SHAKESPEARE’S MISTRESS OR THE REAL AUTHOR?
Emilia Bassano, a poet during Shakespeare’s time, was the dark complexioned daughter of Italian and Morrocan Jews.
Sonnets 127 – 132: “…my mistress’ eyes are raven black…her breasts are dun…black wires grow on her head. …Thy black is fairest…I swear beauty herself is black, and all are foul that thy complexion lack.”
The dark lady of the sonnets is now widely considered to be Emilia Bassano.
But was she the author?
The author of the plays, whoever he or she was, did an extraordinary thing: fourteen characters in the plays have Emilia’s name. WHY?
AT THE VERY LEAST IT PROVES THAT SHE WAS CLOSELY ASSOCIATED WITH THE WRITING OF THE PLAYS.
But was she in fact the real author?
The dark lady of the sonnets or the real author?
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ARE EMILIA’S BOOK OF POETRY AND THE SHAKESPEARE PLAYS BY THE SAME WRITER?
There are many striking parallels between the plays and Emilia’s book, “Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum”, that suggest they were by the same writer. To name a few:
-Stylistic similarities especially to the late plays written around the same time as Salve Deus,
-The use of the same list of literary sources,
-The same theatrical devices not used by any other writers of the time,
-They share the same underlying allegorical themes.
But the most striking and undeniable similarity of all is their feminism; a theme not found in any other English works of the time . In her preface to her book she wrote:
“This I have written, to make known to the world,
that all women deserve not to be blamed,
when men, forgetting they were born of women,
nourished of women,
do like vipers deface the wombs that bred them”.
Have you ever read a more eloquently ferocious feminist assault?
BUT REALLY OLD CHAP, WE HAVE THE PLAYS, DOES IT MATTER WHO WROTE THEM?
Here is my personal take on this often asked question.
As long as the debate was about which man wrote the plays, it did not fundamentally matter.
But if the plays were in fact mainly written by a woman who could not reveal that she was a woman, then it matters a lot. And if she had an Italian and African Jewish background that also could not be revealed, this also matters a lot.
The monument of the Shakespeare canon, which is based on the idea of the white Anglo Saxon Christian male genius, would come crumbling down.
The role this myth plays in our culture is still pervasive and still distorts our understanding of the plays. I don’t believe that the feminine and outsider perspectives that pervade the plays and are fundamental to their meaning, can be fully grasped while we still cling to the Stratfordian mythology.
YES OLD CHAP, IT MATTERS.
Original title page of Emilia’s book of verse published in 1611
I Am Emilia Bassano 