Not DeVere!
- The fact of deVere’s DEATH in 1604 ought to give the authorship conspiracy authors at least a moment's pause: He can be eliminated as a possible alternative writer, as he died before the latter plays were written, let alone performed. All of which means : Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, Timon of Athens. Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale, The Tempest, Henry VIII and The Two Noble Kinsmen were written and went into production two to seven years after deVere’s death. Even if we throw out Pericles and The Two Noble Kinsmen (and I grant that some of the Chamberlain's AND the King's men had a hand in "remembering" what lines they spoke), that still leaves : Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, Timon of Athens, Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale, The Tempest, and Henry VIII, which were not, I promise you, ghost-written. Enough already. Shakespeare wrote his plays -- no one else.
- —Guest mcobb
William Shakespeare
- Well I think that Shakespeare wrote this because he was one of the best known artists back in his time. I also think this because no one else has written anything like his pieces. His best piece was Romeo and Juliet and no one else has written anything like that. Well at least none that I know of. That is why I think Shakespeare is the real writer of his books. - Casey Rojas
- —Guest Casey Rojas
Read the book
- I can recommend the book as I have read it and it is genuinely intriguing. Unlike many Shakespeare biographies, its interpretation is based on credible information. More generally the killer fact for me is that of 70 contemporary documents which are personal to Shakespeare of Stratford, none – none – relate to literary activity or writing. Read Diana Price, Shakespeare’s unorthodox biography.
- —Guest Chris C
Who's Who? Shaxpere or de Vere?
- Succintly, after 60 years of research: 1. "these.sonnets.all.by.ever" 6-2-4 code for sonnet dedication (Rollet; Bond) 2. "were it ought to me I bore the canopy": (Sonnet 125) Who else? 3. Marguerite: "shake a speare" and the spear in the family crest. 4. Knowledge of various disciplines: law, falconry, Italian culture, tennis (dispute with Sidney); real life associates portrayed in the plays: Burleigh-Polonius; cousin Horace-Horatio; life events in the plays; education; access to books in Burleigh House. 5. Mountains more of evidence: Read Looney; Anderson; Stritmatter; search the internet for evidence, reviews, comments. (Don't omit opposing views: Delia Bacon; Abel le Franc; James Shapiro; then compare the real evidence. Justice Stevens has.) Sorry doubters and non-researchers. The mass of evidence leads to one conclusion: "ever"
- —Since49
Of Course Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare
- Those who have ever been involved in the theatre know that actors and theatrical people are the biggest gossips in the world and there is no way Will could have kept his true identity a secret. I got this from a friend, who has since passed on, probably having a great old time with Will up in the Great Theatre in the sky, and I'm standing by it. It makes sense to me.
- —TranquilCalley
Legal Fiction
- Twain, of all people, who learned as a type-setter and apprentice, live in an era where the greatest living American writer--Lincoln--was also self educated, should have known better. Further, had he blown less smoke, he might have investifated the exclusively rote method of a college education during the Tudor era. As to the dearth of documentation, be advised that the English of today are not as they were during Elizabethan times, were it not for the Spanish Archives, we would know less than 30% of what we know today about the Armada, let alone about the psycho-bio of the Avon Man. Delia Bacon, Looney and Ogborn's writing at least stir up interest in the works, but they ever set up chronoclastic criteria that are full of false assumptions. I could more readily apply them to Philip Sydney, despite his supposed premature death at Zutphen
- —Guest bob austin
Hey, What About the Book?
- Everybody appears to have chimed in with pre-programmed responses when the catalyst for this exchange of perspectives is a book that claims to use a scientific technique for getting closer to the truth. I haven't read it yet, but when I get a copy I will check the bibliography for William and Elizabeth Friedman's 1957 book, ‘The Shakespeare Cyphers’, which thoroughly demolishes every attempt to prove Francis Bacon's authorship of the plays and sonnets through cryptanalysis. De Vere's case had not yet become popular when the Friedmans - non-partisan cryptologists - studied the claims for non-Stratfordian authorship, but they clarified the scientific standards that must be met if we are to believe that the true author of these magnificent works was not a person named William Shakespeare, but someone else who enciphered his own identity in the works themselves. Major enthusiasts for that idea were named Looney, Batty and Feeley. Go figure.
- —Guest donahawkins
One Thing the Debate Proves ...
