Author suggests Queen Elizabeth may he author of Sliak, -pearean plays. Did actor merely act greatest role for his Qocen'?

SHAKE-SPEARE the Mystery

A distinguished O .U. alumnus has written a book revealing a scientist's efforts to discover true authorship of plays attributed to Shakespeare . Following account, Chapter 7 of book, reveals his answer. The spelling "Shake-speare" has been adopted by author from original spelling in First Folio and other works. By GEOIZGE ELLIOTT SWEET, '27chem, '291ns

"I've reared a monument, my own, the foreground of his thought derived from contemporary poets had relatively little More durable than brass, his fellow University Wits ; his classic back- influence on Shake-speare's , which Yea, kingly pyramids of stone ground was the broadest possible including argues that he was one of the first Eliza- In height it doth surpass. derivations from Sophocles, Euripides, bethans in the sonnet field. Since the Rain shall not sap, nor driving blast Aeschylus, Aristophanes, Darius Phrygius, sonnet fashion reached its peak in the Disturb its settled base, Ovid, Horace, Virgil, Lucretius, Statius, 1590's, it is natural to assume that Shake- Nor countless ages rolling past Catullus, Seneca, Terence, and Plautus . The speare wrote his sonnets before the 1590's . Its symmetry deface. inspiration for his sonnets came principally Therefore, we have an independent indi- I shall not wholly die, some part from Ovid's Metamorphosis, various poetry cation that Mr. Hotson's date of compost- Nor that a little, shall of Horace, and from Chaucer's Roman de tion is correct . Escape the dark destroyer's dart la Rose . As Francis Meres has indicated, ManV interpretations can be put upon And his grim festival ." Shake-speare as a poet was closer to Ovid the sonnets. Some critics view them as al- Ode Epilogue of Horace than to any other writer. A comparison of legorical, some think that they are more Shake-speare's time sonnets with the F,lpi- dramatic than personal, others that they l1AKE-SPEARE did not strive for origin- logue to the Odes of Horace, quoted above, might have been written merely as exer- ality in his sonnets any more than he will show the similarity of thought and ex- cises in the art of composition in the son- did in his plays. In the dramas his style and pression between the two poets. Apparently, net form . All of these various elements

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probably play a part. We will never know search arrived at the conclusion that the Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth ;" just how personal or just how artificial the main body of the sonnets was addressed to a Sonnet48 sonnets are. Since the poet is of necessity a man. Edmund Malone established this hy- "But thou, to whom my jewels trifles are," central figure in a sonnet as he is not in a pothesis as the correct theory and his views and play, the literary detective, while he knows have prevailed down to the present. Ma- "Within the gentle closure of my breast," he is on shaky ground because of the lati- lone was a thorough and competent re- Sonnet 62 "But when my glass shows me myself tude allowed by poetic license, nevertheless search worker on Shake-speare . He it was indeed, is so starved for clues he is bound to specu- who discovered the poaching story of Bated and chopp'd with tann'd antiquity" late on the possible revelations as to the William Shakspere's youth had to be false and poet's character, physical attributes, and because Sir Thomas Lucy did not have a "Painting my age with beauty of thy days" Sonnet 63 identity contained in the sonnets . The lit- deer park until much later. Malone also ex- "Against my love shall be, as I am now erary detective hopes that the sonnets are posed a number of Shakespearean forgeries. With Time's injurious hand crush'd and as personal as E. K. Chambers thinks they o'erworn ;" are by his, "Here are souls that pulse and Sonnet 72 OMEWHERE OR SOMEHOW there appears "My name be buried where my body is" words that burn." to be a misplaced gender about the son- The first 126 sonnets are written in ad- "That time of year netsS . Barrett Wendell recoiled at the idea thou may'st in me behold miration of the physical, When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do mental and spirit- of myriad-minded Shake-speare sincerely ual beauty of a "lovely boy." The next hand prostrating himself before a boy patron; Upon those boughs which shake against the twenty-six are principally devoted to con- then reminded himself of