The Shakespeare Mystery 

Or the shoddy scholarship.

@@Jerrspero Yes, by those who support Stratford. As more scholars realize they have been duped for centuries, they join the Oxford camp since there is so much evidence for him as the author.

@@ronroffel1462 If there's so much evidence to go around, perhaps you wouldn't mind sharing.

@@Nullifidian I can give you a simple example from the First Folio which uses numbers to allude to de Vere. On page 2 of the Epistle Dedicatory, the name Shakespeare appears on the 17th line from the bottom. It is preceded by 17 upper-case letters counting from the very top of the page to the name, and it is also the 17th word from the colon in the sentence. Between the first time the name appears and the second time, there are 17 words beginning with upper-case letters (the initials count as single words as they have two periods, unlike the "L L." at the top). The second time the name appears as the 17th word in the sentence. You can find these for yourself if you download any facsimile of the First Folio from the Internet Archive, the best source for Shakespeare folios. There are dozens more puzzles like that in the front matter and plenty of clues in the way the plays were typeset. A clever example is in the starting page numbers for Timon of Athens which begins on page 80 instead of 78 if the page numbers would follow Romeo and Juliet correctly. The page number digits add to 17: 8 +0 + 8 + 1 = 17. Hamlet begins on page 152 and the digits also add up to 17: 1 +5 + 2 + 1 + 5 + 3 = 17. Those are two of the most autobiographical plays in the canon. I have given you examples which you can verify if you download a good facsimile of the First Folio. Subsequent editions dropped a lot of the puzzles since some editors did not know the secret behind the name. As an aside, the year when the second impression of the Third Folio has digits that also add to 17: 1 + 6 + 6 + 4 = 17. These are just puzzles which include the number 17. There are many which involve his code number 40 (here is a hint: look for four upper-case T's in a row down the side of speeches or four upper-case O's in a similar arrangement). The point I am trying to make here is that you do not need to know anything except de Vere's numbers to find this stuff. And you do not need to use ciphers or codes. All you have to do is add things up which are there on the page.

​@@ronroffel1462 I'm sorry, I must have misunderstood you. I thought you were talking about _evidence_ , not numerology. The problem with numerology is that even if the premise is granted, the conclusion doesn't follow. And it certainly does nothing to invalidate the plainly written text, which says that the purpose of the First Folio is to memorialize their "friend and fellow [actor]... Shakespeare". In order to support the idea that this is a deliberate code, then you have to endow Heminges and Condell with the awareness that Edward de Vere was the 'real author' (it would also require them to stand in the printing shop directing the compositor about how to set the text, because ordinarily the compositor decided on the spelling and layout, but that's another problem for another time), but would any commoner, even the most self-indulgent luvvie of all time, be prepared to assert that they were "fellows" of an earl? The idea is ludicrous, and unsupported by any _real_ evidence-the kind of documentary evidence and contemporary testimony that establishes that Shakespeare wrote his works in the first place. That's what I was looking for when I asked for evidence: some clear documentary evidence or contemporary testimony. I'm not swayed by speculation and manipulation like your numerology and your prior assumption that Oxford was the author that underpins your claim that the plays are "autobiographical".

That's enough reason to not watch it. Hack then, hack now.

@@jaykay8570 I know your comment was 2 years ago, but Judy Woodruff a hack? Let me guess - you watch FOX.

It’s my favorite part of RU-vid. Wonderful documentary content I’d probably never see otherwise

They're probably embarrassed that they ever ran this.

@@Jeffhowardmeade No need to be.

@@alwilson3204 Given how many demonstrable lies are included, anyone who values evidence, logic, or scholarship ought to be embarrassed to have anything to do with this claptrap.

It's likely to do with liability. Many Stratfordians are fanatical.

There has been an incredible amount of scholarship published since the Frontline documentary. Virtually every scholar cited in The New Oxford Shakespeare now recognizes joint authorship in some plays once attributed solely to Shakespeare and other plays once designated as anonymous authorship have been found to be authored or co-authored by the writer known as Shakespeare. Simon & Schuster's success with the best seller "Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies: How Doubting the Bard Became the Biggest Taboo in Literature" illustrates how far our understanding of the authorship question, especially among historians, has come.

+Patrick Fealy Very true and Wood's follow up about Mary Arden.

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-tNL0XODSMwU.html

I disagree profoundly. What about "Last Will and Testament" (2011) or "Nothing Truer than the Truth" (2019)?

@@rstritmatter Neither of those had any documented history to present. You'll notice that you see Woods constantly looking at documents in his series. That's because they exist.

baloney.

***** There's no mystery. Read up on Shakespeare and you'll find that much is known of him and they are simply making statements which sound compelling taken out of context.

Audra Crane I agree. Listen to Prof. Saccio's video here. Brilliant full of logic and reason, and his personal knowledge about the theatre and how it works. He says "There is no mystery", and anybody who knows about Shakespeare and his plays, has not doubt he wrote the plays, as there is no contradiction or contra indication that he wrote them, and not one iota of objective evidence that anybody else did. End of story.

Ginnie Reshaw You believing in a village idiot with 6 years schooling ,are obviously American of low class and beneath contempt.

Geoffrey Grainger So by this statement you're acknowledging that the "villiage idiot" had 6 years of schooling? At that school they taught boys to read and translate Latin and Greek. What "village idiot" do you know that can converse in Latin and Greek and translate to them to English since you acknowledging that he attended school?

"If he went yes",but the other 50 or so subjects he seems a salient and incisive expert in ,how would you explain that away?De vere had the best latin scholar in Britain and writes for Aristocrats and court life not forgetting he had degrees from Cambridge and Oxford also travelled extensively.Remember the author of Sonnets says he is ;Lame,disgraced and old.Shake-speares was none of those and Earl of Southampton was going to marry Oxfords daughter and in Sonnets De vere implores Southampton to marry his daughter .Would a commoner even be allowed to write to Aristocracy in those days?

This is great "half-truth." I you read more closely, its obvious that he wanted to be remembered for himself, not for the fraud and front man.

@@rstritmatter If you read more closely, and project what you expect to find, perhaps. Otherwise you're just fine taking the plays and poems without "mysterious suggestions and implications."

When you learn about Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, so much of his life is reflected in the poems and plays - it adds a new dimension to their profundity.

@@Jerrspero It's incredulous how much ink is spilled by English scholars to plumb the depths of authorial intent but on a dime they turn to arguing that the true authorship is irrelevant when it comes to analyzing the works attributed to Shakespeare. Is it possible because the empty life of Shakespeare offers little to nothing in helping to understand the works? Oh, if only we could look at the glover's son's library?

did you actually listen to what was said. oxford (if it was him) was not allowed to use his name.

+Toni Paradise You are correct they do stink of someone that was there, but what do the plays stink of? What is the one common thing across all of these plays that go from ancient Rome to contemporary England to uncharted islands, its the theater. The plays are full of references to being an actor, seeming like an actor. The language itself is the best director an actor can ever have as it tells them directly how to do a scene: funny, scared, excited, out of breath, etc. The plays take into account boring details like giving a lead actor a break or giving a chance to change out of a bloody costume. Also, members of a specific acting company are mentioned in stage directions. Will Kemp, a comedic lead actor is mentioned by name several times. A publisher named Richard Field, who was from Stratford, is mentioned by name in a play. When you step away from the stories and look at all the plays structurally these items leap out like fingerprints. So the person who wrote them had to have a deep and first hand knowledge of the theater, the company that produced the plays and who was around at the time they were written. De Vere had no connection with this theater company, never acted in plays, was never trained as an actor, never ran a theater company. He lent his family title to a completely different theater company and maybe wrote comic skits that played at court 10 years before Shakespeare's plays hit the stage and then he left it altogether. There was no way he could have picked up this level of intimate knowledge of the theater. So I completely agree with you that the person who wrote them "was there". He was someone who was intimately knowledgeable in the profession of the theater, intimate with the members of the company that produced these plays and with people surrounding this industry. The perfect candidate - William Shakespeare of Stratford. He co-owned the theater company and was an actor for over 20 years. He was there, had the connections and that first hand knowledge got into the plays.

Steve Bari ok true about the actor. However is it more logical that a nobleman who is a war veteran (us band of brothers....). An expert on aristocratic customs of the day. A man with the vocabulary to express the longing of forbidden love. A man who has seen the world simply be able to understand the ins and outs of acting. Or an illiterate person from the lowest class being able to conjure up all these miraculous experiences, feelings, and then have the skill to put them to verse. Plus there's not one document in Shakespeare's own pen. I find it more logical that Edward DeVere could figure out these things about acting a lot easier than Shakespeare was able to figure out a world he had no access to. I hope I explained that right but its a fantastic argument and story.

De Vere was not a war veteran in fact he deserted his post during the attack of the Spanish Armada because he felt it was beneath him. This is the exact opposite of Henry V who made it a point to include all members of his army in his band of brothers not some effete snob who "couldn't be bothered" to defend his country when it was about to be invaded. Shakespeare was not illiterate as he signed his name several times, was an actor, a profession that requires you to read your lines and had business dealings that required book keeping so he didn't live the life of an illiterate. He was also a servant of the Lord Chamberlain and eventually King James as a member of their acting companies which meant they performed at court and had to be on hand when their lord requested. Shakespeare is on record having taken part in King James coronation and the Spanish peace accords of 1605. How is that for being a court insider. De Vere wasn't a soldier or an actor and had no connection with this theater company. Shakespeare was a documented actor, a documented royal servant and was literate with more than an adequate education to come with the necessary poetry. He completely fits. Someone as pathetic as De Vere does not.

Also, acting is a profession that one is trained in not just picked up by being worldly. Like any other profession you need to work in it in order to be familiar with it. Not something De Vere did. Sir Thomas More, the Hand D section is in Shakespeare's Hand. Matched to his signatures by two handwriting experts over 100 years ago and corroborated by other since. Also the wording has matched up to his other plays so there the stuff in his own hand. Shakespeare wasn't from the lowest class. His father was a business owner, property owner and mayor of Stratford. His mother was landed gentry. The lowest class would be a peasant with no connections to title or money. Shakespeare is middle class. I understand how listening to antiStratfordians with their biased takes on historical evidence can lead one to think Shakespeare was X Y of Z but don't take what they say at face value. Examine and question it. All of the stuff that I've mentioned can be verified and backed up, Can there's?

Steve Bari Well you seem very educated on the subject, I'm not I find it fascinating though. DeVere was around the military was the main point. If he deserted I'm sure he was ashamed and maybe was trying pay some kind of penance by writing about valor he did not possess. When I say illiterate I mean he could not write of course he could he read how else could he act? Even if he could write I'm sure he was no "Shakespeare", couldn't help myself. I tend to believe people like you more than books and documentaries that have been filtered. How come theres not one document written in Shakespeare's writing? Not just a signature the whole thing. To my knowledge not one play, sonnet, poem, story, grocery list, nothing in his own writing. One has to look at somebody's mantra in life. Shakespeare seemed like he preferred simpler things: whores, drinking, making money all the great pursuits of the age. What motivated him to write all this? He left his wife a bed, doesn't seem like a romantic. Possessed only had a small bit of education how did he even know the story of Henry V? You seem to not like DeVere I don't know enough about the man. However it seems to me Devere did have these qualities. He had the finest education so he knew all his history, plenty of material there. Cant say I know about his love life other than the movie but he is portrayed as a deep feeling romantic. I don't know but fuck its fascinating. Any books you suggest on the subject or about DeVere?

If you like "Fakespeare," yup!

