Alas, poor Shakespeare

Conspiracy theories about the authorship of his plays have gone mainstream.

By James Shapiro
LA Times
April 11, 2010

Film director Roland Emmerich, whose last effort was the apocalyptic "2012," has begun shooting "Anonymous." It won't be another disaster movie -- except perhaps for English professors. According to Emmerich, the film is "about how it came to be that William Shakespeare was not the author of his plays," which, he says, turn out to have been written by the "Earl of Oxford."

Emmerich calls "Anonymous" a political thriller. "It's about who will succeed Elizabeth and the cause of that thriller, the Essex Rebellion." The film, starring Vanessa Redgrave as Queen Elizabeth and Rhys Ifans as the Earl of Oxford, will have "kings, queens, and princes," he adds. "It's about illegitimate children, it's about incest. It's about all of these elements which Shakespeare's plays have."

Except, of course, it's also about how Shakespeare didn't write those plays, indeed, couldn't even write his own name.

The story behind this story dates back to 1920, when J.T. Looney published " 'Shakespeare' Identified," the bible of those who believe that the Earl of Oxford is the true author of Shakespeare's plays. When Emmerich says his movie will be about incest and bastards, he means that the story line follows a popular spinoff of Looney's undocumented theory, in which the Earl of Oxford was not only the secret son of the not-so-virginal Queen Elizabeth, but also, when he came of age, her lover. There's more fantasy: the Earl of Southampton was their illegitimate child and likely heir to the throne of England, until he was imprisoned for his role in the Essex Rebellion.

(More here.)