Customer Reviews

Players: The Mysterious Identity of William Shakespeare

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If you're really interested in the Shakespeare authorship question, this is a terrible book to start with. Fields seems to have simply taken claims that he found in various anti-Stratfordian works and organized them into something like a narrative, though it's difficult to tell, because he provides no bibliography and only rarely mentions other authors. (Even when he does mention another writer, he is often confused; thus, the index contains separate entries for "Charles Ogburn" and "Charlton Ogburn", though both references should be to Charlton Ogburn.) For the most part, Fields accepts these anti-Stratfordian claims at face value, even though many of them can be shown to be either flat-out false or blatantly misleading.

For example, in his conclusion (p. 281), Fields asks, "And, if Shakespeare was the Stratford man, why do Henslowe's records fail to list any payment to him for his plays, at least some of which played at Henslowe's Rose?". But as Irvin Matus pointed out more than a decade ago in *Shakespeare: IN FACT* (a book Fields does not appear to have read), Shakespeare's plays only played at the Rose in 1592-94, when Henslowe was not recording authors' names; by the time Henslowe started recording payments to playwrights in 1596-97, Shakespeare was with the Lord Chamberlain's Men, Henslowe's chief rivals in London, and there is no reason to expect any mention of Shakespeare in the Diary.

On the same page, Fields expresses amazement that no examples of Shakespeare's handwriting survives other than six signatures, concluding that, "Evidently, not a scrap exists; and it would not be unreasonable to conclude that not a scrap ever existed, or that, if the Stratford man left writings of any kind, someone set out to eliminate them." This displays an astounding ignorance of the extreme rarity of theatrical manuscripts from Shakespeare's day, and the rarity of any handwriting from middle-class people such as Shakespeare. The only handwriting that survives from Christopher Marlowe is a single signature; the only handwriting that survives from the prolific John Fletcher is a signature and a few words; no certain example of John Webster's handwriting survives, not even a signature. Evidently Fields would conclude that these men could not write either, or that there was a conspiracy to destroy their writings; if not, he is displaying a rather distressing double standard.

On the next page, Fields repeats the well-worn anti-Stratfordian chestnut that "no one spoke out on the death of the Stratford man in [1616]", and asks, "Where were the outpourings of grief that followed the deaths of even lesser-known writers?" Here, again, Fields exhibits a rather depressing ignorance of the historical context. In the early 17th century, only socially important people such as noblemen (and sometimes church leaders) received printed tributes immediately after their death; tributes for lesser folk such as playwrights circulated in manuscript, often for years, before sometimes making their way to print. There were a great many manuscript tributes to Shakespeare after his death, and the most widespread of these, William Basse's poem, specifies in its title that "he died in April 1616". The first datable tribute to Shakespeare in print appeared in 1620, four years after his death, followed by the tributes in the First Folio three years after that. The seven years before the printed tributes in the First Folio was, by far, the shortest such period for any English playwright up to that time; the first printed poetic tribute to Francis Beaumont did not appear until 13 years after his death, and the first to John Fletcher did not appear until 14 years after his death.

This is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of the inaccuracies to be found in this book. Fields does appear to believe what he is saying, but readers should be warned not to take any of his historical claims at face value.

Dave Kathman
djk1@ix.netcom.com
The Shakespeare Authorship Page

After reading a couple of chapters of this book, I noticed many inaccurate statements and decided to check the author's references for the authority for these statements. I discovered that there is no bibliography or chapter notes of any kind. How can someone purport to write a serious historical commentary, especially a pursuasive commentary on a highly debated subject, without listing any sources?

Continuing this theme, you will note throughout the book that the author, when criticizing a Stratfordian view, often states that the Stratfordian view is possible, but "there is no evidence" to support such view. The author, however, feels free to make various anti-Strat statements which he fails to back-up with any credible evidence. In other words, he goes out of his way to state that viewpoints contrary to his are not supported by evidence, and then proceeds to make his points without citing to any specific evidence.

If your are truly interested in this subject, and want to read a book that is actually well researched (and actually contains a bibliography), read "Who Wrote Shakespeare" by John F. Mitchell. Don't waste your time with this book.

There are better works on "alternative Shakespeares" out there, but this one is presented as a lawyer's argument, and makes interesting reading.

