The Shakespeare Authorship Controversy

[WAB]

I do have a theory, however:

Perhaps the poems that Oxford took credit for are not in fact written by him? He took credit for a handful of mediorcre poems so that no-one would be able to successfully tie those bland works with the works of "Shakespeare". After all, it was the Earl's wish that no-one would ever unravel his secret, no?...

In summary: The Earl of Oxford did not write the mediocre poems to which his name is attached. They were the scribblings of a nobody. All to ensure no-one ever made the connection between Oxford and "Shakespeare."

I assume you're being sarcastic. Is that correct?

And did you miss the recent post where I patiently explained that Oxford "took credit" for just One (1) of the twenty poems most strongly attributed to him?

No!

I was not being sarcastic, sorry.

Yes, I did miss what you said about him taking credit for one poem.

I will look for that post. I am wondering which poem it was Oxford took credit for. Also wondering, if he could take credit for one poem, why not Venus and Adonis? A poem's a poem. Why not Lucrece?

Why not the sonnets?

Oxford's name is attached to several poems (not plays written for the common rabble, which of course would be dishonorable). If he could take credit for writing poems, he could have taken credit for Venus and Lucrece, and the sonnets.

Why was it okay for Oxford to be credited with several poems, but he could not take credit for two of the greatest narrative poems ever written in English (Venus and Lucrece)? Where is the logic or reason in that?

Answer: He didn't write those poems. If he did, he would have taken credit for them. There was no shame in nobility writing poems!

 

[Swammerdami]

There are serious flaws in the Oxfordian theory, most notably differences in the quality and style of the poems attributed to Oxford with those attributed to Shakespeare. Thank you, WAB for exposing these flaws! I still think Oxfordian authorship is the LEAST unlikely solution. I have an answer to the objections but I'm tired of re-re-repeating it.

But with some of your objections, I feel like we keep going back to Square One. Your latest objections have been explained away several times in the thread already.

I do have a theory, however:

Perhaps the poems that Oxford took credit for are not in fact written by him? He took credit for a handful of mediorcre poems so that no-one would be able to successfully tie those bland works with the works of "Shakespeare". After all, it was the Earl's wish that no-one would ever unravel his secret, no?...

In summary: The Earl of Oxford did not write the mediocre poems to which his name is attached. They were the scribblings of a nobody. All to ensure no-one ever made the connection between Oxford and "Shakespeare."

I assume you're being sarcastic. Is that correct?

And did you miss the recent post where I patiently explained that Oxford "took credit" for just One (1) of the twenty poems most strongly attributed to him?

No!

I was not being sarcastic, sorry.

Yes, I did miss what you said about him taking credit for one poem.

I will look for that post. I am wondering which poem it was Oxford took credit for. Also wondering, if he could take credit for one poem, why not Venus and Adonis? A poem's a poem. Why not Lucrece?

Why not the sonnets?

Oxford's name is attached to several poems (not plays written for the common rabble, which of course would be dishonorable). If he could take credit for writing poems, he could have taken credit for Venus and Lucrece, and the sonnets.

Why was it okay for Oxford to be credited with several poems, but he could not take credit for two of the greatest narrative poems ever written in English (Venus and Lucrece)? Where is the logic or reason in that?

Answer: He didn't write those poems. If he did, he would have taken credit for them. There was no shame in nobility writing poems!

Again, for the umpteenth time, the taboo DID exist. Moreover, because of the court-cognizance in some plays (and the alleged propagandizing at the Queen's request), his authorship had to be kept secret even without the taboo. Venus and Adonis was a master-work (this may not be your opinion, but it is that of many, and certainly that of those who read it in the 1590's) and to reveal its true authorship would have unraveled the whole Shake-speare hoax.

(Does the dedication of Venus and Adonis seem odd to you? It describes the poem as "the first heir of my invention", but if you think that was the first poem written by a poet, let me sell you a bridge! )

Writing poems anonymously was OK, but publishing poems (which wasn't done "for the common rabble" — they couldn't afford books) WAS taboo for an Earl. The poem that de Vere DID put his name on was in a preface to a philosophy-book translation he had sponsored. Apparently, a preface to another's work seemed acceptable. When I mentioned that a few posts ago, I gave a link and mentioned it was poem #1 in that article: it's on page 29. It might be the very worst of the twenty poems in that article, but feel free to read it and deprecate his youthful lack of poetic skill some more.

Here are some comments from the article on that poem and a related letter.

