The silver Swan, who, living, had no Note, when Death approached, unlocked her silent throat. Leaning her breast upon the reedy shore, thus sang her first and last, and sang no more: "Farewell, all joys! O Death, come close mine eyes!
More Geese than Swans now live, more Fools than Wise."~Orlando Gibbons 1612
William Shakespeare was involved in the murder of his rival. Read how Shakespeare.rose to prominence right after this murder on Kindle "The Masque of William Shakespeare."
William Shakespeare was involved in the murder of his rival. Read how Shakespeare.rose to prominence right after this murder on Kindle "The Masque of William Shakespeare."
@mitchellriggs I meant "soap operas" as a kind of compliment. While I am no expert, it wouldn't be too far off the mark to say that the bard was trying to create potboilers..melodramatic pieces that would be appeal to the audiences of the time..That these works are far more than what he intended them to be is a testament to his supreme genius and an irritant to pompous academicians..
@simonj I am a whole hearted admirer of the plays, but I don't claim to know about Elizabethan England. I was pointing out that the main argument these detractors use as a starting point is that of pure snobbishness. I was criticising that attitude.
The book "Contested Will" settles all these non-sense arguments. Here's what I teach my students this "controversy." It takes all of four words: "It is all bullshit." Enough said.
@mitchellriggs Indeed, I am a great teacher: I've won two teaching awards, earned National Board Certification, am certified to teach in four different areas and run a department at one of best high schools in Illinois. I use the same response to a wide range of "debates" - creationism, Holocaust denial, flat earth society, the "pray the gay away" movement, etc. Some things really are bullshit the discussion needs to end there. Some ideas just don't deserve to be dignified by a response, period.
@angryliberal1984 you sound like you receive royalties? Is anger a sideeffect or a permanent situation? The term Ludibrium from J.Valentinius Andrea's book "Peregrini In Patria errores" shows the world as a theatre, where we all play characters, and all sorts of plays, should be sought out for a deeper understanding, how a matriarch underground culture, where the grail symbolizes the female principle has been and will always be the greatest source pleasure, and the most profound song there is.
Its always amusing to watch some over educated academician shake his head and protest the idea that these glorious plays were written by this uneducated country bumpkin; this hack, who was merely seeking to churn out popular victorian soap operas. Well, Shakespeare did exactly that and in the process of doing so, gave an eternal inferiority complex to those snobs at cambridge and oxford. In their world view, the muses share their contempt for the "commoners".
One needs to resist the temptation to ridicule - that is what the orthodox specialises in. I will only say with the greatest respect that this is a long stretch. This Oxfordian is not for changing, I'm afraid. But to be fair, if the orthodoxy could mount a tenth of the historical facts that are presented here, the heresy would never have got off the ground. Certainly Mrs Lanier's claims to authorship are far superior to those of the Stratfordian!
Well, I can see the intelligence level of man has considerably dropped back into the half brained neandathol era again, yet another island earth of dogs I've come back to! Not one of you has wrapped his girdle roundabout the earth and upstarted the other half of the dual hemisphered brains you were born with, and not one of you has the intelligence to know how much menapausal beards were the fashion of the times in the age of Shakespeare! $ $
It's an interesting hypothesis. Personally, I need more evidence BUT give Mr. Huston some credit-he SOLVED the Christopher Marlowe murder enigma! He was killed by the elite for exposing the NT as an elaborate FRAUD. Something similar happened w/ Tut and the 'mummy's curse.' Carter etc found evidence that the Exodus as told in the Old Test is B.S.-and they were 'offed' before they could talk. Many major works of literature ALSO have hidden meanings for the elite:e.g.Gulliver's Travels&The Odyssey
can you imagine if sheakspear, did act out his set of works,down at his local taven in, merry.
or maybe he did and on stage too,maybe he was a good reader and poor writer..!!!!!but still the best there ever was and his works were polished up later,hence the pedominant female contributes as sheakspear himself proberly was and i will put my last ginney on the table and think he was dislexit too,that 's my wishing thought.it was on my mind i thought i'd come back here.
Your discussion presumes that there was a conspiracy including Jonson, Marlowe, the entire court of England, and all the shareholders of the Lord Chamberlain's/King's Men (the Globe Theater company).
Absolutely stupid. This is the work of someone who is incapable of developing any substantive exploration of Shakespeare or any other literature. Please change careers and go into some profession that welcomes fables.
