{"id":311,"date":"2019-06-18T18:50:17","date_gmt":"2019-06-18T18:50:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/19\/?p=311"},"modified":"2023-03-19T09:48:52","modified_gmt":"2023-03-19T09:48:52","slug":"the-shakespeare-authorship-debate-continued-uncertainties-and-mysteries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/19\/the-shakespeare-authorship-debate-continued-uncertainties-and-mysteries\/","title":{"rendered":"The Shakespeare Authorship Debate (continued)
Uncertainties and Mysteries"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Luke Prodromou<\/strong>*<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Abstract: <\/strong>Questioning the authorship of Shakespeare\u2019s plays is often seen as an eccentricity of amateur scholars, an enquiry unworthy of serious academic consideration: our understanding of the plays on the page and our appreciation of them on the stage is all that matters. The following essay argues that the exploration of the issue in a dispassionate, empirical manner has many positive and far-reaching implications both for our understanding of the plays and for our concept of literary creativity. Indeed, the whole idea of Shakespeare-as-Genius seems to have emerged as a response to a lack of knowledge about who he really was. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Key Words:<\/strong> Shakespeare, Shakespeare Authorship Question, Shakespeare and academy, Literary Criticism, genius<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This essay is a response to the fascinating collection of articles on the Shakespeare Authorship Question that appeared in the last issue of this journal (Critical Stages\/Sc\u00e8nes critiques<\/a><\/em>, no. 18<\/a>). Read together, those articles not only confirm that there really is a case for reasonable doubt about the Stratford man as the author of the works, but they also suggest that pursuing this question can actually be an effective critical tool for a better understanding of those works. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a graduate of the Shakespeare\nInstitute, Birmingham, I have often wondered, from a scholarly point of view, why\nthe\neddies under Clopton Bridge in Stratford have seemed to arouse more curiosity\nas evidence linking the man from Stratford to the plays and poems of \u201cShakespeare\u201d\nthan do the growing number of details of a historical or cultural nature, which\nseem to me more enlightening. Scrutinizing Shakespearean texts for evidence of\nthe author\u2019s possible links to glove-making has consumed more scholarly energy\nthan the abundant indications that our elusive author seems to have actually\nknown Italy and Italian culture at first-hand and Elizabethan court life with\nan insider\u2019s confidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even Stratfordian scholars have noticed that \u201cthe extent and loudness of the documentary silence are startling\u201d (Worden 24). Indeed, the challenge of teasing out an explanation for this startling silence has been left to non-Stratfordians like Diana Price (see her volume, excerpted in <\/a>CS <\/a><\/em>18<\/a>). This, then, is my attempt to make a modest contribution to an understanding of the significance of the silence to Shakespeare\u2019s unique status as our greatest and yet most elusive writer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\nme begin by saying a few words about my own discovery of Shakespeare and,\nsubsequently, my own contacts with the authorship controversy. I am a Greek Cypriot\nby birth, but I attended primary and secondary school in the U.K., where I was\nintroduced to the plays of Shakespeare by reading Julius Caesar<\/em> at the\nage of 15. For me, it was an epiphany. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Living\nin Birmingham at that point, I soon became a regular pilgrim to Stratford, just\ndown the road. I simply wanted to find more of this magic potion. I looked for\nthe magic there and on the Stratford stage, where I would \u201cwith a greedy ear\ndevour up the discourse\u201d of the comedies, histories and tragedies. I looked for\nit in the streets of Stratford itself, and especially along Henley Street and\nunder Clopton Bridge. I still remember the thrill of imagining that the eddies\nof the river Avon, seen from the bridge, were the same eddies that the young\nShakespeare gazed at, when he wasn\u2019t busy helping his dad in the family\nglove-making business or studying Ovid for school. Shakespeare himself was my\nOvid, transforming life into something rich and strange. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also\nlooked for Shakespeare\u2019s magic in countless biographies of the poor lad who\nleft Stratford\u2014pursued apparently by accusations of deer-poaching\u2014to make his\nfortune in London, holding horses outside the theatres till he got his big\nbreak and took the London stage by storm with his Marlovian Henry VI<\/em>\nplays\u2014all this to the chagrin of rival playwrights, university graduates all,\nenvious of this mere actor who could write better than they could.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Shakespeare got his big break and took the London stage by storm with his Marlovian Henry VI plays<\/em>. Photo: Title page of the first quarto of Henry VI<\/a><\/em>. The photo is lacking source information<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Soon, the\nbiographies told me, he was writing courtly comedies for exclusive coterie\naudiences, as well as for the public stage. When the plague struck in the\n1590s, he produced brilliant lyric poetry, outdoing even his courtly\npredecessors, such as Sir Philip Sidney. The evidence showed me that he\ndedicated Venus and Adonis<\/em> and The Rape of Lucrece<\/em> to his\ntheatre-loving patron, the Earl of Southampton, who must have paid him\nsignificant sums, and he even wrote a sonnet sequence inspired, most probably,\nby the same young and beautiful patron. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It all\nends, of course, with William\u2019s death, an event that, strangely, went\nunremarked, and with his published will and testament, which left absolutely no\ntrace of the great writer\u2019s skill and with no evidence of any kind, directly or\nindirectly, that he had ever owned or even read a book, or written as much as a\nnursery rhyme for his (illiterate) daughters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet,\ndespite this last disappointment, I couldn\u2019t stop looking for him. I continued\nmy personal pilgrimage by working on a Master of Arts in Shakespeare Studies at\nthe Shakespeare Institute, in Birmingham, under the tutorial guidance of Prof.\nStanley Wells and numerous other distinguished Shakespeare scholars. Bliss it was\nto be at such a prestigious institute, one devoted to the exclusive study of\nevery aspect of the great man\u2019s work\u2014but to be doing it there in Warwickshire,\nless than an hour from the Birthplace, well, that was very heaven.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Portrait of Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton (1573\u20131624). Creator unknown. Photo: NPG L114 Private collection; on loan to the National Portrait Gallery, London<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A few years later, with my MA dissertation on Timon of Athens<\/em> (by Shakespeare and Middleton!) in hand, I went out into the world with a will to teach the works and life of Shakespeare to future generations. As a lecturer for the British Council and at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki<\/a> in Greece, I taught the Shakespearean rags-to-riches narrative enthusiastically, along with the rest of the documentary paraphernalia I had inherited about the man from Stratford.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I must admit that the biographies were particularly boring for my students. They found little of interest in the life and, were I totally honest, neither did I. Biographies of Shakespeare were all, without exception, potted histories of the Elizabethan and Jacobean ages, and there was little, if any, light thrown on the link between the man and his work. The specific life-story part was more or less left out, as there wasn\u2019t really anything substantial to report or, as in many cases, it was simply made up or imagined\u2014as Stephen Greenblatt admitted when he wrote his own biography of Shakespeare, called Will in the World<\/em>, in 2004. The fact is, the creative imagination of a biographer can be much more interesting than the humdrum church records of birth, marriage and death of an Elizabethan author.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Without\nconviction, I dutifully regurgitated the scraps from such biographies to my\nstudents and moved on, with much relief, to the excitement of reading,\nanalyzing and performing the plays. After all, the play is the thing, just as\nthe poem is the thing. Not the life of the writer, be he Shakespeare or T.S.\nEliot. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I first\nstarted what felt like sacrilegious doubting when I stumbled on Charlton\nOgburn\u2019s study The Mysterious William Shakespeare<\/em> in a bookshop while\nlooking for yet another Stratfordian biography to bore myself with. Ogburn\u2019s\nbook re-ignited a curiosity in me for all things Shakespeare. I started to read\nand even re-read Shakespeariana of all kinds, from both sides of the discussion.\nThus, my fascination with the special section II of CS<\/em> 18 on the authorship controversy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, the real question for me is: what is lost when we avoid and even demonize research on any topic, especially one as significant as the Shakespeare authorship? Much important research has already been done by a surprising number of fine scholars\u2014including historians and lawyers (professions interested in actually turning up facts)\u2014which has thrown light on the gaps and contradictions in the many so-called biographies. Yet, this scholarly research is considered somehow taboo by academia. Perhaps, we prefer to preserve our scholarly innocence\u2014or even our vested professional interests\u2014but, at the same time, we must acknowledge that we are failing to follow trails that may be relevant to the origin and meaning of the works we love. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover,\nStratfordian Shakespeare scholars, in rejecting even a possible case for\nreasonable doubt, often engage in extremely tortuous arguments, evasions and\ndistortions to keep a wall of such taboos in place, thus betraying their\nsupposed professional raison d\u2019etre<\/em>: scholarly impartiality and the\npursuit of truth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let me offer\na few examples of data that has made me personally think sceptically about the\nofficial story and, then, try and provide an explanation as to the apparent\nlack of curiosity about these facts shown by academia. As someone who graduated\nfrom the Shakespeare Institute\u2014surely the heart of the Stratfordian academic\nestablishment\u2014I am puzzled by the sheer lack of curiosity on the part of\nmainstream Shakespeare scholars in the fascinating details thrown up, often\nserendipitously, by the sceptics. