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The Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship proposes that Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford (1550–1604), wrote the plays and poems traditionally attributed to William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon. While a large majority of scholars reject all alternative candidates for authorship, there is popular interest in various authorship theories. Since the 1920s, Oxford has been the most popular candidate among "anti-Stratfordians," a collective term for adherents of the various alternative-authorship theories.

The convergence of documentary evidence of the type used by academics for authorial attribution—title pages, testimony by other contemporary poets and historians, and official records—sufficiently establishes Shakespeare's authorship for the overwhelming majority of Shakespeare scholars and literary historians, and no evidence links Oxford to Shakespeare's works. Oxfordians, (as those who subscribe to the theory are usually called), however, reject the historical record, often proposing the conspiracy theory that it was falsified to protect the identity of the real author and invoking the dearth of evidence for any conspiracy as evidence of its success. Some Oxfordians believe that Shakespeare acted as a "front man," receiving the plays from Oxford and pretending to have written them, but others claim that he was simply a merchant from Stratford who had nothing to do with the theatre.

The Oxfordian case is based on purported similarities between Oxford's biography and events in Shakespeare's narrative works; parallels of language, idiom, and thought between Oxford's letters and the Shakespearean canon; and marked passages in Oxford's Bible that appear in some form in Shakespeare's plays. Oxfordians interpret the plays and poems as autobiographical and use them to construct a hypothetical author, a method most literary specialists consider unreliable as far as attributive value. Oxfordians deduce from the works that the author must have been an aristocrat of great formal learning, intimate with the Elizabethan court and widely travelled through the countries and cities mentioned in the plays. They say that this inferred profile of the author fits Oxford's biography better than the documented biography of William Shakespeare.

Though Oxford died in 1604 before approximately 12 of the plays were written according to the generally-accepted chronology, Oxfordians say that regular publication of new, "newly augmented", and "corrected" Shakespeare plays stopped with Oxford's death in 1604, and they interpret certain written references to Shakespeare between 1604 and 1616 to mean that the writer was dead. In order to make the chronology fit Oxford's lifespan, they date most of the plays earlier and say that the post-1604 plays, some of which show evidence of revision and collaboration, were completed by other playwrights for posthumous release.

History of the Oxfordian theory

The claim that the works of Shakespeare were in fact written by someone other than William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon dates back to the mid-nineteenth century. The original principal alternative candidate was Francis Bacon, but by the beginning of the twentieth century other candidates, typically aristocrats, were put forward. The Oxford theory was first proposed by J. Thomas Looney in his 1920 book Shakespeare Identified in Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford Following earlier anti-Stratfordians, Looney argued that the known facts of Shakespeare's life did not fit the personality he ascribed to the author of the plays. Shakespeare had a petty "acquisitive disposition", he said, while the plays made heroes of free-spending figures. They also portrayed middle and lower-class people negatively, while Shakespearean heroes were typically aristocratic. Looney considered that Oxford's personality fitted that he deduced from the plays, and also identified characters in the plays as detailed portraits of Oxford's family and personal contacts. Oxford's death in 1604 was linked to a drop-off in the publication of Shakespeare plays. Looney declared that the late play The Tempest was not written by Oxford, and that others performed or published after Oxford's death were most probably left incomplete and finished by other writers, thus explaining the apparent idiosyncrasies of style found in the late Shakespeare plays. Looney also introduced the argument that the reference to the "ever living poet" in the 1609 dedication to Shakespeare's sonnets implied that the author was dead at the time of publication.

Sigmund Freud, the gothic horror novelist Marjorie Bowen, and several early 20th-century celebrities found the thesis persuasive, and Oxford soon overtook Bacon as the favoured alternative candidate to Shakespeare, though academic Shakespeareans mostly ridiculed or ignored the claims. Looney's theory attracted a number of activist followers who published books supplementing his own and added new arguments, most notably Percy Allen, Bernard M. Ward, Louis P. Bénézet and Charles Wisner Barrell. In 1921, Sir George Greenwood, Looney, and others founded The Shakespeare Fellowship, an organization originally dedicated to the discussion and promotion of ecumenical anti-Stratfordian views, but which later became devoted to promoting Oxford as the true Shakespeare.

Decline and revival

After a period of decline of the Oxfordian theory beginning with World War II, in 1952 Charlton Ogburn and his wife Dorothy published the 1,300-page This Star of England, which briefly revived Oxfordism. A series of critical academic books and articles, however, held in check any appreciable growth of anti-Stratfordism and Oxfordism, most notably The Shakespeare Ciphers Examined (1957), by William and Elizebeth Friedman, The Poacher from Stratford (1958), by Frank Wadsworth, Shakespeare and His Betters (1958), by Reginald Churchill, The Shakespeare Claimants (1962), by H. N. Gibson, and Shakespeare and His Rivals: A Casebook on the Authorship Controversy (1962), by George L. McMichael and Edgar M. Glenn. By 1968 the newsletter of The Shakespeare Oxford Society reported that "the missionary or evangelical spirit of most of our members seems to be at a low ebb, dormant, or non-existent". In 1974, membership in the society stood at 80. In 1979, the publication of an analysis of The Ashbourne portrait dealt a further blow to the movement. The painting, long claimed to be one of the portraits of Shakespeare, but considered by Barrell to be an overpaint of a portrait of the Earl of Oxford, turned out to represent neither, but rather depicted Hugh Hamersley.

Charlton Ogburn, Jr. was elected president of The Shakespeare Oxford Society in 1976 and kick-started the modern revival of the Oxfordian movement by seeking publicity through moot court trials, media debates, television, and later the Internet, including Misplaced Pages, methods which became standard policy for Oxfordian and anti-Stratfordian promoters because of their success in recruiting members of the lay public. He portrayed academic scholars as self-interested members of an "entrenched authority" that aimed to "outlaw and silence dissent in a supposedly free society", and proposed to counter their influence by portraying Oxford as a candidate on equal footing with Shakespeare. In 1985 he published his 900-page The Mysterious William Shakespeare: the Myth and the Reality, and by framing the issue as one of fairness in the atmosphere of conspiracy that permeated America after Watergate, he used the media to circumnavigate academia and appeal directly to the public. Ogburn's efforts secured Oxford the place as the most popular alternative candidate.

Although Shakespearean experts disparaged Ogburn's methodology and his conclusions, one reviewer, Richmond Crinkley, the Folger Shakespeare Library's former director of educational programs, acknowledged the appeal of Ogburn's approach, writing that the doubts over Shakespeare, "arising early and growing rapidly", have a "simple, direct plausibility", and the dismissive attitude of established scholars only worked to encourage such doubts. Though Crinkley rejected Ogburn's thesis, he believed that one merit of the book lay in the way it focused attention on what is not known of Shakespeare. Spurred by Ogburn's book, 'n the last decade of the twentieth century members of the Oxfordian camp gathered strength and made a fresh assault on the Shakespearean citadel, hoping finally to unseat the man from Stratford and install de Vere in his place.'

The Oxfordian theory returned to wide public attention in anticipation of the late October 2011 release of Roland Emmerich's film Anonymous. Its distributor, Sony Pictures, advertised that the film "presents a compelling portrait of Edward de Vere as the true author of Shakespeare's plays," and commissioned high school and college-level lesson plans to promote the authorship question to history and literature teachers across the United States. According to Sony Pictures, 'The objective for our Anonymous program, as stated in the classroom literature, is "to encourage critical thinking by challenging students to examine the theories about the authorship of Shakespeare's works and to formulate their own opinions.' The study guide does not state that Edward de Vere is the writer of Shakespeare's work, but it does pose the authorship question which has been debated by scholars for decades".

Variant Oxfordian theories

Although most all Oxfordians agree on the main arguments for Oxford, the theory has spawned schismatic variants that have not met with wide acceptance by all Oxfordians, although they have gained much attention.

Prince Tudor theory

In a letter written by Looney in 1933, he mentions that Allen and Ward were "advancing certain views respecting Oxford and Queen Eliz. which appear to me extravagant & improbable, in no way strengthen Oxford’s Shakespeare claims, and are likely to bring the whole cause into ridicule." Allen and Ward claimed that they had discovered that Elizabeth and Oxford were lovers and had conceived a child.

Allen developed the theory in his 1934 book Anne Cecil, Elizabeth & Oxford. He argued that the child was given the name William Hughes, who became an actor under the stage-name "William Shakespeare". He adopted the name because his father, Oxford, was already using it as a pen-name for his plays. Oxford had borrowed the name from a third Shakespeare, the man of that name from Stratford-upon-Avon, who was a law student at the time, but who was never an actor or a writer.

Allen later changed his mind about Hughes and decided that the concealed child was the Earl of Southampton, the dedicatee of Shakespeare's narrative poems. This secret drama, which has become known as the Prince Tudor theory, was covertly represented in Oxford's plays and poems and remained hidden until Allen and Ward's discoveries. The narrative poems and sonnets had been written by Oxford for his son. This Star of England (1952) by Charlton and Dorothy Ogburn included arguments in support of this version of the theory. Their son, Charlton Ogburn junior, agreed with Looney that the theory was an impediment to the Oxfordian movement and omitted all discussion about it in his own Oxfordian works.

However, the theory was revived and expanded by Elisabeth Sears in Shakespeare and the Tudor Rose (2002), and Hank Whittemore in The Monument (2005), an analysis of Shakespeare's Sonnets which interprets the poems as a poetic history of Queen Elizabeth, Oxford, and Southampton. Paul Streitz's Oxford: Son of Queen Elizabeth I (2001) advances a variation on the theory: that Oxford himself was the illegitimate son of Queen Elizabeth by her stepfather, Thomas Seymour. Oxford was thus the half-brother of his own son by the queen. The book also claims that the queen had children by the Earl of Leicester. These were Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, Mary Sidney and Elizabeth Leighton.

Attribution of other works to Oxford

As with other candidates for authorship of Shakespeare's works, Oxford's supporters have attributed numerous non-Shakespearean works to him. Looney began the process in his 1921 edition of de Vere's poetry. He suggested that de Vere was also responsible for the literary works of Arthur Golding, Anthony Munday and John Lyly. Streitz credits Oxford with the Authorized King James Version of the Bible. Two professors of linguistics have claimed that de Vere wrote not only the works of Shakespeare, but most of what is memorable in English literature during his lifetime, with such names as Edmund Spenser, Christopher Marlowe, Philip Sidney, John Lyly, George Peele, George Gascoigne, Raphael Holinshed, Robert Greene, Thomas Phaer, and Arthur Golding being among dozens of further pseudonyms of de Vere. Ramon Jiménez has credited Oxford with such plays as The True Tragedy of Richard III and Edmund Ironside.

