Oberon Shakespeare Study Group

by Linda Theil Look no further than best-selling author Jodi Picault's brand new novel for evidence that the Shakespeare author ship is leaking like a sieve. Picault credited Elizabeth Winkler's 2019 Atlantic article "Was Shakespeare a Woman?" about Emilia Bassano as inspiration for By Any Other Name , a novel released today by Ballentine Books featuring Bassano as a pen behind the Shakespeare pseudonym. In that same interview on Jacke Wilson's History of Literature podcast, Picault told Wilson that she believes Edward deVere, seventeenth earl of Oxford, played a role in the Shakespeare authorship.  "I believe the earl of Oxford was the puppet master behind the works of William Shakespeare," Picault said. The History of Literature podcast episode is titled  "Meet the woman who REALLY wrote Shakespeare's plays with Jodi Picoult" , broadcast today. For centuries pressure has been building on the bulwark of Stratfordian-based authorship cre...

Michael Dudley author of The Shakespeare Authorship Question and Philosphy: Knowledge, Rhetoric, Identity (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2023) Michael Dudley views his vocation of librarian at the University of Manitoba with dialectic rigor. "Librarianship has a duty to inform democracy," he said in Kathryn Sharpe's virtual bookclub on April 27, 2024. Dudley discussed his new book The Shakespeare Authorship Question and Philosophy: Knowledge, Rhetoric, Identity published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing last fall. Update 08/21/24 Dudley's book is also available as an ebook from   Google Play . In SAQ and Philosophy Dudley uses the hammer of logic to nail his accusations against the barricaded door of the Shakespeare citadel. "The question of Shakespeare's authorship is a malformed debate practiced in an unethical fashion," Dudley said. When asked why his book is important, Dudley said: "What sets my book apart from others on the authorship quest...

by Linda Theil "If you marry a wife, and if you beget children like your-self, you will be doing better service to your country than if you could cut the throats of a thousand Spaniards or Frenchmen." * So said French protestant teacher and diplomat Hubert Languet to young Philip Sydney during their decade-long correspondence beginning in 1573. Languet's Sydney correspondence was published in the original Latin in 1633, and was translated into English along with some of Sidney's reply in 1845 by Steuart A. Pears. Pears' work was reprinted along with a new introduction by William A. Bradley in 1912. The 1845 edition is available free on Google Books ; the 1912 edition can be purchased in reproduction from Leopold Classic Library on Amazon for $18.45. Various other sources of the correspondence are also available. The existence and availability of this trove of primary source material was made known to us by Elizabeth Quattrocki Knight, MD, PhD during her presenta...

Michael Robin Browne 1941-2024  Oberon Shakespeare Study Group meeting Bloomfield Hills Library Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, February 9, 2019 by Linda Theil Our dear friend and longtime Oberon colleague Robin Browne passed away March 28, 2024 after a brave fight with longstanding illness. A memorial service to honor  him will be held on July 14, 2024 at Christ Church Cranbrook, 470 Church Road, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan; and will be followed by a recption at his home. A tribute to  his life can be viewed at Michael Robin Browne on Legacy. To honor Robin's memory, Oberon will make a contribution to the church garden fund, as was his wish. Oberon chairperson Richard Joyrich shares his tribute to our beloved friend and colleague, Robin Browne: Robin has been a part of the Oberon Shakespeare Study Group almost from the beginning. He very rarely missed one of our meetings in various libraries in the past, and always had much to contribute. Although not a strict Oxfordian -- h...

  Screenwriter John Orloff and actor Rhys Ifans featured on  title card of today's  Don't Quill the Messenger podcast by Linda Theil In a long reminiscence of Rolland Emmerich's 2011 film Anonymous,  screenwriter John Orloff recalled Robert (sic) Shapiro as an "asshole". Twice. In the Oct 20, 2023 "Not so Anonymous" episode of his anti-Stratfordian  Don't Quill the Messenger podcast, host Steven Sabel spoke to Orloff for over an hour about the making of Emmerich's epic flop that brought the Shakespeare authorship question to international prominence. (See:  "Anonymous Opens . . ." , et al on Oberon  weblog.) At time-mark 38:30 during a discussion of the Anonymous post-release furor, Orloff opined regarding Shakespearean scholar James Shapiro -- although Orloff did Shapiro the ultimate disrespect of not remembering his first name correctly: "Robert (sic) Shapiro! Oof, that guy! . . . he's such a dishonest broker. Above anythin...

by Linda Theil When asked by an interviewer why all the experts disagree with her on the legitimacy of the Shakespeare authorship question, journalist and author Elizabeth Winkler  calmly replied, "You've asked the wrong experts." * With that simple declaration Winkler exploded the topic of Shakespearean authorship forever. Anti-Stratfordians need no smoking gun, no convincing narrative, no reason who, how, when, or why because within the works lies the unassailable argument: Shakespeare's knowledge. Ask the lawyers. Ask the psychologists. Ask the librarians. Ask the historians. Ask the dramaturges. Ask the mathematicians. Ask the Greek scholars. Ask the physicists. Ask the astronomers. Ask the courtiers. Ask the bibliophiles. Ask the Italians. Ask the French. Ask the Russians. Ask the English. Ask everyone. Current academic agreement on a bevy of Shakespearean collaborators springs from an unspoken awareness of how much assistance the Stratfordian presumptive would h...