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Anonymous and Last Will. And Testament and Richard Waugaman confront the authorship controversy as to whether the Stratfordian Man or Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, were the authors of the work of Shakespeare. Waugaman believes that there was an idealizing transference to the Bard leading to a disavowal and lack of acknowledgment of alternate views of authorship that resulted in attacks on Oxfordians. Richard Waugaman has written over 60 publications on this controversy which are collected in two Kindle editions Newly Discovered Works by “William Shake-speare”: a.k.a. Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford and It's Time to Re-Vere the Works of “Shake-Speare”: A Psychoanalyst Reads the Works of Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford. Waugaman is the second psychoanalyst to follow Freud's suggestion that we re-examine Shakespeare's works based on the realization that they were probably written by de Vere. According toWaugaman Freud venerated the works of Shakespeare and learned much about the role that unconscious conflicts contribute to emotional suffering.
His splendid, highly-informed paper combines a psychoanalytic, literary and historical approach to substantiate his Oxfordian conviction. He believes that de Vere's multiple self states contribute to his literary genius and that they evoke specific self states in us reinforced by his writing under pseudonyms. He delineates multiple motives for de Vere's attributing the work to Shakespeare. He has spoken of Shakespeare as the first psychoanalytic thinker who can teach psychoanalytic therapists a great deal about human nature “a great deal about people: about our deepest feelings; about our closest relationships; about our struggles to understand ourselves and others.”
Bruce Sklarew
Chair, Forum for the Psychoanalytic Study of Film
Chevy Chase, MD, USA