For the many people who loved Roland Emmerich's fanciful 2011 Shakespeare authorship film Anonymous and who hunger to know more of its backstory, along comes this splendid 2012 documentary, Last Will. and Testament. Directed by Laura and Lisa Wilson and funded by Emmerich, it takes us behind the scenes of the earlier film and introduces us to many of the scholars whose work informed the making of Anonymous. It complements Anonymous in countless ways, providing some of the evidence that Freud's preferred authorship candidate, Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, did indeed write the works of Shakespeare (those who agree with Freud about this are known as “Oxfordians”).
Vanessa Redgrave and Mark Rylance both appeared in Anonymous, and they make encores here. They step out of their characters' roles, to voice their own “heretical” opinions on the authorship question. Derek Jacobi, our guide in Anonymous, elaborates on the reasons for his Oxfordian authorship opinion. Among the prominent Oxfordian scholars who appear is Charlton Ogburn, whom many credit with reviving interest in de Vere's authorship of Shakespeare some 30 years ago.
There are many trenchant comments from the tenured professor Roger Stritmatter, who made history by earning the first Ph.D. in literature in the United States for an Oxfordian dissertation. It was the 2002 New York Times article about his research on de Vere's heavily annotated Bible that sparked my interest in the authorship debate and led to my own research on that Bible. Using Stritmatter's data, I showed that the more times Shakespeare quotes a given Bible verse, the greater the likelihood that de Vere marked that verse. Stritmatter puts things simply but persuasively. For example, he points out there is “no real, believable connection” between the works of Shakespeare and the life of the Stratford man. When I asked Stritmatter what impact he thinks this film has had, he replied, “I think the film has had a terrific and snowballing effect…It's not a splash, more like a long, low rumble that you can hear from far away, and from a great distance you can feel that it is going to be big.”
During recent decades, influential theories of literary criticism have attempted to make sense of the profound lack of connection between the life of Shakspere (how the Stratford businessman actually spelled his name) and the Shakespeare literary canon by deliberately downplaying the role of all authors' lives and psychologies in their literary works, in flat contradiction of our knowledge of psychic determinism. If these newer theories were indeed influenced by that pivotal disconnect, it suggests they are one example of the “special pleading” that is needed to make sense of how Shakspere could have written Shakespeare.
The film begins with a summary of reasons to doubt the traditional authorship attribution, before moving on to highlight a brief but well-chosen selection of the overwhelming evidence that now supports de Vere's authorship. Although it clearly endorses the hypothesis that de Vere wrote the works of Shakespeare, the film includes several dissenting comments by prominent traditionalists Stanley Wells and Jonathan Bate, who still favor the popular story that the successful (if barely literate) businessman William Shakspere of Stratford wrote the poems and plays. One wonders how these two scholars will feel as the evidence in de Vere's favor keeps pouring in. Mark Twain is one of the many prominent writers whose authorship “heresies” are quoted in the film. To paraphrase Mark Twain, Wells and Bate look at the authorship question as though through a glass eye, darkly.
Richard M. Waugaman M.D., is a training and supervising analyst, emeritus, at the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute, and clinical professor of psychiatry and faculty expert on Shakespeare for media contacts at Georgetown University. His publications on Shakespeare are available at
Bruce H. Sklarew, M.D., an associate editor and co-founder of the award-winning Projections: The Journal for Movies and Mind, organizes the film programs at meetings of the American Psychoanalytic Association and has co-edited two books on psychoanalysis and film.
Do you think I am being too harsh toward Wells and Bate? Consider what they actually say in this film. Wells admits that typical biographies of Shakespeare are “five percent fact and ninety-five percent fiction” (and those documented facts offer no evidence he was a writer). Wells also says, “I see nothing in the plays to suggest that they were written by a man who couldn't have had the sort of education that Shakespeare could have acquired in this very room [that is, the Stratford grammar school]. The plays are not that learned (emphasis added).”
There is now convincing evidence that Shakespeare was fluent in multiple languages, and that, in his plays, he engaged with the major intellectual topics of his day. The misconception that he had but a grammar school education meant that only in recent decades have scholars taken the full measure of Shakespeare's phenomenal erudition, since they had to “dumb down” Shakespeare to force the round peg of his works to fit in the square hole of the traditional author.
