Friendly fire: Shakespeare's accidental enemies, a review of the Shakespeare authorship controversy

Abstract

AbstractSome might consider Shakespeare authorship heretics (sometimes called “anti‐Stratfordians”) to be enemies of the author Shakespeare. However, as a Shakespeare authorship dissident myself, I will offer a different and possibly counterintuitive perspective on the topic of “Shakespeare's Enemies.” Namely, that it is mainstream Shakespeare scholars who inadvertently undermine our understanding of the author Shakespeare and prevent us from making vital connections between the works and their true author. They are not enemies of the works of Shakespeare, of course, but unintentional “enemies” of our search for the truth about the author of those works. A core unexamined assumption of the traditional theory is that early references to “Shakespeare” were indisputably references to Shakespeare of Stratford, despite recent scholarship that demonstrates his Elizabethan era was a golden age of pen names and other forms of anonymous authorship. Circular thinking and other manifestations of groupthink follow in the wake of this foundational assumption. I will summarize some of the abundant evidence pointing to Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, as the actual author of the Shakespeare canon.