The peer reviewed journal of the Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship has now been published in print and electronic editions totaling 320 pages. The issue contains 10 articles, 7 book reviews, an interview with novelist Jon Benson, and two in-depth letters which respond to papers in the 24th issue of The Oxfordian.
The journal is available on the SOF website electronically.
While SOF members can access the entire issue, non-members can freely access the editor’s column, a paper and one book review, while all content in previous issues are available to everyone. For those who want a copy of the print edition, it can be purchased for $14.99 plus postage via Amazon.
Continuing the journal’s tradition of reproducing the best pictorial art related to the English Renaissance and Shakespeare’s works, the front cover is a four-color reproduction of “Hamlet & Horatio in the Churchyard” by Victor Müller, painted in 1868. The back cover reproduces a Portrait of Susan Bertie, Later Countess of Kent, by Master of the Countess of Warwick, at Beaney House of Art and Knowledge.
Earl Showerman’s paper opens the research section by providing evidence that Arthur Golding’s 1564 translation of Justin’s Abridged Trogus Pompeius, which was the first book ever dedicated to his nephew, Edward de Vere, should be included among the classical sources for Titus Andronicus.
In the same vein, Elisabeth Waugaman’s paper traces the French influence in Hamlet – it examines texts which Shakespeare used as sources in the writing of Hamlet; the profound influence of Belleforest’s Amleth, whose psychological influence has not been fully appreciated; Montaigne’s Essais; the contemporary historical and political background as they relate to the story of the play, as well as modern studies that analyze Shakespeare’s knowledge of French.
Taking up the suggestion of historian Ramon Jimenez in his investigation of anonymous plays that later became dramas in the Shakespeare canon, Micheal Hyde answers the question: How did Shakespeare transform the chronicle of King Leir into the tragedy of King Lear? Hyde’s article explains how the Bard employed the vogue for Senecan tragedy in this dramatic metamorphosis and offers evidence that Shakespeare was also the author of the original King Leir play.
Cheryl Eagan-Donovan research focuses on the role that Shakespeare played in early modern theater. She notes there is more documentary evidence about the lives of the three theater impresarios Henslowe, Allen, and Burbage, than for their associate William Shakspere of Stratford. She compares what is revealed in the extant documents in one important archival source, the Henslowe-Alleyn collection at Dulwich College, and two popular theatrical depictions of the story of the Bard and his plays.
In “A Portrait of Susan Bertie or Mary Vere, Shakespeare’s Sister?” Katherine Chiljan offers documentary and circumstantial evidence that the sitter of the portrait identified as Susan Bertie is actually a contemporary portrait of Mary Vere, the sister of Edward de Vere.
Australian scholar Matt Hutchinson investigates the contentious topic of Shakespeare’s death. There was no literary notice given of the death of William Shakspere of Stratford in 1616. On the other hand, there are numerous veiled allusions, beginning in late 1604, which suggest that the great writer had passed and that he had been involved in scandalous behavior. The paper examines the contemporary evidence contained in more than a dozen Elizabeth and Jacobean texts to ascertain when the real Shakespeare died.
Literary historian James A. Warren’s monograph delves into a key moment in Edward de Vere’s life. The key development in the fateful year of 1576 from which all else flowed was Edward de Vere’s belief that he was not the father of the daughter, Elizabeth, born to his wife, Anne Cecil, while he was traveling on the continent. The most long-lasting consequence of that year was the break between de Vere and the Cecils—his wife and her parents, William Cecil and Mildred Cooke—as a result of his “mislikes” about events related to Anne’s pregnancy. De Vere would go on to portray aspects of the events of that year in nearly half of his plays and poems.
Dr. Waugaman provides readers with psychological insight into a different aspect of the authorship debate. In his view, the ongoing controversy over who wrote the works of Shakespeare illustrates the tension between simplicity and complexity. Sigmund Freud believed that connecting the Shakespeare works with the Earl of Oxford’s life would deepen our psychoanalytic understanding of those works. This Oxfordian theory, backed by far more evidence than is the traditional theory, remains surprisingly unfamiliar to Shakespeare scholars, who dismiss it without having studied it objectively.
Robert Prechter’s paper seeks to refute the theory that the 1594 book Willobie His Avisa is a libel against Penelope Rich, that Penelope Rich is the “dark lady” of the Sonnets, and that the Earl of Southampton and Penelope Rich were the biological parents of Henry de Vere (b. 1593), who was raised as Oxford’s son by his second wife, Elizabeth Trentham.
Wrapping up the research section is Professor Charles Mercier’s paper, “Where did Shakespeare Learn Hendiadys?” According to Mercier, hendiadys is not rare in Ovid – the Golding translator confronted it many times in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. This article offers a disciplined identification of hendiadys when arguing about its application to the Shakespeare authorship question. It will then identify some 40 instances of classical hendiadys in Metamorphoses and consider their treatment in the Arthur Golding version.
The 25th issue of The Oxfordian also showcases seven book reviews related to Shakespeare and the authorship issue, starting with the current bestseller by Elizabeth Winkler, Shakespeare was a Woman and Other Heresies, reviewed by Ramon Jimenez.
The other books under review are:
Shakespeare, Elizabeth and Ivan by Rima Greenhill. Reviewed by Bruce Johnston.
Shakespeare’s Book: The Story Behind the First Folio and the Making of Shakespeare by Chris Laoutaris. Reviewed by Gabriel Ready
A Second Edition of B.M. Ward’s Biography of Edward de Vere edited by James A. Warren. Reviewed by Margo Anderson
The True Tragedy of Richard the Third by Ramon Jiménez. Reviewed by Michael Delahoyde
Percy Allen: Collected Writings on Shakespeare: Volume 5 by Percy Allen, edited by James A. Warren. Reviewed by Don Rubin
Behind the Mask of William Shakespeare by Abel Lefranc (new translation by Frank Lawler). Reviewed by Elisabeth Waugaman.
A Conversation with author Jon Benson (aka Doug Hollman). Interview by Phoebe Nir.
Finally, the issue showcases two debates – the first is a response to James Warren’s article on the First Folio by John Hamill and John Shahan, with a reply by Mr. Warren. Following that exchange is a letter by Earl Showerman who takes issue with Sky Gilbert’s article on what Gilbert thinks is the actual book that Hamlet is reading in the play.
