Shakespeare and Me: The Man or the Myth?

The Earl of Oxford

The next, and often the most familiar, authorship theory is that it was in fact the then Earl of Oxford, Edward de Vere, who wrote many of the plays. Comparisons drawn between his life and the content of the plays has presented much of the evidence which historians base this theory on. However, 'evidence' has been presented  from the feasible to the virtually ridiculous! For instance, one lecturer (who shall remain unnamed) was known to base much of his evidence from 'Romeo and Juliet'. Repeatedly the two lovers are referred to as Romeo and Juliet (in that order) throughout the entire play - that is until the final line:

'For never was a story of more woe
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.'

The lecturer contended that Shakespeare did not write the plays because the Romeo and Juliet ended with the letters EO = the initials for the EARL of OXFORD! Ridiculous though this may sound, it is a genuine theory that has been put forward.

Not all of the evidence for the Earl of Oxford having written the plays is as ludicrous as this, some may even be deemed credible. Initially proposed by John Thomas Looney, an English school master, the basis upon which the Earl of Oxford is asserted by Oxfordians as the real writer of the plays is, again the background factors mentioned previously as well as a literary review from the period. In 1598, a review by Francis Meres appears describing Oxford as "best for comedy" which Looney asserts, as there are no recorded plays by Oxford, that the Shakespearean comedies (at the very least) must have been written by Edward de Vere. On the other hand, perhaps the fact that we have no evidence that Oxford had ever written a play serves to support the fact that this theory is unsupported and therefore wrong. However, Looney did not leave it there, in his book "Shakespeare Identified" he analyses a theory by Frank Harris in his book "The Man Shakespeare". In this book Harris uses the plays to garner and infer facts about Shakespeare the man rather than Shakespeare the playwright such as his beliefs and interests etc. Looney uses this book in an attempt to use Harris' analytical method to go a step further and prove who the true 'Shakespeare' was. For instance, Looney identified that those characters that were lower class were often depicted as stupid or silly, whilst the middle-classes were treated contemptuously and are often mocked in the plays. This therefore would imply that the writer didn't come from either of those classes and owing to the clear, recurring themes of nobility and feudalism and the well structured, class based society, the writer must have been of the nobility or upper classes, which Oxford was and Shakespeare was not! After studying a variety of Elizabethan biographies and accounts, Looney fell upon Edward de Vere as the best candidate, rather than any other noble, because the political flair and attitudes to religion exhibited in plays relate directly to Oxford's career and life in general.

Those who are opposed to this theory, argue that Oxford could not have written the plays because he died in 1604 and we know that 'Shakespeare' continued to write plays up until his recorded death in 1616 such as 'The Tempest'. In response to this Looney asserts that those plays written after 1604 exhibit an obvious and distinct difference in mood and style. In promoting a "dreary negativism", Looney argues that the plays written post 1604 are inconsistent and do not match the "essentially positive" style of Shakespeare/Oxford. Therefore, he submits that these plays must have been written by a different author and accidentally included in the first folio. Perhaps they were there because Shakespeare and his acting company famously performed them and, as a result, their authorship was attributed to him but in fact the work belonged to two or more playwrights? Could this all be rather far fetched? Is this enough evidence to attribute the work to Oxford over any other English noble or writer? What do you think? Do let me know in the comments section below!

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