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On the surface, playwright Neil Simon and Edward de Vere (aka: “Edward Oxenford”) might seem to have little in common. Simon was born on the 4th of July 1927 in New York City and passed away in 2018 while Oxenford was born April 12, 1550 at Hedingham Castle, England and died in 1604.

Oxenford was the author of 37 plays whose authorship has long been attributed to William Shakespeare. I could list the details of Oxenford’s life to show how his life parallels the plays of William Shakespeare but others have already done that and “Stratfordians” dismiss it. Instead, they claim that an author with a “great imagination” like Shakespeare does not need to rely upon the experiences of his life to write great plays.

So let us look at the life of Neil Simon.

During his lifetime, Neil Simon wrote about 30 plays and almost as many screenplays. He based nearly ALL his plays on his own life and/or people he personally knew. His credits include:

COME BLOW YOUR HORN (1961), followed by the book of the musical LITTLE ME (1962). Other plays include:

BAREFOOT IN THE PARK (1963)

THE ODD COUPLE (1965)

THE STAR-SPANGLED GIRL (1966)

PLAZA SUITE (1968)

LAST OF THE RED HOT LOVERS (1969)

THE GINGERBREAD LADY (1970)

THE PRISONER OF SECOND AVENUE (1971)

THE SUNSHINE BOYS (1972)

THE GOOD DOCTOR (1973)

GOD’S FAVORITE (1974)

CALIFORNIA SUITE (1976)

CHAPTER TWO (1977)

I OUGHT TO BE IN PICTURES (1980)

FOOLS (1981)

BRIGHTON BEACH MEMOIRS (1983)

BILOXI BLUES (1985)

BROADWAY BOUND (1986)

RUMORS (1988)

LOST IN YONKERS (1991)

JAKE’S WOMEN (1992)

LAUGHTER ON THE 23RD FLOOR (1993)

and LONDON SUITE (1994)

Neil Simon also wrote the books for the musicals SWEET CHARITY; PROMISES, PROMISES; THEY’RE PLAYING OUR SONG, and THE GOODBYE GIRL.

Besides adapting several of his plays for the movies, Simon wrote the screenplays for “The Out-of-Towners”; “The Heartbreak Kid”; “Murder by Death”; “The Cheap Detective”; “Seems Like Old Times”; “Only When I Laugh”; “Max Sugan Returns”; “The Slugger’s Wife”; and “The Marrying Man.”

If you examine the plays of Neil Simon, you will see that he wrote plays involving real people – not from his imagination. Also, his plays are full of wit and humor and heart. Sound familiar?

For those of you who do not know me, I am a guy who has watched Four Weddings and a Funeral six times. Why? Because something bothered me the first time. I wanted to know what Charles, the character played by Hugh Grant, did for a living. Feel free to ask my wife. She could not believe that this little detail bothered me so much.

        Finally, after six times, I convinced myself that Charles probably worked as a magazine writer. That settled, I moved on.

Years later, I visited Roger Ebert’s website where I found a review for the film. Mr. Ebert wrote: Four Weddings and a Funeral,” delightful and sly, is a comedy about people who seem to live out their lives in public, attending weddings. No doubt they have everyday lives as well, but the film doesn’t supply them. Even in the case of the central character, a likable, shy, perennial best man named Charles (Hugh Grant), we’re never told what he does for a living.

Jeez.

Okay, so let’s move on to Shakespeare. What bothers me so much about the Shakespeare authorship question? I have a pebble in my shoe about him and I am not saying that Shakespeare was a Frenchman or a German. No, I am saying that “You have the wrong guy.” I believe the “real” author was proudly British and perhaps embarrassed because he had a mental disorder that was beyond his control. Was he bi-sexual? Possibly. The real author shows symptoms of bipolar disorder that I talk about in my book, Shakey’s Madness.

How do we know for sure the “real” author was not the man from Stratford? Why doubt Shakespeare? That is what this post is about.

