tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-122065082024-03-13T14:54:24.071-04:00"Shakespeare" By Another NameEdward de Vere, Earl of Oxford was "Shakespeare." So... Who was Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford? Now we're talking.Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01959807858303615531noreply@blogger.comBlogger154125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206508.post-56891144829758693352015-08-02T21:43:00.002-04:002015-08-02T21:43:56.775-04:00Who Wrote Shake-speare: Why It Matters<div>
[<i>Note: Cheryl Eagan-Donovan, author of this guest blog post, has launched a <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2027553076/shakespeare-for-bullies/posts/1311668" target="_blank">Kickstarter</a> for her documentary </i>Nothing is Truer Than Truth, <i>which is partly based on "Shakespeare" by Another Name. She's now working with a great <a href="http://katyjarz.com/film-music/" target="_blank">composer</a> on the film's score and a top <a href="http://www.crazyrebellion.com/about-zimo/" target="_blank">editor</a> who, among numerous credits, worked on the Academy Award-nominated film </i>Glen Campbell: I'll Be Me.<i>] </i></div>
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A guest post by documentary filmmaker Cheryl Eagan-Donovan</div>
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I am often asked why it matters who wrote Shake-speare. As a writer, educator, and parent, my answer is that it matters now more than ever. Great writing is the result of access to great books, the ability to draw on and synthesize life experience, and the art of relentless revision. The author of the world’s greatest literary works must have had these opportunities and developed these skills. Education is the pursuit of knowledge combined with constant critical analysis that challenges what we know and how we know it. I teach writing, literature, and cinema with the aim of inspiring my students to become lifelong learners, actively engaged in research, discovery, and innovation. </div>
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I discovered Edward de Vere in a history class at Harvard University. Professor Don Ostrowski suggested the authorship question as a topic for an essay on source material and history, and recommended J. Thomas Looney’s book, Shakespeare Identified. Looney noted Shakespeare’s conflicted feelings toward women and analyzed De Vere’s early poetry. Having written poetry and completed an independent study on the theme of androgyny in Shakespeare’s work, I was convinced by Looney’s argument that De Vere was the true Shakespeare. I searched for other books on the topic and found Joseph Sobran’s Alias Shakespeare. Sobran makes a very strong case for De Vere’s sexual preference as the reason for the pseudonym. </div>
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Sobran links the publishing of the Folio of Shakespeare’s work in 1623 with the suppression of the Sonnets: “It makes no mention of Southampton, to whom all of Shakespeare’s major nondramatic poetry had been addressed.” He further suggests that “One aim of the Folio… was to portray Shakespeare as a mere untitled common player…thereby implicitly dissociating him from Southampton and the poems written in his honor – thus burying any memory of the homosexual amour between Oxford and Southampton, who was still very much alive and to be reckoned with.” Sobran concludes, “The 1623 Folio deliberately focused entirely on the plays and so reinvented Shakespeare.” (1)</div>
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After reading Looney and Sobran, I did some research on the still nascent internet and learned that Mark Anderson was writing a biography of De Vere. I knew that I wanted to option Mark’s book, “Shake-speare” By Another Name, to make a film, before he had even finished writing it. As a writer, I immediately recognized its narrative potential. De Vere’s story has all the elements of the archetypal hero’s journey, from losing his father at age twelve, to answering the call to adventure on the continent, and returning home to England with the Holy Grail of the Renaissance and commedia dell’arte. Mark is one of the world’s leading scholars in authorship studies research, and I am honored to have had the opportunity to adapt his seminal work. As an educator and a parent, I also recognized the importance of acknowledging the themes of sexuality and gender identity in the canon and their relationship to the author’s life. </div>
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I am not alone in my reading of many of the Sonnets as homosexual love poems, nor am I the only one to identify the theme of bisexuality in so much of Shakespeare’s work. Marjorie Garber, Harold Bloom, Stanley Wells, Rene Weis, and Stephen Greenblatt are just a few of the Shakespeare scholars who acknowledge the significance of sex and gender identity in the canon. None of these authors, however, is an Oxfordian. In my essay for the Harvard history class, I concluded that the author’s bisexuality was the reason for the resistance to De Vere as Shakespeare in academia. </div>
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While making the documentary film, Nothing is Truer than Truth, I discovered some facts to support my thesis. Many of the university professors I contacted preferred not to appear on camera, or politely declined to be interviewed. De Vere remains taboo on most college campuses. I learned more about the relationship between Elizabethan theater and the sexual behavior of actors and patrons at the playhouses. I researched the attitudes towards sexuality and gender identity in late-sixteenth century Venice. I read respected authors and interviewed scholars about the use of pseudonyms by writers throughout history. I found a correlation between the use of a pen name and a desire to conceal sexual preference by several playwrights and authors. Though this evidence is circumstantial, I am committed to the premise that De Vere’s sexuality is a major reason for the pseudonym. </div>
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When I discovered De Vere in 1997, Ellen DeGeneres had just become the first television personality to come out on the air. Much progress has been made in terms of attitudes toward sexual preference and gender identity in the past eighteen years, but some things remain unchanged. Students are still persecuted in schools and online for not conforming to sex-role stereotypes. Bullying behavior is often related to anxiety about sexual identity. Bisexuality, like homosexuality, was not just marginalized but denied by many people until quite recently. Science has proven that human experience includes a broad spectrum of gender identity and sexual preference. Shakespeare’s writing reflects an unprecedented awareness of psychology and behavior. </div>
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As a writer and filmmaker, I bring to this project the point of view that defines an author: the search for voice and identity. I am committed to providing students the opportunity to express themselves through words and visual images, and to develop their own unique and powerful voices. Through understanding Shakespeare, we can enhance our knowledge of human behavior and the complexities of interpersonal communications. </div>
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<a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2027553076/shakespeare-for-bullies/posts/1311668" target="_blank">Shakespeare for Bullies</a>, the educational outreach program for my film, empowers students to change behavior by sharing their stories. The interactive website aggregates the canon, commentary, extant letters and poetry written by De Vere, and students’ own stories, providing a resource for learning and a platform for communication. By focusing our attention on the search for identity and cultivating respect for differences, Shakespeare can be not just an effective tool for confronting the self-perpetuating violence of bullying, but a catalyst for lasting change. </div>
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Please join me in bringing Nothing is Truer than Truth to audiences around the world, because it really does matter who wrote Shake-speare. </div>
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(1) Sobran, Joseph, Alias Shakespeare, New York, The Free Press, A Division of Simon and Schuster, Inc., 1997, pp. 219-220 </div>
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Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01959807858303615531noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206508.post-3900507818145808682015-04-12T08:57:00.000-04:002015-04-12T12:08:30.360-04:00Hermione, Juliet, Helena prefigured: A new poem by Edward de Vere?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Last November, Georgetown University psychology professor (and self-proclaimed "<a href="http://www.oxfreudian.com/" target="_blank">Oxfreudian</a>") Richard Waugaman released a Kindle-only ebook that I think hasn't been given enough recognition. It's called <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00PEBGSLK/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00PEBGSLK&linkCode=as2&tag=shakebyanothn-20&linkId=WBPQY4VJ7LSVYCEA" target="_blank">Newly Discovered Works by "William Shake-Speare" a.k.a. Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford</a>. </i><br />
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(<b>In recognition of Oxford's birthday, Prof. Waugaman is offering this ebook free of charge on April 12, 2015.</b>) <i><br /></i><br />
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As the title promises, Waugaman makes compelling (if not necessarily, by his own admission, conclusive) arguments for attributing five anonymous poems from the 1570s, '80s and '90s -- as well as a landmark work of literary criticism, <i>The Arte of English Poesie </i>(1589) -- to Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford. <br />
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And there is one work in Waugaman's thought-provoking collection in particular that I want to mention here. Since reading his short ebook last year, this is the poem that sticks with me most. It's called "<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=0Z8_AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA118#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">A Letter written by a yonge gentilwoman and sent to her husband unawares (by a freend of hers) into Italy</a>." (The link here is to the entire poem on Google Books.)<br />
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It's an anonymous 96-line poem published in 1578 that is written, as advertised, in the voice of a woman pining for her husband as he travels in Italy. <br />
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Of course, Edward de Vere gained great renown at court in the 1570s for his 1575-'76 Italian tour and the disastrous aftershocks from his tumultuous return when he accused his wife, Anne Cecil, of cuckolding him while he traveled abroad. (She did give birth while he was out of the country, and the he-said-she-said arguments that ensued upon his return were tempestuous and epic. And, in a sense, they're <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=kzav7JrRRJsC&lpg=PA117&ots=HexO2AwpQd&dq=%22spirit%20of%20%2776%22%20%22shakespeare%20by%20another%20name%22&pg=PA117#v=onepage&q=%22spirit%20of%20%2776%22%20%22shakespeare%20by%20another%20name%22&f=false" target="_blank">still being rehashed on stages around the world</a> to this day.)<br />
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Here's why Waugaman's find matters: If it were indeed Oxford writing these words,
it'd be one of the more "Shakespearean" poems in his canon of early
verse. For here is a poem that could be a kind of early draft of a
speech from one of the many Anne Cecil-inspired heroines in the canon:
Helena and Hermia come to mind in particular here. The former for her
contending with a lover who has run off to Italy. The latter for a
pathetic appeal she makes to her man citing the baby they have (she
says) in common. Or in the words of "A Letter" <br />
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"And last of all, which grieves me most, that I was so beguiled<br />
Remember most, forgetful man!, thy pretty tattling child." (ll. 37-38)<br />
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The Stratfordian myth we're now told about Oxford, exemplified in Alan Nelson's <i>Monstrous Adversary, </i>is
that Edward de Vere saw the world through an
"egocentric, cry-baby attitude" that Nelson (p. 161) memorably describes
as being emblematic of Oxford's poetic style. Oxford was allegedly too self-absorbed, in other words, to have written in anyone's voice but his own.<br />
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But this poem would give the lie to such a claim. If Waugaman's attribution is correct, it's Oxford in his full youthful voice -- bold, unabashed and arrogant. But then channeling that through the voice of a self-effacing and modest gentlewoman who might be an understudy for a number of early Shakespearean heroines. (No fierce Portia or assured Isabella to be found here, admittedly, but a peer perhaps of the more meek-seeming, early Anne Cecil-inspired characters like Anne Page, Hero or Adriana/Luciana.) <br />
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The poem, indeed, purports to tell the
story of a woman exactly in Anne Cecil's situation in 1578, when it was
published. For this reason, Waugaman quotes the Stratfordian critic
Steven May (an expert on Elizabethan courtly verse and editor of an
edition of Oxford's attributed youthful poems) noting that the "poem's
speaker seems to be in exactly the state of Anne De Vere during her
husband's sojourn" in Italy.<br />
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And, it should be noted, the author of this anonymous verse also gets a dig in at the Cecils, with the sarcastic line about a "rich and wealthy dower." As <i>"Shakespeare" by Another Name</i> was first to point out, witness a <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=kzav7JrRRJsC&lpg=PA67&ots=HexO2BwpQe&dq=dowry%20vere%20oxford%20%22shakespeare%20by%20another%20name%22&pg=PA48#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">previously unnoticed letter</a> from a Spanish source, William Cecil appears to have dangled a staggering £15,000 dowry in front of Oxford as inducement to marry his daughter Anne. But, so far as I've been able to trace at least, Cecil never paid it out. Yet Cecil appears, again if the Spanish source is correct, to have made arrangements to pay the dowry with Spanish gold behind Spanish enemy lines in the Lowlands. (!) Which I think is why Oxford ran off to the Lowlands as he did in 1574. <br />
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In any event, Steven May does not go along with Waugaman in attributing the poem to Oxford. Though May is hardly the final authority on the matter either. Readers already familiar with the inventive, strongly rhythmic, metaphor-laced (often high-born metaphor-laced) voice of the early "Shakespeare" style should pay close attention. <br />
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I think Waugaman has a ringer here. Usage, spelling and other stylometric tests might constitute a strong followup attribution study of this poem. I'd be curious to know what readers would add to Waugaman's and this blog's initial reactions to the poem. Please contribute to the discussion in the comments section below. <br />
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So, until a more complete attribution study is done on this poem, I'd definitely put "A Letter Written by a Young Gentlewoman" in the keep-an-eye-on-this-space category.<br />
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Please, in any case, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00PEBGSLK/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00PEBGSLK&linkCode=as2&tag=shakebyanothn-20&linkId=WBPQY4VJ7LSVYCEA" target="_blank">buy Waugaman's ebook.</a> (Or, on Apr. 12, 2015, download it for free.) It's worth the small price of entry. And, to add to the discussion of its merits, I've posted a modern-English version of the poem below. (Please also post a comment below or send an <a href="mailto:feedback@shakespearebyanothername.com" target="_blank">email</a> if you discover any transcription or translation errors.) <br />
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A Letter Written By A Young Gentlewoman and Sent to Her Husband Unawares (By A Friend of Hers) Into Italy<br />
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Imagine when these blurred lines, thus scribbled out of frame,<br />
Shall come before thy careless eyes, for thee to read the same: <br />
To be through no default of pen, or else through proud disdain, <br />
But only through surpassing grief which did the author pain. <br />
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Whose quivering hand could have no stay, this careful bill to write<br />
Through flushing tears distilling fast, whilst she did it indict: <br />
Which tears perhaps may have some force (if thou no tiger be), <br />
And mollify thy stony heart, to have remorse on me.<br />
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Ah, perjured wight reclaim thyself, and save thy loving mate, <br />
Whom thou hast left beclogged now, in most unhappy state:<br />
(Ay me poor wench) what luckless star? What frowning god above?<br />
What hellish hag, what furious fate hath changed our former love?<br />
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Are we debarred our wonted joys? Shall we no more embrace?<br />
Wilt thou my dear in country strange ensue Aeneas' race?<br />
Italians send my lover home, he is no German born,<br />
Unless ye welcome him because he leaves me thus forlorn.<br />
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As <a href="http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/erst#English" target="_blank">erst</a> ye did <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchises" target="_blank">Anchises</a>' sonne, the founder of your soil,<br />
Who falsely fled from Carthage Queen, reliever of his toil.<br />
Oh send him to Britannia['s] coasts unto his trusty <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=eMSUXumf6psC&lpg=PA570&ots=_ATDsvUX9Z&dq=feere%20mate&pg=PA570#v=onepage&q=feere%20mate&f=false" target="_blank">feere,</a><br />
That she may view his comely corpse, whom she esteems so dear.<br />
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Where we may once again renew our late surpassed days,<br />
Which then were spent with kisses sweet and other wanton plays.<br />
But all in vain (forgive thy thrall, if she do judge awrong),<br />
Thou canst not want of dainty <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=LsRhMOlfKsMC&lpg=PA177&ots=PAKOtr5NH-&dq=trulles%20wenches&pg=PA178#v=onepage&q=trulles%20wenches&f=false" target="_blank">trulles</a> Italian dames among.<br />
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This only now I speak by guess, but if it happen true,<br />
Suppose that thou hast seen the sword, that me thy lover slew.<br />
Perchance through time so merrily with dallying damsels spent,<br />
Thou standst in doubt and wilt inquire from whom these lines were sent.<br />
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If so, remember first of all, if thou hast any spouse.<br />
Remember when, to whom and why, thou erst hast <a href="http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/plight#plight-2" target="_blank">plighted</a> vows,<br />
Remember who esteems thee best, and who bewails thy flight,<br />
Mind her to whom for loyalty thou falsehood dost requite.<br />
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Remember Heaven, forget not Hell, and weigh thine own estate,<br />
<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=pHsPAAAAYAAJ&lpg=PA1117&ots=ARdbAwWOJb&dq=revoke%20obs.%20recall&pg=PA1117#v=onepage&q=revoke%20obs.%20recall&f=false" target="_blank">Revoke</a> to mind whom thou hast left, in shameful blame and hate:<br />
Yea mind her well who did submit, into thine only pow'r <br />
Both heart and life, and therewithall, a rich and wealthy <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=kzav7JrRRJsC&lpg=PA67&ots=HexO2AytNe&dq=dowry%20vere%20oxford%20%22shakespeare%20by%20another%20name%22&pg=PA67#v=onepage&q=dowry%20vere%20oxford%20%22shakespeare%20by%20another%20name%22&f=false" target="_blank">dower.</a><br />
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And last of all which grieves me most, that I was so beguiled<br />
Remember, most forgetful man, thy pretty tattling child. <br />
The least of these surnamed things, I hope may well suffice <br />
To shew to thee the wretched dame that did this bill devise.<br />
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I speak in vain, thou hast thy will, and now saith <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeson" target="_blank">Aeson</a>'s son, <br />
Medea may pack up her pipes, the golden Fleece is won.<br />
If so, be sure, Medea, I will show forth my self in deed,<br />
Yet gods defend, though death I taste, I should destroy thy seed.<br />
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Again, if that I should inquire, wherefore thou dost sojourn,<br />
No answer fitly mayst thou make, I know, to serve thy turn. <br />
Thou canst not cloak (through want) thy flight, since riches did abound:<br />
Thou needs not shame of me thy spouse, whose birth not low is found,<br />
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As for my beauty, thou thy self, erstwhile didst it commend,<br />
And to conclude I know no thing, wherein I did offend. <br />
Retire with speed, I long to see, thy bark in wished bay,<br />
The seas are calmer to return, then earst to fly away.<br />
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Behold the gentle winds do serve, so that a friendly gale,<br />
Would soon convey to happy port, thy most desired sail. <br />
Return would make amends for all, and banish former wrong,<br />
Oh that I had, for to entice, a Siren's flattering song:<br />
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But out alas, I have no shift or cunning to entreat. <br />
It may suffice in absence thine, that I my griefs repeat. <br />
Demand not how I did digest, at first thy sudden flight,<br />
For ten days space I took no rest, by day nor yet by night. <br />
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But like to Bacchus' <a href="http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/beldame" target="_blank">beldame</a> none, I sent and ranged apace,<br />
To see if that I <a href="http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mought" target="_blank">mought</a> thee find, in some frequented place.<br />
Now here, now there, now up, now down, my fancy so was fed,<br />
Until at length I knew of troth, that thou from me <a href="http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/wert#English" target="_blank">wert</a> fled:<br />
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Then was I fully bent with blade, to stab my vexed heart,<br />
Yet hope that thou wouldst come again, my purpose did convart:<br />
And so ere since I liv'd in hope bemixed with dreadful fear,<br />
My smeared face through endless tears, unpleasant doth appear.<br />
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My sleeps unsound with ugly dreams, my meats are vain of taste<br />
My gorgeous raiment is despised, my tresses rudely placed<br />
And to be brief I boldly speak, there doth remain no care:<br />
But that thereof in amplest wise, I do possess a share:<br />
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Like as the tender sprig doth bend, with every blast of wind,<br />
Or as the guideless ship on seas, no certain port may find.<br />
So I now subject unto hope, now thrall to careful dread,<br />
Amidst the rocks, tween hope and fear, as fancy moves, am led.<br />
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Alas return, my dear, return, return and take thy rest,<br />
God grant my words may have the force, to penetrate thy breast. <br />
What dost thou think in Italy, some great exploit to win?<br />
No, no, it is not Italy, as sometimes it hath been. <br />
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Or dost thou love to gad abroad, the foreign coasts to view<br />
If so, thou hadst not done amiss, to bid me first adieu:<br />
But what hath been the cause, I need not descant long,<br />
For sure I am, meanwhile poor wench, I only suffer wrong.<br />
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Well thus I leave, yet more could say: but least thou shouldst refuse,<br />
Through tediousness to read my lines, the rest I will excuse:<br />
Until such time as mighty Jove doth send such lucky grace,<br />
As we thereof in friendly wise, may reason face to face. <br />
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Till then farewell, and he thee keep, who only knows my smart <br />
And with this bill I send to thee, a trusty lover's heart.<br />
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Thy mate, though late, doth write, her light,<br />
Thou well, canst tell, her name. <br />
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[Adapted with permission from Richard M. Waugaman M.D., <i>Newly Discovered Works by "William Shake-Speare": a.k.a. Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford</i>. (2014) Oxfreudian Press. Kindle Edition; image: Henrietta Rae, <i>Mariana</i>] <br />
<span class="fullpost"></span>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01959807858303615531noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206508.post-73856253948519735532014-12-01T10:24:00.000-05:002014-12-02T13:55:24.599-05:00Welles the enigma, Welles the (sometime) Oxfordian<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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[Note: This post has been edited to add quotations from & discussion about the new book <i>My Lunches with Orson</i>, below.]<br />
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Orson Welles the maverick, Orson Welles the provocateur, Orson Welles the puckish contrarian. Also, on the strength of one unequivocally Oxfordian remark recorded c. 1954, there's <b>Orson Welles the Oxfordian</b>.<br />
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Below I'll discuss why I think he should be labeled a "sometime Oxfordian," because it's clear he'd changed his views over the course of his life. By the end he'd<b> backed off, in other words, from his full-blown endorsement of Oxfordianism</b>.<br />
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The questions over Welles' flirtation with the authorship question goes back to line a quoted from him in Cecil Beaton and Kenneth Tynan's 1954 book of celebrity interviews, <i><a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=5WQ3AAAAIAAJ">Persona Grata</a></i>. (i.e. "I think Oxford wrote Shakespeare. If you don't there an awful lot of funny coincidences to explain away.")<br />
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I don't think it's a coincidence that the Ogburns' opus <i><a href="http://www.sourcetext.com/sourcebook/Star/toc.htm">This Star of England</a></i> had been published in 1952, just a year or two before Welles' now well-known utterance. Welles was <b>clearly impressed by the raft of correspondences between Oxford's life and the Shakespeare canon</b>. And the timing at least suggests he'd learned of these correspondences from <i>This Star of England. </i><br />
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Yet why did he not say anything more on the matter after 1954? He died 31 years later, after all, in 1985.<br />
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I'd like to offer new evidence that Welles <b>by the end of his life had resolved himself to a kind of defeatist agnosticism</b>. (Meaning he de facto accepted the conventional story but preferred not to know much about the author -- satisfying himself with just the works.)<br />
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Now, fast forward to the early 1980s, when Welles was in his late 60s. The filmmaker Henry Jaglom took many lunches with Welles during the final three years of the legendary Hollywood maverick's life, 1983-'85. The BBC this week has an <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02cn121">interesting hourlong radio documentary</a> based on Jaglom's troves of tapes, recorded with Welles' permission, of their lunches together. It's a great listen, providing a fly-on-the-wall's view of this larger than life figure of stage and screen.<br />
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There was also a book published last year (<i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1250051703/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1250051703&linkCode=as2&tag=shakebyanothn-20&linkId=IPMLV6663ZFPPAWG">My Lunches With Orson</a></i>) transcribing many of Jaglom and Welles' conversations. I've been able to look through this book a little more since writing the first draft of this post.* And I've come to modify my views, namely that Welles evidently settled on a stance reminiscent of Charles Dickens' famous quote about the authorship question. ("It is a great comfort, to my thinking, that so little is known concerning the poet. It is a fine mystery, and I tremble every day lest something should come out." [Dickens letter to William Sandys, June 13, 1847])<br />
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Ironically enough, Welles' statement to this effect comes right after talking about Dickens.<br />
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<i>Orson Welles</i>: [W]ith writers, they have become my friends from the testimony of the pages they've written. And anything else diminishes what I feel. If I'm enraptured by any writer's work, I don't want to know about him. Somebody's come out with a snide biography of [Joseph] Conrad now. Just reading the review of it made me sick.<br />
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<i>Henry Jaglom</i>: But doesn't it add another dimension that --<br />
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<i>O.W.</i>: Nothing. I know everybody thinks that way, but I don't believe it. I don't want to keep hearing that [Charles] Dickens was a lousy son of a bitch. The hateful Dickens, you know. <b>I'm very glad I don't know anything about Shakespeare as a man. I think it's all there in what he wrote. All that counts, anyway.</b><br />
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Welles makes it clear elsewhere in the interview that he accepts Will Shakspere of Stratford as the author (discussing, for instance, Shakspere's coat of arms and real estate transactions). Welles adds that he thinks any mystery around Shakespeare is "greatly exaggerated," which might seem to contradict what he said above. (It's probably worth noting too that as Jaglom told the BBC, these lunches also involved imbibing no small amounts of wine. So expecting logical self-consistency here might be, shall we say, a bit too stringent a requirement.) <br />
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There's a kind of once-burned-twice-shy quality to Welles' musings about Shakespeare here. As Jaglom himself tried to interject, an author's biography does <i>"add another dimension.</i>" (I might suggest a <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1592401031/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1592401031&linkCode=as2&tag=shakebyanothn-20&linkId=TJJ7ZUSO76XRZPR2">book</a> for him to read.)<br />
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Oxfordians of course have a straightforward response as to why the Stratford biography simply makes no sense and adds zero insight into our understanding and appreciation of the "Shakespeare" canon.<br />
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Namely scholars and biographers have the wrong guy. Jaglom's absolutely right. And Welles was right, once upon a time, too.<br />
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On a related note, the blogger <a href="http://lookingforshakespeare.blogspot.com/">Rambler</a> has this year been assembling a monumental and impressive case that Vladimir Nabokov was fascinated with Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford and the authorship question and peppered many of his own enigmatic and hard-to-decipher novels with allusions (e.g. the "<a href="http://lookingforshakespeare.blogspot.com/2014/01/rustic-shakespeare.html">discreet Bill</a>" interlude at the end of <i>Lolita</i>) to Nabokov's own discoveries and musings about the authorship debate.<br />
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If Rambler is right, and I think he makes a compelling case over <a href="http://lookingforshakespeare.blogspot.com/2014/09/nabokov-shakespeare-and-logic-of.html">months</a> <a href="http://lookingforshakespeare.blogspot.com/2014/08/face-value-shakespeare-and-nabokov.html">and</a> <a href="http://lookingforshakespeare.blogspot.com/2014/10/edward-de-vere-and-nabokovs-elegant.html">months</a> <a href="http://lookingforshakespeare.blogspot.com/2014/10/edward-de-vere-and-nabokovs-elegant.html">of</a> <a href="http://lookingforshakespeare.blogspot.com/2014/09/shakespeare-thou-art-translated.html">blog</a> <a href="http://lookingforshakespeare.blogspot.com/2014/09/nabokovs-oxfordian-reading-samples.html">posts</a> <a href="http://lookingforshakespeare.blogspot.com/2014/08/shakespeare-sideways.html">encyclopedically</a> <a href="http://lookingforshakespeare.blogspot.com/2014/10/nashes-scrambled-herring-nabokovs-turks.html">proving</a> <a href="http://lookingforshakespeare.blogspot.com/2013/06/moses-de-vere.html">his</a> <a href="http://lookingforshakespeare.blogspot.com/2013/04/shake-speare-nabokov-utter-tripe.html">point</a>, then Nabokov offers up a provocative case study of a great artist who embraced the Oxfordian mystery -- albeit in a characteristically veiled manner. Welles' response of fleeing from it, I think, offers the other side of the coin.<br />
