Why do people keep calling Shakespeare a fraud? Even if Marlowe wrote Shakespeare's plays (which he didn't) and Shakespeare was just a farmer who became an actor, that still wouldn't make Shakespeare a fraud himself. It would make him a farmer who became an actor...
angryliberal= as a teacher, that's not exactly a way to teach in my opinion. If you don't want to believe in the controversy, at least give them the option of choosing, so that later they may want to look into it. I know I had the same problem in h.s. when rdg. R & J...it meant nothing to me & hated it. I'm a non-trad. now, & I LOVE Shake-speare. Never thought I'd say that. I him his works thru diff't eyes. now. Maybe you shouldn't be so mad at the world & be a better educator. Just a suggestion
You aren't debunking anything, you are just silly. It is obvious to the most casual reader of both that Marlowe wrote Shakespeare. Otherwise, Shakespeare is the biggest ripoff artist in history.
@likebox2 "Silly" and "obvious" are not academic thoughts in my opinion. I truly believe Edward de Vere wrote the works. I've read many books & seen a ton of info. & I also know about Shakespeare f/Stratford, so yes I've seen both sides and the Marlowe side, too. It's not "obvious" & I realize there may be tons of info on de Vere, but nothing can be proven. Ripoff? Still, whoever wrote the works is a literary genius & there IS a reason his work as been read & popular for 400+ yrs.!
Shapiro is fond of attacking Thomas Looney because he knows this gets a guffaw from the uninformed.But his efforts to paint Looney as a proto-fascist are contemptible and cowardly. Not only is it unfair to Looney, Shapiro is trying to plant the idea that anyone who supports the heretical case is probably a bit of a crypto-fascist themselves.One wonders if Shapiro would have been willing to so characterise Looney in front of someone totally committed to Looney’s thesis, Sigmund Freud.
@cellis5384 Well put. Shapiro isn't even willing to debate persons far less well known than Freud. Actually, he's a bit of a coward. Or else he's smart enough to know that any even debate, in which such dazzling ad hominems as those on which he predicates his case are declared off limits as logical fallacies, he can't come out ahead. So he doesn't debate. He just lectures.
This is just part of the S@S interview...you should listen to the entire interview...listening to just a part leaves you with the impression the editor wants...and is often not the whole truth...
Advise for anyone annoyed with any intelligence: don't read comments on a YouTube video. There are a lot of dumb people who haven't the first clue what they are talking about and get sucked into ridiculous conspiracies. They occur naturally; it's modern humanity to make up this stuff: it gives people something to talk about, gives the illusion that they are important in some way as they type away.
@DuskAndHerEmbrace13 Yes, you're right, Dusk, but in this case the shoe you are describing fits yourself. What's dumb is not that well informed persons would question the biggest lie in Western civilization. What's dumb is that people like you, who don't know anything about the topic under discussion, would jump in with this sort of nonsense. Here's a clue. Google is your friend. Paradigm shift happens, whether you like it or not.
@ted2u2 You said I "don't know anything about the topic under discussion". That was not a valid response as you don't know the first thing about me or what I know other than the words in the one comment I wrote. Do you seriously expect for me to take you seriously if you genuinely think that what you just said was relevant? I happen to have studied Shakespeare for the majority of my life and the sort of "nonsense" of the author of Shakespeare's work being Shakespeare isn't exactly "nonsense".
@1948BigCy You know that name-calling and insults is no way to increase the respect of anyone reading your posts. The dates of the plays have been wrong for a long time. Stratfordians manipulated these so as to fit the life of Will Shakspere, the illiterate poacher, business man and actor from Stratford. THAT'S why they have to create all these "ur-plays" to account for the original versions of the play occurring so much earlier in records of the court, where the plays were first performed.
@Mooseman327 That's a bunch of BS unless you have one iota of evidence that it is true, which you don't...I call a spade a spade, and you are a know nothing who has jumped on the Oxford bandwagon...nothing in your post is true...you can't separate Shakespeare from the Burbages...they formed a team that lasted 30 years...do you really think Shakespeare could have fooled them? The play dates are accurate...they were registered...you guys will believe anything!!
Aside from the subjective evidence of Shakespeare's work, one of the biggest arguments for this conspiracy is Shakespeare's alleged illiteracy. Well, you would think someone in history before him would've combined the two words 'eye' and 'ball' together, wouldn't you? Well, you're wrong. He had the time and space to create nonsense in a time of tedious literature. That's why he's respected. He did things first, and I'm skeptical that he could even realize the profound impact he would later have.
@bigevil180 Amen...if Shakespeare was illiterate, then he couldn't write the plays...so any anti-Strat has to start there...he was not illiterate, and that is the main reason no other candidates are taken seriously....everything about his life fits...the word "daisy" was formed from "day's eye". perhaps not by Shakespeare, but the English language was developing at that time from Middle to Modern...Shakespeare lived in an era when change was more common than status quo...
He hardly debunks the "myth" here. His assertion that this is akin to Holocaust denial is frankly ridiculous. There is no facts which give the slightest inference that Shakespeare wrote the plays at all. His biographical conjecture is so subjective that it is frankly a joke to even discuss them under any authoritative title. There is no original manuscripts, no letters, nothing at all which gives the slightest inclination at all. This is just a damn joke.
