The Shakespeare Authorship Controversy

[WAB]

It's quite correct. But if the majority of all scholars on this agree on something and make claims that they agree on, I see no reason to challenge it.

Here's what the museum has on the net about it.

THE THREE ENGLISH ACTORS AT KRONBORG IN 1585

When Kronborg Castle was inaugurated in the summer of 1585, the guests of the court were entertained by three English actors: William Kemp, Thomas Pope and George Bryan. After having served at the Danish court in Elsinore, the three young men returned to London. In theatre circles there, they met the enterprising and budding dramatist William Shakespeare. During the next two decades, they together established a successful travelling company of actors called The Lord Chamberlain’s Men and performed numerous plays. In the end, they had their own theatre built, the spectacular Shakespeare’s Globe in London in 1599.

https://hamletscenen.dk/en/about-hamletscenen/history/

But there's way more info in the museum itself. But I'm writing this from memory.

It's quite correct. But if the majority of all scholars on this agree on something and make claims that they agree on, I see no reason to challenge it.

Here's what the museum has on the net about it.

I'm not sure what your "majority of all scholars on this agree on something" refers to, and it is odd that this visit is unmentioned elsewhere, but let's stipulate it for now.

Combining your old and new versions, we learn that the visit was in 1585, so the play written in 1586. I wonder if you see that this supports the Oxfordian chronology! Stratfordian scholars date Hamlet's writing no earlier than 1599 with a first public performance in 1609.

What? There's no mention of any other theory regarding it's creation in the museum. None. I've heard of plenty of theories questioning the established authorship of Shakespeare plays. But they're all crackpot. I have read all the Shakespeare plays. I had an interest in his work then. I did read a lot about him and his work and, as far as I know, there is no controversy. There's rumours. But that is all.

When Constantinople fell, monks escaped to Italy, taking their libraries with them. As the classic ancient Greek works were re-discovered and translated to English, a guy taking each play as it came to England and re-working them to create a (then) modern masterpiece does not demand a great genius. It's perfectly believable that a guy like Shakespeare did it.

I don't understand the great motivation you have to question it? As far as I know it's only crackpots who question the established narrative. Isn't that so?

One objection here: Shakespeare was most certainly a genius.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

But if the majority of all scholars on this agree on something and make claims that they agree on, I see no reason to challenge it.

That's simply saying there is never any good reason to challenge orthodoxy. Do you honestly believe that? Do you think we should all still believe that disease is caused by evil spirits, that germ theory is bogus? Really?

It's the other way around. Non-academics questioning academia would have led to us still believing that disease is caused by evil spirits and that germ theory is bogus. QAnon isn't the smart guys who have figured it all out. I respect the opinion of experts.

It's one thing if you and me were Shakespearian scholars. But we're not. The only reason I entered into this discussion is because I saw an exhibition about Hamlet that went into great detail on how it came to be. They certainly convinced me. But then again, I'm not an academic. I rarely think I'm smarter than the experts. Never, in fact. So that's my stance in this discussion .

Then "scholars" should never disagree. But they do. And further there should never be anything new to learn because the "academics" already have all the answers. Interesting perspective I must say. Certainly not mine. Sounds like just another fallacious argument from authority.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

It's quite correct. But if the majority of all scholars on this agree on something and make claims that they agree on, I see no reason to challenge it.

Here's what the museum has on the net about it.

I'm not sure what your "majority of all scholars on this agree on something" refers to, and it is odd that this visit is unmentioned elsewhere, but let's stipulate it for now.

Combining your old and new versions, we learn that the visit was in 1585, so the play written in 1586. I wonder if you see that this supports the Oxfordian chronology! Stratfordian scholars date Hamlet's writing no earlier than 1599 with a first public performance in 1609.

What? There's no mention of any other theory regarding it's creation in the museum. None. I've heard of plenty of theories questioning the established authorship of Shakespeare plays. But they're all crackpot. I have read all the Shakespeare plays. I had an interest in his work then. I did read a lot about him and his work and, as far as I know, there is no controversy. There's rumours. But that is all.

