The Shakespeare Authorship Controversy

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I edited my prior post while you were posting yours.

In answer to your question: I do not know, I am not an expert in these things.

If you could answer my questions we could continue without this misunderstanding.

Just a thought.

It's all good WAB, I don't perceive misunderstandings or problems.

When I use the terms noble and common I am referring to the class structure that existed at the time. I most emphatically do not subscribe to any kind of class privilege. It certainly exists in that some of us are born more privileged with more resources both material and cognitive. But it's fair to say that the best Gretzky and the best Shakespeare never were, those persons' stars just didn't align. And philosophically I'm egalitarian, it's even in my profile - which I haven't been to in a long, long time.

Concerning the authorship question what I believe is proper is that with all the evidence the question gain academic acceptance, that it become legitimate academic investigation, and not be dismissed as crackpottery, that that "certainty" about the man from Stratford become uncertainty. I am not advocating that it become a creationism/science conflict whereby students in classes get down and dirty. That would be bad. But certainly there is room in academia to entertain the authorship question, and this is the proper thing to do given the evidence and questions over the centuries.

I make the case for De Vere because of evidence. Am I dogmatic? Not if I keep and open mind and entertain the possibility that despite the evidence for De Vere it may indeed be Stratford, which I do. That I defend my position, perhaps too aggressively, I admit, is my misfortune.

 

[Bomb#20]

The man who composed the Shakespeare Canon was noble minded, proud of his noble ancestry, not a fan of the commoner.

Or was able to put himself in other people's shoes.

In reading Anderson the women in De Vere’s world are literate. They write letters, keep journals, record poetry, etc., the case of Anne Cornwallis being just one example. Are we to simply say this is because they were part of the nobility?

Um, yes? Literacy was a lot more common for noblewomen than commoners.

The point I’m making is that the Shakespeare Canon deals with noble, literate women.

It deals with nobles in general. Plays were entertainment and the nobility typically led more interesting lives than commoners. What would be so startling about a commoner writing about nobles because that's where the money was, and making his noblewomen literate because noblewomen were literate, and conducting his private affairs in accordance not with his fictional characters' lives but with his own middle-class background?

But then again if as orthodoxy argues, this Stratford man was so different, so genius and so common at the same time...

Being genius doesn't automatically confer the ability to project oneself hundreds of years into the future and adopt whatever values future people will think one ought to have had.

(Speaking of which, not so different. There's an obvious example of a near-contemporary who was likewise so genius and so common at the same time, who came out of an utterly ordinary background, whose name echoes down the ages with his achievements, and yet who was a man of his time and wasted much of his life on what moderns see as mindless pursuits directly opposed to his real accomplishments: Isaac Newton.)

Not saying TSM wrote the canon -- I wasn't there and I can prove it. Just saying there are strong arguments and weak ones, and the illiterate daughters are one of the weak ones.

 

[WAB]

Moogly -

You are good. My suspicions have been alleviated! No worries.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

(Speaking of which, not so different. There's an obvious example of a near-contemporary who was likewise so genius and so common at the same time, who came out of an utterly ordinary background, whose name echoes down the ages with his achievements, and yet who was a man of his time and wasted much of his life on what moderns see as mindless pursuits directly opposed to his real accomplishments: Isaac Newton.)

But Newton is not an evidentiary mystery. Do you see Newton as an evidentiary mystery? Remember, we are talking about an evidentiary corpus that casts doubt on orthodoxy.

Is there any evidence that suggests questioning the connection between Newton and Newton? Has there ever been any controversy that has spanned the time since Newton questioning the association between Newton and the work of Newton? Do we lack evidence about Newton from his contemporaries? Are there significantly varied spellings of Newton's name? Are there materials with Newton's name on them that are clearly not the work of Newton? Did Newton ever hyphenate his name? Did Newton ever sign his name in a different spelling?

Did Newton die in obscurity? Did any connection between Newton and the work of Newton have to wait until seven years after his death to be cryptically associated? Were paintings and portraits invented so we could see what Newton looked like? Have monuments to Newton been changed over the centuries to reflect orthodoxy and the preferred mythos? Do we have a complete lack of correspondence between Newton and his contemporaries? Are all attributions to Newton posthumous? Does anyone credibly assert that Isaac Newton is a front and a fraud? Is there any evidence that Isaac Newton is a front and a fraud? Are there any Supreme Court Justices or other notable persons that think Newton was a front and a fraud?

If you are going to use this line of argument then you must answer all those questions. Or you can simply see those questions as a response to a strawman argument.

 

[WAB]

(Speaking of which, not so different. There's an obvious example of a near-contemporary who was likewise so genius and so common at the same time, who came out of an utterly ordinary background, whose name echoes down the ages with his achievements, and yet who was a man of his time and wasted much of his life on what moderns see as mindless pursuits directly opposed to his real accomplishments: Isaac Newton.)

But Newton is not an evidentiary mystery. Do you see Newton as an evidentiary mystery? Remember, we are talking about an evidentiary corpus that casts doubt on orthodoxy.

Is there any evidence that suggests questioning the connection between Newton and Newton? Has there ever been any controversy that has spanned the time since Newton questioning the association between Newton and the work of Newton? Do we lack evidence about Newton from his contemporaries? Are there significantly varied spellings of Newton's name? Are there materials with Newton's name on them that are clearly not the work of Newton? Did Newton ever hyphenate his name? Did Newton ever sign his name in a different spelling?

