Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by BenJonson (talk | contribs) at 22:51, 19 February 2005. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

The Oxfordian theory of Shakespearean authorship holds that Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, wrote the plays conventionally attributed to William Shakespeare. This theory is not generally accepted.

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.

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 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," and that the acclaim of Oxford's contemporaries for his poetic and dramatic skill was distinctly modest.

External links

• Arguments against Oxford's Authorship by Irvin Leigh Matus (Stratfordian)
• A Beginner's Guide to the Shakespeare Authorship Problem
• Shakespeare Fellowship home page (Oxfordian)
• Shakespeare Oxford society home page
• The Bard's Beard - A TIME Article
• Why I'm Not an Oxfordian by David Kathman
• The Ashbourne Portrait

• William Shakespeare