"Shakespeare" shut down in 1604, ctd.

It has long been a contention of this blogger that one of the stronger pieces of evidence for Edward de Vere's authorship of the "Shakespeare" canon is the fact that he died in 1604.

(The strongest remain the phenomenal connections between his life and the works, the contemporary rumors (cited in "Shakespeare" By Another Name) of his involvement with the Shakespeare enterprise, the manifold ways the annotations in de Vere's Geneva Bible appear as biblical references in the canon, and the astonishing overlap between the settings of Shakespeare's Italian plays and de Vere's documented ports of call during his grand tour of Italy in 1575-'76.)

The reason the "1604" argument is so powerful, I think, is that traditional Shakespeare scholarship stipulates that the plays were written from the period c. 1592-c. 1613. But critical examination of the actual evidence, in fact, provides an independent check that the author of these works stopped authoring in 1604.

Stratfordians still seem to think "1604" is a game-over argument for their case. Their flogging of this horse should only be encouraged.

Case in point: A new book by the UK publisher Parapress, Dating Shakespeare's Plays compiles a play-by-play examination of sources, references and allusions for all of the Bard's works (plus four apocryphal plays often attributed to Shakespeare).

The upshot is that these researchers find the "Shakespeare" canon as a whole has been dated too late -- sometimes by a decade or more. That the author shuffled off this mortal coil in 1604 and not 1616 (when Will of Stratford died) is, at the least, consistent with Dating's findings.

In the interest of fairness, it should be added that the De Vere Society in the UK coordinated the research and put together the book. Of course, anyone objecting to Dating's findings on this ground should then equally demand that authorship-agnostic researchers, not Stratfordians, be the ones who write the papers and books advancing the conventional 1592-1613 chronology.

The notion suggested in the previous sentence is not a joke. But anyone who knows Shakespeare scholarship today also knows it is laughable.

In any event, the book's analysis is in line with recent scholarship on The Tempest (added to the paperback edition of SBAN) that finds 1604 as the latest likely date for the play's composition.

And The Tempest is the strongest case they've got that the author must have lived beyond the year of de Vere's death.

So, now, with "A Critical Review of the Evidence" -- in the words of Dating's subtitle -- we come closer to the day when it can be said definitively: "Shakespeare" stopped writing in  1604. Oxfordians can explain this. What's the Stratforidans' excuse?

SBAN documentary fund drive update

Seven days away from the Dec. 1 deadline for the Nothing Is Truer Than Truth documentary fund drive, and I'm pleased to say that as of lunchtime today, 62 contributors have pledged a generous $7675. This puts the project close to its $12,000 goal.

It's important to stress that this kickstarter.com campaign is all-or-nothing.

If just over $4000 can be raised in the next week, then filmmaker Cheryl Eagan-Donovan will have secured what she needs to film on location in France and Italy, to edit and mix her film and have it ready for submission to film festivals starting in the fall -- where she'll then be courting distributors both in the U.S. and around the world.

On the other hand, if the $12,000 goal is not reached by the end of the day on Dec. 1, then no money changes hands. And it's back to the drawing board.

I greatly appreciate the generosity and support the project's many supporters have shown. Please keep tweeting, emailing and otherwise notifying those who might be interested in this project. (Another suggested tweet: The #Shakespeare Italy plays precisely trace the Italian travels of this Elizabethan playwright. Follow the Bard: http://kck.st/9DJB46 )

And for those considering a contribution, please remember -- especially as close now as it is to the wire -- every bit helps.

Thank you.

Podcast Agonistes

If you've ever listened to the "Shakespeare" By Another Name podcasts, your correspondent would greatly appreciate the favor of a review to add to the iTunes page. The "Shakespeare-upon-iPod" series has a few defenders. But it has quite a large assortment of one-star nay-sayers these days, too.

If even 10 per cent of what the critics on the iTunes page say about the podcast were true, I wouldn't want to download it either. Utter rubbish! Completely deceptive! He makes it all up!

Here's Apple's webpage for "Shakespeare-upon-iPod" a.k.a. the SBAN Podcasts. Click on the blue button that says "View in iTunes" to go to the iTunes page where reviews can be posted. (Requires free registration.)

Thank you!

The Bard of Venice (VIDEO)

On September 23, 2011, Sony Pictures will be releasing a big-budget popcorn movie called Anonymous. As blogged on this page, the movie tells the tale of Edward de Vere as "Shakespeare" -- parts of which will be highly fictionalized, of course.

And so for the first time in history, a broad cross-section of the moviegoing public will be open to hearing out the factual story of Edward de Vere's epic life. And already primed for the many connections between his life and the Shakespeare plays and poems.

This is the (brief) opportunity that Nothing Is Truer Than Truth is poised to seize.

Filmmaker Cheryl Eagan-Donovan needs to raise $12,000 by December 1 to fund the final phase of her film -- shooting at the many Italian locations immortalized in the Shakespeare canon.

Please post this to your blog or facebook page. Please email your friends and English professors. Please tweet. (One possible suggested tweet is below.) And for those so inclined and enabled, please donate.

Thank you.

TWITTER-READY BLURB:
#Shakespeare lived in Venice and toured Italy. His Italian plays trace his travels precisely. http://kck.st/9DJB46 #PleaseRT

Celluloid Update - London-to-Venice edition

Big and small, Oxfordian-themed movie projects move ahead with an eye toward 2011.

We recently learned (h/t reader DE) that Sony Pictures' Roland Emmerich-directed Oxfordian movie Anonymous will now be on screens nationwide in September 2011. Screenwriter John Orloff tells fan-site Collider.com that they didn't want to rush to meet their previously announced March release date.

Tantalizingly, Orloff also tells about CGI shots of Elizabethan London that sound pretty amazing.