Here is Bate defending his authorship theory: “Historical facts happen; people denying them, that's dangerous.” I could not agree more. However, I am not sure just which historical facts Bate has in mind. The well-documented fact that Elizabethan England was rife with anonymous authorship? The fact that de Vere was acknowledged by his contemporaries as one of the best Elizabethan courtier poets and as the best author of (supposedly lost) comedies; and that some of his contemporaries also knew he preferred to write anonymously? Those facts? If so, it is indeed dangerous to the credibility of Shakespeare scholarship to conceal or evade them.
In academic Shakespeare studies, Freud's opinion that “Shakespeare” was the pen name of de Vere is still treated as taboo.
But Bate has more to say. In an effort to move beyond the same old arguments against de Vere, he outdoes himself with the following hyperbole: “I could as easily map the life of Elvis Presley onto a work of Shakespeare as I could map the life of… the Earl of Oxford.” The only alternative Bate is willing to accept as author of Shakespeare's works is God. This seems to be a vivid example of the unconscious deification of Shakespeare by traditionalists, which helps us understand the vehemence and irrationality of their attacks on authorship skeptics, who were accused of being religious agnostics a century ago.
Bate may be unaware that 19th century Shakespeare experts presented convincing evidence that the character Polonius in Hamlet was a spoof on Lord Burghley, de Vere's politically powerful father-in-law. But Bate asserts that Polonius could not possibly be such a caricature, because there is no way Shakespeare could have gotten away with it. Precisely. That's one of countless reasons to doubt that Shakspere wrote Shakespeare.
As William Leahy says in the film, academic Shakespeare scholars have shown little interest in the authorship question. They have been so certain the traditional attribution is correct they have not seriously investigated competing theories. Independent scholar Diana Price speaks of her research that found no definite documentary evidence from his lifetime that anyone thought Shakspere of Stratford was a writer. She debunks the Stratfordian claim that it is simply a matter of poor records from that era, as she finds more archival evidence for several lesser-known authors from that period. On screen, we often see the very documents being discussed, from the First Folio of Shakespeare's complete plays to de Vere's handwritten letters.
The speculation that de Vere and Queen Elizabeth were the parents of the Earl of Southampton gets less attention in this film than it did in Anonymous. And there is at least brief mention of an alternative theory some of us favor, that de Vere and Southampton were lovers. Hank Whittemore, who appears in the film, is a strong supporter of the former theory. But he has gone on record as confirming that, “surely we can agree that Oxford and Southampton as individuals were each possibly or even probably bisexual” (Stritmatter's Shakespeare's Bible blog, March 9, 2012). There is still disagreement among Oxfordians about the nature of the first 126 “Fair Youth” Sonnets of Shakespeare. Whitte-more reads them as expressing paternal, not sexual love, whereas many of us believe those sonnets depict an erotic relationship.
Until very recently, due to widespread homophobia, even gay Shakespeare scholars evaded the obvious evidence that Shakespeare was bisexual. Homophobia is probably one reason scholars try so hard to separate Shakespeare the person from his literary works. In any event, Last Will. and Testament admits the theory that de Vere was Southampton's father has “only a thin trail of evidence” supporting it.
In academic Shakespeare studies, Freud's opinion that “Shakespeare” was the pen name of de Vere is still treated as taboo. Unless they can hide behind this taboo, defenders of the traditional authorship theory would be forced to admit they have less definitive evidence than they imply, and that de Vere has a much stronger case than they have yet acknowledged. Just a week before I was invited to write this film review, I witnessed their taboo in operation.
A U.S. Shakespeare professor informed me that he took over an Italian Shakespeare journal from the previous (Italian) editors, partly because they had invited me to contribute an article to their forthcoming issue on “Shakespeare's Biography.” He said he became editor only on condition that my already accepted article be suppressed. When I protested, he wrote, in part, “I simply find your reasoning, and your evidence, as unconvincing as those of Holocaust deniers, and other conspiracy theorists.” As I replied to him, both Stephen Greenblatt and Jonathan Bate apologized to me in April 2014 for having made that odious comparison, but now he chose to repeat it. I told him that one Oxfordian friend lost more than 80 relatives in the Holocaust, and he finds such a comparison especially repulsive. Those who lack convincing evidence for their theory sometimes resort to such unscrupulous ad hominem slurs to discredit their opponents.
This excellent film helps to undermine the credibility of those who attempt to suppress open discussion of the fascinating question as to who Shakespeare really was. Every psychoanalyst who cares about Shakespeare will enjoy this film. Even if you are sure that Shakspere wrote Shakespeare, you may decide there is more reason for doubt about his authorship than you realized. Those who have an open mind on the issue will find the film positively spellbinding. Lisa and Laura Wilson, and the many people they interviewed, deserve our deepest thanks.