV)

WEBoyle — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 13:42:53 GMT

With this post I will conclude my brief reports (plus pix) on papers and presenters at the 2009 SASC in Portland, Oregon, last week.

In the year of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's Sonnets there were several sonnet papers. Hank Whittemore, who led off the conference Thursday night performing his one-man show Shakespeare's Treason (based on the sonnets) was also on hand Saturday afternoon to talk about Sonnets 40-42. As Whittemore explained at the start of his presentation, his intention was to respond to what Mark Anderson had said about these same sonnets in his 2005 book Shakespeare By Another Name. In his book, while adopting some of what Whittemore had postulated about all the sonnets in his own 2005 book The Monument, Anderson took exception to these three sonnets and said they were clearly about a love triangle; Whittemore had included them among the middle 100 sonnets (26-125) as being all about a family triangle. In his talk he made the case for the middle 100 sonnets being all about the same three people, with no room for either "additional" characters and/or "additional" stories.

Hank Whittemore explicates Sonnets 40-42

Also speaking on the Sonnets was Alex McNeil, who focused on Sonnets 153 and 154, the strange pair that concludes the entire sequence and have always seemed to many commentators to be tacked on at the end for some reason other than a logical conclusion to what immediately proceeds. McNeil noted how the two sonnets are really variations on the same theme, and how one (154) seems to be a later version of the first (153). McNeil, who was the editor of Whittemore's The Monument, agrees that in the Oxfordian view of things these sonnets do make sense coming at the end, and that they most likely are meant to recall and then echo a much earlier time than the 1590s.

Alex McNeil speaking on sonnets 153 and 154.

While not directly about the sonnets themselves, presentations by William Boyle and Prof. Maurice Holland (both following Whittemore's) were meant to expand on the basic premise of Whittemore's "Monument" theory of what the Sonnets are all about, namely: The Essex Rebellion and its aftermath. Boyle (full disclosure: that's me) continued on a theme he has covered over the past two years, that the succession crisis of the 1590s, Richard II, Essex, Southampton, and Shakespeare are all tightly interconnected, which explains much about how and why both the Essex Rebellion and the authorship problem came to be. Prof. Holland was on hand to talk specifically about the legal concept of "misprision of treason," which is an integral part of the Monument Theory's view of both the Rebellion and how the Sonnets are a record of the Rebellion (e.g., Sonnet 87 and line 12 "misprision"). Prof. Holland did not agree that Southampton had received misprision of treason as a plea bargain to save his life, saying there was no such thing as "plea bargains" in those days. He sided with those who said it was simply compassion that saved Southampton. All this is explained in much more detail on Whittemore's Shakespeare's Monument page.

For another view of the Sonnets we can turn to Prof. Sam Saunders (Washington State University, Kirkland WA), who used his mathematical expertise to ask, "Do Shake-speare's Sonnets Exhibit Harmonic Balance?" His answer was yes, but it may be a bit complicated to try to explain it here. In brief, he demonstrated how some studies of word use can reveal "harmonic balance" for any particular author and his works by calculating the total number of words used, and then breaking that total down into the most-used single word as a percentage of the total and the least-used single word as a percentage of the total. If the percentages align in a more or less straight line slope on an X-Y axis, then there is a "harmonic balance" in the work. And the sonnets examined by Saunders did just that.

Professor of Mathematics Sam Saunders on the Sonnets

Award-winning author Lynne Kositsky (Toronto, Canada) was on hand to present a brief (15 minute) bit of satire in the form of a story called, "The Mouse and the Lion: Responses from an Orthodox Source." A bit of background is needed here first to appreciate the story: Lynne and Prof. Roger Stritmatter have in recent years done research on The Tempest (e.g., "Shakespeare and the Voyagers Revisited," Review of English Studies, 2007) that has resulted in responses from such "Orthodoxy" as the Shakespeare Quarterly. Lynne's story was a hit that hit home, and enjoyed by all. And furthermore, with this audience, all agreed with it wholeheartedly.

Finally, as is always the case at the SASC, proponents of other authorship theories were welcome to present their cases. This year attendees heard from three presenters arguing for three alternative claimants to both the Stratford actor and the Earl of Oxford: Lamberto Tassinari, an editor and author from Montreal, made the case for John Florio ("Shakespeare's Poetry in the Words of John Florio"); Dr. Peter McIntosh, a senior scientist from the Forest Practice Services in Hobart, Tasmania, used the sonnets to make a case for Queen Elizabeth ("A Scientist Looks at Shakespeare's Sonnets"); and Robin Williams, author of Mary Sidney: The Swan of Avon, gave a presentation based on her book.

We should note right off the bat that just a day after Tassinari made his case for Florio, his name appeared in the Wall St. Journal article about Oxford, with Justice Ruth Ginsberg citing Florio as her choice. Florio is certainly a minority position, but you've got to tip your hat to Tassinari for his timing! Meanwhile, Dr. Peter McIntosh traveled all the way from Australia to present his analysis of the sonnets, which concentrated on systematically identifying persons talked of within the verses and then trying like a detective to find the best fit among those most likely in London and the Court to be in "Shakespeare's" circle. He comes down to the Queen herself as the most likely author, which like Florio (above) is definitely a minority position. Depending on one's point of view, a case can certainly be made for both Florio and the Queen (along with others) being involved somehow in the Shakespeare works as ones who knew the author, knew the work, may have even been able to get their two pence worth in, etc. But when it comes to arguing the "fit" with Hamlet and Lear, the fit is demanding (IMHO).

Robin Williams, who also received the 2009 conference's award for Excellence in Scholarship for her book Mary Sidney: Sweet Swan of Avon, gave an excellent PowerPoint presentation of her work. Of the three alternative candidates presented this year, Mary Sidney is probably the most interesting and probable candidate given her family history (sister of Sir Philip Sidney, mother of William Herbert ---maybe the W.H. in the Sonnets--- etc.), well-known literary traits, and various Shakespeare connections,
The SASC audience (overwhelmingly Oxfordian) found her presentation quite informative, especially some of the more obscure biographical facts about Mary Sidney and her rich, literary life.

Robin Williams makes the case for Mary Sidney as Shakespeare

With this post we conclude our report on the 2009 SASC. These have been very brief notes, and given all that has been happening this year on the Shakespeare authorship front, we will return to some of these topics in more detail in the coming months.

