The Shakespeare Authorship Controversy

[Swammerdami]

Setting aside references to "Will Monox" or "Gentle Master William" in 1592, the very earliest reference to Shake-speare in connection with writing or the theater comes from a book edited and printed posthumously:

For there is an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his tiger's heart wrapped in a player's hide, supposes he is as well able to bumbast out a blank verse as the best of you; and being an absolute Johannes factotum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country.

That book is full of cryptic references. Since the mention is insulting, the writer's name ("Shake-scene") is disguised, though only very thinly. With "tiger's heart ..." (from Henry VI part 3) there is no doubt that this refers to Shake-speare.

Although this quote is trotted out be Stratfordians as proof that Shakespeare was writing plays before Venus and Adonis — if that's when the hoax began — the quote actually supports the opposite case! The quote clearly makes the same claim that anti-Stratfordians make: that Shakespeare was putting his name on others' works. The notion that a crow is vain about its beauty is as old as Aesop, but this one is beautified "with OUR feathers" — beautified by the words of a different writer.

Some say that "supposes he is [able to write verse]" implies that he believes he is the writer, which wouldn't make sense if he were simply adding his name as author. HOWEVER, "suppose" had an alternative meaning of "pretend" in those days. He is pretending to be a writer. "Suppose" is used frequently in Shakespeare's plays and many instances seem to confirm this alternate meaning. "Suppose" was borrowed from Old French, and according to an on-line dictionary French "supposer" retains the "pretend" meaning to this day: "supposer -- ... 3. Poser comme vrai quelque chose de faux, avec intention de tromper.")

Had Shakespeare been a real playwright affiliated with a theater company, his plays would presumably have been written for that company. Yet Henry VI part 3 was performed by three different companies before its early first printing, and the early Titus and Adronicus is known to have been performed by yet a fourth company.

So the usual assumption is that Shaksper became a professional actor, presumably starting as apprentice at an early age (despite that he had a wife and three children to support and minimal income); that Shaksper's duties for a theater company included procuring manuscripts; and that he began putting his name on the anonymous manuscripts hoping for fame or extra income. Edward de Vere needed a front-man anyway (a "living, breathing pen-name") so approached Shaksper since he was already acting in such a front-man role.

How things developed after that isn't clear. Some think Oxford, with physical resemblance to Shaksper, might have participated in the theater directly. It would be difficult for the lame Oxford to perform on stage, but perhaps that's why he had roles like Hamlet's father's ghost. But such speculations seem unlikely and unnecessary.

However things played out, we need to explain a sudden infusion of cash before the publication of Venus. One reason we know Shaksper was suddenly wealthy is that he acquired a coat of arms with the motto Non sans droict ("Not without right"). Since he had little if any hereditary "right" to the arms, they attest that he had good connections or was able to pay a very substantial bribe. The motto, inflicted by the College of Arms rather than chosen by Shaksper, seems sarcastic or worse:

What remains puzzling is that [William] Dethick [Garter King of Arms]—a learned man—made a nonsense of Shakespeare’s motto, writing “Non, sanz droict” (“No, without right”) before he corrected it and put “Non sanz droict” (“Not without right”) without a comma. Shakespeare must have been infuriated.... Shakespeare was an acknowledged master of mottoes. Was Dethick trying to tease him or irritate him?

I mention the motto because it connects to the second cryptic reference to Shakespeare before Venus: Ben Jonson staged a play ridiculing a country bumpkin (hinted as being Shakespeare). In the play it is suggested that the bumpkin change his motto to "Not without mustard"!

Yes, in the months before Venus was published two of London's famous playwrights were happy to make strong insults against ... the greatest writer in history??? Soon Jonson and Green's editor were informed about the true authorship and the associated hoax; they promptly changed their tunes.

Anyway, in this standard account Shaksper was already involved in procuring manuscripts and was putting his name on them; he was chosen as front-man by the real author for that reason. But there is another possibility which I will cover in the next post.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Yes, WAB, the quality of Oxford's verse is the biggest obstacle to the Oxfordian theory. I think Oxford's writing is very good, but it isn't up to the standards of the Great Bard. My working hypothesis — which may seem farfetched — is that Oxford was in close contact with a few other very talented writers and the poems and plays were polished as a team effort.

But if Oxford's poetry wasn't up to the standard of Venus or the Sonnets, what about Shaksper's one undisputed poem:

"Good Friends, for Jesus' sake forbear,
To dig the bones enclosed here!
Blest be the man that spares these stones,
And curst be he that moves my bones."

Off-topic(?) Note: While Googling so I could copy-paste the above epitaph I saw that Shaksper's bones have been disturbed — his skull is missing!

 

[WAB]

I certainly agree, that's not up to snuff either.

