Amelia Bassano Lanier: the Dark Lady

Amelia Bassano Lanier is the latest candidate for the authorship of Shakespeare's plays. Visit www.darkladyplayers.com

1. SHAKESPEARE:Rethinking
Jewish History
“this research represents a legitimate new area
of scholarship” (Dr. Catherine Alexander, Editor,
The Cambridge Shakespeare Library).
“the case for Amelia Bassano Lanier is as plausible as
Shakespeare’s” (The Queen’s Quarterly)
“marvelous and revolutionary” (Vicky McMahon,
theater department, University of Winnipeg)
[email protected]
www.darkladyplayers.com

2. Presentation
A.The Shakespearean Authorship Issue
Why Mr. Shakespeare doesn’t fit
Changes made in 1622 to Othello
Key Abilities needed
Fit with the Sonnets, biographical details
B.Biographical evidence for New Candidate
C.Literary evidence for New Candidate
Swan signatures
Literary similarities
Jewish religious allegory in the plays
D. Implications for Jewish History

3. A. The Shakespearean
Authorship Issue
The hunt for the author has turned up 68
candidates, none of them plausible….and none
of them explain what the plays mean or why they
were written

4. The World’s Most Complex
Literary Works
•Written and revised over many years not weeks
•3,000 Biblical references in 14 translations
•more musical references than any other writer
•Hundreds of military, legal,classical references
•Uses hundreds of literary sources
•Knowledge both of the court and of commoners
•Uses allegory and allusions to convey hidden
meanings
•Created to be performed, and to be read later

5. Sources Read Include
IN HEBREW
•Book of Genesis
•The Talmud
•Maimonides Guide of The
Perplexed
•The Zohar
•Manuscript of De Sommi’s
The Betrothed
•Azirah de Rossi
IN ITALIAN
•Dante
•Tasso, Aminta & Jerusalem
•Manuscript of Scala’s Flavio
Tradito
•Bandello,Novella
•Di Sommi, Quattro Dialoghi
•Gl’Ingannati
•Il Cesare
•Il Pecorone
•Il Novellino
•Cinthio, Epitia &
Hecatommithi
•Italian 1530 translation of
Plautus Mostellaria

6. Ben Jonson’s Evidence
•Jonson was the only
person who claimed to
personally know the author
of the plays
•In his private diary ‘Timber’
he says he told the other
actors that Mr.
Shakespeare was to be
“most faulted” for he never
“blotted line” which the
actors thought a
“malevolent” speech.
•And parodies him as
Sogliardo, a ‘gull’
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7. The leading alternative, Earl of
Oxford, died in 1604
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•Yet Macbeth mentions the
1605 Gunpowder plot
•Coriolanus mentions Harvey’s
1616 circulation of the blood
discovery
•How could Oxford have
collaborated with Fletcher who
began work in 1607?
•Or made the changes to
Othello in 1622?
•He was not a major poet and
his bio doesn’t fit the Sonnets

8. The true author mocked
William as an uneducated fool
•In As You Like It Act V, Scene 1
Touchstone teaches William
rhetoric, and in Merry Wives Of
Windsor Act IV, Scene 1 William
learns Latin grammar
•In addition AYLI identifies him with
Ben Jonson’s hostile caricature of
William Shakespeare as the
country bumpkin Sogliardo
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9. The Actor from Stratford
•A multi-millionaire in today’s terms
his biography does not match what
we know from the plays and Sonnets
•No way for him to develop the
knowledge and abilities shown in
the plays
•He was a play broker for the true
author who must fit four criteria:
biographic fit with the Sonnets
alive in 1622/3
+20 unusual abilities
must be a major poet with
theatrical connections and a gap
in their work
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10. (1.)Need to be alive in 1622
•Scholars agree the 1623
Folio was edited by Ben
Jonson
•Revisions were made to
certain plays especially
Othello 1622-1623, and to
Measure for Measure
referring to a 1621
newspaper article
•So the author needed to
have been alive to make
those revisions
•Shakespeare died in 1616
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11. (2.)Need these Abilities
AND be a major poet
•Experience of hunting
but disliked it
•Knowledge of the Court
•Knew Earl of Southampton
•Military knowledge
•Rare plants
•Legal knowledge
•Northern dialect
•Denmark
•Astronomy
•Falconry
•Silkweaving
•More musical than any
other playwright
•Fluent Italian
•Some spoken Hebrew
•knowledge of girls’
literature
•Feminism
•Judaism
•Theater knowledge/contacts
•Biblical knowledge
•Interest in Venice and Moors
•Ties to Ben Jonson

