Two Sides of Bacon
I’ve long been convinced that William Shakespeare of Stratford lacked the education and life experience to write the plays and poems attributed to him. The million-dollar question is, who did write them? Although for a time I was convinced it was the Earl of Oxford, I’m no longer so certain. These days I don’t know which, if any, of the various “authorship candidates” might be our man.
The earliest suggested candidate, who was very much in vogue in the nineteenth century, is Francis Bacon. Regarded as a universal genius, Bacon was seen as the only person of the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras capable of writing such sublime works. Later he fell out of favor, in part because overzealous Baconians went overboard finding ciphers (cryptograms) in Shakespeare’s writings that pointed to Bacon as the author. Nearly all of their “discoveries” have been discredited. Somewhat unfairly, the whole idea of Bacon as Shakespeare became discredited, as well.
The best book attempting to revive the Baconian heresy is N.B. Cockburn’s formidable 700-page study, The Bacon Shakespeare Question (1998). (It’s sold here.) I’m not really convinced that Bacon wrote Shakespeare, but a case can certainly be made. Below are some of the pros and cons of that case.
POINTS IN FAVOR
1: General similarities.
Law. Bacon was a lawyer. Shakespeare’s works are liberally decorated with allusions to the law.
Religion. Bacon advocated a tolerant, evenhanded approach to religious disputes and remained on good terms with Puritans, Anglicans, and Catholics. Shakespeare is often seen as similarly ecumenical.
Intellectual interests. Bacon famously said that he had “taken all knowledge as [his] province.” Even so, he was more interested in some subjects than in others. There is considerable overlap between his areas of specialization and Shakespeare’s knowledge: horticulture, bird life, the sports of falconry and bowls, music, medicine, English history, Ptolemaic astronomy, and more.
Sexuality. Bacon is believed to have been gay. In middle age he did marry, but his bride was much younger – he began wooing her when she was only thirteen! – and their marriage appears to have been platonic. If we can judge by the Sonnets, Shakespeare may have been gay or bisexual.
Language. Bacon’s private notes show that he was fascinated by words and often jotted down unusual expressions and vocabulary. In his writings, he shifts easily from English to Latin. Shakespeare is known for his extensive vocabulary and his tendency to coin English words from Latin roots.
Revision. Shakespeare’s works show signs of continuous revision. Bacon, likewise, was an inveterate reviser. He wrote, “After my manner, I alter ever when I add. So that nothing is finished till all be finished.”
Politics. Both Bacon and Shakespeare were essentially conservative in their attitude toward monarchy. They both sensed the divinity that doth hedge a king. Despite his many disagreements with Queen Elizabeth and King James, Bacon remained convinced that a monarch, being divinely appointed, can see further and truer than other mortals. In the same vein, both Shakespeare and Bacon were unimpressed by commoners, who are typically depicted in the plays as dull-witted louts or dangerous mobs. Bacon biographer R.W. Church writes, “Bacon had no sympathy with popular wants and claims; of popularity, of all that was called popular, he had the deepest suspicion and dislike; the opinions and the judgment of average men he despised.”
War. Though Bacon was opposed to unjust wars, he did believe that the occasional war was healthy for the body politic, and he vigorously but unsuccessfully recommended aggressive empire building. Shakespeare, perhaps showing the same divided outlook, both glorifies and condemns war.
2: Specific areas of overlap.
Poetry. In a private letter, Bacon referred to himself in the context of “concealed poets.” He wrote a sonnet to Queen Elizabeth and presented it to her at one of their meetings. Late in life he made verse translations of several Psalms, which I think are quite good, though this seems to be a minority opinion.
Double identity. In a letter to Bacon, his close friend Tobie Matthew makes an ambiguous reference to a great intellect who shares Bacon’s name but apparently writes under a pen name. ("The most prodigious wit that I knew of my nation, and of this side of the sea, is of your Lordship's name, though he be known by another.") Matthew was probably writing from the Continent, so “my nation” and “this side of the sea” would together encompass the whole of the western world. Since the rest of the letter sings Bacon’s praises, it is likely that this reference is to Bacon himself. But Bacon is not known to have written under a pseudonym – unless he was Shakespeare.
The Kenilworth festivities. In July 1575, the Earl of Leicester put on an elaborate celebration at Kenilworth Castle, which is remembered in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Sir Nicholas Bacon, one of the Queen’s high-ranking advisors, was certainly invited; it is likely that he brought his sons Anthony and Francis to the gala event.
The Court of Navarre. Love’s Labours Lost is often seen as a satire on events in the Court of Navarre in 1578. Bacon, still a teenager, lived in France from 1576 to 1579. It’s doubtful he actually went to Navarre, but as part of an ambassador’s entourage he would have heard courtly gossip about the goings-on.
The Comedy of Errors. On December 28, 1594, a play by this title was performed at Bacon’s law school, Gray’s Inn, during the annual “student revels.” Bacon wrote some humorous and poetic material used in these antics. Gray’s Inn students or alumni often wrote the plays that were performed at the revels, making it possible that Bacon himself, an alumnus or “Bencher” at the time, penned The Comedy of Errors for this event.
