PROMIS'D ETERNITY
Unorthodox responses to Shakespeare's sonnets.
A blog / library and (eventual) audio, visual and performance installation in progress.

Introduction
​
It was many years ago that I first heard about the alternative theories surrounding the authorship of Shakespeare's work. Some often ask 'what does it matter who wrote them?' For me, the idea that we might not know the background and inspiration of some of my favourite works of literature was both surprising and frustrating. Added to the fact that, as a gay man, one of the first things I'd wanted to understand more about was Shakespeare's sexuality – in light of the 'open secret' that many of the sonnets were addressed to another man; scandalous homoerotic material that Orthodoxy had felt embarrassed about for years. Victorian publishers even changed the pronouns.

The 154 sonnets appear to be as near to direct autobiography as we can find in Shakespeare – with tantalising references to people, events, scandals, locations and most of all, relationships. It therefore felt the most fruitful field to begin investigations. I'm sure I wasn't the first who's searches led nowhere; for no tangibly, provable or even revealing information or records of any links between Shakespeare of Stratford and the suggested events and relationships in the poems. Orthodoxy has even suggested the works are mere 'writing exercises', nothing more than flights of poetic fantasy (palpably untrue). So I looked further afield, and opened some heretical books - to discover that not only where there a multitude of others on the same quest as me, many of them favoured alternative candidates for the authorship. Delving in with alacrity I was amazed to find totally different results. Obscurity became clarity, abstracts became tangible.

Though there are now a multitude of prestigious academics, theatre practitioners, historians and researchers engaged with the authorship question the world over, (particularly overseas), with almost 330 notables signed up to the declaration of reasonable doubt, Orthodox scholars have continually tried to denigrate and block both them and their research. Although it is not working, one of the mot frustrating aspects is the attempt to put out the light being shone upon odd corners of an age about which we know so little; the enigmatic and secretive Elizabethan era. Surely any research on the subject would be welcome, no? However, the reactionary resistance is strong – and even the idea of airing interpretations let alone examining them is seen as something approaching sacrilege
.
I am hoping, with this blog space, to attract views and samples from the many enthusiasts and experts on the subject, sharing specific research and interpretations about particular sonnets – but I also wish to open the floor to all kinds of alternative personal responses to the poems, by asking people to record short films that include the spoken text but with no explanatory notes; just their own creative responses expressed visually and orally. I hope it might open up the basic concept of discussing the pieces and opening one's mind to the poems in a more open and playful way.

As yet anyway, nobody knows the answers to one of the great literary mysteries in our heritage - and ultimately, whoever finds those answers and stumbles upon that Holy Grail, that 'smoking gun', is guaranteed fame and (perhaps) immortality (subjects dear to the writer themselves). The dedication to the original publication wishes the author 'that promised eternitie' – so it seems only right and fitting, that should it be someone other than we've been led to believe, they should at last receive it.

​There appears general agreement that the sonnets open with a sequence addressed to a teenage nobleman, The Fair Youth. The notion that numbers 1 to 17 are a self-contained sub-set also seems reasonably uncontentious. Dubbed the procreation sonnets, their purpose seems essentially to be,  through flattery and persuasion (unctious urging + mild scare tactics), to get the young man to seize the day, make hay while the sun shines and get married pronto - his beauty being such that it'd be a crime against posterity (humanity even) for his gorgeous genes not to be passed-on, and reproduction made of the masterpiece he is. A cynic might ponder whether the fair youth's fortune was perhaps as lavish as his looks, that the haste to propel him to couple might be dynastically motivated.  But I run ahead of myself...

Some advance the idea that the procreation sonnets reflect the youth's age at the time of writing; a present on his turning 17. But who was the birthday boy? For years it was fairly unanimously accepted to be Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Early of Southampton. One glance at a portrait of him as a young man is enough to see a certain extravagance in his looks, somewhat feminine for men of the time even -with his long, lustrous red hair, cascading free or done up in a love-lock, his pert, rosy lips and chalk white skin (remember this descritption for a future blog). In fact, the most recently 'dicovered' portrait of him had for several hundred years been assumed a countess. He certainly doesn't appear to be hiding his light under any bushel though, indeed appears inordinately proud of his image, and perhaps therefore  susceptible to the kind of forthright, look-in-thy-glass type flattery of the early sonnets.