2009 Shakespeare Authorship Studies Conference - Reporting from Portland (Part III)

WEBoyle — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 17:31:00 GMT

Well, in truth, I'm no longer reporting from Portland, 'cause I'm back home in Boston (and recovering from jet lag ... we got in after midnite).

Anyway, to continue with brief reports and accompanying pix about each presentation, let's look at some poetry and songs. Prof. Michael Delahoyde of Washington State University (Pullman, WA) and one of his graduate students there, Jacob Hughes, both gave presentations on Shakespeare and Chaucer Saturday morning. There are a number of instances of parallels between Shakespeare and Chaucer (anyone surprised?), but what caught my eye during these presentations was the instances of "pilgrims" and "pilgrimages" in Chaucer (and especially how one of these instances matched up with Richard II). In working on my own presentation for Saturday afternoon I had decided to bring The Passionate Pilgrim (1599) into a discussion about the politics of the succession crisis (which includes Richard II) and had just been wondering why the title "The Passionate Pilgrim." These presentations got me thinking, and I'll have more on that next week.

Prof. Michael Delahoyde (center) and graduate student Jacob Hughes (right) after answering questions on their presentations Saturday morning (Conference Director Daniel Wright is on the left).

Dr. Earl Showerman's presentation ("Bottom's Dream: Herculean Farce as Political Allegory") continued in the tradition of his presentations over the past several years at the SASC, concentrating on Shakespeare's use of ancient Greek and Roman myths, legends, stories and plays. There is fertile ground for finding such connnections (since they are merely all over the place, and other scholars have written about them also). But the wealth of detail in Shakespeare's use does raise that troubling question again ...you know, the one about Shakespeare's education and how he gained (and apparently became obsessed with) such knowledge. And for this blogger, it is interesting to see how often such use had a political agenda in it.

Dr. Earl Showerman presenting "Bottom's Dream"

Prof. Ren Draya (Blackburn College, Calinville, IL) is another presenter who has become a regular at the SASC in recent years. She has done joint presentations with Prof. Delahoyde several times, focusing on Othello. This year Prof. Draya gave a talk on "Shakespeare's Songs, with Special Attention to Othello." Her talk focused on another well-know attribute of Shakespeare, i.e. that some of his poetry was meant to be song lyrics, and that those lyrics can sometimes be poetry just as pointed as any play dialogue.

Prof. Ren Draya of Blackburn College

I will continue with this report later today or tomorrow.

2009 Shakespeare Authorship Studies Conference - Reporting from Portland (Part II)

WEBoyle — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 14:30:00 GMT

Picking up where I left off yesterday, here are several pix and brief notes on other presentations from the 2009 SASC in Portland.

Prof. Roger Stritmatter (Coppin State College, Baltimore, Maryland) presented the case for the island in The Tempest being an obscure little island in the Mediterranean ("Where in the World? Geogrpahy and Irony in The Tempest"). But even though obscure in one sense of the word, the island was well-documented in ancient days as a way station for sailors and pirates of the day. Stritmatter also made his case for this island based on parallels between Orlando Furioso and The Tempest.

Prof. Roger Stritmatter giving his presentation

Continuing on the theme of geography, Oxfordian author Richard Whalen presented a paper on connections between Othello and Cyprus ("Othello's Harbingers on Cyprus Suggest in Their Dramatic Poetry that The Dramatist Had Been There."). Whalen compared details from the play with maps of sections of Cyprus to make his case.

Richard Whalen on Othello and Cyprus

That's all for today (got to get to the airport soon and back to Boston). I will pick up with my conference report in a few more days.

2009 Shakespeare Authorship Studies Conference - Reporting from Portland

WEBoyle — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 16:50:00 GMT

It's been a hectic ---but also exciting and satisfying--- four days for everyone here in Portland, Oregon, attending the 13th annual Shakespeare Authorship Studies Conference on the campus of Concordia University. Of course the big news of the weekend turned out to be the front page story in the Wall Street Journal about the authorship debate and the US Supreme Court. Professor Daniel Wright (Conference Chair and Director of the Shakespeare Authorship Research Centre at Concordia) read the story in full to start the Saturday afternoon session, and in the end had to be the one to sacrifice presenting a paper in order to keep everything on schedule. The sacrifice was, he said proudly, worth it.

There will undoubtedly be more to come, re: Justice Stevens and the Supreme Court. For now I want to report on the conference, beginning with this short post, and continuing later today and tomorrow; even with the conference over I have a meeting to get to by noon today about the formal opening of the brand new Shakespeare Authorship Research Centre which will take place in August as part of the dedication of the new George R. White Library on campus. Tours of the new facility were given on Sunday afternoon.

Here is one pix of some conference attendees touring the 3rd floor room that will be part of the new home of the Shakespeare Authorship Research Centre come this August, 2009.

Touring the new Shakespeare Authorship Research Centre

Among presenters at this year's conference were keynote speaker Ramon Jimenez of Berkeley, California, long-time Oxfordian researcher and author. Ramon spoke on the so-called "ur-texts" of Shakespeare ("The Ur-Hamlet and its Seven Siblings; Explorations in Shakespeare's Dramatic Juvenilia"), by which is meant not only the "Ur-Hamlet" but other early play manuscripts and quartos that could be considered first drafts of Shakespeare plays, but must ---to remain politically correct and all that in Strat-think--- be considered stand alone early versions by someone else that Shakespeare merely "borrowed" from (i.e, stole from, or plagiarized):

Ramon Jimenez answers questions

Another featured speaker over the weekend was Prof. Michael Egan, author of the multi-volume Richard II, Part I (a study of the so-called Thomas of Woodstock play manuscript). Prof. Egan, who is also now the new editor of The Oxfordian (even though he remains ---at this point at least--- a Stratfordian!) presented a most interesting commentary ("Shakespeare's authorship of The Tragedy of Richard II, Part One: Evidence and its Interpretation") on how his fellow Stratfordians have received his work on Richard II, Part I. In short, they have not treated his Mellon-award winning work well, which is more shame on them than on Prof. Egan. But more to the point, some have been undoubtedly "unscholarly" in their own work and methodology on this subject, as Prof. Egan made abundantly clear:

Prof. Michael Egan's presentation was a response to his Stratfordian colleagues

We will continue with our report later today.

