Edward Golding de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford - Was Edward de Vere the author of the works attributed to Wm Shakspere of Stratford on Avon

Hugh

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I am somewhat convinced.

I am somewhat convinced.

That's all sheer snobbery by people who think that no "mere peasant" could have written such brilliant plays. As if genius were any respecter of social class!

There was a perfectly good grammar school in Stratford-upon-Avon, and Shakespeare probably did attend it (it was an easy stroll from his family's house). So yeah, he was literate even though - like practically everybody back then,*including* the nobility - he was an inconsistent speller.

We have a great deal more evidence that William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon was the author of the plays attributed to him than we do that Sir Thomas Malory of Newbold Revel was the actual author of the Morte d'Arthur - for instance, nobody made any snide remarks hinting at Malory's authorship. (And the evidence for at least one of the alternate candidates is significantly stronger than the evidence for any alternate authorship of Shakespeare's plays, too.)

Hah! Certainly Edward de Vere was the Shakespeare author. And the utterly absurd argument of "only snobs support the de Vere theory" is SO old and outdated and completely wrong.

Maven, your post is pure platitude. The records for the grammar school in question are not extant for the period during which the Stratford man could or would have attended. As has been pointed out many times by individuals more authoritative than anything you have put forth here, natural genius appears in both the high and lowly demographics in any country or time period. BUT, natural genius must be developed and nourished. The Shakespeare author was without a solitary doubt a highly cultivated, educated, and aristocratic individual. There's so much more and I really do encourage you to read far, far more deeply on this subject before mouthing off as you have done above. Your lack of knowledge on this subject is painfully obvious.
And thankfully, more and more academics are boldly striding to the Oxfordian table. I am among them. I am also first cousin, sixteen times removed from Edward de Vere, and directly descended from his uncle, the Earl of Surrey, also an author of renown, as were several others on both sides of de Vere's family.

It's an interesting theory, but really??

If you're willing to throw out the evidence of contemporary documents, you can re-write history any way you want. That's Historiography 101.

I have a bookstore with a substantial Conspiracy section. The earth is really flat after all. The earth is hollow. Humans are descended from ancient astronauts. Donald Rumsfeld and Queen Elizabeth are shape-shifting lizard people. JFK is still alive. Elvis is still alive. Jesus is the same person as Pharaoh Akhenaten. Jesus was trained in India. World governments are secretly controlled by the Illuminati. The Holocaust never happened. Queen Victoria was the daughter of John Conroy. Olav V was the son of Sir Francis Laking. Francis Bacon wrote Shakespeare's plays. Edward de Vere was a secret son of Queen Elizabeth.

This list goes on and on. I think I'm going to read CIA Mind Controlled Sex Slaves next. Then I'll understand really why my oil stocks are falling.

Seriously, these theories are all very entertaining but we should never confuse our own need to believe with real evidence.

I was discussing actual and substantial evidence. Another post filled with platitudes. What is your background in history and historiography? Historiography is interpretation, schools of thought. The de Vere case counts among those. Sorry you don't see the absurdity, though necessary at the time, of the Stratford story.

Oh, and please, let's have those "contemporary documents" you mentioned. Come on, I seriously want to know about those.

I did Medieval History and Literature at NYU and Columbia.

What you are proposing is indeed historiography. Just not very good historiography.

The idea that someone else wrote Shakespeare's play never occurred to anyone until the mid 1800s, and it wasn't until the 1920s that a school teacher came up with the idea it was de Vere.

Shakespeare scholar William Hunt sums up the majority view: "No, absolutely no competent student of the period, historical or literary, has ever taken this theory seriously. First of all, the founding premise is false -- there is nothing especially mysterious about William Shakespeare, who is as well documented as one could expect of a man of his time. None of his contemporaries or associates expressed any doubt about the authorship of his poems and plays. Nothing about De Vere (Oxford) suggests he had any great talent, and there is no reason to suppose he would have suppressed any talents he possessed."

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/anonymous-hollywood-film-shows-...

Oh my goodness. You must put your critical thinking skills to work, I think. Have you seriously engaged with the existing evidence? What is your background in British literature, that is also helpful.

I teach undergrad history, primarily Western European, though I specialize in Early Modern Europe and Atlantic World. I also teach college literature, particularly British.

Your last response is academic in some ways, but you remain rife with platitudes. How unfortunate. Do you not conduct your own research on this subject, and if so, what are your specific findings and how did you go about disproving the evidence that absolutely is available? For instance, what is your take on the de Vere Bible in the Folger Library?

As for this William Hunt, would you mind providing a link to a site that provides his credentials or CV? I find no reference of that name, though there is someone by that name self-publishing brief, very inexpensive volumes on English history on Amazon. Perhaps he is old school, prior to the Internet age? I just did some digging in the most comprehensive, peer-reviewed databases dealing with English literature and history, but no one by that name has published a journal article on Shakespeare in approximately the past one hundred years.

Furthermore, even if this Hunt fellow has published *somewhere,* you say he presents the "majority view" of whom? If the majority agrees, is there no room for dissenting opinion?
Excuse me, sir, but discourse, continuous, rigorous discourse is what the Academy stands for.
You and Mr. Hunt are mistaken and misled. You will see.