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<b>Nabokov (1899-1977) and Welles (1915-1985) are rough contemporaries whose flirtations with/explorations of the Shakespeare authorship question and Edward de Vere, I think, might be considered in light of one another. </b>Both relished their role as controversialist and enjoyed a love-hate relationship with scholars, critics and fans. Nabokov, Rambler has convinced me, discovered artistic wellsprings of inspiration to be found in Oxfordian readings of Shakespeare and his contemporaries.<br />
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Would that Welles had arrived at a similar frame of mind.<br />
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* The first draft of this blog post also stated we do not know what Welles' position on the authorship question was later in life. As can be seen from the passage above, this is clearly not the case.<br />
<span class="fullpost"></span>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01959807858303615531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206508.post-81837366879962099292014-10-26T07:39:00.000-04:002014-10-26T07:55:43.054-04:00A Waste of Shame: The case of Vivian MaierThis weekend Penny and I saw a documentary that, as I reflect on it, has some curious correspondence to the authorship question. It's called <i>Finding Vivian Maier</i>, and it's about a secretive photographer who shot over 100,000 images during her long life but yet never revealed nearly any of her great works to anyone, whether friend or colleague or agent or auctioneer.<br />
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This phenomenal corpus was only brought to light when an archivist happened to discover some of her negatives. Struck by the singular nature of these images, he unearthed more and more of Maier's photos till he ultimately became her posthumous advocate and agent (as well as the director of the present film). <span class="fullpost"></span><br />
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As the documentary notes, Maier's body of work is arguably among the greatest of any American photographer in the 20th century. The immediacy and probity of her photos, piercing to the quick her subjects with a single stunning image, is often impossible to adequately convey with words. Overall it's a fascinating story well told. On its own merits, <i>Finding Vivian Maier </i>comes highly recommended. (<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JK7QU6W/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00JK7QU6W&linkCode=as2&tag=shakebyanothn-20&linkId=JG4YUGA5JOUKBT6H">Amazon</a> / <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/finding-vivian-maier/id897235985">iTunes</a>. Not on Netflix that I'm aware.) </div>
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I mention it here, though, because it's also a mystery not unlike the authorship mystery behind another great artist. Namely, <i>Finding Vivian Maier</i> asks but does not answer a fundamental question behind the whole story: Why? </div>
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Why would someone so clearly adept at taking stunning photos, an artist so singularly possessed, spend her whole life -- Emily Dickinson-like -- hiding her phenomenal talent and body of work? For paying work, Maier spent nearly her entire career as a nanny for various families mostly in the Chicago area. She would take her children with her on day trips into the city, photographing everything and everyone she encountered. </div>
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It's not coincidental, I think, that Maier also took to concealing her identity using assumed names -- a storyline in the film that comes out briefly in the trailer. It's not a tremendous leap, one suspects, to go from an artist who conceals her work to an artist who conceals her name. </div>
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It is further revealed that she concealed some darkness in her life too. Without providing any spoilers, I'll just note that Maier emerges from this film as an enigmatic, troubled and brooding figure. Was she disturbed by the mania that possessed her in her work? Was she shamed by the work itself somehow? Was she embarrassed by her related obsessive-compusive behaviors and neurotic tendency to hoard?</div>
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The answers are only dimly revealed. But I was struck by the similarly open questions one finds in the story of an author who seems also to have been compulsively driven to conceal his work and identity. In the <i>Sonnets</i>, the author bemoans his buried name (e.g. 72) and his tongue-tied art (66). But he's also drawn by the undertow of shame. ("I am shamed by that which I bring forth..."; "Th' expense of spirit in a waste of shame...") </div>
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So what is the nature of the author's shame? For those who see Edward de Vere as a conflicted, bisexual man battling his own erotic desires (esp. in the "Fair Youth" sonnets to the young man), one might appreciate how the enveloping shadows of shame might darken his consciousness. Then again, some see the author's self-guilt more stemming from, in the words of Sonnet 127, "beauty slandered by a bastard shame." Concealed blood relationships -- royal or otherwise -- they argue is at the core of the author's battles with shame. </div>
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This post is not going to delve into that long-standing battle behind Oxfordian lines. But it may be worth considering this related story of an artist singularly possessed by his/her work, but who for whatever reasons could not reveal this work to anyone else. </div>
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Are the artists' feelings of shame related to their drive to conceal their work? The case of Vivian Maier, while clearly different in obvious ways from the Shake-speare authorship question, does present a psychological profile of a great artist driven to bury and conceal. To the point of self-obliteration. </div>
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Thankfully, in both cases, the forces of obliteration did not win in the end. The works survive, though many mysteries remain. </div>
Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01959807858303615531noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206508.post-86217913860957911862014-02-21T11:02:00.000-05:002014-03-02T07:51:02.232-05:00Corrigendum: The case of "Oxford's Greek New Testament"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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On the Facebook forum ShakesVere, researcher, author and blogger Marie Merkel <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/shakesvere/permalink/10152303326689529/?stream_ref=2">recently questioned</a> a piece of evidence in the Oxfordian docket. The item -- a Greek New Testament (it is surmised) that Edward de Vere gave to his wife Anne -- is mentioned in Appendix A of <i>"Shakespeare" by Another Name</i>. <span class="fullpost"></span><br />
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In reviewing this material, I'm persuaded that, yes, there's more supposition than fact here. As will be described below, I think the matter still merits an endnote. But only as a hypothesis, and one that also should be flagged as such. </div>
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As Oxford's first biographer, B.M. Ward first <a href="http://i.imgur.com/ymcOl23.jpg">pointed out</a>, there's a record in the calendar of manuscripts at Hatfield House (<a href="http://www.british-history.ac.uk/source.aspx?pubid=1164">XIII</a>, 362) of a copy of a New Testament which is no longer extant. But the manuscript calendar does transcribe a Latin inscription from the book's flyleaf. Nina Green's excellent Oxford-Shakespeare website has the full Latin transcript with an English translation <a href="http://www.oxford-shakespeare.com/CecilPapers/CP_140-124.pdf">here</a>. </div>
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The Latin poem from the New Testament's flyleaf contains homophonic, though not etymological, puns on Vere and the Latin <i>veritas</i> (truth). Here's part of it:</div>
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"[S]ince thou, a Vere, art wife and mother of a Vere daughter, and seeing that thou mayest with good hope look forward to being mother of an heir of the Veres, may thy mind always glow with love of the truth, and may thy true motto be Ever Lover of the Truth. And that thou mayest the better attain to this, pray to the Author of all Truth that His Word may teach thee; that His Spirit may nourish thy inner life, so that, thus alleviating the absent longings of thy dear husband, thou, a Vere, mayest be called the true glory of thy husband. ... To the illustrious Lady Anne Vere, Countess of Oxford, while her noble husband, Edward Vere, Earl of Oxford, was travelling in foreign parts."</blockquote>
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Not exactly Virgil. Still, despite its anonymous nature, the context of the poem does suggest Oxford's hand, especially as it might offer an interesting glimpse into an insecure, doting zealotry in Oxford's intense scrutiny over Anne's pregnancy.<br />
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Remember, too, Oxford had <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=kzav7JrRRJsC&q=pregnant#v=snippet&q=%22if%20Anne%20ever%20became%20pregnant%22&f=false">publicly stated</a> before leaving for Italy that <i>if</i> his wife became pregnant soon after he'd departed for Italy, he was not the father. The fact that he anticipated<i> </i>her becoming pregnant and had already prepared an alibi suggests some goings-on behind the scene that history has not yet become privy to. So the poem's overstated emphasis on Vere & "truth" is certainly consistent with a cognitive dissonance probably roiling his brain over Anne's pregnancy and his claimed non-participation therein. </div>
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In any event, as Merkel fairly points out, the transcript in the Hatfield House manuscript calendar does not state who the author of this poem was. It's consistent with Oxford, but not proved. </div>
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And the possibility that the New Testament book in question was a Greek New Testament is only just that. Yes, Greek New Testaments were popular at that time. But the document doesn't say which language the New Testament was in. </div>
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<i>SBAN</i>, Appendix A "Edward de Vere's Geneva Bible and Shake-speare," contains the <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=kzav7JrRRJsC&q=De+Vere+also+bought+and+shipped+home+a+Greek+edition+of+the+New+Testament#v=snippet&q=De%20Vere%20also%20bought%20and%20shipped%20home%20a%20Greek%20edition%20of%20the%20New%20Testament&f=false">following sentence</a>: "De Vere also bought and shipped home a Greek edition of the New Testament during his tour of Italy in 1575-76." (p. 382) </div>
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That sentence is incorrect, or at best is overstated as fact when it's only supposition. The paragraph it is in is about evidence that Oxford knew and referred to other editions of the Bible in other languages than English. The other evidence, a punning reference to an Italian translation of Acts 9:5 found in one of Oxford's letters, still stands. So the point still stands. Thus I don't think the world would miss that sentence if it were deleted entirely. Future editions of <i>SBAN</i> will do just that. </div>
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I do plan to insert an endnote about the New Testament flyleaf poem, though. Because I think it's still an interesting possibility, given the biographical context behind the poem. But at the moment, the material at hand only warrants an endnote. </div>
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Postscript: To be clear, at present <i>SBAN</i> does not anywhere mention the flyleaf poem. But in deleting the Appendix A sentence above, I'm now more drawn to the poem -- at least in the context of a speculative endnote -- as a possible psychological insight into the supremely jealous mind of an overseas Englishman as he wandered Italy and France.<br />
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Post-postscript: A previous draft stated that Vere is cognate with <i>veritas</i>, which is of course inaccurate. The proper term for the poem's Vere-<i>veritas</i> puns is that they are in fact homophonic, not etymological. <br />
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Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01959807858303615531noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206508.post-61814447704963853402014-02-04T12:01:00.001-05:002014-02-04T16:42:25.506-05:00These c. 1602 references to Macbeth explode the Stratfordian myth<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Readers of this blog hopefully already know that a much more active site of SBAN-related discussion these days is the Facebook group <a href="http://facebook.com/groups/shakesvere">ShakesVere</a>. And a familiar refrain on SV over the past year has been "Please, go read <a href="http://lookingforshakespeare.blogspot.com/">Rambler</a>." <span class="fullpost"></span><br />
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Rambler is a pseudonymous blogger with an encyclopedic grasp of early modern drama who's been posting on nearly a daily basis since last April about his forays into Elizabethan and early Jacobean plays written by many authors other than "Shakespeare." </div>
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Executive summary of Rambler's posts: <b>Writers from the London literary scene 400 years ago -- Chapman, Middleton, Jonson, Nashe, and numerous others as well -- had all written in guarded terms about Edward de Vere as "Shakespeare." Their testimony taken as a whole exposes and validates what we today call the Shakespeare Authorship Question. And the Oxfordian theory specifically. Stratfordians have COMPLETELY missed the boat here.</b></div>
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Rambler's blog carries the catchy spoonerism "Quakespeare Shorterly" and is at the URL http://lookingforshakespeare.blogspot.com. <b>Anyone interested in the authorship question should really bookmark its RSS feed</b> and Please, just <a href="http://lookingforshakespeare.blogspot.com/">go read Rambler</a>. </div>
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Rambler's latest two posts concern, in part, <b>Queen Elizabeth as a historical prototype for the character Lady Macbeth</b>. (<a href="http://lookingforshakespeare.blogspot.com/2014/01/lady-macbeth-queen-elizabeth.html">Post 1</a>, <a href="http://lookingforshakespeare.blogspot.com/2014/02/shakespeare-plundered.html">post 2</a>) As I was writing <i>"Shakespeare" by Another Name </i>in 2002-'04, I'd reached the conclusion myself that England's queen seems to have served as a prototype for the play's bloodthirsty Scottish queen -- at least in the context of the Mary Queen of Scots trial and Elizabeth's (and, as a jury member in Mary's trial, Oxford's) ordering Mary's beheading. </div>
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The execution of Mary Queen of Scots in 1587 was an <i>extraordinarily</i> big deal, especially for a member of the feudal nobility who had been reared in the belief that kings and queens were God's handpicked agents in human affairs. (As noted in SBAN's <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=kzav7JrRRJsC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA382#v=onepage&q&f=false">Appendix A</a> and in Roger Stritmatter's landmark <a href="http://shake-speares-bible.com/dissertation/">PhD dissertation</a>, the motif of anointed kings is a commonplace in the handwritten biblical annotations found in Oxford's copy of the Geneva Bible too.) </div>
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To liken Mary's execution to deicide is no mere exaggeration. The anxiety over the royal blood Oxford and Elizabeth had spilled spills over into <i>Macbeth</i> in multitudinous ways. Books can, and should, be written about this. SBAN only begins to get the ball rolling. (Though it's also been surprising to me to learn how little even <i>Oxfordian</i> commentary there has been on Lady Macbeth and Queen Elizabeth.) </div>
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Anyway, Rambler's <a href="http://lookingforshakespeare.blogspot.com/2014/01/lady-macbeth-queen-elizabeth.html">two</a> <a href="http://lookingforshakespeare.blogspot.com/2014/02/shakespeare-plundered.html">posts</a> argue that the late Elizabethan play <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blurt,_Master_Constable">Blurt, Master Constable</a> </i>riffs on Lady Macbeth and language in <i>Macbeth </i><b>that strongly suggests <i>Macbeth </i>inspired this play that was published in 1602. </b>Rambler points out that previous scholarship points to 1600-'01 as <i>Blurt's</i> likely composition date, but 1602 would be a hard-fast number here. For <i>Macbeth </i>to have influenced <i>Blurt</i>, some version of it must have been written and likely performed before <i>Blurt </i>was published.<br />
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If Rambler is correct, to put it mildly, this would pose a serious problem for Stratfordian chronology. <b>It would mean some early draft of <i>Macbeth </i>were written before at the latest 1602 -- and would, by extension, stand to devastate no small portion of the whole house of cards upon which the Stratfordian chronology is built. </b><br />
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Stratfordians have long claimed, on very little evidence, that <i>Macbeth</i> was a direct response to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpowder_Plot">Gunpowder Plot</a>, a terrorist campaign that quickly became a public sensation in London in 1605-'06. Yet, as noted in <i>SBAN</i>'s <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=kzav7JrRRJsC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA396#v=onepage&q&f=false">Appendix on the "1604 Question"</a>, the allusions <i>Macbeth </i>makes that might be seen as Gunpowder Plot references also trace back to courtroom trials from the 1580s and '90s, one of which Edward de Vere even sat on the jury for!<br />
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Despite all this, <i>Macbeth </i>and <i>King Lear </i>have been emerging lately as the Stratfordian fallback positions to a losing battle they're now fighting on <i>The Tempest</i>. (See <a href="http://shakespearebyanothername.blogspot.com/2008/03/tempest-was-written-before-1604.html">here</a> and especially <a href="http://amzn.to/1nO9TNa">here</a>.) In all 3 cases, the claim is these are plays definitively written sometime after Edward de Vere died, in June 1604. So, if any one of those claims could be established firmly, then – again to put it mildly – it'd be very difficult sledding ahead for the Oxfordian paradigm.<br />
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Instead, however, <b>1604 has emerged as a kind of line in the sand</b>. Attempts to discover firm evidence for composition of "Shakespeare" plays before 1604 often prove fruitful. Oxfordian <a href="http://amzn.to/1eQysBj">chronologies</a> of the "Shakespeare" canon from before 1604 draw on much the same evidence Stratfordian chronologies do.*<br />
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But after 1604, Stratfordian chronologies are, to put it bluntly, a joke. There is <b>not only no firm evidence to date <i>any</i> "Shakespeare" play after 1604, there's plenty good evidence to argue that a post-1604 date is <i>wrong</i>.</b><br />
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<i>Blurt, Master Constable </i>is just the latest example.<br />
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As Rambler signs off, Thank you for reading. </div>
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*That said, Oxfordians are also not bound by the Stratfordian stringent timeline for Will Shakspere. His move from Stratford to London in the late 1580s at the very earliest is presumed to be the earliest possible date for any "Shakespeare" work. Of course with Oxford circulating in Elizabeth's court from 1562 onwards, Oxfordians have much more leeway to (realistically, I think) stipulate substantial foregrounds for many of the plays. So <i>Comedy of Errors</i>, as an example, may ultimately date to 1594 as Stratfordian chronologies theorize. But the performance at court in 1577 of the anonymous play <i>A Historie of Error </i>(as noted in <i>SBAN) </i>also makes good sense as an early draft of what eventually was staged and published as the mature "Shakespeare" work.<br />
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+----------------------------+<br />
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POSTSCRIPT: I can already hear the Stratfordian reply: Who's to say <i>Macbeth </i>wasn't referencing <i>Blurt, Master Constable</i>? To which I say, simply, one is one of the greatest plays ever written. The other is a largely forgettable lark. If you knew nothing else about popular culture over the past 50 years and saw <i>Spaceballs </i>and then <i>Star Wars </i>or <i>Austin Powers </i>and then <i>Goldfinger </i>or even read <i>Pride and Prejudice </i>and then read <i>Pride and Prejudice and Zombies</i>.... which one would you think came first and which one came second?<br />
<br />
The spoof post-dates the thing it's spoofing. Great masters at the top of their game don't worry themselves with referencing disposable goofs and trifles. Seriously, folks. In anywhere but topsy-turvy Stratford-land, this is Q.E.D.<br />
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(cc) image: John Singer Sargent, <i><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/99051133@N00/582856262">Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth</a></i></div>
Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01959807858303615531noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206508.post-19107214956672501332014-01-12T22:00:00.001-05:002014-01-12T22:04:53.366-05:00Shakespeare, Decaffeinated<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-k9vH9CfGK94/UtNWt3-9AkI/AAAAAAAAAe0/F4PsKhh_BQA/s1600/9451054259_d6f56d869e_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="background-color: white;"><img border="0" height="272" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-k9vH9CfGK94/UtNWt3-9AkI/AAAAAAAAAe0/F4PsKhh_BQA/s320/9451054259_d6f56d869e_o.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<span style="background-color: #f3f3f3; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 17px;">The Hungarian mathematician Alfréd Rényi once said, "A mathematician is a machine for turning coffee into theorems." The same might be said about writers and books -- or plays. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f3f3f3;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 17px;">London's first coffeehouse opened in 1652 and was an instant hit. With not much exaggeration, it's been said coffee fueled the Enlightenment. </span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 17px;">As one </span><a href="http://publicdomainreview.org/2013/08/07/the-lost-world-of-the-london-coffeehouse/" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 17px;">recent account of London coffeehouses</a><span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 17px;"> on the website Public Domain Review notes,</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f3f3f3;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="color: #333333; display: inline; line-height: 17px;">"Remember -- until the mid-seventeenth century, most people in England were either slightly — or very -- drunk all of the time. Drink London’s fetid river water at your own peril; most people wisely favoured watered-down ale or beer (“small beer”). The arrival of coffee, then, triggered a dawn of sobriety that laid the foundations for truly spectacular economic growth in the decades that followed as people thought clearly for the first time. The stock exchange, insurance industry, and auctioneering: all burst into life in 17th-century coffeehouses — in Jonathan’s, Lloyd’s, and Garraway’s — spawning the credit, security, and markets that facilitated the dramatic expansion of Britain’s network of global trade in Asia, Africa and America."</span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f3f3f3;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="color: #333333; display: inline; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="color: #333333; display: inline; line-height: 17px;">In the spring of 1575, Oxford wrote back to Lord Burghley from Paris that in his travels from Venice and beyond he intended to "bestow two or three months to see Constantinope and some part of Greece." That plus the fact that King Henri III of France had given Oxford letters of introduction to the Sultan's court in Constantinople suggest it's at least possible that the man Elizabeth called her "Turk" did in fact visit Turkey.</span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="color: #333333; display: inline; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f3f3f3;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="color: #333333; display: inline; line-height: 17px;">For me, when I was researching and assembling <i>"Shakespeare" by Another Name</i>, Turkey became a bridge too far in piecing together the most likely itinerary for Oxford's Italian, Adriatic, Mediterranean (and Aegean and Black Sea??) travels. I just couldn't make it all fit, and Turkey just seemed too far out of the likely orbit.</span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="color: #333333; display: inline; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f3f3f3;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="color: #333333; display: inline; line-height: 17px;">But there it is. Oxford said he wanted to go. And he had letters of passage from the King of France to give him entry.</span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="color: #333333; display: inline; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f3f3f3;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="color: #333333; display: inline; line-height: 17px;">There the coffee certainly flowed like water. Er... well at least syrupy water. A Turkish proverb from the time said coffee is best served "black as hell, strong as death, sweet as love."</span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="color: #333333; display: inline; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f3f3f3;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="color: #333333; display: inline; line-height: 17px;">Given how much Italy Oxford brought back to England with him in 1576, I'm inclined to suspect -- given the absence of Turkey (and coffee!) in his life and works and in the "Shakespeare" canon as well -- he never quite made it to Sultan Murad III's court.</span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="color: #333333; display: inline; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: #f3f3f3; color: #333333; display: inline; line-height: 17px;">The age of "Shakespeare" was still some 50 years before the dawn of the age of coffee in England. Hamlet written with the benefit of caffeine: It's a curious thought experiment at least, though I suspect it will forever be only just that. </span></span><br />
<span class="fullpost"></span>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01959807858303615531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206508.post-57493627328947959542013-12-07T16:55:00.001-05:002013-12-07T19:08:33.784-05:00"Long Day's Journey Into Denmark" -- a talk in New York on Jan. 20<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NNOKRBdb2OE/UqOX3u-XwUI/AAAAAAAAAek/j_7sTo8-Hko/s1600/HamletTalk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NNOKRBdb2OE/UqOX3u-XwUI/AAAAAAAAAek/j_7sTo8-Hko/s320/HamletTalk.jpg" width="271" /></a></div>
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On Monday, Jan. 20 (Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday in the U.S.), I'll be giving a talk after the <a href="http://theactingcompany.org/">Acting Company's</a> production of <i>Hamlet</i> at the Pearl Theatre in New York City. </div>
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The <a href="http://theactingcompany.org/plays/hamlet-2013-14/">play</a> begins at 7 p.m., and the talk (approx. 25 minutes) will be after the performance. A question and answer period will follow. </div>
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It's titled "<b>Long Day's Journey Into Denmark: Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford and the Radical Autobiography of <i>Hamlet.</i></b>"<br />
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Tickets can be ordered <a href="https://pearltheatre.secure.force.com/ticket/#sections_a0Fd000000SYj8dEAD">here</a>. </div>
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Cast info <a href="http://theactingcompany.org/plays/hamlet-2013-14/#cast">here</a>. About the company: </div>
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The Acting Company was founded by theater and film legend John Houseman along with current Producer Margot Harley, Kevin Kline, Patti LuPone, David Ogden Stiers and a dozen other graduates of the first class of Juilliard’s Drama Division. Now in its 41st Season, it has won a TONY for Excellence in Theater while touring to 48 states and 10 foreign countries – performing, engaging students and building new audiences for the theater. In addition to Mr. Kline and Ms. LuPone, Rainn Wilson, Jesse L. Martin, Jeffrey Wright, Frances Conroy, Harriet Harris, Hamish Linklater, David Schramm and Keith David all began their careers with The Acting Company along with 300 others who have carved out careers in the theater, TV and film.</div>
Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01959807858303615531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206508.post-4102379510721944312013-01-09T13:35:00.001-05:002013-01-09T14:44:37.443-05:00A fan letter to ... The CourtierBelow, <b>a guest post by author <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3052834-end-of-summer">John Lowry Lamb</a> about Baldassare Castiglione's <i>The Courtier</i></b>. <span class="fullpost"></span><br />
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The first English
translation of Castiglione's <i>The
Courtier</i> was published in 1561. Thomas Hoby's English translation (from its original Italian) is often used to this day and can be found in its entirety on <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=0g3rL6lyWsYC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false">Google Books</a>. Then eleven years later, England saw its first translation of this courtly etiquette book into the lingua franca of the court, Latin. It is this 1572 Latin edition of <i>The Courtier </i>that Edward de Vere became involved with.</div>
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Think of <i>The Courtier</i> as a sort of <a href="http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=8706632">answer to</a> Machiavelli's <i>The Prince</i>
– an austere, dark treatise on how to succeed in politics. The book offers Castiglione's
comments on a similar subject matter presenting an alternate, more altruistic
approach to court behavior. There can be little doubt that Edward de Vere was
responsible for the publication, as he himself composed the introduction to the
translation by a man named Bartholomew Clerke. While most Elizabethan
writers/patrons crafted brief introductions of a few sentences, Edward de Vere
wrote lengthy, gorgeously written piece which honors not only Castiglione but
Clerke, too. </div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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For some reason, I
kept re-reading what is typed below. First of all I was impressed that it was
written by a twenty one year old. Secondly, I thought about Hamlet. The author
of that play had to know the rules, in order to convincingly break them. He had to understand the plight and
station of high nobility. Surely Shakespeare wasn't guessing. Saying so would
be an insult to the author.</div>
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I think this is why I
was so drawn to this historical document. It just made sense that a man like
Edward de Vere qualified as the author of <i>Hamlet</i>.</div>
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(Introduction to the Latin translation of <i>The Courtier</i>
1572, written by Edward de Vere, translated from the Latin by B.M. Ward)</div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Edward Vere, Earl of Oxford,
Lord Great Chamberlain of England, Viscount Bulbeck and Baron Scales and
Badlsemere, to the reader – Greeting.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">A frequent and earnest consideration of the translation of
Castiglione's Italian work, which has now for a long time been undertaken and
finally carried out by my friend Clerke, has caused me to waver between two
opinions: debating in my mind whether I should preface it by some letter and
writing of my own, or whether I should do no more than study it with a mind
full of gratitude. The first course seemed to demand greater skill and art than
I can lay claim to; the second to a work of no less good-will and application.
To do both, however, seemed to combine a task of delightful industry with an
indication of special good will.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> For what more difficult, more noble, or more magnificent task has
anyone ever undertaken than our author Castiglione, who has drawn for us the
figure and model of a courtier, a work to which nothing can be added, in which
there is no redundant word, a portrait which we shall recognize as that of the
highest and most perfect type of man.