This is laughably desperate, cobbled-together stuff. Sure, there are one or two reflections of Lanyer, but if that's the sum total of them in a corpus as vast as Shakespeare, then it impoverishes the argument. What may be the case is that Lanyer colloborated with WS, or that WS read some of Lanyer and pilfered it. That's much easier to believe than the idea that Aemelia Lanyer is the author of works as obviously 'male' as Coriolanus; many Shakespearean works neglect female experience.
On second thought, where I think Shakspeare himself was a front man, this Lanier person theory is complete bullshit. Just my gut instinct here. The man's just trying to get your inner paranoid working... probably a psychologist something.
The entire concept of Shakespeare as the author of these incredible works is the ludicrous one, and if any conspiracy exists, is the one forced upon history.
The lady in question had ample opportunity to be informed enough to conceive of such stories.
bulldog01209. You haven't done your homework! WS is mentioned as a senior member of the players as early as 1589. His contemporaries were varioulsy critical (Groatsworth) and then full of praise. Do you seriously think Ben Johnson's To draw no envy (Shakespeare) on thy name,
Am I thus ample to thy Booke, and Fame is a deciet intending to praise Amelia Lanier? And how could it be that the 'first heir of my invention' has WS's name on it dedicted to HW? Sonnet 136 confirm My name is Will not AL!
I can't seem to reply here to those of you that took issue with my brief post. So I hope you get a personal message via Googlemail/Youtube.....Briefly, the evidence that WS wrote WS is not circumstantial, it is conetmporary and authoritative. BTW, women were published authors during ER's reign. Mary Sidney for example! Or is this an inconvenient truth? ER herself was published which seems a bit odd if there were 'rules' denying women's rights. Oops!
What a distortion. In 1593 and 1594 the London theatres were closed becasue of plague. During this period Shakespeare and the Fair Youth Henry Wriothseley were libeled in Willobie His Avisa. Shakespeare was close to HW and we can surmise that their relationship included WS included spending time wirh access to learning and to courtly matters. If Amelia is the author, why is he named by and published as the author? Don't fall for this nonsense!
@m1klgordon You use the word surmise well that is the problem with shakespeare you have to assume too much to believe he wrote these works. His biography is filled with conjecture and assumptions. As far as his name being on the works, it is SURMISED ( there, you can have a taste of it ) that he was given the plays because the true authorship could not be divulged. Play writing was not highly regarded in those times and if the author was from the royal court it might have been a scandal.
@m1klgordon and to finish my thought did you know plays that we know for sure weren't written by shakespeare had his name on the title page ? Did you know that in his will he make NO mention of his works at all !! Go to the library or search online for FACTS regarding shakespeares life and prepare to be disappointed, It's all conjecture and surmise. No one can proved as a matter of fact that he gained the tools necessary to write these works, it's all SURMISE.
This guy seems to not mention that Shakespeare was a extremely clever and gifted man recording this fantastic ability by writing a few plays about 36 in about 20 odd years. As has been shown they have had a good shelf life and still amaze amuse and baffle us mortals How could an every day guy be so gifted yet in later years people challenge a dead mans ability and knowledge to record such information with such limited re sauces no question the man was good THE BEST EVER
@rothwellss Huh, Did you you even watch the video ? He is saying that Shakespeare didn't write the works attributed to him. He is not making the case that the plays are not good. Go read a biography about Shakespeare there is maybe five pages worth of material. The rest is supposition and assumption. Read Mark Twain's book ' Is Shakespeare Dead' free online and he will lay out the best case against Shakespeare as the author of all these fantastic works.
@bulldog01209 But read James Shapiro's "Contested Will" published in 2010 (chapter entitled Shakespeare) for the best evidence) in favour of Shakespeare being the playwright while acknowledging that he collaborated on some plays as was normal for playwrights of the time.
@heliotropezzz333 The premise of his book in his own words is " smart people think dumb things". Thats what he said in an interview. Unlike James shapiro i have no stake in shakespeare being the author or not. On the other hand james shapiro has been teaching shakespeare for 25 yrs or so, explaining the works in the context of shakespeare as the author. If shakespeare is not the author of the works then he has to admit that the motivations behind the plays are different than his conclusions.
@bulldog01209 I can tell you've not read the book from the assumpions you are making. Shapiro says that in a sense it would not matter who wrote the plays as they stand up on their own. He presents evidence from other authors that Shakespeare wrote them and I'd not seen all of that collected together before. On the contrary he says you can't attribute motivations of the author to the play or draw autobiographical assumptions from them, as people did not write autobiographically at that time.