Did Newton die in obscurity? Did any connection between Newton and the work of Newton have to wait until seven years after his death to be cryptically associated? Were paintings and portraits invented so we could see what Newton looked like? Have monuments to Newton been changed over the centuries to reflect orthodoxy and the preferred mythos? Do we have a complete lack of correspondence between Newton and his contemporaries? Are all attributions to Newton posthumous? Does anyone credibly assert that Isaac Newton is a front and a fraud? Is there any evidence that Isaac Newton is a front and a fraud? Are there any Supreme Court Justices or other notable persons that think Newton was a front and a fraud?

If you are going to use this line of argument then you must answer all those questions. Or you can simply see those questions as a response to a strawman argument.

It will be at least eleven hours before this fine jailkeeper turns me right side up, uncuffs me, and lets me at that juicy laptop again, at which time, Moogly, Swammi, and Bomb, I shall regale you fine fellows with my Shakespeare and Ye Parallels With Frank Zappa Theory.

In this theory, which is completely unlike the Brontosaurus Theory, I will explain why I don't think it's all that difficult for me to imagine a total douchebag also being a super - duper amazing literary genius.

NOT that Zappa was a total douchebag! Perish the thought!

But he WAS a super - duper amazing genius, largely an autodidact, who came from comfort, not hoighty -toighty upper "class" nobility, who stood head and shoulders above virtually anyone else in the popular music industry in his time, AND sort of looked contemptously down his rather large proboscis at the "common rabble" ...

Egads...enough for now.

I am done dictating this summary of my theory to Eric, who types on the Kindle for me. He's a nice guy, that Eric, but he really kisses up to the Romans...

...bloody jailer's pet most like...

Terrific race, the Romans. Tuuuh -riffic...

 

[Bomb#20]

... Did Newton ever sign his name in a different spelling? ...

You and I seem to have very different concepts of how discussion works. From my point of view what I wrote was perfectly clear: I was addressing one specific argument you made: "this Stratford man was so different, so genius and so common at the same time". You appeared to be implying this combination was somehow contradictory and implausible per se; so I showed why it wasn't. That's how discussion works in my view: one person makes a point and the other person accepts it as a good point or explains why he thinks it isn't a good point.

But from your point of view, apparently I was trying to show TSM wrote the corpus. Apparently I was explaining away every difficulty with the Stratfordian hypothesis by analogy with Newton. Apparently I'm not supposed to note problems in one anti-Stratford argument until I have a refutation for all anti-Stratford arguments. Yours is a discussion dynamic that doesn't work for me; and since none of the Oxfordians here has so far made the slightest attempt to address the reason I offered for why de Vere probably wasn't the author, it doesn't seem like there's much more for us to talk about. I look forward to more of your interesting posts; and with luck maybe you'll find a critic to hone them against who's willing to put up with your debating style.

 

[Swammerdami]

Some miscellaneous remarks.
Reading a site like Oxfraud to learn how Oxfordians think is like reading QAnon or Trump's tweets to learn how liberal Democrats think. For starters, I've never heard of an Oxfordian who claims that a "commoner" would necessarily lack the talent to write the works of Shakespeare. The incongruity between the experiences evident in the plays and sonnets and what is known of Shaksper's life IS a topic that comes up, but that's not "elitism" -- it's fact-based deduction.

One incongruity I've noted is that Stratford's biographers consider him a good man: they call him "gentle", cite his generosity, make him a loyal hard-working family man. And yet, when faced with evidence like his son-in-law ignoring him, the historian William Camden ignoring him, his illiterate daughters and so on, they hypothesize that he was disliked: Camden knew full well who Shakespeare was but had some grudge against that family! Make up your minds, Stratfordians!

Is it possible that the Great Bard allowed his daughters to grow up illiterate? Sure!
Is it possible that William Camden, Dr. John Hall and other Stratfordians had some grudge, so didn't write any eulogy? Or that any eulogy was lost? Sure!
Is it possible that every letter by Shakespeare, every manuscript or book he ever owned was lost in fire or flood? Despite that such items would have HUGE value to a collector (so huge that forgeries are common)? Sure!

But at some point one must wonder if all these denials add up to something. I've discussed this above, in post #1 no less, but I'll repeat that here. Pay special attention to "Read the pdf by Stanford's Professor Sturrock accessible from this link to see that among 25 playwrights of that era, and ten binary criteria of notability, only WS satisfies zero of the criteria. John Webster. (1578-1632) is next to bottom place with three criterial satisfactions."

...

Shall I set down the rest of the great Conjecture which constitute the Giant Biography of William Shakespeare? It would strain the Unabridged Dictionary to hold them. He is a brontosaur: nine bones and six hundred barrels of plaster.
... All the rest of his vast history, as furnished by the biographers, is built up, course upon course, of guesses, inferences, theories, conjectures--an Eiffel Tower of artificialities rising sky-high from a very flat and very thin foundation of inconsequential facts....

