Page 90 - All About History - Issue 11-14

Shakespeare: Rebel with a cause?
Shakespeare: Rebel with a cause?

“ Their plan was to blow the building sky SHAKESPEAREAN

high, taking parliamentarians and King THEORIES
James I with it” He didn’t really write the works

The authorship of Shakespeare’s work has been
the subject of debate for decades. With no original
Catholics felt James I was guilty of. “My own theory
manuscripts, no mention of him even being a writer
is that Shakespeare, though not an outright rebel, in his will and a command of Latin, Greek and
used his increasingly privileged position to address other languages that would belie his apparent poor
the court and the crown, both Elizabeth, and James, education, many believe that Edward de Vere, the
on the issue of religious toleration”, Asquith asserts. 17th Earl of Oxford was the writer rather than the
“He protested against the persecution and injustice small-town boy from Stratford. And if not him, then
one of 80 other historical figures that have been
perpetrated in the name of the monarch, and mentioned over the years, such as Marlowe.
pleaded for religious toleration.”
Such an assessment revises the prevailing He didn’t even exist
thinking that Shakespeare wrote universal plays and Some scholars believe that the Shakespeare revered
avoided any topicality. Some literary scholars remain today as a playwright was actually a fictional
hostile to the idea that the playwright was involved character. They believe that the few documents
relating to him were actually for a man called William
in the volatile religious issues of the day, but could he Shaxper or Shakspere who was born in 1564,
really have ignored what was going on around him?
married and had children but became an actor and
It’s plausible that he wanted to do more than merely remained in such a role until his retirement. Certainly,
shake the literary world; he wanted to influence Shakespeare’s death appears to have been unmarked.
politics and religion, to affect his society. Had Shakespeare been such a prominent playwright,
When he sat at his desk, overlooking the squalid, there would surely have been many documents
filthy conditions of London, William Shakespeare mourning his passing, critics say.
may have been looking out at a more enlightened He was an Italian
nation than ever before, but is was still a city and a Those who argue Shakespeare was not quite who he
country where the screams of religious and political claims he was are called anti-Stratfordians. One of
prisoners filled the corridors of cramped jail cells as their theories is that Shakespeare – or Michaelangelo
torturers extracted forced confessions. This sobering Florio Crollalanza – had moved from Sicily to London,
reality was a stark reminder of the perils of religious fearing the Holy Inquisition. The family name of
Crollalanza was translated and became Shakespeare.
divisions that continued throughout Shakespeare’s Sicilian professor Martini Iuvara claims to have proof
life. Was it a society that he rebelled against in his and mentions the Sicilian play Tanto Traffico Per
own way? The final and definitive answer to that, Niente written by Crollalanza. It can, he claims, be
The Gunpowder Plot was a politically and religiously like some of the great man’s work, is unfortunately translated into Much Ado About Nothing.
charged conspiracy to blow up the Houses of Parliament
lost to the ages.

© Getty; Thinkstock; Alamy; Corbis; Mary Evans

Lord Chamberlain’s Men, Shakespeare’s famous
troupe, performed for Queen Elizabeth I

90 O slanderous world! Kate like the hazel-twig Is straight and slender and as
O slanderous world! Kate like the hazel-twig Is straight and slender and as
O slanderous world! Kate like the hazel-twig Is straight and slender and as
O slanderous world! Kate like the hazel-twig Is straight and slender and as
O slanderous world! Kate like the hazel-twig Is straight and slender and as
O slanderous world! Kate like the hazel-twig Is straight and slender and as
O slanderous world! Kate like the hazel-twig Is straight and slender and as
O slanderous world! Kate like the hazel-twig Is straight and slender and as
O slanderous world! Kate like the hazel-twig Is straight and slender and as
O slanderous world! Kate like the hazel-twig Is straight and slender and as
O slanderous world! Kate like the hazel-twig Is straight and slender and as
O slanderous world! Kate like the hazel-twig Is straight and slender and as
O slanderous world! Kate like the hazel-twig Is straight and slender and as
O slanderous world! Kate like the hazel-twig Is straight and slender and as
O slanderous world! Kate like the hazel-twig Is straight and slender and as
O slanderous world! Kate like the hazel-twig Is straight and slender and as
O slanderous world! Kate like the hazel-twig Is straight and slender and as
O slanderous world! Kate like the hazel-twig Is straight and slender and as