@heliotropezzz333 How does shapiro know that authors in the past didn't use personal experience to inform their works ? Writing fiction is not an academic exercise. You don't write great works based on abstract theory.
@bulldog01209 Because independent research has been done on the subject i.e not connected with the Shakespearian authorship question, and very little was found that was in any way autobiographical. There was no tradition of it.
I've never heard of this woman before, but, if she was around, and had the proximity and education as claimed, then it would seem likely that she helped contribute to the body of work. However, I've never heard of her before, so I am understandably skeptic, and remain the Edward DeVere camp.
When did Shakespeare have the time to study the law, and Norman French--as much of the law was written then-- to such a degree of familiarity, not only with specific, even arcane cases, but to where he could use legalisms with acute metaphoric and figurative allusion?
SIr francis bacon? i dont know if anyone of you have seen the norwegian series of the shakspeare theory, it was sent on the norwegian national channel - NRK.
I wrote all the plays attributed to William Shakespeare & my wife & I wrote the sonnets. "How does this concur with the fact that the plays themselves were performed on stage 400 years ago"? Well, this is where my clam falls to the ground I can see I won't last a minute with you. "Next we have Mr. Voles from Gravesend..."
Read the First Folio fool, there is page after page of forwards commending Shakespeare as the Uber-genius he was. These were people who KNEW him. Some people just love a bad conspiracy theory.
@trackydog Why were there no words given by peers/contemporaries at the time of his death (I know of Francis Bacon doing so 7 years later by the way)?
Also, who amended Othello? Changes to the manuscript were made after the death of Shakespeare.
And of course, where were the pens, books, ink, quills and even book shelves in his will?
I think it's more than a bad conspiracy theory, Shakespeare's own granddaughter claimed her grandfather wasn't a poet!
@Almuric7 Ben Jonson lamented his passing in his writings. Just because he was a Warwickshire boy, does not mean he could not be a genius too. Plays were often rewritten and Shakespeare would not have been able to prevent that, had he wanted to, after he was dead.
@heliotropezzz333 I realize Shakespeare's background does not inhibit him from an education as Christopher Marlowe's own working class roots prove - their childhood years were the first in which workers progeny could gain a good education. I know of Ben Johnson's praise of Shakespeare too, but upon his death no-one said a thing for over 7 years including Johnson. There is just so much odd in the lack of any contemporary eulogy for the greatest writer of his time from all those with lesser pens.
@Almuric7 People's reputations are not necessarily the same in their lifetimes as in retrospect - Vincent Van Gogh for instance, and Shakespeare retired back to Stratford 3 years before he died so people may not have been so aware of his death, and it wasn't customary to eulogise writers then. They were not socially regarded in the same way as they are today. 2 actors were named in his will and arranged to have his work published afterwards (Hemmings and Condell).
@heliotropezzz333 Yeah, very good points. Personally, I think there's reasonable doubt about Shakespeare and it's interesting to question, but you make some of the points that the mainstream/normal/stratfordian groups argue. I personally think it's going to be like Leif Erickson's discovery of America - unbelieved until evidence is found - not that I think it's a dead cert. - one thing is certain, we know less of Shakespeare as an artist than we do of any comparably popular contemporary of his.
@Almuric7 In Jonson's famous eulogy, he claims Shakespeare had little Latin and less Greek, even though Shakespeare Anglicized aprox. 5000 Latin words, which then passed into modern English usage, and most of the source material for the plays were available only in their language of origin, so Shakespeare was fluent in all the Romance languages, as well as the esoteric languages of the Law, astronomy, math, medicine--to great specificity. It's odd and that is what fuels the authorship issue.
@heliotropezzz333 How could Shakespeare, with his vast literary, historical, humanities education, his uncanny understanding of man's condition, his references in his own writing that his words would live on for posterity, allow his daughters to be illiterate? This man gave eternal voice to his female characters, yet his daughters he consigned to the darkness of illiteracy. No way.
@angerdux8 How can you look at this from such a 21st century perspective? In those days only a few aristocratic women were educated.What jobs would an educated woman be able to get? There were no work opportunities for educated women. Women's status depended on their father's status and the person that they married. There is evidence that Susannah signed her name though.
@heliotropezzz333 Do you really believe that Shakespeare would equate language exclusively with work and nothing deeper? No. Someone with that kind of genius and breadth of knowledge would never leave his children in the dark. And records show that Shakespeare was very well off, so the question of a suitable marriage was answered by his daughters' dowries.
