WAB
Veteran Member
Oxford was a noted and acclaimed dramatist but we have none of his plays. That's odd. Of course we do have his plays.
Perhaps, but I will continue to doubt it, until and unless there is real proof. I doubt it because Oxford would have undergone a tremendous change, both in ability and style of composition. In fact, the most incredible change in the history of English literature.
I mentioned Keats and his fast change from not so great poet to one of the greatest, but there is an obvious continuity of style. We have proof of the transition from so-so to Great. We don't have that with Oxford.
Swammi mentions Lyly and Munday as tutors to him. Well, there is no way in hell they could teach anyone to compose poetry and write dramas in a manner that they themselves could not do. In fact, their skill was not even close to the author of the Shakespearean canon.
As far as Swammi's other questions. I will try to get to them in time with more pizazz, but I am getting tired from working and living in a motel and typing on a phone.
But I will address one or two questions. Let's say Stratford WAS the author for a second. Is it possible that Oxford knew him, and talked with him? It is known that Oxford loved who Spenser called "The Heliconian ymps", the players and playwrights who were also "commoners". Why couldn't Oxford have given Stratford details of his life, and even worked on ideas for plays with him? That would explain this Hamlet coincidence. Also, as for Stratford being able to describe a painting in Italy he had not seen?
Well, couldn't someone have described this painting to him, in detail? Such things happened I am sure among intellectuals, and especially creative artists. Or, might there have been books available that described this painting in detail, that Stratford could have used? There are many books that describe such things in great detail. I've read one by John Ruskin. Good stuff, so good that I could describe great works of art I have not seen, using his book as a guide. Perhaps there were books like that in Stratford's time?
There is more to come, but alas and alack and welladay, my thumbs are tired...