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by smiths » Tue Mar 16, 2010 11:25 pm
by Uncle $cam » Wed Mar 17, 2010 2:11 am
by Uncle $cam » Wed Mar 17, 2010 2:27 pm
Resisting what the author reads as the New Historicist tendency to reduce history to political mechanisms (and literature to dialectic), The Scythe of Saturn examines the quite different hermeneutic orientation of "magical thinking." While Robert H. West (Shakespeare & the Outer Mystery, 1968) asks us to consider "outerness" - the supernatural subjectified as a metaphysic and applied to the assessment of morality and aesthetics - as an analytical structure for assessing the explicitly magical in Shakespeare's drama, Woodbridge more fundamentally seeks to articulate a view of the world balanced between traditional magical belief and modernity, moving us away from the overtly supernatural in Shakespeare and toward those patterns of his thought rooted in a magical sense of the world. To distinguish the past from the early modern present, Woodbridge explains that while the medieval legacy of magical belief "accepts the possibility of human supernatural agency, sometimes aided by divine or demonic forces, sometimes working by sheer force of will aided by magical words," magical thinking "is the unconscious residue of such belief, which remains to structure experience even though true magical belief has atrophied in the individual psyche" (12). Woodbridge draws upon the work of comparative anthropologists like Mary Douglas and Victor Turner to argue that magical thinking is a pervasive human phenomenon rather than a culture-specific construct. [emphasis mine]
Each of the text's five chapters traces the residual presence of magical beliefs in English culture at large, turning thence to Shakespeare's drama to witness the manifestations of magical thinking in artistic contexts. Identification of the body personal with the body politic to establish their shared sense of borders, or "liminal zones," allows one to read the invasion of individual or of country as a magical pollution (as in The Rape of Lucrece) best combated through protection magic (and hence even the chronicle histories are as much "about" subjective interpretation of natural phenomena as of politics). This identification also contextualizes the reading of scapegoating as ritual purification, with Woodbridge moving away from the Christian archetype of the scapegoat-as-innocent to find Shakespeare's tragedies demonstrating that the sacrifice of the guilty party ("killing the king") is the more natural and redemptive practice. Seasonal magic, particularly derived as the metaphorical combat of winter's sterility with summer's fertility, produces an ambivalence in Shakespeare's drama that reflects "an age both exhilarated by nascent modernity and enchanted by lingering magic," and hence discordantly affirming both "civilization and nature" (201). The color triad of black/white/red, implicit in love poetry from the sonnet tradition to the blazon and replicated in human constructs from seasonal representations in art to game structures, functions as an enchantment, a visual encoding of erotic desire. Finally, through the saturnalian inversion of hierarchical relationships, magic mediates the unpleasant inevitability of age yielding control to youth in order to guarantee society's perpetuation.
I retain just a few reservations about this lucid, stimulating study. Particularly in light of Woodbridge's caveats about historicizing magic, it seems problematic to conceive all hierarchical subversion as magical exercise, for surely in such schema "magic" of necessity becomes a political metaphor, if not indeed a tool. Additionally, the author's occasional use of psychoanalytic mechanisms to trace manifestations of magical thinking has been more effectively performed by theorists such as Bruno Bettelheim or Richard Caldwell (The Origin of the Gods: A Psychoanalytic Study of Greek Theogonic Myth, 1989), and her attempts to establish the complex relationships among magic, cultural semiotics, and Shakespeare could be strengthened by reference to the "Elizabethan universe of discourse" described by Keir Elam in Shakespeare's Universe of Discourse: Language-Games in the Comedies (1984). Nevertheless, cultural materialists will find this study a particularly useful heuristic, as will scholars interested in theories of transmission of folkloric beliefs.
by vanlose kid » Sun Nov 21, 2010 1:52 am
...He was mentioned by Gabriel Harvey in an address to Queen Elizabeth in 1578 as a prolific private poet and one 'whose countenance shakes spears'. In the same year his secretary John Lyly published Euphues: the Anatomy of Wit, followed in 1579 by Euphues his England, dedicated to Oxford. These two books launched the fashion for 'Euphuism', a style characterised by high-flown language, satirised in Love's Labour's Lost.
[ http://www.georgedillon.com/theatre/edw ... vere.shtml ]
...
