Bonner Miller Cutting - Profiling the Author: Will the Real Shakespeare Please Stand Up?

How did J. Thomas Looney’s evidence-based “profile” methodology lead him to the likely author of the works published under the name “William Shakespeare”?
Bonner Miller Cutting is a respected author and lecturer on Shakespeare. An accomplished pianist, she earned her B.F.A. from Tulane University and her Master of Music from McNeese State University in Louisiana. In this talk, Cutting explores the evidence analyzed in Looney’s landmark 1920 book, “Shakespeare Identified,” as well as key facts later discovered or explored by other researchers of which Looney was unaware, yet which have corroborated his findings, including Queen Elizabeth’s mysteriously generous grant to Edward de Vere (Earl of Oxford) of an annuity of 1,000 pounds per year.
This talk was presented on March 4, 2020, at the “Shakespeare Identified” Centennial Symposium at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.
Bob Meyers, who moderated the symposium and introduced the speakers, is an award-winning journalist and author who formerly served as president of the National Press Foundation and director of the Harvard Journalism Fellowship for Advanced Studies in Public Health.
For more on the Shakespeare authorship question see ShakespeareOxfordFellowship.org.

[@Nope.Unknown]

Wonderful presentation and research!! (Side note) "Two more shakes of a jiffy!" Dr. Cutting, your ability to navigate being rushed and hurried with such kindness, patience, and grace is so admirable. ❤

[@tedwong6605]

Illuminating, sensational and informative; passionately delivered. Thank you very much

[@ContextShakespeare1740]

I always love Bonner's presentations, this one was no exception. I listened to Shakespeare Identified. I was amazed at the amount of evidence that Looney brings to light, even at the very beginning of his discovery. He makes the point that new evidence needs to support the original hypothesis and any future evidence should continue to lend support to the idea that Edward De Vere is Shakespeare. It is comforting to know that scholars (I include the amateur scholars like Looney) continue to find support with many of the pieces of evidence that Looney didn't know about, such as the Italian connections, Oxford's Geneva Bible, Shakespeare allusions and hidden codes and ciphers. I heard a quote "that it was like shooting fish in a barrel", even though there was an attempted cover up, you don't have to look to far before there is an obvious link to Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford (1740). The only counter to the argument seems to be that he wasn't a very nice man, and his poetry wasn't very good, which is of course a matter of opinion. In his time he was admired by many as a generous patron and an excellent poet.

[@jamesbassett1484]

Thank you Dr. Cutting for your warm and informative presentation. I hope that you can consider the point that I am about to make: Aside from having been "dead," Christopher Marlowe Meets most of the profile characteristics. Although not of the aristocracy, he had broad entree to it through the Walsinghams. And, of all the candidates for authorship, he is the only one with a portfolio of timeless plays to his name. If Marlowe had been alive, would he have been a viable candidate? I fully believe so. In fact, I believe he would be the most plausible candidate. Which brings us to the suspicious circumstance surrounding Marlowe's "death." For decades, at least, it was claimed he died in a barroom brawl. In fact he died id a safe house for spies run by a relative of the head of the secret service. All the participants had ties to the secret service. The inquest was conducted by the Queen's Coroner without the presence of the local coroner, as required by law, and the inquest jury was composed of many non-locals of high standing. Marlowe had been called before the Queen's Privy Council and was interviewed, allowed to go on his own reconnaissance to return in two weeks to be tortured and executed. Come on! He was a seasoned traveler and it seems like the message he received was to get out of England and vanish. It seems plausible that he escaped, remained in the employ of the secret servvice and wrote a body of work supportive of the Tudor line. Try it. What if Marlowe escaped.

[@lesleyh4437]

Nothing truer than truth. For you will know truth and the truth shall set you free

[@russellmartocci323]

I enjoy all of the Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship videos and of course all of the videos featuring the scrupulously thorough and rigorous research of Bonner Cutting. I'd like to toss out some speculation which may resolve a Dark Lady of the Sonnets concern. I propose Edward de Vere hid Elizabeth Tudor behind Penelope Rich, and that both Elizabeth and Penelope inform his Dark Lady allusions. Maybe one refers to Elizabeth, while another refers to Penelope and still another blends them; in a way, contrived to hide Elizabeth behind Penelope. Whittemore has solved it, I'd say. It's just a matter of fitting the final pieces, like; that the sonnets refer to both Elizabeth and Penelope, sometimes in ways designed to disguise Elizabeth behind Penelope. Also, the name Wriothsely literally hides a (Tudor) Rose in obfuscated spelling. I haven't seen this mentioned but it seems rather obvious.