 It is NOT just one thing. Rather, it is an accumulation of little things that do not make sense. Let me touch upon three things:

1. The real author HAD to have access to MANY books. The British Library claims that Shakespeare had to have read Ovid’s 15 book classic poem Metamorphosis in both Latin and English. That is a total of 30 books! Where would a “glover’s son” find them? It would cost a fortune to purchase them. There were no public libraries. Plus, more books were needed. Some of the other plays that were written by Shakespeare were based on books that had not been translated yet into English, so he would have needed to read even more books. Plus, he would have had to known Greek, Spanish, Italian and French at a very high level in order to read them. Was Shakespeare known to have a high level of Greek or Latin? No, he had “small Latin and less Greek”.

• Not one of Shakespeare’s letters have ever been found. Not one letter written in Shakespeare’s hand has ever been found. Wouldn’t you keep one of his letters? This seems even more odd considering that he worked in London, a three-day journey by horse, from his home in Stratford-upon-Avon. He worked in London for over 20 years, so not one letter? Wouldn’t he write to his wife and daughters at least once? Wouldn’t his daughters keep those letters?

• Shakespeare was never jailed. Why was Shakespeare NOT put in jail for offending Queen Elizabeth? On Nov. 3, 1579, John Stubbs, a political pamphleteer was found guilty of “seditious writing”. He had created and promoted a pamphlet begging Queen Elizabeth not to marry the Prince of France. Stubbs received a sentence that was swiftly carried out: his right hand was chopped off with a meat cleaver. Stubbs had written that “the immoral union was like an uneven yoking of a clean ox to an unchaste ass, a thing forbidden in law.”

Yet, in Shakespeare’s play, “A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream”, Puck gives Bottom the head of an ass and Bottom cracks some lame jokes: Bottom says, “Good Master Mustardseed, I know your patience well. That same cowardly, giantlike ox-beef hath devoured many a gentleman of your house. I promise you, your kindred hath made my eyes water ere now.” to which Titiana replies: “Come wait upon him. Lead him to my bower. The moon methinks looks with a watery eye, and when she weeps, weeps every little flower lamenting some enforced chastity.”

So if you were an audience member back then, you probably could figure out that Shakespeare was joking about the Queen and the French Prince. The fact that Shakespeare got away with making this kind of joke shows us that the Queen must have cared about him. He was not just a country bumpkin.

We also know that the Queen cared about Edward de Vere because she gave him a pension of $1,000 pounds a year (worth about one million dollars) in todays money. She gave it to him after he had disobeyed her direct orders and angrily left a military post. Why did she do this? She cared about him.

Edward learned Greek at age 4. He had tutors teach him Italian, French, Latin, and Spanish. He attended Queen’s College at age 9. He lived for 16 months in Italy in Venice and visited every single Italian location that is mentioned by Shakespeare in his plays. His poems were published in books before he reached the age of 16, but around the age of 26, he stopped writing poetry completely. Many people believe he did continue to write under the pen name, William Shakespeare.

Shakespeare has been a fixture of British history for so long, he is imbued in the blood of British people. Most people love the rags-to-riches story of the man from Stratford and how a country bumpkin beat the royals. It’s a story of inclusion and therefore, when someone like me says, “You are honoring the wrong person,” some people become upset. They will say I am being a snob, or a “flat earth denier” or whatever.

But did you know that when I first wrote a book about selling real estate, I used to get similar hateful emails? Why? My suggestion was to have buyers preapproved for financing first, then show neighborhoods, then find the perfect home. It was called Selling Homes 1-2-3. And in about ten years, the way real estate agents worked with buyers completely changed.  Will our beliefs about the real author of Shakespeare also change? It remains to be seen!

Above is the famous Droeshout portrait of Shakespeare. I got to thinking about this and came up with this idea: Ever think about what might be missing from the famous portrait? Answer: Shakespeare’s coat of arms. Would not his famous coat of arms not safely secure his name forever as the ‘real’ author?

Why is his coat of arms missing? After all, he had paid a pretty penny for them and even fought bitterly over them. They could have been put in a tiny square behind to the right or left.

Also, we DO know that the man from Stratford was a commoner. That fact has been drilled into our heads since we were children. But did you know that a commoner could not wear “royal” clothes and colors? It’s true. In fact, a commoner could not wear the color purple without being arrested and thrown in jail.