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, the man from Stratford never seems to be where we would expect him to be in terms of the historical and cultural implications of the plays and poems; on the other hand, we do see him turning up in places we would not expect to find him, were he the man behind these texts. Any evidence we have for the actual existence of the Stratford man as Writer (as opposed to him as Man-of-the-Theatre) always seems to be hedged with both doubts and ambiguities. He is both silent and invisible. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus, if\nit is true, as most Stratfordians say, that the Chamberlain\u2019s Men were\ninvestigated for performing Richard II<\/em> just before the Earl of Essex\u2019s\nbotched coup<\/em> against Queen Elizabeth,\nwhere was Shakespeare the author during these investigations?[1]<\/sup><\/a>\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And if, as\nStanley Wells\u2014the dean of Stratfordian scholars\u2014suggests, Shakespeare is \u201cour\nfirst great literary commuter\u201d (Wells, Shakespeare\nfor all time<\/em> 37), what is he doing commuting back and forth to Stratford,\nmanaging his property, grain and real estate businesses, when he is supposed to\nbe in London working for a theatre company and writing a very large number of\nplays in a very short time?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we take\na date in Shakespeare\u2019s career at random\u2014say 1596\u2014we find Shakespeare,\nliterally, all over the place. His son Hamnet dies and is buried in Stratford\nin August; in London, he moves from Bishopsgate to Southwark, and he is pursued\nfor five shillings in taxes; a writ is issued in Southwark for William and\nthree others to keep the peace; while, in Stratford, he is making investments\nand shopping around to buy a new house. At the same time, he is completing the Sonnets\nand is writing several plays (depending on which of the many conflicting\nchronologies we take, they would include King John, Romeo and Juliet, Midsummer\nNight\u2019s Dream, Richard II, Merchant of Venice, Henry IV part 1, <\/em> and Love\u2019s\nLabour\u2019s Lost<\/em>). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He is also\nin London pursuing a gentleman\u2019s coat of arms at this time, which, as\nDuncan-Jones observes: \u201cis a strange sequence of events . . . just after the\ndeath of the only child who could carry his name\u201d (Duncan-Jones 91).\nShakespeare\u2019s busy life in both London and Stratford has always impressed me. But\nwhere did he find the time<\/em>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another\nquestion. In Quarto 1 of Hamlet <\/em>(Q1),<\/em>\nPolonius is named \u201cCorambis,\u201d which echoes the family motto of the most\npowerful man in England: Lord Burleigh, William Cecil, the Prime Minister of\nthe day. In other intriguing respects, too, Burleigh seems to be the\ninspiration behind the character of the \u201crash, intruding fool\u201d who gets stabbed\nbehind the arras. But, if this were the case, one would not expect the working-class\nactor-writer William of Stratford to have dared lampoon Lord Burleigh in this\nway; and to get away with it! So, what\u2019s going on here? What\u2019s \u201cCorambis\u201d doing\nin Q1? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In Hamlet <\/em>(Q1), Polonius is named \u201cCorambis,\u201d which echoes the family motto of the most powerful man in England: Lord Burleigh, William Cecil, the Prime Minister of the day. Photo: Wikipedia<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Question\nthree. One would certainly have expected the writer Shakespeare to be present\nat his own death! And yet, the passing of the most prolific writer of the age\ngoes by unnoticed: nobody said anything in writing to mark his death. We would\nexpect to find a trace at least, if not clear footprints, of this giant of the\nEnglish literary Renaissance, in the dead \u201cShakespeare\u2019s\u201d last will and\ntestament. But in that most personal of documents, he left \u201cnot a rack behind.\u201d\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What we\nfind in Duncan Jones\u2019s brilliant Ungentle Shakespeare <\/em>is a much\ndifferent character than what we would expect\u2014a Shakespeare immersed in the\nElizabethan\/Jacobean underworld and a tight-fisted usurer in partnership with\nthe woman-beater and pimp, George Wilkins. Surely, this is not the same man who\ncreated Rosalind and Beatrice, the same man who wrote with Ovid, Plutarch,\nMontaigne and Castiglione on his desk. Where was that Shakespeare?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I really\nwonder why there aren\u2019t more such questions being asked by University English\nDepartments. Don\u2019t they want to know? And are they not curious about how <\/em>we\nknow what we know? Yes, Stratfordians have<\/em> demonstrated some interest in\nthe authorship question but only to try and refute it or attack it (Edmondson\nand Wells 2013). In a nutshell, they explain the so-called \u201cincongruities\u201d in\nthe official narrative by applying two broad strategies: first, they\ndemonstrate that Shakespeare\u2019s education in the Stratford grammar-school (which\nthey assume, without evidence, he attended) was perfectly adequate to the task\nof producing the works we know; second, they attribute Shakespeare\u2019s remarkable\nachievements simply to \u201cgenius.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of their\narguments are certainly substantial, and I do take many of them seriously, but others\nare little more than vague and circumstantial. The fact is, Doubters have tried\nto engage with them many times, in numerous publications (samples are available\nin CS <\/em>18). But these arguments are\nrarely answered directly and even more rarely with actual evidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let me put some flesh on this epistemological puzzle by\nreferring specifically to one of the articles in Critical Stages, <\/em>the only one in French, \u201cPourquoi \u2018John Florio, alias Shakespeare<\/em>,\u2019\u201d written by the\nSecretary-General of the International Association of Theatre Critics, Michel Va\u00efs. In that article, we learn that Florio, the great\nElizabethan scholar, teacher and lexicographer, left in his will a considerable\ntreasure of books to William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke, one of the\ndedicatees and sponsors (the other was his brother) of the First Folio (\u201con apprend\u00e0 qui il l\u00e8gue ce\ntr\u00e9sor: \u00e0 William Herbert, troisi\u00e8me comte de Pembroke, d\u00e9dicataire\net commanditaire du First Folio<\/em>\u201d). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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John (Giovanni) Florio, 1611. Engraving by William Hole from the 2nd edition of Florio’s dictionary. Photo: Wikipedia<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Certainly, William Herbert is himself well-known\nand is often seen as a serious candidate for being the so-called Fair Youth of\nthe sonnets\u2014W.H. He was also the son of Mary Sidney (later the Countess of\nPembroke) who was herself the sister of Sir Philip Sidney. Florio\u2019s gift of\nbooks to Herbert confirms his proximity to the Sidney\/Pembroke circle, either\nas a tutor or as one who sought patronage from the Sidney family by dedicating\nmany of his works to members of the group. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Va\u00efs\ntells us further that Lamberto Tassinari, an Italian-Canadian scholar, is now\narguing that Florio himself was the man behind the works of Shakespeare.\nLeaving aside for the moment the whole idea of Florio-as-Shakespeare, let\u2019s\nnote in this the appearance of the Sidney circle in the Shakespeare authorship\nnarrative and continue with our puzzle, hoping, as Polonius puts it, by\nindirections to find directions out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\na recent interpretation of Love\u2019s Labour\u2019<\/em>s Lost<\/em>, a play I have always felt was somehow at the heart of\nthe Shakespeare authorship mystery, H. R. Woudhuysen (editor of the Arden Shakespeare,\n1998) explores the fascinating links between this comedy and the work of Sir\nPhilip Sidney. He refers to Sidney as the \u201cpresiding spirit\u201d behind the play\nand says that it  seems to be written \u201cas\nif Shakespeare were replying to Sidney. . . . and as Coleridge observed . . .\nimitating Sidney\u2019s style\u201d (Woudhuysden 6). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Indeed,\na work by Sidney that Woudhuyswen feels Shakespeare drew on in writing Love\u2019s\nLabours Lost<\/em>,called\nThe Lady of May, <\/em>was actually unpublished at the time Shakespeare would\nhave needed to consult it, and, therefore, \u201cShakespeare could only have read\nSidney\u2019s text in manuscript.\u201d This occurrence of sources (or written influences)\non Shakespeare, which only those who had access to the original manuscripts\ncould have known about, is actually a motif running through the whole Shakespeare\npuzzle. Shakespeare, in Love\u2019s Labours Lost,<\/em> says Woudhuysen, seems to\nbe showing off his skill in turning into drama \u201cthe stuff out of which Sidney\u2019s\nlife and art were made.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But why would the Stratford man, the hard-nosed businessman and practical man of theatre, choose to write about the life and culture of Sidney and his circle, which would be obscure to anybody but members of that circle? And where would he get such material from (not to mention his ability to obtain detailed information on the Elizabethan and French courts that also appears in Love\u2019s Labours Lost<\/em>)? Mainstream criticism says the play is saturated with such stuff. Indeed, where did the Stratford man get it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because\nthe official Stratfordian narrative doesn\u2019t lend itself to any easy\nexplanation, Stratfordians simply ascribe it to the vagaries of a common\nliterary background that Shakespeare must have shared with his fellow writers.\nThen, they move on to trails that can more easily be linked with their man: those\neddies under Clopton bridge, the birth and death of a son named Hamnet, the\nsignificance of Shakespeare\u2019s second-best bed mentioned in the will, and so on.\nSo, Woudhuysen, aware of the incongruity, then reminds us that \u201cShakespeare did\nnot need to be part of [the Sidney circle] to write about its life\u201d (6).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed reader, \u201cdiscern\u2019st\nthou aught in that\u201d? We may discern at least the legitimacy of asking the kind\nof questions raised by non-Stratfordians regarding the implausibility of some\nof the traditional Stratfordian biographers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Clopton bridge. The bridge was built in 1486\/7, in the reign of Henry VII, financed by Hugh Clopton<\/a> of Clopton House<\/a>, who later became Lord Mayor of London<\/a>. Photo: Wikipedia<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The\nnext piece in my own authorship puzzle has to do with the work of an \u201cunorthodox\u201d\nStratfordian, named Penny McCarthy. In her fascinating Pseudonymous\nShakespeare, <\/em>she does\nsomething few Stratfordian analysts have ever done: she puts forward, in an\nempirically-driven manner, an explanation for where the man from Stratford\nmight have gotten his inside knowledge of the court, and a plausible, if not\nwholly convincing, rationale for why Shakespeare might have chosen subject\nmatter inspired by the Sidney circle and written it in a style which may be a\nresponse to Sidney\u2019s work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

