Oberon Shakespeare Study Group

Cheryl Eagan Donovan of Controversy Films reported in her May 26, 2013 "Shakespeare News" on an interview conducted May 25 at the Cannes Film Festival with Only Lovers Left Alive director Jim Jarmusch and film actors Tilda Swinton, Tom Hiddleston, and John Hurt in which Jarmusch and Hurt celebrate their anti-Stratfordian viewpoint. Hurt plays an immortal Christopher Marlowe in the upcoming film. Jim Jarmusch (4:17 on video): "I think one of the biggest scandals in literary history that someday may be divulged, to me, is that William Shakespeare didn't write anything. And there are a lot of us so-called anti-Stratfordians that don't believe this . They included Orson Wells and Sigmund Freud and Ralph Waldo Emerson and and John Gielgud. (John Hurt says, “And John Hurt!”) And now John Hurt as well. Sources http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khqIxAx0v4Y

After mopping the floor with Stanley Wells and Paul Edmondson on the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust’s “Proving Shakespeare” web-based seminar lastweek , Marlovian Ros Barber has emerged as a passionate and compelling advocate for the anti-Stratfordian viewpoint. The May 1, 2013 seminar was held to celebrate the launch of the Trust’s refinement of the Stratfordian viewpoint, Shakespeare Beyond Doubt , that will be published by Cambridge University Press this month. The book is part of the trust’s ongoing response to Roland Emmerich’s 2010 anti-Stratfordian film, Anonymous – a response that began with their online “Sixty Minutes with Shakespeare” one-minute refutations of various complaints against the attribution of Shakespeare’s works to the man from Stratford. At the online seminar, Barber appeared to astound Wells and Edmondson with her articulate defense of the anti-Stratfordian position. Although she authored The Marlowe Papers -- due out May 24 by Sceptre --  a fictio...

Anthropologist Robin Fox -- who wrote the book on Shakespeare’s Education (Laugwitz Verlag, 2012) from an Oxfordian perspective -- was named to the National Academy of Sciences on April 20, 2013. Fox's anti-Stratfordian book is available from Amazon at  http://www.amazon.com/Shakespeares-Education-Robin-Fox/dp/3933077303/ . Read more about Fox on his website at  http://robin-fox.com/home.htm

by Linda Theil Australian geologist Peter McIntosh, PhD, has published Every word doth almost tell my name: The Authorship of Shakespeare's Sonnets (McFarland, 2013) a full-length treatment of his thesis of Shakespeare authorship.  McIntosh said: [I present] evidence to show that Queen Elizabeth I is the most likely author of the Sonnets. There is not only an impeccable correlation of the subject matter of the Sonnets with the known history of the relationship between Elizabeth and her favorite, the second Earl of Essex, but also many indicators of her authorship in other sources, including the Sonnets' dedication and the signature SS on a poem written in her own hand. McIntosh also wrote  Who Wrote Shakespeare's Sonnets?  (Ginninderra, 2011). The new work is available in softcover and Kindle edition from Amazon at  http://www.amazon.com/Every-Word-Doth-Almost-Tell/dp/0786473711/  and McFarland at  http://www.mcfarlandbooks.com/book-2.php?id=978-0-...

by Linda Theil The anti-Stratfordian faction of Shakespeare lovers is replete with those who have been trained to study evidence: lawyers, doctors, and scientists of all fields. Peter A. Sturrock, PhD -- emeritus professor of applied physics and emeritus director of the Center for Space Science and Astrophysics at Stanford University -- has brought his mathematical genius to bear on the topic of the Shakespeare authorship with his self-published book, AKA Shakespeare: a Scientific Approach to the Authorship Question (EXO Science, 2013). Even though I sat through a calculus course in high school, this reader must confess that the mathematics involved in Professor Sturrock’s thesis eluded my understanding, so I cannot comment on its value as ammunition in the authorship battle. I can attest, however, to the lucidity of Sturrock’s prose and the freshness of his approach. In an article titled “Who wrote Shakespeare's plays? Stanford professor lets you decide” by Stanford...

by Linda Theil Shakespeare Fellowship trustee and immediate past president Earl Showerman  kicked off his fourth year teaching the Shakespeare authorship question at Southern Oregon University’s Osher Lifelong LearningInstitute with a class titled,  titled, " The Shakespeare Authorship Challenge: State of the Debate 2013" . Following the first day of class on April 17, 2013, Showerman said: I have about 20 in class, half-of-whom are already converts. Not exactly preaching to the converted, but it is fun to see how people really light up when they get an idea about what is at stake and the terms of the discussion. . . . The SBT (Shakespeare Birthplace Trust) polemic, “Shakespeare Bites Back” was discussed yesterday as a way [of] showing them how threatened and vitriolic are our critics. We'll use Steve McClarran's second edition of   I Come to BuryShaksper , (2011) (available later this month I understand) as a primary text.   Showerman also intends to discu...