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P.O. Box 1595  West Tisbury  Mass. 02575

11        “.... moves to London in the late 1580's and....” [There is no record of Shaksper’s
            presence in London at this time.]

12        “.... since the actual person is a matter of well-documented public record....”
            and “The known facts have been rehearsed again and again.... well-docu-
            mented biographies....” [Both statements are not supported by facts; see 13]

13        “It is fitting, of course, to invoke the magic of an immensely strong
            imagination....” [This statement is in profound resonance with the truth.]

17        “.... Shakespeare was famous in his own lifetime.... As it happens, more is
            known about him than most professional writers of the time....” [A certain
            amount of both fame and notoriety attached itself to the person perceived as writing
            the plays. They were not written by a “professional writer”; neither of the
            candidates under fit that job description. There is no record of Shaksper receiving  
            money for writing plays; Shake-speare-Oxford could not, by cultural standards) be
            a pro. Ask yourself why this author wants you to believe this nonsense.] and “....
            carefully assembled   by.... John Heminges and Henry Condell, who brought
            out the First Folio....”  [This statement has no basis in fact. The Pembrokes (those
            remarkable brethren)    hired Ben Jonson to produce the plays. Part of the team was
            Shakespeare-Oxford’s daughter, Susan deVere Herbert, the Countess of Mont-
            gomery. Competent scholarship finds that Jonson wrote the Heminges-Condell part
            of the dedication.]

24        “So it was that Will’s father and mother wanted their son to have a proper
            classical education.” [There is absolutely no basis for this statement other than
            modern Montessori elan.]

25        “.... grammar school whose central educational principle was total immersion
            in Latin.”  [Records for Stratford’s schools are missing. Even if Shaksper went to
            school, this Latin tub would not have equipped him for the Greek, Roman, French,
            and Italian understandings of the Canon.]

26        “.... the King’s New School clearly aroused and fed Will’s inexhaustible
            craving for language.” [There is no record of his attending said school.]

27        “Built into the curriculum, then, was a kind of recurrent theatrical
            transgression, a comic liberation from the oppressive heaviness of the
            educational system.” [Is it possible that in this case is the curriculum of my alma
            mater providing the comic liberation?] and “By the time he was ten or eleven,
            and perhaps earlier, Will almost certainly had both.” [So?]

28        "In Plautus’s opening scene.... Menaechmus, welcome!’” [Since this passage
            depends upon an earlier claim that there was a “young playwright” in London
            (from Stratford –on-Avon) fishing for plots, it is already far off in literary fairyland.
            This package of scholarly marmalade is seasoned with mustabeens and
            circularities, and is in itself an Oxbloc.]

30        “For the first time in his life William Shakespeare watched a play.”
            [This gem is well set in mustabeens.]

35        “.... piety that marked the plays he saw in his youth ----.” [It takes too much
            imagination to visualize young Shaksper filing all of this away for a play he would
            write for Shake-speare-Oxford’s daughter’s wedding, that also makes fun of her
            godmother, HRH Elizabeth I, in attendance. It reminds us that the years Oxford
            spent reading and marking up his Geneva Bible were not wasted. That same Bible,
            mind you, that Henry Clay Folger gave to the Shakespeare Library he founded. He
            had collected it as it was printed and bound for Shake-speare-Oxford, who he
            (Folger) believed wrote the Canon.]

36        “.... to the young awkward Shakespeare himself.... eager to play all the parts.”
            [If this is to be about a joke, let’s make it about a youngster whose father (the 16th
            Earl of Oxford) has his own troupe of players.]

40        “.... folk customs.... firmly rooted.... significant impact upon Shakespeare’s
            imagination....” [All other things being out in the open, it is difficult to see how
            anyone would deny the real Bard the colloquial skills which are here preremptorily
            reserved to Shaksper.]

47        “..... if, as many scholars think, it was written for an aristocratic wedding....”
            [See page 35, above]

51        “A Midsummer Night’s Dream - written some twenty years after.... theatrical
            catastrophes.” [Perhaps our author is aware of some archaeological evidence of
            Theseus (the duke) and other sprites romping around that fabled bridge over the
            Avon. Jeest!]

55        “.... shortly after Will had finished his schooling there....” [If the historical
            record (what there is of it) is to believed, he was finished before he started. Kind of
            like knowing that Einstein had, as youngster, been good at his multiplication
            tables.]

