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The 1604 issue

Title page and dedication of the Sonnets (1609). Both the hyphenated name, which appeared on 15 plays published prior to the First Folio, and the phrase "ever-living poet", have helped fuel the authorship debate.

For mainstream critics, the most compelling evidence against Oxford (besides the historical evidence for William Shakespeare) is his death in 1604, since the generally-accepted chronology of Shakespeare's plays places the composition of approximately twelve of the plays after that date. These critics most often cite The Tempest, Henry VIII and Macbeth as almost certainly having been written after 1604.

The exact dates of the composition of Shakespeare's plays are uncertain. However, according to David Bevington, it is a 'virtually unanimous' opinion among teachers and scholars of Shakespeare that the canon of late plays depicts an artistic journey that extends well beyond 1604. Evidence for this includes allusions to historical events and literary sources which postdate 1604, as well as Shakespeare's adaptation of his style to accommodate Jacobean literary tastes and the changing membership of the King's Men and their different venues.

Oxfordians, on the other hand, believe that 1604 was the year "Shakespeare" stopped writing. If this claim were true, it would give a boost to the Oxfordian candidacy, as Bacon, Derby, Neville, and Shakespeare of Stratford all lived well past the 1609 publication of the Sonnets.

Oxfordian scholar Ruth Loyd Miller, among others, believed that certain literary allusions implied that the poet-playwright died prior to 1609, including Shake-Speares Sonnets, published with the phrase "our ever-living poet" in its dedication. Miller wrote that the phrase "ever-living" rarely, if ever, referred to a living person, but instead was used to refer to the eternal soul of the deceased, as in Henry VI, Part I, where Shakespeare writes of "(t)hat ever-living man of memory, Henry the Fifth" (4.3.51-52).

However, a study of Early Modern uses of the phrase "ever-living" by Donald Wayne Foster indicates that the phrase also refers to God or other supernatural beings. Foster suggests that the dedication calls upon God to bless the living begetter (writer) of the sonnets. Bate calls this "improbable" and suggests that the "ever-living poet" might be "a great dead English poet who had written on the great theme of poetic immortality", such as Sir Philip Sidney or Edmund Spenser.

In 1607 William Barkstead (or Barksted), a minor poet and playwright, appeared to state in his poem "Mirrha the Mother of Adonis" that Shakespeare was already deceased.

His Song was worthy merit (Shakespeare he)
sung the fair blossom, thou the withered tree
Laurel is due him, his art and wit
hath purchased it, Cypress thy brow will fit.

Joseph Sobran, in Alias Shakespeare, notes the cypress tree was a symbol of mourning, and believes Barkstead was specifically writing of Shakespeare in the past tense ("His song was worthy") — after Oxford's death in 1604, but prior to Shakespeare of Stratford's death in 1616.

Sobran notes that the cypress tree was a symbol of mourning and says that Barksted was specifically writing of Shakespeare in the past tense ("His song was worthy")—after Oxford's death in 1604, but prior to Shakespeare's death in 1616.

Shakespeare scholars point out that Sobran has simply misread Barkstead’s poem, the last stanza of which is a comparison of Barkstead’s poem to Shakespeare’s "Venus and Adonis", and has mistaken the grammar also, which makes it clear that Barkstead is referring to Shakespeare’s "song" in the past tense, not Shakespeare himself. This context is obvious when the rest of the stanza is included:

But stay, my Muse, in thine own confines keep,
and wage not war with so dear loved a neighbor,
But having sung thy day song, rest and sleep,
preserve thy small fame and his greater favor:
His song was worthy merit (Shakespeare he)
sung the fair blossom, thou the withered tree.
Laurel is due to him, his art and wit
hath purchased it, Cypress thy brow will fit.

As can readily be seen with the context restored, Barkstead compares his poem about Venus and Adonis (“my Muse”) with Shakespeare’s, saying that his poetry sung "the withered tree" while Shakespeare’s "sung the fair blossom", and that Shakespeare deserves laurel, the emblem of victory or poetic superiority, but that Barkstead, the lesser poet, deserves only cypress in comparison.

Against the Oxford theory are several references to Shakespeare, later than 1604, which imply that the author was then still alive. Scholars point to a poem written circa 1620 by a student at Oxford, William Basse, that mentioned the author Shakespeare died in 1616, which is the year Shakespeare deceased and not Edward de Vere.

Early Start Theory

For Oxfordians, a significant and unresolved debate persists over the question of whether many of the so-called "late plays" were actually written, as is generally alleged by orthodox scholars, during the Jacobean period. Andrew Cairncross, for example, argued persuasively as early as 1936, in an argument less refuted than ignored since then, that Hamlet was written as early as 1588-89. Oxfordian Mark Anderson believes evidence supports the contention that the allegedly "Jacobean plays" may actually have been written several years earlier than is customarily believed, and all of them before 1604. Anderson note that proponents of earlier dating (now called the 'early-start' theory) go back over 200 years. In 1756, for example, inMemoirs of the Life and Writings of Ben Jonson, W.R. Chetwood concluded on the basis of performance records "at the end of the year of [1603], or the beginning of the next, 'tis supposed that [Shakespeare] took his farewell of the stage, both as author and actor". In 1874, German literary historian Karl Elze dated The Tempest — traditionally labeled as Shakespeare's last play — to the years 1603-04.