When Constantinople fell, monks escaped to Italy, taking their libraries with them. As the classic ancient Greek works were re-discovered and translated to English, a guy taking each play as it came to England and re-working them to create a (then) modern masterpiece does not demand a great genius. It's perfectly believable that a guy like Shakespeare did it.

I don't understand the great motivation you have to question it? As far as I know it's only crackpots who question the established narrative. Isn't that so?

One objection here: Shakespeare was most certainly a genius.

What exactly is this argument from genius? Is that someone who doesn't have to live like the rest of us? Do they get away without having to brush their teeth or something?

 

[WAB]

I'm not sure what your "majority of all scholars on this agree on something" refers to, and it is odd that this visit is unmentioned elsewhere, but let's stipulate it for now.

Combining your old and new versions, we learn that the visit was in 1585, so the play written in 1586. I wonder if you see that this supports the Oxfordian chronology! Stratfordian scholars date Hamlet's writing no earlier than 1599 with a first public performance in 1609.

What? There's no mention of any other theory regarding it's creation in the museum. None. I've heard of plenty of theories questioning the established authorship of Shakespeare plays. But they're all crackpot. I have read all the Shakespeare plays. I had an interest in his work then. I did read a lot about him and his work and, as far as I know, there is no controversy. There's rumours. But that is all.

When Constantinople fell, monks escaped to Italy, taking their libraries with them. As the classic ancient Greek works were re-discovered and translated to English, a guy taking each play as it came to England and re-working them to create a (then) modern masterpiece does not demand a great genius. It's perfectly believable that a guy like Shakespeare did it.

I don't understand the great motivation you have to question it? As far as I know it's only crackpots who question the established narrative. Isn't that so?

One objection here: Shakespeare was most certainly a genius.

What exactly is this argument from genius? Is that someone who doesn't have to live like the rest of us? Do they get away without having to brush their teeth or something?

A genius is someone with an uncommonly high intelligence, and/or someone who does something in the intellectual or artistic realm that is demonstrably beyond the capability of most of all of the others.

Homer
Virgil
Dante
Shakespeare

J.S. Bach
Mozart
Beethoven

Da Vinci
Michaelangelo
Raphael
Caravaggio

Cervantes
Balzac
Hugo
Joyce
Faulkner

Etc...

You yourself said many times that poetry is not your forte. Thus, without me accusing you of anything out of the blue, I conclude (and have concluded with regard to Swammi, and just about every Oxfordian I know of) that you were more easily convinced of the Oxfordian authorship theory BECAUSE you cannot recognize the enormous and plain (to some people) superiority of the Shakespeare canon to anything else in English.

You can say all you like that you recognize the vast difference between Shakespeare and De Vere, but you yourself have said that you are a poor judge of poetry. Thus, I see a wee contradiction there.

 

[Lion IRC]

Imitating or forging Shakespeare is just another way of conceding that there is only one Shakespeare.

An homage to Shakespeare doesn't dilute the unique greatness of Shakespeare. Quite the contrary.

 

[Bomb#20]

... and it is odd that this visit is unmentioned elsewhere, but let's stipulate it for now.

Sure it's mentioned elsewhere: it's in Wikipedia.

"After a brief return to England, Kempe accompanied two other future Lord Chamberlain's Men, George Bryan and Thomas Pope, to Elsinore where he entertained Frederick II of Denmark."

 

[none]

Imitating or forging Shakespeare is just another way of conceding that there is only one Shakespeare.

An homage to Shakespeare doesn't dilute the unique greatness of Shakespeare. Quite the contrary.

isn't this the one true russel's teapot fallacy?

 

[WAB]

Imitating or forging Shakespeare is just another way of conceding that there is only one Shakespeare.

An homage to Shakespeare doesn't dilute the unique greatness of Shakespeare. Quite the contrary.