And so, although nature has made nothing perfect in every detail, yet
the manners of men exceed in dignity that which nature has endowed them; and he
who surpasses others has here surpassed himself, and even has outdone nature
which by no one has ever been surpassed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> The author has been able to lay down principles for the very Monarch
himself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> Again, Castiglione has vividly more and even greater things than
these. For who has spoken of Princes with greater gravity? Who has discovered
of illustrious women with a more ample dignity? No one has written of military
affairs more eloquently, more aptly about horse racing, and more clearly and
admirably about encounters under arms on the field of battle. I will say
nothing of the fineness and excellence with which he has depicted the beauty of
chivalry in the noblest persons … whatever is heard in the mouths of men in
casual talk and in society, whether apt or candid, or villainous or shameful,
that he has set down in so natural a matter that is seems to be acted before my
eyes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> All this my good friend Clerke has done … he deserves all the more
honour, because to great subjects – and they are indeed great – he has applied
the greatest lights and ornaments.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> For who is clearer in his use of words? Or who can conform to the
variety of circumstances with greater art? If weighty matters are under consideration,
he unfolds his theme in a solemn and majestic rhythm; if the subject is
familiar and facetious, he makes use of words that are witty and amusing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">When therefore he writes with
precise and well chosen words, with skillfully constructed and crystal-clear
sentences, and with every art of dignified rhetoric, it cannot be but that some
noble quality should be felt to proceed from his work.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> To me it seems, when I read this courtly Latin, that I am listening
to Crassus, Antonius, and Hortensius, discoursing on this very theme.<span style="font-family: Vrinda;">"</span></span></div>
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<o:p>----------------</o:p></div>
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Upon reading this, I
found myself staring at the page. And finally at the names <i>Crassus. Antonius
and Hortensius</i>. Obviously de Vere had sufficient knowledge of these
historical Romans in order to make this comparison. So I turned to the works of
Shakespeare. Would the names show up?</div>
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<b>Crassus</b>:
Three mentions – Antony and Cleopatra.</div>
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<b>Antonius</b>: Ten references – in five different plays; Merchant of Venice, Much Ado About Nothing, All's Well That
Ends well, Twelfth Night, and The Tempest.</div>
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<b>Hortensius</b>: Two references – Timon of Athens, Taming
of the Shrew.</div>
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And of course Antonius
slightly altered gives us Antonio (Merchant of Venice) Hortensius altered gives
us Hortensio (Taming of the Shrew)</div>
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Was de Vere laying
breadcrumbs as early as 1571? Did he insert these names into his introduction
in full knowledge that he would use the names in the plays he wrote? Is it a
coincidence? One thing is certain. He absolutely <i>could</i> have have written
the works of Shakespeare. </div>
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<o:p>© 2012 John Lowry Lamb</o:p></div>
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Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01959807858303615531noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206508.post-55629034004251393472012-09-24T16:06:00.002-04:002012-09-24T16:45:34.491-04:00Generation "Anonymous": A fresh new voice revives a long-lost composer (hint: "Shakespeare"?)Earlier this month, I received an email from a cellist based in New York state who has developed a <b>"narrative concert" based around the music of the Elizabethan composer <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Weelkes">Thomas Weelkes</a></b>. Her band, <a href="http://www.rasputina.com/">Rasputina</a>, are musically rediscovering and reinterpreting Weelkes' canon -- and reconsidering the argument first put forward by Oxfordian researcher Eric Altschuler in the early 2000s that Oxford wrote Weelkes' music and/or lyrics.<br />
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Here's the video trailer for Rasputina's "Fa La La": </div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/CAQap0f53BQ?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melora_Creager">Melora Creager</a>, "directress" of Rasputina -- with a sheaf of musical credits including <b>playing with Nirvana on their final 1994 European tour</b> -- says "Fa La La" is slated to be <b>premiered in New York in the fall of 2013. </b>She hopes to tour the show around the country (the world?) thereafter. </div>
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Still to come, a transcript of my <b>interview with Creager.</b> </div>
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In the meantime, after the jump, her brief description of her vision for "Fa La La" and how the Shakespeare authorship controversy, among other things, provides grist for some tremendous music. </div>
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In a narrative concert (music/song/spoken-word), alternative cello/vocal ensemble Rasputina performs the music of Renaissance madrigalist Thomas Weelkes. Representing Ladies of the Bedchamber to Queen Elizabeth I, the players <b>explore textual connections between Weelkes, Shakespeare and the 17th Earl of Oxford</b>, and challenge concepts like classical/popular, man/woman, and true/false. With reverence to the original manuscripts, the ancient arrangements are modernized through rearrangement, live looping, the addition of percussion and use of natural voice. A slick and austere visual design contrasts the complex density of the lives discussed and the music itself.<br />
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BACKGROUND:<br />
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I love discovering game-changing cultural concepts. I'd never heard of the authorship controversy, and hadn't been interested in Shakespeare. As an artist myself, I <b>often get excited about an historical artist by being able to connect their work to their life - Emily Dickinson, for example</b>.<br />
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I saw <b><i>Anonymous</i> at the Columbia County (NY) film festival</b> before its release. We were late, so we had to sit in the front row. [Screenwriter] John Orloff was there to explain and answer questions afterwards. It was a fantastic way to discover this subject! <b>I read everything I could find after that</b> - on a Kindle in the back of the tour van by flashlight. I just kept reading and reading, going deeper and deeper. (Still am.)<br />
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I read a student-paper by Christopher Wang about DeVere's possible connections to madrigals and Thomas Weelkes. As I searched out the music and began playing it, I was stunned by its combination of beauty, originality, cleverness, succinctness, ...oh I could go on and on. It's also appealing to me how the structure of these short madrigal songs relates to a pop-hit and that most of Weelkes' songs are unknown and unheard- for 200-400 years!<br />
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As a musician/artist, this is my way of sharing delight in the work and creatively exposing the injustice.<br />
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OXFORDness:<br />
<br />
Weelkes/DeVere is the <b>same straw-man story as Shakespeare/DeVere, but pretty much unexplored</b>. It's 100% impossible that an unknown, uneducated teen-ager wrote these songs. As far as I can discover, besides Weelkes, DeVere and Shakespeare, no one else was tossing-off falconry metaphors (and frequently). Madrigal music was a new form, and an exclusively aristocratic past-time.<br />
I think the bulk of this music (3 books, 60 songs) was written in the 1570s when DeVere was putting together looser shows, like masques and pastorals. It was published in the late 1590s, when DeVere seems to have been perfecting and releasing earlier work. The publishing of this music lines up well with the beginning of DeVere's annuity and of plays being published under the Shakespeare name.<br />
<br />
The plays and poems are so full of musical reference. Just like law, Italy, horticulture, soldiery, etc. because DeVere was intimate with the subject. This might be his music.</blockquote>
</div>
Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01959807858303615531noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206508.post-25624955095025381232012-07-02T13:37:00.000-04:002012-07-02T13:42:36.421-04:00Write What You Know<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">Novelist <a href="http://www.tnr.com/article/books-and-arts/magazine/101711/enough-already-anne-frank-englander">Nathan Englander</a> has a new piece out on the website BigThink, below, in which he argues that "Write what you know" actually means, essentially, "Write what you feel." And it sounds really freeing. If you want to write a play about Venice, then write a play about Venice!</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">Having just completed <a href="http://discoveredsun.tumblr.com/">a book</a> about round-the-world voyages of scientists and explorers from the 1760s, and having traveled to only a tiny fraction of the locations portrayed in the book, I feel compelled to agree with him.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">Yet there's a crucial caveat that goes unuttered by Englander too. Consider "Shakespeare" vs. Ben Jonson. Now, for instance, Jonson sets <i>Volpone</i> in Venice, and Jonson never traveled there.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">But <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=A_9BAAAAYAAJ&q=%22Italian+night%22#v=snippet&q=%22Italian%20night%22&f=false">as one Jonson scholar noted</a>, "<i>Romeo and Juliet</i> is part of an Italian night [!]; Shylock would possibly be ill at ease away from the Rialto[!!]; but the scene of [<i>Volpone</i>] might as well have been laid in Madrid or Edinburgh for all the effect Venice has on the characters."</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">In other words, <i>Volpone</i> is a great play -- just not a great <i>Venetian</i> play.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">"Shakespeare," on the other hand... well, the Jonson scholar above isn't just making idle chatter. <i><a href="http://shakespearebyanothername.com/">SBAN</a></i> and Richard Roe's <i>Shakespeare's Guide to Italy</i> are just two of a number of books over the years that concur with the Jonson scholar and make it clear how much personal experience of the author's own Italian travels went into <i>R&J</i>, <i>Merchant of Venice</i>, etc.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">So I certainly agree with Englander that writers should of course feel free to venture far and wide in the places and historical timeframes they write about. But there's still no faking first-hand knowledge.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">In that sense, <i>pace</i> Mr. Englander, "Write what you know" really requires no interpretation at all. Nothing more or less than... "Write what you know."</span><span class="fullpost"></span>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01959807858303615531noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206508.post-56884350520517123912012-04-11T16:00:00.004-04:002012-04-11T18:11:45.971-04:00"Anonymous" with a byline - screenwriter John Orloff interview (part 3)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QPH-kaiKv-o/T4TfExFmrVI/AAAAAAAAAdI/eJ37Oyeehs8/s1600/BAO_9659.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QPH-kaiKv-o/T4TfExFmrVI/AAAAAAAAAdI/eJ37Oyeehs8/s400/BAO_9659.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>Below -- in honor of the 462nd birthday of Edward de Vere (Apr. 12) -- we continue with <b>the third and final part of our exclusive, long-form interview with <i>Anonymous </i>screenwriter John Orloff</b>. (Here are links to <a href="http://shakespearebyanothername.blogspot.com/2011/11/anonymous-with-byline-screenwriter-john.html">parts one</a> and <a href="http://shakespearebyanothername.blogspot.com/2011/11/anonymous-with-byline-screenwriter-john_23.html">two</a> of the interview.)<br />
<div><br />
</div><div><i>Anonymous</i> is now available as a <a href="http://amzn.to/xQq60s">DVD</a> or <a href="http://amzn.to/xu85uc">Blu-Ray</a> video disc and as <a href="http://amzn.to/Iz6hfe">streaming online video</a> -- through Amazon. </div><div><br />
</div><div>This site can only urge once more... <b>Please see it</b>. In my experience, and that of many I've spoken to, it's so rich and densely packed that <b>seeing it a second time is better than the first</b>. (Review <a href="http://shakespearebyanothername.blogspot.com/2011/10/soul-of-age-amadeus-of-stage-review-of.html">here</a>.) </div><div><br />
</div><div><b><i>Anonymous</i> also changes the conversation in the authorship debate in some fundamental ways</b>. Its <a href="http://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Anonymous-(2011)">box office performance</a> was good but not great: Falling <a href="http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/series/WilliamShakespeare.php">somewhere between</a> the revenues generated by Kenneth Branagh's <a href="http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/1996/HAMLE.php">1996 adaptation of <i>Hamlet</i></a> and the <a href="http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/2004/MVENC.php">2004 <i>Merchant of Venice</i></a> (starring Al Pacino and Jeremy Irons). Nevertheless, <b>it lives on and will continue to do so for many years to come</b> -- albeit in less culturally conspicuous ways than in first-run cineplexes around the world, where it has been over the past six months.<br />
<div><br />
</div><div>At issue in this part of the interview with Orloff was a separate conversation I had had with the emeritus Berkeley English professor Alan H. Nelson about <i>Anonymous</i>. Nelson -- like most orthodox Shakespeare scholars and fans -- took great exception to actor Rafe Spall's over-the-top portrayal of Will Shakspere of Stratford as a bit of an illiterate oaf. (Pictured here, left to right, Sebastian Armesto [Ben Jonson], screenwriter John Orloff, Rafe Spall [Shakespeare])</div><div><br />
</div><div>Here is where the conversation picks up:</div><div><br />
<div><br />
</div><div>MARK ANDERSON: Let's talk about the portrayal of Will Shakspere of Stratford by Rafe Spall. How did you imagine him? How did that role evolve?<br />
<div><div><span class="fullpost"></span></div></div></div><div><br />
</div><div>JOHN ORLOFF: Rafe is amazing. I love his performance in the movie. [The film] started off with the conceit that Shakespeare is a movie star. He's young. He's handsome. He's got an ego. He loves the ladies. He's ambitious. But in his heart, he really wants to act. That's what his art is, and that's what calls him. </div><div><br />
</div><div><b>He was always in our script as illiterate. </b>The scene when Ben Jonson demands that he writes something in front of the Mermaid wits, that was always in the script. </div><div><br />
</div><div>MKA: But when you say illiterate...</div><div><br />
</div><div>JO: He couldn't write. </div><div><br />
</div><div>MKA: So <b>in every draft, he was able to read his parts. But he just couldn't write.</b> </div><div><br />
</div><div>JO: Correct. That was always in there. </div><div><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-K6DZboqKqQU/T4Tdw6XfOII/AAAAAAAAAdA/VxRORYuOs-E/s1600/IMG_9726.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-K6DZboqKqQU/T4Tdw6XfOII/AAAAAAAAAdA/VxRORYuOs-E/s400/IMG_9726.jpg" width="266" /></a></div><div>And then Rafe came and read. And he really just broadened the character. He was always a little funny in our script. But Rafe broadened it -- but at the same time, I find his Shakespeare a little dark and menacing, as the movie progresses. And I like that about him. He's got a lot to lose, by the middle of the movie. And goddam it, he's going to protect it. <b>There's a dark side to our Shakespeare.</b> </div><div><br />
</div><div>I would ask [Spall] what he thinks about the [authorship] issue. I think Rafe was on our set a "closet Stratfordian." He would never really comment. Fair enough. But what he did say is, '<b>I think Shakespeare is the hero of this movie.</b>' And I'd say, 'What do you mean?' And he said, 'If he didn't do this, none of it would have happened. Thank God he said Yes to Ben Jonson.' So we have these fabulous plays. That's how he thought of Shakespeare. </div><div><br />
</div><div>I started to think of Shakespeare as a Greek tragedy. He was the fool. He has the fool's role in our Shakespearean tragedy. </div><div><br />
</div><div>MKA: <b>So Rafe thinks Shakespeare's the hero. You think he's the fool. </b></div><div><br />
</div><div>JO: In the sense that he's our comedic relief throughout the film, which I think it needs, because it's such a serious, somber and at times melodramatic story. It needs that lighter touch that Rafe peppers throughout the film. </div><div><br />
</div><div>And, listen, if you're going to go there. If you're going to say Shakespeare didn't make the plays, you don't want to make him a super-smart character, do you? Because you're kind of shooting yourself in the foot. You don't want to make an argument in the universe of the film that he's totally capable of making the plays. You want to make the argument of, 'No, he's some stupid actor.' You have that line when Oxford discovers that it's Shakespeare. The first thing out of his mouth is, 'An actor??!! An actor, for God's sake!' As if it's the worst thing imaginable. </div><div><br />
</div><div>It was also poking in the eye of professors -- my own professors. I would also argue that the thing scholars know least about is Shakespeare and his personality. And so I think <b>the version we have of Shakespeare is just as justifiable as Joseph Fiennes' Shakespeare</b>. The professor [Alan] Nelson might have a big issue with Shakespeare in my movie. But that's because he's coming to it with his own emotional baggage of his impression of who Shakespeare was. I'm not responsible for that emotional baggage. I can't help him with that. </div><div><a name='more'></a></div><div>MKA: When I spoke to Nelson about Spall's performance, <b>you could feel the blood-pressure rise. </b></div><div><br />
</div><div>JO: I'm sorry. I don't mean to make people upset. At the same time, he's the one that's put him on this marble pedestal and made a big fat target on his forehead. Not I. I didn't put him there. I didn't make him this marble bust with no human emotions and longings. ... Well, they would say he has those things. But just skewed differently. </div><div><br />
</div><div>Listen, the first time you saw <i>Amadeus</i>. That laugh. It's pretty offensive if you're a big Mozart fan. He's an imbecile. It's hard to like Mozart, except for his saving grace. As a human being, he's a dick. The only thing that saves him is the fact that he has this genius. <b>I sort of feel the same way about Shakespeare, minus the genius.</b> </div><div><br />
</div><div>MKA: It's also true about Oxford. </div><div><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PhOpsg722YM/T4Xfe5Ie9yI/AAAAAAAAAdY/p0cqsrRIsmc/s1600/IMG_0321.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PhOpsg722YM/T4Xfe5Ie9yI/AAAAAAAAAdY/p0cqsrRIsmc/s320/IMG_0321.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div>JO: Yes, Oxford's an asshole. I tend to find most artists are, actually. By necessity, you are a self-absorbed, self-obsessed person if you're an artist. That is just who you are. I'm sure there are exceptions. But they are few and far between. </div><div><br />
</div><div>... I don't know a filmmaker or screenwriter who is not self-obsessed. And I don't mean that necessarily in a negative way. It can come off negative to your family, because you have no time for them. Or you have a bad temper because your head is really thinking about something else. And your child is asking you for a popsicle, and you're really trying to figure out the end of your third act. And so when you say, 'Not now' in a short, curt way, yeah. That's years of therapy for that child. </div></div><div><br />
</div><div>At the end of the day what you really are saying is, I know the world better than you do. I know it enough that I can share it with the rest of the world. And that is a very egotistical thing to say. And if you don't say that, you're not an artist. </div><div><br />
</div><div>It doesn't mean you're right. Just because you say it. It doesn't make your art right. But it is what makes you an artist. And that's a very difficult thing to come to grips with as a writer. There is a point where you go, Wow. </div><div><br />
</div><div>As a writer, I had nothing to say through most of my 20s. That's why I didn't write. And so <b>there was a point when I thought, OK, I think I have something to say. That turned out to be <i>Anonymous</i>. </b></div><div><br />
</div><div>And ultimately, what I have tried to say, in vain, as though I'm yelling into a hurricane, is this movie is not about who wrote the Shakespeare plays? At all. That's the plot. It's about Is the pen mightier than the sword? <b>Do words outlive and overwhelm might? That's what the movie's about</b>. And that was worth saying. </div><div><br />
</div><div>MKA: Was <i>The Soul of the Age</i> [the title of the early drafts of the <i>Anonymous</i> screenplay] about the same thing?</div><div><br />
</div><div>JO: Not as much. <i>The Soul of the Age</i> was not as thematically driven. It had problems. That was one of the things that Roland came in and fixed. Or he pointed out the problem, and we fixed it together. </div><div><br />
</div><div>In retrospect, I was on that road. Trying to find it. Like any good collaboration, it required the collaboration [<i>sic</i>] of Roland to make it happen. </div><div><br />
</div><div>MKA: Let's talk about some of the other changes you made to <i>Soul of the Age. </i></div><div><i><br />
</i></div><div>JO: <b>There were no flashbacks in the original version. </b>Or ... there was one flashback. The film originally was book-ended by Ben Jonson's arrest. And occasionally we'd pop back into [his story]. The original script also started around 1590, when Ben Jonson arrives in London. Now it's like 1596 or '97. </div><div><br />
</div><div><b>But the majority of the film took place in the 1590s. </b>There were no flashbacks of Elizabeth and Oxford or Oxford's childhood. Any of that. That became a new element. Because in order to talk about the "Prince Tudor" theory, that has [the Earl of] Southampton as a possible bastard to Elizabeth, we decided it'd be more interesting to show that love affair. We wanted to see the bond between Elizabeth and Oxford. </div><div><br />
</div><div>What was in the main body of the film -- the present, 1600 -- Oxford and Elizabeth haven't spoken in decades. So how do you convey to the audience that there was a very deep love between the two of them, and that love produced a child?</div><div><br />
</div><div>You don't have to use flashbacks. But Roland and I thought it was doing double-duty. It was showing their love affair and how deep it was. But then also it was giving us <b>a little bit of biography on Edward de Vere in a way to make us believe he could have written the plays. </b>All his education, all of the relationships he had. And we thought we could take advantage of that. </div><div><br />
</div><div>And some of the events in his life are then mirrored in the plays. We made a very active choice not to do that too much. Which we could have. </div><div><br />
</div><div>That's a different movie. That's a different way to tell this story. To do a biography of Edward de Vere where every other scene you see a moment of <i>Hamlet</i>. You see a moment of this, you see a moment of that. That's not necessarily the movie that will get as many butts in chairs as the movie we made. </div><div><br />
</div><div>And then the whole third act became about something else. Originally, the stakes were: Is Ben Jonson going to tell the world that Oxford wrote the plays? Because <b>at the end of act two of the old movie, Ben Jonson is so consumed by the injustice he's seeing. </b>Both in his moronic friend becoming more famous than he. That just eats at him. And that de Vere is not getting proper credit. That also eats at him. </div><div><br />
</div><div>So in the original script, that is what drove the third act. Is Ben Jonson going to spout it out that Oxford is the real playwright? That was intercut with <i>King Lear</i> being performed and Oxford going mad from the plague a la <i>King Lear</i>. Running around in the storm. And then we used a lot more of his daughters in the body of the film, so the <i>King Lear</i> metaphor would pay off better. So that Bridget and Elizabeth and Susan had a bigger role to play in the film. </div><div><br />
</div><div>We <b>also explored more of de Vere's ineptitude with money</b>. We saw him getting poorer and poorer. Making bad investment after bad investment. The Northwest Passage. Sir Walter Raleigh was a character in that version. He was one of the characters that was our tool to get from the Mermaid's Tavern and to court. He was the guy who stepped in both worlds. He's not in our movie at all, obviously. </div><div><br />
</div><div>Now the third act is about the Essex Rebellion and who's going to be the next king. And so the stakes are totally different. And the thoughts are totally different. I like to say that everything that the <i>Soul of the Age</i> was is basically still in the movie. It's all just the B-plot. Jonson is still pissed at Shakespeare that Shakespeare is getting all the credit and is a moron. He's still sad that Oxford isn't getting the credit. And he still thinks about telling everybody that it's Oxford. And he goes to the Tower. And by going to the Tower, he's the one that destroys everything. He tells the Tower that <i>Richard [III] </i>is going to be played on Monday next. </div><div><br />
</div><div>MKA: Who's The Tower?</div><div><br />
</div><div>JO: It's our character we call Robert Pole, the captain of the guard. He still is considering opening up the truth. He goes to The Tower -- Pole, to the government, to Cecil, basically -- and says, hey. I want you to arrest William Shakespeare. He's going to play this seditious play as a hunchback next Monday. That's the information that warns Robert Cecil when the Essex rebellion is coming. </div><div><br />
</div><div>MKA: And then you have Marlowe's murder, which [historically inaccurately] Shakspere is strongly implicated in. Can you tell me more about that?</div><div><br />
</div><div>JO: So originally Marlowe was in the script. He was in <i>Soul of the Age</i>. The script took place a little bit earlier, when Marlowe was actually still alive. He was a slightly bigger character in that version. I think his death is unexplained in that version. Although maybe Shakespeare has something to do with it. I can't remember. But when we did the version that is now <i>Anonymous</i>, we knew that push[ing] up the dates to closer to 1600 rather than 1590, we knew that Marlowe was actually dead. We probably wrote 20 drafts with Roland. Some of them smaller changes, some of them with major changes. But some of those drafts had Marlowe not being in the movie at all. Because we knew the problem with the fact that he was killed in 1593. And our movie takes place past that. </div><div><br />
</div><div>But then <b>when he was not in the script, we felt his absence. </b>Because how can you have a movie about the Shakespeare authorship issue and not have Marlowe in it? Otherwise it's this lingering question. Like, 'Wait a minute, I heard something about Marlowe being the real author.'</div><div><br />
</div><div>MKA: But you didn't have [Francis] Bacon...</div><div><br />
</div><div>JO: We never had Bacon. I've never been a Baconian. I guess you're splitting hairs if you're a Stratfordian -- what's crazy. But the Baconian theory always seemed crazy to me. As does the Marlovian one too. I guess I never found Bacon an interesting character. But Marlowe's a really interesting man. <b>It was, again, just a dramatic choice. We had to have him</b>. </div><div><br />
</div><div>Then there was the choice of, OK, he's got to die. If something that important happens in the script, it better be related to the rest of the movie. You just can't have, 'Oh and by the way he was found dead the other day.' That means one of our other characters has to be implicated in that death. </div><div><br />
</div><div>So of course who are you going to set your sights on? William Shakespeare.</div><div><br />
</div><div>MKA: I have to plump for my own version, because I've read some <a href="http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=%22bronson+feldman%22+%22marlowe+mystery%22">great Oxfordian work on this</a>. Because Marlowe was a secret agent. And I think, arguably, Marlowe knew about Robert Cecil's dealings with King James about the succession. And that's treason. So that's why he was murdered. ... But I take your meaning that you can't just introduce someone to the audience and just have them turn up dead in a bar. </div><div><br />
</div><div>JO: You can't do that in a movie. You just can't. So I'm taking my knocks when people say, 'Marlowe was dead when your movie takes place!' I go, Yeah. <b>And the Bridge Over the River Kwai was never blown up. What's your point? This is a movie. </b>Salieri didn't kill Mozart. There weren't two little sweet boys helping Lawrence of Arabia across the desert. </div><div><br />
</div><div>MKA: So you wanted to defend other choices you made in this film?</div><div><br />
</div><div>JO: <b>The big ones are Marlowe, <i>Richard II</i></b>. [n.b. Orloff discusses the movie's conflation of <i>Richard II </i>and <i>Richard III </i>in the <a href="http://shakespearebyanothername.blogspot.com/2011/11/anonymous-with-byline-screenwriter-john_23.html">previous portion of the present interview</a>.] I've noticed a couple reviews have gotten very [upset] about the fact that we show one or two performances in The Rose with torches at night. And they are quite correct. The Globe and The Rose didn't show plays at night, because candles were so expensive. And it was dark, and nobody wanted to walk home in the dark. They are absolutely right. But it's a film. And we didn't want to show the same old shot over and over every time we cut to theater. That's called drama. </div><div><br />
</div><div>To say we didn't know what we were doing because we made that kind of error really denigrates the amount of research that hundreds of people did for this movie -- including the [director of photography], who very well knew that she was breaking a rule. But she thought we had to spice it up. </div><div><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KGbbAINXq68/T4XbS270xVI/AAAAAAAAAdQ/_RlHXX1ZQCI/s1600/BAO_7470.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KGbbAINXq68/T4XbS270xVI/AAAAAAAAAdQ/_RlHXX1ZQCI/s400/BAO_7470.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div>I was very fortunate to be on set for the whole movie. That's a real rarity in the film business. But Roland really likes having the writer on set. And it was a good thing I was there, too, because we did a lot of rewriting on set. </div><div><br />
</div><div>MKA: How long was the shoot?</div><div><br />
</div><div>JO: About three months. Ten weeks, eleven weeks. But a month or two of prep ahead of that. So we all arrived in January of 2009 and left in June -- from Babelsburg. </div><div><br />
</div><div>But we had this enormous building that was like our office building. Each little office you'd go to another department head. And the degree of care that every department took to get it right ... I'm instantly reminded of the special effects people who did their damndest to look at maps. And when they were recreating in the computer London in 1600. They really tried to get it down to the street level. Where was St. Paul's. And where was this... and you can see St. Paul's from this angle. This was not making shit up. <b>This was trying to get it to look more right than it's ever looked in a movie before. </b></div><div><br />
</div><div>And here's another interesting thing that I loved. Our wardrobe stylist, who was amazing. It was a low-budget movie, believe it or not. These are the kinds of things you just don't notice. But she thought -- and if you watch the movie, you will notice -- <b>the older Elizabeth gets, the more baroque her dresses become. She</b> starts out as a young woman, and she's wearing a very plain, blue satin dress. And her hair's long and down. And each subsequent time period you see her in, her dresses and her hair become more and more elaborate. Till at the end, in the final scene, when Vanessa [Redgrave] is saying you can have Southampton, to de Vere. We call it the Michelin Man outfit. She's wearing this enormous white thing with giant poofs. And this huge hair-crown... this elaborate thing. </div><div><br />