4) A summary of the doubts surrounding the Stratfordian attribution
Shakespeare, alone of all the great writers in Western civilization, is unique in the enigma he presents. Despite two hundred years of scholarly attempts to establish the Stratford man’s credentials, doubts of the author’s identity simply won’t go away. The very multitude of candidates proposed in substitution for William Shakspere (or Shaxper) of Stratford defines the difficulties a growing number of people find in accepting his authorship. The reason is that as Henry James said, “The facts of Stratford do not ’square’ with the plays of genius…”:
-There is no reference during the lifetime of Shakepere of Stratford (1564-1616) which either speaks of the author of the Shakespearean works as having come from Stratford or speaks of the Stratford man as being an author. (The first indication that the author of Shakespeare’s plays came from Stratford appears, ambiguously, in the prefatory materials of the 1623 First Folio.)
-In an age of copious eulogies, none was forthcoming when William Shakspere died in Stratford. William Camden in his book Remaines had praised the author “Shakespeare”, but in his Annals for the year 1616 Camden omits mention of the Stratford man’s death. Also, in the list of Stratford Worthies of 1605 Camden omits the Stratford man’s name, even though Camden had previously passed on Shakspere’s application for a family coat of arms. (The inference is that it did not occur to Camden that the author, “Shakespeare”, and the Stratford man were the same person.) The first memorial verse to “Shakespeare” appears in the 1623 Folio.
- There is no mention in the documents of the time of a Shakespeare’s, or a Shakspere’s, intimate acquaintance with the inner court circles as has been implied by such contemporaries as Ben Jonson, later seventeenth-century commentators such as John Ward, the author’s dedications to the Earl of Southampton of two poems, and internal evidence from Shakespeare’s works.
- The author of Shakespeare’s works had to be familiar with a wide body of knowledge for his time — on such subjects as law, music, foreign languages, the classics, and aristocratic manners and sports. There is no documentation that William Shakspere of Stratford had access to such information.
- Despite evidence of Shakspere’s unspecified connection with the theater, documentation of any career as an actor is conspicuously absent. For example, there is no record of any part he may have played, and only two posthumous traditions to bit parts. Contrary to all this, the 1623 Folio lists ‘William Shakespeare” at the head of “…the Principall Actors in all these Playes.” Since the hint that the author came from Stratford is also made here for the first time, the dubiousness of the one claim should make us suspect the other as well.
- In the Stratford man’s will, noteworthy for its detailed disposition of household furniture, there is no mention of books, library, manuscripts, or of any literary interest. Indeed, the only theatrical connection there appears as an interlined bequest to three actors.
- The only specimens of William Shakspere’s handwriting to come down to us are six almost illegible signatures, each formed differently from the others, and each from the latter period of his life (none earlier than 1612). Three of these signatures are on his will, one is on a deposition in someone else’s breach of promise case, and two are on property documents. None of these has anything to do with literature. The first syllable, incidentally, in all these signatures is spelled “Shak”, whereas the published plays and poems consistently spell the name “Shake”.
- There is no evidence that William Shakepere had left Stratford for London before 1585 (with the birth of his twins). This 1585 date is providing a great difficulty as more commentators find earlier dates for the composition of certain plays and poems.
5) Why not Bacon, Marlowe or Derby…?
For many readers who begin looking into this issue there is an understandable question that arises even if one does begin to doubt the Stratford story: “Granted, there does seem to be a problem with the Stratford man as the author. But why are there so many candidates, and why should I choose the Shakespeare Oxford Society’s candidate over such illustrious figures as Francis Bacon or Christopher Marlowe? Haven’t these Elizabethan writers had as many, if not more, passionate adherents than the more obscure Earl of Oxford?”
The sheer number of candidates proposed for the august position of “William Shakespeare” is indeed noteworthy. The situation is singular in recent history, inasmuch as such doubts exist for no other great writer, at least since medieval times. Stratfordians would have us believe that, with so many different candidates having been put forward as the true Shakespeare, we should therefore subscribe to the absurd notion that, since it is obvious that all of the candidates substituting for William Shakspere of Stratford cannot be the author, therefore none of them can be.