If Oxford penned the Shakespeare plays, and the poems attributed to S, then he was not only the greatest writer in English (and easily at that - the Bard is truly without an equal), but he also made the greatest sacrifice any mortal man could make. He took credit for good but not exemplary verse, and allowed someone else to take credit and live in fame around the world for the greatest works in English ever composed.

If true, it's a great tragedy. And the Stratford man would have to be a shameless villain to allow it to happen, to take credit for another man's effort, make money and earn fame for it. It would require a man with no conscience at all; but there are no reports of him having such a character, in fact there are more to the contrary.

 

[Swammerdami]

I certainly agree, that's not up to snuff either.

If Oxford penned the Shakespeare plays, and the poems attributed to S, then he was not only the greatest writer in English (and easily at that - the Bard is truly without an equal), but he also made the greatest sacrifice any mortal man could make. He took credit for good but not exemplary verse, and allowed someone else to take credit and live in fame around the world for the greatest works in English ever composed.

Oxford didn't "take credit" for Oxford's poems: they were mostly published without his permission or under a pseudonym.
As for not taking credit for the works of Shakespeare:

• The people most important to him — his family, sons-in-law, fellow writers, Her Majesty Elizabeth the Virgin and her successor — were all aware of his writing.
• He, and others "in the know," were under strict, or implicit, instructions from Her Majesty to keep his Authorship secret from the public. The propaganda plays would have their impact reversed were it known they were written by Her Majesty's Great Chamberlain at her request. This was discussed up-thread. (Two-numbered James's right to rule also depended on Tudor legitimacy.)
• Several of the Sonnets seem to lament that he is denied his due fame.

And, as mentioned up-thread, King James went into a panic when Oxford died, apparently worried about some "To be opened on my death" letter.
Several of the Sonnets seem to lament his denied fame. Look at LXXI - LXXII

... Nay if you read this line, remember not,
The hand that writ it, ...
... Do not so much as my poor name rehearse;
But let your love even with my life decay.
...
... My name be buried where my body is,
And live no more to shame nor me, nor you.
For I am shamed by that which I bring forth,
And so should you, to love things nothing worth.

Sonnet LXXXI is supposedly addressed to Southampton (then young and childless), but makes more sense to me if addressed to the front-man!

Or I shall live your epitaph to make,
Or you survive when I in earth am rotten,
From hence your memory death cannot take,
Although in me each part will be forgotten.
Your name from hence immortal life shall have,
Though I (once gone) to all the world must die,
The earth can yield me but a common grave,
When you entombed in men's eyes shall lie,
Your monument shall be my gentle verse,
Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read,
And tongues to be, your being shall rehearse,
When all the breathers of this world are dead,
You still shall live (such virtue hath my pen)
Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men.

(But do NOT trust my interpretations of the Sonnets, most of which I find incomprehensible! Is there a good Oxfordian interpretation on-line?)

If true, it's a great tragedy. And the Stratford man would have to be a shameless villain to allow it to happen, to take credit for another man's effort, make money and earn fame for it. It would require a man with no conscience at all; but there are no reports of him having such a character, in fact there are more to the contrary.

Stratford was acting at Oxford's request! And was probably well paid for it; hence his purchase of a coat of arms and one of Stratford's best houses.

But I'm curious what your references are to Shakespeare's character. He was praised by Londoners who knew his plays but not him personally. As for the glover's son in Stratford:

• He was accused of grain hoarding during a drought-induced famine.
• He filed a lawsuit to recover a 2-shilliong debt ... at the same time he was supposedly in London polishing King Lear.
• He seems to have been on bad terms with Stratford neighbors and much of his family. Nobody stepped forward to eulogize him, or to note his literary work at all, even in contexts where the absence of mention would be quite startling ... were Shakespeare truly the Bard.

Shaksper's death was ignored for almost 7 years, until the Folio was published and the Monument placed. There is evidence that these were both arranged by Oxford's son and son-in-law. (For starters, the Folio was dedicated to "two incomparable brothers", one married to Susan de Vere; the other had been engaged to Susan's sister Bridget.)

 

[Swammerdami]

There are many types of, and reasons for, pen-names. Stephen King used a fake name for novels he thought too scary for his fan-base; George Elliot was adopted by a woman who thought a male authorship would sell more books (her lover's name was George); Voltaire, Molière were both fake names; as were Jack London, Lewis Carroll, Saki, and so on. Hiring a front-man as Oxford did isn't unheard of: French novelist Romaine Gary won the Goncourt Prize twice, once under a fake name; he coached his cousin to play the fake-named role when necessary.

Samuel Clemens was delighted to come up with 'Mark Twain': It sounds like a real name but was shouted out by leadsmen on Mississippi riverboats, with the happy meaning "Water is two fathoms deep, safe water."

