William Farina
Author and Public Speaker

De Vere as Shakespeare: An Oxfordian Reading of the Canon

The question may be met with chagrin and even derision by traditionalists, but the identity of the Bard is not definitely decided. During the 20th century, Edward de Vere, the rogue courtier poet and flamboyant bad boy of the Elizabethan era, became the leading candidate for an alternative Shakespeare.  This book tells all the many credible reasons “William Shakespeare” may have been a pen name used by de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, to disguise his aristocratic political leanings while producing some of the greatest theatrical agitprop ever witnessed by public audiences.

This text presents the controversial argument for de Vere’s authorship of the plays and poems attributed to Shakespeare, offering the available historical evidence and moreover the literary evidence to be found within the works. Divided into sections on the comedies and romances, the histories and the tragedies and poems, this fresh study closely analyzes each of the 39 plays and the sonnets in light of the Oxfordian authorship theory. The vagaries surrounding Shakespeare, including the lack of information about him during his lifetime, especially relating to the “lost years” of 1585–1592, are also analyzed, to further the question of Shakespeare’s true identity and the theory of de Vere as the real Bard.

This is a valuable reference book for researchers from both sides of the authorship debate, especially since Farina’s perspective is not one of an academic, nor a performer.