This poem [“The Labouring Man That Tills the Fertile Soil”], introduced by the notation, “The Earle of Oxenforde to the Reader,” was published in 1573, when de Vere was only 23, as part of the preface to Thomas Bedingfield’s translation of Cardanus Comforte (1573, rev. 1576), which was dedicated to de Vere.... Cardanus is a philosophical work by the Italian mathematician Girolamo Cardano (1501–76), originally published in Venice as De Consolatione (1542). Its influence on the philosophical dimensions of Hamlet has been widely acknowledged. ... orthodox scholars including Hardin Craig have long documented an intimate connection between Cardanus and Hamlet. In a 1934 article (which avoided even mentioning de Vere), Craig termed it “Hamlet’s Book,” believing it to be the one from which the prince reads in act 2, scene 2. De Vere’s separate prose letter to Bedingfield, introducing Cardanus, was reprinted and praised by Grosart as “extremely interesting and characteristic, graceful and gracious” (423-24). Oxfordian scholars have documented the letter’s literary, philosophical, and linguistic connections to Shakespeare at least since Barrell’s two 1946 articles, the first of which noted that even then, Cardanus had “long been recognized ... as the source from which the author of Hamlet drew inspiration for memorable scenes and striking passages” (35). See also Fowler (118-62). As Sobran noted, de Vere’s prefatory letter“unmistakably prefigures the Southampton poems of Shakespeare: the Sonnets, Venus and Adonis, and The Rape of Lucrece” (279). Sobran observed that“the letter anticipates those poems in spirit, theme, image, and other details ... borrow[ing], for figurative use, the languages of law, commerce, horticulture, and medicine,” and that it “speaks of publication as a duty and of literary works as tombs and monuments to their authors” (279). Sobran also noted that the letter has echoes in the Shakespeare plays, including striking parallels to Coriolanus (279-82). As detailed below, the prefatory poem also has significant parallels to the plays, ...

It is IRRELEVANT to our debate but still interesting to me that de Vere had associations with some of the greatest geniuses of his time. I've mentioned Giordano Bruno up-thread. Girolamo Cardano was much more famous than Bruno. (Had you heard of him?) Cardano was first to publish several math principles, including solutions to the cubic and quartic equations. Several of his inventions are still in use, e.g. the "U-Joint" used on vehicle axles. He may have been first to notice that mountains contained relics of their long-ago existence under oceans. Et cetera, et cetera.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

There are serious flaws in the Oxfordian theory, most notably differences in the quality and style of the poems attributed to Oxford with those attributed to Shakespeare. Thank you, WAB for exposing these flaws! I still think Oxfordian authorship is the LEAST unlikely solution. I have an answer to the objections but I'm tired of re-re-repeating it.

But with some of your objections, I feel like we keep going back to Square One. Your latest objections have been explained away several times in the thread already.

No!

I was not being sarcastic, sorry.

Yes, I did miss what you said about him taking credit for one poem.

I will look for that post. I am wondering which poem it was Oxford took credit for. Also wondering, if he could take credit for one poem, why not Venus and Adonis? A poem's a poem. Why not Lucrece?

Why not the sonnets?

Oxford's name is attached to several poems (not plays written for the common rabble, which of course would be dishonorable). If he could take credit for writing poems, he could have taken credit for Venus and Lucrece, and the sonnets.

Why was it okay for Oxford to be credited with several poems, but he could not take credit for two of the greatest narrative poems ever written in English (Venus and Lucrece)? Where is the logic or reason in that?

Answer: He didn't write those poems. If he did, he would have taken credit for them. There was no shame in nobility writing poems!

Again, for the umpteenth time, the taboo DID exist. Moreover, because of the court-cognizance in some plays (and the alleged propagandizing at the Queen's request), his authorship had to be kept secret even without the taboo. Venus and Adonis was a master-work (this may not be your opinion, but it is that of many, and certainly that of those who read it in the 1590's) and to reveal its true authorship would have unraveled the whole Shake-speare hoax.

(Does the dedication of Venus and Adonis seem odd to you? It describes the poem as "the first heir of my invention", but if you think that was the first poem written by a poet, let me sell you a bridge! )

Writing poems anonymously was OK, but publishing poems (which wasn't done "for the common rabble" — they couldn't afford books) WAS taboo for an Earl. The poem that de Vere DID put his name on was in a preface to a philosophy-book translation he had sponsored. Apparently, a preface to another's work seemed acceptable. When I mentioned that a few posts ago, I gave a link and mentioned it was poem #1 in that article: it's on page 29. It might be the very worst of the twenty poems in that article, but feel free to read it and deprecate his youthful lack of poetic skill some more.

Here are some comments from the article on that poem and a related letter.

This poem [“The Labouring Man That Tills the Fertile Soil”], introduced by the notation, “The Earle of Oxenforde to the Reader,” was published in 1573, when de Vere was only 23, as part of the preface to Thomas Bedingfield’s translation of Cardanus Comforte (1573, rev. 1576), which was dedicated to de Vere.... Cardanus is a philosophical work by the Italian mathematician Girolamo Cardano (1501–76), originally published in Venice as De Consolatione (1542). Its influence on the philosophical dimensions of Hamlet has been widely acknowledged. ... orthodox scholars including Hardin Craig have long documented an intimate connection between Cardanus and Hamlet. In a 1934 article (which avoided even mentioning de Vere), Craig termed it “Hamlet’s Book,” believing it to be the one from which the prince reads in act 2, scene 2. De Vere’s separate prose letter to Bedingfield, introducing Cardanus, was reprinted and praised by Grosart as “extremely interesting and characteristic, graceful and gracious” (423-24). Oxfordian scholars have documented the letter’s literary, philosophical, and linguistic connections to Shakespeare at least since Barrell’s two 1946 articles, the first of which noted that even then, Cardanus had “long been recognized ... as the source from which the author of Hamlet drew inspiration for memorable scenes and striking passages” (35). See also Fowler (118-62). As Sobran noted, de Vere’s prefatory letter“unmistakably prefigures the Southampton poems of Shakespeare: the Sonnets, Venus and Adonis, and The Rape of Lucrece” (279). Sobran observed that“the letter anticipates those poems in spirit, theme, image, and other details ... borrow[ing], for figurative use, the languages of law, commerce, horticulture, and medicine,” and that it “speaks of publication as a duty and of literary works as tombs and monuments to their authors” (279). Sobran also noted that the letter has echoes in the Shakespeare plays, including striking parallels to Coriolanus (279-82). As detailed below, the prefatory poem also has significant parallels to the plays, ...