Actually, of the more than eighty Elizabethans put forward since the middle of the eighteenth century as the “true Shakespeare,” only four have merited serious consideration: Sir Francis Bacon (Lord Verulam), Christopher Marlowe, William Stanley (Sixth Earl of Derby), and Edward de Vere (17th Earl of Oxford). Following is summary of the arguments against the first three. We naturally do not find any arguments against the Earl of Oxford, but readers are invited to judge for themselves.
Bacon: Though possessed of much learning, sophistication, and keen intellect, Francis Bacon expressed these qualities in a different manner from Shakespeare’s whose work is charged throughout with “imagination, passion and idealism” in the words of two commentators. Though both Bacon and Shakespeare had wide knowledge of the law, Shakespeare’s usages of legal terminology, unlike Bacon’s, are richly metaphorical. The known verse that has come down to us of Bacon’s Poetry, e.g., the metrical settings of the Psalms, is stilted and as unlike Shakespeare’s as is possible. It is difficult to imagine that Francis Bacon, with the full life he led and his other numerous literary and official preoccupations, could have also composed thirty-six plays, 154 sonnets and two long narrative poems of the quality these works exhibit. Finally, since Bacon lived through the period of the “definitive” First Folio (1623), we wonder why he didn’t use the opportunity to correct the cornucopia of textual problems left unresolved in that publication.
Marlowe: This very talented dramatist from the Elizabethan era died in 1593 — at the age of 29 (the same age as the Stratford man in that year) and at the outset of the publication of Shakespeare’s works. To overcome this obstacle, Marlowe’s supporters point to irregularities in the coroner’s inquest, and they suppose that Marlowe did not really die in that year but lived on to write the works of “Shakespeare,” a subterfuge necessitated by the “official coverup” of his documented activities as a spy for the Crown. But the inquest irregularities do not prove that Marlowe didn’t die; they could quite conceivably have been fabricated to cover up the true cause of his death, but not the fact that he did die. The assumption that Marlowe survived for an unspecified number of years to write plays under a pseudonym seems a mighty fragile hook from which to hang an authorship theory. But there are other objections as well — stylistic discrepancies, certainly, not being the least of them, despite the numerous “borrowings” cited by supporters of Marlowe’s candidacy. Such enthusiasts also point to the year 1593 as the first publication of “Shake-speare,” but overlook the fact that no Shakespearean play appeared in print other than anonymously until 1598. The earliest of these Shakespearean quartos were of plays that must have been on the boards during Marlowe’s lifetime and could safely have been ascribed to him when they were published — especially since all the Marlowe plays were both attributed to him and published posthumously.
Derby: The case for William Stanley rests on two 1599 documents, one describing him as “busied only in penning comedies for the common players,” and the other, by his wife in a letter to Robert Cecil, as “taking delight in the players” The wife in this instance is Elizabeth Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford’s oldest daughter, and most of the other arguments put forth by Derbyites would better apply to Oxford. Oxfordians concede that Derby may have had a hand in the composition of the Shakespeare plays, and that such a supposition could account for the evidence of collaboration in some of the “late” dramas. But the facts of Derby’s life do not fit the autobiographical implications of the Sonnets and of many plays as do the facts of Oxford’s life. Finally, Derby lived well past the publication of the First Folio, and the objections we found for Francis Bacon above on that score would apply here as well.
Oxford: As we noted earlier, a serious objection to Oxford’s candidacy might appear to be the quality of his known verse. Though far superior to Francis Bacon’s, de Vere’s poems hardly ascend to the heights of, for example, the Sonnets. It would be foolhardy to pretend otherwise. But resemblances to Shakespeare’s verse abound, nonetheless, and Stratfordians’ denigration of Oxford’s poetry is contradicted by scores of commentators from Webbe in the sixteenth century to Sir Sidney Lee in the twentieth. Furthermore, Oxford’s reputation as a playwright is attested to by a number of his contemporaries, including Francis Mere’s, and it is noteworthy that among all the dramatists Meres praises, Oxford is the only playwright whose plays are unknown (at least under his own name), and for whom not even a title survives! Also as noted earlier, we believe the traditional Stratfordian chronology is not a barrier because (as many Stratfordian scholars also note) it is conjecture, not fact. There is no extant document from the Elizabethan era attesting to any given play having been written in any given year.
Thus we appear to have two halves of a riddle: a man (from Stratford) supposed to be a playwright with 36 plays credited to him, but with no documentation of any literary life, and on the other hand a known playwright (Oxford) whose literary life is documented, but with no plays credited to him.