Elizabeth Bar- cold, demning the infamous "" as a rett Browning's Sonnets from the Portu- Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds wanton with sang. a soul as dark as her com- guese; she was six years older than her plexion. The narrative of the "lovely boy" In me thou seest the twilight of such day "lovely boy," Robert Browning. As after sunset fadeth in the west ;" and the narrative of the "dark lady" taken The picture of the "lovely boy" as gen- Sonnet 76 together strike a most discordant note. The erated by expressions in the sonnets is very "Why write I still all one, ever the same, sixteenth century was still the age of chiv- And keep invention in a noted weed, flattering . He is "the world's fine orna- alry. The story of King Arthur and his That every word cloth almost tell my name, ment," a "beauteous and lovely youth." He Showing their birth Knights of the Round Table and where they did continued to is in his late teens or early twenties, "And proceed?" be the most popular story in England. No thou present'st a pure, unstained prime." Sonnet 89 small percentage of the populace took the "Speak of my lameness, and I straight will He has red or auburn hair, "And buds of story to be history and actually awaited halt," marjoram had stol'n thy hair," The boy is Sonnet 94 King Arthur to return as he had promised. as fair in disposition and mental ability as "They that have power to hurt and will do The Tudors claimed to be descended from he is fair of face, "Fair, kind and true, is all none, Arthur through Owen Tudor, grandfather That do not do the thing they most do show, my argument"; also "Thou art as fair in of Henry VII. Serious writers suggested Who, moving others are themselves as stone, knowledge as in hue." The beautiful youth Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow ; that Queen Elizabeth was the embodiment has a beautiful mother and we have a hint They rightly do inherit heaven's graces, King Arthur and that the Elizabethan of that Shake-speare has known her in her And husband nature's riches from expense ;" Golden Age Age was the of the return of lovely girlhood : Arthur. A poet was expected to sing the The ideas expressed by Sonnets 72, 76, praises of some beautiful lady and by the "Thou art thy mother's glass, and she in thee and 94 might be guideposts and then again, same token, I suppose, a poetess would be Calls back the lovely April of her prime" ; they might not be. Perhaps Sonnets 72 and expected to dwell on the admirable quali- 76 are hints as to Shake-speare's identity . What is meant by the seventh line of Son- ties of some beautiful boy or beautiful man. Perhaps Sonnet 94 is autobiographical . net 20 : "A man in hue all hues in his con- But here we have a poet singing a boy's From Sonnets 37 and 89 we gain the im- trolling"? Gerald Massey suggests that it praises and throwing mud on his lady. This pression that Shake-speare is lame or has might refer to Robert Devereux, Earl of is certainly a maladjustment. T. G. Tucker been lame some time in the past. There Essex, who had for one of his titles, . decries the lack of "decent taste and ordi- Ewe should be no doubt that the four age son- Herman Conrad for a number of reasons nary chivalry" in most of the "dark lady" nets, 22, 62, 63, and 73 mean what they say selected the Earl of Essex as the "lovely sonnets. in the absence of any contradictory evidence boy." In the Encyclopedia Britannica, K. In 1640 John Benson edited and pub- E. in the rest of the sonnets. Another age son- Chambers mentions this choice of Essex, lished a medley of Shake-speare's sonnets in net, number 138, has not been quoted be- disagrees with the idea, but praises Con- which in some cases he altered the sex of cause it is a member of the "dark lady" rad's work in general. Essex had auburn the addressee by switching the pronouns. sonnets in which we believe Shake-speare is hair. He was born on November 19, 1566, Through the influence of Benson and oth- speaking with another's voice and gazing and would have been twenty in April, 1587, ers, the view was generally adopted that with another's eyes. The age sonnets plain- which would fit the time requirements per- the main body of the sonnets was addressed ly relate that in 1587 Shake-speare was fectly. to a woman. Samuel Coleridge took the middle-aged, perhaps forty or fifty. In this We see personal allusions to position that the main body of the sonnets, Shake-speare year, William Shakspere was in his early in some ten sonnets "could only have come from a man deeply . twenties .