Shapiro confuses imagination with fantasy. His belief that it is negative to tell students that a royal wrote about royal intrigues, instead of it being simply made up, is wrong. In fact, I think students would like to learn that a great education, with access to great books, and to life's experiences, might kindle something that is not there for them at present. To think one could simply use their imagination to divine the works of WS is truly intimidating, and makes one want to drop the pen.
@edboswell Yes. young artists need to learn how to access imagination — and the greatest reservoirs of imagination are the deep pools of one's own experience, at the levels of the physical (events, relationships, places) and of the psychic (soul, emotional, spiritual).
This is largely a statement of belief, not a reasoned scholarly argument. Moreover, it is a a vulgar one. Professor Shapiro's glib recital of such comparisons as "holocaust denial" or "creationism" is a sign of the desperation of orthodox scholarship in the 21st century.
@ted2u2 Wrong; you misunderstand what he said. Shapiro mentions creationism, and holocaust deniers because they are beliefs that don't go away, despite the fact that there is no evidence for them. Shakespeare deniers are still around even though there is not a scrap of evidence that he didn't write the plays, and no evidence that anyone else did. It's affront to logical thinking, scholarship and the Bard himself. Who wrote shakespeare? spoiler alert...William Shakespeare!!!
@1948BigCy - Shapiro, if you listen, talks about creationism and the truth about the so-called 'holocaust' (which he calls 'Holocaust denial') as 'hard to refute. His words. He's just another liar out to make money.
@rerevisionist Does you names mean you are an anti-revisionist? I don't agree with Shapiro...holocaust deniars are easy to disprove...we had people in Buchenwald who left tales of terrors, films, German people who were taken by buses to see what their Great Fuhrer did, and who left crying...the Holocause is one of the best detailed horrors in recent history....
@rerevisionist I don't know what you are talking about..are you a holocaust denyer? Then you are sick....I have relatives who were killed at Auschwitz....only fools, usually under 30, think that de Vere wrote the Canon...if Shapiro were out to make a buck, like you say, he would have written a book about de Vere....
@lostboy76 Once again, you're utterly failing to understand that the name "William Shakespeare," which appears on the Folio was never once connected with Will Shaxpere of Stratford. Never. And, often the name was hyphenated as "Shake-Speare," which points to it being an alias. DeVere was called the "spear-shaker" and one "who shook spears" in various writings of the time. This refers both to one of DeVere's dramatic entrances at one of the lordly sporting events. But no connection with Will.
@Mooseman327 William Shakespeare of Stratford was referred to as "Shakespeare" in 90% of documents. He signed his name "Shakespere". Oxford spelled his name "Oxford", "Oxenford", and "Oxenforde". Is Edward de Vere an imposter, too? The rest of your stuff is the usual debunked Oxford nonsense - hyphenation does not "point to" an alias; and, an Oxfordian fraud purposely mistranslated a Latin passage in Oxford's biography to suggest that "his countenance shakes a spear". You've been suckered.
@LostBoy76 You haven't learned much yet. And kindly stop parroting baloney like "you've been suckered." or "fraud." As was shown many years ago on HLAS, B.M. Ward's translation of "tela" as "spear" is perfectly legitimate Latin. Yes, a more usual Latin word for spear is "hasta" -- and tela can mean "weapon, arrow" *or* "speare." But to call the translation a "fraud" is just invidious nonsense. It may make you feel good, but its no argument.
@Mooseman327 That's the most idiotic argument i've ever heard, but typical for you Oxies. You fail to understand typesetting in those days. The lack of a common spellings (even today, how many ways can you spell "Jasmine"?
DeVere died before the best of Will was written...left no plays...was never known to write tragedies...Will was a member, actor, and part owner of a company for 22 years...the same actors who performed the plays of William Shakespeare...get a life...
We also know that Ben Jonson, who wrote much of the introductory material, was an intimate associate of the de Vere family after Oxford's death. So, when it comes to the First Folio, we can easily see that its publication came directly from the de Vere family.
@Mooseman327 Who cares if Ben Jonson was associated with the De Vere family! William Shakespeare was one of Ben Jonson's closest friends and acted in at least one of his plays, and Ben names Will as the author and praises his talent!! De Vere had nothing to do with these plays.
There is no mention of any executor or relative of Shakspere of Stratford in connection with the First Folio. However, of the two brothers who financed it and to whom it was dedicated, one, Philip Earl of Montgomery was the husband of Oxford's daughter Susan, while the other, William Earl of Pembroke, had once been a suitor for her sister Bridget. Pembroke was Lord Chamberlain, the supreme authority in the world of theatre, and thus in a position to decide which plays were to be published.
I simply can't believe you're this obtuse, Lostboy. Rings have absolutely nothing to do with having written the plays of Shakespeare. They are merely proof that he knew the men in question...and he did. He was an actor and an investor in some theater companies. Every Oxfordian will tell you that. He was not a playwright, however. Absolutely no proof he ever wrote a single word.
@Mooseman327 Yes, he was an actor and investor. His name also appears on many quartos and the First Folio itself, specifically named as the author. That is proof.
When writers of the time were talking of DeVere and this guy "Shakespeare" one has to keep in mind that the name "Shakespeare" was being attached to DeVere's plays (in order to throw people off the scent that they were indeed written by DeVere) and that people were indeed confused by this feint. That's the entire point of the argument. Again, at no time was the guy from Stratford ever associated with the plays and sonnets. That's a gross fabrication. Find evidence that he was.