Case against Oxfordian theory

Methodology of Oxfordian argument

Specialists in Elizabethan literary history object to the methodology of Oxfordian arguments. In lieu of any evidence of the type commonly used for authorship attribution, Oxfordians discard the methods used by historians and employ other types of arguments to make their case, the most common being supposed parallels between Oxford's life and Shakespeare's works. Another is finding cryptic allusions to Oxford's supposed play writing in other literary works of the era that to them suggest that his authorship was obvious to those "in the know". Scholars have described their methods as subjective and devoid of any evidential value, saying they use a "double standard", "consistently distort and misrepresent the historical record", "neglect to provide necessary context" and calling some of their arguments "outright fabrication"." One major evidential objection to the Oxfordian theory is Edward de Vere's 1604 death, after which a number of Shakespeare's plays are conventionally believed to have been written, according to 300 years of orthodox scholarship. In The Shakespeare Claimants, a 1962 examination of the authorship question, H. N. Gibson concluded that "... on analysis the Oxfordian case appears to me a very weak one".

Additional objections

Mainstream critics further claim that if William Shakespeare did not write the plays and poems, the number of people needed to suppress this information would have made their attempts highly unlikely to succeed.

Some mainstream academics also argue the Oxford theory is based on simple snobbishness: that anti-Stratfordians reject the idea that the son of a mere tradesman could write the plays and poems of Shakespeare.

An equally simple argument is made by Columbia University professor James S. Shapiro, author of the book Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare?: namely, the logically fatal tautology of any theory that "there must have been a conspiracy to suppress the truth of de Vere’s authorship" just because "the very absence of surviving evidence proves the case." He cites, by contrast, "testimony of contemporary writers, court records and much else" supporting Shakespeare's authorship.

Biographical evidence

While there is no documentary evidence connecting Oxford (or any authorial candidate) to the plays of Shakespeare, Oxfordian researchers, including Mark Anderson and Charlton Ogburn, believe the connection is provided by considerable circumstantial evidence inferred from Oxford's connections to the Elizabethan theatre and poetry scene; the participation of his family in the printing and publication of the First Folio; his relationship with the Earl of Southampton (believed by most Shakespeare scholars to have been Shakespeare's patron); as well as a number of specific incidents and circumstances of Oxford's life that Oxfordians believe are depicted in the plays themselves.

Theatre connections

• Oxford was a leaseholder of the first Blackfriars Theatre;
• He produced entertainments on tour and at court;
• He was the patron of two acting companies, Oxford's Boys and Oxford's Men (neither of which produced Shakespeare's plays);
• Oxford maintained a company of musicians;
• He was a patron of writers, poets, playwrights and musicians.

Family connections

• Oxford's daughter was engaged to Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, whom many scholars have argued was the Fair Youth of the Sonnets.
• His mother, Margory Golding, was the sister of the Ovid translator Arthur Golding.
• His uncle, Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, was the inventor of the English or Shakespearean sonnet form.
• The three dedicatees of Shakespeare's works (the earls of Southampton, Montgomery and Pembroke) were each proposed as husbands for the three daughters of Edward de Vere. Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece were dedicated to Southampton, and the First Folio of Shakespeare's plays was dedicated to Montgomery (who married Susan de Vere) and Pembroke (who was once engaged to Bridget de Vere).

Oxford's Bible

In the late 1990s, Roger A. Stritmatter conducted a study of the marginalia found in Edward de Vere's Geneva Bible, which is now owned by the Folger Shakespeare Library. The Bible contained 1,028 marked passages, about a quarter of which appear in Shakespeare's works as either a theme, allusion, or quotation. Critics have doubted that any of the annotations in the Bible can be reliably attributed to de Vere and not the book's other owners prior to its acquisition by the Folger Shakespeare Library in 1925, as well as challenging the strictness of Stritmatter's standards for a Biblical allusion in Shakespeare's works and noting the lack of statistical significance of the overlap.

Stratford connections and Oxford´s annuity

The names Avon and Stratford have become irrevocably linked to Shakespeare with the 1623 publication of the First Folio, but Oxfordians note that Edward de Vere had owned a manor, Bilton, near the Forest of Arden, in Rugby, on the River Avon, before he sold it in 1580. Oxfordians also consider it significant that the nearest town to the parish of Hackney, where de Vere later lived and was buried, was also named Stratford. They also regard Dr. John Ward's 1662 statement that Shakespeare spent at a rate of £1,000 a year as a critical piece of evidence, because Oxford received an annuity from Queen Elizabeth I of exactly £1,000. Ogburn said the annuity was granted "under mysterious circumstances", and Anderson suggests it was granted because of Oxford's writing patriotic plays for government propaganda. The documentary evidence indicates that the allowance was meant to relieve Oxford's embarrassed financial situation caused by the ruination of his estate. De Vere's widow, Elizabeth, petitioned James I for an annuity of £250 on behalf of her 11-year-old son, Henry, to continue the £1,000 annuity granted to de Vere. Henry ultimately was awarded a £200 annuity for life.

Oxford's Italian travels and the settings of Shakespeare's plays

Almost half of Shakespeare's plays are set in Italy, many of them containing details of Italian laws, customs, and culture which Oxfordians believe could only have been obtained by personal experiences in Italy, and especially in Venice. One example is the use of Venice's notorious Alien Statute as a plot device in The Merchant of Venice. Shakespeare evidently learned these details from the 1599 English translation of Gasparo Contarini's The Commonwealth and Government of Venice.

There is no evidence that Shakespeare ever travelled abroad. However, historical documents confirm that Oxford lived in Venice, and travelled for over a year through Italy. In his letter to Lord Burghley from September 1575 he expressed a certain dislike of the country: "I am glad I have seen it, and I care not ever to see it any more". Still, he remained in Italy for another six months, since he left Venice in March 1576.

According to Anderson, Oxford definitely visited Venice, Padua, Milan, Genoa, Palermo, Florence, Siena and Naples, and probably also passed through Messina, Mantua and Verona, all cities Shakespeare set plays in.

Oxfordians believe their position is further strengthened by the claims of Ernesto Grillo (1876–1946) of the University of Glasgow, who stated in Shakespeare and Italy, "the local colour of The Taming of the Shrew displays such an intimate acquaintance not only with the manners and customs of Italy but also with the minutest details of domestic life that it cannot have been gleaned from books or acquired in the course of conversations with travellers returned from Padua."

The play also shows Shakespeare using Italian with its banter between Lucentio and Tranio and in the greetings between Petruchio and Hortensio in its first act. According to Professor Grillo, these exchanges are "pure Italian." While in testimony before the Inquisition it was said Edward de Vere was fluent in Italian, Oxfordians do not believe that Shakespeare ever showed any interest in Italian culture.

Oxford's knowledge of court life

Mainstream scholars stress that any supposedly special knowledge of the aristocracy appearing in the plays can be more easily explained by Shakespeare's life-time of performances before nobility and royalty, and possibly, as Gibson theorises, "by visits to his patron's house, as Marlowe visited Walsingham."

Oxford's education

Sobran maintains the Sonnets "abound not only in legal terms — more than 200 — but also in elaborate legal conceits." These terms include: allege, auditor, defects, exchequer, forfeit, heirs, impeach, lease, moiety, recompense, render, sureties, and usage. Shakespeare also uses the then newly minted legal term, "quietus" (final settlement), in Sonnet 134, the last Fair Youth sonnet.

Oxford was trained in the law and, in 1567, was admitted to Gray's Inn, one of the Inns of Court which Justice Shallow reminisces about in Henry IV, Part 2.

Oxford's literary reputation

Oxford as a poet and playwright

Contemporary writers exaggerated de Vere's poetic accomplishments in deference to his rank. There are three principal pieces of evidence praising Oxford as a poet and a playwright:

(1) The anonymous 1589 Arte of English Poesie, usually attributed to George Puttenham, mentions Oxford three times. Puttenham includes Oxford on a list of poets, and mentions him as an author of "Comedy and Enterlude."

(2) Francis Meres' 1598 Palladis Tamia, which refers to him as Earle of Oxenford, lists him among the "best for comedy". Shakespeare's name appears further down the same list.

Palladis Tamia has been cited as an important source for both sides in the Shakespearean authorship controversy. In addition to being often cited as evidence for the chronology of the Shakespearean plays, the book is regarded by orthodox Shakespearean scholars as an important witness to the traditional view of Shakespearean authorship, both because of its listing of Shakespeare as a prominent playwright by 1598, and because Meres also mentions de Vere as among several who are "the best for comedy amongst us." The fact that Meres refers to Oxford and Shakespeare separately shows Meres knew that Oxford and Shakespeare were not the same man. Oxfordians have often focused solely on the fact that Meres names Oxford as a prominent comic writer.

(3) Henry Peacham's 1622 The Compleat Gentleman includes Oxford on a list of the leading poets of the Elizabethan era without making reference to Shakespeare.

Mainstream scholars disagree with this interpretation of Peacham, asserting that Peacham copied large parts of Puttenham's work but only used the names of those writers he considered "gentlemen", a title Peacham felt did not apply to actors. They further argue his list is of poets only and he did not include playwrights, neglecting for example Christopher Marlowe. Alan Nelson, de Vere's only biographer who does not advocate the Oxfordian Theory, believes that "ontemporary observers such as Harvey, Webbe, Puttenham and Meres clearly exaggerated Oxford's talent in deference to his rank."

Oxford's lyric poetry

Some of Oxford's lyric poetry survives. In the opinion of J. Thomas Looney, as "far as forms of versification are concerned De Vere presents just that rich variety which is so noticeable in Shakespeare; and almost all the forms he employs we find reproduced in the Shakespeare work." Oxfordian Louis P. Bénézet created the "Bénézet test" by which lines known to be by Oxford were compared with lines of Shakespeare. He believed that unbiased non-specialist readers would be able to tell the differece between the two authors.

Scholars have found that the styles of Shakespeare and Oxford, based on a computerised textual comparison developed by the Claremont Shakespeare Clinic, are "light years apart"; it was reported that the odds of Oxford having written Shakespeare are "lower than the odds of getting hit by lightning". Furthermore, while the First Folio shows traces of a dialect identical to Shakespeare's, the Earl of Oxford, raised in Essex, spoke an East Anglian dialect. Steven May, the reigning authority on de Vere's poetry, argues that Oxfordian attempts to relate the Earl's poetry to Shakespeare are based on 'a hopelessly flawed methodology', in that Looney assigned to de Vere poems he had not written.

