The Mysterious William Shakespeare: The Myth and the Reality

by Charlton Ogburn Jr.

Book Overview

New This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0939009676
• ISBN13: 9780939009671
• Release Date: January 1992
• Publisher: EPM Publications
• Length: 892 Pages
• Weight: 3.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 2.2" x 7.2" x 10.6"

Customer Reviews

An utterly persuasive book

When I first read this book, I was persuaded by it that it was completely and utterly impossible that Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon was the author of the plays. It isn't just the lack of education; that's too simple and mechanical an explanation. Rather, it is the total absence of any "fit," factual or psychological, between Shakespeare of Stratford and the plays. For example, I regard it as impossible that the man who had that sour, costive statement put on his tomb, "cursed be he that moves my bones," was the author of some of the sweetest works that have ever been written. While I am not persuaded that Edward de Vere was the true author, I believe it is highly possible that he was, while I believe it is completely impossible that Shakespeare of Stratford was. Also, the remarkable fact is that apart from one or two contemporary mentions of a Shakespeare and the plays, there is not a single fact in Shakespeare of Stratford's own life connecting him to the plays, while there are intriguing correspondences between de Vere and the plays, especially his own verse, which is remarkably like Shakespeare's. One of the wonders of this book is that Shakespeare starts to come alive as a man and writer, as a man with a deeply tragic life, a man with dark sides. The conventional view is that there is no connection between the man and his works, that he was simply a "natural" genius, that the plays poured out of him, as though he were simply a tabula rasa, a vehicle for something outside himself. It's similar to the way some people think that Mozart's music just "happened," as in the horrendous movie version of "Amadeus." But when you listen to Mozart, you're not hearing some unconscious "universal" vehicle of music, you're hearing a particular man and artist expressing his deeply felt art and his vision of life. It's the same with Shakespeare. He was an artist expressing himself through his works. When Ogburn fills in the details of de Vere's life and character, the plays of Shakespeare suddenly start to make sense as the works of a definite personality. Shakespeare ceases to be a blank universal and becomes someone real.

Best big book on the subject

Ogburn's a fabulous writer. One may read it for his style alone. Large book, many small chapters. Book II is something of the life of the 17th Earl of Oxford, but Book I is my favorite--I love Ogburn's quoting of the Orthodox scholars of Shaxberd (or Shagspere, or Shakesper, or Shakspre, or Shaxper, or Shaxpere, or Shexpere): did you know that the "university of life" is "more exacting" than the education you'd get at Cambridge? No? Important Stratfordian scholars would have you think so. They also say there is little "book learning" in the plays attributed to William Shakespeare. Then Ogburn lists all of the learning and various subjects Oxford was more or less an expert on...or had firsthand experience with (like travel, the law, falconry, botany, science, music, art, classical literature and philosophy, jousting, the military, etc.). The orthodox scholars now think that "Shakespeare" must have seen Italy in order to write about it as one who was there.Indeed.

Not Believing the Impossible

* We begin with the enormous amount of learning displayed in the plays and poems of William Shakeapeare: the arts, history, finance, law, military affairs, government, especially connected with royalty...not just a world--a universe--of knowledge which Pgburn sees no way for William Shakespeare of Stratrord-upon-Avon to have acquired. * William Shakespeare was not enrolled in a univesity--according to univeristy records of the time--and when he might have been privately educated though tutors, he was forced (at 18) to marry a woman eight years his senior--and was the father of three children (including twins) within two years. How could it have been possible, under these conditions, for any person to gain the kind of knowledge which the writer of the plays and poems display? * Or we begin with a man whose ancestor was at the signing of the Magna Carta, whose home Queen Elizabeth visited when he was a boy, who held degrees from both Oxford and Cambridge, and whose Latin teacher was the greatest Latin scholor in England, and who was close enough to the throne to be one of the carriers of the golden cloth above the queen's head in Westminster Abbey at the defeat of the Spanash Armada...Edward deVere, the 17th Earl of Oxford. Though we cannot PROVE that Shakespeare did not write the plays--nor any other negative--it is simply impossible for me to belive that he could possibly have written the plays, from the twin standpoints of his lack of education and experience, exactly the two qualities which were necessary for the plays' and poems' composition, and precisely the two qualities which Edward deVere posssed. * Ogburn's book covers these two aspects of any writer's background necessary for composing the works of Shakeapeare--education and experience--and leaves it to the reader to either agree with him or disagree with him. I wholeheartedly agree. * If Ogburn's treatse has flaws, which tome of the length of his composition does not? But the problem of how William Shakespeare, growing up in a village of approximately 2500 people in the countryside of England in the 17th century could have written the works of Shakespeare is a much larger question. Long live Edward deVere.

A scholarly factual investigation of its subject.

For open minded scholars and lovers of 'Shakespeare' who are also lovers of justice, Ogburn's book is compelling reading. Effectively decimating the possibility that a Stratford merchant who never owned a book and could barely write his own name could have produced the flower of English literature, Ogburn then introduces us to Edward De Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford. The facts of this fascinating man's life would convince any but the most prejudiced reader that De Vere was indeed the author of the majority of "Shakespearian" works. Though there may be minor flaws in Ogburn's work, (as there are in any work of this magnitude, even Shakespeare's) that is no reason to throw out the baby with the bathwater! Let's not lose sight of the fact that a major discovery has been made about the world's most influential author. And with Oxford, a fascinating human being as Shakespeare, the infinitely fascinating plays gain an even deeper emotional impact. Essential reading for anyone who cares about literature.