</div><div>Another example is the plays within the play. We got this unbelievably brilliant theater director named Tamara Harvey, who's a protege of Mark Rylance. We asked for some Shakespearean directors to join our movie, and they all said no. Tamara, who is a Stratfordian, said yes. She came up with this really interesting idea as well -- which I didn't realize until she told me. Similarly <b>each staging of a Shakespeare play within the movie gets simpler and simpler and simpler. </b>Until at the end, it's <i>Hamlet</i>, and it's just a man wearing black, talking to the audience. </div><div><br />
</div><div>But it starts with <i>Henry V</i>. And all that craziness and drama and cannons and elaborate stagecraft. And you'll see <i>Romeo</i>, which is also very elaborate. And then <i>Macbeth</i> -- and it gets simpler and simpler. Each subsequent play you see, until it's just about the words. It's just about a man on a stage using words. Very clever, and very well thought out. </div><div><br />
</div><div>And all the departments did that. The props, everybody. So I'm very proud of that stuff. </div><div><br />
</div><div>MKA: At the New Yorker Festival screening, I met the guy who did all the calligraphy in the movie. Roland joked that 'This is the man who <i>really</i> wrote Shakespeare.'</div><div><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-I_arNgqyVs8/T4XgZExikeI/AAAAAAAAAdg/PquuJswFWeY/s1600/Anonymous_Venus_and_Adonis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-I_arNgqyVs8/T4XgZExikeI/AAAAAAAAAdg/PquuJswFWeY/s320/Anonymous_Venus_and_Adonis.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div>JO: Oh, yes <a href="http://janjericho.com/janjericho.com/pics_Anonymous.html">Jan [Jericho]</a>! His office was just filled with stuff. I begged him, and he gave me a copy of our <i>Venus and Adonis</i>. The little book. We had four of them made. And he hand-bound them himself. The <i>Venus and Adonis</i> that's getting passed around, and I got one of them. </div><div><br />
</div><div>MKA: Shame on you! That was 1593!</div><div><br />
</div><div>JO: I know, I know. There's another great example that we hemmed and hawed a lot about. But I would argue the same thing you argued about Marlowe. Namely, one can make the argument -- and I would -- that <b><i>Venus and Adonis </i>is about the succession issue. And certainly in the context of our movie, it's a young lover reminding an older lover of that love. And literally, saying, your duty is to breed.</b> </div><div><br />
</div><div>MKA: Certainly that's the first 17 Sonnets<i> </i>too. </div><div><br />
</div><div>JO: We talked about using <i>The Sonnets</i> instead of<i> Venus and Adonis. </i>We did have that conversation. And I'll be honest with you: It was the sex in <i>Venus</i> that I wanted. Because [part of it is] about oral sex. It's pretty graphic. In a good way. And that's passionate. <i>The Sonnets </i>aren't quite as passionate. Drama trumps reality. I could have used <i>The Sonnets</i>, which were published in [16]09. But who knows when they were written. So we could have done <i>The Sonnets</i> and had more of a veil of, well, who knows when <i>The Sonnets</i> were written. But we made the very conscious choice that <i>Venus and Adonis </i>just fits our film better. The younger lover with the older woman. It's incredibly sexual. And he literally says, Your job is to have children. </div><div><br />
</div><div>But I would argue that <i>Venus and Adonis</i> was about that anyway. If you are an Oxfordian, it is still a message to the queen saying, You need an heir. Whether it happens in 1593 or 1600 or 1601 is irrelevant. Emotionally, I say it's still an Oxfordian truth. Even though, yes, we shifted it a little bit. </div><div><br />
</div><div>But I would also counter, let's not talk about the dating of anything. Don't tell me about shifting dates, Mr. Stratfordian. Dates are a very convenient thing in Shakespearean scholarship. </div><div><br />
</div><div>To us, it was about what Shakespeare said, not when he said it. </div><div><br />
</div><div>MKA: What about the cast? How much push-back did you get?</div><div><br />
</div><div>JO: Absolutely none. <b>I hear that it was one of the hot scripts that everybody wanted to work on in Britain, when we started to cast it</b>. </div><div><br />
</div><div>MKA: And you wanted specifically British actors, right?</div><div><br />
</div><div>JO: Only. Roland tried to make the film five years ago, right after <i>The Day After Tomorrow</i>. And we were actually starting to cast it. We were in pre-production. We were hiring crew. We were hiring the cast. It was the first time he started to talk to Vanessa Redgrave about it. And we were talking to other people, who didn't end up being in the movie. So we won't talk about them. And we had a lot of pressure from the movie studio to hire American actors that would be box office draw. And at a certain point, Roland said, that's not the movie I want to make. And he walked away. </div><div><br />
</div><div>MKA: Was it specifically because he wanted a British cast?</div><div><br />
</div><div>JO: Yes. That was a big part of it. It wasn't the only thing. Things are more complicated. The budget was going up. At a certain point, he said, You know what? This is not feeling right. So when we tried to make it again, he was really clear that he wanted to cast whoever he wanted. And the studio said, Great. Fine. Go with it. Just as long as you make it for a price. You make the movie under a certain number. </div><div><br />
</div><div>And so we started going out to these young, up-and-coming actors. And <b>it was about who's best for the role, actually. As opposed to who would sell more popcorn. </b>Which you don't get to do very often anymore. And I've got to tell you, I constantly pinched myself, almost every day. Seeing these actors. I think, top to bottom, this was a pretty amazing group. </div><div><br />
</div><div>MKA: It's an incredible ensemble piece. </div><div><br />
</div><div>JO: It's written as an ensemble piece. All the actors loved it. Even actors that don't appear in the movie that much, they have a ton to do. Ed Hogg, who plays Robert Cecil. He's not in the movie that much, actually. But he's fantastic. And he has an arc. He starts off as that jealous little kid -- obviously not played by Ed. And then <b>he has this arc in the movie. Which second or tertiary characters don't always have in a movie. </b></div><div><br />
</div><div>Shakespeare, the same thing. Jonson, the same thing. Elizabeth, the same thing. They all have these really interesting problems and goals. And all of them intersect and intermesh and conflict. And that led to a really great ensemble piece. With really great actors. I mean, David Thewlis. He had to play his character [William Cecil] at five different ages. </div><div><br />
</div><div>MKA: There were some really great performances. But him in particular, I thought, he should be nominated for Best Supporting Actor. </div><div><br />
</div><div>JO: He's really great. Really great. Let me just tell a little story for me -- which was when it started to go around in Britain, they all thought it was written by a Brit. The script. So I got my British "-isms" down, because I fooled the Brits. And it turns out that Vanessa has wanted to play Queen Elizabeth her whole life. She's obsessed with Queen Elizabeth and Tudor times. And she's an unbelievably smart human being. So the first time we sat down, I was rather intimidated. She's also the most gorgeous 72 year old I've ever laid eyes on. And we sat down, and she starts challenging me, basically on every line Elizabeth says. 'I don't think Elizabeth would say that.' And you know what, sometimes she was right. When we talked it through, she was right. And other times I would say, You know what, Vanessa, we need Elizabeth to say that for the plot. And she would say, OK. Got it. Let's move on. She was unbelievably wonderful. She really had some great points. </div><div><br />
</div><div><b>And the entire scene when Robert Cecil gives her the <a href="http://janjericho.com/janjericho.com/pics_Anonymous.html#2">Act of Succession</a>, with James's name on it, that she throws away. That entire scene was Vanessa's idea. </b>It wasn't in the draft. She was really, as an actor, interested in the idea that Elizabeth in her last days of her life sat on a pillow, sucking her thumb. Because her teeth were all gone. And that image was stuck in Vanessa's head. She really wanted to do it. We figured out a way to make it happen and insert that plot point in the scene. And that was all Vanessa's idea. As were the blackened teeth. And trust me, she knows way more about Elizabeth Tudor than I did. </div><div><br />
</div><div>MKA: You read accounts of Elizabeth's final days when she was sucking on what they called a "sweet bag," because her breath stank so bad. </div><div><br />
</div><div>JO: And when Essex comes into her boudoir, she's not wearing a wig. It's very brave for an actor to do. Actors often will say, No, I don't want to do that. And you're kind of stuck. But Vanessa was totally brave to appear unattractive. Trust me: Most actresses don't [want to do that]. She was unbelievably great to work with. </div><div><br />
</div><div>MKA: Tell me about working with Vanessa and her daughter [Joely Richardson, who plays young Princess and Queen Elizabeth].</div><div><br />
</div><div>JO: It was interesting, because they had very little overlap. They weren't working on the same days. They were playing the same characters. It was kind of a coup. We were hoping for it. And Roland had made a movie with Joely before. She's in <i>The Patriot</i>. She'd already known Roland and known what a lovely man he is to be with and make movies with. So it didn't take too much arm-twisting to get Joely to do it as well. But Vanessa was always our first choice. Especially because I'd written Elizabeth, even more so in the script maybe than in the movie, as somebody who's befuddled and confused. And may have something akin to Alzheimer's. Or she's smarter than any of them and is just pretending. </div><div><br />
</div><div>MKA: I don't see how that second option would play out. </div><div><br />
</div><div>JO: At the very end when she talks about why she didn't dump the Cecils. I thought that was an extreme moment of lucidity. And she hasn't seemed so lucid up to that point. It's something that's more in the script than in the film. Her doddering and possibly faking it. </div><div><br />
</div><div>It's an interesting situation, when you think about it. Because <b>she's old, and she knows she's old. And she's dying. But she must have some sense of not having quite the control over her court that she did in her prime.</b> </div><div><br />
</div><div>MKA: Although she loved up until her dying days for people to flatter her about her beauty, and pretend that she's young again...</div><div><br />
</div><div>JO: Of course. But that's not controlling the court, is it? That's not actually being in control. And I thought that was an interesting dynamic to play. Is she sensing that things are being done without her knowledge? And what do you do with that? I thought it would be interesting thing to play off this idea of her response to it is to withdraw even more. And to observe and only make choices when she absolutely has to. </div><div><br />
</div><div>MKA: What about Rhys Ifans [as Edward de Vere]?</div><div><br />
</div><div>JO: Rhys was great. Rhys was a surprise. In a lot of ways. The first surprise was that he wanted to play Oxford. He's always the silly... he's the Shakespeare character often. </div><div><br />
</div><div>MKA: Roland said Rhys was initially considered for that role, right?</div><div><br />
</div><div>JO: Yes. But he's a little old for that role. So that was never going to be an easy fit. But it was possible. And Rhys really wanted to play Oxford. And I remember seeing the tape of him -- an audition tape. He read for it. He just became possessed. On set, it was amazing. </div><div><br />
</div><div>MKA: Is he a method actor?</div><div><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AkVkOJs-Doc/T4Xi4TRZxoI/AAAAAAAAAdo/p6dX_D1q5EM/s1600/IMG_0204.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AkVkOJs-Doc/T4Xi4TRZxoI/AAAAAAAAAdo/p6dX_D1q5EM/s400/IMG_0204.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div>JO: He's not. But he's all but. He would come on set, and he'd be in his costume. And he would be a different human being. Rhys is rock and roll. He'd like to be Mick Jagger. He dresses like that. He walks like that. His movements are kind of like Mick Jagger. He does the thing with the wrist when he's walking. But, man, you put him in the de Vere outfit. And he sat in a director's chair. And you knew: Don't come fucking near him. He's in his zone. He's becoming de Vere. I actually think his performance is extraordinary. The depth. One of the negatives of having such an ensemble piece is you don't spend a lot of time with any one character. <b>And Rhys is in the movie probably a lot less than you think he is. But the force of his personality and the character he's created is so strong, it feels like it's his movie. I think that's a testament to his acting.</b> </div><div><br />
</div><div>MKA: Do you think if, by Academy standards, his total amount of screen time would only add up to a supporting role?</div><div><br />
</div><div>JO: I don't know. </div><div><br />
</div><div>MKA: But you're right. He's hovering. There's a presence that's not onscreen. His character is so...</div><div><br />
</div><div>JO: <i>Über</i>.</div><div><br />
</div><div>MKA: Yeah. To me there's a lot even just in his glances. It's just a little bit. It's not the sort of thing that would get a lot of buzz or media attention. Oscars are always about "Most." </div><div><br />
</div><div>JO: Well he gets close to chewing the scenery. Not in a bad way. That's the movie. <b>The movie's a big melodrama. It is a little bit bigger than life. It is a Greek tragedy. And Rhys played the character big. I think greatly. </b>It's not a natural, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stella_Adler">Stella Adler</a> sort of performance. It's not naturalism. But it feels very real. </div><div><br />
</div><div>We thought of Oxford as a very arrogant guy, and his self-appearance was incredibly important to him. Which we know historically. Those little things help actors. You give a little thing like, Well, this guy was a clothes-horse. An actor will suddenly start doing stuff with this... Now that he knows he's a clothes-horse, he uses that. And it becomes part of the character. </div><div><br />
</div><div>He's a fucking earl, and he's going to be arrogant. He's going to be that. 'Voice? You have no voice. That's why I chose you.'</div><div><br />
</div><div><b>MKA: Of course that line is invested with so much irony, because who's the one without any voice?</b></div><div><br />
</div><div>JO: Of course. Exactly. It's de Vere. And Ben Jonson ends up becoming the first Poet Laureate of England. He had quite a voice, in the end, Ben Jonson. And I would say probably in his lifetime was way more famous than Shakespeare ever was. </div><div><br />
</div><div>MKA: So how do you want to see this movie propagated out into the world?</div><div><br />
</div><div>JO: <b>It's meant to be a fun movie. This is not a history lesson. We strove to not be that. We're not trying to prove Oxford wrote the plays. That is a different movie. </b>What I hope people get out of it is A) A really fun time. B) A deeper appreciation of the process of writing. And C) I hope it makes people go on the Internet and just start to research the authorship issue. </div><div><br />
</div><div><b>I don't have a problem with people saying Shakespeare wrote the plays. I think it's a perfectly justifiable conclusion to come to. I think it's open to debate. I think there's reasonable doubt. </b>And I happen to come down on a different end of that question. But I think it's incredibly reasonable for people to come to that conclusion. And if they've done a little bit of research, they've learned a little more about Elizabethan England. And they've learned a little bit more about Shakespeare's plays -- because you need to do that to understand the research -- then that's all good. </div><div><br />
</div><div>At the end of the day, we're talking about Shakespeare, and we're talking about art, and we're talking about the intersection of life and art. And however you come out at the end of the day, I'm fine with it. </div><div><br />
</div><div>MKA: Do you see <i>Anonymous</i> as something that launches a new generation of the authorship debate?</div><div><br />
</div><div>JO: I hope that would happen. I think it's inevitable that it will bring attention to the authorship question. The thing that has stuck with me: Charlton Ogburn, at the end of that <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shakespeare/">Frontline episode</a>, talking about de Vere and how he's unknown to history. It gets very emotional at the end. </div><div><br />
</div><div>MKA: Ogburn quotes "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow," and he actually starts crying. </div><div><br />
</div><div>JO: I think that this movie will at least put Charlton Ogburn's fear to rest. <b>People will now know the story of Edward de Vere, and the conversation will happen. And that's what Stratfordians are afraid the most of. </b></div><div><br />
</div><div>It's not that they're afraid that Shakespeare isn't going to come out ahead. What they're afraid of is the understanding that they are actually no more experts than anybody else on Shakespeare. <b>That's what I think they're most afraid of. What they've been teaching for 200 years in critical studies is all really just their interpretation. With scant evidence.</b> </div><div><br />
</div><div>That's the thing that scares them the most. They are unneeded in this process. </div><div><br />
</div><div>At what point do you go, 'Well you don't really need another biography of William Shakespeare, because you made up the last one.' And the one before that and the one before that and the one before that. </div><div><br />
</div><div>MKA: At the New Yorker festival screening of <i>Anonymous</i>, [Shakespeare professor] James Shapiro publicly took on Anonymous and <i>went there</i> -- he said this was a movie of blonde-haired people who were concerned with their bloodlines. </div><div><br />
</div><div>JO: When you <a href="http://shake-speares-bible.com/2011/10/01/were-done-here/">wrote it</a>, I thought, He's got to be exaggerating. It must have been more oblique. And then I read it from a third-person [account]. And they said the exact same thing. And I said, Holy... What?? This is where we're devolving to? It's <i>Nazi propaganda</i>?? That's how much you hate it? Wow! That's going far. </div><div><br />
</div><div>But I've had my own little issue with Shapiro. We had our own little <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2010/apr/19/opinion/la-oew-orloff19-2010apr19">exchange in the press</a>. In the last year. Because I was quite upset with his mischaracterization of the [1987] <a href="http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/618-1">Moot Court</a>. Where he wrote this op-ed about us. How dare we write this movie. And he said, 'Well. Three U.S. Supreme Court justices unanimously voted for Shakespeare as the author.'</div><div><br />
</div><div>And, technically, to the letter of the law, [that's true.] But that would not be an accurate representation of their actual opinions of who wrote the plays. And to say what he said is intellectual dishonesty. </div><div><br />
</div><div>That's the thing that upsets me the most. <b>You know what, there is a good case that Shakespeare wrote the plays. But don't mischaracterize your point. Your case is not locked, sealed and delivered. And that's the problem.</b> </div><div><br />
</div><div>But don't make stuff up to fill that gap. That's the thing that upsets me the most about this whole thing is the intellectual dishonesty. Which dovetails into this idea of -- well, <b>if we're so crazy, and we're so wrong, and you're so sure... why don't you want to talk about it? One would think it would be rather easy to disprove everything we say if it's so perfect -- your argument. </b>To me, the oddest moment is when I asked Professor Nelson in our conversation, Did he think there was a problem at all? </div><div><br />
</div><div>When he said, 'No.' That's the thing that upsets me the most. Because there is a problem. To deny there is a problem is dishonest. The problem might end up being solved one day in Shakespeare's favor. Or it might not. But I really think there's a problem. </div><div><br />
</div><div>MKA: And <i>Anonymous</i> poses the question -- and introduces the question to more people than anything before it. </div><div><br />
</div><div>JO: The power of cinema is amazing. The depth of its reach. Which is one of the reasons why the Stratfordians are afraid. Because rightly or wrongly, they are correct in assuming that people will think everything they just saw is real. People do. They watch <i>Amadeus</i>, and they think that's what really happened. You and I really know it wasn't. But a lot of people don't take the time to find out what is real and what isn't. And these movies live way longer than books do. They're much more immediate than books. And this will be on DVD, and it'll be streaming. I bet you Shakespeare classes will show it. Some will. </div><div><br />
</div><div>Just like I watched Zeffirelli's <i>Romeo and Juliet</i> in seventh grade. They show bits of <i>Band of Brothers</i> in high school history classes. <b>Somewhere, somehow, young minds are going to see this movie. </b> </div><div><br />
</div><div>It was interesting at the college [screenings] that we went to. The audiences were almost 99 per cent students. And these young people who had never heard of the Oxfordian issue tell me how they were sobbing at the end of the movie. They're going to go find out what was true and what wasn't. So that's going to change things. The truth will come out. </div><div><br />
</div><div><br />
</div><div><i>Venus and Adonis</i> book cover design (c) 2011 Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc./JanJericho.com; photographs courtesy of John Orloff. </div></div>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01959807858303615531noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206508.post-23142945234580911402012-03-08T14:20:00.004-05:002012-03-08T20:23:03.164-05:00The FAQ - from this Oxfordian's POVI recently received a <b>questionnaire from some high school students doing a project on Edward de Vere, Shakespeare and the authorship question</b>. They asked some good questions that really got to the heart of the matter in the Shakespeare debate.<br />
<div><br />
</div><div>A number of readers have requested I post the (14) questions and my responses to them. </div><div><br />
</div><div>What follows are one Oxfordian's opinions and perspectives. Others in the trenches of course have very different opinions and points of view. Vive la différence. </div><div><br />
</div><div>With that caveat in mind, then...<br />
<br />
<div><i>1. How long have you researched Shakespeare and the authorship question?</i></div><div><br />
</div><div>I have been researching Shakespeare and the authorship mystery since 1993. I wrote a book, published in 2005,<i> "Shakespeare" by Another Name</i>, which was <a href="http://store.untreedreads.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=68_8_107&products_id=231">republished</a> in ebook format last year. </div><div><br />
</div><div><i>SBAN</i> presents what I -- along with a small but growing minority of scholars, writers, theatrical professionals and Shakespeare buffs -- suspect is a <b>very likely scenario, namely that the Elizabethan court dramatist Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, played a key role in the creation of the plays and poems published under the name "Shakespeare." </b>I personally suspect de Vere was essentially the author himself. Others find a group collaboration scenario more probable. In any event, de Vere deserves much more attention by both scholars and people in the theater -- who of course bring these works to life. </div><div><br />
</div><div><i>2. What ultimately made you believe Shakespeare was not the true author of all of his plays, sonnets, etc.?</i></div><div><br />
</div><div><a href="http://doubtaboutwill.org/">Here's a great website</a> that collects many of the so-called "anti-Stratfordian" arguments but does not advocate for any alternative "Shakespeare" candidate. Check out the YouTube video, in particular. A fine introduction to the case. </div><div><a name='more'></a></div><div><br />
Ultimately, I'd say<b> there is no single piece of evidence that sums it all up. This is a case that has no "smoking gun," </b>as it were. Instead it's built on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumstantial_evidence">circumstantial evidence</a>. </div><div><br />
</div><div>That is, the important argument centers around not one damning fact or another but rather the collection of all the facts concerning Will Shakespeare (or Shakspere) of Stratford-upon-Avon and how incongruous that is with what the "Shakespeare" plays and poems tell us about the author. For starters, whoever wrote these works makes clear and unequivocal references to more than a hundred books -- many of them obscure and some unavailable at the time in English. There's not a scrap of evidence that Shakspere was even literate (at least in the sense of having any ability to write)... let alone that he owned any books. See the "will" question below. </div><div><br />
</div><div><i>3. Do you believe William Shakespeare was a real person or completely fabricated? Please elaborate.</i></div><div><br />
</div><div>Will Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon was clearly a real person baptized in Stratford in April 1564 -- for whom there is unequivocal evidence of his, yes, existing, growing up (no records of any schooling), probably moving to London in the late 1580s or early 1590s. He very likely got involved in the theatrical scene both as a producer and bit-part actor too. Diana Price's <i><a href="http://www.shakespeare-authorship.com/">Shakespeare's Unorthodox Biography</a></i>, for me, was the <b>starting point that demonstrated a clear and convincing case that Will Shakspere was a businessman in London who was involved in the theater in some form. Scuttlebutt around London suggested that he liked to claim credit for writing other people's works. </b>And, Oxfordians say, the works of an anonymous court dramatist, Edward de Vere, were somehow associated with him -- either actively (i.e. he claimed credit for them) or passively (other people, for their own reasons, used him as the front for these politically dangerous works). </div><div><br />
</div><div><i>4. Do you believe that Edward de Vere used "Shakespeare" as a cover name for publishing his work? If yes, why do you think he did this?</i></div><div><br />
</div><div>That's a long story, not easily summarized. It's essentially the story of "<i>Shakespeare" by Another Name</i>. In short form I'd point you to a series of podcasts I did that answer some of the very questions you pose. In particular <a href="http://shakespearebyanothername.com/audio.html">Episode 1 "Introducing... 'Shakespeare'"</a>.</div><div><br />
</div><div>In very short form, <b>it's ultimately about sex and politics. </b>The "Shakespeare" canon -- as read from an Oxfordian perspective -- becomes much more contemporary, much more autobiographical, much more political. <i>Hamlet</i>'s play-within-a-play is essentially the model of what Oxfordians are talking about: A powerful courtier tries to "catch the conscience of the king" using drama. Only in Oxford's case, that drama became so popular that it was not just staged at court but later (perhaps decades later) was adapted for the public stage. In that setting, there were <b>too many powerful people (the queen, her chief ministers of state, fellow powerful courtiers and families) who were depicted in too many unflattering ways for these works to be associated directly with the court. </b>This is why many Oxfordians suspect Shakspere served as some sort of front-man for the works. </div><div><br />
</div><div>As a somewhat contemporary (1950s & '60s) analogy, consider <a href="http://www.imdb.com/reviews/415/41570.html">the case of the "blacklisted" screenwriter Dalton Trumbo</a> who couldn't get work in Hollywood under his own name, so he hired front-men to take the credit for writing Trumbo's screenplays. </div><div><br />
</div><div><i>5. If you answered yes to the above question, do you think Edward de Vere purposely chose the name of a man who was supposedly illiterate ?</i></div><div><br />
</div><div>Good question. I honestly don't know the answer to this one -- and I don't really venture an answer in <i>SBAN</i>. I think that's an open question for present-day researchers -- and perhaps future scholars such as yourselves -- to tackle.</div><div><br />
</div><div><i>6. What are the main/key points as to why you believe that Edward de Vere was the real author?</i></div><div><br />
</div><div>A top five list (in no particular order) might be</div><div><br />
</div><div>1) Italy</div><div>2) Bible </div><div>3) Contemporaries</div><div>4) Autobiography</div><div>5) 1604</div><div><br />
</div><div>In other words...</div><div><br />
</div><div>1) The evidence is very strong, I think, that the author of the dozen or so "Shakespeare" plays set in Italy were drawn from intimate first-hand knowledge of the locations being dramatized. In fact, to a good approximation, the <b>Italian regions and cities so accurately portrayed in the "Shakespeare" canon are also the known ports of call on Edward de Vere's 1575-'76 Italian grand tour.</b> The late Richard Paul Roe wrote a book that HarperCollins published this year that makes this overwhelming case. <a href="http://shakespearebyanothername.blogspot.com/2011/12/guest-post-how-did-man-who-didnt-go-to.html">Here's a good book review</a>.</div><div><br />
</div><div>2) Edward de Vere's personal, hand-annotated copy of the Bible contain more than a hundred underlined passages that are also some of the most important biblical references in the "Shakespeare" canon. Put another way, <b>the unique and idiosyncratic biblical knowledge that de Vere records in his bible overlaps in stunning ways with the references to the bible in the "Shakespeare" plays and poems</b>. The Oxfordian scholar <a href="http://www.shakespearefellowship.org/virtualclassroom/biblegateway.htm">Roger Stritmatter</a> has done <a href="http://shake-speares-bible.com/category/shakespeare-and-the-bible/">the definitive work</a> here. </div><div><br />
</div><div>Also the Georgetown University professor of psychology Richard Waugaman has some <a href="http://www.oxfreudian.com/">very insightful writings about de Vere's bible and "Shakespeare"</a> too. (See articles <a href="http://www.oxfreudian.com/">in this link</a> on the right hand side of the page)</div><div><br />
</div><div>3) <b>Contemporaries of de Vere and Shakspere arguably "squealed" -- they blew both Shakspere's cover and de Vere's cover</b>. There would be no authorship debate of course if any of those allusions were unequivocal. But the <a href="http://tinyurl.com/blewthewhistle">contemporary references are pretty damning all the same</a>. (This from the new "Argument" chapter in the 2011 edition of SBAN)</div><div><br />
</div><div>4) <b>The "Shakespeare" works are incredibly, stunningly autobiographical -- as read from the perspective that de Vere was the author. </b>That's again the story of <i>"Shakespeare" by Another Name</i>. For the manifold connections to <i>Hamlet</i> and <i>King Lear</i>, for instance, <a href="http://shakespearebyanothername.com/audio.html">check out the relevant podcasts here</a>.</div><div><br />
</div><div>5) The <b>author of the "Shakespeare" canon -- according to essentially (arguably) all available evidence -- stopped writing in 1604, the year Edward de Vere died. </b>Will Shakspere had another dozen years yet to live and according to conventional chronology had yet to "write" many of the great plays. The evidence for any new "Shakespeare" work being composed after 1604 is paltry to say the least. See the "1604" material referenced below. </div><div><br />
</div><div><i>7. Can you explain the difference between the name "Shakespeare" and the name "Shakspere"?</i></div><div><br />
</div><div>Will Shakspere (as he tended to prefer to spell his name) was born in Stratford in 1564 and died in Stratford in 1616. He lived in London for a time -- exactly when is still unclear. Orthodox scholars say he wrote the plays and poems that some contemporaries credited to him, published under the name "Shakespeare" or "Shake-speare." Many Oxfordians say Shakspere served as a front of some sort. So <b>Shakspere = "Shakespeare" is the conventional (Stratfordian) theory. Oxford = "Shakespeare" is the Oxfordian theory.</b> </div><div><br />
</div><div><i>8. Can you explain what you know about William Shakespeare's will and what you find odd about it?</i></div><div><br />
