October 30, 2020
I had a conversion experience. I specialized in Elizabethan Literature (LizLit) when I got my degree, and came out of school embracing the Stratford party line.
But I kept up my reading, and at the University of Utah library stumbled across Charlton Ogburn’s The Mysterious William Shakespeare (1984, rev. 1992). The genius of that book is to begin with what I call the “rope-a-dope” chapters: punch after punch after punch, head-body-head, pounding the crap out of the idea that a country boy from Stratford could have seen what he needed to see, known what he needed to know, read what he needed to read to be “Shakespeare.”
My head was spinning after that — and I didn’t even need to go on to the manifold correlations between the works and the life of the true author: Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. The correlations that absolutely prove the case: falconry, law, Italy, hunting, royal protocol, mythology. It just goes on and on.
I’ve written five full-length stage plays and six novels (all on Amazon). The idea that a writer’s life has nothing to do with his work is laugh-out-loud funny (like saying there aren’t two sexes of chickens). I’m embarrassed for those who make that argument.
Of all the arguments Team Oxford has available, I would draw your attention to three lines:
(1) “… bring you the length of Prester John’s foot …” (Much Ado About Nothing, act 2, sc. 1)
Imagine an illiterate ironworker who paid a penny for admission to the Globe because there was no room at the bear baiting. Prester John? Who was he? Benedick’s entire speech here — although comically vehement and comprehensible to the uneducated as something intended to be funny — refers only to things the most sophisticated audiences would have appreciated. And this is the norm, not the exception.
(2) “As falcons to the lure, away she flies …” (Venus and Adonis, line 1027)
There was no sport more closely linked to the nobility than hunting with trained birds of prey. This line is among many in the works of Shakespeare showing intimate and easy familiarity with hawking and falconry. The author seems to draw naturally upon such metaphors. It seems very unlikely from documented records about William Shakspere of Stratford, hard-headed businessman and sometime loan shark, that he would have been so familiar with this refined and frivolous aristocratic pastime.
(3) “Where is the number of our English dead? [lists two titled aristocrats, one knight, and one ‘esquire’] … None else of name; and of all other men but five and twenty.” (Henry V, act 4, sc. 8)
Most of us in our more egalitarian society would have found the author Shakespeare insufferable. Arrogant beyond belief. Henry names the elite who fell at Agincourt but as far as everyone else: Who cares? In Much Ado (act 1, sc. 1), we also see very little ado about common soldiers. They literally don’t count! Leonato asks: “How many gentlemen have you lost in this action?” Messenger: “But few of any sort, and none of name.” Leonato (smugly): “A victory is twice itself when the achiever brings home full numbers.” Shakespeare uses the word “slave” about 170 times — generally, it appears, not to indicate actual slaves but in referring to ordinary working people.
So we have the picture of commoners paying good money at the Globe to be insulted over and over again. This is a nobleman’s point of view. If Arthur Miller had this attitude, his famous play would have been “Just a Salesman, Nobody Important.”
And these are just a few lines. Anyone with time and energy could offer hundreds more. But it’s hard for people to admit they’re wrong — especially when there are tenured professorships in play.
— Nate Briggs
P.S. I’m ambitious to compose a stage play about Edward de Vere. There’s a title (“Tempestuous”) and five characters: de Vere himself, the young Elizabeth, the old Elizabeth, Anne Cecil, and Anne Vavasour. The problem with writing a play about de Vere: What do you leave out?
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