It is IRRELEVANT to our debate but still interesting to me that de Vere had associations with some of the greatest geniuses of his time. I've mentioned Giordano Bruno up-thread. Girolamo Cardano was much more famous than Bruno. (Had you heard of him?) Cardano was first to publish several math principles, including solutions to the cubic and quartic equations. Several of his inventions are still in use, e.g. the "U-Joint" used on vehicle axles. He may have been first to notice that mountains contained relics of their long-ago existence under oceans. Et cetera, et cetera.

My amateurish sensibilities sense, among many other things, that for seventeen sonnets someone is being beseeched to bring forth an heir, and then in sonnet eighteen this seems to have happened. This points to Oxford again.

Swammi, you are a patient soul!

 

[WAB]

Well thank you gents for this exciting enterprise!

But it bothers me a bit, Moogly, that you say Swammi is so patient.

Look at this discussion board. Of all the active posters, only two have come down on the side of Oxford. TWO. Many posters have contributed, but then lost interest. Why? Why did they lose interest? Because there is nothing substantial in the Oxfordian position, no concrete evidence, no nothing.

Why, if it is so obvious that De Vere wrote Shakespeare, have you not gained the interest of a single soul here at TFT? It seems to me that your arguments should have peaked the interest of someone here who was originally undecided?

But alas, not a single soul here at TFT has been remotely convinced that Oxford wrote Shakespeare. If you go to Eratosphere, where actual published poets hang out, you will find a thread about the SAQ wherein no-one was even remotely convinced. Poets know that there is no possible link between the extant works of Oxford and the works of "Shakespeare".

He could not have written Shakespeare.

I really, really fucking wish that I wasn't the ONLY person here at TFT who is humoring you two (Moogly and Swammi).

But, you know what?

I give up.

OKAY! The 17th Earl of Oxford is/was the author of the works attributed to William Shakespeare!

All hail the Earl of Oxford! All hail the author of Shakespeare!

YAY!!!

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

But alas, not a single soul here at TFT has been remotely convinced that Oxford wrote Shakespeare. If you go to Eratosphere, where actual published poets hang out, you will find a thread about the SAQ wherein no-one was even remotely convinced. Poets know that there is no possible link between the extant works of Oxford and the works of "Shakespeare".

That is not surprising. Remember, it's the difference between being a poet/writer and being a detective. It's a forensic question, not a literary question, so such a dynamic is to be expected and welcomed as further proof that Oxford was the author.

You asked earlier why Oxford was not willing to claim authorship. I was rereading my old college text by Bevington and Craig, 1973, The Complete works of Shakespeare. The book is very well done and has no mention of the authorship question. The intro to the sonnets contains the following:

Shakespeare wrote sonnets during this heyday of the genre, for in 1598 Francis Meres praised Shakespeare's "sugred sonnets among his priuate friends." Even though they were not printed at the time, we know from Meres' remark that they were circulated in manuscript among the cognoscenti and commanded great respect. Shakespeare may have actually preferred to delay publication of his sonnets, not through indifference to their literary worth but through a desire to not seem too professional.

How interesting is that?! More invention. Orthodox mythology and invention just never ends. It continues:

The "courtly makers" of the English Renaissance, those gentlemen who's chivalric accomplishments were supposed to include versifying, looked upon the writing of poetry as a dilletantish avocation designed to amuse one's peers or court a lady. Publication was not quite genteel, and many such authors affected dismay when their verses were pirated into print.

This proves yet again why an Earl of Oxford with a claim to the throne would be the last person wishing to have his poetry made public.

 

[WAB]

That is not surprising. Remember, it's the difference between being a poet/writer and being a detective. It's a forensic question, not a literary question, so such a dynamic is to be expected and welcomed as further proof that Oxford was the author.

You asked earlier why Oxford was not willing to claim authorship. I was rereading my old college text by Bevington and Craig, 1973, The Complete works of Shakespeare. The book is very well done and has no mention of the authorship question. The intro to the sonnets contains the following:


How interesting is that?! More invention. Orthodox mythology and invention just never ends. It continues:

The "courtly makers" of the English Renaissance, those gentlemen who's chivalric accomplishments were supposed to include versifying, looked upon the writing of poetry as a dilletantish avocation designed to amuse one's peers or court a lady. Publication was not quite genteel, and many such authors affected dismay when their verses were pirated into print.

