No, it doesn't. First, because we already know that Shakespeare of Stratford wrote the works -- at least according to the statement of Heminge and Condell, who knew him well, and owned the rights to most of Shakespeare's works produced for the acting company they all were sharers in. Second, the Metamorphoses was influential not only on Shakespeare, but also other writers. The use of an "un-" prefix in Golding's Ovid was a trick Shakespeare took to heart. This is far more likely than the Earl of Oxford making a lifetime practice of using a series of stand-ins for his works, none of whom ever reveal that they served that purpose.

The essay is free of what any historian would consider evidence. It's merely a lengthy fantasy, based largely on an inability to even distinguish hendiadys from other constructions.

If Dr. Waugaman thinks that Two Gentlemen of Verona and Taming of the Shrew is the "height of [Shakespeare's] creative powers," it's a clue to his comprehension of Shakespeare's works.

Compare this argument against Shakespeare's authorship with Waugaman's argument a couple paragraphs down, where he strongly endorses the theory (unsupported by evidence) that Oxford translated Ovid from the Latin original at the tender age of fifteen. In both instances, he's trying to imagine what the author of the works of Shakespeare could accomplish at that point in his life -- but he imagines that a fifteen-year-old earl could write as well or better than Shakespeare in his mid-to-late twenties. In other words, he is the opposite of a scholar.

There's no evidence that "young de Vere" arranged for his uncle's name to appear on the title page.

. . . and here's his evidence:

1. Childhood loss often contributes to creativity . . . Oxford was one of a number of juveniles thrust into their hereditary title by the death of their fathers. Cecil was the Master of the Court of Wards and Liveries. In this role he had charge of the Queen's wards from 1561, giving him authority over (among others) Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton, and Roger Manners, 5th Earl of Rutland. Yet neither of them are suggested as having these special abilities, because Waugaman hasn't decided in advance that they did.

But as a Freudian, isn't the loss of the father in adolescence and being taken from the custody of his mother assumed to be the basis of neuroses rather than exceptional creativity? Other Oxfordians claim that de Vere was sent away to study with Smith as early as age four. How did this distance and loss (fairly common among children of Oxford's class) affect him? As usual, Waugaman assumes that Oxford became highly creative, because he assumes that Oxford was highly creative. And as usual, there's no real evidence supporting it.

1. Waugaman lists several young writers -- if they could write works as teenagers, why couldn't Oxford?

None of the writers listed were doing what Waugaman attributes to de Vere at fifteen -- translating entire books from Latin to English in verse form. Instead, all were writing original works of imagination. The youngest listed, Rimbaud, wrote a very good early short poem just before he turned sixteen. Coming up with one good poem in his early teens is hardly comparable to translating several books of Latin by the same age -- because to do so, Oxford would have to first master ancient Latin, as well as becoming an exceptional poet. Bear in mind that one argument to deny Shakespeare's authorship is that his early works like Two Gentlemen of Verona show too much promise and are too polished. Yet they imagine that, if the works were instead attributed to the Earl of Oxford, he would have mastered Latin and become proficient at translating to English in verse by age fifteen.

Pound's praise of Golding condemns the theory that the translation was the work of fifteen-year-old Edward de Vere. De Vere was still a student of Latin at the time!

Wow! Now there's a bold statement! Waugaman is willing to toss aside any skepticism that de Vere at fifteen could translate all of Ovid's Metamorphoses. I'm sure he has some very strong reason to believe that . . .

Golding's Puritan ideals are reflected in the work. Again, deniers create an imaginary Arthur Golding, whose puritan beliefs they imagine make him too sanctimonious and embarrassed by any discussion of sex to have written the translation. This made-up version of Golding then becomes evidence that he didn't write the translation. It's a rather silly trick -- Waugaman's opinion is notoriously unreliable, so it hardly can be considered evidence. If anyone wants to check whether anyone puts any faith in Waugaman's opinions, check out the number of citations to his works by anybody but himself.