McCarthy\u2019s rich and complex data can\u2019t easily be bound in a nutshell, but the core of her book provides intriguing \u201cevidence\u201d for the Stratford man\u2019s back-story, his juvenilia and \u201clost years.\u201d In an ingenious reading of various pseudonymous writings, McCarthy believes she has located the young poet in the Sidney circle where, she hypothesises, he was educated not only as a poet but in the Italian language and in the life of the court. McCarthy sensibly sees the culture of the Elizabethan court not only in the milieu of the monarch in London, but in the houses of great lords, such as Sidney, to whose faction, she argues, young Shakespeare might have belonged (McCarthy 22-23). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If\nMcCarthy\u2019s hypothesis could be proven correct, it would go a long way toward\nexplaining the gaps and inconsistencies in the work of traditional Shakespeare\nbiography and would provide support for Walt Whitman\u2019s intuition that the plays\nare shaped by the world-view not of a working man from Stratford, but by \u201cthe\nmedieval aristocracy\u201d and the many \u201cwolfish earls\u201d jockeying for power\nthroughout Elizabeth\u2019s reign. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nthis spirit of untrammeled and serendipitous searching for meaning then, let me\nadd one more piece to my Shakespearean puzzle, this time from the\nanti-Stratfordian side of the wall\u2014this item is more outlandish than the rest\nbut has fascinating points in common with the previous pieces. Could a woman have written Shakespeare?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The scholar Robin Williams, in her study Sweet Swan\nof Avon<\/em>,\nwrote one of the most eccentric books in the whole authorship saga. In her\n300-page analysis, she argues that the works of \u201cShakespeare\u201d were actually written\nby a woman. This is the kind of claim that Stratfordians find easy to dismiss\nand ridicule. Williams\u2019s claim, however, may look less ridiculous when that \u201cwoman-as-Shakespeare\u201d\nturns out to be the aforementioned Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke.\nThe Sidneys and the Herberts do indeed seem to be constantly cropping up in the\nShakespeare story, whether in employing John Florio, or in the writing of Love\u2019s\nLabour\u2019<\/em>s Lost<\/em> and the Sonnets\nor with the publication of the First Folio. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In traditional biographies, Mary Sidney always has a walk-on part. She is also mentioned as the author of a letter in which she refers to meeting \u201cthe man Shakespeare.\u201d If this letter ever existed, then it is one of the few items of written evidence from contemporary sources that indicates that anyone had ever met the writer\/actor in the flesh. In this (sadly, lost) letter, Mary is said to have written to her son (Philip Herbert, later Earl of Montgomery and dedicatee of the First Folio), telling him that \u201cthe man Shakespeare\u201d was visiting the Pembroke family at their country house in Wilton, on the occasion of a performance of As You Like It<\/em> to entertain King James. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My\npoint here is not to prove or disprove the existence of the letter, or even to\nargue the merits of Mary Sidney as the author of Shakespeare\u2019s plays and poems,\nbut to underline the serendipitous light that can be cast not only on the life\nof our elusive author, but on the rich cultural context which seems to have\nshaped the works. And Mary Sidney, like several alternative candidates for the\nauthorship, always seems to be where you would expect Shakespeare to be, whereas\nthe man from Stratford is always, like Eliot\u2019s Macavity the cat, disappearing\nfrom the scene of the crime, leaving no trace behind. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mary\nSidney, though, like some of the other alternative candidates for the\nauthorship, is often, directly or indirectly, at the scene of the plays\u2019 and poems\u2019\nmatrix of references: reading the right books, knowing the right people,\ninvolved in the events that shape the texts. So many of Shakespeare\u2019s sources\nare on her bookshelf or that of her brother Sir Philip, texts which, we are\noften told, \u201cShakespeare\u201d would have had to have read in manuscript. Indeed,\nmany were dedicated to her or her brother (Williams 97-113). Her friends,\nrelatives and prot\u00e9g\u00e9s<\/em> sound like a\nroll-call of the characters who actually appear in conventional Stratfordian\nbiographies: Philip Sidney himself, William Herbert and his brother Philip,\nEssex and Leicester, John Davis of Hereford, Samuel Daniel, Arthur Golding,\nJohn Dee \u2026 (the list goes on).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let me round off my visit to the Sidneys at their Wilton home with a final example of this pattern of coincidences from Williams\u2019 Sweet Swan of Avon. <\/em>Here are Hamlet\u2019s memories of Yorick, the court jester:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy;
he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred
in my imagination it is! My gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? Your gambols? Your songs? Your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar? (Hamlet<\/em>, V.i)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