And the late 16th and early 17th centuries were the golden age of pseudonyms. Many of the pen-names were obviously fake: Tom Tell-truth, Cuthbert Curry-knave, Martin Mar-prelate. Oxford wrote some prose under the name Pasquill Caviliero; his play-writing secretary (and collaborator?) Anthony Munday did some writing under the name Lazarus Piot. Despite lacking hyphens, the Caviliero and Piot names were probably also recognized as fake.

When Oxford realized he would need a single permanent pen-name, rather than relying on one-offs like Pasquill or Phaeton, he was faced with a quandary. A meaningful hyphenated name like Tom Tell-truth would be great fun, but useless for concealing his authorship. I suppose he might have gone with John Smith — if one front-man with that real name didn't work out there would be hundreds more to choose from! It's quite possible that when the surname Shake-speare presented itself, a lightbulb clicked in the mind of Oxford or one of his friends.

Athena Pallas (or Minerva) was the Greek (or Roman) God of wisdom, art/literature, and war. She wasn't born but sprang from the forehead of her father (Zeus/Jupiter) fully-grown, wearing armor and brandishing a spear. A case might be made that Shake-spear was a perfect pen-name for a writer! It hints at the Goddess of Literature, yet, unlike Tell-truth or Curry-knave is also a real surname (albeit never spelled with the hyphen before Venus and Adonis was published).

With "Will" prefixed to "Shake-speare" it gets even better. If we tried to design a perfect pen-name for a writer who needed to keep his identity secret, and wanted a pseudonym that especially pleased him (like "Mark Twain" pleased Clemens) but wasn't obviously fake, it might be hard to come up with a better choice than "Will Shake-speare." Serendipitously(?), there was already a man with that name working in the London theater!

(It's also alleged that Minerva and/or a lion shaking a spear appear among Edward de Vere's heraldry.)

For Queen Elizabeth's 1578 Progress (when Shaksper of Stratford was 14 years old), Gabriel Harvey prepared several speeches in Latin to "entertain" Her Majesty and her courtiers. He had been Oxford's school-mate in their teens, was now Professor of Rhetoric at Cambridge, but coveted a job working for Oxford who was in the market for top writers to work as his secretaries. It's not clear to me whether his hugely-flattering ode to Oxford was delivered orally in front of the Queen and her court, or was just sent to Oxford in written form, but the text has survived. Here's part of it:

Fata ignota homini; neque enim perspecta Tonantis Consilia: & quid si subito validissimus hostis Irruat in nostros fines? si Turca cohortes Immanes in nos armet? Taratantara quid si Terribilis tuba nunc resonet? tu videris, an iam Iamque velis pugnare ferox: ego sentio: tota Patria nostra putat: feruescit pectore sanguis; Virtus fronte habitat: Mars occupat ora; Minerua In dextra latitat: Bellona in corpore regnat: Martius ardor inest: scintellant lumina: vultus Tela vibrat: quis non rediuiuum iuret Achellem?

You don't need to know Latin to see that Oxford is being compared to Minerva and Mars. (Harvey didn't get the job, became embittered, and later insulted Oxford as mentioned in a previous post.)

The interesting part of the excerpt is shown in Red; vultus Tela vibrat translates as "Thy countenance shakes spears." (Some translations even replace "countenance" with "will.") If the letter had been translated into English, "Shake spear" might have rung a bell when Oxford chanced upon the man from Stratford 12 years later (or perhaps even sooner).

I don't give this connection much weight but since Stratfordians like to insist that "shakes spears" is a contrived translation of Tela vibrat, I decided to check into that. I know very little Latin (and even less Greek!) but wiktionary.org is a great resource. Here's what it shows for the first (primary) meanings:

• vibrat — third-person singular present active indicative of vibrō
• vibrō — shake, agitate, brandish
• tēla — nominative/accusative/vocative plural of tēlum
• tēlum — dart, spear, missile

Yep. To deny that 'tela vibrat' translates as 'shakes spears' is just more smoke-blowing by these traditionalist so-called scholars.

The connection to Harvey's flattering speech may be irrelevant, but the idea that "Will" and "Shake-speare" were very appealing pen-names for Edward de Vere seems extremely plausible to me. I think that at some point Edward de Vere happened on this man from Stratford and said "Your name intrigues me. May I buy you a pint or two of fine beer and discuss a business proposition?"

 

[WAB]

There are many types of, and reasons for, pen-names. Stephen King used a fake name for novels he thought too scary for his fan-base; George Elliot was adopted by a woman who thought a male authorship would sell more books (her lover's name was George); Voltaire, Molière were both fake names; as were Jack London, Lewis Carroll, Saki, and so on. Hiring a front-man as Oxford did isn't unheard of: French novelist Romaine Gary won the Goncourt Prize twice, once under a fake name; he coached his cousin to play the fake-named role when necessary.

