Shakespeare Oxfordian resource - psychology, biography, Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford
The Chronicle Mirror - Shakespeare's (Edward de Vere's) models for his characters
Geoffrey Hamilton
November 26, 1996
How does Shakespeare build his characters? It turns out by modeling them on people
he knew. The dramatic techniques, of foil, rhetoric, structure, and
action all make more sense once the historical models are discovered and outlined. As
you will see Hotspur is made Hal's foil for contemporary reasons,
Polonius' rhetoric is meant to ridicule a famous personage, and even
plot structures are biographical and mimic contemporary events.
The play Hamlet is often used as an authoritative text to
study the nature of art and of drama in particular. The character
Hamlet has two famous passages touching on drama. The first
states, "The players. . . are the abstracts and brief chronicles
of the time". The other gives
a complementary purpose, ". . . to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to
nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image . . . ."
If the question as to how Shakespeare built his characters
is going to be addressed, I think it is fair to use these two precepts
as his artistic foundation. What the precepts suggest is the
possibility that actual people and events are chronicled and mirrored
within some aspects of the plays. I will show that such was the case.
By using his contemporaries as models he engender a humanity
onto his sources.
To demonstrate the wide recognition precepts similar to
Shakespeare's were held in his own age, there is the famous
circumstance surrounding the rebellion of Essex and Shakespeare's
friend, Southhampton....
continued
all essays
Fry Bloom - Northrop Fry, Harold Bloom don't know Shakespeare.
Geoffrey Hamilton
August 23, 2003
Two of contemporary Shakespeare scholarship's most eminent names are also
two of the most ignorant defenders of Shakespeare orthodoxy. Northrop
Frye and Harold Bloom are required reading when it comes to Shakespeare
studies, yet as they base much of their surmising on the so-called life
of Shakespeare of Stratford upon Avon, they do much to devalue their life's
work. Each of these critics reflects their comments off of this "life" as
though there is no doubt, but they are well aware of the doubts and have
refused to look into the matter. In both cases they have, by their words
and actions, refused to even examine the evidence directly and, so, have
brought discredit onto themselves.
Frye introduces his "On Shakespeare" by stating, "I'm not going into
the so-called controversies about whether the plays were written by
someone else or not-----they're not serious issues." Then he belies his
certainty with off-the-shelf defensiveness saying that Shakespeare, like
most writers of his time, did not impress himself on his age, so that is
why we know so little about him. A few pages later he mentions in
passing how the play Richard II was used to stir up the masses in the
Essex Rebellion and how the Queen is quoted as believing this play to
be a representation of her. Unlike most writers of the time who were
tortured and imprisoned for minor offenses and their books burned, like
Nashe, Jonson, Marlowe and Kyd, this most treasonous play doesn't even
get the honour of an query into the author's name. Whoever the author
was he was ignored while everyone else connected to the play's performance,
from two high ranking earls to lowly beggers, were named and/or killed.
Here could have been proof of Shakspere of Stratford's authorship, but
once again evidence is not forthcoming. Frye is so unaware....
continued
all essays
BOOKS ABOUT EDWARD DE VERE
The Mysterious William Shakespeare,
Charlton Ogburn Jr., 1984
...Compares William Shakspere to Edward de Vere
The Life Story of Edward de Vere as "William Shakespeare", Percy Allen
Every Man Out of His Humour, Ben Jonson, 1590s
...First hand satire on the
Shakespeare pretender.
Story of the Learned Pig,
"Learned Pig"-an officer of the Royal Navy 1786
....Later satire on pretentions
of Shakspere of Stratford
"Shakespeare" Identified as Edward de Vere the 17th Earl of Oxford, J. Thomas
Looney, 1920
...The first book on the subject
This Star of England, Dorthy and Charlton Ogburn
...Long but the best book on the subject
Shake-speare: the Man Behind the Name, Dorthy and Charlton Ogburn Jr.
Alias Shakespeare, Joseph Sobran, 1997
or email
comments
@gamegene.com
Nietzsche in the 1880's, "The Great poet creates only out of his own
reality...I know of no more
heart-rending reading than Shakspeare... but to feel in this way one
must be profound, abyss, philosopher...I am instinctively certain
that lord Bacon is the originator, the self-tormentor
of this uncanniest species of liturature...We do not know nearly
enough about Lord Bacon...." Close, but unfortunately no one was aware of de Vere in Germany at the time.
This was his only option among the lords so he tried it on for size.
