By Leigh Michaels We all took English literature in high school and college, and we all know about William Shakespeare. The greatest dramatist e world has ever known, e finest poet who has written in e English language. The Bard of Avon. There s no question at e works of Shakespeare are fabulous and important, and at he was an influential poet and dramatist. In fact, he was e originator of e English novel ough he didn t call it at, and he didn t finalize e form. And he s been called e creator of e modern English language. He is said to have added 10,000 words to e English vocabulary. But what do we really know about e man behind e plays? The encyclopedias and e English textbooks say: Shakespeare was born on April 23, 1564, and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon. He went to school at e Stratford Grammar School, which included such an advanced curriculum at it was as good as a university education. At e age of 18 he married Anne Haaway, who bore him ree children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judi. Between 1585 and 1592 he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part-owner of e playing company e Lord Chamberlain s Men, later known as e King s Men. Almost immediately he started writing stunningly successful, polished poems, and plays at a rate of ree or four a year. Wiin a few years he was e best known and most popular playwright in England. He retired to Stratford around 1613, where he died ree years later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive. Yeah, well, at last line is pretty accurate few records survive. The rest of it... not so much. Yes, ere was a guy in Stratford on Avon who was named William Shakspere e family pronounced or spelled it wi a short A sound, not e long A. And to keep 1
e two separate e auor of e plays, and e man from Stratford who s been credited wi writing em I ll refer to em at way, as Shakespeare and Shakspere. Shakspere may have been born on April 23, but ere s no record of exactly when, or where. There s no evidence he ever went to school at all, and to be admitted to Stratford school one had to be able to read and write already; a bit difficult for a boy whose faer signed his name wi an X. His wife, known so well to history as Anne Haaway, may actually have been named Agnes Whateley instead. There s no evidence he ever owned a book. He does seem to have been an actor, and he seems to have owned a share in a couple of eaters but ere s no evidence he was any kind of writer. Despite e fact at for years he lived apart from his family, ere s no evidence he ever wrote a letter, and only one letter is known to have been addressed to him in his entire life. It was written by a neighbor; it may or may not have been delivered, but it wasn t opened at least by Shakspere. There are only six examples of his handwriting maybe. They re all signatures, ey re spelled a number of different ways, and ree of em are ought by Scotland Yard to be forgeries or else written wi a guided hand. There s noing else in his handwriting not his name in a book, not a note, not a line of manuscript or poetry. Though scholars say he may have spent some years as a law clerk or a schoolteacher professions which call for a lot of writing and signing no papers exist. It s curious at NOTHING survived, if he was a clerk or a teacher. His parents, his wife, and his daughters were illiterate. One of em not only couldn t sign her own name, she didn t recognize her husband s handwriting when she was showed a sample. Though ere are dozens of documents which refer to Shakspere, absolutely none have any connection wi literary matters. He sued oers and he was sued; he was delinquent in paying taxes, he was cited for hoarding grain during a famine, he was called as a witness in a breach of promise case. But ere s noing about his being a writer. Nobody called him a writer during his lifetime; nobody seemed to ink of him in connection wi poetry or plays or literature. As for him being e most popular playwright of his age well, when he died, 2