Mainstream scholarship notes that extravagant praise for de Vere's poetry was a convention of flattery, and that he was in fact a mediocre poet; C. S. Lewis commented that de Vere's poetry shows "a faint talent," but is "for the most part undistinguished and verbose." Oxfordians respond to the charge that Edward's known verse is not at the same level as Shakespeare's in two ways. First, Oxford's known works are those of a young man and as such should be considered juvenilia. And second, neither is Titus Andronicus, and whoever wrote that play eventually wrote Hamlet. As Joseph Sobran observed, "The objection may be still made that…Oxford's poetry remains far inferior to Shakespeare's. But even granting the point for the sake of argument, ascribing authorship on the basis of quality is an uncertain business. Early in the (20th) century some scholars sought to exclude such plays as Titus Andronicus … on the grounds that they were unworthy of Shakespeare. Today their place is secure…. The poet who wrote King Lear was at some time also capable of writing Titus Andronicus."

Sobran's book Alias Shakespeare includes Oxford's known poetry in an appendix, showing what he considers extensive verbal parallels with the work of Shakespeare. It has been noted that Sobran mistakenly includes 16 lines written by Thomas Churchyard and finds just as many parallels to Shakespeare in these verses as in any passage of comparable length by Oxford.

Perceived allusions to Oxford as a concealed writer

Before the advent of copyright, anonymous and pseudonymous publication was a common practice in the sixteenth century publishing world, and a passage in the Arte of English Poesie (1589), the leading work of literary criticism of the Elizabethan period and an anonymously published work itself, mentions in passing that literary figures in the court who wrote "commendably well" circulated their poetry only among their friends, "as if it were a discredit for a gentleman to seem learned" (Book 1, Chapter 8). In another passage 23 chapters later, the author (probably George Puttenham) speaks of aristocratic writers who, if their writings were made public, would appear to be excellent. It is in this passage that Oxford appears on a list of poets.

Oxfordians believe these two passages, when linked, support their claim that Oxford was one of the most prominent "suppressed" writers of the day. Critics of this view argue that Oxford nor any other writer is not here identified as a concealed writer, but as the first in a list of known modern writers whose works have already been "made public", "of which number is first" Oxford, adding to the publicly acknowledged literary tradition dating back to Geoffrey Chaucer. Other critics interpret the passage to mean that the courtly writers and their works are known within courtly circles, but not to the general public. In either case, neither Oxford nor anyone else is identified as a hidden writer or one that used a pseudonym.

Oxfordians argue that at the time of the passage's composition (pre-1589), the writers referenced were not in print, and interpret Puttenham's passage (that the noblemen preferred to 'suppress' their work to avoid the discredit of appearing learned) to mean that they were 'concealed'. They cite Sir Philip Sidney, none of whose poetry was published until after his premature death, as an example. Similarly, by 1589 nothing by Greville was in print, and only one of Walter Raleigh's works had been published. However, unlike the cited examples, a number of Oxford's poems did appear in printed miscellanies in his lifetime, and the first poem published under Oxford's name was printed in 1572, 17 years before Puttenham's book was published. Several other contemporary authors refer to Oxford as an openly acknowledged poet, and Puttenham himself quotes one of Oxford's verses elsewhere in the book, referring to him by name as the author.

Oxfordians also believe other texts refer to the Edward de Vere as a concealed writer. They argue that satirist John Marston's Scourge of Villanie (1598) contains further cryptic allusions to Oxford:

.......Far fly thy fame,
Most, most of me beloved, whose silent name
One letter bounds. Thy true judicial style
I ever honour, and if my love beguile
Not much my hopes, then thy unvalu'd worth
Shall mount fair place when Apes are turned forth.

The word Ape means pretender or mimic, and Oxfordians maintain the writer whose silent name is bound by one letter is Edward de VerE, although Marston calls the passage an example of "hotchpodge giberdige" written by bad poets, and nowhere does Marston mention Oxford explicitly as a poet, bad or otherwise.

There is a description of the figure of Oxford in The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois, a 1613 play by George Chapman, who has been suggested as the Rival Poet of Shakespeare's Sonnets. Chapman describes Oxford as "Rare and most absolute" in form and says he was "of spirit passing great / Valiant and learn’d, and liberal as the sun". He adds that he "spoke and writ sweetly" of both learned subjects and matters of state ("public weal").

Chronology of the plays and Oxford's 1604 death

The exact dates of the composition of Shakespeare's plays are uncertain. However, mainstream scholarly consensus holds that approximately twelve of Shakespeare's plays were written after Edward de Vere's death in 1604.

In response, Oxfordians claim that the conventional dates for the plays were developed by mainstream scholars to fit within Shakespeare's lifetime and that no evidence exists that any plays were written after 1604.

Oxfordians also claim that the fact that a number of the later plays (such as Henry VIII, Macbeth, Timon of Athens and Pericles) have been described as incomplete or collaborative is explained by these plays being either drafted earlier than conventionally believed, or simply revised/completed by others after Oxford's death.

Dates of composition

Plays referring to post-1604 historical events

Scholars contend that Macbeth is one of the most overwhelming pieces of evidence against the Oxfordian position; the vast majority of critics believe the play was written in the aftermath of the Gunpowder Plot. This plot was brought to light on 5 November 1605, a year after Oxford died. In particular, scholars identify the porter's lines about "equivocation" as possibly an allusion to the trial of Henry Garnet in 1606. Oxfordian scholars respond that the concept of "equivocation" was the subject of a 1583 tract by Queen Elizabeth's chief councillor (and Oxford's father-in-law) Lord Burghley, as well as of the 1584 Doctrine of Equivocation by the Spanish prelate Martín de Azpilcueta, which was disseminated across Europe and into England in the 1590s. And A. R. Braunmuller (not an Oxfordian), in the New Cambridge edition of the play, finds the 1605-06 theory inconclusive and merely argues for a date of composition no earlier than 1603.

Shakespearean scholar David Haley notes that in order to have written Coriolanus, Edward de Vere "must have foreseen the Midland Revolt grain riots reported in Coriolanus", a view most Shakespeareans accept. But at least one scholar has theorised the opening scenes were a response to London's 1595 Tower Hill riot.

The Tempest is considered by most Shakespearean scholars to have been written in 1610–11 and inspired by published and unpublished contemporary descriptions of the 1609 Sea Venture shipwreck on the island of Bermuda, and most especially William Strachey's eyewitness report, A True Reportory of the Wracke and Redemption of Sir Thomas Gates, Knight because of certain verbal, plot and thematic similarities. Kenneth Muir, however, thought that "the extent of verbal echoes of the pamphlets has, I think, been exaggerated." Oxfordians have dealt with this problem in several ways. Looney rejected the play altogether, arguing that its style and the "dreary negativism" it promoted were inconsistent with Shakespeare's "essentially positivist" soul, and so could not have been written by Oxford. Later Oxfordians have generally abandoned this argument. They either argue that it was left unfinished or say that earlier sources, such as Richard Eden's The Decades of the New Worlde Or West India (1555) and Desiderius Erasmus's Naufragium/The Shipwreck (1523), sufficiently account for some of the phrasing and images in The Tempest. Both sources have been acknowledged by previous scholars as possible influences.

Hamlet

The composition date of Hamlet has been a point of contention between scholars on both sides of the authorship question since the early 1900s. Several surviving references indicate that a Hamlet-like play was well-known throughout the 1590s, well before the traditional date of composition (1599–1601). Most scholars refer to this hypothetical early play as the Ur-Hamlet:

• The earliest such reference occurs in 1589 when Thomas Nashe in his introduction to Robert Greene's Menaphon implies the existence of an early Hamlet: "English Seneca read by candle-light yields many good sentences, as Blood is a begger, and so forth; and if you entreat him fair in a frosty morning, he will afford you whole Hamlets, I should say handfuls of tragical speeches."
• A 1594 performance record of Hamlet appears in Philip Henslowe's diary and in 1596 Thomas Lodge wrote of "the ghost which cried so miserably at the theatre, like an oyster-wife, Hamlet, revenge!"

Oxfordian researchers believe that the play is an early version of Shakespeare's own play, and point to the fact that Shakespeare's version survives in three quite different early texts, Q1 (1603), Q2 (1604) and F (1623), suggesting the possibility that it was revised by the author over a period of many years. While the exact relationship of the short and apparently primitive text of Q1 to the later published texts is not resolved, Hardin Craig among others has suggested that it may represent an earlier draft of the play and hence would confirm that the play referred to in 1589 is in fact merely an earlier draft of Shakespeare's play. In an opinion shared in some form or another by Harold Bloom, and Peter Alexander, early scholar Andrew Cairncross, stated that "It may be assumed, until a new case can be shown to the contrary, that Shakespeare's Hamlet and no other is the play mentioned by Nashe in 1589 and Henslowe in 1594." Harold Jenkins, in his 1982 Arden edition, dismisses this hypothesis, which is also known as the "early start" theory.

The Two Gentlemen of Verona

Tom Veal has noted that the early play The Two Gentlemen of Verona reveals no familiarity on the playwright's part with Italy other than "a few place names and the scarcely recondite fact that the inhabitants were Roman Catholics." For example, the play's Verona is situated on a tidal river and has a duke, and none of the characters have distinctly Italian names like in the later plays. Therefore, if the play was written by Oxford, it must have been before he visited Italy in 1575. However, the play's principal source, the Spanish Diana Enamorada, would not be translated into French or English until 1578, meaning that someone basing a play on it that early could only have read it in the original Spanish, and there is no evidence that Oxford spoke this language. Furthermore, Veal argues, the only explanation for the verbal parallels with the English translation of 1582 would be that the translator saw the play performed and echoed it in his translation, which he describes as "not an impossible theory but far from a plausible one."

Henry VIII

Henry VIII was described as a new play in 1613. Oxfordians argue that this refers to the fact it was new on stage, having its first production in that year.

The 1604 issue

For mainstream critics, the most compelling evidence against Oxford (besides the historical evidence for William Shakespeare) is his death in 1604, since the generally-accepted Chronology of Shakespeare's plays places the composition of about 10 of the plays after that date. They most often cite The Tempest, Henry VIII and Macbeth as almost certainly having been written after 1604 because of internal evidence and purported sources used by the playwright.

Oxfordian scholars, on the other hand, say some literary allusions imply that the playwright and poet died prior to 1609, when Shake-Speares Sonnets appeared with the epithet "our ever-living poet" in its dedication. They claim that the phrase "ever-living" rarely, if ever, referred to a living person, but instead was used to refer to the eternal soul of the deceased. A study by Donald Wayne Foster concluded that the phrase "ever-living" in fact rarely referred to human beings, living or dead, but rather to God or other supernatural beings, suggesting that the dedication calls upon God to bless the living begetter of the sonnets.

