Hello everyone,
Evelyn here,
Sometime back, I read an article, which stated that the portrait we Shakespearean lovers have known for as long as we could read is not the real Shakespeare. The article also stated that very few actual portraits of Shakespeare have survived, and that what portraits there are around today were painted long after the playwright’s death.
I have to admit that I felt some major astonishment when I learned that I among centuries of faithful Shakespearean’s groupies over a 500 years period have been duped by the portrait that is now gracing the cover of millions and millions books containing the works this playwright. We must not forget the untold numbers of related products his creative works is still spawning. To think that I, I, fawned over the image of the wrong man for a little more than four decades … I have no words. Never mine that I have known that said playwright has been dead age for centuries. For me he was my major inspiration along with such writers as Edgar Allen Poe and Guy de Maupassant. Proxy fathers all.
The article went on to state that the present portrait has even fooled art critics down the centuries, and since the article’s release we have been given a variety of portraits supposedly painted by this and that painter and/or life a long friend of the dead Shakespeare to choose from. I’m crushed and confused.
Don’t let me give you the wrong idea, I am indeed a great fan of Shakespeare, and I have studied his works and his life. It just I am also aware of the rumored doubts of the playwright true identity that has been circulating for centuries, and that some believe him to be a certain lord whom name escapes me. Frankly put, I have come be believe this whole thing could be part of an age old hoax. A hoax that Shakespeare (for understandable reasons) might have had a hand in pulling off.
Why do I believe this portrait thing could have been a Shakespearean’s hoax? When I looked at the newly presented portrait of the cavalier bohemian earring and all, and take into account the article’s description of the time in which Shakespeare lived and wrote, then look at the portrait of that familiar dignified, and scholarly old gent, I have to ask myself. What is the best way to insure that my life’s work survives down the ages? Hmm? Will the masses continue read an apparent rebel from a budding Avant-garde society? My guess is that the scholarly old gent won.
Nevertheless, this is all speculation on my part and the truth, whatever that might be, will never erase my love for Shakespeare, the bohemian or the scholar. All I know for sure is and I believe this was probably true of Shakespeare’s time -- audiences can be murder.
I couldn’t resist the cliché.
Evelyn out.
