Last week, I presented arguments supporting the anti-Stratfordian case, that Stratford’s “Shakspere” wasn’t the sublime writer William Shakespeare. If the man from Stratford didn’t write the Shakespearean canon, who did?
Originally, Francis Bacon was considered the prime candidate. Later contenders included: Christopher Marlowe; Henry Neville; Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke; William Stanley, sixth Earl of Derby and many more. Or an amalgam of these, writing under a single pseudonym. However, the candidate most frequently cited is the 17th Earl of Oxford, Edward de Vere, someone with a motivation for writing under a pseudonym and with the right background: classical education (attended Cambridge), knowledge of the law (studied at Grays Inn law courts), worldly (traveled extensively in Italy and France), confidant of Queen Elizabeth (whose chief advisor was de Vere’s father-in-law, William Cecil Burghley). He was also a good writer, “the most excellent” of Elizabeth’s courtier poets. De Vere’s motivation for anonymity is obvious. Take the character of Hamlet‘s Polonius, chief advisor in the Danish court, portrayed as a garrulous, bumbling old man — clearly, to most Shakespeare scholars, modeled on Burghley himself. In those days, to openly mock the crown or government was considered treason, punishable by maiming, imprisonment, or death. The main strike against de Vere is that he died in 1604, so that if he was Shakespeare, several plays had to have been published posthumously, edited, perhaps, by someone in the know — Mary Sidney?
If de Vere, or someone else, was posing as Shakespeare, why that particular name? One possibility is that the Stratford man, who was involved in the London theater scene as an occasional actor and as an investor in the Globe and Blackfriars theaters, was paid to act as the face for a playwright who wished to remain anonymous. Or, more likely, Stratford’s Shakspere had nothing to do with it. Shakespeare, or sometimes Shake-speare, may be a play on the goddess Pallas Athena, who sprang from the head of Zeus “shaking a sharp spear.” William, meanwhile, is cognate with the Old Dutch for “golden helmet,” which Athena is often portrayed as wearing. Not incidentally, it was common practice in that time to indicate pseudonymous works with a hyphen, so Shake-speare would then be seen alongside such giveaways as Tom Tell-troth and Simon Smell-knave.
To legitimize this debate, veteran Shakespearean actors Sirs Derek Jacobi and Mark Rylance, among others, sponsored a “Declaration of Reasonable Doubt about the Identity of William Shakespeare,” which you can read at doubtaboutwill.org. Jacobi and Rylance are hardly the first to question the authorship, being preceded by, among others, Mark Twain, Henry James, Walt Whitman, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Orson Welles, Sir John Gielgud, Sigmund Freud, U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, historian David McCullough and physicist Roger Penrose — none of whom, I trust you’ll agree, were or are lacking in intelligence.
I’ll leave the final word to Nobel Prize-winning novelist John Galsworthy, who declared the original proposal that Edward de Vere was Shakespeare (in a 1920 book by English schoolteacher John Looney) to be “the best detective story I’ve ever read.” Which is a fitting tag-line for the entire attempt to figure out who wrote Shakespeare. We’ll probably never know, but damn, it’s fun to try.
Barry Evans (he/him, barryevans9@yahoo.com) votes for a long shot: writer-spy Christopher (Kit) Marlowe who, after faking his own death in 1593, wrote the “Shakespeare” plays from Italy.
This article appears in Summer of Fun 24.
Anyone who would like to know why so many famous people – Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William and Henry James, John Galsworthy, Sigmund Freud, Orson Welles, Tyrone Guthrie, Charlie Chaplin, John Gielgud, Sir Derek Jacobi, Sir Mark Rylance, Michael York, Jeremy Irons, and five U.S. Supreme Court justices – have expressed doubt that Mr. William “Shakspere” of Stratford wrote the works of William Shakespeare should read the Declaration of Reasonable Doubt About the Identity of Wiliam Shakespeare.
