THE 'SHAKESPEARE MYSTERY'

I tell you, captain, if you look in the maps of the 'orld, I warrant you shall find, in the comparisons between Macedon and Monmouth, that the situations, look you, is both alike. There is a river in Macedon; and there is also moreover a river in Monmouth..
(Captain Fluellen to Captain Gower, King Henry V, Act IV Scene VII)

In April 2000, the world's newspapers had a field day over the extraordinary claims of one Professor Martin Iuvara, a retired teacher from Italy. Far from the Bard's being English as had been so naively supposed over the centuries, Professor Iuvara assured the world that Michelangelo Florio de Crollelanza, as the real identity behind 'Shakespeare' was not only Italian but Sicilian to boot, as it were. The author of the famous plays and sonnets, according to his new biographer, had been born in Messina to two Calvinists, Giovanni Florio and an aristocrat named Gugliema Crollelanza(which last name, of course, means 'Shakespear' in Italian). Our man had studied in Venice, Padua, Mantua, Denmark, Greece and Spain under such masters as philosopher Giodarno Bruno(later burnt at the stake), and had finally settled in England because of persecution by the Catholic Church. Professor Iuvara claimed the plays showed clearly that only an Italian could have had such close knowledge of Italian history and culture. Wisely, perhaps, he failed to mention Shakespeare's superlative knowledge of Italian geography: for not only does he make Milan a seaport in The Tempest; but in his plays set in Venice, he does not even mention the canals!

This theory is not new,for it was first aired fifty years or so ago, when the Mark I version was paraded before the world's press, under the headline of 'Signor Bard'. That version had Michelangelo Florio going to Stratford to meet up with his anglicised relatives, the Crollelanzas, who had now domesticated their name to 'Shakespeare', and whose only son William had just died, prompting our friend to change his name in honour of his dead relative's. The whole baroque romance is based on one fact: the actual presence in Elizabethan England of the English-born, part-Italian, John Florio, translator of Montaigne, possible Government spy and tutor to Henry, Earl of Southampton(who was, of course, briefly, Shakespeare's patron). Florio also wrote books: and amongst his readily-available works were—surprise, surprise—Italian phrase and travel books. 

That such a theory should have been constructed on such a frail basis may seem weird indeed. But, in truth, it is the merest tip of the iceberg as far as the so-called 'Shakespeare mystery' is concerned: for over the last one hundred and fifty years, there have been no less than fifty-seven pretenders to the throne, and the identity, of the English language's greatest writer. 

And just what is this 'Shakespeare mystery'? According to the theorists, it is impossible to imagine that the immortal plays and sonnets could possibly be the work of that country bumpkin, that unromantic son of a glover, that hardheaded business man William Shakespeare; and therefore, that they must have been written by someone else, preferably a nobleman. Just about every Elizabethan aristocrat has been pressed into posthumous service as a far worthier Shakespeare than that contemptible 'man from Stratford'. From Queen Elizabeth I herself(!!) down through the Earls of Southhampton, of Essex, of Derby, of Oxford, Cardinal Wolsey, Cecil, Devonshire, Sir Walter Raleigh, and dozens more, the safely long-dead nobility are pushed forward by their eager supporters all over the world. 

Fashions in alternative Shakespeares change. The philosopher and lawyer Sir Francis Bacon, Viscount Saint Albans(who is also credited by some of his followers with the works of Ben Jonson, Christopher Marlowe, John Webster, Miguel Cervantes, and more)was the favourite of the nineteenth century, whilst Edward de Vere, earl of Oxford, has enjoyed a good run in the twentieth century since the 1925 publication of a book by a man rejoicing under the name of Thomas Looney. The most recent book on the 'Oxford theory', Alias Shakespeare, published in 1997, was written by the combative American columnist Joseph Sobran, who has declared that he would always rather be 'an eccentric rather than a centric'. Australian theorists have included the pioneering work on Raleigh as Shakespeare, published in 1877, and a recent exposition on Christopher Marlowe as Shakespeare. Other contenders include Colonel Gaddafi's evocation of a 'Sheikh' Spear; an Irish Shakespeare, named Patrick O'Toole; 'Anne Whateley', the supposedly mysterious 'other woman' in Will's life, who sprang into life from a mere clerkly error, as well as a kind of committee composed of many of the prime contenders, a happy solution indeed. 

