Summary

Of course we cannot say that "The Paine of Pleasure" is by the same man who wrote the Shakespeare canon. Too many years and too many literary questions separate this poem from any known Shakespearean work. We can only say that there is nothing internal to the poem that would prevent this from being an early work by the same man who wrote the Shakespeare plays.

Theoretically, "The Paine of Pleasure," if it were written in 1580, could even be by William Shakespeare of Stratford. It is hugely unlikely that a sixteen-year-old poet, who in 1580 was living in Stratford or Lancashire as an apprentice or servant, could have produced twelve hundred lines that could be taken for court verse. But genius is unlikely. Shakespeare could do things no other poet dreamed of; he could theoretically have done this.

However, it is asking the impossible to believe that Anthony Munday would have published it. On the basis of any known facts about Shakespeare's or Munday's life, one cannot explain how an early poem by an unknown young man, who had never been in London, could have become the title poem of a collection edited by an experienced London-based anthologist. Munday was editing for profit; he knew London writers; he was not desperate.

But, if "The Paine of Pleasure" is Oxford's--and the evidence suggests it is[41]--its appearance in his secretary and friend's anthology is not surprising.

Moreover, it indicates Oxford's goals as a poet. His appearance in two anthologies addressed to the common reader suggests that he had a continuing interest in addressing this audience, an interest that might have led him to write or adapt plays for the common theater.

Reattributing "The Paine of Pleasure" is significant. We can no longer consider Oxford the author only of a handful of early poems. As the author of "The Paine of Pleasure", Oxford is a substantial poet whose extant verse is not incompatible with the canon of Shakespeare.