Joseph Sobran, in Alias Shakespeare, argued that in 1607 William Barksted, a minor poet and playwright, implies in his poem "Mirrha the Mother of Adonis" that Shakespeare was already deceased.

His Song was worthy merit (Shakespeare he)
sung the fair blossom, thou the withered tree
Laurel is due him, his art and wit
hath purchased it, Cypress thy brow will fit.

Sobran noted that the cypress tree was a symbol of mourning, and apparently believed Barksted was specifically writing of Shakespeare in the past tense ("His song was worthy") — after Oxford's death in 1604, but prior to Shakespeare's death in 1616. Mainstream scholar Scott McCrea argues that this interpretation only seems to work because the previous lines of the poem have been left out. The poem, which is about the mother of Adonis, is about to end and Barksted addresses his own muse. He tells his muse to "rest and sleep" because otherwise the poem will stray into territory already written about by Shakespeare in Venus and Adonis. Shakespeare wrote about "the fair blossom", young Adonis, "thou" (his own muse) the "withered tree", the aging Mirrha, who was transformed into a Myrrh tree. "His song" (Shakespeare's) was worthy merit, and he will get a laurel, but "thy brow" (Barksted's muse) will wear a cypress. Though Shakespeare's poem, published 14 years earlier, is referred to in the past tense, Shakespeare himself is "due" to get the laurel, implying he is still alive.

Scholars point to a poem written circa 1620 by a student at Oxford, William Basse, that mentioned the author Shakespeare died in 1616, which is the year Shakespeare deceased and not Edward de Vere. Against the Oxford theory are several references to Shakespeare, later than 1604, which imply that the author was then still alive.

Oxfordians also believe that the author of Shakespeare's works can be shown to have stopped writing in 1604. as evidenced by the cessation of regular publication of Shakespeare's plays in that year. From 1593 through 1603, the publication of new plays appeared at the rate of two per year, and whenever an inferior or pirated text was published, it was typically followed by a genuine text described on the title page as "newly augmented" or "corrected". After the publication of the Q1 and Q2 Hamlet in 1603, regular new play publication ceased for almost five years (three new plays were issued in 1608 and 1609, the last ones until 18 plays made their publication debut in the First Folio of 1623). Anderson observes that, "After 1604, the 'newly correct' and 'augment' stops. Once again, the Shake-speare enterprise appears to have shut down."

The move to the Blackfriars

Professor Jonathan Bate, in The Genius of Shakespeare (1997) stated that Oxfordians cannot "provide any explanation for …technical changes attendant on the King's Men's move to the Blackfriars theatre four years after their candidate's death.... Unlike the Globe, the Blackfriars was an indoor playhouse" and so required plays with frequent breaks in order to replace the candles it used for lighting. "The plays written after Shakespeare's company began using the Blackfriars in 1608, Cymbeline and The Winter's Tale for instance, have what most ... of the earlier plays do not have: a carefully planned five-act structure". If new Shakespearean plays were being written especially for presentation at the Blackfriars' theatre after 1608, they could not have been written by Edward de Vere.

Shakespeare's late collaborations

Further, attribution studies, which have shown certain plays in the canon were written by two or three hands, are a 'nightmare' for Oxfordians, implying a 'jumble sale scenario' for his literary remains long after his death. It is, according to David Bevington, a 'virtually unanimous' opinion among teachers and scholars of Shakespeare that the canon of late plays depicts an artistic journey that extends well beyond 1604, the date of de Vere's death.

Identification of earlier works with Shakespeare plays

Oxfordians often claim earlier dates for plays by identifying references to lost works from Oxford's lifetime with titles or descriptions suggesting a thematic similarity to something of Shakespeare's and asserting that these are earlier versions of the plays. For example, in 1732, the antiquarian Francis Peck published in Desiderata Curiosa a list of documents in his possession that he intended to print someday. They included "a pleasant conceit of Vere, earl of Oxford, discontented at the rising of a mean gentleman in the English court, circa 1580." Peck never published his archives, which are now lost. Oxfordian researcher Mark Anderson contends that this conceit is "arguably an early draft of Twelfth Night."

Science

Anderson also observes that while Shakespeare refers to the latest scientific discoveries and events right through the end of the 16th century, "Shakespeare is mute about science after de Vere’s death in 1604". Anderson especially notes Shakespeare never mentioned the spectacular supernova of October 1604 or Kepler’s revolutionary 1609 study of planetary orbits.

Oxfordian citation of mainstream scholars

Although most Oxfordians accuse mainstream academics of rejecting their theory only because they have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo, they often cite the work of individual scholars to create the appearance of widespread agreement on an issue, even when the opinion in question is more widely considered eccentric or outdated. The great volume of literature on Shakespeare makes it easy for Oxfordians to find mainstream scholars who have expressed opinions favourable to their theory.

For example, many 18th- and 19th-century scholars, including Samuel Johnson, Lewis Theobald, George Steevens, Edmond Malone, and James Halliwell-Phillipps, placed the composition of Henry VIII prior to 1604, as they believed Elizabeth's execution of Mary, Queen of Scots (the then king James I's mother) made any vigorous defence of the Tudors politically inappropriate in the England of James I. Oxfordians cite these sources to place the composition of the play within Oxford's lifetime. In the case of Macbeth, mainstream scholar A. R. Braunmuller, in the New Cambridge edition, finds the post-1605 arguments for the play inconclusive, and argues only for an earliest date of 1603.

They also note that in 1756, in Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Ben Jonson, William Rufus Chetwood concludes on the basis of performance records "at the end of the year of , or the beginning of the next, 'tis supposed that took his farewell of the stage, both as author and actor.". In 1874, German literary historian Karl Elze dated both The Tempest and Henry VIII — traditionally labeled as Shakespeare's last plays — to the years 1603–04.

Oxfordian cipher-hunting

Although searching Shakespeare's works for encrypted clues supposedly left by the true author is associated mainly with the Baconian theory, such arguments are commonly made by Oxfordians as well. In The De Vere Code, a book by English actor Jonathan Bond, the author claims that the 30-word dedication to the original publication of Shakespeare's Sonnets contains six simple encryptions which conclusively establish de Vere as the author of the poems. He also claims that the alleged encryptions settle the question of the identity of "the Fair Youth" as Henry Wriothesley and contain striking references to the sonnets themselves and de Vere's relationship to Sir Philip Sidney and Ben Jonson.

Similarly, a 2009 article in the Oxfordian journal Brief Chronicles noted that Francis Meres, in Palladis Tamia compares 17 named English poets to 16 named classical poets. Claiming that Meres was obsessed with numerology, they propose that the numbers should be symmetrical, and that careful readers are meant to infer that Meres knew two of the English poets (viz., Oxford and Shakespeare) to actually be one and the same.

Parallels with the plays

Catalogues of similarities between incidents in the plays and the life of an aristocrat are flawed as arguments because similar lists have been drawn up for many competing candidates, such as Francis Bacon and William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby. However, Oxfordian researchers note numerous instances where Oxford's personal and court biographies parallel the plots and subplots of many of the Shakespeare plays. Most notable among these are similarities between Oxford's biography and the actions depicted in Hamlet, The Merchant of Venice and The Taming of the Shrew, both of which contain a number of local details that, Oxfordians believe, could only have been obtained by personal experiences; and Henry IV, Part 1, which includes a well-known robbery scene with uncanny parallels to a real-life incident involving Oxford.

Bed trick

In 1658, Francis Osborne (1593–1659) included a bed trick anecdote about Oxford in his Traditional Memoirs of the Reigns of Elizabeth and James I. According to Osborne (who had been a servant to the Herberts), Philip Herbert, then Earl of Montgomery (and later Pembroke), was struck in the face by a Scottish courtier named Ramsay at a horse race at Croydon. Herbert, who did not strike back, was left "nothing to testify his manhood but a beard and children, by that daughter of the last great Earl of Oxford, whose lady was brought to his bed under the notion of his mistress, and from such a virtuous deceit she (the Countess of Montgomery) is said to proceed."

Shakespeare made use of the bed trick, a common literary trope since antiquity, in All's Well That Ends Well and Measure for Measure. In both cases, this plot element is found in the source of the play (stories by Boccaccio and Cinthio, respectively), but Oxfordians believe de Vere was drawn to these stories because they "paralleled his own."

Earls of Oxford in the histories

Oxfordians claim that flattering treatment of Oxford's ancestors in Shakespeare's history plays is evidence of his authorship. Shakespeare omitted the character of the traitorous Robert de Vere, 3rd Earl of Oxford in The Life and Death of King John, and the character of the 12th Earl of Oxford is given a much more prominent role in Henry V than his limited involvement in the actual history of the times would allow.

J. Thomas Looney found John de Vere, 13th Earl of Oxford is "hardly mentioned except to be praised" in Henry VI, Part Three. The play ahistorically depicts him participating in the Battle of Tewkesbury and being captured. Oxfordians, such as Dorothy and Charlton Ogburn, believe Shakespeare created such a role for the 13th Earl because it was the easiest way Edward de Vere could have "advertised his loyalty to (Queen Elizabeth)" and remind her of "the historic part borne by the Earls of Oxford in defeating the usurpers and restoring the Lancastrians to power."

Some Oxfordians also believe the non-Shakespearean play The Famous Victories of Henry the fifth was another play written by Oxford, based on the exaggerated role it gave to the 11th Earl of Oxford.

Oxford's finances

In 1577 the Company of Cathay was formed to support Martin Frobisher’s hunt for the Northwest Passage, although Frobisher and his investors quickly became distracted by reports of gold at Hall’s Island. With thoughts of an impending Canadian gold-rush and trusting in the financial advice of Michael Lok, the treasurer of the company, de Vere signed a bond for £3,000 in order to invest £1,000 and to assume £2,000 worth—about half—of Lok's personal investment in the enterprise. Oxfordians say this is similar to Antonio in The Merchant of Venice, who was indebted to Shylock for 3,000 ducats against the successful return of his vessels.

Oxfordians also note that when de Vere travelled through Venice, he borrowed 500 crowns from a Baptista Nigrone. In Padua, he borrowed from a man named Pasquino Spinola. In The Taming of the Shrew, Kate's father is described as a man "rich in crowns." He, too, is from Padua, and his name is Baptista Minola, which Oxfordians take to be a conflation of Baptista Nigrone and Pasquino Spinola.

