Born in London into crime and poverty, Katherine began the long climb to education as a mature adult, gaining a BA in Fine Art at the age of 30. She worked first as a journalist, then switched to education and high-school teaching with the advent of parenthood. Her only novel, Dance for Your Daddy, was a best-seller in the UK, in 2007. She’s in the final year of a law degree. She lives in Australia but sometimes camps in London. She can be found loitering round bookshops and her favourite food group is cake, or rather high tea.
_________________________________________
PERTH, AUSTRALIA: It all began years ago, with a sight-seeing tour to Stratford Upon Avon. Within the Holy Trinity Church, I gazed upon that most famous of unprepossessing statues, and read the doggerel on the grave marker below. I pondered, “These are final words from the greatest poet of all time?” (Does a fluent writer revert back to basic ABC’s? Does a master painter suddenly start drawing clumsy stick figures? Does a symphony-composer revert to nursery rhymes? And even if they did, in studied simplicity, genius would still be discernable.)
Fast forward many years, to my high-school classroom. As an English Literature teacher my job was to deconstruct literary texts for senior students, which I had done over many, many years studying every kind of text, author and genre – and particularly The Bard. Now, as part of every examination, there comes the sticky deconstruction of “authorial voice”, the bane of every English student’s revision. Analysis too, of an author’s perspective, which in this case meant not only context, but embedded values, attitudes, beliefs, social status, etc. I observed that Shakespeare’s voice and perspective were singularly aristocratic. (All those kings, queens, earls, dukes, lords and ladies, which the author treats with customary, familial ease, for example.) All writers, from my long experience, reference their own milieu one way or another. The themes and ideas present in their works reflect their own lived experience, contexts and concerns, even in the strangest of fictions. Why would the man, Shakespeare, be any different?
Further, finalizing a law degree myself, I noted, that the Bard appeared familiar with legal lingo, which one wouldn’t expect of a lay writer. (Notwithstanding my study of the infamous Shaksper Will. No one reading that testament could conclude that the commissioner of it was possessed of any kind of literary or artistic bent).
Shelving many doubts, I came across a tome in regard to Christopher Marlowe, making a convincing case for authorship but his context didn’t match the aristocratic, highly idiosyncratic ‘ghost’ that had emerged in my classroom over all those years. (Ditto Bacon). After reading more “autobiographical” Shakespeare works, dissatisfied, I began scratching around, coming across J. Thomas Looney’s book, followed soon after by Mark Anderson’s investigation.
Just as in a trial, where the truth of evidence emerges to substantiate a case, the jig-saw pieces of de Vere’s biography dove-tailed perfectly with his work. Eureka! More Googling turned up the De Vere Society, followed soon after by the Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship, whereupon, I began gobbling up the most excellent scholarship on offer.
Discovering the 17th Earl of Oxford as the “the soul of the age” enriched my understanding of his work and characters beyond my imagination. The Shaksper caricature gave way to a fascinating, faceted human being, which by scintillating turns brought his authorial voice to startling, brilliant life. How grateful I am to have made this journey, to finding that my life-long friend, William Shakespeare, is unmistakably, characteristically Edward de Vere. De Vere Shakespeare, has become my lifelong friend and endless source of astonishment.
Gloria in excelsis deo!
© January 2023 All Rights Reserved
“How I Became an Oxfordian” is edited by Bob Meyers. You may submit your essay on this topic (500 words or fewer in an editable format such as MS Word), along with a digital photo of yourself, to: communications@shakespeareoxfordfellowship.org. Also include a sentence about yourself (e.g., “Jane J. Smith is a businesswoman in San Francisco.”).
