Shakespeare’s Bible and the Critics
Read about the 2002 Dissertation that rocked the world of Shakespeare studies:
Joseph Sobran, UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE, 1993:
“A young scholar has recently made one of the greatest discoveries in the history of the Shakespeare authorship controversy …
“Ironically, the Geneva Bible owned by Edward de Vere, Seventeenth Earl of Oxford (1550-1604) has been in the great Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington since 1925. But Mr. Stritmatter is the first scholar to examine it closely. It would be a miracle if two different readers had taken special note of so many of the same verses, mostly little-known verses, as Shakespeare and Oxford did…
“Mr. Stritmatter’s discovery has reinforced the already powerful circumstantial case that the Earl of Oxford was Shakespeare…
“The annotations in Oxford’s Bible are more than a solution to a whodunit; they are a major addition to Shakespeare studies. They give us a truly priceless look into the creative process of our greatest poet. To read them is to witness the birth of Hamlet and Falstaff.”
Don Oldenburg, WASHINGTON POST, DON OLDENBURG MAY 17, 1994:
When Roger Stritmatter arrived here two years ago to conduct research at The Folger Shakespeare Library, the University of Massachusetts graduate student felt like he’d entered the proverbial lion’s den. . . . Already an Oxfordian, Stritmatter set out to prove using the notes and the underlined passages in Oxford’s Bible a convincing connection to how biblical phrases and ideas were employed in Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets. From decades of scholarly analysis of Shakespeare’s knowledge of the Bible, he found a consensus that the Bard knew the Geneva translation best.
Examining the use and influence of the scriptures against the marked passages and marginal notes, he discovered that about 250 of them have a demonstrable influence on the Shakespearean text. Almost as many other marked passages show a “very powerful mental affinity” with how Shakespeare borrowed from the Bible.
Howard Chua-Eoan, TIME MAGAZINE, FEB. 15, 1999:
“Edward de Vere led a life that was a veritable mirror of Shakespeare’s art… Not that he didn’t leave clues: De Vere’s copy of the Geneva Bible has been discovered in the Folger Shakespeare Library and, to the delight of advocates, words are underlined that reappear in the masterpieces … “
Mark Anderson, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, APRIL 1999:
”One of the most important new pieces of Oxfordian evidence centers around a 1570 English Bible, in the ‘Geneva translation,’ once owned and annotated by the Earl of Oxford, Edward de Vere. In an eight-year study of the de Vere Bible, a University of Massachusetts doctoral student named Roger Stritmatter has found that the 430-year-old book is essentially, as he puts it, ‘Shakespeare’s Bible with the Earl of Oxford’s coat of arms on the cover.’ Stritmatter discovered that more than a quarter of the I,066 annotations and marked passages in the de Vere Bible appear in Shakespeare.”
U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, July 24-31, 2000:
“Mounting evidence appears to strengthen Edward de Vere’s candidacy. None is more persuasive than an eight-year study, completed in 1999, of the heavily marked and annotated Geneva Bible, owned by de Vere.”
NEW YORK TIMES, WILLIAM NIEDERKORN, FEB. 10, 2002
Shakespeare’s preference for the Geneva translation of the Bible is an accepted fact. De Vere’s Bible, which is in the collection of the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, is identified by his heraldic emblems on the binding. Dr. Stritmatter’s dissertation (which he self-published) includes handwriting analysis and an independent forensics report, which concludes that ”it is highly probable that Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, is the author” of the annotations in it.
THE HONORABLE JOHN PAUL STEVENS, 2002:
“Your dissertation . . . is an impressive piece of work . . . [which] demonstrates that the owner of the de Vere Bible had the same familiarity with its text as the author of the Shakespeare canon.”
SIR DEREK JACOBI:
“A stunning piece of scholarship.”