When the character of Antipholus of Ephesus in The Comedy of Errors tells his servant to go out and buy some rope, the servant (Dromio) replies, "I buy a thousand pounds a year! I buy a rope!" (Act 4, scene 1). The meaning of Dromio’s line has not been satisfactorily explained by critics, but Oxfordians say the line is somehow connected to the fact that de Vere was given a £1,000 annuity by the Queen, later continued by King James.

Oxford's family and extramarital affairs

At 12, Oxford was made a royal ward and placed in the household of Lord Burghley, who was the Lord High Treasurer and Queen Elizabeth I's closest and most trusted advisor. Oxfordians claim that Lord Burghley was the model for the character of chief minister Polonius in Hamlet. Oxfordians point out that in the First Quarto the character was not named Polonius, but Corambis. Oxfordian Charleton Ogburn asserts that Cor ambis means "two-hearted" (a view not independently supported by Latinists). He believes that the name is a swipe "at Burghley’s motto, Cor unum, via una, or 'one heart, one way.'" Mainstream scholars suggest that it derives from the Latin phrase "crambe repetita" meaning "reheated cabbage", which was expanded in Elizabethan usage to "Crambe bis posita mors est" ("twice served cabbage is deadly"). This implies "a boring old man" who spouts trite rehashed ideas. Similar variants such as "Crambo" and "Corabme" appear in Latin-English dictionaries at the time.

Oxfordians see Oxford's marriage to Anne Cecil, Lord Burghley's daughter, paralleled in such plays as Hamlet, Othello, Cymbeline, The Merry Wives of Windsor, All's Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure, Much Ado About Nothing, and The Winter's Tale.

Oxford's illicit congress with Anne Vavasour resulted in an intermittent series of street battles between the Knyvet clan, led by Anne's uncle, Sir Thomas Knyvet, and Oxford’s men. As in Romeo and Juliet, this imbroglio produced three deaths and several other injuries. The feud was finally put to an end only by the intervention of the Queen.

Oxford's criminal associations

In May 1573, in a letter to Lord Burghley, two of Oxford's former employees accused three of Oxford's friends of attacking them on "the highway from Gravesend to Rochester." In Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 1, Falstaff and three roguish friends of Prince Hal also waylay unwary travellers on the highway from Gravesend to Rochester, a scene also present in The Famous Victories of Henry the Fift. Measure for Measure differs from its sources in that Claudio's crime was changed from murder to seduction of a maiden — the same crime that sent Oxford to the Tower of London.

Hamlet

Numerous Oxfordian researchers, including Charlton Ogburn, claim that Hamlet is the play most easily seen as portraying Oxford's life story. Traditional scholars say that the biographies of other contemporary figures, such as King James or the Earl of Essex, fit the play just as closely if not more so.

• Hamlet's father was murdered unexpectedly and his mother remarried shortly thereafter, less than two months after his death. Oxfordians see a parallel with Oxford's life, as his father died at the age of 46 on 3 August 1562, although not before making a will six days earlier, and his stepmother remarried within 15 months, although exactly when is unknown.

• Like Laertes, who received the famous list of maxims from his father Polonius, Robert Cecil received a similarly famous list from his father Burghley — a list the Shakespearean scholar E. K. Chambers suggested was the author's likely source.

• One of Hamlet’s chief opponents at court was Laertes, the son of Polonius, while Oxford continually sought the help of Robert Cecil, the son of Lord Burghley, to seek the queen's favour, with no results.

• Polonius sent the spy Reynaldo to watch his son when Laertes was away at school, and for similar reasons Burghley sent a spy to watch his son, Thomas, when he was away in Paris.

• The ruler of Mantua in 1575, when Oxford travelled through the area, was Duke Guglielmo Gonzaga, who happened to be a member of the same Gonzaga family of the wife of the Duke of Urbino, who was killed in 1538 by a poisoned lotion rubbed into his ears by his barber. Some scholars think that The Murder of Gonzago, the unknown play which was reworked by Hamlet into The Mousetrap (the play within the play) that reenacted Hamlet's father being killed by having poison poured into his ear, may have been a popular theatrical reenactment of Urbino's assassination. Mark Anderson says it is the same story, and that Oxford having passed through the area that Gonzaga ruled was in some way responsible for Hamlet's play-within-the-play.

• While returning from Italy in 1576 Edward de Vere first encountered a cavalry division outside of Paris that was being led by a German duke and then pirates in the English Channel. As Anderson stated: "Just as Hamlet's review of Fortinbras' troops leads directly to an ocean voyage overtaken by pirates, de Vere's meeting with Duke Casimir's army was soon followed by a Channel crossing intercepted by pirates."

• In Act IV, Hamlet describes himself as "set naked" in "the kingdom" and later reveals he was taken captive by pirates. In a striking parallel, on Oxford's return from Europe across the Channel in April 1576, his ship was hijacked by pirates who robbed him and left him stripped to his shirt, and who might have murdered him had not one of them recognised him. Anderson notes that "either the encounter with Fortinbras' army nor Hamlet's brush with buccaneers appears in any of the play's sources – to the puzzlement of numerous literary critics."

Parallels with the sonnets and poems

In 1609, a volume of 154 linked poems was published under the title SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS. Most historians believe that the publisher, Thomas Thorpe, wrote its dedication.

Oxfordians also believe the title (Shake-Speares Sonnets) suggests a finality indicating that it was a completed body of work with no further sonnets expected, and consider the differences of opinion among Shakespearean scholars as to whether the Sonnets are fictional or autobiographical to be a serious problem facing orthodox scholars. Joseph Sobran questions why Shakespeare (who lived until 1616) failed to publish a corrected and authorized edition if they are fiction, as well as why they fail to match Shakespeare's life story if they are autobiographic. According to Sobran and other researchers, the themes and personal circumstances expounded by the author of the Sonnets are remarkably similar to Oxford's biography.

The Fair Youth, the Dark Lady, and the Rival Poet

The focus of the series appears to follow the author's relationships with three characters, whose identities remain controversial: the Fair Youth, the Dark Lady or Mistress and the Rival Poet. Scholars who believe these characters can be identified with historical figures generally, but not universally, believe the Fair Youth to be Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton; there have also been several other candidates, including William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke. The Dark Lady is believed by some Oxfordians to be Anne Vavasour, who bore the Earl of Oxford a son out of wedlock, whom she named Edward Vere. While there is no consensus candidate for the Rival Poet, some suppose he could have been Christopher Marlowe or George Chapman, although a case was made by the Oxfordian Peter R. Moore for Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex.

Beginning with Looney, Oxfordians have almost always asserted that Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton, Oxford's peer and hoped-for son-in-law, is the "fair youth" referred to in the early sonnets (exceptions are Percy Allen and Louis Benezit).

Sobran argues that the first seventeen sonnets, on the procreation theme, give indications of belonging to Burghley's campaign to make Southampton marry his granddaughter, who was Oxford's daughter Elizabeth Vere, and concludes that, 'bviously, Oxford would have known all three parties.... It is hard to imagine how Mr. Shaksper (of Stratford) could have known any of them. Let alone have been invited to participate in the effort to encourage the match.' Sobran also observes that in 16th-century England, actors and playwrights did not presume to give advice to the nobility, and asserts "It is clear, too, that the poet is of the same rank as the youth. He praises, scolds, admonishes, teases, and woos him with the liberty of a social equal who does not have to worry about seeming insolent.... 'Make thee another self, for love of me' (Sonnet 10), is impossible to conceive as a request from a poor poet to his patron: it expresses the hope of a father — or a father-in-law. And Oxford was, precisely, Southampton's prospective father-in-law."

Oxfordians also cite Sonnet 91 (which compares the Fair Youth's love to such treasures as high birth, wealth, and horses), contending the lines imply that the author is in a position to make such comparisons, and the 'high birth' he refers to is his own.

Oxfordian author William Farina notes as well that in Sonnets 40–42 the "fair youth" seems to have gone on to steal the "dark lady" from Shakespeare; however in Sonnet 42 Shakespeare enjoins the youth with "we must not be foes." Farina notes the "idea of Will Shakespere (of Stratford) offering such assurance to the Earl of Southampton is truly a smiler."

Age and lameness

Oxford was born in 1550, and was between 40 and 53 years old when he presumably would have written the sonnets. Shakespeare was born in 1564. Even though the average life expectancy of Elizabethans was short, being between 26 and 39 was not considered old. In spite of this, age and growing older are recurring themes in the Sonnets, for example, in Sonnets 138 and 37. In his later years, Oxford described himself as "lame". On several occasions, the author of the sonnets also described himself as lame, such as in Sonnets 37 and 89.

Public disgrace

Sobran also believes "scholars have largely ignored one of the chief themes of the Sonnets: the poet's sense of disgrace.... here can be no doubt that the poet is referring to something real that he expects his friends to know about; in fact, he makes clear that a wide public knows about it... Once again the poet's situation matches Oxford's.... He has been a topic of scandal on several occasions. And his contemporaries saw the course of his life as one of decline from great wealth, honor, and promise to disgrace and ruin. This perception was underlined by enemies who accused him of every imaginable offense and perversion, charges he was apparently unable to rebut." Examples include Sonnets 29 and 112.

As early as 1576 Edward de Vere was writing about this subject in his poem Loss of Good Name, which Professor Steven W. May described as "a defiant lyric without precedent in English Renaissance verse."

Lost fame

The poems Venus and Adonis and Lucrece, first published in 1593 and 1594 under the name "William Shakespeare", proved highly popular for several decades – with Venus and Adonis published six more times before 1616, while Lucrece required four additional printings during this same period. By 1598, they were so famous, London poet and sonneteer Richard Barnefield wrote:

Shakespeare.....
Whose Venus and whose Lucrece (sweet and chaste)
Thy name in fame's immortal Book have plac't
Live ever you, at least in Fame live ever:
Well may the Body die, but Fame dies never.

Despite such publicity, Sobran observed, "he author of the Sonnets expects and hopes to be forgotten. While he is confident that his poetry will outlast marble and monument, it will immortalize his young friend, not himself. He says that his style is so distinctive and unchanging that ‘every word doth almost tell my name,’ implying that his name is otherwise concealed – at a time when he is publishing long poems under the name William Shakespeare. This seems to mean that he is not writing these Sonnets under that (hidden) name." Mainstream writers respond that several sonnets literally do tell his name, containing numerous puns on the name Will; in sonnet 136 the poet directly says "thou lov'st me for my name is Will."