6) The case for Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford as “Shakespeare”
Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford was a recognized poet and playwright of great talent, and although no play under Oxford’s name has come down to us, his acknowledged early verse and his surviving letters contain forms, words, and phrases resembling those of Shakespeare.
- The six-line pentameter stanzas in Venus and Adonis described by “Shakespeare” as the “first heir of my invention,” occur commonly in extant early poetry of Edward de Vere but almost no where else in the English verse of the 16th century.”
- Studies of Oxford’s and Shakespeare’s word parallels have been conducted by Craig Huston in The Shakespeare Authorship Question, Evidence for Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, and others.
The Shakespeare plays and poems show that the author had specific knowledge of certain works of literature, certain prominent persons in Elizabeth’s court, and events connected with them.
- Venus and Adonis, for examples indicates not only a knowledge of Golding’s translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses but of the original as well, since Venus and Adonis translates many of Ovid’s lines omitted by Golding. Arthur Golding was the Earl of Oxford’s uncle and lived in the Cecil household during the time that Oxford was a ward of Cecil’s. Golding also dedicated two of his other translations to the 17th Earl of Oxford.
- Oxford’s father-in-law and guardian, William Cecil, Lord Burghley, was satirized knowingly in Hamlet as Polonius. Many scholars concede this point. Some details in Hamlet’s dialogue reveal knowledge of Burghley’s career. A commoner such as Shakspere of Stratford could not have represented a figure such as Burghley on the stage.
- Oxford wrote a poem and letter to introduce Thomas Bedingfield’s Cardanus Comfort, a major source book for Hamlet.
- Christopher Hatton, Vice-Chamberlain, is satirized as Malvolio (”ill Will”) in Twelfth Night. Hatton’s letter to Queen Elizabeth is even parodied in the play. (Hatton was one of Oxford’s most highly placed enemies.)
In the sonnets and the plays there are frequent references to events that are paralleled in Oxford’s life.
- Oxford was the only possible candidate for “Shakespeare” who actually “bore the canopy” (as he said in sonnet 125) over Queen Elizabeth during the victory celebration following the defeat of the Spanish Armada.
- Polonius in Hamlet refers to “young men falling out at tennis,” which most likely refers to the infamous Oxford-Sidney tennis-court quarrel.
- Because of injuries suffered in a duel Oxford attested to his own “infirmity” in later life, which could be the lameness mentioned by the author of the sonnets. (sonnets 37,66,89)
- In 1573 Oxford as a young man, along with his companions, was reported as playing pranks and tricks on travellers along the same stretch of road “between Rochester and Gravesend” where Prince Hal’s pals from the Boar’s Head Tavern did likewise in Henry IV, Part 1. (And it is also interesting to note here that the Vere family crest featured a blue boar.)
- Oxford’s poem “Anne Vavasor’s Echo”, written to his mistress Anne Vavasor, the most likely “Dark Lady” of the sonnets, bears a strong resemblance to the echo verses in Venus and Adonis and certain passages in Romeo and Juliet.
- The details of Hamlet, one of “Shakespeare’s” greatest achievements, are so similar to those of Oxford’s life that the play could be considered autobiographical.
In the Renaissance period in England no courtiers were allowed to publish poetry –this was an unwritten code of the court. The need for a pseudonym by an author-courtier such as Oxford would have been essential. If the name “William Shake-speare” is a pseudonym, Oxford would have had many reasons for adopting this particular nom de plume.
- Pallas Athena, patron goddess of ancient Athens, home of Greek theatre, was associated with the sobriquet Hasti-vibrans, or “spear-shaker”
- Thomas Nashe may have been referring to his patron Oxford when he addressed a “Gentle Master William” and a “Master Sacred ox” in 1592. In the same pamphlet, Nashe also mentions “his very friend Master Apis Lapis” (stoned bull or ox) and “Will Monox” –probable references to Oxford as well.
Miscellaneous considerations.
- The reference by Ben Jonson to Shakespeare as “Sweet Swan of Avon’ in the First Folio has been put forward to exclude any other candidate than William Shakspere of Stratford. It is interesting to note, however, that the Earl of Oxford had an estate, Bilton Hall, the grounds of which at the time of his occupancy were bounded by the Avon River on one side and by the Forest of Arden on another.