@angerdux8 I never said that Shakespeare equated language exclusively with work and nothing deeper. I was just explaining how his telent did not come out of a vaccuum as you suggested would have to be the case for Shakespeare to be the author of the plays.
@heliotropezzz333 So you believe that Shakespeare would have allowed his daughters to be illiterate? You say there were no work opportunities for women, etc. Shakespeare had a fortune. His daughters had dowries. Why would the greatest writer of all time keep his daughters illiterate? Why would a writer with such an expansive soul and understanding of the human condition visit illiteracy upon his daughters, regardless the century.
@angerdux8 Re his daughters' education or lack of - you are still looking at this with 21st century eyes and judgements rather than 16th century ones.
@heliotropezzz333 No. I am well versed in Tudor England. I am simply saying that Shakespeare, the man, the personal man, would not countenance illiteracy in his daughters. I am not speaking of the village butcher here. And, as I have repeatedly said, Shakespeare was prosperous. You speak of women "working"--who has the 21 c. mindset here? Not I. The dowry was what secured a woman's future. The Shakespeare girls were well settled. Why should they not read?
@heliotropezzz333 So Susannah signed her name. Wow. And she was never compelled to write about her genius father? If Shakespeare was who he is credited as being, I cannot believe that he would fail to educate his children. Wouldn't he wish to send them to the magical grammar school that fairy dusted him with an inherent knowledge of all literature, history, and languages?
Respond to this video... We are not speaking about 'fame'. And your condition of "non-aristocratic" is a loaded one and you know it. Shakespeare had an uncanny understanding of court life, did he not? So that condition is one problem of the authorship question. You say only boys attended grammar school. Granted. Did the male members [husbands and descendants] of Shakespeare make a scribble or two about their beloved, genius relative? Did no descendant favor the bard's talent?
@angerdux8 Shakespeare understood court life but that does not put him in the same position as an aristocrat. Shakespeare also had no male descendants as you should know. One of his sons-in-law was rather a rogue and it's doubtful they got on. The other was a doctor with his own medical concerns - a scientist rather than an appreciator of the creative arts.
@heliotropezzz333 Again, you prove my point. One would imagine Shakespeare's daughter could do better than a rogue or that a rogue would unduly capitalize on his marital connection to Shakespeare; as for the doctor, again, did not this man have anything to say about his connection to the Bard? What of Shakespeare's neighbors--were there any pilgrimages to visit the Bard after his retirement? And why all the confusion and contention over dating the folio, identifying co-authorship?
@Almuric7 You can take just about any Elizabethan poet and playwright and find substantive paper trails--evidence of their lives--manuscripts--letters in their own hand, but none of Shakspere, the grain merchant. The Stratfordians believe that the authorship question is premised by snobbery--that only an aristocrat could have owned such genius. It's not. The problem is that Shakspere of Avon did not behave like a writer of genius, or like a writer at all.
@angerdux8 finally someone who has looked at the evidence left us, and the countless problems assigning the plays to the man William Shakspere where only a similar name seems to be the link. People treat it like it's crazy to question - it's impossible not to in my view. You make a fantastic comparison with contemporary poets' recorded popular lives and celebrated deaths against that of Shakespeare.
@Almuric7 "Shake-spear" was a common pseudonym for poets who preferred to remain anonymous. Any academic who wants to seriously publish on Shakespeare MUST accept the Stratfordian theory, otherwise he/she is looking at a short career. It is like Scientology or something--I don't understand it, especially for scholars truly immersed in Shakespeare. Shakespeare demonstrates that he knew the Law, real Law, arcane cases well enough to practice, yet he preferred to be a grain merchant.
@librarylu Lu-I came across a source on one of the authorship sites that made the claim and also claimed that other plays that can not be attributed to "Shakespeare" used the pseudonym similarly. I need to retrace my web history, but I'll find it for you.
@librarylu On Google video I caught Dr. Kier Cutler performing Twain's "Is Shakespeare Dead." I am currently sorting through Twain to source the exact quote, although it may be Cutler's own research. Cutler says that Shake--Spear was a popular Elizabethan nom de plume [Pallas Athena] , which began to pop up after the Mayor of London made a threatening proclamation against theater in 1594. Some plays using "Shake-spear" were "The London Prodigal" "The Puritan Maiden of Wattly Street"[sic]
@angerdux8 Isn't Dr. Cutler wonderful? I found him on the SAC website and immediately read Twain online. I now own my first book by Sir George Greenwod. He made mincemeat of J.M. Robertson on the law issue.
