Just watched a video debate on the "authorship question" at the Shakespeare Adventure website (you can google it - I'm not going to link it because I really can't recommend the site, although the video in question is worth seeing) in which the Stratfordian side, led by the great Stanley Wells, absolutely wipes the floor with the Oxfordians, led by Roland Emmerich, the director of the upcoming "Anonymous". The debate actually provides a good summary of the evidence that exists, which is all, and I mean all, on the Stratford side. (Isn't it amazing that after all these years, and all of the allegations and accusations, that there is still not one piece of evidence for anything other than the established history?) It also shows the complete misunderstanding of art and literature that is put forward by the conspiracy theorists as proof of their contentions (the misreadings of the poems and plays that have gone into their arguments could be the subject of a hilarious book). I've still never met a conspiracy theorist that I would consider a strong reader of Shakespeare, and if that sounds a little harsh, so be it. As for Mr. Emmerich, I think that in the future he should stick with subjects such as Godzilla - in other words stories that have a possible, albeit tiny, hint of plausibility.

James Shapiro's 2010 book, Contested Will, is a very good summary of all of the theories that together comprise what's known as the "authorship question", or the belief that someone other than Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare. (You'll notice that I've written that the book summarizes the theories - summarizing the evidence in favour of the position is much easier. In fact, I'll do it here: There isn't any.) In April of last year, Shapiro also wrote an article for the Los Angeles Times about the forthcoming movie entitled, Anonymous, which according to its director, Roland Emmerich, will tell "how the plays written by the Earl of Oxford ended up labelled 'William Shakespeare'." In the article (http://articles.latimes.com/2010/apr/11/opinion/la-oe-shapiro11-2010apr11), Shapiro devastates this statement, along with a couple of others made by Mr. Emmerich, including this one about what is, for me, at any rate, the crux of the issue: Why on earth would someone not take credit for creating the most astonishing body of art (literary or otherwise) the world has ever seen? "And the explanation as to why Shakespeare would have gotten credit for plays and poems the Earl of Oxford wrote? The 'real facts' had to be hushed up because a Tudor prince could never be seen to stoop to the lowly business of playwriting."

If the earl in question (Edward de Vere) had the talent to write the plays, would he not have also had the talent to persuade others of the importance of his work? Would he not have made mincemeat of any argument against "lowly" playwrights? Would a playwright, of "noble" birth, allow his life's mission to be openly derided without rebuttal, and then write these lines for Henry V (who says them in reply to his future wife Katherine informing him that it is not customary for unmarried couples of France to kiss before the wedding): "O Kate, nice customs curtsy to great kings. Dear Kate, you and I cannot be confined within the weak list of a country's fashion: we are the makers of manners, Kate; and the liberty that follows our places stops the mouth of all find-faults..."