Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies

March 15, 2023
Diving into a Shakespearean drama. Journalist and literary critic Winkler makes her book debut with a witty, irreverent inquiry into a fraught question: Who wrote Shakespeare's plays? That question inspired her essay, "Was Shakespeare a Woman?" published in the Atlantic in 2019, in which she proposed that Italian writer Emilia Bassano might have written, or contributed to, Shakespeare's plays. The response by scholars was vicious. "In literary circles," Winkler quickly discovered, "even the phrase 'Shakespeare authorship question' elicits contempt--eye-rolling, name-calling, mudslinging." But that question has persisted, like "a massive game of Clue," since the Renaissance, fueled by the lack of evidence that the man born in Stratford was the same man who wrote Hamlet. No obituary appeared after Shakespeare's death, and he bequeathed no manuscripts, unusual for a man of letters. Furthermore, he seemed never to have traveled outside of England yet had intimate knowledge of European court life, other languages, and even ancient Greek. Winkler is well versed in Shakespeare's works as well as the "vast, complex" literature on the authorship question. She reports on conversations with stolid Stratfordians who have devoted their careers to defending Shakespeare's identity and with enthusiastic anti-Stratfordians who point to other individuals--or collaborators--as more likely playwrights: Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe, Edward de Vere, and Mary Sidney, who, like Bassano, could help to explain Shakespeare's prowess in writing feminist drama. Suppose, Winkler suggests, "the author was not an uneducated man but an educated woman, concealing herself beneath a male name, as the heroines of the plays so often disguise themselves in masculine garb." Winkler does not aim to solve the mystery but rather to point up the problems of ascertaining historical truth. "We take our knowledge of the past from sources we trust," she writes, "few of us going back to check how a 'historical fact' was arrived at, whether it's correct." A shrewd, entertaining journey into a literary quagmire.

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Starred review from March 6, 2023
This sharp debut by journalist Winkler expands on her 2019 Atlantic essay exploring the “messy, ugly dispute” over the authorship of works attributed to Shakespeare. Questioning how a relatively uneducated man from Stratford-upon-Avon could write such learned and feminist plays, Winkler suggests that perhaps “the author was not an uneducated man but an educated woman.” She discusses the numerous female candidates scholars have forwarded, including Mary Sidney, a translator who aspired to create “a body of English literature that could stand next to the great works in Greek, Latin, French, and Italian,” and Emilia Bassano, a poet who advocated for liberty from male oppression. She also surveys male authors believed by some to be the “real” Shakespeare, noting that playwright Christopher Marlowe is a favorite candidate because he died under mysterious circumstances “just weeks before ‘Shakespeare’ emerged.” Winkler doesn’t weigh in on the likeliness of the candidates, but instead uses the controversy to serve up thoughtful meditations on the role of the author, the objectivity of biography, and the limits of scholarly study (“Despite the most heroic efforts of feminist scholars, women of the past will always be, to some degree, ‘missing matter’ ”). Probing and smart, this is sure to stir up lively debate.

March 10, 2023
The debate among scholars surrounding Shakespeare's identity is centuries old. Some believe he was a local villager, others that he was Sir Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe, Queen Elizabeth I, or maybe even a group of people. Winkler explores the possibility that Shakespeare may have been a woman, Emilia Bassano. Winkler acknowledges right off the bat that bringing up the Shakespeare-authorship question among experts is still a huge taboo; her original article on the topic from 2019 inspired a lot of rancour. Her primary research focus on how Shakespeare wrote women so well, i.e. feminist readings of the Bard's work, was greeted with scorn in the mid-1970s. Now, they're a staple of the subject area. Wondering if Shakespeare was a woman disguising herself, like George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) did, Winkler alternates between historical explorations of the subject matter and ideas about why the Shakespeare experts get so defensive and hard nosed. A must-read for those obsessed with the bard, Winkler's book is a strong contender for both academic and public library shelves.

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