@Mooseman327 I really don't know how to begin rebutting the nonsense you've just written. Are you just joking, or are you really this ignorant? William Shakespeare of Stratford left in his will a directive to buy rings for John Heminges and Henry Condell, the very same two men that published the First Folio in 1623. He also wanted a ring bought for Richard Burbage, a fellow actor at the Globe theater in London. Pretty clear evidence, wouldn't you say? And there's plenty more if you want.
@Lostboy again with the hyperbole. If I don't belive as you (and you cannot prove your case because it is not so) then you resort to name calling. Typical. Im done with this you only know how to insult . You offer some lame reason about not offering any evidence because its out there. I do have an open mind. But I don't have to justify that to you. Lets just say once upon a time I thought like you did but after READING and investigating I discovered the truth. I'm done. Peace out.
@MsTexasOne Not a word of what I wrote is hyperbole, and I'm not re-stating the case because we're on a YouTube page about James Shapiro! Read "Contested Will" for God's sake! It is par for the course for any closed-minded person to insist that they have an open mind, so whatever. And by the way, I read more books than you do. Goodbye, fool.
@rockhammer85 There's no such thing as a "Stratfordian". The argument is between SCHOLARS and "Oxfordians", "Baconians", "Marlovians", "Rutlandians", and the befuddled acolytes of every other "candidate". And your analogy is false; you may as well label evolutionary biologists and astronomers flat-earthers if you're going to label Shakespearean scholars flat-earthers, too. All three professions are concerned with evidence, not fantasies.
You mean the evidence that amounts to a few inept signatures, some legal documents suggesting a petty-minded usurer, and one or two second-hand, impersonal references to mere name?
@rockhammer85 The same WIlliam Shakespeare was an actor and shareholder at the playhouse in which the plays were performed. The burden of proof is upon you to provide one shred of proof as to why we should not believe Shakespeare's contemporaries when they tell us that he wrote them. Much of the evidence that we have for middle class authors of the period is credit or a reference from someone else. Do you believe that Kit Marlowe, Thomas Dekker, John Webster,etc wrote the works with their names?
The few words from his contemporaries are ambiguous. Not even Jonson said anything specific or concrete about Shakespeare the writer, and what he did say wasn't very flattering until his about-face for the First Folio. Its strange, too, that Heminge and Condell 'received' the plays from their pal as pages with 'scarce a blot' on them. That sounds less like them knowing Shakespeare as a writer at work, and more like them just assuming the finished product he handed them to be his.
There's always some uncertainty for me when it comes to attributions of Elizabethan plays. However, for Marlowe and Webster (unlike Shakespeare) it can at least be shown that they had the minimum credentials needed for consideration as authors - i.e. evidence of literacy/education, or an eye-witness account putting them directly in context as a writer.
Marlowe attended Cambridge.
Webster was described at work - and in detail - in Henry's Fitzjeffrey's mocking poem.
@LostBoy76 One could assume the term "ever-living" means the person is dead. Shakespeare did not give a dedication to his Sonnets, published before Shaxper's death, and after De Vere's. He is referred to as "the ever-living poet" on the dedication page. I defy you to find a single reference to a living person being described as the"ever-living" . Perhaps that's why the sonnets were suppressed after publication, as only 15 copies exist. Read up on walt whitman and WS, he was very astute
@Lostboy...hahahaha ok whatever. LOL you say there's "ample" overwhelming evidence for the glover's son to have been literate enough to have written the plays. Well pretend I'm from Missouri show me and I will have an open mind. Also no matter how much hyperbole you throw at me and insult me and those who can think for themselves unlike those who have closed their minds and refuse to be true scholars, it doesn't prove your case. It only proves that you can spell.
@MsTexasOne No, I'm not going to state the case for you, especially on YouTube, and you do not have an open mind. There are two choices for people interested in this "debate": one can believe Shakespeare's contemporaries, who tell us explicitly that Will Shakespeare of Stratford was an actor and author of the plays; or, one can believe the evidence-free "cases" made by various cranks and internet trolls CENTURIES LATER, who presume to know what it took to be an Elizabethan playwright.
When contemporary, and near-contemporary, writers of Shakespeare mention Shakespeare they are talking about the writer they know as Shakespeare. None of them link this Shakespeare to the guy from Stratford. This is where people like Shapiro are liars. There ARE contemporaries who call de Vere the best playwright at the time for comedy. But where are his plays? They're Shakespeare's. Shapiro is his own example of smart people who say stupid things. He's dead wrong in public.
@Mooseman327 De Vere's plays have been lost, like so many other plays. Shakespeare's Cardenio? Love's Labours Won? In the same list that mentions De Vere as best for comedy, William Shakespeare's plays and sonnets are praised. This is unequivocal evidence that they were two completely different people. How you Oxfordians can overlook this glaring refutation of your fantasy is truly astounding.
Your inability to comprehend the situation is pretty astounding. DeVere's "lost" plays are the plays of Shakespeare in their earliest form, presented at court. The "early" plays that Shakespeare supposedly based his own works on are DeVere's own plays presented at court. The works of Shakespeare that came down to us in the Folio are DeVere's final renderings of his own plays. When the name "Shakespeare" is mentioned, it is never in relation to the guy from Stratford. Never.
@Lostboy...my pity is with you. You will see. I will be vindicated and you will be considered like one of those people from centuries ago who believed that the earth was the center of the solar system and the earth was flat. But believe as you will. I have no malice for your lack of need of evidence and reliance on the "religion" of the man from Stratford. It is as Shaw called it...Bardoltry. Who am I to tell you your God is wrong.