Samuel Clemens was delighted to come up with 'Mark Twain': It sounds like a real name but was shouted out by leadsmen on Mississippi riverboats, with the happy meaning "Water is two fathoms deep, safe water."

And the late 16th and early 17th centuries were the golden age of pseudonyms. Many of the pen-names were obviously fake: Tom Tell-truth, Cuthbert Curry-knave, Martin Mar-prelate. Oxford wrote some prose under the name Pasquill Caviliero; his play-writing secretary (and collaborator?) Anthony Munday did some writing under the name Lazarus Piot. Despite lacking hyphens, the Caviliero and Piot names were probably also recognized as fake.

When Oxford realized he would need a single permanent pen-name, rather than relying on one-offs like Pasquill or Phaeton, he was faced with a quandary. A meaningful hyphenated name like Tom Tell-truth would be great fun, but useless for concealing his authorship. I suppose he might have gone with John Smith — if one front-man with that real name didn't work out there would be hundreds more to choose from! It's quite possible that when the surname Shake-speare presented itself, a lightbulb clicked in the mind of Oxford or one of his friends.

Athena Pallas (or Minerva) was the Greek (or Roman) God of wisdom, art/literature, and war. She wasn't born but sprang from the forehead of her father (Zeus/Jupiter) fully-grown, wearing armor and brandishing a spear. A case might be made that Shake-spear was a perfect pen-name for a writer! It hints at the Goddess of Literature, yet, unlike Tell-truth or Curry-knave is also a real surname (albeit never spelled with the hyphen before Venus and Adonis was published).

With "Will" prefixed to "Shake-speare" it gets even better. If we tried to design a perfect pen-name for a writer who needed to keep his identity secret, and wanted a pseudonym that especially pleased him (like "Mark Twain" pleased Clemens) but wasn't obviously fake, it might be hard to come up with a better choice than "Will Shake-speare." Serendipitously(?), there was already a man with that name working in the London theater!

(It's also alleged that Minerva and/or a lion shaking a spear appear among Edward de Vere's heraldry.)

For Queen Elizabeth's 1578 Progress (when Shaksper of Stratford was 14 years old), Gabriel Harvey prepared several speeches in Latin to "entertain" Her Majesty and her courtiers. He had been Oxford's school-mate in their teens, was now Professor of Rhetoric at Cambridge, but coveted a job working for Oxford who was in the market for top writers to work as his secretaries. It's not clear to me whether his hugely-flattering ode to Oxford was delivered orally in front of the Queen and her court, or was just sent to Oxford in written form, but the text has survived. Here's part of it:

Fata ignota homini; neque enim perspecta Tonantis Consilia: & quid si subito validissimus hostis Irruat in nostros fines? si Turca cohortes Immanes in nos armet? Taratantara quid si Terribilis tuba nunc resonet? tu videris, an iam Iamque velis pugnare ferox: ego sentio: tota Patria nostra putat: feruescit pectore sanguis; Virtus fronte habitat: Mars occupat ora; Minerua In dextra latitat: Bellona in corpore regnat: Martius ardor inest: scintellant lumina: vultus Tela vibrat: quis non rediuiuum iuret Achellem?

You don't need to know Latin to see that Oxford is being compared to Minerva and Mars. (Harvey didn't get the job, became embittered, and later insulted Oxford as mentioned in a previous post.)

The interesting part of the excerpt is shown in Red; vultus Tela vibrat translates as "Thy countenance shakes spears." (Some translations even replace "countenance" with "will.") If the letter had been translated into English, "Shake spear" might have rung a bell when Oxford chanced upon the man from Stratford 12 years later (or perhaps even sooner).

I don't give this connection much weight but since Stratfordians like to insist that "shakes spears" is a contrived translation of Tela vibrat, I decided to check into that. I know very little Latin (and even less Greek!) but wiktionary.org is a great resource. Here's what it shows for the first (primary) meanings:

• vibrat — third-person singular present active indicative of vibrō
• vibrō — shake, agitate, brandish
• tēla — nominative/accusative/vocative plural of tēlum
• tēlum — dart, spear, missile

Yep. To deny that 'tela vibrat' translates as 'shakes spears' is just more smoke-blowing by these traditionalist so-called scholars.

The connection to Harvey's flattering speech may be irrelevant, but the idea that "Will" and "Shake-speare" were very appealing pen-names for Edward de Vere seems extremely plausible to me. I think that at some point Edward de Vere happened on this man from Stratford and said "Your name intrigues me. May I buy you a pint or two of fine beer and discuss a business proposition?"

I'm fine with the Stratford man not being the great Bard. Like I said before I don't really care that much. It's the work I love. I hardly know the man. - or even if it was a man. Don't know, don't really care.