Burghley. William Cecil, Lord Burghley, is rather cruelly burlesqued as Polonius in Hamlet. Burghley was Bacon’s uncle, with whom he had a complicated relationship. Despite their kinship and Bacon’s obvious abilities, Burghley did little or nothing to advance his career, a snub Bacon increasingly resented.
The Essex faction. The Earl of Essex was Bacon’s benefactor and close friend for many years. Henry V is often taken to include a reference to Essex’s anticipated triumphal return from Ireland, where he had been sent to put down an uprising.
As it happened, Essex returned in disgrace and later led an ill-considered uprising against the Queen. At his trial, he was prosecuted by none other than his old friend, Francis Bacon. Though Bacon justified his disloyalty by pointing to a higher loyalty to his queen, he was widely criticized as a backstabber. (R.W. Church: “Bacon’s name also had come into men’s mouths as that of a time-server who played fast and loose with Essex and his enemies, and who, when he had got what he could from Essex, turned to see what he could get from those who put him to death.”) His keenly felt disgrace may find poetic expression in those Sonnets describing the sonneteer as disgraced in all men’s eyes.
Another member of the Essex faction was the Earl of Southhampton, who was imprisoned in the Tower for his role in the uprising. Sonnet 107 is conventionally interpreted as a paean of relief following Southhampton’s release, a response that would have been in character for Bacon, who continued to pursue a friendship with the Earl. Additionally, the “fair youth” Sonnets are conventionally thought to be dedicated to Southampton.
Othello. The version of Othello printed in the First Folio appears to have been typeset from the 1622 quarto, but with a number of small but artistically significant revisions. There is speculation that someone (the author?) made these corrections as marginal notes or interlinings in the quarto itself. This could only have been done in 1622. Bacon is one of the few authorship candidates who lived so long.
The Strachey manuscript. This lengthy description of an expedition to the New World, focusing on a shipwreck in Bermuda, is often cited as a source for The Tempest. The manuscript, not published until 1625, circulated privately in 1612 among investors who financed the expedition. Bacon was one of them, and he received a copy, personally inscribed to him by Strachey.
The Northumberland manuscript. This is a large-format sheet of folio paper that originally was folded around a collection of manuscripts and quartos. The contents of this primitive file folder were written on the folio sheet. These include two Shakespearean plays, Richard II and Richard III, and the play The Isle of Dogs, attributed here to Thomas Nashe; also included are some of Bacon’s essays and speeches. The name “William Shakespeare” or just “Shakespeare” (and sometimes “your William Shakespeare”) is written repeatedly in random places, as if someone, possibly one of Bacon’s scribes, was using it for practice.
The page also includes one form of a ridiculously long word that is used to comic effect in Love’s Labours Lost (“honorificabilitudinitatibus”), though the same word also appears, with variations, in other writings of the period.
At the very least, the file’s contents indicate that Bacon had a lively interest in theater. Incidentally, the name “Nevill” shows up twice in a different part of the page, offering ammunition to those who think Henry Neville was the true Shakespeare.
Verbal parallels. Industrious Baconians have collected more than 1600 supposed parallels between passages in the writings of Shakespeare and Bacon. I have reviewed only 100 or so, judged by Cockburn to be the most impressive ones. Overall, I would say there are some fairly close parallels in ideas and associations, but rarely in specific word choices and sentence structures. To me, this one is kind of a wash.
POINTS AGAINST
Dogs. Bacon was very fond of dogs. Many of Shakespeare’s references to dogs are decidedly derogatory. Shakespeare seems to have been especially put off by small, spoiled lapdogs that were fed at the table. On the other hand, The Two Gentlemen of Verona features an affectionate relationship between a clown and his chronically disobedient dog.
Italy. There are many reasons to believe that Shakespeare visited Italy. Bacon is not known to have done so, though a side trip from France cannot be ruled out. Both his brother Anthony and his friend Tobie Matthew spent time in Italy and could have informed him about it, but the plays suggest a more direct knowledge.
Timing. Some of Shakespeare’s greatest works are conventionally dated to the Jacobean Era. This was an especially busy time in Bacon’s life, when he was rapidly climbing the ladder of success, a climb that began in 1607 and ended in 1621, when he left government service. It is hard to see how he would have had the time or inclination to write plays during this period.
Overall plausibility. Many have questioned the likelihood that Bacon – who became an immortal name for his innovative empirical approach to scientific investigation, and who served in Parliament and in a succession of other official positions throughout his life – could have found the time to pen thirty-seven plays and two lengthy narrative poems. Generating the Shakespearean corpus would seem to be quite enough work for one lifetime.
To conclude: I doubt that Bacon was Shakespeare, but the idea is not as crazy as naysayers would have us think.
As an outsider to the field, I wonder what are the specific reasons to put aside the possibility that Shakespeare's works have been a joint 'project' of two or several creative individuals.
The reasons are fairly obvious. And in such a scheme, the true answer can include both Edward de Vere as well as Francis Bacon.