nobody seems to have noticed. In an era where poets poured out tributes to deceased celebrities, nobody absolutely nobody commented on Shakspere s dea. No, wait a second; one person did comment. His daughter s husband wrote in his diary, My faer-in-law died yesterday. When I was in college, I never questioned e identity of e man who wrote e plays. My teachers told me it was e man from Stratford, and I had no reason to doubt at ey were right. Until about 15 years ago when my husband ran across a little book which had been written by a local Ottumwa auor and I had to admit at e auor had some very valid points. That auor, T. Henry Foster, was a businessman who used to send unique Christmas cards. Each year he wrote a small book and had e Torch Press in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, print it for his friends. In 1946 e topic he chose was Shakespeare, Man of Mystery... and when I read at little book a discussion of why e auor of e plays, and e William Shakspere who lived in Stratford on Avon, were different people lights started going off in my head. No wonder ere seemed to be such a vacuum around e plays, and such a wide gulf between e works and e man who supposedly created em. What I had been told all ose years simply wasn t true. Why does it matter? Many people say, we have e plays, at s e important ing, so it doesn t matter who wrote em. Well, yes, it does matter, just as it helps us to understand today s best sellers by knowing who e auors are, and what eir mindsets and biases are. When we read e op-ed page, we glance first at who wrote e piece because we know Cal Thomas is a conservative and Rekha Basu is a liberal, and we want to take at into account when we consider what ey have to say. If it didn t matter, why would e newspaper even print e names? The scholars certainly stretch to find connections between Shakspere s experience and life or what we ink we know of his life and e plays. But it s very difficult 3
to find ose connections. People make a big ing of his son being named Hamnet because of e similarity to e famous Hamlet of e play. But in fact, Shakspere s son was named for a neighbor. One scholar spent years traveling in England, looking for evidence of Shakespeare e auor convinced at somewhere, portions of his library must have survived, or his manuscripts, or some evidence of his work, or letters, or some connection between his life and his plays. He was, of course, looking for Shakspere, e Stratford man. He found noing connecting him wi writing and he subsequently committed suicide, convinced at Shakespeare was a fraud and his own life s work had been wasted. The plays refer to travels across Europe to hunting and hawking to English and French nobility, to warfare, to jousting. Where did a guy from a rural county in 16 century England a town so far from London at his accent would have been almost incomprehensible to city residents when he first went to e capital learn about all of ose ings? Some scholars say he had such a wonderful imagination at he made it all up. Well I ink at attitude diminishes e man and e work. He was just lucky enough to get it right? The fact is at writers write what ey know. Even when ey re writing science fiction or fantasy, e kinds of stories ey choose to write are rooted in eir own experience. Even when ey try not to, writers choose stories, characters, images, comparisons at reflect eir own lives and experience and likes and dislikes. I m a middle-class Iowan, born and raised on a farm. I m a traditional woman I cook and bake and sew. I don t jump out of airplanes, I don t race cars, I don t dance. So when I write my stories, even when I m writing about e rich and e famous, e choices I make in telling e story tell e reader a lot about me who I am, how I spend my spare time, what I ink is funny. I ve had people write me wi an analysis of my character based on reading my books and it s scary how right ey are. If you read Shakespeare wiout inking about e man from Stratford, e man 4
you ve been told wrote e plays, you ll find a portrait of e auor, just as my readers can read between e lines and see me. And Shakespeare e playwright and poet simply doesn t fit wi e middleclass man from Stratford. The man who wrote who steals my purse steals trash isn t e same man who would sue his neighbors for a shilling debt. The man who wrote of how important his reputation was to him isn t e same man who was fined for hoarding grain during a famine. The auor of e plays was intimately acquainted wi e law, medicine, art, botany, astronomy, natural history, magic, geography, music, rhetoric, court life, astronomy, heraldry, military and naval terminology, ancient and modern history, philosophy, classical literature in e original Greek and Latin as well as in French, Italian, Spanish, and English. Where would William Shakspere, e butcher boy of Stratford, have learned all at? Scholars say Shakespeare got all his information from books. But Elizabean England wasn t like today, wi e local library and e Internet. Where did he get e books? Why is ere no evidence at he ever bought a book, owned a book, or even handled a book? At e time, books were so precious at ey were named in wills. But ough Shakespeare named ings like a gilt bowl and his second-best bed in his will, he