But what I do know is that you posted a link to some poems Oxford wrote in his 30s. So, it so happens that De Vere was still a middling poet in his thirties, and yet we are to believe that he became the greatest poet in English before he died. While this would not be impossible it would be very unusual. Not only did the poetry improve, it suffered a sea-change in style.

Keats was not a very good poet at nineteen, but a lot of his early work showed sparks and hints of genius, and by the time he wrote the Hyperion fragments, he was a full on genius, and one can see the similarity between the great Keats and the not so great.

But there is no similarity between the works by De Vere and the works attributed to Shakespeare. I don't mean with respect to content, shared words, or whatever: I refer to technique, meter, sound, imagery, the magic that happens all the time in the plays, and that never happens in the work we know Oxford wrote.

That is my only problem. I am not here to defend the Stratford man. Only to suggest that the difference between the Earl's acknowledged work and the singular magnificence of 'Shakespeare' is so wide as to be almost miraculous. I mean miraculous if it were the same hand that penned both.

That the Stratford man may have been a front man is not my problem. I just have a hard time thinking it could have been Oxford.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

But I'm curious what your references are to Shakespeare's character. He was praised by Londoners who knew his plays but not him personally. As for the glover's son in Stratford:

• He was accused of grain hoarding during a drought-induced famine.
• He filed a lawsuit to recover a 2-shilliong debt ... at the same time he was supposedly in London polishing King Lear.
• He seems to have been on bad terms with Stratford neighbors and much of his family. Nobody stepped forward to eulogize him, or to note his literary work at all, even in contexts where the absence of mention would be quite startling ... were Shakespeare truly the Bard.

Shaksper's death was ignored for almost 7 years, until the Folio was published and the Monument placed. There is evidence that these were both arranged by Oxford's son and son-in-law. (For starters, the Folio was dedicated to "two incomparable brothers", one married to Susan de Vere; the other had been engaged to Susan's sister Bridget.)

As you point out, and as Oxfordians are quick to agree, Stratford's life has no parallel in the human experience, at least if we are to believe Stratfordian tradition. Much incredulity has been made of the disjointedness of Stratford's apparent life, a life that goes from ignominy, to literary brilliance, then back to ignominy, only to be resurrected to literary brilliance again complete with additional unknown, unpublished works seven years after death. It's also nothing short of unbelievable that none of his Stratford acquaintances are familiar with his alleged, traditional literary genius.

But this is the life we are told he supposedly lived, what we are told must be true. I find this aspect of the traditional Shakespeare story to be nothing less than a smoking gun against Stratford authorship.

 

[Swammerdami]

There are HUNDREDS of specific facts that connect Edward de Vere to the plays and poems. Hank Whittemore has a list of 100 reasons, though I'm afraid many of the details are off-line or hard-to-find: He wants to sell his book! Anderson's book provides much more circumstantial evidence, and still the surface is barely scratched. After a while, the enormity of circumstantial evidence removes all reasonable doubt.

I have NOT attempted to summarize the enormity of this evidence. (I've pointed out a few coincidences because they were interesting or relevant to the story I was telling, not because I thought that they were, by themselves, probative.)

And a big Thank You to all for indulging me and letting me flood this thread! I did it mainly for myself: It was fun, and useful to me to gather my thoughts and set them down on paper modern digital memory. The finality of posts imposed discipline: If I were editing an essay on my laptop, I'd never make an end of it, but here we have an expiring Edit window!

Very little of what I've written is original thinking, but I've tried to connect dots in my own way. If anyone thinks I've done an adequate job of this, I'd appreciate a pat on the back and a click on the Reputation Star!

@ WAB - Your point is a good one. But consider what we do know:

1. The man from Stratford almost certainly did NOT write the plays and sonnets. The true author must have been someone who needed a hoaxed authorship.
2. The parallels between the biography and experiences of Edward de Vere and the content of the plays and sonnets are huge. I assume people have read Anderson's and Whittemore's books, and spent several hours watching Oxfordian YouTubes.
3. Many specific hints point to an Oxford authorship, as I've shown in this thread.
4. Whatever the difference in quality, there are similarities between the Oxfordian and Shakespearean canons, in meter, images and devices.

So what should we conclude? If there was a principal author other than Oxford, he must have been closely affiliated with Oxford, writing almost biographically. I can't keep track of all the courtier poets: Did Oxford have TWO sons-in-law or just one who also had a high literary reputation? Do recall that Oxford hired no less than THREE professional playwrights to work with him as private secretaries, and operated Fisher's Folly, a sort of Bohemian club where poets discussed their work.

Could the "whole be greater than the sum of its parts"? Could de Vere, Lyly and Stanley somehow have collaborated to produce verse of a quality none of them could produce alone? This would be unprecedented, but Shake-speare's quality was unprecedented.

