'lrbe ~bakegpeare exforb Newsletter A Publication of the Shakespeare Oxford Society "Dedicated to Researching and Honoring the True Bard"

Vol. 44: No.1 "JOIII/O,. )'O/I " ROllleo 0IldJulieI3.J.84 Spring 2008 Horestes and Hamlet by Earl Showerman

The recent posting of the Tudor of this interlude. Horestes was first 1584 and 1587, and Lord Keeper in classical interlude Horestes by John performed at Gray's Inn in 1568, Elizabeth's last years (1592-96), and Pikeryng at www.elizabethanauthors. within a year of Edward de Vere' s was an ardent Protestant and opponent com is worthy of special attention by matriculation. According to Sears, of Mary Stuart. readers interested in the authorship Seltzer acknowledged that nothing An alternative explanation for the question and the origins of Hamlet. is known about the alleged author, name John Pikeryng has been offered Robert Brazil and Barboura Flues John Pikeryng, who received no other by Betty Sears who has suggested that have succeeded again in making literary attributions or biographical at­ the author's name may be pseudonym a rare and important Renaissance tention. Betty Sears spoke in personal by conflation of two names: Sir John source easily available to scholars. interviews over time. Mason and Sir William Pikering who The marvelous glossary and other Horestes mixes Greek and English were agents of William Cecil's in appendices linked to Horestes are pageant play motifs with a combina­ France charged with obtaining the superb, far more detailed than any tion of pagan and Christian references. latest continental editions of books other source you will find in print Sears reports that Seltzer also stated during this period. Mason also received and seamlessly connected to the that Horestes was the first English the literary dedication for Jasper Shakespeare canon. play to use soliloquy as a device to Heywood's translation of Seneca's To the best of my knowledge, it inform the audience of the protagonist's Thyestes (1560). was Betty Sears who many years thoughts and that he also asserted Gray's and the other Inns of Court, ago suggested that Horestes could the next time this device is used was in addition to being law schools, were represent Oxfordian juvenilia. She in Hamlet. Because of its subject, critical to the revolution of English based her impression on lectures classical allusions, versification, rhe­ culture in the 161h century as centers given 50 years ago atYale University torical devices, word inventiveness, for translations of the classics and by visiting Professor Daniel Seltzer, topicality, music, and the location of for the creation of literature. In his editor of the Malone Society reprint its first production, Sears deduced that book, The 111ns of Court and Early Horestes could very well have been English Drama (1931), A . Wigfall the ideal vehicle for a budding talent Green notes the indebtedness Renais­ • INSIDE· like the Earl of Oxford. sance dramatic literature owed to these President's Page 2 While most Tudor interludes were societies where students studied law, GREETINGS 2 published anonymously and nothing arts, history, languages, music, and News 3 Cambridge University definite is known about the alleged mathematics. The protection from "Implications" of Polilllallfeia 5 author, John Pikeryng (also spelled as censorship afforded by association Schurink's Discovery Pikering, Pykeryng, and Pikeryng in with the Inns "rendered them an ideal of a Century 10 various sources), modern editors as­ rendezvous for poets, dramatists, and Book Reviews 13 sume that he was the same man as Sir novelists, and many of the juvenilia, Letter to the Editor 16 John Puckering (1544-96) of Lincoln 's as well as many of the masterpieces, The Ending of Oxford's Othello 17 Inn (1559). Puckering was not known of authors were conceived within the Shakespeare Authorship as a playwright but served as Speaker four houses" (Green 2). Conference 21 of the House of Commons between (cont 'd on p. 8) page 2 Spring 2008 Shakespeare Oxford Newsletter

Shakespeare Oxford President's Page Newsletter Matthew Cossolotto Published quarterly by the By Shakespeare Oxford Society Dear Society Members portunity to say that it has been an P.O. Box 808 and Friends: honor serving as your president for Yorktown Heights, NY 10598 the past one thousand days. Several Tel: (914) 962-1717 It's hard to believe my thi'ee-year Fax: (914) 254-9713 term as president will come to an end noteworthy developments during this Email: [email protected] at the annual meeting this October. period stand out: th ISSN 1525-6863 According to the bylaws, all officers Celebrating our 50 anniversary th www.shakespeare-oxford.com can only serve in the same position for in 2007 and publishing the 50 Anniversary Anthology - Re­ Editor: a three-year term. Therefore, I will port My Calise Aright (many Lew Tate be stepping down as president shortly thanks to Stephanie Hughes); Editorial Board: after this year's annual meeting. John Hamill Because this will be the last Successfully holding our sec­ Frank Davis newsletter published before the an­ ond and third joint conferences Dr. Jim Brooks with the Shakespeare Fellow- nual meeting, I want to take this op- Ramon Jimenez (cont'd 011 p. 12) James Sherwood Dr. Richard Smiley Katherine Chiljan Greetings Brian Bechtold The newsletter once again presents nicating them through our conferences Layout and Printing some of the more important research­ and publications is vital. St. Martin de Pon'es Lay Dominicans ers and writers of the authorship I wish to add a thought concern­ New Hope, Kentucky studies. Richard Whalen, for one, ing The Oxfordian. At the Ann Arbor All contents copyright © 2008 gives us his summer reading reports. Conference, I, with others, had some Shakespeare Oxford Society Earl Showerman schools us in Greek discussions with Dr. Michael Egan The Newsletter welcomes research articles, book mythology and Oxford's use of it, and at dinner and cocktails. Among the reviews, letters and news items. Contributions should be reasonably concise and, when appro­ Derran Charleton always advances the topics was his position in the author­ priate, validated by peer review. Assignment of movement with work presented on ship issue. My impression was not copyright is required for publication. The views his tireless research. Donald Nelson and is not of him as a doctrinaire of contributors do not necessarily reflect those of the Shakespeare Oxford Society as a literary and writes of an under valued discovery Stratfordian. Were he, I would not educational organization. by Fred Schurink. understand his involvement with the Also, presented here are some news Oxfordian conference. He did not items; one of these items reminds us come to challenge as Alan Nelson of the upcoming Joint Conference of does on occasion. Oxfordians have The Shakespeare Oxford Society and not "made the case" yet. Dr. Egan, Board of Trustees The Shakespeare Fellowship. Note the as will we all, will be studying the Shakespeare Oxford Society details below. The lineup of speakers work submitted, looking for more and Lifetime HOl/ormy Trustee Charles Boyle will make you change your plans to more definitive evidence. I am certain 2008 attend or make you wish you could. that The Oxfordian will continue to President: Matthew Cos sol otto We will have a report for you in the publish the best articles submitted. It First Vice President: John Hamill next newsletter. We probably won't is, therefore, incumbent upon writers Brian Bechtold report on the discussions, perhaps a to submit the best articles. Virginia Hyde debate or two, over dinner or drinks, This year ends the tenure of Matthew Michael Pisapia but such gatherings add a wonderful Cossolotto's presidency of The SOS. Randall Sherman Dr. Richard Smiley ambience for the conference. He has been a visionary, personable, Dr. Richard Joyrich As always the appeal comes out for and strong leader; we owe him our James Sherwood the writers, researchers, and teachers gratitude and respect. Andrew Freye. out there to share the fruits of your Lew Tate, Ed. labors. The discoveries are on going, tate321I @bellsouth.net interesting, and exciting; and commu- Shakespeare Oxford Newsletter Spring 2008 page 3 News

Dig reveals The Theatre - Theatre was closely entwined with An archaeological evaluation report Shakespeare's the playwright's eventual tenure at for the borough of Hackney concluded The Globe. that the remains were of "national, if first playhouse The Theatre, built in 1576, was not international, importance" . Fiona Hamilton, London Correspondent home to the Lord Chamberlain's Men, Julian Bowsher, a senior archaeolo­ the company in which Shakespeare gist at the museum, said that there Every year hundreds of thousands first performed as an actor before his could not be 100 per cent certainty of visitors make their way to Stratford­ writing career flourished. about the remains. However, he said upon-Avon and the Globe Theatre, on Located outside the jurisdiction it was very likely, because the bricks the Thames, to explore Shakespeare's of the City of London, where puri­ form a polygon, which documentary intriguing past. tanical magistrates and city leaders evidence suggests was the shape of Not surprisingly, an unremarkable frowned on the debauchery of the the theatre. "It's certainly in the right plot of land on New Inn Broadway, theatre movement, Shakespeare and area and it's certainly very important," just north of London's medieval City other playwrights were free to express he said. wall, does not rate a mention on the themselves. It is believed that some Mr Bowsher said that the find was Shakespeare tourist trail, since before of his earliest works, perhaps Romeo highly significant, not only because it now only the most fervent history buffs and Juliet and Richard III, were per­ added to Shakespeare's history but also were aware of the site's significance formed there. because it would enable comparisions in the playwright's life. However, their occupancy of the with other early playhouses. However, that history can be laid site came under threat after a nasty And as Shakespeare might say, "the bare after an archaeological dig at dispute over the lease on the land in wheel has come full circle" - the the Shoreditch site uncovered the 1598. discovery was made during excava­ remains of The Theatre - one of the The story has it that in the dead of tions on the site to prepare it for the capital's first playhouses - where night during Christmas that year the construction of a new theatre. Shakespeare's works were first per­ actors and playwrights dismantled The The Tower Theatre Company, formed in the 16th century. Theatre and moved it, piece by piece, which performs a Shakespeare work In what the Museum of London to the South Bank of the Thames, every year, will design its modern Archaeology has described as "one of where the original Globe Theatre was playhouse around the remains of the the most exciting finds of recent years", erected. Historians have long been original. Jeff Kelly, the chairman of an excavation last month uncovered aware that the open-air playhouse had the company, said: "We're thrilled. a large section of what is believed to stood in Shoreditch, but traces of it It's an incredible coincidence that we be the original brick foundations of had proved elusive until now. want to build our theatre on the site the theatre. Times Archive, 1909: THIS IS YOUR NEWSLETTER Shakespeare in London The Shakespeare Oxford Society welcomes articles, essays, commen­ tary, book reviews, letters, and news items of relevance to Shakespeare, Jo Lyon, a senior archaeologist Edward de Vere and the Authorship Discussion. It is the policy of the at the museum and the dig's project Shakespeare O;iford Society to require assignment of copyright on any manager, told The Times yesterday that one of London's most enduring article submitted to the Newslettel~ Please contact the editor with any secrets had been uncovered. questions. "Shakespeare is such an enormous Submit text in digital form to: part of our cultural heritage and the [email protected] way we define ourselves. It's a highly [email protected] significant find," he said. Mail photographs and illustrations to: With it, a history of a significant Newsletter Editor • Shakespeare Oxford Society period of Shakespeare's life has also PO Box 808 • Yorktown Heights, NY 10598 been unearthed, for the fate of The page 4 Spring 2008 Shakespeare Oxford Newsletter of Shakespeare's first playhouse. It such written works nor OXFORD'S LEI'IERS unveils a secret past." lived ten minutes if he rThe Letters of Edward de 1Jere The btick remains have been concret­ had dared to claim them, ed overforthe time being, while further then she heard author Seventeenth Earl of Oxford planning works are carried out. Mark Anderson, who Jack Lohman, the director of the wrote "Shakespeare by Read by Sir Derek Jacobi Museum of London , said that the find Another Name", point With quotes from letters by contemporaries offered a "tantalising glimpse" into out that the Stratford and music thought to be by de Vere Shakespeare's city. claimant never left Eng­ "The proposed theatre development land while Oxford trav­ Narration by Joan Walker Narrative and editing by Stephanie Hopkins Hughes on this special site seems a fitting way eled extensively in the Recorded by Malcolm Blackmoor at EFS Motivation Sound to harness the energy and spirit of a exact Italian locations Studios in London place that is so central to the story of described in the plays, Produced by Susan Campbell and Malcolm Blackmoor London and Londoners." pointing out the detail of knowledge Shakes­ For the 2CD set, send order and check: Oxford on NPR speare commanded of IN AMERICA IN ENGLAND On July 3rd and 4th past National Italian culture. $20 to; £9.95 to: Public Radio's Renee Montagne hosted Also clearly noted Stephanie Hughes Susan Campbell a two part presentation on the Shake­ were a few of the bio­ 59 Depew Ave. 36 Shad Thames speare authorship question. graphical parallels be­ Nyack, NY 10960 308 Butler's Wharf In the first part she raised the issue tween Edward de Vere London SEI 2YE to her listeners in seven-plus minutes, and Hamlet, including For more information see www.politicwonn.com visiting the Holy Trinity Church in his relationship with Stratford-on-Avon, discussing with her Lord Burleigh/Polonius guide the grave of Shakespeare, then and his private correspondence with his she spoke with Professor Daniel Wright brother-in-law who was ambassador to who heads the authorship research Denmark, andd who provided Oxford Notice to Members: program at Concordia University in with information that the Stratfordian SOS Annual Portland, Oregon, and with Diana could not have known but which came Meeting. Price, author of "Shakespeare's Un­ out in the play, "Hamlet" .. orthodox Biography", who each made She concluded her broadcast by October 10. 2008 the case for doubting Shakespeare's quoting Supreme Court Justice John claim. Quoting Mark Twain's 1909 Paul Stevens who told the New York The Society's annual work, "Is Shakespeare Dead?" Ms. Times that he, and two fellow justices meeting will be held on Montagne concluded her case for who presided over a 1987 moot court Friday October 10, 2008, reasonable doubt by interviewing hearing of the Oxford case, had come 8:30-10:15 AM, author Stephen Greenblatt, who wrote "definitely to side with Oxford." at the "Will in the World" and who closed While the case was fair in presen­ Crowne Plaza Hotel the discussion with a gentle rebuke: tation and no more conclusive than in White Plains, NY. "It's certainly a subject that doesn't any argument, it was dramatic for all go away." Oxfordians. More than 15 minutes For more information On the following broadcast, Ms. of national broadcasting time are now about the venue, please Montagne focused her last seven-plus deemed acceptable to bring this issue see the 2008 conference minutes on Edward de Vere, speaking to a vast general audience, and it was information on our with Mark Rylance, "who has played presented without a negative view of website or contact the almost every major Shakespearean the circumstantial case nor derision 50S office via phone role", Charles Beauclerc, once presi­ of the proponents. It indicates that a (914-962-1717) or dent of the Shakespeare Oxford So­ new level of civility in this discourse email ciety and a descendant of the Earl of has been reached. ([email protected]). Oxford, who noted that an Elizabethan - J az Sherwood nobleman would neither have signed Shakespeare Oxford Newsletter Spring 2008 page 5 Cambridge University "Implications" of Polimanteia By Den'an Charlton