made no mention of anying literary. He didn t even leave a family Bible to his oldest daughter, much less a history book or a volume of poems or a manuscript. Besides, reading and research only get you so far. Lucky or not, it s hard to write convincingly about someing wiout any personal experience whatsoever. And it s not just at Shakespeare chooses to write about kings and crowns anybody can imagine enough to do at, ough ey re unlikely to get e details and e feelings and e attitudes right. The real indications of what sort of man auored e plays comes in e comparisons he s making when he s not inking about it e images and metaphors at come naturally, effortlessly, to his pen. Shakespeare uses jousting and hunting wi falcons as metaphors. But ose are sports at William Shakspere wouldn t have known e first ing about. Only noblemen were allowed to own or 5
could afford hunting falcons. Only noblemen would have been welcomed on e field at jousting tournaments. But fishing e one sport at William could have been good at, living on e river Avon as he did fishing is not mentioned in e plays or poems. Scholars say at e works of Shakespeare were written by a genius. They say at he didn t need to study or practice, because he was a genius. And how do we know at Shakespeare was a genius? Because he wrote ese wonderful plays wi no study or practice. That s what is known as circular reasoning taking a conclusion and using it as a premise to base at same conclusion on. The plays ARE a work of genius. But even genius needs practice. Even genius needs training. Genius does not spring full-fledged out of noingness. Yo Yo Ma practices e cello every day, and he didn t start out playing at Carnegie Hall. So who wrote e plays? Early in e 20 century, a man wi e unfortunate name of Looney (it s pronounced Lone - ee, but at hasn t stopped e jokes) started searching for e auor of e plays. He started wi e premise at e auor must have practiced his craft he couldn t have simply started writing at e level of Shakespeare s first known work and at when he started publishing as Shakespeare he probably stopped writing under his own name. He also deduced from e content of e plays what e auor s interests, expertise, and experience was likely to have been where he d traveled, what he d studied, what he d done. Looney searched rough Elizabean records for an auor whose style was similar to Shakespeare s, but more primitive not yet developed. He discovered Edward de Vere, e 17 Earl of Oxford an auor who was known and commented on by his contemporaries as e best for comedy among us, ough no comedy he wrote is known today. An auor whose style is eerily reminiscent of Shakespeare so close, in fact, at when Shakespearean scholars are shown intermixed passages of Shakespeare and de Vere, some of em can t tell e difference. (One actually got it entirely backwards, crediting e Shakespeare lines to de Vere and vice versa.) Edward de Vere was e highest-ranking noble in England, second only to Queen 6
Elizabe, and in fact for much of his life he was considered a potential successor to e rone. He was born in 1550, making him fourteen years older an Shakspere. When he was 12, his faer died and Edward became e 17 earl in a long line of a noble family, hereditary great chamberlain to e Queen. At his faer s dea, he became a ward of e court and was put into e care of Elizabe s main councilor, William Cecil, later named Lord Burghley. De Vere attended college at Oxford, studying law, medicine, and natural science, and received a masters degree. He was a favorite at court, writing and producing court plays and poetry, jousting in tournaments, flirting wi e queen. He married Lord Burghley s daughter; it was not a happy marriage, ough it eventually produced ree daughters. Oxford wanted to travel, and he defied e queen s orders so he could do so, eventually spending several years in Italy and traveling rough Europe. He supported companies of actors; he was e patron of writers; he was an accomplished writer and translator himself. Interestingly enough, e same scholars who go to such lengs to find connections between e life of William Shakspere and e plays pooh-pooh e idea of looking for connections between e life of Edward de Vere and e plays. Are ere any such connections? Oh, my goodness, yes. Before de Vere s faer died and he became e 17 Earl of Oxford, he was known as Lord Bulbeck and his crest was a lion shaking a broken spear. When he was studying at Oxford, and performed on e student stage, he was referred to by his fellows as an excellent actor: Thy countenance shakes a spear. And, by e way, several of e early occurrences of Shakespeare s name as an auor, on early poems and plays, show e name hyphenated as Shake-hyphen-Speare. That seems to be a pretty clear indication at it wasn t actually a name since ere s no oer English name hyphenated in such a way (only combinations of two last names). But back to connections between de Vere and e works. Obscure de Vere relatives people whom history has pretty much ignored wander rough Shakespeare s plays. A secondary character in e historical plays is de Vere s several-times-great-grandfaer. And he plays a much larger role on stage 7