My friend, I don't know exactly what you mean here.

?

ETA: I sure wish a certain level headed someone who has been visiting the thread regularly would venture a few words. I won't say their name, but it rhymes with:

Spangra Thainyu

 

[Lion IRC]

Imitating or forging Shakespeare is just another way of conceding that there is only one Shakespeare.

An homage to Shakespeare doesn't dilute the unique greatness of Shakespeare. Quite the contrary.

My friend, I don't know exactly what you mean here.

?

My take on the whole authorship controversy is that Shakespeare himself wouldn't find it very controversial.

ETA: I sure wish a certain level headed someone who has been visiting the thread regularly would venture a few words. I won't say their name, but it rhymes with:

Spangra Thainyu

LOL

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Imitating or forging Shakespeare is just another way of conceding that there is only one Shakespeare.

An homage to Shakespeare doesn't dilute the unique greatness of Shakespeare. Quite the contrary.

My friend, I don't know exactly what you mean here.

?

ETA: I sure wish a certain level headed someone who has been visiting the thread regularly would venture a few words. I won't say their name, but it rhymes with:

Spangra Thainyu

Too cryptic, WAB. Do you dedicate poetry by any chance? Ever? Never?

 

[Swammerdami]

... I conclude (and have concluded with regard to Swammi, and just about every Oxfordian I know of) that you were more easily convinced of the Oxfordian authorship theory BECAUSE you cannot recognize the enormous and plain (to some people) superiority of the Shakespeare canon to anything else in English.

I am surprised at you, WAB. :-( It's almost as though you haven't read my comments like:

But I do agree your [WAB's] arguments do hold much weight. There is a strong case against Oxford based on word choices, [writing quality], etc. As I've said, I remain Oxfordian by default just because I don't know anyone with a stronger case. I do not think Stratford was the writer.

The mismatch in writing is one reason I treat the authorship mystery as unresolved. I've proposed that Oxford had collaborator(s), e.g. his son-in-law. But such hypotheses have flaws, and all fall to your complaint: NOBODY from that era approached Shake-speare in quality.

I'm left with the circumstantial evidence linking Oxford to the plays, e.g. the sharp change in mentions of Shake-speare as writer after Oxford's 1604 death, or the famous autobiographical play. As Sherlock Holmes said, after eliminating the impossible, only the improbable remains. Some improbable collaboration in which the Earl of Oxford was the central figure seems to me to be the only possibility that fits the evidence.

There's one poem that "both sides of the aisle" ( ) DO attribute to Shaksper of Stratford. As our poetry expert can you comment on whether the Sonnets were likely to have been written by the author of

Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear,
To dig the dust enclosed here.
Blessed be the man that spares these stones,
And cursed be he that moves my bones.

 

[WAB]

Imitating or forging Shakespeare is just another way of conceding that there is only one Shakespeare.

An homage to Shakespeare doesn't dilute the unique greatness of Shakespeare. Quite the contrary.

My friend, I don't know exactly what you mean here.

?

ETA: I sure wish a certain level headed someone who has been visiting the thread regularly would venture a few words. I won't say their name, but it rhymes with:

Spangra Thainyu

Too cryptic, WAB. Do you dedicate poetry by any chance? Ever? Never?

Very rarely. Por que?

Swammi,

I only made that conclusion based on your own admission ( as well as Moogly's), that you are not a good judge of poetry. If you're not a good judge of poetry, then how can you determine that Shakespeare's is so superior (which it is)? I can only assume you are basing your opinion on the generally accepted opinion, ie, that Shakespeare is the greatest poet in English.

Sorry if I can't get this across sensibly. I realize you and Moogly have acknowledged Shakespeare's (the Author's) superiority.

My thumbs are getting blistered. My kingdom for a real keyboard!

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Too cryptic, WAB. Do you dedicate poetry by any chance? Ever? Never?

Very rarely. Por que?

