“There is no doubt that there was an actor called William Shakespeare. But the orthodox belief that the actor Shakespeare wrote the immortal sonnets is just that – a belief. The only evidence we have that Shakespeare wrote the sonnets is his name on the title page. But this in itself does not prove authorship. There is no independent evidence such as a signed manuscript to prove that Shakespeare’s wrote the sonnets.”
Dr. McIntosh said there were several problems with the traditional authorship consensus, which the Shakespeare academic fraternity seems unwilling to consider. “For example, most of the sonnets are love poems addressed to a good-looking youth with a fair complexion. If Shakespeare wrote the sonnets, the obvious implication for the reader is that he was a homosexual. Would Shakespeare have risked publishing self-incriminating sonnets in his own lifetime? Another problem is the frequent reference in the sonnets to the author being old and near death. In Elizabethan times life expectancy was much lower than at present. Such a reference would mean that the author was in his late fifties or early sixties. But Shakespeare was only thirty or so, and in his prime of life when the sonnets were written. Even when aged fifty-one he wrote in his will that he was in good health. No scholars have ever explained this age discrepancy.”
“Oddities like these led me to question the orthodox beliefs and to investigate further,” said Dr McIntosh. “My theory was that if I listed the contents of the sonnets like dry scientific observations, they might reveal to an open-minded outsider clues that academics committed to Shakespearean authorship may have missed.”
“I found there were remarkable parallels between the events mentioned in the first 126 sonnets and the well-documented infatuation between Queen Elizabeth I and her young favourite the Earl of Essex. It is worthwhile listing some examples.
· In an early sonnet (3), in which the poet describes early acquaintance with the youth, there is a catty reference to the youth’s mother as being attractive in her prime. Elizabeth is known to have strongly disliked Essex’s mother Lettice Knowles, who she described as a ‘she-wolf’. It would be very natural for her to refer to Lettice using this put-down.
· When Essex was away at sea taking part in the Corunna raid the corresponding sonnets mention the youth as being ‘far from where I abide’ and the poet as ‘farther off from thee’ (sonnets 27 and 28).
· During 1588 to 1590 Elizabeth lost many of her trusted friends at court, including her old favourite and likely lover Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester. Sonnets (29 and 30) mention loneliness, despair and ‘lovers gone’.
· Essex married Sir Philip Sidney’s widow in 1590. In the sonnets that seem to relate to this event the poet writes ‘he was but one hour mine’ (33) and ‘we two must be twaine’ (35), clearly indicating that the youth’s affections at the time were directed elsewhere.
· When Essex corresponded with Elizabeth while he was campaigning in Normandy in 1591 the corresponding sonnets (44 and 45) mention messages exchanged over sea and land.
· Essex’s absence on the brilliantly executed Cadiz raid in 1596 produces another reference to the sea and separation, and the poet mentions the ocean separating two shores (sonnet 56).
· When Essex was feared drowned in 1597, the sonnets mention the ‘hungry ocean’ and fear that the youth has perished (63-65).
· The affair between Essex and Lady Derby seems to be referred to in sonnets 69 and 70, where the youth is accused of misbehaving and the poet observes he is being slandered – we know from contemporary sources that Essex’s affair was the subject of malicious gossip.
· Finally the long sequence of ‘rival poet’ sonnets that have so intrigued commentators can be readily explained: the poets George Chapman, Edmund Spenser, George Peele, John Mundy and Thomas Watson were all profuse in their praise of Essex.”
Dr. McIntosh remarked that the gradual decline of Essex’s political power and his eventual rebellion and execution are also matched by the content of the sonnets. “On 1 July 1598 occurred the event which eventually led to Essex’s downfall – Elizabeth boxed his ears during an argument. Sonnets 87-96 bid farewell to the youth and appear to describe Elizabeth’s distraught feelings soon after this clash of wills. Sonnet 97 refers to the youth’s absence in summer and autumn; Essex is known to have been absent from court in a sulk from July to September 1598. Sonnet 98 refers to the youth being absent again in April and Spring; Essex left England as leader of the Irish expedition in March 1599.
There is also a reference to Saturn being bright and dancing in the night sky in this sonnet; analysis by B. Peterson of Mt Stromlo observatory has demonstrated that Saturn was particularly bright and in opposition on 24 March 1599, almost the exact date of Essex’s departure from London. There seems to be a further reference to Essex’s ill-fated Irish campaign in sonnet 107 which mentions that the youth is dominating ‘dull and speechless tribes’ (the Elizabethans had a notoriously low opinion of the Irish). Finally, after the Essex rebellion in early 1601 Essex is executed and the poet writes ‘All the world besides me thinks you’re dead’. A straightforward interpretation of this line is that Essex is dead to the world, but his spirit was still ‘alive’ in the poet’s heart and feelings.”
“Not only do the sonnets match known events in the life of Elizabeth and Essex, but the events in their stormy relationship are referred to in the right order. The match between the contents of the sonnets and Essex’s career is so good that no poem appears to be out of sequence. The fact that not only one or two events can be matched with the content of the sonnets, but that multiple events can be matched, and, moreover, that the match is sequentially correct, adds credibility to the Elizabeth-Essex hypothesis. It surprises me that no one has noticed the correlation before.
