"Dark Lady" and Shakespeare: Amelia Bassano Lanier (1569-1645)

John Hudson of the Shakespeare Institute at the University of Birmingham suggests Amelia Bassano Lanier was the author of an underlying religious allegory in A Midsummer Night's Dream, and perhaps of the play itself.¹Hudson expounds:

"The example I use is that of the Pharos Lighthouse of Alexandria. In order that his name might be known, the architect Sostratus had his name carved on the stone base, then covered over with a piece of plaster with a dedication to the king. In time the plaster fell away, revealing the architect’s name. Amelia’s strategy was to leave behind a preposterous case for William Shakespeare, which has now fallen away, revealing the true creator who is now at last visible."²

A production of the play by The Dark Lady Players in New York in 2007 was based on the thesis by John Hudson.³

In summer 2008, Michael Posner concluded, in a review of the theory in the Canadian arts journal Queen's Quarterly, that "the case for Amelia Bassano Lanier is as plausible as Shakespeare’s and more plausible than many others."⁴ Posner's 2010 article in Reform Judaism argued that Lanier was very likely the author of all or most of Shakespeare's plays, and asserts that she was Jewish.⁵

The Shakespearean Authorship Trust, founded in 1922 "to seek, and if possible establish, the truth concerning the authorship of Shakespeare’s plays and poems," added the name of Amelia Bassano Lanier to the list of Shakespeare authorship candidates in April 2007.⁶

SEE ALSO: "In Search of Shakespeare: Emilia Lanier (the Dark Lady?)" a PBS broadcast.

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1. Amini, Daniela, "Kosher bard Could Shakespeare’s plays have been written by the ‘Dark Lady,’ a Jewish woman of Venetian-Moroccan ancestry? John Hudson thinks so"; New Jersey Jewish News, February 28, 2008.
2. Honig Friedman, Rebecca, "Was the Bard a Beard? A Scholar Argues That Shakespeare Was a Jewish Woman", The Jewish Daily Forward; May 30, 2008.
3. The Dark Lady Players Presents Midsummer Night's Dream Wednesday, March 28, 2007 through Sunday, April 01, 2007, SmartTix.
4. Posner, Michael, "Rethinking Shakespeare", The Queen's Quarterly, vol. 115, no. 2 (2008) 1-15.
5. Posner, Michael, "Unmasking Shakespeare", Reform Judaism; Summer 2010.
6. "Other Candidates", The Shakespearean Authorship Trust.