Have you found Michael Dunn's show yet?
"Shaking the spear at ignorance" came up somewhere. Bacon?
@heliotropezzz333 Every great intuitive genius had the necessary rigorous training in his/her subject before the point of discovery. Issac Newton didn't develop calculus in a vacuum. And all the many literary allusions in the canon point to an extremely well-read and educated author. As for the plays being rewritten, editing comes with writing, but the voice is so consistent throughout the plays, clearly they have one author and editing was minimal.
@angerdux8 Shakespeare worked every day a jobbing actor and playwright along with other playwrighs actors and other literary folk, and he would have been entitled to a free education at grammar school as the sone of a local alderman. His learing did not come out of a vacuum. I've been through this debate before with others. I'm not really interested in going through it again as ultimately people believe what they want to.
@heliotropezzz333 It's not a question of belief. It is a question of evidence, or the lack of evidence and what sense can be made of the thing. A grammar school education would never suffice for such genius.
@angerdux8 There's not much evidence for much of Shakespeare's life at all, record keeping and preservation of records was not strong for ordinary folk. His critic only challenge the parts of his life that suggest he was the author but there is evidence for it. Ben Jonson attributed authorship of the plays to Shakespeare and so did Francis Meres, both his contemporaries, whereas those who attribute the authorship to someone else have no direct contemporary claims for it.
@heliotropezzz333 In the plays Shakespeare writes of his own prosperity through future times...and this man would not keep records...or a library. Jonson and Meres are not effusive about a writer who was clearly remarkable to them. Why not? Where are the essays, the celebratory poems? Look at Chaucer for comparison. Come now. That Shakespeare would pass with so little effect is ludicrous.
@angerdux8 You don't understand the 16th Century and seem to think people would behave as they would with a 21st century mentality, so you are never going to understand what I am saying. Firstly we don't know for sure that his daughters were completely illiterate. I understand there is evidence that Susanna signed her name. I said it before and you ignored it. Secondly the position of women was quite different. There were no "jobs" for them so they were not educated except for a few aristocrats.
@angerdux8 Meres and Jonson were complementary about Shakespeare. They did not write a lot about him but nor did any playwright or writer write a lot about their rivals at that time. Chaucer, unlike Shakespeare, was a government official with links to the Royal family through his wife. Even so he died in mysterious circumstances after the overthrow of Richard II by Henry IV. You seems to think that all should be obvious and documented as in "Hello" magazine?
@heliotropezzz333 It should be as obvious and documented as it is for Shakespeare's contemporaries. We know plenty about Jonson and Marlowe, and Marlowe died young. Maybe you don't understand literary scholarship and the way it is conducted. It is conducted through evidence of the historical record. If that evidence is weak, it cannot be supposed it is true. Shakespeare's biography is a biography of excuses.
@angerdux8 Only aristocrats kept libraries. This was the very beginnings of the involvement of "ordinary" men in literature in England. Shakespeare was also from Catholic origins with Catholic family and friends and would have kept his head down in such dangerous times. Also that seems to have been his nature anyway. He seems to have been quite modest. Ben Jonson described him as "gentle". He did not know at the time that he was "the greatest author of all time". You don't know the period.
@heliotropezzz333 Oh posh. Of course he knew what he was, the same as Newton knew, the same as Michaelangelo knew. And you have made my point: ONLY ARISTOCRATS KEPT LIBRARIES. There you have it.
@angerdux8 You are not open to consideration of evidence that contradicts your opinions so there is no point in having a discussion. We also don't know for sure that his daughter's were illiterate. Only boys attended Grammar school in those times so that shows that you are not well versed in Tudor England, as you say.
@heliotropezzz333 I am open to significant EVIDENCE which determines the authorship question beyond doubt. You say only boys attended Grammar school to explain Shakespeare's daughters [accepting that the maverick writer who wrote female characters so brilliantly would embrace the average for his own], yet you contend that Shakespeare's vast literary exposure was the result of borrowed libraries and inherent genius, which is a greater logical leap than the idea he would educate his women folk.