Shakespeare Authorship Studies Conference in Portland, Oregon, April 16-19.

WEBoyle — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 16:26:00 GMT

An update from Conference Chair Prof. Daniel Wright of Concordia University in Portland, Oregon, on the upcoming 13th Annual Shakespeare Authorship Studies Conference. The complete agenda of papers, presenters and schedule, along with online registration forms, can be found on the Conference page of the Shakespeare Authorship Research Centre website. Following are some highlights of added events for each day:

Thursday: On Thursday evening, instead of the usual opening night of papers, attendees will be treated to a performance of Hank Whittemore's Shakespeare's Treason, an astonishing dramatic work of revelation and creativity by Hank Whittemore and Ted Story. The show premiered in Portland last August, and has also been performed at Cambridge University and the Globe Theatre in London last fall. You won't want to miss this "Monumental" performance on the CU stage. Bring friends. Admission for the night is $50 for non-conference registrants, and the play will be followed by a Q&A session with the playwright. Refreshments will be served. What are you doing on Thursday that could be more worth your while?

Friday: After the close of the day's proceedings, Hank Whittemore, Bill Boyle and Dan Wright will, at 7:30pm, convene a panel at the world's largest bookstore - Powell's City of Books (at 10th and Burnside in Portland) where Hank will be presenting his revolutionary study of the Sonnets - The Monument - to the general public (always huge at Powell's!) and Bill Boyle and Dan Wright will be commenting on its significance. Hank's presentation will be followed by Q&A and the opportunity for the public to purchase copies of The Monument. Hank will be signing copies of his book afterwards, too.

Saturday: At the Awards Banquet (University Club, 1225 SW 6th Avenue, Portland) awards will be conferred on Renee Montagne of National Public Radio, librarian Bill Boyle and author Robin Williams. There is still time to sign up for this banquet, but it needs to be done right away! The cash bar opens at 6:30pm; the dinner (with a choice of prime rib, cedar-smoked salmon, or a vegetarian dish) will follow at 7:30pm.

Sunday: From 3:00 - 5:00pm, there will be hardhat tours of the now nearly-complete 78,000+ square-foot, three-story George White Library and Shakespeare Authorship Research Centre.

Prof. Wright also reminds us about the annual summer seminars on campus (this summer will be the 11th!), which this year will be held on August 16th to 21st. This will be the first seminar to be held in the new space for the Shakespeare Authorship Research Centre, located on the 3rd floor of the brand new George White Library building. The theme for the seminar (to be lead by Prof. Wright) is Shakespeare and Religion. Registration for the week (on-campus breakfasts and lunches included!) is a mere four hundred and ninety-five dollars. For more details, go to http://www.authorshipstudies.org/institute/index.cfm

Did Hamlet sleep with Ophelia?

WEBoyle — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 14:43:38 GMT

Ron Rosenbaum over at Slate weighs in on the Cobbe portrait today ("Should We Care What Shakespeare Did in Bed?"), and winds up talking about Hamlet and Ophelia. His segue is sex, going from some recent commentaries about how great it is that the Cobbe portrait gives us a "sexy" looking Shakespeare right into the very heart of Shakespeare ---Hamlet.

First, he handles Portrait-gate in short order:

What is remarkable about the fight over this "new" portrait—and it is, indeed, developing into a scholarly shootout—is that one of the leading eminences of British academic Shakespeare, Stanley Wells, general editor of the Oxford Shakespeare series, has lent his name to the venture. It was Wells who spearheaded a press conference unveiling the "Cobbe portrait" as the centerpiece of the upcoming exhibition, which is somewhat grandly called "Shakespeare Found." His support is especially surprising given how quickly and credibly other scholars, such as Oxford's Katherine Duncan-Jones, have presented evidence that the portrait isn't of Shakespeare at all but rather of a Jacobean contemporary, Sir Thomas Overbury. (Duncan-Jones' piece on this subject in the Times Literary Supplement is worth clicking on because it presents a portrait that is indubitably Overbury and it looks exactly like the one Wells claims to be of Shakespeare.)

He then goes on to note:

The whole contretemps reminds me of the recent debate about whether Shakespeare wrote the "Funeral Elegy," a wretched, mind-numbingly sententious, and witless 600-line poem found in a manuscript that had long been gathering dust in an Oxford library. As I recounted in my book The Shakespeare Wars, the false (and eventually discredited) claim about the ludicrous elegy was nonetheless a serious matter: If that dreadful work had survived persistent jeers from outsiders such as myself, and definitive debunking by scholars such as Gilles Monsarrat and Brian Vickers, and been taken for authentic, it might have forced us to re-evaluate, through the prism of its rebarbative verse, everything we thought we knew about Shakespeare's attitudes toward life, death, and mortality. We would have had to take the text especially seriously, in fact, because the claim was that it had been written by Shakespeare in 1612, four years before his death, and that he was writing in his own voice—eulogizing a friend—and thus not speaking through a character whose clumsy words could be excused or explained by dramatic irony or some other literary device.

Hear, hear, we say! Funeral Elegy was an authorship-driven story of about ten years ago, and as Brian Vickers noted in taking it down ---as he had to note, by the way--- it was an Oxfordian (RIchard Kennedy of Oregon) who played a key role in demonstrating that Elegy was most likely by John Ford.

Then Ron goes on to the big issue:

There is so little established certainty about Shakespeare's personal traits that it is almost always a reductive and foolish thing to try to read his work through urban legends about his life, or his life through his work.

Right. Tell that to all the recent biographers/commentators (Greenblatt, Holden, Shapiro, Bate, et al.) who are doing just that ---discussing his life through his works--- as, of course, they must. Got to head off that incredibly interesting and downright seductive Oxford story ... somehow, someway. And what else is there but the works if one is going to talk about "Shakespeare" this or "Shakespeare" that?

It is when he gets to Hamlet that Rosenbaum opens wide the door to some authorship commentary, whether he knows it or not (and, for the record, Rosenbaum is one of those who has nothing but contempt for anti-Stratfordians). He quotes a passage from Stanley Wells (of portrait fame), asking whether we know if Hamlet slept with Ophelia, and whether knowing it matters:

But look at the different Hamlets one gets—the different Shakespeares one gets—depending on how one understands the relationships between Gertrude and Claudius, and Hamlet and Ophelia. Was Shakespeare's vision in his plays misogynist, one that saw women as weak and unprincipled, subject to the whims of desire, abandoning fidelity for the lure of a hottie or someone royally powerful?

