Pseudonyms and Allonyms in the Renaissance and Today 

Good, Dorothea, that you added the point about Marcy North's book.

I'm reminded that at some point during promotion of the Oxfordian film "Anonymous," Rhys Ifans, the actor playing Oxford, commented that people were always getting him mixed up with Rafe Spall, the actor playing Will "Shakespeare"--and this, despite no obvious physical resemblance. Confusion ensues where confusion will?

Good to emphasize the police-state, paranoid atmosphere, so much at variance with the Merrie Olde England, Disney-on-Avon fairy tale we've been fed from childhood.

So much to glean from this episode - for example, Phoebe's commentary on Kepler's Star and "what it was like to live there" around the 53min mark. Marvellous! Bryan's commentary on whether it was a pseudonym or an allonym - "it could have started out as one, then morphed into the other". Indeed Bryan!

The knowledgeable endorsement of Robert Prechter's comprehensive research found in Oxford's Voices is appreciated. As Phoebe Nir points out, Prechter "normalizes" the allonym concept, I would add, even for those who subscribe to Bacon and Marlowe as the true author. When this filter is used on literature from Oxford's lifetime, the fog lifts. Among the mysteries that dissolve is an answer to why Plutarch's Lives shows up in the Roman plays, as Robert Boog points out in his recent book, Where North by Shakespeare Goes South. Dennis McCarthy should offer an explanation. It remains a psychological question as to why Oxford felt the compulsion to hide his identity as a writer to the extent he did. Precther shows the earliest known English translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses in 1560 can be traced to the child Ned Vere who at age ten published a partial translation of the poem cycle in The Legend of Narcissus and attributed it to "T.H." the initials of the publisher. Oxford completed the monumental translation of the entire Ovid Metamorphoses six or seven years later, masking himself under his uncle's name, Arthur Golding. The psychoanalyst Richard Waugerman has identified Oxford in the Ovid translation, and one wonders if Waugerman's profession does not provide a sufficient foundation to explain the compulsive behavior. Arguably, the sole author may not have even fully understood that he was writing under multiple identities as he flitted from one to another, being possessed to the extent that explains a manic behavior that cranked out one book after another under disparate pseudonyms. Anyone who invented 1000 personae for the stage as Shakespeare also saw the world through many identities.

Good, too, the mention that attitudes toward authorship were quite different in the Elizabethan era--the credit we would be eager to claim would be considered a disgrace--or a danger--to writers in the 1500s. Early Oxfordian Percy Allen was especially good on the vast difference between authorial perspectives then and now.

If we believe that Robert Greene was Oxford...which I have recently been converted to accepting, a whole new perspective opens up on De Vere's sense of humour, and also his own acting skills! Think of the works that he dedicates to The Earl of Oxford! Think of Robert Greene's supposedly recanting of his life's frivolous productions as he "dies" tragically! Oxford must have been falling off his chair with hysterical laughter as he put pen to paper. The sense of mischief is palpable, and as funny as any of Feste's lines in Twelfth Night. "The best for comedy" indeed!

Very 🎉enjoyable - Thank you All for this ❤

Please don't ever stop doing these!! This is exactly what I've been looking for and it's just brilliant!! Thank you all!! ❤❤❤

Excellent analysis! More!!!

Learning a lot from the comment section as well. What a great community!

Good point by Bryan about how DeVere could have hit on the allonym. He might have encountered the rube from Stratford on Avon while he was holding the Elizabethan equivalent of the valet parking concession outside a theater. Engaging him in conversation, he asks his name and gets "Will Shaksper'. "'Shaksper'...Shake spear. I like it. Reminds me of that thing Gabriel Harvey said about me; 'Vultus tela vibrat.'"

