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The Oxfordian theory of Shakespearean authorship holds that Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, wrote the plays conventionally attributed to William Shakespeare.

Oxfordians prefer to distinguish between Shakespeare, which they consider a pen name for the author of the plays, and Shaksper the actor from Stratford-on-Avon who also lived at the approximate time that the plays were written. Oxfordians call those who hold that the Stratford actor was also the author of Shakespeare's plays Stratfordians.

First proposed by John Looney in 1920, Oxford is presently the most popular of several anti-Stratfordian candidates for the real Shakespeare. Oxfordians base their arguments on striking similarities between Lord Oxford's biography and events in Shakespeare's plays. He was, for example, the son-in-law of Lord Burghley, who is widely regarded as the model for Polonius. His own daughter was engaged to Henry Wriothesley, the ""fair youth" of the Sonnets, at the time that most believe the first sonnets were written. The acclaim of his contemporaries regarding his talent as a poet and a playwright, his closeness to Queen Elizabeth I and Court life, underlined passages in his Bible that correspond to quotations in Shakespeare's plays, parallel phraseology and similarity of thought in his extant letters (Fowler 1986), and his extensive education and intelligence are all cited as evidence in support of his authorship.

Anonymous and pseudonymous publication was a common practice in the 16th c. publishing world, and Oxford was known as a closeted dramatist and court poet of considerable note. In 1598, Francis Meres referred to him in his Palladis Tamia as the "best for comedy," but no examples of his comic drama survive under his name. The anonymous author of the 1589 Arte of English Poesie, the leading work of literary criticism of the Elizabethan period, alludes to the practice of concealed publication by literary figures in the court: "I know very many notable gentlemen in the Court that have written commendably, and suppressed it again, or else suffered it to be published without their own names to it: as if it were a discredit for a gentleman to seem learned" (37). Later in the same work, Oxford is prominently mentioned as one of those whose work was concealed: "And in her majesty's time that now is are sprong up another crew of courtly makers, Noblemen and Gentlemen of her Majesty's own servants, who have written commendably well as it would appear if their doings could be found out and made public with the rest, of which number is first that noble gentleman Edward Earl of Oxford" (75). The publication goes on to list several other "concealed gentlemen," but it is clear that Oxford was first on the list of those known to have suffered his work to be published without his own name to it.

According to Stratfordians, the most convincing argument against Oxford's authorship is that ten of Shakespeare's plays are probably dated after Oxford's death in 1604, and several of them specifically refer to events following his death. For example, The Tempest supposedly alludes to a 1609 shipwreck in Bermuda.

Supporters of the standard view further dispute all of the contentions in favor of Lord Oxford and assert that the connections between Oxford's life and the plots of Shakespeare's plays are "conjectural," that the acclaim of Oxford's contemporaries for his poetic and dramatic skill was distinctly modest, and that the markings in his Geneva Bible show little or no connection to Shakespeare's use of the Bible.

External links

• A Beginner's Guide to the Shakespeare Authorship Problem
• The Shakespeare Fellowship
• Shakespeare Fellowship home page (Oxfordian)
• Shakespeare Oxford society home page
• Dr. Alan Nelson's original-spelling transcripts of Edward de Vere letters
• The Bard's Beard - A TIME Article
• Why I'm Not an Oxfordian by David Kathman
• The Ashbourne Portrait
• Arguments against Oxford's Authorship by Irvin Leigh Matus (Stratfordian)

• William Shakespeare