@heliotropezzz333 I forgot to ask you this: You speak of the dangers of the times, and clearly it was especially dangerous for writers in sensitive positions. That's why a pen name was commonly used by writers who wish to remain anonymous: Shake--Spear
@angerdux8 Leonardo Da Vinci was the illegitimate son of a notary and a peasant woman. There's no evidence of a scientific education but he conceptualised a helicopter, a tank, concentrated solar power, a calculator, the double hull and outlined a rudimentary theory of plate tectonics and invented an automated bobbin winder, and a machine for testing the tensile strength of wire. He greatly advanced the state of knowledge in the fields of anatomy, civil engineering, optics, and hydrodynamics.[
@heliotropezzz333 Leonardo studied classical math and astronomy. From there came ingenuity and applied science. And he left a cohesive and undeniable body of work behind him that was unquestionably his and a product of his life and we are talking about a man who lived almost a century earlier. The is no question who Leonardo was. Shakespeare....
@Almuric7 Jonson wrote a beautiful eulogy, but..odd. Jonson waits for the actor to die first before calling him "Soul of the Age." He notes that Shakespeare had little Latin and less Greek, but I think I made the point that the bard derived over 5000 new English words from Latin antecedents. We need fresh sleuthing.The bard's diction is so unique, honestly, it rules out current candidates. Shakspere is convenient in that he does not speak.We can compare others and say no, for writers WRITE.
@trackydog The 1rst Folio was published after the actor and grain merchant Shakspere's [signature spellings vary] death. There is MORE scholarly documentation about the compilation of the Folios than there is about its author. What Uber-genius retires at his peak [to go back to the grain, rather than practice law of which he had a detailed and esoteric knowledge of], leaves not even a letter in his hand, keeps his children illiterate? It doesn't add up. It's a question of scholarship.
@librarylu Yes, I knew he studied the law. I didn't know his surviving work was written while so young. Still, a writer is born with his writer's voice, his manner in approaching language. I'm going to have to look into DeVere more closely. Has anyone compiled a concordance of DeVere's usage and vocabulary and compared it to Shakespeare's? I know about the Bible.
@angerdux8 Yes, William Plummer Fowler - Shakespeare Revealed In Oxford's Letters. It's available but expensive. I was lucky to find a good used copy for $25. I didn't try a library. Hudson makes much of Bassano's musicality but Oxford was praised for his skill on the virginals. He composed pieces and sponsored a troup of musicians as well as two acting troups. I can't write, play or paint today the way I did at 15. I've changed and so has my style.
These arguments ignore all kinds of evidence, like the teachers available in Stratford-upon-Avon's school as well as the background of William Shakespeare's mother. On top of that they derive a picture of the author, assume they made no errors, then try to make other facts fit the picture they have drawn.
@zahir13 Every scholar must wrangle with the authorship question at some time in his/her life. The canon is filled with allusions to so many works it is doubtful that even a modern writer could attain that kind of knowledge and reference it in his works without a library.
Southampton is supposed to be the patron of the author of Richard II and Southampton was one of the ringleaders of the Essex Rebellion. Why wouldn't the author have been hauled in for questioning along with the players - unless (could it be?) he was the first called on the jury? Southampton's life was spared, possibly because Oxford had influence with his dead wife's brother.
I've read Elizabeth was convinced Christopher Marlowe wrote Richard II. Does that make her the 1st Marlovian?
"Some time between 1599 and 1602 the Queen's Lord Chamberlain, Lord Hunsdon, appears to have leased property for the establishing of an especially' notorious brothel in Paris Gardens, while Thomas Nashe declared in 1598 that 'whoredom (the next doore to the Magistrates)' was set up and maintained through bribery, and Gamini Salgado informs us that 'Most theatre owners... were brothel owners too'.'"- Jonathan Dollimore, Transgression and surveillance in Measure for Measure
Hamlet with David Tenant as the Prince, is on TV on Boxing Day. I'm so thrilled. I went to see it in the theatre but David Tennant was ill and I only saw his understudy. It was still great, but it will be good to see what I missed. I'm also going to see Twelfth Night on Jan 4.
People were whipped and had their ears cut off for criticizing Lord Burghley with just a few lines in print. How could someone get away with a whole character like Carambis/Polonius - unless he outranked him?
Jonson was tortured for Isle of Dogs but Shaksper wasn't for Richard ll. Why not?
Ed, has any Stratfordian explained how a commoner could have borne the canopy? I have not seen an answer to this one yet.
@librarylu I don't think Burghley would have recognised himself in Polonius. If he had thought he was Polonius he would not have been stupid enough to draw attention to that unflattering portrait. Hey guys, the bumbling oaf in Hamlet is meant to be me!
