Shakespeare authorship question

[dustca100]

this is a nice video. marlowe, de vere, sidney, stanley, and even shaksper himself, may have helped with the plays in one way or the other. Sir Francis Bacon is the man one needs to focus on; if one chooses to solve the Shake-speare authorship question. the other men, and woman; can not compare to the genius of Bacon. a nice video project.

[fogbeet]

contrary to zahir13, many specific things make no practical sense at all for a rustic actor, the dedications, (many things fit de Veres like a glove),no acknowledgment at his death None; no eulogies, and none attributed to him, no written letters, no manuscripts, NO books found at all! To reiterate, what we are left with is a man with multi-faceted experience of various aspects of the world. So frankly...who's forcing theories? who's the bigots?

[morphybum]

Marlowe? Pah! As any fule kno, Shaksper was wrote by Earl of Oxford, very clever chap, who also wrote One Tjousand Years of Solitude, Satanic Verses, Koran, Bible, Do Quixote and of course Da Vinci Code.

[JesseVanDel]

haha i think these comments on our video are crazy when the whole video was scripted and this wasnt the final video of it haha!!!! wow can you belive this was 4 years ago omg!

[zahir13]

Just to reiterate -- there is plenty of evidence that (1) Shakespeare was acknowledged as author of the plays during and immediately following his lifetime, and (2) The plays show errors not consistent with a University education. Against this is enormous effort to force a theory that a University-educated nobleman MUST have written those works to fit the facts. Why? Frankly, it looks like bigotry.

[librarylu]

Bigotry?

The "errors" were correct. Another "error" is about Giulio; the author knew he was a sculptor, not just a painter, and must have visited Mantua.

The knowledge of law and obscure court cases is not something that could be picked up at the Mermaid Tavern (de Vere read for it at Gray's Inn). De Vere bought books, some in Greek and Latin, while still in his teens (receipts exist) but no books are mentioned in the Stratford man's will. Some two hundred books are referenced in the plays.

[zahir13]

To answer the bit about books -- Shakespeare's will mentions his "second best bed" but nowhere mentions his best bed. The document is not an inventory of every sock and candlestick he owned.

Different lawyers looking at Shakespeare come away thinking him an amateur or thinking him an expert.  Ditto politics, religion, etc. What we are left with is a very dim picture of the man from his works, although we know more about him than any other playwright of the period save one.

[librarylu]

John Donne, Ben Jonson, and Christopher Marlowe owned books; why not Shakspere? They were certainly more valuable than socks.

We know de Vere was a recognized poet, playwright ("best for comedy"), a musician and composer, a patron of the arts, leaseholder on Blackfriars and a favorite at court (usually). His sister marrried Bertie who was ambassador to Denmark.There are details of his life (e.g., the "bed trick") that show up in the works.

Who else could have borrne the canopy?

[librarylu]

"One explanation given for Bohemia having a coastline is the author's awareness that the kingdom of Bohemia at one time stretched to the Adriatic." - Wikipedia

"....both Malone and Chambers clearly stated that their schemes were based on the assumption that they must start around 1590 and end around 1610-13. Therefore the argument that the dates of the plays eliminates Oxford is completely circular, hence invalid. " - Peter R. Moore

[zahir13]

Are you claiming everyone who helped publish the First Folio was the author? Plus the plays continued long after 1604, showing an evolving style quite distinct from Oxford's own. Again, why deny his authorship, especially since the Earl was something of an Elizabethan "hippie"? But every contemporary account of the plays' author agree it was Shakespeare.

[librarylu]

" Plus the plays continued long after 1604, showing an evolving style quite distinct from Oxford's own. "

The dating is somewhat iffy, but I see no reason unfinished plays might not have been finished by, oh, say, Lord Derby.

The Bermooths are mentioned in the Tempest , but de Vere financed an expedition to the New World. The ship sank and he lost a fortune. Inspiration?

De Vere was Burghley's ward and that came about by sheer plot of Hamlet. De Vere was captured by pirates, too.

[zahir13]

Autobiographical scholarship is problematical at best, albeit a fave of some scholars. One need only look at Stephen Crane to see how imagination has its place in literature, rather than personal experience. Yet the plays show plenty of errors Oxford would not have made, being classically educated and well-traveled.

[librarylu]

"Yet the plays show plenty of errors Oxford would not have made, being classically educated and well-traveled. "

Examples, please?

There is also information only someone well-educated and travelled would know. There's no evidence the grain merchant ever left England.

[zahir13]

People sailing to and from landlocked cities.

Misunderstanding of the heavenly spheres (as understood at the time).

Bohemia with a coast? And a desert?

But the plays show great knowledge of bladed weapons, which is how many actors of the period made money (as fencing instructors).

His histories are based on common books of the period, not scholarship. Etc. etc. etc.