Based on Sonnets 81, 72, and others, Oxfordians assert that if the author expected his "name" to be "forgotten" and "buried", it would not have been the name that permanently adorned the published works themselves.

References in popular culture

• Leslie Howard's 1943 anti-Nazi film, "Pimpernel" Smith, features dialogue by the protagonist Horatio Smith, a professor of archaeology at Cambridge, endorsing the Oxfordian theory.
• The 2000 YA novel A Question of Will by Lynne Kositsky addresses the debate over who really wrote Shakespeare's plays.
• Oxfordian theory is the basis of Amy Freed's 2001 play The Beard of Avon.
• Oxfordian theory is central to the plot of Sarah Smith's 2003 novel Chasing Shakespeares, which she also adapted into a play.
• The 2005 YA novel Shakespeare's Secret by Elise Broach is centred on Oxfordian theory.
• The Oxfordian theory, among others, is discussed in Jennifer Lee Carrell's 2007 thriller Interred With Their Bones.
• The 2011 film Anonymous, directed by Roland Emmerich and based on a screenplay by John Orloff, stars Rhys Ifans and Vanessa Redgrave. The film posits in cinematic terms how Edward de Vere's writings came to be attributed to William Shakespeare and portrays the Prince Tudor theory.

See also

• List of Oxfordian theory supporters
• Shakespeare authorship question
• Baconian theory
• Derbyite theory of Shakespearean authorship

Footnotes

The UK and US editions of Shapiro 2010 differ significantly in pagination. The citations to the book used in this article list the UK page numbers first, followed by the page numbers of the US edition in parentheses.

1. Proudfoot, Richard; Thompson, Ann; Kastan, David Scott, eds. (5 July 2001). The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works. London: Arden Shakespeare. p. 3. ISBN 1-903436-61-3.
2. Niederkorn, William S. "A Historic Whodunit: If Shakespeare Didn't, Who Did?" New York Times. 10 February 2001
3. "Edward de Vere, 17th earl of Oxford". Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. 2007. Retrieved 31 August 2007.
4. Satchell, Michael (24 July 2000). "Hunting for good Will: Will the real Shakespeare please stand up?". U.S. News. Retrieved 31 August 2007. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
5. McMichael, George and Edgar M. Glenn.Shakespeare and his Rivals: A Casebook on the Authorship Controversy. Odyssey Press, 1962. p. 159.
6. Wadsworth 1958, pp. 163–164:McCrea 2005, pp. xii–xiii.
7. ^ Shapiro 2010, p. 7 (8).
8. Shapiro 2010, p. 243
9. Fowler, William Plumer.Shakespeare Revealed in Oxford's Letters. Portsmouth, New Hampshire: Peter E. Randall, 1986.
10. ^ Anderson 2005, pp. 381–2 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFAnderson2005 (help).
11. Bate 1998, p. 90: "Their favorite code is the hidden personal allusion ... But this method is in essence no different from the cryptogram, since Shakespeare's range of characters and plots, both familial and political, is so vast that it would be possible to find in the plays 'self-portraits' of, once more, anybody one cares to think of."; Love 2002, pp. 87, 200: "It has more than once been claimed that the combination of 'biographical-fit' and cryptographical arguments could be used to establish a case for almost any individual ... The very fact that their application has produced so many rival claimants demonstrates their unreliability." Shapiro 2010, pp. 304–13 (268–77); Schoone-Jongen 2008, p. 5: "in voicing dissatisfaction over the apparent lack of continuity between the certain facts of Shakespeare's life and the spirit of his literary output, anti-Stratfordians adopt the very Modernist assumption that an author's work must reflect his or her life. Neither Shakespeare nor his fellow Elizabethan writers operated under this assumption."; Smith 2008, p. 629: "...deriving an idea of an author from his or her works is always problematic, particularly in a multi-vocal genre like drama, since it crucially underestimates the heterogeneous influences and imaginative reaches of creative writing."
12. ^ Anderson (2005), p. 399.
13. ^ Shapiro 2010, p. 214.
14. Looney 1920.
15. Shapiro 2010
16. Looney 1920.
17. The Ashbourne Portrait
18. Pressly 1993, pp. 54–72 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFPressly1993 (help)
19. Michell, John. Who Wrote Shakespeare? London: Thames & Hudson, 1996. pp.162–4
20. Quoted in Shapiro 2010, pp. 228–9 (201).
21. Shapiro 2010, p. 230 (202).
22. Shapiro 2010, pp. 229–49 (202–19).
23. Shapiro 2010, pp. 230–3 (202–5).
24. Shapiro 2010, pp. 232–3 (204–5).
25. Bethell 1991, p. 47 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFBethell1991 (help); Gibson 2005, pp. 48, 72, 124 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFGibson2005 (help); Kathman 2003, p. 620 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFKathman2003 (help); Schoenbaum 1991, pp. 430–40.
26. Crinkley 1985, pp. 515–522.
27. McDonald, Russ, ed. Shakespeare: An Anthology of Criticism and Theory 1945–2000, Blackwell, 2004, p.3
28. ^ Shapiro 2011, p. 25.
29. Lee, Chris (17 October 2011). "Was Shakespeare a Fraud?". The Daily Beast. Retrieved 26 June 2012.
30. Christopher Paul, "A new letter by J. T. Looney brought to light", Shakespeare Oxford Newsletter, vol. 43, no. 3, pp. 8–9. PDF
31. Helen Hackett, Shakespeare and Elizabeth: the meeting of two myths, Princeton University Press, 2009, pp.157–60
32. Shapiro 2010, p. 189–206.
33. Streitz, Paul (2001). Oxford: Son of Queen Elizabeth I. Darien, CT: Oxford Institute Press. pp. 185–9. ISBN 0-9713498-0-0.
34. Brame, Michael; Popova, Galina (17 December 2002). Shakespeare's Fingerprints. Vashon Island, Washington: Adonis Editions. ISBN 978-0972038522.
35. Jiménez, Ramon (2004), "The True Tragedy of Richard the Third: another Early History Play by Edward de Vere", The Oxfordian, 7
36. Jiménez, Ramon (2003), "Edmond Ironside, the English King: Edward de Vere's Anglo-Saxon History Play" (PDF), The Oxfordian, 6
37. Kathman 1999.
38. & Gibson 1962, p. 90.
39. Ogburn (1984 edition), p. 182
40. Bate 1998.
41. Anderson 2005, p. 381 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFAnderson2005 (help).
42. Early English Sonnets
43. Tom Veal (23 March 2003). "Querulous Notes (March 2002)". Stromata. Retrieved 6 July 2012.
44. Tom Veal (20 January 2004). "Querulous Notes (2004)". Stromata. Retrieved 6 July 2012.
45. Nelson 2006, pp. 167–8
46. Velz 2006, pp. 113, 116–117 notes orthodox studies taking Shakespeare’s allusions to reflect mainly the Bishops' Bible until 1598, and gradually more allusions to the Geneva Bible after that date, perhaps reflecting his familiarity, and lodgings with Huguenot families and the greater availability of the Geneva version.
47. Tom Veal (3 February 2004). "Querulous Notes (2004)". Stromata. Retrieved 6 July 2012.
48. David Kathman (No date). "Critically Examining Oxfordian Claims: Oxford's Bible". Retrieved 6 July 2012. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
49. Ogburn 1984, p. 714; Anderson 2005, p. 325 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFAnderson2005 (help).
50. Ogburn 1984, p. 235
51. Ogburn 1984, p. 714; Matus 1994, p. 688
52. Ogburn 1984, p. 236
53. Ogburn 1984, pp. 402, 688.
54. Ogburn 1984, p. 402.
55. Anderson 2005, pp. 210–1 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFAnderson2005 (help)
56. Matus 1994, pp. 259–60.
57. Anderson (2005), p. xxx.
58. Farina, William, “De Vere as Shakespeare.” Jefferson, North Carolina. McFarland & Company. 2006. p. 61.
59. Michael Neill, ed. Othello (Oxford University Press), 2006, p. 18.
60. Ogburn 1984, p. xxx.
61. Letter from Oxford to Burghley, 24 September 1575
62. Anderson 2005, pp. 106–107 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFAnderson2005 (help).
63. Farina, William, "De Vere as Shakespeare." Jefferson, North Carolina. McFarland & Company. 2006. p. 74.
64. Sobran (1997), p. 70.
65. Matus 1994, p. 271.
66. & Gibson 1962, pp. 243–245.
67. & Gibson 1962, p. 245.
68. Sobran (1997)
69. James Shapiro, Who Wrote Shakespeare?: The Case for William Shakespeare of Stratfordonline e-book, 2011, n.p.
70. Nelson 2003, pp. 386–387
71. Shapiro, ibid.
72. Charlton Ogburn, The Mysterious William Shakespeare, Dodd, Mead & Co., 1984, 195-96.
73. Alexander, M. and Wright, D. "A Few Curiosities Regarding Edward de Vere and the Writer Who Called Himself Shakespeare", Shakespeare Authorship Studies Conference, 2007.
74. Nelson 2003, p. 387
75. Poems and Lyrics of Edward de Vere. ElizabethanAuthors.com.
76. Looney (1948 edition, New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce), pp. 135–139.
77. Elliott & Valenza 2004, p. 396, cf.'Since nothing in Oxford’s canonical verse in any way hints at an affinity with the poetry of William Shakespeare.' 329.
