It sounds like an interesting book, but I've found myself leaning toward the Oxonian view of Shakespear. More and more I think the evidence that while there certainly was an actor and theater owner named William Shakespeare, there was also a playright who worked with him named Edward DeVere, Earl of Oxford, who used Shakespeare's name as a nom de plume for political reasons.

The evidence is only circumstantial, but if it is true, than Greer's use of evidence from the texts of the plays to support theories about the lives of William and Anne Shakespeare would be off base.

I'm an Edward de Vere person too. He just seems to be the right guy, you know?

The key thing for me is the two poems that are included in the First Folio that are in one of de Vere's students books, attributed to the earl. Obvously, the poems can have only one author.

I hasten to add that I was a Shakespearian Shakesperian for a long time. I got interested in my early teens, while reading Mark Twain (Twain, himself, was a Baconian). Although I understood his arguments, it just struck me that if Bacon was the playwright there would be more evidence -- he was so prolific that there had to be a draft of something that was by both authors -- Bacon and Shakespeare -- that would prove Bacon was the real deal. There isn't, and the evidence for de Vere that I cited wasn't available in the lifetime of Samuel Clemens. From my early teens until last year, when I read a book called "Shakespeare by Another Name," I believed the theater owner and the playwright were one and the same. Now I think the circumstantial case for de Vere is too strong to ignore.

You folks should read an authoritative biography on Shakespeare (Greenblatt, for one) or take a gander at Russ MacDonald's section on the authorship controversy ("The Anti-Stratfordians") in his Bedford Companion to Shakespeare. The "Shakespeare didn't write Shakespeare" thesis has been discredited time and time again by the people who make it their profession to study not just Shakespeare, but early modern culture and literature as a whole. Edward De Vere died (conclusively, firmly, definitely died) in 1604, well before some of Shakespeare's most notable plays--Coriolanus, The Tempest, Macbeth (the latter referring to the Gunpowder Plot, an event occurring in 1605. . .

I have always been of the opinion that if Shakespeare's plays were not written by Shakespeare they were written by someone else of the same name.

Riaharris: I HAVE read all of those books. I also personally interviewed a professor who identified to previously unknown Shakespeare autographs (Dr. Nicholas, Knight, University of Missouri-Rolla). I was a skeptic about DeVere for years, and firmly believed Shakespeare was the author of the Shakespeare plays. Now, I'm fairly certain I was wrong. De Vere firmly and definitely died in 1604 -- but he was an extremely prolific writer during the productive periods of his life, and who knows how many previously unpublished manuscripts he left behind. Given the publishing practices during the period I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that the gunpowder plot reference in MacBeth was added by some other playwright. It is clear that the scripts of at least two other plays (notably, Coriolanus) were collaborations with an author other than the "normal" author of Shakespeare's plays -- based on textual analysis of the scripts. It was common to, for lack of a better term, "bump up" plays to keep them fresh. Your arguments neither prove De Vere to not be the author, nor do they explain the Shakespeare poetry attributed to both authors in books that were clearly written while De Vere was alive.

If you can provide better evidence, I'm ready to be swayed the other direction -- I was a "Shakespearian" for years. But I find it hard to believe that Romeo and Juliet, or the Merchant of Venice were either one written by someone who hadn't been to Venice, or Verona, and while De Vere may have died at the wrong time to suit you, Bill Shakespear is too untraveled and uneducated to suit me.

There is no evidence at all that "William Shakespeare" was a nom de plume used by anyone. It's just a modern crank theory whose roots lie in 19th century snobbishness.

"The key thing for me is the two poems that are included in the First Folio that are in one of de Vere's students books, attributed to the earl. Obvously, the poems can have only one author."

The only poems included in the First Folio are commendatory verses by men like Ben Jonson and Leonard Digges, so I don't know what you're talking about. Given what I know of the tactics used by Oxfordians, Baconians, Marlovians, et al, the book you're taking this information from is either making it up, seriously misrepresenting it, or drawing conclusions which are entirely without warrant.

trapdoor-

While there is evidence that plays like "Titus Andronicus" and "Henry VIII" are collaborations, "Coriolanus" is not of them, and Shakespeare the playwright's existence is well-documented after Oxford's death in 1604. Plays like "The Tempest" were manifestly based on sources not in existence until after 1604, and what's more, cramming all Shakespeare's works before that date makes a hash of theatrical history.

There is nothing in The Merchant or Romeo to suggest that their author had ever been to those places, and even if there were, we have no way of saying that Shakespeare hadn't been there.

Eupolis: Not at all true. There have been doubts about authorship since at least the 1750s. There is also evidence -- just for example, there are two poems that have always been attributed to Shakespeare found written in a previously undiscovered study-book of one of de Vere's students, attributed to de Vere. This study happened a relatively short time ago (five or six years) and is one of the key reasons I became an Oxonian. Finally there was actual proof linking the "two" authors.