Just for starters, here are some arguments against a Shaksper (WS) authorship:

• No letters written by WS have turned up.
• The only letter to WS that's turned up is a never-sent request for a cash loan.
• No books owned by, or otherwise associated with WS have turned up.
• No manuscripts have turned up. None of Shakespeare's children, grandchildren, nieces or nephews every claimed their close relation penned a poem or story for them.
• No eulogies were written to WS until several years after his death.
• Documents that imply anyone in Stratford knew WS was employed in the London theater — never mind as a playwright/poet — are exceedingly rare. Dr. John Hall kept a journal, even mentioning a Stratford neighbor who was "an excellente poet", but doesn't mention WS. John Hall was married to WS's favorite daughter.
• Camden, a semi-official reporter on Stratford for WS's adult life and who does mention London theatrical doings, passes up multiple opportunities and leaves no reference to WS.
• There is no record of WS ever going to school. (Sure, school records were burned. Still, reconstructions are possible. A mate of the WS youth might have attested "Will was pretty good with words way back in 6th form." No one ever did.)
• As far as is known, WS never traveled abroad or on a ship, nor did he work as a soldier, teacher nor in a law office nor any of several professions consistent with the playwright's knowledge.
• As far as is known, WS was friends with no noblemen.
• Although widely considered a principal Player in the Lord Chamberlain's Men, no role is alleged to be WS's except ... the ghost of Hamlet's father!
• While there are many mentions of WS from that time, very very few of them mention Stratford, or attest clearly that the writer/speaker knew the poet personally. An exception are legal documents which show (a) WS was charged with poaching near Stratford, being a theater ruffian in London, then hoarding in Stratford; (b) WS was granted a coat-of-arms ca 1596; (c) WS served as witness in two minor proceedings; (d) WS filed suit in Stratford (at the same time he was allegedly putting the final touches on King Lear) against a customer of his Stratford butcher shop, seeking payment of a 2-shilling debt and other redress; and (e) WS's much remarked-on last will and testament.
• Some references to WS-as-writer from the 1605-1609 period seem to imply that the writer was deceased, though WS died in 1616.
• WS had two children (daughters) who grew to adulthood. It appears neither of them could read or write.

Stratfordians have trite answers:
"Papers are destroyed by fire and flood. Biographical data on other playwrights are also missing."
Wrong. Read the pdf by Stanford's Professor Sturrock accessible from this link to see that among 25 playwrights of that era, and ten binary criteria of notability, only WS satisfies zero of the criteria. John Webster. (1578-1632) is next to bottom place with three criterial satisfactions.

"A typical rural gentleman of that era was likely to have illiterate daughters."
We're not speaking of a 'typical rural gentleman.' We're speaking of an alleged lover of words and learning, perhaps the greatest word-smith ever to have lived. Did this great lover of words allow his children to grow up illiterate?

Off-the-wall speculation follows?
I think Oxford and Shaksper may have each led a double life, with Oxford sometimes assuming the name WS. Oxford was busy and lame so could hardly have been an actor. But the role of Hamlet's father's ghost might be just the sort of minor role this aging lame man might want to play, almost as an inside joke. (Surely, the fact that this very minor role, with potential double meaning, is the ONLY role attributed to Shakespeare is a bit of mystery, no?)

Could Oxford have passed unnoticed as WS? Remember that this was before the age of photography; celebrities passing anonymously would be common. Perhaps there was some physical resemblance between Shaksper and Oxford. (The principals of the theater company would have been in on the hoax.)

 

[Swammerdami]

While clicking around I stumbled on an interesting paragraph by Ben Jonson. Oxfordians believe Jonson was a key contributor to the perpetuation of the hoax, but also believe that, like Peacham and several others, Jonson couldn't resist giving clues about the hoax.

In Discoveries Made Upon Men and Matter by Ben Jonson we find, immediately after a note about Shakspeare

De Shakspeare nostrat.—Augustus in Hat.—I remember the players have often mentioned it as an honour to Shakspeare, that in his writing (whatsoever he penned) he never blotted out a line. My answer hath been, “Would he had blotted a thousand,” which they thought a malevolent speech....

Ingeniorum discrimina.—Not. 1....
...
Not. 7.—Some, again who, after they have got authority, or, which is less, opinion, by their writings, to have read much, dare presently to feign whole books and authors, and lie safely. For what never was, will not easily be found, not by the most curious. [my bolding]

Not. 8.—And some, by a cunning protestation against all reading, and false venditation of their own naturals, think to divert the sagacity of their readers from themselves, and cool the scent of their own fox-like thefts; when yet they are so rank, as a man may find whole pages together usurped from one author; their necessities compelling them to read for present use, which could not be in many books; and so come forth more ridiculously and palpably guilty than those who, because they cannot trace, they yet would slander their industry.

Who or what is Jonson referring to?

 

[WAB]

Swammi, et al,

I am currently reading this.

http://www.wjray.net/shakespeare_pa...hn8H0B7197Zr5d88z9N3mV6p-OXtvLS1lvPZWzWwVdJOc


I believe the link was posted on the Facebook group I joined, called ShakesVere. You should check that group out, if you haven't. Mark Anderson and William Ray, the author of the above document, and many notable Oxfordians, are members, and active.

I will address some of your comments and questions a bit later...

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Swammi, et al,

I am currently reading this.

http://www.wjray.net/shakespeare_pa...hn8H0B7197Zr5d88z9N3mV6p-OXtvLS1lvPZWzWwVdJOc


I believe the link was posted on the Facebook group I joined, called ShakesVere. You should check that group out, if you haven't. Mark Anderson and William Ray, the author of the above document, and many notable Oxfordians, are members, and active.

I will address some of your comments and questions a bit later...

Couldn't get in. Would be fun.

 

[Swammerdami]

One reason I consider "traditional scholars" on the authorship question to be disingenuous, close-minded and/or ignorant is their refusal to acknowledge certain mysteries. Even if one is 100% certain Shaksper wrote the Sonnets, doesn't the weird dedication still pose a puzzle? The weird epistle in a Troilus edition, Peacham's anagram, etc. all merit some discussion, no? Can anyone point to serious thought given to these questions by the traditionalists?

