The Earl of Oxford and the Making of "Shakespeare"


Book Description

The identity of Shakespeare, the most important poet and dramatist in the English language, has been debated for centuries. This historical work investigates the role of Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, establishing him as most likely the author of Shakespeare's literary oeuvre. Topics include the historical background of English literature from 1530 through 1575, major contemporary transitions in the theatre, and a linguistically rich examination of Oxford's life and the events leading to his literary prominence. The sonnets, Oxford's early poetry, juvenile "pre-Shakespeare" plays, and his acting career are of particular interest. An appendix examines the role of the historical William Shakespeare and how he became associated with Oxford's work.




Shakespeare by Another Name


Book Description

The debate over the true author of the Shakespeare canon has raged for centuries. Astonishingly little evidence supports the traditional belief that Will Shakespeare, the actor and businessman from Stratford-upon-Avon, was the author. 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 Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford-an Elizabethan court playwright known to have written in secret and who had ample means, motive and opportunity to in fact have assumed the "Shakespeare" disguise. "Shakespeare" by Another Name is the literary biography of Edward de Vere as "Shakespeare." This groundbreaking book tells the 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).










Contested Will


Book Description

Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro explains when and why so many people began to question whether Shakespeare wrote his plays.




Monstrous Adversary


Book Description

The Elizabethan Court poet Edward de Vere has, since 1920, lived a notorious second, wholly illegitimate life as the putative author of the poems and plays of William Shakespeare. The work reconstructs Oxford’s life, assesses his poetic works, and demonstrates the absurdity of attributing Shakespeare’s works to him. The first documentary biography of Oxford in over seventy years, Monstrous Adversary seeks to measure the real Oxford against the myth. Impeccably researched and presenting many documents written by Oxford himself, Nelson’s book provides a unique insight into Elizabethan society and manners through the eyes of a man whose life was privately scandalous and richly documented.




Shakespeare--Who Was He?


Book Description

The main arguments for and against the theory that Edward de Vere, the seventeenth earl of Oxford, used William Shakespeare as a pseudonym.




Anonymous SHAKE-SPEARE


Book Description

A new Roland Emmerich film - Anonymous - was released in October 2011. The seventeenth Earl of Oxford (1550-1604), says Emmerich, wrote the Shakespearian works. How could such a postulation come about and where does this doubt as to William Shaksper's authorship come from? (No offence is intended by calling the actor from Stratford-upon-Avon "Shaksper"; he certainly wouldn't have taken any, that's how he wrote it on his marriage license.) - After the academic world has been guessing and floundering for 150 years, the literary detective Kurt Kreiler surprises us with a book that addresses this subject after years of sound and thorough academic research. This is definitely the leading book on this subject. Chapters 1 and 2 explain why Will Shaksper from Stratford-upon-Avon was not an author. In chapter 3, ten works of the author William Shakespeare will be analysed with a view to determine what criteria the author must have had in order to write the works in question. Which foreign lands had the author visited? What historical references have been made? When were the pieces written? Chapter 4 examines the social perspectives of the "Author of the plays". Chapter 5 examines what Shakespeare's literary contemporaries knew about him, with whom did they associate him, what qualities did they attribute to him? An analysis of the Harvey-Nashe-Quarrel show us that they both agree that the author "Master William" was the creator of the figure Falstaff and that this author was Eduard de Vere, Earl of Oxford. Chapter 6 deals with the first part of the biography of Eduard de Vere. Chapters 7 and 8 show that the the profile of the Author that was developed in chapters 3-5 correlates logically and universally with the biography of the Earl of Oxford. Chapter 9 is a continuation of the biography of the writer and spear shaker "William Shake-speare" up to his death in 1604. Chapter 10 shows why, how and for whom the dramatist Ben Jonson went about the task of procuring the nom de plume Shake-speare. By using the coincidental similarity between the names Shake-speare and Shaksper, Jonson posthumously set up a marionette to claim authorship of the Shakespearian works. Kurt Kreiler (b. 23 June 1950) is a German author and dramaturg. He read philology and philosophy at university, his studies culminating in a doctoral thesis on the short lived Bavarian Republic of People's Councils (1918/19). In 1983 he began his work as a writer for television and radio. In 2009 Insel Verlag published Kreiler's: "The Man who invented Shakespeare"; a book that caused a considerable stir in Germany."




100 Reasons Shake-Speare Was the Earl of Oxford


Book Description

One hundred separate short essays setting forth evidence - in deeply a researched, but fluid style - that Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford was the great poet-dramatist who wrote under the name William Shakespeare.




The History Plays


Book Description

It is part of Shakespeare's extraordinary contribution to our culture that, through his dramas based on English history, he played a unique part in forming our view of ourselves and our nationhood. From King John, in which through Magna Carta the king's absolute power was first limited and the people's freedoms assured, to--almost in his own lifetime--Henry VIII, Shakespeare wrote a series of ten plays portraying the course of history. It represents almost one third of his entire dramatic output. The overarching theme of these plays is the vital importance of the sovereign's legitimacy if the nation is to be stable. They cover revolutionary times and events--the deposition and murder of Richard II, the Wars of the Roses, the usurping of the throne by Richard III--but they always affirm the principle that a legitimate king, circumscribed by an agreed constituion, is the only proper guarantee of the nation's liberties. There are many other ways in which Shakespeare's patriotism has become definitive. In Henry V's St. Crispin's Day speech to the troops before Agincourt, for example, or John of gaunt's 'scepter'd isle' speech, a sense of Englishness is expressed which still lives in English minds today. The E;izabethan's pride in nationhood was perfectly embodied by Shakespeare, but the poetry of it transcends its own time. In this edition the history plays are brought together with a large group of illustrations which echo and amplify their themes. Gloriously vivid images of England's story are presented here, putting the great plays in a magnificent setting.