In the History of Pseudonyms, “Shakespeare” Fits Right In
Romaine Gary, alias Emile Ajar, enlisted his cousin to be the public face of Ajar.
Imagine a celebrated author who publishes under a pseudonym. Only his wife and a few associates know his secret. His works enjoy such outstanding success, he decides he needs a front man to be his public face. He recruits and coaches a younger man to embody his alter-ego, even scripting lines about the author’s “real life.” Everyone’s fooled.
The above scenario sounds like one addressed by the Shakespeare authorship question, which asks: “Did the brilliant author write under the pseudonym William Shakespeare, using William Shakspere of Stratford-upon-Avon as his front man?”
It’s also the true story of French novelist Romaine Gary, the only person to win the prestigious Goncourt Prize twice, first as Romaine Gary, then as Emile Ajar. Gary enlisted his cousin, Paul Pavlowitch, to play Ajar, preparing him for meetings with his publisher, who was convinced by Pavlowitch’s performance.
Eventually, the ruse unraveled when Gary disclosed the affair in a novel in which Pavlowitch, the narrator, confessed to being Ajar. At that point, the real-life Pavlowitch ended his cooperation with Gary.
Carmela Ciuraru recounts Gary’s curious tale in her book, Nom de Plume, A (Secret) History of Pseudonyms. She provides case studies of 18 writers that used pseudonyms or heteronyms, including (I’m using their pseudonyms) George Sand, Lewis Carroll, Mark Twain, Isak Dinesen, and Christian Brulls.
Reading Ciuraru’s book, I identified four principal reasons why authors use pseudonyms. The most prevalent, shared by at least 7 of the 18 authors she describes (which includes Gary/Ajar and the five named above), is that the pseudonym activates an alter ego, allowing the author to become a different “self” unshackled by the baggage attached to their real name.
The other three reasons, distributed roughly among the additional 11 authors profiled by Ciuraru are:
to avoid publishers’ discrimination against female authors (e.g. the Brontë sisters, and Marian Evans who wrote as George Eliot);
to deny being the writer of controversial content (e.g., Dominique Aury, who wrote “The Story of O” as Pauline Reage); and
to hide perceived shameful behavior or avoid displeasure of parents or peers (e.g., Henry York writing as Henry Green, and Eric Blair writing as George Orwell).
Ciuraru shows a writer can have more than one reason to write under a pseudonym. I realized that Edward de Vere—by far the strongest alternative candidate for writing as William Shakespeare—fits this profile with three of the four reasons.
First, as a known poet and playwright acknowledged in his time as the best writer of comedy, de Vere was a nobleman, whose peers frowned upon those associated with the theater. Reading Ciuraru’s book, it surprised me how, during Green’s and Orwell’s day, the vocation of writing still met with aristocratic disapproval.
Second, as shown in biographies about de Vere, much of the content of Shakespeare’s plays would have been controversial, since many characters appear to mirror people in the court of Queen Elizabeth I, including the Queen herself.
For example, the character of Polonius, who is murdered in Hamlet, is widely viewed as an unflattering caricature of William Cecil, Lord Burghley, the Queen’s secretary. Burghley was de Vere’s father-in-law, and they disliked each other. Many think Queen Gertrude in Hamlet represents Queen Elizabeth.
Finally, if Charles Beauclerk got things right in Shakespeare’s Lost Kingdom, William Shakespeare expressed de Vere’s other self—a bohemian who loved writing, which allowed him to vent locked-up feelings. Beauclerk also makes a compelling argument that Shakespeare’s plays are “politically inflammatory works” written by a court insider.
What Ciuraru adds—even without addressing whether Shakespeare was a pseudonym—is the plausibility of an author attaching his pen name to another person, who takes on the role of playing the author.
To anyone who reads Nom de Plume, the idea of William Shakspere of Stratford playing “William Shakespeare” as a stand-in for de Vere shouldn’t sound crazy.
There’s firm evidence that “William Shakespeare” was somebody’s pseudonym. As Margot Anderson explains in Shakespeare by Another Name, the name “Shake-speare” appears on many of the published plays. In Elizabethan times, use of a hyphen signaled a pseudonym. The one time a play (King Lear) showed the author’s name as “Shak-speare,” the next edition changed it back to “Shake-speare.”
The enigmatic Sonnets also were published under the name “Shake-speare.”
William of Stratford never signed his name as “Shakespeare,” but always as “Shakspere.” His birth, family and burial records show the name as “Shakspere” or some variation of the short ‘a’ spelling (e.g., Shagspere). His will doesn’t mention “Shakespeare” or the plays, or books, or anything else that suggests a writing life.
In contrast, the connections between de Vere’s life and the Shakespeare plays are so many, they read like his autobiography. Written in the first person, the Sonnets, too, paint an accurate portrait of de Vere, not Shakspere.
De Vere had the motive, opportunity, and ability to use a pseudonym and employ Shakspere as his front man. As Ciuraru shows, it’s not unheard of for an author to use the name of a real person, or a derivative thereof, as a pseudonym. “George Sand” came, in part, from the last name of her close friend and collaborator, Jules Sandeau.
“Shakespeare,” a close variation of Shakspere, would make Stratford Will even more believable as de Vere’s front man, and a good choice for a nobleman wishing to hide being an author. In the history of pseudonyms, such a hoax is not only curious, but also very plausible.