“Shakespeare was a black woman” - now I’ve heard it all!

Plenty of diverse casting in plays today, but its pretty sure the Shakespeare was a white male and went to school at Stratford.
However because he never set foot out of England he had many colaborators recounting tales from overseas.
He isnt historically accurate, he was playing to please a Tudor audience, his first play was Henry VI when he was 26 plenty of time to learn the titled way of speaking.

I think the obsession with one specific characteristic of a person whether it is race, sexuality whatever has been one of the most divisive movements I have seen.

I have heard of her before, as part of a musical family attached to the Tudor Court. She is sometimes thought to be the Dark Lady referred to in the sonnets. Who knew she had written them as well?
Clever lady.

I just feel the theories enrich us. Some like the Emilia Lanier have a good deal of credibility there. Others, are, well, a stretch.

But firstly, no one has to read it, and secondly, different cultural takes on what we have assumed to be "Reality" or "the Truth" are always fascinating and sometimes incredibly valuable and settle into the "Accepted" variety of views on a well known piece of art or writing or cultural theory.

Reclaiming and recovering writings and art by women that were "disappeared" by male critics, or rubbished, except for the very famous like Virginia Woolf has been a fascinating and worthwhile endeavour of the last 50 or so years.

The same goes for the cultures that make up our history and our citizenship in the UK.

Nothing new under the sun.

Shakespeare was a married man and father who decided to wear a dress and make-up and change their pronouns so they could use the ladies' jakes .

I'm writing a TV series, starring Judi Dench as Anne Hathaway, with Oprah Winfrey as the Bard and Archie and Lillibet Sussex as their children.

Many scholars have suggested that Emilia Lanier (maiden name Bassano) was the Dark Lady of Shakespeare’s sonnets. There are several books and a lot of research around this and it is a long-standing theory.

Grannybags

Blimey whatever next?!

"There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio,

Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

— Hamlet (Act 1, Scene 5)

Blimey whatever next?!

Aveline

Why do black people want to claim our heritage and stories. There must be many many legends and stories stretching back into the countries where black people originated in the past.

Irene Coslet, the author, is not black, she's not after claiming anything for herself except where her research has led her. I dont agree with her, btw, but

A good question - why don't we know more about the histories and literature and Art of UK citizens who are not white

Answer - because they were not listened to for hundreds of years

When those peoples were part of our Empire, they were forced to learn British History

- their own histories and culture, like that from Benin, were deliberately in some places wiped out, called "native, inferior, childish

-or, called "oriental" (exotic, sexual, but not serious culture like "us".

If you have eyes to see and clearly some people dont - there are now many fiction and non fiction books available from and about different cultures and a great deal of art in and out of galleries with the same.

Gosh. And it's not even April 1st. ,😅

Nobody is going to pay much attention to this. There have always been conspiracy theories about the authorship of Shakespeare’s works, just as some think Elvis is is still alive and Monroe was killed by the Mafia or the FBI.

Hmm Maybe Mary Seacole wasn’t as black as she’s described.

"Shakespeare was a black woman"; yeah right .

Why do black people want to claim our heritage and stories. There must be many many legends and stories stretching back into the countries where black people originated in the past.

Makes a change from Derek Jacobi IIRC claiming that the plays were written by some titled person, Shakespeare having been far too plebeian and uneducated to have produced them.

Mind you dh and I did see a black female Richard III not long ago, at our local theatre.
Though TBH the whole production was pretty dire.

😂🤣