Extraordinary edifices are constructed on the supposed parallels between Shakespeare's language and that of each pretender, much of which is about to the point as Fluellen's solemn paralleling of Macedon and Monmouth, but much less wittily put. Some solemnly declare, like Prof.Iuvara, that in order to write the plays, Shakespeare must have been to Italy/Scotland/Denmark etc to soak in the atmosphere, whilst carefully neglecting the logical corollary to this, that he must therefore also have been to medieval England and France, Ancient Rome, Ancient Greece, 'Illyria', and so on. Others contend that Shakespeare as portrayed on his monuments and pictures could not possibly be the man who wrote the plays because he looks 'like a self-satisfied pork butcher', and everyone knows that all brilliant writers look like drop-dead romantic heroes... 

Even more extraordinary edifices of ingenuity are constructed to explain away the small difficulties involved in such real facts as that none of Shakespeare's contemporaries ever disputed his authorship of the plays or sonnets, or that there exists many contemporary references to him as a famous dramatist as well as actor. They brush aside Sonnet 136, where he names himself clearly as 'Will'. They ignore his fellow professionals' witness for the supposedly much more interesting testimony—or lack of it—from courtiers. They do not point out that a conspiracy to conceal Shakespeare's authorship would have had to involve so many people over so many years, and for no good purpose, that it simply beggars belief. They do not dwell on the fact that we know more of Shakespeare's life details, in fact, than we do about many other Renaissance writers. Or that their candidates' actual life histories present certain slight obstacles to an interpretation of them as secret Shakespeares: including the fact that some of them, such as Oxford and Marlowe, were actually dead by the time most of Shakespeare's plays were performed! Not to be deterred by such petty considerations, the theorists devise ingenious answers which always tend heavily to the conspiracy mindset. Like Cinderella's stepmother, they are prepared to do anything, even perform the mutilation of their own candidate's story and personality, in order to force the wrong foot into the glass slipper.

There is an interesting parallel here, in the case of the great French playwright/actor Moliere, who lived and worked a generation or so after Shakespeare, and was popular everwhere in Europe. Indeed, he was referred to by English critics of the time, with admirable lack of chauvinism, as the 'Shakespeare of this age.' Moliere was the stage name of Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, who came from a middle-class family of much the same kind as Shakespeare's, and he followed a remarkably similar trajectory: the dramatist and dramaturge for his theatre company, he was also its manager, as well as an actor. Far from being a self-conscious genius full of highflown poses, he had a similar down-to-earth attitude to his gift which has led to his falling retrospectively under the same suspicion as Shakespeare: namely, that he did not write the work 'attributed' to him. In his 1950's book Corneille sous le Masque de Moliere, author Henry Poulaille hisses, with a most familiar kind of contemptuous asperity, 'Il fut un acteur qui passa pour un auteur sous son pseudonyme'. The worst of the worst, my dears—just fancy, an actor passing for an author under a pseudonym! 

Contempt for William Shakespeare, countryman, son of a glover, professional writer and actor, sound businessman and family man preoccupied with such shocking mundanities as coats of arms and daughters' marriage prospects, similarly drips from every sentence that the 'mystery' theorists deign to confer on him. To them, Will is not only a fat bourgeois, he is also a moneylender, a maltser, a drunkard, an illiterate actor, a man from supposedly Woop-Woop-style Stratford with not even the right to his own full name. For many of the theorists surname the real Will not Shakespeare but 'Shaksper', deliberately perpetuating a variant of the name, quite ignoring the fact that the documents which preserve his own signature definitely show 'William Shakespeare'. In this petty way, the theorists of the so-called Shakespeare mystery can keep their distance from the real person. And the tottering edifices they have constructed, matching a plodding 'understanding' of psychology to a philistine 'understanding' of literature and creativity can thus be built. That is the real mystery, it would seem to me: why are people so hellbent on trying to 'prove' Shakespeare was not Shakespeare? 