If\nYorick, as many Stratfordians suggest, was inspired by the real-life Richard\nTarlton, clown of the Queen\u2019s Men and servant of the Earl of Leicester (Mary\nHerbert\u2019s uncle), then we find this amazing lady once again, in the right place\nat the right time, in the great houses of the aristocracy, watching plays or\nroaring with laughter as the court jester worked his magic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\nall this means is not that I am convinced that Mary Sidney wrote all, or indeed\nany part, of Shakespeare\u2019s work; I am an agnostic in these matters. I do,\nhowever, believe, that all the writings on the authorship question, especially\nthose that try to base their hypothesis on data from the historical and\ncultural record of the times, throw light, often inadvertently, on the\ncircumstances which seem, by general consensus, to have shaped the works.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sir Philip Sidney, brother of Mary Sidney and writer of An Apology for Poetry<\/a><\/em> (also known as A Defence of Poesie<\/em> and The Defence of Poetry<\/em>). Photo: Wikipedia<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

That\nis, while I am not convinced we have yet really found the true author of\nShakespeare\u2019s plays, I do find the milieu in which these alternative candidates\nlived often contains uncanny echoes of the plays and poems, which need to be\nexplored further by scholars of the period. What these many pieces of the\npuzzle I have proposed here have in common is, certainly, the shaping influence\nof an aristocratic coterie on the works of the great author. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\nis not a new viewpoint: the anti-Stratfordian argument has, since Thomas Looney\u2019s\nShakespeare Identified<\/em>, and probably even earlier with the Baconian\ntradition, located the solution to the mystery of the authorship in the\nElizabethan court. In this respect, the anti-Stratfordians, the doubters, have\nprovided a service to all lovers of Shakespeare\u2019s work, irrespective of which\nside of the Stratfordian fence they sit. McCarthy, writing from a mainstream\nscholarly position, has the generosity to acknowledge that the authorship\nsceptics are certainly asking some of the right questions. As she put it: \u201cI think their doubts about the consensus story\u2014doubts\nabout Shakespeare\u2019s education, knowledge of things Italian and sympathy with\nthe aristocratic viewpoint\u2014were justified\u201d (McCarthy 226).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This open-mindedness seems to me to be very much in the spirit of the Shakespeare Authorship Coalition\u2019s online \u201cDeclaration of Reasonable Doubt<\/a>\u201d that many thousands have already signed. It is arguably the best way forward for confirming or contradicting the traditional attribution of authorship. Beyond the debate surrounding the identity of the author, which many people, scholarly and otherwise, say doesn\u2019t really matter\u2014”the play\u2019s the thing\u201d\u2014I feel the exploration of the puzzle, however \u201cflat-earthish\u201d it might seem at times, helps us to throw light on the actual contexts in which the plays were written and thus, potentially, can increase our knowledge of the plays themselves and the historical, personal and cultural matrix in which they were written. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I would\nlike here to go on to explore something more arcane\u2014what I will call \u201cthe\nscholarly deficit\u201d in this area\u2014that strange lack of curiosity in academic\ncircles about the evident mismatch between the man from Stratford and the works\nthemselves. I believe it is this lack of scholarly engagement with our greatest\nliterary puzzle which most directly leads to a tendency to distort the little\ndata we have about the author. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am sure\nthat many scholars of the period are familiar with Robert Greene\u2019s Groatsworth\nof Wit<\/em> (1592), a modest work which commands almost universal agreement now that\nthe man from Stratford (and not say, the actors Richard Burbage or Edward Alleyn)\nwas in fact the \u201cupstart crow\u201d accused of plagiarism, theft and taking\nadvantage of playwrights through moneylending practices. But the follow-up text\nby one Henry Chettle, Kind-Hearts Dream<\/em> (1592), has provoked contradictory reactions\nfrom establishment and \u201cindependent\u201d scholars alike. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The question here is, did Chettle apologise to Shakespeare following\nGreene\u2019s attack on him? The answer to this has far-reaching implications for\nthe whole authorship question and for academia\u2019s stance on this issue. Greene\u2019s\ninitial accusations show a \u201cShakespeare\u201d perfectly consistent with\nDuncan-Jones\u2019s \u201cungentle\u201d portrait:\na plagiarist and usurer; a snapper-up, for paltry sums, of other people\u2019s\nplays, which he would revise and, then, appropriate for himself. Apparently, he\nwas the person who would submit these texts\u2014the \u201cproperty\u201d of the Chamberlain\u2019s\nMen\u2014to the Stationer\u2019s Register. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Robert Greene\u2019s Groatsworth of Wit<\/em> (1592)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This would certainly explain why so many plays, Shakespearean and\nnon-Shakespearean, appeared at the time with his name on the cover. It is a\npicture of the Stratford man as theatre manager and playbroker, and it is a\nportrait clearly painted by scholar Diana Price in CS<\/em>18.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In looking\nat Greene\u2019s slanderous accusations and Chettle\u2019s so-called \u201capology,\u201d glaring\ninconsistencies begin to appear. In order for readers to judge this controversy\nfor themselves, we need to recall that Greene warns three playwrights about the\nactor-writer-usurer-playbroker\u2014in a word, this con-man\u2014who is referred to as \u201cthe\nupstart crow . . . beautified with our feathers.\u201d Greene tells these three fellow\nplaywrights to avoid this \u201cShake-scene\u201d like the plague. He says specifically: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