All historians agree that Edward de Vere was hugely involved with the theater, and most that he was the father of the Fair Youth's betrothed, yet the biographer Ian Wilson can't bring himself to mention de Vere except in a spiteful paragraph claiming that Oxford once farted in the Queen's presence!

Swammi, et al,

I am currently reading this.

http://www.wjray.net/shakespeare_pa...hn8H0B7197Zr5d88z9N3mV6p-OXtvLS1lvPZWzWwVdJOc

Wow. Thanks for the link! I am reading it; indeed may make a special trip to a print-shop to print it out.

That pdf covers a lot of topics (I didn't realize the "canopy" in Sonnet CXXV was so much discussed!) but so far the most interesting are right at the beginning.

I'd like to read a thread or good web-page on the topic "Anagrams, Cryptograms, Acrostics, etc. throughout History." Acrostic poems were quite common in the 19th century I think, but all this fun messaging seems largely a lost art today. (One can buy puzzle magazines with cryptograms and many newspapers publish the Jumble anagram puzzles, but these aren't the same as weaving hidden messages into poems and dedications.)

I think a good history of these devices would confirm that circa 1600 was a high point of this art. In post #94 I mentioned the Peacham anagram identifying a hidden writer "Tibi nom de Vere." Isn't this anagram — if we determine it's very unlikely to be coincidence — smoking-gun proof, if not of the Shakespeare authorship, at least that Peacham thought there were important hidden-author writings by de Vere?

In post #94 I mentioned an anagram by Galileo Galilei, that was published just one year after the mysterious dedication of the Sonnets. I provided no details; following are two links to this anagram.

http://galileo.rice.edu/lib/student_work/astronomy96/tdunn/venus.html
https://www.physics.rutgers.edu/~croft/ANAGRAM.htm​

Looking again, these links are hardly worth the bother. Here's the key excerpt from the second link:

But Galileo also knew that anyone else with a telescope and the idea to look at Venus (e.g. Castelli) could scoop him. By Dec. of 1610, Venus had waned to a half lit phase and he could wait no longer. To gain some extra observing time Galileo published his results (in a letter to Kepler I believe) in a Latin anagram that he promised to unscramble later. Galileo's anagram was as follows.

"Haec immatura a me iam frustra leguntur o.y."
or "These are at present too young to be read by me"

By New Years Day of 1611 Venus had moved around to the near side of the sun, it's crescent phase had begun to emerge, and Galileo unscrambled the anagram.

"Cynthiae figuras aemulatur mater amorum"
or "The mother of love imitates the shape of Cynthia"

In plain words Venus (the mother of love) manifests all the phases that the Moon
(Cynthia) goes through (and hence Venus must pass on both sides of the sun!!!)

Girolamo Cardano (d. 1576) was also of that era; it would be nice to confirm that the "Cardano Grill" described in the Ray pdf was notable enough to be in use for a cipher. I'm embarrassed that I didn't think of this myself, but the arrangement of the Sonnets' dedication into three inverted triangles is quite peculiar, and suggestive of a hidden message. 6-2-4 are the sizes of the triangles and of the name "Edward de Vere." Applying the Cardano Grill yields "These Sonnets all by Ever (the Forth T)." (Skimming ahead in the Ray pdf — which I've not fully read — I see he addresses the "the Forth T" part as well.)

Finding hidden messages like this is often taken as a sign of crackpottery! One can invent lots of hidden messages if one strains to do so. Whether a deciphering is valid or not requires difficult probabilistic analysis. But the 6-2-4 arrangement of this very peculiar dedication gives much credence to this effort.

Was the over-use of periods — after every single word in the case of the Sonnets' dedication — in wide-spread use in that era?

Another acrostic-type "proof" is mentioned in the Ray pdf and warrants investigation:

The four letters of his name would occur with such remarkable consistency and position across the four lines that the brand EO or EOX, for earl of Oxford, would show up as a result. These brands date from the `Hundredth Sundrie Flowres', the first narrative poems, and into the Sonnets. Moreover, writers honoring Oxford, such as the example of Jonson's introduction, also incorporated the diagonal Vere alignments. This discovery ranks with Rollett's and Roper's as a reliable identification system to locate Oxford's creations. Far from there being no proof of De Vere as Shakespeare, the proof is non-random and ubiquitous.

I am appending the first and last paragraphs of the thread's OP. The first was an apology: Pursuing these pages and Youtubes is taking up much of my time. I apologize again to others who've fallen into the same rabbit-hole.

I find no mention of the Shakespeare Authorship controversy here at TFT.Org, except in a very brief review of the movie Anonymous. (If this oversight is deliberate, I ask TFT management to quickly expunge this thread. )
...
Coincidences with odds of a trillion-to-one happen somewhere every day (cf. Littlewood's Law) so those who know a little math will jeer if I mention 2 or 3 coincidences, pretending I claim they're probative. But there are scores of coincidences connecting Oxford to the writings, and odds increase....

 

[WAB]

Swammi, Moogli, et al,

I have a lot to do, and a LOT to say still, so let's keep this thread going.

Ahem...

First: I want to say, and I apologize in advance if this is insulting,


BUT, a lot of the so-called evidence for Oxford authorship is quite obviously...er...contrived. I am not saying made up from whole cloth. I am not accusing anyone of lying.

A LOT of the evidence for Oxford is...er...a bit on the whackadoodly-oodly side. It smacks of rather excited, and exaggerated conspiracy-theory stuff. Kind of akin to Ancient Alien theory.