The book Polil17anteia, dedicated to Robert Devereaux, What could Clerke have possibly meant by his abstruse Earl of Essex, written by "W.e." (originally misidenti­ reference to "Cleopatra; Oxford"? I believe that "Oxford" fied as William Covell, but now proven by the Bodleian was a direct reference to Oxford University, bearing in Library to have been written by William Clerke, a Fellow mind that Samuel Daniel (c.1563-1619) was educated at of Queens' College, Cambridge), was published in 1595 Magdalen Hall, Oxford, and that he became tutor to Wil­ at Cambridge by the University Authorities. The second liam Herbert, the Countess of Pembroke's son, at Wilton part of thi s work is addressed to the Universities of Oxford House. Also, in 1592 he published his sonnet sequence to and Cambridge, and to the Inns of Court and is devoted Delia, a lady who lived by the Avon, and The Complaint of to the praising of their poets (referred to as "England's Rosamond, written in rhyme-royal, as was Shakespeare's Grandchi Idren .") A Louers Complaint, and The Rape of Lucrece. In 1594 A few of the poets are named in the text, whereas the came his academic tragedy of Cleopatra, and the epic names of others are printed in the margin, including the History of the Civil Wars (registered October, 1594). curious anomaly: "All praise worthy Lucrecia, Sweet The author Shakespeare was not only a classical scholar Shak-speare, Eloquent Gaueston, Wanton Adonis, Wat­ who often read his Latin and Greek source material in sons heyre". Baconians see this as evidence that Clerke their original versions but also read some of his source must have believed that Shak-speare attended Cambridge, material in French, Italian and Spanish. The ability to read Oxford, or the Inns of Court. "Why otherwise," they all these not yet translated works could only have come speculate, "should Clerke have included Shak-speare in from private tuition or extensive experience in a foreign a work addressed to those institutions?" country, or both, as neither French nor Italian nor Spanish Throughout the text and printed margins of Polimanteia were taught in the grammar schools or at a university. appear the names of twenty-nine of "England's Grand­ Shakespeare' s linguistic skill in Latin, Greek, French, children," (Athanasius, Clemens, Campion, D.Whitaker, Italian and Spanish is not the only thing that is remark­ D.Fulke, Humpfrey Reinolds, Sidney, Spencer, Earle of able. Also remarkable are all the sources Shakespeare used Darbie, Sir Christopher Hatton, Earle of Essex, Master for his vast assortment of passing remarks and allusions, Campion, Britton, PetTie, Willobie, Fraunce, Lodge, with some of the sources being quite abstruse. All in all, Master Danis ofL.I., Drayton, M.Plat, D.Harvey, M.Nash, it reveals an author who was exceptionally well-read and Hen.Darby, M.Alablaster, Shakspeare, Watson, Daniell, who clearly loved reading and researching in books and Chaucer and Lydgate). If Caius is counted as referring to manuscripts - and who must have spent a good deal of Dr. John Caius of Cambridge, then the number is thirty. time doing so. The majority were contemporaries of William Clerke. Also To have read so widely and in such a variety of lan­ mentioned are some learned foreign or classical poets, to guages, both classical and modern, Shakespeare must have whom the English alumni are compared, or above whom accessed books in libraries other than at Cambridge. The they are exalted, plus some founders of universities. Inns of Court had better libraries, but the principallibrar­ Remarkably, and immediately opposite the marginal an­ ies containing many of the books that Shakespeare used notation, "All praise worthy Lucrecia, Sweet Shak-speare, could only have been private libraries, including that of Eloquent Gaueston", in the body of England to her Three Dr. John Dee, the Queen's astrologer, who had the largest Daughters, Part Two, of Polimallteia, is printed: collection of books and manuscripts in England (almost 4,000 by 1583) at his home in Mortlake-on-Thames, dearlie beloued Delia, and fortunatelie fortunate Cleopatra; and those of the nobility, such as Lord Lumley, whose Oxford collection was the second largest in the country (about thou maist extol thy c011l1e-deare-verse happie Daniell, 3,000 by the end of the sixteenth century), together with whose sweete Lord Burghley and Sir Thomas Smythe's vast libraries, refined muse, in contracted shape, were sufficient amongst amongst others. men, to gaine The Shakespeare plays and many of the sonnets are pardon of the sinne to Rosemond, pittie to distressed filled with abstruse legal terminology. Moreover, this legal Cleopatra, and knowledge is not just applied to one sonnet or play, but is everliuing praise to her louing Delia.(22) to be found permeating all of his works. Dawkins writes: page 6 Spring 2008 Shakespeare Oxford Newsletter