78. Elliott & Valenza 2004.
79. McCrea 2005, pp. 208ff., 229
80. May 2004, p. 223
81. Elliott & Valenza 2007, pp. 148–149
82. Lewis, C. S. (1990) . Poetry and Prose in the Sixteenth Century. Oxford: Clarendon Press. p. 267. ISBN 978-0198122319.
83. Fowler, William Plumer. Shakespeare Revealed in Oxford's Letters. Portsmouth, New Hampshire: Peter E. Randall, 1986. P. XXV–XXVI.
84. Anderson, p. 28
85. Sobran, Joseph. "Shakespeare Revealed in Oxford's Poetry." Malim, Richard, ed. Great Oxford: Essays on the Life and Work of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, 1550–1604. London: Parapress, 2004. p. 138.
86. Tom Veal. "A Test of Sobran's Method". Stromata. Retrieved 10 July 2012.
87. Ross
88. Nelson 2003, p. 386:'this very passage has been misread in support of the argument, now thoroughly discredited, that a 'stigma of print' discouraged publication by members of the nobility. Oxford was one of many noblemen whose poems and names were broadcast in print.'
89. Hannas, Andrew."The Rest is Not Silence: On Grammar and Oxford in The Art of English Poesie." Shakespeare Oxford Society.
90. Gordon Braden, Sixteenth-century poetry: an annotated anthology, Wiley & Co.2005 p.138.
91. ^ McCrea 2005, p. 167.
92. Ogburn 1984, pp. 401–402.
93. Chapman, George. The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois. In The Works of George Chapman Vol. I, Shepherd and Swinburne, eds. Chatto and Windus, 1874. p. 197.
94. Ogburn 1984, p. 401.
95. Ogburn 1984, pp. 382–390.
96. Ogburn 1984, p. 382,
97. Anderson 2005 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFAnderson2005 (help).
98. Anderson (2006, expanded paperback edition), pp. 397–401, 574.
99. Shakespeare, William (2008). Macbeth. Oxford University Press. pp. 59–64. ISBN 978-0-19-953583-5. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
100. Kermode, Frank. Notes to Macbeth (The Riverside Shakespeare), by William Shakespeare. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1974. p. 1308.
101. Anderson (2005), pp. 402–403.
102. A.R. Braunmuller, ed. Macbeth (CUP, 1997), 5–8.
103. Haley, David: "William Shakespeare"
104. Eastman, Nate (May 2007). "The Rumbling Belly Politic: Metaphorical Location and Metaphorical Government in Coriolanus". Early Modern Literary Studies 13.1. Retrieved 28 July 2012.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: year (link)
105. Vaughan, Virginia Mason; Vaughan, Alden T. (1999), The Tempest, The Arden Shakespeare, Third Series, The Arden Shakespeare, p. 87, ISBN 978-1-903436-08-0
106. Muir, Kenneth. The Sources of Shakespeare's Plays. London: Methuen & Co, 1977. p. 280.
107. Kositsky, Lynne and Roger Stritmatter. "Dating The Tempest: A Note on the Undocumented Influence of Erasmus' "Naufragium" and Richard Eden's 1555 Decades of the New World." The Shakespeare Fellowship. 2005.
108. Eden is referenced in: Shakespeare, William. The Tempest. ed. Frank Kermode. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1958. pp. xxxii–xxxiii.
109. Erasmus is referenced in: Bullough, Geoffrey. Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare. Volume VIII. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1975. pp. 334–339.
110. Nashe quoted in Jenkins, p.83
111. Jenkins, p.83
112. Bloom, pp. xiii, 383
113. Alexander, Peter vol.4 of The Heritage of Shakespeare: Tragedies, p. 638
114. Cairncross, Andrew Scott (1936). The Problem of Hamlet: A Solution. London: Macmillan. OCLC 301819.
115. Jenkins, p. 84, note 4
116. Honigmann, E. A. J. Shakespeare's Impact on his Contemporaries, (1982) London: Macmillan.
117. MANUSCRIPT EVIDENCE FOR AN EARLIEST DATE OF HENRY VI PART ONE
118. Tom Veal (10 October 2002). "Querulous Notes (2002-2003)". Stromata. Retrieved 7 July 2012.
119. Miller, Ruth Loyd.Oxfordian Vistas. Vol II of Shakespeare Identified, by J. Thomas Looney and edited by Ruth Loyd Miller. Kennikat Press, 1975. pp. 211–214.
120. Foster, Don (1987), "Master W.H., R.I.P", PMLA, 102 (1): 42–54, doi:10.2307/462491.
121. Sobran (1997), p. 144.
122. McCrea 2005, p. 180.
123. Farina, William, "De Vere as Shakespeare." Jefferson, North Carolina. McFarland & Company. 2006. pp. 9–10.
124. ^ Anderson (2005), pp. 400–405.
125. Malim, Richard. "Blackfriars Theatre, 1608." Malim, Richard, ed. Great Oxford: Essays on the Life and Work of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, 1550–1604. London: Parapress, 2004. p. 296
126. Vickers 2004
127. Shapiro 2010, p. 294
128. Bevington 2005, p. 10
129. Anderson (2005), p. 154.
130. Anderson (2005), pp. 401–402.
131. Braunmiller, A. R. Introduction to Macbeth (New Cambridge Shakespeare), by William Shakespeare. Cambridge University Press, 1997 (new edition). pp. 5–8.
132. Anderson 2005, p. 398 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFAnderson2005 (help).
133. Elze, Karl. Essays on Shakespeare. London: MacMillan and Co., 1874. pp. 1–29, 151–192.
134. Jonathan Bond "The De Vere Code: Proof of the True Author of SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS" (Real Press, 2009) ISBN 0-9564127-9-3, http://www.deverecode.com
135. Robert Detobel and K.C. Ligon, "Francis Meres and the Earl of Oxford," Brief Chronicles I (2009), 123-137.
136. Crinkley 1985, p. 516.
137. ^ Ogburn (1984), pp. 384, 529.
138. Ogburn (1984), p. 576
139. Anderson (2005), p. 145.
140. Anderson (2005), pp. 5, 25.
141. Ogburn (1984), p. XXX.
142. Asimov, Isaac. Asimov’s Guide to Shakespeare. Vol. II. Wings book, 1970. p. 674
143. Ogburn, Dorothy and Charlton. This Star of England, Coward-McCann, 1952. p. 322
144. Ogburn (1984), p. 603.
145. Alexander, Mark and Daniel Wright."A Few Curiosities Regarding Edward de Vere and the Writer Who Called Himself Shakespeare." The Shakespear Authorship Research Centre.
146. Anderson (2005), p. 211.
147. Mowat and Werstine, eds.The Comedy of Errors(Folger Shakespeare Library). Washington Square Press, 1996. p. 88.
148. Doris V. Falk, Proverbs and the Polonius Destiny, Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. 18, No. 1, Winter, 1967, p.23
149. William Shakespeare, Philip Edwards (ed) Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Cambridge University Press, 2004, p.71.
150. Courtney, Krystyna Kujawinska. “Shakespeare in Poland: selected Issues” Internet Shakespeare Editions, University of Victoria, 2003, p. 2.
151. Ian Duthie, The 'bad' quarto of Hamlet: a critical study, Cambridge: University Press; New York: Macmillan Co., 1941, p.223
152. Ogburn (1984), pp. 567–568.
153. Ogburn (1984), pp. 567–568.
154. Looney (1948 edition, New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce), pp. 391–392.
155. Anderson (2005), p. 341.
156. Ogburn (1984), pp. 495–496.
157. Anderson (2005), p. 186.
158. Ogburn (1984), pp. 567–568.
159. Ogburn and Ogburn, This Star of England, New York: Coward-McCann, Inc., 1952. p 397.
160. Anderson (2005), p. 172.
161. Kathman, David. "Alleged Parallels between the Plays and Oxford's Life" The Shakespeare Authorship Page. Accessed 21 October 2011.
162. Hamlet 1.2.138.
163. Nelson 2003, pp. 30, 41
164. Anderson (2005) p. 197.
165. Nelson 2003, pp. 135–137
166. Anderson (2005) pp. 111–113.
167. Sobran (1997), p. 84.
168. Moore, Peter R. "The Rival Poet of Shakespeare's Sonnets", Shakespeare Oxford Society Newsletter. Autumn 1989
169. Louis P. Benezet, The Six Loves of Shake-speare, Pageant Press, Inc., New York, 1959.; Percy Allen, Anne Cecil, Elizabeth & Oxford: A Study of Relations between these three, with the Duke of Alencon added; based mainly upon internal evidence, drawn from (Chapman's?) A Lover's Complaint; Lord Oxford's (and others) A Hundreth Sundrie Flowers; Spenser's Faery Queen..., Archer, 1934.
170. Sobran (1997), p. 197.
171. ^ Sobran (1997), p. 198.
172. Farina, William, "De Vere as Shakespeare." Jefferson, North Carolina. McFarland & Company. 2006. p. 234.
173. Anderson (2005), p. 291.
174. Sobran (1997), p. 199.
175. Farina, William, "De Vere as Shakespeare." Jefferson, North Carolina. McFarland & Company. 2006. p. 232.
176. Ogburn (1984) p. 7
177. Ogburn and Ogburn. This Star of England, Coward-McCann. (1952). p. 1035.
178. Sobran, p. 200
179. McCrea 2005, pp. 115–117.
180. "Leslie Howard on Shakespeare and Oxford.mpg". YouTube video. Retrieved 14 November 2011.
181. "A Question of Will. (Fiction).(Young Adult Review)(Brief Article)". School Library Journal. 1 November 2001.
182. Chasing Shakespeares. SarahSmith.com.
183. Child, Ben (25 October 2011). "Shakespeare film Anonymous has lost plot, says Stratford". The Guardian. London.
184. "Shakespeare signs covered in protest of Anonymous film". BBC News. 25 October 2011.
185. Anonymous at the Internet Movie Database
186. "Shakespeare's authenticity defended in Stratford-upon-Avon". BBC News. 25 October 2011.