In this case, William Shakespeare a commoner, is wearing a “doublet”. Here is a website that explains it: http://www.sixwives.info/doublet.htm.

A doublet was a tight-fitting buttoned jacket. In the Droeshout portrait, it appears that Shakespeare is wearing it backwards. So, here we see a commoner wearing a royal’s clothes on backward, right? Could not he or his family be arrested for this portrait? Yes. Shakespeare might have been dead, but not his wife or daughters – and they were never put in jail.

But interestingly, the son of Edward de Vere, Henry de Vere, WAS jailed in the tower of London. When he was freed, he was sent to fight at the front lines in the Netherlands where he died one week after his release from captivity.

 “What is the difference between a violin and a fiddle?” Answer: “A violin has never had a beer in it.”

The two musical instruments may look alike, but people normally associate folks belonging to a higher class of society with a violin than a fiddle. Likewise, when people debate the authorship issue of William Shakespeare vs Edward de Vere they will often associate the man from Stratford to be “the fiddle” and Edward de Vere to be the violin. After all, Shakespeare hailed from the country and got his education at a grammar school while Oxford grew up at the royal court of Queen Elizabeth. He gained his education from expensive private tutors. Hopefully, my book, Shakey’s Madness will show you that this view is completely mistaken and the roles should actually be reversed. Oxford saw himself as a fiddle while Shakespeare viewed himself as the violin.

William’s father, John Shakespeare had been brought before the magistrates in London so many times that by age 30 most likely William was keenly aware the townspeople of Stratford-upon-Avon were talking behind his back. Not in a good way either. By now, most had linked the name Shakespeare to crooked and illegal wool dealings. Therefore, William wanted to clear his family name in the worst way. He bought a coat of arms. Then he purchased expensive real estate. He paid £320 for 107 acres, a considerable sum for vacant land at a time when a single house cost around £50, and then he did not even show up for the closing. He acted like it was all beneath him. He also snagged “Newhouse” one of the largest homes in the county. William saw himself as a violin and wanted everyone to admire him.

But Edward de Vere? I am going to try to avoid using the word “suffer” because people often will say this or that person “suffered” from mental illness but that is not true. The person did not suffer. He or she was born with mental illness and had to endure it throughout his/her life. Back in the Elizabethan age, not much was known about mental illness. During medieval times people believed madness had to do with someone possessed by the devil so those unhappy individuals who were considered mad were usually beaten with a whip and put in a dark room or locked away. We hear of these treatments in the Shakespeare canon, but why? William of Stratford was not mad. But why else would a nine-year-old Edward de Vere break all the windows of his college dorm? Someone must have left the child in a dark room, right?

 Come with me for a minute. Imagine if you were born in the year 1550 and you had to endure mental illness. There was no Google search engine. What would you do if you were educated by tutors?

Madness explains why the “real” author read so much – just like Edward de Vere who read every classical book he could get his hands on. It didn’t matter if the book was written in Greek, Latin, French, Spanish or English, Edward tried his best to get a handle on what was wrong with him. Why did other people think he was off? Why did he faint so much? Why did he needlessly spend so much money? He could never figure it out. He was like a dog trying to chase it’s tail.

Medical specialists tell us that bipolar disorder can cause self-esteem issues. This is why Oxford could feel like a violin on some days (while on a manic high) and lower than a fiddle when he became depressed.

Here is a question: was a woman or a Black person or a Jew considered to be the lowest of lows in Elizabethan England? It did not matter because Edward could identify and empathize with each and all of them. He wrote Othello and The Merchant of Venice to help describe his feelings. Madness or what today we would call bipolar disorder made him believe he was below worthless. His depression is why the plays are full of melancholy and the sonnets are filled with depression and despair.

Instead of seriously looking at medical issues as a reasonable explanation, most Shakespeare scholars will ignore them. They have spent too much time, money and energy on social justice issues and decolonization or collaboration. To admit they put their money on the wrong horse is something they would rather not consider – not realizing that additional books, videos and courses will be needed. Not to mention actually having something that could be used to avoid cutting the arts from college programs. A study of de Vere and Bipolar Disorder benefits students because the symptoms of de Vere’s affliction do not manifest until mid-teens to early adulthood- just when students are beginning to dig their teeth into a serious study of Shakespeare’s plays.