"The most reasonable conclusion concerning the author the scene is in England or abroad, in France or Germany, Shakespeare is that he was not only trained in the law, as Italy or Navarre. The playwright's intimate acquaintance were several Elizabethan playwrights, but was a lawyer; with college terms and usages would indicate that he had for, like the peculiar language of Cambridge University, enjoyed the privileges of a university education. One of such a knowledge and use of legal terms, employed with Shakespeare's earliest plays, Love s Labolll's Lost, is precision and aptness, is not learnt by someone without crammed with abstruse scholarly references and pedantic the necessary legal training and experience,. Law is not puns in English, Latin, and French. like some other subjects, wherein skilled authors with a Shakespeare's acquaintance with college jargon is modicum of knowledge about those subjects may appear such that in many cases it is specifically identifiable with to be learned. As Lord Campbell, one of the most distin­ Cambridge University. Dawkins states, "Only an alumnus guished lawyers of the nineteenth century, who became Cambridge would not only know but also naturally fall Lord Chief Justice in 1850 and subsequently Lord Chancel­ over and over again into using the strange idiomatic lan­ lor, pointedly said: ' Let a non-professional man, however guage unique to Cambridge University; this despite which acute, presume to talk law, or to draw illustrations from character in the plays is being portrayed as valid" .(122) legal science in discussing other subjects, and he will For instance, "Titus: Knock at his study, where, they say, speedily fall into laughable absurdities' . That Shakespeare he keeps" . (Titlls Andl'oniclIs, Y.ii.) was a lawyer is the conclusion arrived at by some of the 'Study' was the Cambridge name for the closet space most eminent lawyers and judges. Such a conclusion is allotted to the individual student in the common room, supported by Francis Meres' analogy of Shakespeare with while 'where he keeps', in the same context, means ' where the eminent lawyer Seneca" (141). the student can be found studying' . Three further examples Peter Dawkins, a foremost Baconian and special concern the words 'act', 'commence' and 'proceed' : adviser to London's Shakespeare Globe theatre, details Polimanteia in his current book The Shakespeare Enigma Falstaff: "So that skill in the weapon is nothing without stressing the inscription on the Shakspeare Monument in sack, for that sets it a-work, and learning is a mere hoard which Shakspeare is likened to the renowned statesman of gold kept by the devil, till sack commences it and and judge Nestor, the celebratedorator and philosopher sets it in act and use." (HeI11 Y IV, ry.iii.) Socrates, and the great poet and scholar Virgil (120-127). In addition there is the testimony of Francis Meres, a Timon: Hadst thou like us, from our first swath proceeded parson, schoolmaster and Master of Arts of both Oxford The sweet degrees that this brief world affords and Cambridge to Shakespeare's great scholarship and Thy nature did commence in sufferance, time learning in his book Palladis Tamia, published in 1598: Had made thee hard in 't. (Timon ofAthens, IV,iii,) "As the soul of Euphorbus was thought to live in Pythagorus; so the sweete wittie soul of Ovid On this Professor Frederick Boas comments,"Here the lives in mellifluous & honey-tongued Shake­ misanthropist talks as if he had graduated on the banks speare. As Plautus and Seneca are accounted of the Cam"(4) An 'act' was syllogistically a dispute the best for comedy and tragedy among the required to be made by a candidate for a Cambridge de­ Latins so Shakespeare is the most excellent in gree. If the candidate was successful and admitted to the both kinds for the stage." full privileges of a graduate, he was said to 'commence' in Arts, and the ceremony at which he was admitted was In these passages Meres likens Shakespeare to the great called 'the Commencement'. If the graduate went on to classical writers Plautus and Seneca for the writing of plays, a higher degree he was said to 'proceed'. Then there is and to Ovid for poetry. If one takes these analogies as being 'scant' and 'sizes' Lear: Tis not in thee to scant my carefully chosen rather than just slowing metaphoric praise, sizes (King Lear, II. IY.) then Meres is suggesting that the author Shakespeare was 'Size' , as defined by Minshell, GlIide to Tonglles (1617) a poet whose classical knowledge and technical accom­ is the Cambridge term for a certain quantity of food or plishment in poetry was equivalent to that of the scholarly drink privately ordered from the buttery. Its origin lies Ovid.(Meres, qtd in The Shakespeare Enigma 59) in the old assize of bread and ale. The word and its de­ Essentially, there is an abundance of evidence of uni­ rivatives, ' sizar' , ' a 'sizing' , and the verb 'to size' , are versity learning throughout the Shakespeare plays and unique to Cambridge and its daughter universities of poems. His plays are full of university matters, whether Dublin, Harvard and Yale. To be ' scanted of sizes' was a Shakespeare Oxford Newsletter Spring 2008 page 7 punishment for undergraduates, an indignity that might between Richardlls Tertills and Shakespeare's Richard well stir Lear to a transport of rage. III. These parallels, and the facts relating to The Retllrn Good writers can easily ghost the jargon of a locality from Parnassus Parts I and 2, plays performed by the for a particular character in a book or play, but it does not students of St. John's College, Cambridge; and Laelia, make sense for the same jargon to be used out of character, a source of Twe(fth Night, are fully explained in Chapter especially in historic characters such as the Celtic King 17 of "Shake-Speare a Cambridge University Man" in Lear, Timon of Athens and the Roman Titus Andronicus, Nigel Cockburn's excellent Book, The Bacon Mystery, all of whom lived centuries before parlance specific to published privately in 1998 by BiddIes Limited, Guildford Cambridge University came into being. The only reason­ and King's Lynn~ able explanation for this is that the jargon was natural to From an Oxfordian perspective it is notable that Edward the author, who lapsed into it over and over again. de Vere entered Queens' College, Cambridge during Octo­ As an example of stories and characters in the Shake­ ber 1558; the following January his name was entered on speare plays derived straight from the internal life and the books of St. John's College, Cambridge. That he left politics of Cambridge University, the most notable is Dr. his mark on the University as a student of "rare learning" Caius in The Meny Wives of Windsor. The Welsh-hating, we have the testimony of John Brooke, himself a graduate hot-tempered Frenchman, Dr. Caius, is based upon a real­ of Trinity College: life character, Dr. John Caius, Master and co-founder of Gonville arid Caius College, Cambridge, whose intense "I understand right well that your honour hath con­ dislike of Welshmen and choleric character exploded into tinually, even from your tender years, bestowed your a huge student controversy in the spring of 1573. The time and travail towards the attaining of (learning), as also the University of Cambridge hath acknowledged controversy caused such an upset in the University that in praise thereof, as verily by right was due unto your the Queen's Lord Treasurer, Lord Burghley, was called excellent virtue and rare learning. Wherein verily upon to mediate. The matter was in fact soon resolved by Cambridge, the mother of learning and learned men, the death of Dr. Caius, and the University quickly settled hath openly confessed: and in this her confessing back into its quieter ways. All this Cambridge excitement made known unto all men, that your honour being took place when the actor William Shakspeare was still learned and able to judge, as a safe harbour and only nine years old, living with his parents in the obscure defence of learning, and therefore one most fit to Warwickshire town of Stratford-upon-Avon. Moreover, whose honourable patronage I might safely commit in those days such a college matter was hardly known these my poor and simple labours.(Brooke 19) beyond Cambridge University circles. John Caius (1510-73), thought to be the Latinized form Edward de Vere was later created Master of Arts in a of Kay, left England for Italy where he studied medicine convocation held in the public refectory of Christ Church and in 1541 took his M.D. at the University of Padua. He College, Oxford, in the presence of Robert, Earl ofLeices­ traveled widely' in Italy, Germany and France, returning ter, Chancellor of the University (Wood 215). to England where he was appointed as one of the physi­ _Alan H. Nelson, in his Monstrous AdversOlY records: cians to King Edward VI. He retained that position under "On I February { 1567} 'Edward Vere' was admitted to Queen Mary, and on the accession of Queen Elizabeth in Gray's Inn, Cecil's former legal establishment" (46). Thus, 1558 he became chief royal physician until his dismissal it is recorded that Edward de Vere received his extensive for Catholicism in 1568. His eminence as a physician formal scholarship at Cambridge University (Queens' and was almost unequalled, and he was nine times President St. John's Colleges) also at Oxford, (St. John's and Christ of the College of Physicians. In January 1559 he became Church Colleges) and at the Inns of Court, (Gray's Inn), Master of Caius College, Cambridge. yet, notably Clerke does not mention Edward de Vere by Following the death of Dr. Caius in 1573 he was suc­ name in his Polimanteia, but does refer to "Shak-speare", ceeded as Master of Caius College by Thomas Legge whose recorded education is a complete blank. Why not? (1535-1607), who wrote a Latin play on Richard III Could this be an indication that Clerke considered that called Richardus Tertius. It was never published during Edward de Vere - indisputably a leading writer, and the Elizabethan period, but it survives in nine manuscript patron, of the period - was, in fact, the pseudonymous copies. Three of these record that it was acted at St. "Shak-speare"? John ' s College, Cambridge in 1573, 1579, and on the 17th In summation, I suggest that all of the Stratfordian specu­ March, 1582. Numerous parallels, which have not been lations, the myths, thin guesses, and traditions relating to found in any of Shakespeare's other known sources, exist (Polimanteia continued 011 page 8) page 8 Spring 2008 Shakespeare Oxford Newsletter

(Horestes C0l1tinlied/i"0111 page 1) Green identified a number of famous Elizabethans who case that William Cecil seems to have provided a large were associated with Gray's Inn, including Sir Phillip portion of the patronage for the translators at Gray's. Be­ Sidney, Sir Francis Bacon, George Chapman, and George sides Cecil, translation patrons who received dedications Gascoigne, author of Jo cas ta and numerous court masques. during these years included Queen Elizabeth, Nicholas The origin of these unique dramatic traditions of the Inns Bacon, Robert Dudley, Edward de Vere, and Francis Rus­ was rooted in the historic rites of the original occupants, sell~ (Conley 39). the Knights Templars, whose Christian pageantry reflected Axton and John Kerrigan have both suggested that connections to the pagan agricultural feasts. Buffoonery, English and Scottish politics of the 1560s lends a good burlesque, Latin heroic plays, interludes, and masques were reason to believe that Horestes was designed to reflect the all produced, and some were later performed before the concerns of a learned English audience regarding Mary sovereign at court. A number of scholars agree that Hor­ Queen of Scots. The potential topical relevance of Ho res tes estes was one of a group of seven dramas presented at court is spelled out clearly by Kerrigan in Shakespeare and Early between Christmas and Shrovetide 1567-8 (Green 2). A10dern Literature, wherein he argues that revenge tragedy The political nature of the interludes and masques created for political purposes has been, since antiquity, performed at the Inns is well elucidated by Marie Axton psychologically and dramaturgically resourceful. in her essay "The Tudor Mask and the Elizabethan Court Drama" from English Drama: Forms and Development "If you look for its beginnings, what you find is another Orestian drame de clef about the death of (1976). As much as any literary form, the early Eliza­ princes - for most scholars now accept that in John bethan masque was a mischievous and feared political Pykeryng's Horestes Elizabeth I is being urged to weapon, and could lead to hostility and suspicion among execute Mary Queen of Scots (Clytemnestra) for rival factions at court. According to Axton the tension her role in the murder of her husband, Darnley between the crown, the Privy Council, and Parliament (Agamemnon), by the Earl of Bothwell (Aegisthus)" is reflected in a number of entertainments presented to (Kerrigan 232). Elizabeth early in her reign. The Inns of Court were also instrumental in supporting Eddi Jolly's Oxfordian II paper, "Dating Hamlet" the massive efforts at translating classical sources into makes similar points, citing Geoffrey Bullough who English undertaken by Queen Elizabeth and her court. In wrote that the play would have been topical about the The First English Translators ofthe Classics (1927) C.H. time of the execution of Mary Queen of Scots in Febru­ Conley notes a historical four-fold increase in translation ary 1587. Jolly also quotes James Plumtre, who wrote in efforts during Elizabeth's first decade in power. The works 1796, "Shakespeare had perhaps written his Tragedy of of Homer, Ovid, Virgil, Horace, Seneca, Lucan and Pal­ Hamlet to flatter the prejudices of his mistress and exhibit in genius were all receiving attention. Prominent among to the world an indirect crimination of her injured rival." the classics translators associated with Gray's Inn were (Jolly 19). Jolly's conclusion is that Hamlet is a highly Arthur Golding, George Turberville, George Gascoigne, topical play, reflecting a political awareness of the dif­ Thomas Churchyard, Arthur Hall, Jasper Heywood, Al­ ficulties in beheading a sovereign, even one convicted of exander Neville, and Barnabe Googe. Conley makes the treason. "With Belleforest publishing his translation of (cont'd on p. 9)

(Polimanteia continued{rom page 7) William Shakspeare, of Stratford-upon-Avon, are tenuous Brooke, John. The Staff o.fChristian Faith, 1577. in the extreme when compared to the factual scholarly Cockburn, N. B. The Bacon Shakespeare Question, (privately pub­ education, the recorded foreign travel, the personality lished, 1998). Dawkins, Peter The Shakespeare Enigma. London: Polair Publishers, and the court experiences of Edward de Vere. Hence, the 2005. every increasing ocean-swell of belief, world-wide, that Minsheu, John and Fernando Logus. Guide for Tongues. Malagua, the Shakespearean plays, the sonnets, and the poems, Spain: Academic Resources, U. of Malagua, 1617. come to life with the personality of Edward de Vere as Nelson, Alan. The Monstrous AdversGlJI Liverpool: The Liverpool their inspiration and explanation, and that it is to him that Press, 2003 the honour of their authorship truly belongs. W.C. (William Clerke). Polimanteia. Cambridge: University Authori­ ties, 1595 Works Cited Wood, Anthony. Fasti Oxonieses, vol iii. Oxford, U.K.: U. of Oxford, Boas, Frederick. Shakespeare and the Universities.: Oxford, U.K.: 1790. Basil Blackwell Publishers, 1923. Shakespeare Oxford Newsletter Spring 2008 page 9