He continues:

And why is it so difficult to find any certainty about these questions in the text? Is the ambiguity part of a deliberate design in which Shakespeare prompts us to ask these questions while deliberately withholding the answers? The play, after all, begins with an unanswerable question: "Who's there?" Who indeed is out there in the darkness of the universe that surrounds the battlements of Elsinore castle? All the questions of the play can be seen as variations on that initial question. Who are these women actually, who's there beneath the artifice and costume that Hamlet denounces in that misogynist attack on Ophelia—and women in general—for using makeup and (my favorite sign that Hamlet's view of women is a bit deranged) giving nicknames to pets?

...But how Hamlet judges the queen, his mother, and how we judge Hamlet's judgment of her (and women in general) may depend on how we answer Stanley Wells' question: Did Hamlet sleep with Ophelia?

Then, finally, Rosenbaum manages both to make and to miss the point in one breath:

I think the important thing here is that—after centuries of argument and pettifoggery—there is no "correct" answer to these questions about who slept with whom and when. And why is that? Because Shakespeare either couldn't make up his mind himself or—more likely—had a preference for indeterminacy, for open-endedness (no pun, etc.), for the possibility of both answers being true or at least intriguing, in which the conclusion one comes to says more about the observer than about the indeterminable "facts" of the case.

Now, what really interests me at this point is that Ron has hit on two arguments that I have been making for years whenever I discuss the authorship with anyone ---namely, 1) that there is a correct answer out there somewhere to many of these Shakespeare questions (but you need the right author!), and 2) that in this instance of the Hamlet-Ophelia situation in Hamlet, that answer turns out to be exactly what Ron posits ....that Shakespeare couldn't make up his mind ---but for very good (and well documented) reasons,

I will continue this point in a few days, and I hope visitors here will return to see what I mean about a "correct" answer and how such unwitting Stratfordian diehards as Ron Rosenbaum continue to mislead so many readers with their own certainities.

"Principum Amicitias" : Does it matter?

WEBoyle — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 15:37:00 GMT

While everyone is discussing the new portrait, few are discussing the motto at the top ("Principum Amicitias"),

which apparently appears only on the Cobbe portrait, making it a unique addition to the story. The unique appearance of the motto on this portrait is significant since there are apparently four other versions of it without the motto (check these out at the Channel 4 (BBC) website). In the press kit at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust it is noted that the portrait "was inscribed with a quotation from the Classical writer, Horace, taken from an ode addressed to a playwright," which they cite as further evidence that the sitter in the portrait is Shakespeare. There is no mention in the press kit on their site of what the inscription actually says or what it might mean (although elsewhere it has been reported that the Trust translates it as "Beware the alliances of Princes").

So, just what does this Latin two-word motto/inscription say, and does what it says matter in understanding anything about Shakespeare? Over at the New York Times Lede Blog (in an item we highlighted the other day under Touchstone's Recommended Reading) they take a closer look at the motto by providing a very informative (and lengthy) quote from a Latin scholar somewhere in academe (he wishes to stay anonymous):

The phrase “principum amicitias” does look like a quotation of the Horatian ode. The idea of translating it “beware the friendships of of princes” is certainly not explicit in Horace, who addressed this poem to Asinius Pollio, a writer but himself an important political man who had written or was writing a history of Rome from the time of the so-called first triumvirate to the death of Cicero, 60-43 BC. That was a very dangerous time, and the end of it was not more than 20 years in the past when Horace wrote the ode, so he characterizes writing about it as dangerous as well. There were plenty of people around who did things during that period that they would just as soon forget, including Augustus, who was complicit in the murder of Cicero.

Anyway, the “first triumvirate” was just an agreement among Caesar, Pompeius, and Crassus to cooperate with one another for mutual advantage (rather than, say, for the good of the state). Cicero was invited to work with them, but refused to do so. When the agreement became public, people were rightly alarmed. But the agreement — the “friendships of princes” in Horace’s phrase — kept the three men from one another’s throats, until Crassus was destroyed when he decided to make war on the Parthian Empire (roughly, Persia). After he was out of the way, Caesar and Pompeius found it impossible to cooperate, and between 49 and 45 B.C. they fought a civil war that left Caesar as dictator for life. When he was assassinated in 44, an actual triumvirate consisting of Octavian (the future Augustus), Marcus Antonius, and C. Lepidus was appointed by the senate. These triumviri had many of their enemies murdered, including Cicero, and this is where Pollio’s history stopped.

Whether in Horace the plural “friendships” refers to the various one-to-one relationships among Caesar, Pompeius, and Crassus, or to that three-way friendship and other friendships as well, is hard to say. The “second triumvirate” could be considered a form of amicitia, since that was the word that the Romans used to denote political alliance; and Pollio may have structured his history by beginning and ending it with these two instances of friendship among princes. Note that for Horace the apparent meaning is just that — “friendships among princes,” not “friendships of princes with other, lesser people.” So if the meaning is in any sense “beware the friendships of princes,” it should mean (in Horatian terms) not beware of friendships with princes, but beware for the state when princes form friendships with one another. It’s certainly a cynical comment on Machiavellian political friendships, though.

How does all of this relate to Shakespeare?

It could just be that the phrase is not meant to interact in any direct way with the Horatian context. “The friendships of princes” might then refer to Shakespeare’s friendships with noble patrons, as a kind of compliment and an acknowledgment that their patronage was a factor in his success. In this case, the classical reference would also be a compliment to his culture, but not a specific reference to whatever Horace was talking about.

There could on the other hand be a more pointed reference to the history plays that deal with how the current dynasty came to power, although I’m not sure that I can think of any close parallel in that process to the “first triumvirate.” But maybe the phrase “friendships of princes” had some currency as a way of acknowledging the cynical behavior of the powerful towards one another and towards everybody else [From the New York Times, emphasis added].

This is very interesting. The motto can clearly be tied to an instance of Roman POLITICAL history (which is exactly the sort of thing Shakespeare did a lot ... Rape of Lucrece, Titus Andronicus, Julius Caesar, etc.), and, significantly, the friendship being alluded to would be "among Princes" (NOT "between Princes and 'other lesser people'").