- Upon Oxford’s death in 1604 King James had eight Shakespeare plays produced at court. When Oxford’s widow died nine years later a group of Shakespeare plays (fourteen in this case) were produced.
7) A comparison of Edward de Vere with “William Shakespeare”
Some general and special characteristics of the author “Shake-speare” revealed in the poems and plays, as adduced by J. Thomas Looney in “Shakespeare” Identified in Edward de Vere, the Seventeenth Earl of Oxford, with a comparison of these characteristics to the matching characteristics of Edward de Vere 17th Earl of Oxford.
1) Mature man of recognized genius. A lyric poet of recognized talent.
Edward de Vere was praised by the author of the Arte of English Poesie (1589) “for Comedy and Enterlude”: by William Webbe, A Discourse of English Poetry (1586): “…the right honourable Earl of Oxford may challenge to himself the title of the most excellent among the rest”; and by Francis Meres, Palladis Tamia (1598): “The best for comedy among us be Edward Earl of Oxford,…(and others)”
2) Of pronounced and known literary taste.
Edward de Vere was the most prominent patron of writers in the 16th century. Among those literary figures who dedicated works to the Earl are Spenser, Robert Greene, Anthony Munday, John Lyly, Thomas Nashe, Arthur Golding, and many others. Oxford arranged for the publication of books by Thomas Bedingfield and Bartholomew Clarke and contributed dedicatory prefaces to each.
3) An enthusiast in the world of drama.
Oxford is known to have written, produced and acted in plays and masques. He was lease-holder of the BlackfriarsTheatre. He operated his own theatrical company, Oxford’s Boys, as well. In 1580 the Earl of Warwick’s company transferred to Lord Oxford’s service. John Lyly, at that time Oxford’s private secretary, was probably also appointed manager of the company. About 1600 the Earl of Oxford’s servants performed two plays. In 1602 the Earls of Oxford and Worcester amalgamated their companies and were licensed to play at the Boar’s Head.
4) Of superior education.
Edward de Vere graduated from Cambridge University at age 14, and was created master of arts at Oxford University at the age of 16. The following year he was admitted to Gray’s Inn to study law. An early account book (1569/70) shows Edward de Vere to be the possessor of a Geneva Bible, North’s Plutarch, plus works of Plato, Chaucer, and Tully.
5) Of probable Catholic leanings but touched with skepticism.
Oxford’s sympathies with Catholicism are reflected in his early dealings with Henry Howard and Charles Arundell. When he discovered that his two friends were traitors, Oxford exposed them to Queen Elizabeth. Any further association with Catholicism is not documented.
6) A man with feudal connections, a member of the higher aristocracy, and connected with Lancastrian supporters.
Edward de Vere was an heir to one of the oldest earldoms in England’s history, originating in the Norman Conquest. The de Veres historically were supporters of the Lancastrian faction in the Wars of the Roses.
7) An enthusiast for Italy.
Oxford travelled to Italy in the mid-1570s and even tried to make the trip surreptitiously when Queen Elizabeth intially denied him permission. It has recently been documented that the Earl built a house in Italy during his travels.
8) A follower of sport, including falconry.
Edward de Vere was quite accomplished in jousting and participated in tournaments. Some of his early verse has images drawn from falconry. His quarrel with Sir Philip Sidney over the rights to the tennis court is notorious.
9) Lover of music.
Composer John Farmer in his dedication of The First Set of English Madrigals (1599), says “that using this science [music] as a recreation your Lordship have overgone most of them that make it a profession.”
10) Improvident in money matters and contemptuous of thrift.
Oxford alienated many of his estates to his father-in-law, William Cecil, Lord Burghley, for which he has been criticized by historians.
[ http://www.shakespeare-oxford.com/?p=35#SummaryofDoubts ]
by vanlose kid » Sun Nov 21, 2010 2:21 am
The Man Who Was Hamlet
A short life of Edward De Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford
He was born in 1550 at Castle Hedingham, Essex, his family's ancestral home. His father, John de Vere, who held the hereditary title of Lord Great Chamberlain, attended the coronations of both Mary and Elizabeth Tudor. Edward was ten years old when Queen Elizabeth visited Hedingham for four days of masques, feasting and entertainments. His mother Margaret came from the old Saxon family of Golding.