What? This is very confused thinking. Spenser, Marlowe and Shakespeare all were influenced by Golding's Ovid. And that means that Shakespeare (who Waugaman imagines is actually de Vere) wrote the translation? Could we also through Marlowe and Spenser into the mix?

Note that everything Waugaman writes consists of confirming his own pre-existing belief in de Vere's authorship, which overcomes (in his mind) the actual evidence that Golding wrote the work attributed to him, and that Shakespeare wrote the works attributed to him.

For many, this would be an important clue. Not for Waugaman, though.

This really is sad.

Golding's Ovid uses hendiadys frequently. Scholars believe Golding's Ovid was a great influence on Shakespeare. Shakespeare used hediadys frequently.

Let's try another. Chuck Berry wrote songs accompanied by guitar. Jimi Hendrix also wrote songs accompanied by guitar. Is this evidence that Berry wrote Purple Haze?

Again, if this were evidence of authorship, why doesn't Waugaman attribute Shakespeare's works to Golding?

Of course Waugaman attributed Arte of English Poesie to de Vere.

The "researchers" referred to are those who already believe that Edward de Vere wrote the works of Shakespeare, and have invented the theory that de Vere wrote many other works. Dr. Waugaman has made a hobby of attributing anonymous works -- even ones that are not extant -- to de Vere. Not surprising he's trying to do so with de Vere's relatives' works as well.

Sure, if there was any evidence that Golding's translation was actually done by Shakespeare, it would be of immense scholarly interest -- but there's no evidence that's the case, since the book was published when Shakespeare was three.

Actually, that's not the case at all. If Golding was actually the translator, rather than de Vere, does that mean Golding wrote the works of Shakespeare?

And when Waugaman refers to "his claim to have written the works of Shakespeare," it's not clear who he's referring to. Oxford never claimed to have written the works; no contemporary of Oxford's claims he wrote them; all the considerable contemporary documentation attribute the works to William Shakespeare.

They may also wonder, 'why should I waste my time reading an essay by someone who apparently has no understanding of the subject he's writing about?'

Al not only claims that Oxford's unmarked grave in Hackney is empty, but also Shakespeare's grave and monument in Stratford.

Bate here recognizes that the debate was a set-up from start to finish. Waugh brought in his De Vere Society, and a couple celebrity endorsers, Derek Jacobi and Mark Rylance. Propaganda was given to the attendees in hopes of swaying those who came without an agenda. Waugh bitterly complained that his effort to stack the deck was not recognized as a substantive victory by the organizers.

The two participants appeared to have different ideas about the debate. Bate aimed his points at those who came with an open mind about the question of Shakespeare’s authorship, which necessarily includes the question, if not Shakespeare, then who? Waugh came with a hallelujah chorus of supporters whose function was to vote for Waugh at the end and to ask prepared questions; he avoided defending the Oxfordian candidacy in hopes of luring Bate into a repeat performance.

Oxfordian claims always boil down to their setting illogical, artificial limitations on the set of data they will take into account. Here, Waugh uses Meres list from 1598 -- at a date fairly early in Shakespeare's career, that excludes poets Shakespeare knew (and collaborated with) in later years. If Waugh's list does not include Ben Jonson, Fletcher and others, his methodology is transparent fraud.

What evidence was that again??

"As any learned person in those days knew" a typical rhetorical dodge. He has no evidence that this was common knowledge and it took Oxfordians a century to come up with the interpretation. Note that all the other explanations for the reference to the Avon that they all accepted have now been abandoned. Shakespeare denial is all about rhetoric, not reality.

In his book Traditionary anecdotes of Shakespeare, collected in Warwichshire in 1693 (1838) John Dowdell refers to someone "having labored to prove that he was one and the same person with Christopher Marlowe." Waugh apparently did not follow up to identify this earlier source and assumed that Dowdell was questioning Shakespeare’s authorship of the works attributed to him in the late 1590s and after.

But Waugh was wrong: rather than claiming that Marlowe wrote Shakespeare, it was that Marlowe was an early pseudonym for Shakespeare.

