For what it’s worth, I can supply some anecdotal evidence to support TomH’s observation. I generally get one of two reactions when I tell new acquaintances what I study – and they are almost ALWAYS divided along national lines.
Americans ask, “So who REALLY wrote Shakespeare?”
Brits ask, “So why isn’t Shakespeare performed with a Birmingham accent?”
I much prefer the second question, even though I can’t answer it.
Sadly, I DO know a person who denies there ever was a person named William Shakespeare.
I am certain Cecil addressed this once, shortly after Frontline did their take on it. But it doesn’tseem to be in the archives.
For what it’s worth, I’m back with the correct citation. Incidentally, it was not Marlowe who derided Shakespeare (I apologize for misremembering).
Again, this is quoted directly from Issac Asimov’s Guide to Shakespeare, in the chapter discussing Henry VI, Part 3:
Assuming that Asimov and his sources are not mistaken, this seems to clearly establish that someone was writing plays under the name “William Shakespeare”, around 1592, and that playwright Robert Greene, at least, believed that it was the actor of that name.
A slight hijack here–I must confess I remain puzzled at the enduring popularity of the Shakespeare-didn’t-write-Shakespeare theory, which has more of a pop-culture existence than any scholarly impetus behind it. Anyway: the hijack: I note that Edward III has recently been accepted (?widely? only in some quarters?) into the canon, & was wondering if someone could enlighten me as to what has led to this–new evidence? (I’ve not read the play yet, but am aware that the play has teetered on the edge of the canon occasionally over the centuries, largely due to the presence of the “Lilies that fester” line that turns up in the sonnets too.) --N
I wasn’t advocating a committee when I pointed out that the vocabulary argued against a single author of the plays. Not that there aren’t some people who’ve put forth the idea of an organized group.
But the same effect could be achieved by one person borrowing with little or no change large sections of other people’s work. Or perhaps even entire plays.
In an earlier post I said that there was strong evidence that Love’s Labors Lost was written by someone other than Shakespeare, but I was wrong on who that person was. The evidence points most strongly to William Stanley, the sixth Earl of Darby.
Actually, it’s a rather international group, including some who don’t have English as their native tongue.
For example, one notable Oxfordian was Sigmund Freud. And the first person to advocate William Stanley, sixth earl of Derby (not Darby, as I said in a previous post) was a French scholar, Professor Abel Lefranc.
While there is the Shakespeare Oxford Society in the US, there is also The de Vere Society in the UK.
Sorry, this conjoured up an immediate and rather vivid mental picture of Hamlet being played by a whining Brummie (a la Jasper Carrott or Frank Skinner) which I will now have great difficulty shifting.
"Oi have of lite, but wherefore Oi knaw not, lost all moi merth
TomH:
Having made a cursory search, I’ll concede the point. The Oxfordian sites don’t seem to say much about principal Oxfordians’ academic backgrounds.
I saw that Frontline special years ago, though, and I could swear the main de Vere proponent they interviewed was an Oxford (as in the university) don. But again, I concede the point.
Fretful Porcupine wrote:
You just need to refer those folks to the (somewhat surprisingly) renowned Alabama Shakespeare Festival. I’m quite sure they’ll hear some Birmingham accents there… 