When his father died in 1562, young Edward left his home to become, like Bertram in All's Well, a ward of the Crown, under the tutelage of William Cecil, the Queen's Private Secretary (later Lord Burghley). His mother re-married shortly afterwards and seems to have passed out of the boy's life. His sister Mary, who was possibly his twin, went to live with her stepfather and they were not reunited for some years.
In the Cecil household the curriculum included dancing, French, Latin, Greek, cosmography, penmanship, shooting, exercise and prayer. Edward's education continued at Cambridge, Oxford and Gray's Inn (a college of law). He was tutored by his uncle, Arthur Golding, who is credited with the translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses, published in 1567 and widely recognised as a profound influence on 'Shakespeare'.
In 1570 he joined the military campaign in Scotland under the Earl of Sussex. By 1571, despite having been involved in various youthful pranks, such as highway robbery, he was reported as a leading luminary at Court and, for a time, a favourite of Queen Elizabeth. In December of that year he married the 15-year-old Anne Cecil, daughter of his guardian. This was a dynastic marriage where all the advantage accrued to Burghley, who was ennobled to reduce the social gap between himself and the young Earl.
While he was away on a Grand Tour of Europe, Edward heard that a daughter, Elizabeth, had been born in July 1575. On his return in early 1576 he appears to have been convinced that she was not his child; he became estranged from Anne for five years, and exiled himself from court, taking up residence in the Savoy and concerning himself with literary and musical patronage. Already in 1573 Cardanus Comfort (the 'Consolations of Boethius') had been translated from the Latin and dedicated to him. In 1576 A Paradise of Daintie Devices, including several poems by Oxford was published. These juvenile works already show affinities, both in style and thought, with those of the mature Shakespeare.
Oxford's Grand Tour had taken in Paris, Strasbourg, Venice, Genoa, Florence, Palermo and, on his way back through France, Roussillon (the setting of All's Well the Ends Well ). He spent the best part of 1576 travelling in Italy and came back fluent in Italian and well acquainted with the North Italian cities, to be satirised by Gabriel Harvey as 'the Italian Earl' on his return to England. His ship was attacked by pirates in the Channel (c.f. Hamlet). Fourteen of 'Shakespeare's' plays have Italian settings, in which he put his detailed acquaintance with the country, beyond pure book knowledge, to good use.
The year 1576 also saw the birth of Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton. Despite the difference in their ages, the two men knew each other well. 'Shakespeare' dedicated the poems Venus and Adonis (1593) and The Rape of Lucrece (1594) to Southampton. They were the first works to be published under the by-line 'Shake-speare', and for the next five years the name was associated principally with these two poems. Printed plays under the name 'Shake-speare' did not appear until 1598, the year that Burghley died.
Oxford owned a ship, the Edward Bonaventure. Despite its name, the vessel's voyage in search of gold in Frobisher's 1577 North West Passage expedition made him a loss. In the 1578 expedition he also lost a considerable sum, forcing further sales of his estates (this may explain Hamlet's words in Act II Scene 2: 'I am but mad north-north-west'). It is possible that Oxford commanded the same vessel when fighting the Spanish Armada.
He was mentioned by Gabriel Harvey in an address to Queen Elizabeth in 1578 as a prolific private poet and one 'whose countenance shakes spears'. In the same year his secretary John Lyly published Euphues: the Anatomy of Wit, followed in 1579 by Euphues his England, dedicated to Oxford. These two books launched the fashion for 'Euphuism', a style characterised by high-flown language, satirised in Love's Labour's Lost.
In Match 1581 his mistress, Anne Vavasour, gave birth to a son. The lovers were both sent to the Tower by an infuriated Queen. After his release, Oxford was wounded in a fight instigated by Thomas Knyvet, a kinsman of Anne Vavasour; affrays continued in the streets of London between rival gangs for over a year (c.f Romeo and Juliet).
In December 1581 Oxford resumed living with his long-suffering but devoted wife, and accepted Elizabeth as his child. Tragically, their only son died the day after his birth. Three more daughters followed, of whom Susan and Bridget survived
In 1584 Robert Green's Card of Fancy was dedicated to him, identifying him as a 'pre-eminent writer'. That year he served on the tribunal which condemned Many, Queen of Scots, to execution.
