Yesterday I blogged over at Lindsay’s Romantics about Shakespeare.
http://lindsaysromantics.blogspot.com/2010/06/william-shakespeare-or-amelia-bassano.html
Who was he? Was the bard even a he? New research by John Hudson indicates that Shakespeare may have been a woman, and not just any woman, a Jewish woman from a family of Conversos - Jews forcibly converted to Christianity. Her name was Amelia Bassano Lanier and I find her life story compelling, even more so if, as a woman, as a Jewish woman living in Tudor England, she was actually the voice behind tragedies, comedies and histories that are still performed today.
While visiting my parents last week, my mother handed me an article discussing Amelia Bassano Lanier and the possibility that she was the real William Shakespeare.
http://reformjudaismmag.org/Articles/index.cfm?id=1584
The proponent of this theory is John Hudson, a researcher out of Birmingham, England, and the director of Organizational Practice. I could not believe my eyes when I read Mr. Hudson’s comment on my blog! He dropped by! He left some additional information and if I knew how to upload a video, I would. Here’s a little taste and a link to his website, The Dark Lady Players, a tribute to Amelia Bassano Lanier, perhaps Shakespeare’s enigmatic dark lady.
http://www.darkladyplayers.com/theater.htm
***Speaking of the dark, last night’s episode of True Blood, while a bit random, was better than the week before. After last week’s Season Three opener, I wasn’t quite sure I would continue to watch. IMO there are too many story lines at once, but some of them have definitely piqued my interest. I’d prefer more focus on fewer characters, but then I can’t imagine getting rid of anyone right now. Although…I think if I hear Tara cry out Eggs once more I might join Arlene in the bathroom for a puke session.
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It’s a lovely fantasy, but Reform Judaism’s editors should have been more thorough and done some fact checking. Bassano Lanier was not a Jew, first of all. Her mother wasn’t, and there’s no proof whatsoever that her father was. As for the rest of the story, it’s a lovely fantasy constructed out of half-facts and suppositions and starts from a false premise: Shakespeare couldn’t have written the plays. This premise took root in the mid 1800s, more than two hundred years after Shakespeare died. That should give people pause.
Interested readers should check out James Shapiro’s “Contested Will,” Irvin Matus’s “Shakespeare in Fact,” and http://www.bibliobuffet.com/book-brunch-columns-322/1304-anyone-but-shakespeare-062010