Diplomat 'was real Shakespeare' (latest theory on "true" Shakespeare in new book)

The BBC ^ | October 4, 2005

[Stoat]

Diplomat 'was real Shakespeare'

 

The authorship of Shakespeare's plays has often been questioned

An Elizabethan diplomat named Sir Henry Neville was the real author of William Shakespeare's plays, a new book claims.

The Truth Will Out: Unmasking the Real Shakespeare says the courtier, nicknamed "Falstaff" by close friends, used Shakespeare as a "front man".

The book by Brenda James and Professor William Rubinstein contains a foreword by Mark Rylance, artistic director of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London.

Many experts remain sceptical at claims to have found the "real" Shakespeare.

Jonathan Bate, professor of Renaissance Literature at the University of Warwick, said there was "not the slightest shred of evidence" to back the book's argument.

The authors claim:

 

• Neville's ancestors, including King Edward III and John of Gaunt, are described with such accuracy in the history plays that they could only have been written by someone with specialist knowledge.

   

• As a director of the London Virginia Company, Neville had access to a 20,000-word letter about the Bermuda Shipwreck of 1609, thought to have inspired The Tempest two years later.

   

• The plays attributed to Shakespeare could only have been written by someone deeply familiar with court life, Elizabethan politics, Italy and France.

"This is a pioneering book," wrote Mark Rylance in his foreword.

"No one has considered this candidate before as the author of the works attributed to Shakespeare.

"You will not be alone in having your image of the author shaken by these pages, as I have."

Actor Mark Rylance has written a foreword to The Truth Will Out

Ms James told Radio 4's Today programme: "Every step of Neville's life coincides with the themes and chronology of Shakespeare's plays.

"I did not go out to find another candidate - he found me."

Ms James is a former English lecturer at Portsmouth University and Professor Rubinstein is a history professor at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth.

But their claims were rubbished on Today by Professor Bate, a governor of the Royal Shakespeare Company.

"These arguments always fall back on verbal parallels, which never stand up," he said.

Henry Neville is one of several Elizabethan figures to have been mooted as the "real" Shakespeare.

Others include philosopher Francis Bacon, nobleman Edward de Vere and playwright and poet Christopher Marlowe.

[Stoat]

BBC - History - William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616)

William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616)

 

William Shakespeare ©

 

Shakespeare's reputation as dramatist, poet and actor is unique. He is considered by many to be the greatest playwright of all time and his plays have merited translation and performances in cultures far removed from medieval England. Sadly his life-story remains ill-documented and what we do know of him is ironically undramatic. A fascination with the Bard and a great deal of mythmaking inspired by him has created an even greater sense of mystery about his personality.

 

We do know that Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire, England, and that he was probably educated in the town's free grammar school. Ben Jonson, contemporary dramatist, dismissed Shakespeare's style and learning as, 'small Latin and less Greek'.

His early acting career probably began with performances before a network of recusant gentry in the Warwickshire area where he served as a resident player under the pseudonym Shakeshaft. Then in 1582 he married Anne Hathaway, but is believed to have left her behind to pursue his career in London. By 1588 he is thought to have started writing plays.

Much of his poetry is dedicated to his patron Henry Wriothesley, 4th Earl of Southampton, and it has been argued that he is the male subject of the love sonnets.

From 1594 Shakespeare spent his acting career with the Lord Chamberlain's Company, which was renamed the King's Company in 1603 when James succeeded to the throne. Among the actors in the group was the famous Richard Burbage. The group acquired interests in two theatres in the Southwark area of London, near the banks of the Thames - the Globe and Blackfriars.

The first collected edition of Shakespeare's works was published posthumously in 1623 and is known as the First Folio. The plays fall into the categories of history, tragedy, comedy and tragicomedy. Shakespeare openly drew on contemporary historical sources so that his work- especially the history plays - represent a type of celebratory Tudor propaganda. The plays also offer complex portrayals of a world in transformation, for example with the discovery of the New World which is represented in the final play The Tempest.

Shakespeare's legacy is difficult to quantify. Of the man himself nothing remains but an unnamed headstone engraved with the cryptic epitaph, possibly conceived by the Bard himself:

Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear To dig the dust enclosed here.