@MsTexasOne You are NOT a brave heretic fighting superstition - you are a conspiracy theorist, akin to 9/11 Truthers. There is ample evidence that William Shakespeare of Stratford wrote the works. No faith is required. If you wish to waste your short life pursuing your hobby horse, go ahead. But you will never be vindicated, and it's morbidly funny that you actually believe this.
@LostBoy76 And you are a vulgar name caller who can't engage in a civil conversation without calling other people dirty names simply because they hold a view different from your own. You aren't in any position to go about labeling other people.
I am not the only person who accepts that the man from Stratford did not write the plays. But authorship debate aside...to suggest that someone who does not accept the Stratford man as the author is equivalent to being a "holocaust denier" is to make light of the subject of ethnic cleansing and to insult feeling people who can disagree. One day teaching that the man from Stratford is the author of the plays will be considered what it truly is...a farce.
If you truly believe that I pity you. "Anti-Stratfordians" (anti-scholars is a more apt term) were saying the very same thing a century ago, and they'll be saying it a century from now, too. How many will waste their lives pursuing and preaching counterknowledge? Fantasy and history are wonderful genres that I enjoy reading, but this "Oxfordian" (or "Baconian", or whatever BS you believe) fantasy-as-history is truly contemptible.
Twos question that Stratfordians find difficult to answer are this: why were William Shakespeare's daughters both illiterate? And why, when questioned about 30 years after his death, did his daughter state that he never owned any books? And don't say that women in that age were often illiterate. Studies show that over half the women in Elizabethan times could read and write. There's not a single instance of another great literary figure of that time who allowed his daughters to be illiterate
Smart people think dumb things ? That was profound... no not really. Mark twain lays it out beautifully. Go read 'Is Shakespeare Dead' by Mark Twain and you will dismiss this guy entirely.
@bulldog01209 No. James Shapiro in his book spends quite a lot of time discussing Mark Twain's Shakespeare is Dead. It's Shapiro who dismisses Mark Twain. A lot of people who think Shakespeare could not have written the plays are coming at the issue with modern sensibilities assuming things about the society at the time that have no basis in fact.
@heliotropezzz333 Yes. he dismisses mark twain and host of other GREATS. This student of great works is going to tell me that Mark Twain WRITER of great works is wrong? Anyone who writes fiction will tell you that life experience informs your writing. Mark twain makes that point in a more elegant way " Experience is that thing that puts muscle and breath and warm blood into the book he writes". Besides most of points made against skakespeare has to do with his dodgy biography or LACK THERE OF.
@bulldog01209 Mark Twain is a great writer but that does not mean he is right about Shakespeare. Shapiro quotes all the other contemporary writers who referred to Shakespeare as the author.
Compare the handwriting of the candidates put forward for "Shakespeare" including Shakespeare himself, and from that there can be only one conclusion. The five extant signatures of William Shakespeare are not those of a learned person but of someone barely literate. "Shakespeare' and Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) wrote in longhand. Twain's signature tells all, and, more darkly, Shakespeare's does also. This comparison works with Blake, Marlowe, even Benjamin Franklin and countless others.
To read Ovid, Plutarch, Suitonius, and Tacitus I am certain he would of had to have gone to school.
Graham6762 3 weeks ago
Why do people keep calling Shakespeare a fraud? Even if Marlowe wrote Shakespeare's plays (which he didn't) and Shakespeare was just a farmer who became an actor, that still wouldn't make Shakespeare a fraud himself. It would make him a farmer who became an actor...
2277Ajones 3 weeks ago
You can believe it all you want, but there just doesn't happen to be any evidence to support your pet theory.
Kamandi2008 4 weeks ago
*I see his works (oops on that mess up)
knightbook1003 2 months ago
angryliberal= as a teacher, that's not exactly a way to teach in my opinion. If you don't want to believe in the controversy, at least give them the option of choosing, so that later they may want to look into it. I know I had the same problem in h.s. when rdg. R & J...it meant nothing to me & hated it. I'm a non-trad. now, & I LOVE Shake-speare. Never thought I'd say that. I him his works thru diff't eyes. now. Maybe you shouldn't be so mad at the world & be a better educator. Just a suggestion
knightbook1003 2 months ago
Here's what I teach my students about the "authorship controversy." It takes four words: "It is all bullshit." Enough said.
angryliberal1984 2 months ago
You aren't debunking anything, you are just silly. It is obvious to the most casual reader of both that Marlowe wrote Shakespeare. Otherwise, Shakespeare is the biggest ripoff artist in history.
likebox2 3 months ago
@likebox2 "Silly" and "obvious" are not academic thoughts in my opinion. I truly believe Edward de Vere wrote the works. I've read many books & seen a ton of info. & I also know about Shakespeare f/Stratford, so yes I've seen both sides and the Marlowe side, too. It's not "obvious" & I realize there may be tons of info on de Vere, but nothing can be proven. Ripoff? Still, whoever wrote the works is a literary genius & there IS a reason his work as been read & popular for 400+ yrs.!
knightbook1003 2 months ago
Shapiro is fond of attacking Thomas Looney because he knows this gets a guffaw from the uninformed.But his efforts to paint Looney as a proto-fascist are contemptible and cowardly. Not only is it unfair to Looney, Shapiro is trying to plant the idea that anyone who supports the heretical case is probably a bit of a crypto-fascist themselves.One wonders if Shapiro would have been willing to so characterise Looney in front of someone totally committed to Looney’s thesis, Sigmund Freud.
cellis5384 3 months ago
@cellis5384 Well put. Shapiro isn't even willing to debate persons far less well known than Freud. Actually, he's a bit of a coward. Or else he's smart enough to know that any even debate, in which such dazzling ad hominems as those on which he predicates his case are declared off limits as logical fallacies, he can't come out ahead. So he doesn't debate. He just lectures.
ted2u2 3 months ago
Thanks for posting. You might like to see the first part of my amateur documentary, The Real Edward de Vere, on the life of the real Earl of Oxford.