Ah, I missed the link at the bottom of your last post. ABC news. Really?
Here's the pertinent portion, I believe:

"So, upon seeing the trailers for "Anonymous," I emailed my old college friend William Hunt who had later done award-winning scholarship on Elizabethan England in the course of getting his Ph.D. at Harvard."

So, he is the reporter's "old friend" and has done work, award-winning scholarship (what awards, I wonder? ;) on Elizabethan England. And at Harvard (not known, in the humanities, as having a very good program in lit -- I mean, it's alright, but not the best -- or one interested in discourse; rather, dogma).

The statement quoted above in no way suggests that Mr. Hunt is a Shakespearean scholar. He is a historian with a specialization in Elizabethan England.

Very big difference. Sorry.
Do you have anything else?

One more thing. The film, _Anonymous_ is entertainment. Not history.

The whole idea that de Vere wrote Shakespeare's material is entertainment, not history. It's hard to take the whole idea seriously at all, when it ignores even basic historiographal methods. There is a wealth of contemporary evidence documenting Shakespeare as the author. There is nothing for more than 200 years that suggests anyone thought someone else wrote his material.

Of course, it could be true. Anything could be true. De Vere might have been a space alien for all we know, but if you're tossing all the primary sources in favor of selected circumstantial evidence you haven't made much of a case. Ironic that you think the other side is just platitudes.

I'm afraid I have to pass on this one. I just don't have the True Believer gene.

Sigh. More platitudes? Seriously? The research most certainly does not ignore either basic nor complex historiographical methods. Do you understand that whatever stamp historians want to put on any particular period may or may not take certain contemporary facts and cultural mores and expectations in proper context?
The authorship question has nothing whatsoever to do with the past 200 years. It has everything to do with the context of the times and social mores of the Elizabethan period. The extant evidence is plentiful. And obvious. At least to those who are bright enough to see past and see through the "great man" historical method.
There is no true believer gene. There are; however, facts and evidence. And very fusty, dusty members of an academy whose foremost tradition they have utterly abandoned. They have degraded and continue to degrade the Academy. Such are these similar to those who have faith in the supernatural.

And you have no response to the direct questions I posed to you? No discussion, even of the Folger Bible, no refutation?

And yes, I teach English comp as well, and am very well versed in recognizing and calling out platitudes. It is not that I think you are presenting platitudes. It is obvious, rhetorically speaking. You cannot see it? Really?

And no defense of the "esteemed" Mr. Hunt? The one who sells tiny English histories to poor customer reviews on Amazon for ninety-nine cents?

Furthermore, no need to pick on de Vere. Defend YOUR man! The cruel grain seller of the muddy, run down village of Stratford, the one who could barely write his name. The one who was born to illiterates and raised to illiterate children who, after her father's death denied he had ever been a poet? The one whose will and inventory contains no mention of any book whatsoever, no manuscript?

:rolleyes:

I don't know where you are getting all this claptrap, Ms. Rychkov, but your ridiculous tirades are thoroughly undermining your credibility.

If you think Stratford-upon-Avon was "muddy" and "run down", you would have been tremendously disappointed and disillusioned with Elizabethan London. It was muddy, filthy, *stinking*, and full of slums and shambles. London Bridge was over 400 years old and in constant need of repair ("London Bridge is falling down", remember?), to say nothing of a frequent display of rotting heads.

Spelling was optional at this period, and spelling your name several different ways wasn't proof of anything. It would take Dr. Samuel Johnson in England and Noah Webster in America - both *18th* century personalities - to impose regularity on the English language.

As to Shakespeare's two daughters (his only son died at age 11), one of them, Susanna, certainly could (and did) sign her name and was probably at least a competent reader (she had a reputation for intelligence). It is unknown whether Judith's education was neglected (it was still not all that customary to teach women to read and write) or whether she was a bit "slow". One should also not overlook the possibility of functional illiteracy due to dyslexia, which was not recognized as a serious problem until the late 19th century.

As for the will, well: http://shakespeareauthorship.com/shaxwill.html

I was going to say piffle, but claptrap will do.

Cheryl, your argument so far does not inspire confidence.

1. You claim "more and more academics are boldly striding to the Oxfordian table". That is manifestly untrue. A few academics here and there are signing on to the Declaration of Doubt. (You haven't signed, it seems, although it looks like a good PR move to do so, but maybe academic suicide). It's quite noticeable that most of the academic signers are not history or lit profs, but other departments. And, it's striking that none of the works cited in support of the doubters are from academic presses.

The majority opinion of historians has always been that the overwhelming evidence is that Shakespeare wrote his plays. I can't speak for literature folks without much training in historical method. For what it's worth, my old Shakespeare prof at NYU warned us that there will always be crackpots with other theories.

2. Instead of addressing Hunt's position, you attack his credentials. As a professor you ought to be able to recognize argumenta ad hominem. (Hunt is a History prof and sometime History chair at St. Lawrence, and author of The Puritan Revolution. Found him on the first try.)

