In
the late 1980s I watched a PBS Frontline program called The Shakespeare Mystery.
For centuries it has been debated whether a bland tradesman and sometime
poacher of game could actually have written the oeuvre of the greatest poet in
the English language. On the face of it, it just isn't logical.
The PBS piece convinced me of what most Shakespeare fans surely suspect.
Whoever wrote those plays and poems had to be classically educated, well
traveled, at home in court, and an extraordinary, larger than life man who had
had numerous adventures--and was friendly with the riff-raff as well as the
mighty. This does not seem possible for the little small-time businessman
living in the isolated town of Stratford, days away from London. Try as the
Stratfordians might to link their man Shakspere [sic] to the works of this Mr.
Shakespeare of London, nobody in his lifetime ever commented on the Stratford
man's writing talent.
I did some research on this when an article appeared in Harper's Magazine in
the 1990s, and presented my talk at my hometown library. It was my aim to lay
to rest the old myth that the writer of the plays was Shaksper of Stratford.
I all but stated my belief as fact, based on what I had read, that the man
known as Shakespeare was actually Edward De Vere, the earl of Oxford. I’ll tell
you why.
De
Vere’s name was uncovered by a clergyman, J. Thomas Looney, in the 1920s, who
was convinced only that the plays had to have been written by someone other
than the man Shakspere who was known to be contemporary to the dates when most
of the plays were written. Not finding any evidence that the Stratford citizen
was known to be a writer, and finding considerable evidence that he could not
have known the vast amounts of classical literature, language, geography,
philosophy, and even human nature the writer of the plays and poetry knew, he
made a list of qualities the writer would have and set out to find better
candidates for the actual writer. To his surprise, a nobleman emerged who not
only met all the criteria he had but also had life experiences that paralleled
many if not most of the plots in the Shakespeare plays.
Edward De Vere lived a life worth reading about. An aristocrat in Elizabethan England,
he was a child prodigy, a poet courtier, an adventurer, and an all-around son
of a bitch who made a ton of mistakes in his life. He was profligate with
money, a great drinker and storyteller, a juror in such trials as that of Mary
Queen of Scots, Robert Devereaux, the earl of Essex; and Philip Howard, who was
found guilty of treason in plotting the victory of the Spanish Armada against
England in 1589.
As a child, De Vere was the ward of William Cecil, principal adviser to Queen
Elizabeth. He was tutored by the best educators in England of that day, having
the following curriculum:
7-7:30 Dancing
7:30-8 Breakfast
8-9:00 French
9-10 Latin
10-10:30 Writing and Drawing
1-2:00 Cosmography
2-3:00 Latin
3-4:00 French
4-4:30 Exercises with his Pen
A rather impressive course of study for a boy, isn’t it? What is “cosmography,”
you might well ask. As a matter of fact it was geography, history, physical
science, astronomy, sociology, English, comparative literature, linguistics,
and more. Basically it was everything known in the Elizabethan world. And de
Vere had the finest teachers in England as his private tutors. On holy days
(holidays) he was expected to “read before dinner the Epistle and Gospel in his
own tongue and the other tongue [Greek] after dinner. All the rest of the day
to be spent in riding, shooting, dancing, walking, and other commendable
exercises, saving the time for prayer."
His intense education included the reading of Beowulf and Ovid’s Metamorphoses
and detailed study of the Bible, as noted. That he was surrounded by the
greatest personal libraries in England was a boon to him all his life, as he
was a voracious reader and could write beautiful prose and poetry. He read the
law and received a Master of Arts degree from St. John’s College at Cambridge.
De Vere grew up from a prodigy to be a brilliant if contentious and conflicted
man. He was expert at squandering the funds and lands he’d inherited, and he
was never entirely comfortable with William Cecil, his guardian. Cecil was an
eminent Elizabethan favored as a trusted advisor to the Queen herself.
