Was Shakespeare a Jewish Woman?

December 17, 2025 in Library Corner

By Robin Jacobson

More than four centuries after they were first performed, the plays of William Shakespeare continue to dazzle and inspire. But as to Shakespeare himself, a vocal minority has long contended that he was not the author of the plays published under his name.

The controversy largely focuses on Shakespeare’s humble origins as a glover’s son from rustic Stratford-upon-Avon. The “Anti-Stratfordians” maintain that Shakespeare lacked the education, foreign language facility, and experience of European travel reflected in the plays. They argue that a more scholarly, sophisticated man, such as Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford, must have been the “real” Shakespeare.

Others ask why it matters who wrote the plays credited to Shakespeare. After all, doesn’t the art matter more than the artist? As one witty aphorism sums up the authorship debate, “The plays were written either by Shakespeare or by someone calling himself Shakespeare.”

Nonetheless, in recent years, a provocative new candidate has emerged as a possible ghostwriter for some of Shakespeare’s plays. Emilia Bassano is notable for being the first female published poet in England, for the proto-feminist perspective of her poems, and for possibly being a hidden Jew. Now she is the star of an engaging novel, By Any Other Name by Jodi Picoult.

The novel entwines Emilia’s life, both its known and speculative aspects, with the life of her imaginary 21^st century descendant, Melina Green, who has written a play about Emilia. The Emilia chapters are the most compelling. Struggling in a society where women are treated like chattel, Emilia vents her views in plays she secretly writes for Shakespeare. He gets the acclaim, and she gets the satisfaction of having her work reach an audience.

The Life of Emilia Bassano 

Emilia Bassano (1569-1645) was born in England into a large family of Venetian musicians recruited by King Henry VIII to entertain in his court. They continued as court musicians for Henry’s daughter, Elizabeth I, and Elizabeth’s successor, James I. The Bassanos are thought to have been conversos (Jews forced to convert to Christianity) who remained secretly Jewish.

Emilia’s father, Baptista Bassano, died when she was seven. She joined the household of Susan Bertie, the Countess of Kent, who provided Emilia with a comprehensive classical education. When the countess’s brother, the Ambassador to Denmark, traveled to Elsinore Castle and dined with Messrs. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (names that later appear in Hamlet), Emilia may have been part of his entourage.

As a teenager, Emilia became the mistress of Henry Carey, Baron Hunsdon (1526–1596) who was forty-three years her senior. Hunsdon held the influential position of Lord Chamberlain. He oversaw court entertainment and was the patron of the “The Lord Chamberlain’s Men,” William Shakespeare’s theater company. After some years living with Hunsdon, Emilia became pregnant. To avoid scandal, Hunsdon arranged for her to marry her cousin, Alphonso Lanier, a court musician who squandered her funds.

In Picoult’s novel, Emilia’s family essentially sold her to Hunsdon. Fortunately, Hunsdon was kind. While in his household, Emilia read the plays Hunsdon vetted prior to their performance and fatefully met denizens of London’s theater world, including Shakespeare.

In the novel’s afterword, Picoult notes that many features of Shakespeare’s plays fit Emilia’s biography: strong-minded, intelligent women; a speech sympathetic to Jews; technical musical terms; accurate descriptions of Denmark’s Elsinore Castle and obscure sites in Italy (the Bassano homeland); and characters with unusual names found in Emilia’s family (e.g. Emilia, Baptista, Bassanio, and Ophelia).

Some claim that Emilia was Shakespeare’s mistress, the “Dark Lady” of the sonnets, who influenced his plays but did not write them. Whatever the truth, Picoult’s novel is an entertaining and enlightening tale of Renaissance England.