64        “.... Shakespeare did not, from all appearances, harbor any regrets.... puts
            little William through his paces.” [This is a good spot to remind our audience that
            “William” is a landmark character in the authorship hologram. Our poet pits him
            against Touchstone in As You Like It competing for Audrey’s affections. Audrey
            has been seen by many as “the plays”, “Willyum” as a palpably credible
            contemporary version of Shaksper, and Touchstone, of course, as you-know-who.]

70        “.... he was not a company keeper.... Aubrey recorded this.... stupendous plays
            a year.” [Aubrey’s claim to fame is his manifest unreliability. He had no first-hand
            knowledge of the playwright.]

71        “.... worked in the office of a local attorney....” [While our author acknowledges
            this as speculation, it is indicative of the desperate need for some way to endow
            Shaksper with sufficient legal knowledge to have written the plays. There have
            been books written (serious challenges ignored) making it clear that the kind of
            smarts displayed were not picked up in London taverns. At least three Supreme
            Court justices (US) agree.]

72        “.... letting his imagination wander.... poet’s imagination.” [Seems like most of
            the imagination has been part of an orthodox academic job description.]

73        “The last will and testament.... to....” [This glacial slug of “scholarship” rivals
            anything that Madison Avenue can produce. We are told that the bequest goes to
            his (Phillips) “fellow” – Shakespeare. There seems to be no other information as to
            what the relationship entails, but we are then transported into p[ages of collateral
            information about the theater and actors. This may not have been intentional, but
            our reading is that by the time the reader has come to the end of this section,
            Shakespeare was right in there, wallowing in it all; and has forgotten that we have
            not been told just who or what this version of “Shakespeare” was. There is nothing
            new about this technique, it has kept the Shakespeare myth verdant for centuries.]

75        “.... Shakespeare could be the person that his mother and father said he was
            and that he felt himself to be.” {It is not certain why we are being told this, but
            doesn’t it make you feel all comfy about this homey legend?]

79        “.... Non, Sans Droict.” [See Oxblocs pages 79 and 80]

86        “.... I am not someone who.... created that inheritance.” [“Let us imagine”]

88        “.... John Aubrey.... a schoolmaster in the country.’” [See page 70, above]

104      “The precocious adolescent.... one of the trusted favorites.” [This “ Shakeshaft
            Redemption” gives our author a chance to insert a “would have been” saying that
            “Will’s talents—his personal charm, his musical skills, his power of improvisation,
            his capacity to play a role, perhaps (ha, ha) even his gifts as a writer—were
            blossoming in performances beyond---“. Well, you get the idea. Part of the
            reason for our proposal that if this book gets any awards ther have to be for fiction.]

108      “Let us imagine.... image of himself.” [Yup]

118      “.... the powerful all-male bonds.... resolution to his sexual ambivalence or
            perplexity.”  and “Quite apart from this imaginary resolution.... in his body
            and soul.”  [No wonder Freud never believe in the Stratford myth.]

121      “And Will? Through the centuries.... Anne when she found a husband.”
            [One would have thought that Shaksper’s shot-gun wedding would have eclipsed
            the marital sit-com accomplished by Edward deVere, the 17th Earl of Oxford.

124      “Of course, each of these lines has.... not even any of these financial
            transactions.” [see page 121, above]

151      “As for whipping young man to leave Stratford.” [This leads to a proposed
            conflation of Shaksper’s presumed deer poaching with a line in Titus Andronicus
            that was written when Shaksper was still in knee pants.]

153      “Modern biographers.... involved in the trouble.” [Exhibit A for Greenblatt is
            Schoenbaum, now an outdated high priest of the Stratfordim. He will have to do
            better than that to “imagine” Shaksper into a great poet and playwrght.]

155      “Shakespeare was a master.... had once gripped him.” [Shake-speare-Oxford
            struggled against sweeping Tudor change; from a noble-royal economy to one
            made possible by (relatively) free enterprise. He dealt with some of it reflexively;
            of the aspect with the humor in his plays.]

163      “Such a route would have given.... on approaching London.” [No greater talent
            for “improvisation” that that displayed by the Stratford cabal.]

175      “Now all around him.... for open country.” [But this urban behavorial sink gave
            him all he needed to dream up a pregnant woman for Measure for Measure.

179      “Shakespeare was not simply giving the vulgar crowd.... ‘Strike up the
            pipers’.” [Actors playing Gloucester in King Lear will no doubtless be interested
            to learn why his eyes had to be gouged out.]

180      “.... close to the brothels - and these too.... to make a modest profit.”
            [London’s sociological patina has enriched enough of our literature to allow this
            lame attempt at authorship closure to lie there in the gutter.]

183      “When Shakespeare came to London.... set foot in one for the first time.”
            [This seemingly innocent observation is for the most part harmless – except for
            “.... very soon after, Shakespeare began to imagine the ways he might use that
            space....”]