Xenophobia means “distrusting people from other countries” but interestingly, bipolar disorder is a mood disorder. The symptoms have never changed either. So someone who endures the disorder in 2021 will behave like someone who endured it in 1580. Fortunately, the treatment and medication for the disorder have greatly changed.

But let us return to Shakespeare’s birthright. Why is it that most of us feel we are entitled to learn about him and/or his works? Perhaps it is because of one of the symptoms of the very illness that I am speaking about because bipolar disorder causes self-doubt in the person who has the affliction. He or she has a problem trusting themselves, as well as others. Distrust of one’s own self. Underline it. Don’t we all feel this at some time in our life?

At the heart of any Shakespeare play are lifelike characters who will share feelings that we all can relate to: like what makes a good friend? Bassanio in the Merchant of Venice shows us. He would give up his family to spare his friend Antonio’s life. We also get to see how characters with self-doubt handle their insecurity issues. Living in a world full of uncertainty, Othello doubts. Hamlet has to ponder the ghost’s words. But Cordelia? No, she stands up to her father, and Portia in the Merchant of Venice disguises herself as a judge and displays her wisdom. Lady Macbeth taunts and mocks her husband’s lack of courage.

If you read about bipolar disorder, you will discover that besides feeling despair and depression many bipolar people are also paranoid. They would rather give their works away completely than be discovered as an author. Sylvia Plath, for example, used a pseudonym because she did not think her work was good enough to be published. But the opposite of paranoia is pronoia where one feels that the entire world around them conspires to do them good. Are these polar opposites found in the plays of Shakespeare? Yes. Just ask the King in Love’s Labour’s Lost or Duke Orsini in Twelfth Night.

People today will insist that life was unbearable for Moors (Black people), Jews and women in Elizabethan society without ever considering the people who perhaps silently suffered the most. These were the folks who endured mental disease. They were not only marginalized and neglected but institutionalized or beaten when and if they dared to complain.

Yes, it can be said Shakespeare has been used to differentiate and subjugate people. But it is time to replace the old standard of William Shakespeare from Stratford-upon-Avon as being a boy genius who made it big on the London stage. Why? Because it is not true. The poems, plays and sonnets were all written by a mentally ill man from London who was the seventeenth earl of Oxford.

Doing so, researchers may come to realize that Edward de Vere did his best to talk about discrimination during his lifetime. He actually lived in Italy and most likely came into contact with the Jews and Moors who were living there. He could probably identify with them because he might have been treated badly because of his mental illness. And though Oxford was considered “odd”, eccentric and different, his behaviour may have been ahead of his time. It also may have helped him emphathize with and understand the marginalized in society who weresometimes the “stars” of his plays.

Unfortunately, most scholars will read this essay and pretend to play the worlds smallest violin. Most will keep Edward de Vere as “second fiddle”. But maybe those of us who have experienced friends or relatives enduring bipolar disorder will pass the message along. Because the reason most people find affinity for Shakespeare is that he “seems like one of us”.  Someone who understood what it feels like to be “seen but not heard.” For this reason, I suggest the name “Shakes-Vere” an equal study of both men.

After all, a violin has four strings and a fiddle four “strangs”.

Lately there has been a lot of ink spilled about Sir Thomas North. In fact, a new book out, North by Shakespeare by Michael Blanding claims that William Shakespeare wrote every single word, but he plagiarized giant sections from the works of Sir Thomas North. If so, how does this relate to Edward de Vere’s authorship?

Please note, the co-author of North by Shakespeare is Dennis McCarthy who I met on Twitter. Dennis apparently researched North for over 15 years and then teamed up with author Michael Blanding to write the book. Actually, both guys are on Twitter, and here is the link to the book they posted on Twitter: sirthomasnorth book link.

