I’ve worked my way through Anderson’s introduction, and am still not impressed. Full disclosure: I’ve no doubt the William Shakespeare, who was born and died in Stratford upon Avon, wrote the plays ascribed to him. I’m not open to other arguments easily. And I’m not impressed by what I have read of Anderson so far. But I’ll give it my best fair shot. Apologies for the length.
Going through the introduction chronologically.
Anderson begins by drawing attention to the many people with doubts about Shakespeare’s authorship, the usual suspects: Twain, James, Freud, etc. He already here makes some startling misreadings, suggesting that John Adams, visiting Stratford, “echoed a growing skepticism of the validity of the Shakespeare story,” when Adams writes “There is nothing preserved of this great genius which is worth knowing. Nothing which might inform us what education, what company, what accident, turned his mind to letters and the drama.” Now, it seems rather clear to me that Adams harbors no doubts, but regrets that there is no more personal information available? But we might let that slide as minor. Anderson’s major point is, of course, that “De Vere added to and revised his early courtly masques and interludes, eventually transforming them into the plays and poems published under the byline ‘William Shakespeare’”. It bears pointing out that anybody familiar with the conception of courtly “masques and interludes” would recognize that “transforming” them into a (performable!) play is a faintly ridiculous proposition—both thematically as well as from a production point of view; it would be much easier to write anew from scratch, and I’m not sure why Anderson feels he needs this movement, as there is clearly no evidence for it. Maybe we’ll find out later.
Anderson goes on to suggest that “every corner of the Shakespeare canon has now been found to contain snippets or passages from de Vere’s life and times” (n.b.: “and times”?? I suppose Shakespeare’s times were ALSO de Vere’s, so that’s neither here nor there really?), and then goes on (rather hilariously, to be frank) to enumerate some, and I’m quoting:
“De Vere’s first marriage produced three daughters who inherited their alienated father’s family seat while he was still alive (King Lear). He had a close but rocky relationship with Queen Elizabeth—whom he portrayed variously as the witty and charming OLIVIA (Twelfth Night), the powerful vixen CLEOPATRA, the cloying VENUS, and the compromised CRESSIDE. De Vere’s father-in-law was the original for PETRUCHIO; de Vere’s sister the model for PETRUCHIO’s KATE; his first wife for OPHELIA, DESDEMONA, and HERO (among many others); de Vere’s second wife for PORTIA; his eldest daughter for MIRANDA; her husband for MIRANDA’s FERDINAND.”
Now, I’m not quite sure how de Vere’s wife must have been like to be both Ophelia and Desdemona and Hero “and many others,” except perhaps schizophrenic; but there is no evidence yet for any of these parallels, and that’s entirely without commenting on why there should not be similar parallels in anybody else’s lives, or indeed (as I don’t tire of repeating) why Oxford should possibly WANT to have those parallels in there.
Anderson claims that the name Shake-speare is giving away the game. Now, we’ll let slide the very idea that spelling anything (the hyphen is important) in Elizabethan England was a good way of drawing attention, because people just about spelled anything in any way imaginable. But Anderson suggests that the hyphenated spelling indicates to the reader that this is a pseudonym, because other clear pseudonyms used hyphens: “Martin Mar-prelate,” “Cuthberg Curry-knave,” and Tom Tell-truth,” and therefore William Shake-speare would have been immediately relatable to as a pseudonym, because “the goddes Athena—divine protectress of learning and the art–…at birth…is said to have shaken her spear.” Now, I’m not quite sure how much criticism here is really necessary. First up, I’m puzzled by the sheer incoherence of the argument—indeed, about precisely what the argument is. The first three names are, first, alliterative, and WS’s isn’t; second, obvious in their allusions, and WS’s isn’t; and finally and most puzzlingly, Anderson admits the existence of the actor William Shakespeare: so it’s a great pseudonym with brilliant allusiveness that just so happens ALSO to be the name of the guy who works as Oxford’s front?! I’m genuinely puzzled here.