Since Shakespeare studies are finally in the safe-keeping of the major universities, and since the academicians therein lack the courage to pursue this obviously pressing question, we have to read works like this and those by other amateurs like Sobran. Don't hold your breath for Alison Weir or anyone with a literature Ph.D. to take the leap, and start losing their grants.

I interviewed Dr. Gordon Cyr, president of the Shakespere Society in the mid 1980s on National Public Radio. He shocked the Baltimore-Washington D.C. audience with the comment that Wm. Shakespere of Avon was not the author of the beloved poems, sonnets and plays. Since then, I have had real interest to find out the facts of the case. When reading this tomb I did satisfy that long time urge to know but figured out the real author before the end of the book and put it down. Lots of repetitive facts and situations, including those commenting on the sexual preferences of the many suspects, that in itself was a real hoot! But alas, there will never be a common conclusion for the question "Who is the real William Shakespere?"

This is not the right book for someone new to the Authorship debate to pick up. It isn't really an Authorship book at all, but a meta-Authorship book. Fields has evidently read many of the available books on the subject and seems to have written this book in order to present his own, detailed collaboration theory. But first, fancying himself an impartial judge, he reviews and weighs the basic evidence he has read about for the major candidates: the Stratford actor, Oxford, Marlowe, Derby, Rutland, even Queen Elizabeth(!). The problem with this, the bulk of the book, is that he isn't really setting forth the evidence in enough detail for the reader to judge, but just mentioning enough so that he can give his own verdict on it, and his verdict on almost any given piece of evidence is "well, that doesn't really prove anything one way or the other". This routine gets old fast; and for newcomers there isn't enough meat to start forming their own conclusions. There are other, better books to start with. (Michell's "Who Wrote Shakespeare?" and Williams' "Sweet Swan of Avon" are fun and you really ought to start with anti-Stratfordians; then you'll be ready to get the Stratfordian's answer to Michell's question from a book like "Shakespeare, In Fact" by Matus.)

However, Field's book has one redeeming feature, for people who have already immersed themselves in the debate. In the last 15 pages or so, he presents his own detailed story of how the plays and sonnets got written. It's just a theory, but it's plausible at face value (assuming you're not a Stratford absolutist!), and if true, would provide answers for some of the questions surrounding Shakespeare that have bothered the anti-Stratfordians. But more important than whether it's true, it's an interesting theory, and will send you back to the plays and sonnets with something new to think about.

And that's the whole point of the Authorship controversy, really - it's a invitation to read Shakespeare closely; to learn about his time period, its theatre, its writers; to discover why and how he became the revered Bard; to see how the changing world has changed his works; and to understand how our own prejudices and misconceptions confuse our little minds about the little we know about Shakespeare the author, even while we feel we understand and love Shakespeare the works.

This is nearly a great book. For 26 chapters Mr. Fields writes well and then loses it in the last chapter.

In Players, Mr. Fields investigates the identity of William Shakespeare. While doing so, Mr. Fields divides the world into Stratfordians (those who believe the man from Stratford actually wrote the plays) and "anti-Strats" (those who believe someone else actually wrote the plays). In my experience most serious scholars--and I do not consider myself anything more than an amateur Shakespearean scholar myself--don't really question that the man from Stratford wrote the plays and, despite my lowly status, I place myself firmly in the Stratford man's camp. On the other hand, many amateur Shakespeareans--Mr. Fields is, after all, a novelist and entertainment lawyer--love the conspiracy theory and the search for an alternate identity for Shakespeare.

All that being said, Mr. Fields has written a wonderfully fascinating and readable account. His experience in the law serves him well as he sifts through the available evidence and fairly tries to give points where points are due to both the strats and anti-strats. There are some inaccuracies but he does a reasonable job. In the last part of the book he weighs the evidence for some of the most popular "real Shakespeares" from the obvious (Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford) to the ridiculous (Queen Elizabeth). For the most part, I felt he presented the evidence reasonably well; mainly because he stood back and let the evidence speak for itself without making too many judgements.