And please note just what the Latin scholar explains this motto is saying (if one assumes the Horatian ode connection): "beware for the state when princes form friendships with one another" and the possibility that the reference could also be about "how the current dynasty came to power."

How in the world does this relate to the traditional Shakespeare of Stratford? If this Latin scholar is right, any speculation about the motto alluding to a friendship between Shakespeare and Southampton based on Shakespeare's being a "lesser" person (as, of course, the Stratford man must be seen) just doesn't fly. As the Latin scholar does consider, the only way the motto could be alluding to Shakespeare himself (i.e., the Stratfordian Shakespeare) would be to assume that no allusion to the Horation ode was meant at all (and as we noted above, the press kit at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust site does claim a link with the Horatian ode!).

It is, on the other hand, Oxfordians who already have Shakespeare and Southampton in the same social class, and therefore can consider that the Horatian ode allusion might be deliberate. But "Princes"? Should we take that literally as meaning those who are not just Earls, Dukes, etc., but those who have "royal" blood? Or at least, for some reason, have "royal" aspirations? For "royal" aspirations does get right into the Essex Rebellion and the fact that Essex was accused at his trial of wanting to be King Robert I. And Southampton was his co-conspirator all the way (i.e., for the six years leading up to the Rebellion). And Shakespeare's Richard II (written or re-written around 1595-96?) was an eloquent argument for the "rightness" of their cause, and was performed on the eve of the Rebellion. Connect all these dots and there it is: Shakespeare, Southampton and Essex are three peas in a pod.

Stratfordian scholars keep trying to deal with this "inconvenient truth," but keep coming up short. However, for Oxfordians who subscribe to the so-called "Prince Tudor" theory (i.e., a theory concerning the politics of the Elizabethan succession crisis of the 1590s and the possibility that the "non-Virgin" Queen had at least one or more bastard children) of how the authorship problem came to be, the Essex Rebellion is the "Ground Zero" of the whole authorship debate, a nexus where all the key players and elements came together and wound up producing one of the most incredible stories in the history of Western Culture.

That the Stratfordian camp, speaking from their own "Ground Zero" (the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust), has now introduced into the debate this portrait with this motto is incredible. And they tell us further that its provenance is clearly that Southampton once owned it, and that it is likely the model for the Droeshout engraving ---well, what a world! For the latest in considering the Southampton factor in all this, check out this post from Linda Thiel at the Oberon Shakespeare Study Group blog.

Perhaps when Wells and Cobbe publish their book on Shakespeare and Southampton next year they will deal with all this, and perhaps they feel that they have an answer to the "inconvenient truth", and that they will once and for all try to deal with the Shakespeare, Southampton, Essex, and Essex Rebellion problem. I hope they do try. The authorship debate could then get really interesting.

All hail the new portrait!

WEBoyle — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 05:03:00 GMT

In recent weeks in this space I've commented on how the authorship debate is a story unto itself, and how the Stratfordian camp keeps cranking out one "new " story after another in response to the debate, all the while denying that there is a debate. New biographies! New interpretations! New facts! Like a carnival barker ... come one, come all! It's new!

And now, right on cue, comes a new portrait (touted by the prominent Stratfordian Shakespeare scholar Stanley Wells) , with headlines around the world, even in the midst of the financial crisis of a lifetime. And then we --- those of us on the authorship beat, at least --- start to learn "the rest of the story" (as the recently departed Paul Harvey would have put it).

Mark Anderson over at the Shakespeare By Another Name blog is already peeling back the rest of the story by noting the eerie similarity of this story to the 2002 story about the same man (Cobbe) "discovering" that he owned a portrait to the Earl of Southampton. I think the current story quickly sinks of its own weight when one just considers, 1) the dissimilarity of this portrait with the Droeshout and the memorial bust, plus 2) what's with the lace collar (as some have already been asking). Isn't such attire for aristocrats only? Given these two glaring problems (plus the peculiar linkage of the Cobbe angle in 2002 and again today) one might think that somewhere in the current media someone would be onto the authorship angle in all this. But, sadly, no. No surprise there.

What interests me the most in all this is the Shakespeare-Southampton linkage, both in the provenance of the current portrait and in the 2002 story about Cobbe and the Southampton portrait. This comes as no surprise to this writer, since it is an indisputable fact that there had to have been some sort of Shakespeare-Southampton personal contact (V&A, Lucrece, the Sonnets, RII and the Essex Rebellion) that is the Achilles heel of the entire Stratfordian attribution. Given recent new evidence on the anti-Stratfordian side of the fence (e.g. the possible linkage of Shakespeare's Sonnets with the Essex Rebellion as Hank Whittemore has demonstrated), plus such recent mainstream scholarship on the Elizabethan Succession, Shakespeare and treason as this and on Shakespeare, Richard II and the Essex Rebellion as this), it is reasonable to say that it is this connection that we should all be looking at.

There is one hell of a Shakespearean story in "Shakespeare and Southampton," but it's sure not the one Stanley Wells is trying ---yet again--- to sell. And when I say sell, I do mean sell, since the rest of the "rest of this story" is that Wells and Cobbe are working together to publish a new book on Shakespeare and Southampton sometime next year!

The Shakespeare authorship debate ... it is the never-ending story ... or as the Stratfordians might put it, the "never eVer" story.

Bravo, Folly!

WEBoyle — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 01:04:00 GMT

The Shakespeare biographies keep coming ...sometimes it feels like almost every week. But in fact it's only a couple each year, but still, in the past 20 years or so, that adds up. One of the more recent is Bill Bryson's Shakespeare: the World as Stage (2007), which has received numerous good reviews from the media and the public (see reader reviews at Amazon.com for a sampling). Recently on this blog there were several commentaries on Bryson posted under Touchstone's Recommended Reading which I wished to comment on at the time, and will do so now. These two commentaries ("Bravo Bryson" from Stratfordian Terry Gray and "Bryson's Folly" from Oxfordian Hank Whittemore) are a neat little capsule summary of the state of the authorship debate, circa 2009.