...phone call...will return post haste, toot-sweet, and forthwith and even fifthwith, forsooth and hereunto and all...buddieeyyhh...itttt...bidddiyyeeeeh..eh...all that stuff /Porky Pig

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Swammi, Moogli, et al,

I have a lot to do, and a LOT to say still, so let's keep this thread going.

Ahem...

First: I want to say, and I apologize in advance if this is insulting,


BUT, a lot of the so-called evidence for Oxford authorship is quite obviously...er...contrived. I am not saying made up from whole cloth. I am not accusing anyone of lying.

A LOT of the evidence for Oxford is...er...a bit on the whackadoodly-oodly side. It smacks of rather excited, and exaggerated conspiracy-theory stuff. Kind of akin to Ancient Alien theory.

...phone call...will return post haste, toot-sweet, and forthwith and even fifthwith, forsooth and hereunto and all...buddieeyyhh...itttt...bidddiyyeeeeh..eh...all that stuff /Porky Pig

If that is so, if the case for De Vere is so weak and easily dismissed, what is the reason Stratfordians will not make their case in a courtroom setting? And they can pocket a lot of money in the process, not to mention the mountains of cred they will carry forever. If everyone is simply after the truth lets find truth where we always find truth, in the courtroom where evidence matters most. I mean, if it's crackpottery how in the world can supreme court justices find merit with Oxford? It's called reasonable doubt, yes? It isn't a popularity contest anymore when evidence matters most.

And lets not forget that the authorship question is two parts, only being secondly about De Vere. It's primarily about the Stratford man and whether he is the author.

One reason I consider "traditional scholars" on the authorship question to be disingenuous, close-minded and/or ignorant is their refusal to acknowledge certain mysteries. Even if one is 100% certain Shaksper wrote the Sonnets, doesn't the weird dedication still pose a puzzle? The weird epistle in a Troilus edition, Peacham's anagram, etc. all merit some discussion, no? Can anyone point to serious thought given to these questions by the traditionalists?

Can't speak for all those folks but when it came to the changing of the monument some scholars insist the primary evidence just wrong, for example that Dugdale's original work was in error. Isn't that a bit like saying the election wasn't right? And the other thing they do regularly is simply ignore the strongest evidence, refuse to recognize or discuss it. And I can understand their reticence, they have a lot to lose. They're less after truth and more after maintaining their power and their industry.

 

[WAB]

Swammi, Moogli, et al,

I have a lot to do, and a LOT to say still, so let's keep this thread going.

Ahem...

First: I want to say, and I apologize in advance if this is insulting,


BUT, a lot of the so-called evidence for Oxford authorship is quite obviously...er...contrived. I am not saying made up from whole cloth. I am not accusing anyone of lying.

A LOT of the evidence for Oxford is...er...a bit on the whackadoodly-oodly side. It smacks of rather excited, and exaggerated conspiracy-theory stuff. Kind of akin to Ancient Alien theory.

...phone call...will return post haste, toot-sweet, and forthwith and even fifthwith, forsooth and hereunto and all...buddieeyyhh...itttt...bidddiyyeeeeh..eh...all that stuff /Porky Pig

If that is so, if the case for De Vere is so weak and easily dismissed, what is the reason Stratfordians will not make their case in a courtroom setting? And they can pocket a lot of money in the process, not to mention the mountains of cred they will carry forever. If everyone is simply after the truth lets find truth where we always find truth, in the courtroom where evidence matters most. I mean, if it's crackpottery how in the world can supreme court justices find merit with Oxford? It's called reasonable doubt, yes? It isn't a popularity contest anymore when evidence matters most.

And lets not forget that the authorship question is two parts, only being secondly about De Vere. It's primarily about the Stratford man and whether he is the author.

One reason I consider "traditional scholars" on the authorship question to be disingenuous, close-minded and/or ignorant is their refusal to acknowledge certain mysteries. Even if one is 100% certain Shaksper wrote the Sonnets, doesn't the weird dedication still pose a puzzle? The weird epistle in a Troilus edition, Peacham's anagram, etc. all merit some discussion, no? Can anyone point to serious thought given to these questions by the traditionalists?

Can't speak for all those folks but when it came to the changing of the monument some scholars insist the primary evidence just wrong, for example that Dugdale's original work was in error. Isn't that a bit like saying the election wasn't right? And the other thing they do regularly is simply ignore the strongest evidence, refuse to recognize or discuss it. And I can understand their reticence, they have a lot to lose. They're less after truth and more after maintaining their power and their industry.

Moogli, why should Shakespearean scholars bother to waste time and no doubt money to take on a group of quack conspiracy theorists who get overly excited about each and every "clue" someone digs up about their favorite glamour idol?

I am done with this thread! YAY!

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Moogli, why should Shakespearean scholars bother to waste time and no doubt money to take on a group of quack conspiracy theorists who get overly excited about each and every "clue" someone digs up about their favorite glamour idol?

Yes, they do peddle that line to great advantage, banking on popularity based on status quo. But that does not address the larger question of how it is that persons, supreme court justices and other notables, after seeing the evidence, are convinced the Stratford man theory is the real crackpottery.

In the end I think the Stratfordian dynamic is more along religious lines, more of a comforting faith position, no uncertainty to contend with, no evidence to try to explain, just keep peddling the standard miracle story. Jonathan Bate is the only scholar who has ever agreed to sit down and talk the evidence to my knowledge, though not in a courtroom type setting obviously.

