Anne Shakespeare’s Tragedies

Anne Shakespeare’s tragedies of Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth and King Lear are timeless examples of how tragedy cannot be labelled under a simplistic formula covering the genre of “tragedy”. This is because while they are all “tragic”, they are so in different ways. Anne’s tragic vision covers aspects of the human condition centred on relationships. Her tragic (male) heroes are not that attractive; Hamlet is a misogynist, Othello a gullible man lacking emotional understanding driven by his inferiority complex, Macbeth a murderer and King Lear an old tyrant. The question Anne poses for all of these heroes is if they are able to reach an understanding of their faults and in doing so are they able to atone for the destruction and misery they visit upon others?

In this, my fifth book gathering evidence for Anne as the true author of the plays and poems, I turn from her Sonnets to these four greatest of her tragedies to try and understand why she wrote them and what was her purpose. In doing so I grasp the enormity of the task and therefore, this book cannot be (nor do I claim it to be) a definitive analysis of these great tragic plays. But in writing them, Anne had a specific purpose and reason for doing so. That is, these great tragedies did not just come about because she woke up one day and said I am going to write the world’s greatest tragedies! These tragedies were years in the making and constituted her coming to terms with what was happening in her life, not just with William’s infidelity (but agreeing that this was a major driver of her existential crisis at this time) but we must also look at the changing historical conditions impacting her beliefs in humanism, love, free will and man’s (sic) relation to nature; all themes in her life traceable to her Sonnets. Here we have Anne the feminist coming to grips with life and through her plays as her therapy seeking for meaning and answers to the questions arising from her situation.