Two years later, when he was 36, the Queen awarded Oxford an unconditional pension of £1000 a year for life. This uncharacteristic generosity remains a mystery, no reason having been given, and no accounting required of Oxford. Her successor, James I, continued to pay the pension. In reply to a request from the then Lord Burghley that Lord Sheffield's pension be increased, the King refused, saying 'Great Oxford got no more,' leaving us to wonder why great Oxford? His greatness does not seem to have resided in war or affairs of state, so what was it?
In 1587 the playwright Thomas Kyd joined his household. The following year he lost his wife; he remarried in 1591 or 1592 and was finally blessed with a legitimate son, Henry, in 1593. In 1598 George Puttenham referred to him as 'first among noblemen-poets if their doings could be made public'. In 1590 marriage negotiations between his daughter Elizabeth de Vere and Southampton, which had been promoted by Burghley, broke down at a late stage.
When Oxford married Elizabeth Trentham in about 1591-2, he retired from court. He and his new wife moved to King's Place in the fashionable suburb of Hackney in 1596. From then on his public, documented life becomes obscure. In 1594 his ship the Edward Bonaventure was wrecked in Bermuda (c.f. The Tempest).
In January 1595 Elizabeth de Vere married the 6th Earl of Derby, another literary earl. In September 1598, two months after Burghley's death, Meres' Palladis Tamia was registered for publication, naming Oxford as the 'best for comedy' and including the first mention of 'Shakespeare' as a playwright, attributing twelve plays to him. Until then Shakespeare's reputation had rested on the two narrative poems only.
Oxford suffered all his life from financial difficulties, and at the Queen's death in 1603 he wrote eloquently to his brother-in-law, Robert Cecil, 2nd Baron Burghley, of his grief, and his ' shipwreck above all the rest', which he feared would result from losing his pension. He died the following year, possibly of the plague. Parish records state that he was buried in Hackney church on July 6th 1604, but a family history by his first cousin, Percival Golding, states: 'Edward de Veer [sic] ... a man in mind and body absolutely accomplished ... lieth buried at Westminster.'.
THE AFTERMATH
During the winter season of 1604-5 six of Shakespeare's plays were presented at court, by command of James I. This has an air of commemoration. In 1609 the Sonnets were published in a pirated edition. The famous dedication describes the author as 'our ever-living', a phrase which was invariably used of the dead, and with the change of only one letter is an anagram of Oxford's motto Vero Nihil Verius ('nothing truer than truth', or 'than a Vere'). In 1622 Henry Peacham published, in The Compleat Gentleman, a list of poets who made Elizabeth's reign a 'golden age'. Unaccountably, he omitted Shakespeare but included Oxford; perhaps he knew them to be the same person.
We do not know who instigated the publication of the First Folio edition of the Shakespeare plays in 1623, but there is no mention of any executor or relative of the man from Stratford. However, of the two men who financed it and to whom it was dedicated, the brothers Philip and William Herbert, the former, Philip, Earl of Montgomery, was the husband of Oxford's daughter, Susan, while the other, William, Earl of Pembroke, had once been a suitor to Bridget. Pembroke became Lord Chamberlain, the supreme authority in the world of theatre, and thus was in a position to decide which plays were published and which suppressed. We also know that Ben Jonson, who wrote much of the introductory material, was an intimate associate of the De Vere family after Edward's death. The First Folio was very much a family affair, but the family was not the one in Stratford-on-Avon.
[ http://www.georgedillon.com/theatre/edw ... vere.shtml ]
by JackRiddler » Sat Apr 16, 2011 3:30 pm
by charlie meadows » Sat Apr 16, 2011 3:39 pm
by alwyn » Sat Apr 16, 2011 9:31 pm
by vanlose kid » Sat Apr 16, 2011 11:05 pm
JackRiddler wrote:.
Following had me so agitated I started a new thread as a way of introducing it:
Name the Worst of All Living Film-makers
http://rigorousintuition.ca/board2/view ... =8&t=31811
Crosspost:
This actually comes because of a trailer I saw at the movies last night, in which god help us, Emmerich does Shakespeare as seen through the lens of the Da Vinci Code. Our local KWH crew will be thrilled to hear it's called Anonymous.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXE_iovifmk
Thing is, the lavish recreation of the Globe and Elizabethan London (and New York City by helicopter always gets thrown in as the right set for any movie, any time, whether or not you'll be blowing it up) totally has me wanting it... And in the middle of that the screen flashes: "A Roland Emmerich Film." He's going to define what a generation thinks about this? Fuck!