I've only read a couple of biographies, Oxonian and Stratfordian. I'm not up on the research and didn't know about the two poems trapdoor posted about. That's pretty cool.

I'm all about some de Vere is Shakespeare, but not because of any "19th century snobbishness". The idea that this tormented/profligate noble is the "real" man appeals to my gnostic tendencies: how I want history to be mysterious and like a serial comic adventure.

Trap'd,

There's a much better study of Oxford as the real author of Shakesp. It's Charlton Ogburn's book, 'The Mysterious William Shakespeare", now out-of-print but not difficult to find in a used bookstore. I suggest you search http://www.abebooks.com using the author and title. You'll likely find copie available. Or, use this direct link,

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Ogburn's book is dazzling and I return to it again and again. By the way, his insights are applicable to many things. After reading Ogburn, I came to see that learned conventional wisdom which is false but protected by self-serving academics is much more common than generally appreciated. It was in part lessons learned from Ogburn's insights which helped me see through the now infamous "Weapons of Mass Destruction" fraud in Washington's Iraq program as it was being assembled and sold to the public.

The book will repay the reader's effort over and over again. Few books have informed me as that one has.

Eupolis: When I get on these forums, I do a lot of work from memory without doing re-research, so, guess what? I make mistakes. One of them was referring to "poems in the First Folio." The other was confusing "Coriolanus" with "Titus Andronicus."

I'd like to see the corellation between The Tempest and post 1604 events you're using. I've not seen the references -- and I'm no fanatic on this. In the presence of good facts, I'd drop the idea that de Vere was Shakespeare.

Having said that, I think that whomever wrote "R&L" and "Merchant" drew inspiration from his surroundings and had been to Venice. I also think, generally, that whomever wrote Shakepeare's plays had a working knowledge of the British legal system of the era, and had attended more than one session at a minimum of one royal court. If you think about the general literacy rate of the era, which was low, the poor access to schooling for anyone who wasn't rich or clergy, it is difficult to make the historical Shakespeare -- the theater owner who we know existed -- line up with the person who wrote the plays. I admit that is mostly theoretical, but lawyers feel the plays were written by someone who knew the law, and historians feel it was someone with a higher-than-normal education. Where did the historical Shakespeare acquire all this knowledge. He wasn't clerical, and there's no record of him going to college. He wasn't rich enough for private tutors -- and while there is some evidence he attended a church school in Stratford-on-Avon, that school would have taught him what we'd call "the three-R's" and not given him more advanced knowlege. Given all this, I was ready to be swayed by new evidence, and have been so swayed -- but I was a "Shakespearian" for 25 years before I reached my current opinion.

Whats really more likely Trapdoor, you have to options:

1. The greatest writer in the english language, recognized in his lifetime as one of the greatest playwrites, is actually the earl of oxford, who allows a (supposedly) uneducated theater owner to take all the credit and fame for himself...or

2. That the earl of oxford took undue credit for two poems written by a middle class playwrite with which he had some association.

Having been to both Venice AND Verona I can say, rather definitively that there is NOTHING absolutely NOTHING in the Merchant of Venice to indicate that the author had ever been there. There is nothing in the play to make one think he had ever seen a map of Venice or even knew WHERE preciselly in the city the Jewish ghetto was located. I have been to Venice, I am rather confident that WHOEVER wrote the Merchant of Venice had NOT been to venice.

Incidentally your implication that Shakespeares education on Stratford would have been "the-three-R's" and nothing more is not at all in line with what we now know about the elizabethan public education system. It also does not take into acount that we now know that Shakespeares father was heavily involved in wool smuggling operations (for which he was fined) and which would have brought him a pretty penny.

My $.10

Courtland: The newly discovered poem I referenced were found in a private transcription manual belonging to one of de Vere's students, attributed by the student to de Vere -- the sort of book in which a student might get an assignment from his master saying, "Here are two of my poems -- copy them out." So there would have been no "glory" for de Vere in attaching himself to Shakespeare -- at least not in this reference.

My own studies don't indicate that Shakespeare was considered all that great during his own liftetime --certainly his fame was no greater than that of Ben Johnson. The First Folio wasn't put together until after he died, and his modern reputation stems mostly from the Folio.

I didn't say anything about R&L or Merchant stage setting resembling the real-life Verona or Venice. I merely think an English butcher's son would have picked a different setting closer to home, where someone who had actually been to those places might have seen the drama in setting his tales there.

It is known that Latin wasn't taught at the Stratford school Shakespeare attended -- but whomever wrote the plays had at least some Latin. Latin, of course, was the mainstay of clerical schools, but there's no evidence WS ever attended one of those.

For the record, although this is mostly a hobby now, I worked on studying this in college for three years -- I know what was taught in most Elizabethan village schools, and as I said, I'm an Oxonian, but only a weak one.