189      “Shakespeare encountered this central principle.... life-transforming impact.”
            [This passage suggests that Shaksper’s life was transformed in 1587, at least three
            years (and maybe more) before he ever got to London.]

192      “This was a crucial experience.... would have been decisively different.”
            [Marlowe, again. Go Back to Oxblocs page 192 – and get it right this time.]

193      “Shakespeare had no comparable resources upon which he could draw....
            young playwright friend from Stratford.” [This looks good for those bent on
            proving that being a noble poet just doesn’t cut it. But there is  no real evidence of
            anything even resembling this possibility. Even if only partially true, this form of
            access is not sufficient to have allowed anyone (maybe even Oxford) to pull off
            those great works of literarture.]

194      “Even though as a poet Shakespeare dreamed.... printing shop in Blackfriars.”
            [see page 193, above]

199      “In all such moments, of course, sheer genetic accident is at work, but there
            are always institutional and cultural circumstances that help the accident
            make sense.”  [Fine, but this sauce was available for any writer, or money lender.]

203      “These words were written well before Shakespeare wrote Hamlet.”
            [This time line has troubled both asides of the debate for some time, but responsible
            scholarship holds that Hamlet was indeed written and played before Nash’s rash
            observation. It takes a second story to prop up the first. We Kyd you not.]

206      “This was the neighborhood to which.... soon after he arrived in London.”
            [Another herm to establish Shaksper-in-London by the late 80’s. No one really
            knows where he was then. No one!]

207      “In Shakespeare’s work there are relatively few signs.... after he arrived in
            London.” [These pages are bursting with claims of authorship and participation in
            the London literary scene for which there is no proof.]

208      “The little society of writers was.... academic-self-display.” [Iambic marmalade;
            lots of gossip about what was going on – but no proof.]

209      “Shakespeare looked around at the gentlemen poets.... was a coney to be
            caught.” [Pure and unadulterated fantasy.]

212      “After 1593, with Greene.... turned his anger on Shakespeare.” [See above]

213      “Rehearsing the old rivalry between poets and players.... imitating the
            inventions of others.... upstart crow, rude groom, ape, worm.” [The Greene
            interlude is complicated. Advocates on both sides have used it relentlessly. Enough
            attention has now been paid to its maelstrom of supposes to convince this writer
            that if anyone is being slammed, it is Shaksper – because he was beginning to take
            more credit than was due him. A respectable lobe of the “conspiracy” theory has
            Shaksper being paid to take the heat off Oxford.]

214      “.... so Shakespeare was now being treated as if he, after all, attended
            university.” [see page 209, above]

218      “While probing the relationships at the center of the plays.... jesting and genial
            wit.“ [Those H IV lines written “years later” were written by Shake-speare-Oxford
            well before the Green-Chettle melange. Dating has always been a sort of
            Stratfordian obstacle course.]

219      “Shakespeare seized upon the central paradox.... So much for moral reform.”
            [Dating once more. For this to happen, Falstaff would have had to be born again.]

220      “.... the immensely bold, generous imaginative work.... in London and on
            tour.”  [see page 219, above]

222      “In two weeks time, or so it is said.... Order of the Garter.” [Even early
            Oxfordian dating has this play written by 1601 or 1602. But recent research has tied
            it in to events which happened much earier. It is in part a send-up of Sir Philip
            Sidney’s and Oxford’s rivalry over Anne Cecil, who became the Countess of
            Oxford, and got absorbed into the character of Ophelia. This de-fuses the old
            queen’s tale about Elizabeth asking for more Falstaff.]

224      “An upstart crow.... indigent, desperate scoundrel.” [Try to remember, if you
            are reading Greene-Chettle, that they both knew who was writing the plays.]

225      “He conferred upon Greene an incalculable gift, the gift of transforming him
            into Falstaffe.” [see page 213, above]

226      “.... Henry Chettle was not the only one.... sound of abject panic.” [page 213]

227      “But who? The likeliest candidate.... be watched in turn.”  [One will look in
            vain for any record of Shaksper owning or reading Florio. Shake-sperae-Oxford
            read and spoke Italian, and lived in Italy for a short period.]

228      “.... the wealthy young heir.... of five thousand pounds.” [We have here a
            towering Oxbloc; one that rivals any of those looming over The Wars of the Ring.
            It seems incredible that a person with access to a complete library on the authorship
            issue could ignore the fact that Burgley’s granddaughter was Oxford’s daughter;
            that the sonnets were written in the form given to England (and the world) by
            Oxford’s uncle; that ever after Oxford and Southampton were close – as close to  
            an in loco parentis  relationship; that Southampton remained close to Oxford’s
            family after his death in 1604; that (if you really want to know why there has
            always been confusion over who wrote the plays, Southampton is the key.