[librarylu]

"People sailing to and from landlocked cities."

These issues are covered in Mark Anderson's book. De Vere was geographically correct.

Shake-speare quoted from every one of the 15 books of Metamorphosis, translated by Golding, de Vere's uncle, who invented iambic pentameter.

Books were very costly, but de Vere grew up with them. I'll have to look this up but one of the (Henry?) plays was based on a family history a commoner wouldn't have had access to, but de Vere was the lady's friend.

[librarylu]

"People sailing to and from landlocked cities."

Recent excavations have proved he was right. The cities were connected by canals.

De Vere, when he was seventeen, killed a servant while practicing fencing. He was the winner in a couple of tournaments. There were running swordfights in the streets with Anne Vavasour's kinsmen and Edward suffered an injury that may have caused the lameness mentioned in the sonnets. Anne bore him a son.

What was the misunderstanding of the heavenly spheres?

[zahir13]

The wording in the plays assumes that bodies like the moon and venus were "heavenly spheres" while the model at the time was of a series of spherical crystal domes which surrounded earth in which the moon, Venus, etc. were implanted.

[librarylu]

"The wording in the plays assumes that bodies like the moon and venus were 'heavenly spheres' ..."

I'll let someone else answer that one. Consider the Tycho Brahe connection.

tywkiwdbi . blogspot . com/2009/01/more-thoughts-re-t­ycho-brahe-and-hamlet . html

[TLB73737]

At least you acknowledge another possibility other than the man from Stafford upon Avon. However, there are many who believe that it was the 17th Earl of Oxford, Edward de Vere, who actually wrote the plays, poems, and sonnets.

If you are interested, I might suggest a book by Joseph Sobran. Others too have written on that possibility.

[zahir13]

The Earl of Oxford died too soon, and no one has ever come up with a logical reason for him to have hidden his authorship.

[edboswell]

The Earl died in 1604, his sonnets were published in 1609, by the "ever-living poet" denoting a dead person. Do you know why they say he died too soon? I doubt it. There's a reference to a shipwreck in the Bermudas, assumed to be 1611 There were shipwrecks there, one of which was reported in London newspapers, escaped those who used that flimsy exclusionary device. Kindly explain why de Vere's son-in-law paid for the publication of the First Folio?

[librarylu]

"no one has ever come up with a logical reason for him to have hidden his authorship"

Sure they have. He criticized the court.

He wrote under his own name until the year "William Shakespeare" began writing.

[zahir13]

Except that the plays are no more critical than other works we know of that era. Pinpointing the date when Shakespeare "began writing" is not possible yet. Meanwhile the plays continue to show evolution of style consistent with changes after Oxford's death! Isn't it easier to suppose that Shakespeare hinted the sonnets were by another to preserve privacy & to generate a mystery, i.e. as a publicity stunt?

[librarylu]

It's possible to know when something first appeared under his name. It's not possible to pinpoint when the plays were written, only when they were published.

"...both Malone and Chambers clearly stated that their schemes were based on the assumption that they must start around 1590 and end around 1610-13. Therefore the argument that the dates of the plays eliminates Oxford is completely circular, hence invalid. "

shakespearefellowship . org/virtualclassroom/more . datesofplays

[librarylu]

"Isn't it easier to suppose that Shakespeare hinted the sonnets were by another to preserve privacy & to generate a mystery, i.e. as a publicity stunt? "

If de Vere wrote them there's no reason to assume he even wanted them published. His widow may have sold them.

They make sense with Southampton (almost de Vere's son-in-law) as the young man and Vavasour (mother of de Vere's son, Edward, later a playwrite himself) as the Dark Lady.

It was common for a noble to use a nom de plume.

[librarylu]

It's possible Queen Elizabeth wanted the identity to be concealed so the public might not notice she was "....Richard. Know ye not that?"

Some of the plays were propaganda. The people were supposed to be stirred up against the Spanish, not their queen.

Who, among the contenders, could have borne the canopy other than de Vere?

[jialabi]

Of course Shakespeare didn't write the plays, poems and sonnets that that were all acredited to him. Just like J K rowling wasn't the real author of the Harry Potter books. She didn't go to the right university and she was never a witch so how could she know all that stuff about black magic...Right?...Lol

[edboswell]

Did you know that de Vere's son in law paid for the first folio? Did you know that Polonius is known as a parody of de Vere's father in law? Did you know that the book Hamlet is reading from has a dedication on the title page to the 17th earl of Oxford? Did you know that Walt Whitman, Mark Twain and Freud all doubted that a commoner could write an interior view of royal court? Did you know that ruthless and powerful people were parodied for the delight of the Queen? That would spell death.

[turdfurgason]

u guys are lame haha.....

-matt...

P.S katelyn broke her thumb