While true that one doesn't have to travel to Italy to write a play set in Italy, it does help, especially when describing minute details from paintings by Titian, seen only in Venice, as Shake-speare (Oxford) does in Lucrece, or the "Seven Ages of Man" speech in As You Like It. It also helps when one knows the specific distance and travel route from Venice to Beaumont, and the exact types of waterways traversed. Or that there is a grove of sycamores on the western wall of Verona. Sorry to "drone," but the intellectual dishonesty belongs with those who declare that Shaksper wrote the plays as a matter of faith, not evidence. Please review the evidence.

Except that everything Peter Frengel cites has been disproved (there is no grove of sycamores in Verona, and never was, for example). Oxfordians believe anything. Visit oxfraud.com for more details!

@@JPFerraccio Leave the sycamores - that's fine. But how did Shaksper travel from England to Venice and have access to Titian's singular, bonneted painting "Venus and Apollo," which he described in great detail in his poem?

@Jim Newcombe You seem a reasonable person. Any room for a reasonable doubt? Please take a few minutes to read this, and let me know your thoughts. doubtaboutwill.org/declaration

@@peterfrengel3964 Sorry, the 'bonnet' thing in the painting is just nonsense. Why did Shakespeare put Adonis in a hat? Because that's what you wore for hunting. There are several illustrated books on the subject of hunting published during Shakespeare's lifetime. They all depict hunters in hats. Of COURSE you wore a hat. Hunting was usually done outdoors! He doesn't mention the type of waterways traversed. He just makes the assumption that you can travel by water. In the same play he also mentions tides. In the MEDITERRANEAN!! I can't imagine a traveler who'd actually been there NOT realising that there were no significant tides. I've read 'Shakespeare's Italy' too. He mentions that he jumped into a taxi and asked to be taken to Romeo's sycamore grove. So the taxi driver took him to A sycamore grove. And that was it. Case closed. No further checking required. You ... don't think the Italian tourist industry might just MAKE UP a link, do you? Or that the taxi driver was just anxious to please? the conclusion is actually based on the evidence ... OF A TAXI DRIVER! Oxfordian scholarship? It would be a good idea.

I have. It's weak. Shapiro is a writer of historical fiction.

I wouldn't be too pleased. He was a murderer who ran through an unarmed servant with a sword. When his mistress was up the duff he ran for it and left her to face the music. Happily they caught up with him and stuck him in the chokey for a while.

How is your Poetry/Writing?

@@unfoedonnie7 haha! pretty well nonexistent, I have to be really inspired to come up with anything good and inspiration doesn't hit often.

@@unfoedonnie7 If it's anything like de Vere, maybe a few workshops might be in order. Here's 'These Beauties make me Die': What cunning can express The favour of her face, To whom in this distress I do appeal for grace? A thousand Cupids fly About her gentle eye. From whence each throws a dart, That kindleth soft sweet fire, Within my sighing heart, Possessed by desire; No sweeter life I try, Than in her love to die. The Lily in the field, That glories in his white, For pureness now must yield And render up his right; Heaven pictured in her face Doth promise joy and grace. Fair Cynthia’s silver light, That beats on running streams, Compares not with her white, Whose hairs are all sunbeams; Her virtues so do shine, As day unto mine eyne. With this there is a Red Exceeds the Damask Rose, Which in her cheeks is spread, Whence every favour grows; In sky there is no star That she surmounts not far. When Phoebus from the bed Of Thetis doth arise, The morning, blushing red, In fair carnation wise, He shows it in her face As Queen of every grace. This pleasant Lily white, This taint of roseate red, This Cynthia’s silver light, This sweet fair Dea spread, These sunbeams in mine eye, This is not just BAD poetry. It's HILARIOUSLY bad. My particular favourite: 'A thousand cupids fly/About her gentle eye'. Say that with a straight face! This is the poetry of Baldric, of the captain of a Vogon constructor-fleet. William MacGonagall might have come up with on an off-day. Edward de Vere wrote Shakespeare? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha !

@@MrMartibobs De Vere wrote this beauty?

His first definite patron was Henry Carey, Baron Hunsdon. He was the Lord Chamberlain, so the Master of Revells worked for him. He was also the cousin (and some say brother) of Queen Elizabeth, and her closest advisor. His livery, worn by his servants, was a swan. If he somehow couldn't have learned all he needed to know about court life from books about being a courtier or from performing at the palace, he could just ask his patron.

This is religion now. Millions of people believe in Jesus and that he walked on water. Stupidity of humans know no boundaries.

His childhood explains plenty of the contacts he made in terms of varying classes.

@@Jeffhowardmeade The precise knowledge of Italian geography and customs, court life, Latin , French, Greek, and Italian literature not yet translated into English, the law, heraldry, medicine, falconry, and the life of one particular courtier runs counter to the theory that he learned it all by listening in on conversations in a local tavern or that he read it all in books. Besides, the aristocrats who owned the great libraries in England at the time would never have allowed a commoner to read them. And nobles never mixed with commoners unless it was under special circumstances or if the commoners were servants of the nobles in question. The knowledge would also not have been imparted to the writer by any patron, the amount shown in the plays and poems is far too vast for that to have happened. The works indicate that an exceptionally educated man with a lot of life experience wrote them.

@@ronroffel1462 Nothing you wrote is true. There were forty earls in England. Do you seriously think they only spoke to one another? The Royal Court was attended by people of all social classes. Did they not speak to one another? In any case, Shakespeare was an actual servant to Baron Hunsdon, the Lord Chamberlain, who had a magnificent library in his house in Blackfriars (he later donated it to the Bodleian). Shakespeare didn't need that, though, since he could have purchased anything he wanted to read at the booksellers at St. Paul's or on Fleet Street. And Shakespeare got nearly everything about Italy wrong. Go ahead. Prove me wrong. Present anything in Shakespeare's works that a gentleman living in Renaissance London could not have known.

It'll never happen. Those unneeded pages were used to start fires and line pie tins.

Ben Jonson's study burned down in December 1623, mere weeks after the Folio was printed that November. Since he was the principal editor of the Folio, it is not unreasonable to assume that the original manuscripts of the previously unpublished plays went up in flames as well.

@@Jerrspero That was a lie perpetrated by Shakspere's grandson, who probably told people that just to get his 15 minutes.

I highly encourage you to read “Shakespeare by another name”- the amount of connection to Edward de veré is staggering

@@daniellemcneill4870 Every time I look at it I'm staggered. There literally isn't a single document that says Oxford wrote anything associated with Shakespeare. It's all a fantasy.

No mystery. Well educated middle class kid. Just like many other playwrights of the time. Which line, which scene, which play , which poem, could not have been written by a grammar school boy?

You reckon? What about Webster? WE don't even know when he died. What about Homer? We don't even know if he existed. We have many, many documents testifying to the life of the bard.

@@MrMartibobs There's no evidence that William of Stratford attended any school at all. Judging from his signatures, and the fact that his parents and children were illiterate, it doesn't seem likely Shaksper could write. Could you please tell me what letters remain in his hand? What books and manuscripts he left behind at his death. Nada. Zilch.

@Jim Newcombe We have a biography of Blake that fixes him in history as a writer. We have a biography of Chaucer that fixes him in history as a writer. The man from Stratford? He was a litigious money lender and theater manager according to the actual historical record. Do some research, please.

@@peterfrengel3964 Do you know what, there's no evidence that Cardinal Wolsey went to school. He went to Cambridge, so ... he must have gone to school. But all the records from the Ipswich grammar school are missing. So in your world, Cardinal Wolsey never went to school, and therefore someone ELSE must have been the Lord Chancellor, and this someone used Wolsey as a front-man to avoid the stigma attached to being a cardinal. Here's another thing. There is no evidence that Shakespeare ever defacated. Not one bardal motion is certified as emerging from Will's rear end. So according to your logic, he had no intestines. Here's another thing. His will lists a SECOND best bed - but not a best bed. How can that be? Also no cooking equipment. Also no brewing equipment. Also no chamber-pots. So we are looking her at a man who doesn't eat, drink, or pee. OR there was a separate inventory which listed the 'household stuff' mentioned in the will. Now take John Webster, a close contemporary and also famous playwright. Guess what? No letters, no manuscripts, no list of books. In fact.... guess what? We don't even have a date of DEATH. So according to your logic he's still alive. Probably writing Zombie films going by his known output. Here's another thing. Shakespeare has exactly the same background (son of illiterate tradesman) as around 50% of playwrights of his day - most of whom left no original manuscripts or letters behind. Nada. Zilch.

You should Anonymous just for a good laugh. Its so ludicrous its hysterical

Thanks! I will. I'm surprised and dismayed that Sir Derek Jacobi of all people pushes this theory.

WS = Francis Garland & the 'genius' might have been inspirations from 'Angels' received during his stay in Prague. He was a secret agent to her Majesty the Queen...research Vincent Bridges an expert on 'alchemy'.

Why should TRUTH bother you?

Barbara Hobens Truth doesn't bother me. Lies do. Shakespeare is the man behind his words. Pembroke was not that man.

The thought that a bunch of players could get away with lampooning -- and then killing on stage! -- the likes of William Cecil is absurd. Robert Cecil, by all accounts, loved his late father, and easily had the power to punish such an act. When Shakespeare inadvertantly insulted the distant ancestor of a much less powerful peer, he was forced to apologize, change the name of his buffoonish character to Falstaff, and may even have killed him off as a response.

@@Jeffhowardmeade Poor players couldn't get away with it, but the queen's favorite, Oxford, certainly could, especially having lived in the Cecil's house all that time. And your argument works against itself. The writer did change the name of Polonius, too. Corambis, the original name for the character, resembles the Latin for “double-hearted”, which satirically points to Lord Burghley's Latin motto Cor unum, via una, “One heart, one way.” Too close to home? Better change it.

@@peterfrengel3964 Oxford relied first upon William Cecil for his welfare check, and later upon Robert Cecil to get it renewed under James. He's going to insult and then kill Robert's father in effigy and then Robert is going to help him out a couple of years later. Right. Q1 (not necessarily an earlier version, as Q1 and Q2 were published one right after the other) was likely a touring script, or one prepared for student productions. Its title page claims it was performed at the universities. Q1 changed Polonius to Corambis because the founder of Oxford University was Robert Polenius.

@@Jeffhowardmeade As early as 1869 many Stratfordians have proposed that Polonius is a burlesque of Burghley. And while I don't dispute why Polonius was changed to Corambis, that fact doesn't negate the rather obvious play on Burghley's motto. Why would Oxford be allowed to get away with satirizing the Queen's right hand man? Maybe because it was spot on, and the Queen loved it? Let's allow that neither one of us was there at the time to know for sure. There are many other Burghley/Polonius parallels as well.

@@peterfrengel3964 There may be other Burghley/Polonius parallels, given that they were both royal advisers. Both had sons and daughters. Since the windbag vizier is a stock character in Early Modern drama, and most great men have children, what of it? Really what you have is the alternate name Corambis -- coincidentally containing heart and twice (or "heart hug" if you don't discard a few inconvenient letters) and could also mean "reheated cabbage". Since you REALLY think Queen Elizabeth would have been entertained by watching her faithful advisor for nearly all her reign stabbed to death on stage, let's follow this to it's logical conclusion. If Polonius is Burghley, then who is Laertes? Who is Ophelia? Would she REALLY have gotten a kick out of watching her current advisor conspire to murder Hamlet and get killed himself in the process? What JOY she must have taken at seeing her former attendant, who had died under her own roof, instead drown herself. Oh, but that's not all. If Polonius were Burghley, then the monarch he served murdered his (her?) sibling who was the former monarch to take the crown, and was subsequently poisoned and run through. What a laugh riot that must have been for her to see herself on stage as murderer and usurper who got her comeuppance. She loved it so much that she allowed anyone with a penny to see it performed at a public theater. Makes you wonder why nobody at the time remarked upon the similarity, given how much it must have pleased the Queen.

