Roger Stritmatter: From Literary Encryptions to Handwriting, a Work in Progress

This presentation reports on two ongoing projects. The first is being published in Critical Survey, a Stratfordian journal, edited by Graham Holderness (with an editorial board including such well-recognized scholars and creative spirits as Stanley Wells, Sir Derek Jacobi, Anabel Patterson, Ania Loomba, Katherine Belsey, and Leah Marcus). The article documents the literary encryption of Francis Meres in his 1598 commonplace book, Palladis Tamia. Carefully examined, the book discloses an unambiguous identification of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, as the real “Shakespeare.”

The second project involves Roger's study and documentation of a set of annotations discovered in books of Roman history from the great estate of Audley End near Saffron Walden in Essex. This includes a critical source for Antony and Cleopatra and Julius Caesar. Funded by the de Vere Society, it is uncovering visible evidence of an author taking notes for plays he is writing. The author in fact seems to be reading with an attentive eye for dramatic detail and a concern for dramatic patterns in the events he’s taking notes on.

Along with the dramatic aspects of history, the Audley end annotator shows an interest in the names of the great Roman theatres, laws pertaining to the seating of nobles in Roman theatres, and the expulsion of actors from Italy for causing political offense. He also takes note of Seneca’s use of “shifting his scene,” from Rome to Marseille, as a way to disguise his dramatic criticism of his fellow Romans. And while documenting these more general interests in the history of drama, the annotations provide a study of the artist working out many curious aspects – of character, plot, theme, or literary shading, for the two Roman plays.

Although previously misidentified as being in the handwriting of Sir Henry Neville, Roger's ongoing research seems to disprove this belief and is actually confirming that the writer is Edward de Vere. Already published in preliminary synopsis in both the de Vere Society Newsletter and the Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship Newsletter, this new evidence from Audley End is potentially a game-changer, the full significance of which will require many more months to fully unravel.

Learn more at https://shakespeareoxfordfellowship.org/

Bio: Roger Stritmatter is a professor of Humanities at Coppin State University and was the editor of the journal Brief Chronicles from 2009 to 2016. He was a founder of one of the predecessor organizations of the SOF, the Shakespeare Fellowship. Educated at Evergreen State College (B.A. 1981) and the New School for Social Research (M.A., 1988), he was awarded a Ph.D. in 2001 in comparative literature from the University of Massachusetts Amherst on the basis of a study of 1,043 marked passages found in Edward de Vere's Geneva Bible, which is now owned by the Folger Shakespeare Library. He has edited numerous books on the authorship question.
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