in love, and in love with a woman." For a Gerald Massey was of the opinion that century and a half, the presumption pre- "My glass shall not persuade me I am old, Sonnet 48 was spoken by a man to a wom- vailed that the addressee was a woman ; So long as youth and thou are of one (late ; an, but J. M. Robertson comments of Mas- then came a reversal . Edmund Malone took But when in thee time's furrows I behold, sey, "he instantly evokes the rejoinder that look death days should up the study of changing the male pronouns "Then I my expiate." it is Sonnet 37 more fitly to be conceived as addressed to female pronouns and after extensive re- "So I, made lame by fortune's dearest spite by a woman to a man." The only solution

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that will completely lay to rest the problem of the misplaced gender of the main body of the sonnets is to assume that Shakc- spcarc was a woman. A fantastic idea? hardly, when for years Mary, Countess of Pembroke, has been seriously considered as a candidate for Shake-speare's position . T. W. Baldwin is of the opinion that both the "dark lady" sonnets of the 127-152 series and the allusion to a lady ill Sonnets 40, 41, and 42 are purely literary fictional fabrications. If such be the proper inter- pretation, then for the sonnets to have been written by a woman makes even greater sense. It would be quite natural for a wom- an to feel called upon to show her esteem and admiration for a lovely boy. In the two books of Frank Harris, The Man Shakespeare and The, Women of Shakespeare, the author many times points out the womanly qualities of Shake-speare . In the introduction to The Women of Shakespeare he makes this explanation about choosing a title for the book : "Here again Shakespeare will reveal himself as the gentle, irresolute, meditative poet- George Elliott Sweet, scientist turned literary detective, is seen with his son, Jerry. thinker-lover we learned to know in the Orsino--Antony, an aristocrat of most delicate sensibilities and sympathetic humour whose chief defects are snobbish- Shakespearian Scientist ness and overpowering; sensuality, if in- A descendant of Sir Francis Drake a stop to that. However, a wise doctor deed this latter quality is not to be reckoned would naturally he curious about the told him to keep running and the mur- a virtue in an artist or at least an endow- world his ancestor lived in . George El- mur would go away . It did. ment . But the public probably would have liott Sweet, '27chetn, '29ms, certainly is, Sweet's controversial book is dedicat- misunderstood the title The Woman and for years he's been reading all he can ed to his son Jerry, just turned 13 and of Shakespeare, so I changed it to The Women find concerning the Elizabethan age. whom his father writes this : "In the last of Shakespeare ." Mary Fitton has long been When Sweet isn't traveling around the year in Little League Jerry well ten the popular choice for the dubious honor country in fulfillment of his duties as games and lost two; for all 1 know he of being the "dark lady" of the sonnets. president of the Sweet Geophysical may be pitching for the Sooner Nine Mary Fitton was Frank Harris' enthusiastic Company, he may be found at the near- some day." 1 le is married to the former choice . Toward the end of the hook The est library. Always the scientist, he likes Mildren Robison, '3Gba, '_38Law. The Women of Shakespeare, Harris says : "Mary to dig out facts and sift them for truth; family lives in Malibu, California . Fitton was so strong that she seems to have Such a sifting process formed the back- Comments made thus far by first read- been the positive or masculine element and bone of his new book Shake-speare the ers of Shake-speare the Mystery have Shakespeare so gentle-sensitive that he was Mystery, published at Stanford Univer- ranged froth orchids to onions : some are the feminine element in the strange union . sity Press . convinced by Sweet's argument, others The soul has not always the sex of the Sweet turned down an unsolicited ap- outraged . Most, though, seem fascinated body ." We agree with but little of what pointment to Annapolis in order to come by the book, which Barbara Bundschu of Mr . Harris has to say. For entirely di fferent to O.U . for two degrees in science. He United Press said "reads like a detective reasons we can see feminine traits in Shake- was a college athlete, a hurdler and quar- story --a description with which the speare . are ter-miler, but a heart murmur almost put editors inclined to agree. Does Mary Herbert, Countess of Petn- broke, fit the time-scale? She does not. In April 1587 she was twenty-five