Dave’s Midlife Blog

As I was writing my post on my Shake-spearean crisis, I went to the website for Mark Anderson’s biography of Edward de Vere, “Shakespeare” by Another Name. There I found the link to his podcast. That reminded me that I had heard a promo for this podcast a couple years ago; I think that may have been what started me thinking about the whole “authorship question” once again.

Episode 1 of Anderson’s podcast is an excellent nutshell summary of the anti-Stratfordian argument. It also sets the stage for Anderson’s Oxfordian argument, which is developed in both his book and in subsequent editions of his podcast. (The entire podcast series is nine episodes long.)

Anderson also has a blog in which he presents the latest developments in the Shake-speare debate. I’ve subscribed to the RSS feed for the blog as well as to the podcast. In one blog entry he mentions a performance by my new podcast friends the Reduced Shakespeare Company.

I’ve mentioned before here that my wife and I have season tickets to the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, DC. I’ve also been an actor in the past, and have played several roles in Shakespeare in professional theatres.

This past year I came to a Shakespearean crisis point. Or perhaps I should say a Shake-spearean crisis point. That hyphen in Shake-speare is deliberate. I have come to believe with very strong conviction that Shake-speare was a penname, and that the actor guy from Stratford-upon-Avon never wrote a word of those plays. (more…)