This Web page highlights materials that contribute to the ongoing inquiry into the identity and nature of the author of the dramas, sonnets and other poems attributed to William Shakespeare. ELAC has adopted no particular stance; however, in keeping with the thinking exhibited in the Alberta programs of studies for English Language Arts, ELAC recognizes the important interplay between text and context.  Given that a writer writes about what he/she knows and cares about, knowledge about a text creator and the context in which he/she lived as well as the audience for whom a work was originally intended informs the reader about such important text elements as allusion, caricature and artist's intent (e.g., satire).

 

de Vere.
de Bard.

— That is the argument of those who hold with the unorthodox notion that William Shakespeare was a man of his times: worldly, traveled and well-educated. And that his plays are the product of an identifiable, historical person of privilege who responded to his circumstances and imbued his works with personal responses to those situations. In other words, he was a writer who wrote about what he truly knew.

The ShakespeareByAnotherName.com website includes a series of FREE Audio Files that discuss various aspects of the "de Vere/de Bard" argument.

Is Shakespeare Dead?

Is ‘Shakespeare’ one of the biggest hoaxes in history? In 1909, Mark Twain wrote the essay, “Is Shakespeare Dead?”  A century later, Canadian actor Keir Cutler has adapted this essay for the stage and presents one of the most engaging performances dealing with the Authorship Question.  Order the DVD of Keir’s engaging soliloquy.

           

The Monument:
"Shake-Speares Sonnets" by Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford 
by Hank Whittemore

900 pages, Meadow Geese Press (2005)
ISBN 0-9665564-5-3

Whittemore shows how the Sonnets contain “the living record” of an unacknowledged prince with “true rights” of succession to Queen Elizabeth I. The author's 10-year effort chronicles a story recorded within a 100-sonnet central sequence of an elegant 'monument' of verse for Henry Wriothesley, Third Earl of Southampton, to whom Shake-speare dedicated his works. The main story begins on the night of the Essex Rebellion of February 8, 1601 and it concludes with Elizabeth’s funeral on April 28, 1603, when King James of Scotland became King James I of England and the Tudor dynasty officially ended.

Read Janet Hamilton's 2007 review of this intriquing work that interprets Shake-Speare's Sonnets in a new and remarkably persuasive manner.  "Stunning and compelling"--Prof. Daniel Wright, Ph.D.

   Who was the man?

Read this pair of articles from October 1991 issue of The Atlantic Monthy that explore the Authorship Question.  ELAC thanks the publishers of this magazine for making the articles free to ELAC members.

 

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