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Shakespeare's Plays Were Written By A Jewish Woman |
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| Here's eight kinds of proof Amelia Bassano was the real Bard | ||
 by John Hudson, March 13, 2008 |
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Shakespeare: looks worried
For hundreds of years, people have questioned whether William Shakespeare wrote the plays that bear his name. The mystery is fueled by the fact that his biography simply doesn't match the areas of knowledge and skill demonstrated in the plays. Nearly a hundred candidates have been suggested, but none of them fit much better. Now a new candidate named Amelia Bassano Lanier—the so-called 'Dark Lady' of the Sonnets and a member of an Italian/Jewish family—has been shown to be a perfect fit. Here are eight reasons that are sure to convince you:
1. The Most Musical Plays in the World
The plays contain nearly 2000 musical references, use 300 different musical terms, and refer to a 5th century manuscript on recorder playing. None of Mr. Shakespeare's friends or associates were professional musicians, so how could he have developed this practical musical knowledge? On the other hand, Amelia's family were the Court recorder troupe and around 15 of her closest relatives were professional musicians. In fact, one of them was the leading composer for the Shakespearean plays.
2. Spoken Hebrew
Although in late sixteenth century England about 30 scholars were studying written Hebrew, none of them actually spoke Hebrew. Spoken Hebrew was used only among European Jews, as a commercial language, to keep their information secure. How, then, was Mr. Shakespeare able to make the Hebrew puns or include examples of Hebrew transliteration identified by Israeli scholar Florence Amit? Or incorporate several quotations from The Talmud along with reference to Maimonides? Or integrate the examples of spoken Hebrew, seen, for instance, in All's Well That Ends Well?
Amelia's family was Jewish, living as Marranos with members of the Lupo family, who were imprisoned for their faith.
3. Feminism
The plays depict strong female characters who play music and read Ovid, but Mr. Shakespeare kept his daughters illiterate. Amelia, however, was educated at Court and raised in the household of the early English feminist Catherine Willoughby, Duchess of Suffolk, and her daughter Susan Bertie, the Dowager Countess of Kent. This explains why Taming of the Shrew references a book that was the standard manual for training girls at Court in etiquette, and why other plays refer to Margaret of Navarre's Heptameron, the most popular book among court ladies. Finally Amelia's own poetry draws on the feminist Christine of Pisan, whose work is used in three of the plays and nowhere else in English literature of the period.
Who's That Girl?: oh, just the artist formerly known as Shakespeare 4. Italian
There would have been no way for Mr. Shakespeare to learn Italian in Stratford-upon-Avon, but the plays show that the author was fluent in Italian, made Italian puns, and read Dante, Tasso, Cinthio, Bandello, and others in the original language. The Bassano family came from Venice. As their surviving letters show, they spoke and wrote fluent Italian.
5. Major Poet
None of the other potential candidates who have been put forward is a major poet. But Amelia Bassano certainly is. She was a major experimental poet and the first woman to publish a book of original poetry in England. That poetry includes a 160 line poem that resembles a masque (a dramatic entertainment similar to opera, popular in England in the 16th and 17th centuries, in which masked performers represented mythological or allegorical characters) about the descent of the chariot of Juno. Bassano's masque-like poem resembles the masque about the descent of Juno's chariot in The Tempest. Her final poem includes unusual clusters of words that are also found in Midsummer Night's Dream.
6. Her Names in the Plays
One of the most popular names in the plays is Emilia (in various spellings). Why should Mr. Shakespeare have liked this name so much? In Titus Andronicus there are characters oddly called Emillius and Bassianus. Why are they there? But most importantly between 1622-1623, when Mr. Shakespeare was long dead, someone made changes to the Quarto of Othello to associate the standard image of the great poet—the swan who dies to music—with Emilia, and to give her the "willow" song to repeat. Moreover, the swan appears in King John associated with John's son, and in Merchant of Venice associated with Bassanio. The author of the plays thereby associates the great poet with her baptismal, mother's, adopted, and family names:
- AMELIA
- JOHNSON
- WILLOUGH(BY)
- BASSANO
This is over 99.999999% certain to be no coincidence, and only one person would have had a reason for leaving behind this complex literary signature!
7. Link to the Theater
Mr. Shakespeare was an actor, but actors had no training in rhetoric and only got cue scripts, not complete plays. They had no training in play analysis. Amelia however, not only came from a family of musicians who moonlighted as musicians for the two theaters opposite her home. For ten years she was also mistress to Lord Hunsdon—the man in charge of the English theater. He was patron to the company that performed the Shakespearean plays, and England's only work on play analysis was going on in his offices.
