CLUES EMBEDDED IN SHAKESPEAREAN SCRIPTS POINTING TO EMILIA BASSANO LANYER
It’s the author’s theory that Emilia Bassano Lanyer wrote most, if not all of Shakespeare’s comedies, beginning with A Comedy of Errors, which is when the genre of Shakespeare’s scripts suddenly departs from historical, monarchial dramas. Even now, it is very unusual for a playwright or novelist to make such a radical shift. It also seems more than a coincidence that the plays set in Venice and other parts of what is today Italy were first performed during and soon after the years Amelia lived there. Therefore, the clues are identified within the chronology of Shakespeare’s plays below.
Shakespeare’s Conspirator is true to the generally accepted sequence and years in which Shakespeare’s plays were initially performed.
The chronology below was created by Amanda Mabillard of Shakespeare Online. It is consistent with similar chronologies, although each has slight date variations.
As Mabillard writes, “It is impossible to know the exact order of succession because there is no record of the first production date of any of Shakespeare’s works. However, scholars have decided upon a specific play chronology, based upon the following sources of information:
1) several historical events and allusions to those events in the plays;
2) the records of performances of the plays—taken from such places as Henslowe’s diary and the diaries of other Shakespeare contemporaries like John Manningham (a student at the Inns of Court), and Thomas Platter (a Swiss businessman);
3) the publication dates of sources;
4) the dates that the plays appear in print (remembering that the production of a play immediately followed the completion of that play in the Elizabethan age). Despite the fact that we have an accepted play chronology, we must keep in mind that the dating is conjectural.”
Added to Mabillard’s chronology is information on the “Location/Setting” for each play, “Character Names Connected with Amelia’s Life,” and “Other Clues Pointing to Amelia.” These additions summarize the pattern of clues Amelia Bassano Lanier may have left behind as evidence of her involvement in writing Shakespearian plays. This picture was formed by drawing on the research of John A. Hudson and David Basch, who have written several articles making these and other connections. (Note: Basch theorizes that Shakespeare may have been Jewish.) Please refer to the “Premise” page for a discussion of why these are identified as clues. More detailed discussions can be found by reading source material listed on the “Bibliography” page. Many links are provided.
While some of the “clues” in the table may seem more like a coincidence, seem weak or a stretch as stand-alone evidence, the overall pattern paints a compelling picture. Can they all be coincidence?
CHRONOLOGY OF SHAKESPEAREAN PLAYS WITH CLUES AND CHARACTER NAMES RESEMBLING PARTICULARS OF EMILIA BASSANO LANYER’S LIFE
* Mabillard notes: Two Noble Kinsmen is listed as one of Shakespeare’s plays although few scholars believe it not to be an original work by Shakespeare. The majority of the play was probably written by John Fletcher, who was a prominent actor and Shakespeare’s close friend. Fletcher succeeded Shakespeare as foremost dramatist for the King’s Men (the successor to Lord Chamberlain’s Men).
Author Ghislain Muller has suggested that Shakespeare himself was a crypto-Jew with a grandfather named Shapiro in “Was Shakespeare a Jew?: Uncovering the Marrano Influences in His Life and Writing.” And in “Shylock Is Shakespeare,” author Kenneth Gross argues that the key to understanding the character of Shakespeare’s most notorious Jewish character is to view him as the voice of the playwright himself.