and would ; was none other than England's queen, hardly fit either the age or the time sonnets . t: HAVE ANOTHER woman candidate the age sonnets perfectly, and Flizabeth Tudor. She was fifty-three, her Furthermore, she would be about the last she fits W love with Robert lovely boy but twenty ; a much greater dis- person in the world to have had a love af- in April 1587 she fell in 3, 1587, crepancy than between Elizabeth Barrett fair with the Earl of Essex or anyone else . Devereux, 1".arl of Essex. On May Bagot wrote a letter in which Browning and Robert Browning . Elizabeth Only the year before, her beloved brother one Anthony nobody with Tudor was charming at any age and she had been killed in The Netherlands in bat- he said, "When she is abroad, was great and noble queen . tle ; Mary was busy with her husband and her but my lord of Essex, and at night my a or one game or another with The critics specify that was her young children ; apparently she was con- lord is at cards, for a birthday or some other kind tent and happy except for the shadow of her, that he comcth not to his own lodging written the death of Philip Sidney . till birds sing in the morning." The lady (a)winued Page 23

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Oklahoma A&M at Stillwater, December her from walking." Sonnet 37, however, drama: she probably saw more plays than 1-Outlook is for more speed, more depth may refer to a more lamentable lameness . any person in her time. She fought the and less experience than any Oklahoma Ben Jonson's story to a tavern friend that Puritans to keep open the theatres . Eliza- A&M club since 1948. the Queen ". . . had a membrana on her, beth liked what the people liked and what These are the teams Oklahoma will meet. which made her uncapable of man, . . . Shake-speare liked. John Middleton Murry If the Sooners are to continue their impres- finds a striking parallel in Sonnet 37, which explains how she made possible Elizabethan sive string of wins and other records, they strongly suggests sexual lameness . drama: will have to perform at top form through- out the season . A let-down against any op- "So I, made lame by fortune's dearest spite, "In so far as Shakespeare had to please the ponent could provide an upset. Teams rated Take all my comfort of thy worth and Court-which he had to do-it resolved into truth." the best chance of doing it are Notre Dame, pleasing the Queen. Not because of the money-reward earned by Court perform- Texas . North Carolina, and Missouri Lytton Strachey in his Elizabeth and Es- ances, but because the very existence of the This season could be Coach Wilkinson's players directly depended upon the royal au- sex informed the public that Elizabeth and finest coaching hour. If his Sooners fulfill thority. It was the royal countenance which Essex contended "like school children" in enabled their potentialities, he could have his third them to establish themselves in the the realm of learning and literature . The outskirts of London in spite of the bitter op- national championship. sonnets were Elizabeth's part of that con- position of authorities of the tention, which was echoed centuries later City. The queen liked to be amused, but she did not like to pay for her when another poetess wrote amusement. It Sonnets from was a blessed conjuncture for the Eliza- Shake-speare . . . the Portuguese to her younger love, Robert bethan drama. The Privy Council issued warrants for the Continued from Page 11 Browning. The writer of the sonnets was players during the plague also the writer of the thirty-seven plays and on the ground that 'they may be in the bet- ter readiness hereafter for her Majesty's ser- of an anniversary. We have already learned the two long poems. There is too much from Leslie Hotson that Sonnets 104, 107, vice whensoever they shall thereupon be parallelism of thought, word, and style be- called .' 123, and 124 were composed late in the tween the sonnets, Venus and Adonis, The "To please the people, to please the Essex was on Queen, year 1589. The birthday of Rape of Lucrece, Love's Labour's Lost, The and to please himself-these were the driving motives of the period of November 19; cold weather had no doubt Comedy of Errors, The Two Gentlemen of Shake- set in by November 19, 1589, which would speare's career which culminated in Hamlet . Verona, , King Henry VI, And he was the kind of man to be have fulfilled all the requirements of Son- able to A Midsummer Night's Dream, , do all at once : and the Queen was the kind composition of net 104 and would place the and other plays for there to be any doubt Queen to make it easy for him, because of in April 1587. The