Rollan's Censored Issues Blog

THE STRATFORD SHAKESPEARE UNDER SIEGE AGAIN

Released in the US and UK on Oct 28th and here in Australia this mid November, the film Anonymous is built round the theme that Shakespeare didn’t author his plays. Instead of Bacon or Marlowe as author of the bard’s opus (the most longstanding alternative theses) this film backs the Edward de Vere theory, an Earl of Oxford portrayed as lover of Elizabeth 1st, played in film by Vanessa Redgrave.

When I first learned of the film which promises to depict Elizabethan London faithfully I felt I must see it. When this weekend I gathered it entailed promotion of the de Vere thesis I was less interested, but turned with curiosity to an old piece of research of mine, sure that like Snow White’s mirror on the wall it would tell the truth.

Way back in August 1991, I demonstrated to some minor acclaim (people were citing the relevant article to me years later) that Shakespeare was indeed born at Stratford on the given date (23rd April 1564 OS) with a birth time of 11.20 AM. This supplied him 19 degrees of the theatrical sign of Leo rising over the horizon and 3 degrees of Venus ruled Taurus at his reputation Midheaven.

My original pattern could be proved against such facts as we can know about Shakespeare’s life and its situations, including such problems as alleged tax evasion and a shot gun marriage, not to mention the problem of his very odd grave place. Demonstration was more of a tour de force back then as I had no recourse to the name, place and concept asteroids for centuries past and these descriptively work.

ASTEROID SHAKESPEARE. A BARD EMBARRASSED BY HIS NAME

Among other things there is an asteroid Shakespeare. Usually name asteroids turn up near an angle or somewhere very prominent and easily recognizable for the person. We might expect the Shakespeare name would scream at us from an angle, but in my chart it doesn’t. It’s in the sixth house of work and the working classes at four degrees of controversial Aquarius in affliction square to the bard’s reputation Midheaven. Why? Because we know that despite his love and affinity for theatre Shakespeare didn’t like his profession, which was felt to be an inferior one, and he interiorized this prejudice as his self-reflecting pattern shows.

Shakespeare was reluctantly an actor. He was really an actor/writer, so appropriately the asteroid Actor conjuncts his socially aware Libran moon in his third house of writing. His dislike of his professional status is described by the almost perfect affliction square of his Actor asteroid with his natal Mars, whose drive and energy spurs him on even when he resents it. (At another level Moon square Mars is linked to his tricky relation to wife and women).

SHAKESPEARE’S DISPUTED REPUTATION AND AUTHORSHIP

That Shakespeare’s would often be a disputed authorship seems guaranteed by the following crucial fact. At the Stratford Shakespeare’s reputation-identifying Midheaven stands Taurus. That sign is ruled by Venus and this natus Venus conjuncts Neptune in Gemini. The combination is incidentally THE signature of the bard’s genius. Venus (art and love) conjuncts Neptune (imagination, vision) in Gemini, sign of words and writing. However…..negatively Neptune can be mere lies and deception and if your reputation ruler conjuncts Neptune, things about you can be unclear and there may be deception regarding who your are. (Venus to Neptune incidentally also inclines to bisexuality such as Shakespeare exhibits).

The deception around authorship begins with the attribution of the Bard’s work to Francis Bacon. The Bacon name can thus be taken as symbol of all alternative Shakespeare theories and suitably, asteroid Bacon directly opposes Shakespeare’s Venus ruling his reputation! (There is no asteroid for Marlowe or de Vere who furnish later theories, so Bacon is the true symbol of all alternatives here).

Obviously there is much more one can say about the natal chart and proofs for it, but it is only what is happening right now that really matters to prove that Shakespeare was as claimed and not as currently filmed.

SHAKEAPEARE’S REPUTATION RIGHT NOW.

General release of Anonymous was on Oct 28th. This followed the 26th October lunation defining events for people in the month from then. On that day Mercury, (news, ideas) at 19 Scorpio (traditionally the most unfortunate degree on the zodiac) was in exact affliction square to Shakespeare’s 19 degree ascendant angle, his persona.

The lunation itself fell at 3 degrees Scorpio. This means it was in affliction square to asteroid Shakespeare at 4 Aquarius and exactly opposite to the degree the bard’s Midheaven, which is quite simply some “opposition” to his reputation and status form the sector of origins. However at the same time, Jupiter was near conjunct his Midheaven from 5 degrees Taurus and again square the Shakespeare asteroid, exaggerating and enlarging issues as Jupiter tends to do, but rendering the situation not entirely unfortunate. People will still go on talking about the Bard, perhaps with renewed interest and defending him and so on. That there is nonetheless a real problem is confirmed by the way the fated nodes transit in exact square to Shakespeare’s Pluto (secrets). The wrong, false kind of pretended secrets are being let out about him.

SHAKESPEARE AND NATURAL GIFTS

What this whole problem of origins comes down to is the old - if anything rather snobbish - scepticism that mere Shakespeare could ever be himself. How could he absorb so much, be a poet to such a high standard and sound so educated and be able to portray aristocratic figures so easily given his relatively humble background? Well, for a start we know that like a lot of poets Shakespeare absorbed a good deal of Ovid, who suitably fortunately aspects his natal Uranus (a genius factor) plus with both a natal Jupiter in regal Leo and Leo rising his manner would switch on to high style without too much prompting and example to go by. But as the late poet and critic Kathleen Raine always insisted in promoting neo-romanticism, the currently disfavoured high style in poetry is the natural, even spontaneous accompaniment of the vision which, traditionally at least some poets deal in. She felt this was certified by the way one could trace high style even among the visionary poetry of peasant populations.

I have written about my dealings with Kathleen Raine in the introduction to a book of my poems whose proof I have been reading this last week. Puer Poems will be available in a few weeks now. If the matter gets out and is known, that this poetry was never published twenty and more years ago could be considered a real scandal in modern literature. It was never disputed I was seriously gifted for poetry, that wasn’t the reason the poetry never saw light of day even after I had had a whole poetic drama broadcast on the ABC.

PUER POEMS SOON

Just what all this is about, wait and find out, but all I will affirm here is that I know beyond question poetry is very much a matter of gift. Before I started on the poems of my collection, I had scarcely studied English literature (I studied French and German lit at degree level) beyond some Shakespeare plays at school and then reading a little of the Romantic poets who were not taught at school. I scarcely even studied Latin poetry beyond a bit of Vergil for O level, but one prominent poet who refused to publish me for a peculiar reason, opined I must have been studying the classics for years to have reached such levels of musicality.

So no, sorry, it’s all nonsense about alternative Shakespeares. All you need is the gift and the right horoscope. Poetry can be improved, but it is only minimally taught and learned. Shakespeare was who history says he was, and he managed to be born at the right moment to engage his talents. Films like Anonymous are for people like Vanessa Redgrave who always fall for the wrong ideas like supporting Palestinian terrorists as heroes and martyrs.