March Books 27) Contested Will, by James Shapiro
- Mar. 29th, 2011 at 8:15 PM
An excellent book about the Shakespeare authorship controversy, which was a topic I once wasted quite a lot of online time on (between about 2000 and 2004). Shapiro is not really writing about the balance of evidence on either side, though he makes it clear that his sympathies are with the Stratford man rather than with Francis Bacon or the Earl of Oxford. His subject is more an attempt to work out why various highly regarded intellects (Mark Twain and Helen Keller for Bacon, Sigmund Freud for Oxford) should be attracted by such peculiar theories. His answer is that, for Twain and Freud in particular, it was emotionally important to see the plays and sonnets as autobiographical and revealing of their author's state of mind, even though this is completely anachronistic in terms of how Shakespeare and his contemporaries wrote and thought about writing.
The grand Oxford conspiracy theory (which in its wilder variations has the Earl as both son and lover of Queen Elizabeth, as well as being the author of the works of Shakespeare, Marlowe and many more) then happened to hit the Zeitgeist of the last few decades, when we have learned that governments often do lie to us about more important issues than who wrote a play, and questioning received wisdom has become habitual.
Finally, Shapiro points out that Shakespeare's claim to sole authorship of all the plays is no longer accepted by mainstream scholars, in that several of the plays are in fact collaborations (with Fletcher, Middleton, Wilkins and Peele; and he omits Kyd and Edward III). The idea that even a small part of Shakespeare might not be by Shakespeare was heretical until surprisingly recently. But real research, unlike Oxfordianism or Baconianism, moves on.
A good book to read as I crystallize my own biographical endeavours.
The grand Oxford conspiracy theory (which in its wilder variations has the Earl as both son and lover of Queen Elizabeth, as well as being the author of the works of Shakespeare, Marlowe and many more) then happened to hit the Zeitgeist of the last few decades, when we have learned that governments often do lie to us about more important issues than who wrote a play, and questioning received wisdom has become habitual.
Finally, Shapiro points out that Shakespeare's claim to sole authorship of all the plays is no longer accepted by mainstream scholars, in that several of the plays are in fact collaborations (with Fletcher, Middleton, Wilkins and Peele; and he omits Kyd and Edward III). The idea that even a small part of Shakespeare might not be by Shakespeare was heretical until surprisingly recently. But real research, unlike Oxfordianism or Baconianism, moves on.
A good book to read as I crystallize my own biographical endeavours.

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How much detail does Shapiro go into about the collaborations? I've read a little Middleton and bit more Shakespeare, and I'd love to see someone try to unpick which parts of their collaborations were by whom. (Possibly a vain endeavor, but I'd still like to see it.)
1. Evidence of education - None
2. Record of correspondence, especially concerning literary matters.- None
3. Evidence of having been paid to write. - None
4. Evidence of a direct relationship with a patron. - None
5. Extant original manuscript - None
6. Handwritten inscriptions, receipts, letters, etc., touching on literary matters.- None
7. Commendatory verses, epistles, or epigrams contributed or received.- None
8. Miscellaneous records (e.g., referred to personally as a writer. - None
9. Evidence of books owned, written in, borrowed, or given.- None
10. Notice at death as a writer. - None
Edited at 2011-04-01 05:48 am (UTC)
My suggestion to you is look at the big picture: the evidence of the aristocratic bent of the plays, the fact that the poems and plays mirror events in Oxford's life, the incongruity that the greatest writer in the English language would leave his daughters illiterate, the Sonnets about shame and disgrace to name and reputation that leave Shakespeare's biographers with nothing to go on, and the almost complete lack of documentation that William of Stratford ever wrote anything.
"Denial, ridicule and entrenched belief systems are extremely potent defenders of the status quo."
Can you find a single example of this list of ten criteria being used outside the so-called Shakespeare authorship debate?
Who paid Oxford to write?
Who was Oxford's patron? And what is the evidence for that?
Where are the original Oxford play scripts?
What did Oxford's obituarists say about his writing?
Let the record show that I did my best to answer your questions, but you responded to mine with precisely the sort of psychological fantasy that Shapiro dissects so well in his book, referring also to a supposed "lack of documentation" - as if the man's name did not inconveniently appear on all those title pages.
Incidentally I love the way you put that final sentence in quotation marks, in order to give the impression that you are quoting someone other than yourself.
Edited at 2011-04-02 09:06 am (UTC)
Your third point is an obvious straw man. You criticise Shapiro for not coming to a conclusion with which you disagree; the poor guy can't win. As for evidence of collaboration, for The Two Noble Kinsmen at least there is the title page.
On hyphenation, while I am uninformed about the specifics of Venus and Adonis, I have read enough original material from the period to know that there is absolutely no story there; sometimes long names get hyphenated, sometimes they don't. I don't buy the argument that slugs to space the letters are the obvious solution for the printer either; no doubt some printers might use them, but that makes two words out of one which is a step too far for most people. Kathman and Ross summarise the evidence of hyphenation well here; they conclude that "there is no evidence to support the Oxfordian assertion that the occasional hyphenation of the name Shakespeare means that people thought of it as a pseudonym. Real names were occasionally hyphenated when they could be divided into two parts; the same is true of fictitious names. The best-known pseudonym of the time, Martin Marprelate, was only occasionally hyphenated, while names of several real people (such as Charles Fitz-geffrey and Robert Walde-grave) were hyphenated with great regularity." To demonstrate that it matters, you need to be able to show a strong correlation between hyphentaion and pseudonyms, and you can't.
Edited at 2011-05-01 08:43 am (UTC)
The trail blazer on Shakspere as pimp was former Harvard professor Alden Brooks in three trail blazing works "Will Shakspere,Factotum and Agent,","Will Shakspere and the Dyer's Hand" and "The Other Side of Shakespeare".The first of these was selected by the New York Times in 1937 as one of the two best books on Shakespeare of the year and it is delightful to find "real research" finally catching up with Brooks(and John Michell and me)on two sets of documents which have been available since 1910 and circa 1930.In fact these are the only two documentary discoveries about Shakspere since the nineteenth century and both link him squarely to the skin trade.He trafficked in both young mistresses and aging geniuses.
Your former colleagues in intellectual mayhem over at the HLAS Shakespeare Authorship blog were still in a state of denial about this a couple of years back.But with Shapiro throwing his weight behind it,they will probably come around.