Saturday, October 26, 2013

The Oxfordian viewpoint

It seems that every year, more candidates for the True Identity of William Shakespeare are put forward Over 80 names have been suggested overall, with some of the more popular ones including Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe, Henry Wriothesley (the 3rd Earl of Southampton) and  Edward de Vere (Earl of Oxford).


The last-named (pic from Wikipedia at left) is one of the most well-supported, and one of his keen advocates, Alan Tarica, has written a commentary on the sonnets. Read in reverse order, they suggest a case for Oxford's authorship of the Shakepearean oeuvre at least as convincing as any other bardic conspiracy theory.

One might wonder why it's necessary to find another author - after all, the plays and poems were written so long ago that surely we might as well just enjoy them and not worry about who wrote them (and anyway, a pretty good case can be made for Will, the glover's son from Stratford-upon-Avon!) but each new theory brings with it food for thought and some interesting academic wranglings.

If you'd like to  check out Alan Tarica's case for the Oxfordian standpoint and his take on the sonnets, go to https://sites.google.com/site/eternitypromised/instructions - it's a slow job, though, as you have to click on each sonnet (the case is based on reading them in reverse order) to study Tarica's commentary.

Have fun!

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