I love that they were talking about names, one of my friends is Jon Davies, my best friend is David Davies, two years ago we took a photo of him with Member of Parliament David Davies who was born the day before my friend, not to be confused with David Davis MP. My Dad Peter Davies was known as Peter T not to be confused with the other 2 Peter Davies he worked with as a teacher at the same school. I married Stephen Davies not the snooker player Steven Davis. Now I have reverted to my single name of Clare Davies. If you think that there is a difference in pronunciation between Davis and Davies, there is not, I get irritated if people pronounce my name as Dayveees, it is pronounced Dayviss, even though spelled Davies. It is the most common surname in Wales. Shakespeare and all it's variations is relatively rare now, but there were a number of William Shakespeares around in the 1500, one of them drowned in the river Avon. Please do not confuse William Shakespeare the writer with the first man who got the Covid Vaccine.😊

Well done regarding the "Alan Smithee" observation. As far as the "name on the title page" is concerned, I cannot help but think of screenwriter Dalton Trumbo as a modern day equivalent, a point that Diana Price made some time ago. Trumbo was blacklisted during the 1950s McCarthy witch hunt, but his work was in high demand still, so he went on to write under several different names during that time. In 1953, Trumbo won the Oscar for Best Story for "Roman Holiday". Trumbo had asked his colleague Ian McLellan Hunter to lend his name to the script. Trumbo was finally awarded the writing credit for "Roman Holiday" in 1993. In 1956, he won the Oscar for Best Story again, this time for "The Brave One", under the name Robert Rich; he couldn't attend the Awards to receive it. Sounds familiar. Thank you all for your amazing work!

Bacon and Devere. And my ending is despair, Unless I be relieved by prayer, Which pierces so that it assaults Mercy itself, and frees all faults. Through his mercy, you shall enter his kingdom. That's what this is all about. That is all.

As Jonathan says, people want us to explain how Shake-speare was connected with the businessman Shakspere. But we have to admit we don't know for sure--we can only speculate. In terms of the hyphen, it's little known that hyphenated last names were uncommon in Britain before a 19th-century inheritance law led men with property but no sons to leave their estate to a son-in-law who agreed to perpetuate his benefactor's name in a new, hyphenated last name.

One wonders whether the hyphenated name in Jonson's 1616 cast list could indicate that de Vere himself appeared as an actor. Sejanus actually was staged before Oxford's death, in 1603 I believe. BTW I'm with Phoebe, Dorothea and Prechter on the voices of Oxford. Have recently (for the first time) been reading an anthology of Nashe's works, and I have noticed that his references to Ovid are every bit as obsessive as those of Shakespeare's are!

The "name on the plays" is one of the most pointed and obvious clues to this issue. The hyphenated "invention" Shake - Speare, beginning at Venus and Adonis, ignored by exulted professors, yet a schoolboy can see it's simple conceit.

I think my both my ancestors the Mayor of London Sir Thomas Hayes and Robertus Moor in Stratford (whose marriage was recorded on same page as WS daughter) knew he didn't write anything. I feel it in my (dna) bones !

A reply to the Stratfordian stance of his name is on the plays/folio can be a reminder of the 'apocryphal' plays which also had his name pn them. It is universally accepted that these plays are not written by the same author of the canon, yet still bear his name (stratfordians dismiss it as unscrupulous publishers/printers, attempting to cash in). The reality is that there were 'shakespeare' plays that were printed that were not his, but his name is on them. So, we cannot take at face value that a name was affixed to a work as the proof of authorship.

For the "Why?" part of the discussion, the main reason (politics) was, of course, most significant.

Just found that Fulk Greville is my 12 th great grandfather. How many others share this information?

More on the psychology of writers who use pen names--for a wide variety of internal as well as external meanings: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-rVj8av9GmGU.html

Regarding Ben Johnson not praising Shakspur: why wasn't there an outpouring of grief over Edward De Vere's death?

Virtus fronte habitat; Mars occupat ora; Minerva In dextra latitat: Bellona in corpore regnat: Martius ardor inest; scintillant lumina: vultus Tela vibrat: quis non redivivum iuret Achillem? In modern Italian "volto" which is a masculine word like Vultus (here I am unsure if it is nominative or accusative) means "face" (countenance etc) whereas Italian "volonta" (latin voluntas) is "will" and is feminine. Could Harvey have been mistaken about this basic difference?

It is hard for Americans to understand that the aristocracy could not publish under their real name. We don't have anything parallel to that breach of position and status in our history. Basically only commoners would do so. Publishing is the same as working for a living. You can't maintain the prestige, gravitas, and respect owed to one's position as an earl if you are publishing works using your real name. It was considered a great shame. Secondly at 48:50 it's discussed what history books have never shared w/Americans at least that under Queen Elizabeth, England was run as a totalitarian regime, with torture and arrests /jailed/imprisonedfor speech, plays, any critique of her rule. This for me is the strongest evidence against the wool dealer Shaksper AND for de Vere. The wool dealer would have been arrested multiple times as was Ben Jonson. Shaksper definitely would have been killed. There would have been no escape if the author of these plays was a commoner.