an he did in real life, indicating at e auor had a special interest in making him look good. In e official court records, ere s a list of books purchased on behalf of e young Edward, Earl of Oxford, by Lord Burghley including all e major books which Shakespeare used as references and sources for his plays. De Vere was educated in part by a tutor, William Golding, who is credited for translating Ovid s Metamorphoses from Latin into English. Which book did Shakespeare use most as a source? You guessed it Ovid s Metamorphoses, bo e original and Golding s translation. And as long as we re talking about Burghley let s look at Polonius, e councilor to e rone, from Hamlet and e famous speech we all know about Neier a borrower nor a lender be... is above all to y own self be true... It s lifted concept for concept almost word for word from e household rules maintained by William Cecil, Lord Burghley e man who was de Vere s guardian, foster parent, and faer-in-law. Even e scholars who firmly believe in William Shakspere of Stratford on Avon admit at Polonious is Burghley. But ose household rules were private, not published until long after Shakspere was dead. How would he have learned about em? Or was it just coincidence at he came up wi e same ideas, in almost e same words, and put em in e mou of a councilor to e rone? And how did he get away wi parodying e queen s most powerful adviser wiout landing in e tower of London? Then ere s at bit about e Bard of Avon. De Vere owned an estate only a few miles away from Stratford, located on e Avon River, and ere s a tradition connected to at house which says at William Shakespeare wrote one of e plays in an upstairs room ere. Why didn t Edward de Vere use his own name? Writing entertainments for e court was one ing; writing plays for public consumption was a very different, crass, low-class ing to do. And Edward de Vere was very much a man of his time and class one who felt strongly at bir was of ultimate importance. 8
Plus, remember what was going on en. Elizabe was sitting on a very uncertain rone. Half e population still ought she was a bastard and a usurper; e whole cult of Gloriana e magnificent queen came later, largely because of e Shakespearean plays. She was fending off two superpowers Spain and France trying to keep em from chewing up England as an appetizer. And e treasury was nearly broke; her grandfaer, Henry VII, had been a wily old miser, but her faer Henry VIII could have originated e term conspicuous consumption. Elizabe needed money and troops, and to get ose ings she needed political support. She needed, in short, an aroused population. How was she to do at, in an age when e people were largely illiterate, when ere was no CNN? She couldn t just call a press conference. She couldn t sit down wi 60 Minutes and make her case to e nation. She couldn t put it in a book e vast majority of her people couldn t read. Edward de Vere had e talent and ability to write plays which would stir e patriotism of e people and make em willing to sacrifice, to back eir queen, to fight to e dea. He wrote e history plays to fire up e population. But if ose plays were known to have originated right next door to e rone, ey wouldn t have been nearly as well-received, or as effective, as when ey were supposedly written by a common man. It s e difference between Condoleeza Rice writing an article in support of e Iraq War, and e editor of e New York Times writing it. By e way, Elizabe I made a grant of 1000 pounds sterling per year to her cousin Edward e Earl of Oxford wiout asking for any reckoning of what e money was spent for. Elizabe was one of e most parsimonious monarchs in history; when she spent a shilling, she wanted a shilling and a half s wor of value. Yet she made is huge grant enough to buy ree good-sized estates each year annually until her dea. What did Edward do to earn it? Let s ink... Interestingly, ere was a report at e time at Shakespeare spent at e rate of 1,000 pounds per year. Shakspere, of Stratford, never had anying near at sort of income. When Edward de Vere died in 1604, King James I ordered eight Shakespeare plays performed at court to honor his memory. When Oxford s widow died nine 9