</div><div>It spells out in great detail a lived life of a businessman and shareholder in the London theater world. But it doesn't even contain the slightest hint that the man was an author. The will is very damning evidence, I think, that there's something very strange going on with Will Shakspere. I highly recommend <a href="http://www.theshakespeareunderground.com/2011/09/where-theres-a-will-episode-1-with-bonner-miller-cutting/">listening to this podcast that dissects the will in detail</a> -- and turns out to be an incredible piece of forensic detective work by the scholar Bonner Miller Cutting. The will alone makes a very strong case that Will Shakspere was not the author orthodox scholars claim he was. </div><div><br />
</div><div><i>9. Can you explain what you know about the First Folio?</i></div><div><br />
</div><div>The First Folio was published in 1623 containing almost all of the dramatic works of "Shakespeare." (<i>The Sonnets</i> and other poems were published separately.) The Folio was produced very hastily -- begun soon after Edward de Vere's son Henry, 18th Earl of Oxford had been thrown in jail. The 18th Earl was sent to the Tower for working against King James and James's Spanish conspirators to engineer a Spanish marriage to the next king of England, then-prince Charles. The "Spanish marriage" threatened to become a Catholic takeover of Protestant England. Once Henry de Vere was put in the tower, with the Spanish ambassador (who wielded a lot of power with James) indicating his intent to have Henry de Vere executed, the First Folio production process went into overdrive... almost as if Edward de Vere's heirs saw a rapidly closing window of opportunity to preserve the plays and poems in some form before a possible Spanish-Catholic controlled government could have shut down any possibility of ever bringing the "Shakespeare" works into print. </div><div><br />
</div><div>(Phew! This one is admittedly rather complex!) </div><div><br />
</div><div>The Folio appeared in late November 1623, dedicated to Henry de Vere's co-conspirators in the project to stanch the Spanish marriage. (The Folio was dedicated to de Vere's son-in-law and the son-in-law's brother -- a young man who at one point had been considered as a husband for another of de Vere's daughters.) The anti-Spanish marriage forces at court had won their battle. Charles did not marry the Spanish princess. But arguably the Spanish marriage situation is right in the background to the production of the entire First Folio.</div><div><br />
</div><div>I discuss this story in the Epilogue to SBAN -- and it draws on the pioneering work of the researcher Peter Dickson, <a href="http://www.shakespeare-oxford.com/?cat=9">some of which has been summarized in these articles</a>. </div><div><br />
</div><div><i>10. What do you know (if anything) about the author </i>[sic] <i>of the First Folio, Ben Jonson?</i></div><div><br />
</div><div>Ben Jonson is often called the editor of the Folio. It's a documented fact, for instance, that Jonson was on good terms with Edward de Vere's son Henry. <a href="http://www.chethams.org.uk/treasures/treasures_jonsons_plato.html">Henry gave Jonson a copy of the works of Plato</a>. </div><div><br />
</div><div>Jonson's story in re the Folio is one that I'm fascinated in but, again, I think researchers today have only scratched the surface. So much more work in this field remains to be done. </div><div><br />
</div><div><i>11. What do you know about the "Prince Tudor" Theory?</i></div><div><br />
</div><div>There are essentially two main "PT" theories: One says Edward de Vere was the secret son of Queen Elizabeth, born in 1548, and fathered by a favorite of Elizabeth's at the time, Thomas Seymour. The other theory says de Vere had himself fathered a secret son by Elizabeth, born circa 1573-'74, who was later raised as the Earl of Southampton. (There's also a conflation of these two, saying both "PT" theories are true, which can make for a rather squeamish story.)</div><div><br />
</div><div>I personally don't find the "PT" theories historically convincing. That is, <b>I think the evidence is good that both Edward de Vere and the Earl of Southampton's parents are as we know them to have been and that neither de Vere nor Southampton were secret princes. </b><br />
<br />
However, I also find the "anti-PT" arguments very often to be sorely lacking in imagination. We are, after all, ultimately arguing about one of the greatest creative literary minds who ever lived.<br />
<br />
To me, the "PT" theory is just as much an imaginative question as it is a historical one.<br />
<br />
For starters, it's a known fact that the Elizabethan court (esp. in the 1590s and up to Elizabeth's death in 1603) was essentially a den of vipers where all kinds of rumors circulated, some of which were true and some of which weren't. And no one knew which was which. </div><div><br />
</div><div>If the Oxfordian hypothesis is true, then it's also true that "Shakespeare" plays like <i>A Midsummer Night's Dream</i> stage the author's doubts -- in brilliant romantic comical form -- about the paternity of his eldest daugher Elizabeth de Vere. (Orthodox scholars have long suspected that <i>MND</i> was performed at Elizabeth de Vere's wedding.) </div><div><br />
</div><div>So I say <b>it's quite possible that "Shakespeare" considered and staged different versions of possible "PT" scenarios in the plays and poems. </b>In part because he didn't know if there was any truth to the rumors about Elizabeth's possible offspring. And drama and poetry are in fact perfect outlets for exploring possibilities when one doesn't have access to any certain knowledge. </div><div><br />
</div><div><i>12. Can you explain what you know about Aubrey's Book (the biography on William Shakespeare)?</i></div><div><br />
</div><div><a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=NT6t17gpKQsC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=john%20aubrey&f=false">Aubrey's <i>Brief Lives</i></a> is a sort of 17th century gossip column. John Aubrey was a bit of a tabloid journalist who drew some of his facts from real life and made some stuff up along the way too. He's not a reliable source for documentary evidence about any of his subjects. Some the things he says both about Shakespeare and many other contemporaries are just flat-out wrong. Check out <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=NT6t17gpKQsC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=john%20aubrey&f=false">this Google Books link</a> for more. </div><div><br />
</div><div><i>13. Can you explain why Edward de Vere died in 1604, but plays were still being written under the "Shakespeare" name years after Edward's death?</i></div><div><br />
</div><div>Untrue. Edward de Vere died in June of 1604, yes. But there's actually no reliable evidence that any "Shakespeare" play or poem was written after June of 1604. In fact, the evidence skews quite the opposite way. The evidence for dates of composition leading up to 1604 are very good -- contemporary references, allusions, etc. But then the evidence basically disappears. I've written at some length about this point, both as an appendix to SBAN and <a href="http://asktheauthor.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474976776589">here</a>.</div><div><br />
</div><div><i>14. Did you see the movie Anonymous? If yes, what did you think about the ideas posed in the movie?</i></div><div><br />
</div><div>I liked it. Here's <a href="http://shakespearebyanothername.blogspot.com/2011/10/soul-of-age-amadeus-of-stage-review-of.html">my review</a>. </div><span class="fullpost"></span></div>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01959807858303615531noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206508.post-81088707480418487992012-02-08T12:33:00.005-05:002012-02-10T12:33:57.491-05:00Anonymous, the contest - win a free DVD/Blu-Ray<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pJZlXXiYAG8/TzKmOY_B1eI/AAAAAAAAAcw/zODHNySZxhM/s1600/Picture+1.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pJZlXXiYAG8/TzKmOY_B1eI/AAAAAAAAAcw/zODHNySZxhM/s320/Picture+1.png" width="233" /></a></div><strike>For the next 48 hours, </strike>Recently the <i>"Shakespeare" by Another Name</i> blog <strike>will be holding</strike> held a contest to win a free <a href="http://amzn.to/xQq60s">DVD</a> or <a href="http://amzn.to/xu85uc">Blu-Ray</a> disc of the movie <i>Anonymous</i>. <strike><b>To enter, just share the link to this blog post with your network on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, Google Plus, LinkedIn</b> or your favorite social network of choice and email the link to feedback at shakespearebyanothernname dot com.</strike><br />
<div><div><br />
</div><div><strike>The <b>contest ends at noon eastern US time on Friday (Feb. 10)</b>. Friday afternoon, then, the contest's winners will be notified. </strike></div><div><br />
UPDATE: The contest's two winners have been notified. Congratulations to both! And thank you to all who entered the contest. See the Facebook page <a href="http://www.facebook.com/groups/shakesvere/10150676193664529/">ShakesVere</a> for more.<br />
<br />
</div><div><b>The first place winner received a free DVD</b><b> or Blu-Ray copy of the newly released historical thriller </b><i><b>Anonymous.</b> </i>(Winner's choice of DVD or Blu-Ray, whatever works for your home video setup.) </div><div><br />
</div><div><b>Second place is a copy of <i>Anonymous</i>'s <a href="http://amzn.to/wIEksh">companion book</a>. </b></div><div><div><br />
</div><div>So what is <i>Anonymous</i>? It's a fantastical historical rollercoaster ride based on the epic life and very Shakespearean times of Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford. As Rex Reed <a href="http://www.observer.com/2011/10/anonymous-gives-the-mystery-of-who-wrote-shakespeare%E2%80%99s-plays-a-very-good-name/">wrote</a> in the <i>New York Observer</i></div><blockquote class="tr_bq">Shakespeare may be the most performed playwright in the history of letters, but in 400 years <b>not one original script has been found in his own handwriting</b>. When he died at 52, survived by an illiterate wife and daughter, he left behind in his will no mention of a single manuscript. In <i>Anonymous</i>, an obvious labor of love for director Roland Emmerich, the culprit is identified as Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, a wealthy aristocrat who could not attach his real name to works of lusty romance, tragedy and political intrigue because they lampooned prominent members of the court. ... I found it <b>a complex cornucopia of ideas and panache. You go away sated.</b></blockquote><div>Or as Morgan Freeman <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/story/2012-01-11/morgan-freeman/52517172/1">told</a> <i>USA Today, </i>"Have you seen<i> Anonymous</i>? Oh, don't miss that one. <b>Do. Not. Miss. </b><i style="font-weight: bold;">Anonymous</i><b>. Another well-made movie; very well-done</b>."</div><div><i><br />
</i></div><div>Of course, <i>Anonymous</i> is also a glorious piece of Hollywood filmmaking -- which means it sometimes takes some liberties. This blog, while unreservedly recommending the movie, has <a href="http://shakespearebyanothername.blogspot.com/2011/10/soul-of-age-amadeus-of-stage-review-of.html">chronicled a few</a>. </div></div><div><br />
</div><div>To really delve into de Vere's tremendous depth and epic, page-turning life -- with its rich network of connections between de Vere's life and the "Shakespeare" works -- <b>Edward</b> <b>de Vere's literary biography, <i><a href="http://store.untreedreads.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=231">"Shakespeare" by Another Name </a></i>is the book to read. </b></div><div><br />
</div><div>Just a few months ago <i>"Shakespeare" by Another Name</i> was released as an <a href="http://store.untreedreads.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=231">ebook</a>, and less than the price of a movie ticket will open a<b> whole new world of connections to the greatest plays ever written</b>. </div><div><br />
</div><div><b>In the words of some prominent journalists and reviewers, <i>SBAN </i>is a gripping and controversial alternative biography of the Bard that "deserves serious attention."[1] The book "makes a compelling argument,"[2] "quite a compelling argument"[3] that is "especially impressive."[4]</b></div><div><br />
</div><div><div>[1] <i>The New York Times</i></div><div>[2] <i>USA Today</i></div><div>[3] <i>The Chicago Sun-Times</i></div><div>[4] <i>The Atlanta Journal-Constitution</i></div></div></div>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01959807858303615531noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206508.post-58207021276515857712011-12-10T08:35:00.005-05:002011-12-10T20:01:13.503-05:00Guest post: How Did A Man Who Didn't Go to Italy Go to Italy? A review of Richard Paul Roe's The Shakespeare Guide to Italy<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jWhZascJQBM/TuNedl0ymxI/AAAAAAAAAcg/TqAxjZ_uOOo/s1600/the-shakespeare-guide-to-italy-roe-richard-paul-9780062074263.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jWhZascJQBM/TuNedl0ymxI/AAAAAAAAAcg/TqAxjZ_uOOo/s320/the-shakespeare-guide-to-italy-roe-richard-paul-9780062074263.jpg" width="236" /></a></div><div>Book review of Richard Paul Roe, <i>The Shakespeare Guide to Italy: Retracing the Bard's Unknown Travels </i>(Harper Perennial, Nov. 2011)</div><div><br />
</div><div>by John Christian Plummer</div><div><br />
</div><div><div class="MsoNormal">Imagine that you lived in a time in which every educated person was absolutely certain that the planets Mars, Jupiter and Saturn moved both forward and backward. This is what the astronomer Tycho Brahe called “retrograde motion.” In <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hamlet</i>, when Claudius tells Prince Hamlet that a return to Wittenberg (the alma mater of Brahe) “is most retrograde to (the King’s) desire.” </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">From the standpoint of the 21<sup>st</sup> century, it requires a powerful feat of imagination to reckon that a vast celestial body like Mars would stop in the middle of space and reverse its direction. And that it would do so consistently. But that is precisely what many well educated 16<sup>th</sup> century Europeans thought happened, and they didn’t just make this up out of a desire for imaginative tales; they had a problem that needed explaining. The problem was Mars appeared at one point in the east of the sky, progressed westward, but then appeared back east of its westward position. If Mars were to move in that way as it orbited the earth…well…one logical explanation would suggest it wasn’t orbiting the earth. But that was impossible, of course, because Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and all the other planets, as well as the sun, absolutely did orbit the earth, because the earth, as everyone knew, was the center of the universe. So given that unassailable fact, Brahe proposed his <a href="http://cnx.org/content/m11946/latest/">theory of retrograde motion</a>. Mars, like a crab, like Hamlet, moved backward.</div><div class="MsoNormal"> </div><div class="MsoNormal">From where we sit in the age of Einstein, it’s easy to chuckle at this absurd mental contortion which, we now know, flies in the face of not only the correct, heliocentric model of the solar system, but also basic Newtonian physics. But let us not forget that the educated Europeans of the 16<sup>th</sup> century were operating from a working hypothesis – the geocentric model of the universe – that was powerful enough to put mortal fears into the minds of men like Copernicus and Galileo, whose more elegant, thoroughly researched and ultimately accurate explanations eventually won the day.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It is <b>no hyperbole to call <a href="http://shakespearebyanothername.blogspot.com/2010/12/remembering-richard-paul-roe.html">Richard Paul Roe</a> a twenty-first century Galileo of literature</b>. Roe isn’t examining the stars without, but rather the stars within: specifically a third of the canon of the man some call the greatest author who ever set pen to paper, the man we call William Shakespeare. The so-called Italy plays of Shakespeare are the subject of Roe’s tremendous inquiry, and his more than two decades of painstaking investigation and research have resulted in the landmark book, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Shakespeare Guide to Italy, Retracing the Bard’s Unknown Travels</i>, just released, posthumously, under the Harper/Perennial imprint.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
<a name='more'></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">Roe, not coincidentally an attorney as well as an author, does something never before achieved: he <b>proves beyond a reasonable doubt that the playwright of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Romeo and Juliet, Much Ado About Nothing</i>, and the eight (yes, ten plays in total, to be clarified below) other Shakespeare plays set in Italy actually went to Italy.</b> For over 400 years, Shakespeare scholars, many of them highly regarded and well paid, have, like Tycho Brahe, gotten it completely wrong. The playwright was in Italy. And his descriptions of the geography, topography, architecture, custom and regional dialects of that Mediterranean land, to which a relative few Elizabethans ever traveled, are absolutely accurate. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This is nothing short of a Galilean revolution in Shakespearean scholarship. Roe <b>upends the centuries-old truism that would have us believe that the author invented a fanciful version of Italy filled with myriad factual errors. In fact, Roe demonstrates, it is the scholars who have erred. </b> Their sin, dating from the early 18<sup>th</sup> century “biographers” of Shakespeare to modern editors of the Arden, Riverside, Folger et al editions of the plays, is to never do what Roe does: go to the source, the land in question, Italy. </div><div class="MsoNormal"> </div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-G8JPfp1Gxy4/TuNiSPbatEI/AAAAAAAAAco/wWvTRktstoY/s1600/RichardRoe4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-G8JPfp1Gxy4/TuNiSPbatEI/AAAAAAAAAco/wWvTRktstoY/s320/RichardRoe4.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Again and again, in successive chapters, Roe travels to the purported settings of the plays and repeatedly makes the same intertwined discoveries: <b>the playwright was there, and the scholars are wrong.</b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">How is this possible? How can so many people be so wrong about something that one man could, with several trips to Italy and to the right libraries, get right? I would suggest that, like the well-intentioned, well-educated scholars of the 16<sup>th</sup> century who operated from a geocentric model, these otherwise intelligent people have gone wrong because they’re working from a flawed hypothesis. But like Brahe, <b>traditional Shakespeare scholars have been doggedly determined to fit their working hypothesis – the plays were written by a man who never left England</b> – to the actual writing contained in these ten Italian plays. The traditional, Stratford-centric scholars are aided in their pursuit by a confluence of time and ignorance, which allow them, for instance, to quite easily scoff at the notion, as scripted in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Two Gentlemen of Verona</i>, that a water-based journey from “landlocked” Verona can be made to “landlocked” Milan. But Roe’s painstaking analysis, not only of the text (he spends four pages on a handful of lines that concern water-based puns), but of the present-day and 16<sup>th</sup> century cities in question, seeing sights, meeting with scholars and digging up historical tracts, proves that the scoffers are wrong. The writer didn’t fancifully invent boat travel from Verona to Milan. The writer accurately depicted a journey, taken by countless nobles of that era, via several canals and two rivers, which allowed travel from city to city without ever touching land. As the playwright points out in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Two Gentlemen</i>, water routes were the preferred mode of travel for nobles, who would not only have a more comfortable ride but one that avoids the outlaws who haunted the roads, both in real life and in the play. Roe’s thrilling journey of discovery, a shoe-leather investigator hot on the beat of a great mystery, is itself almost as exciting as the truth at the end of his pursuit. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Roe consistently proves how editors of the plays have over the centuries given readers – and actors, directors, and designers – information that is flat out wrong. One reads his factual refutations and shudders to think at how many productions have been misguided by their trusted textual interpreters. While Roe’s prose is nothing if not circumspect when pointing out the errors of others, it’s hard not to view Edward Cappell, the editor of the 1768 edition of the Shakespeare plays, as the villain in his book. As Roe repeatedly demonstrates, Cappell more than once adds settings and stage directions, changes proper nouns to nouns and vice versa, all the while obscuring the meaning of the playwright’s words. Perhaps a biography of Cappell is in order, so that we can learn what, other than laziness, compelled him to so often reject scholarship for invention. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Each chapter of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Shakespeare Guide</i> is filled with groundbreaking discoveries, but none so shocking – to Roe as well, who writes in a refreshing, clear first-person hand – as the realizations that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Midsummer Night’s Dream</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Tempest </i>are both clearly based on Italian locales and 16<sup>th</sup> century Italian history. When Roe, on the advice of a tour guide, pays a visit to the small city of Sabionetta, near Mantua, he doesn’t draw any immediate conclusions from its nickname of La Picola Atena – Little Athens. But at the end of his tour, he’s thunderstruck when he learns another name for the arched main gate into the city is translated as “the Duke’s oak.” From that echo of Peter Quince’s line in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Midsummer</i>, Roe begins an explanation that demonstrates unequivocally that Little Athens, not Athens, Greece, is the setting of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dream</i>. His journey to Vulcana, an extraordinary island off the north coast of Sicily, reveals a panoply of flora, fauna and landmarks that show it is none other than Prospero’s island. Roe’s research into not only the history of Italian city-states but also of England’s perspective on them, illuminates the inspirations for the people and events who inspired the creation of Prospero, Antonio, Alonso, Ariel, Sycorax and Caliban. Reams have been written striving to tie <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Tempest </i>to Bermuda and the new world of America, via the now-debunked work of plagiarism known as the Strachey letter. <b>In thirty concise pages, Roe consigns all those ill-informed <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Tempest </i>musings to the recycling bin.</b> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Shakespeare Guide </i>is simply required reading for any theatre company producing <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Midsummer,</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Tempest </i>or any of the other eight scripts <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Shakespeare Guide</i> illuminates.</b> For it not to begin appearing on the syllabus of every university Shakespeare studies class would be a crime against the education any university claims to provide. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Throughout the book, Roe refers to the author simply as “the playwright.” This is reminiscent of the “curious incident of the dog in the night-time,” that is the key to Sherlock Holmes’ solving of a kidnapping in the classic detective story <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Silver Blaze</i>. The dog who didn’t bark is “the playwright,” for up until now, every traditional, Shakespearean scholar was quite happy to accept the lie that Shakespeare’s descriptions of Italy proved he never went there.<br />
<br />
<b>Now that Roe has proved the writer was there, he has, in essence, thrown the Stratford-centric theory of authorship on the dust heap of faulty theories alongside Brahe’s retrograde motion</b>, because there is absolutely no evidence that man who signed his name Shaksper, Shakspe, Shakspere and Shakespeare, and who hailed from Stratford, ever left the shores of his mother country. For centuries, as with Brahe, we had a problem that needed explaining – Shakespeare never went to Italy – and we had an explanation that worked – the Italy of the Shakespeare plays is an inaccurate fantasy. Now we have a new problem that needs explaining: how did a man who never went to Italy go to Italy? We know what happened to Galileo in the short run, but in the long run, verity was the victor. </div><span class="fullpost"></span></div><div><br />
</div><div><i><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1603717/">John Christian Plummer</a> is a s</i><i>creenwriter, director, producer and artistic director of the World's End Theatre Company in Garrison, N.Y. </i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
photo of Richard Paul Roe (c) 2003, 2011 by Mark Anderson</div><div><i><br />
</i></div>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01959807858303615531noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206508.post-48405627139347987542011-11-23T00:15:00.007-05:002011-11-29T10:23:18.790-05:00"Anonymous" with a Byline - Screenwriter John Orloff interview (part 2)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pYGmFZbW-WI/Tsx4an1XwRI/AAAAAAAAAbo/im3sCTsoCXM/s1600/anonymous-movie-poster-01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pYGmFZbW-WI/Tsx4an1XwRI/AAAAAAAAAbo/im3sCTsoCXM/s400/anonymous-movie-poster-01.jpg" width="270" /></a></div><div>As of the writing of this blog post, the Oxfordian biopic <i><a href="http://shakespearebyanothername.blogspot.com/search/label/Anonymous">Anonymous</a> </i>has earned <a href="http://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Anonymous-(2011)">$6.9 million</a> in international box office revenue. The movie also continues to open in <a href="http://www.anonymous-movie.com/releasedates/">staggered release</a> in countries all over the world through the end of February. Later in 2012, of course, its extended life will begin on home video, on television, on airplane flights, in classrooms, etc. </div><div><br />
</div><div>Despite the sometimes <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/the_spectator/2011/10/anonymous_a_witless_movie_from_the_stupid_shakespearean_birther_.single.html">astonishingly vein-bulging tantrums</a> of Oxfordian deniers, <i>Anonymous</i> will continue to introduce millions of people to the Shakespeare authorship mystery and to the most likely alternative "Shakespeare" candidate -- Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford. </div><div><br />
</div><div>We're grateful for <b><i>Anonymous</i> screenwriter John Orloff giving this blog an exclusive long-form interview with him about the alpha to omega of his script</b>. (Orloff has also generously provided some of his own personal collection of photographs he took while on set with director Roland Emmerich -- during the movie's principal photography last year.) </div><div><br />
</div><div>In <a href="http://shakespearebyanothername.blogspot.com/2011/11/anonymous-with-byline-screenwriter-john.html">part one</a> of the <i>"Shakespeare" by Another Name </i>Blog's interview with Orloff, we discussed the screenwriter's own discovery of the Shakespeare authorship question courtesy of the 1989 PBS <i>Frontline</i> documentary <i>The Shakespeare Mystery</i>. Orloff ultimately wrote a screenplay about Edward de Vere and "Shakespeare," a script he originally titled <i>Soul of the </i><i>Age</i>. </div><div><br />
</div><div>Orloff had, he said, shopped it around Hollywood. And on the strength of <i>Soul of the Age</i>, Orloff had had meetings with Tom Hanks -- who ultimately hired Orloff to write two scripts for Hanks' co-production with Steven Spielberg, <i>Band of Brothers</i>. </div><div><br />
</div><div>(SPOILER ALERT: This part of the interview with Orloff (part 2 of 3) begins getting into the thick of the movie's plot.)</div><div><br />
</div><div><div>MARK ANDERSON: <b>Does Tom Hanks have an opinion on the authorship question?</b></div><div><br />
</div><div>JOHN ORLOFF: We never discussed it. My guess is he's a Stratfordian. But we never got deep into it. But <i>Soul of the Age</i> led to me getting a writing career and doing other work. A lot for Tom. </div><div><br />
</div><div>MKA: Beyond <i>Band of Brothers</i>?</div><div><br />
</div><div>JO: Only that was produced. But I wrote about three more scripts for Tom over the years. And then meanwhile, I got a phone call from my agent saying Roland Emmerich is looking for writers for this disaster movie he's going to make about global warming. I said, "I don't know if I'm the right guy for that kind of stuff. I don't know the genre that well."</div><div><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3NrVZgPLTX0/Tsx5jMUvm2I/AAAAAAAAAb4/wTS_4iQhRKA/s1600/IMG_9839.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3NrVZgPLTX0/Tsx5jMUvm2I/AAAAAAAAAb4/wTS_4iQhRKA/s400/IMG_9839.jpg" width="266" /></a></div><div>But [my agent] said, 'Yeah, but he's heard a lot about you. He really wants to meet you.' </div><div><br />
</div><div>MKA: So this was when?</div><div><br />
</div><div>JO: This was 2002 or '03. We sat down in his office, and we talked about "Day After Tomorrow." Which sounded totally cool. But it also sounded like a movie I didn't understand as a writer. It's very outside of my wheelhouse, as they say. </div><div><br />
</div><div>The other thing is, as a writer, I have to write things I love. And I don't know that genre as well as I should. And I said that to Roland. I said, "I'm so flattered that you think I can do this. I'm not sure I can. And I think quite frankly you can get a lot of writers who are way better than me for this kind of material." </div><div><br />
</div><div>He said, "Well, what else have you written?" And I do what I always do, which is, I say, "Funny you should ask. Do you know anything about the Shakespeare authorship issue." And as usual there's a blank face. And I start doing my spiel, my 20 minute spiel. And I could see he was really interested. He said he wanted to read it. And about a week or two later, my agent called me up and said, "Hold on to your seat. Roland Emmerich wants to buy your script."</div><div><br />
</div><div>Which was a surprise. As it would be to anybody. Now that I know Roland, it's not a surprise at all. But not knowing Roland it seems like a surprise. </div><div><a name='more'></a></div><div>MKA: Could you elaborate on that?</div><div><br />
</div><div>JO: Roland makes movies, <i>Independence Day, Day After Tomorrow, 2012</i>, that are very big and action-y. And you don't quite sense the intellectual power behind them until you meet him. And Roland is this amazingly bright man. Very passionate. Very into art and politics. He has an amazing modern art collection, phenomenal taste. He's a very deep thinker. </div><div><br />
</div><div>I since have realized when you talk about Roland's other movies, you need to put them into context. There's a reason why Roland's disaster movies make $800 million over and over. And other directors' disaster movies make $80 million. The reason is he's really smart. And he really knows how to make a movie people want to watch. That doesn't mean they're art films. He's not trying to make them into art films. But that doesn't mean he can't make an art film. It just means he's chosen not to. But like anybody, why would you think he's this other person? But once you get to know him, you realize how incredibly smart he is. </div><div><br />
</div><div>As a rule of thumb, it's just been my experience in Hollywood, nobody succeeds unless they're very smart. Everybody. Actors, directors, it doesn't matter. You might get a one trick pony, they might just be lucky. But the people who make hit after hit after hit -- or manage to keep a career in Hollywood for longer than two years, they are very smart people. It is a really cut-throat and difficult business. </div><div><br />
</div><div>So of course he would make this movie, now that I know him. It's about the things that are most important to him. It's about art, about politics, about the artist's life. <b>It's about the power of art, about censorship, about being a young person with artistic gifts that are being shot down. </b>Which I think Roland could relate to. Most artists could relate to. </div><div><br />
</div><div>MKA: When I had a chance to speak with Roland*, he said he kept seeing <i>Amadeus</i> in your script. And though he said he loves <i>Amadeus</i>, we've already seen that movie. </div><div><br />
</div><div>JO: And he's totally right. I was a young screenwriter. That's what you do. You copy. You are influenced. He's right. There was <b>too much <i>Amadeus</i> in it</b>. He also started to do his own research. And there were new books that had been printed in the intervening 5 or 6 years. It was a big time for Oxfordian scholarship. Roland read these books that I hadn't read. </div><div><br />