In some of the Sonnets, the Ego is very strong. Could Oxford have jotted some ideas, which were fleshed out by his literary son-in-law while leaving intact the personal emphasis on Oxford's Ego? Such scenarios come with their own objections.

We're left with a quandary. I still think that Oxford was the principal Author, but he was surrounded by other top writers who tutored him. It might seem to require super-human effort for a poet like Oxford in his early 30's to improve to the quality of Shake-speare when Oxford was in his 40's, but we know that whoever wrote these poems had nearly super-human ability! Oxford's precociousness is well documented.

The Mystery isn't fully solved. But when Mr. Occam goes slashing with his Razor I think he will be left with a primarily-Oxford Authorship.


BTW, appreciation of the Bard's work and interest in the Authorship are not mutually exclusive and I resent implications to the contrary. If I happen to be intrigued by the phylogenetic relationship between capers and papaya, does that mean I don't notice that capers improve the flavor of my veal piccata?

 

[Swammerdami]

I have learned much while preparing posts for this thread. Just to check facts or get quotes right I have done much Googling. And thanks to all, especially Mr. Moogly for useful links. I have several tabs still open of videos I want to watch.

[Off-topic:]
In my Googling I came upon  Oxfordian_theory_of_Shakespeare_authorship

Though literary scholars reject all alternative authorship candidates, including Oxford, interest in the Oxfordian theory continues....

The convergence of documentary evidence of the type used by academics for authorial attribution – title pages, testimony by other contemporary poets and historians, and official records – sufficiently establishes Shakespeare's authorship for the overwhelming majority of Shakespeare scholars and literary historians, ...

Does anyone also find this summary unfair? "Most literary scholars reject ..." might be fair, but omission of the quantifier 'Most' renders the Wiki summary simply false in my opinion. Is there a cite for the 'overwhelming majority'? If I edited this to read 'overwhelming majority of scholars who've not bothered to peruse the evidence', would my Edit be reverted?

This is all especially reprehensible given the title of the Wiki article. I'm sure there are other higher-level articles where anal-retentive Wiki editors can express their views on the Authorship, but why BEGIN the article on the Oxfordian theory by claiming it's wrong?

(On The.Other.Message.Board, someone wrote "all literary scholars .."; I replied with a list of seven or so contrary thinkers, each with a Literature PhD and got a reply like "Don't you know 'All' means 'Most'? Idiot.")

I admire Wikipedia and consult it frequently, but its model is not without flaws and drawbacks.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Hey Swammerdami, thanks for all the good information. It takes a lot of time and effort to construct those posts. I'm guessing you are a member of the Oxford Fellowship.

The subject of evidence and what constitutes evidence is discussed by Regnier who is himself a lawyer. It's quite the revelation. We as laymen when we hear the phrase "circumstantial evidence" think of evidence that is sub par, coincidental, lacking in authority. But that is hardly the case. Most people would be quite shocked to learn that DNA evidence is itself circumstantial evidence. All forensic evidence is actually circumstantial evidence, but where would we be in our administration of justice without DNA evidence and forensics? We'd be back to seances, ouija boards, angels on pinheads and hearsay.

The simple fact is that there is a plethora of evidence to support Oxfordian authorship and even more evidence to reject Stratfordian authorship. Regnier's video is worth the forty minutes.

[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRAQMQPkcS4[/YOUTUBE]

 

[Swammerdami]

ETA again: Wiki says Oxford was a "court playwright" - I don't suppose there are any extant versions of these in some form somewhere I could look at? Can't find anything yet in a search...

Rather curious, hmmm? It is well documented that de Vere was a playwright, and two mentions of him apply superlatives. (He was "best for comedy"; I don't remember the other quote off-hand.)

Yet the play-scripts, even the titles, of this great playwright have all disappeared. Might not his TWO (I remember now) very literary sons-in-law have wanted to preserve their father-in-law's work, perhaps collecting his many plays into a Folio? Hmmm.

 

[Bomb#20]

How things developed after that isn't clear. Some think Oxford, with physical resemblance to Shaksper, might have participated in the theater directly. It would be difficult for the lame Oxford to perform on stage, but perhaps that's why he had roles like Hamlet's father's ghost. But such speculations seem unlikely and unnecessary.

Unlikely, yes, but unnecessary? Do Oxfordians generally consider Oxford acting in Shakespeare plays a viable possibility? It would account for the otherwise remarkable statistics of word-usage in the plays; but it's hard to see how he could have kept it a secret.