Publication pattern

The speculation that the existing chronology is significantly too late is strongly supported, Oxfordians argue, by the publication pattern of Shakespeare's plays. Anderson stresses that from 1593 through 1603 the publication of new Shake-speare's plays "appeared in print, on average, twice per year." Then, in 1604, Shake-speare fell silent" and stopped (new play) publication for almost 5 years. Anderson further states "the early history of reprints ... also point to 1604 as a watershed year", and notes that during the years of 1593–1604, whenever an inferior or pirated text was published, it was then typically followed by a genuine text that was "newly augmented" or "corrected": "After 1604, the 'newly correct[ing]' and 'augment[ing]' stops. Once again, the Shake-speare enterprise appears to have shut down".

Collaborations and revisions

Oxfordians also believe that the fact that a number of the later plays (including Henry VIII,Macbeth, Timon of Athens and Pericles) have been described as incomplete or collaborative is explained by the theory that they were simply revised and/or completed by others after Oxford's death. Shapiro, however, believes that attribution studies, which have shown certain plays in the canon were written by two or three hands, are a 'nightmare' for Oxfordians, implying a 'jumble sale scenario' for his literary remains long after his death.

The move to the Blackfriars

Professor Jonathan Bate, in The Genius of Shakespeare (1997) stated that Oxfordians cannot "provide any explanation for …technical changes attendant on the King's Men's move to the Blackfriars theatre four years after their candidate's death.... Unlike the Globe, the Blackfriars was an indoor playhouse" and so required plays with frequent breaks in order to replace the candles it used for lighting. "The plays written after Shakespeare's company began using the Blackfriars in 1608, Cymbeline and The Winter's Tale for instance, have what most ... of the earlier plays do not have: a carefully planned five-act structure". If new Shakespearean plays were being written especially for presentation at the Blackfriars' theatre after 1608, they could not have been written by Edward de Vere.

Oxfordians respond that Oxford was well acquainted with the Blackfriars Theatre, having been a leaseholder of the venue, and gifting to his then-secretary John Lyly.

Notable silences

Eulogies

Because Shakespeare of Stratford lived until 1616, Oxfordians question why, if he were the author, did he not eulogize Queen Elizabeth at her death in 1603 or Henry, Prince of Wales, at his in 1612. They believe Oxford's 1604 death provides the explanation. In an age when such actions were expected, Shakespeare also failed to memorialize the coronation of James I in 1604, the marriage of Princess Elizabeth in 1612, and the investiture of Prince Charles as the new Prince of Wales in 1613.

Shakespeare of Stratford's death

Similarly, when Shakespeare of Stratford died, he was not publicly mourned. As Mark Twain wrote, in Is Shakespeare Dead?, "When Shakespeare died in Stratford it was not an event. It made no more stir in England than the death of any other forgotten theatre-actor would have made. Nobody came down from London; there were no lamenting poems, no eulogies, no national tears — there was merely silence, and nothing more. A striking contrast with what happened when Ben Jonson, and Francis Bacon, and Spenser, and Raleigh, and the other literary folk of Shakespeare's time passed from life! No praiseful voice was lifted for the lost Bard of Avon; even Ben Jonson waited seven years before he lifted his."

Science

Anderson contends that Shakespeare refers to the latest scientific discoveries and events through the end of the 16th century, but "is mute about science after de Vere’s [Oxford’s] death in 1604". He believes that the absence of any mention of the spectacular supernova of October 1604 or Kepler’s revolutionary 1609 study of planetary orbits are especially noteworthy.

Unpublished plays

Diana Price, in Shakespeare's Unorthodox Biography, notes that for a professional author, Shakespeare of Stratford seems to have been entirely uninterested in protecting his work. Price explains that while he had a well documented habit of going to court over relatively small sums, he never sued any of the publishers pirating his plays and sonnets, or took any legal action regarding their practice of attaching his name to the inferior output of others. Price also notes there is no evidence Shakespeare of Stratford was ever paid for writing and his detailed will failed to mention any of Shakespeare's unpublished plays or poems or any of the source books Shakespeare was known to have read.

Stratford acquaintances

Oxfordians also note Shakespeare of Stratford's relatives and neighbors never mentioned he was famous or a writer, nor are there any indications his heirs demanded or received payments for his supposed investments in the theatre or for any of the more than 16 masterwork plays unpublished at the time of his death. Mark Twain, commenting on the subject, said, "Many poets die poor, but this is the only one in history that has died THIS poor; the others all left literary remains behind. Also a book. Maybe two."