First off, we should begin towards the end of Terry Gray's piece. He writes:

"It is a sad commentary on our time, and we should expect more of ourselves, having more access to facts, that Bryson must add a final chapter to his book dealing with 'claimants' ... that is, the crackpot modern notion ... that someone else wrote Shakespeare. Redressing these ridiculous claims does become a biographic imperative. And Bryson is the man to do it. Gray then quotes Bryson, 'So it needs to be said that nearly all of the anti-Shakespeare sentiment --actually all of it, every bit-- involves manipulative scholarship or sweeping misstatements of fact.' Bravo Bryson [emphasis added]."

Gray continues a few lines later,

"They [i.e., anti-Stratfordians] join that scourge of the information age, the conspiracy theorists with their wayward and unsubstantiated stories about the Lincoln or Kennedy assassinations, deniers of the holocaust, promoters of chariots of the gods, alien abductions, the Protocols of Zion, and so on. The stagnant swill that chokes the marginal banks of the turgid river of serious scholarship. But I digress."

Well, gee, who could argue with that? In his comments on Bryson, Oxfordian Hank Whittemore cuts right to the chase:

"Looking through Bill Bryson's book Shakespeare: The World as Stage ... I just couldn't help wondering how he managed to get through writing it without recognizing his own contradictory statements and outright falsehoods, not to mention his snide, snickering dissimulation."

Whittemore, quoting from the same section of the "Claimants" chapter as Gray [above], cites Bryson's line:

"There is an extraordinary -- seemingly an insatiable -- urge on the part of quite a number of people to believe that the plays of William Shakespeare were written by someone other than William Shakespeare."

To which Whittemore replies,

"... you are begging the question -- assuming the truth of the very point being challenged!

Indeed! And that is the bane of the authorship debate, and has been from the beginning. No one, of course, is saying that the author of the Shakespeare Canon was not the author of the Shakespeare Canon. That would be absurd. What is being said is that the warm body from Stratford may be the wrong warm body, and that the name "Shake-speare" (often hypenated) may have been a pseudonym. There are myriad reasons why both those suppositions are reasonable, which in turn in why so many intelligent people (including "scholars," whether Gray or Bryson can bring themselves to acknowledge it or not) have kept this issue simmering away for 150 plus years, and why it will never go away until there is some reasonable resolution.

There is an interesting tipoff in Bryson's concluding chapter on the "Claimants" as to how he and Gray -- and all Stratfordians -- play their roles in the authorship game. In writing about Delia Bacon's 1857 book he cites the title as: The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere [sic] Unfolded. Note the bracketed "sic," an editorial note to the reader that the spelling "Shakspere" is not a typo. This is interesting because, as anyone at all familar with this issue knows, the "Shakspere" spelling was used by many scholars writing about Shakespeare throughout the 19th century (check out this title page at Google Books; in fact, search "Shakspere" there and see what you get). It was, as I understand it, their way of "honoring" the true author from Stratford by using the "correct" spelling of his name, and not the spelling that appeared on title pages. Go figure! Of course once anti-Stratfordians began to exploit the spelling difference to argue that the man from Stratford ("Shakspere") and the author named on title pages ("Shakespeare") were two different people (i.e. two different warm bodies) ...well, guess what? Bye-bye spelling differences. And so the man from Stratford is now "Shakespeare" all the time, spelling differences be damned. And so now, any time the name "Shakespeare" is found anywhere ...it's him! it's him! Stratman! And that is that.

Does Bryson address this point? No, he does not. And further, he freely cites instances of the name "Shakespeare" appearing anywhere as being equivalent to the known documentary records concerning the life of the man from Stratford. On page 183 he claims that a professor at the University of Wales (William Rubenstein) is wrong to say none of the records concerning the Stratford man's life mention him as an author, and he then proves his point by going on to cite instances of the name "Shakespeare" cited in the Master of the Revels accounts for 1604-1605 as the author of plays as proof that the man from Stratford was therefore identified as an author. Well, no he wasn't.

When Whittemore wrote about Bryson's "snide, snickering dissimulation," this is what he meant. Not much we can do about it except to keep pointing it out. They'll never change.

Shallow thinking on "deep England" - Part III

WEBoyle — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 23:40:00 GMT

To conclude our commentary on John Guy's review of Jonathan Bate's Soul of England, I want to take a look at how Bate treats Shakespeare's apparent involvement (through his Richard II) in the Essex Rebellion of 1601.

Guy writes that

"Bate's chapter on the Earl of Essex's revolt in 1601 shows his strengths [emphasis added] ... Bate corrects the common misapprehension that Essex wanted to plant the idea of a successful coup d'etat in the minds of the London crowd ... Bate proves that Shakespeare's play was staged [i.e. not Hayward's Henry IV, as some scholars have suggested]. Richard II had for some years been the Essex faction's 'signature' text, since its 'conceit' was ideally suited to their code of martial valour ... Bate is right to say that the bespoke performance of Richard II was not meant to trigger a revolt, which is why Shakespeare escaped interrogation and a possible treason trial ... Bate, less plausibly, doubts Lambarde's report that Elizabeth famously compared herself to Richard II and complained of plays openly performed in the streets and houses of London."

These selected quotes (from several paragraphs in Guy's review) are important for their insight on how Stratfordians (both author Bate, reviewer Guy, and all the rest of them) just love to have it both ways when it comes to analyzing documented history *and* keeping their Stratman story straight (or at least keeping it breathing). Much has been written about the connections between Richard II and the Essex Rebellion over the years, and as it happens there have been several major articles and book chapters in recent years that can shed some light on Bate's "strengths" in explaining Shakespeare and Essex.

The key question here revolves around the historical fact of the Rebellion itself, the fact of Shakespeare's involvement through his Richard II, and the fact that Shakespeare was not only not punished in any way, he was never even summoned to appear before anyone or to be questioned. How can this be?

As Guy reports it, Bate apparently dances around some key points about this whole episode on his way to *explaining* "why Shakespeare escaped interrogation and a possible treason trial." Several recent examples of how other scholars are viewing this matter of Shakespeare, Richard II and Essex can be found here (Chris Fitter's 2005 EMLS article "Historicising Shakespeare's Richard II: Current Events, Dating and the Sabotage of Essex") and here (Paul E. J. Hammer's 2008 Shakespeare Quarterly article ("Shakespeare's Richard II, the Play of 7 February 1601, and the Essex Rising," which is available to subscribers through Project Muse). But, in fairness, both Fitter and Hammer also manage to not ask how Shakespeare could emerge untouched from one of the most infamous episodes in Elizabethan history.