there is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tiger’s heart wrapped in a Players hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Iohannes factotum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country. O that I might entreat your rare wits to be employed in more profitable courses: & let those Apes imitate your past excellence, and never more acquaint them with your admired inventions. I know the best husband of you all will never prove an Usurer, and the kindest of them all will never seek you a kind nurse: yet whilst you may, seek you better Masters; for it is pity men of such rare wits, should be subject to the pleasure of such rude grooms.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

There is\nnear-universal consensus that, in this attack, Greene made the first written\nreference to Shakespeare of Stratford, now apparently a London man of the\ntheatre. The problem is with the conventional Stratfordian claim that, in the\nsame year, 1592, Henry Chettle, who was involved in some way in the publication\nof Greene\u2019s pamphlet\u2014perhaps even as its author\u2014takes the\nopportunity in his Kind Heart\u2019s Dream <\/em>to apologise to Shakespeare and to\nthe Stratford man\u2019s supporters. These latter include a number of important\npeople such as aristocrats and members of the Privy Council. In this debate is actually\nborn the \u201ctradition\u201d that Shakespeare was a polite, gentle man of great literary\ntalent, with friends in high places, who was simply being maligned by jealous\nrivals, the University-educated playwrights like Greene himself and \u201cwits\u201d such\nas Nashe, Marlowe and Peele (often identified as the three playwrights Greene was\nwriting to).  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But,\ncontrary to Stratfordian scholarship, even a cursory reading of the original makes\nit clear that Chettle was not apologising\nto Shakespeare at all but to two of the three playwrights to whom Greene\u2019s\npamphlet was addressed. Even Jonathan Bate (2008), another leading Stratfordian\nscholar, identifies the traditional misreading of the text: \u201cChettle says that\nthose who have taken offence are one or two of the playmakers to whom Greene\u2019s\nremarks were addressed and Shakespeare was not one of those.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bate argues\nthe apology was to Peele, not to Shakespeare. To\nconfirm what Bate says, I quote some of Chettle\u2019s text:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

About three months since died M. Robert Greene, leaving many papers in sundry booksellers’ hands, among other his Groatsworth of Wit<\/em>, in which a letter written to divers play-makers is offensively by one or two of them taken, and because on the dead they cannot be avenged, they willfully forge in their conceits a living author. . . . With neither of them that take offence was I acquainted, and with one of them I care not if I never be. The other, whom at that time I did not so much spare as since I wish I had, for that, as I have moderated the heat of living writers and might have used my own discretion (especially in such a case, the author being dead), that I did not. I am as sorry as if the original fault had been my fault, because myself have seen his demeanor no less civil than he excellent in the quality he professes. Besides, divers of worship have reported his uprightness of dealing, which argues his honesty, and his facetious grace in writing that approves his art.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