</div><div>So he went off and made <i>Day After Tomorrow</i>. Then he came back to LA. And he wanted to meet with me. It was very sweet, because he'd read about this and thought about it deeply. And read all these books. And said, <b>he wanted to talk about how to change the script.</b> </div><div><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TEAPH2QQS5c/Tsx5c79rIyI/AAAAAAAAAbw/FJx5GBg6iaA/s1600/IMG_9858.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TEAPH2QQS5c/Tsx5c79rIyI/AAAAAAAAAbw/FJx5GBg6iaA/s400/IMG_9858.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div>He knew the script was my baby and that I'd been working on it at that point for about 10 years. And he very gingerly said, Had I ever heard about what's now called the <a href="http://www.elizabethanreview.com/tudor.html">Prince Tudor theory</a>. That Oxford and Elizabeth had a child, namely Southampton. </div><div><br />
</div><div>I said I hadn't. I guess Ogburn mentions it very briefly. But not with any credence. And I was taken aback for an instant or two. And I thought about and said, I don't know if it's true or not. I haven't read anything about it. But then I said, it almost doesn't matter because it's really good drama. </div><div><br />
</div><div>Suddenly we started to talk about this movie in this whole other dimension. It became much more interesting. And this is all off of Roland and us talking about what Roland's basic idea was and then going deeper. </div><div><br />
</div><div>But this idea that if Oxford did have a child with Elizabeth, that bastard would be in the chain of succession. That suddenly became very interesting to me as a writer. Then talking about the plays as a political voice became really interesting. </div><div><br />
</div><div>Suddenly there was reason and motivation for why things happen in the movie that there wasn't necessarily before. What is Oxford's agenda? In the original script, it was just the need to get it out. It's a good one. And I buy it. And maybe it's more historically true. But this worked way <b>better in dramatic terms. Plus, we realized the movie suddenly became a Greek tragedy. </b>We then made a formalized Greek tragedy, which it wasn't before. </div><div><br />
</div><div>Then it became a Shakespearean drama. We were suddenly dealing with themes that are in so many of Shakespeare's plays: Succession, foundling chilidren, incest, all these things that find their way into Shakespeare plays, we started to dip into to. </div><div><br />
</div><div>MKA: Watching <i>Anonymous</i>, I kept thinking of <i>Hamlet</i>. There's a lot of that play infused into this story. Would you agree?</div><div><br />
</div><div>JO: Obviously Oxfordians feel a close affinity between Hamlet and Oxford. And we played with that a little bit. But thematically speaking, Hamlet uses the theater to get what he wants, because all other avenues are closed. And basically that's our plot too. It is his last ditch effort. There's a line that Cecil says -- although I'm not sure if it's in the [final cut] -- he says, "He has his tools; we have ours."</div><div><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1y5-Iz9Dvzo/TsyAHRLCQ6I/AAAAAAAAAcA/SNH0VVQqG20/s1600/IMG_9787.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1y5-Iz9Dvzo/TsyAHRLCQ6I/AAAAAAAAAcA/SNH0VVQqG20/s400/IMG_9787.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div>There's a moment when William Cecil realizes what Oxford is doing. It's late in the second act. Cecil realizes that what Oxford wants is for Southampton to be on the throne. I don't think the beat is in the movie anymore. But the line is Oxford uses the tools he has, meaning writing, while we use the tools we have, meaning assassination. </div><div><br />
</div><div>MKA: As I'm sure you're not unaware, <b>the Prince Tudor theory is very controversial even among Oxfordians. </b>So how do you see "Prince Tudor" fitting in to your film?</div><div><br />
</div><div>JO: I'm ashamed to say I've never read any literature on the Prince Tudor theory. I haven't read Charles Beauclerk's book yet. I hadn't read Paul Streitz's book. Roland just told me about it. This may rile people, but there's also a point when you're writing a movie where the movie is more important than anything else. </div><div><br />
</div><div>I adapt a lot. This is my job. To adapt material and make it into a three-act movie. Even if you're doing fiction, there's a point where you have to walk away from your source material. Whether it's history or fiction, you have to walk away from your source material and figure out what's best for the story you're telling. So when I went back into rewriting with Roland -- and ripping up <i>Soul of the Age</i> to turn it into what eventually became <i>Anonymous</i> -- I'm not sure I did any more reading. I might have gone back once and a while to check some source material or what have you. But it's not like I'd suddenly read all the books that had been published in the interim. Respectfully, I didn't even read your book until weeks before we started shooting, because a) Roland really loved it. And b) I knew I needed a primer before the shoot. That's when I read your book. </div><div><br />
</div><div>People might disagree with me. But as a professional screenwriter, <b>you do have to walk away and ask, "What's with me? What's stayed with me since I did all this reading?" That's the important stuff</b>. </div><div><br />
</div><div>You get into this idea Roland and I talk about a lot that we call emotional truth vs. literal truth. In drama, emotional truth trumps literal truth every time. If the bigger idea is that Oxford was using these plays for political ends, how do you show that in a two-hour movie the best possible way? </div><div><br />
</div><div>The bigger truth for Oxfordians is that these plays were used for political ends. That's one of the reasons why there is a lack of his name on it. The political issues. So if we're all in agreement that it's all about politics, how do you best dramatize it. We chose to use the Prince Tudor theory as our catalyst. To show the audience the political stakes in as simply as possible. And as emotionally as possible. If a father is doing this for his son, we have an emotional investment. The Prince Tudor theory gave us a lot of dramatic opportunities that the absence of it would made much more difficult to convey to an audience. </div><div><br />
</div><div>Let's get to this one right now: <i>Richard III</i> vs. <i>Richard II</i>. It is actually the single most controversial thing internally in terms of do we do it or not. </div><div><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-y4U6YNrHbtg/TsyAX-BSCLI/AAAAAAAAAcI/jX1z1y6MrCU/s1600/IMG_9944.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-y4U6YNrHbtg/TsyAX-BSCLI/AAAAAAAAAcI/jX1z1y6MrCU/s400/IMG_9944.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div>[<i>Note: Anonymous portrays the Shakespeare play Richard III being staged just before the 1601 Essex Rebellion, when the Earls of Essex and Southampton staged an uprising against the crown. In historical fact, a Shakespeare play was performed before the Rebellion, but that play was Richard II</i>.]</div><div><br />
</div><div>MKA: So there was a debate between whom?</div><div><br />
</div><div>JO: Roland, me, Mark Rylance, Vanessa Redgrave. It was the one thing that everybody was upset about. I'm only bringing it up, because I think it's a good illustration of what I'm talking about. </div><div><br />
</div><div>Namely, as a screenwriter, I'm perfectly capable of putting in <i>Richard II</i> in our movie and making the metaphors and references necessary to explain to a 21st century audience why the enacting of <i>Richard II</i> would be a threat to the "Tower" and the powers that be. </div><div><br />
</div><div>I could do that. Does everyone in the audience want an extra half-hour in the movie for me to do that?</div><div><br />
</div><div>The emotional truth is one of Shakespeare's plays was performed before the Essex Rebellion in order to incite the mob onto Essex's side. I could have done <i>Richard II</i>, but it would have required so much more exposition. <i>Richard III</i>, however, because of the hunchbacked king. Soon as you see him hunchbacked, and put him in a costume that looks anything like Robert Cecil's, the audience will make the visual connection between the two. </div><div><br />
</div><div>I freely admit it is not a literal truth, that <i>Richard III</i> was performed the day before. But it is the emotional truth. </div><div><br />
</div><div>MKA: So you also bring in Oxford as a possible son of Elizabeth. But as you've pointed out before, the only source for this claim in the movie is Robert Cecil -- who clearly has motive to lie to Oxford because he hates Oxford and would love to twist the knife by making him think he'd committed incest with the queen. The other thing, though, is the death-bed scene where Oxford recites to Ben Jonson the de Vere family's long and storied lineage. It's clear in that scene that Oxford thinks he's a de Vere. That he didn't buy the claim from Robert Cecil. </div><div><br />
</div><div>JO: That was the other great question -- between me and Roland. Do we include the [Robert Cecil] scene? About the other scene, when he's talking to Jonson. That scene is from <i>Soul of the Age</i>. And it's almost never been changed. That was one of Roland's favorite in the script, de Vere's death scene. That went under very few revisions. </div><div><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4W2vjr8-kKU/TsyAwc4pmcI/AAAAAAAAAcQ/fuk_f8-wFPs/s1600/IMG_9313.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4W2vjr8-kKU/TsyAwc4pmcI/AAAAAAAAAcQ/fuk_f8-wFPs/s320/IMG_9313.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div>We had people crying on the set when we were shooting that scene. Several of the German crew members came up to me and said that was the greatest scene they'd ever worked on. </div><div><br />
</div><div>But the scene in question is at the end of the movie when Robert Cecil has just thwarted the Essex Rebellion. And, in our movie, Oxford's waiting. Again, it's the third act. All these stories have to come together. So of course Oxford wasn't really waiting to really have a meeting at the moment of the Essex Rebellion. Yes, that is called dramatic license. </div><div><br />
</div><div>But in our film, we have him waiting to have this reuniting meeting with Elizabeth. And the Essex Rebellion fails literally as he's watching it in the courtyard. Which also is not true. And they're all arrested. And Robert Cecil comes in and informs Oxford that the rebellion has failed and that his life is a failure. Everything [Oxford] wanted, he didn't get. </div><div><br />
</div><div>In the course of that scene, Robert Cecil tells [Oxford] that he knew Southampton was Oxford's child -- but that what Oxford might not know is that there's a little bit more information. And that is that Oxford is also Elizabeth's child, which is now even more controversial in the Oxfordian world. </div><div><br />
</div><div>I actually begged Roland to take that scene out before we shot it. I said, "Please, let's just not shoot it. It's going one step too far." And Roland said, "You might be right. But we can always shoot it and not use it." The actor who plays Robert Cecil is this young guy nobody's yet heard of called Ed Hogg. And that was the piece he used for his audition. So we had seen him perform it before. So Roland said, "He's going to hit it out of the park. Trust me on this." And so then it came to the moment of shooting that scene, I'm not sure if that was the first Rhys Ifans shot as Edward de Vere. It may very well have been. </div><div><br />
</div><div>But Ed started to play the scene, and without us knowing he was going to do it, he started to cry as he's talking to Oxford in the scene. As he's telling Oxford what a shit he is. Because he's really talking about himself too in that scene. They're talking about what William Cecil thought of Oxford. He's saying, "My father thought you were going to be so great, but now you're a failure." </div><div><br />
</div><div>I think in some ways, he's talking about their childhood together, and how Oxford was the golden boy. The perfect kid. [Robert] was this pathetic, deformed little dark boy. And here's this shaft of golden light comes in to this household. He's 10 years older. Oxford is everything this boy [Robert] wants to be. He's sexy, he's brilliant, he's not deformed. Of course this little boy hates him. </div><div><br />
</div><div>So when we shot this scene of the older characters, I always internalized it. And maybe it's a justification. <b>But it is Robert Cecil lying to [Oxford] that he is the bastard of Elizabeth. That's my interpretation.</b> </div><div><br />
</div><div>I will say this. There is a core difference how we present the story of Southampton as child. We see that. We see them having sex. We see there's dialogue where Oxford is told he's Southampton's father. And then Southampton and Oxford meet as boy and young man. </div><div><br />
</div><div>You can make the argument that we as filmmakers, in our story, that is truth. But you cannot make the same argument for Oxford as bastard. Because you don't see any of that. <b>There is nothing cinematically that says we in the movie think it's true. It's only Robert Cecil thinks it's true. Or Robert Cecil doesn't think it's true, and he's just digging the knife deeper</b>, something he's been waiting to do his entire life. To destroy his great rival -- for his father's affections and sister's affections and anybody's affections. </div><div><br />
</div><div>So to me, it's a verbal destruction rather than a truth. </div><div><br />
</div><div>MKA: How much do you think <i>Anonymous</i> deals with that question of reliable vs. unreliable witnesses? Because the late Elizabethan court was a complete hall of mirrors. There were very few or maybe no reliable sources of knowledge. To me, the question of <b>Prince Tudor is almost an imaginative question. The real question is Do you think the author could have <i>thought</i> there might have been illegitimate heirs to the throne -- regardless of the historical and genetic truth.</b></div><div><br />
</div><div>JO: Absolutely. That's a good point. Just because you might not believe [Prince Tudor] historically, that doesn't mean Oxford didn't have questions about it. </div><div><br />
</div><div>What I try to explain to people the first thing you have to remember is <b>[Elizabethan England] is closer to North Korea right now than America right now. </b>Elizabethan England was an incredibly totalitarian state. It was a feudal society, run by a dictator. Without free speech, without any of the things we might think they might have had, from a layman's conception. I would imagine that the Politburo of Kim Jong Il is a hall of mirrors there too. <b>When truth is so dangerous, there is no truth.</b> </div><div><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_EJA9R-qzd4/TsyB1y5O4OI/AAAAAAAAAcY/BSr71P6uu9E/s1600/IMG_9253.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_EJA9R-qzd4/TsyB1y5O4OI/AAAAAAAAAcY/BSr71P6uu9E/s400/IMG_9253.jpg" width="266" /></a></div><div>So it does become really complex, as to <b>who is the reliable witness. What are the agendas. A simple thing like [claiming] the Virgin Queen was a virgin [because] her doctor said so.</b> </div><div><br />
</div><div>Well of course his doctor said so. That was his job. She needed to be a virgin in order to have the other courts of Europe think they had a chance with her. Which kept the kingdom safe. <b>So her virginity was tied in to the kingdom's safety. The doctor is not an idiot.</b> </div><div><br />
</div><div>He might have been telling the truth, by the way. I don't know. I happen to think that is the most unlikely of things. When people get upset about our portrayal of Queen Elizabeth, I've got to say, that is the most unusual that people get so upset that we show her having sex. I can't imagine power not going with sex. They are almost one and the same. </div><div><br />
</div><div>Roland and I were talking about this the other day, because the other big point that anti-Oxfordians say is, "Conspiracy! Conspiracy! They never work!"</div><div><br />
</div><div>All I always say is "<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/watergate/felt.html">Mark Felt</a>."
<b>If Mark Felt didn't do what he did, I don't think any of us would have known about Watergate. </b>One man decided to talk to Woodward and Bernstein. If that one man, Deep Throat, didn't go into the bowels of that garage, I think G. Gordon Liddy would still not-be-talking about Watergate. That's my personal opinion. I don't think [John] Ehrlichman would be talking about it. I don't think [H.R.] Haldeman would be talking about it. I don't think [Charles] Colson would be talking about. It would still be an unknown thing, except for one man. Mark Felt. </div><div><br />
</div><div>And <b>that's not in a totalitarian state. That's with a free press. And they almost got away with it. </b></div><div><br />
</div><div>You're almost asking me to disprove a negative. How do I prove to you successful conspiracies that have existed? There's no way I can do it, because if they're successful I don't know about them. </div></div><div><div><br />
</div><div><b>All realpolitik is conspiracy.</b> That's what realpolitik is. It is conspiracy. Sometimes it's successful. And most of the time it's not. </div><div><br />
</div><div>NEXT: FULL FATHOM FIVE</div></div><div><br />
</div><div><br />
</div><div>*Many thanks as well to John Orloff for coordinating an opportunity to meet with and interview Roland Emmerich. </div><div><br />
</div><div>Anonymous movie poster courtesy Sony/Columbia pictures. All other images courtesy John Orloff. </div>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01959807858303615531noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206508.post-16925463188952446802011-11-13T11:37:00.007-05:002011-11-13T12:32:10.339-05:00"Shakespeare" with an E - The new 2011 ebook edition of "Shakespeare" By Another Name<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-a63FyGzq-DM/Tr_algie3uI/AAAAAAAAAbg/RKi_t80VoYM/s1600/SBAN2011-ebook.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-a63FyGzq-DM/Tr_algie3uI/AAAAAAAAAbg/RKi_t80VoYM/s400/SBAN2011-ebook.jpg" width="266" /></a></div>As noted previously on this blog, on the <a href="http://facebook.com/groups/shakesvere">ShakesVere</a> Facebook boards and elsewhere, <b><i>"Shakespeare" by Another Name </i>has been <a href="http://store.untreedreads.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=68_8_107&products_id=231">updated and revised for an ebook edition</a>. </b><span class="fullpost"></span><br />
<div><b><br />
</b></div><div>Today, I'm pleased to announce, <b>the ebook of SBAN is now online and available for sale at ebook retailers across the Internet and around the world</b>. The new ebook copy is also now being converted into a print-on-demand paperback that will be available for sale later this year. More announcements on that front forthcoming. </div><div><br />
</div><div>Anyone with an ebook reader, smartphone, tablet or even just plain old PC or laptop can buy the ebook and read it on their device(s). The ebook is available in formats for all the major portable reader devices today (Kindle, Nook, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, Android tablets & smartphones, Google Books devices, etc.). Formats for reading the ebook on your PC/laptop reader (PDF) are also available or will soon be available, depending on the outlet. (Some sites take longer than others.) </div><div><br />
</div><div>The central clearinghouse for all of this is the <a href="http://store.untreedreads.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=68_8_107&products_id=231">publisher's page for SBAN</a>. As of this writing, SBAN's ebook publisher, Untreed Reads, is offering a <a href="http://store.untreedreads.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=68_8_107&products_id=231">30% off sale -- just $5.59 for <i>"Shakespeare" by Another Name</i> in its new e-formats. </a></div><div><br />
<a name='more'></a></div><div>Readers already familiar with SBAN know most of the new ebook well. SBAN's introduction, foreword (by Sir Derek Jacobi), chapters, epilogue and many of the appendices remain essentially the same -- with the addition of some minor copy-edits, corrections and clarifications. </div><div><br />
</div><div>New to the 2011 edition: </div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div><ul><li>SBAN's cover featuring a new bust of Edward de Vere supervised by Ben August and sculpted by Paula Slater (as <a href="http://shakespearebyanothername.blogspot.com/search/label/Edward%20de%20Vere%20bust">chronicled on this blog</a>). </li>
<li>An introductory chapter called "The Argument" that <b>succinctly encapsulates the case for Edward de Vere as "Shakespeare" and addresses arguments against the Oxfordian camp</b> put forward in James Shapiro's recent book <i>Contested Will</i>. </li>
<li>A new images section*</li>
<li>A new appendix addressing the recent <b>media frenzy over the "Cobbe Portrait of Shakespeare"</b></li>
<li>A new appendix concerning the movie <i>Anonymous</i> and the questions it raises over the "Prince Tudor" hypotheses -- i.e. concerning claims of one or more secret heirs to the throne born to Queen (or Princess) Elizabeth</li>
<li>A new appendix delving in to just a few of the many treasures published in Richard Paul Roe's new magnum opus <i>Shakespeare's Guide to Italy </i></li>
</ul></div><div>The editors and CEO at Untreed Reads, a publisher that specializes in ebooks, have done tremendous work converting a traditional binding-and-paper book into an ebook that we have tried at every turn to make sure serves its new medium well. (As an example, one of many decisions along the way: References to Shakespeare characters appear in the first edition of SBAN using small caps typeface. But many e-reader devices do not support small caps, so we opted to retain the style as best the format allowed -- via ALL CAPS.) </div></div><div><br />
</div><div>Below, our two-paragraph description of the book:</div><div><blockquote class="tr_bq">The debate over the true author of the Shakespeare canon has raged for centuries. <b>Astonishingly little evidence supports the traditional belief that Will Shakespeare, the actor and businessman from Stratford-upon-Avon, was the author</b>. Legendary figures such as Mark Twain, Walt Whitman and Sigmund Freud have all expressed grave doubts that an uneducated man who apparently owned no books and never left England wrote plays and poems that consistently reflect a learned and well-traveled insider's perspective on royal courts and the ancient feudal nobility. Recent scholarship has turned to <b>Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford</b>—an Elizabethan court playwright known to have written in secret and who <b>had</b> <b>ample means, motive and opportunity to in fact have assumed the "Shakespeare" disguise</b>.<br />
<br />
<i>"Shakespeare" by Another Name</i> is the first popular literary biography of Edward de Vere as "Shakespeare." This groundbreaking book tells the gripping story of de Vere's action-packed life—as Renaissance man, spendthrift, courtier, wit, student, scoundrel, patron, military adventurer, and, above all, prolific ghostwriter—finding in it the background material for all of The Bard's works. Biographer Mark Anderson incorporates a wealth of new evidence, including de Vere’s personal copy of the Bible (in which de Vere underlines scores of passages that are also prominent Shakespearean biblical references). Anderson's <b>page-turning portrait of de Vere makes a "convincing argument" (<i>USA Today</i>) that is "compelling" (<i>Chicago Sun-Times</i>) and "especially impressive" (<i>Atlanta Journal-Constitution</i>) and "deserves serious attention." (<i>New York Times</i>)</b></blockquote></div><div>So... please share this link. Please enjoy the new book in its new electronic form. And, I would gratefully request, <b>please consider writing a review and posting it on one or more of the many new venues where the SBAN ebook now lives</b>. (The list of third-party ebook retailers can be found in a column on the right hand side of <a href="http://www.untreedreads.com/">Untreed Reads home page</a>. The most important sites include <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Shakespeare-By-Another-Name-ebook/dp/B0063JH2SU">Amazon/Kindle</a> (US), <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Shakespeare-By-Another-Name-ebook/dp/B0063JH2SU/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1321200933&sr=8-3">Amazon/Kindle</a> (UK) and <a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/shakespeare-by-another-name-mark-anderson/1102486608">Nook</a>. SBAN on Apple's iBooks is also live, but a URL link can't be made here, as it must be accessed through Apple's iBooks app. Other vendors, such as the Kobo Reader Store, Sony Reader Store, Waterstones (UK), WH Smiths (UK), Scribd, and Google Books, are still processing the submission and should be uploading the ebook soon.)<br />
<br />
As <i>someone</i> once wrote, “My thanks and duty are yours…all the rest is mute.”<br />
<br />
<br />
</div><div>------------------</div><div>*The 2011 ebook SBAN contains some different images compared to the 2005/6 first edition. Significantly, because of the high level of detail found in the maps and timeline published with the first edition SBANs (and the fact that these images as displayed on many e-reader devices today would be practically unreadable) we opted not to publish the maps or timeline in the SBAN ebook. </div>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01959807858303615531noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206508.post-15752267132208875182011-11-11T12:23:00.008-05:002011-11-13T11:37:35.662-05:00"Anonymous" with a Byline - Screenwriter John Orloff interview (part 1)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Cd6yLNe_zrk/Tr017_MqP7I/AAAAAAAAAa4/6QIhjh_bNLY/s1600/P1030725.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Cd6yLNe_zrk/Tr017_MqP7I/AAAAAAAAAa4/6QIhjh_bNLY/s320/P1030725.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>Note: A year ago, the screenwriter <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0650089/">John Orloff</a> sent an email over the transom and started what has become a yearlong correspondence about his <b>Edward de Vere biopic <i>Anonymous</i></b> (with which <i>"Shakespeare" by Another Name</i> is unaffiliated -- although that said, I very much <a href="http://shakespearebyanothername.blogspot.com/2011/10/soul-of-age-amadeus-of-stage-review-of.html">enjoyed</a> the film and hope everyone reading these words takes the opportunity to see this tremendous movie on the big screen).<br />
<br />
When the publicity push for <i>Anonymous</i> was kicking into high gear, in early October, <b>Orloff sat down for an interview for the <i>"Shakespeare" by Another Name </i>Blog</b> at Orloff's office in western Massachusetts. <br />
<br />
Orloff had already, three weeks before the movie's release, heard and read so much misrepresentation of what his movie was about and where it was coming from. In this long-form interview, Orloff wanted to help set the record straight. He also, very kindly, provided a number of his own <b>behind-the-scenes photographs from the set of <i>Anonymous</i></b>, some of which are below.<br />
<br />
What follows is the first part of the transcript (part 1 of 3) of our two-hour interview.<br />
<br />
<br />
MARK ANDERSON: So let's start at the beginning. You're coming out of UCLA film school and eager to get into the film and TV industry. What happens next?<br />
<br />
JOHN ORLOFF: What happened was 20-some-odd years ago, it was a very different film business. And it was a lot harder to get in to. Especially as a screenwriter. I first realized that I didn't have anything to write. I hadn't lived. I had nothing to say. And I was 22 years old. I had a relatively sheltered life. I lived in LA all my life. I'm actually fourth-generation film business. My great-grandparents were Fibber McGee and Molly. Jim Jordan and Marian Jordan. Their son, Jim Jordan Jr. was a TV director, and my grandmother was a B-movie actress. My father was a commercial director. And my brother's an Academy Award winning sound mixer.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nwPkS27vOHs/Tr03Sb2GPxI/AAAAAAAAAbI/-pL-8jd9sg0/s1600/IMG_9131.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nwPkS27vOHs/Tr03Sb2GPxI/AAAAAAAAAbI/-pL-8jd9sg0/s320/IMG_9131.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>In my 20s, I ended up working in advertising, because I could get work there. Just struggling to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. And then I met my now-wife, who at the time was working at HBO in the long-form movie division. She would bring home these long form scripts that tended to be non-fiction based. Movies about Dorothy Dandridge, the African American Baseball League. I've always been interested in non-fiction based movies. A lot of my favorite movies are David Lean movies. I love historical films.<br />
<br />
One thing led to another, and I started talking to my wife about the Shakespeare authorship issue, which I'd already learned about through the <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shakespeare/">"Frontline" [episode on the Shakespeare Debate]</a>. This was probably 1995. But I'd learned about the issue around 1989. Which led me to then going, "This seems true. It seems crazy that I've never heard of this." That led me to reading <a href="http://books.google.com/books/about/The_mysterious_William_Shakespeare.html?id=rZPyAAAAMAAJ">Ogburn's book</a> as my first book. I was really just blown away by it. As many people are.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>At that point, I sort of put it away. It seemed a little too daunting to try to write a script about it. Even though I knew I wanted to be a filmmaker. Although at that point, I wanted to be a director. That's the sexy fun thing to do in the film business.<br />
<br />
MKA: Do you still want to be a director?<br />
<br />
JO: Not so much really, no. Not at all actually.<br />
<br />
MKA: OK, so John Orloff the screenwriter or soon-to-be-screenwriter is interested in the Shakespeare question. But at this point hasn't written anything about it yet.<br />
<br />
JO: So five years later, I'm still talking about it. "Amadeus" was one of my favorite movies ever. I just felt there was another "Amadeus" in the source material. Really thematically exciting. Examining characters we think we know in a way we've never seen. This was before "Shakespeare In Love" came out. And I very early on [envisioned] Shakespeare as a sexy, young movie star. At the time, that seemed like a total revolution. Before "Shakespeare In Love," the only image we had for Shakespeare was the frontispiece [to the First Folio]. The bald man, with the round head and haircut and lace thing. That dude's not sexy in anyone's imagination.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-oIwJ_5UhUAI/Tr034oxN6xI/AAAAAAAAAbQ/EQpWUE1CyFk/s1600/IMG_0050.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-oIwJ_5UhUAI/Tr034oxN6xI/AAAAAAAAAbQ/EQpWUE1CyFk/s320/IMG_0050.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>That alone seemed like a fun thing to do. To make Shakespeare sexy. The character. To me, if he was such a successful actor, then he must have been charismatic and all the things we think of as a movie star.<br />
<br />
But it still felt too intimidating as an idea. So I just put it away. And when my wife started bringing home all these crazy scripts, based on non-fiction books. And all these people have agents. I was like, "These people have agents? They're being offered work at HBO? I can write a script that good."<br />
<br />
My wife basically called my bluff. She said, fine, write it. If it sucks, you don't have to show it to anybody.<br />
<br />
So that was a whole nother two or three year odyssey of writing what was called "Soul of the Age." It was a different script from "Anonymous." This is still 1994 or 1993 when I started this process. So there wasn't nearly as many books as there are now.<br />
<br />
I read <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=7HFjVyfjSYAC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false">Whalen</a>. I don't think even Sobran (<i>Alias Shakespeare</i>) was out. There wasn't a lot of Oxfordian source material. Plus, this is pre-Internet. Or baby Internet. Trust me, Compuserve didn't have any Oxfordian pages. So I did this curious thing of going to this place that people won't recognize soon called libraries. I went to the Beverly Hills Library. I just started to read everything I could on Elizabethan England. So I read a lot about Shakespearean stagecraft. I read a lot about the Cecils. I read a lot about Sir Walter Raleigh. At one point he was an interesting character in the script. He's not now.<br />
<br />
Then I finally had a very hard time figuring out how to tell the story. There's a lot of "ins" into this story. De Vere's life is so rich. Even giving somebody that he didn't write the plays he's an incredibly fascinating man. He had an interesting biography. He is a prototypical Elizabethan gentleman. So that in itself is a rich story.<br />
<br />