(Horesles COlllil1uedji'Om page 8) Shakespeare's source for Hamlet at the same time that he Fourteener (which was used in translating Ovid's Meta­ attacks Burghley in another book ... , one that forcefully morphosis); for the country people, the rustics and soldiers, defends the Queen of Scots, could Hamlet be part of this he uses a chaotic irregularity that is more like prose, but propaganda war? Hamlet himself states that the players written as poetic lines. There are lines that scan as iambic 'are the abstract and brief chronicles of the times.' How pentameter and then the next might be trochaic tetrameter. can it be that, unlike his contemporaries, Chapman, Nashe, It might be said that this variation is the first step in the Marlowe, and Jonson, the man that created Hamlet had development of using the sound and form of language as nothing to say about the events of his day?" (20). a definition of character. In other words, it is a step on the Horestes, like Hamlet, demonstrates authorial inventive­ way to the variations seen in A Midsummer Night 50 Dream, ness with new words and new meanings. These unusual moving from the blank verse of Theseus and Hippolyta, words have been expertly identified, defined and cross­ to the heroic couplets of the lovers, and finally the thinly­ referenced by Barboura Flues in her extensive glossary, disguised fourteeners of the rustics." (interview) and she clearly demonstrates that an unusual number of Marie Axton notes how Horestes has an unusual and these rare words show up later in Shakespeare. Horestes, delightful surprise in its four songs, which were written also like Hamlet, employs a large number of classical to be sung to popular tunes of the day. A song begins the allusions. Besides the characters from the Trojan War third, sixth, and eighth scenes; and interrupts the tenth. epics, Greeks alluded to include Socrates, Plato and his "The most outrageous of the songs is a duet between Egistus wife Xanthippe, and Pythagoras; Romans include Ovid, and Clytemnestra; it is sung to the tune which everyone in Nero, Livy, Juvenal, and Publius, a writer of mimes in the audience would associate with the accession of Queen the first century B.C. E. Elizabeth, recalling words which celebrated her victory An anomaly in Horestes suggesting a possible direct over the menace of Rome:" (Axton 26-7). These songs link to Aeschylus has been identified by Marie Axton in are included in the recently released CD by Mignarda, My a footnote of her edition of Horestes. This has to do with Lord of Ox enfo rd 50 Maske, which has received a number the net Clytemnestra used in Aeschylus' Oresteia to trap of superb reviews. The recording may be ordered at www. Agamemnon where she stabs and kills him in the bath. The mignarda.com or through Amazon. medieval sources of the murder of Agamemnon related by These observations summarize the fascinating story be­ Caxton and Lydgate indicate that the king was killed in hind Horestes and its myriad connections to Hamlet which his bed by Aegisthus. However, in Pikeryng's Horestes I originally presented at the Ashland Authorship conference Clytemnestra is descri bed as having used "Mero's net" in 2005. Horesfes is quite possibly a proto-Hamlet, as Betty to trap and kill Agamemnon in the same fashion as the Sears brilliantly deduced, a revenge tragicomedy interlude Greek original. that was the product of a youthful, talented, irreverent, In her footnotes Axton also draws particular attention musically-inclined and politically-connected playwright. to the several allusions Pikeryng makes to the Roman Because of the insights and dedication of Betty Sears, the satirist, Juvenal, whose 10th Satire may be the source of excellent editing support of Marie Axton and BarboUl'a Hamlet's ' satirical slave' speech (2.2) where he mocks Flues, the musical talents of Mignarda, and web master the appearance of old men's faces. Axton also identifies Robert Brazil, scholars may now avail themselves of this Erasmus as the probable source for the story Vice tells historically important source. near the end of the interlude of Socrates being pitifully Works Cited dumped-on by his wife's "pyspot" Axton, Malie. ed. Three Tudor Classicalil1lerludes - Thersites, Jacke Regarding general dramatic structure, Horestes and Jugele/; Horestes . D.S. Brewster - Roman & Littlefield, 1982. Hamlet both start with questions and the immediate appear­ 'The Tudor Mask and the Elizabethan Court Drama', from ance of revenge-driven inhuman entities. Both plays also El1glish Drama: Forms al1d Development 1976. include fatherly royal counselors prone to giving tedious Conley, C.H. The First English Tral1slators a/the Classics. PortAlthur, advice to their departing charges. Whereas Polonius offers NY: Kennikat Press, 1927. his blessing to Laertes with "these few precepts" (1.3), in Green, A. Wigfall. The il1l1s o/Collrt al1d Early El1glish Drama. New Horestes King Idumeus lends his blessing to the young York: Benjamin Blom, 193 I, 1965. hero's revenge plan and cites a litany of poets (Socrates, Jolly, Eddi. "Dating Hamlet". The Oxfordian Vol. 2. Silver Springs, MD: The Shakespeare Oxford Society, 1999. Plato & Livy) to guide Horestes' endeavors. KelTigan , John. 011 Shakespeare al1d Early Modern Literature. Oxford Here are Sears' own words regarding the author's use , U.K: Clarendon Press, 2001. of dramatic versification in Horestes: "For the dialogue Revel1ge Tragedy - Aeschylus to Armageddol1. Oxford, U.K. of royalty or nobility, he uses the formal cadence of the Clarendon Press, 1996. page 10 Spring 2008 Shakespeare Oxford Newsletter Schurink"s Discovery of a Century Donald Frederick Nelson

In the summer issue of 2006 of Shakespeare Matters the By the third edition in 1628, Vicars had thought of a editor, Roger Stritmatter, reported a "startling new devel­ way of recognizing the great works of Shakespeare without opment" in his regular column, "From a Never Writer .... giving credit to the wrong man. By referring to the name News." Thanking Thomas Reedy for bringing it to his atten­ by its parts, he indicated - even more clearly than by tion, Stritmatter described a discovery by Fred Schurink of simple hyphenation - that he knew "Shake-speare" was the University of Newcastle upon Tyne in Thomas Vicars' a made-up name, that the man masquerading under that manual of rhetoric( 4). This discovery, which I believe is name was a front man, and that the real author was not one of the most important discoveries ever made in the generally known. This is strong, recorded evidence by a Shake-speare authorship debate, has not garnered the at­ literary man of Shakespeare's time that he knew the actor tention it deserves, perhaps because of the Stratfordians' and theater part owner Shakespeare was getting undeserved rebuttal. I wish to analyze the discovery here, emphasize credit for writing the works of Shakespeare. its importance, and rebut the Stratfordians' rebuttal. How does Schurink, who appears to be a traditionalist Schurink's discovery, published in Notes and Queries in the authorship question, interpret his two discoveries? in March 2006, concerned the second and third editions He believes that the publication of the 1623 First Folio of Vicars' manual of rhetoric that has a combined Greek appeared too late in that year to have influenced Vicars to and Latin name, Xf::Tpaywyux: Manuductio ad artem rhe­ include Shakespeare (in some form) in his 1624 second foricam. He found its second edition of 1624 gave a list edition. Apparently Schurink thinks that Shakespeare was of outstanding English poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund poorly known or regarded before the First Folio publi­ Spenser, Michael Drayton, and George Wither but omitted cation. This ignores the popularity of his long poems of William Shakespeare entirely. He found the manual's third the 1590s, Venus and Adonis, which went through nine edition of 1628 corrected this omission with a peculiar printings, and Lucrece, which went through six printings. new sentence inserted after that list. It reads (in Schurink's It also ignores that roughly half of Shakespeare's plays translation from the Latin), "To these I believe should be had been published individually prior to the First Folio added that famous poet who takes his name from 'shak­ and that Shake-speare s Sonnets had been in print for al­ ing' and 'spear,' John Davies, and my namesake, the pious most two decades. And finally it ignores Francis Meres, and learned poet John Vicars." In short, Schurink found who in 1598 had written in his book, Palladis Tamia, that a previously unnoticed reference to Shakespeare but in "Shakespeare among the English is most excellent in both a format seeming to imply the name was a made-up or types [comedy and tragedy] for the stage." pen name (74-76). How does Schurink interpret the peculiar reference to Let's consider the omission of Shakespeare from the list Shakespeare in the 1628 third edition? He simply dismisses in the second edition first. Usually explaining an omission it as "Vicars' fondness for wordplay," ignoring how inap­ is entirely speCUlative but not here. It is clear that Vicars propriate and even impolite such expression is in serious did not omit him because he regarded Shakespeare as discourse about a "famous poet." inferior to Chaucer and the others, because he called him Stratfordians immediately recognized how damaging a "famous poet" in the later edition. Also, from the later this historical evidence is and launched an attack, saying edition, we can see that he did not wish to refer to the Schurink's translation was defective. They contend thatthe author simply as "William Shakespeare," the full-name Latin verb used, "habet," should be translated in its usual format of the other names in the list, or simply as "Shake­ simplest meaning, "has," not "takes," thus diminishing the speare," or even as "ShaKe-speare," a hyphenated name implication of an adopted name. We all know that com­ form frequently used to indicate a made-up name. Vicars mon verbs have many nuances and can not be translated clearly did want to use the proper name of the London with "a-one-word-fits-all-translations" approach, but let's actor. It is a natural, even demanded, surmise that Vicars not fall into the trap of contesting their translation as if it in 1624 had not yet thought of a way of recognizing the were the essential issue of the passage. It is not. Put "has" author of the Shakespeare canon without pointing credit in place of "takes" in the translated sentence above and at the actor Shakespeare, who he apparently knew was ignore the awkward English. We still have a literary man not the author. Further, it is apparent that Vicars either of Shakespeare's time giving a historical list of outstanding did not know the true identity of the author of the works English poets by their full proper names except for one of Shakespeare or felt constrained not to reveal it. listed only by parsing his family name into its parts. Why Shakespeare Oxford Newsletter Spring 2008 page II

would a literary person write such a very peculiar thing? There was, of course, no reason for that. Thus, for a seri­ Only if he had an important point to make that cOlild not ous writer, such as Vicars, to have used such an elliptic be made in any other way. It is clear he is not referring construction concerning Shakespeare clearly shows that to a real person because he has referred to each of them he had an 1In1ls1Ia/ and demanding reason to avoid using by their full proper names - not by the roots used to the full proper name and instead to give only its roots. construct the family name. The only point Vicars can be His message: Shakespeare is a pen name. Of course, the making is that "Shake-speare" is a name made up from appropriateness of "Shake-speare" as a pen name for its parts, a pen name. Of course, this means that the actor Edward de Vere has been given many times and his need and theater part owner, William Shakespeare, was simply for a cover or front man occurred about the time that the a front man for the real author(Veal online). man who had arrived in London with the similar name, The peculiarity of Vicars' li sting in 1628 can perhaps Shakspere, was becoming described as a "Shakescene" be seen more clearly if we take it out of the context of the in the London theater. Shakespeare authorship controversy. Can you imagine an We conclude that Vicars by his handling of the name author of a serious book on rhetoric writing two centuries Shakespeare in the two editions of his manual gives us printed, later a sentence such as, "Among the great English poets contemporaneous, historical evidence that Shake-speare was of the late Georgian age are Samuel Taylor Coleridge, a pen name. We believe this is the strongest evidence for the man who has/takes his name from the "worth" of his this so far di scovered. We believe the case for Shakspere "words," Percy B ysshe Shelley, and] ohn Keats"? Of course of Stratford upon Avon being an author is dead. not. There is no reason in such a context to be making a pun (and note, there's no real pun in the Shakespeare Wori{S Cited case). Such a reference to William Wordsworth in a serious "From a Never Writer. .. .News," ShakespeareMallers. VoL5 .No.3. work is not just inappropriate, it's insulting to him to play Summer 2006, 4. upon his name. There is no reason whatsoever to refer to Schurink, Fred, "An Unnoticed Early Reference to Shakespeare," him in such an irrelevant and irreverent manner. He was a Notes and Queries, March 2006, 72- 74. Veal , Tom. Comment on "habet" posted October 25, 2006 on real, known, respected poet. If he were referred to in that website www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/ manner, there would have had to have been a very special 200611 O/sirJlenry_l1evil.html and important reason for such an elliptic reference to him.

