Oberon Shakespeare Study Group

We Shakespeare lovers would be better served if supporters of the status quo would attempt to eliminate a distorting Stratfordian lens from their view of all things Shakespeare. Too often, information is presented as if the Stratfordian view were confirmed, when the truth is much more complex and much more interesting. The Folger Shakespeare Library recently published on their webpage a promo of a talk on heraldry titled "Shakespeare's Coat of Arms . . . " by Kathryn Will. They said: "In 1596, Shakespeare secured a coat of arms for his father, thus earning himself the title "gentleman." But the herald who granted the coat faced attacks from his own colleagues for elevating a mere playwright to gentle status. How did Shakespeare, early modern heraldry officials, and their contemporaries view the relationship between heraldry and gentility? And have heraldry's meanings changed over the past few centuries?   In this talk, scholar Kathryn Will e...

Actor and poet Alain English by Linda Theil The Central London Debating Society will host a debate on the Shakespeare authorship question at 7:30 p.m. April 30, 2014 at the The Olde Cock Tavern Pub, 22 Fleet Street, London. The event is being organized by London-based actor and poet, Alain English , who is an associate of the society. English said: This will be an open panel debate with the motion "Does the Shakespeare Authorship Question Matter?". All the speakers will talk for five minutes before taking questions from the floor. The Central London Debating Society, of which I am a member, is cautious about approaching this subject matter having never really done so before but I am hoping if it is successful it will pave the way for a proper debate on the matter. We are looking for an extra speaker on the Stratfordian side just to balance things out a little but if not I will speak myself in addition to Alan Nelson, Ros Barber and William Leahy and I will intro...

by Linda Theil The Folger Institute has extended the deadline for National Endowment for the Humanities grants to support travel and lodging to their “Shakespeare and the Problem of Biography” conference to be held at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC on April 3-5, 2014. The new deadline for aid applications is February 14, 2014. NEH grants are available to qualified graduate students and faculty from US institutions and may be applied for online at the Folger Shakespeare Library: info at “Scholarly Programs Application Guidelines” and “The Folger Institute Application forAdmission” . Enrollment to the conference is open to all, and those who are not applying for grants must send a registration form that is available online and the $50 registration fee to arrive at the Folger no later than March 21, 2014. I was delighted to hear that the great Folger plans to address the issue of the Shakespeare authorship and I read the conference précis with interest: Th...

by Linda Theil Ros Barber's Shakespeare: The Evidence --The Authorship Question Clarified will be published Nov. 24, 2013. Info at  https://leanpub.com/shakespeare . Video promo for the book (above) is available on YouTube at Shakespeare: The Evidence. Promo material on the publisher's page says: Whether you are a firm believer that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare, or suspect that he didn't, this book aims to enable readers to gain a more comprehensive knowledge of the problems at hand, clarify their thinking, and identify weaknesses in, and logical rebuttals to, the arguments of their opponents, as well as potentially strengthening their own. Ros Barber, PhD is the author of The Marlowe Papers (St. Martin's Press, 2013) that won the Hoffman Prize in manuscript in 2011. UPDATE 11/17/13 : A note published today by Ros Barber at  http://rosbarber.com/shakespeare-evidence/  says the first installment of the  Shakespeare: The Evidence  ebook will be pub...

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...

Book photo courtesy of Ros Barber The Marlowe Papers: a Novel in Verse by poet Ros Barber proposes Christopher Marlowe as the author of the Shakespeare canon. The book will be released as a Kindle ebook in the US on May 25, 2012 and will be published in hardcover by McMillan's St. Martin's Press in January 2013. The UK hardcover edition published by Sceptre is available now on Amazon.co.uk . The Marlowe Papers was reviewed as    "Bard Times: this novel in subtle verse will make one look back in wonder at an era of riddles, disguises, allusions and concealments"   by  Suzi Feay in the  May 19, 2012 edition of the Financial Times/London. Feay says: It’s enough to strike despair into the heart of James Shapiro, author of   Contested Will , as well as the hearts of all the other Shakespeare experts who refute the so-called “authorship controversy”. This novel, written entirely in fast-moving iambic pentameter, embellishes the notion that Christopher M...