Many of the relevant arguments pro and con have already been recited here quite well -- in particular, by BaldEagle2 (BE2), Rapaire, and GUEST:Le Scaramouche. I join the discussion only to add two particular points, both of which tend to support the Oxfordian view that BE2 has already summarized and defended, and provided some useful links to:


(1) For whatever one thinks the point about spelling inconsistency is worth, Stratford Will's spelling of his own last name varied even more than BE2 has indicated. For one thing, he more often spelled the second syllable "spere" rather than "speare". (This fact becomes more significant -- perhaps -- in light of point #2, below.)

Moreover, while he usually began his last name with "Shak" or "Shack" -- without any e before the last syllable -- he also appears on occasion to have spelled the name with a g ("Shagspere") (I see now that BE2 mentioned this one in a later post I did not see before), or even with an x and no second s ("Shaxpere")!

For a concise listing of the many spellings encountered, see, e.g.:

               Shakspere Documentary Evidence: Brief.

For a version that includes photographs of Shakspere's many, varying hand-spellings, see:

               William Shakspere Documentary Evidence.


(2) It is far from clear that the evidence cited by Rapaire actually points to the conclusion he thinks. Note that the majority (though admittedly not all) of the attributions he cites hyphenate the author's last name, whereas the fellow from Stratford never appears to have spelled his name that way in anything that he wrote by hand, and only once (that I know of) had it spelt with a hyphen by someone else (the author of a playbill from 1603).

(See previous URLs. The playbill appears to have been typeset.)

Moreover, all of the attributions cited by Rapaire spell the second syllable of the author's last name with an a -- Shakespeare -- whereas, as noted in point 1 above, Stratford Will almost always -- or at least usually -- spelled his last name without the second a: Sha[c]kspere. And a quick bit of Googling + recourse to a number of on-line dictionaries (esp. YourDictionary.com and OneLook.com) confirm that "spere" is not an alternative spelling of "spear". It can mean (among other things) sphere, ankle, or spoor, or to search, to pry, or to inquire, but it does not appear ever to have been an alternative English spelling of the name of that long pointed device used for thrusting, stabbing or throwing.

(YourDictionary.com provides Indo-European root etymologies, and OneLook.com pulls up definitions from a bunch of different dictionaries all at once.)

So what is the significance of the hyphen? Well, I would suggest -- as others have before me -- that it highlights the pun that was involved in de Vere's eventual choice of nom de plume.

As BE2 pointed out, de Vere had long before chosen for himself a coat of arms that depicted a spear being shaken. Moreover, de Vere is known to have been especially fond both of Ovid and of Ovid's Metamorphoses, both in the original Latin and as translated into English by one of his uncles, Arthur Golding, who was one of de Vere's tutors when he was growing up, and the Metamorphoses contain a prominent passage about the goddess Minerva (Roman) or Pallas Athena (Greek) shaking a spear. These ancillary points all feed into the two main points, which are that de Vere is well known to have identified personally with the imagery of a spear being shaken, and that he was likewise so identified by others in his day. Although he also was referred to on occasion as a spear-breaker, due to his apparent prowess at jousting -- see, e.g.,

               Why I'm Not an Oxfordian: Bacon Versus De Vere

-- he was often referred to as "spear-shaker", with or without a definite or indefinite article.

Most tellingly of all, in 1578 a fellow of Trinity College at Cambridge University by the name of Gabriel Harvey wrote and published a long and tedious poem in praise of de Vere. In this poem, Harvey addressed de Vere and said of him (albeit in Latin):

               "Thy will shakes spears."

Here we find not only corroboration of the identification of de Vere with the shaking of a spear, but a published phrase that would account for de Vere's choice of pseudonymous first name as well!

(See

               The True Story of the Shakespeare Publications

for full quotation and citation.)

This is just speculation on my part, but I imagine that this incredibly sycophantic, butt-smooching poem by Gabriel Harvey probably embarrassed de Vere more than a little, and became something of a standing joke among him and his friends -- something about which they would teasingly remind him in later years by calling him "spear-shaker". Thus, the subsequent practice of referring to de Vere as "spear-shaker" probably was, at least in part, something of a standing, inside joke.

In any event, what a happy accident it must have been when, many years later, de Vere learned of the existence of an actor in London by the name of Will -- or sometimes William -- Shakspere! And how easily this must have suggested to de Vere the pseudonym of Will -- or William -- Shake-speare.

          *          *          *

All that said, I remain most curious to learn what points might be made in support of this Henry Neville character, of whom I have never heard before.

Also, I have to admit that, as I was using Google to refresh my recollection of some of these details, and to find specific sources to cite, I came across some arguments against de Vere and in favor of Francis Bacon that I found at least superficially powerful. Of greatest force was an argument about The Tempest having been unmistakably based on a shipwreck that took place some 5 years after de Vere's death -- an argument similar to one already recounted here, about Macbeth being based on (or at least alluding to) an incident that took place the year after de Vere died. While it is not impossible per se that some of the plays de Vere wrote could have been published only after his death, it is obviously impossible that any of them could have been written after his death and still be written by him. Thus, Macbeth and The Tempest both provide a very serious problem or challenge for the Oxfordian thesis.

All the same, though, I still have a hard time imagining anyone else having so many facts add up so compellingly in his or her* favor as de Vere.


* Queen Elizabeth I herself has been considered as a possible candidate. She was remarkably well educated (and traveled?) in many of the same ways that de Vere was, and reportedly was fluent in as many as 6 languages in addition to English. (Sources appear to differ on the number of languages, and on the degree of fluency in some of them, but it appears that she definitely was fluent in Latin, French and Italian, probably in Greek, and possibly in Spanish as well. It appears that German would have been the sixth language, but I am not sure of her degree of fluency therein.) I mention this not because I believe that Elizabeth should be seriously considered as a possible author of the plays and poems, but only because it is an interesting fact.