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(President s Page continlled/i"oll1 page 2) ship (in 2006 and 2007) and moving forward with Plains, NY, October 9-12, 2008. It would be terrific to planning the fOUlih joint conference to be held in have a really big turnout of Society members this Octo­ White Plains, NY, October 9-12, 2008; ber. Please visit the Society'S website or call the office Moving our office and extensive collection of books for registration information and other details. Hope to from Silver SpIing, MD, to Yorktown Heights, NY see you in White Plains! (special thanks to Virginia Hyde); Launching a "Recruit -a-Member" program in which National Public Radio Series on the current members can recruit friends and relatives to Shakespeare Authorship Issue join the Society at half price for the first year; If you have not yet read or heard the excellent NPR Updating the website (kudos to Richard Smiley) and stories about the Shakespeare authorship question (July 3 fine-tuning the Society's mission statement and approv­ 2008) and the case for Oxford (July 4 2008), please visit ing a shOJi, easily remembered tagline to convey our this page on the NPR website. purpose - "Dedicated to Researching and Honoring http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story. the True Bard." (Please see my President's Page in php?storyId=92236768 the previous newsletter for more about our mission; • Publishing the 10lh edition of The Oxfordian and ap­ Excellent Website for Shakespeare Research pointing Professor Michael Egan to succeed Stephanie Visit www.shakespeareswords.com. You can conduct Hughes as editor-after her remarkable ten-year stint searches for words and phrases in all of the Shakespeare as founding editor of our flagship scholarly journal; works. Very useful resource. Forming a youth outreach task force with the par­ I'd like to say a word of thanks to all Society members ticipation of an impressive young scholar, Allegra and to my fellow members of the Board of Trustees for Krasznekewicz. Please see my previous President's their support over the past three years. Although I must Page for a bit more on this task force. Much more step down as president, I do plan to continue to serve on work is needed in this effort; and the Board until the end of my current term in 2009. Embarking on several still-nascent initiatives includ­ Finally, I'd like to end my last President's Page column ing publishing a series of Hot Topics pamphlets; with one wish: to see even more members of the Soci­ more aggressive media/PR outreach; creating a ety become actively involved in the various committees development committee to explore avenues for and other activities of the Society. Please contact me or foundation/large donor support; and developing an other members of the Board to express your interest in Oxfordian/Authorship Speakers Bureau. Much more volunteering. This is your Society and we need your help needs to be done in all of these areas. I encourage as we push ahead in our ongoing mission of researching all members to volunteer to help! and honoring the true Bard. Sincerely. 400th Anniversary of SHAKE-SPEARES Matthew Cos sol otto SONNETS July 2008 One new project I'm especially excited about involves planning a series of activities during 2009 for what I'm calling "The Year of the Sonnets" - activities designed Visit the Shakespeare Oxford Society to mark the 400lh anniversary of the 1609 publication of website at SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS with an emphasis on high­ lighting the authorship implications of that publication. www.shakespeare-oxford.com The 400lh anniversary offers us an excellent PR opportunity Publications for calling attention to the evidence in the Sonnets that tends to undermine the Stratford theory and bolster the Membership case for Oxford's authorship. Calendar Reminder: Annual Meeting and Annual Links to Shakespeare on the Net Conference, October 9-12, 2008 Blue Boar Giftshop Just a quick reminder that our annual meeting will take Shakespeare Oxford Library place during the upcoming annual conference in White Shakespeare Oxford Newsletter Spring 2008 page 13 Book Reviews

Columbia Professor Writing a Book­ "There are also people who think the Edward de Vere, the Seven­ Length Study Of the Authorship attack on the Twin Towers was a U.S.­ teenth Earl of Oxford, Cecil Issue government conspiracy," he told her. Palmer, 1920)-advocates, By Richard F. Whalen And again, "It's cool, sometimes, to respectively, of Francis Ba­ con's and the Earl of Oxford's think there's a conspiracy." But if he claims-not because I accept What could be the most authorita­ told her who was conspiring against their conclusions but because tive and influential analysis of the whom, she did not report it. these works tell me a great Shakespeare authorship controversy Many Oxfordians, however, con­ deal that I otherwise don't by a life-long Stratfordian is being sider that a conspiracy allegedly know about how Shakespeare written by a Columbia University required to hide Oxford's authorship scholarship didn't begin in professor who is a best-selling Shake­ to be a straw-man argument set up by 1960 (sic), and we miss out speare scholar. Stratfordians to be easily knocked on a lot by not going back to Whether the book-the first full down in their attack on the Oxfordian older, 'outdated' work. analysis by a Shakespeare establish­ proposition. Why 1960? Perhaps Shapiro meant ment professor-will treat the author­ As it happens, Zarin received her that Shakespeare authorship scholar­ ship issue fairly is something else. So M.F.A. from Columbia, where Shapiro ship didn't begin in 1960 but either far, the signals are mixed. is full professor, and now is an adjunct mis-spoke or was mis-heard by the The Columbia professor is James professor in the Columbia School of interviewer. Also, Shapiro probably Shapiro. The punning title of his book Journalism, a post-graduate program. knows that Delia Bacon was not a is Contested Will: the Shakespeare Her article on Rylance was sub-titled, Baconian, as the term is usually un­ Authorship Controversy, and he has "A Shakespearean maverick comes to derstood. She put Sir Walter Raleigh a contract with Simon & Schuster to Broadway." Rylance, the first artistic at the head of a literary circle that publish it in 2010. director of the Globe Theater despite influenced Sir Francis Bacon, the Shapiro is the author of one of his skepticism, got rave reviews at the earl of Oxford and other writers to the most popu1arStratfordian books Broadway opening of Boeing-Boeing produce the Shakespeare plays and in recent years, A Year in the Life of in May. poems. William Shakespeare, 1599, published Shapiro took a different tack in The interviewer was Michael by HarperCollins in 2005. His 1995 a wide-ranging interview in The Jenson, a freelance writer and con­ book on Shakespeare and the Jews Shakespeare Newsletter (fall 2007, tributing editor to The Shakespeare also got excellent notices. issued March 2008). He said that in Newsletter. The tri-annual newsletter Oxfordians can hope that Shapiro all his writing projects: "I try to see from Iona College goes to about 2,000 is striving to be scrupulously accurate things from as many perspectives subscribers, most of them Shakespeare and reasonably fair and balanced in as possible." In answer to a general professors. his assessment of the authorship con­ question about writers who should be Two years ago, Shapiro was inter­ troversy. His book has been getting "re-discovered," Shapiro said: quite a bit of advance publicity, and in viewed by the London Sunday Times. his statements he seems to be trying There's a great deal outthere­ He had just won a literary prize of th to convey a commitment to scholarly much of it from the 18 and 30,000 pounds for his Shakespeare­ 19 th centuries, gathering dust integrity while not betraying his ar­ in-1599 book. Disarmingly, he said on library shelves or in used­ dently Stratfordian colleagues. in that interview, "At school, I hated book stores that is worth a Shakespeare." Most recently, Shapiro scoffed at second look. In my current anti-Stratfordians as conspiracy theo­ At Columbia College, he says, he work on the authorship con­ "did an English degree but avoided rists. In her May 5 article on Mark Ry­ troversy, for example, I've Shakespeare and certainly wasn't a lance in The New Yorker, Cynthia Zarin taken a good deal of pleasure used Shapiro as a foil to contravene reading Delia Bacon (The Phi­ brilliant student." At the University Rylance's doubts about the Stratford losophy ofthe Plays ofShake­ of Chicago, his mentor was David man as Shakespeare. Twice, Shapiro speare Unfolded, Ticknor and Bevington, editor of the HarperCollins invoked what he no doubt considers Fields, 1857) and J.T. Looney Longman collected works of Shake­ the implausible conspiracy argument. ("Shakespeare" Identified in speare. As a student of Bevington, page 14 Spring 2008 Shakespeare Oxford Newsletter

Shapiro received his Ph.D. from Chi­ London: Little,Brown, 2008. when the heroine suggests a new and cago in 1982. Bevington has debated Chasing S/wkespeares by Sarah ingenious interpretation of the Baconi­ Oxfordians twice in public forums, Smith. New York: Simon & Schllstel; ans' "46" clue in the Book of Psalms. Felicia Londre of the University of 2003. Clue: It involves William Stanley, sixth Missouri and myself. By Richard F. Whalen earl of Derby; Mary Sidney Herbert, Shapiro told the Sunday Times countess of Pembroke; and Sir Francis reporter that "people I respect are Two first-rate suspense novels are Bacon. (As it happens, the last chapter fascinated by this. Sigmund Freud plunging hundreds of thousands of in Carrell' s book is Act Five, which is and Henry James both believed it was readers into the Shakespeare authorship composed solely of chapter forty-six. someone else." The reporter wrote that controversy and the case for the earl Coincidence? Not likely.) Shapiro "intends to examine why so of Oxford as the true author. At the same time, Carrell uses every many people do not believe that Shake­ Blend the gripping suspense and opportunity to layout the arguments speare wrote, well, Shakespeare." The plot twists of The Da Vinci Code with against William of Stratford as the interview continued: the bold embrace of the Shakespeare author and for the other contenders, authorship issue and the case for Oxford including especially Oxford. She has Americans, Shapiro avers, are and you have the best-selling novel done her homework, reading all the suckers for any conspiracy Interred With Their Bones by Jenni­ authorship literature, which she handles theory, while we [the British] fer Lee Carrell, a Harvard Ph.D. who are driven by snobbery to be­ quite well, and visiting all the settings lectured there on Shakespeare. lieve only an aristocrat could for her novel, from London to Spain have an ear for such beauty. Merge a literary detective story to the Widener library, to the Folger ThisAnglo attitude "diminishes like A. S. Byatt's Possession with Shakespeare Library in Washington the genius" because it doubts the evidence for Oxford as the true DC and finally to a bat-infested cave Shakespeare's imagination. He author and you have the best-selling in the Southwest, a spelunkers cave admi ts that this populist project novel Chasing Shakespeares by Sarah strewn with human skeletons. alarms academics, who fear a Smith, also a Harvard Ph.D. in English Carrell is the second Harvard Ph.D . Da Vinci Code style thriller. , Ii terature. in four years to produce a best-selling "My friends tell me I am go­ And their Harvard doctorate degrees suspense novel on the authorship issue. ing over to the dark side, " he are only the beginning of the unusual Sarah Smith of Brookline MA was laughs, "but I doubt that I am parallels. the first with Chasing Shakespeares going tochangemy mind (about Carrell's book got off to a fast start Shakespeare's identity.)" from Simon & Schuster in 2003. Both last fall with a first printing in the US went to Maljorie Garber's lectures on Perhaps his research might lead of 100,000 copies. In January, it was Shakespeare at Harvard. Garber gives Shapiro to change his mind, or at published as The Shakespeare Secret Oxfordian books unusual prominence least modify it as he examines the in London, where it climbed to fifth in the bibliography of Shakespeare evidence and especially the testimony place on the Slinday Times list of best After All (2004). In her Author's Note, of all the writers, lawyers, actors and selling books. Carrell says that "more than anyone professors who have shared Rylance's It's an ultra-clever, super-fast-paced else, Marge Garber has shaped the skepticism and who in many cases have book with six murders and a sensational way I think about Shakespeare on the been persuaded by the evidence for suicide of characters all racing to fol­ page." Oxford as the true author. In any case, low Shakespearean clues, thwart the And there are more parallels between his book may well help to make the others and be the first to find the lost the two books. Shakespeare authorship controversy a Shakespeare play Cardenio. Each mur­ Both use as settings universities in legi ti mate subject for study and debate der mirrors a murder in Shakespeare. Boston (Harvard and Northeastern), more widely in academia. And if it's as The heroine, a Shakespeare scholar London and Stratford-on-Avon. Car­ successful as his Shakespeare-in-1599 and theater director, survives several rell's book centers on the dangerous book, it could help raise awareness of murderous assaults, one of them in search for the manuscript of Cardenio. the controversy in the general, read­ the stacks in the Widener library at (As it happens, Cardenio, despite being ing public. Harvard. lost, was performed at the American The reconstructed G lobe Theatre Repertory Theater in Cambridge this Inferred With Their BOlles by Jennifer is set afire, copies of the First Folio spring. The imaginary script was co­ Lee Carrell. New York: Dlitton, 2007; are stolen, and cryptography enters authored by Stephen Greenblatt of Shakespeare Oxford Newsletter Spring 2008 page 15