 

[WAB]

Moogli, why should Shakespearean scholars bother to waste time and no doubt money to take on a group of quack conspiracy theorists who get overly excited about each and every "clue" someone digs up about their favorite glamour idol?

Yes, they do peddle that line to great advantage, banking on popularity based on status quo. But that does not address the larger question of how it is that persons, supreme court justices and other notables, after seeing the evidence, are convinced the Stratford man theory is the real crackpottery.

In the end I think the Stratfordian dynamic is more along religious lines, more of a comforting faith position, no uncertainty to contend with, no evidence to try to explain, just keep peddling the standard miracle story. Jonathan Bate is the only scholar who has ever agreed to sit down and talk the evidence to my knowledge, though not in a courtroom type setting obviously.

Moogli,

I take it back!

I was angry when I made my last post, not at you and Swammi, but at some of the people at ShakesVere, and a few people at TFT.

But now that I'm back to my rational self, may we begin this discussion anew?

I propose that we take it as assumed that your anti-Stratfordian position has been affirmed, at least in this thread, due to the paucity of any evidential defense of TSM. Hence, as far as the thread is concerned, the Stratfordian position has lost the case. The gavel has fallen, and judgment hath passed.

Okay?

Now, I suggest we proceed with streamlining our attention on proving the case for Oxford, and forget about dismissing TSM. He hath beene forthwith and even fifthwith hereunto verily and thereby and hereby also and sooth, by GEOrge and ay, marry and let's throw in another verily henceforth and even unto the fourth and fifth generations soundly defeated. Okay?

Now, you guys (or gals, or whomsoever ye may be), Moogli and Swammi, have already provided ample circumstantial evidence for the case for Edward De Vere, the Earl of Oxford, and there has been scant evidence of any kind for any other candidate connected with the Shakespeare(an) Authorship Question (SAQ). I think we can safely dismiss Bacon, and good for us there are no Baconians about.

However, I have thrown a dog in the race, and have suggested Marlowe as a possibility; but seeing as I see this as remote, I am not positively a Marlovian. I am, perhaps, a hemi-semi-demi-Marlovian.

This is based on a few reasons:

a) Marlowe was an Elizabethan poet and dramatist.
b) Marlowe was born in 1564, the same birth-year as Shakespeare (Shakespeare with that spelling being subsequently and hereafter and thereafter and wherever else in the future adopted, for the sake of convenience).
c) Marlowe died in 1593, a point at which TSM's career took off. Or thereabouts and hereunto forthwith and thither.
d) Marlowe's death (stabbed in a bar-fight) is questionable, and based mostly on heresay and circumstantial evidence (not really sure)?
e) Marlowe's 'death' could well have been faked, since the playwright was known to have been working for Queen & Country, in some sort of black ops or secret service capacity (analogous) during his last years, and hence, his life was in danger and he might have been in imminent peril (not that sort of peril, the kind of peril Sir Lancelot was saving Sir Galahad the Chaste from!): hence, the need to fake his demise and sneak him off to safety, where he could have continued to write plays...
f) Marlowe was an excellent poet, highly skilled in iambic pentameter, and specifically in blank verse. It is conceivable that he could have improved to Shakespearean hyperboreal space in the coming years. The same kind of rocket transformation that Keats underwent. De Vere would have to have gone through an even more amazing transformation, since his poetic skills, though adequate and often quite good, were a far ways off from Marlowe's, let alone Shakespeare's.​

Are we good?

Shall the thread proceed?




















[pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease!!!!]

 

[WAB]

Oh come on...

Well, alright, but I can still post here all by my lonesome, because I am not done with this SAQ thing.

See post # 216.

LOTS to say, like expound on my Marlowe theory, which is different from my brontosaurus theory...

Also, let me explain why I got angry with some people at the ShakesVere group.

It seems that quite a few Oxfordians are trying to give credit to De Vere for much more work than the Shakespeare canon. Some extend his authorship to other Elizabethan playwrights and poets. As for the minor ones, I have no opinion; but there is virtually no way in hell for Oxford to have written Spenser's work! First, the sheer magnitude of The Faerie Queene alone would make it difficult for any single person to author both it and the bulk of the Shakespeare canon, if not downright impossible. Besides, the stylistic differences between Spenser and Shakespeare are quite vast. If one man could write The Fairie Queene AND the bulk of the Shakespeare canon, he would have to have almost miraculous skill, and a LOT of time. De Vere may have been a noble but he was far from idle. He wrote a LOT of letters, and busied himself with pecuniary ventures. He would have had to have been a Super Genius of greater than Shakespeare status, plus have made a remarkable transformation from fair poet to the best ever in Earth's recorded history, in ANY language!

 

[Swammerdami]

Thank you Mr. WAB for participating in this thread!

Let me make a few miscellaneous points.

(1) A "conspiracy" theory should be judged by its strongest arguments. Good evidence for a theory is not lessened by bad evidence presented. (Frankly, even Mr. Moogly has made one or two claims that I want to disassociate myself from, and the vice versa is doubtless true also.)

Some Oxfordians claim that Oxford was H.M. Elizabeth's love-child, that Oxford eventually bedded his own mother, with Southampton becoming Elizabeth's second love-child. As if this incest weren't enough; they (a) claim Southampton might inherit the throne (but AFAIK the children of an unmarried Queen are ineligible); and (b) never comment on the absurdity of the proposed marriage between Southampton and his own half-sister Elizabeth de Vere! The marriage was contracted between the Dowager Countess Mary nee Brown and "Sir Spirit" Lord Burghley, the two people most certain to have known that Southampton was an adopted love-child, were that the case.)

