Robert Detobel sends this translation of a report on Kurt Kreiler’s new book, broadcast from Deutschlandradio Kultur yesterday (Nov. 11, 2009)
Any educated European knows Shakespeare. Yet it is not certain who he was. The greatest literary genius Europe has ever seen, whose plays and sonnets still today continue shaping our thoughts – and still an enigma. That he was the glover’s son from Stratford upon Avon, this belief has long run out its course. . . . Today the majority of trackers opt for Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. Four years ago Mark Anderson submitted his argument in a 600 page book. In 1994 a Germanophone author, Walter Klier, has already defended the cause of de Vere. This year another Germanophone author, Kurt Kreiler, joins this side. His book, intelligently written and stuffed with a wealth of facts, also makes clear that the search for the mysterious bard is not only thrilling but also important. For if de Vere, this scion of the European peerage, was Shakespeare, then the “godly ” is not the morning star of the Illumination but the sunset of the European aristocratic culture, the last minstrel.
