TO BE (THE AUTHOR) OR NOT TO BE, THAT IS THE QUESTION!
Monday, November 23, 2009 at 11:18AM 
Well what do you know?
A German academic claims to have uncovered the most conclusive evidence to date that the works of William Shakespeare were in fact written by Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford.
ATW readers will know that I have long advocated the case for De Vere and am certain he was the man who composed all those works we have come to love so well.
Kurt Kreiler’s 595-page book, The Man Who Invented Shakespeare, has been published in Germany to some critical acclaim and an English translation is planned for next year. Over 22 chapters, Mr Kreiler, an established Shakespeare scholar, builds a mountain of circumstantial evidence in support of the idea that the world has been honouring the wrong man for centuries. He claims de Vere's known works and letters show a strong Shakespearean style and also points to the earl's nickname at court, 'Spear-shaker'. Mr Kreiler says the earl graduated from Cambridge aged just 14; mastered law and Italian; and would have had a wide-ranging knowledge of the upper classes – in contrast to the lowly-born William Shakespeare. All this, he concludes, means de Vere was well placed to write works such as The Merchant of Venice, Romeo and Juliet and Julius Caesar. Mr Kreiler also believes Hamlet was almost an autobiographical play about the Earl’s life. De Vere’s father-in-law, William Cecil, Lord Burghley, is said to be have been parodied as the character Polonius. “It is interesting to note that his nickname at court was Spear-shaker, due to his ability both at tournaments and because his coat of arms featured a lion brandishing spear,” he said.
I have just finished reading another excellent work on the Authorship issue, Diane Price's "Shakespeare's Unorthodox Biography". Ms Price erudite work points out the legion of contradictions that lie behind the known details of the writer's life and his works and whilst she does not claim De Vere as the author she simply exposes the massive inconsistencies that the Stratfordians brush aside in their determination to maintain the myth of the Stratford man as the writer of the most important works ever published in the English language.
View Printer Friendly Version
Reader Comments (29)
Rubbish. The English language was changing at the time of Shakespeare. Around this time the King James bible was written, and look at the different types of language between the King James bible and Shakespeare's works. Plus he had what was called a literary imagination, where he could imagine himself as another, and put it down on paper. You're buying into a conspiracy theory and no more. Save your money and buy something decent to read.
G
Foure quick points to ponder;
1. The author of the works lived in Stratford, right? He was famous during his life so when he died the people of Stratford immediately recognised his genius by.....doing nothing. Not a word was said. Nothing. No tributes. No mourning. A bit bizarre given every other major poet and playwright of the age had praise on their passing. But not Mr Shakespeare.
2. The first edition of Hamlet was performed in 1589. At that point the Stratford man was 25.
3. The Sonnets were published in 1609, whilst the Stratford man was still alive. The dedication is to "Our Ever Living Poet." The term is only used when the person to whom this refers to is dead. De Vere died in 1604.
4. Literary imaginations do not explain the huge issues involved..
In that regard, I line up with Orson Welles, Mark Twain, Sir John Gielgud and even our own Kenneth Branagh. They, like me, believe that the Stratford man was not the author of the works and the more one reads up on the detail the less likely one is to swallow what you state.
Oh, and on the subject of Bibles - you should read this scholarly analysis of Edward de Vere's Geneva Bible which has sections which are then used in the Shakespeare play.
http://www.shakespearefellowship.org/virtualclassroom/bibledissabsetc.htm
I am a fan of the Bard, lovely use of language and great stories to boot. Ben Jonson is however slightly underrated i feel.
If ye persiste in this pernicious, nay: scandulous vein,
I wouldst warn thee to staye well awaye from the goode people of yon Strateford
Or thou mighte reap unforseen consequences of thine wick'd assertions upon thy bonce!
W.S.
>>the more one reads up on the detail the less likely one is to swallow what you state.<<
Indeed, and also the more one reads the Plays.
Recently looked again at the great Henry V, and within a few pages in the first act alone we find an extremey detailed discussion of old continental (Salic) law, a marvellous psycholoigcal look into men's minds in time of war and a discussion of the reasons for war that predate, and render superfluous, most of the 1960's pacifist ramblings by almost 400 years.
The plays are also full of evidence of an easy familiarity with the Italian northern city states and their people and customs, as well as military tactics and military history.
DeVere had experience in all of these things, Shakespeare in none. The Plays are full of the kind of sly puns on legal jargon that only insiders can make; they are the work of an open and generous Renaissance mind of wide and deep learning.
When back in Stratford, Shakespeare gives no evidence of being anything like this man. He is meanspirited, is involved in many petty legal battles (all of which cite him as an actor and not a playwrite), he doesn't get his daughters taught to read or write, he possesses no books (!) and is referred to by his neighbours always only as an actor.
Noel
Exactly so. The Stratford man is as you describe. that's the record. The author of the sonnets and plays is entirely different.
According to the theory how did the confusion arise. When were the plays attributed to Shakespeare and why? Accident or design?
What about the use of the double noun all through his work?
It is a wonderful theory and certainly entertaining. The De Vere crowd tends to be actors and writers, while the Skakespeare crowd tend to be academics. I fall in with the Shakespeare crowd myself, but I enjoy the arguments advanced by those that disagree.
It's a good argument, for sure!
Henry
For an author like De Vere, to be seen as the author of plays was socially unacceptable. I think De Vere allowed the Stratford man to deal on the plays, so hiding his identity but still with a play on words.
I don't know about others but I find the understandings of the life of De Vere enriches my understanding of the plays and sonnets. The author was a genius without equal and when I think of all the words he invented alone, it is stunning. The insights into humanity are just breath-taking and I just love all the triple puns - hence my like of Mr Costello in these latter days!!!
Oh I really really don't want to get interested in this as it would be such a theif of time.
I think I will succumb in the end though as it seems facinating. I real twist on Whodunit!!!
I am William Shakespeare. I wrote the darn plays. You're an elitist if you think an uneducated man from Stratford couldn't have written the plays and your arguments are silly and unpersuasive.
Hi William
Glad you made it to ATW. Now then, I think your wife to whom you left your "second best bed" and nothing else is looking a word with you, me old china....
Does it really matter? The plays are shite.
Seamus,
"I swear 't is better to be much abused than but to know 't a little..." Othello.
There still terrible, terrible plays. I really can't understand the enjoyment people get out of them.
No --they're-- not.....
There still terrible, terrible plays
That you can't appreciate Shakespeare is not a surprise!
Yes, I cocked up my grammar. People still knew what I was trying to say. Can't really say the same thing for Mr Shakespeare.
The villainy you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.
Damn Jews.
The plays were actually written by a woman, the Ladye Sara Paline from the northern provincial town of Alaska-on- the-wold. It was the liberal lefty London literati who conspired to hide that fact!
lol Colm! You knave.
Colm is the best!
Some of Shakespeare can be pretty heady stuff (I've only read/seen a handful of his plays), but the sililo....solol...soliqu...the speeches Hamlet says to himself, are pretty mofo'in wickeeeeed, yo.
"Colm is the best"
A very astute and spot-on accurate comment Phantom !
I think that he should have given the comedies a miss
Palin might have written Green Eggs and Hamlet.
New Palin account of the 2008 Presidential election campaign: A Comedy of Errors