[@Short-Cipher]

Very enjoyable and thank you. I do have a minor correction. Ms. Miller Cutting mentions there are now three editions of Looney's 'Shakespeare Identified' (0.46); she refers to Looney's own from 1920, her mother Ruth Loyd Miller's from 1975 (which she calls the 'third edition', and James Warren's from 2020. I assume she referred to the 1975 as the third edition knowing there were two separate editions from 1920, the first being the rare Cecil Palmer orange-rust covered edition and the second a dark green covered edition published in New York by Frederick A. Stokes Company (I nabbed the latter for $55 in 2010). But there were also 1948 and 1949 editions published in New York by Deull, Sloan and Pearce in dark blue cover; I own the 1949 edition (though I don't recall what I paid for it). So I suppose her mother's 1975 publication was technically the fifth edition, and Warren's is the sixth edition. ADDENDUM: Looking just now at the copyright page in her mother's 1975 edition, I see Ruth Loyd Miller acknowledges copyrights '1920, 1948, 1949 by Elizabeth Looney', which Bonner may have forgotten about when calling her mother's edition the third edition. In any event, it is the fifth edition as mentioned above: 1920, 1920, 1948, 1949, 1975, 2020. Just for the record.

[@NewMusic.FreshIdeas]

True about Chopin/Beethoven vs Haydn (or Clementi, etc.).

[@polmatthiasson9564]

Looney’s book truly is a masterwork, but the profile method has its flaws. Firstly, one has to assume the profile is correct. For the most part I believe his is- but there are quite a few assumptions, which leads me to believe Looney’s original list of profile characteristics was quite short, but once Oxford was identified his attributes were likely shoehorned into the profile so that both were supportive of the other. Regardless, the first portion of the book is absolutely brutal on Shakespeare. Looney lays out a devastating case that Shakespeare could not have written the works. You may not ultimate conclude SeVere did it- but likewise, neither did the man from Stratford

[@MrAbzu]

I think that the English civil war likely brought about the destruction of any real evidence of who William Shakespeare was. There was a tax reprobate in London at the same time as the one in Stratford upon Avon was buying a house fit for a Lord. There was, at that time, a Village of Stratford near London. A Shakespeare, as an appendage relative to a noble family fallen upon hard times and from the Village of Stratford at least has tax records to match. In London he lived halfway between the two big theaters. If he had a monument in the Village of Stratford it was likely destroyed by the roundheads. It was against their religion. Even the one in Stratford upon Avon was damaged and later remade into a different image resembling the bard by an enterprising vicar. The English do love their fake tourist sites, who would think to look for the real King Arthur in Shropshire, for example? Too many fake sites elsewhere I suppose. And who would think to look for the real Shakespeare under an Olympic soccer pitch near London.

[@theamazingmystico1243]