"When you see a movie like Elizabeth, which is a lovely film, it’s all inside and it’s all interiors because you couldn’t build London," Orloff says. "But, we don’t do that. We literally have helicopter shots, in 1600 London. We have crane shots. You just can’t believe it. Nobody has made a period movie like this, ever before."

And speaking of exteriors, Boston documentary filmmaker Cheryl Eagan-Donovan tells the SBAN blog that her Oxfordian documentary Nothing Is Truer Than Truth -- now aiming for completion in time for submission to the film festival circuit next fall -- has begun fundraising to do springtime on-location photography in Venice, northern Italy and southern France.

"Oxford was an A-list party boy who took this grand tour of Europe," Eagan-Donovan said in a press interview last month. "He was all about collecting experience, art and music and all of that. And he came back with the experiences that were the material for the canon."

Edward de Vere's Italian adventure in 1575-'76 -- whose ports of call happen to coincide almost exactly with the settings for the Shake-speare Italian plays -- is an incredible story unto itself.

It was my favorite part of "Shakespeare" By Another Name to write. And its byways and grand canals have all the potential to be quite a yarn onscreen too.

(Full disclosure: Eagan-Donovan has optioned "Shakespeare" By Another Name and retained your correspondent as an advisor for Nothing Is Truer Than Truth.)

Creative Commons image by Kent Mercurio

All de Vere's A Stage

During this hectic summer of 2010 -- when your correspondent has been busy moving the SBAN bunker to a new location -- the world of All Things De Vere has been quiet. But it hasn't exactly been totally silent either.

Last week, word leaked that Sony Pictures has set a release date of March 25, 2011 for the Edward de Vere biopic Anonymous. Film & fan blogs have been either slightly aghast or slightly quizzical about the prospect. Looking forward to seeing what Sony's publicity push is going to look like. Watch this space for more as the movie's release date approacheth.

Meanwhile, stages in Edinburgh, Scotland and Santa Monica, California have been spreading the de Vere heresy too.

This is the last week of British thesp George Dillon's one-man show The Man Who Was Hamlet (pictured) at the Edinburgh Festival -- through Aug. 30. After the jump, a review excerpt.

From the Scotsman:

Rising from the grave after Hamlet's death scene, George Dillon draws the audience into an absorbing and thought-provoking one-man show. He takes one of the world's oldest literary mysteries and turns it into an Elizabethan drama. Shakespeare scholars may shake their heads, but the evening's a romp, and a clever one.

The Man Who Was Hamlet will, according to Dillon's website be touring the UK through next spring.

And on shorter timescales, a new de Vere whodunnit will debut at The Santa Monica Playhouse this week.

Abraham Alan Ross's Elizabeth Shakespeare and the Astute Detective stages the authorship controversy as a modern-day romantic comedy, which features an astute gumshoe who, according to the production's website, "[using] his computer conjures up The Bard and The Earl from their four centuries’ demise. His sleuthing brings him into conflict with Elizabeth Shakespeare, sexy Stratfordian who is positive that William Shakespeare was the true author of his plays and sonnets. As Tad tries to coax Elizabeth to his point of view, she fights her physical (and mental) attraction to this romantic iconoclast."

So there you have it. Clever romps and sexy Stratfordians.

And the build-up for next-year's movie that will, at least temporarily, tilt the game board a little more toward those of us who think the Bard is looking more like de Vere all the time.

(Photo credit: George Dillon in 'The Man Who Was Hamlet', Photo by Charlie Baker)

Smelling Psalts - another de Vere treasure trove

"Shakespeare" By Another Name reader Richard Waugaman of Georgetown University sent a note this week about his new publication in the journal Notes & Queries.

He told the SBAN Blog he's been peeking at Shakespeare's answer key lately and discovering a "jackpot" of new discoveries about the Bard's sources.

N&Q has now published two articles by Waugaman on a newly rediscovered source for the Shakespeare plays and poems: The Whole Booke of Psalme (WBP) from 1565. This popular edition of the biblical book of The Psalms set the sacred text to a steady rhythm, enabling the psalter to be sung more easily during church services. (It's also clunky and dated poetry and so has made an easy target for critics like C.S. Lewis, who said the WBP had practically no value as a literary influence for "cultivated writers.")

But the Folger Shakespeare Library has Edward de Vere's personal copy of the WBP -- one that's hand-annotated and bound with de Vere's copy of the Geneva translation of the Bible. (The latter is the subject of SBAN's Appendix A.)

De Vere's personal copy of the WBP is a treasure trove of material for Shakespeare.

De Vere marked 21 of the 150 psalms in the WBP. Waugaman has examined eight of those marked Psalms (8, 12, 25, 51, 77, 103, 137, 139) to discover dozens of new references to these psalms (sometimes to this edition of the Psalms) throughout Shakespeare's Sonnets as well as Rape of Lucrece; Macbeth; Richard II; Henry VI, Part 1 and the apocryphal Shakespearean history play Edward III.

"Using the psalms de Vere marked has led to what is probably the largest literary source for Shakespeare discovered in many years," Waugaman said in an email.

As with de Vere's biography, his travels in Italy (about which I'll be blogging more soon) and his personal copy of the Bible, de Vere's edition of the WBP once again proves that detailed examination of the particulars of de Vere's life recovers vast new vistas on the "Shakespeare" canon.

And once again it appears that if de Vere wasn't in fact the one who wrote behind the "Shakespeare" mask, then it sure looks like "Shakespeare" spent a lot of time looking through de Vere's eyes.

Richard Waugaman's first (Dec. 2009) article on WBP & Shakespeare
Waugaman's second (June 2010) article

(Creative Commons image by Orin Zebest)