Harvard, whose latest book was the Earlier, Smith had written three Wells has long been one of the top imagined biography of his Shakespeare historical novels that also became Stratfordian scholars. He is professor of Stratford, Will in the World. When bestsellers. Two of them were named emeritus at the University ofBirming­ the play text or the biographical facts Notable Books of the Year by The New ham, editor of the complete plays and are missing, apparently it's all right York Times. Her article on Oxford (not poems, and chairman of the Shakespeare to make it all up.) Anthony Munday) as the author of "The Birthplace Trust. His purpose with this Sarah Smith's book centers on the Paine of Pleasure," was published in ultra-Lite book is to "examine some of dangers of authenticating a manuscript "The Oxfordian" in 2002. the principal current beliefs, myths and letter by William of Stratford that says Thanks to two Ph.D. authors from legends ... in the attempt to distinguish he was not Shakespeare. The letter Harvard University, several hundred between fact, reasonable conjecture, and the COI'denio manuscript would thousand readers, many of whom prob­ speculation and pure fiction." be worth millions of dollars. Both ably know little or nothing about the The authorship controversy gets seven involve manuscript letters that would Shakespeare authorship controversy, are of the eighty-eight chapters in this slim deal disastrous blows to the reputations experiencing a reasonably accurate and volume, which is aimed at the common of distinguished Stratfordian scholars, balanced emersion in the issue and the reader. Like all the chapters, the seven who stop at nothing to thwart the pro­ evidence for Oxford as the true author are very short, just one to three pages. tagonists. Both explore the drives for of the works of Shakespeare. (His "Short Life of Shakespeare," the fame, power and wealth in the motives Stratfordian, is twelve pages.) of professional Stratfordians and to a No surprise, for Wells the Oxford­ lesser extent the dedicated anti-Strat­ ian challenge to Stratfordians does not fordians and Oxfordians. meet his criteria for "fact, reasonable And both novels were reviewed conjecture." in the Sunday New York Times Book Each chapter poses a question, dis­ Review. cusses the evidence and arguments very And both Carrell and Smith are Red briefly and concludes with a "Verdict." Sox fans. For example, "Is it true ... " Smith's novel, much less violent, That he was born in Shakespeare's is a literary detective story about Joe Birthplace? Verdict: Probably true. Roper, a struggling graduate student That he smoked cannabis? Pure at Northeastern University who finds fiction. a letter in a box of old papers but has That he could read/speak French? his doubts, and Posy Gould, a rich, True. glamorous, California "valley girl" and That he wrote a poem called "Shall This cover depicting the authorship controversy Harvard graduate student who has no I Die"? Perfectly possible. is the first for a Stra((ordian pr(J(essor s book. doubts that Oxford wrote Shakespeare. The two men are in a tug (J( war behind the That he portrayed himself as Hamlet? A manuscript expert in London who Stratford man, or perhaps they are pulling him There may be a grain of truth in it. mayor may not have pulled a switch­ in opposite directions. Or both. Apparently, the That he borrowed most of his plots? eroo is their undoing. men in the tug (J(war are Marlowe on the right Not really true. The Boston Globe gave Chasing and Oxford or Bacon on the left. That you can visit Shakespeare's Shakespeares a long review, calling Is It True What They Say About Birthplace without leaving Japan? True it a "smart sexy, modern-day mystery Shakespeare? by Stanley Wells. (if you don't mind a reconstruction). reminiscent of A. S. Byatt's Possession. Ebington, UK: Long Barn Books, n.d., That the earl of Oxford wrote the The reviewer asked, "Who really wrote ca. 2008 plays? No, not true. Shakespeare's plays?" and noted that By Richard F. Whalen "Is there any reason to believe," "the debate has raged (albeit quietly) Wells asks, that his Shakespeare of in the halls of academia for decades. Heavyweight scholar Stanley Wells Stratford "didn't write the plays at­ Now, it comes to life in the able hands has introduced Shakespeare Lite to the tributed to him?" His answer is crisp: of Brookline-based Sarah Smith." Her marketplace, and it's his first book that "Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare." book was a bestseller in New England includes the Shakespeare authorship And he invokes what he calls "the for several months, and the publisher controversy at some length, even on overwhelming evidence from his followed with a soft cover edition. the cover, a bold cartoon. own time that a man called William page 16 Spring 2008 Shakespeare Oxford Newsletter

Shakespeare who came from Stratford­ as the true author. His two pages on the First Folio were dedicated to her upon-Avon wrote the plays and poems Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke, two sons, one of whom was Oxford's for which he is famous." He lists more as proposed by Robin Williams in son-in-law. than a dozen writers who "referred to her book Sweet Swan of Avon, are Dismissing Oxford as Shakespeare, him by name." (Of course, they were astonishingly sympathetic. He cites Wells says that he would have been referring to the poet-playwright of Mary Sidney's literary achievements too busy as a courtier and traveler to London without identifying him as the and ends with a long excerpt from the do all the writing, and that "he left man from Stratford, whose name was jacket of Williams' book, but without around ten masterpieces unperformed spelled Shakspere there.) He also cites identifying it as the jacket blurb. The [emphasis added] when he died ... to the Stratford monument inscription blurb says Williams intends "to provide be printed over the next nine years and the First Folio prefatory matter, enough documented evidence to open under a false name." Noteworthy is which Oxfordians have shown to be the inquiry into this intriguing-and the fact that he says "unperformed," weak and ambiguous. entirely plausible-possibility ... by when "unwritten" is the usual Strat­ Then he asks whether it's true that providing overwhelming documented fordian line. Thus, implicitly he ac­ the Stratford man could not have been evidence connecting Mary Sidney to cepts that it is not impossible that the well educated enough to have written the Shakespeare canon." ten plays were written before 1604, the plays and poems. "Not true," is his But is it true that she wrote the works when Oxford died. Wells may not verdict, after mentioning the "excellent" of Shakespeare? "Of course not!," is have intended that implication, but educational system. "There is nothing Wells'verdict. that is what he wrote. in his plays or poems," says Wells, "that This sympathetic but at the same And to use the pejorative "false could not have been written by a former time dismissive treatment of claims name" instead of "pseudonym" betrays grammar school boy who carried on for Sidney suggests that Wells believes an unfair bias that also denigrates reading after he left school." she had a profound influence on the Mark Twain, George Eliot and other Author of more than a dozen major Shakespeare plays and poems. If that great writers who wrote under pen works on Shakespeare, Wells of late is truly his considered judgment, it's names. has been giving more attention to the quite incredible that he would believe The sensational front cover of the authorship issue, and these assertions that the commoner Will Shakspere book depicts the "Shakespeare" of the are probably his first line of defense for could have been a silent partner of First Folio but with a baffled expres­ the general public against the Oxford­ Lady Mary Sidney and her literary sion. He's being pulled in opposite ians and other non-Stratfordians. circle of aristocrats. ForOxfordians, it's directions, perhaps by Marlowe on one He devotes six chapters (nine pages) much more credible that the countess side and by Bacon or Oxford on the to the claims for Marlowe, Bacon, Nev­ may have had an important influence other. Hands outstretched before him, ille, Rutland, Mary Sidney and Oxford on the earl of Oxford, whose plays in he seems to be saying, "I dunno."

Letter to the Editor

Dear Editor, Anthony. Moreover, he hath left Here was a Caesar! WHEN Here is a thought for the Newslet­ you all his WALKS, COMES SUCH ANOTHER, ter: His PRIVATE ARBOURS and (E.VER)? I was delighted to see Katherine NEW-PLANTED ORCHARDS, (Never, Never, Never, Never, Never) Chiljan 's reference, in her article "Com­ On this side Tiber (Thames plaints about A Lover's Complaint"in Southwark Then there is LUPERCAL and the Winter 2008 Newsletter, to "Or­ red-light district); he hath left them TOUCH Calpernia. How about an­ chards" as a sexual pun in line 171 of you, other look at thisplay from a different the poem. This pun appears, along with And to your heirs FOR EVER(!); angle! others, in Julius Caesar in Anthony's COMMOM PLEASURES, speech about Caesar's will: To walk abroad and RECREATE Pidge Sexton yourselves. [email protected] Shakespeare Oxford Newsletter Spring 2008 page 17 The Ending of Oxford's Othello Michael Delahoyde, Ph.D., Washington State University