3. You have provided no proof of your own, although you are not shy about demanding other people's evidence. As an English Comp prof, you ought to be contributing your own papers and original research here. If you can sniff at Hunt's academic connections and Harvard PhD, I suppose you have the credentials to go head-to-head with him.

4. You mis-characterize the historiography as a "great man argument", apparently without understanding how wide of the mark that is. Further, you try to make the argument that "whatever stamp historians want to put on any particular period may or may not take certain contemporary facts and cultural mores and expectations in proper context", without understanding what a poor argument that is when stacked against documentary evidence.

Cheryl,

I'm hoping that somewhere in your academic career you've come across the idea of a burden of proof. The contemporary sources all tell us that Shakespeare wrote his plays. It would be fair to doubt that and to consider historical facts or contemporary mores if there were even a hint of a problem. But there's not.

Shakespeare's background presents no barrier to the idea he had a good education. His father was an alderman, sufficiently well-off to apply for a coat of arms, although he suffered financial reverse and was not sufficiently wealthy to pay for it when the time came. His mother was heiress of a minor gentry family. Other playwrights and scribblers of his generation came from about the same social level.

There is no evidence at all that anyone in Shakespeare's time doubted he was the author of the plays that were published and produced under his name. Nada. Not even a hint that some great nephew somewhere denied it, or that some de Vere or Bacon descendant claimed responsibility. In historical terms, that would be a very bizarre omission if it were true.

Instead, this is just some school teacher (I don't see you sniffing at his credentials) who came up with the idea that there are some themes in the Shakespearean material that seem to be a good match for de Vere's life. That's not exactly proof of anything. It's not just putting the evidence into context. And it certainly doesn't rise to the level of refuting the evidence of actual documents.

I talked to a friend this afternoon who used to teach Shakespeare at the undergraduate level. She laughed about this, then drew a parallel I can easily understand.

She said among Shakespeare scholars the doubts about Shakespeare's authorship is a lot like Holy Blood, Holy Gail is for medievalists --

You're surrounded by people who've read it and think it's such fantastic stuff that it all makes sense and must, absolutely, positively be true.

But, the average medievalist reads it and can scarcely get through a paragraph without spluttering because of all the half-truths, half-fictions, and generally cavalier leaps of imagination.

All of it goes unnoticed by those who aren't used to critical reading and don't have the academic background to see the problems.

I, Casimer, a mere plebian and outcast criminal hoisted by my own petard, do now accept that there is Reasonable Doubt about the works of William (last name unutterable) and hereby join the DeVere Society in remembrance of my dear fifth cousin Edward, Seventeenth Earl of Oxford, while we are still related.

I know Justin does not like argumenta ad hominem, but all the same the fact that the Oxfordian theory was first put forward by someone with the unfortunate name of John Thomas Looney says it all. (Indeed, his publisher suggested that he use a pseudonym). A reading of his bio in Wikipedia does not greatly strengthen one's faith in his mental stability.

It is also a bit odd that none of the plays by the Earl of Oxford (under his own name, for the court) have survived, presumably because they weren't all that good. And, of course, we also, like Looney, have to remove "The Tempest" from the plays by Oxford under the name of Shakespeare because it is so obviously composed after Oxford's death. Which means we have to attribute it to someone else. I nominate James I of England and VI of Scotland.

Mark

PS. I don't doubt that de Vere was well-educated, but degrees at Cambridge (and Oxford) at the age of sixteen were standard for the time. One also needs to compute the time it must have taken him to go from being one of the richest men in England to a bankrupt surviving on Queen Elizabeth's charity, and how much time this left him to write decent plays. Since the Looney theory relies on selective quotes supposedly taken from episodes in de Vere's life, one wonders about "Neither a borrower nor a lender be"

If we're going to leave all seriousness behind, well, all true Trekkers know that Shakespeare was a Klingon spy. ;-)

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country:
Chancellor Gorkon states that Shakespeare is best appreciated in the original Klingon. ;-)

Must find the time to read through these recent posts. Maven, or should I address you as "Captain Obvious," your response is trite, simplistic and discusses things even a middle school student knows well.

And the pertinent questions I posed were avoided by all.

Justin, of COURSE your acquaintance who teaches undergrad Shakespeare had such a response. Don't you get it? Academics dare not breathe even a whisper against the Stratford man. There are quite a few who are closeted. I have not visited this thread in months, but having read through, all responses to what I posted are -- how do I put this -- from minds that possess a rather limited understanding of the arguments, the times, issues of class, education, politics. I'm guessing what you all offered up was/is the best you can do. How disappointing.

I currently only have a free Geni account, but am leaving the site soon, due to, well, due to the fact that it's one messed up database. For a long while, I found it a helpful "road map" to the primary sources I needed in establishing lineages. In the past year or so, not so much, and it seems every day is worse.
At any rate, good luck to you with your own research and lines.

Still no evidence offered, just an admission that the theory is not even academically respectable.

what a touchy subject.

and if people want to abandon geni, fine. don't worry about trying to improve it like me and Maven do.