This proves yet again why an Earl of Oxford with a claim to the throne would be the last person wishing to have his poetry made public.

Like I said in my previous post:

I give up.

OKAY! The 17th Earl of Oxford is/was the author of the works attributed to William Shakespeare!

All hail the Earl of Oxford! All hail the author of Shakespeare!

YAY!!!

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Swammi,

Are you familiar with the details concerning the likely reburial of De Vere in Westminster? I found this article from 2008:

Is a Powerful Authorship Smoking Gun Buried Within Westminster Abbey?

One thing I did not know is that any reburials in Westminster went unrecorded. This was/is simply the law. So there are many unknown reburials in Westminster. The tomb of De Vere and his wife at Hackney had disappeared by the time the original church was raised, but there is much recorded information that a tomb was empty and it's coats of arms removed. Lots of good information.

I was unable to stop reading the article, it was so interesting and informative.

 

[Swammerdami]

Thanks for the link, T.G.G. Very interesting!

Here are two other articles related to de Vere's death and burial:
https://politicworm.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/paul-post-mortem.pdf
https://politicworm.com/oxford/oxfo...die-in-1604/is-oxford-buried-in-poets-corner/

The first is a 63-page pdf I've so far found only time to skim. (I may have gotten these links from you! I can hardly keep track of interesting URL's etc., let alone how I came across them.)

I'll probably eventually post a rebuttal in this thread to the dismisssive scorn of unrepentant Stratfordians, but I'll wait until I'm at leisure and feeling in a good mood. (Right now one of my top priorities is synchronizing Thai and English subtitles together for Game of Thrones, which we are now binge-watching at the rate of two seasons per week!)

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Thanks for the link, T.G.G. Very interesting!

Here are two other articles related to de Vere's death and burial:
https://politicworm.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/paul-post-mortem.pdf
https://politicworm.com/oxford/oxfo...die-in-1604/is-oxford-buried-in-poets-corner/

The first is a 63-page pdf I've so far found only time to skim. (I may have gotten these links from you! I can hardly keep track of interesting URL's etc., let alone how I came across them.)

I'll probably eventually post a rebuttal in this thread to the dismisssive scorn of unrepentant Stratfordians, but I'll wait until I'm at leisure and feeling in a good mood. (Right now one of my top priorities is synchronizing Thai and English subtitles together for Game of Thrones, which we are now binge-watching at the rate of two seasons per week!)

That first link was a great great read. Again, I was unaware there are so many questions concerning the death of Oxford. It is interesting that his death date passed without mention by anyone, not even members of his family, leading to speculation that he was "retired," but still alive, as letters would suggest. It's really another room of the whodunnit.

It is interesting that if he were to commit suicide such an act would invalidate any will he would leave, leaving some to use this law to explain the fact that he left no will.

But it is most intriguing the silence surrounding his death.

 

[Swammerdami]

I'd intended to post more in this thread, but that will be increasingly difficult for me. Meanwhile, as the TFTer who is in the ShakesVere Facebook group, I have also been remiss on reporting on it.

Here is a link posted at ShakesVere to some podcasts (I think -- I've not listened); followed by two other recent messages at ShakesVere.

https://www.dragonwagonradio.com/dontquillthemessenger

War and Play
Queen Elizabeth I was parsimonious, she had to be. Philip II of Spain drew more revenue from his principality of Milano than Elizabeth ever drew from the whole of her Kingdom. Also, the revenue from Milano was just a drop in the ocean of Philip’s wealth, and an attack by him (or some other Catholic Monarch) was always a threat throughout her long reign. In the Catholic world she had no right to the throne of England as the Pope had excommunicated her and deprived her of her sovereignty in 1570.
She never wanted war, and she hoped she might defer or stop it by the pretense of offering her hand in marriage to a Catholic Prince, but by the early 1580’s with the demise of the Alencon courtship and the end of her childbearing years, this ruse could no longer work.
Elizabeth knew an attack was coming. She desperately needed to use as much of her small annual revenue as possible for Military Defense. So, what did she absolutely need to fund apart from military defense?
Well, she needed to pay for her households. She needed to keep the postal service working (at a cost of 1200 pounds per annum). She also had to keep the Scots quiet by funding King James (to the tune of 4000 pounds per annum), and enable Walsingham to run his spy network (at the cost of 2000 pounds per annum).
That should have been it, surely the rest could go on military defense, but no, there was another very important item that had to be covered. This was cultivating the ongoing support of the English people.
Insurrection by Catholics and the dissatisfaction of Protestants who believed Catholicism still held sway in government were her two other major concerns, either of which could destabilize her rule of England.
Fortunately, then, the latest development in mass communication was at hand; the Play. Starting life in her Court to entertain and delight her, it soon moved out into the country as the nobles who financed the player troupes tried to subsidize their costs when the Court moved out of its winter quarters by putting the troupes on the road to perform in Inns and Halls. and soon specialist theatres like the Curtain and the Theatre were built which could hold thousands of people at each performance.
The public loved these plays and flocked to performances, and as only one in ten people could read, this form of entertainment also became a major source of education, and the population needed to be educated correctly about how great our Royal and Noble history was.
So, what was needed in the 1580’s was a new source of plays that were either entertaining, so as to keep the populace happy, or ‘informative’, so as to keep them on side. (There was no danger of being ‘wrongly’ informative, as all plays had to be vetted and approved by the Queen’s Master of Revels).
It so happened that there was already an organization that could write new plays that were informative, entertaining and always on the Queens side, this was the de Vere Play Factory at Fishers Foley, near Bishopsgate in London. From the perspective of the Government, this was ideal; de Vere was one of the most senior nobles in the country and passionately believed in right of nobility to rule, he was on-side so to speak. He had around him at his retreat in Fisher’s Folly some of the best writers in the English-speaking world who worked with him to produce plays for his own play troupe. Also, as a prior Ward of Burleigh, the Queen’s first councilor, and now related to him through marriage, de Vere was completely trusted. All that needed to be done was for de Vere to ramp up the production of top-quality new plays.
Here is the time line:
1580 de Vere acquires Fisher Folly and many of the greatest names in English writing at the time join him there.
1582 The Queen takes over his players and amalgamates them with two other troupes to form the Queens players which tour the country in two groups presenting the Queen’s comedies and historical plays.
1584 The Queen awards de Vere a life pension of 1000 pounds per annum for unspecified services.