231      “But he did nothing of the kind.... eschew masturbation.... the lovely April of
            her prime.” [see page 228, above]

232      “And if it were somehow established.... by other guesses.” [Were one to have
            become familiar with the Pembroke-Sidney dynasty and its reletionship to the
            Oxfords, trying to foist this rather grubby theory on Will’s World is infra dig.]

233      “.... to attempt to identify the young man.... are the poems directly
            confessional?” [see pages 228,231, 232, and your psychiatrist to work this
            nonsense out. Or else read a good book about it. There are several]

234      “Presumably, if the first seventeen.... among his private friends, etc.”  [It may
            be a problem for persons who do not understand the culture of those times. Many
            struggle with abstract notions of male love. Others want desperately for there to be
            a politically correct interpretation. Correct for today, that is. While it does not merit
            space in this dissection, authors like Michael Wood and Greenblatt have tried to be
            as inclusive as possible. Among the forest of speculations are happy thoughts that
            Shaksper may have had a Jewish or black mistress – or worse (and un-called for)
            known a black whore. In examining Will In The World   for literary rot, this whole
            section would have to be summarily condemned.]

237      “The answer nominally lies.... perfect female-free reproduction.”  [The Tudor
            Heir theory, that has a “changeling child” become the Third Earl of Southampton,
            who grows up to be spoiled by 1) his mother, nee Elizabeth Tudor, and 2) his
            father, the Earl of Southampton, is somehow less embarrassing than the twisting
            tale spread over these and many other pages. Read about it in Elizabeth Sear’s The
            Tudor Rose of England. Not all Oxfordians accept this as proven (yet) but the
            scholarship supporting it quickens monthly.]

238      “Shakespeare has in effect displaced the woman.... persuading the young man
            to marry.” [Perhaps this is why orthodox scholars, under intense fire from the
            winds of reality persist in stretching the plays out on their collective couch,
            desperately trying to keep Lord Oxford busy fooling around with his one-time
            mistress, the Dark Lady, or winning at tournay and the joust in the lists.]

240      “.... it is because the earls’ personal circumstances perfectly fit.... to present to
            the earl.” [One way to understand all of this is to see Venus and Adonis for what it
            is: a love poem for a son that (because he has been inserted into another dynasty,
            has a right to know that he was the product of love. Serious, grown up scholars
            today have no trouble with Elizabeth as Venus and her young paramour (yes,
            Virginia!) Lord Oxford as Adonis. The family boar and a lot of other telling stuff is
            in there. The poem’s source, although richly infected with Ovid, has been shown to
            be taken (literally) from the fifth version of Titian’s painting of the same subject.
            There are features in the poem that are not in any of the other versions. This is a
            painting that once belonged to Mary Tudor’s husband, Phillip of Spain. There were
            two places in which Oxford could have seen this painting – London and Venice.]
            and “.... someone he could trust.... this one out of hand.” [Patronage was the
            farthest thing from Shake-speare-Oxford’s mind. But the skinny on the greatest pen
            name ever starts here. There was no way that Elizabeth could allow the (outside)
            world know that a poem about her (all the poets wrote lovely things about her) by
            someone close to or in the court. Oxford’s family icon, Minerva provided the verb
            and the noun, as well as the hyphen. Minerva was known as shown as the “Spear-
            shaker”. People disagree on whether this I nom de plume was picked before or after
            the standard Stratfordian android showed up in London. Shakespeare was a
            common name; there records of court cases in London at the time that have not
            been positively tied to the Stratfordian.

242      “.... taken in the abstract.... enabled him to write his plays.” [Leading to some
            distinguished broken-field writing about V&A, but in view of the facts, somewhat
            irrelevant.]

243      “.... Shakespeare is constantly, inescapably present in Venus and Adonis....
            This is what Shakespeare had to offer.” [If we didn’t know better, one might
            accuse the professor of “talking dirty” here. Whether the poet was bi-sexual, tri-
            sexual, or incompetent, we know from the plays (circular reasoning) that his mind
            could see things from all angles. Modern writers continue to mine the Canon for
            wisdom in gender-related behavior, and many other categories. Harold Bloom, who
            identifies with Falstaff, has the Bard right up there with everyone from Aristotle to
            Freud. He knows that Shakespeare often speaks through Henry’s sidekick, but still
            does not know who Shake-speare really was.]