Never mind the idea of a living theater company as collaboration -- not unrelated to how movies don't always have lone authors either, with the Emmerich oeuvre as an obvious example. Watch that and you know Eddie DeVere was the one Author and the mean and sneaky merchant-actor ripped it all off. Good guys and bad guys. I was never going to be very loyal to either hard-line, Oxford or Stratford, but if anyone can make me a fanatic Stratfordian, it's probably Emmerich. (And gah, lookit those sets! I'll probably be unable to resist paying him for the privilege. Mission accomplished, I guess?)
.
by JackRiddler » Sat Apr 16, 2011 11:39 pm
by vanlose kid » Sat Apr 16, 2011 11:46 pm
by vanlose kid » Sat Apr 16, 2011 11:49 pm
JackRiddler wrote:.
vanlose, that all may be, the actors are certainly great ones. I will watch these videos you've linked.
I only saw the trailer for the first time last night, and I was excited. That turned into dismay when I saw Emmerich as the auteur.
You need to understand the significance of this filmography:
These are not just bad. These are expansionary stupidity, corrosive attempts to lower the culture itself. Independence Day is one of the worst movies in that regard, ever. I started the "worst film-maker ever" thread because if you'd asked me before I saw the Anonymous trailer, I'd have right away said Bruckheimer/Emmerich/Bay (they've collaborated and worked independently).
Maybe Anonymous is his penance. Many producers of the worst are, surely, smart people also capable of creating good.
Now that I've gotten my Emmerich ranting out of the way, I'm much calmer and we can leave it as an open question whether the film will make a worthy treatment of the Shakespeare questions.
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by vanlose kid » Sun Apr 17, 2011 12:00 am
William Ray said...
Agree with Mr. Batchelar. I like to think that the artistic community has taken the subject out of the hands and the stultifying protocols of the academic priesthood, which has thereby botched its mission, the search for the truth regarding the man and the era, instead complying with contrary economic and nation-state interests, i.e., keep Stratford booming and Shakespeare a bulwark for merry old England.
The name Shakespeare will still ring in our ears as an artistic and spiritual marvel after the repressed material comes to light. But the name will attach to its creator, not to a pseudonym and its myth of Superman who can do anything including acquiring decades of learning overnight. That, now prevalent, myth fictionalizes what human creativity is; it doesn't honor it. The emergence of the true story will also bring the social frame of the Elizabethan era into focus: that a rich barbaric culture's managers weren't about to accede to a high noble's political, educational, or artistic vision of what England should be. He was minimized and written out of English history. The works of "Shakespeare" thus diminished to an entertainment and a patriotic booster mechanism, alike in some ways now to the propaganda-driven national 'legacy' of Martin Luther King as a secular saint. That is a very convenient pedestal, instead of recognizing his actual deed, a moral challenge to the entire power structure that America has come to live under. Fortunately the truth does not die. King will be recognized for warning us that a military America is the deathbed of our founding principles. The 17th Earl of Oxford will yet get his due as thinker and artist, which is what he pleaded for in the last words of Hamlet: "O good Horatio, what a wounded nqme (Things standing thus unknown) shall live behind me./ If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart,/ absent thee from felicity awhile,/ and in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain,/ To tell my story."
by vanlose kid » Sun Apr 24, 2011 4:09 am
by jingofever » Tue Jun 07, 2011 11:05 pm
The link has been revealed by a study of accidental deaths in Tudor England.
A coroner’s report shows that a Jane Shaxspere drowned aged two-and-a-half while picking corn marigolds 20 miles from Stratford-upon-Avon in 1569.
Shakespeare was then about five.
The discovery has led to speculation that Jane could have been his younger cousin, and that her story inspired the death of Ophelia in Hamlet, who drowned after falling into a brook.
The inquest jury recorded a ‘misfortune’ verdict on Jane’s death, which happened at the mill pond at Upton Warren, Worcestershire.
One man shot himself in the head while trying to remove an arrow stuck in his longbow
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