.

If this video is an example of how "good" Frontline used to be it must be Really horrible now.

In search of.shakespeare

This production was misleading, unbalanced, and geared toward driving people toward Oxfordian ism (despite the climax showing NOTHING in the funerary monument). Terrible piece.

One of the best soundtracks for one of the best movies ever made. I almost want to watch this just to hear it now that you said that.

You are arguing against a straw man. The debate has long ago passed beyond the question of "whether" the author could have learned to write those plays by attending the Stratford grammar school. The real question is why three centuries of orthodox biography have failed to draw any meaningful connections between the author's biography and the plays, and why, instead, the plays are based on the life experiences of another name, Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford.

​@@rstritmatterSo does this mean you are conceding that Shakespeare COULD have written the works attributed to him after attending the King Edward VI grammar school and not having attended university?

@@Jeffhowardmeade Yes, he could have known how to read and write. But notice that traditionalists utterly refuse to acknowledge what scholar Marcy North has documented about the ubiquity of anonymous authorship in the Elizabethan age. Once traditionalists acknowledge that "Shakespeare" might have been a pen name, their house of cards falls down. All they have is vile ad hominem attacks against anyone who doesn't acknowledge their authority.

@@richardwaugaman1505 "But notice that traditionalists utterly refuse to acknowledge what scholar Marcy North has documented about the ubiquity of anonymous authorship in the Elizabethan age." On the contrary, every early modernist I know is familiar with the fact that many works were published anonymously, and that the majority of extant early modern plays were published anonymously. "Once traditionalists acknowledge that "Shakespeare" might have been a pen name, their house of cards falls down." Hold up here. First off, anonymity means having *NO NAME* on a document, not a pen name. That would be pseudonymity. Secondly, the mere fact that the proposition "William Shakespeare was a pen name" does not involve an insuperable logical paradox *DOES NOT* mean that the speculation is thereby established. One can recognize the possibility while also accepting that you need to provide *EVIDENCE* to turn that bare possibility into a likelihood. Do you *HAVE* any such evidence? In fact, the prevalence of anonymous publication works *AGAINST* the thesis of pseudonymity because it was perfectly acceptable to publish plays without the authors' names attached, and we would not know today who wrote even such a famous play as _The Spanish Tragedy_ if it hadn't been for a passing reference in Thomas Heywood's _An Apology for Actors_ naming the author as Thomas Kyd. So what reason would anyone have for publishing under a pseudonym when anonymous publication was a perfectly viable pathway and indeed the *STANDARD* one for the publication of plays? And why would this alleged 'pseudonym' first appear in print in 1593 in the narrative poem _Venus and Adonis_ and be followed by its appearance in 1594 in _The Rape of Lucrece_ but *NOT* be used in the publication of plays that began to also be published in 1594 (starting with _Titus Andronicus_ and _2 Henry VI_ )? Why would there be no plays with William Shakespeare's name on them until1598 (Q1 of _Love's Labour's Lost_ and Q2 of _Richard III_ and _Richard II_ ) if the pseudonym already existed as early as 1593? And having belatedly attached the name to the plays, why wasn't this 'pseudonym' put on all the formerly anonymous plays instead of just _Richard III_ and _Richard II_ ? _2 and 3 Henry VI_ wouldn't be attributed to Shakespeare until the 1619 Pavier-Jaggard False Folio, _Romeo and Juliet_ wouldn't be attributed until the 1622 quarto, and _Titus Andronicus_ wasn't attributed until the 1623 First Folio. And speaking of the First Folio, since the creation of a pseudonym implies the _intention_ to publish, why didn't _all_ of Shakespeare's plays get published in authoritative quarto editions? Why is the quality of the quartos so variable? And why did it take until the 1623 First Folio for 18 of Shakespeare's plays to be published for the first time? And when it did come to be published, why weren't _all_ the texts set from the authorial manuscripts rather than several of the plays being set from previous quartos? I can answer all of these questions under the standard explanation that William Shakespeare was an actor-playwright with the Lord Chamberlain's Men/King's Men. As we know from Thomas Heywood, the playing companies had the ownership of the authors' manuscripts, and they made the decision, not the author, when and whether to publish a play. They were hesitant about publishing plays because there were no performance rights or authorial copyrights in this era, so publishing a play meant losing control over it. William Shakespeare knew the score as much as anybody, and it was in his economic interest as a sharer in the company and a householder in the Globe and Blackfriars Theatres to keep his plays away from the printers until they were so old that they ceased to be draws. However, this couldn't _possibly_ apply to a scribbling amateur like Edward de Vere, who could have retained his own manuscripts and published whenever he felt like it. He would have had no reason to be loyal to the economic interests of the playing company, since it wasn't his own (and why wasn't it it his own? why starve his playing company of the fruits of his genius?), nor would his plays have brought him sufficient money to want to keep in with the company. The going rate was approximately £6 a play in c. 1600, so that wouldn't have kept de Vere in scented gloves for a fortnight. So, do you have any *EVIDENCE* that William Shakespeare's name was a pseudonym, how do you reconcile the claim that it was a pseudonym with the fact that there was an actor and sharer in the Lord Chamberlain's Men/King's Men with the same name, and how do you explain the peculiarities of the publication record that arise under the assumption that Shakespeare's name was a pseudonym?

Considering his sources, it is very likely that he could read Latin and Italian (which were nearly identical written languages in his era). He puts French dialog in a few plays -- notably Henry V -- but he could easily have asked one of the thousands of Frenchmen in London to translate that for him. He probably did speak French, considering that he later lived with a French family in London.

Bruce Robbins your facts are wrong.

The late Bruce Robbins was a true believer.@@madameclark3453

Um, all those "allusions" were probably allusions to pre-1604 works-- drive.google.com/file/d/0B9YH_poTOlrbWDFPM095U1gyZ28/view?resourcekey=0-xn1DcKOtnjiIDNqJL2MM9Q

I didn't choose the title for my brief piece. When I saw it, I wondered, "Who would ever date Macbeth??"

U need to see what has been unearthed since this...not an ounce for the stratfordman but all proving he is NOT the writer...and way way to much proving the earl...

His point on the bust being anonymous is an interesting point . Its generic not specific .

@@MultiSmartass1 It was a standard funerary bust made after the subject dies. The subject, not being a nobleman, had no extant portraiture to base a sculpture on. So it's generic.

@@Jerrspero Not a nobleman but a man of means in the town. Not buying it.

Your slow

@@danielortiz691​ The people who are slow are the ones who don't know the difference between your and you're. At the present time you have said "Your slow." Dumbass.

Bill Boad A wise soul akin to the bard himself.

Your friends might be better than you are at weighing the evidence.

@@michaels4255 I doubt it. From the descriptions of his conversations with his friends, it appears they don't have _any_ evidence. They have expectations about what the early modern world should be like, and they use the divergence between their expectations and reality as 'evidence' that reality is wrong. But it's not proper evidence in the way that the First Folio's ascription of the works to William Shakespeare and the fact that his own theatrical colleagues, John Heminges and Henry Condell, wrote that the author of "his plays" was their "Friend, & Fellow [i.e., fellow actor]" "Shakespeare" are evidence.

​@@Nullifidian Here's a deeper dive into Francis Bacon's relationship to the First Folio.sirbacon.org/downloads/The_1623_Shakespeare_First_Folio_A_Bacon.pdf

Full of facts, you mean. Stratford biographies are full of "perhaps he", "maybe he", and other fiction disguised as non-fiction. Charlton Ogburn's massive 900 page book The Mysterious William Shakespeare on the other hand, uses documentary evidence which can be independently verified.

Especially his racism.

Jerrspero yeah speaking up for white people is “racist “

Enoch Powell is howling in Hell.

Speaking up for white people by being a racist, Another insecure simple fool, A fool with no idea or confidence in our Cultural and historical inheritance of our great nation. No true Englishman can abide ignorance and prejudice to sully this blessed realm

@@MrMartibobs piss off!

Nu Yorkah!

+davehshs Both sides engage in ad hominem attacks. It's frustrating for Stratfordians when fact is ignored in place of emotional insistence and false claims. They can become short-tempered. A.L. Rowse was a bitter, misanthropic man by the end of his life. That doesn't mean that his opinion is wrong, he's just very tired and elderly in this.

Rowse did not 'insist' - there was and is no need to insist. The folio and the historical record show Shakespeare - the guy from Stratford - was the writer, was the playwright/actor/sharer. You can keep on sniping but there is no evidence for any 'doubt' or 'authorship question'.

Most don't know Shakespeare fell out of favor with Queen Elizabeth after she caught him docking with Sir Walter Raleigh.

Shakespeare served aboard Sir Walter Raleigh's ship??? Wow, Actor, playwright, business man and now harbor master. Is there anything he couldn't do?

Steve, please urban dictionary docking.... maybe you'll get it.

No, it wasn't. It was changed from a writing pillow to something that looks like a sack of grain, or wool, yet oddly with tassles at the corners, which seems extravagant for a wool or grain sack, by the engraver Hollar who didn't give much care about what Dugdale actually drew. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakespeare%27s_funerary_monument#/media/File:Wenceslas_Hollar_-_Clopton_and_Shakespeare_(monument).jpg You will notice that on the same page with the engraving of this supposed "grain merchant", is the inscription from the monument, which identifies the subject as a poet. That whole style of monument was reserved for scholars. You won't find one anywhere in England dedicated to a merchant. And clearly, there is no evidence that the 17th Earl of Oxford wrote any of the plays or sonnets. Not any. None. Nada. Zip.

Sorry to pop your bubble, but... The conspiracy theories are wonderfully interesting but, bottom line, its nonsense. If you look at the original manuscripts, especially the stage directions, notes, etc., they could only have been written by someone with detailed day-to-day knowledge of activities at the Globe theater. Neither de Vere, Marlowe, nor anyone else would have had this knowledge.

Can you post a picture of the writing desk?

+Steve Bari How about this one of John Stow? en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stow Look familiar? Fancy draperies on his writing desk as well. There is a site called Church Monuments Society dedicated to cataloging all of the monuments in Britain. I found about half a dozen similar to Shakespeare's. They were all dedicated to church men and scholars, except for one which was dedicated to a city watchman, and the housing his bust is in is a gate watchman's booth!

The statue to Will started out with his arms resting on a sack of grain...he was a grain salesman after his return from London. But...the tourism folks changed it to a...wait for it...writing desk!

But the genius would have to learn to read and write in English just to be admitted to grammar school, gain access to higher learning (from great private libraries or at universities or great law schools), study music and falconry, medicine, and sailing terms, then mingle with great and difficult personalities at court. Marlowe, Nashe, Jonson, and other commoners acquired quite a bit of this learning, and their documents establish this. Nothing of the sort for Will Shakspere.

@@tomgoff6867 None of what you wrote is true. There were petty schools in Stratford which even taught girls. St. Paul's churchyard was full of booksellers, and Shakespeare was well off. He didn't need access to a rich man's library. Falconry shared a common nomenclature with hawking, which was popular with the middle classes, Shakespeare's mention of medicine was limited to vivid descriptions of symptoms and folk remedies. His theater was a literal stone's throw from one of the busiest ports in the world. His plays show no evidence of insider knowledge among the elite, but if they did, he just happened to be the servant to Baron Hunsdon, Queen Elizabeth's cousin and closest advisor, as well as her Lord Chamberlain. After she died, his patron was King James, himself.