The Declaration of Reasonable Doubt gives a brief overview of the evidence and arguments for and against Mr. Shakspere to make the issue more readily understandable to the public. It first lists twenty famous doubters of the past, not to argue from authority but to show that many highly credible people have taken the issue seriously, so it is worthy of consideration. It then describes the main reasons why scholars have long viewed Shakspere as the author and explains why others find them problematic. Then, it summarizes the contrary evidence and concludes that the issue should be regarded as legitimate in academia and the media. It is a very moderate, reasonable document that even some orthodox scholars have signed.
Here is how James Shapiro, professor of English at Columbia University and defender of the case for Mr. Shakspere, described it in his book Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare?:
“It is a skillfully drafted document, the collaborative effort of some of the best minds committed to casting doubt on Shakespeare’s authorship. Its title is inspired, combining the uplift of a historical declaration with that long-established sense of fairness that guided juries to just verdicts, ‘reasonable doubt.’ A whiff of the courtroom is evident throughout as ‘the prima facie case for Mr. Shakspere’ is shown to be ‘problematic’ and the connections between the life of the alleged author and the works’ no less ‘dubious.’ The testimony of a score of expert witnesses … is introduced into the record. And by not specifying a single candidate, it brings together under one roof proponents of all of them.” (218)
The Declaration was issued in 2007 in a signing ceremony featuring Shakespearean actors Sir Derek Jacobi and Sir Mark Rylance, among others. News of the event spread worldwide. It now has over 5,375 signatories – 78% college graduates, over 2,100 (40%) with advanced degrees, over 900 current or former college/university faculty, and 121 “notables,” including leading Shakespearean actors, outstanding scholars, and two U.S. Supreme Court justices. These are not the sort of people one can dismiss as “denialists” and “conspiracy theorists.”
And yet, William Shakespeare of Stratford upon Avon is still the author of the works attributed to him.
Contrary to the recent assumptions of some, it is my contention, after study, that there is no factual, evidence-based reason why Bacon could not have written the works we call “Shakespeare’s.” Indeed, there are many good reasons for considering him the prime candidate. The case for Bacon’s authorship does not depend upon upon evidence derived from codes and ciphers (although he was unquestionably a master of codes and ciphers).
Barry R. Clarke, in “Francis Bacon’s Contribution to Shakespeare: A New Attribution Method” (Routledge, 2019) argues against a single candidate theory, in favor of a “many hands” theory. If so, it makes sense that someone who was an eloquent writer like Bacon, a master of the English language, would be put in in charge of editing of the works for publication. There are some, however, who do believe that Bacon authored all the works ascribed to Shakespeare. The point is, why exclude a preeminent literary genius of the period from consideration completely? Is that even rational?
I invite people who wish to know more about the “case for Bacon” to visit the websites of the Francis Bacon Research Trust website (FBRT; Peter Dawkins, founder and principal), the Francis Bacon Society (FBS), and SirBacon.org. There you will find many good essays, bibliographies which include recent as well as older books, and videos both entertaining and informative. I am thinking particularly of those by Australian actor Jono Freeman.
The Francis Bacon Society has just reprinted British barrister N. B. Cockburn’s 740-page book, “The Bacon Shakespeare Question: The Baconian Theory Made Sane.” (see its online bookstore).
Barry Evans, I believe it was in your first piece that you mentioned the “wool sack.” I would just point out that “wool sack” is defined as: “A sack for or of wool; specifically, the seat of the English Lord Chancellor in the House of Lords, a sack of wool in shape like a divan” (Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary). Was the “wool sack” meant to be a clue as to the “real Shakespeare’s” identity? Well, the only Shakespeare candidate to have actually served as Lord Chancellor was Francis Bacon. This fact had not registered with me previously, so thank you.
Barry, you mentioned that over 50 books had been written about Shakespeare’s legal knowledge. This is one of the strongest points in favor of Bacon. The Earl of Oxford was admitted to Gray’s Inn, as were many young noblemen of the time. However, he did not make a career of the law. Even Oxfordians like the late American lawyer Tom Regnier have conceded that Bacon was far more qualified to have written the law in Shakespeare than Oxford was. Bacon rose to the top of his profession. He was a scholar who “took all knowledge to be his province.” His influence upon Anglo-American jurisprudence has been positive and lasting. By the same token, it has been said that an entire law school curriculum could be taught from the works of Shakespeare. Just some things to think about.