It occurs to me that if we assume Oxford did write the plays and slip them to Shakespeare, but that he did not personally act in them, then it pretty much forces us to picture Oxford repeatedly attending performances of his plays, sitting in the audience over and over, silently mouthing to himself the words he'd written -- but in a most peculiar way. While the rest of the audience is focused on Hamlet and Ophelia and Claudius and so forth, Oxford is focused on Hamlet's father's ghost. And the same thing happens in play after play: Oxford keeps going to see his works performed, not to watch the plays themselves but to watch his own front-man. Which raises a possibility: was Oxford in love with Shakespeare? People have long been commenting on homoerotic themes in the plays and poems.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Pardon me for interrupting again. This presentation by Tom Regnier is superior to the one I posted earlier. Much of the material is the same, only better presented. If anyone would care to watch this video, fortyish minutes worth, I would be glad to discuss.

I am certainly no expert on Shakespeare but the evidence Regnier presents seems overwhelming. One item of interest was the name change for Polonius in later revisions of Hamlet from Corambis to Polonius. Why was this done and what does it have to do with de Vere? Watch the video.

Tom Regnier – Justice Stevens, the Law of Evidence, and the Shakespeare Authorship Question

[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNcc7_KOnzU[/YOUTUBE]

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

In reading Looney's Shakespeare Identified in Edward De Vere, I was struck by his discussing Shakspere's (the Stratford businessman) will. Looney writes:

If, then, there be any truth in the tradition of Jonson's visit to William Shakspere just before the latter's death, it quite bears the appearance, in view of the respective parts which Jonson, Herminge and Condell played in the publication of the First Folio edition, of having had something to do with the projected publication: the interlineation of the actors' names into a will that had already been drawn up being possibly one of the results of the visit. The non appearance of Jonson's own name in the will was, under this assumption, a serious defect in the arrangement: the principals were evidently not experts at subterfuge. It was the loss of the last chance of bringing into the Stratford records of William Shakspere anything or anyone connected with contemporary literature: a loss which all Jonson's efforts years after Shakspere's death could not make good. The respective roles which Ben Jonson and William Shakspere had to play in this final comedy had evidently been badly adjusted.

I love his use of the word "comedy" as De Vere was praised during his life for being a master at writing comedy. It's as if De Vere has the last and the lasting laugh, having concocted a comedy that has fooled literally millions.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

The internal evidence of the plays themselves -- the statistical patterns in the word usage -- makes it pretty certain that whoever wrote the plays must have been one of the actors who performed them.

https://www.shakespeareauthorship.com/ox7.html

It's one thing to hypothesize that a nobleman such as Oxford secretly wrote the plays and slipped them to a shill; but it's quite another to hypothesize that Oxford was on stage in disguise, over and over, and was never recognized.

Of course we can't rule out the possibility that Shakespeare was fronting for a different actor; but the text statistics allow identification of which roles the author played, and it lines up with what little is known of Shakespeare's own roles -- the ghost in Hamlet for instance.

All of Shakspere's roles in plays are traditional inventions. Even his being the ghost in Hamlet is a traditional claim that appeared 70 years after his death. The name "Shakespeare" appears twice in records, but only in lists, and never Shakspere of Stratford. Neither Shakespeare nor Shakspere is ever mentioned as a writer, or as playing a role in any documents. Looney details this quite well in chapter IX of his book. It is quite odd given the traditional tale of the author's life. Other writers and roles are identified by name, but never Shakspere - or Shakespeare.

 

[Swammerdami]

I now see I got a date wrong. The Shakespeare coat of arms was issued in 1596 (estimated cost = £20). Ben Jonson's sarcastic "Not without mustard" is from a 1599 play. (These dates may seem unimportant, but I was using them as part of an argument.)

Between 1570 and 1630, there were 45 'gentlemen' in Stratford-upon-Avon out of a population of around 2,200 (in 1595). 28 had been born into the title; the other 17 were tradesmen who, like Shakespeare, successfully applied for the status.

I found this looking at the Chronology appendix in Wilson's Shakespeare: the Evidence. I was looking for the event I've bold-faced, but may as well list essentially every reference to the Stratford man during the 1590's in that chronology.

• March 1592 - John Shakespeare named as a recusant.
• 1595 - Shakespeare named as one of Lord Chamberlain's Men
• 20 Oct 1596 - Renewed application for a coat of arms is made in the name of John Shakespeare.
• 29 Nov 1596 - Shakespeare and three others issued with Writ of Attachment to keep the peace [in London].
• 1597 - Shakespeare reported for non-payment of 5 shillings tax.
• 4 Feb 1598 - Stratford records show Shakespeare as owner of corn and malt and living at New Place [in Stratford].
• 1 Oct 1598 - Shakespeare listed as defaulter for non-payment of taxes in the parish of St. Helen's Church, Bishopsgate.
• 6 Oct 1599 - Shakespeare again recorded as owing taxes in the parish of St. Helen's Church, Bishopsgate.
• 1602 - [Shakespeare buys expensive real estate in Stratford]

Wilson's book, BTW, is decidedly pro-Stratfordian. The only real mention of Edward de Vere is a paragraph alleging that he once farted when bowing to the Queen!