The Dark Lady Players Perform: A Midsummer Night's Dream8. The Jewish Allegories in the Plays
Finally, many plays contain allegories about the Roman-Jewish War. In Midsummer Night's Dream, Oberon represents Yahweh, who is fighting a war against Titania, who represents Titus Caesar. According to research by Professor Parker at Stanford, Peter Quince is St. Peter, who presides over the collapse of Christianity, in the parody of the deaths of Pyramus and Thisbe. When the Wall comes down it is Apocalypse, and the start of a new Jewish year marked, as in The Zohar, by the distribution of dew.
In As You Like It, the forest is surrounded by a circle, everyone is starving, people are hung from trees, and deer are being slaughtered like men. All of this resembles the actual events of the Jewish War. We are told the Duke in charge is a “Roman conqueror” who is also identified with Satan—and his allegorical identity can thus be uncovered as Vespasian Caesar.
As a believing Catholic, why would Mr. Shakespeare have created these complex Jewish allegories? Amelia however, wrote a collection of poetry that includes the long satirical feminist critique of Christianity known as Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum (1611), meaning "Hail God, King of the Jews." As a Jew she might well have wanted to create an allegory that took comic literary revenge upon the men who destroyed Jerusalem.
To learn more, the Dark Lady Players invite you to attend our free workshop productions of As You Like It, on Sunday March 16 & 23, at ManhattanTheaterSource, 177 MacDougal Street, NYC. A full production is expected in summer 2008. If you are unable to attend please take a look at the Dark Lady Players website and join our mailing list by writing to us so we can keep you informed of future productions.
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John Hudson is Artistic Director of the world's most experimental Shakespeare company, the Dark Lady Players. He has degrees from the Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham, the London School of Economics, More... |
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Jonathan Silverman
wow
wow.
Anonymous
Great satire of anti-Stratfordian conspiracy theorists
The lines about "Talmud quotations," "Hebrew speech" and "allegories [of] the Roman-Jewish War" cracked me up.
John Hudson
Amelia Bassano
The quotations from the Talmud are in David Basch's books, the use of Hebrew has been studied over the last 40 years by Israeli scholar Florence Amit, the allegories of the Jewish war are described in my thesis at the Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham and were first performed last year on stage at the Smithsonian Institution as part of the Washington Shakespeare Festival. They are all perfectly legitimate.
william sutton
R U Sirius?
Hi John,
I too am an alumnus of the shakespeare institute and i will find your thesis next time i'm there. Both David Basch and Florence Amit have been thoroughly taken to task by the scholars on Shaksper as i'm sure you know. Their theories are not accepted as facts, outside of themselves. So their legitimacy is imperfect and highly questionable.
Wasn't it A L Rowse who first touted Aemilia Bassanio as the dark Lady? If she was then that is where Shakespeare could have been influenced. Why everybody has to cipher away the one man who was in the right place and time to do what he did, I don't know. If aemilia was such a poetic and musical prodigy she had no need to be shakespeare too. How do Cymbeline or Henry VIII fit into the theory?
Your list of eight reasons is also ingenuous. Shakespeare Johnson and Heywood wereall actors and playwrights. all with a thorough grounding in rhetoric. Who has studied the backgrounds of the actors and found them lacking in a grammar school education with rhetoric being the only thing on the curriculum.
If shakes was shaggin aemilia then it's also a good reason for putting her name in the plays. And being Hunsdon's mistress doesn't prove anything. What on earth do you mean by play analysis anyway?
And who says Shakespeare the stratty guy was a believing catholic? Shakespeare was also fluent in Latin which lets face it is very close to italian especially when written. Besides there were translations of the authors you mention.
Bringing feminism into the argument is an anachronism. Aemilia does not outshine Mary SIdney and her circle and poetic coterie. Women were a powerful force in the time and indeed the patriarchal hierarchy did not allow their legitimacy. Now since feminism we are finding out about these women. Besides, since when has Judaism been a feminist religion?
And how on earth can you claim none of shakespeare's friends were musicians? He entered a theatre in which he remained his entire career, where musical interludes were a staple. The masque doesn't start anyway until 1604 onwards.
He didn't live in a vacuum with only the documented friends we know about. Where are Amelia's credentials for theatrical friends like Richard Burbage, Heminges and Condell to shakespeare or a printing friend like Richard Field?
So no, I'm not convinced on any level except for a minority opinion voicing an unsubstantiated appeal.
william sutton
R U Sirius?
Hi John,
I too am an alumnus of the shakespeare institute and i will find your thesis next time i'm there. Both David Basch and Florence Amit have been thoroughly taken to task by the scholars on Shaksper as i'm sure you know. Their theories are not accepted as facts, outside of themselves. So their legitimacy is imperfect and highly questionable.
Wasn't it A L Rowse who first touted Aemilia Bassanio as the dark Lady? If she was then that is where Shakespeare could have been influenced. Why everybody has to cipher away the one man who was in the right place and time to do what he did, I don't know. If aemilia was such a poetic and musical prodigy she had no need to be shakespeare too. How do Cymbeline or Henry VIII fit into the theory?