years later, e King ordered fourteen Shakespeare plays performed in her honor. Why didn t e tru come out after de Vere s dea? It seems to have been an open secret in e court at e time e plays were written, so why didn t e news spread afterward? Because ere was no such ing as investigative journalism, and because e ruling dynasty still was an uncertain ing. James, as a Scottish import, was no more popular an Elizabe had been early on, so e rone had a vested interest in continuing to keep e secret. Also, Shakespeare was active at e end of e 16 century and early into e 17 century. The First Folio e first published collection of Shakespeare plays was printed in 1623. Just a few years later, Charles I was beheaded and Cromwell and e Puritans took over e government. Among eir first moves was to close e eaters such cesspits of immorality ey were said to be. It was nearly a hundred years later before e English eater got back on its feet, and by en, Shakespeare was old stuff; e eater had moved on. In e 1700s a famous English actor revived Shakespeare but by en everyone who knew e tru about e auor was dead, and nobody ought to dig furer into e question of who really wrote e plays. They took e First Folio on face value. Doesn t e First Folio identify Shakespeare as Shakspere of Stratford? It can be read at way and it has been, for centuries. However, e references are mysterious enough, wi double-meanings everywhere. Comments like Sweet Swan of Avon can equally well refer to de Vere, because of his estate nearby. And e Folio specializes in such general, non-specific references. The auorship controversy It wasn t until e middle of e 19 century at e auorship question really got started, and en it was oer auors who led e charge including Walt Whitman, Washington Irving, Mark Twain, Herman Melville, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry James, and Naaniel Haworne. Professors of English literature didn t agree and understandably so; it s asking a lot for someone who got his Ph.D. 10
based on a dissertation about what Shakspere must have studied in e Grammar School at Stratford to say, Oops, I guess I ve had e wrong guy all along. Actors form anoer group who doubt e standard definition Charlie Chaplin, Sir John Gielgud, and Jeremy Irons among em. Oers who support an alternative to e Stratford Shakspere include Sigmund Freud, several prime ministers of England, and at least ree present and past Supreme Court justices. One of e justices has said at if writing e plays of Shakespeare was a crime, e guy from Stratford would have to be released for lack of evidence. There are some common arguments at supporters of e Stratford Shakspere make: Scholars say Shakespeare made mistakes at no one who had actually traveled would have made which would support e idea at e plays were written by someone who hadn t traveled. Shakespeare said ere was a seacoast in Bohemia, and he had characters travel by canal between Italian cities. What ese scholars don t tell you is at in Shakespeare s day Bohemia actually did have a seacoast it s landlocked now and e Italian cities in is case were connected by a canal. It wasn t Shakespeare who was wrong it s e scholars. Scholars say Shakespeare lifted his plots from oer auors. The argument is made at Shakespeare never had an original ought, at his plays were based on earlier works and lifted straight from em. He did use certain books as e basis for some plays, but ere s evidence at many of e early works he s supposed to have plagiarized were actually his own first drafts. However, ey were written too early to be e work of e young William Shakspere, so e scholars say at he must have just... ahem... borrowed em. Scholars say Shakspere didn t list e plays and manuscripts in his will because ey were owned by e company. This is anoer example of wanting to have ings bo ways. The Stratfordians say at Shakspere could afford to buy a big house in Stratford and retire ere because he was well off from his years in e eater, yet ey add at e plays and his interest in e eater and e company weren t valuable enough to mention in his will. And ey say at all ose plays and poems he wrote over e years went straight to e company, and he didn t have a 11