Rather then hunting through Wilson's book for his discussion of that Writ of Attachment, I typed the date into Google, and got this hit. Interesting item, but mainly it serves to confirm that someone going by the name William Shakespeare was doing something in London at that time.

On the matter of Shakespeare portraying Hamlet's father's ghost: Am I the only one almost certain this is some sort of clever "wink"? The ghost was a tiny role, speaking in just one scene. What better way to hint at "Shakespeare's" ephemeral nature than to allege that he played a ghost!

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

It is quite the historical oddity and coincidence that de Vere's literary exploits went silent just as the illiterate Stratford man's began. De Vere was an acclaimed poet lyricist dramatist as a young man and there are still works to his name, though no dramas. Why would such a literary career just end abruptly without explanation? Obviously it did not.

 

[Swammerdami]

It is quite the historical oddity and coincidence that de Vere's literary exploits went silent just as the illiterate Stratford man's began. De Vere was an acclaimed poet lyricist dramatist as a young man and there are still works to his name, though no dramas. Why would such a literary career just end abruptly without explanation? Obviously it did not.

Especially since at the transition time you speak of, Edward de Vere specifically explained his absence from court by his retirement to his country home to pursue writing.

Reviewing the thread, I think a very strong case for De Vere has been made. I suspect that those still unconvinced have not studied the thread carefully.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

It is quite the historical oddity and coincidence that de Vere's literary exploits went silent just as the illiterate Stratford man's began. De Vere was an acclaimed poet lyricist dramatist as a young man and there are still works to his name, though no dramas. Why would such a literary career just end abruptly without explanation? Obviously it did not.

Especially since at the transition time you speak of, Edward de Vere specifically explained his absence from court by his retirement to his country home to pursue writing.

Reviewing the thread, I think a very strong case for De Vere has been made. I suspect that those still unconvinced have not studied the thread carefully.

The thread is at most an introduction to an introduction to the evidence. If a person is interested in a subject they can learn. There are numerous videos and books out there making the evidentiary case.

Having watched my share of informative videos I ran across this one which is about the portrait contained on the first folio. The nice thing about the de Vere theory is that like evolution theory it keeps on giving new evidence. This short vid is worth the watch. Try to ignore the creepy background music.

The "Impossible Doublet" in the Droeshout engraving of William Shakespeare

[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCQt4pOMUqc[/YOUTUBE]

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I've accessed the Oxford Authorship Site and read two of the 'tin letters' TGGM mentioned. Already caught two words I am unfamiliar with: sithence and satisfice. Could be typos? I don't recall seeing them in Shakespeare, or anywhere else for that matter.

At any rate, this is exciting!

ETA: not typos, just words I don't recollect seeing.

If you continue on the investigative, evidentiary path on the Shakespeare Authorship Question you will eventually have a paradigm shift in your appreciation and understanding of the entire Shakespeare canon. Correlated with the life of de Vere it makes sense that the author was writing from experience, same as every other writer in history. Why are we told that Shakespeare did not interject his life and his experiences into his writings? Doesn't that seem preposterous? And it is absolutely preposterous for anyone who has ever written anything to attempt to believe that writing is not from experience. We're told that the Stratford man learned all about it by talking with his chums at taverns.

In Elizabethan times a commoner could not write to or about nobility, even if such a person could even write. It was common practice to have one's hand cut off for slighting nobility, yet these plays are nothing less than political dynamite. And the sonnets are directed directly to the earl of Southampton. The entire traditional accounting that these writings are from a genius, illiterate, Stratford businessman is the whopper of whoppers.

I think the myth is allowed to persist for monied interests and because many people are not so very interested in the subject.

 

[Bronzeage]

I've been reading about the Shakespeare Authorship controversy since I was in 7th grade. In all that time, no one has ever presented evidence or made a compelling enough argument to change the minds of most English speaking people.

Also, in all that time, I've had the opportunity to know a few playwrights. I can't imagine any of them allowing someone else to take credit for their words, or present someone else's as their own.

The Shamspeare conspiracy breaks down on one simple point, which is the same point that kill World Trade Center truthers and moon landing hoaxes, mainly that too many people would have to be in on the secret. More than a hundred people were needed to put on a play at the Globe theater. All it would take is one disgruntled stage hand, or jealous actor, to reveal it, if not for money, certainly for spite.

We see Hamlet and McBeth as high art, but for Bill Shakespeare, it was commercial hack work. We want our art to be created by artists who do it for the love of their art, and Shakespeare was just a working class guy. That just won't do. Being a working class guy, I find that mildly offensive, but I'm used to it by now. He took his working class work ethic to the theater. He was good at it and when he had enough money, he did what every working class man does, which is quit working.