@@Jeffhowardmeade You're concocting much of this from whole cloth. If Will read or had books, where were they? He had none at the time of his death, and no furniture in which to shelve them or store them. Also, many orthodox experts on Shakespeare wrote on his genuine knowledge of medicine...until the extent of that learning raised inconvenient questions about the playwright's identity. Some of the experts produced evidence of the playwright's knowledge of Italy, even a deep knowledge of Latin and, yes, Greek, till those admissions also proved inconvenient and had to be waved aside...

@@tomgoff6867 We don't know what Shakespeare did or did not own at the time of his death besides a sword, clothing, a second best bed, and a silver-gilt bowl, because these are the things specifically mentioned in his will. A will is not an inventory of all things owned, but rather a place to make specific bequests. If his failure to mention them means he had none, then no poet of his era owned books, as none mentioned them in his will. You can find a 19th Century dilettante who will claim Shakespeare knew this or that. They all had the bad habit of extrapolating simple asides in Shakespeare's works as meaning something larger. A specific herbal treatment meant Shakespeare must have read Paracelsus. His mention of blood circulating in Coriolanus meant he knew William Harvey who wrote about it after Shakespeare died. A joke in The Winter's Tale meant Shakespeare understood asymptomatic carriers. None of them bothered to read the works of Shakespeare's contemporaries to see what was common knowledge of the day. None of them gained any traction among Shakespeare scholars, who knew that books of herbal medicine were common, that Menenius' allegory of the circulation of the blood came straight from Shakespeare's ancient source, and the doctor was telling a version of the "you contract insanity from your kids" joke. Shakespeare's son-in-law just happened to be a respected physician, but he was ploping these little nuggets into his plays long before they could have met. It simply doesn't take a physician to know that Bardolph's big red noise comes from being a drunkard. Shakespeare's knowledge of Italy was laughable. He has a gentleman of landlocked Verona in a hurry to catch THE TIDE in the Mediterranean, so he can sail a week to landlocked Milan, which was only two days' ride from Verona overland. An Italian translation of Romeo and Juliet has a footnote about Shakespeare placing Sycamore trees in Verona: "We all know geography wasn't Shakespeare's forte." He places Padua in the kingdom of Lombardy. He has the Duke of Milan subject to the King of Naples. He gives the Republic of Venice a duke (and Vienna, also), but no canals. He gives Verona a prince. Shakespeare probably understood Latin well enough, considering that grammar schools were taught entirely in Latin. Ben Jonson said Shakespeare had "small Latin and less Greek." Yet Shakespeare's works don't betray any deep knowledge of Greek sources. He ignores Aristotelian poetics, and his plays set in Greece come from English translations.

"It definitely could have been"! Clearly, you have absorbed the conditional tense from the orthodox mythographers.

+pete zandt Its possible that about less than a 1/3 of the plays include co-authors. Stylometric tests aided by computers have identified several co-authors. However, Shakespeare is also among them. In the tests each author is identified as its own unique data set. The data set of Shakespeare either shows up as having written an entire play or portions of other plays while the data sets corresponding with other writers shows up. Shakespeare is always among them even in co-authored plays. Historical evidence places the Stratford man as "Shakespeare" the writer.

Amen. Of all the absurd conspiracies to chase.

@@mortalclown3812 No conspiracy was needed. Social norms at the time prevented the author from revealing himself or face the wrath of his enemies at court whom he lampooned and satirized in his plays.

It would very easy to determine that Shakespeare intentionally published the work of others. In order to publish something in London at this time you had to declare it in writing with the Stationers Company, a syndicate of publishers that governed all printing. Usually active publishers with printing houses Would go to the Stationers Company and pay a fee to enter in record a list of plays, books or other publishable material. This paid entry established the legal right for them and only them to publish them. Its like declaring a copyright. William Shakespeare (or whatever variation of the name) is not on record ever doing this. His name is associated with lists by other printers but he never went to the company, paid the fee and had works listed to establish legal rights. In each case where a printer declared their right to publish a Shakespeare play, they owned the rights not Shakespeare. Also, there isn’t any instance where a writer did this and published their own work. So to say that there’s a consensus that Shakespeare published the works of others isn't accurate. First in that he wasn’t a publisher and second he’s never on record with declaring legal right to a work, not ever those ascribed to him. It was always other actual printers.

Except for everything he wrote specifically for publication. Venus and Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece, and the Phoenix and the Turtle, were all published under Shakespeare's name, with a person calling himself William Shakespeare specifically claiming authorship of the first two. All three were printed by Richard Field, a London printer who grew up down the street from Shakespeare in Stratford upon Avon. Shakespeare later gave Field a shout out in Cymbeline, when Imogen names what she thinks is the body of her beloved "Richard du Champ (French for Richard Field) and calls him "A very valiant Briton and a good". Both Venus and Adonis and Lucrece were registered with the Stationers Company, but neither entry records the name of the author. As for Leonel, he's just repeating the old "history will vindicate me" mantra of unappreciated mavericks everywhere. If society ever gets to the point where evidence matters so little that people will come to a consensus based on a lack of it, society is doomed.

In 500 years, perhaps the English language will have changed so much that Shakespeare will be about as much read as Chaucer is today.

Please get out of your mother’s basement, you moron.

Nonsense

julian hobrough hahaha

Fascinating imagination

They are referring to a pseudonym taken by Oxford. Shakspere, the actor and theater manager from Stratford never spelled his name with an "e" after the "k." Look at what passes as his atrocious, scrawled signatures if you don't believe me.

@@peterfrengel3964 Considering there are only six signatures, some of them abbreviated, I'm not sure you're in a position to say how he spelled his name. Spelling (even of names) was very fluid then.

Here's what friend, colleague and rival Ben Jonson said about Shakespeare. Either prove Jonson was a liar, or get another hobby: "I REMEMBER the players have often mentioned it as an honor to Shakespeare, that in his writing, whatsoever he penned, he never blotted out a line. My answer hath been, “Would he had blotted a thousand,” which they thought a malevolent speech. I had not told posterity this but for their ignorance, who chose that circumstance to commend their friend by wherein he most faulted; and to justify mine own candor, for I loved the man, and do honor his memory on this side idolatry as much as any. He was, indeed, honest, and of an open and free nature; had an excellent fancy, brave notions, and gentle expressions, wherein he flowed with that facility that sometime it was necessary he should be stopped. “Sufflaminandus erat,” 2 as Augustus said of Haterius. His wit was in his own power; would the rule of it had been so too. Many times he fell into those things, could not escape laughter, as when he said in the person of Cæsar, one speaking to him: “Cæsar, thou dost me wrong.” He replied: “Cæsar did never wrong but with just cause; 3 and such like, which were ridiculous. But he redeemed his vices with his virtues. There was ever more in him to be praised than to be pardoned." Is he talking about the Earl of Oxford? Bollocks he is.

@@peterfrengel3964 ALL the signatures are from the last four years of his life. The earliest was signed in a court-room, probably with someone else's pen. Three of them are actually literally on his death bed. Lawyer waving a piece of paper in front of dying man. Is it, do you think, at all possible, that when he was within four years of DYING, that Shakespeare might have been ill? Go on, take a wild stab in the dark.

@@MrMartibobs Even with that being the case, do you not find it strange that the signatures are all the evidence in the world that his pen ever touched paper? For each of his contemporaries there is a literary paper trail. For Shaksper, six shaky sigs.

scotty where is your proof that Shake-speare was a pen name for de Vere? You just can't say it without any evidence that it is true. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence....Carl Sagan. This is an extgraordinary claim. Where is your evidence> It seems that Oxfordians don't believe in having evidence. Simply making a claim makes it true. Welcome to Fantasyi Land.

+Nick Sambides Jr. Parallels like what?

+Nick Sambides Jr. Circomstantial evidence is good....but in the case of de Vere it is not good. He died in 1604 before about one third of the plays came out. That is objective evidence that trumps any circumstantial evidence. There is no objective evidence that de Vere had anything to do with the plays that he met Shakespeare or went to his plays. We have no plays of his. If you are speaking to life paralells. nobody wrote like that back then. It is anachronistic. People write like that today, but not back then. The greatness of Shakespeare is that he does not show himself, but let's us look into ourselves. Everybody can see themselves in some plays in Shakespeare. That was his genius.

Zenaida Robbins The 1604 argument has already been addressed and there are no works which could not have been written by then. 'that he met Shakespeare' that's funny he was "shakespeare" there is no evidence that anyone met the author Shakespeare. You think the Sonnets and all the Plays are just exercises of the imagination and have no connection with real events or people? And you believe that people didn't write of real things back then? That's what you've send. You need to do some homework.

@@bumble_bee4046 Ummm... did you actually watch the video, above, which you are commenting on? Lots of evidence is presented.

+Dave Dartnell Can you prove he bought it, put his name on it and put it on stage? Also, can you prove his name was Shakspere?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margery_Golding

What does a Wikipedia page on Oxford's mother have to do with proving the claim that Shakespeare bought stuff, put his name on it and put it on stage? A bogus claim isn't proven with a link to a completely unrelated page.

There were no top Strafordians in the room. As far as I can tell, there was just one guy who had to read his brief.

Caius Martius Coriolanus Wrong Prof Alan Nelson and the other academic are both esteemed Stratfordians you truth denier.

Ah, Alexander Waugh. What a scholar! My favourite piece of his is where he turns a poem upside down and says it's a funerary urn. If you've missed it and fancy a laugh, this one's comedy gold.

​@Attila the PunOne of the preeminent Oxfordians is a 9-11 Truther.

Amax: Just because Agatha had her name on the stories does not mean SHE wrote them....Who wrote "Catcher in the Rye" Just because Salinger's name is on them does not mean he wrote it. Who wrote Sherlock Homes stories" Just because the name of Arthur Conan Doyle is not evidence he wrote them. It could have been a pseudonym!!!!!!!!!

That's not a very good example. Christie came from an upper-class family that fashioned her with a top-notch education. She was well-connected and active socially, worked as a pharmacist, and married an archaeologist - all key parts of her writing. And the writing was nothing special or new. More importantly, she had access to great literary works, libraries, and other writers with ease.

Because Bacon the true writer deliberately concealed his name as the writer. The ones you mention above had no reason to do so.

We have actual physical letters, notations, original scripts - 'evidence' - of Agatha Christie writing her mysteries, evidence of Salinger writing Catcher in the Rye, evidence of Arthur Conan Doyle writing Sherlock Holmes ... there exists not a single letter, notation, play draft, a poem, or even a note that can be said to have been written by Shakespeare - only six shaky signatures, all in dispute. The lack of any letters written by William Shaxper or Shakspere is particularly significant. As a great writer, it is likely he would have written a large number. Voltaire’s collected correspondence totals roughly 20,000 pieces. Astonishingly Shaxper’s, or Shakespeare’s collected correspondence totals exactly zero items....

@ KeyLimeLemon4U KeyLimeLemon4U "More importantly, she had access to great literary works, libraries, and other writers with ease." So did WS! Look at all the translations of Plutarch, Ovid and Livy from the 1590s - all of them had printers and/or booksellers names and addresses on them. Is it really so difficult to believe that WS couldn't have simply bought these books? He was a fairly well off man in his later years so he could afford them. When he was younger, he could have borrowed them, or maybe the Theatre had a library. Okhams razor people!