Anderson critizes readings of Greene’s Groatsworth of Wit, suggesting that the lines:
“Yes, trust them not, for there is an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that, with his Tygers heart wrapt in a Players hide, supposes he is as well able to bumbast out a blanke verse as the best of you; and being an absolute Johannes Factotum, is in his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene in a countrie.”
imply a number of things: first, that the “crow” reference implies that Shakespeare is “disguis[ing himself] in the plumage of other[s]”—which is very much a standard reading given that the sentence spells it out I think, and also a standard attack by Greene, who, it bears pointing out, really doesn’t like Shakespeare (yet Anderson is taking him at his, complicated, word). Second, that Johannees Factotum meant “in sixteenth-century usage…a braggart and vainglorious dilettante”. The source for this is the OED. Anderson is being at least disingenuous here: the OED offers just one 16th century example for “Johannes factotum”—Greene—and a great number of possible understandings for factotum, most of which are: “a person who can do many things,” “a person who meddles with everything,” “a person in charge of everything”, “a thing that does all kinds of things”. And, what’s more, at least my online access to the OED doesn’t actually GIVE the “1c” entry for factotum which Anderson cites (via D. Allen Carroll’s scholarly edition of Greene); even if that entry existed, it’s clear that it is not the only possible 16th century meaning. A similar game is played with the word “suppose,” which Anderson would have you believe is “often used” by Elizabethans to mean “to feign, pretend; occasionally, to forge”. I stress here the Anderson quote “often”: the OED says a) it’s “rare”, b) doesn’t actually offer an Elizabethan citation for the usage (except, possibly, this line from 1566: “The maide…was the doughter of his owne bondwoman, who afterwardes beeyng stolen awaie, was caried to the house of Virginius, and supposed to bee his childe”; but here I think the OED errs in analysis, as it’s perfectly possible to say “suppose” here means, essentially “everybody supposed her to be Virginius’s child”). It’s deception, pure and simple.
Anderson offers a short discussion of the “Our English Terence” line from John Davies’s 1611 pamphlet. He argues that “many in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries believed” Terence to be “a front man for one or more Roman aristocratic playwrights”. His sources are the Encyclopedia Britannica (which does point out the allegation, but not when it flourished, and is clear that it is unsubstantiated) and Roger Ascham’s The Scholemaster, a textbook of sorts from 1570. Ascham indeed claims that it is “well known” that Scipio wrote some of Terence’s plays. So far, so good. However, it bears pointing out that the conclusion which Anderson draws is (customarily) radical, and it bears spelling out: because John Davies compared Shakespeare to a playwright suspected by one textbook to have been a front for an aristocrat, therefore “the author Shake-speare was someone else altogether.” You must of course decide for yourself if this is convincing, but I would suggest that, even if we accept the Terence-as-fraud reading (which is unsupported by the rest of the poem, of course, a poem which we have already seen Anderson misread rather badly), at most we might argue that John Davies thought Shakespeare a fraud, not that Shakespeare was one. Check out the linked website for more info on this; it does a very good job and points out especially all the references to Terence that Anderson is ignoring. And that’s the rub: he doesn’t just not know them, he is actively ignoring them—the one in Meres, for example, which is probably the most famous Shakespeare reference of all.
Anderson also talks about the problematic (for Oxfordians) Stratford monument, which clearly relates Shakespeare the author and Shakespeare the resident of Stratford (he will, apparently, discuss this in more detail later), and admits that this seems like good evidence. However, he declares (because, apparently, it needs explaining: I’m not quite sure WHY it would need explaining, because I thought that the Shakespeare-as-front thing was desired, and therefore why not let the Stratfordians erect a monument to the guy they thought was Shakespeare?) that we must understand the monuments erection in conjunction with a “brutal campaign” waged by de Vere’s children at James I’s court at the time. “This book argues de Vere’s children and in-laws used the works of Shake-speare as part of a propaganda war […]—and that the Stratford monument and publication of the Folio constituted a last-ditch maneuver to preserve de Vere’s literary legacy, even if it meant burying his identity.” This is rather byzantine, but I guess the book will clear it up later.
I’m jumping into the highlights here, because the rest is pretty much standard fare: no writing survives of Shakespeare, who knows if he ever went to school in the first place, we don’t know about his travels, etc. (“The plays and poems reveal a well-travelled world citizen [sic!!]—one who had an intimate familiarity with Italian and French culture unattainbale at second hand.”), suspiciously didn’t mention any books in his will, and so on.