I've been watching many of these videos but I still remain agnostic on the matter. There is no smoking gun, the type of evidence that would eliminate any doubt. I don't know who Shakespeare was. The Oxfordian thesis has a lot going for it and I'm very skeptical about the Stratfordian position. If the Oxfordian position is true surely Ben Johnson must have been involved in the conspiracy. He definitely knew about Pallas Athena and wrote about her in his poems and plays. But there is no admission of him doing such a thing. Without that type of evidence anything could be brushed aside as circumstantial evidence.

Isn't the pen mightier than the sword

More on Ben Jonson's use of "Shake-Speare" spelling-- drive.google.com/file/d/0B9YH_poTOlrbQmd6MnQ3MUt4QzA/view?resourcekey=0-11ajwxIqJQc6bbE0PYDI4w

Not forgetting The VV Double V Vere Veritas Edward always used VV to sign his name Will ( VVILL) I AM SHAKE -SPEAR 🤔

Sabrina Feldman makes some interesting points about the difference between the Shakespeare canon and the Shakespeare bad quartos. As she states, there's strong evidence, from contemporary writings, that the latter were attributed to the man from Stratford, who was lambasted for being an uneducated ape and a plagiarist. The former (the canon) is what may have been written by Oxford (or someone else, at least - Feldman suggests another candidate). So, to answer the question "where does the Stratford guy fit in," well, it's possible there were two William Shakespeares creating plays, with all the work eventually being attributed to the Stratford fellow.

Excellent! Thank you. Oxfordians do a lot of great research, but (un)fortunately I am a Marlovian. "What's in a name?"? That's probably the most quoted line from all of Shakespeare. It comes from a section of "Romeo and Juliet" with the highest frequency usage of the word "name" in all of English literature. So, either Shakespeare was name-drunk, or he was trying to communicate something important, possibly via pun. Maybe the alias of the real author in exile? There was an English trade consul by the name of "William Watts" living on the island of Malta during the time Shakespeare was active (cf. Melita Historica). Prospero was stuck on a "bare island" in the Mediterranean somewhere within a storm's blow-off between Tunis and Naples. Devoid of English countrymen, it was full of European nobility from everywhere. A perfect place for a fly-on-the-wall dramatist. So, Prospero had "pardoned the deceiver". Was that Shakespeare? Then, who was Prospero? Why most obviously Christopher Marlowe! He was in exile on Malta from 1593 to 1611 under the alias William Watts. This is precisely the meaning of the pun, "Watts in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." That is why "The Tempest" is last written, but first in the Folio. That is why Shakespeare aka Marlowe had such good legal, naval, medical, and linguistic knowledge. Read up on the Knights of Malta circa 1600 before passing harsh judgement on these wayward thoughts of mine.

De Vere is NOT Shakespeare - he may have been a producer of the plays - he may have been a SUBJECT of the some of the poems - his life as the unproven, inbred "son" of Elizabeth may be implied in some of the plays - and there is ZERO provable evidence that he is the "rightful son and heir" -- but he is not the author .. The plays and poems were CLEARLY written by Francis Bacon .. the evidence supporting Bacon as Shakespeare is overwhelming - far far more convincing than the utter tripe told about Duh W Error .. Bacon's private notes - discovered 200 years after Shakespeare - are word for word nearly identical to several hundred word orders found within the plays and poems .. the political intrigue surrounding Bacon's sudden removal from Royal Court - after a LIFETIME - nearly 60 years - IN THE ROYAL COURT - 2 or 3 years after Stratford's Death - and 2 or 3 years BEFORE the First Folio - his arrest - the threat of being locked in the Tower for life - and his escape to Germany for the next 30 years after his faked death - proves Bacon is the author of Shakespeare's Works .. Bacon is FAR MORE a Genius as an author than De Vere .. his training and education is FAR SUPERIOR to De Vere .. Bacon grew up reading - muliple times - ALL the classical authors and knew their works by heart .. there are thousands of references in Shakespeare to the Classical Writers and their plays ..