The mid-19th century, actually. It was once believed that James Wilmot, a historically attested clergyman from Warwickshire, thought that Francis Bacon might have written the plays as early as 1781, but the document purporting to set down his views is a forgery, probably composed sometime near its purported 'discovery' in 1932. The person who supposedly was speaking about Wilmot's doubt, James Corton Cowell, appears to have never existed and the learned society, the Ipswich Philosophical Society, he was ostensibly addressing never existed either. Furthermore, 'he' refers to facts about Shakespeare's life-his money-lending and the storage of malt at New Place-not discovered until the 19th century. There are a few joking references to doubts about Shakespeare's authorship in the 18th century, such as in the farce _High Life Below Stairs_ by James Townley, but there's no evidence of any serious doubt until Delia Bacon and William Henry Smith introduced the Baconian hypothesis in the mid-19th century. Some anti-Shakespearians try to make the argument that these 18th century jokes reflect an underlying layer of serious doubt, but it could just as easily be the opposite: these jokes could be made because Shakespeare's authorship was so obvious that any alternative was seen as inherently ridiculous.

Good point.

@@terp8373 Not a good point. The only people who knew could be trusted to keep the secret.

@@michaels4255 And that, kiddies, is how "no evidence" becomes "evidence".

Plus he was dead so THAT'S amazing!

Once again you have proved that the name Shakespeare was in use on plays and poems. Well done. Now, can you prove that Shakespeare the London poet and playwrite is identical with William Shaksper the businessman of Stratford, and if not, why not?

@@stevenhershkowitz2265 Here's one fact for a start. There were two Stratford residents with the unusual names of Fluellen and Bardolph. They appear with Shakespeare's father on a lists of people who failed to attend church. Two of the low-life characters in 'Henry IV' are called ... Fluellen and Bardolph. William Shakespeare was at the very least an actor. We know this from multiple documents. There are documents proving that he appeared in Ben Jonson's plays.He also left money for 2 Globe actors in his will. The fact that he was an actor also proves that he must have had some education beyond the elementary stage because an actor needs to learn lines, and if he's any good then he also needs to understand complex texts. Since all this proves that he was moving in theatrical circles and that he must have gone to grammar school (the only kind of post-elementary education that existed) there is no problem with him being the author. It is a myth that there was no social mobility in the Elizabethan age. I could provide a very long list of great men who had humble origins. It's just not an unusual story, particularly among playwrights. Which means ... there's just no problem in the first place, unless you are a desperate snob who can't bear the idea of anyone below the rank of baronet achieving anything. History says different. In fact, in many ways, history says the opposite.

@@stevenhershkowitz2265 Interesting you write it as 'Shaksper'. Here's the revels list of court entertainment 1604. shakespearedocumented.folger.edu/resource/document/account-edmund-tylney-master-revels-listing-plays-performed-year-1604-5 The names of the 'poets' are listed here. Including 'Shaxberd'. As well as bearing yet more testimony to the eccentricity of spelling at the time, it's also interesting that if Shakespeare DID pronounce his name the way you want him to have pronounced it, then this is how someone might have written it down. It's worth noting that the unspeakable shit, Edward de Vere was on his deathbed at this point. but the plays kept on coming for nearly a decade. Looks like Eddie wrote some of his best work after he died.

@@stevenhershkowitz2265 This is honestly an interesting question: how did the man from Stratford say his own name? According to to professor of Liguistics David Crystal, it would not be either 'Shackspur' as antistrats would have it, or the modern 'Shakespeare'. Here is is discussion on the topic: 2If we start with Shake, this would have had a long /e/ vowel, but - as with all long vowels - it would sometimes be pronounced rapidly, and be heard as a short vowel, and spelled accordingly. If we start with Shak, this would have had a short /e/ vowel, but - as with all short vowels - it would sometimes be pronounced slowly, and be heard as a long vowel, and spelled accordingly. Either way, we end up with the same result - a vowel sound which is roughly what we hear in share in RP. (Phonetic symbols don't always come across easily in blogs, but the relevant symbol for this vowel is the mid-open front one - /ɛ/) There's also the option that a Warwickshire regional pronunciation would have affected the length, but there's no firm evidence about that. For the second syllable, the main point to note is that the /r/ would have been pronounced at the end. All sources agree on that. As for the vowel, the spellings suggest a long vowel, as in spear. But when we look at spear (and similar words) we find it could rhyme with there (in Lucrece and Venus, for instance) and similar-sounding words, and it this which doubtless motivated such spellings as -pere, -berd, and so on in the name. The vowel may also have had a shortened and centralised form, being in an unstressed syllable. So it would have been roughly what we would hear today in (long) spare or (short) spur." What's going on in this attempt to make Shakespeare's name 'Shacksper' is an attempt to make his name sound less posh. Obviously. But the ACTUAL pronunciation would probably be different from any modern rendering of the name. Something like a Yorkshire accented 'shake' and a west-country 'spear' (or possibly 'spare') seems to be what he's guessing at.

@@MrMartibobs Not one of your responses links the man from Stratford to a pen. You link him to acting. You link the name Shakespeare to playwriting. And never the two shall meet.

+Steve Bari Looks like you're correct. The dictionary gives 'playbroker' as the origin of the word 'play agent', someone who represents a playwright in dealings with theater managers, producers, etc. However, I can't find any evidence that the term or the profession existed in Shakespeare's day. Perhaps it did, perhaps it didn't, but I would imagine it probably did on occasion, at least in some very basic form. I think the answer to your last question would be that it would throw into doubt the authenticity of Shakespeare's authorship, which is already in question. If it was discovered that Shakespeare was a playbroker, then it would suggest that he likely took credit for anonymous playwrights, for whatever reason. Granted he could've been both a playwright and a playbroker, but this would seem unlikely. Perhaps the term gets thrown around because Anti-Stratfordian authors like Diana Price, acknowledging that Shakespeare's name appears on the title pages of numerous play texts, question the traditional implication, asking "But what if his name is on the title pages for another reason? What if he were a play broker who took credit for the works of others?" Of course, this is another "what if", and ifs buts and maybes don't get us anywhere, but it'd be a lot less fun if there was a smoking gun. The fact that the available evidence is insufficient and thus doesn't equate to absolute proof means we get some pretty wild theories. I personally like the oldest of them all; the Baconian theory, as it lends an air of rebellion and esoteric mystery.

+magnetictheory I pose the question about the play broker because its tossed around quite a bit as if its a very bad thing. First, it needs to be proven that he was one. This has not happened. There is no anecdote, no business transaction, nothing. The business affairs of Shakespeare are very well documented and no where does it indicate he bought and sold plays. Unless this happens he can't be referred to one or be suspected of stealing the work of other writers. Its like being accused of stealing a car when you physically can't drive a car. Unless it proven that he was a play broker then this point of stealing is a non starter. You can suspect whatever you want but as you point out it doesn't make it plausible unless you have something to go on.

+Steve Bari What a useless posting, I am embarrassed for you. Firstly, have you any evidence of others being the author of these great political works, I think not., because they are steeped in politics and social disorder, which excludes aristocracy. No earl of Oxford, who lived a secular life would have any knowledge of such issues. Also there is also words in his plays which are quintessential, only used in certain parts of Warwickshire. Watch in search of Shakespeare by the historian Michael Woods. This so called documentary is just one big joke, after all, what do Americans know about history.

I am a little confused by your posting as I firmly believe Shakespeare wrote the works. I am quite the fan of Michael Wood's documentary and have seen it many times. My posting was to challenge Oxfordians to produce evidence concerning Shakespeare being a play broker and why this is a bad thing. There is no evidence that he did this and certainly not found in Wood's documentary. So please tell me exactly where we differ as you seem to be a Stratfordian as well.

Steve Bari My apologies, probably the wine.

1593 (not 96) the cover page of Venus & Adonis does not have an author's name. The assumption is that a person named William Shakespeare wrote it because that name is at the bottom of the dedication. Notice the last word of the dedication..."expectation"; just after and above the word "expectation" is the end of the word "answere" spelled VVERE. Oddly, the dedication replaces almost all the double-youse with VVs which is the abbreviation of the motto of the house of Vere. 1595 Covell - the name "Shakspeare" is in the margin of the line that has the peculiar phrase "court-dear-verse" centered under the word "Oxford" ("courte-dear-verse is an anagram for "our DeVere - a secret" (again directly centered under the word Oxford...what does that have to do with Shakespeare?) Alexander Waugh dispels your lack of knowledge regarding all these. Richard Barnfield Knew: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-pvfOnwNixEM.html Francis Meres knew: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-fFaGybgFs9M.html

@@MrMartibobs Yep it's an assumption all right. And it's wrong because it turns out the name William Shakespeare was a cover for someone else. Nothing at all to say about why the name Shakespeare is the marginal note relating to "courte-dear-verse"?

@@stevenhershkowitz2265 when people talk about anagrams, number grids and codes, I reach for my pistol. This is a marginal note you're talking about? anyone can write a marginal note about anything. I might write 'sausages and 'tea-bags' in whatever book I'm reading. It doesn't invite people to work out anagrams. It means I need sausages and tea-bags.

@@MrMartibobs The marginal note is printed in the margin. It is part of the publication. Why did the author put it there? And why are you afraid of codes and anagrams and numbers? Meres was a numerologist who plainly states in the introduction to the work (that YOU cite) that numbers are super important to understanding his stuff...

@@stevenhershkowitz2265 de Vere published poetry. Hence 'stigma of print' is a myth. Hence whole argument collapses.

Bc there are people, including myself, who don’t appreciate being lied to, and worse, lied to by vested interest (billion/year tourist industry in Stratford upon Avon).

@Jskillz Because if the greatest English writer had actually been Italian, you understand that the perspective changes NOT a little.

🤦🏻‍♀️

Under the principle of derogeance, it was unseemly for nobles to write for a living. Drama was considered to be lowly since playhouses were frequented by petty criminals and adulterers. Poetry was also considered to be a low form of writing since it exposed the poet's inner life and emotions. One last thing; the plays satirized some of the most powerful people in the kingdom, so the true author used a pen name to cover his ass - to be crude about it - and save himself from the wrath of his enemies at court. Just some things to ponder.

Sarcasm will get you nowhere when the facts are not on your side.

@@rstritmatter Not sarcasm. Fact. It is not at all unusual during the period for a middle-class boy to become a successful writer. Francis Beaumont left university without a degree, AGE 14 studied law for a while, became a playwright ENTERED inner Temple 1600 … then lost interest and worked with Ben Jonson John Fletcher appears to have entered Corpus Christi College, Cambridge University in 1591, at the age of eleven.[3] It is not certain that he took a degree. Thomas Middleton was born in London and baptised on 18 April 1580. He was the son of a bricklayer Middleton was just five when his father died Middleton attended Queen’s College, Oxford, matriculating in 1598, but he did not graduate. Thomas Kyd went to Merchant Taylors' School There is no evidence that Kyd went on to university. Edmund Spenser Edmund Spenser was born in East Smithfield, London, around the year 1552, though there is still some ambiguity as to the exact date of his birth. His parenthood is obscure, but he was probably the son of John Spenser, a journeyman clothmaker. 1574 graduated Pembroke college oxford. Christopher Marlowe was born in Canterbury to shoemaker John Marlowe and his wife Catherine. Marlowe attended The King's School in Bachelor of Arts degree in 1584. His degree was awarded on schedule when the Privy Council intervened on his behalf, commending him for his "faithful dealing" and "good service" to the Queen .. there is evidence that he took lengthy absences from university, perhaps on spying expeditions. John Webster's life is obscure and the dates of his birth and death are not known. His father, a carriage maker also named John Webster, married a blacksmith's daughter named Elizabeth Coates on 4 November 1577 He attended Merchant Taylors' School in Suffolk Lane, London.[2] On 1 August 1598, " A John Webster, lately of the New Inn" was admitted to the Middle Temple, so that might have been him. Maybe. Ben Jonson Jonson's father died a month before his son's birth.[8] Jonson's mother married a master bricklayer two years later.[9][10] Jonson attended school in St Martin's Lane.[3] Later, a family friend paid for his studies at Westminster School, Jonson was to have attended the University of Cambridge, but his stepfather prevented him. So here are all these OTHER famous playwrights/poets. Same background as Shakespeare. Nobody has ever suggested they didn't write their own plays. The only mystery about Shakespeare is that there is no mystery. He came from a prosperous family, got a good education, and it turned out he was a good writer. Just like all the other writers listed above. So go on. Prove Ben Jonson wasn't Ben Jonson. Speaking of Ben Jonson, he pretty well explicitly said that Shakespeare was Shakespeare. He spoke with a mixture of justified criticism and warm affection. If you are not familiar with the quotation in question, I will gladly find it for you, but in brief, he said Shakespeare was careless and didn't revise enough, that he occasionally made risible errors in his work, but that he loved him 'this side of idolatry.