Was Shakespeare’s Will ‘Signed’ By Law Clerks?
From the Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship.
An Australian doctoral student researching Elizabethan signatures has suggested that the six signatures on Shakespeare’s will were all signed by law clerks. If proven, it is evidence that the man from Stratford may not have been able to sign his own name no less ‘write’ the dozens of plays and hundreds of poems attributed to him.
In an 80-page essay, entitled “The Slippery Slope of Shakespeare’s Six Signatures,” appearing in the new issue of the peer-reviewed journal, *The Oxfordian,* Matthew Hutchinson, a doctoral candidate in the Humanities from Sydney, Australia, argues that “Shakespeare scholars have failed to place the signatures in their contemporary legal and social environment…. When examined in context, all six signatures show multiple anomalies and must be questioned.”
Hutchison notes that unlike other playwrights of the period who favored Italic signatures, the six ‘Shakespeare’ will signatures are all in what is called Secretary hand, a style akin to contemporary shorthand in which the script is similar from word to word and document to document making it difficult to tell one person’s hand from the next. Yet each of the will signatures are different.
“The six signatures,” says Hutchison, “must be re-evaluated…from first principles. It is time for forensic document examiners to fully assess…and bring the scholarship into line with the modern standard. Among the possible outcomes, we must recognize the sobering possibility exists that we do not possess a single word in Shakespeare’s own hand.”
Hutchison notes that scholars often argue that a possible health condition could have affected the so-called ‘Shakespeare’signatures, despite any evidence. This contradicts, however, the will’s own statement that the testator is in “perfect health.” Nor does it explain why Secretary hand was used for the three “W’s.”
Some have made the argument that Shakespeare may have trained as a scrivener, but if he did, he would have known that legal documents were expected to contain consistent signatures to aid identification and that the Court of Requests expected a full surname signature.
Hutchison’s essay in *The Oxfordian* (issue 23) is now available through Amazon.
The Oxfordian Vol. 23

 

[WAB]

Hola Swammi,

If you mean me, I was banned from the ShakesVere group. I made all of three posts there, the last one quite critical of Oxford's acknowledged poems. I have tried to get to the group, but it's as if it disappeared. I will not pursue trying to get back in, but I am nonetheless still compelled to follow the bread crumbs you and T.G.G.M. have dropped.

I find it all quite fascinating, and believe me, if and when I am ever fairly certain of the Duke's authorship (I do believe that it is certainly possible that Oxford wrote Shakespeare; and I agree, and have agreed all throughout, that there is significant reason, if not through actual, concrete, forensic evidence, then in tons of speculative and circumstantial evidence, to doubt the authorship of TSM.

Just today, as I was looking to see if I could locate a William Peter Blatty book - since I have read the Exorcist trilogy (Exorcist, Legend, and Dimiter) with extreme pleasure, and since The Exorcist is my favorite film, which I have watched probably 50 times, I decided to see if I could now afford one of his other novels.

I see at Wikipedia that Blatty wrote a comic novel called I, Billy Shakespeare, and that he was engaged as a comic writer at the beginning of his career! Of all the ironic things, but not exactly a surprise, since his books contain a certain degree of comedy - especially in his Lt Detective Kinderman character, as played in the first film by the incredibly talented and almost forgotten Lee J. Cobb.

I am going to buy the book, if it is available somewhere as a downloadable file, and I will offer my review of it when I'm finished.The narrative treats of the authorship question, according to the page, which is here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I,_Billy_Shakespeare

 

[Swammerdami]

I'm sure it's frustrating to get barred from a discussion like ShakesVere. but you can't really blame them for being unwelcoming.

For example, in this thread a link was posted to a YouTube with a Shakespearean "scholar" who, when asked about anti-Stratfordians, replied with an insult like "scraping it off his shoes" and presented as example a woman who'd written him claiming Queen Elizabeth was a transsexual. If the group were fully open it would be filled with such ignorant rants. BUT they may have erred on the side of excess caution.

