Join us LIVE on Sunday, Oct 13 at 4pm E | 1pm P for a special edition of Shakespeare Illuminated on a topic viewers have been requesting: Professor Michael Delahoyde will show Shakespeare-Oxford’s Hidden Chaucer.
The link to attend will be sent out via our mailing list. Not on the SOF email list? Sign up here!
Oxford idolized Chaucer, the English poet he learned the most from. But Chaucer is never mentioned in the Shakespeare canon, even though the works honor Ovid and even obscure forgotten figures such as the lesser poet in King Richard II’s court, John Gower. Chaucer doesn’t even get an oblique mention in the most relevant play, Richard II, focused on the monarch Chaucer served as diplomat, customs official, Clerk of the King’s Works, and no doubt court entertainer.
Yet Chaucerian phrases and concepts saturate the Shakespeare canon. In addition to some obscure passages showing his thorough knowledge and adulation of Chaucer, Shakespeare-Oxford embeds some extended Chaucerian material so subliminally that no one has before recognized this. He also seems to have recognized the typical plight of poets/prophets: erasure, elimination. The final book by medievalist Terry Jones of Monty Python fame is titled Who Murdered Chaucer?
Professor Delahoyde has taught both Shakespeare and Chaucer Studies, which allowed him to see connections missed by those in more specialized academic siloes. On Sunday, he will shine an Oxfordian light on this cleverly buried material.
Be sure to bring your questions!
Watch your email for the link (sign up to our list here). We hope to see you there!