ShakespeareChannel 3 months ago
This is just part of the S@S interview...you should listen to the entire interview...listening to just a part leaves you with the impression the editor wants...and is often not the whole truth...
1948BigCy 3 months ago
Advise for anyone annoyed with any intelligence: don't read comments on a YouTube video. There are a lot of dumb people who haven't the first clue what they are talking about and get sucked into ridiculous conspiracies. They occur naturally; it's modern humanity to make up this stuff: it gives people something to talk about, gives the illusion that they are important in some way as they type away.
DuskAndHerEmbrace13 4 months ago
@DuskAndHerEmbrace13 - some comments are good!
rerevisionist 3 months ago
@DuskAndHerEmbrace13 Yes, you're right, Dusk, but in this case the shoe you are describing fits yourself. What's dumb is not that well informed persons would question the biggest lie in Western civilization. What's dumb is that people like you, who don't know anything about the topic under discussion, would jump in with this sort of nonsense. Here's a clue. Google is your friend. Paradigm shift happens, whether you like it or not.
ted2u2 3 months ago
@ted2u2 You said I "don't know anything about the topic under discussion". That was not a valid response as you don't know the first thing about me or what I know other than the words in the one comment I wrote. Do you seriously expect for me to take you seriously if you genuinely think that what you just said was relevant? I happen to have studied Shakespeare for the majority of my life and the sort of "nonsense" of the author of Shakespeare's work being Shakespeare isn't exactly "nonsense".
DuskAndHerEmbrace13 3 months ago
@ted2u2 I wouldn't want to argue with you anyway, but as some advice, work on your reasoning skills, my friend
DuskAndHerEmbrace13 3 months ago
@1948BigCy You know that name-calling and insults is no way to increase the respect of anyone reading your posts. The dates of the plays have been wrong for a long time. Stratfordians manipulated these so as to fit the life of Will Shakspere, the illiterate poacher, business man and actor from Stratford. THAT'S why they have to create all these "ur-plays" to account for the original versions of the play occurring so much earlier in records of the court, where the plays were first performed.
Mooseman327 4 months ago
@Mooseman327 That's a bunch of BS unless you have one iota of evidence that it is true, which you don't...I call a spade a spade, and you are a know nothing who has jumped on the Oxford bandwagon...nothing in your post is true...you can't separate Shakespeare from the Burbages...they formed a team that lasted 30 years...do you really think Shakespeare could have fooled them? The play dates are accurate...they were registered...you guys will believe anything!!
1948BigCy 3 months ago
Aside from the subjective evidence of Shakespeare's work, one of the biggest arguments for this conspiracy is Shakespeare's alleged illiteracy. Well, you would think someone in history before him would've combined the two words 'eye' and 'ball' together, wouldn't you? Well, you're wrong. He had the time and space to create nonsense in a time of tedious literature. That's why he's respected. He did things first, and I'm skeptical that he could even realize the profound impact he would later have.
bigevil180 5 months ago
@bigevil180 Amen...if Shakespeare was illiterate, then he couldn't write the plays...so any anti-Strat has to start there...he was not illiterate, and that is the main reason no other candidates are taken seriously....everything about his life fits...the word "daisy" was formed from "day's eye". perhaps not by Shakespeare, but the English language was developing at that time from Middle to Modern...Shakespeare lived in an era when change was more common than status quo...
1948BigCy 3 months ago
Edward de vere is supposily the real wrighter of the plays credited to shakespear.
sawaugust 5 months ago
really great people dont get born here at this globe.
Olgalarge 8 months ago
He hardly debunks the "myth" here. His assertion that this is akin to Holocaust denial is frankly ridiculous. There is no facts which give the slightest inference that Shakespeare wrote the plays at all. His biographical conjecture is so subjective that it is frankly a joke to even discuss them under any authoritative title. There is no original manuscripts, no letters, nothing at all which gives the slightest inclination at all. This is just a damn joke.
palkom13 10 months ago
Shapiro confuses imagination with fantasy. His belief that it is negative to tell students that a royal wrote about royal intrigues, instead of it being simply made up, is wrong. In fact, I think students would like to learn that a great education, with access to great books, and to life's experiences, might kindle something that is not there for them at present. To think one could simply use their imagination to divine the works of WS is truly intimidating, and makes one want to drop the pen.
edboswell 11 months ago
@edboswell Yes. young artists need to learn how to access imagination — and the greatest reservoirs of imagination are the deep pools of one's own experience, at the levels of the physical (events, relationships, places) and of the psychic (soul, emotional, spiritual).
inlandonline 9 months ago
This is largely a statement of belief, not a reasoned scholarly argument. Moreover, it is a a vulgar one. Professor Shapiro's glib recital of such comparisons as "holocaust denial" or "creationism" is a sign of the desperation of orthodox scholarship in the 21st century.
ted2u2 11 months ago
@ted2u2 Wrong; you misunderstand what he said. Shapiro mentions creationism, and holocaust deniers because they are beliefs that don't go away, despite the fact that there is no evidence for them. Shakespeare deniers are still around even though there is not a scrap of evidence that he didn't write the plays, and no evidence that anyone else did. It's affront to logical thinking, scholarship and the Bard himself. Who wrote shakespeare? spoiler alert...William Shakespeare!!!