On Twitter, Mr. McCarthy stated that some of the phrases about how the pope was coronated matched North’s journal, and if one were to do a Google search for these two phrases they would only lead to Sir Thomas North. Here are the phrases as I best recall them:

“miter,

and “two officers next them with silver rods in their hands, then the cardinals having a cross borne before them”

Did these phrases lead me to Sir Thomas North’s travel journal? Not exactly. The Google search engine took me to this book: Miscellaneous State Papers from 1501-1726. It is a free book on Google and you can read it at this link. This book was first published in 1789 and apparently, North’s travel journal can be found in this book (pgs 62 -98 of the books pages.) However, although North may have penned the words, he is NOT named as the author. (No author’s name is given.) Apparently, during the reign of Mary Tudor (“Bloody Mary”) a trip to Rome for two British Ambassadors had been arranged by the state department which North was a part of, and he recorded the trip in his travel journal(s).

Who would have made the arrangements for this trip? Possibly Sir Thomas Smith or even John de Vere, the 16th earl of Oxford and father of Edward de Vere. Both seemed to be working together with William Cecil at this time.

Sir Thomas Smith who was succeeded in his position by Sir Francis Walsingham had worked in the royal court as did John de Vere. The 16th earl of Oxford was a staunch Protestant and Bloody Mary was Catholic, so John de Vere had insisted that his son Edward be raised in the household of the great Cambridge scholar, Sir Thomas Smith.

I mention this because doesn’t the title Miscellaneous State Papers remind you of papers that might have been considered “classified” during their time? These papers might not have been “Top Secret” but the King or Queen at the time did not want the general public to be privy to the information. In North’s case, he traveled to Italy with the two English Ambassadors to witness the coronation of the new pope. Queen “Bloody” Mary was Catholic, so it made sense to keep it on the down-low as not everyone in England was Catholic. Would North’s journal not be sent to the King or Queen to read them? Perhaps. Or perhaps to someone like William Cecil who would be tasked to read it and give a report on it?

The point I am trying to make is that it seems logical that the papers would have most likely been sent to Cecil House and Edward de Vere who lived at Cecil House would most likely be keenly interested in reading them. Also, the papers date from 1501 and in 1508, Oxford’s relative Aubrey de Vere served under King Henry at that time. They would be useful for setting the stage for a history play like Henry VI.

We recall that in King Henry VI, act 3 scene 3 who should appear? A character named “Oxford” who serves the king.

Yet, Dennis North and Michael Blanding are Stratfordians who claim that “Shakespeare wrote every word” of his plays and they claim the man from Stratford simply lifted passages word-for-word from North’s journals and plays. It would be as easy as taking candy from a baby. But if you think about it, how could an outsider be able to do this? They make it seem like any commoner from Stratford-upon-Avon could easily do this and no one would say anything. So, let me ask this obvious question: who in their right mind would risk their neck granting Stratford special access to view these “classified” documents?

Back in those days, the torture tool, “the rack” was still commonly used. Introduced into the Tower of London about 1420 by the duke of Exeter, the torture rack was known colloquially as “The Duke of Exeter’s Daughter” and was operated by a hooded yeoman to extract confessions and incriminating information from suspected traitors, heretics, and conspirators. Once a person was put on the device their limbs were literally pulled apart and they would die a horrible death.

Doing a quick Google search of my own, I discovered there had always been a suspicion that North himself did not translate the first thing he’s been credited with, the Dial of Princes. Also, his first translation of Plutarch’s Lives was also less than stellar because he had added Spanish letters to it’s ending. In other words, he claimed he had translated from the French version, it was actually a combination of French and Spanish. Here is the excerpt taken from the DNB bio:

As a bid for patronage, however, The Diall—for all that its title-page emphasized North
as ‘second sonne’ to Mary’s counsellor Lord North—was ill-, or at least unfortunately,
timed. It seems likely, moreover, from comments made by North in the second, revised
edition, The Diall (1568), that the first edition was not altogether well received for more
literary reasons: ‘detracting tongues’, he wrote, had given out that the translation ‘was no
woork of myne, but the fruit of others labor’ (sig. R1v). An existing translation, from an
abridged French translation of Guevara by Jean Bouchier, Lord Berners, had been
published in 1535 (it reached its ninth edition in 1557), but North does not seem indebted
to it. How long North remained as a student is not known, though in 1568 he recalled
with apparent fondness ‘the woorshipfull, and my beeloved compaignyons, and fellow
students of our house of Lyncolnes Inne’ (ibid.).
North’s father died on 31 December 1564; the will (20 March 1563) bequeathed him ‘the
patronage and Advowsons of the Churche Personage and Vicaredge’ of Melton, Suffolk
(TNA: PRO, PROB 11/48, fol. 54v). Whatever the disappointments of the reception
afforded his first translation, in the years following his father’s death North worked to
expand its fourth book (entered to Thomas Marsh in the Stationers’ register between July
1566 and July 1567), and to defend himself in the second edition, printed by Richard
Tottell and Marsh in 1568 (Marsh and Tottell registered ‘the hole boke of the Dyall of
prynces’ at some point between July 1567 and 1568). In the same year North was
presented with the freedom of the city of Cambridge.
North had signed his defensive ‘Epistle to the Reader’ in 1568 ‘From my lord Norths
house nere London’ (sig. R1v).

North’s translation of Plutarch’s Greek book, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romanes, is taken from the third edition of Bishop Jacques Amyot’s French translation. And North, living in London close to Cecil House, in 1668, claimed to give credit for his own revised version to his “worshipful companions.” (Was Edward de Vere one of them? He would have been 18 yrs old in 1668.)

Again, North himself admits he got help. His actual words: ‘the woorshipfull, and my beeloved compaignyons, and fellow students of our house of Lyncolnes Inne’.

The “To the Reader” introduction to Plutarch’s Lives, sounds like Edward de Vere wrote it, (not Thomas North) because in this paragraph, we find the word “love” in it. Edward de Vere was fond of using the words “loving”, “beloved” and “love”. North did not. Yet in this introduction to Plutarch’s Lifes we find the word “love”not once – but two times!

To the Reader

The profit of stories and the praise of the Author are sufficiently declared by Amyot in his epistle to the reader, so that I shall not need to make many words thereof.  And indeed, if you will supply the defects of this translation with your own diligence and good understanding, you shall not need to trust him; you may prove yourselves, that there is no profane study better than Plutarch.  All other learning is private, fitter for universities than cities, fuller of contemplation than experience, more commendable in students themselves than profitable unto others.  Whereas stories are fit for every place, reach to all persons, serve for all times, teach the living, revive the dead, so far excelling all other books as it is better to see learning in noblemen’s lives than to read it in philosopher’s writings.  Now, for the author, I will not deny but love may deceive me, for I must needs love him with whom I have taken so much pain, but I believe I might be bold to affirm that he hath written the profitablest story of all authors.  For all other were fain to take their matter as the fortune of the countries where they wrote fell out; but this man, being excellent in wit, in learning, and experience, hath chosen the special acts of the best persons, of the famousest nations of the world.  But I will leave the judgement to yourselves.  My only purpose is to desire you to excuse the faults of my translation with your own gentleness, and with the opinion of my diligence and good intent.  And so I wish you all the profit of the book.  Fare ye well.  The four and twentieth day of January, 1579. Thomas North

Here is a link that shows Edward de Vere using “loving”, “beloved” and “love” in his letters. Not one time. Not twice. But 27 times.

No other writer of this time period does this.

Here is an interesting article that explains it.

Also, another question for you: did Sir Thomas North write these lines below?

“And herein I am forced like a good and politic captain oftentimes to spoil and burn the corn of his own country, lest his enemies thereof do take advantage.”

Did Sir Thomas North write them? No, they are de Vere’s words. They are found in his Introduction to Cardanus Comforte, the book Hamlet allegedly was reading.

If you get a chance to read Shakey’s Madness, my theory would be that Edward de Vere at age 18, DID help North translate and rewrite Plutarch’s Lives written by Sir Thomas North.

If De Vere gave it away without taking any credit for himself, it makes sense why the words and phrases from North’s version of Plutarch’s Lives match words, lines, and verses found in Shakespeare so well: why? Because Edward de Vere wrote all of them! This sounds crazy, doesn’t it?

Why would de Vere do such a thing? But more importantly, why would he give away his book of Sonnets and Venus & Adonis not to mention such masterpieces as Macbeth, King Lear, and Hamlet?