On a side note, Southampton's apparent narcissism was undelined for me last year - when, visiting the Titchfield church in which his remains are buried, I noted he'd been given the sweetest (literally) and grandest send off imaginable (fit for a Pharoe no less): embalmed in a honey-filled coffin.  Southampton was extolled in similarly Godlike fashon when living, in the named dedication to Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis. Many have understandably assumed him and the Mr WH of the sonnet's own dedication to be one and the same (albeit with back to front initials). As such, the title of 'Shakespeare's patron' has stuck to Southampton ever since.

Trouble is, there is absoluetly no proof whatsoever that the Stratford man had (or would, or could ever really have) fraternised with someone of the status of an Elizabethan Earl. Certainly the intimate demands (of the beget children for love of me variety) and all the homoerotic suggestion, affection and flirting makes the notion of Shakespeare penning the poems for Southampton's delectation risable (at best), kamikaze (at worst). This is the kind of stuff and nonsense that we are expected to  buy wholesale, like good little simpletons, and the kind of thing which sends me, personally, into ranting frenzies.  After leaving Southampton's tomb, I figured I'd also take in the ruins of his manor house, up the road - where I found, shamelessly hawked and touted on every information board, references to these kind of ouright fibs about the phantom friendship between nobleman and bumpkin.  On that day, tipping fully over to the bad side, I spent half a frenzied hour sticking up post-it notes on said signs, in the rain - stating Lies, Lies, Lies! in hostile red pen (yes it was me, English Heritage, what ya gonna do?). However, not to dwell, I'm actually going to move on and restore my equilibrium with some tangible facts.

Southampton was certainly aquainted with Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford. So welll aquianted in fact that the late, great writer and journalist Josef Sobran, in his wonderful and intriguing book Alias Shakespeare, purports they had a sexual relationship that scandalised the court and was the primary reason for Oxford's being shunned by society, and going into exile - as well as the reason for his absence from, and fluctuating pronouncements of blame and forgiveness to, his younger lover (who should not even as much as his name rehearse or be tainted by association). This is a fascinating line, and befitting of other aspects of De Vere's candidature and history on record, but for exploration in a later post. Suffice to say here that there are more than enough facts to support Oxford's connection to the procreation sonnets. When Southampton was 17 for instance, he was actually being urged by De Vere (then 40) to marry his daughter Elizabeth. Though Southampton demured (for which he was fined the astronomic sum of £3000) the history fits the words like a proverbial Warwickshire glove.

More recently, the 3rd Earl of Pembroke, William Herbert, was also suggested as a potential Mr W H. The most obvious bonus here is that no shifting around of initials is needed - and intriguingly, when he too was 17, De Vere (then 47) was also trying to cajole him to marry another of his daughters (Bridget) - though again unsuccessfully. So really, whichever it was (even if both, and the poems were recycled for a second occasion, God forbid) the importance these links is hard to dismiss. Added to the fact that William Herbert's brother Philip actually did marry De Vere's 3rd and youngest daughter Susan (anyone else thinking King Lear here?) and the two brothers took joint responsibility for funding the publication of the First Folio. On a side note, Wriothesley was apparently pronounced Rose-ly, and the Fair Youth's sonnets are indeed laden with specific allusions, puns and references to roses; as they are to sweet, sweets, sweetnesses etc. So Southampton has it for me just now, over Herbert, by a honeycomb.

I suppose it doesn't automatically follow that De Vere must have written them though. He could, of course, have comissioned someone else to write them for him, for the purpose. Incidentally, a deal of fuss has been made about the poet or publisher addressing W.H as a humble mister, rather than a Sir or something more elevated. It occurs to me that Mr might mean 'master' though, and an appropriate address to a young, unmarried man of 17- although perhaps someone will enlighten me that this is far too simplistic and not Elizabethan practice? It's also been suggested that master might be a Masonic term, for a member not fully initiated. But this, I couldn't possibly confirm.

Other theories of Mr W H include him being a lad called William Hall - said to be the person who procured the manusript of the sonnets for the publisher -though this would make for a rather banal meaning to his being the onlie begetter of the sonnets (rather the only courier). Oscar Wilde had a suitably wild theory that the initials were of a boy player called Willie Hughes (all hues in his controlling), but I fear, my dear, such things are the stuff fluff is made of.  Whoever he was, one thing is certain - life appears pretty sunny with him by sonnet 18 (thought by some to signify his coming of age). It's also suggested, in what would become one of the most famous sonnets of all times, the text is rather more self-celebratory than Fair Youth worshiping - with the poet proposing the power of his own words, that can triumph over Nature herself and capture both the moment, Time and Youth, for posterity, through the poem's eternal lines. 


