Category: Oxfordian theory of Shakespearean authorship

The Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship proposes that Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford ( 1550 – 1604 ), wrote the plays and poems traditionally attributed to William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon.

After a period of decline of the Oxfordian theory beginning with World War II, in 1952 Charlton Ogburn and his wife Dorothy published the 1, 300-page This Star of England, which briefly revived Oxfordism.

The Oxfordian theory returned to wide public attention in anticipation of the late October 2011 release of Roland Emmerich's film Anonymous.

Their son, Charlton Ogburn, Jr, agreed with Looney that the theory was an impediment to the Oxfordian movement and omitted all discussion about it in his own Oxfordian works.

One major evidential objection to the Oxfordian theory is Edward de Vere's 1604 death, after which a number of Shakespeare's plays are conventionally believed to have been written, according to 300 years of orthodox scholarship.

And A. R. Braunmuller ( not an Oxfordian ), in the New Cambridge edition of the play, finds the 1605-06 theory inconclusive and merely argues for a date of composition no earlier than 1603.

* Leslie Howard's 1943 anti-Nazi film, " Pimpernel " Smith, features dialogue by the protagonist Horatio Smith, a professor of archaeology at Cambridge, endorsing the Oxfordian theory.

* Oxfordian theory is the basis of Amy Freed's 2001 play The Beard of Avon.

* Oxfordian theory is central to the plot of Sarah Smith's 2003 novel Chasing Shakespeares, which she also adapted into a play.

* The 2005 YA novel Shakespeare's Secret by Elise Broach is centred on Oxfordian theory.

* List of Oxfordian theory supporters

Due to his role as guardian and father-in-law to Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, William Cecil figures largely in the Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship.

** Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, candidate of Oxfordian theory

He supports the Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship, according to which Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford wrote the works of Shakespeare.

* Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship, the view that Edward de Vere wrote under Shakespeare's name

Matus went on to defend this position against the Oxfordian theory ( which proposes that Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, is the actual author of Shakespeare's works ) in the October 1991 issue of The Atlantic Monthly as part of a print debate written by advocates of both sides.

* J. Thomas Looney ( 1870 – 1944 ), originator of the Oxfordian theory regarding the authorship of Shakespeare's plays

Category: Oxfordian theory of Shakespearean authorship

He was an enthusiastic Shakespeare scholar and proponent of the Oxfordian theory on this subject.

Proponents of the Oxfordian theory of Shakespearian authorship say that this picture is actually a slightly modified image of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford.

Sobran was the author of many books, including one about William Shakespeare, Alias Shakespeare: Solving the Greatest Literary Mystery of All Time ( 1997 ), wherein he espoused the Oxfordian theory that Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, was the true author of the plays usually attributed to William Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon.

Category: Oxfordian theory of Shakespearean authorship

The Oxfordian case is based on purported similarities between Oxford's biography and events in Shakespeare's narrative works ; parallels of language, idiom, and thought between Oxford's letters and the Shakespearean canon ; and marked passages in Oxford's Bible that appear in some form in Shakespeare's plays.

While there is no documentary evidence connecting Oxford ( or any authorial candidate ) to the plays of Shakespeare, Oxfordian researchers, including Mark Anderson and Charlton Ogburn, believe the connection is provided by considerable circumstantial evidence inferred from Oxford's connections to the Elizabethan theatre and poetry scene ; the participation of his family in the printing and publication of the First Folio ; his relationship with the Earl of Southampton ( believed by most Shakespeare scholars to have been Shakespeare's patron ); as well as a number of specific incidents and circumstances of Oxford's life that Oxfordians believe are depicted in the plays themselves.

Scholars contend that Macbeth is one of the most overwhelming pieces of evidence against the Oxfordian position ; the vast majority of critics believe the play was written in the aftermath of the Gunpowder Plot.

Oxfordian researchers believe that the play is an early version of Shakespeare's own play, and point to the fact that Shakespeare's version survives in three quite different early texts, Q1 ( 1603 ), Q2 ( 1604 ) and F ( 1623 ), suggesting the possibility that it was revised by the author over a period of many years.

Most Oxfordian researchers, including Charlton Ogburn, claim that Hamlet is the play most easily seen as portraying Oxford's life story.

The bedrock of La Rochelle and surrounding areas is composed of layers of limestone dating back to the Sequanian stage ( upper Oxfordian stage ) of the Jurassic period ( circa 160 million years ago ), when a large part of France was submerged.

It is known from numerous species which ranged in time from 160 to 145 million years ago, from the Oxfordian to Tithonian ages of the late Jurassic Period of China.

Through his father he is the heir of the family of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford ( hence the double surname ), and has played a prominent role in promoting the Oxfordian theory that his ancestor wrote the works of William Shakespeare.

It is made up of Jurassic limestone dating back to the Oxfordian age ( 161-155 million years ago ).

Yangchuanosaurus is an extinct genus of metriacanthosaurid theropod dinosaur that lived in China during the late Oxfordian ( and possibly Kimmeridgian ) stage of the Late Jurassic, and was similar in size and appearance to its North American contemporary, Allosaurus.

Looney's Shakespeare Identified ( 1920 ) began the modern Oxfordian movement and made Oxford the most widely accepted anti-Stratfordian candidate.

Charlton Ogburn, Jr. was elected president of The Shakespeare Oxford Society in 1976 and kick-started the modern revival of the Oxfordian movement by seeking publicity through moot court trials, media debates, television, and later the Internet, including Wikipedia, methods which became standard policy for Oxfordian and anti-Stratfordian promoters because of their success in recruiting members of the lay public.

Spurred by Ogburn's book, " n the last decade of the twentieth century members of the Oxfordian camp gathered strength and made a fresh assault on the Shakespearean citadel, hoping finally to unseat the man from Stratford and install de Vere in his place.

Specialists in Elizabethan literary history object to the methodology of Oxfordian arguments.

In The Shakespeare Claimants, a 1962 examination of the authorship question, H. N. Gibson concluded that "... on analysis the Oxfordian case appears to me a very weak one ".

Alan Nelson, de Vere's only biographer who does not advocate the Oxfordian Theory, writes that " ontemporary observers such as Harvey, Webbe, Puttenham and Meres clearly exaggerated Oxford's talent in deference to his rank.

" Oxfordian Louis P. Bénézet created the " Bénézet test " by which lines known to be by Oxford were compared with lines of Shakespeare.

Steven May, the reigning authority on Edward de Vere's poetry, argues that Oxfordian attempts to relate the Earl's poetry to Shakespeare are based on ' a hopelessly flawed methodology ', in that Looney assigned to de Vere some poems he had not written.

Oxfordian scholars respond that the concept of " equivocation " was the subject of a 1583 tract by Queen Elizabeth's chief councillor ( and Oxford's father-in-law ) Lord Burghley, as well as of the 1584 Doctrine of Equivocation by the Spanish prelate Martín de Azpilcueta, which was disseminated across Europe and into England in the 1590s.