I assume\nthe reader has not found any reference to the \u201cupstart crow\u201d and can only see\nreferences to the playwrights addressed by Greene. And yet, from the beginning\nof the Shakespeare biographical industry to the present day, biographers\ncontinue to misrepresent what Chettle says to perpetuate the myth that\nShakespeare was not only an outstanding writer but one who had a reputation for\nbeing civil, and cultivated, of impeccable credentials,  whom influential aristocratic and government\nfigures rushed to defend when he was accused (perhaps unfairly) of being a con-man.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An early\nbeliever in the non-existent apology was the prolific Shakespeare scholar, F.E.\nHalliday: \u201cThere had been\nnumerous appreciative references to \u2018friendly Shakespeare\u2019 and his work since\nthe time of Henry Chettle\u2019s apology for Greene\u2019s attack at the beginning of his\ncareer\u201d (1). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

From a\nbook putting forward the \u201ccase for Shakespeare\u201d and aiming to \u201cend the\nauthorship question\u201d:  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Chettle wrote an apology . . . the two playwrights likely to take offense would have been Marlowe and Shakespeare\u2014Chettle has had a courteous conversation with the second (Shakespeare) . . . the phrase \u201cquality he professes\u201d which was often attached to actors identifies the polite second actor as Shakespeare . . . perhaps Shakespeare was nettled by the charge of usury which is why Chettle certifies his uprightness of dealing and his honesty. . . . (McCrea 37-38)  <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

From the\notherwise totally reliable linguist and modern encyclopedist David Crystal: \u201cChettle . . . apologises for not moderating the attack on\nShakespeare and adds a unique character note of his own: civil demeanor, divers\nof worship, uprightness of dealing, honesty, facetious writing that approves\nhis art. . . .\u201d (Crystal and Crystal 19).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the\nStratford Birthplace Trust: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Chettle apologized . . . \u201cdivers of worship\u201d (noblemen) called on Chettle and demanded an explanation for the \u201cscurrilous\u201d charges against Shakespeare . . . they can only have been noblemen from either the Privy Council or Cecil House or from Southampton himself. (Weiss 156-157)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

From\nthe doyen of Stratfordian scholars and my teacher at the Shakespeare Institute,\nStanley Wells: \u201cChettle published Kind\nHeart\u2019s Dream<\/em> with a preface in which he offered an apology for not having .\n. .  toned down the criticism\u201d (Wells,\n\u201cAllusions\u201d 73).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most\nworrying perhaps of all, is the entry in the online Encyclopaedia Brittanica<\/em>:\n\u201cChettle\nprepared for posthumous publication Greene\u2019s Groats-Worth of Wit <\/em>(1592), with its\nreference to Shakespeare as an \u2018upstart Crow,\u2019 but offered\nShakespeare compliments and an olive branch in his own Kind-Hearts\nDream <\/em>(1592).\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I could go on adding examples of the pretty obvious misreading of Chettle, adopted by most Stratfordian biographers (for instance, Bryson 84; Ellis 5-6). The point is that the \u201cerror\u201d has passed into Shakespearean mythology and has shaped the way the world sees the greatest writer in the English language: the fraudulent businessman is transformed into a budding bard. The scholarly faux pas<\/em> is, therefore, a wake-up call to the consequences of failing to do our job properly as academics and researchers. The truth is obscured and the truth matters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the\nmost highly-regarded of Shakespeare biographers, the restrained and \u201cscholarly\u201d\nPark Honan, is so carried away by the misreading of Chettle that he writes with\nsuch a careless, unempirical, abandon that, if he were a first-year student of\nEnglish, his paper would be covered in red marks, but Honan gets away with it\nbecause he is a reputable scholar. Honan (1999) paints a detailed picture of the\nman Shakespeare as if he knew him personally:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

an agreeable, cautious person; not eccentric, picturesque or attention-seeking after rehearsals . . . modest and unpretentious . . . he believed in stability . . . he had a tendency to agree with the views of James I . . . he was characterized by emotional conservatism . . . he coveted the normalcy of being a group-member. . . .<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

It is from standard biographies, such as Honan\u2019s, that we have inherited\nthe image of Shakespeare as a gentle, sweet, mild-mannered genius, who was\nfavoured by important establishment figures. But the lack of data on the life\nof Shakespeare the writer, and the mismatch between the little we know about\nthe life of the Stratford man in relation to the brilliant works have shaped,\nin important ways, how we see the nature of his literary skills and even the\nnature of literary genius itself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fact is,\nwhen Stratfordians are confronted with the\nincongruity between the life of the Stratford man and the words on the page,\nthe response is usually \u201cwell, that\u2019s the nature of genius.\u201d The roots of this\nview of genius as immanent<\/em> rather\nthan empirical<\/em>\u2014or based on experience\u2014can\nbe found in Shakespeare\u2019s contemporaries (Jonson and Beaumont, for example);\nbut they reach fruition in the Romantic movement, which has shaped in\nsignificant ways the way we see not only Shakespeare\u2019s genius but the nature of\ngenius itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beginning\nwith Jonson\u2019s \u201csmall Latin and less Greek\u201d and Beaumont\u2019s describing\nShakespeare as writing \u201cby the dim light of\nNature,\u201d we have the seeds of a tradition which sees Shakespeare as a\ngifted, but relatively unsophisticated writer, of limited education, who wrote simply\nthrough inspiration and intuition. There is no sense, in this particular view of\nwriting, of the processing and transformation of lived experience, because we\nsimply do not have much of that experience to go by\u2014and what little we do have\nbears hardly any relation to the works themselves\u2014excepting the \u201ceddies-under-Clopton\nBridge\u201d approach. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This disconnect between experience and inspiration became a source of intellectual significance for Romantics, such as Coleridge and Hazlitt, who, in turn, influenced Keats, who, in turn, influenced us. I would argue that the idea of Shakespeare\u2019s so-called genius\u2014a view which has dominated our thinking for the last two centuries\u2014is inseparable from the significantly incomplete <\/em>view we have of who the man actually was. The Romantics tried to make sense of his achievement, and they tried to integrate it with their own worldview.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we\nknow, the Romantic literary movement, as spearheaded by Coleridge and\nWordsworth, challenged the empirical approach to the mind and prioritized,\ninstead, the power of nature and the inherent capacities of the imagination.\nColeridge, in fact, argued for the importance of perception over facts. He saw\nthe imagination as the sole sovereign creative power, a gift of nature, and he\nfelt it was best illustrated in the impersonal genius of Shakespeare: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

it is easy to clothe imaginary beings with our own thoughts and feelings . . . but to send ourselves out of ourselves to think ourselves into the thoughts and feelings of beings in circumstances wholly and strangely different from our own…who has achieved it? Perhaps only Shakespeare. (Coleridge, qtd. in Holmes 326).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Hazlitt\nechoes Coleridge in seeing Shakespeare as a chameleon\u2014and an invisible one at that\u2014and\ndevelops further the idea of Shakespeare as some sort of exemplar of universality,\na being oddly detached from the real world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