After Othello has killed Desdemona, Beat a Venetian and traduc'd the state, The basic question raised the Venetians have him in custody, and I took by th' throat the circumcised by the play's closing epi­ Iago has promised never to explain dog, sodes is whether Othello nor even to utter a word ever again. And smote him - thus. remains a beast or recovers As Isaac Asimov notes, [Stabs himself] his manly stature. Or, to Gratiano put it in theological terms, Othello, however, has one All that's spoke is marr'd. whether he is destined for last thing to say. With an Othello damnation or 'saves him­ effort, he manages to pull I kiss'd thee ere I kill'd thee. No way self' by acknowledging his himself together into almost but this: crime, repenting it, and the man he once was and Killing myself, to die upon a kiss. punishing himself for it. speaks once more, a little [Falls on the bed, and dies] (Wells 256) in self-pity, much more in Cassio self-hate. He asks them all Samuel 10hnson called it, ambigu­ This did I fear, but thought he had to tell the tale honestly. ously, "this dreadful scene; it is not no weapon; (Asimov 631) to be endured" (qtd. in Garber 615). For he was great of heart. Neutral or somewhat forgiving critics Othello Lodovico emphasize Othello's "self-exculpa­ Soft you; a word or two before you Spartan dog, o tion," declaring it a speech "of self­ go. More fell than anguish, hunger, or condemnation, and it culminates in I have done the state some service, he sea! self-execution" (Wells 257). Despite and they know 't. Look on the tragic loading of this his crimes, "He dies in the act of de­ No more of that. I pray you, in your bed; scribing a noble public gesture, the letters, This is thy work. The object poisons killing of a public enemy" (Garber When you shall these unlucky deeds sight; 615). relate, Let it be hid. Gratiano, keep the Other critics have been harsher. Speak of me as I am; nothing ex­ house, T.S. Eliot claimed in 1927 that he had tenuate, And seize upon the fortunes of the "never read a more terrible exposure of Nor set down aught in malice. Then Moor, human weakness - of universal human must you speak For they succeed on you. To you, weakness-than the last great speech Of one that loved not wisely but Lord Governor, of Othello" (qtd. in Wells 257). F.R. too well; Remains the censure of this hellish Leavis influenced Laurence Olivier's Of one not easily jealous, but being villain, 1964 performance, after which Dover wrought The time, the place, the torture, 0, Wilson protested the depiction of "an Perp1ex'd in the extreme; of one enforce it! Othello in which he 'could discover whose hand, Myself will straight aboard, and to no dignity ... at all, while the end Like the base Judean, threw a pearl the state was to me, not terrible, but horrible away This heavy act with heavy heart beyond words'" (qtd. in Wells 258). Richer than all his tribe; of one whose relate. Harold Bloom, although he bemoans subdu'd eyes, Most critical attention, naturally, is "a bad modern tradition of criticism" Albeit unused to the melting mood, paid to Othello's 19-1ine speech here, from T.S. Eliotto F.R. Leavis and New Drop tears as fast as the Arabian a "famous and problematic outburst" Historicism that "has divested the trees (Bloom 474), alternately considered a hero of his splendor, in effect doing Their medicinal gum. Set you down regaining of the character's "magna­ Iago's work" (Bloom 433), neverthe­ this; nimity and ease of command" (Wells less recognizes that Othello "seems And say besides, that in Aleppo 250) or a demonstration of "obtuse and incapable of seeing himself except in once, brutal egoism" (F.R. Leavis, qtd. in grandiose terms" (Bloom 445). Worse, Where a malignant and a turban'd Wells 258). As Stanley Wells puts it, in declaring himself "one that loved Turk page 18 Spring 2008 Shakespeare Oxford Newsletter not wisely but too well" and "one not human who has lost his reputation to Herod the Great for murdering his easily jealous," Othello is guilty of is indistinguishable from a beast. Maccabean wife Mariamme (Bloom "absurd blindness" and "outrageous "Getting it right" about a person's 474). In any case, albeit sublimated self-deception" (Bloom 474). biography, a person's story, is crucial, into Judeo-Christian history, Oxford Othello's final words have, as God­ especially for the 17th Earl, whose seems once again to be expressing dard notes, a "preternatural calm" "future name would be associated guilt concerning his treatment of (Goddard 105), but is there "pathos with scandal, profligacy, and disgrace. his first wife, Anne Cecil. Oxford­ in the eloquence" or "bombast" Thus Othello's profuse regrets over a ians, listing other wronged women (WelIs 256)? "His appeal is finalIy lost profession take on new and urgent all over the canon from Hermione to to the civilizing power of language" resonance when viewed through the Hero, tend to agree that in the end (Garber 6 I 5). Othello's use of lan­ Oxfordian lens" (Farina 2 12). of Othello , Oxford is "expiating his guage is so beautiful that G. Wilson condemnation of Anne; he is pleading Speak of me as I am; nothing ex­ Knight called it "the OthelIo music" nolo contendere to the worst charge tenuate, (Garber 596). he can bring against himself' (Ogburn Nor set down aught in mabce .. .. Stratfordians and Oxfordians agree 568; cf. Anderson 380). that despite the horrified spectators (Yeah, Alan Nelson! I'm looking at Although the question remains as surrounding him, Othello, like Hamlet, you.)A companion motto to this utter­ to how much here is bombast, Freud directs his final speech to us (Garber ance might be "Vero nihil verius." himself recognized that Oxford "had 614, Ogburn and Ogburn 520). Read Of one that loved not wisely but himself experienced Othello's tor­ so, and as an autobiographical utter­ too well; ments" (qtd. in Hazelton 309). Ogburn ance from Lord Oxford, some of the Of one not easily jealous, but being expands the vision: dissonances resolve. wrought Othello begins his final speech with Literature's debt to Ox­ Perplex'd in the extreme .. .. a pointed reminder: ford's remorse is incalcu­ As Bloom has noted, these asser­ lable, but none would have I have done the state some service, tions constitute a surprisingly mis­ accrued had Oxford not and they know 't. guided autobiographical assessment had the capacity to stand No more of that. on Othello's part. But the misguided­ apart from his emotions This very prominent "aside" is ness seems identical if we take it as and observe them with grossly inappropriate to a murderer's Oxford's own self-assessment. detachment, plotting their testimony and, so, awkwardly in­ dramatization and contriv­ ... one whose hand, serted and immediately dismissed. i ng the verbal alchemy wi th Like the base [Indian?] J udean, threw But, autobiographically, it fi ts the which he would capture, a pearl away hypothetical hushed-up secret-ser­ reshape, and refine real­ Richer than all his tribe .... vice-funded flOOO-annuity scheme ity, milling human lives, to have Oxford boost national pride Whether Othello compares hi msel f most notably his own, to through his pro-England, pro-Tudor in the third person with a "base In­ artistic ends with no more edutainment. dian," as the quarto edition reads, or compunction than lago in a "base Judean," as the Folio reads, manipulating his victims to I pray you, in your letters, has intrigued critics. If"Indian," then his inscrutable purposes. When you shall these unlucky deeds perhaps there are implications of (Ogburn 571) relate .... the New World and of the so-called Othello then ends his final speech: The phrase "unlucky deeds" seems "savages" (Garber 615). Most prefer less suited as a euphemism in the "Judean," assuming the reference is ... a malignant and a turban'd Turk play for killing one's wife (!) than as to Judas Iscariot (e.g., Goddard 106, Beat a Venetian and traduc'd the Oxford' s melancholy summation of Asimov 632, Garber 6 I 5) for his kiss of state, what looked like would be his final betrayal and his discarding ofthe "pearl I took by th' throat the circumcised life-story. This is the play, after all, of great price" in a further inscribed dog, in which we hear that "Reputation, parabolic application (Matthew 13 :45- And smote him - thus. reputation, reputation" (2.3.262) 46; see Asimov 632), though Harold Othello pictures himself as a Turk, is supremely important and that a Bloom supplies a renegade application as one of his own enemies, which Shakespeare Oxford Newsletter Spring 2008 page 19 he did indeed become to himself. Asimov envisions an 1ago probably That you will wonder what hath "'Uncircumcised dog' was a common smiling at the tragic loading of the bed fortuned. derogatory phrase for Christians among (633). He glosses "Spartan dog" as a Come, Proteus, 'tis your penance Moslems, indicating that they were bloodthirsty hound trained to hunt and but to hear outside the pale of the true religion. kill (633). But "Spartan" has another The story of your loves discovered .... Othello's use of the reverse phrase in association that has gone unnoticed. (The 1\1'0 Gellflemen of Verona his last agony is like a return to his The ancient Spartans were famous 5.4.168-171) origins" (Asimov 632). However, he for their laconic nature - that is, of ... if you'll a willing ear incline dies speaking of himself in the third being of few words. A legend about . .. bring us to our palace, where person, perhaps signifying - but in a the Peloponnesian War (which obvi­ we'll show way controlling - his lost identity. ously I paraphrase here very loosely) what's yet behind, that's meet you has the enemies of Sparta threaten­ all should know. A Venetian witness to the suicide ing, "If we prove to be the mightier (Measure for Measure 5.1.536-539) notes in despair, but oddly, army, we will trample down your city ... Good Paulina, All that's spoke is marr'd. gates, slaughter all your men, take Lead us from hence, where we may Everything Othello said is corrupted? your women into slavery, dash your leisurely How so? The statement has a sweeping children's brains out against the city Each one demand, and answer to quality that renders it more sensible walls, put your old men's heads on his pmt if taken in a much wider context. The pikes, urinate in your temples, rape Perform'd in this wide gap of time, severity of this tragedy has made all all of your livestock, and dance the since first language itself corrupt somehow. hootchy-kootchy on the graves of your We were dissevered. Hastily lead All reports are erroneous. Truth and forefathers." The Spartans sent back away. authenticity are nearly inaccessible. their laconic reply: "If." (The Winters Tale 5.3.151-155) What you will hear is not going to be When in the play recently 1ago was Lord Cerimon, we do our longing the truth, Oxford suggests. asked the key question of "why," his stay Cassio laments and eulogizes, less answer was, "Demand me nothing; what To hear the rest untold. Sir, lead's abstractly but also oddly, you know, you know. / From this time the way. This did I fear, but thought he had forth I never will speak word" (5.2.303- (Pericles 5.3.83-84) no weapon; 304), an enigmatic and Spartan final [Before the final "ringing" verse:] For he was great of hemt. utterance from this villain. ... Let us go in, Lodovico continues: And charge us there upon I find it difficult to piece together inter' gatories, .... To you, Lord Governor, all three components of this sentence Remains the censure of this hellish And we will answer all things faith­ to make any stable sense. Perhaps all villain, fully. that's spoke is marred already. At any (The Merchant of Venice 5.1.297-299) The time, the place, the torture, 0, rate, some may not have thought so, enforce it! He shall have a noble memory. but Oxford did have a "weapon" with Assist. which to exercise some control over It is doubtful that torture will matter (Coriolanus 5.6.153-154) the final story. Some may think that much. 1ago has already been stabbed! disconnecting the artist's name from the You cannot faze this guy. Nearly in­ And here are the final lines from title page does the job permanently, but human himself, he seems immune to Othello: Myself will straight aboard, and to Oxford buried enough materials so that the forms of human suffering. "That with some serious textual excavating, 1ago himself is trapped and is to be the state a restoration can be accomplished. destroyed by torture must seem quite This heavy act with heavy heart irrelevant to him. The victory is his" relate. Lodovico then addresses 1ago: (Asimov 633). Thus Othello, like numerous other .... 0 Spartan dog, Here are some last lines and nearly plays in the canon, ends with a prom­ More fell than anguish, hunger, or last lines asserting final crucial mat­ the sea! ise of recounting, retelling the events ters in their respective plays. Look on the tragic loading of this we the audience have just witnessed. bed; Please you, I'll tell you as we pass These endings certify the experi­ This is thy work. along, ences as narratives and look forward page 20 Spring 2008 Shakespeare Oxford Newsletter to their re-presentation. Further, in Even if we take the word "period" as Asimov, Isaac. Asilllov's GlIide to Shake­ the Shakespeare tragedies, "retelling temporal- referring to a time period speare. NY: Gramercy Books, 1970. becomes the tragic hero's only path - there is an unmistakable finality to Bloom, Harold. Shakespeare: The II/ven­ to redemption" (Garber 615). the utterance: "so ends a real rough tion of the Hlllllan . NY: Riverhead Books, 1998. Consider how focused Othello has patch for Cyprus." But Lodovico Cinlhio, Giraldi . Hecatomll1ithi. The been all along on narratives, or stories. probably means "period," more ap­ SOllrces ofTen Shakespeare Plays. Ed. Othello claims to have entertained propriately, as "end-point." (Think Alice Griffin. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell Desdemona and her father, and to of the Weelkes madrigal examined Co., 1966. 227-236. have won the love of the fonner, with by Altschuler and] ansen: "Thule, the Clark, Eva Turner. Hidden Allusions in dramatic autobiographical stories of Period of Cosmography" = "Iceland, Shakespeare 's Plays. 1931. 3rd ed. by his adventures. Iago's success was in the End-Point of the World.) In other Ruth Loyd Miller. Port Washington: "constructing a narrative into which words, "A bloody ending to a once Kennikal Press, 1974. he inscribes ... those around him" noble general." Farina, William. De Vere as Shakespeare: (Greenblatt 234). And in terms of More significance has been rec­ An Oxfordian Reading of the Canon. his self-fashioning, "not only does ognized, though, by iiber-Stratford­ Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Co. , Iago mask himself in society as the ian Stephen Greenblatt - not, of 2006. French, Marilyn. Shakespeare's Division honest ancient, but in private he tries course, in his faux biography Will of E'perience. NY: Summit Books, out a bewildering succession of brief in the World, but in his much more 1981 . narratives that critics have attempted, intelligent Renaissance Self-Fash­ Garber, Maljorie. Shakespeare After All. with notorious results, to translate ioning. He calls Lodovico's remark NY: Pantheon Books, 2004. into motives" (Greenblatt 236). The "bizarrely punning" and says that it Goddard, Harold C. The Meaning of infamous handkerchief has at least "insists precisely upon the fact that it Shakespeare. Voll/me II. Chicago: The one story attached to it, so even stage was a speech, that this life fashioned University of Chicago Press, 1951. props in this play can be caught up as a text is ended as a text" (Green­ Greenblatt, Stephen. Renaissance Self­ in the rampant narrativizing. In this blatt 252). Othello has ended his life Fashioning: From More to Shake­ respect, the tragedy of Othello is that as he led it: playing out his role in a speare. 2nd ed. Chicago: University Othello allowed himself to submit fashioned narrative that bestows on of Chicago Press, 2005. to, essentialize, and participate in the him his identity. Hazelton, Sally. "Freud and Oxford." Great generation of a narrative involving Death is the terminal punctuation OJ..ford: Essays on the Life and Work of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Ox­ infidelity and uncontrolled jealousy. mark to a life. A period is the terminal fOld, /550-/604. Ed. Richard Malim. Once activated by Iago, the narrative punctuation mark to a life lived as a Tunbridge Wells, UK: Parapress Ltd. , did its work all too well. "Even with narrative. But perhaps suicide is the 2004.307-311. the exposure ofIago's treachery, then, act of wresting back basic control of Kermode, Frank. ed. Introduction and Notes. there is for Othello no escape - rather the end of that narrative. Othello. The Riverside Shakespeare. a still deeper submission to narrative, a Shakespeare, we know, was tormented 2nd ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., reaffirmation of the self as story, but now by the tyrannically obliterating narrative 1997. 1246-1296. split suicidally between the defender control that posterity would have (un­ Ogburn, Charlton. The Mysterious Wil­ of the faith and the circumcised enemy less the Sonnets expressing this were · lim1/ Shakespeare: The Myth and the who must be destroyed" (Greenblatt indeed mere pen exercises). Oxford, Reality. 2nd ed. McLean, VA: EPM 252). Othello, ultimately, is a tragic we suspect, had good reason to agonize Pub. , 1992. testament to the powerful hold a story about losing control of that narrative. Ogburn, Dorothy and Charlton Ogburn. This Star of England. Westport, CT: can have over a human soul. And we, we happy few, we band of Greenwood Press, Pub. , 1952. sisters and brothers, are commjssioned * * * * * Othello. Ed. Frank Kermode. The Riverside "Tarry a little, there is something to restore that narrative - to pin the Shakespeare. 2nd ed. Boston: Hough­ else," as was once said in Shakespeare's right story on the right man. "He shall ton Mifflin Co., 1997. 1246-1296. Venice. I have, it turns out, omitted have a noble memory. Assist." Sipahigil, T. '''Sagitary/Sagittar' in Othello." one line. It occurs right after Othello's Shakespeare Quarterly 27.2 (Spring Works Cited final speech and his stabbing of him­ 1976): 200-201 . self. Lodovico remarks: Anderson, Mark. "Shakespeare " By An­ Wells, Stanley. Shakespeare: A Life in other Name. NY: Gotham Books I Drama. NY: W.W. Norton and Co., A bloody period. (5.2.357) Penguin, 2005 . 1997. Shakespeare Oxford Newsletter Spring 2008 page 21 SHAKESPEARE AUTHORSHIP CONFERENCE WHITE PLAINS, NY OCTOBER 9-12,2008 SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 9