single line left over in his possession when he died. Not a rough draft, not a copy, not so much as a jotted note about changing a character s name. Scholars say some of e plays were written after de Vere s dea. But e dating of e plays has been set by Stratfordian scholars based on e life span of eir own candidate. They started wi e years of Shakspere s life and assumed at e plays were written wiin at time frame. To make e plays fit based on e known dates of first performances, ey ve had to take e stand at Shakspere produced very polished works very early in his life, and ey assume at early drafts were by someone else and Shakspere plagiarized em. Conversely, if we look at e plays in comparison wi e life span of Edward de Vere, we find a much easier and more reasonable writing pace and development of talent, voice and style. None of e plays is definitely linked to events which occurred after e dea of Edward de Vere; ough some scholars determinedly link The Tempest to a 1612 shipwreck, noing about at event is specific enough to confirm e eory. Even some Stratfordian scholars feel at e playwright stopped writing earlier an conventional wisdom has held. They ink he ceased production and retired to Stratford about 1604. Backers of de Vere point out at 1604 is e year de Vere died. Scholars say de Vere supporters are elitists who believe at only an aristocrat could have written e plays. But it s not a matter of rank or nobility, it s a matter of experience. It s not at e common man couldn t write plays, it s at a man of Shakspere s background couldn t write ese plays. Ben Jonson wrote plays in e same era as Shakespeare. Ben Jonson was a common man, from e middle class, ough he had a university education. And his plays reflect his experience and his background. Read a Shakespeare play and a Ben Jonson play back to back, and you ll see what I mean. Scholars point out at e plays bear Shakespeare s name as auor. There s an incredibly naive statement on a website I stumbled across e oer day: Good evidence at William Shakespeare wrote e plays and poems bearing his name is 12
e fact at his name appears on em as e auor. So ey re saying at e name on e cover must be e exact legal name of e person who wrote e book? Well, first, ere s a long tradition of writers using pen names, from Homer on. At least one of e Gospels was not actually written by e guy whose name it bears. Second, it s not e same name on e cover. It s a similar name, but e man from Stratford would have written it as William Shakspere. And just because e cover says William Shakespeare, or sometimes William Shake-speare (hyphenated), or even if it said William Shakspere, ere s noing connecting at name wi a specific individual. My books say Leigh Michaels wrote em. Even e copyright notice says Leigh Michaels wrote em. Shall we go looking rough phone books to see if we can find someone named Leigh Michaels? There are probably several people across e United States wi at legal name. That doesn t make any of em e auor. Leigh Michaels is a pen name and so was William Shakespeare. The works of William Shakespeare deserves e tru. Edward de Vere deserves e honor of being known as eir auor, e mind behind some of e greatest and most influential works ever written in e English language. Leigh Michaels (www.leighmichaels.com) is e auor of 80 contemporary romance novels published by Harlequin Books in 25 languages and 120 countries, wi 30 million copies in print. She is also e auor of non-fiction books, including On Writing Romance, published by Writers Digest Books. She teaches writing online at Goam Writers Workshop, www.writingclasses.com. 13
For furer reading: Mark Anderson, Shakespeare By Anoer Name. Goam Books, 2005. The most up-to-date, and a good combination of scholarship wi readibility. Joseph Sobran, Alias Shakespeare. The Free Press, 1997. A very readable discussion by e well-known syndicated columnist. Charlton Ogburn, The Mysterious William Shakespeare. Dodd, Mead, & Co., 1984. The bible of e auorship question, an exhaustive 892-page dissertation which inlcudes chronologies, citations, and bibliography. American Bar Association, Shakespeare Cross-Examination. American Bar Association, 1961. A compilation of articles which first appeared in e American Bar Association Journal, discussing Shakespeare s legal experience and expertise. Peter Sammartino, The Man Who Was William Shakespeare. Cornwall Books, 1990. A brief and readable introduction to e auorship question. Includes tables which compare all e candidates. J. Thomas Looney, Shakespeare Identified. Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1920. The original exposé, long out of print but available in some reprint editions. Doroy Ogburn and Charlton Ogburn, Jr., Shake-Speare, The Real Man Behind e Name, William Morrow & Co., 1962. A shorter summary of e argument for Oxford as Shakespeare. Sarah Smi, Chasing Shakespeares, Atria Books, 2003. A novelized approach to e auorship question, as Smi s characters chase e smoking gun evidence which would prove who wrote e plays. 14