12. (3.)Need a 20 year ‘gap’
when the plays were written
Triumph of
Death,
Astrea
AngelSpirit
Even Now
Psalms
Antoinus
(trans),
Discourse
Mary
Sidney
TreatisesCaelia,
poems
Life of
Sidney
Mustapha
Alaham
Editor of
Arcadia
The
Letter
Fulkes
Greville
New
Atlantis
(1623)
On
Wisdom
Proficiency
Learning,
Pacification
& Nature,
Essays
Meditations
Elements
of Law
Francis
Bacon
Salve
Deus
Willobie?
Pub.1594
Amelia
Lanier
Tragi-
Comedies
TragedyItalian
Comedy
Court/
Histories
Shake-
speare
After
1610
1606-
1610
1601-
1605
1596-
1600
1590-
1595
No works known

13. (4.)Need to fit the Sonnets
biographical details
•The writer of the 1609 Sonnets claimed
to be “poor” and “despised” (Sonnet 37),
that fortune “did not better for my life
provide” (Sonnet 111),
•“outcast” and “in disgrace with fortune
and men’s eyes” (Sonnet 29),and likely to
be buried in a common grave
•The man from Stratford does not fit. He
was not despised, nor in disgrace, was
the second wealthiest actor in England,
and had a private burial plot.
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14. No public honour,poor and a
common grave (Sonnets, 1609)
Common graveNone--a pauperAmelia Lanier
Private
vault
Sir, later Earl
Richest man in England
Greville
Westminster Abbey?Earl, pension of 1000
pounds ($1 million+)
Oxford
Vault, Salisbury
Cathedral
Countess, owned much
of Wiltshire
Mary Sidney
Vault, St MichaelsSir, later Viscount
Income from offices
Bacon
Private grave
Reserved from 1604
Gentleman, 2nd richest
Actor (after E. Alleyn)
Shakespeare
GRAVEHONOURCANDIDATE

15. B. The Biographical Evidence
A New Authorship Candidate:
Her Life Story

16. Aemilia Bassano Lanyer
(1569-1645)
•First woman to publish a
book of original poetry,
Salve Deus Rex
Judaeorum
•Already linked to the
Sonnets as the ‘Dark
Lady’ by A. L. Rowse
•Perfect match on all key
areas of knowledge in
the plays
•Suddenly appears as a
major poet in 1611

17. Biographical Fit to areas of
Shakespearean Knowledge
•1569-76, The Bassanos
Music,
Italy, Venice,Italian
Hebrew, Judaism
Silkweaving,
•1576-82, The Willoughbies
Bible translation
Denmark, astronomy
Feminism
Sonnet writing
Military knowledge
Knowledge of Navarre
•1582-1592, Lord Hunsdon
the Court,
the Theater
Rare plants, falconry
Law suits, hunting
Military knowledge
(Plays began to be written c.1591)
•1592-1597, Marriage
 Italian marriage comedies
Tutor to Anne Clifford
•1611, onwards
Major poet
poverty, in sorrows cell
matches the Sonnets

18. Aemilia’s decline in fortune
1597+ matches the Sonnets
•In the late 1590s she told Dr
Forman that her husband
was wasting her money on
bad deals
•By 1611 she was in “sorrows
cell” comparable to the
Sonnets
•was imprisoned, and later
appeared in court records as
a pauper, buried in common
grave
•Received no honors or title
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19. Spitalfields: Growing up
1569-1576
•Aemilia grew up near to
the theater district, next
to a silk weaving factory
•In a family of Venetian
Jews, who practiced
their religion in secret
•Jews having been
expelled in the 13th
century
•Her next door neighbor’s
daughter, Ann Lok,
invented the sonnet
sequence

20. The Bassano (or Bassanio)
Family
•Jewish/Italian/
Moorish family origin
•Spoke fluent Italian
•Described in legal
records as ‘black’
•Were the Court
recorder troupe and
moonlighted doing
theater music