2:00 - 2:30 Welcome and Introductions - Alex McNeil and Matthew Cossolotto 2:30 - 3:30 Dan Wlight - Shakespeare: Pornographer and Liar

3:30-4:15 Helen Gordon - Comparing the Sonnets to the Life Events of Oxford vs. Shakspere 4:15 - 4:30 Break 4:30 - 5:15 Albert Burgstahler - "Read If Thou Canst" - The Challenge of the Stratford Monument 5:15-6:00 Betsy Clark - The Numerological Structure of Four Dedications and One Title

6:00 -7:00 Social Event & Cash Bar

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 10

8:30-10:15 Shakespeare Oxford Society Annual Meeting 10:15 - 10:30 Greetings and Infonnation - Richard Joyrich 10:30 - 11: 15 Frank Davis - Henslowe's Diary: Its Significance to Oxfordians 11:15 -12:15 Michael Egan - Updating the fate of Richard II Part One and fielding questions about Michael Egan's editorial policy for The Oxfordian 12:15-1:30 Lunch Break 1:30 - 2:15 Stephanie Hughes - The London Stage and the Birth of Functional Democracy 2:15 - 3:15 Ron Hess - The Spear - Shaker and the Dragon: Oxford, Beowu!j, and Hamlet 3:15 - 3:30 Break 3:30-4:15 Paul Altrocchi - Does Westminster Abbey Hide Cloistered Authorship Secrets? 4:15 - 5:00 Paul Streitz - Oxford and the King James Bible 5:00 - 6:30 Alex McNeil- To moderate an open discussion about what aspects of the authorship issue trouble us the most. Or, put another way, if you could know one additional thing about the Oxfordian case, what would it be? 8:00 -10:00 Movies - 1. DVD of the 1963 Twilight Zone episode in which Shakespeare shows up in the 20th century to act as a ghostwriter for a hack television writer who's nm out of material. 52 minutes (Alex McNeil) 2. DVD of Mark Twain's Is Shakespeare Dead? 44 minutes (Richard Joyrich) page 22 Spring 2008 Shakespeare Oxford Newsletter

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 11

9:00 - 9:45 John Hudson - Why Was Shakespeare So Interested in the Roman - Jewish War?

9:45 - 10:30 Ron Song Destro - Tips on Presenting The Oxfordian Lecture

10:30 - 10:45 Break

10:45 - 11 :30 Bonner Cutting - Where There's A Will

11:30 - 12:15 Matthew Cossolotto - A Posthumous Publication? Sleuthing Through Shakespeare's Sonnets for Authorship Clues

12:15 - 1:45 Hosted Lunch and Keynote Address: Mark Anderson - 1604: The Oxfordian Ace in the Hole

1:45 - 2:30 Derran Charlton - "Had'st thou not plaid some Kingly parts in sport, Thou hadst bin a companion for a King".

2:30 - 3:305 Robert Brazil - Analyzing Further Writings by Oxford

3:30 - 3:45 Break

3:45 - 4:30 Sarah Smith - Shakespeare's Library: Then and Now

4:30 - 5:30 Bill Boyle - Shakespeare and the Succession Crisis of the 1590s: Some Thoughts and Observations

7:00 - 10:00 Movies:

1. DVD of Dream, John Hudson's adaptation of A Midsummer Nights Dream 52 minutes (JohnHudson)

2. Timon ofAth ens (produced by BBC & Time - Life) starring Jonathan Plyce as Timon in possibly "the most autobiographical" of all of Shakespeare/Oxford's works. 120 minutes (Earl Showerman)

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 12

8:30-10:15 Shakespeare Fellowship Annual Meeting

10:15 - 10:30 Break

10:30 - 11:15 Robin Fox - Shakespeare's Education? The Grammar School Reconsidered.

11: 15 - 12:00 Earl Showerman - Timon ofAthens: Shakespeare's Sophoclean Tragedy

12:00 - 2:00 Banquet and Awards Presentation - Thomas Regnier - Hemy Vand the Salic Law Shakespeare Oxford Newsletter Spring 2008 page 23

Dear Society Members and Friends: The 4th Annual Joint SOS/SF Shakespeare Authorship Conference will be held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in White Plains, NY, Thursday to Sunday, October 9-12 (Columbus Day Weekend). Please contact the Society's office by phone (914-962-1717) or email (sosoffice@ optonline.net) with any questions. Registration form, preliminary schedule (with speakers and topics), and other conference information now available on our website: wwwshakespeare-oxford.com. Also see registration form below. Don't delay. Register today! Hope to see you in White Plains. Best wishes, Matthew Cossolotto PreSident Shakespeare Oxford Society page 24 Spring 2008 Shakespeare Oxford Newsletter

Registration Form 2008 Annual Joint SOS/SF Shakespeare Authorship Conference Please print out this form, fill out the appropriate information, and send or fax the completed form to Shakespeare Oxford Society, PO Box 808, Yorktown Heights, NY 10598-0808 (fax: 914-245-9713). For more information or to register online, please visit our website: www.shakespeare-oxford.com. Call or email the SOS office for assistance: Tel : 914-962-1717 Email: [email protected].

Registrations wanted (enter number): ___Full Registration-$200 (includes all presentations and meals) ___One Day Registration: Thursday-$50 (presentations only) ___ One Day Registration: Friday-$75 (presentations only) ___One Day Registration: Saturday-$75 (presentations only) ___One Day Registration: Sunday-$50 (presentations only) ___Extra Sunday Banquet-$45 Total amount to be paid ____

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