1948BigCy 6 months ago 2
@1948BigCy - He said "they are very hard to refute" which is quite amusing.
rerevisionist 3 months ago
@rerevisionist What's hard to refute???
1948BigCy 3 months ago
@1948BigCy - Shapiro, if you listen, talks about creationism and the truth about the so-called 'holocaust' (which he calls 'Holocaust denial') as 'hard to refute. His words. He's just another liar out to make money.
rerevisionist 3 months ago
@rerevisionist Does you names mean you are an anti-revisionist? I don't agree with Shapiro...holocaust deniars are easy to disprove...we had people in Buchenwald who left tales of terrors, films, German people who were taken by buses to see what their Great Fuhrer did, and who left crying...the Holocause is one of the best detailed horrors in recent history....
1948BigCy 3 months ago
@1948BigCy - it's painful to read your nonsense; you simply have no idea of the truth.
rerevisionist 3 months ago
@rerevisionist I don't know what you are talking about..are you a holocaust denyer? Then you are sick....I have relatives who were killed at Auschwitz....only fools, usually under 30, think that de Vere wrote the Canon...if Shapiro were out to make a buck, like you say, he would have written a book about de Vere....
1948BigCy 3 months ago
@1948BigCy - Haha, god you're a liar and a fool.
rerevisionist 3 months ago
@rerevisionist Since you make no sense, I assume you are just another you tube nitwit....
1948BigCy 3 months ago
@1948BigCy - if you want to waste more time, go ahead.
rerevisionist 3 months ago
@rerevisionist It is true...you are a BIG waste of time...another Utube moron....
1948BigCy 3 months ago
@1948BigCy - Keep wasting time, go on
rerevisionist 3 months ago
What a ridiculous joke American 'scholarship' is
rerevisionist 11 months ago
@lostboy76 Once again, you're utterly failing to understand that the name "William Shakespeare," which appears on the Folio was never once connected with Will Shaxpere of Stratford. Never. And, often the name was hyphenated as "Shake-Speare," which points to it being an alias. DeVere was called the "spear-shaker" and one "who shook spears" in various writings of the time. This refers both to one of DeVere's dramatic entrances at one of the lordly sporting events. But no connection with Will.
Mooseman327 11 months ago
@Mooseman327 William Shakespeare of Stratford was referred to as "Shakespeare" in 90% of documents. He signed his name "Shakespere". Oxford spelled his name "Oxford", "Oxenford", and "Oxenforde". Is Edward de Vere an imposter, too? The rest of your stuff is the usual debunked Oxford nonsense - hyphenation does not "point to" an alias; and, an Oxfordian fraud purposely mistranslated a Latin passage in Oxford's biography to suggest that "his countenance shakes a spear". You've been suckered.
LostBoy76 11 months ago
@LostBoy76 You haven't learned much yet. And kindly stop parroting baloney like "you've been suckered." or "fraud." As was shown many years ago on HLAS, B.M. Ward's translation of "tela" as "spear" is perfectly legitimate Latin. Yes, a more usual Latin word for spear is "hasta" -- and tela can mean "weapon, arrow" *or* "speare." But to call the translation a "fraud" is just invidious nonsense. It may make you feel good, but its no argument.
ted2u2 10 months ago
@Mooseman327 That's the most idiotic argument i've ever heard, but typical for you Oxies. You fail to understand typesetting in those days. The lack of a common spellings (even today, how many ways can you spell "Jasmine"?
DeVere died before the best of Will was written...left no plays...was never known to write tragedies...Will was a member, actor, and part owner of a company for 22 years...the same actors who performed the plays of William Shakespeare...get a life...
1948BigCy 6 months ago
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Mooseman327 11 months ago
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Mooseman327 11 months ago
We also know that Ben Jonson, who wrote much of the introductory material, was an intimate associate of the de Vere family after Oxford's death. So, when it comes to the First Folio, we can easily see that its publication came directly from the de Vere family.
Mooseman327 1 year ago
@Mooseman327 Who cares if Ben Jonson was associated with the De Vere family! William Shakespeare was one of Ben Jonson's closest friends and acted in at least one of his plays, and Ben names Will as the author and praises his talent!! De Vere had nothing to do with these plays.
LostBoy76 1 year ago
There is no mention of any executor or relative of Shakspere of Stratford in connection with the First Folio. However, of the two brothers who financed it and to whom it was dedicated, one, Philip Earl of Montgomery was the husband of Oxford's daughter Susan, while the other, William Earl of Pembroke, had once been a suitor for her sister Bridget. Pembroke was Lord Chamberlain, the supreme authority in the world of theatre, and thus in a position to decide which plays were to be published.
Mooseman327 1 year ago
I simply can't believe you're this obtuse, Lostboy. Rings have absolutely nothing to do with having written the plays of Shakespeare. They are merely proof that he knew the men in question...and he did. He was an actor and an investor in some theater companies. Every Oxfordian will tell you that. He was not a playwright, however. Absolutely no proof he ever wrote a single word.