@@MrMartibobs The only problem with your list of writers, of course, is that there is evidence that they wrote. There is no such evidence that William Shakspere of Stratford was even literate. rosbarber.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/RBarber-DPhil-Thesis-Appendix-B.pdf

@@MrMartibobs "he said in the person of Cæsar" Actor. Not writer.

@@MrMartibobs ad hominem. Jonson's "Poet Ape" was about the Stratford man. And the character Sagliardo is also based on him (Every Man Out of His Humour).

His "Rivers of Blood" speech is suddenly relevant again, as Britain reconsiders membership in the EU because of the refugee crisis.

All good. Except Shakespeare wasn't the guy who wrote all that into "The Tempest." Bacon and Marlowe and a few others did.

This whole long comment? Much Ado about nothing

@@MultiSmartass1 haha

That's all lovely. Pure fiction and projection, but lovely.

There is no evidence at all that Shakespeare was educated. Every single American today has the right to a free education. Less than 2% achieve it.

​@@phillipstroll7385Either I'm completely misunderstanding your claim, or that's the single stupidest thing I've read so far this year.

@@Jeffhowardmeade what claim? I see no post here at all.

@@phillipstroll7385 You were wise to delete it.

'Son of a glover' is usually how he's marketed. Interesting how that's changed isn't it? 😂

Robin Hard He’s great, what a crusty old man😂 He’s sick of people attacking his Shakespeare!

You do realize that he is, or was, a leading representatives of your own unexamined opinion, right?

@@rstritmatter How do you know that my opinion is 'unexamined'? And yes, I did know what Rowse though about this matter.

The only way Roger's statement makes sense is if he thought that the comment about "all the nonsense about Shakespeare not having written his own words" applied to Rowse instead of clearly being about the _rest_ of the documentary that didn't consist of Rowse's segments. This is an alarming lapse of reading comprehension in someone who is supposed to be a professor of English.

Motive? The author of Shake-speare’s sonnets refers repeatedly to a “shame,” a “brand” upon his name, a “vulgar scandal stamped upon my brow” that has made him “a motley to the view” and a “disgrace in Fortune and men’s eyes”. 𝐴𝑓𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑚𝑦 𝑑𝑒𝑎𝑡ℎ, 𝑑𝑒𝑎𝑟 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑒, 𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑔𝑒𝑡 𝑚𝑒 𝑞𝑢𝑖𝑡𝑒, [...] 𝑀𝑦 𝑛𝑎𝑚𝑒 𝑏𝑒 𝑏𝑢𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑑 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑚𝑦 𝑏𝑜𝑑𝑦 𝑖𝑠 𝐴𝑛𝑑 𝑙𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑛𝑜 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑚𝑒 𝑛𝑜𝑟 𝑚𝑒 𝑛𝑜𝑟 𝑦𝑜𝑢. You’ve read the sonnets. That “dear love” itself would have been scandal enough in the court of Elizabeth: the love of one man for another. And after the author’s death, the object of the author’s affections, the families of the author’s daughters and the author’s male heir had every reason to suppress the author’s identity and any trace that could bring any of them into renewed association with a revival of that scandal.

​@@EtiemeIf it was such a scandal, why did they put a homosexual on the throne in 1603?

@@Jeffhowardmeade HO do you know the poet named "Shakespeare" was gay? The sonnets are very poor evidence.

@@ronroffel1462 I never said he was. I said King James was, or at least bisexual. It was no big deal.

Have you not heard of the stigma of print?

Hahahahaha ha !!!!! You take anonymous LITERALLY! The play performed before the Essex Rebellion as Richard II not Richard III. Why they changed this I don't know. Presumably that ignorant twat Emerich hadn't heard of the former. Richard III being Tudor propaganda would have simply supported the status quo!!! Richard II is about the overthrow of a KING. Geddit? If you change something as fundamental as that, how can anyone trust the facts? It's laughable. In fact I think I'll laugh again. Hahahahahahahahah!!!!!!!!

@@MrMartibobs Yeah, THAT'S EMBARRASSING! That idiot Roland Emmerich thought the Tudor rose was a REAL rose!

@@MrMartibobs I don't think Willie Doner said to take the movie literally. The historical inaccuracies are many, and the double incest version of the Prince Tudor theory jumps the shark IMO. But the film does capture what may well have been the spirit of Oxford as the author, and the grasping Shaksper character really does fit the evidence history has given us. Have you read "The Mysterious William Shakespeare?" Before you scoff, you might give it a try.

@@peterfrengel3964 Exactly. It's balls. It's piece of imaginative nonsense. It has no basis in truth and doesn't even try to.

@@MrMartibobs I would like it to have stuck to what history actual tells us about Shaksper and Oxford - the film gets the broad outline correct about the role the two men played in their time.

That's giving too much credit to Dee, who was spending the majority of his life metaphorically keeping Edward Kelly off of his wife. And Bacon evidently never slept, because people are giving him credit for Shakespeare's works when his own corpus of work (which sound NOTHING like Shakespeare) is HUGE compared to Shakespeare's.

@@Jerrspero Didn't say Bacon or Dee wrote Shakespeare, I see the plays, at least the best ones, as a group effort. I think Bacon played a hand in the philosophy of the plays, Dee in the invention of the mystique of Shakespeare. I really can't see a grain merchant being a philosophical genius, with nothing else to say except for his plays. I mean that's the equivalent of Dickens being a recluse, who made no mark on history apart from his novels. No comment on politics, or religion?. But Shakespeare's secret life is a deliberate ruse.The unknown, mysterious element deliberately invented. Which is all part of the esoteric philosophy of Bacon, how mystery attracts interest rather than repels. Mysteries that future generations will be drawn back to again and again. After all, most of the plays weren't even performed in Shakespeare's lifetime. Some of them not performed for centuries after his death. Bacon knowing full well that the people of his own era were basically ignoramuses - the whole hermetic tradition of sending messages to the future, in hope of enlightened generations to come . Also it's no coincidence that Shakespeare is akin to an unofficial bible, that was the point - a secular, humanist bible, which according to the first folio saw Shakespeare as a simple but divine figure, with ideas and poetry just effortlessly spewing out of him, like some latter day English prophet. A prophet who was born and died on Saint George's day no less. For that reason, Shakespeare had to be an unknowable, mysterious figure. It just wouldn't be as effective if the authors were well documented. Bacon and Dee were esoteric geniuses, they understood the power of mystery. They probably set up the Rosicrucians, forerunner of the free-masons. The combination of Classical and Christian elements being key to the Rosicrrusian, deist agenda Kelley also was a genius in peddling phony manuscripts in alchemical processes. You might see him as a charlatan, but in terms of the theatre and arts, that's an advantage. Moreover, I see the whole Kelley and Dee story as something of a construction. This was the beginning of the enlightenment, Dee's failures to commune with angels, Kelley's infidelity, fitting neatly with the rationalist narrative that Bacon wanted to push. The Dee Kelley story, Shakespearean in its own right.

Some excellent Bacon videos here : www.youtube.com/@baconisshakespeare/videos

There is no actual "evidence" for that.

I meant the evidence being that there's no evidence either way. But some are saying he's too dumb, and others that it doesn't matter. Though I do believe that at that time it was less likely to just imagine things, like being in a caste system. There are things that can only be experienced, unless he had friends in the nobility, which would be odd since actors were thought of as low-class (or if female, whores). Yada yada. Anyway, I'm not saying I'm for either side, just saying it seems more likely and more doubtful given the lack of any evidence either way. And wouldn't there be some evidence if he was this person? He would have been much more famous in his time, I think, which he wasn't.

Exactly what evidence is there that the name Shakespeare was a pseudonym? A hyphen that appears on less than 40% of title pages, on only 3 of 18 plays that appeared in his lifetime and never in handwritten references does prove a pseudonym. The hyphen thing is nothing but wishful thinking.

You could say its wishful thinking on both sides, since both sides have very little to no evidence.

+karen perry You keep repeating that, but it's just not true. Shakespeare of Stratford is linked by piles of evidence to Shakespeare the player of London. That is not wishful thinking, it is a documented fact. Shakespeare the poet was also mentioned on several occasions as being a player. Shakespeare's acting company and his theater was the sole venue for the plays published under his name. He was unquestionably thought to be the author of the plays in his lifetime. It is not possible there could have been two William Shakespeares associated with The Lord Chamberlain's/King's Men, one a poet and one a player, both of whom held the status of gentleman, and yet nobody noticed. If someone else was secretly writing the plays and slipping them under Shakespeare's door, then EVERYONE who knew him or knew of him was fooled. There were simply too many people who would have had to know that Shakespeare wasn't writing the plays that bore his name, and not a single one of them ever made a peep. Anti-Stratfordians often say there is no smoking gun, and I suppose that's technically true. It's actually a smoking firing squad. Tell me if you need me to label each bullet for you. You can let me know by repeating the "no evidence" lie.

I block rude people and your replies elsewhere prove you are a uncouth Yank ,that wants to believe what he wants.

Rock Ripper Knock yourself out. I prefer someone who can give me a challenge. That's certainly not you.

Nelson's research and assemblage of facts is impressive indeed. His commentary on those facts, however, is highly subjective and biased. Take the title for instance: "Monstrous Adversary." That was lifted from the Howard libels and are themselves monstrous slanders about DeVere. The fact that Nelson chose this for his title speaks volumes about his animus toward his subject. Have you read Mark Alexander's "Shakespeare by Another Name?" p.s. Thanks for mentioning Park Honan - he was my thesis adviser at Leeds Uni.

Brilliant points. No surprise that the conspiracy theorists have zero response. Philip Sidney's sister also published a play (under her aristocratic title, the Countess of Pembroke) in 1592, so this nonsense about aristocrats supposedly needing a pseudonym to publish plays is pure fantasy.

1. Yes, this is a dumb query. De Vere was not writing under the name Shakespeare - he was PUBLISHED under that name (and others). Philip Sidney was acknowledged AFTER his death - De Vere was kept hidden. The answer to why De Vere was hidden is the important thing, and it has everything to do with politics, not "unseemly-ness". 2. What does it mean that 40% of the published works ARE hyphenated? Why are virtually all references from the town of Stratford spelled Shaksper or some variation, but never Shakespeare? Why is Ben Jonson the only person to assign a part to Shakespeare, and he didn't do so until after both Stratford and Oxford were dead? The hyphen means "this is a pen-name".

