October 31, 2011 | 10:00 AM | By

‘Shakespeare is the 99 percent’

The film “Anonymous” is based on the premise that Shakespeare’s works were in fact written by a member of the aristocracy. One D.C. teacher takes issue with a group distributing curriculum materials that back the film’s theory.


I could never stand before a class of high school students and tell them that great writing, and a deep understanding of humanity can only be achieved by the educated elite.

I had the good luck to teach at Cesar Chavez Public Charter High School in D.C. for five years. My students were performing well below grade level and came from households as far from the aristocracy of Georgetown as a kid can get. They also had an understanding of life’s complexities beyond their years. Just as Falstaff holds a wisdom greater than Prince Hal’s and King Lear’s Fool sees the world more clearly than his master, my students knew a side of life that I did not. To suggest that my privileged worldview held greater value or depth would have been criminal. And yet that’s what the folks at Young Minds Inspired are doing.

Read more at: wamu.org

  • William Ray

    A fine upstanding point of view no one associated with the movie ‘Anonymous’ would contest.  However the facts about the genesis of the Shakespeare canon and the available information about Gulielmus Shakspere of Stratford do not support his particular authorship of the Shakespeare canon.  But he did have a role as a scorned but necessary go-between to authorize the quartos’ publication, so as to protect the author Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, from the taboo knowledge that he wrote for the lower orders.  Thus de Vere was ahead of his time in trusting that educating the sub-aristocratic classes could lead to a better State.  This was contrary to the governmental practices of those in power and Oxford was eaten alive by political cunning.  His plays and poems, though understood to be his in his generation, became the “works” of a non-writer with a name similar to Oxford’s pseudonym, Shakespeare. I believe your teacher should start from the truth and will find that infinitely more inspiring to his students than warping history to suit the status quo.  This is what official history has done in the tragic history of Edward de Vere, the nobleman sacrificed by his class for being an artist ahead of his time.  The film ‘Anonymous’ tries to tell that story and the propaganda surrounding it may yet succeed in disproving Shakespeare’s own poignant words, “The truth will out.”