He was nothing . . . the great distinction of Shakespeare\u2019s genius was its virtually including the genius of all the great men of his age . . . the peculiarity of Shakespeare\u2019s mind was that it contained a universe of thought and feeling. (Hazlitt 273)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Shakespeare,\nsays Hazlitt, was Everyman. Someone without an ego, \u201cthe least egotist that it\nwas possible to be.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John\nKeats\u2019s theory of the creative imagination is also consistent with and nurtured\nby the view of the author as an impersonal force of nature, who obliterates all\nindividuality as he or she becomes the people, the circumstances and natural\nphenomena of their poetry: \u201cWhat the imagination seizes as beauty must be truth\n. . . whether it existed before or not\u201d (Keats, qtd. in Roe 186)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Othello,\nLear or Viola, of course, \u201cdid not exist before,\u201d in the life of the Stratford\nman, argues Keats, but only in the imagination of the poet who created them. Shakespeare\u2019s\nimagination is, therefore, like \u201cAdam\u2019s dream\u201d\u2014he awoke and found it truth. Keats\nsays: Shakespeare was \u201ccapable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts,\nwithout any irritable reaching after fact and reason. . . . with a great poet\nthe sense of beauty obliterates all consideration . . . the poetical character\nhas no self. . . .\u201d (Keats qtd. in Roe 201).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My\nargument is that Shakespeare\u2019s mysterious \u201cinvisibility\u201d was not only\nconsistent with the view of inspiration expounded by Coleridge, Hazlitt and\nKeats, but, actually, helped to shape their understanding of their own genius<\/em>. And it, in turn,\nhelped to shape our modern perception of Shakespeare. Indeed, the poetic text\nas something distinct and apart from the life of the author became a\nfundamental principle in the development of \u201cPractical Criticism\u201d in the twentieth\ncentury, which says literary criticism is the search for universal human values\nthrough a careful scrutiny of only the\nwords on the page<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My own BA in English at Bristol certainly had as its working paradigm such practical criticism. This actively discouraged any resort to external biographical or historical knowledge in making sense of the text. We were not to confuse the poem with its origins by referring to personal, biographical information. This was particularly so with Shakespeare, because of the mismatch between the man and the work. Any sort of biographical approach would, indeed, have been not only confusing but hopelessly unproductive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But\nthings are different now. After post-modernism, our options for exploring\nmeaning have become multiple and hybrid, admitting a kind of historical\napproach, though the place of biography is still considered largely taboo in\nthe shaping of discourse. But, at the end of the day, the view of Shakespeare\nas universal genius, someone standing aloof from the politics of his time\u2014a\nbeing who gave us our view of what it means to be human for all time\u2014has to be\nexamined, even politically: \u201c. . . the Right has tended to maintain that\nShakespeare was above political commitment, that he subscribed only to timeless\ntruths . . . truths which conservatives will always recognize . . .\u201d (Worden 27).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\ncontrast to Sidney, Jonson or Milton\u2014whom we comfortably read in terms of the\nbeliefs and concerns of their time and place, and how their personal experiences\nshaped their engagement with those concerns\u2014we seem to think that, with\nShakespeare, it is perfectly natural to see him as a universal Everyman,\neverywhere and nowhere at once, but whose personal experience is irrelevant to\nhis work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\nrestricted view of Shakespeare\u2019s unique status as a \u201cmyriad-minded\u201d impersonal\ngenius has clearly shaped the very way we read creative texts. T.S. Eliot (1920)\nargued this very powerfully: \u201cthe man and the poet . . . are two different\nentities. The poet has no personality of his own. . . . The experiences or\nimpressions which are obviously autobiographical may be of great interest to\nthe writer himself, but not to his readers.\u201d Joyce\n(1916), too, has suggested that: \u201cThe\nartist, like the God of creation, remains within or behind or beyond or above\nhis handiwork, invisible, refined out of existence, indifferent, paring his\nfingernails.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have tried to show that the critical thread that runs from\nJonson to Joyce has its roots in our relative ignorance of who Shakespeare was.\nHis genius seems embedded in his silence and invisibility. In this respect, I\nthink the Shakespeare Authorship Question has certainly enhanced our way of\nseeing Shakespeare. For this reason alone, such investigations are valuable. By\ntrying to place the author of the Shakespearean plays and poems in the contexts\nand currents of his times, I think we enrich our understanding and appreciation\nof the content of these works on multiple levels. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most importantly, our view of the nature of\nhis creative genius would shift from the Romantic-cum<\/em>-modernist view of the impersonal, disembodied genius, conjuring\ncharacters and situations out of thin air, to one where creativity, at least to\na significant degree, is a process of transforming lived experience. We would,\nin short, be challenging the tradition that sees Shakespeare as \u201cdetached from\nthe squabbles of his time\u201d (Shell 11), and seeing him, instead, as engaging\ncritically with the political and religious debates that so pre-occupied his\ncontemporaries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, fifty years after \u201cfirst looking into\u201d Shakespeare\u2019s Julius Caesar,<\/em> I still find the works of the Bard\u2014whoever he, she or they were\u2014more miraculous than ever. As for the man from Stratford, I think he may or may not have been responsible for the 37 or more plays attributed to him. In this area, I would call myself an authorship sceptic or agnostic. But I am still curious to know why the man from Stratford died with no one mentioning his death in writing, and why he himself, in his last will and testament, did not refer, in any way whatsoever, directly or indirectly, to his writing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The third and last page of William Shakespeare’s will, written in secretary hand<\/a>. Photo: Wikipedia<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As a researcher\nwho was trained to collect and examine data critically, I do feel I have an\nacademic obligation to ask questions: I\nknow one thing, said Socrates, and that is that I know nothing. Thus, I\nthink I owe it to the writer who has been a source of infinite delight in all\nwe see around us to be curious and critical about his works and what shaped\nthem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That said,\nlet me note that I have never been concerned about Shakespeare\u2019s social class\u2014whatever\nit was and whoever he was. If he was from the working classes, fine. I do not\nbelieve that only aristocrats can write like angels! I would be perfectly happy\nif the traditional rags-to-riches narrative did prevail beyond reasonable doubt\n(and thus added possibilities to my own modest roots!) Yet, with the Stratford\nman, there is this strange, persistent non-alignment between the life and the\nwork . . . <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the end of the day, sheer human curiosity makes us want to know more about the authors of our favorite texts. Like Auden, I really would like to know \u201cwhat kind of guy inhabits\u201d Shakespeare\u2019s poetics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n