244      “What do you offer a beautiful, spoiled young aristocrat who has everything?”
            [More nonsense about patronage. This is real stuff, like the Sonnets, written by a
            real person about real life in real time.]

253      “.... whether they only stared longingly at one another or.... love and desire
            men.” [The discouraging thing about this explanation is that long after the
            authorship has been sufficiently established, unhappy students will have to sort this
            all out. A new palanx of literary psychiatrists will keep busy explaining that their
            pretty boy had three wives, a sexy mistress over who he had to fight a duel, his own
            ship, was undefeated in the lists, and had three sons and three daughters.]

254      “Part of the problem may have been.... what it means to be ‘Will’.”
            [Will was (independently of Guillamus, Shaksper’s given name) a common epither
            for “The Poet”. It was an appropriate name to attach to the new pen-name. Some of
            the sonnets, either to Elizabeth or the Dark lady, but not to Southampton, used
            “Will” as a ploy to demand endearment. As for the rest of these pages on the
            Sonnets – you can’t get anywhere from there.]

256      “However generously he may have been rewarded.... attempted to equal and
            outdo.” [After all the above, do we have to say anything about this?]

263      “One of the passages in Shakespeare’s hand – Hand D....”  [Current scholarship
            shows that Hand D is not “Shakespeare’s]

267      “Current scholarly consensus....”  [This is one of the book’s statements that has
            some validity, about Sir Thomas More, that is.]

269      “But elsewhere in the same play.... complete absence of sentimental feeling.”
            [That “great reckoning in a little room” is a classic. Touchstone is explaining to
            Willyum that is mind is insufficient to comprehend, etc. Because of who these two
            characters “present”, we have yet another contemporary insight into Greenblatt’s
            Shaksper.]

271      “.... and after he became wealthy from the theater....“ [There is no record of
             Shaksper’s earnings from writing plays or poems. And this was before the IRS!]

294      “At least one play, now lost.... vulgar theatrical intensity.” Earlier entries
            explain the earlier “Ur Hamlet” gambit. These two pages are indeed a Great
            Reckoning – translated to modern times.]

295      “Whether or not he had access to the script.... a set of predictable
            excitements.” [see page 294, above]

305      “The play should be over by the end of the first act.... best play he had ever
            written.” [Quite decent of Prof. Greenblatt to include Saxo Grammaticus’ tale of
            Amleth. Not available in English until long after Hamlet was written, it did not
            have a Ghost. The Polonius character ends up in a pen of swine (where he is
            actually eaten); the two “friends” who take Amleth to be killed by the King of
            Britain have no names; Amleth contrives to have his captors killed by Britain, who
            then marries Amleth to his daughter and sends him off to woo the Queen of
            Scotland. Guess which play was taken from Amleth’s wooing this beauty, who
            cares not for the King, but joins with Amleth to kill same. The new triangle heads
            home to Denmark, kills the bad uncle, and lives long and happy lives. Of course
            Shake-speare-Oxford, busy with putting his own life into the play, leaves out the
            Queen of Scotland. With Elizabeth in the audience, he could not have touched that
            one with a ten-foot halberd.]

317      “In 1596, at the funeral of Hamnet.... bore the name of his dead son.”  [Hamlet
            was there while Hamnet was still alive. Milking this sad event will not a playwright
            make.]

323      “Hamlet marked an epoch for Shakespeare as a writer as well as an actor....
            relaunched his entire career.... refusal of easy consolations.”  [It certainly was
            an epochal work, but the historical record does not confirm that 1) there was a
            career; and 2) that it needed or ever got a relaunch.]

328      “The old Queen’s Men play.... the most painful that Shakespeare ever wrote.”
            [Lear was something of a “re-write”, but from an earlier play called King Leare
            written as early as 1594, and possibly earlier.]

329      “The troupe performed eight plays at court in the winter of 1603-4....”
            [This would have been for Elizabeth. There is no way that the plays (and many
            poems) of Shake-spear could have been written, acted, and/or published without
            her presence. King James knew the score; he was being “managed” by Burleigh’s
            son as successor as Elizabeth’s chief factotum, now Lord Salisbury, he very
            likely I told James that this was the best way to get off to a good start with “her”
            people. James also put on seven plays the following year after Shakespeare-
            Oxford’s death. They were all ones that showed more of Oxford’s presence.

342      “Shakespeare may not have merely passing through Oxford by chance in
            August 1605.... the way Horatio in Hamlet watches the king.”  [see page 209]

356      “.... as early as 1604, when he sat down to write King Lear....” [see page 328]