​

When a man's verses cannot be understood, nor a man's good wit seconded with the forward child understanding, it strikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a little room.  (As You Like It - 3iii)

Few works of literature have inspired such scrutiny and debate as the sonnets of Shakespeare - providing, as they appear to, a tantalising glimpse into the closest thing we have to a direct autobiography of the Bard. Despite all the attention though, the search for connections in the 154 poems to the life and loves of the glover's-son-made-good from Stratford-upon-Avon has proven fairly elusive. Seen through the portals of other potential candidates for the authorship of the works/brand we call Shakespeare however, the sonnets appear to reveal all manner of credible parallel scenarios, narratives and individuals. 

Though the literature on the subject of alternative authorship is now substantial, and continually growing, I wanted to create a space to share thoughts, insights, interpretations and links in particular respect of the sonnets. As well as blog posts, I'm also hoping to curate a library of recordings of the poems, by a variety of different people - in the form of self made short films that include the text of a sonnet; sometimes relating to unorthodox readings of the historical or literary aspects of the work, but more often reflecting inspired personal parallels, memories and narratives.

And thus I open the floor to anyone who is interested in sharing creative thoughts, and indeed their own videos, inspired by these texts. ​it.

Saskia van Ryneveld is a South African actress, based in UK - though her sonnet video comes from Madrid: 
​
SvR: Sometimes you don’t fall blindly in love. Sometimes you walk into it with a very clear understanding of what you’re agreeing to. At least once, I have found myself embroiled with someone who was unequivocally bad for me. Every time I returned a text message or agreed to see them, it wasn’t without full awareness of what was going on. My reason, certainly, was past care. Sonnet 147 beautifully reflected this paradoxical affair that I had fallen into once or twice. I recognised the fever, the madness, the inevitable pull of the dark creature that you are desperately trying to convince everyone else is an angel.
Whilst it may be tempting to think of oneself as a victim in these situations, I think that what is reflected in the sonnet is a certain element of empowerment. There is a sense of agency, of daring and wilful recklessness which we all lust after in our own small way. The drag of an occasional cigarette, a couple too many pieces of chocolate, not to mention perhaps driving a little too fast, or even daring to jump out of an aeroplane. I feel we’re not always adept at choosing what is good for us, which is what drew me to this particular sonnet.
Interestingly, I found myself reflecting on how the sonnet could also be a very clear description of our relationship with social media. It's widely accepted that spending too much time on the various platforms increases anxiety and depression. There is also the element of social comparison and competition that fuels the addiction, the fever. The “sweet sickly appetite to please” of always trying to present ourselves in our best light, with the right angle and pose, to get some sense of being adored through the ‘like’ function. And of course, due to the relative anonymity of the experience we find our thoughts and discourse as madmen’s are, most definitely far from the truth.A little note on the sculpture in the video. The sculpture is in the Retiro park in Madrid and is a monument to the Álvarez Quintero brothers, Serafín and Joaquín. They were playwrights who created an extensive body of work and were much appreciated in Spain. They were born in Andalucia and consequently the monument is of an Andalusian horseman and a woman in flamenco dress, such as you would see in Seville. There is a beautiful poem by Joaquín Álvarez Quintero called ‘La rosa del jardinero’ - the rose of the gardener, that speaks about a rose that blooms as a horseman rides by, and the gardener desperately tries to question the rose about what she knows about love, and what she will do without him. Will she fall blindly for this dark and mysterious figure or will she do so fully cognisant of her actions? 