Who published De Vere under the name Shakespeare and why? Did De Vere know about it? How was it conveyed from his pen to the stage? Why would top drawer poems like Venus and Adonis and Rape of Lucrece, both classically inspired works, be under the name of Shakespeare? These are the types of things courtiers lived to write but yet that's not the case. De Vere had no problem being known as a writer of comic interludes at court but courtly poetry there's a problem? What the stat means is that if you take all of the title pages of plays and poems in which the name Shakespeare appears, 40% of them contain a hyphen between the “Shake” and “Spear” and the other 60% do not have a hyphen. The point is if the hyphen is a dead give away of pseudonym than why do so few works have it. Its even more damning when you think that the 40% are only 4 plays and one set of poems. 18 plays appeared in print and only 4 (which includes rereleases) have this hyphen. If there were anything to the hyphen hypothesis it would appear more or on all of them. John Shakespeare is referred to as such in several entries of the Stratford Corporation. He’s also noted as such in legal complaints against him by the crown. Other documents include, the Montjoy depositions, the Coat of Arms application and accompanying documents, Gilbert Shakespeare’s signature. All of these contain a two syllable name with long vowels. Spelling varied widely in both personal names and everyday words but regardless of variat ion more often it was closer to Shakespeare than Shaksper. The one document that trumps all of them though is the family coat of arms and its is shakespear and shakespere. Your point about Ben Jonson assigning parts might have some merit if other playwrights did this as well. What other playwrights published their own works where they included cast lists? None did. This was something Jonson did alone because he wanted to stand out from other playwrights. Because Jonson did this was why the First Folio was put together by Hemings and Condell. Prior to Jonson publishing his works in Folio format no other plays appeared in this format, quartos and octavos were the norm for plays. Folios are expensive to produce and were reserved for legal, religious or medical publications. A couple of other points in regards to Jonson’s Folio: First, there are two mentions of “William Shakespeare”, one with the hyphen and one without. Like the 40% title page argument, if there was anything to the pseudonym thing it would appear in both instances but it doesn’t. Secondly, William Shakespeare was still alive when this book was being put together and published. The First Folio took two years for printers to gather the pages, set them and put it all together. Jonson’s Folio isn’t as large but would have taken around a year to put together so work started a year before publication in 1615 if not late 1614. Also, it came out in February 1616 and Shakespeare died in April.

Not interested in writing a book. Lets just stick to the Sonnets 1609. The name Shake-speare is hyphenated, making it far wider than anything on the page. Seems unnecessary, unless the publisher is trying to tell us something. The title is wrong. The name of the author is in the title, but the space where the author's name is meant to go is left blank. It SHOULD read symply "Sonnets" with "by William Shakespeare" down below, instead of Shake-speares Sonnets with a blank where the author's name should be. Why do you think the publisher anagrammed the motto of the Vere family (vero nihil verius) into the line "our ever living poet etc" in the dedication?

here. have fun ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-zGiq_u48Rec.html

It wasn't Marlowe. There isn't a single decent female character in the whole of Marlowe's canon, or an ounce of humour either. They were different men.

@@Dabhach1 It was a middle-class well-educated kid from the hick town of Stratford upon Avon. What's the big mystery?

Bacon.

It's true. The works of Charles Dickens were actually written by Lord Shafesbury. Jane Austen was really Lord Ponsonby-Smythe, fifth Earl of Clapham. Thackeray was Baron Pratt, the fourteenth Earl of Croydon. Curiously, Lord Byron was actually Arthur Wiggleston, a truss-fitter from Barnstaple. Honestly, what is WRONG with you people? A hyphen means bugger all. Look at some manuscripts of the time. There WAS NO standard spelling. You made it up as you went along. Lots of people spell their names in different ways on different occasions.

@@MrMartibobs Shaksper wasn't well educated. The big mystery is why William Shaksper is supposed to have written spectacular poems, sonets and plays, but not one letter to anyone in his lifetime.

Why would you ever show it to high school students?

@@isabellaangeline2175 You have to show them SOMETHING on April Fool's Day.

@@Jeffhowardmeade You also have to allow them the chance to think critically in class.

@@ronroffel1462 The difference between "lies" and "the truth" is taught in Kindergarten. You should go back there and study that lesson again.

So Shakespeare was Arthur Golding? Wow, that's a new one. He died in 1605 though and that's a problem with the late dated plays. Not to mention when di he find time to work in the the theater and collaborate with on 10 plays across 20 years? Three of which came out 7-9 years after he died.

Aurthur Golding was Shakespeare's grandfather. . .dufus. On his mothers side. He was a latin translator, had an acting group. . ect. William Shakespear had no relatives with any writing talent, or experience to write the plays.

read. . .en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margery_Golding

Arthur Golding was Shakespeare’s grandfather on his mother’s side but he had no family with writing talent? Didn’t know he was related to the Ardens. BTW you made a typo on Shakespeare’s name, you left off the “e”. First up, if you are referring to Edward De Vere as “Shakespeare”, Golding was his uncle not his grandfather. Secondly, he was only an Ovid translator and had no acting company of his own. And, so what, he translated a volume of Ovid? Ovid was a mass produced classical author and a staple of the grammar school education. He was all over the place so anyone could have picked up a volume and used him as a source to write plays. How does what Golding did, matter to what De Vere did? My grandfather was a gardener, I can’t keep a plant alive for more than two weeks. Family doesn’t guarantee occupation or your competency at occupation. Christopher Marlowe’s father was a cobbler, John Webster’s - a coachmaker, Ben Jonson - a bricklayer. You can easily be a great playwright with family who have no literary leanings. Edward was not Shakespeare. He never met Shakespeare. Never used the most ridiculous pseudonym in history, the name an actual guy. And the most ridiculous give away, a hyphen, to denote a pseudonym. Any Shaksper, etc. are abbreviations from the signatures written in Secretary Script, a form of shorthand, i.e. abbreviation. Nor was a hyphen ever used to denote a pseudonym. It appears on less than 40% of the time on publications with the name William Shakespeare. If it were the calling card of a pseudonym it would appear all the time. The only other time it appears for an author is the Marparlate papers and only once. The full name is Shakespeare, no missing vowels. Its on their coat of arms and several supporting documents, his brother wrote out the full name, Will gave the full name on the Montjoy court case and their father was name as such in both town records and legal fines. Their name was Shakespeare, full stop. De Vere was not Shakespeare.

I’m detecting some levels of sarcasm from Giovan regarding Golding and Shakespeare however, I do have to echo his point about what Golding did vs. De Vere. Why should Golding’s work bear on his nephew? As well, Ovid was omnipresent on book stalls and schools, both grammar and university. If you can show that a Shakespeare play had a source only available by Golding then you might raise a few eyebrows, but I’d suspect Golding as the writer not his nephew.

There are many theories and this offers an Oxfordian theory .... i propose that it was much more than just an Oxfordian theory, i am following view that it was a Jacobean agenda to manufacture the 'English language' so as to spread the British culture across the globe to all its commonwealth colonies. When Samuel Johnson compiled and published "A Dictionary of the English Language" in 1755 he noted that Shakespeare had introduced thousands of words and phrases into the English language during his career and along with the King James Bible and other classic english literature like Chaucer, the english language was created and spread across the globe to represent the British empire. Who could be behind such an enterprise? One only has to look at Sir William Cecil, Sir Francis Bacon, Sir Walter Raleigh, The Earl of Oxford: Edward De Vere, John Dee and King James himself. I think that so many theorists limit themselves to 'specialise' in that subject matter, whereas the real answer may be much wider in scope...

Well, he was brilliant but unhinged. Just read his The Mysterious William Shakespeare. Talk about a mess.

@@Jerrspero If you've read the book, I doubt you would call it "a mess," unless you're a biased Statfordian. It is articulate and comprehensive. Unhinged? Please.

Cathar agnostic knowledge encoded!

"This comprises very cold, hard evidence for Oxford as 'Shakespeare'." Is that a joke?! Your idea of what "hard evidence" is is what some "Oxfordian scholars" (a contradiction in terms if there ever was one) _believe_ ?!?! You might as well say, "They think Oxford wrote Shakespeare's works, therefore he did." In fact, that's practically what you _did_ say, just in a slightly more roundabout way.

Note upon further reading: there is some sentiment the young earl himself may have written some or even all the translations, not his uncle under whose name they appeared - because his puritan-leaning uncle would have strongly disapproved of the very licentious content. If I have followed this correctly.

​@@johnbeattie5014 Once again, you're simply repeating what Oxfordians say. If that's good enough as evidence, then you might as well just say that they claim the Earl of Oxford wrote the plays therefore he did. Edward de Vere committed comical, Dogberry-like solecisms in his legal Latin, like writing "fyre facias" instead of _fieri facias_ (among other issues with this, Latin doesn't have a "y" in anything other than Greek loan words like _polyspaton_ ) and "summum totale" instead of _summa totalis_ . Either the adult Vere was hit on the head and forgot almost all of the Latin he knew or the teenage Vere didn't know Latin that well either. Ovid had the endorsement of Philip Melanchthon - the Protestant theologian next in importance to Luther himself - and Desiderus Erasmus, and he was taught grammar schools up and down the country. There was absolutely no bar to even a devout man translating the _Metamorphoses_ . _Assuming_ that he wouldn't have wanted to is typical of Shakespeare-denialist arguments: they presume something about the past, then use the divergence between the past and their assumptions about it as evidence that the past itself is in the wrong, rather than their assumptions. Look at it the other way, as any rational person would, and the evidence that he did translate the _Metamorphoses_ is reason to conclude that the project interested him. Unless they have actual documentary evidence that Golding was fronting for his nephew, then the claim should be rejected. It should also be rejected because the argument is incoherent. Where's the logic here? On the one hand, we have a man so dour and puritanical that Ovid's salaciousness disturbs him, so he sees what young Edward has translated and he's so appalled that he takes it and... has it published under his own name? _Twice_ ? ( _The First Fower Bookes of P. Ovidius Nasos Worke intitled Metamorphosis_ was published in 1565 before the publication of the full translation two years later.) Finally, it should be rejected because he and Arthur Golding spoke with mutually incommensurate accents and this is reflected in their spelling. Back in the early modern era, people spelled words according to how they sounded to them. Golding pronounced through, thoguh, enough, and ought by vocalizing the "gh", which is an old-fashioned pronunciation that was disappearing in Shakespeare's day, and he mocks it by making Holofernes the pedant in _Love's Labour's Lost_ insist on its inclusion. Edward de Vere had a truly weird way of dealing with this. He not only vocalized the -gh, but he added a terminal t. So "through" became "throught", "ought" became "oft", "though" became "thought", and enough became "inought". Golding doesn't write like this, and Shakespeare writes like neither Golding nor de Vere. You can also see their pronunciation in their rhyme words. For de Vere, "could" and "cold" rhymed. They didn't for Golding (nor Shakespeare). For de Vere, "hall" and "hale" rhymed. They didn't for Golding (nor Shakespeare). Just about the only thing they agreed on was that "leek" and "like" rhymed, in which point they diverge from Shakespeare. If de Vere had written Shakespeare's great comedy, it would have been spelled _As Yow Leke It_ (spelling "you" as "yow" is another way in which he diverges from Shakespeare, as well as his uncle Arthur Golding, both of whom spelled it "you"). Now, as for your claims about Shakespeare's illiteracy: he wasn't illiterate. He left six extant signatures and Hand D of _Sir Thomas More_ has been determined to be in his hand based on comparison with those six signatures. There is no evidence his parents were illiterate and strong reason to believe they weren't. His mother, Mary Arden, was the executrix of her father's will. It would be strange to devolve that responsibility to someone who couldn't read the will's provisions. Likewise, John Shakespeare could have hardly succeeded as a money-lender if he couldn't read a promissory note and he'd be unlikely to be a useful alderman and chief magistrate if he couldn't read the official records of Stratford and the law books his position meant he had to be aware of. Whether Shakespeare's wife was literate is neither here nor there since she wasn't the one who wrote the plays. We know for a fact that his eldest daughter was literate because she left an extant signature, there is an account of her knowing about the contents of one of her husband's books even though it was in Latin, and she probably wrote the epitaph for her mother Anne, since nobody else was around to do it. Her own epitaph praises her as "witty [i.e., learned] above her sex" and says "something of Shakespeare was in that", showing that even when Susanna died Shakespeare still was a byword for cleverness. Admittedly, Judith's literacy is less easy to establish, but there is nothing to establish her _illiteracy_ . While it's true the only extant record from her is of her leaving her mark, two connected loops with a downstroke, plenty of literate people left marks just to save time, since there was as yet no stigma against making a mark. In addition, we have an extant signature from William Shakespeare's brother Gilbert and evidence that his younger brothers Richard and Edmund followed their elder brother into the theatre as actors, where all _three_ of them would have had to read their cue scripts. That actors had to be able to read hasn't occurred to the Shakespeare-deniers is a metric of their incompetence. And it's also a testament to how little they've thought their own scenario through, because who would believe an _illiterate_ front man?