Find out in Shakey’s Madness!

Those who oppose Edward de Vere’s authorship of the Shakespeare canon will sometimes gleefully point to the year 1604 and say something like, “Edward de Vere cannot be the true author of Shakespeare because he died in 1604 and several of his plays were written after 1604.” Or “Edward de Vere died in 1604 and dead men cannot write, therefore he is NOT the author.” Or, how about this one, courtesy of Twitter: “RIP Edward de Vere. You would have loved the plays Shakespeare wrote after your death.”

ME: ,<face palm> “So, Edward de Vere’s plays could NOT have been written prior to 1604, and then published posthumously?” DeVere critics put their fingers in their ears and go “Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, I can’t hear you!”

Therefore, if you are like them, or cannot believe that Edward de Vere could be the “real” author because of his death in 1604, I suggest that you examine the life of Sylvia Plath.

Why Sylvia Plath? She died in 1963, and yet she won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1982. Yup. Google it.

Interestingly, like the “real” author of the Shakespeare canon, Sylvia Plath also suffered from bipolar disorder. And that is how we know who the “real” author is, because symptoms of bipolar disorder show up in the Sonnets, poems and plays. I lay out the evidence in Shakey’s Madness, and you are free to look at Sonnet 116. I had to write a paper on that sonnet in college and I rewrote some of the lines. Rewrite Shakespeare? Who dares to rewrite Shakespeare?

Of course, I was scared sh*tless when I did it.

Why is that sonnet so important?

My own synopsis of Sylvia Plath’s life is below.

Sylvia Plath was born in 1932. Her mother and father were both well-educated. DAD was a professor at Boston University and was considered an expert on bees. Sylvia grew up in Winthrop, Massachusetts and it is a seaside town, similar to the fictional one spoken about in her poems. Sylvia’s father died in 1940 when she was eight. Her mother had to work to pay the bills but Sylvia was a high-achiever and did well in school.

By the age of 17, Sylvia had written several short stories and poems. She accepted an offer to attend Smith College, however, privately, Sylvia worried about her conflicting desire to become a mother and also have a writing career.

Sylvia won an essay contest and left home to live in New York where she became a guest editor for Mademoiselle Magazine, however, she left the magazine to help take care of her mother.

Often feeling depressed, Sylvia experimented with psychiatry and ended up undergoing electroshock therapy.

In her journal, Sylvia describes this time in her life as: “a time of darkness, despair, and disillusion so black only as the inferno of the human mind can be.”  

Plath returned to Smith College and graduated in 1955. She later earned a masters degree from Cambridge University England due to a Fulbright scholarship. There at Cambridge in the UK, she met the poet Ted Hughes who would one day become the poet laureate of England. They married in 1956, but the following year, Plath returned to teaching at Smith College. She quit teaching to focus more on her writing but became more despairing because of rejections from publications. She moved back to London and had another child in 1959. and got her first book of poetry published. Titled, Colossus and Other Poems, it was acclaimed by critics for it’s style and language.

In 1962, Plath was working on The Bell Jar along with another book of poems. She wrote in her journal that she had decided to abandon her earlier method, and wrote “at top speed, as one might write an urgent letter.”

Her poems centered around themes of despair and disillusionment, and that same year, 1962, she separated from her husband. The Bell Jar was accepted for publication in London under the name Victoria Lucas. The next month later, Plath committed suicide.

The Ariel collection was published posthumously in 1965 as was Uncollected Poems (1965). Plath’s additional books were also published after her death, Crossing the Water (1965) and Winter Trees (1972).

Her poetry influenced the direction of poetry for the next twenty years. Plath’s Her Collected Poems won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1982.

The Bell Jar was published in the United States in 1970. Her mother wrote to the publishers begging them not to publish the book. (Plath had written to her brother telling him the book must NEVER be published in the United States. She said she had written it under a pseudonym (Victoria Lucas) because she doubted the Bell Jar had any literary merit.”

So, if you are someone who has a problem with a playwright who died in 1604, and yet consider it “inconceivable” that his plays could have been written anytime after 1604, consider this headscratcher: how did a children’s book written by Sylvia Plath, who died in 1962, get published in 1996? Yes, the book The It-Doesn’t-Matter Suit, was published 34 years after Plath’s death!