If you add the fact that he wrote the plays, it now becomes incredibly amazing. But just the culture of the time, it's all amazing.<br />
<br />
So how do you write it? I didn't know. But I was just struck by Ben Jonson as a human being. And as a character. And I read more Jonson and everything Jonson had to say about Shakespeare. I kept thinking, "He's talking about two different people." OK, wait a minute. Is he the "Poet-Ape"? Is he the thief? Is he the <a href="http://politicworm.com/oxford-shakespeare/to-be-or-not-to-be-shakespeare/why-not-william/the-authorship-question-2/how-he-spelled-his-name/not-without-mustard/">Sogliardo in "Every Man Out of His Humour"</a>? The stupid guy with the coat of arms who has no wit of his own?<br />
<br />
But they've got his coat of arms as the boar without the head. When I read the boar without the head, I said, <b>"Oh. He is talking about two different guys." The "soul of the age" is the poet. And the actor is the boar without a head.</b><br />
<br />
So soon as I had that Eureka moment, I said, Oh, Ben Jonson is our <a href="http://users.erols.com/antos/dante/divine_com.html">Virgil</a> -- in Dante. He's the guy who's going to hold our hand. He's going to be the audience. He's literally going to be me, John Orloff. Because I couldn't relate as a writer or as someone trying to imagine what the writer of the plays was like... I couldn't relate to that human being. I could relate with a young playwright who's come to the big city to make a big name. That's where Ben Jonson was in 1595. That character I could write.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ZnB-FuM_9-s/Tr02WpCQr-I/AAAAAAAAAbA/Un5F4OaxVtI/s1600/IMG_0048.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ZnB-FuM_9-s/Tr02WpCQr-I/AAAAAAAAAbA/Un5F4OaxVtI/s320/IMG_0048.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>So that became the "in" to the script called "Soul of the Age."<br />
<br />
In the dramatic situation, you have to have Shakespeare as a character. I took it upon myself to think that Shakespeare of Stratford in my universe was recognized as the writer. So the question becomes How did that happen?<br />
<br />
Ben Jonson seems as a young struggling playwright to be a very logical person for Edward de Vere to go to say, "Won't you be my beard?" It seems like a very logical extension. And it seems very logical of what we know of Ben Jonson and his ego for him to be terribly offended by the thought of him being someone else's beard. So it felt very natural.<br />
<br />
That said, "Soul of the Age" is a very different movie than "Anonymous."<br />
<br />
MKA: So to use the "Amadeus" analogy, Jonson was sort of the Salieri?<br />
<br />
JO: He was sort of Salieri. In the very first draft, it actually takes place in prison. The book ends are in prison after the Roundheads took control of London. And they burned down the theaters. And they arrest Jonson. And Jonson is giving a lawyer his defense from jail.<br />
<br />
And in that defense he tells the story of de Vere and Shakespeare. As an old man. Who may or may not be crazy.<br />
<br />
MKA: So this is much more "Amadeus"...<br />
<br />
JO: Much more. And it becomes much more about jealousy. But in a triangle rather than a one-on-one. So de Vere, Shakespeare and Jonson are in this triangle of tragedy in "Soul of the Age" where all three want something that they're never going to get. Jonson wants to become the most famous playwright in the world. He doesn't get to be that because of Shakespeare. Shakespeare wants to be the greatest actor in the world. He doesn't get to be that because he's going to become a playwright instead. And Oxford wants to become the greatest statesman in the world. That doesn't happen either.<br />
<br />
So nobody gets what they want. And ... everybody else gets something that the other one has.<br />
<br />
That's the script that Roland [Emmerich] read.<br />
<br />
MKA: I understand "Soul of the Age" made the rounds in Hollywood. What's the story of the script?<br />
<br />
JO: Right after I wrote it, I had heard rumblings that there was this little romantic comedy being made about William Shakespeare. But it didn't seem to be a big deal at first. It actually starred actors nobody had heard of; it was directed by a director nobody had heard of. And it didn't seem to be a big movie ahead of time. So I wasn't too worried about it. Although I knew it would steal my thunder about the idea of Shakespeare as a young and sexy man. But I thought, OK, no bigee. My movie's about more than just that.<br />
<br />
Then the movie, "Shakespeare in Love," came out. As we all know it was a huge hit. Humungous shock to everybody. Best Picture. Best Actress. Best Screenplay. Swept the Oscars -- in the year that "Saving Private Ryan" was made, incidentally. My script was kind of dead on arrival. Nobody else is going to make a movie about William Shakespeare in 1998.<br />
<br />
So prior to the movie being released, a friend of mine who is also a screenwriter who is represented at [Creative Artists Agency] -- the big agency in Hollywood. He sent my script in to his agent, who promptly passed. And said "I don't want to represent this script or the writer." It then went to another agent, a powerful agent, who not only passed, but called me at my house. I'd never gotten a phone call in my life from an agent. This big powerful agent calls me up and says that not only is he passing, but how dare I write this script? <br />
<br />
MKA: This was 1998?<br />
<br />
JO: Yeah. He wasn't just passing, he was passing with malice! "I'm not only passing; I'm going to humiliate you first." [Laughs] Eventually my script found its way into the hands of a young TV agent -- he only represented TV writers. His name was John Campisi. He's still my agent today, thankfully. He's the one that started to send the script out. It thankfully got me a lot of attention and meetings in Hollywood.<br />
<br />
But nobody wanted to buy it. But luckily one of those meetings was with Tom Hanks. And that changed my life.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lAj7HGZarSc/Tr040HjdPTI/AAAAAAAAAbY/2G-pmVEHO_Q/s1600/l_77206_0185906_e5953fcb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lAj7HGZarSc/Tr040HjdPTI/AAAAAAAAAbY/2G-pmVEHO_Q/s320/l_77206_0185906_e5953fcb.jpg" width="207" /></a></div>MKA: As I understand it you really pushed hard to get onto "Band of Brothers."<br />
<br />
JO: I was very aggressive about "Band of Brothers." Because I'm a big history nut, a big World War II nut. Big Stephen Ambrose nut. Tom had read "Soul of the Age" and really liked it. He didn't want to produce it. But he really liked it and liked me. And we were talking about another movie that I was trying to figure out for him, another historical-based movie. And every time I would meet with him, at the end of the meeting, I would say, "I don't mean to push, but I'm a huge World War II nut, and if you ever need any writers on 'Band of Brothers,' please give me a call."<br />
<br />
On the third meeting, he finally said, "You still interested in writing?" ... I ended up writing the D-Day episode, and he asked if I wanted to write another one. "Band of Brothers" was three years of my life. An amazing experience. And I owe it all to "Soul of the Age."<br />
<br />
NEXT: Roland Emmerich takes on "Shakespeare"<br />
<br />
Image of John Orloff by Mark Anderson; images of Anonymous set & models by John Orloff; Band of Brothers poster: HBO/DreamWorks<br />
<span class="fullpost"></span>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01959807858303615531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206508.post-66373271935567775612011-10-25T10:17:00.006-04:002011-10-25T11:59:27.493-04:00Comment-upon-comment: The scholars considerOn the Facebook <a href="http://www.facebook.com/groups/shakesvere">ShakesVere</a> boards, Geoffrey Green <a href="http://www.facebook.com/groups/shakesvere/10150447723009529/">points</a> to a recent <a href="http://www.dispositio.net/archives/476">blog post</a> by a Stratfordian scholar who sighs and says, OK, <i>Anonymous</i> now means we have to take on the Oxfordians. <span class="fullpost"></span><br />
<div><br />
</div><div>My comment on this literary scholar's blog after the jump. </div><div><a name='more'></a></div><div>===QUOTE===</div><div><br />
</div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"></span><br />
<div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">I personally find it fascinating the eminent creators in literature — Whitman, Emerson, Dickens, Twain, H. James, Du Maurier, Gallsworthy, etc. — who have all at least expressed interest in the Shakespeare authorship question if not (in Whitman and Twain’s cases) gone on at length about why they find the conventional attribution of William of Stratford so very wrong.</span></div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">“It is my final belief that the Shakespearean plays were written by another hand than Shaksper’s [sic],” Whitman said. “I do not seem to have any patience with the Shaksper argument: It is all gone for me– up the spout. The Shaksper case is about closed.”</span></div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">(Horace Traubel’s multivolume set _With Walt Whitman in Camden_ contains numerous examples of this kind of vehemence from America’s greatest poet about what he saw as the Stratford myth.)</span></div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">James Shapiro’s _Contested Will_ does go into excruciating psychological detail seeking excuses as to why so many great minds were anti-Stratfordians or held sympathies for that point of view.</span></div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">_Will_ is an entertaining read, no doubt. But I found myself at the far end of Shapiro’s extended exercise scratching my head. Is the authorship controversy really a kind of strange confluence of unconscious forces over the generations — a psychological conspiracy, as it were — that misled so many creative figures throughout history?</span></div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">_Contested Will_’s examination of all the famous Shakespeare skeptics throughout the centuries struck this reader, instead, as a kind of deft exercise in projection. We’re left to wonder at how much avoiding of real issues **everyone else** is doing.</span></div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Here’s a simpler explanation than Shaprio’s: These skeptics were skeptical for good reason.</span></div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">And here’s where the discussion must diverge beyond the bounds of a blog and its comments, enlightening and interesting though they are.</span></div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Because there is no direct evidence that would settle the authorship question either way. _Pace_ Stratford’s defenders, there is no Dante or Chaucer or Austen or Dickens etc. authorship controversies because the meager requirement of *some* sort of direct proof of their being an author is and has always been there.</span></div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Instead, we are left with circumstantial evidence. Nothing wrong with circumstantial evidence. It constitutes a centerpiece of court cases in courtrooms around the world every day. Circumstantial evidence wins cases every day.</span></div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">But circumstantial evidence requires a patient accumulation of facts and hypotheses that together work toward the larger goal of proving or disproving a theory. Forest for the trees.</span></div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">So this is why I think you may be guilty of a touch of melodrama when you claim that considering the Oxfordian hypothesis will be such a supposedly dreary exercise. In point of fact, there is a very strong **circumstantial** case that puts Edward de Vere’s life and epic story right at the heart of the Shakespeare works.</span></div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">As Orson Welles said “I think Oxford wrote Shakespeare. If you don’t there are an awful lot of funny coincidences to explain away.”</span></div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Say that the Oxfordians, as so many here so confidently claim, are wrong. Fine. But, beyond that, you’re equally certain that picking up the Shakespeare canon and viewing it from a completely different — Oxfordian — point of view is going to be so completely useless or ruinous to your outlook on the Bard and his immortal masterpieces? Really??</span></div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; line-height: 18px;">You might surprise yourself.</span></div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Thank you.</span></div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Mark Anderson, author</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">“Shakespeare” By Another Name: The Life of Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, The Man Who Was Shakespeare</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span></div></div>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01959807858303615531noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206508.post-810811745297425592011-10-18T23:21:00.001-04:002011-10-18T23:22:25.415-04:00Roland shakes spears - "10 Reasons Why Shakespeare Was A Fraud"<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/vuUEA7s69Rk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01959807858303615531noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206508.post-51202940452953105382011-10-09T17:26:00.020-04:002011-11-11T11:48:47.653-05:00The Soul of the Age, The Amadeus of the Stage: A review of the movie ANONYMOUS<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-59rRvSzCEVw/TpCaF9jv2-I/AAAAAAAAAZI/RjH9N4_zFLc/s1600/ANonymous-FLAMING-swordfight.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="134" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-59rRvSzCEVw/TpCaF9jv2-I/AAAAAAAAAZI/RjH9N4_zFLc/s320/ANonymous-FLAMING-swordfight.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><b>In brief: </b>See this movie. <i>Anonymous</i> is, first and foremost, a ripping good yarn. It also represents the biggest media event in the history of the Oxfordian story and perhaps the whole Shakespeare authorship question. Over the coming months and years, millions of people <a href="http://www.sonypictures.net/movies/anonymous/international/">around the world</a> who know nothing about Edward de Vere and his relationship to the "Shakespeare" canon will be witnessing the entire Elizabethan and Oxfordian world that <i>Anonymous</i> has fascinatingly and carefully created -- historical liberties and all. Some critics will undoubtedly knock <i>Anonymous</i>'s departures from documented fact, even setting the Shakespeare authorship issue aside. But such criticism, in this reviewer's opinion, misses the point of the fictionalizing: The dramatic license the movie wields all arguably helps it tell a powerful and gripping story to as wide a global audience of moviegoers as possible. This is, on balance, a very good thing.<br />
<br />
<b>Review: </b>Roland Emmerich's forthcoming Oxfordian biopic <i>Anonymous</i> (Columbia Pictures, US & UK release Oct. 28, elsewhere <a href="http://www.sonypictures.net/movies/anonymous/international/">here</a>) is a revolution in a 16:9 frame. Fittingly, the story prominently features its own uprising.<br />
<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: -webkit-auto;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tEz0XCaH-Ik/TpIMJZxlEjI/AAAAAAAAAZY/wMrNYgFNrz0/s1600/QEI-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="211" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tEz0XCaH-Ik/TpIMJZxlEjI/AAAAAAAAAZY/wMrNYgFNrz0/s320/QEI-2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>An enraged mob has just seen a performance of the Shakespeare play <i>Richard III. </i>Incited by the play's allegorical depiction of the crook-backed <i>Elizabethan</i> Machiavel Robert Cecil (Edward Hogg), they're ready to smash and burn. The playwright Ben Jonson (Sebastian Armesto) sees a trap, though, and he tries to stop the masses from running headlong into it. <span class="fullpost"></span></div><div><br />
</div><div>However, as the "Essex Rebellion" actually played out 410 years ago, it was preceded by a performance of the Shakespeare play <i>Richard II</i> -- a knottier drama whose relationship to the rebellion turns on less immediately accessible points, concerning a scene depicting the deposition of an English monarch. And while we're nitpicking, Jonson wasn't part of the marauding hordes either. </div><div><br />
</div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-27Coa5VjNuU/TpIMJ9ual2I/AAAAAAAAAZc/8okY9pYx0Rs/s1600/Southampton.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="196" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-27Coa5VjNuU/TpIMJ9ual2I/AAAAAAAAAZc/8okY9pYx0Rs/s320/Southampton.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Yet the success of <i>Anonymous</i> is that even those who know the historical facts with which the movie takes its liberties aren't given much time to care. It's a wild and entertaining ride. The intrigue and literary double-dealing sweeps the viewer up into a shadowy world all its own. The actor Shakespeare, as the film portrays him, is an ale-hoisting codpiece who fronts as the author of plays written behind the scenes by an Elizabethan court playwright who is no stranger to readers of this blog, Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. </div><div><br />
</div><div>The depiction of de Vere blending into his Shakespearean milieu -- from authorship of plays and poems to courtly performances to outdoor public theaters -- is a revelatory and sometimes shocking experience. Even for an Oxfordian viewer.<br />
<br />
Those who make a hobby or (part-time) profession professing the case for de Vere as "Shakespeare" nevertheless live in a hostile Stratfordian world, forever defending ourselves from critical brickbats. We rarely if ever get, even in our minds' eyes, to inhabit these worlds. But <i>Anonymous </i>exerts every effort to ensure that for two hours and ten minutes, we do. And, thanks to a painstaking work of filmmaking<i>,</i> we really do.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-if9D_MmqzpQ/TpIMIV2r_VI/AAAAAAAAAZQ/tANsEKWk6gE/s1600/ElizabethanLondon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="132" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-if9D_MmqzpQ/TpIMIV2r_VI/AAAAAAAAAZQ/tANsEKWk6gE/s320/ElizabethanLondon.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>The immersion comes not just from the lavish production design and photorealistic and nearly ubiquitous CGI digital backdrops. (The computer generated imagery in fact fits so comfortably and seamlessly into the scenes and settings that it actually <a href="http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117946025/">fooled</a> <i>Variety's</i> reviewer into claiming <i>Anonymous</i> is "nearly CGI-free.")</div><div><br />
</div><div>A few performances -- in particular the mother-daughter team of Vanessa Redgrave and Joely Richardson as the elder and younger Queen Elizabeth -- entice the viewer like a siren to join the film's Oxfordian universe.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-QH-0w_TshCI/TpIM1CQQ8kI/AAAAAAAAAZg/hIbJp8phrmc/s1600/EO.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="195" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-QH-0w_TshCI/TpIM1CQQ8kI/AAAAAAAAAZg/hIbJp8phrmc/s320/EO.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>And Rhys Ifans's quiet and measured turn as the mature Edward de Vere reverses nearly a century of academic slander against his character by <a href="http://hankwhittemore.wordpress.com/2011/04/03/reason-no-8-is-gabriel-harveys-address-to-oxford-thy-countenance-shakes-a-spear/">flashing the fire</a> and shaking the spears that Oxfordians have long said makes him such a compelling and convincing "Shakespeare." Ironically, Ifans' knowing glances, each themselves concealing volumes, will probably reach more eyes than the whole output of books and articles in the long history of the authorship question. </div><div><br />
</div><div>At a public Q&A with Emmerich recently, Columbia University professor James Shapiro (<i>Contested Will</i>) tried to smear Emmerich with <a href="http://www.facebook.com/groups/shakesvere/?id=10150415885929529">insinuations of Nazism</a> -- a vile slander that provided a case-in-point of the desperation and intellectual bankruptcy that marks most Stratfordian rearguard actions today. </div><div><br />
</div><div>Orthodox Shakespeare scholars -- those whose reputations and careers rely on Shakspere of Stratford claiming exclusive right to the "Shakespeare" canon -- have good reason to be worried. The comparable arrow in their quiver, <i>Shakespeare in Love</i>, is an empty vessel compared to the heady draught of thriller, romance and epic literary biography that <i>Anonymous</i> serves up.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ms9NBHiO8eo/TpIMI-nY_ZI/AAAAAAAAAZU/NNzfiHxO-78/s1600/QE.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="194" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ms9NBHiO8eo/TpIMI-nY_ZI/AAAAAAAAAZU/NNzfiHxO-78/s320/QE.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>That <i>Anonymous</i> surpasses <i>Shakespeare in Love, </i>incidentally, is actually no trivial statement from this reviewer. I am one Oxfordian who enjoyed <i>Shakespeare in Love, </i>especially for its own witty and carefully crafted depiction of the period. But <i>Shakespeare in Love</i> was -- like Stratfordian best-selling books <i>Will in the World </i>or <i>1599: A Year in the Life of Shakespeare </i>-- entertaining ultimately only for its backdrops and bit players. None of these stitch jobs had a living, approachable, comprehensible, and fallible human soul at its core.<br />
<br />
<i>Anonymous, </i>on the other hand, delivers just that. It makes the kind of immediate and visceral human connection to its protagonist that good movie performances can forge. </div><div><br />
<a name='more'></a></div><div>So it is that unallied Shakespeare scholars and fans of all callings (i.e. who hold no vested interest in the authorship question) should be thrilled at the attention to the Bard that <i>Anonymous</i> will inevitably bring. Those outside the Oxfordian/Stratfordian trenches in the authorship wars -- which is to say 99% of film's audience -- will find in <i>Anonymous</i> a sexy thriller that also cleverly welcomes millions of new eyes to the Shakespeare canon.<br />
<br />
</div><div>The Bard really does win the day in <i>Anonymous</i>, although admittedly Shakspere of Stratford hardly comes out smelling like beauty's rose. </div><div><br />
</div><div>Rafe Spall as Shakspere is one of the film's two broad, comic performances. (The other is James Clyde, as a slightly queeny King James.) Spall's Shakspere is a sodden clown given to excesses that might befit an Elizabethan fraternity boy. One can sense from behind the lens the risk-taking Emmerich (whose own canon often joys in the extremes it can stage and provoke) helping to push the Shakspere character and performance to the hilt. And maybe that's just the sort of shock to the system the authorship debate needs. Bardolatrous admirers would certainly demand just the opposite, seeking an appropriate measure and respect befitting the Soul of the Age. </div><div><br />
</div><div>But that role -- and that die -- has already been cast. </div><div><br />
</div><div>In publicity events over the past month, Emmerich has appealed to the tradition of such classic fictionalized film biographies as Milos Forman's <i>Amadeus. </i>Emmerich has pointed out that in historical fact, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's relationship with the film's supporting character <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Salieri">Antonio Salieri</a> (F. Murray Abraham) involved less-to-none of the melodrama, back-biting and poisonous rivalry depicted in Forman's masterpiece. </div><div><br />
</div><div>Emmerich is wise to cite <i>Amadeus</i> as inspiration and precedent. Because like <i>Amadeus</i> heralds one of history's greatest geniuses as an often buffoonish clown, <i>Anonymous</i>'s plot equally provocatively deflates the Stratfordian bubble. </div><div><br />
</div><div>Although wit is one realm where de Vere was <a href="http://www.sourcetext.com/sourcebook/library/barrell/21-40/24milestone1.htm">reputedly</a> the undisputed king -- not unlike Mozart, equally bawdy as precociously brilliant. And de Vere's wit feels most wanting in <i>Anonymous</i>'s necessarily trimmed-to-feature-length depiction of the very serious Elizabethan succession question that forms the centerpiece of the film. </div><div><br />
</div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-r04dD84KU-o/TpIMH2uTSWI/AAAAAAAAAZM/TVqrRgTHHeg/s1600/Cecil-Elizabeth.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-r04dD84KU-o/TpIMH2uTSWI/AAAAAAAAAZM/TVqrRgTHHeg/s320/Cecil-Elizabeth.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>This, in turn, raises the movie's other great deflated myth -- Gloriana, the Virgin Queen. </div><div><br />
"<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Tudor_theory">Prince Tudor</a>" theories have either been, depending on whom one asks, the apotheosis or the <i>bête noire</i> of the Oxfordian movement -- postulating that Edward de Vere and/or Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton were secret royal offspring of Elizabeth herself.<br />
<br />
For months, Oxfordian blogs including this one have <a href="http://shakespearebyanothername.blogspot.com/2011/08/anonymous-questions-did-queen-elizabeth.html">wondered</a> how <i>Anonymous</i> will treat "PT," as the Oxfordian heresy-within-the-heresy is often abbreviated.<br />
<br />
In particular, a film that portrays the combination-platter PT theory, in which de Vere is both (ahem) Wriothesley's father and brother, would be horrific PR for Oxfordians. Stratfordians give us a hard enough time just for advocating the basic Oxfordian story. Picture a movie that portrays with equal levels of claimed realism that Queen Elizabeth had committed incest with her own son: This would be a nightmare.<br />
<br />
<i>Anonymous</i>, however, is no such movie.<br />
<br />
Instead, screenwriter John Orloff (with whom this blog will feature a three-part interview during <i>Anonymous</i>'s opening week) handles "PT" with the political moxie the subject demands. Without delving into spoilers, I can only say that in this reviewer's opinion, someone hostile to the "PT" theory could still see <i>Anonymous</i> and have a great time with the film.<br />
<br />
For my own part, I enjoyed <i>Anonymous</i> tremendously, and I have at least some degree of sympathy for the "anti-PT" camp. (I hasten to add, though, that I also find "anti-PT" tactics to be questionable at times. Personally, concerning PT, I'm in a sort of <a href="http://www.quantumconsciousness.org/overview.html">halfway state</a> that is neither and both. As a plug, I'll be sharing my own thoughts on the PT theories in the keynote address to the <a href="http://shakespeare-oxford.com/wp-content/uploads/2011_DC_Agenda.pdf">Shakespeare Oxford Society/Shakespeare Fellowship joint conference</a> in Washington, D.C. next weekend, on Sat., Oct. 15.)<br />
<br />
<i>Anonymous</i>, in other words, makes no effort to persuade you that Elizabeth had children. It's just part of the movie's courtly realpolitik. And the incest question instead becomes a question of the believability of an unreliable witness who has clear motives to lie about Oxford's parentage. (Oxford himself, in a moving deathbed scene, doesn't in the end believe he's Elizabeth's son either. He clearly prides himself in the long and storied de Vere bloodline to which he belongs.)<br />
<br />
So, in all, <i>Anonymous</i> is about as welcome an introduction to the mainstream as Oxfordians could ask for.<br />
<br />
Yes, it might be nice to have a fictional feature film that doesn't take liberties with historical fact and instead presents the basic Oxfordian theory as the only departure from orthodox history books. I suspect, though, such a movie would not be very successful. Or for that matter very entertaining.<br />
<br />
Take it from someone who knows: Getting de Vere's epic story into 600 pages is challenging enough as it is. I can only imagine that condensing the whole thing into a self-contained and immediately-accessible two hour package would require some concatenation of seemingly unrelated storylines and a little unknotting of various tangled webs.<br />
<br />
Kudos to Roland Emmerich, John Orloff and to the cast and crew that have opened the door wide for Oxfordians to tell our story. Here's to <i>Anonymous </i>enjoying every success at the box office and beyond.<br />
<br />
Because the more it engages viewers across the planet, the more opportunities it will open up for Oxfordians in the years ahead. <i>Anonymous</i> ultimately poses questions. It is up to Oxfordians to provide, as best we can, our many volumes and many variations on the answers.<br />
<br />
<br />
Dislcaimer: This author and <i>"Shakespeare" By Another Name </i>had nothing to do with the making of <i>Anonymous</i>. <br />
Images (c) 2011 Columbia Pictures<br />
Thanks to Gerit Quealy for securing the tickets that enabled this review! </div>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01959807858303615531noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206508.post-13914660930798889632011-09-17T21:28:00.002-04:002011-09-17T21:33:17.023-04:00Anonymous class 1: Why search? Why ask?This week, we're welcoming all to join in a discussion led by the teachers of an eight-week <b>course called "<i>Anonymous</i> the Movie and William Shakespeare's Identity.</b>" (Description <a href="http://www.cce.umn.edu/documents/olli/Osher-Lifelong-Learning-OLLI-Fall-2011-Insights.pdf">here [PDF], p. 21</a>.)<br />
<br />
The class is offered by the University of Minnesota's <a href="http://www.cce.umn.edu/Osher-Lifelong-Learning-Institute/">Osher Lifelong Learning Institute</a> (OLLI) and taught by OLLI science/liberal arts leader George Anderson* and retired Univ. of Minn. humanities professor James Norwood.<br />
<br />
The instructors have <b>one question this week which they'll be asking their students -- and ask anyone else to join in here</b> and on the "<a href="http://facebook.com/groups/shakesvere">ShakesVere</a>" Facebook page. It's as follows:<br />
<br />
<blockquote><a name='more'></a> For an ice-breaker, we are asking the class to tell us what got them started thinking about the Shakespeare authorship question?<br />
What got me [G.A.] started was <a href="http://www.shakespearefellowship.org/virtualclassroom/biblegateway.htm">Oxford's Geneva Bible</a> and the curious coincidences between the marginalia that <a href="http://shake-speares-bible.com/">Roger Stritmatter</a> compiled compared to the Shakespeare canon. The rest of the arguments for Oxford were simply "downhill" from there.<br />
So, in one sentence, <b>What got you started? What turned your head?</b></blockquote><br />
I'll kick the discussion off here: For me it was hearing a radio program in the summer of 1993 that asked whether Edward de Vere might have written some or all of the "Shakespeare" canon. I'd never heard of the authorship question before that.<br />
<br />
So, as a cub journalist, I started reading all I could find on the subject. (Including, throughout 1994 and into '95, an immersion in every word published under the Bard's byline.) And the more I read, the more I recognized how unusual and intriguing this particular mystery was -- and still is. I've been reading and writing on the subject ever since.<br />
<br />
Please share your own stories in discovering the authorship debate either in the comments section below or in the <a href="http://www.facebook.com/groups/shakesvere/?view=permalink&id=10150396223309529">related comments section</a> on the Facebook ShakesVere page.<br />
<br />
<br />
(* Yes there is a family relation here. cf. <i>SBAN</i>'s dedication...)<br />
<span class="fullpost"></span>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01959807858303615531noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206508.post-38843348896845771462011-09-12T12:32:00.012-04:002011-09-13T15:23:54.134-04:00Anonymous post-Toronto: The Good, The Better, The Oscars?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-JqmjdZKMFvI/Tm4tuYZ67KI/AAAAAAAAAZE/bgcCxnL6TeI/s1600/anonymous9jpg-0770dc8d2130e9a7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-JqmjdZKMFvI/Tm4tuYZ67KI/AAAAAAAAAZE/bgcCxnL6TeI/s400/anonymous9jpg-0770dc8d2130e9a7.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>It has been fascinating to monitor the press coverage of the Oxfordian Columbia/Sony Pictures film <i><a href="http://shakespearebyanothername.blogspot.com/search/label/Anonymous">Anonymous</a></i> as it had its official premiere at the Toronto Film Festival this past weekend. It opens in movie theaters across North America and the UK on Oct. 28 -- and throughout the <a href="http://www.sonypictures.net/movies/anonymous/international/">rest of the world</a> in the two months following.<br />
<div><br />
</div><div>The upshot has been very upbeat: <b>Four reviews (that I've been able to find) have posted so far, and all four are anywhere from begrudgingly positive to wholly positive. </b></div><div><b><br />
