Preface

It should be well known, though it is generally not, that there has been great doubt expressed toward the traditional view of the authorship of Shakespeare. But a man named J. Thomas Looney in 1920 published a book proposing Edward de Vere as a candidate. That line of inquiry has developed a great deal since.

Courtesy of Google that book is available here:

"Shakespeare" identified in Edward De Vere, the seventeenth earl of Oxford

and in several formats from the Internet Archive here:

"Shakespeare" Identified In Edward De Vere the Seventeenth Earl of Oxford

Since then de Vere has become the leading candidate. Mr. Looney's view was that de Vere hid behind a mask for for "inscrutable reasons". Since his time other Oxfordians have toyed with an explanation that this treatment owes great debt. And this treatment will hopefully make the reason for de Vere's anonymity understandable.

Further the examination to follow is of Shakespeare's Sonnets that is interpretive and an explanation which gets to the very point and purpose of the work. But even more than these hermeneutic and exegetic qualities, what may be most important is reexamining the many wrong assumptions that have been made with respect to Shakespeare's sonnets. And by getting to the original purpose of the sonnets, hopefully readers will finally see solutions not only to the many individual cruxes but also the enigmatic whole so long misunderstood.

It should be seen to better illustrate the author’s persona and provides strong internal evidence as well as points to external evidence that directly relates to the attribution of Shakespeare’s works and which should be seen to have tremendous literary significance. And also this explanation should go a long way toward the invalidation and marginalization of current scholarship surrounding Shakespeare. This narrative at the least should demonstrate the consistency and likely purpose of outlining the argument for recognizing QE I’s heir to throne, unknown to our own time. But again also reveals the poet's own need for anonymity and most importantly of all, what should be seen to be res ipsa loquitur, i.e. "the thing speaks for itself" and clear positive evidence for Edward de Vere's authorship.

Introduction

A frequent refrain in discussing Shakespeare and questions about the authorship of the works and something that has become cliché is that the “play is the thing”. That it hardly matters if the man fromStratford did not write the works. Most orthodox scholars would also stress that in fact he did and that questioning the notion of his authorship is akin to being a devotee of intelligent design as opposed to evolution. I personally find both of these notions to be absurd.

Of course knowing as much as possible about the writer Shakespeare would be incredibly elucidating. If for example we knew fine details of his background, his world-view and his motivations then there would be the potential for incredible insights into the works far beyond what we enjoy today.

The suggestion that there is any equivalence or reasonableness in equating authorship skepticism with intelligent design is in my view an unbelievably ridiculous claim that is completely without merit. The evidence for evolution spans across virtually every scientific discipline and is composed of so many individual and corroborating pieces of evidence that it is likely the best developed and most incredibly predictive areas of science. In contrast the evidence for the Stratford man's authorship which is both rather minuscule and has turned up no additional evidence in centuries of searching. Thus I might hope readers understand that this comparison illustrates and belies an enormous level of ignorance about the nature of evolutionary science on the part of those making the comparison. And it should be apparent to any person literate in science that this statement is an embarrassment to those making it. Regardless even of the validity of authorship skepticism.

Further and frankly equally amazing to me are how blithely ignorant mainstream scholars are to some of the scholarship surrounding the candidacy of Edward de Vere, the 17 Earl of Oxford. To take just one example, are the questions raised by Gary Goldstein, who provided in 1990, a comprehensive demonstration of internal evidence that the works of Shakespeare are written in an “East Midlands” dialect as opposed to one from Warwickshire.

Additionally scholars have taken the attitude that our inability to fully make sense of Shakespeare’s Sonnets can best be characterized by the notion that the fault lies in Shakespeare not in ourselves. Perhaps there is another option to our present impasse and a way out of the hyperbole and excruciatingly bad arguments made in defense of traditional scholarship.

In light of this I would offer my own solution. One that fully takes advantage of what I have regarded for some time as an amazing collection of insights provided by the mostly amateur efforts of devotees of the 17th Earl of Oxford or Oxfordians as they are known.

I hope readers will actually come to appreciate the revelation that Shakespeare played an important role in an historically and previously unknown episode that shaped the politics of Elizabethan and Jacobean England and I suspect played a very influential role in the early English settlement of the U.S. That these sonnets are keys to revealing not just a literary mystery but one that plays a unique role at a critical juncture in Western history. And probably the most important aspect is actually how spectacularly wrong scholars have been. Though the point is not to illustrate their credulence but to illustrate how we are all susceptible to deception and myth. Providing a valuable lesson in how myth is both perpetuated and can inculcate itself into people and institutions.

Further I would offer this is a much better explanation why Shakespeare's works are so finely crafted. Versus the notion that the plays were written for money and presumably were to have been primarily performed in public playhouses. Also finally it should be noted that while Shakespeare has been taken so far out of the 16th century, hopefully this explanation will help to put him back in his rightful context. In addition I would also suggest that the authorship concealment wasn't about concealing the authorship primarily at all. It was really a concealment of the political maneuvers surrounding England's next monarch. And this is actually why the conspiracy didn't actually matter to the participants after it was settled. In fact because of the respect that participants had for the monarchy it was important to forget it, else the future of England would potentially be at stake. Of course participants were also incentivized with the possible loss of life and their titles and lands as likely it was mostly nobles who were privy to it.

And though this treatment may raise many doubts and I'm sure is quite imperfect. Please reflect both on how this is actually corroborated by a host of other information such as the dedications of Shakespeare's epic poems and the events and politics of the Essex Rebellion and Gun Powder plot. In addition to a whole host of additional literary and historical elements some presented some not. But perhaps most of all if you believe I am clever enough to weave a consistent narrative into 154 sonnets and somehow tie together as well with the work of other Oxfordians then you flatter me far too much. In my personal opinion the story told here puts Oscar Wilde to shame. Not to mention the essentially utterly dreadful Anonymous.

If you would like to consider it fiction then I welcome your possibly unintended but implicit praise. But more importantly it is precisely the scale, implications, mechanism, and intricacy of this theory that explains how what might normally be dismissed is actually why and how it was so seemingly successful. And I would also suggest that the widespread and irrelevant suggestion that authorship was not questioned until much later was also because for many of the actual participants of this episode the details were both too painful and dangerous to pass on. But I also strongly suspect that the political subtext and questions of legitimacy existed in the political maneuverings up through the first English Revolution, if not beyond.

Further this theory reveals that much of the very foundational knowledge of time period is wrong. Particularly the notion that a professional and commercial industry of play performance sprung up virtually out of nothing. But most specifically that the writer responsible for Shakespeare was indeed Shake-Speare, and the artifice was in making the man far more appropriately known as "Shaxsper" into Shake-Speare or Shakespeare. And illustrating at least the technical inapplicability of the term "anti-Shakespearean" to myself or this theory. Even as that applies to many others, failure to illustrate or appreciate that the Stratford man was only through duplicity made to be Shakespeare a major weakness and incongruity of current competing authorship theories.