08 August 2008

Shakespeare's original theater found

Not the Globe, but the aboriginal structure cleverly named "The Theater." As reported by The Guardian,
"It was built in 1576 as the first permanent base for James Burbage's group of travelling players, The Lord Chamberlain's Men… In the winter of 1599 Burbage fell out with the owner of the land under his building, and according to theatre legend, in the deserted streets at dead of night on Christmas Eve, the players and the stage carpenter dismantled the building and shipped it across the river, where its timbers would rise again as the Globe."
I differ with the Guardian article, which refers to Shakespeare as "a young man from the provinces," and agree instead with Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, Walt Whitman and many others who believe that the man from Stratford could not have written the Shakespearean works. They were instead penned by Edward deVere, the 17th Earl of Oxford.

More about the Shakespeare authorship question some other time. Those who are interested in literature and history will be well rewarded by scanning this Wiki article on the Oxfordian theory, and then visiting the website of the Shakespeare-Oxford Society.

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