A forthcoming book by feminist historian and The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) graduate Irene Coslet presents a bold claim that is set to challenge one of literature’s most enduring assumptions: that William Shakespeare, the celebrated playwright and poet, was actually a black Jewish woman named Emilia Bassano.
In "The Real Shakespeare: Emilia Bassano Willoughby", Coslet argues that new research evidence points to Bassano—an Anglo-Venetian woman of Moroccan descent who lived from 1569 to 1645—as the true author behind the Shakespearean canon.
According to Coslet, Bassano was the daughter of a Venetian Court musician who, after her father’s death when she was seven, was fostered into a noble English household where she received an exceptional education. She spent her youth at the English Court as a favourite of Queen Elizabeth I before being banished and forced into an unwanted marriage in 1592. In 1611, she published a feminist theology poem, Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum.
Bassano has been linked to Shakespeare since the 1970s, when Oxford historian Alfred Leslie Rowse discovered evidence that she was the mistress of Shakespeare’s acting company patron.
The authorship theory itself was first proposed by John Hudson in 2013, who suggested that Bassano adopted a pen name because women in the Early Modern period were prohibited from writing drama and acting, and generally restricted from publishing literature or engaging in public activities.
Coslet’s contribution adds what she describes as new empirical evidence to Hudson’s theory while employing Critical Theory and Feminist Theory as analytical frameworks.
The book explores why Shakespeare’s identity matters beyond literary analysis. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s concept of the Author-function, Coslet argues that authors establish discourses in society and serve as symbols within civilization.
Shakespeare, she notes, is thought to have shaped the thinking of philosophers including Freud and Marx, and is considered an architect of the English language itself.
The Real Shakespeare: Emilia Bassano Willoughby will be published on January 30.
