Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship

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This image, known as the Ashbourne Portrait, was once believed to depict William Shakespeare. It was analyzed by Charles Wisner Barrell, an expert in the use of infra-red photography, in a 1940 Scientific American article. Barrell argued that the portrait was an overpainting of the Earl of Oxford. However, in 1979 the overpainted coat of arms of Sir Hugh Hamersley, a former Mayor of London, was identified beneath the surface, leading to the conclusion that it is a portrait of Sir Hugh.

The Oxfordian theory of Shakespearean authorship holds that Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, wrote the plays conventionally attributed to William Shakespeare. Oxford is presently the most popular of several anti-Stratfordian candidates for the real Shakespeare (see Shakespeare authorship).

Terminology

Adherents to the Oxford theory generally call themselves Oxfordians. They call those who defend the orthodox position Stratfordians.

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 lived at the same time that the plays were written. This distinction has been criticised for implicitly suggesting that the names of the Stratford man and the playwright were always spelled differently, when in fact they were not .

Overview

The Oxford theory was first proposed by J. Thomas Looney in 1920. Oxfordians base their arguments on what they consider to be striking similarities between Oxford's biography and some events in Shakespeare's plays. Oxfordians also point to the acclaim of Oxford's 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 may correspond to quotations in Shakespeare's plays ; supposedly parallel phraseology and similarity of thought between Shakespeare's work and Oxford's extant letters and acknowledged poetry (Fowler 1986); and his extensive education and intelligence.

History of Oxfordian theory

Looney's 1920 work, Shakespeare Identified in Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford persuaded Sigmund Freud, Orson Welles, Marjorie Bowen, and many other early 20th-century intellectuals of the case for Oxford's authorship . Oxford rapidly became the favored alternative to the orthodox view of authorship.

In 1984, Charlton Ogburn Jr.'s The Mysterious William Shakespeare not only renewed the case for Oxford's authorship with an abundance of new research but also engaged in a critique of the standards and methods used by the orthodox school. In his Shakespeare Quarterly review of Ogburn's book, Richmond Crinkley, then the Director of Educational Programs at the Folger Shakespeare Library, acknowledged the appeal of approaches such as Ogburn's: "Doubts about Shakespeare came early and grew rapidly. They have a simple and direct plausibility", and that the dismissive approach of conventional scholarship encouraged such doubts: "The plausibility has been reinforced by the tone and methods by which traditional scholarship has responded to the doubts" (36: 518).

Autobiographical evidence

There is no direct documentary evidence connecting Oxford to the plays of Shakespeare. However, Oxfordians argue that parallels between Oxford's life and the plays prove such a connection. For example, Oxford was the son-in-law of Lord Burghley, who is sometimes regarded as the model for Polonius. His own daughter was engaged to Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, the dedicatee of Shakespeare's narrative poems, at the time that most believe the first of the Sonnets were written; indeed, many believe Southampton to have been the Fair Lord of the Sonnets.

The problem of dating

For Stratfordians, the most obvious objection to Oxfordian theory is that Oxford died in 1604, while at least eleven Shakespeare plays are conventionally believed to date from after that period. For example, The Tempest is considered by most mainstream scholars to have been inspired by a description of a shipwreck written in 1610 , while Henry VIII was described as a new play in 1613. Oxfordians respond by arguing that the conventional dates for the plays are mistaken.

Was Oxford known as a secret poet?

Oxford was undoubtedly known as a dramatist and court poet of considerable note. In 1598, Francis Meres referred to him in his Palladis Tamia as among the "best for comedy," but no examples of his comic drama survive under his name. A major question in Oxfordian theory is whether these works were published anonymously or pseudonmously, or whether Meres is referring to manuscript plays that Oxford distributed under his own name but have since been lost.

Anonymous and pseudonymous publication was a certainly 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, alludes to the practice of concealed publication by literary figures in the court:

"I know very many notable gentlemen in the Court that have written commendably, and suppressed it again, or else suffered it to be published without their own names to it: as if it were a discredit for a gentleman to seem learned" (37).

According to Oxfordians, Oxford is prominently mentioned as one of those whose work was concealed:

"And in her majesty's time that now is are sprong up another crew of courtly makers, Noblemen and Gentlemen of her Majesty's own servants, who have written commendably well as it would appear if their doings could be found out and made public with the rest, of which number is first that noble gentleman Edward Earl of Oxford" (75).

The publication goes on to list several other aristocratic poets. Oxfordians believe that this passage supports their claim that Oxford was the most prominent anonymous creative writer of the day.

However, opponents argue that the passage actually says the opposite: it states that there are anonymous poets whose identities have not been 'found out and made public with the rest', but then lists 'the rest' of the aristocratic authors whose names have been 'made public'. If so, Oxford thus appears in the list of known and acknowledged authors, which also includes Sir Philip Sidney, Sir Walter Ralegh, Fulke Greville and other well-known names. According to this reading, Oxford appears first, not because he was the most important author, but because he had the highest social rank. Far from being evidence that Oxford concealed his creative writing, the passage can thus been seen as evidence that he was open about it (as is the very fact that he was publicly named by Meres and the author of the Arte of English Poesy).

Other arguments against Oxfordian theory

Aside from the problem of his date of death, supporters of the standard view further dispute all of the contentions in favor of Lord Oxford. In particular, they assert that the connections between Oxford's life and the plots of Shakespeare's plays are conjectural; that the acclaim of Oxford's contemporaries for his poetic and dramatic skill was distinctly modest ; and that the markings in his Geneva Bible show little or no connection to Shakespeare's use of the Bible..

Other critics, notably Jonathan Bate, invert one of the key assumptions of Oxfordians (and Baconian_theory: that Shakespeare couldn't have written the plays because he had too little learning and was not familiar with court life. They argue that Shakespeare most certainly was familiar with life at court (he acted there often enough, and had noble patrons), but that neither Oxford nor Sir Francis Bacon would have had much chance to develop Shakespeare's unerring ear for the language of ordinary working-class people. Professional Shakespeare academics argue that Thomas Looney's Oxford theory is based on simple snobbishness: anti-Stratfordians cannot bear the idea that the son of a mere tradesman could write the plays and poems of Shakespeare. In fact, all the major Shakespeare authorship conspiracy theories promote an aristocrat in favour of Shakespeare of Stratford.

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