</b></div><div>After the break, excerpts from the four. First, though, <b>SBAN blog correspondent Ted Alexander was in attendance at last night's screening and had the following to report:</b> </div><blockquote> I loved the movie as did my wife and daughter. Crowd liked it too. No standing O but sustained applause.<br />
I think <b>the movie succeeded spectacularly as entertainment. </b>The actors were superb in their roles; the story was interesting and I thought,well-told; the cinematography, costuming, CGI, etc were all great. I really enjoyed all the bits of the various Shakespeare plays that they staged in the film (really enjoyed the Henry V, Mark Rylance does a wonderful job with the opening chorus).<br />
Now as to the historical accuracy of the movie, there are a lot of things wrong, especially chronologically and a lot of things that are highly speculative. I'm not a proponent of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Tudor_theory">PT theory</a> but it does serve the plot well and makes the story more interesting. We don't know anything about what sort of relationship Ben Jonson had with the author but the way it is portrayed in the film feels like what I imagine it could have been or at least what I would have liked it to have been if that makes any sense. I really liked the Jonson character in the film. He has one of the best lines in the film to de Vere's wife when leaving their home near the end of the film.<br />
<b>All-in-all I think the writer and the director have done a masterful job of creating an entertaining film that is still enlightening in some significant ways</b> <b>while taking liberties with the facts. </b>Bravo! Can't wait to see it again.</blockquote><br />
(Mr. Alexander also took a handheld <a href="http://www.facebook.com/groups/shakesvere/?view=permalink&id=10150388821904529">video</a> of the audience Q&A with director Roland Emmerich, five members of the cast and the screenwriter John Orloff.) <br />
<br />
**EDITED on Sept. 13 to add correspondent <b>Kathryn Sharpe's brief review after attending the other public screening to date of <i>Anonymous</i></b> -- this year's <a href="http://www.authorshipstudies.org/anonymous/">Shakespeare Authorship Studies Conference</a> in Portland, Ore.:<br />
<blockquote>I loved it. Emmerich says it's his story of Shakespeare--a darker story. <b>He changed the known history when necessary to convey an "emotional truth" just as Shakespeare did with his history plays. The changes will bother people who know what actually happened, but it's not unlike seeing your favorite book made into a film. </b>Things will change for the sake of the art form. The most memorable scene for me? The interior of Oxford's study, with shelves piled high with leather-bound manuscripts, those precious manuscripts. And Hank Whittemore said that he does not mind that the movie will be picked apart and compared to the historical record, because it is not a pure fantasy (as was Shakespeare in Love), <b>it is about real people, real literary works. Real politics and real power.</b></blockquote><div><b></b><br />
<a name='more'></a></div><div>Below, then, are excerpts from the movie reviews of <i>Anonymous</i> posted online as of Sept. 12. (This will soon enough become woefully out of date. Check Rotten Tomatoes for the latest "<a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/anonymous_2011/">score</a>.")</div><div><b><br />
</b></div><div><b><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/sep/10/anonymous-film-review-william-shakespeare">The Guardian (UK)</a></b></div><div><blockquote> But Roland Emmerich's <b>meticulously crafted and often well-acted exposé of the "real" William Shakespeare is shocking only in that it is rather good</b>. ... Edward Hogg as the Queen's adviser is a standout, and Vanessa Redgrave makes an eminently awards-worthy Elizabeth. Best of all, though, are the snippets of the Mark Rylance (former artistic director of the modern Globe) as a jobbing actor bringing Oxford/Shakespeare's work to life. Its a testament to Emmerich's cluttered but sincere film that, at the heart of all the flash and filigree, the play really is the thing.</blockquote><div><br />
</div><div><b><a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/anonymous-toronto-review-233499">The Hollywood Reporter</a></b></div><blockquote> Surprisingly, this is <b>easily director Roland Emmerich’s best film</b>. Instead of blowing up the world or engaging in other sorts of mass destruction, he actually steers a coherent path through a complex bit of Tudor history while establishing a highly credible atmosphere of paranoia and intrigue. His British actors deliver their usual reliable performances while designers and digital environmentalist stunningly re-create Elizabethan London right down to the tiniest detail. ...<br />
Nevertheless, the film grabs at historical facts, mangles them into <b>a plot worthy of a John le Carré spy novel and takes the viewer on a breathtaking ride through ye olde London</b>. Especially splendid are the aerial shots of that depict that era’s town with the accuracy of John Stow, the city’s first great surveyor. ...<br />
The coming and goings of opportunistic courtiers in Elizabeth’s palaces, the movement of poets, peasants, whores and cut-purses in and about city streets, the city’s love for conflict and conspiracy — <b>all this feels absolutely right</b>.</blockquote><div><br />
</div><div><b><a href="http://www.movieline.com/2011/09/letter-from-toronto-even-killer-elite-cant-quite-rival-emmerichs-anonymous.php">Movieline.com</a></b></div><blockquote> In contrast, Roland Emmerich’s Anonymous is, at the very least, a curiosity, one with some clever casting and a very fine performance at its core.<br />
First, there’s the inspired casting of Vanessa Redgrave and her daughter, Joely Richardson, as old and young versions of Queen Elizabeth I. Richardson, with her tumble of pale curls, looks like a living, breathing version of John Millais’ Ophelia, but tougher. Redgrave plays her version of the character as if she has become more emotionally vulnerable, not less, with age — the older Elizabeth just works harder to submerge it beneath her imperious veneer.<br />
Both performances are great fun to watch, but <b>it’s Rhys Ifans, as the Earl of Oxford, who keeps the movie spinning. </b>He takes dorky, grandiose dialogue and turns it into something almost — well, Shakespearean. ... I giggled at parts of Anonymous, especially when our earl’s angry, disapproving wife catches him at his desk and bellows, like Gale Sondergaard with PMS, “My God! You’re writing again!” But I never laughed at Ifans. <b>When you look into those eyes, you could almost believe that this was the guy who wrote all those sonnets.</b></blockquote><div><b><br />
</b></div><div><b><a href="http://www.boiseweekly.com/Cobweb/archives/2011/09/09/thumbs-up-for-anonymous-and-the-artist-at-toronto-film-festival">Boise Weekly</a></b></div><blockquote> Anonymous will no doubt create endless debates but also cause plenty of cheers when it is released on Friday, Oct. 28. <b>You can literally count up the Oscar nominations as the movie progresses—it gets better with each passing minute.</b></blockquote><div><b><br />
</b></div><div><br />
</div><div>It certainly appears that Stratfordians who had hoped this movie would appear and just as quickly disappear will be disappointed: Oscars season is still five months away.</div></div>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01959807858303615531noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206508.post-84563322774493653172011-09-04T06:25:00.011-04:002011-09-06T22:36:37.588-04:00"Shakespeare" the Venetian: Why Titian mattersFollowing up on the previous <a href="http://shakespearebyanothername.blogspot.com/2011/08/shake-speare-east-anglian-hawks.html">post</a> -- which finds Hamlet using dialect peculiar to East Anglia, where Edward de Vere grew up -- it's worth remembering that the Shakespeare canon is also <a href="http://shakespearebyanothername.blogspot.com/search/label/Italy">brimming with evidence</a> that <b>the author knew and wrote about Italy from first-hand experience. </b><br />
<div><br />
</div><div>In a few cases, it's even possible to date when the author must have been there -- or, at least, communicated with someone who was in Italy at the time. <span class="fullpost"></span></div><div><br />
</div><div>The Shakespeare epic poem <i>Venus & Adonis </i>provides one such clincher. It contains lines that suggest <b>the author was in Venice -- and was capable of gaining entrée to a prestigious Venetian artist's studio -- sometime before August 1576, when the artist died. </b></div><div><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4jQnvBTo_rs/TmGOnjj8K-I/AAAAAAAAAY0/Kg5ZhW1MKLY/s1600/Titian-c-face-half.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="281" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4jQnvBTo_rs/TmGOnjj8K-I/AAAAAAAAAY0/Kg5ZhW1MKLY/s320/Titian-c-face-half.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div><b>Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford</b>, <b>traveled in Italy</b> using Venice as his home base <b>from May 1575 through March 1576</b>. When de Vere traveled to <i>La Serenissima</i>, the city of canals had one superstar celebrity who arguably eclipsed all other cultural figures in town: The painter Tiziano Vecellio, a.k.a. Titian (c. 1488/1490 - 26 Aug. 1576). </div><div><br />
</div><div>When the king of France, Henri III, had visited Venice in 1573, the king <b>insisted</b> <b>on meeting Titian at the master's Venice studio</b>. The octogenarian artist, former arch-rival of <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=-Q7c3dIGsAQC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false">Michelangelo</a>, had met and in many cases painted most of the leading intellectual, cultural, religious and political <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=e48OAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false">figures of the century</a>. </div><div><br />
</div><div>An Italianate English lord -- an emissary from Queen Elizabeth's court -- visiting Venice would have almost been expected to pay homage to the city's greatest living cultural icon. To have <i>neglected </i>to do so could have verged on the impolitic. </div><div><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qNH7j1GDkmY/TmGT9isxNjI/AAAAAAAAAY4/gaGtItyIyRM/s1600/Tizian_Urbino.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qNH7j1GDkmY/TmGT9isxNjI/AAAAAAAAAY4/gaGtItyIyRM/s320/Tizian_Urbino.jpg" width="277" /></a></div><div><b>If de Vere did indeed meet Titian</b>, for starters, he could have heard a first-hand account of the life and the grisly death of one of Titian's patrons, the Duke of Urbino. The dearly departed Oxfordian scholar Andrew Hannas long advocated that Titian's portrait of Urbino, pictured here, was <b>arguably the pictorial inspiration for King Hamlet's ghost</b>, cap-a-pie, as Horatio <a href="http://shakespeare.mit.edu/hamlet/hamlet.1.2.html">says</a>: </div><blockquote><i>A figure like your father,<br />
Armed at point exactly, cap-a-pie [head-to-toe],<br />
Appears before them, and with solemn march<br />
Goes slow and stately by them: ...<br />
</i></blockquote><div>On the Elsinore battlements, we hear again about the ghost's armor, his pale complexion and his "countenance more in sorrow than in anger." Check, check and check. The apparition does, the soldiers say, have a grey beard. (Titian's Urbino doesn't.) Then again, aren't all ghosts supposed to look grizzled? </div><br />
<div>Anyway, <b>Hamlet's play<i> The Mousetrap</i> stages Urbino's murder</b>. Titian's patron was poisoned by a courtly rival named Gonzago. <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=IYxJAAAAYAAJ&vq=urbino&pg=PA152#v=onepage&q=urbino&f=false">In the ear</a>. (Hamlet says of the murderer, "His name's Gonzago: The story is extant, and writ in choice Italian.")</div><div><br />
</div><div>Titian could have told de Vere all about the gruesome deed his patron fell prey to and the insider politics behind Hamlet's play-within-a-play. </div><div><br />
</div><div>Titian also had in his studio at the time a masterpiece that would become a prime inspiration for the first work ever published under the name "Shakespeare," the 1593 epic poem <i>Venus and Adonis</i>. </div><div><a name='more'></a></div><div><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-iniKj4HJGPs/TmGhcO7ON2I/AAAAAAAAAY8/7xuBy-Ut29M/s1600/TizianoBarberini.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="307" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-iniKj4HJGPs/TmGhcO7ON2I/AAAAAAAAAY8/7xuBy-Ut29M/s320/TizianoBarberini.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div>As described in <i>"Shakespeare" By Another Name</i>, Titian's painting of Venus and Adonis (pictured here) is unique in its depiction of the classical myth. </div><div><br />
</div><div>The love between Venus and Adonis is almost universally described as a mutually-felt passion. A love story for the ages. But <b>in Titian's portrayal, Venus claws at her reluctant young Adonis whose downcast expression at her makes him appear practically heedless to his lover's beckon.</b> </div><div><br />
</div><div>This odd twist on the Ovidian legend (grasping and desperate goddess, disinterested overgrown boy) also matches the way "Shakespeare" portrays the central relationship in his poem <i>Venus and Adonis</i>. </div><div><br />
</div><div>As with many of his masterpieces, there are multiple copies of Titian's <i>Venus and Adonis</i>. But, as discovered by the late Oxfordian scholar Noemi Magri (another kindred soul departed from our company far too soon), <b>only the copy sitting in Titian's studio at the time when de Vere visited Venice portrayed Adonis wearing a peculiar style of hat or "bonnet."</b> </div><div><br />
</div><div>Here are a few excerpts from the "Shakespeare" poem <i>Venus and Adonis</i>:</div><div><br />
</div><div><i>He sees her coming and begins to glow, </i></div><div><i>Even as a dying coal revives with wind;</i></div><div><i>And <u>with his bonnet [which] hides his angry brow</u>,</i></div><div><i>Looks on the dull earth with disturbed mind,</i></div><div><i> Taking no notice that she is so nigh</i></div><div><i> For all askance he holds her in his eye. </i></div><div><br />
</div><div>...</div><div><br />
</div><div>[after, er, SPOILER ALERT, Adonis's death...]</div><div><br />
</div><div><i><u>Bonnet nor veil henceforth no creature wear</u>:</i></div><div><i>Nor sun nor wind will ever strive to kiss you...</i></div><div><i><br />
</i></div><div><i>But when Adonis liv'd, sun and sharp air</i></div><div><i>Lurk'd like two thieves to rob him of his fair [beauty].</i></div><div><i>And therefore <u>would he put his bonnet on </u></i></div><div><u><i>Under whose brim the gaudy sun would peep:</i></u></div><div><u><i>The wind would blow it off, and [the bonnet] being gone</i></u></div><div><u><i>Play with his locks.</i></u></div><div><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LXxlohDZw9Y/TmGuzz85MMI/AAAAAAAAAZA/E4ncenKPsAM/s1600/GreatOxford.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LXxlohDZw9Y/TmGuzz85MMI/AAAAAAAAAZA/E4ncenKPsAM/s400/GreatOxford.jpg" width="307" /></a></div><div>So the hat on Adonis's head is significant to "Shakespeare" too. Both in <b>his idiosyncratic sartorial and expressive characterizations of Venus and Adonis, then, Titian seems to nail exactly how "Shakespeare" sees the story of the mythical lovers.</b> </div><div><br />
</div><div>But Titian would die of the plague just months after de Vere's departure. In 1576, Will Shakspere of Stratford was 12 years old. </div><div><br />
</div><div>Magri <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=Ua09pcd0Fo0C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=titian&f=false">writes</a>, in her classic study republished in the superlative essay collection <i><a href="http://www.parapress.co.uk/books/great_oxford.html">Great Oxford</a></i> (pictured, with close-up of Titian's painting on its cover):</div><div><br />
</div><blockquote> Considering de Vere's desire for learning and his love for Italian culture, he must have felt the wish to meet him and admire his collection. He may have seen <i>V&A</i> in Titian's house, where the artist preserved originals and autograph copies.<br />
In following Aristotle and the Greeks, who said that poetry and painting are two similar forms of art having the same nature and that painting is 'dumb poetry' and poetry is 'speaking painting,' Titian called his <i>V&A </i>and some ten paintings of mythological subject <i>poesie</i>, poems.<br />
Being aware of the Renaissance concept of painting as a form of poetry, de Vere may have been given the inspiration to write a poem based on a painting. </blockquote><div></div><div><br />
(Postscript: As if two touchstones for <i>Hamlet</i> and a source for <i>Venus & Adonis</i> weren't enough, <b>Titian also knew and had painted a celebrated <a href="http://www.jstor.org/pss/874531">portrait of Giulio Romano</a>, the only artist mentioned by name in the "Shakespeare" canon</b> -- in the <i>Winter's Tale</i>. The statue by Romano that's referenced in the play is arguably Romano's painted statuary monument in nearby Mantua to the author Baldassare Castiglione. (<i>SBAN</i> pp. 97-98) Castiglione, author of the essential book of Italian courtly etiquette <i>The Courtier, </i>was a central figure in de Vere's philosophical life. Among other things, de Vere had financed a translation of <i>The Courtier </i>into Latin. Crucially to the <i>Winter's Tale, </i>Castiglione's wife Ippolita had met an untimely death soon before her husband's, and <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=HaIKAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA428#v=onepage&q&f=false">Romano's monument</a> (to both husband and wife) records the widower's heartrending sorrow at losing so dear a spouse.)</div><div><br />
</div><div><br />
</div>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01959807858303615531noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206508.post-7053495547113294542011-08-22T14:48:00.010-04:002011-09-12T11:24:40.706-04:00"Shakespeare" the East Anglian: Hawks, Handsaws & Hamlet<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-inYQ4T3B7Ew/TlKb2O-2mTI/AAAAAAAAAYw/AAKi9bzOibc/s1600/Hanser.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="281" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-inYQ4T3B7Ew/TlKb2O-2mTI/AAAAAAAAAYw/AAKi9bzOibc/s320/Hanser.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>In 2006 Greg Hancock, a reader from Coburg, Ontario, sent an email to the <i>"Shakespeare" By Another Name </i><a href="http://shakespearebyanothername.com/bulletin_things/bulletin04#Letters">Bulletin</a> sharing his revelation that <b>Hamlet's enigmatic line "When the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw" actually derives from hawking lingo popular in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Anglia">East Anglia</a> -- where Edward de Vere was born and spent part of his childhood.</b><br />
<div><br />
</div><div>Today, Mr. Hancock sent an update on this fine little nugget. Thanks to Google Books, he uncovered a <a href="http://books.google.ca/books?id=_BnPAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA170&lpg=PA170&dq=harnsa+shakespeare&source=bl&ots=hrxq656msi&sig=pTLYMBfYcgpM3g58pNBDMsRzV3w&hl=en&ei=NVi8TeLsC8jc0QHEgvRl&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=harnsa%20shakespeare&f=false">fuller explanation</a> of what Hamlet is talking about.</div><div><br />
</div><div>"Harnsa" (phonetic spelling) was East Anglian slang for a heron. When a hawk chases a "harnsa," the heron often flies with the wind to escape its predator. <b>When the wind is from the south, the sun is at the hunter's back, so he can easily differentiate between his bird and his bird's prey. </b>(By contrast, when the wind is from the north, the hunter might have to squint into the sun -- and would have a harder time telling the difference between the two birds.) </div><div><br />
</div><div>What the <a href="http://books.google.ca/books?id=_BnPAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA170&lpg=PA170&dq=harnsa+shakespeare&source=bl&ots=hrxq656msi&sig=pTLYMBfYcgpM3g58pNBDMsRzV3w&hl=en&ei=NVi8TeLsC8jc0QHEgvRl&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=harnsa%20shakespeare&f=false">commentator</a> (from H.H. Furness's 1877 edition of <i>Hamlet</i>) doesn't say, however, is that <b>the gloss only holds if the author of Hamlet's line knows East Anglian regional dialect</b> -- and, presumably, has some experience hawking in that part of the country. <b>De Vere, yes. Will of Stratford? Another misfit.</b> </div><div><br />
</div><div>In Mr. Hancock's words:</div><div><br />
</div><div><blockquote>Basically the important point is that a heron or hernsew is pronounced "harnsa" in Norfolk and Suffolk, which together constitute East Anglia. East Anglia is only about 150 miles from Stratford on Avon, but <b>even in 2011 it is culturally and linguistically in a different country.</b> ... It was presumably the same in the 16th century.<br />
<br />
The Earl of Oxford was of course brought up in Suffolk, so he would have understood. It is <b>very unlikely Stratford Shakespeare would have been familiar with Suffolk dialect</b>, or would have [understood] written references to it.<br />
<br />
It is pleasing to me that the reference to a handsaw had been correctly identified as being a "harnsa" or heron before 1877 by a Fellow of Trinity Hall Cambridge, and as such gives a little more academic credibility to the theory.</blockquote></div><div><br />
</div><div>His original email to the SBAN Bulletin is below, after the jump. </div><div><a name='more'></a></div><div><blockquote><b>"I am but mad north-northwest. When the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw."</b><br />
<br />
I have just completed my first reading of<i> "Shakespeare" By Another Name</i>. I have long believed that the works of Shakespeare were not written by the actor from Stratford. Your book is so well researched that it is hard not to believe Edward de Vere to have been the author, and this enhances our understanding of Shakespeare's works.<br />
<br />
My father was born in 1913 in Norfolk in East Anglia, and he spent his youth in boats on the Norfolk Broads. He then went to grammar school in Norwich where he studied Shakespeare.<br />
<br />
Years later, in the 1970s, I was canoeing with my father in Canada when we passed a heron in the lake. He observed that it was quite clear how to tell a hawk from a heron. I was somewhat bemused until he explained that "hanser" is the East Anglian word for a heron and that the phrase from the mad scene in Hamlet erroneously transcribed "handsaw" for "hanser," thus leading to centuries of needless academic debate about the meaning of the phrase.<br />
<br />
I have <b>subsequently confirmed from a dictionary of Middle English that “hanser” was indeed an East Anglian word for a heron in earlier times</b>.<br />
<br />
When I read your book I was therefore very interested to lear that Edward de Vere also spent his youth in East Anglia. Taken together with de Vere's knowledge of hawking it is clear to see that de Vere would also have known a hawk from a hanser.</blockquote></div><div><br />
</div><div>(Creative Commons image by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hisgett/3255912248/sizes/z/in/photostream/">ahisgett</a>)<br />
<br />
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++<br />
<br />
**<b>Sept. 12, 2011 EDIT to share some back-and-forth</b> between correspondents Greg Hancock (who was the original source of the above material) and another SBAN reader, Michael Marcus, who is more skeptical of the Suffolk/East Anglia connection.<br />
<br />
Here's Mr. Marcus first:<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue';">There's more (and less) to Mr Hancock's discovery than he thinks. According to Wright's ENGLISH DIALECT DICTIONARY the most common version is 'heronsew'. Wright's contributors then supply about two dozen other local versions/corruptions such as: heronsue, hahnser, hearingsew, hernsue, heronsyueff (!!), etc. As far as East Anglia goes (or went), there are heronsew, hanser, harnsey and hernsey. However, there is only one part of the British Isles where it was actually spelled in the form found in HAMLET, i.e. handsaw, and Wright identifies that as "N. Cy", which is the North Country, nowhere near East Anglia of course. But the broader point is that it can't be pinned down to Vere country. (FYI, in Warwicks it was either heronsew or hernshaw).</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue';"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue';"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue';">Here's a bit of speculation from the 19th century found (via google books) in "Hardwicke's science-gossip: an illustrated medium of interchange and gossip for students and lovers of nature," (Volume 9):</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue';"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue';"><b><span style="color: #7f007f; font-family: 'Lucida Bright';">Herneshaw.—Spenser himself, in his spirited description, furnishes the key to the mystery; the bird meant is the heron, which is often (I might say always) called by the country people in the Eastern counties a "hamsaw," or "harnsey." Shakspeare makes Hamlet speak of " knowing a hawk from a hernshaw," stupidly corrupted into " handsaw."</span></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue';"><b> [Presumably Mr Kilton was unaware of the N. Cy. rendering - MM]</b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue';"><b><span style="color: #7f007f; font-family: 'Lucida Bright';"> Chaucer in his "Squire's Tale " has "heronsewes":—<br />
<br />
"I wol not tellen of hir strange sewes (dishes),<br />
Ne of hir swannes, ne hir heronsewes."<br />
<br />
In a Latin glossary, circa 1559, Ardeola (Ardea) is translated a hearnesew; in MS. Gloss. Line, we have hernsue; in Reliq. Antiq. it is spelt herunsew; in our modern lexicons hernshaw is explained as meaning a heronry; in Grieb's German Dictionary Keiherstand is translated hernshaw, heronry; Dansk Ordbog, heireiede is translated herons' nests, hernshaw. Tyrwhitt, in his glossary to Chaucer, explains heronsewes to mean young herons, no doubt deriving it from the French heronneau, a young heron. I am not quite sure that hernshaw and heronsew were not formerly distinct words; the former being compounded of hern (heron), and shaw a small wood or coppice, and heronsew,a corruption of heronneau; the two words were no doubt soon confounded, and heronsew, hernsew, harnsaw, and hornshato were applied to the bird itself, as, for instance, the word "eelfare" is a provincialism for a young eel (in some counties corrupted to Elver). The word eel-fare" was originally applied to the migration of the young eels, from the Anglo-Saxon verb faren, to go.—-F. Kilton.<br />
</span></b></span><b><br />
</b><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #7f007f; font-family: 'Lucida Bright';">"I wol not tellen of hir strange sewes (dishes),</span></b><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #7f007f; font-family: 'Lucida Bright';">Ne of hir swannes, ne hir heronsewes."</span></b><b><br />
</b><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #7f007f; font-family: 'Lucida Bright';">In a Latin glossary, circa 1559, Ardeola (Ardea) is translated a hearnesew; in MS. Gloss. Line, we have hernsue; in Reliq. Antiq. it is spelt herunsew; in our modern lexicons hernshaw is explained as meaning a heronry; in Grieb's German Dictionary Keiherstand is translated hernshaw, heronry; Dansk Ordbog, heireiede is translated herons' nests, hernshaw. Tyrwhitt, in his glossary to Chaucer, explains heronsewes to mean young herons, no doubt deriving it from the French heronneau, a young heron. I am not quite sure that hernshaw and heronsew were not formerly distinct words; the former being compounded of hern (heron), and shaw a small wood or coppice, and heronsew,a corruption of heronneau; the two words were no doubt soon confounded, and heronsew, hernsew, harnsaw, and hornshato were applied to the bird itself, as, for instance, the word "eelfare" is a provincialism for a young eel (in some counties corrupted to Elver). The word eel-fare" was originally applied to the migration of the young eels, from the Anglo-Saxon verb faren, to go.—-F. Kilton. </span></b><b><br />
</b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue';">I'm pretty sure that Tyrwhitt was wrong, and as another contributor wrote, "the bird and its abode got confounded into a single name".</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue';"><b><span style="color: #7f007f; font-family: 'Lucida Bright';"> </span></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue';">That seems as likely as anything, though it's peripheral to the source of the dialectal word. At any rate, there are enough local dialectal variants similar enough to handsaw that to tie it to East Anglia is rather precipitate. I suppose it's a point for the Derbyites, supposing any exist.</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue';"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue';"></span><br />
<div style="font-family: Times; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue';">And Mr. Hancock's reply:</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue';"><br />
</span></div><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue';"></span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue';">Michael Marcus advances the opinion that herons were also called heronsew and hernsaw in Warwick, and suggests it is therefore unreasonable to ascribe an East Anglian or Suffolk connection to the lines in Hamlet.<br />
<br />
Ascribing a Suffolk connection is basically what has been done by various commentators on this subject since the 18<sup>th</sup> century . I will detail some of these attributions:<br />
<br />
<b>The Oxford English Dictionary (OED)</b><br />
The OED devotes approximately three columns to Heron, Heronsew and variations of these words. These can be found on pages 247 and 248 of volume V of the dictionary ( this section was completed in 1898) , and also on page 1296 of volume 1 of the micrographic version of this dictionary published in 1971. According to the OED the first recorded use of heronsew was by Chaucer c.1385.<br />
<br />
Quotes from the OED:<br />
“ c. Phrase. <i>To know hawk from a heronshaw</i><span style="font-style: normal;">. Conjectural emendation of the Shakespearian ‘ I know a Hawk from a Handsaw’, proposed by Hammer (1744), who being a Suffolk man, founded this on the East Anglian dialectal harnsey, harnsa harnser.”</span><br />
and<br />
“<b>1835</b><span style="font-weight: normal;"> Forby <i>Voc E. Anglia</i></span>, Harnsey, a heron <b>1885 </b><span style="font-weight: normal;">Swainson Names Birds 144 Harnser (Suffolk)..Hernsew, Heronseugh (Yorkshire)”</span><br />
There are no mentions of Warwickshire in the OED on this topic.<br />
<br />
<b>Shakespeare, edited by Horace Howard Furness Vol III Hamlet Vol I, Philadelphia, Lippincott & Co 1877</b><br />
“CLARENDON: In Suffolk and Norfolk ‘hernsew’ is pronounced ‘harnsa’, from which to ‘handsaw’ is but a single step”<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>A Middle English Dictionary, Words used by English Writers from the Twelfth to Fifteenth Centuries, by Francis Henry Stratmann, revised by Henry Bradley, Oxford University Press</b><br />
“Hairounsew, sb., <i>O.Fr</i><span style="font-style: normal;">. herounceu, herouncel: </span><i>young heron</i><span style="font-style: normal;">: heironsew B.B.165: herunsew REL .I. 88; heronsewe ‘ardiola’ CATH 184 <b>heronsewes</b></span> (pl) CH.C.T.<i>F</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> 68</span><br />
<br />
<br />
These show there is significant historical opinion ascribing a Suffolk connection to the use of “harnsa” in the Shakespearian phrase. Respected texts and their quotations by a variety of commentators mention Suffolk.<br />
None of the dictionaries or texts ascribe any Warwick connection to usage of the word “harnsa”.<br />
<br />
Although Michael Marcus’s comments are interesting I do not believe they provide significant reasons to alter acceptance of the historic Suffolk connection.</span></blockquote><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue';"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue';"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue';"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue';"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue';"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue';"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue';"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue';"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue';"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue';"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue';"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue';"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue';"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue';"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue';"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue';"><o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
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</span></div>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01959807858303615531noreply@blogger.com5