I've seen discussions of this topic degenerate into ignorant and useless rants elsewhere. I have been very impressed with TFT where the discussion has been entirely intelligent and without gratuitous insults.

I've ventured 1 or 2 brief questions at the ShakesVere group, including one about the mysterious "pasted-in 'candles'" (mentioned upthread in #413) in De Vere's Bible. Since Strittmatter himself is in the group I hoped for an answer, but none was offered.

 

[WAB]

I'm sure it's frustrating to get barred from a discussion like ShakesVere. but you can't really blame them for being unwelcoming.

For example, in this thread a link was posted to a YouTube with a Shakespearean "scholar" who, when asked about anti-Stratfordians, replied with an insult like "scraping it off his shoes" and presented as example a woman who'd written him claiming Queen Elizabeth was a transsexual. If the group were fully open it would be filled with such ignorant rants. BUT they may have erred on the side of excess caution.

I've seen discussions of this topic degenerate into ignorant and useless rants elsewhere. I have been very impressed with TFT where the discussion has been entirely intelligent and without gratuitous insults.

I've ventured 1 or 2 brief questions at the ShakesVere group, including one about the mysterious "pasted-in 'candles'" (mentioned upthread in #413) in De Vere's Bible. Since Strittmatter himself is in the group I hoped for an answer, but none was offered.

Indeed, Swammi, I don't blame them for giving me the boot. That will make three times I was banished for my silliness.

Yes, this has been a pretty tame thread, all things considered.

***

About the Blatty book, I was expecting something a lot funnier than what I've read so far, though I am only at pg 18. It's a very small book, mostly taken up with comical drawings. I will probably finish it quickly.

I like Blatty's prose writing very much, though he's not a Henry James or Edith Wharton.

 

[WAB]

...if it is available somewhere as a downloadable file, ...I will offer my review of it when I'm finished. - me myself and I & all of us.

I, Billy Shakespeare, was silly, but not terribly funny. I bailed less than a third of the way through.

 

[Swammerdami]

Without comment by me, a post in ShakesVere yesterday:

Here's an illustration of the difference between real and fake use of linguistic data to help establish authorship:
Claim for North:
“Well, then I shall see thee again.”
“It is a wonderful thing to see.”
[Sources not identified]
Claim that "Shakespeare" wrote the first twenty poems of the 1599 Poetry book, Passionate Pilgrim:
But not so fair as fickle Pass. Pilg. VII.1
But not so short as sweet Rich. II 5.3.117
Anon he comes, and throws his mantle by Pass. Pilg. VI.9
But now he throws that shallow habit by Lucrece 1814
And as he fell to her, she fell to him. Pass. Pilg. XI.4
So soon was she along as he was down Venus 43
Now was she just before him as he sat Venus 349
When Cytherea (all in love forlorne) Pass. Pilg. VI .3
Poor queen of love, in thine own law forlorn Venus 251
Not daring trust the office of mine eies Pass. Pilg. XIII.16
Is there no exorcist
Beguiles the truer office of mine eyes? All’s Well 5.3.304-305.
These examples are analyzed in detail in the forthcoming volume II (now in proofreading stages) of the de Vere poems series. They represent evidence powerful enough to substantiate a claim of common authorship. The examples cited by the North advocates rarely rise to the level of substantiating a claim of influence, and usually when they do, its no news to anyone familiar with the long-established influence of North's translations on Shakespeare.

 

[none]

I watched Grease and West Side Story.

 

[WAB]

Without comment by me, a post in ShakesVere yesterday:

Here's an illustration of the difference between real and fake use of linguistic data to help establish authorship:
Claim for North:
“Well, then I shall see thee again.”
“It is a wonderful thing to see.”
[Sources not identified]
Claim that "Shakespeare" wrote the first twenty poems of the 1599 Poetry book, Passionate Pilgrim:
But not so fair as fickle Pass. Pilg. VII.1
But not so short as sweet Rich. II 5.3.117
Anon he comes, and throws his mantle by Pass. Pilg. VI.9
But now he throws that shallow habit by Lucrece 1814
And as he fell to her, she fell to him. Pass. Pilg. XI.4
So soon was she along as he was down Venus 43
Now was she just before him as he sat Venus 349
When Cytherea (all in love forlorne) Pass. Pilg. VI .3
Poor queen of love, in thine own law forlorn Venus 251
Not daring trust the office of mine eies Pass. Pilg. XIII.16
Is there no exorcist
Beguiles the truer office of mine eyes? All’s Well 5.3.304-305.
These examples are analyzed in detail in the forthcoming volume II (now in proofreading stages) of the de Vere poems series. They represent evidence powerful enough to substantiate a claim of common authorship. The examples cited by the North advocates rarely rise to the level of substantiating a claim of influence, and usually when they do, its no news to anyone familiar with the long-established influence of North's translations on Shakespeare.

