Recently my partner read something that got him thinking about William Shakespeare and the controversy surrounding whether or not William Shakespeare of Stratford-Upon-Avon was actually the man that wrote the collected works of William Shakespeare.
Since he likes to research these things he decided that we just needed to know a bit more about this story.
It turns our that the identity of the real composer of the plays attributed to William Shakespeare was first called into question in 1857 when a book by Delia Bacon was published. Ms Bacon first mooted the “committee” theory of compilation, a committee including aristocrats of course, and one of Ms Bacon’s ancestors.
And that seems to be the crux of the argument: William Shakespeare from Stratford-Upon-Avon was the son of a merchant, and did in fact become a merchant himself. Where would a merchants son learn the many details included in the plays? The author of the plays displays a great understanding of the then laws, the court and it’s inner workings, Italy and France, art and artists. Surely this would be the province of the educated, which in the 1700’s would have been the noblemen.
It’s an argument with some merit.
In 1920 a book was written by J Thomas Looney examining just that; what knowledge would Shakespeare have needed to write the plays, and more particularly, who could plausibly have had that knowledge. His conclusion: Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford.
The movie Anonymous explores Edward de Vere as the writer of Shakespeare and, given that my partner tends to be very zealous about these things, we got to watch this movie over the weekend.
I really enjoyed it actually. I’m pretty much a sucker for most period dramas, and this one was well executed. It’s a political intrigue that weaves the story of Edward de Vere and William Shakespeare through the story. It’s of course complete conjecture with only the merest basis in fact, but for that still an enjoyable story in a “Hollywood drama” kind of way.
It was an interesting way to spend a couple of hours on a cold, wet, weekend and I’m not adverse to learning a thing or two and I am at least now equipped to contribute to a discussions with Shakespearean scholars should the opportunity ever present itself.
Check out the trailer below.
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