Excerpts from Puttenham
The portions of Puttenham's Arte of English Poesie most
relevant to Oxfordian claims are available below. Nothing has been
omitted from these excerpts. To make Puttenham's text easier to
read, I have modernized the spelling, inserted apostrophes
into possessives, and added quotation marks and some paragraph
breaks. I have not otherwise changed the punctuation.
- Book 1, Chapter 8 [complete]: "In What
Reputation Poesie and Poets Were in Old Times with Princes and Otherwise
Generally, and How They Be Now Contemptible and for What Causes."
Although Oxford is not mentioned in this chapter, Oxfordians claim that
Puttenham here says that Oxford's poems were suppressed.
- Book 1, Chapter 31 [complete]: "Who
in Any
Age Have Been the Most Commended Writers in Our English Poesie, and the
Author's Censure Given upon Them." Oxford is mentioned twice in this
chapter. Oxfordians claim that Puttenham again says that Oxford's poems
were suppressed, and they think Puttenham's reference to Oxford's dramatic
work suggests that Oxford wrote Shakespeare's plays.
- From Book 3, Chapter 19: "Of Figures
Sententious, otherwise Called Rhetorical," Puttenham mentions Oxford and
quotes a poem in his discussion of "Antipophora, or the Figure of
Response."
The University of Virginia has made available online the complete
old-spelling text of The
Arte of English Poesie. (The file is 600 kilobytes in size, so be
patient.)
To Terry Ross's essay on Puttenham and
Oxford
To FRONTLINE's Response--and A Reply
Back to the Shakespeare Authorship home page.