It is perfectly legitimate to question the Shakespearean authorship. I have been an advocate of Lord Oxford, Edward de Vere, for years now, so I pleased when I saw that the BBC were going to cover the issue here as a new movie is released on the topic. Instead of a balanced view owever, we got a prolonged sneer from both David Sillito and Evan Davies. I like to deal in facts and there are many which support the De Vere claim but these were all brushed away as the luvvies just agreed with each other.
OUR EVER LIVING POET
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David, I’m not sneering but respectfully disagreeing. I’ve always felt the “Shakespeare-didn’t-write-Shakespeare” people were unwilling to admit that an uneducated country bumkin could have written such brilliant stuff. My view is that it was BECAUSE William did not go to university that he wrote such unconventional (for the time) plays and had such a free mind. He had not been stuffed into the stifling intellectual box of his contemporaries.
I will concede that as a mere actor/manager, he could have adapted the plots, filched the comic routines and even nicked a lot of the dialogue. But I think he stitched it all together.
However, many and time and oft have I asked the more important question: does Even Davies write his own material or is it simply a mish-mash of Guardian/Independent/cocktail party clap trap?
Louis
I fully accept your intelligent and thoughtful disagreement but what annoyed me about this BBC coverage is the patronising ignorance served up as “debate”.
I’m quite surprised they didn’t go here :
Maya Angelou : “Shakespeare is a Black Woman”
http://www.shakespeareinamericanlife.org/identity/episode.cfm
I know want you mean, David, but we all know these “debates” are contrived affairs.
Proponent: Flying saucers exist.
Opponent: No they don’t
Presenter: Well, that’s all we have time for.
But more dangerous is:
1st Proponent: Socialism is great.
2nd Proponent: Right on.
Presenter: Well I’m glad we cleared that up.