Swammi,

I only made that conclusion based on your own admission ( as well as Moogly's), that you are not a good judge of poetry. If you're not a good judge of poetry, then how can you determine that Shakespeare's is so superior (which it is)? I can only assume you are basing your opinion on the generally accepted opinion, ie, that Shakespeare is the greatest poet in English.

Sorry if I can't get this across sensibly. I realize you and Moogly have acknowledged Shakespeare's (the Author's) superiority.

My thumbs are getting blistered. My kingdom for a real keyboard!

WAB, For Your Edification

Do you think only poets, scholars, academics can judge poetry and recognize differences? Can only botanists differentiate between Oak and Sycamore, between a healthy tree and an unhealthy one, between acorn and cone, between krummholz and rainforest, between fecund and barren, that the master cannot learn from the student?

 

[Angra Mainyu]

P.s: hmm, I wonder what Angra Mainyu thinks about all this? It would be really cool to have the two* most level headed posters at TFT here in the thread. Nudge nudge, ey? Ey?

WAB, thanks.
I had missed this - thuogh I did post briefly earlier in the thread.

Spangra Thainyu

But as I said then, I know very little about this controversy. I just got curious at first, but I haven't been following all of the details.

For what is worth, I still reckon that Bomb#20's point here is the strongest of those I've seen. There is this alternative, but I think that one is not so probable, either.

 

[Swammerdami]

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.

I finally got around to perusing that website. I admit that there is much there to give misgivings to Oxfordians!

The statistical patterns that Bomb#20 mentions are found in a SHAXICON database prepared by  Donald Wayne Foster mentioned at this webpage and elsewhere. Foster has succeeded at various authorship forensics, e.g. identifying the Anonymous author of Primary Colors. I searched and clicked around for the SHAXICON database finding http://www.blake-foster.com but that site yields only error messages. Can anyone point me to SHAXICON? Or is it no longer on-line?

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I just did a quick search of Stylometrics and Shakespeare. Lots of links.

The discussion along these lines that I remember is that it isn't subjective and noun words that make the case for authorship, or against, but the seemingly less important word usage, the style. I should get off my ass and check this out. Also I think Oxfordians and persons interested in the Authorship Question generally would be onto this new line of investigation and have already done some legwork.

Here's a link to get underway, just started reading:

Shakespeare by the Numbers: What Stylometrics Can and Cannot Tell Us

Just returned with a lifted quote from the article, near its end:

In the face of such methodological shortcomings, conflicting opinions, and dueling analyses, what is one to think? An obvious explanation is that today’s orthodox scholars, including all the stylometricians here mentioned, are groping blindly in the wrong paradigm, and are thus handicapped by the confines of the conventional Shakespearean dating system. (Craig and Kinney are familiar with the Oxfordian argument, and mention it several times, once even citing an article in The Oxfordian.) In addition, very few scholars of any period have given any consideration to the idea of a substantial corpus of Shakespearean juvenilia. We can be sure that Shakespeare did not always write like Shakespeare.

Still reading...

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I know I post too many links but here's another.

The Radical Argument of the New Oxford Shakespeare

The gist of the New Yorker article is that we've canonized "Shakespeare" so that if it isn't the work of genius it isn't "Shakespeare," and so attribute it to someone else. We make the mistake of assuming that some piece of writing that doesn't meet our expectations of perfection cannot have been penned by the same person.

I like the argument because it follows Ramon Jimenez's point in my earlier link that writers don't start out writing perfect verse and prose. Ergo, Oxford is still a very good candidate, imho, the best candidate.

 

[WAB]

Too cryptic, WAB. Do you dedicate poetry by any chance? Ever? Never?

Very rarely. Por que?

Swammi,

I only made that conclusion based on your own admission ( as well as Moogly's), that you are not a good judge of poetry. If you're not a good judge of poetry, then how can you determine that Shakespeare's is so superior (which it is)? I can only assume you are basing your opinion on the generally accepted opinion, ie, that Shakespeare is the greatest poet in English.

