112 of 122 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A smoking gun?, October 4, 2005
This review is from: Shakespeare By Another Name: A Biography Of Edward De Vere, Earl Of Oxford, The Man Who Was Shakespeare (Hardcover)
In SHAKESPEARE BY ANOTHER NAME, Mark Anderson relentlessly builds a case, using the Earl of Oxford's biography, that Edward de Vere wrote the Shakespearean plays, sonnets, and epic poems.
Anderson begins with the death of de Vere's father when Edward was only twelve. At this time de Vere became Lord Burghley's ward and went to live with him. There was no better place for a burgeoning author to grow up. De Vere had access to the greatest library in England and such tutors as the translator of Ovid's METAMORPHOSIS, generally considered one of the premier influences on Shakespeare's art. Eventually de Vere would marry Lord Burgley's daughter, Ann Cecil, who would become the model for Ophelia, Desdemona etc. Anderson argues that the marriage between de Vere and Ann Cecil was never consummated prior to his European tour. Ann got pregnant while he was away, and an Iago-like like servant, Rowland Yorke, made matters worse by poisoning de Vere's mind against his wife. Another convincing parallel was the Earl of Leicester's theft of de Vere inheritance, which became the plot for Hamlet.
Later on de Vere would have an affair with Ann Vavasour, a lady in waiting at Queen Elizabeth's court. She got pregnant, twice, and she would become the model for Juliet and Rosaline in ROMEO AND JULIET. You scoff? Vavasour and de Vere were sent (temporarily) to the Tower of London for their amorous shenanigans. Vavasour's uncle, Thomas Knyvet, then challenged de Vere to a duel, in which the Earl was wounded. Payback resulted and Knyvet and Oxford's men had further fracases resulting in the death of two servants.
I would suppose that the Stratford on Avon people could explain away the above pretty easily, but it was the little things that convinced me. One would be Shakespeare's reference to the Bohemian seacoast in THE WINTER'S TALE. Ben Jonson (perhaps jokingly) would later criticize Shakespeare's lack of geographical knowledge since there was no Bohemian coast. Jonson was wrong; De Vere visited the place on his Grand Tour. Another convincing tidbit was de Vere's familiarity with the names Rosenkrantz and Guldenstern. Peregrine Bertie, de Vere's son-in-law, met these two Danish diplomats while on a diplomatic mission for Queen Elizabeth. Then there's the pirate scene in HAMLET in which Hamlet was left naked on a beach. The same thing happened to de Vere while crossing the English Channel upon his return from Europe.
Anderson also writes extensively about two of de Vere's secretaries, Anthony Munday and John Lyly, both of whom eventually became established writers themselves. Why would a supposed wastrel like de Vere need literary secretaries? One of de Vere's secretaries also left what might eventually be the smoking gun in the Shakespeare controversy, an original play written by Edward de Vere. Abraham Fleming's archives eventually fell into the hands of an antiquarian named Francis Peck. Among them was an early draft of what sounds like TWELFTH NIGHT. Peck had plans to publish the play, but for some reason never got around to it. If Fleming's archive could be someday relocated, it could provide definite proof that de Vere was really Shakespeare.
There is also little doubt that Edward de Vere was a playwright. Many of the masques performed at court sound strikingly familiar: THE TROUBLESOME REIGN OF KING JOHN; THE TRUE CHRONICLE HISTORY OF KING LEIR; THE TRUE TRAGEDY OF RICHARD III; A HISTORY OF ERRORS; A MOOR'S MASQUE, to name only a few. Anderson argues that these were early drafts of the Shakespearean plays as was "Ur-Hamlet," thought to have been a Shakespearean source.
Then we have Susan de Vere (Cordelia in KING LEAR?), de Vere's youngest daughter. She married the Earl of Montgomery, who with the Earl of Pembroke, his brother, would publish THE FIRST FOLIO. Who else would have access to all the plays?
Anderson includes four Appendices. One examines de Vere's Geneva Bible and its underlinings for references and themes used in the plays. Another examines the 1604 controversy; de Vere died in 1604 and some scholars argue that THE TEMPEST and other plays include references to current events that happened later than 1604. Another appendix traces the provenance of a painting that was supposed to be of Shakespeare. Anderson maintains the man in the painting was really de Vere.
True or not, Mark Anderson's SHAKESPEARE BY ANOTHER NAME is a fascinating, fascinating book.
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76 of 84 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Please review the book!, September 7, 2005
This review is from: Shakespeare By Another Name: A Biography Of Edward De Vere, Earl Of Oxford, The Man Who Was Shakespeare (Hardcover)
I am detecting a disturbing early trend in reviews of this work: those who recommend the book speak in some detail about its contents; those who do not, well, I see no evidence that they have even read the book they claim to be reviewing. This is not a forum for airing out one's disagreements with the so called Oxfordians.
That said, I'll not waste time repeating what you can find in the other positive reviews. Anderson's writing is strong, current, his mind sharp. I count only one editorial error (p. 151), and only one tedious analogy, in the entire work. This alone should merit five stars. He has found order in vast amounts of disparate information, and his arguments in de Vere's favor will be hard to overcome, given extensive documentation in the notes (there are over 150 pages of them!) and the absolutely uncanny light cast by the biography on so many lines of the shakespeare corpus that have befuddled scholars for centuries. Some will say that such books as Anderson's won't change anybody's mind. Well, Anderson has changed mine.
He has not simply reinvigorated my interest in Shakespeare; he has, by impressing these plays with so much of de Vere's sorrows and anxieties, so much folly, helped me finally to see and love the humanity in them. For a powerful example of this, see the discussion of Macbeth on pp. 212-18. Highly recommended.
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65 of 76 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Fine Read!, September 5, 2005
This review is from: Shakespeare By Another Name: A Biography Of Edward De Vere, Earl Of Oxford, The Man Who Was Shakespeare (Hardcover)
I must say that I am incredibly OFFENDED by one of the early Amazon customer reviews of the work: it never addresses the actual book or any of its points. The author of the review has (quite clearly) not read the work, rather he/she simply writes a diatribe against the idea of de Vere being the author of the work, with all the low-hanging fruit of the classic arguments.
I am saddened, too, that there are people out there who seem completely unwilling to explore a new work, with thoughtful ideas.
With that said, I was intrigued enough to buy the book, having never seriously considered the idea of "de Vere as Shake-speare" before. Anderson's scholarship cannot be easily denied. His work is very well written, highly detailed, and presents an argument that is thoughtful and believable. It can be tedious, at times, as the reader must hold a great deal of historical information and names together for long chunks, but the overall impact is quite real. It left this reader with questions that I couldn't answer with a "Shakespeare is the man from Stratford-upon-Avon."
I'd recommend it.
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