In the last chapter, however, he makes a case for the plays being written cooperatively between Oxford and Shakespeare with Oxford supplying the bulk and the rustic Shakespeare providing those parts that would please the groundlings. When Oxford dies in 1603, he has left behind a number of mostly finished plays that his son-in-law, Stanley, reworks with Shakespeare and gradually releases. Along the way, help and advice is gotten from people ranging from Marloe & Jonson to Francis Bacon. Whew! At one point, Fields asks how Shakespeare can be the author of these plays since so little written evidence points to him. I would ask Fields how such a magnificent conspiracy between so many important people could be perpetrated without a single piece of written evidence (a letter, someone's journal) pointing to it.

I have to admit, this last chapter threw me for a loop and colored my enjoyment of the rest of the book. Like most "unmasked conspiracies" it is fun to read and exciting in its intrigue but the fact is (and at least Fields admits this) it is likely we will never know for sure. However, I am of the type that believes the burden of proof lies on the anti-strats (to borrow another phrase from Mr. Fields). Works of genius are, by definition, created by a genius. A genius is someone who reaches far beyond what is expected or typical of the time. Say whatever you want about how Shakespeare's upbringing and experience could never have prepared him to write these wonderful plays. Barring incontrovertible evidence, I find it easier to believe that the Stratford man somehow had the ability to rise above his experience and create these works than that a conspiratorial group effort managed the same.

But read the book and decide for yourself. It's worth it.

Here's a warning, kids: Don't wade into scholarly debates in fields you have not mastered, regarding matters (i.e., literature) in which you have no competence. You'll make a fool of yourself, as this poor inept lawyer has done. So ay historical errors, so many baseless suppositions, so many contradictions, so many lapses of logic.... Well, the typical anti-Stratfordian performance.

PLAYERS is a book by Bertram Fields which plunges us like a swift dive into the maelstrom, where only the brave and the foolish dare go, deep into the so-called "authorship question" of Shakespearean scholarship.

Fields, a lawyer by trade, examines the possibility that the man we know as Shadespeare (the "Stratford man" as he is called here) did not write the works with which he has generally been credited. Since the 18th century, the skeptics have kept close pace with the believers, and for understandable reason. There is a paucity of known facts on the man from Stratford's CV. Surely if he was the greatest English playwright we'd have more knowledge about his life and death. And what about those signatures? He can't even spell his name the same way twice, how did that country bumpkin write HAMLET or THE WINTER'S TALE? No way! What would that hillbilly have possibly known about courtship politics in Italy and Bohemia, he never left England, and there were no books that could have filled him in. Could he have learned the Latin and Greek he needed at Stratford Junior High, I don't think so, but thousands of allusions of classical literature pepper his corpus.

Besides, there were literally dozens of brilliant, upper class and good looking men all over Elizabethan England who might have written those works with more probability than the Stratford schlub. These include Francis Bacon, the eccentric philosopher; the Earl of Oxford, Edward de Vere; the playwright Christopher Marlowe, who was known to have written for the theater and whose murder might have been faked to allow him the psychic space to go on and improve his craft as "Shakespeare." Even Elizabeth herself might, everything else being equal have been the playwright, for she was well known as a stylist and could wield a pen with the best of them; perhaps only sexism has kept her towards the bottom of the bookies' chart of suspects.

Fields picks up each piece of evidence and examines it, both pro and con. The First Folio gets most of his respect, and he comes down hard on the point that, if someone else was Shakespeare, why did the First Folio, published shortly after the death of the man from Stratford, credit him with having written all the plays and poems? Were its editors in on some hoax? Wouldn't that be a little weird, indeed Masonically extravagant? If they were just patsies, innocent dupes, why prolong the charade past the point of the death of the real author? (Oxford, for example, died in 1604 for sure.) Nobody really knows what happened, and you'll have fun with Fields as he tries to make sense out of a confusing mass of facts, fictions, fallacies and far-fetched Tomfoolery. Along the way you might learn something you never knew before. I know I did.

I almost did not read the book because of the negative reviews on this site. However, I read it and enjoyed it. Definately not for the serious scholar and the lack of any bibliography or notes is puzzling. However, it's a good, high-level review of the question regarding who wrote the works of Shakespeare.

From the the fine people who have brought us the illuminating, "If I Did It," came this earlier exercise in sleaze; this book's core deficiency is not so much its content but its exceptionally heavy lifting from previous authors, without which there would be no book at all here; this is a book which cearly would never have been published were it not for its author's dubious connections.