I didn't want to dredge up the main points of MY particular, personal (read: subjective) opinion regarding the SAQ, TSM, or the Oxfordian Authorship Theory, BUT

There's always a

With respect to the quote above, and with regard to PP (Passionate Pilgrim): (deep breath, ahhhh....Hey, easy William; just hold those reins tight and keep 'er steady. And Bill, please try to maintain a decently unnoticeable heartbeat for GOD's sake! And stop with the headaches! And quit making me, I mean us...reach for the damn coffee, or a goddamn cigarette!! for the love of! Watch what you're doing! My god can't you keep us on a diet! Look at those fat fingers!!!! How do you expect to...ah hell just type!!!)

First, PP was a mixture of various authors, some known attributions, some not so known. There was (purportedly, (and I am NOT AN EXPERT! ) uh...Kit Marlowe, with his shepherd to the girl poem...Well, leastways I rekkin it might have been a girl? Who knows? Oh yeah, well I don't know, but I suppose Marlow could have been gay, or bi, or what have you (etc, etc, etc&). Who knows? Well of course there are rumors and hearsay! This was more than four and a half centuries ago, and he was a poet, for heaven's sake, and wore puffy shirts to boot! Things get said. And we all know the poofters couldn't exactly hold hands and smooch in public! Not that there's anything wrong with that! Ah hell...let me continue...

Second, it is fairly established that TSM was not up to his full game yet, though he certainly had game right from the get-go, iffen he ever wrote anything except his signature (and there is MUCH to say about the variations in the signatures that has not been addressed yet save by Bomb#20, and nobody paid much attention to that - but there is more...

Show

[Make it fast, Willy, I need a shpritz of Pepto already - GOD. ]

:

...there is the "Hand 'D' " manuscript, which can be viewed online, from the play Thomas More, which was apparently cobbled together by a slew of established playwrights of 'Shakespeare's' day.

That hand is in secretary script, a hand many authors were known to have used in those days; and not only that, but the lines written in "Hand 'D' " sound remarkably like William Shakespeare, the Author of the Shakespearean Canon (who may or not have been the same Billy Shakespere {usual spelling of the day, along with others, including Shakspere...etc. } as a paid and acknowledged actor and part owner of the Globe theatre, which means that, as Bomb and others have pointed out already upthread, that it is difficult to imagine Will Shake-a-speare, that cocky upstart crow mentioned by somebody whose name I can't recall and don't feel like looking for, and also supposedly referenced by Ben Jonson...etc... ---- could have been illiterate, being that, as an actor, he would have had to memorize lines, and had some appreciation of iambic pentameter, as well as the "nuances" of Shakespearean monologue and dialogue, meaning he would HAVE to have been quite well-trained as an actor (and fairly literate if he were to have been a business man!) - what with the stage players gestures, pompous elocution, contemporary manners of exaggerated oration and eccentric regional and/or cultural, and/or (deep breath)

SPACE TO BREATHE

economic and or outmoded and classist and thoroughly silly and rightfully antique and forgotten levels of aristocracy and nobility, wherein many a pompous ass and a dandified but well-read, well-ejumacated, and well-intended arse of an Earl or a Duke or a Count or a Countess or a viscount or a my account [bank, website, BB, Paypal, etc...] discount, hell, or a no-account over-paid flattering fatuous word-salad spieling dandy, could elbow around with other dandies and dandettes and flatter the king or queen or whomever or who the hell ever's royal overfed, pale, possibly in-bred and stupefyingly dumb but well-spoken and duly DANGEROUS and HEAD-ROLLING dictator dowager tyrant autarch emperor numbskull of a silly accidentally born-into-nothing but silver spoons and breastfeedings and all-you-can-eat buffets silly persons'

(or otherwise) individuals' soft and possibly very wide BOTTOMs happened to be occupying the most-high most royal and most likely unattractive big-nosed pimply faced but smooth-talking and well-behaved and well-raised but pallid or pheasant-leg gnawing cliched Charleton-Heston-type gluttonous bearded overstuffed overrated pile of pretentious authoritative hollow-headed, vacuous, flabby-thighed, saggy-breasted (male or female) potentate or imperial leader and trumpety-trumper-clownstick orange haired nitwit of a silly over-paid gambler and pussy-grabbing moron seat or throne in the WORLD (or nation, country, capitol, state, county, town house cleaning blue-collared wage-slave of a janitor or a burger-flipping schmo or schmo-ess or white collared follower of silly dogmatic mandates and edicts and declarations and newspeak and nuance and wtf have you, etc, etc, etc&).

There is no third part.

(finis)

Exuent, fanfare, trumpets, tears, knives, poison, roll credits...

[curtain...]

 

[Swammerdami]

I've avoided bumping this thread, but there is one weird hypothesis that's barely been mentioned. I speak of the idea that Henry Wriothesley was the love-child of Queen Elizabeth by the young Edward de Vere. I'm in the Facebook group ShakesVere, whose members include Strittmatter, Whittemore and other prominent Oxfordians, Recently the love-child theory has come under discussion. I was surprised to learn that a large portion of Oxfordians take it seriously.

I've always thought of this wild idea as giving Oxfordians a bad name: it just sounds absurd, like crackpottery. But with the top Oxfordians taking it seriously, I listened to the podcast Begin at the Beguine. (You can find this and other Oxfordian podcasts at the "Don't Quill the Messenger" site.