There is much more to all this than can be covered in a brief blog post, so I'll just touch on a couple of highlights, as gleaned from Guy's review of Bate:

1) The passing reference to Hayward's Henry IV in 1599 glosses over the fact that Hayward got in BIG trouble (straight to the Tower) for his apparent comparison of Elizabeth to Richard II, coupled with the book's dedication that seemed to acknowledge that Essex was a (or "the"?) "Bolingbroke." Hayward's fate stands in stark comparison to Shakespeare's. But this leads directly to how Bate apparently handles this problem (it was, in fact, something of a "commonplace" to suggest that Elizabeth could be compared to Richard II ---see Lily B. Campbell's 1947 Shakespeare's Histories: Mirrors of Elizabethan Policy). So Bate deals with this problem by apparently suggesting that the famous quote from Elizabeth to historian Lambarde ("Know you not, I am Richard?") NEVER HAPPENED. Even Guy can't take this, and so he mildly rebukes and corrects Bate. Some strength!

2) So, what was Shakespeare's intention in writing Richard II? Simple question, right? Surely, after centuries of scholarship, it's been answered, right? Guess what? It hasn't. This is why this writer firmly believes that the intersection of Shakespeare and the documented history of Richard II and the Essex Rebellion is the real ground zero of the authorship debate. When Bate suggests that Shakespeare's intention was NOT to plant the idea of a successful coup d'etat in the populace he is ---IMHO--- partially right. But, as Hammer discusses in his 2008 SQ article, a coup d'etat of some sort was on Essex's (and his men's) mind, and watching RII over and over played into this. For what they envisioned was a "bloodless" coup d'etat, and watching Shakespeare's play figured into this. So it was NOT "martial arts" that was on their mind, I would suggest, but rather the carefully crafted legal and philosophical arguments that lead up to the climactic deposition scene and its striking out against "God's anointed King." Shakespeare's play could be viewed almost as a "how to do it" guidebook that had the added bonus of presenting exquisite speeches on England and patriotism, careful thinking on rights and succession, AND had events unfold in a way that varied from the true history and seemingly made the coup LEGITIMATE! What more could a rebellious faction ask? And this crafting of the play can be no accident, I believe, which then leads us back to what was Shakespeare up to. And how in the world did he get away with it?

I will close here, even though there is so much more to be said. But it is Oxfordians who have the upper hand here, because we have the right author, and therefore we can clearly see what's going on. I suggest that readers visit Hank Whittemore's Shakespeare Blog for an education in how Shakespeare's writing is intimately involved in Elizabethan history, and especially the Essex Rebellion, and I do mean intimately!

Shallow thinking on "deep England" - Part II

WEBoyle — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 22:33:00 GMT

Continuing with John Guy's recent review of Jonathan Bate's Soul of England, there are several other key points that Guy reports Bate making, all of which can be viewed with a critical eye from the point of view of the authorship debate (or ... at least among those who are following the debate closely).

First, we learn that "Shakespeare had access to a Geneva Bible" when writing parts of MSD. This salient point immediately brings to mind Oxfordian Dr. Roger Stritmatter's 2001 doctoral dissertation on Edward de Vere's Geneva Bible and Shakespeare. Oxfordians know all about Shakespeare's having had "access" to a Geneva Bible. In fact, he bought one at age 20 and we still have the receipt! Bate undoubtedly ---IMHO--- knows this too.

Another point of interest is Bate citing Touchstone' line in AYLI, "The truest poetry is the most feigning." This is of interest to this writer, since I have cited the line myself in a presentation at Concordia University last spring, but not in the sense that Bate uses. As Guy writes, Bate has Shakespeare [as a student of the ancients} an expert in the art of "moulding" language like wax, and thus "moving" an audience by "silver tounges." Or [using Guy's words, citing Bate], "As Quintilian, the prince or orators, had explained, rhetoric 'is an art which relies on moving the emotions by saying that which is false.' Or as Touchstone puts in in As You Like It, 'The truest poetry is the most feigning.'" Well, just a moment. Touchstone's line seems to say pretty directly that "feigning poetry" ultimately *leads to truth* ; emotion may reveal truth, but the more important point here is the truth, not the emotion.

Look at Shakespeare contemporary, Philip Sidney, explaining it in his Defense of Poesy (1595):

For, that a feigned example hath as much force to teach as a true example (for as for to move, it is clear, since the feigned may be tuned to the highest key of passion) ...

And do they not know, that a tragedy is tied to the laws of poesy, and not of history; not bound to follow the story, but having liberty either to feign a quite new matter, or to frame the history to the most tragical convenience? ...

But even in the most excellent determination of goodness, what philosopher's counsel can so readily direct a prince as the feigned Cyrus in Xenophon? Or a virtuous man in all fortunes, as AEneas in Virgil? Or a whole commonwealth, as the way of Sir Thomas More's Utopia? I say the way, because where Sir Thomas More erred, it was the fault of the man, and not of the poet; for that way of patterning a commonwealth was most absolute, though he, perchance, hath not so absolutely performed it. For the question is, whether the feigned image of poetry, or the regular instruction of philosophy, hath the more force in teaching. Wherein, if the philosophers have more rightly showed themselves philosophers, than the poets have attained to the high top of their profession, (as in truth, it is, I say again, not the fault of the art, but that by few men that art can be accomplished.

The emphasis is on the importance of using feigning to teach, and what else should the poet be trying to teach than the "truth" (or at least the "truth" as the poet sees it). And note also who Sidney describes as a likely recipient of this poetic teaching ...the prince.

Throughout the history of the authorship debate it is little moments like this that are most revealing. Stratfordians and Shakespeare lovers of all sorts always ask, "What does the authorship matter? We have the plays." Little thought is ever given to how ---even in a comedy such as AYLI--- there is an ENOMOROUS difference in how the play can be read and understood based upon the truth of who authored it and why he authored it. For anyone interested in how the Oxfordian reading of Touchstone in AYLI is vastly different (and much more revealing) than any traditional reading, check out this article by Oxfordian Alex McNeil on the Shakespeare Fellowship website.

And speaking of poetry that has "liberty either to feign a quite new matter, or to frame the history to the most tragical convenience" we now come to what Bate has to say about Shakespeare, Richard II, and the Essex Rebellion, a topic which is merely one of the most significant (in this writer's opinion) in all of Shakespeare studies, no matter which side you're on in the authorship debate.