Endnote<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

[1]<\/sup><\/a> See Worden (2006) for\na dissenting voice on whether Shakespeare\u2019s play is, in fact, the one referred\nto in the documentary records.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Works\nCited<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bate, Jonathan.\nThe Soul of the Age<\/em>. Penguin, 2008.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bryson,\nBill. Shakespeare: The World as Stage<\/em>.\nHarper, 2007.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Crystal,\nDavid, and Ben Crystal. The Shakespeare\nMiscellany<\/em>. Penguin, 2005.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Duncan\nJones, K. Ungentle Shakespeare<\/em>. Arden,\n2001.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dutton,\nRichard. \u201cShakespearean Origins.\u201d Shakespeare,\nMarlowe, Jonson: New Directions in Biography<\/em>, edited by Takashi Kozuka and\nJ.R. Mulryne, Ashgate, 2006.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Edmondson,\nPaul, and Stanley Wells, editors. Shakespeare\nBeyond Doubt<\/em>. Cambridge UP, 2013.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ellis,\nDavid. The Truth about William\nShakespeare<\/em>. Edinburgh UP, 2012.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eliot,\nT.S. \u201cTradition and the Individual Talent.\u201d The\nSacred Wood.<\/em> Methuen, 1920.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Greenblatt,\nStephen. Will in the World. <\/em>Bodley\nHead, 2004.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Halliday,\nF.E. The Cult of Shakespeare<\/em>. Duckworth,\n1957.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Holmes,\nRichard. Coleridge:<\/em> Early Visions<\/em>. Harper, 2005.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Honan,\nPark. Shakespeare: A Life. <\/em>Oxford UP,\n1999.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Honigmann,\nE.A.J. The Lost Years<\/em>. Macmillan, 1985.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joyce, James. Portrait\nof the Artist as a Young Man. <\/em>Penguin, 1916.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looney, Thomas.\nShakespeare Identified. <\/em>Duell, Sloan\nand Pearce, 1920.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McCarthy,\nPenny. Pseudonymous Shakespeare. <\/em>Ashgate,\n2006.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McCrea,\nScott. The Case for Shakespeare<\/em>. Praeger,\n2005.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ogburn, Carlton.\nThe Mysterious William Shakespeare<\/em>. Penguin,\n1988.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Price, Diana.\nShakespeare\u2019s Unorthodox Biography<\/em>. 2nd\ned., Greenwood Press, 2012.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Roe, Nicholas.\nJohn Keats<\/em>. Yale UP, 2012.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eric Sams.\nThe Real\nShakespeare: Retrieving the Early years, 1564-1594<\/em>. Yale UP, 1995.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shapiro, James.\nContested Will<\/em>. Faber, 2010.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shell, Alison.\n\u201cRough hew them how he will.\u201d The Times\nLiterary Supplement<\/em>, 19 April 2009, no.6055: 11.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tassinari, Lamberto. John\nFlorio: The Man Who Was Shakespeare<\/em>. Giano, 2009.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Va\u00efs, Michel. \u201cPourquoi \u2018John Florio, alias Shakespeare<\/a>.\u2019\u201d Critical Stages, <\/em>no.18 (Special Topic II), 2018. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Weiss, Rene.\nShakespeare Unbound. <\/em>Henry Holt, 2007.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wells, Stanley.\n\u201cAllusions to Shakespeare to 1642.\u201d Shakespeare\nBeyond Doubt<\/em>, edited by Paul Edmondson and Stanley Wells, Cambridge UP, 2013.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

—. Shakespeare for all time<\/em>. Macmillan, 2003.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Worden,\nBlair. 2006. \u201cShakespeare in Life and Art: Biography and Richard II.\u201d Shakespeare, Marlowe, Jonson: New Directions\nin Biography<\/em>, edited by Takashi Kozuka and J.R. Mulryne, Ashgate, 2006. pp. 23-42.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Woudhuysen,\nH. R., editor. Love\u2019s Labours Lost. <\/em>Arden,\n1998. 3rd series.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Williams,\nRobin. Sweet Swan of Avon<\/em>. Wilton\nCircle Press, 2006.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wilson, Ian. The Evidence<\/em>. St Martin Griffin, 1993. <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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*<\/a>Luke Prodromou <\/strong>has a BA from Bristol University in English, an MA in Shakespeare Studies from Birmingham University, a Diploma in Teaching English as a Second Language (Leeds University), and a PhD (Nottingham University). His PhD thesis was published as English as Lingua Franca: A Corpus-based Analysis<\/em> (Continuum, 2010). He is the author\u2014with Lindsay Clandfield\u2014of the award-winning Dealing with Difficulties<\/em> and numerous textbooks for students. He was for many years a teacher and trainer with the British Council, teaching Shakespeare at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He has also worked for ESADE, Barcelona, the University of Edinburgh, Pilgrims, Canterbury and NILE (Norwich). He has been a plenary speaker at numerous international conferences. Currently, he runs literature courses for Spanish teachers on Shakespeare, Dickens, Jane Austen, the modern English novel, Romanticism and Drama and teaches on the MA TESOL at Sheffield University\/City College, in Thessaloniki. He performs Shakespeare and other texts with the English Language Voice Theatre, an international, collaborative ELT theatre for teachers and students. He can be reached at lukepeight@gmail.com<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Copyright \u00a9<\/strong> 2019 Luke Prodromou
Critical Stages\/Sc\u00e8nes critiques<\/em> e-ISSN: 2409-7411<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Creative<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This work is licensed under the
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Luke Prodromou* Abstract: Questioning the authorship of Shakespeare\u2019s plays is often seen as an eccentricity of amateur scholars, an enquiry unworthy of serious academic consideration: our understanding of the plays on the page and our appreciation of them on the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":312,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[31],"class_list":["post-311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-essays","tag-by-luke-prodromou","","tg-column-two"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/19\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2019\/05\/1-Henry.jpg?fit=400%2C590&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paUXOT-51","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1387,"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311\/revisions\/1387"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}