Wednesday, June 29, 2011

The Laundry List of Conspiracy Believers


         It is amazing when anyone sees the list of the people who believe there was some conspiracy back in 1593 and that Shakespeare didn’t actually write the plays attributed to him.

         Of course not all the people on those lists believe that Marlowe was the real author.   Some believe it was Francis Bacon and other believe it was Edward de Verre, the 17 Earl of Oxford.  Those are the most popular candidates.  But almost everyone else is on the list of possible authors of the works -- including Sir Walter Raleigh, Queen Elizabeth I, King James I,  and even “a team of writers” – all contributing to the total “works of William Shakespere.”

         Two prominent contemporary figures in the anti-Stratfordian camp are Derek Jacobi and Mark Rylance, both of whom, in 2007, issued a "A Declaration of Reasonable Doubt" that features the signatures of several high-profile doubters, as an attempt to rally the anti-Stratfordian cause.

             In recent years the Shakespeare authorship conspiracy has gained greater mainstream interest: the fact that Rylance even served as Artistic Director of Shakespeare’s Globe theatre between 1995-2005 reflects this. (Jacobi and Rylance will both appear in Anonymous, the “other” movie coming out about “the Shakespeare conspiracy.”  It opens October 8.  And the movie director Roland Emmerich’s signature is also featured on the 2007 declaration.)

            Some of those who think Shakespeare never wrote a word are some very famous actors, many of whom earned their stripes doing Shakespeare on Broadway or London:
            Mark Twain
            Orson Welles
            Charlie Chaplin
            Sir John Gielgud
            Sir Tyrone Guthrie
            Leslie Howard
            Jeremy Irons
            And Michael York.

            And the list includes some prominent writers, like
            Charles Dickens
            Walt Whitman
            Ralph Waldo Emerson
            Henry James
            William James
            And John Galsworthy.

            But famous is hardly the word for the list of other people who sincerely believe that Marlowe or others wrote the works:
            Sigmund Freud
            Clifton Fadiman
            Cecil Beaton, (Broadway costume designer who did the movie “My Fair Lady”)
            And Mortimer J. Adler.

            Even some U.S. Supreme Court judges have chimed in on their belief that Shakespeare was an actor but couldn’t have written the plays and poems:
            Sandra Day O’Connor
            Henry A. lackmun
            Lewis F. Powell, Jr.
            And John Paul Stevens.

            My question, of course, is this: “Is it possible that all those great people – and so many more on the lists – could all be wrong?”

            If you’re interested in seeing a more extensive list, you can go to the website: http//:www.TheShakespeareConspiracy.com.


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