Sample Speech (with Analysis): Who Was Shakespeare? by Hillary Carter-Liggett

Have you ever experienced writer’s block? Maybe even as you were preparing your speech, you prayed for a muse. Such was the premise of the Academy Award–winning Best Picture—Shakespeare in Love, a movie Americans spent over 100 million dollars to see, but also one that rekindled the flame of controversy over the question, Who actually wrote Shakespeare’s works? Was it the man called Shakespeare? Or someone else? Why should we care? “Shakespeare” is one of the most respected authors in the world. His honeyed words wove a web that continues to move us to laughter and tears today, hundreds of years after his death. As a result, Shakespeare’s works are integral to education at almost every level. So for all who have enjoyed his works, we like to see what is being argued by the scholars. So, today we’ll look first at the traditional, or what has been called the Stratfordian, school of thought, second at the challenger, which has been called the Oxfordian school of thought, and, third, at comparisons of education, life experience, and parallels between lives and the ­literature.

The Stratfordian’s claim is that it is possible that a man of humble origins came into the world a pauper and left it a literary prince. What do we know about Shakespeare’s background? Joseph Sabran, author of Alias Shakespeare, observes that a handful of wedding and birth announcements are the only written records we have of the first half of Shakespeare’s life.
William Shakespeare—A Timeline

1554 Born

1582 Marries Ann Hathaway

1587 Moves to London

1594. 
      Actor—Chamberlain’s Men; Writes plays
      

Although we have little specific documentation of any aspect of his early life, according to Gail Kern Paster, editor of The Shakespeare Quarterly, all that his defenders “need to prove is that such a man from Stratford could have written the plays, not that he did so.” And in fact Stratfordians are able to present some evidence, since his name was on the plays when they were published. Additionally, contemporary playwright Ben Johnson knew and worked with Shakespeare and never mentioned him not being the real author of the plays.

So, now let’s consider the Oxfordian school of thought. The Oxfordians argue that Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford, is the rightful author of the works we ascribe to Shakespeare. Why de Vere? Roger Smitmatter in his article in the 1999 Chronicle of Higher Education looks to the de Vere Bible for proof. Smitmatter discovered that in the Geneva Bible that de Vere purchased in 1570, a remarkable 43% of Biblical references in Shakespeare’s writings are specifically annotated or underlined.

Second, the sonnets also testify to de Vere as their author. Why? As Sabran explains, the subject of most of the sonnets is the young Earl of Southampton, Henry Wriothsley—a man that de Vere was known to have had a homosexual affair with.

Third, in Oxford at the time it was considered undignified to submit one’s writing to the public, and it would have been especially scandalous for a nobleman such as de Vere. Moreover, the book The Art of English Poesi, published in 1589, lists de Vere as a nobleman who was known to have secretly written plays.

Now let’s review the evidence of the two on the basis of their education, life experiences, and parallels between life and literature.

First, education. Shakespeare is believed to have had the equivalent of a high school education from the Stratford Free School, but we have no more specific information to show any depth of education. De Vere, on the other hand, entered Cambridge at the age of nine, where he earned a bachelor’s degree and then went on to earn a master’s degree from Oxford, followed by his study of the law (a common theme in Shakespearean plays) at Gray’s Inn.

Second, life experiences. Shakespeare lived most of his life in Stratford and London, and there is no record of his having traveled abroad. However, he was an actor, very familiar with the theater. De Vere spent a great deal of time abroad, particularly in Italy and France, the setting for many of the plays.

Third, the parallels between life and literature. Shakespeare had a son named Hamlet. De Vere, like Hamlet, was captured by pirates. His father-in-law was Lord Burghley—the man his contemporaries believed was the basis for the character Polonius, and his mother, like Hamlet’s mother, remarried, shortly after her husband’s death, a man of much lower social standing. The play Merchant of Venice focuses on money lending, and we know that Shakespeare was often in debt. Shylock lent the sum of 3,000 ducats to Antonio for an excursion made by three merchant ships, but the ships are lost at sea. De Vere provided 3,000 pounds for an excursion of three merchant ships looking for gold ore. The ships came back empty and declared bankruptcy. Ironically, the ships were owned by a man named Lock, while the prefix “shy” means disreputable or shady, and experts can find no precedent for the name “Shylock” anywhere else in history.