To say that Burghley would not have seen himself as Polonius stands in direct contrast to nearly all Stratfordian critics. I wonder if Cecil would have recognized the speech to Laertes, which he sent to his son in Paris in letter form? Too many references to Burghley, as in being called a "fishmongher" at time of promoting a meatless day in addition to Friday, in order to expand the merchant fleet. It would be imprudent of you to doubt the obvious in this regard.
@librarylu Richard II was not a seditious play. It was only dangerous in playing at a time when Essex was planning a similar overthrow of Elizabeth and the players could not be expected to know what was in Essex's mind. They could argue they were innocent - just paide for staging one of their plays.
A stratfordian would be falling into a trap by answering the problems arising from a commoner lampooning royals in late 16th century England. So many logical explanantions are allowed if one reads about de Vere. A Stratfordian would be best served to attack the messenger, and make fun of J. Thomas Looney's family name. Best to take the short version, where all doubters are fools or members of a cult based upon Peerage Envy, unworthy of thought or open-mindedness.
@librarylu I hope you are still following this discussion. Oxford fits into the life of the plays and sonnets, but I've read Oxford's poetry and it just doesn't sound like Shakespeare's voice. Neither does Marlow or Bacon. I believe Shaksper of Avon was not the bard, but because the authorship question is so reviled, scholars can ruin their careers researching it.
@angerdux8 Oxford's surviving poetry was written when he was sixteen or younger (the original compiler, Richard Edwards, died in 1566) and was meant to be sung. He was known as a top courtier poet, but I doubt that his reputation was based on his "dainty devices". See his letter to Thomas Bedingfield for a glimpse of a more mature style, full of Shakespearean sound if not fury.
Bacon was de Vere's cousin, and Marlowe lived blocks away from Fisher's Folly.
I've been reading Stratfordian ideas on who the Dark Lady was. She was Lady Penelope Rich. No, she was Mary Fitton. No, Mrs. Jane Devanante, from Oxford (one of her children was named William and he became a poet). Anne Whateley, who lived at Temple Grafton, unless that was some other William Shakespeare who lived in Rowington or she was a clerical error, Lucy Morgan, AKA Lucy negro-abbess de Clerkenwell, Amelia Lanier Bassano, of course.....
"After 1607, she and James rarely lived together, by which time she had borne seven children and suffered at least three miscarriages. After narrowly surviving the birth and death of her last baby, Sophia, in 1607, Annes decision to have no more children may have widened the gulf between her and James."
The death of Prince Henry in 1612 at the age of eighteen, probably from typhoid, and the departure for Heidelberg of the sixteen-year-old Princess Elizabeth in April 1613, after marrying Elector Frederick V of the Palatine, further weakened the family ties binding Anne and James. Henry's death hit Anne particularly hard; the Venetian ambassador was advised not to offer condolences to her 'because she cannot bear to have it mentioned; nor does she ever recall it without abundant tears and sighs'.
From this time forward, Annes health deteriorated, and she withdrew from the centre of cultural and political activities, staging her last known masque in 1614 and no longer maintaining a noble court." -Wikipedia
There may have been scandalous rumors about her but you have shown no evidence she was "wild" or connected in any way with the Stratford man. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
James thought she was "willfull" for wanting custody of her own son. Shocking!
@librarylu Lu, People don't attribute writing to names but to people. to support the De Vere theory and discredit Shakespeare of Stratford on Avon as the playwirght, Oxfordians have to stand logic on its head.
There are many examples of authors using pseudonyms. If records had been lost concerning Samuel Langhorn Clemons, who would think Mark Twain wasn't the author's real name? I'm supposed to be related to him on my father's side, but in another generation this bit of oral family legend may be forgotten.
It's not about discrediting the Stratford man; it's about discovering the reality. His life is such a mismatch for the works suspicion has been going on for hundred of years. Front man?
Logic is what makes me an Oxfordian. When one stacks up a few hundred coincidences, without Stratfordians dealing with them, the logical argument is won by de Vere. He had the experiences, the drama troupes, the squandered fortune, he was the "Italian Earl", his brother in law wrote about Elsinore and the Royal Court there, he died in disgrace. His uncle translated OVID, and another uncle was one of the two first to use English Sonnet. Close to the logical prerequisites for "Shake-speare", no?
The Stratford man appears to have been a rather dull sort given to suing for small amounts and living in a seedy part of London when he was there. Real playwrights, such as Robert Greene, died poor while Shaksper grew wealthy doing what, exactly?