The answer lies, I think, in several connected phenomema: a wish to appropriate Shakespeare's gloss for one's own hobbyhorse; an ignorance of the Renaissance cultural and social milieux in general; a reaction to an exaggerated worship of Shakespeare; an interpretation of human nature which has more to do with woo-woo pseudo-scientific ideas than commonsense; a tendency to want to pull down all 'authorities'; and an X-files-style, Dallas-nourished love of conspiracy theory, no matter how absurd. But the most important element of all, in my opinion, is a deep ignorance of the creative process and a misunderstanding of the creative imagination, especially an integrated, overarching imagination like Shakespeare's. Part magpie, part mimic, part magician, and greater than the sum of all of these, such an imagination seems to quicken the world, to present a heightened reality which reveals reality in all its mystery and complexity. It is not something acquired, but inherent; a natural gift. But a gift which must be used and cultivated if it is to develop. And that is what Will's contemporary and fellow dramatist Ben Jonson, setting aside his old rivalry, wrote after Shakespeare's death:
Yet must I not give Nature all; thy art,
My Gentle Shakespeare, must enjoy a part..
For a good poet's made, as well as born:
And such wert thou..

But the notion of gift, the fact that it is so real, and yet so unsystemic, makes many people uncomfortable: so, in the nineteenth century, it was 'explained' by some extraneous detail, such as an aristocratic origin; now, that same old notion persists, in tandem with other systemic attempts at explanation, such as feminist interpretations, or political ones, or genetic determinism, or whatever. 

The naivety of people who try to link not only the life details with the work but also the author's appearance, family background and business dealings, seems bizarre—and, to a writer—scary indeed. But it is not restricted to amateurs and cranks. No less a person than Sigmund Freud was convinced that the Earl of Oxford must be Shakespeare, because the son of a glover could certainly not have written such sublime work! 

The people of the Renaissance, by contrast, did not think it at all odd or even worthy of comment that the son of a glover should write such work, any more than they wondered at a bricklayer's son like Jonson or a shoemaker's son like Marlowe or a tailor's son like Webster. In part, it was because they were comfortable with the idea of a natural gift, emanating from God; but also because they did not have the cult of the artistic celebrity. National myth and symbolism, outside of religion, were reserved for those living emblems, the Virgin Queen and her brilliant Court. Elizabeth was the central myth of Elizabethan England, not William Shakespeare. It was not that the people of his day did not recognise Shakespeare's talent; he would not have been able to retire home to Stratford a rich man if they had not. But outside the perenially gossipy and jealous writers' circles, no-one took much notice of the man himself, or even discussed his work. Why would they? There were many other things to talk about, including politics and exploration and new ideas. Raving about plays ran a distant tenth, if at all. Indeed, even in our celebrity-mad days, the papers are not usually full of the doings of artists, not even those new aristocrats, the film stars, and certainly not writers. It is not they who make daily history; only much later is it apparent to future generations that so-and-so defined a period in their writing. And so writers were left alone to do what they have always done best; to absorb their period and their fellow-humans, to watch, listen, and then to transform daily life into something rich and wonderful and illuminating. 

In the eighteenth century, the idea of writer as celebrity began to receive more notice; and by the nineteenth century, it had taken full hold. And Shakespeare was one of this new notion's prime targets. The Bardolatry which today can lead even a respected literary critic like Harold Bloom to embarassing theological effusions, turning Will's creations, if not the man himself, into gods, was born in the 19th century. And with it, was born the opposite reaction: that he could not be all he was cracked up to be. In the 20th century, that reaction has led not only to the 'Shakespeare mystery' theorists thriving and proliferating, but also to those anxious souls who try to fit his mercurial work into some kind of comfy system which will break its power once and for all: hence, especially in the recent past, attempts to dismiss him as a 'dead white male'. 

In our less ideological, uncertain time, however, Shakespeare's work is enjoying an extraordinary renaissance amongst people of all walks of life and all ages. For that has always been the point: people have voted with their feet, and their hearts, over the centuries. They kept the plays alive just by going to them, and reading them, and finding there not a god, not a symbol, but another person, a great artist, who by holding up a mirror to our own nature and his own, makes us see ourselves—and him—more clearly. We may not know for sure what Shakespeare's conscious opinions might have been about the great issues of his day, his friends, his family, or anything of that kind: but we can still feel his living, generous presence very close to us in his work, precisely because he does not focus on the fluff in his own navel. In the end, the proliferation of theories on Shakespeare's authorship can be seen as a kind of backhanded compliment to that generous presence, and the truths reflected in that clear mirror. 


© Copyright Sophie Masson 2000