In one of the few missteps of his life, William Cecil arranged a marriage
between his daughter Anne and De Vere in 1571. In 1575, De Vere took off for
Italy for a year, claiming that his marriage had never been consummated. He
spent some time in Venice, Florence, Sienna. On his journey he traveled to
Greece, Croatia – then known as Illyria – and back to England to meet his first
daughter and reconcile with his wife. Although he accepted the marriage he
never really participated in it. He was rumored to have had an affair with
Queen Elizabeth, and he fathered a child by his mistress Anna Vavasour. He got
into many a scrap, including political ones. He was known as a poet and writer,
a dandy, a great drinker and storyteller and a tempestuous poet possessed of a
tormented soul.
He had a sister who may have been cut of the same cloth. When she set out to
marry she would have none of the suitors William Cecil had chosen for her,
preferring the hothead Peregrine Bertie. De Vere despised Peregrine Bertie and
did what he could to block the marriage, but after it happened he accepted the
couple and even became a good friend to his volatile brother in law. The couple
provided quite a display of temperament and the constant drama of power
struggles as they settled into married life. I am not the only one to note that their drama may have been the inspiration for The Taming of the Shrew.
This is only a fraction of the story, but even in this brief, partial
re-telling, one can see not only the makings of an extraordinary life in one of
the most compelling times and places in the history of the world but also quite
possibly the seeds of some of the greatest theatrical writing ever to have been
produced.
The
man from Stratford, however, had at best a grammar school education and a
rather ordinary life from what we can tell. Supporters, and particularly the
Stratford Trust, say that his genius simply surpassed our comprehension, and
some suggest it is snobbish to believe that a common man could have written so
well. This is a side issue. The meat of literature is its stories—and
Shakespeare’s work is rife with classical allusions, biblical references, the
geography of the Elizabethan world--and life itself, none of which would have
been known to a provincial shopkeeper. Mr. Shakspere of Stratford, as far as
is known, did not own any books.
Quite
an industry has grown up around the little city of Stratford. It is a
beautifully preserved replica of Elizabethan England, and no doubt that is all
because a man named Shakspere once lived there. It is a pleasure to visit and
to see the magnificent productions at its huge theater. England is justly proud
of its national treasure, and has invested a fortune in keeping Shakespeare’s
name alive over the centuries, even if the research on Mr. Shakspere may be dubious. The big question seems to be, if De Vere wrote the plays, why did he not sign his name to them? Those who believe he did cite the reality that people of the theatre were not respected (to say the least) and it would not have befit a man of De Vere's standing to reveal his connection to them, no matter how far above the rabble he stood.
The controversy still rages in spite of the Trust’s considerable efforts to
quell it. A group exists called The Shakespeare Authorship Coalition, which
purports to debate, investigate, and ultimately find the answer. The group does not endorse De Vere or any other of the Shakespeare contenders. It asks only to investigate. The Trust has a great deal at stake and seeks to disqualify this group in order to keep the Stratford flame
glowing.
All the Authorship Coalition wants to do is consider other
possibilities, and I’m squarely in their camp. Years ago I signed the group’s Declaration of Reasonable Doubt, which simply states that there are possibly other writers
who might have written the works of Shakespeare. To read the document, and sign
if you choose, click on the link and you'll receive occasional emails (one a year, I believe) about the latest signers. I received one last week which led me to buy an amusing and engrossing book--Shakespeare in Court, by Alexander Waugh.
The question remains. The traditionalist stick to the old story, denying that there is any question at all. According to William S. Niederkorn in the New York Times in 2002: "Most of the academic world has
ignored the authorship question for generations, or belittled it as the
obsession of idiosyncratic amateur scholars, while building altars in
students' minds to the image the tragedian David Garrick promoted during
the 1769 Shakespeare jubilee that created the Stratford tourism
business: the man of humble origins who rose to the literary pantheon.
The vast majority of academics still subscribe to that belief."
Where
many have doubted the possibility that the isolated actor-turned-merchant of
remote Stratford could have had the education and the grace to have written the
monumental works of Shakespeare, no one has come up with a better candidate for
the real author than Edward De Vere. I hope I have piqued your interest!