Weren't books already being written about the authorship question very soon after his death? In other words, people may have indeed "known immediately".

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margery_Golding

No. The first came out in 1850s by Delia Bacon. There was an anecdote of a reverend who lived near Stratford who had musings on the subject but had destroyed his papers on his death. This story was proven to have been a forgery from the early 20th century. So Bacon’s book was the first on the subject. Nothing immediately after Shakespeare’s death or for over 200 years after.

@@attilathepun7596 just found your reply. glad you agree, only common sense .

Genius or "greatness" never blossoms without nurturing and mentors. Jonson and other "peasants" were mentored and we have records of this from an early age. Not only is there no such record for Shakspere but the evidence we DO have shows that he never fully learned to write his own name, let alone Latin or Greek. The dialect spoken in Warwickshire was so different from London that 115 years after Shakspere the dialect was still mostly unintelligible in London. Shakspere is the original anti-Stratfordian -- He never said he was a writer nor did his wife, daughters or neighbors. There is no Shakespeare quoted on Shakspere's (alleged) unmarked grave. To believe Shakspere is the writer is to believe that he successfully hid all of his writing from family, friends and the town. >DH Lawrence attended Beauvale Board School from 1891 until 1898, becoming the first local pupil to win a county council scholarship to Nottingham High School in nearby Nottingham.< = nurture and mentoring. Shakspere has no such training. It is not that Shakspere could not have been trained but he wasn't. His attempts at writing his own name show a person who never learned to write. Evidence cannot be ignored simply because it doesn't fit with magical thinking. Evidence is not concerned with 'what could have happened' -- only with what did happen. "Cursed be he that moves my bones" = "towering genius"?! The most heavily revised (even though mostly boiler plate) Last Will = "never blotted a line" !

@@vicomptedemontecristo3851 Yes

William Shaksper died in 1616, and many great plays weren't published until the FF in 1623, so I guess he didn't write them? That's some logic you have there, Rick. There's nothing to suggest that the plays couldn't have been published after de Vere's death.

@@vicomptedemontecristo3851 Nope, but internal textual evidence gives us clues.

The learning is immense actually and its the characters that make mistakes in the works ,for instance his expertise on law is outstanding though other characters make errors in character.

Not true. In The Taming of the Shrew, Padua in placed in Lombardy rather than in Veneto, where it belongs. Shakespeare made that error, not the characters. Actually, he was copying an error made by cartographer Abraham Ortellius. Someone who had actually been to Italy would not have made such an error. Also, his expertise on law is not outstanding. For the most part, he drops legal jargon into his plays every now and again. His knowledge of Salic law comes straight from Hollingshed. His knowledge of English law comes mostly from Plowden's Commentaries on the Law.

THERE AREN'T MISTAKES ACTUALLY FOOL!!!

Caius Martius Coriolanus Not true do your research there are no mistakes ffs.

Rock Ripper I've done my research. I started by reading the original source of that crummy engraving: archive.org/details/antiquitiesofwar00dugd You'll find it on page 520. Right next to it, you'll find the inscription on it reproduced. It refers to Shakespeare as a poet. Why would someone put an inscription on a grain merchant's monument that says he's a poet? ffs.

Philip Parker, how can you say that the 17th Earl of Oxford never demonstrated any genius-level talent, when this documentary film strongly suggests that he did have such talent? And I think this film raised a lot of other relevant questions. If the Stratford Shakespeare was recognized as a great talent during his lifetime, why did his death in 1616 receive such little public notice? And why, as they showed, was there no reference to his manuscripts or other books in his will? And what happened to the manuscripts? The Oxfordian theory makes perfect sense to me.

@@brianforbes8325 Oxford received praise from two contemporaries: George Puttenham (The Arte of English Poesie, 1589) where he was commended as a court poet, and Frances Meres (Pallis Tamia, Wits Treasury, 1598), who said Oxford was among those who were "best for comedy", as was Shakespeare. Oxford was never mentioned as a playwright by anyone. His surviving poetry published under his own name is mediocre at best. When Shakespeare died, there was no social media. There were no newspapers. If anyone besides an aristocrat wrote anything about him, there was a very small chance it would survive 400+ years. And yet a lot of it did. Here's a partial list of people who wrote eulogies to Shakespeare: William Davenant, William Basse, Henry Condell, John Hemminges, James Mabbe, Hugh Holland, Ben Jonson, Leonard Digges. The ultimate 17th Century tribute to one's passing was the funerary monument. Shakespeare got one of those, which was in place within a couple of years of his death. It compares him to the Roman poet Virgil. A will is not meant to itemize everything one owns. The purpose of a will is to list specific bequests. The only way books or manuscripts would be in his will would be if Shakespeare left them to a specific person. He didn't. Neither did any other poet of the age. Did none of them own books?

Rewatch the vid. DeVere was acknowledged as a genius level literary talent in his own lifetime for works written in his own name before he abruptly "ceased (?)" writing.

@@michaels4255 No, he wasn't. "Best for comedy and enterlude" was as good as it got.

And your reasons for this trolling? You obviously have not kept up.

@@rstritmatter If "keeping up" involves reading your latest book, you would do better to not recommend it.

This wasn't about the Marlowe theory.

+trev moffatt Because understanding an author can give us a new insight on their works and its true meanings. And although they may have indeed wanted to remain anonymous, it was likely more due to a situation where, if not anonymous, they could be struck down by political forces.

Jebradiah Drake Not necessarily. Neo Platonists and Hermetic scholars believed in remaining anonymous. To sacrifice Ego in the service of wisdom. To keep away the ignorant from what they will never understand. Take the Rosicrusian Manifestos that remained anonymous. Sometimes creating an air of mystery is the whole point. An esoteric ludibrium - like the Renne Le Chateau mystery. If we knew everything about Shakespeare or the author he was a front for - would the plays lose some of their magic? Its my guess the author or authors desired the plays to take on a semi-divine quality. The works of Shakespeare becoming a kind of secular Bible.

Well either way, I wouldn't want to see the wrong person credited.

+trev moffatt And how do you know they wanted to remain anonymous?

+Steve Bari EXACTLY! Why do people make unsubstantiated claims like this?

Can you find me any poet of the era whose will mentions books or manuscripts?

@@Jeffhowardmeade Can you find me a writer with less links or material tying him to literature than Shakespeare?

@@MultiSmartass1 Yes. Little is known about John Ford, John Webster, Thomas Kyd, and Michael Drayton. More is known about Dekker, Middleton, Peele, Lyly, Marston, Chettle, Beaumont, Fletcher, etc. Still more is known about Shakespeare than any of these. Ben Jonson is likely the only poet about who we know more. Even so, we have only two letters written by him, both to government officials begging to be let out of jail.

@@Jeffhowardmeade Yet all those. Men are tied to writing and literature . Shakespeare ? Only to business dealings outside of the first folio . Nice try but no cigar.

@@MultiSmartass1 So when a dozen contemporaries who knew him identified him as the author, that doesn't tie him to the work? When a dozen more who we can't prove knew him personally but who were well placed among the literati identified him as the author, that doesn't tie him to the work? When everything he ever wrote specifically for publication was printed by his Stratford friend, who even got a shout out in a play, that doesn't tie him to the work? That he was a member of the only theater company performing in the only theaters with the right to perform the works attributed to a man of the same name, that doesn't tie him to the work? When he includes names of people from Stratford in his plays, when he lampoons people he knew, when he is identified by name, rank, and profession by a dozen publishers, none of that ties him to the work? No cigar? I just gave you frikken Cuba.

Thank you

Vicky Owen It wasn't meant as a compliment. The "dark lady" sonnets tell the story of an adulterous affair where both the poet and woman are married to other people and the affair is self destructive.

giovan cicc just goes to show ; you're right ! But I think l know her role, not her name, in the sonnets ; Shakespeare was in romantic and erotic love with both of them . A boy and a grown woman . And his jealousy was tearing him apart . We don't want to believe he was basically pansexual . If we dare to say so; we may well be tainted with the same brush . Their is a real fear among academics to state this obvious observation .

The most frustrating thing about the sonnets is that they aren’t so straightforward. Pansexual and with a boy? Not so much. The “boy” is the first 17 sonnets is being urged by the poet to marry and have children before he gets too old. So that means he’s an adult who can marry and at that cusp, if you wait too long, you’ll miss the boat. Nothing in the male focused sonnets mention that their love has been consummated or even physicalized, its all obsessive admiration. The Dark Lady on the other hand is nothing but sex. Also, there’s the small subset of the sonnets that indicate the boy and the dark lady are having an affair and the poet hates them both. Of course there are others the sound like the poet is talking about a lost actual son. If you are going to take it as a biography then its more hetero with an obsessive fixation on the male that never really goes anywhere. Both the male and the dark lady treat the poet like dirt but even that is not so cut and dry in that he loves them both. You can also take the side, its all artificial. After all the guy who wrote these poems created a bunch of characters who feel like real people. So is it biography or just the rough outline of a play-like plot line?

giovan cicc no. Shakespeare was a dark and sinister character. He goes to specific depths in his imagination to describe child abuse as something natural and almost a holy thing to do. Venus and Adonis is just one example. Titus adronicus the worst. Robert Burns threw it in the fire the first time he heard it . And if it was up to me I would burn everything Shakespeare wrote . It was never needed in this life . That he was obsessive is clear. He could not have been so intense in his writings without being obsessed . " Past cure " he declared .

What child abuse is in V & A? Adonis is a young guy but he's not a boy. There's no passage that indicates he's a child, i.e. not of age of consent. Not really aware of specific abuse to children aside from them getting killed in war or as part of a vendetta. That's the cruel world he's writing about so that's going to be part of the story. It happened. If Titus is not your thing so be it. Good on you for even naming it, most people don't even know it. Shakespeare is tame compared to some of his contemporaries. You want twisted, check out John Webster, Thomas Kyd and Marlowe. Titus wasn’t written in a vacuum it was part of a revenge tradition that was popular then and still is today. Burns, to put it politely is a boring poet. But that's my opinion.