Dear G.S.,

As the Oxfordian who cited Nabokov's 1924 "Shakespeare" as evidence (I believe) of his anti-Stratfordianism, at the very least in his youth, I should explain how I interpret the poem, which appears in full at the bottom of this post.

First, I believe the voice in the poem is Nabokov's, and not that of a purely fictional "I." I realize I differ with others here, including those who know far more about VN's poetry and aesthetics than I do.

The poem begins, "Amid grandees of times Elizabethan/you shimmered too, you followed sumptuous custom;/the circle of ruff, the silv’ry satin that/encased your thigh..."

Right off the bat VN is identifying Shakespeare as a nobleman in habit and dress. No one has ever argued that William Shaksper of Stratford was aristocratic, whereas many anti-Stratfordian candidates, from Bacon to Oxford, were of noble blood. (This needn't be taken as evidence of Nabokov's snobbery. Contrary to popular belief, Oxfordians aren't snobs. Nor were Walt Whitman or Charlie Chaplin, yet both were just as certain that Shakespeare was a nobleman:

Whitman: “I am firm against Shaksper — I mean the Avon man, the actor.”
    — With Walt Whitman, Traubel

 Whitman:  “Conceived out of the fullest heat and pulse of European feudalism — personifying in unparall'd ways the medieval aristocracy, its towering spirit of ruthless and gigantic caste, its own peculiar air and arrogance (no mere imitation) — only one of the 'wolfish earls' so plenteous in the plays themselves, or some born descendant and knower, might seem to be the true author of those amazing works — works in some respects greater than anything else in recorded history.”
    — “November Boughs”

Chaplin:  “In the work of the greatest geniuses, humble beginnings will reveal themselves somewhere, but one cannot trace the slightest sign of them in Shakespeare … I am not concerned with who wrote the works of Shakespeare … but I can hardly think it was the Stratford boy. Whoever wrote them had an aristocratic attitude.”    — My Autobiography, 364)

Later VN's poem reads, "concealing for all time your monstrous genius/beneath a mask...." I don't see how William of Stratford could be considered masked, whereas a yet-unidentified author would be.

In the lines "you’re alive; your name, though,/your image, too – deceiving, thus, the world...", VN clearly implies that what the world knows of Shakespeare's name and image (presumably the absurd engraving in the First Folio and the blah bust in Stratford's Trinity Church) are deceptive.

The following lines I believe are self-explanatory:

"It’s true, of course, a usurer had grown/accustomed, for a sum, to sign your work/(that Shakespeare – Will – who played the Ghost in Hamlet,/ who lives in pubs, and died before he could/digest in full his portion of a boar’s head)…"

This scenario is the one depicted in the recent film Anonymous, which has serious historical and artistic flaws but is correct in its main premise.

Later, Nabokov again implies the true author's name is unknown: "Look what numbers/of lowly, worthless souls have left their trace,/what countless names Brantome has for the asking!/Reveal yourself, god of iambic thunder..." If VN were a Stratfordian when he wrote these lines, why would he ask Shakespeare to reveal himself? Likewise, why would he use the phrase "banished/by God from your existence" to describe the "rags-to-riches" man from Stratford, who (allegedly) voluntarily retired to a comfortable life at the peak of his powers?

Although J.T. Looney's "Shakespeare Identified" was published in 1920, I don't believe Nabokov had read it by the time he wrote "Shakespeare" in 1924. (I suspect he did read it later, however, and found it at least plausible.) Had VN read it by 1924, I doubt--though I can't prove--that he would have imagined his hero "smiling" as, "faceless,"  he "vanished in the distance." Resigning himself to oblivion grieved Edward de Vere immeasurably, as he laments in Sonnet 72 ("My name be buried where my body is") and Sonnet 81 ("I, once gone, to all the world must die.")

Needless to say, I don't believe the Sonnets were literary exercises with a fictional "I" either.

Cheers,

Brian Tomba

PS VN's fantasy of Shakespeare meeting Cervantes in Italy (a country de Vere knew and loved so well that he was later mocked as the "Italianate Englishman") may be more prescient than he realized. As Mark Anderson notes on page 90 of Shakespeare By Another Name, Oxford and Cervantes may have crossed paths in Palermo:

http://books.google.com/books?id=kzav7JrRRJsC&pg=PA90&lpg=PA90&dq=%22de+vere+and+cervantes+crossed+paths%22&source=bl&ots=HdzIWBunKd&sig=Ky7XN4o_CupBfyBMpi4eu5_tS3g&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Nuj9T56cF4no6wHmob2OCw&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22de%20vere%20and%20cervantes%20crossed%20paths%22&f=false

Shakespeare (1924)

Amid grandees of times Elizabethan
you shimmered too, you followed sumptuous custom;
the circle of ruff, the silv’ry satin that
encased your thigh, the wedgelike beard – in all of this
you were like other men… Thus was enfolded
your godlike thunder in a succinct cape.

Haughty, aloof from theatre’s alarums,
you easily, regretlessly relinquished
the laurels twinning into a dry wreath,
concealing for all time your monstrous genius
beneath a mask; and yet, your phantasm’s echoes
still vibrate for us; your Venetian Moor,
his anguish; Falstaff’s visage, like an udder
with pasted-on mustache; the raging Lear..
You are among us, you’re alive; your name, though,
your image, too – deceiving, thus, the world
you have submerged in your beloved Lethe.
It’s true, of course, a usurer had grown
accustomed, for a sum, to sign your work
(that Shakespeare – Will – who played the Ghost in Hamlet,
who lives in pubs, and died before he could
digest in full his portion of a boar’s head)…

The frigate breathed, your country you were leaving,
To Italy you went. A female voice
called singsong through the iron’s pattern
called to her balcony the tall inglesse,
grown languid from the lemon-tinted moon
and Verona’s streets. My inclination
is to imagine, possibly, the droll
and kind creator of Don Quixote
exchanging with you a few casual words
while waiting for fresh horses – and the evening
was surely blue. The well behind the tavern
contained a pail’s pure tinkling sound… Reply
whom did you love? Reveal yourself – whose memoirs
refer to you in passing? Look what numbers
of lowly, worthless souls have left their trace,
what countless names Brantome has for the asking!
Reveal yourself, god of iambic thunder,
you hundred-mouthed, unthinkably great bard!

No! At the destined hour, when you felt banished
by God from your existence, you recalled
those secret manuscripts, fully aware
that your supremacy would rest unblemished
by public rumor’s unashamed brand,
that ever, midst the shifting dust of ages,
faceless you’d stay, like immortality
itself – then vanished in the distance, smiling.

Copyright 1979 Vladimir Nabokov Estate
English version copyright 1988 Dmitri Nabokov