Your list of eight reasons is also ingenuous. Shakespeare Johnson and Heywood wereall actors and playwrights. all with a thorough grounding in rhetoric. Who has studied the backgrounds of the actors and found them lacking in a grammar school education with rhetoric being the only thing on the curriculum.
If shakes was shaggin aemilia then it's also a good reason for putting her name in the plays. And being Hunsdon's mistress doesn't prove anything. What on earth do you mean by play analysis anyway?
And who says Shakespeare the stratty guy was a believing catholic? Shakespeare was also fluent in Latin which lets face it is very close to italian especially when written. Besides there were translations of the authors you mention.
Bringing feminism into the argument is an anachronism. Aemilia does not outshine Mary SIdney and her circle and poetic coterie. Women were a powerful force in the time and indeed the patriarchal hierarchy did not allow their legitimacy. Now since feminism we are finding out about these women. Besides, since when has Judaism been a feminist religion?
And how on earth can you claim none of shakespeare's friends were musicians? He entered a theatre in which he remained his entire career, where musical interludes were a staple. The masque doesn't start anyway until 1604 onwards.
He didn't live in a vacuum with only the documented friends we know about. Where are Amelia's credentials for theatrical friends like Richard Burbage, Heminges and Condell to shakespeare or a printing friend like Richard Field?
So no, I'm not convinced on any level except for a minority opinion voicing an unsubstantiated appeal.
Anonymous
Hey, maybe *Shakespeare* wrote Shakespeare's works?
The main reason that certain individuals (against the overwhelming consensus of scholars in all related fields) claim that Shakespeare didn't write the works attributed to him is that we lack much in the way of biographical information about him. And why is this? It's because at that time--indeed, for most of human history--only the ruling elite were the subject of biography. (That includes critical biographies and outright hatchet-jobs as well as hagiographies.) Shakespeare was a commoner (albeit a moderately well-off one), and therefore didn't have scribes at his beck and call to record his comings and goings. Nor did he have a devoted secretary-friend like Boswell to do so.
Popular comics and fantasy author Neil Gaiman, interviewed in The Sandman Companion, suggests another reason for the anti-Stratfordian phenomenon. Some people, not necessarily consciously, have a bias towards the nobility being the only ones capable of producing literature of Shakespeare's quality. In fact, as Gaiman points out, most of the greatest authors (and other artists) in history were not aristocrats. Indeed some, like the plurality of bards we call "Homer," or the author(s) of Beowulf, were anonymous folks who barely eked out a living and who were neither formally educated nor even functionally literate. And yet no one finds it necessary to posit that it was Solon who wrote the Iliad or Alfred the Great who wrote Beowulf.
Honestly, I can't believe this is still the subject of debate. Why can't we let Shakespeare be Shakespeare?
Anonymous
who wrote merchant of
who wrote merchant of venice with it's stearo types of the grasping jew ?
The Yitz
Zayn oder zayn nisht
Dear Mr. Hudson,
As much as I would love to believe that the best of Shakespeare's works were written by a Jewish woman, you mention nothing that contradicts the thorough research done by Ruffati and Zorattini (La Famiglia Piva-Bassano Nei Document Degli Archevi Di Bassano Del Grappa, 2 December 1998, Musica e Storia, Alessio Ruffatti) that more or less disproves that the Bassano family were of Jewish origin. Additionally, even if they were conversos, is there any evidence that they were well-versed enough in the Torah or Talmud to support your claims. However, I do think you bring up a good point about the Hebrew-style phrases and references in Shakespeare and it does seem likely that Shakespeare had access to some Jewish learning or someone with some. Related to a previous comment, how would your theory explain the anti-semitic elements of Merchant of Venice? If you have some futher support to your theory, I would be very curious to know.
See http://www.ic.arizona.edu/ic/mcbride/lanyer/lanyer.htm for more info.
Bill Bloggs
not again
Oh dear, here we go again. The "Shakespeare was really someone else" debate is as pointless and as much fun as theology, because you know no one will ever be able disprove your arguments. I can also come up with some good arguments based on stereotypes to prove 99.9999% that the plays couldn't have been written by a woman: The plays contain many dirty jokes, and everyone knows that women are no good at them, and they also contain lots of violence and flag-waving nationalism, which we all know is alien to women, and naturally a female playwright would have made Lady MacBeth a positive character.
Do my arguments stand up? Of course they don't, but they are no weaker than those presented here. As long as we are being presented with evidence of a Heather Mills standard, I'm going to believe that Shakespeare was a grammar school boy from Stratford with a certain talent for words.
GS
Shakespeare's Plays Were Written By A Jewish Woman
Why would a Jewish woman make Anti-Semitic remarks as illustrated in the "Merchant of Venice"?