Mooseman327 1 year ago
@Mooseman327 Yes, he was an actor and investor. His name also appears on many quartos and the First Folio itself, specifically named as the author. That is proof.
LostBoy76 1 year ago
@LostBoy76
No it isn't. The minimum proof for authorship is a direct link between the man and the writing, not the name and the writing.
The old Stratfordian circular argument:
The true author's name is always on the plays. Shakespeare's name is on the plays. Therefore, Shakespeare must be their true author.
rockhammer85 1 year ago
@LostBoy76
When writers of the time were talking of DeVere and this guy "Shakespeare" one has to keep in mind that the name "Shakespeare" was being attached to DeVere's plays (in order to throw people off the scent that they were indeed written by DeVere) and that people were indeed confused by this feint. That's the entire point of the argument. Again, at no time was the guy from Stratford ever associated with the plays and sonnets. That's a gross fabrication. Find evidence that he was.
Mooseman327 1 year ago
@Mooseman327 I really don't know how to begin rebutting the nonsense you've just written. Are you just joking, or are you really this ignorant? William Shakespeare of Stratford left in his will a directive to buy rings for John Heminges and Henry Condell, the very same two men that published the First Folio in 1623. He also wanted a ring bought for Richard Burbage, a fellow actor at the Globe theater in London. Pretty clear evidence, wouldn't you say? And there's plenty more if you want.
LostBoy76 1 year ago
@Lostboy again with the hyperbole. If I don't belive as you (and you cannot prove your case because it is not so) then you resort to name calling. Typical. Im done with this you only know how to insult . You offer some lame reason about not offering any evidence because its out there. I do have an open mind. But I don't have to justify that to you. Lets just say once upon a time I thought like you did but after READING and investigating I discovered the truth. I'm done. Peace out.
MsTexasOne 1 year ago
@MsTexasOne Not a word of what I wrote is hyperbole, and I'm not re-stating the case because we're on a YouTube page about James Shapiro! Read "Contested Will" for God's sake! It is par for the course for any closed-minded person to insist that they have an open mind, so whatever. And by the way, I read more books than you do. Goodbye, fool.
LostBoy76 1 year ago
If Oxfordians are conspiracy theorists, then Stratfordian's are the flat earth society.
rockhammer85 1 year ago
@rockhammer85 There's no such thing as a "Stratfordian". The argument is between SCHOLARS and "Oxfordians", "Baconians", "Marlovians", "Rutlandians", and the befuddled acolytes of every other "candidate". And your analogy is false; you may as well label evolutionary biologists and astronomers flat-earthers if you're going to label Shakespearean scholars flat-earthers, too. All three professions are concerned with evidence, not fantasies.
LostBoy76 1 year ago
@LostBoy76
You mean the evidence that amounts to a few inept signatures, some legal documents suggesting a petty-minded usurer, and one or two second-hand, impersonal references to mere name?
rockhammer85 1 year ago
@rockhammer85 Oh, and a little something called the First Folio. Ever heard of it?
LostBoy76 1 year ago
@LostBoy76
The first folio is not evidence of Shakespeare writing the plays. It is evidence only of him being credited for them.
rockhammer85 1 year ago
@rockhammer85 The same WIlliam Shakespeare was an actor and shareholder at the playhouse in which the plays were performed. The burden of proof is upon you to provide one shred of proof as to why we should not believe Shakespeare's contemporaries when they tell us that he wrote them. Much of the evidence that we have for middle class authors of the period is credit or a reference from someone else. Do you believe that Kit Marlowe, Thomas Dekker, John Webster,etc wrote the works with their names?
LostBoy76 1 year ago
@LostBoy76
The few words from his contemporaries are ambiguous. Not even Jonson said anything specific or concrete about Shakespeare the writer, and what he did say wasn't very flattering until his about-face for the First Folio. Its strange, too, that Heminge and Condell 'received' the plays from their pal as pages with 'scarce a blot' on them. That sounds less like them knowing Shakespeare as a writer at work, and more like them just assuming the finished product he handed them to be his.
rockhammer85 11 months ago
@rockhammer85
There's always some uncertainty for me when it comes to attributions of Elizabethan plays. However, for Marlowe and Webster (unlike Shakespeare) it can at least be shown that they had the minimum credentials needed for consideration as authors - i.e. evidence of literacy/education, or an eye-witness account putting them directly in context as a writer.
Marlowe attended Cambridge.
Webster was described at work - and in detail - in Henry's Fitzjeffrey's mocking poem.
rockhammer85 11 months ago
@LostBoy76 One could assume the term "ever-living" means the person is dead. Shakespeare did not give a dedication to his Sonnets, published before Shaxper's death, and after De Vere's. He is referred to as "the ever-living poet" on the dedication page. I defy you to find a single reference to a living person being described as the"ever-living" . Perhaps that's why the sonnets were suppressed after publication, as only 15 copies exist. Read up on walt whitman and WS, he was very astute
edboswell 11 months ago
@Lostboy...hahahaha ok whatever. LOL you say there's "ample" overwhelming evidence for the glover's son to have been literate enough to have written the plays. Well pretend I'm from Missouri show me and I will have an open mind. Also no matter how much hyperbole you throw at me and insult me and those who can think for themselves unlike those who have closed their minds and refuse to be true scholars, it doesn't prove your case. It only proves that you can spell.