21. The world’s most musical
plays & a family of musicians
Son,
Henry
Husband,
Alphonso
Amelia
Father
Baptista
Mother uncle
Maternal
cousin
Robert
Johnson
Brother
in law
Nicholas
Brother
in law
Innocent
Uncle
John
Uncle
Avise
Uncle
Jasper
Uncle
Jacomo
Johnsons
Laniers
3 cousins
Bassanos

22. ‘Adopted’ by the Willoughbies
1576-1582
•From the age of seven
she was brought up in
the Willoughby family
•The matriarch of the
family was the Duchess
of Suffolk
•A Tudor feminist she
persuaded Henry VIII to
allow women to read the
Bible privately for
themselves
•Knew Tyndale, the Bible
translator
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23. m m
Henry VII
Henry VIII
Henry
Carey
Lord
Hunsdon
Illegitimate
Queen
Elizabeth I
Mary
Tudor
Charles
Brandon
Catherine
Willoughby,
Duchess of
Suffolk
Countess
Susan
Bertie
Peregrine
Bertie,
Lord
Willoughby
Amelia
Bassano
adoptedￔ ￕ
THE TUDORS THE BRANDON/
WILLOUGHBY FAMILY
Family Trees

24. The Willoughbies: Countess
Susan Bertie
•C.Suffolk’s daughter
Susan Bertie acted as
Amelia’s foster mother
•She was educated by
the Bible translator
Coverdale
•Lived near Aynsley (the
model for Lear) and had
access to works by De
Pisan used in the plays,
and by no other English
writer

25. Lord Willoughby: Peregrine
Bertie
•The head of the family
was Lord Willoughby. The
plays may reflect his
expertise as England’s
most famous soldier, and
allude to him
•He was Ambassador to
Denmark, an amateur
astronomer,and a friend
of Tycho Brahe’s
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26. Knowledge of the Court
narrows possible candidates
•Court limited to 500
•Plays show an
insider’s knowledge of
the court, eg. dance,
hunting, games
•They invent new
words like courtiers
did, use allegory, and
indirect allusion like at
Court
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27. Mistress to Lord Hunsdon
from 1582-1592
•At age of 13 Aemilia
became his mistress
and lived in his palace
for 10 years
•He was the Queen’s
half-brother, powerful at
Court
•His expertise is reflected
in the plays’ military,
legal, botanical and
falconry knowledge

28. She lived with him for a
decade in Somerset House
•General in charge of
London
•Held 3 legal
appointments
•Garden of rare
plants
•Master of the Royal
Falcons
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29. Master of the Royal Falcons
•Lord Hunsdon was master
of the Royal Falcons.
•The Shakespearean plays
mention tame birds raised
from eggs by a falconer,
and details of bird training
and equipment.
•Proportionately the plays
use 15 times more falconry
references than Marlowe,
Greene or Ben Jonson.
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30. And the most influential man
in London’s theater
•Hunsdon was Lord
Chamberlain, in
charge of the
theaters, and all
court entertainments
•He was also Patron
of the company that
performed all the
Shakespearean
plays after 1594
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31. Her Affair with Earl of
Southampton
•The dedicatee of the
poems Rape of
Lucrece and V&A
•He was her next
door neighbor, and
she mentions having
an affair with him
•He was assisting her
family financially ten
years later
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32. Marlowe’s Lover and
Apprentice
•Marlowe’s language is a
strong influence on the
early plays
•He matches the lover in A
Lover’s Complaint
•His plays contain a non
Christian allegory that is
echoed in the
Shakespearean plays
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33. Family Ties to the theater
company and Jonson
•She had family ties to
Ben Jonson who echoed
one of her poems
•Her brother-in-law and
her sister-in law’s
husband, worked on
many of Jonson’s
masques
•Her maternal cousin
wrote music/dances for
five Shakespearean
plays performed by the
theater company
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34. C. The Literary Evidence
An Introduction

35. The Literary Evidence
•1)Aemilia is linked to the plays by her full
name associated with the dying swan, the
‘swan signatures’ resulting from changes to
Othello in 1622-3
•2)Salve Deus also has direct literary links to
the plays
•3) She was England’s only Jewish poet, and
the plays contain a Jewish religious allegory

36. 1).Othello’s 1622 revisions
•Somehow I63 extra lines
by the author, were added
in to the 1622 Quarto of
Othello when the First
Folio was published in
1623
•Many of those lines
expand the part of
Aemelia and put in the
willow song
•These inexplicable
changes also create the
‘swan signatures’.

