I like to make lists! I've thought of developing
The 25 (or so) Most Convincing Reasons to Think Oxford Wrote Shakespeare. (One could prune down from Whittemore's 100 Reasons, but I think some of my Top 25 aren't even on Whittemore's list. And different people will find different arguments more persuasive.)
One reason I've not bothered to work on such a list is that I already offered a list of six items early in the thread ...
- Explain the weird dedication of the Sonnets.
- Explain the weird preface to Troilus, 2nd ed.
- Comment on Peacham's anagram for the mystery writer.
- Is it odd that zero of Shaksper's friends, family or neighbors ever exhibited any book, manuscript, theater record or anecdote associated with this alleged playwright?
- Which 'bearing of a canopy' is the poet referring to in Sonnet CXXV?
- Why does Hamlet match the events of Oxford's early life so closely?
... And have received almost ZERO response to these from anti-Oxfordians.
The weird preface to Troilus ("ever reader ... never writer")? I guess anti-Oxfordians are going with the traditional "Just an inside joke we'll never be able to decipher."
The Sonnets' dedication? Are we going with "W.H. was a typographical error for W.S."? Since "ever-living" is not an adjective normally used for living persons, I guess we're going with the traditionalist's "'Ever-living poet' is God. Yes, this means the actual poet is never mentioned in the dedication. So what?" The poet took great pride in publishing
Venus and
Lucrece, but let the
Sonnets be published by a boot-legger. So what?
Peacham's anagram surely shrieks out for explanation. Since ZERO opinions have been offered in the thread, I'll put words in the anti-Oxfordian mouths!
"OK, Peacham thought de Vere wrote the poems and plays. So what? You and Looney thought so too, and you're just ... loonies!"
I should never have promoted the "bearing of a canopy" to this List of Five; it was a stand-in for dozens of similar references. Still, we've established that the royal canopy was deployed only VERY rarely. If you think its significance as metaphor would be on the tip of a poet's tongues, we'll need to agree to disagree.
Also, you two have repeatedly appeared to assume that one must have experienced something in order to write about it expertly, and with authority. This is mistaken. Forget the mystery of the canopy! Any seasoned poet could have used that metaphorically, just as any seasoned poet could write about a foreign country without ever having left their own home town.
You grossly underestimate the power of the imagination. And you underestimate the power of intelligence and the creative spirit if you think a great poet or artist must have had a college education, or, more absurdly, that only a member of the nobility can BE noble, or behave nobly, or write about it.
Please get those remnants of classism out of your minds!
Please. I'm well aware that Googling "Explain why Oxfordians are wrong" will tell you we are classist.
But where, excepting the trivial canopy, did I state that Oxford's writing proves his class or education? Serious question.
The playwright set plays in Verona but not Modena NOT because Verona was a "higher-class" city, but because he'd visited Verona but not Modena. He didn't mention the sycamores at Verona's western gate because, being an elite, he could afford to buy an Italian tourist book — the sycamores weren't mentioned in any book — but because he'd seen them with his own eyes.
Shaksper's neighbors and kinfolk made zero mention of his poems and plays not because they were too low-class to care, but because he wrote no poems or plays.
Much is made of Oxford's inferior poetry. I'm not qualified to judge but still, let me ask. Is the following Oxford poem (which echoes Hamlet's "frailty, thy name is woman") so bad?
If women could be fair and yet not fond*,
.....Or that their love were firm, not fickle still,
I would not marvel that they make men bond
.....By service long to purchase their good will ;
But when I see how frail those creatures are,
I laugh that men forget themselves so far.
To mark the choice they make, and how they change,
.....How oft from Phoebus do they flee to Pan ;
Unsettled still, like haggards wild they range,
.....These gentle birds that fly from man to man ;
Who would not scorn and shake them from the fist,
And let them fly, fair fools, which way they list ?
Yet for our sport we fawn and flatter both,
.....To pass the time when nothing else can please,
And train them to our lure with subtle oath,
.....Till, weary of their wiles, ourselves we ease ;
And then we say when we their fancy try,
To play with fools, O what a fool was I !
* - "fond" is used with the archaic meaning of "foolish."
Here are two stanzas with similar themes, the first by Oxford, the second by Shake-speare. Is the first so inferior?
Some have too much yet still do crave;
I little have and seek no more.
They are but poor though much they have
And I am rich with little store.
They poor, I rich; they beg, I give;
They lack, I leave; they pine, I live.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Those that much covet are with gain so fond
That what they have not, that which they possess,
They scatter and unloose it from their bond,
And so, by hoping more, they have but less;
Or, gaining more, the profit of excess
Is but to surfeit, and such griefs sustain
That they prove bankrupt in this poor rich gain.