Dates of composition

Oxfordians say that the conventional composition dates for the plays were developed by mainstream scholars to fit within Shakespeare's lifetime and that no evidence exists that any plays were written after 1604. Oxfordians also note that while the conventional dating for Henry VIII is 1610-13, the majority of 18th and 19th century scholars, including notables such as Samuel Johnson, Lewis Theobald, George Steevens,Edmond Malone, and James Halliwell-Phillipps, placed the composition of Henry VIII prior to 1604, as they believed Elizabeth's execution of Mary, Queen of Scots (the then king James I's mother) made any vigorous defence of theTudors politically inappropriate in the England ofJames I. Similarly, in the case of Macbeth(conventinally dated to 1606), mainstream scholar A. R. Braunmuller, in the New Cambridge edition, finds the post-1605 arguments for the play inconclusive, and argues only for an earliest date of 1603.

As recently as the 1969 and 1977 Pelican/Viking editions of Shakespeare's plays, Alfred Harbage showed that the composition ofMacbeth, Timon of Athens, Pericles, King Lear and Antony and Cleopatra — all conventionally regarded as "late plays" — likely did not occur after 1604.

Hamlet

Scholars have argued over the composition date of Hamlet since the early 1900s. A Hamlet-like play, dubbed by scholars as theUr-Hamlet, was well-known before 1590, long before the generally-accepted composition date (1599–1601) of Shakespeare's play. The earliest reference occurs in 1589 when Thomas Nashe in his introduction to Robert Greene'sMenaphon implies the existence of an early Hamlet: "English Seneca read by candle-light yields many good sentences, as Blood is a begger, and so forth; and if you entreat him fair in a frosty morning, he will afford you whole Hamlets, I should say handfuls of tragical speeches." A 1594 performance of Hamlet is recorded inPhilip Henslowe's diary, and in 1596 Thomas Lodge wrote of "the ghost which cried so miserably at the theatre, like an oyster-wife, Hamlet, revenge!"

Oxfordian researchers believe that the Ur-Hamlet is an early version of Shakespeare's own play, and point out that Shakespeare's version survives in three quite different early texts, Q1 (1603), Q2 (1604) and F (1623), suggesting the possibility that it was revised by the author over a period of many years. While the exact relationship of the short and apparently primitive text of Q1 to the later published texts is not resolved, Hardin Craig among others has suggested that it may represent an earlier draft of the play. If so, it would suggest that the play referred to in 1589 was a still earlier draft of Shakespeare's play.

In an opinion shared in some form or another by Harold Bloom and Peter Alexander, Andrew Cairncross in 1936 wrote, "It may be assumed, until a new case can be shown to the contrary, that Shakespeare's Hamlet and no other is the play mentioned by Nashe in 1589 and Henslowe in 1594." In his 1982 Arden edition, Harold Jenkins dismisses this hypothesis, which is also known as the "early start" theory.

Macbeth

The vast majority of critics believe that Macbeth was written in the aftermath of the Gunpowder Plot, which they say is one of the most overwhelming arguments against the Oxfordian theory. This plot was brought to light on 5 November 1605, a year after Oxford died. In particular, scholars identify the porter's lines about "equivocation" related to treason as an allusion to the trial of Henry Garnet in 1606. Oxfordians counter that the concept of "equivocation" was the subject of a 1583 tract by Queen Elizabeth's chief councillor (and Oxford's father-in-law) Lord Burghley, as well as of the 1584 Doctrine of Equivocation by the Spanish prelate Martín de Azpilcueta, which was disseminated across Europe and into England in the 1590s. And in the New Cambridge edition of the play, A. R. Braunmuller (not an Oxfordian) finds the evidence for the 1605-06 date "vague, circumstantial, and undatable" and merely affirms a date of composition no earlier than the ascension of James I in March 1603.

Coriolanus

Shakespearean scholar David Haley asserts that if Edward de Vere had written Coriolanus, he "must have foreseen the Midland Revolt grain riots [of 1607] reported in Coriolanus", possible topical allusions in the play that most Shakespeareans accept. But at least one scholar has suggested that the opening scenes allude to London's 1595 Tower Hill riot.

Henry VIII

Henry VIII was described as a new play in 1613. Oxfordians argue that this refers to the fact it was new on stage, having its first production in that year.

The Tempest

Most Shakespearean scholars date The Tempest to 1610–11 and say that it drew on published and unpublished contemporary descriptions of the 1609 Sea Venture shipwreck on the island of Bermuda, especially William Strachey's eyewitness report, A True Reportory of the Wracke and Redemption of Sir Thomas Gates, Knight because of certain verbal, plot and thematic similarities. Kenneth Muir, however, thought that "the extent of verbal echoes of the [Bermuda] pamphlets has, I think, been exaggerated." Oxfordians have dealt with this problem in several ways. Looney rejected the play altogether, arguing that its style and the "dreary negativism" it promoted were inconsistent with Shakespeare's "essentially positivist" soul, and so could not have been written by Oxford. Later Oxfordians have generally abandoned this argument, saying that it was left unfinished or arguing that earlier sources, such as Richard Eden's The Decades of the New Worlde Or West India (1555) and Desiderius Erasmus's Naufragium/The Shipwreck (1523), sufficiently account for the phrasing and images in The Tempest. Both sources have been acknowledged by previous scholars as possible influences.