GS
DJStahl
Why do people see "Merchant" as anti-Semitic?
It's like perceiving Godfather or Sopranos as anti-Italian.
What each of these works do is take the pre-existing, negative stereotype, accept it -- and then subvert it: by revealing the supposed villain as fully human, with understandable emotions and circumstances.
I'm told Broadway's Wicked does much the same for the Wicked Witch of the West.
If Merchant of Venice didn't include some stereotypical negative qualities attributed to Shylock, then he'd be an anomalous, exceptional example of a Jew in the view of the audience. And the play would be less effective in achieving its pro-Jewish purpose.
This isn't to say that I'm accepting a Jewish woman wrote the plays. But saying Merchant is anti-Semitic is like saying "Michael Corleone" is a hostile, negative stereotype of an Italian-American.
khartoumi
Amazing - this must be
Amazing - this must be satire. Shakespeare a "believing Catholic" as fact! Really? The only very circumstantial evidence for this "fact" is that he didn't seem to bother going to church and that as a licensed player he did not...
Very amusing. What next? Marlowe, an agent of the Caliph?
Sasha McLean
I enjoyed
I enjoyed reading this article. I'd like to read more about this idea. Are you working on longer essays or books? I'd read them.
Andree Brooks
your comment below
Dear John,
IN a recent interview you said, "There were of course women scholars at the time, including one who was a distant relative of the Bassanos–Donna Ana (Reyna) de Nasi continued her mother’s vision and support for Torah scholarship, and in her 50’s set up a printing press at Belvedere Palace that published a dozen Hebrew books over 1592-99 including an allegorical drama and a Talmudic treatise."
I wrote the most comprehensive biography of Dona Gracia Nasi, Reyna's mother, called "The Woman who Defied Kings," in 2002 -- all from 16th century documents. I could find no relationshop between the Bassanos and the Nasi family. What were your sources? I would be most interested. Thanks.
Shoshi
Shakespeare, the Jewish connection
Hi, There are many scholars who have written about the Jewish connecton of Shakespear, and also the Jewish connection of Queen Elizabeth the First! <br> <br>
Separdic scholars knew of the cryto Jewish presence in England, and also of the fate of those who were caught by the Church Authorities. They had synagoges three stories under ground but some wer found out and were murdered/
See if you can get a copy of "The Hidden Shakespeare, a Rosseta Stone, By David Basch. Revelatory Press, West Hartford CT 1994. <br> <br>
In this book Basch shows that Shakespeare's grandfather's name was Jochanan of Spear, which was in Holland and a location of many crypto as well as practicing Jews of Spanish orgin. Sheker in Hebrew is a lie. So Sheker of Spere, becoming Shakespeare meaner the lyer of Spere.
Many Cryto Jews used these type of Hebrew puns, especially sarcastic puns to contact or make themselves known to other Crypto Jews without being caught by the Catholic Church and being burned at the stake amidst a picnic atmosphere.
For example, The name Luz, which is light in Spanish, is given to girls from this background, and in Hebrew it hints at the original name of Jerusalem and also to the Luz bone which is indestructable and has our DNA for the time of resurrection of the Dead.
The name Bacon, in Spanish was take by Crypto Jews who were forcibly converted in a certain location, and it is possible that Francis Bacon may also share our heritage, and some others who were thought to be English, but a bit too bright and literate for their age.
As for The Merchant of Venice, it is written not only in away that can be read on two levels, but it follows a tradition in England of using plays to convey a pre protestant orientation under the noses of the Catholic censors. (See The Castle of Perseverance and how it conveys the anti-Catholice message by using the Devil to give the very reasoned protestnt argument, and the priest to give a weak and babbling Catholic answer.
So, in conclusion, there was a real if not significant presence of Crypto -Jews in the time of Shakespeare (Sheker of Spere) in England, they were known to each other, and they were known to some in the Sephardic communities outside of England.
Anyone pursuing this should try to find out exactly when Ann Bolyn was caught and why. A great thesis and or book could come from that.
Anonymous
This thread
Shakespeare was...
NOT A JEW
This is pathetic.
Professor Hovha...
The Crucial Question (s)
I read all the above with great interest.
What puzzled me is that it has not occurred to the author - John Hudson - and his 16 Commentators to note that Shakespeare's Bassanio - a major homoerotic character in the Merchant - may contain a pun on Ms Amelia Bassano's name. Then, the more fundamental question needing subsequently an urgent scholarly answer would be ;
Why should the acclaimed/published Ms Bassano-Lanier desire to gender-bend and disguise herself as the actor Mr Shakespeare - a historical personage (unlike a Moses and a Jesus that exist ONLY in the Bible narratives)?
And Why O Why would the latter accept such a presumably consensual secret (and even a dangerous) deal?
Who brokered the Deal and Why?
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