LUND, Sweden (PRWEB) July 17, 2012
For a long time now, rumours and mordant jokes that William Shakespeare( of Stratford upon Avon) wasn’t the same man behind the Shakespearean plays have been making its rounds amongst the academia and the literati. Another Shakespeare, a man of the same name or pseudonym, supposedly is the real craftsman behind the famed playwright’s canon. Not easily carried away by James Shapiro’s well-balanced arguments in his recent book, “Contested Will”, Author Sten F. Vedi concocts a closer and well-detailed analysis of the “Hamlet” and its authorship in Elsinore Revisited.
This masterfully-crafted scholarly work of Vedi challenges the general assumption that William Shakespeare was the sole author of “Hamlet”. It is maintained that the plot line and the characters were drawn up by someone else. This someone is thought to have been a person of high rank, a feudal prince, in the Elizabethan society. Readers will walk in the footsteps of the Queen’s envoys in Elsinore Revisited to see if they can discover how and why the site of Elsinore entered into the play. They will meet men like Henrik Ramelius alias Polonius, but also Rosencrantz and Guildenstern who all entered the portrait gallery of famous characters in world literature.
Pieces of circumstantial evidences, according to Vedi lead to the assumption that Edward de Vere, the seventeenth Earl of Oxford, and even Lord Derby, married to one of de Vere’s daughters might have been the author or co-authors of the play “Hamlet, Prince of Denmark”. It is the intention of Elsinore Revisited to test the validity of that theory by analysis of plot and characters, the social perspective of “Hamlet” as well as historical aspects of the Danish and English royal courts. In that respect site specific knowledge about Elsinore is crucial.
Through renewed readings of primary and secondary sources and with discovery of an hitherto overlooked or neglected primary source, Vedi came to his conclusion about the probable authors of Hamlet. Written conscientiously, Elsinore Revisited is at turns edifying and entertaining for both skeptics and believers.
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About the Author
Sten F. Vedi grew up in Norway. He has graduated in English language and literature, political science and history at the Universities of Bergen and Oslo. He has a Ph. D. from the University of Sheffield. For shorter periods, he thought history at the Universities of Bergen and Trondheim, while holding other positions at those universities. He has worked as a University librarian at the University of Trondheim and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, before taking up a position as Associate Professor at the Department of Cultural Studies at Lund University in Sweden. Since retiring from the university, he has taken a deliberate decision to indulge in different areas of knowledge.
Elsinore Revisited * by Sten F. Vedi
Publication Date: May 16, 2012
Picture Book; £24.99; 98 pages; 978-1-4691-5905-8
Picture Book Hardcover; £34.99; 98 pages; 978-1-4691-5906-5
E-Book; £ 3.99; 978-1-4771-0285-5
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