MsTexasOne 1 year ago
@MsTexasOne No, I'm not going to state the case for you, especially on YouTube, and you do not have an open mind. There are two choices for people interested in this "debate": one can believe Shakespeare's contemporaries, who tell us explicitly that Will Shakespeare of Stratford was an actor and author of the plays; or, one can believe the evidence-free "cases" made by various cranks and internet trolls CENTURIES LATER, who presume to know what it took to be an Elizabethan playwright.
LostBoy76 1 year ago
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MsTexasOne 1 year ago
When contemporary, and near-contemporary, writers of Shakespeare mention Shakespeare they are talking about the writer they know as Shakespeare. None of them link this Shakespeare to the guy from Stratford. This is where people like Shapiro are liars. There ARE contemporaries who call de Vere the best playwright at the time for comedy. But where are his plays? They're Shakespeare's. Shapiro is his own example of smart people who say stupid things. He's dead wrong in public.
Mooseman327 1 year ago
@Mooseman327 De Vere's plays have been lost, like so many other plays. Shakespeare's Cardenio? Love's Labours Won? In the same list that mentions De Vere as best for comedy, William Shakespeare's plays and sonnets are praised. This is unequivocal evidence that they were two completely different people. How you Oxfordians can overlook this glaring refutation of your fantasy is truly astounding.
LostBoy76 1 year ago
@LostBoy76
Your inability to comprehend the situation is pretty astounding. DeVere's "lost" plays are the plays of Shakespeare in their earliest form, presented at court. The "early" plays that Shakespeare supposedly based his own works on are DeVere's own plays presented at court. The works of Shakespeare that came down to us in the Folio are DeVere's final renderings of his own plays. When the name "Shakespeare" is mentioned, it is never in relation to the guy from Stratford. Never.
Mooseman327 1 year ago
@Lostboy...my pity is with you. You will see. I will be vindicated and you will be considered like one of those people from centuries ago who believed that the earth was the center of the solar system and the earth was flat. But believe as you will. I have no malice for your lack of need of evidence and reliance on the "religion" of the man from Stratford. It is as Shaw called it...Bardoltry. Who am I to tell you your God is wrong.
MsTexasOne 1 year ago
@MsTexasOne You are NOT a brave heretic fighting superstition - you are a conspiracy theorist, akin to 9/11 Truthers. There is ample evidence that William Shakespeare of Stratford wrote the works. No faith is required. If you wish to waste your short life pursuing your hobby horse, go ahead. But you will never be vindicated, and it's morbidly funny that you actually believe this.
LostBoy76 1 year ago
@LostBoy76 And you are a vulgar name caller who can't engage in a civil conversation without calling other people dirty names simply because they hold a view different from your own. You aren't in any position to go about labeling other people.
ted2u2 10 months ago
I am not the only person who accepts that the man from Stratford did not write the plays. But authorship debate aside...to suggest that someone who does not accept the Stratford man as the author is equivalent to being a "holocaust denier" is to make light of the subject of ethnic cleansing and to insult feeling people who can disagree. One day teaching that the man from Stratford is the author of the plays will be considered what it truly is...a farce.
MsTexasOne 1 year ago
@MsTexasOne
If you truly believe that I pity you. "Anti-Stratfordians" (anti-scholars is a more apt term) were saying the very same thing a century ago, and they'll be saying it a century from now, too. How many will waste their lives pursuing and preaching counterknowledge? Fantasy and history are wonderful genres that I enjoy reading, but this "Oxfordian" (or "Baconian", or whatever BS you believe) fantasy-as-history is truly contemptible.
LostBoy76 1 year ago
Twos question that Stratfordians find difficult to answer are this: why were William Shakespeare's daughters both illiterate? And why, when questioned about 30 years after his death, did his daughter state that he never owned any books? And don't say that women in that age were often illiterate. Studies show that over half the women in Elizabethan times could read and write. There's not a single instance of another great literary figure of that time who allowed his daughters to be illiterate
daver852 1 year ago
Smart people think dumb things ? That was profound... no not really. Mark twain lays it out beautifully. Go read 'Is Shakespeare Dead' by Mark Twain and you will dismiss this guy entirely.
bulldog01209 1 year ago
@bulldog01209 No. James Shapiro in his book spends quite a lot of time discussing Mark Twain's Shakespeare is Dead. It's Shapiro who dismisses Mark Twain. A lot of people who think Shakespeare could not have written the plays are coming at the issue with modern sensibilities assuming things about the society at the time that have no basis in fact.
heliotropezzz333 1 year ago
@heliotropezzz333 Yes. he dismisses mark twain and host of other GREATS. This student of great works is going to tell me that Mark Twain WRITER of great works is wrong? Anyone who writes fiction will tell you that life experience informs your writing. Mark twain makes that point in a more elegant way " Experience is that thing that puts muscle and breath and warm blood into the book he writes". Besides most of points made against skakespeare has to do with his dodgy biography or LACK THERE OF.
bulldog01209 1 year ago
@bulldog01209 Mark Twain is a great writer but that does not mean he is right about Shakespeare. Shapiro quotes all the other contemporary writers who referred to Shakespeare as the author.
heliotropezzz333 1 year ago
Compare the handwriting of the candidates put forward for "Shakespeare" including Shakespeare himself, and from that there can be only one conclusion. The five extant signatures of William Shakespeare are not those of a learned person but of someone barely literate. "Shakespeare' and Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) wrote in longhand. Twain's signature tells all, and, more darkly, Shakespeare's does also. This comparison works with Blake, Marlowe, even Benjamin Franklin and countless others.
zeekwolfe 1 year ago