reetings,
traveller. And welcome to The Shakespeare Fellowship in cyberspace.
Our site was featured in the February 10 2002 New
York Times Arts and Leisure article on the Shakespeare
authorship question. Since that time a growing number of visitors have
found their way to our site, liked what they see, and become founding
colonizers of our group, which now has an international membership of
approximately 350 members.
The Shakespeare Fellowship is a non-profit educational
foundation established in October 2001. In the few short months of our
existence, the Fellowship has made its mark on public discussion about
the Bard: our efforts have been noted in several major news media and
our scholars play an increasingly influential role in discussions of
the authorship question.
Our members come from all walks of life but share a passion for
understanding how the enigmas of our own historic past are inwoven with the study of
Shakespeare. Our Trustees are regular contributors to the
intellectual life of both Canada and the United States.
The goals of the Fellowship include bringing the Shakespeare authorship
debate to a world-wide audience via the Internet and stimulating a wide-ranging dialogue
on the relevance of Shakespeare to the 21st century.
If you're looking for news about Shakespeare, the Shakespeare authorship question or Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of
Oxford, this is your gateway to internet resources. Unlike most Shakespeare authorship
sites, we link to a broad cross-section of resources on
Shakespeare scholarship, performance and pedagogy.
As many readers may be aware, interest in the theory first articulated in
1920 identifying Oxford as the true mind behind the mask of the name
"Shakespeare," has never been greater. Supreme Court Justices John Paul Stevens and Harry Blackmun are two recent
"converts" to the Oxford case. In the acting world, Michael York, Keanu Reeves,
and Sir Derek Jacobi are three distinguished proponents of the Oxford case.
To assist the reader in understanding the controversy, we have made
available on this site the full text of J. Thomas Looney's "Shakespeare"
Identified, the book which originally persuaded Sigmund Freud, Leslie Howard, and
many other readers that "Shakespeare" was Oxford's pen-name.
Also on the site is information about the Shakespeare
Fellowship's annual Shakespeare Authorship. Our Contest Commitee
has announced that that the 2007-2008 contest is now open. Cash prizes
of up to $600 will be awarded. The contest is open to
9-12th grade students in the United States, Canada, and...as it turns
out, just about anywhere! For details, please visit our
Contest 2007-8 page.
This web site is also a growing and dynamic archive of net.based resources
on the authorship question, on the Earl of Oxford, and on Shakespeare, including these
sections:
Our Virtual Classroom
already houses an expanding data base of public access resources on Shakespeare and the
authorship question.
Shakespeare Matters,
our 32-page quarterly newsletter, is also available at this site to internet subscribers.
Another exciting new feature is our Discussion
Forum, the only fully-archived internet discussion resource for Shakespeare authorship
enthusiasts.
For current events in the world of authorship studies, please visit our News.
New to the world of authorship studies? Please consider our FAQ.
And even if you think you already know everything, don't forget to tour
the Shakespeare Skeptics Hall of Fame.
And please keep checking our site in the coming months, because much
will be happening here.
Since October, 2001.