- The one thing the debate proves is that there have always been and always be elitists among us who find it necessary to look beyond what is real and create theories to justify their conclusions. A common man who read a lot wrote the plays? No, it had to be a nobleman because only a wealthy person could have written the stories. What a shame that such elitism pervades our society to this day.
- —Guest Guest Gordy
The De Vere Case is Nonsensical
- A lower nobleman had to have written the plays. For one thing, the Tudor defence in the Henry plays had to have been written by someone personally trusted by Queen Elizabeth. old enough to have had to relearn blank verse, but experienced enough to plot the trilogy, be out of the country when Part I was launched, Henry VI, and be back for the other parts, in which he had a lesser but increasing part. None of this fits Catholic out-of-favor De Vere. He would have lacked contact with the law, lower classes, etc. As to a sonnet, the form was invented that we call 'Shakespearean' around the late 1580s by a circle around George Gascoigne, including as published in the original suppressed version of ‘An Hundred Sundry Flowers’. There is no evidence for Oxford whatever; and throwing money after either Will Shakespeare or De Vere isn't going to solve the two fundamental questions: why a pseudonym? And why a 45-year-old playwright had to learn blank verse in the 1580s and the 1590? WS? EDV? No.
- —Spock888
Shakespeare, Of Course
- I would refer you to an excellent book, "Shakespeare, the Evidence" by Ian Wilson. Wilson is a historical researcher who first heard about the Shakespeare controversy when his daughter (as I recall) came home from college talking about it. Being unfamiliar with the theories, he started out with a completely open mind. Having researched all the available evidence, he came to the conclusion that none other than William Shakespeare of Stratford wrote the plays attributed to him. I agree. Anyone who looks at the actual evidence for Shakespeare, as opposed to the inferences that masquerade as evidence, has to agree.
- —Guest Jay
De Vere - The Facts
- DeVere's uncle, Henry Howard, created the Shakespearean sonnet. It was a distinctive form never before used and later employed only by Shakespeare. Edward DeVere wrote a Shakespearean sonnet 20 years before the name "Shake-speare" first appeared. Another uncle was one of DeVere's tutors, Arthur Golding, who lived in the same house as DeVere during his formative years, translated during that time Ovid's 'Metamorphoses', which translation was commonly recognized as the single most important source employed by Shakespeare. The house they lived in was that of William Cecil, Lord Burghley, the most powerful man in England and commonly recognized to be the original for Polonius in Hamlet. All of this is incontrovertible fact.
- —thunterphd
Shakespeare
- I`ll second guest Ann. Even if future examinations might tell us, that one/ several other people wrote these works, we can learn many things about this time, politics, philosophy, religion, culture and how people thought and about their feelings. Therefore I enjoy Shakespeare and his poetry so much - although I don`t speak English well. I am working on it!
- —shakesbear
More Evidence for De Vere than for Shake
- The more you read about the parallels between de Vere's life and the plays, such as ‘Hamlet’ and the ‘Merchant of Venice’, the more convincing the case. He owned a Geneva Bible with passages in the plays notated; his uncle translated Ovid, and his other uncle originated the form now known as the Shakespearean sonnet. Those who believe that a man who owned no books and never wrote a letter wrote the plays hasn't seen the evidence.
- —Guest Marilyn
Shakespeare Rules OK
- They hate it, don't they? The academics through the ages and the expensively educated aristos of his own time. They hate the idea that a man with no university education produced these great works. I think he did!
- —Guest Prodnose
What Do Great Thinkers and Authors Think
- For years I told my classes that Shakespeare was like two other great authors only educated to the age of 12, but who also wrote with profound insight into all classes of society, Mark Twain and Charles Dickens. Then I learned that both Dickens and Twain questioned the possibility of Stratford Will's authorship. Scholars, especially American, are appalled at the idea of de Vere's authorship. I think they are just too similar as people to Stratford Will perhaps, and the Hollywood plot would have the well-meaning small town boy make it big. Who would want a stuffy noble to be the author. Uncomfortably backward in our modern age. Yet the author was an elitist at heart, and a die-hard monarchist. He knows the middle classes and lower classes as Chaucer did, from the patronising view of the court. There are very few middle class characters in Shakespeare, but many humble, lowly servants that an earl would be very familiar with.
- —Guest gsullivan