I will post more on this in the coming days. Meanwhile, readers should check out Oxfordian Hank Whittemore's blog where his analysis of the Sonnets is all about Shakespeare and the Essex Rebellion. His most recent post today puts Bate's ahistorical "deep England" to shame. How Bate handles Shakespeare's involvement (or, as he would put it, non-involvement) in the Essex Rebellion is significant in understanding why the authorship debate matters, and why getting the right author matters. Without having the right author in place Shakespeare can never be fully understood.

Shallow thinking on "deep England."

WEBoyle — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 16:37:00 GMT

One of the continuing phenomenons of the Shakespeare authorship debate is how mainstream scholarship continually reworks the Stratford story in response to anti-Stratfordian pressure, while at the same time dismissing those who they are busily co-opting.

The latest version of this old tale comes from English scholar Jonathan Bate in his new book Soul of the Age: the life, mind and world of William Shakespeare. In a review of this book last week in Times online Bate's fellow Stratfordian John Guy gives us a sampling from a book he describes as "the most eloquent evocation of Shakespeare that one is ever likely to encounter." Guy informs us straight up that Bate "selects only the material that, he believes, will help to reveal Shakespeare's cultural DNA" while "blind alleys such as the identities of the Dark Lady or Mr. W. H. are sidestepped, as is speculation about Shakespeare's sexuality, religion or political beliefs." In other words, let's make our boy more real, but let's sidestep the real world in which he lived, and God forbid that we really try to get inside his head. Well, not entirely sidestep. Guy continues that "Bate argues that the 'lovely boy" sequences ... reflect the bisexual, homoerotic milieu of the early Jacobean court, and have nothing to do with Shakespeare's own encounters."

At this point any fair minded reader of this review may say out loud, "Yikes!!" For what Guy is now saying about his fellow traveler Bate is that he is doing something that mainstream scholarship has made a cornerstone of their Stratfordian belief-is-biography system for centuries, namely describing a "Shakespeare" who absorbed everything he needed from the world around him ... the "milieu." Stratman was SpongeWill, the great absorber of his time.

But what makes this latest version of "SpongeWill" most interesting is where Bate apparently goes with it. As Guy explains, "Bate believes that Shakespeare invented 'deep England', a rustic idyll centred on the Midlands that delights in mingling morris men and royal spectacle ... An idea of 'deep England' first appears in Justice Shallow's scenes in Henry IV, Part 2, and is increasingly voiced in the History plays, until in King John Shakespeare asks who will speak for England during a bloody war of succession, when power hungry leaders cannot agree."

"Mingling morris men and royal spectacle?" And yet, a moment later, "a bloody war of succession when power hungry leaders cannot agree?" There is much more to say about Guy's review, Bate's book and what both tell us about the current state of the authorship debate, circa 2009. Stay tuned.

Visions and revisions in the writing of history and literature

WEBoyle — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 03:49:00 GMT

The Shakespeare Adventure is a site managed by supporters of the Oxfordian theory of the Shakespeare authorship---i.e. that the 17th Earl of Oxford, Edward de Vere, was the true author of the Shakespeare Canon. In the coming months we will be providing content about the Shakespeare authorship debate as an on-going story with its own history, dating from Elizabethan England right up to today, a story about history and politics, true stories and official stories.

Over the past 25 years the authorship debate has gained many new adherents (advocates and agnostics), in part because of Charlton Ogburn's 1984 The Mysterious William Shakespeare (a book that promoted Oxford as the true Shakespeare) and in part because of the awesome power of the Internet to disseminate information.

But while much progress has been made over these years, there is still a long way to go before the mainstream powers that be even acknowledge that there is an authorship problem, let alone seriously consider alternate theories of the authorship.

This site will be surveying the common ground among all those who have read and studied Shakespeare and the Elizabethan era ---Stratfordian and anti-Sratfordian alike. The authorship debate involves everyone, whether they know it or not, or acknowledge it or not. Just ask Brian Vickers (the mainstream scholar who decided last year that Shakespeare didn't write A Lover's Complaint ---so much for the name on the title page meaning anything ...thanks, Brian!).

We will be viewing this era through the lens of Oxford's "being Shakespeare," but we will also be viewing all the politics of the era, and the ways in which Shakespeare (whoever he was) was apparently up to his eyeballs in a political hothouse of power politics (and conspiracy) revolving around the Elizabethan endgame over the struggle for the succession following Elizabeth. It is a story with many related sub-stories under both Elizabeth I and her successor James I, and it is a story much written about over the centuries, but always from the point of view that Shakespeare was an "outsider" from Stratford who was observing it, not an "insider" who was living it (let alone even considering that the insider may have believed that he had a stake in it).

So, if you'd like some new adventures in your life, check out the search for the true Shakespeare and true story of how he did it and why he hid it (or rather, we shou;d say, why he was forced to hide it). Join us in revisting and rethinking centuries of history. We're pretty sure that you'll love it.

For openers, we have several essays available that demonstrate how history can be viewed when the "Shakespeare" piece of the puzzle is changed. Hank Whittemore's essay "The politics of massacres, the need for intelligence" (which appeared in the premier issue (Fall 2001) of Shakespeare Matters (newsletter of The Shakespeare Fellowship), draws on some parallels between the 20th century and the 16th century. With a taking-off point of the September 11th World Trade Center attacks in NYC, Whittemore makes an intriguing case for how little things have changed in four centuries as he reviews the young Shakespeare's reaction to similar religious/political turmoil in the 1570s.

Charles Boyle's essay on the political nature of Twelfth Night ("Allowed Fools: Notes on an Elizabethan Twelfth Night" (available on the archived copy of The Ever Reader hosted at the Internet Archive), presents this popular play as an insider's "Saturday Night Live" view of Elizabeth's court. William Boyle's 1998 Shakespeare Oxford Newsletter article on the Jacobean politics surrounding the publication of the First Folio in 1623 ("Shakespeare's Son on Death Row?" ---available on The Ever Reader section of The Shakespeare Oxford Society Home Page) demonstrates how those involved in the Oxfordian theory of the Shakespeare authorship debate are answering questions Stratfordian scholars dare not ask.