It seems unlikely that a third party would have been employed to write down the feelings of the monarch about her tragic relationship to her young favourite. What is expressed in the sonnets is so personal and authentic that we must assume that they are written by the person who experienced the events, i.e. Queen Elizabeth herself. Of course for scholars accustomed to reading about the bard from Stratford this proposition may appear preposterous. One Australian Professor of English actually wrote to me ‘where would she have found the time?’ But even a cursory examination of Elizabeth’s education and upbringing shows that the case for Elizabeth’s authorship has to be taken seriously.”
Elizabeth was one of the best-educated people in England. By the age of sixteen she could converse in Latin and Greek. Later she translated the classics for fun. She had a great love for the works of Ovid and Homer, whose works have been long recognised as influencing the style and content of the sonnets. She knew five foreign languages, had a masterly command of words and was a superb judge of character.”
“What’s more, the style of the sonnets is very feminine – they are all about feelings. They are not written in the traditional Elizabethan male courtly style of a man seeking to win his lady. They also contain very female imagery. One sonnet actually describes the youth as being between the poet’s breasts, which he may part ‘at pleasure’. It’s most improbable that a man wrote these words.”
“Elizabeth was in her late fifties and sixties when she became passionate about Essex who was over thirty years younger than her. Their respective ages fit perfectly with the age relationship described in the sonnets.”
“People may object that the sonnets do not only describe a young man, they also describe a so called ‘dark lady’ (who is not actually named in these terms). This objection requires some careful evaluation. That Shakespeare, married to a woman eight years his senior, to whom he left his second-best bed, was attracted to a swarthy and lusty Dark Lady who was visually unattractive but who could satisfy his sexual urges seems to appeal to conventional imaginations. The Dark lady has become a literary legend, and the subject of much speculation: was she one of the negro prostitutes known to be working in London at the end of the seventeenth century? Was she a dark-haired lady in waiting of the Queen? Or was she the the Earl of Pembroke’s mistress, the magnificent Mary Fitton?”
“These entertaining speculations must be treated cautiously. Firstly, we find that this dark lady is only referred to in six sonnets. Two of these sonnets appear to be parodies of previously published poems (one by Philip Sidney, the other by Thomas Watson), and the others contain references indicating that the subject of the poet’s attention only appears to be black or has become black, but is really fair. For example in sonnet 131 we read:
In nothing art thou black save in thy deeds,
And thence this slander as I think proceeds
And in sonnet 147 we read:
For I have sworne thee fair, and thought thee bright
Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.
“These lines, and others, indicate that the so-called dark features are not references to the dark attributes of a mistress, but to the dark side of the youth’s personality. In modern terms we might say that the poet is describing the youth as a split personality – he has his fair side and his dark side. The dark side has been assigned a female gender. We should not be surprised at the gender swap – Shakespeare’s plays are full of cross-dressing characters and in the early sonnets the youth is described as ‘the Master-Mistris of my passion’. My argument is that the so-called dark lady is Elizabeth’s literary invention, and symbolises all that she despised about Essex’s flawed character.”
Dr. McIntosh said that the final piece of evidence that convinced him of Elizabeth’s authorship was the dedication page of the sonnets. “This curious and ungrammatical piece of writing has puzzled experts for centuries. It has a strange layout and an unconventional use of full stops. The lines containing the oddly-chosen words ‘BY OUR EVER-LIVING POET WISHETH’ are given special prominence. They actually appear in the dedication with the following layout:
BY.
OUR EVER-LIVING.POET.
WISHETH.
Which suggests to me that the word WISHETH was deliberately placed with the intention that it should be substituted with the poet’s name. (It would be logical to expect Shakespeare’s name here.) There is also a perplexing reference to a Mr. W.H., which has puzzled scholars for centuries but which has never been satisfactorily explained.”
“What struck me was that the letters W.H. also appear in the word ‘WISHETH’. With simple and logical word play, which I have detailed in my book, the lines with extra prominence become:
BY.
OUR.EVER-LIVING.POET.
ELISABETH.
The spelling of Elizabeth’s name with an ‘s’ is not a problem as her name was spelt both with an ‘s’ and with a ‘z’ in her lifetime. “
“In summary, a very strong case can be made for the Essex hypothesis, and Elizabeth’s authorship of the sonnets. The evidence comes from three directions: (1) the close correlation of Essex’s career with the events described in the sonnets; (2) the unravelling of the dedications’s strange wording; and (3) a mass of corroborative evidence which I consider in more detail in my book. There is far more evidence pointing to Elizabeth as author than to Shakespeare. No doubt Shakespeare was rewarded handsomely for being a ‘front man’, and this may explain why he was able to invest in Stratford land and property so early in his career.”
“If Elizabeth I was the author of the sonnets, we have an explanation for the obscurity of the references in the sonnets themselves and the obscurity of the dedication. Queen Elizabeth I knew she had written immortal poetry. But was acutely aware of her carefully-cultivated image and how scandalous it would be to circulate the sonnets under her own name.
She therefore arranged for them to be published under Shakespeare’s name after her death, exactly 400 years ago in 1603. But she also provided clues to the true identity of the poet, and the identity of the fair youth, so that after her death the credit for the greatest love poems in the English language would be assigned to the right person. I doubt whether she considered that it would take 400 years for the truth to emerge.“
For further information consult the author at:
mcintoshpenn@tassie.net.au
+61 (0)3 6234 2372
or read:
Shakespeare’s Sonnets – An Elizabethan Love Story.
Otakou Press, 69 Lansdowne Crescent, Hobart, Tasmania 7000, Australia.
ISBN 0636423789.
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