What is confirmation bias? Confirmation bias is our tendency to cherry-pick information that confirms our existing beliefs or ideas. Confirmation bias explains why two people with opposing views on a topic can see the same evidence and come away feeling validated by it. This cognitive bias is most pronounced in the case of ingrained, ideological, or emotionally charged views.

For example: You might believe that William Shakespeare from Stratford-upon-Avon is the “real” author, and that I am exhibiting “confirmation bias” by offering a different opinion – that Edward de Vere is the true author. Who is right and who is wrong? Where does confirmation bias come into effect?

Failing to interpret information in an unbiased way can lead to serious misjudgments. By understanding this, we can learn to identify it in ourselves and others. We can be cautious of data that seems to immediately support our views.

When we feel as if others “cannot see sense,” a grasp of how confirmation bias works can enable us to understand why. Willard V. Quine and J.S. Ullian described this bias in The Web of Belief as such:

The desire to be right and the desire to have been right are two desires, and the sooner we separate them the better off we are. Which am I? I follow the “desire to be right” path. I just want to know the unvarnished truth.

The desire to be right is the thirst for truth. On all counts, both practical and theoretical, there is nothing but good to be said for it. It is how science progresses.

The desire to have been right, on the other hand, is not the right road to follow. It is the pride that goeth before the fall. It stands in the way of our seeing we were wrong, and thus blocks the progress of our knowledge. So, those who believe that Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon often fall into the very trap they accuse others of.

Experimentation beginning in the 1960s revealed our tendency to confirm existing beliefs, rather than questioning them or seeking new ones. Other research has revealed our single-minded need to enforce ideas.

“What the human being is best at doing is interpreting all new information so that their prior conclusions remain intact.”

— Warren Buffett

Someone recently asked me, who was a better writer, Marlowe or Shakespeare?

To me, Shakespeare was a better writer. Why? Not only did he speak of the human condition but he would dive into the psychological aspects of a character. He deftly moved beyond the stereotyping of characters which is a problem with Marlowe.

If you compare The Jew of Malta written in 1594 by CM to The Merchant of Venice by WS, you will see that in both plays, there is a Jewish man with a beautiful daughter. But in TJOM, the Marlowe view of Jews is antisemitic and racist. Jews are seen as gold-loving money-grubbers to be loathed and hated. In the case of Barabas, (the Jewish star of TJOM) he is a nun-poisoning and priest-killing villain. Back in 1594, Jews were excluded from living in England so isn’t Marlowe giving us a good reason why all Jews should be excluded from England?

But in the MoV, we hear Shylock’s anguished speech in which he asks to be seen as a human, not merely pigeonholed as a Jew. He says,“If you prick us, do we not bleed?”

We, the audience sympathize with him — even though later, Shakespeare panders to the tastes of his audience when Shylock demands his pound of flesh from Antonio.

My belief is that Edward de Vere, the 17th earl of Oxford wrote the plays of William Shakespeare. Oxford was 14 years older than Marlowe and they were both highly-educated men. Both were atheists. At one time, Marlowe worked for Oxford and lived at Fisher’s Folly, a house owned by Oxford so Marlowe may have even been mentored by Oxford. They most likely collaborated on some plays until Marlowe went his own way, and in fact, I believe the plays of Shakespeare should be rearranged as “pre-Spanish Armada”, “the Spanish Armada History plays” and “post-Spanish Armada.”

One of the biggest differences between the two, however, is that Oxford suffered from bipolar disorder and Marlowe did not. Oxford was also bisexual while Marlowe was a homosexual and not attracted to women. We know, according to the sonnets, Oxford was in love with a “dark” woman.

Finally, Edward de Vere may have written The Merchant of Venice in 1596, two years after The Jew of Malta, as a response to Marlowe’s open antisemitism.

Here the Jewish star, Shylock is portrayed as a human being and not a Jewish cartoon character. This was Oxford’s great gift – allowing a person who might in life be seen as a cast-off or undesirable to dive into our hearts and be memorable in a kind of social justice way.

By Robert Boog