William Shakespeare's plays were written by Earl of Oxford, claims German scholar

A German academic claims to have uncovered the most conclusive evidence to date that the works of William Shakespeare were in fact written by Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford.



Kurt Kreiler’s 595-page book, The Man Who Invented Shakespeare, has been published in Germany to some critical acclaim and an English translation is planned for next year.

Over 22 chapters, Mr Kreiler, an established Shakespeare scholar, builds a mountain of circumstantial evidence in support of the idea that the world has been honouring the wrong man for centuries.

He claims de Vere's known works and letters show a strong Shakespearean style and also points to the earl's nickname at court, 'Spear-shaker'.

Mr Kreiler says the earl graduated from Cambridge aged just 14; mastered law and Italian; and would have had a wide-ranging knowledge of the upper classes – in contrast to the lowly-born William Shakespeare. All this, he concludes, means de Vere was well placed to write works such as The Merchant of Venice, Romeo and Juliet and Julius Caesar.

Mr Kreiler also believes Hamlet was almost an autobiographical play about the Earl’s life. De Vere’s father-in-law, William Cecil, Lord Burghley, is said to be have been parodied as the character Polonius.

“It is interesting to note that his nickname at court was Spear-shaker, due to his ability both at tournaments and because his coat of arms featured a lion brandishing spear,” he said.

“Edward De Vere also lived in the same area as Shakespeare and scrutiny of specific stanzas of poetry he wrote show their style was not copied anywhere else at the time, except in what we call Shakespearean poems.”

Walter Klier, another German Shakespeare scholar, suggested the new book should be taken seriously.

“An enormous amount of research has been invested in this fluent, well-written biography, offering a cornucopia of new facts and new insights,” he said.

However he added: “The debate will still go on forever about whether or not Shakespeare really was Shakespeare.”

Critics of the theory argue that de Vere’s death in 1604 means he cannot possibly have been the real Shakespeare as he would not have been aware of the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 and the wreck of the Sea Venture in Bermuda in 1609, which are thought to be alluded to in Macbeth and The Tempest respectively.

Contemporaries such as playwright Ben Jonson also pay tribute to Shakespeare’s abilities as a writer.

And many consider de Vere’s known works to be markedly inferior to Shakespeare’s and question why the earl would have been happy to put his name to those, but not material of better quality.

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