References

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• Bevington, David Martin (2005). Shakespeare: The Seven Ages of Human Experience. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 978-1-4051-2753-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Crinkley, Richmond (1985). "New Perspectives on the Authorship Question". Shakespeare Quarterly. 36 (4). Folger Shakespeare Library: 515–522. doi:10.2307/2870328.

• Elliott, Ward E. Y.; Valenza, Robert J. (2004). "Oxford by the Numbers: What Are the Odds That the Earl of Oxford Could Have Written Shakespeare's Poems and Plays?" (PDF). Tennessee Law Review. 72 (1). Tennessee Law Review Association: 323–452. ISSN 0040-3288. Retrieved 2 March 2011. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Gibson, H. N. (1962). The Shakespeare Claimants. Routledge Library Editions — Shakespeare. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-35290-1. Retrieved 20 December 2010. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Kathman, David (31 March 1999). "A Letter to Harper's Magazine". Harper's Magazine. Retrieved 24 October 2011. {{cite news}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Kathman (1), David. "Alleged Parallels between the Plays and Oxford's Life". The Shakespeare Authorship Page. David Kathman and Terry Ross. Retrieved 24 October 2011. {{cite web}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
• Kathman (2), David. "Why I Am Not an Oxfordian". The Shakespeare Authorship Page. David Kathman and Terry Ross. Retrieved 24 October 2011. {{cite web}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
• Looney, J. Thomas (1920). "Shakespeare" Identified in Edward De Vere, the Seventeenth Earl of Oxford. New York: Frederick A. Stokes. Retrieved 14 December 2010. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Love, Harold (2002). Attributing Authorship: An Introduction. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-78948-6. Retrieved 20 December 2010. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Matus, Irvin L. (October 1991). "Reply by Matus". Atlantic Monthly. Vol. 268, no. 4. pp. 78–80. ISSN 1072-7825. {{cite news}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Matus, Irvin L. (1994). Shakespeare, IN FACT. Continuum Publishing. ISBN 978-0-8264-0624-8. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• May, Steven W. (1980). "Tudor Aristocrats and the Mythical "Stigma of Print"". In Deneef, Leigh A.; Hester, Thomas M. (eds.). Renaissance Papers. Vol. 1993. Southeastern Renaissance Conference. pp. 11–18. Retrieved 2 March 2011. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• May, Steven W. (1991). The Elizabethan Courtier Poets: The Poems and Their Contexts. University of Missouri Press. ISBN 978-0-8262-0749-4. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• May, Steven W. (2004). "The Seventeenth Earl of Oxford as Poet and Playwright". Tennessee Law Review. 72 (1). Tennessee Law Review Association: 221–54. ISSN 0040-3288. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• May, Steven W. (2007). "Early Courtier Verse: Oxford, Dyer, and Gascoigne". In Cheney, Patrick; Hadfield, Andrew; Sullivan, Jr., Garrett A. (eds.). Early Modern English Poetry: A Critical Companion. Oxford University Press. pp. 60–67. ISBN 978-0-19-515387-3. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• McCrea, Scott (2005). The Case for Shakespeare: The End of the Authorship Question. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-275-98527-1. Retrieved 20 December 2010. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• McMichael, George L.; Glenn, Edgar M. (1962). Shakespeare and His Rivals: A Casebook on the Authorship Controversy. Odyssey Press. OCLC 2113359. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Nelson, Alan H. (2003). Monstrous Adversary: The Life of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. Liverpool University Press. ISBN 978-0-85323-678-8. Retrieved 20 December 2010. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Nelson, Alan H. (2004). "Stratford Si! Essex No!". Tennessee Law Review. 72 (1). Tennessee Law Review Association: 149–69. ISSN 0040-3288. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Nelson, Alan H (2006). "Calling on Shakespeare Biographers! Or, a Pleas for Documentary Discipline". In Kozuka, Takashi; Mulryne, J.R. (eds.). Shakespeare, Marlowe, Jonson: new directions in biography. Ashgate Publishing. pp. 55–68. ISBN 978-0-7546-5442-1.
• Niederkorn, William S. (10 February 2001). "A Historic Whodunit: If Shakespeare Didn't, Who Did?". The New York Times. Retrieved 16 September 2011. {{cite news}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Ogburn, Charlton; Ogburn, Dorothy (1952). This Star of England. New York: Coward-McCann. OCLC 359186. Retrieved 16 December 2010. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Ogburn, Charlton (1984). The Mysterious William Shakespeare: The Man Behind the Mask. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Pendleton, Thomas A. (1994). "Irvin Matus's Shakespeare, IN FACT". Shakespeare Newsletter. 44 (Summer). University of Illinois at Chicago: 21, 26–30. ISSN 0037-3214. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Pressly, William L. "The Ashbourne Portrait of Shakespeare: Through the Looking Glass". Shakespeare Quarterly: 54–72. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Price, Diana (2001). Shakespeare's Unorthodox Biography: New Evidence of an Authorship Problem. Greenwood Press. ISBN 978-0-313-31202-1. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Ross, Terry. "What Did George Puttenham Really Say About Oxford And Why Does It Matter?". The Shakespeare Authorship Page. David Kathman and Terry Ross. Retrieved 30 September 2011. {{cite web}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Schoenbaum, S. (1991). Shakespeare's Lives (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-818618-2. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Schoone-Jongen, Terence G. (2008). Shakespeare's Companies: William Shakespeare's Early Career and the Acting Companies, 1577–1594. Studies in Performance and Early Modern Drama. Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7546-6434-5. Retrieved 20 December 2010. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Shapiro, James (2010). Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare?. UK edition: Faber and Faber ISBN 978-0-571-23576-6 (US edition: Simon & Schuster ISBN 978-1-4165-4162-2). Retrieved 14 January 2011. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help); templatestyles stripmarker in |publisher= at position 29 (help)
• Shapiro, James S. (17 October 2011). "Hollywood Dishonors the Bard". The New York Times. Retrieved 16 September 2011. {{cite news}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Smith, Emma (2008). "The Shakespeare Authorship Debate Revisited". Literature Compass. 5 (April). Blackwell Publishing: 618–32. doi:10.1111/j.1741-4113.2008.00549.x. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Sutherland, John; Watts, Cedric (2000). Henry V. War Criminal? & Other Shakespeare Puzzles,. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-283879-7. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Velz, John W (2006), "Shakespeare and the Geneva Bible: The Circumstances", in Kozuka, Takashi; Mulryne, J.R. (eds.), Shakespeare, Marlowe, Jonson: new directions in biography, Ashgate Publishing, pp. 113–119, ISBN 978-0-7546-5442-1
• Vickers, Brian (2004). Shakespeare, Co-Author: A Historical Study of Five Collaborative Plays. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-926916-7.
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• Ward, Bernard M. (1928). The Seventeenth Earl of Oxford, 1550–1604: From Contemporary Documents. John Murray.

Bibliography

• A'dair, Mike. Four Essays on the Shakespeare Authorship Question. Verisimilitude Press (6 September 2011)
• Anderson, Mark. "Shakespeare" by Another Name: The Life of Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, The Man Who Was Shakespeare. Gotham, 2005 (expanded paperback edition 2006).
• Verily Anderson, The De Veres of Castle Hedingham, published 1993
• Austin, Al, and Judy Woodruff. The Shakespeare Mystery. 1989. Frontline documentary film about the Oxford case.
• Beauclerk, Charles, Shakespeare's Lost Kingdom: The True History of Shakespeare and Elizabeth. Grove Press (13 April 2010). (Supports Prince Tudor theory.)
• Brazil, Robert Sean, Edward de Vere and the Shakespeare Printers. Seattle, WA: Cortical Output, LLC, 2010.
• Courtney, Krystyna Kujawinska. “Shakespeare in Poland: selected Issues” Internet Shakespeare Editions, University of Victoria, 2003.
• Duthie,Ian The 'bad' quarto of Hamlet: a critical study, Cambridge: University Press; New York: Macmillan Co., 1941
• Elliott, Ward E.Y.; Valenza, Robert J. (2007), "My Other Car is a Shakespeare", Oxfordian, X: 142–153
• "Edward de Vere, 17th earl of Oxford", Britannica Concise Encyclopedia, 2007, retrieved 31 August 2007
• Edwards, Philip (ed) Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Cambridge University Press, 2004
• Farina, William (2006), De Vere as Shakespeare: An Oxfordian Reading of the Canon, Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company
• Falk, Doris V., Proverbs and the Polonius Destiny, Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. 18, No. 1, Winter, 1967,
• Fowler, William Plumer (1986), Shakespeare Revealed in Oxford's Letters, Portsmouth, New Hampshire: Peter E. Randall
• Hope, Warren, and Kim Holston. The Shakespeare Controversy: An Analysis of the Authorship Theories (2nd Edition) (Jefferson, N.C. and London: McFarland and Co., 2009 ). ISBN 0-7864-3917-3
• Kreiler, Kurt. Anonymous Shake-Speare. The Man Behind. Munich: Dölling und Galitz, 2011. ISBN 3-86218-021-2
• Malim, Richard, ed. Great Oxford: Essays on the Life and Work of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, 1550–1604. London: Parapress, 2004.
• Ogburn, Charlton. The Mysterious William Shakespeare: The Myth & the Reality. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1984. (Influential book that criticises orthodox scholarship and promotes the Oxford theory.)
• Pressly, William L. The Ashbourne Portrait of Shakespeare: Through the Looking Glass. Shakespeare Quarterly, 1993, pp. 54–72
• Price, Diana. Shakespeare's Unorthodox Biography: New Evidence of An Authorship Problem. Westport, Ct: Greenwood, 2001. (Introduction to the evidentiary problems of the orthodox tradition.)
• Sobran, Joseph. Alias Shakespeare: Solving the Greatest Literary Mystery of All Time. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997.
• Stritmatter, Roger. The Marginalia of Edward de Vere's Geneva Bible: Providential Discovery, Literary Reasoning, and Historical Consequence. 2001 University of Massachusetts Ph.D. dissertation.
• Ward, B.M. The Seventeenth Earl of Oxford (1550–1604) From Contemporary Documents. London: John Murray, 1928.
• Whalen, Richard. Shakespeare: Who Was He? The Oxford Challenge to the Bard of Avon. Westport, Ct.: Praeger, 1994.
• Whittemore, Hank. The Monument: "Shake-Speares Sonnets" by Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. Meadow Geese Press (12 April 2005). (Supports Prince Tudor theory.)
• Whittemore, Hank. Shakespeare's Son and His Sonnets. Martin and Lawrence Press (1 December 2010). (Supports Prince Tudor theory.)

External links

Sites promoting the Oxfordian theory

• The Shakespeare Fellowship
• Shakespeare Oxford Society
• The De Vere Society of Great Britain

Sites refuting the Oxfordian theory

• The Shakespeare Authorship Page
• Arguments against Oxford's authorship by Irvin Leigh Matus

v t e Shakespeare authorship question
A series on alternative authorship theories for the works of William Shakespeare
Overview	History of the Shakespeare authorship question Shakespeare attribution studies Is Shakespeare Dead? Declaration of Reasonable Doubt
Theories	Baconian Crollalanza Derbyite Florio Lanier Marlovian Nevillean Oxfordian Prince Tudor Shaykh Zubayr
Candidates	List of Shakespeare authorship candidates Francis Bacon Emilia Lanier Christopher Marlowe Henry Neville William Stanley Edward de Vere
Proponents	Joseph Adler Mark Anderson Babette Babich Delia Bacon Ros Barber Charles Wisner Barrell Charles Beauclerk Alden Brooks Charles Champlin Jeffery Donaldson Ignatius L. Donnelly Bert Fields George Greenwood Joseph C. Hart Calvin Hoffman Derek Jacobi Richard Kennedy Abel Lefranc J. Thomas Looney Sandra Day O'Connor Charlton Ogburn Charlton Greenwood Ogburn John Orloff Orville Ward Owen John Denham Parsons Prince Philip Michael Rubbo William Rubinstein Mark Rylance Henry Seymour Joseph Sobran John Paul Stevens Roger Stritmatter Mark Twain Bernard Mordaunt Ward Alexander Waugh Walt Whitman James Wilde Robin Williams (writer)

• Oxfordian theory of Shakespearean authorship
• William Shakespeare
• Pseudohistory
• Fringe theory
• Conspiracy theories
• Literature about literature