I try to keep an open mind and if there is any evidence for these peculiar bastardships, let me know. Meanwhile I just marvel that these notions infect even some of the better Oxfordian writings.

If I have stretched the evidence and proposed silly ideas, please let me know. But let's not judge a hypothesis by its silliest proponents.

(2) I did enjoy your "verilies unto the fifth generation", WAB! One minor issue: Writing "Shaksper" or "Stratford" to denote the man from Stratford named Shaksper is NOT a fetish, nor an attempt to poke fun. It is essential to avoid confusion.

Digression follows.
Lately, I've been using Google Translate to bulk-translate movie subtitles into my wife's native language [Digression to a digression: I live in Thailand and should hurry up and introduce myself in the Lounge -- I do show "Location: Land of Smiles" but this may be too cryptic]. Google Translate operates one line at a time and makes trivial mistakes. So before submitting a subtitle file for translation there's some useful pre-processing, e.g. changing "Right" to "Correct." Otherwise Google will translate Right to be the opposite of Left rather than the opposite of Wrong.

Get it? "Right" is an ambiguous word. And in a discussion of Shakespeare, it is natural that "Shakespeare" denote the writer of the works of Shakespeare. It seems a shame to introduce ambiguitiies just because "Shaksper" might seem perverse or demeaning. I will try to write "Stratford" or "Stratford man" to avoid giving offense. OK?

(3) I agree with WAB that the cases for or against a Stratford authorship should be separated from the cases for or against an Oxford authorship; indeed I emphasized this in post #1. If neither Stratford nor Oxford were the author, Marlowe stands out as perhaps the strongest possibility. (Chronology almost rules out other candidates IMO, while Marlovians are free to place Marlowe's death whenever they want!) I have seen some interesting Marlovian evidence of the anacrostic-clue variety. I know zero about comparing the styles of Marlowe and Shakespeare.(*) (* - Do you see that if I were writing "Shakespeare" to denote the man from Stratford, this sentence would be silly and/or ambiguous?)

However, I have thrown a dog in the race, and have suggested Marlowe as a possibility; but seeing as I see this as remote, I am not positively a Marlovian. I am, perhaps, a hemi-semi-demi-Marlovian.

This is based on a few reasons:

a) Marlowe was an Elizabethan poet and dramatist.
b) Marlowe was born in 1564, the same birth-year as Shakespeare (Shakespeare with that spelling being subsequently and hereafter and thereafter and wherever else in the future adopted, for the sake of convenience).
c) Marlowe died in 1593, a point at which TSM's career took off. Or thereabouts and hereunto forthwith and thither.
d) Marlowe's death (stabbed in a bar-fight) is questionable, and based mostly on heresay and circumstantial evidence (not really sure)?
e) Marlowe's 'death' could well have been faked, since the playwright was known to have been working for Queen & Country, in some sort of black ops or secret service capacity (analogous) during his last years, and hence, his life was in danger and he might have been in imminent peril (not that sort of peril, the kind of peril Sir Lancelot was saving Sir Galahad the Chaste from!): hence, the need to fake his demise and sneak him off to safety, where he could have continued to write plays...
f) Marlowe was an excellent poet, highly skilled in iambic pentameter, and specifically in blank verse. It is conceivable that he could have improved to Shakespearean hyperboreal space in the coming years. The same kind of rocket transformation that Keats underwent. De Vere would have to have gone through an even more amazing transformation, since his poetic skills, though adequate and often quite good, were a far ways off from Marlowe's, let alone Shakespeare's.​

Venus and Adonis, the first attribution to Shakespeare (and "the first heir of my invention"), was published just two(?) months after Marlowe's alleged death. The timing is quite right for Marlovians, I suppose (though "Upstart Crow" becomes doubtful). Venus is a long, extremely well-polished poem. How long does it take to write such a poem?

(Marlowe's birth-year is NOT a point in his favor IMO. To the contrary, Sonnets' writer seems to be a lame man approaching late middle-age, not the youth Stratford or Marlowe would still have been.)

I'd be interested in comparisons between the two writers, not about general "quality" but about specific images and devices. Venus was written at almost the same time as Marlowe's Faustus or Edward II. Unlike with Oxford, there's no time to let Marlowe grow or change styles.

I do want to keep an open mind. But the circumstantial evidence linking events of the poems and plays to Oxford's life is HUGE. Is it possible that Shakespeare was some sort of collaboration involving both Oxford and Marlowe?

 

[WAB]

Swammi,

Thanks for the courteous reply.

As for an Oxford/Marlowe collaboration, I don't see this as a problem at all. In fact it's quite an interesting thought.

Have you read any Marlowe? I will look for some examples from his plays. His blank verse does at times resemble Shakespeare's. You have heard a famous two lines of Marlowe's no doubt. I will provide more from the play, Doctor Faustus:

“Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships,
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium--
Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.--
Her lips suck forth my soul: see, where it flies!--
Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again.
Here will I dwell, for heaven is in these lips,
And all is dross that is not Helena.
I will be Paris, and for love of thee,
Instead of Troy, shall Wertenberg be sack'd;
And I will combat with weak Menelaus,
And wear thy colours on my plumed crest;
Yea, I will wound Achilles in the heel,
And then return to Helen for a kiss.
O, thou art fairer than the evening air
Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars;
Brighter art thou than flaming Jupiter
When he appear'd to hapless Semele;
More lovely than the monarch of the sky
In wanton Arethusa's azur'd arms;
And none but thou shalt be my paramour!”

