A new film on Shakespeare which is being released in the U.S. on Friday is already coming under criticism. Anonymous (starring Rhys Ifans and Rafe Spall) maintains that aristocrat Edward de Vere is the true author of Shakespeare’s plays-an assertion that has the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust quite upset. “The trust, a British charity organization that promotes the study and life of Shakespeare, is protesting the release of the film by covering Shakespeare’s name on signs in Warwickshire, the British county that was the playwright’s home.” They have also covered signs on pubs and over the Shakespeare memorial in Stratford-upon-Avon. Shakespeare scholars in America are upset as well. Read the rest of this article in yesterday’s New York Times.
For more on the authorship controversy, check out any of these EPL titles:
Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare?, by James S. Shapiro, 2010
Shakespeare: The World as Stage, by Bill Bryson, 2007
The Case for Shakespeare: The End of the Authorship Question, by Scott McCrea, 2005
“Shakespeare” by Another NameThe Life of Edward De Vere, Earl of Oxford, the Man Who Was Shakespeare, by Mark Anderson, 2005
Alias Shakespeare: Solving the Greatest Literary Mystery of All Time, by Joseph Sobran, 1997
Shakespeare, in Fact, by Irvin Leigh Matus, 1994
Laura
