| J. Thomas Looney | |
|---|---|
| Born | John Thomas Looney 1870 South Shields |
| Died | 1944 |
| Nationality | UK |
| Occupation | Comtean; Schoolteacher; Writer |
| Years active | 1899–1944 |
| Notable works | Shakespeare Identified |
John Thomas Looney (14 August 1870 – 17 January 1944). was an English school teacher who is best known for having originated the Oxfordian theory, which claims that Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford (1550–1604) was the true author of Shakespeare's plays.
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Looney was born in South Shields. His father, also called John Thomas, had a shoe-making shop at 91 West Holborn in the centre of the town.[1] Both his parents were Methodists. His family came from the Isle of Man and claimed descent from the Earls of Derby.[2] He grew up in a strong evangelical environment, and determined to become a minister at the age of 16. While studying at the Chester Diocesan College, he lost his faith. He later embraced the theories of the positivist philosopher Auguste Comte, becoming a proponent of the Comtean "Religion of Humanity" and a leader in its short-lived church, in which he pioneered outdoor preaching. The Church of Humanity gave special prominence to Shakespeare, naming a month after him in the Positivist calendar, and placing a bust of him in its place of worship.[3]
Looney worked as a school teacher in Gateshead. He is listed in Ward's Directory for 1899–1900 as a teacher living at 119 Rodsley Avenue, Gateshead. He later resided at 15 Laburnum Gardens, Low Fell.
After the failure of the Comtean church, Looney devoted himself to research into the authorship of Shakespeare's plays. He developed his theory during World War I, depositing his claim to priority in a sealed document at the British Museum in 1918. In 1920 he published his work, whose short title is Shakespeare Identified, through Cecil Palmer in London. Looney, who resisted his publisher's suggestion that he use a pseudonym,[4] argued that the real author of Shakespeare's plays was Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, who fitted Looney's deductions that Shakespeare was, among much else, a nobleman of Lancastrian sympathies, with a fondness for Italy and a leaning towards Catholicism. Looney believed his argument followed the systematic methods prescribed by positivism.[2]
In 1922 he joined with George Greenwood to establish The Shakespeare Fellowship, the organization which subsequently carried forward public discussion of the authorship question up to the 1940s. Looney acquired a number of followers and supporters, most notably Sigmund Freud, who read Looney's book in 1923. Even at the end of his life, in 1939, Freud repeats his view in the final revision of An Outline of Psychoanalysis.
Two of his followers, Percy Allen and B.M. Ward developed the Prince Tudor theory, which claimed that Oxford and Queen Elizabeth I were lovers and had a son together. Looney was strongly opposed to the theory. He wrote that it was "extravagant & improbable" and "likely to bring the whole cause into ridicule."[2][5]
Looney was a member of The Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle Upon Tyne after 1911 and paid handsome tribute to the library; its unique system of operation, he said, "ensured an ease and rapidity of work which would be impossible in any other institution in the country". Looney presented the "Lit and Phil" with his edition of Edward de Vere's poems in December 1927.
He died at Swadlincote, near Burton-on-Trent, where he lodged after being forced to abandon his home in Gateshead because of the heavy German bombing of the area. He was survived by his daughter Evelyn.
Looney's book begins by outlining many of the familiar anti-Stratfordian arguments about Shakespeare of Stratford's supposedly poor education and unpoetic personality. He also criticises the methods adopted by many previous anti-Stratfordians, especially the Baconian tendency to search for ciphers. Looney considers it unlikely that an author who wished to conceal his identity would leave such messages. He then goes on to identify the influence of Frank Harris's book The Man Shakespeare, which uses the plays to find evidence of Shakespeare's beliefs and interests. Looney states that it is possible to use this method to identify the type of person who must have written the works. He considered that lower class characters were portrayed as buffoons and that the author had no sympathy for the middle-classes. He was, however, dedicated to old-fashioned feudal ideals of nobility and service. He also believed in a highly structured, dutiful and ordered society.
For Looney the plays expressed a distinct political vision that combined elements of feudalism and modern scepticism towards traditional religion. He also believed that events and characters in the plays must correspond to the life of the author. Studying the biographies of Elizabethan aristocrats, he became convinced that Edward de Vere's career and personal experience could be mapped onto the action of the plays. Since de Vere died in 1604, many years before a number of Shakespeare's works appeared, Looney argued that there is an abrupt change in publication history and in the style of plays apparently written after 1604. Unusually, Looney argued that The Tempest was not the work of Oxford/Shakespeare, but of another author. It had been mistakenly added to the canon. He also suggested that the evidence of other writers hands in late plays such as Pericles, Prince of Tyre implied that the author had died, leaving them unfinished. Such works were completed and published by others, as were the sonnets, the dedication page of which implied to Looney that the author was deceased.
Looney expanded his views in later publications, especially his 1921 edition of de Vere's poetry. Looney suggested that de Vere was also responsible for the literary works of Arthur Golding, Anthony Munday and John Lyly.[2]
Looney's book started a whole new avenue of speculation, and has many followers today. In general, alternative authorship theories are dismissed by the great majority of English professors and Shakespeare scholars, who accept the traditional attribution to Shakespeare of Stratford.[6]
According to Steven May, who produced the standard edition of Edward de Vere's poetry:
'The motifs and stylistic traits that Looney and his followers have claimed through the years to be unique to the verse of both the Earl of Oxford and Shakespeare are in fact commonplaces of Elizabethan poetry employed by many other contemporary writers. The Oxfordians have failed to establish any meaningful connection between Oxford's verse and Shakespeare's. Stripped of this argument, the Earl is no more likely to have written Shakespeare's works than any other Elizabethan poet.'[7]
By contrast, Warren Hope and Kim Holston, in recounting Looney's methodology, state:
'Having found someone who met all the conditions he had originally established, Looney devotes a chapter to a comparison of Oxford's verse with the early work of Shakespeare, a tour de force of literary and historical analysis which in some ways anticipates the procedures of the "new criticism."'[8]
Commenting on the similarity between Looney's methods, and that of Shakespeare scholars in the tradition of Edward Dowden, David Chandler wrote:
Stratfordians have often smiled patronizingly at the naïveté of Looney's methods but have generally failed to acknowledge that the early twentieth century produced a lot of perfectly "orthodox" Shakespearean criticism, colored by Dowden, which they would find equally naïve. In the cultural situation of the early twentieth century, Looney is quite understandable. He took the case against the Stratford man, put forward by the Baconians and widely accepted, and combined its conclusions with the post-Dowden desire to read the plays as representing an intimate, credible, psycho-drama. For the problem which he posed himself he found the best possible solution – at least it is surely undeniable that no one since has come up with a better one. The popularity of the Oxfordian thesis is of a piece with the continuing popularity of Dowden's Shakspere [Shakspere: A Critical Study of his Mind and Art, (1875)], perhaps the most successful study of the dramatist ever published. Either both are discredited by being popular, or neither is. In fact, as any teacher of English Literature knows, the most profound influence the academy ever exerted over general reading habits was the diffusion of the idea that a writer can be recognized in his work. Of course this may be explained as a result of the professional study of English Literature commencing at a period when "Romantic" ideas regarding authorship held sway, but Kathman and other critics of Oxfordianism still need to accept that the academic tradition which authorizes them as commentators on culture issues also promoted precisely that Oxfordian, biographical approach which they condemn. They cannot have it both ways."[9]