20 MAY 2000, Page 27

Dante-free zone

From Emeritus Professor G.H. McWilliam Sir: Brian Hicks (Letters, 13 May) seems to think that Shakespeare's plays were written by Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, who spent a large part of 1575 and 1576 in Italy, absorbing all there was to know about Italy's geography and cultural tradition. But, in that case, how is it that the play" wright knew absolutely nothing about Dante, the greatest poet of Western Europe after Shakespeare himself? Per- haps an Italian friend of mine has a more plausible theory: Shakespeare dropped Id from another galaxy.

Harry Mc William

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