I hate podcasts, and wish there were a transcript. Perhaps there's a webpage covering the same material; please post here if you find a printed discussion. But Dorothea Dickerman is fun to listen to. Steven the narrator interrupts a little, but you can start this (very long) podcast at the 3:00 mark and save a few minutes.

As with so much of the Authorship controversy, the love-child hypothesis is a huge rabbit-hole suitable for killing many hours! But the podcast does clarify some questions I had:

(1) How could people not notice that the Queen was pregnant? Supposedly the Queen spent many months in hiding, refusing visitors or insisting they sit far away; her dresses concealed her figure; she used her Ladies as stand-ins. (Recall that Katherine Carey, Chief Lady of the Bedchamber, was both half-sister and 1st cousin of the Queen and was said to look just like her.)

(2) Why would Elizabeth de Vere's father and grandfather promote her marriage to Wriothesley if Elizabeth were Wriothesley's own half-sister? Both men allegedly supposed that de Vere was not Elizabeth's father: Anne de Vere (nee Cecil) was raped (supposedly) shortly before de Vere left for Paris, France. (The Queen took much interest in Anne, inquiring about her menstrual cycles!)

(3) How could Wriothesley (allegedly a bastard) be entitled to the throne of England (as proposed by adherents to the love-child theory) even if he were the Queen's son? Laws are very different about inheritance from extra-marital mother vs inheritance from extra-marital father. What was the law about inheritance by the child of an unmarried Queen? According to Dorothea, a 1571 law meant the son of an unmarried Queen WOULD inherit.

Note that Henry Wriothesley's putative father, the same-named 2nd Earl of Southampton, was imprisoned in the Tower of London for 18 months, including the entire time that his wife Mary might have become impregnated with Henry for his October 1573 birth! Supposedly he had no visits from Mary at all, let alone conjugal visits. Instead Mary was chosen to be the love-child's pretend-mother.

The hypothesis helps explain the fawning devotion toward Wriothesley by the Bard. This devotion — often interpreted as homosexual love, rather odd if the goal were a marriage to the Bard's daughter — suddenly makes much better sense as paternal love: the Bard was Wriothesley's father!

Recall that Venus and Adonis and Rape of Lucrece were the ONLY works ever published BY Shakespeare, with dedications BY Shakespeare, who was unknown before their publication. The dedication to the latter ("THE love I dedicate to your lordship is without end; whereof this pamphlet, without beginning, is but a superfluous moiety") is rather cryptic, with the part I've emphasized implying a key connection with the Venus poem. Yet the poems are vastly different in theme and tone. What is the connection? It was the rape of Elizabeth de Vere's mother that made the proposed Wriothesley-de Vere marriage (touted in Venus and Adonis) non-incestuous. The Rape of Lucrece deviates hugely from the classic tale, following instead the story of the real-life Anne de Vere (nee Cecil). (Who raped Anne de Vere ("Lucrece")? Perhaps Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester and powerful enemy of de Vere. This is suggested by the word 'eyeball' — related to the Queen's nickname for Dudley — which occurs in the poem, perhaps its first occurrence in English.)

Whether you find the theory far-fetched or not, it's fun to listen to Dorothea. Venus and Adonis describes the seduction of de Vere by the Queen. A lot of passages in that poem, and much more, fall into place with this love-child hypothesis. (By the way, note that as an orphaned Earl, de Vere was legally the step-son of the Queen, his lover.)

I've mixed feelings about the whole matter, and it all seems quite flimsy. We certainly do NOT need this theory to be true to believe in an Oxford authorship. But, since top Oxfordians take it seriously, I feel obligated to share here.

IIUC, the theory has Wriothesley born in June 1574, instead of October 1573. Is it really true that there is zero mention of this "Baron of Titchfield" during the eight intervening months? ???

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I've mixed feelings about the whole matter, and it all seems quite flimsy. We certainly do NOT need this theory to be true to believe in an Oxford authorship. But, since top Oxfordians take it seriously, I feel obligated to share here.

Swammi,

If you are interested in pursuing the idea along with other Oxfordian information there is a new video out where Delahoyde talks about the very idea. It is not so far fetched although it would be scoffed at by Stratfordians.

Michael Delahoyde talks to Bob Meyers about Twelfth Night

Definitely worth the listen.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

The latest from the SOF talks about the six signatures that orthodox Shakespeare defenders claim are genuine. The odd thing about these signatures is that they appear alongside actual signatures of persons who signed the same documents. Only the alleged Shakespeare signatures have a problem, namely that they are dissimilar with each other. They were likely penned by someone other than Shakespeare as this was common at the time. There are also anomalies in the signatures which indicate it was simply a legal undertaking that signatures need not be present, something odd in today's world. The witnesses on the Shakespeare will did not sign as witnesses do today but rather months later. The will also originally said "sealed" as the will was intended to carry a seal, which carried more weight than a signature at the time. But that was lined through and changed to "sign." It is a very strange document to say the least when compared to contemporaneous documents of the time.

Better add a link SAC News: Shakspere’s signatures executed by law clerks?