Waugaman Publishes Oxfordian Analysis of The Tempest
Posted By Roger Stritmatter on December 17, 2009
Brief Chronicles board member Dr. Richard Waugaman, MD, has published an overtly Oxfordian article, “A Psychoanalytical Study of Edward de Vere’s Tempest,” in the Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry 37: 4 (2009), 627-644.
According to Waugaman’s abstract,
There is now abundant evidence that Freud was correct in believing Edward de Vere (1550-1604) wrote under the pseudonym “William Shakespeare.” One common reaction is “What difference does it make?” I address that question by examining many significant connections between de Vere’s life and The Tempest.
Such studies promise to bring our understanding of Shakespeare’s works back into line with our usual psychoanalytic approach to literature, which examines how a great writer’s imagination weaves a new creation out of the threads of his or her life experiences.
One source of the intense controversy about de Vere’s authorship is our idealization of the traditional author, about whom we know so little that, as Freud noted, we can imagine his personality was as fine as his works.
Comments
3 Responses to “Waugaman Publishes Oxfordian Analysis of The Tempest”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Loading ...
Dear Mr. Stritmatter,
Your Venus and Adonis essay (2004) was impressive. Pure gold.
I am a lawyer. I knew Bacon could not be a poet since I read Chesterton Illustrated London News’ essays on the matter and the (cryptic) evidences were preposterous. About six months ago I started again to read about the state of the debate about Shakespeare’s identity and how many candidates were on the line. When I read Mr. Looney’s masterpiece I thought: “This is it at last!”
I read yesterday some letter Laurence of Arabia wrote to Mr. Robert Graves. The one was telling the other something, more or less, like this: “Shakespeare is a mask. I do not have a picture of him and do not want to have it, because he wanted to remain occult.”
The question is: Edward de Vere was ambiguous about his mask. And that’s why they chose a plain mask as Shakspere. The Sonnets and Hamlet (as well as Touchstone’s “you are not ipse, for all your writers do consent that ipse is me”) tell us that he did not want to remain occult, but only north-north-west.
In your “A matter of small consequence” in the SOS, the quote by the great George Santayana from his “The Life of Reason” concerning fanaticism is paraphrased. The exact words were: “Fanaticism consists in redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim.”
The quote you selected by Santayana resumes what is happening now for sure.
Dear Ricardo,
Thank you for your welcome comments on the above questions, which illustrate your apt understanding of the complexities of the case. I’m glad that you appreciated my Venus and Adonis paper — I personally feel that (notwithstanding one or two errors of no real consequence which should have been fixed on better advisement) it’s one of the best things I’ve ever written, but also seems destined at least in the short run to remain one of the most neglected. So it matters a great deal to me that you actually read the essay and were able to appreciate its potential value as an interpretative work.
That quote from the Lawrence-Graves correspondence is priceless — if you can trace it to a definite source I would be much obliged. I’ve long suspected that Graves was an anti-Stratfordian, but never known if solid evidence to that effect existed and could be found. While your quote hardly proves that case, it does suggest at least an awareness on Graves (and apparently Lawrence’s) part of the special problems of Shakespearean biography which we Oxfordians believe to be a result of the authorship question.
Your summary of the difference between remaining wholly occult and merely obscurely “North by northwest” is right on target I believe. Shakespearean orthodoxy maintains its gripe on popular belief largely by constructing such questions along very all-or-nothing, black and white, either-or logic, that has nothing to do with the real world of psychological (or, for that matter, theological) ambivalence or the way language really works. But of course de Vere capitulated to his own anonymity and also fought against it in his works, both wanting to be anonymous and at other moments (see AYLI 5.1) bitterly resenting it, and at others contriving clever word games to transcend it for the knowing reader.
Once again, thanks for your comments and welcome (if that is appropriate) to “the movement.”
Best wishes,
Roger S.