Hip. 'Tis strange my Theseus, yt these louers speake of. The. More strange then true. I neuer may beleeue These anticke fables, nor these Fairy toyes, Louers and mad men haue such seething braines, Such shaping phantasies, that apprehend more Then coole reason euer comprehends. The Lunaticke, the Louer, and the Poet, Are of imagination all compact. One sees more diuels then vaste hell can hold; That is the mad man. The Louer, all as franticke, Sees Helens beauty in a brow of Egipt. The Poets eye in a fine frenzy rolling, doth glance From heauen to earth, from earth to heauen. And as imagination bodies FORTH The forms of things Vnknowne; the POETS PEN turnes them to shapes, And giues to aire NOTHING, a locall habitation, And A NAME. Such tricks hath strong imagination, That if it would but apprehend some ioy, It comprehends some bringer of that ioy. Or in the night, imagining some feare, Howe easie is a bush suppos'd a Beare? Hip. But all the storie of the night told ouer, And all their minds transfigur'd so together, More witnesseth than fancies images, And growes to something of great constancie; But howsoeuer, strange, and admirable. A Midsummer Night's Dream. The words "forth" (a homonym of "fourth") and "nothing," with the words "Poets pen" in between them, refer to the number 40. Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, sometimes signed letters as "double V" (VV), and two V's in a Simple cipher of the Elizabethan alphabet totals to 40 ((V = 20) + (V = 20) = 40). (See e.g., letter from James I to "40.") The seventeenth (17th) word after the word "forth" (fourth) is the word "nothing" (FORTH/FOURTH...NOTHING; 40). Therefore, the numbers 17 and 40 are encoded here. Mr. Alexander Waugh has posited that the number 1740 is a code for Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. The number 17 is Oxford's "earl number" and the number 40 refers to him being the "Fourth T" (Four-T, or Forty). Therefore, Oxford has hidden a "signature" of his in the text -- 1740. (By the way, the Shakespeare Monument in Westminster Abbey was erected in 1740.) Incidentally, with respect to gematria values, in the Elizabethan alphabet the letters in the word "Poets" has a Reverse cipher value of 54, which is the same as the Simple cipher value of the letters in "Rose." The letters in the words "Poets pen" has a Reverse cipher value of 96, which the same as the Kaye cipher value of the letters in "Cross." Considering these values, the values for "Rose Cross" (Rosicrucian) are encoded in the words. The letters in the word "Poets" has a Simple cipher value of 71 (numerals of 17 reversed.), the same as the Simple cipher value of the letters in "cypher" (an alternative spelling of "cipher" used in the First Folio.) The Kaye cipher value of the letters in "Poets pen" is 156, which is the same as the Kaye cipher value of the letters in the name "Edward." The Simple cipher value of the letters in the word "pen" is 33, which is the same as the Simple cipher value of the letters in "Bacon" (Francis Bacon), and the value of the letter "G" (God) in the Kaye cipher. (Just for the record, the Reverse and Kaye cipher values of "pen" are 42 and 59, respectively.)

[@MrMartibobs]

You expect a poet to be someone soppy with a quiff. You are debarred if you have some business sense. And of course - they need a TITLE. Earls write much better than nasty common people. I've looked at this. Around 40% of Shakespeare's contemporaries had EXACTLY THE same middle class background as him. Webster's dad was a carriage maker. Marlowe's dad was a cobbler This is quite typical of actors and writers of the time. Jonson's stepfather was a brickie. You expect to find a 'study' and a 'library' He probably wrote standing up at a table in the tiring house, and if he needed source books, they would have been kept at the Globe. Which burned down, remember? You expect manuscripts. You can't quite manage to lose the world of Sotheby's and the preciousness of manuscripts. Worth a fortune now. Probably used for wrapping fish then. Or for starting cooking-fires. Or they rotted, or the ink was scraped off so the paper could be re-used. And remember that Hemings and Condell grabbed every scrap of manuscript they could find to compile the first folio After that, they were just so much scrap paper - probably left at the printer's, once there was a a nice neat book available.

[@rstritmatter]

The celestial teapot spouts off again with another round of paraphrasing his own marginally literate methodology.

[@brendanward2991]

"Around 40% of Shakespeare's contemporaries had EXACTLY THE same middle class background as him." - And yet the one thing that is missing from Shakespeare's oeuvre is the middle class.

[@thomridgeway1438]

"You expect a poet to be someone soppy with a quiff. You are debarred if you have some business sense. And of course - they need a TITLE. Earls write much better than nasty common people." ..... Ignoring the bigotry and self implanted inferiority in this statement - there are two fundamental problems that make this argument facile. 1 - The profile of the writer of the works dose outline a highly sensitive, open minded, liberal, imaginative, romantic, extravagant; even flamboyant and foppish nature. Such a creative type will have no interest in the minutiae of making money. Sorry, they just don't; they are not wired that way, never mind true geniuses. They are too deep into their art to keep all their receipts; read small print and keep all their old luncheon vouchers. 2 - a professional photographer told me once that if I wanted to be good at photography - have an interesting life. That is where Devere wins massively over the white gloved, tight wad Clown from Stratford. If you really, seriously think that Shax-spere wrote those wonderful plays - based on his life experience, then you need to goto a dark room and take your pills.