Proposed by an anonymous writer in the Monthly Review, August 1819, the theory was that Shakespeare was “one and the same person with Christopher Marlowe,” wherein Shakespeare had made up a fictional Marlowe as a “nom de guerre,” and which he killed off prior to publication of poems under his real name: “Shortly afterward . . . an improbable story was circulated that Marlowe had been assassinated with his own sword, which attracted no judicial inquiry.” https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=inu.30000093224826;view=1up;seq=376

But Meres list was not of "great playwrights of his day." For instance, in the same list as de Vere, he lists "Maister Edwardes, one of Her Maiesties Chappell." Edwardes died in 1566, over thirty years before Meres was writing. Meres information about the Earl of Oxford and Edwardes was taken from Puttenham's Arte of English Poesie.

This is my favorite -- Waugh forgetting the poem he was quoting.

This is a dodge. Camden knew Shakespeare as a player, and knew the works of Shakespeare, listing him among the "most pregnant witts of these our times, whom succeeding ages may iustly admire."

There is no reason to imagine that Camden thought that the player and the poet were two different people; indeed, he may well have met Shakespeare. Camden was cited by Ben Jonson as his teacher, apparently when Camden was headmaster of Westminster school, and Jonson wrote plays that were performed by the Lord Chamberlain's Men and King's Men, Shakespeare's playing companies.<br> http://www.shakespearedocumented.org/file/details/329

For Waugh, his dismissal of Bate's point requires no analysis or evidence.

There is documentary evidence that he was a border with a family of French immigrants, and that he was personally involved with their affairs. This implies that either Shakespeare spoke French or the family spoke English. Or both.

I do not think this observation cuts for or against Shakespeare of Stratford, but can we not reasonably assume that whoever wrote the works of Shakespeare had an unusual facility with language?

More generally, is there a reason to assume that William Shakespeare was an average resident of a provincial market town? Statistically, how many common men born to a craftsman's family became wealthy gentlemen, lived in a ten-chimneyed home, and had (at least) a substantial financial interest in a London theatrical company? The tiresome Oxfordian arguments that Shakespeare of Stratford was uneducated and spoke an unintelligible regional dialect simply amounts to claiming he had to be like their stereotype of a yokel, even though there is ample evidence that he was not.

Try disagreeing about the significance of Oxford's royal pension of £1000 to see a world of censorship and dogma. The ShakesVeres were Very Upset that one of their members questioned the received truth that any reference to £1000 was a veiled reference to Oxford. Because everything is a veiled reference to Oxford.

Which is to say, they’re not saying it at all.

This is typical Oxfordian thinking: they've never been able to find any explicit evidence for their candidate, but they see his presence in every ambiguous phrase. For Waugh, all anyone could talk about in the Elizabethan era was theater, and that the Earl of Oxford was cranking out some great plays.

The book is Bodenham’s Belvedere: or the Garden of the Muses. Oxford is listed along with the Earl of Derby, Walter Raleigh, Edward Dyer, Fulke Greville and John Harrington, with the following caption:

From diuers essays of their Poetrie; some extant among other Honorable personages writings; some from priuate labours and translations.

This caption is in contrast to the caption above, applying to four titled writers:

From Poems and works of these noble personages, extant.

And also contrasts with the group of writers listed below (including “Shakspeare,” an instance of that spelling being used in a literary context):

These being Moderne and extant Poets, that have liu’d together; from many of their extant works, and some kept in priuat. https://archive.org/stream/bodenhamsbelved00bodegoog#page/n27/mode/2up/search/vere

The caption applicable to “Edward, Earle of Oxenford” clearly lists his contributions to the work as either extant or private copies, but never says that the works have appeared in print under any other name.

What evidence exists of how Shakespeare tended to think of himself? If Waugh’s so concerned about the lack of evidence for Shakespeare, why is he making things up about him? Waugh tells us a little later that Shakespeare didn’t HAVE any friends.

This is simply false. Justices Brennan, Kennedy and Breyer, the last two still active Justices, have all said they support Stratford. AFAIK no other sitting justice has taken a position.

This is incorrect. For instance, Twelfth Night was clearly written for a court celebration of Twelfth Night, generally the high point of the holiday season.