Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 3, No. 172.  Monday, 13 July 1992.
 
From: 		Tad Davis <
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Date: 		Monday, July 13, 1992, 14:40:01 -0400
Subject: 3.0171  The Wigmaker's Son-in-law and the Sonnets
Comment: 	RE: SHK 3.0171  The Wigmaker's Son-in-law and the Sonnets
 
> If this story resonates to your mind with the opening of the Sonnets, you
> are not alone.  Although I know the internal evidence and external cycle
> of style would date the Sonnets from 1592-95 during the Plague Years, I
> am wondering if there is conclusive proof which would trump my idle
> speculation.
 
Funny you should mention that. I recently finished drafting on a one-act
play called "The Mountjoy Depositions." I don't have any proof to trump you
with, and I have to agree that there's something about the material that
induces Sonnet-think. Somehow or other, Emilia Lanier made her way into my
play as a witness -- the Wallaces having uncharacteristically overlooked
her deposition.
 
(Lest anyone think I'm endorsing Lanier as the "dark lady," I hasten to add
that the play is a companion piece for another play that presents a
completely different, and mutually exclusive, theory of the sonnets. That
theory revolves around a failed plot to assassinate Shakespeare by a
jealous rival.)
 
Presumably according to your reconstruction, Stephen Belott would be the
youth? The fact that Shakespeare referred to him in his depositions as a
good and industrious servant takes a smidge away from the imagery of the
sonnets. But Will'm was always good at dissembling, so that hardly
qualifies as "conclusive."
 
Tad Davis

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