Sorry if I can't get this across sensibly. I realize you and Moogly have acknowledged Shakespeare's (the Author's) superiority.

My thumbs are getting blistered. My kingdom for a real keyboard!

WAB, For Your Edification

Do you think only poets, scholars, academics can judge poetry and recognize differences? Can only botanists differentiate between Oak and Sycamore, between a healthy tree and an unhealthy one, between acorn and cone, between krummholz and rainforest, between fecund and barren, that the master cannot learn from the student?

Egads, Moogly! I plainly noted that you and Swammi both admitted to being poor judges of poetry. Or am I mistaken? Perhaps I misremember?

I would never have doubted or challenged your ability to distinguish great poetry from the mediocre if you had not already stated that you did not feel that you were competent to do it!

And yes, I am aware that one does not have to be a good poet to recognize good poetry, or to recognize and identify varying levels of quality, from execrable to splendid. If you review my posts, all I said was that I doubted that any accomplished poet would side with the Oxfordian camp. I did not say that one HAD to be an accomplished poet in order to see that Oxford could not have written Shakespeare. Do you see the difference?

Obviously, the majority of Shakespeare scholars are not also poets, or at least are not known as such. I daresay most of them scribble somewhat, but I would also bet that many do not essay into verse at all, and remain satisfied as scholars.

Harold Bloom KNEW poetry, and KNEW poets, but to my recollection was not a poet himself. I know for a certainty he was not known for it, if he did.

***

Now, as for that link you provided for my edification. I must say I see nothing compelling with this 'ever' 'never' business.

I have stated already that the sonnets are not of great interest to me. I haven't read them since I was in my twenties.

Also, I am well aware that no great writer is great right from the get go. This is common sense. I have mentioned Keats and his meteoric development, a few times, so what makes you think I do not know of what you speak???

Swammi posted a link somewhere upthread to some poems by Oxford which Swammi said we're penned when Oxford was "in his thirties." I have mentioned the link already, and will say again what I have already said:

No poet of the first rank was writing juvenilia into their thirties. Some of our best poets were dead and buried before they made thirty. Chatterton (dead at 17), Keats, Wilfred Owen, Shelley, Marlowe, Rupert Brooke, Alan Seeger, Keith Douglass...

If Oxford was still mediocre (good but not exceptional) into his thirties, I submit that he could not have become the greatest poet of all time in English, in any number of years, by virtue of any number of tutors.

I submit that it is impossible, not just improbable, for Oxford to have written Shakespeare.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

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.

I finally got around to perusing that website. I admit that there is much there to give misgivings to Oxfordians!

The statistical patterns that Bomb#20 mentions are found in a SHAXICON database prepared by  Donald Wayne Foster mentioned at this webpage and elsewhere. Foster has succeeded at various authorship forensics, e.g. identifying the Anonymous author of Primary Colors. I searched and clicked around for the SHAXICON database finding http://www.blake-foster.com but that site yields only error messages. Can anyone point me to SHAXICON? Or is it no longer on-line?

After searching for a while (not that long, but still), it seems to me that unfortunately it's not on-line, at least not in a website one can find with a Google search.

 

[Swammerdami]

Can anyone point me to SHAXICON? Or is it no longer on-line?

After searching for a while (not that long, but still), it seems to me that unfortunately it's not on-line, at least not in a website one can find with a Google search.

I'm afraid you're correct. Lots of good websites disappear; sometimes they can be found at archive.org; often not. Foster (whose son set up the website) seems to still be alive. There seems to be a place at the son's website to send him a message, but I've not pursued this. (I am -- or was! -- a computer programmer and might be able to duplicate the described result with several days of hard work ... but am not in the mood!)

Yes, I freely admit I am no judge of poetry. In fact my request to compare Shakespeare's Sonnets with his "doggerel" epitaph was NOT rhetorical! Oxfordians use the low quality of that epitaph as an argument, but it's a better poem than I could write!