37. Swan Signatures: Aemilia
Johnson Willoughby Bassanio
•The swan dying to music
was the standard image of
the Renaissance Poet
•It is used in the plays to
identify Aemilia by all her
four names
oIn MOV refers to Bassanio
oIn KJ refers to John’s son
oIn Othello the passage is sung
by Aemilia and
ogoes willough willough willough
•Statistically this cannot be
a co-incidence.
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38. 2.Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum
(1611) is linked to the plays
•Published under her own
name, a gospel satire
•Same sources,compositional
techniques, use of rare and
unusual words, as in the
plays
•3000 lines long, comprising
several different works
•Including a 160 line masque
like The Tempest’s
•And a long irreverent satire of
the crucifixion

39. Similarities of Language
•The Cookham poem
echoes Dream,using
similar word clusters
•Use of unique words like
Dictina, found in LLL as
Dictima (4,2,37)
•Uses at least 8 words eg.
amazement invented by
‘Shakespeare’

40. 3)The Plays contain a Jewish
religious Allegory
•Allegory, a “false semblant” (Puttenham) was
common in Elizabethan literature,
•In allegory one thing stood for another.
•Texts had a honeyed surface that common
people would understand, and beneath, an
allegorical meaning that only the wise would
understand
•They were used as a vehicle for transmitting
forbidden knowledge and by-passing
censorship

41. Elizabethan Theater and
anti-Christian Satire
•“Our salvation is not to be
jested at in filthy plays on
stages and scaffolds. Or
mixed with bawdry,
wanton shows and
uncomely gestures”
(Stubbes, Anatomy of
Abuses, 1583)
•That is exactly what the
Shakespearean plays do,
but covertly

42. (i)As You Like It: ‘Arden’ as
allegory for Judea
•A lodge is to be burnt,
everyone is starving,
greasy citizens are
being massacred, the
forest is turned into a
desert, people are hung
on trees, it is a temple,
and surrounded by a
circle……
•And ruled by an outlaw
tyrant, a usurper, a
“Roman conqueror”
•It is the Jewish War

43. (ii)The allegory in A
Midsummer Night’s Dream
•A Midsummer Night’s
Dream, contains a comic
allegory of Christianity.
•The death of Bottom/
Pyramus parodies the
crucifixion eg. dice game
•(Dr. Patricia Parker
identified the
Bottom/Pyramus,
Thisbe/church, Quince/St
Peter, Wall/Partition
allegory in 1998)

44. Death of Pyramus is a spoof
of the Passion Story
•IN THE PLAY
•Two references to
Passion
•Stabbed in side
•Light disappears
•No die but an ace
refers to dice
playing
•Resurrection of
Bottom and spirits
•GOSPEL
•Known as the
’passion story’
•Stabbed in side
•Darkness comes
over the land
•Men play dice
•Resurrection of
spirits and Jesus

45. Little ‘Indian’ Boy, Titania, and
Oberon and the War
•Titania=Titus Caesar
•Oberon=Yahweh
•The war is the
Roman-Jewish war
66-73CE
•The Boy is a Little
Iudean Boy, a
Messianic figure
•Bees/Maccabees

46. D. Implications for Jewish
History

47. Importance of the allegories
•This research identifies not
just the author but the
underlying meaning of all the
plays
•They are Jewish religious
satires and must be
understood in light of The
Jewish War
•And leading edge theories
about the writing of the
gospels
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48. Aemilia’s Death (1645)
•She was buried here in
St James’ Clerkenwell in
a common grave
•She has no memorial
and is known only to a
few scholars of early
English verse
•We have an ethical and
moral obligation to make
her achievement known
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49. Next Steps:preparing a
‘platform’ for the biography
•Foster discussions at synagogues and Jewish
organizations, as a social justice issue
•Seek donors and Board Members for the
Dark Lady Players
•Establish an audience for the next play
production on a larger scale, to help fund it,
•Academic presentation at Authorship
Conference in October and at American
College Theater Festival in January 2009
[email protected]
www.darkladyplayers.com