There've been many attempts to find someone fitting the profile of Shakespeare's Dark Lady - so called because many of the images used to describe her, from sonnet 127 onwards, aren't what you might call light. These range from literal descriptions of her (black) hair and eyes, to intimations about her dodgy character. At best they are earthy and sultry - at worst, blunt and downright offensive. What characterises then mainly though, is how sexually charged they are. 
Many scholars have floated the suggestion that the DL is a figment of the author's fantasy. It's even been suggested that any attempts to identify her are 'fruitless', 'pointless' even. Once again I feel obliged to counter that if people will insist on scrabbling around at the bottom of the Stratford-Upon-Avon barrel looking for connections, it's no wonder it seems pointless (because no doubt, it is!). And yet again though, if you look through the portal of other contenders, possibilities are readily forthcoming.
Suggestions include the marvellously named Black Luce - a Clerkenwell madam and courtesan-made-good, well known to those at the Inns of Court (where De Vere studied for a time and Marlowe frequented). 
Another more recent suggestion has been Emilia Bassano. The discovery of this Jewish, highly cultured and musical woman created such a flurry of activity that she rapidly went from being suggested as having written The Merchant of Venice, to skyrocketting as author of the entire cannon.  Attractive as it sounds, evidence has not been what you might call fulsome (not yet, anyway) - though she certainly fits the physical profile of the lady described, as well as the bill of the virginal player from sonnet 128 over whom the poet has a voyeuristic, fetishistic fantasy.
Then there's Mary Fitton - the mistress of that potential Mr W H, William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke. This suggestion might certainly explain the liaison hinted at in the sonnets, between the Dark Lady and the poet's own Fair Youth - causing a fierce rivarly, extrordinary forgiveness (for the Fair Youth at least) and the onset of a deep depression and obsession with ageing..  
Some say the Dark Lady sonnets are addressed to several women. First and foremost, Queen Elizabeth herself - which carries credibility, given there are some references to the poet being both her 'slave' and 'servant', and they a 'sovereign'. There is also the opening line of sonnet 125, with its reference to 'bearing the canopy' - a duty De Vere and several other high ranking nobles were known to have performed for Elizabeth; holding up the cloths above her throne, on cermonial processions (and if it doesn't mean this, the line's meaning is unfathomable).
A contender gaining significant traction of late is Lady Penelope Rich. Golden haired but black eyed, a celebrated court beauty, she was also centrepiece of a number of sex scandals at court. Serially unfaithful wife to several Barons, she was muse to the poet Sir Philip Sydney. The inceasing amount of shady suggestions in various, salacious publications of the period suggest tantalising connections to some of the DL sonnets. 
Personally though, the most obvious contender for the Dark Lady seems to be Ann Vavasour, one of the Queen's ladies in waiting. Edward de Vere had a secret affair with her, when still married (to his long suffering wife Anne, surely the inspiration for Hermione in The Winters Tale). The passionate affair resulted in Ann Vavasour falling pregnant, prompting a sensational scandal at court that saw DV, AV and their new born son all being thrown into the tower by an enraged and jealous Regina.
So many of the sonnets seem to come into an undeniable clarity in this scenario (the references to shame, scandal, reget and charges of being treated pitilessly and harshly). The poet does indeed seem angry with the Dark Lady for luring him into a sexual union in the first place, because of the consequences that have befallen him - even furious at fate / God / his genitalia for the frenzied pursuit of pleasures that led him to momentary ecstasies, compromised morals and lots of trouble further down the line.  De Vere never really recovered his position at court after the Vavasour scandal - and was hitherto estranged from his son, and guilt ridden about the way he had treated both his faithful wife and his Sovereign.
There are allusions to cosmetics in the Dark Lady sonnets - something which some have seen leaning towards the suggestion that the Dark Lady was a lady of the night. However, it's interesting to consider both the amount of make up worn by the ageing Elizabeth (to cover smallpox scars it has been suggested) and also the amount of slap on the face of the most notable remaining portrait of Ann Vavasour - in which she appears in such obvious make up that one might assume either the painter disliked her intensely, was colour blind or amateur, or making a none too subtle point that any blushes she had were but artificial.  What's certain though, is that her hair and eyes are undeniably black.
Whoever the lady was, the relationship with the poet was clearly physical. Unlike those written to the Fair Youth, who is pedasalised as an untouchable, the DL is shown not as a courtly romantic maiden, but a siren who lures our spear bearer with her irresistable charms ,
De Vere was celebrated as a champion jouster. The Queen gave him a prize of a diamond studded journal to celebrate his triumph at one tournament she presided over as guest of honour. Literally, he shook his spear for her. ​ Unending resonances..

Reece David is currently a third year student on the BA Professional Acting course at Drama Studio
​www.dramastudiolondon.co.uk