Blest be the man that spares these stones, And curst be he that moves my bones.

[Borges]

They never give up.

[nickcarraway]

People mistake being a great writer with having "special knowledge."

[camle]

i reckon that there HAD to be soem coverup back then. we all know that shakespear couldn't possibly be shakespear! why what would the conspiracy theorists do?

musta been someone else.

[T.Smith]

"Every step of Neville's life coincides with the themes and chronology of Shakespeare's plays.

"I did not go out to find another candidate - he found me."

Actually, if you read Hamlet while listening to "Hotel California" it matches up eerily well. Coincidence? I don't think so. Don Henley is the real Shakespeare.

[nickcarraway]

Shakespeare Ping

Let me know, if you want to be put on the list.

[Borges]

The plays also have a zest for role playing and acting. Who else but a former actor could have conceived it this way. Ben Jonson said Shakespeare knew little Latin and less Greek. Enough to pass though. And there are plenty of anachronisms (clocks in Julis Caesar) as well that bear the sign of lack of scholarhip and haste.

[Borges]

The plays also have a zest for role playing and acting. Who else but a former actor could have conceived it this way. Ben Jonson said Shakespeare knew little Latin and less Greek. Enough to pass though. And there are plenty of anachronisms (clocks in Julis Caesar) as well that bear the sign of lack of scholarhip and haste.

[coconutt2000]

Perhaps there is a possibility that Shakespeare was not the sole author of his plays, but that he had a muse... a patron or partner that provided Shakespeare with the stories that he turned into poetic plays.

[nickcarraway]

People say whoever wrote the plays must have been in the courts of Europe. I say that person was never there. Shakespeare's portrayals of court scenese were the result of great writing, great imagination, some reading, and whatever he may have actually seen in England's court. His portrayals were hardly documentary, nor were they meant to be.

[CATravelAgent]

Just wondering if the homos have claimed Shakespeare was gay yet?

[sine_nomine]

I think the Earl of Oxford was proposed by a few, too. And Bacon. I once read a book called Bacon is Shakespeare. I found that convincing, too.

The best argument against Shakespeare the actor being Shakespeare the author is that actors then were like actors now: low-lifes, ignorant, etc. I like theories like the ones mentioned because they make me more interested in the history of the time.

[twigs]

This is usually an argument from the elitists. They somehow just can't believe that someone of Shakespeare's talents came from his lower class. Actually, his father was a politician and had good contacts. He had a decent education. Back then, if you got into school, you got a better education that one might expect. But he did not go to university and that rankles academics who know that they've never had a sliver of S's talent and can't figure it out why since they have so much more education.

[ElkGroveDan]

Actually the man claiming to be Neville wasn't really Neville. Neville was tied up in the highest tower in the land and held there by Sir Francis Bacon who assumed the identity of Sir Henry Neville.

Bacon would visit Neville in the tower every third Tuesday and together they conspired to write the works of Shakespeare.

[twigs]

Actually, I believe that the Bacon theory was proposed by a Ms. Bacon, a descendent of THE Bacon. I think her motives were mixed in proposing her theory.

[nickcarraway]

Whoever wrote Shakespeare's play was a remarkable writer and had a very consistent style. It would be almost impossible that Bacon is Shakespeare, because there is a lot of his writing to compare against. If you compare Shakespeare's writing to Bacons's, it's very clear the same person did not write both.

[Sans-Culotte]

Just wondering if the homos have claimed Shakespeare was gay yet?

Oh, yeah. They at least claim he is bi-sexual. Some of the sonnets are allegedly to his gay lover. And since boys played women's parts, then, all those playwrights must've been gay, right? Anthony Burgess even wrote a novel about it. Last month a new work suggested he was a "secret" Catholic. Now we're back to "he didn't exist".

[Sans-Culotte]

You could also look at artists who are simply prodigious. Mozart was the son of a composer, but there is no explaining his grasp of music at such an early age. he may begun to compose music before he learned to use the potty.

[nickcarraway]

Good point. Who really wrote Mozart's work?

[Physicist]

Bibliopath ping.