Much Ado About Something - Going through a Shakespeare phase
The San Francisco Public Library is so superior to my hometown's Berkeley Public Library it isn't even funny. You're much more likely to get caught up with something wandering around there than at most other libraries around here. It's where I got caught up in this:
My latest reading craze is about the good ol' Shakespeare controversy. It started when I ran across a book called Who Were Shakespeare?, written by software engineer Ron Allen, a man who insists that the plays were a collaboration between Shakespeare and the Earl of Oxford. I followed that up with Shakespeare, the World as a Stage by stratfordian Bill Bryson, (Who wrote a fairly good book up until he got into the claimants, then he got derogatory,) followed now by the highly entertaining Who Wrote Shakespeare? by John Michel, which I'm reading now.
Most people, of course, insist Shakespeare wrote the plays. But there are a myriad of theories that try to place someone else as the author of the famous plays. There is a long lineup of suspects, the leading suspects being Francis Bacon, Edward de Vere, aka the Earl of Oxford, and Christopher Marlowe. The Marlowe people are the most fun. They're like the Dale Gribbles of the literature world! The biggest hitch in the case against Marlowe as Shakespeare is that Marlowe was killed in a tavern brawl in the midst of all the play writing. Marlowe supporters have an intricate conspiracy theory about this, insisting his death was faked!
The one thing that all these people have in common is that they all insist that their guy wrote the plays. And they're all very passionate about their opinions, near to the point of violence. They insist that their favorite wrote all the plays, all by their lonesome. One Shakespeare supporter I talked to likened the expression of any theories about someone else writing the plays to telling holocaust jokes to jews.
I'm quite a unique person in this midst in that I don't have a definite opinion. I do believe that the anti-stratfordian heretics have plenty of reasonable doubt to go on. Not much is known about Shakespeare's life. There are actually large gaps in his personal history, like years long gaps, including the years 1585 to 1592, known as the lost years, in which no one knows what the hades he was up to. Very few of these people support collaboration theories, like good ol' Ron Allen, who insists that the plays could not have possibly been written by one person.
In any case, if you are itching for something interesting to read, I'd suggest going through the books in the order I've read them. The material on Shakespeare theories and conspiracies is massive, with hundreds of books written on the subject, but the ones I've read so far are pretty good. If nothing else it's a lot of fun. I think the Marlowe theory is a big stretch, but I enjoy reading about it!
An excerpt from Much Ado About Something, a Frontline special about the theory that Christopher Marlowe was the true author of the Shakepeare plays.
My latest reading craze is about the good ol' Shakespeare controversy. It started when I ran across a book called Who Were Shakespeare?, written by software engineer Ron Allen, a man who insists that the plays were a collaboration between Shakespeare and the Earl of Oxford. I followed that up with Shakespeare, the World as a Stage by stratfordian Bill Bryson, (Who wrote a fairly good book up until he got into the claimants, then he got derogatory,) followed now by the highly entertaining Who Wrote Shakespeare? by John Michel, which I'm reading now.
Most people, of course, insist Shakespeare wrote the plays. But there are a myriad of theories that try to place someone else as the author of the famous plays. There is a long lineup of suspects, the leading suspects being Francis Bacon, Edward de Vere, aka the Earl of Oxford, and Christopher Marlowe. The Marlowe people are the most fun. They're like the Dale Gribbles of the literature world! The biggest hitch in the case against Marlowe as Shakespeare is that Marlowe was killed in a tavern brawl in the midst of all the play writing. Marlowe supporters have an intricate conspiracy theory about this, insisting his death was faked!
The one thing that all these people have in common is that they all insist that their guy wrote the plays. And they're all very passionate about their opinions, near to the point of violence. They insist that their favorite wrote all the plays, all by their lonesome. One Shakespeare supporter I talked to likened the expression of any theories about someone else writing the plays to telling holocaust jokes to jews.
I'm quite a unique person in this midst in that I don't have a definite opinion. I do believe that the anti-stratfordian heretics have plenty of reasonable doubt to go on. Not much is known about Shakespeare's life. There are actually large gaps in his personal history, like years long gaps, including the years 1585 to 1592, known as the lost years, in which no one knows what the hades he was up to. Very few of these people support collaboration theories, like good ol' Ron Allen, who insists that the plays could not have possibly been written by one person.
In any case, if you are itching for something interesting to read, I'd suggest going through the books in the order I've read them. The material on Shakespeare theories and conspiracies is massive, with hundreds of books written on the subject, but the ones I've read so far are pretty good. If nothing else it's a lot of fun. I think the Marlowe theory is a big stretch, but I enjoy reading about it!
An excerpt from Much Ado About Something, a Frontline special about the theory that Christopher Marlowe was the true author of the Shakepeare plays.
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