John Orloff writes in defence of the new film that suggests the bard was not the bard at all, rather, he was a clownish fool who couldn’t write to save his life. This film is a retelling of the conspiracy theory that suggests Shakespeare’s plays and poems were penned by Edward De Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. The reasoning being, apparently, that a base-born cullion from Stratford really couldn’t have penned such exquisite prose – and that he wouldn’t have had such a broad geographical knowledge. Sounds like fun…
Shakespearian scholars are expressing umbrage about the film and dismiss it as a filthy piece of work. Not only this, this arrant knave is complaining that one of these scholars is refusing to debate with him. To which, one might reply, debate what? The theories are all well and good and doubtless make for some entertaining fiction, but there is the little matter of De Vere predeceasing Shakespeare who continued to write, to contend with. The Tempest is supposed to have been based upon the wreck of the Sea Venture some years after De Vere died. Also, while Shakespeare’s geographical knowledge as illustrated in the plays is somewhat sparse; he uses foreign place names, but gives us little more insight than that; for the purposes of his drama, he didn’t need to.
Still, this is Hollywood we are talking about. Now, I wouldn’t mind if this clotpoll presented his film in the same tongue in cheek fashion as Shakespeare in Love as that was clearly a work of fiction and not to be taken seriously. This new film, Anonymous is much the same – a flight of fancy. It is not, as Orloff is attempting to posit, a serious exploration of a possible alternative explanation of Elizabethan history. To try and do so is taking the piss; an attempt to pass off a lightweight work of fiction as serious exposé. No wonder academia won’t debate with him. I might at some point watch it, but I will no more believe that Edward De Vere wrote Shakespeare than I believe that the US Navy captured the enigma machine.
That’s the problem with Hollywood – they take history and play fast and loose with it. But, then, they had a precedent, didn’t they? The Bard wasn’t averse to doing exactly that.