Not bad, eh? - but not nearly at the level of quality from middle to late period Shakespeare. Don't forget, Kit Marlowe died (presumably) at 29. Who knows how good he may have gotten in just ten years, let alone twenty? More samples later.

For now, I take on board what you say about the sonnets, though: that they appear to be the work of a mature man. Okay. I will have to go back to them. Sadly, I have neglected them. Haven't read them since I was in my twenties!

You asked about Venus And Adonis, how long would it take to write a poem like that? I don't know! I would think, for me, it would take months at least. But, alas and welladay, I am a nobody. But, for someone as good and as prolific as Shakespeare (the Author), it might have been a matter of weeks, or days. Whoever wrote Shakespeare wrote prolifically, and I would say almost with ease: the work of a pure genius, and a natural. Marlowe could have gotten that good, in time. But I really think it is a remote possibility at best.

Let me just say that if the poem was composed at about the same time as Faustus, then it is entirely possible it could have been Marlowe, with great effort. In fact, while it is very polished, and very good, it is NOT as good as the Shakespeare in the plays when he/she really gets going, as in Julius Caesar, Romeo & Juliet, Henry the Fifth, Macbeth, Othello, Hamlet, and Lear. BUT, Shakespeare's early plays were more in the quality range of Marlowe at that time. So that is very interesting.

***

Oh, before I forget. I am over having any resentment to using Shaksper to refer to the Stratford man to avoid confusion. Shakespeare will always refer to the Author of the accepted Shakespeare canon, and never to TSM. Are we agreed? I guess Shaksper or Shaxper is fine, and as far as I can reckon in accordance with his actual birth name. I have looked for any evidence of records proving that his father's name was John Shakespeare, with that spelling, but cannot find it. Though I have heard some Stratfordian's assert that Shakespeare is the accepted spelling of the family name.

It matters little, since it is an established fact that in those times spellings of names were not exactly fixed. Spenser was sometimes called Spencer, and Marlowe had a few variants. Hence the Stratfordian insistence that variant signatures by the same person ought not to constitute any real difficulty. In one of the accepted six signatures of TSM, there was at least one where he had to cram his name into a very small space. Another explanation of the bad penmanship is that he may have had shaky hands due to medication (I believe Bomb#20 mentioned that). Again, I think it matters little, and is actually a non-issue. Many signatures of highly literate people are varied. Though I'm a total nobody, I know that my signature has gotten very lazy of late. I now sign a big 'W', with a quick 'illiam', a big 'A', then a big 'B' with nothing but a line after it.

Anyway, what I want to do is avoid bothering with establishing Stratfordian authorship, since no active people in the thread seem terribly dead-set on defending him.

More later...

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Oh come on...

Well, alright, but I can still post here all by my lonesome, because I am not done with this SAQ thing.

See post # 216.

LOTS to say, like expound on my Marlowe theory, which is different from my brontosaurus theory...

Also, let me explain why I got angry with some people at the ShakesVere group.

It seems that quite a few Oxfordians are trying to give credit to De Vere for much more work than the Shakespeare canon. Some extend his authorship to other Elizabethan playwrights and poets. As for the minor ones, I have no opinion; but there is virtually no way in hell for Oxford to have written Spenser's work! First, the sheer magnitude of The Faerie Queene alone would make it difficult for any single person to author both it and the bulk of the Shakespeare canon, if not downright impossible. Besides, the stylistic differences between Spenser and Shakespeare are quite vast. If one man could write The Fairie Queene AND the bulk of the Shakespeare canon, he would have to have almost miraculous skill, and a LOT of time. De Vere may have been a noble but he was far from idle. He wrote a LOT of letters, and busied himself with pecuniary ventures. He would have had to have been a Super Genius of greater than Shakespeare status, plus have made a remarkable transformation from fair poet to the best ever in Earth's recorded history, in ANY language!

WAB,

How many times do I need to assure you that no offense is taken? Chill, Dude! Yesterday I had to catch up on some yardly, relationship and necessary health duties. I did check in here but very briefly. Good to see you and Swammi are still chewing the cud. I'm quite aware that the human condition lends itself to emotional expression, and I am not one to take quick offense. I also have the advantage of never using stimulants like caffeine and mateine. The habit makes it a bit harder to get moving in the mornings but living a stimulant free life became an absolute necessity about 15 years ago. I've known smokers who say that every smokeless day is still a struggle and I can identify with fighting such an addiction. I'll use a bit of cannabis and have an occasional go with some homemade wine but stimulants are definitely taboo, which keeps me on a pretty even keel.

Unlike yourself I am not likely to do much comparison of styles between Marlowe and Shake-speare. Marlowe was certainly excellent. One day we may find a letter penned from Italy attesting to Marlovian claims, and that would be okay with me. I just think the likelihood of that happening is remote, a bit too fantastic. With Sweet Oxford we needn't propose anything so fantastic. And as to Oxfordian claims about his penning works of other authors, I'm not very attracted to the prospect either.

You and Swammi are actually contributing substantially to the discussion and I hope that continues. I should take something substantial from Anderson and make a similar contribution. We will see. Meanwhile I am enjoying the discussion. I have also subscribed to the SOF and have been receiving notices of new postings and activities. I'm not sure why I was not allowed into the ShakesVere Facebook discussion but that is okay.