expressions on this point. she had fundamentally the same tastes as the in Sonnet 104 "Since first your eye I eyed" people. She liked the plays they liked ; and Somerset Maugham points out that in- they liked the plays she liked-at bottom ." and "Since first I saw you fresh" mean volved expressions in letter writing do not since the day I discovered my love for you. predicate involved play composition : We see in Shake-speare Elizabeth had known Essex as a child, but Elizabeth's twin. ". . . English prose is elaborate rather Their April 1587 was the first time she had met myriad intellects neither clashed nor than simple . It was not always so. Nothing diverged ; they always saw eye the man Essex, the warrior returning from to eye. The could be more racy, straightforward and political propaganda in the Lowlands campaign . the plays never alive than the prose of Shakespeare; but came in for any Elizabeth and Essex were parted on sev- it act of censorship because it must be remembered that this was dialogue was written °xactly as Elizabeth eral occasions during the three-year inter- would written to be spoken. We do not know how write it. Their philosophy val 1587-89. Sonnets 26-32, Sonnets 43-52, was the same, he would have written if like Corneille their religion Sonnets 56-61, and Sonnets 97-99 were writ- he was the same, their intense had composed prefaces to his plays. It may patriotic devotion to England was the ten during periods of absence. Late in the wine, be that they would have been as euphuistic their desire to instruct while year 1590, the Earl of Essex secretly mar- amusing was as the letters of Queen Elizabeth." the same. Tucker ried the widow of Sir Philip Sidney. When Brooke writes of Eliza- beth: "With whom are we to match her? Queen Elizabeth found out about the mar- With whom but with the man of Stratford, riage she was exceedingly angry, but was HEN WOULD a busy queen have time the greatest of all her subjects, her mightiest somewhat mollified when Essex consented to write plays? We might well ask: colleague in building the age we know al- that his wife should live "very retired in her WhenW would a busy actor, memorizing ternately by both their names? . . . And mother's house." E. K. Chambers suggest- play after play, have time to write? It is a at the end there are no better words to apply ed that Shake-speare wrote Romeo and well-known maxim that you go to a busy to Elizabeth than those Arnold addressed Juliet because of a perturbing love experi- person to get things done. The very fact to her poet: ence through which he had just passed . that there are no plays with Elizabeth as From the London earthquake reference we authoress creates the suspicion there must "'Others abide our question . Thou art free . can fix the date of the composition of Ro- be hidden plays of hers. A born competi- We ask and ask: thou smilest and art still, meo and Juliet as 1591, the next year after tor, she was bound to experiment with ev- Out-topping knowledge.' " Essex's marriage. ery type of writing, and she surely would The reference to Shake-speare's lameness not completely neglect the most popular J. E. Neale writes, "Elizabeth had no in- in Sonnets 37 and 39 may be explained as narrative medium of her age, namely, the tention of surrendering her powers, or ac- meaning the sore on Elizabeth's leg that drama. She was keenly interested in the de- quiescing in men's views of women. She bothered her for a number of years. On velopment of the play medium from the had a great longing, she said, `to do some July 1, 1570, De Spes, the Spanish Am- moralities through the blank verse of Gor- act that would make her fame spread bassador, in a letter to Madrid reported that buduc and up through the finished product abroad in her lifetime, and, after, occasion "The illness of the Queen is caused by an of the University Wits. She witnessed the memorial for ever.'" We are on firm open ulcer above the ankle, which prevents beginnings and gradual development of the ground when we assume that Elizabeth, in

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choosing a pen name, would use her fine Spain got tough she became chummy with that a powerful writer wields a powerful intelligence to formulate a noin de plume France, and when France became quarrel- weapon . The original sceptre Inay have that would be appropriate and fitting, yet some she made overtures to Philip . All been a speare ; at least a sceptre and a speare would be ingenious enough to preserve her Fnglish sovereigns were perpetually in need are similar shafts . In a speech before the secret until well after her death . It is very of money . Elizabeth was no exception. She House of Commons in 1586, Elizabeth had much like that thoughtful queen to do as encouraged Sir Francis Drake to seize this to say : ". . . '1'hen to the end I might thorough a job as possible inventing a fool- Spain's homeward-bound gold ships and make the better progress in the art of sway- proof disguise for her authorship . then informed Philip that she simply could ing the sceptre 1 entered into long and seri- Elizabeth Tudor would no doubt have not control her pirate unerchanttnen . The ous cogitation what things were worthy been pleased to have been able to follow great Queen understood full well the Iu- and fitting for kings to do ; and I found it the advice of Theodore Roosevelt to "talk tility of battle (exactly the same lesson ex- was most necessary that they should be softly and carry a big stick," if she had been plained by Shake-speare in Troilus and abundantly furnished with those special vir- possessed of a big stick. The English of her Cressida) and she would not go to war if tues, justice, temperance, prudence, and day as well as the English of today were there was any way to avoid the conflict . magnanimity, . . ." opposed to a large standing army . Her Elizabethan England would not have been navy against the Spanish Armada was only a world power had it not been for the a handful of small vessels . She was banking adroitness with which Elizabeth main- TYLER & SIMPSON CO . on the skill of her naval architects and the tained the balance of power in Europe, and Wholesale Grocers

superior abilities of her great sea captains she did it by shaking-a-speare--that is to Oklahoma City Norman to carry off the victory . Elizabeth ruled half say, she knew how to make a show of Ardmore, Oklahoma a small island with a total English popula- strength where a show of strength was tion of about four million . Little wonder needed and to keep one and all, even her Gainesville, Texas she found the only practical policy was to Privy Council, in doubt as to her next po- "tall: a good fight and run scared ." When litical move. The pen name Shale-speare had to be appropriate ; it was . Shake-speare had to be subtle ; it was, as the passage of PHONE Hal Muldrow, Jr . time well testified . Shake-speare had to '28 appear in the image of a flesh-and-blood Insurance of all Kinds man of a similar name ; this was arranged . Bonds J E 4-4800 of Shake-speare had to appear in the image Security National Bank Bldg . Norman a man, not a woman, because sixteenth- Clark Clealvers century England would never forgive tt LAUNDRY woman, let alone a queen, for writing 750 Asp, Norman down-to-earth realism, and that was the AN OKLAHOMA U . RING way Elizabeth wanted to write. In order to test the good and bad qualities of a play, Ile gqron4al aj a the author must obtain a completely frank expression of public opinion, which would only be frank if the literary effort were written anonymously or under a pen name, if said author is some great personage . Even in the nineteenth century, male prejudice being what it is, Mary Ann Evans Cross thought it best to write as George Eliot; and Charlotte, Emily, and Ann Bronte as Cutter Bell, Ellis Bell, and Acton Bell . Brakspeare and Hurlspeare are warlike names without a doubt. Shake-speare has Wear always the distinctive ring which been called a warlike name, but when we tells the world you are proud of your col- stop to analyze the verb-noun combination, lege, proud of your class-with your class year on the sides and school name en- Shake-speare is more appropriately the circling the stone. BUY TODAY! name of a statesman, a politician, a sov- STONES AVAILABLE ereign, and a writer . Elizabeth was, in the Onyx (black) -Sardonyx (red) Synthetic Ruby (red)-Synthetic Sapphire (blue) highest sense, all four. To shake-a-speare, Topaz (yellow)-Amethyst (purple) or to shake-the-speare, is in some instances Tourmaline (green) sometimes it is a threat ; Massive 10K gold $48 .00* a show of strength, Standard 1010 gold $36.00* in a broader sense it is a means of keeping Ladies IOK miniature $29.50* BEATRICE the other fellow guessing as to just what "Plus 10°fo federal tax. your intentions are . It is a means of keep- State name of school, finger FROZEN FOODS CO. ing your opponent or opponents wonder- size, class year, stone desired . ing just how much strength you possess and COLLEGE SEAL and CREST CO. Oklahoma City, Okla. just how you will employ said Strength . To 236A Broadway, Cambridge 39, Mass. shake a weapon is to write-or should we Manufacturers of College Jewelry Since 1875 say that to write is to shake a weapon and

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