De Vere lived an adventurous life, "squandered" his fortune patronizing the arts (with only half the income he needed after Elizabeth and Dudley were though with him) and wrote beautifully, even of business.
@librarylu You are assuming he is dull because we ony have evidence about his business dealings but the exciting things people did then would have been private, not recorded in documents. He lived in the parts of London that actors and playwrights lived in. Nearly all of London was seedy then but very vibrant.
If Shaksper was involved in some of the activities Alleyn and Henslowe were involved in and really fathered a son by Jane Davenant then maybe he wasn't so dull. He looks dull on the monument (current version, not the original). Henslowe and Alleyn didn't mention him.
When I read the sonnets in light of de Vere's life they make perfect sense. Vavasour was the Dark Lady, Sir Walter Raleigh the Rival Poet.The exciting things EO did were recorded. So were some of the things he probably didn't do.
@edboswell Ther's just no concrete evidence . No one in his day refers to de Vere as the author. Francis Meres refers to both De Vere and Shakespeare as two different writers - de Vere as a writer of comedies.
Ever wonder why Will's letters do not exist? Or that he never wrote of his deceased son? Or why Jonson parodied the Stratford man as a buffoon poseur? The Cecils were the keepers of the records. Dramatists were low-lifes in the 16th C, so the Cecils expunged de Vere from almost all the records. They had a Will and a way. Do WS words sound like those of a commoner to you? Walt Whitman had it correct, it was "a wolfish earl, so plentious in the plays themselves".
Ed, I'm not so sure Sogliardo is Shaksper. The coat of arms described doesn't resemble the Shaksper family crest. "Not without mustard" recalls Nashe's Pierce Penniless, not just the motto that was derived from an earlier refusal, "Non, sans droit".
He's told how to act like a gentleman -
"CAR. Ay, and sit on the stage and flout, provided you have a good suit.
SOG. O, I'll have a suit only for that, sir."
Why would an actor sit on the stage? See also the epigram to the knight.
Perhaps Jonson was lampooning people who tried to get above their station by buying rank rather than a certain person. If it was Shaksper he "comes up every term to learn to take tobacco, and see new motions. He is in his kingdom when in company where he may be well laughed at."
In that case, he's not a full-time actor/playmaker in London.
@edboswell No one's letters survive from then unless they were preserved by the government. There wasn't a postal service either you know. WS words don't sound like those of an aristocrat . I don't know what you are implying by the word "commoner" but intelligence and wit is not confined to the aristocracy and I do see the playwright as someone in touch with the common man, knowing how he feels.
Not true. Most letters would be saved in private papers, to be seen or sold after the death of the letter holder. Who delivered the letter is a mute point. I imply "commoner" to WS, as he held no title. Intelligence and "wit", which at the time meant common sense primarily, are not the issue here, as much as the life experiences, travel to Italy, a law degree, access to rare and expensive books, and being a Cortier, coupled with an idle rich schedule of NO WORK. De Vere meets the criteria.
@edboswell whoever wrote those plays was no idle rich dilettante. They were the products of much craft and hard work. They must have worked at them non-stop. A person without direct experiences can learn about them from other people and other sources. I don't think commoners commonly wrote letters and how many commoners letters do we find saved in private papers?
Any idea where Will got down the idiomatic french spoken by French royals in Henry V? Remember that no 16thC public libraries existed, or dictionaries of english. Many WS source books cost a fortune back then. Do you really think he nailed down Venice so exactly by talking to returning tourists? I think WS had to have been rich, and hired eminent dramatists to assist him, (Munday and Lyly). I agree it took time. Many letters of Jonson exist. Others as well by 16th C commoner poet/dramatists
Don't forget some 200 source texts, many of which were never translated into English. How much time would it take to read them all?
Hamlet is thought to be based on Beowolf, but the only copy was in Lord Burghley's household - The Nowell Codex. Nowell was (drumroll) Edward de Vere's tutor.
Helio, there's a letter saved to Shaksper asking for a loan.
I agree that the author was no idle rich dillettante. Vere was extremely well-educated, a top courtier, took firsts in tournaments, enlisted with the Earl of Sussex for the Scottish campaign, exposed a plot, sat on legal commitees and juries (most notably those of Mary, Essex and Southampton), was known as a prolific poet (described by William Webbe as most excellent among court poets) and excellent musician...
Anne has very clearly influenced both Hamlet and McBeth and the sonnets . The Sonnets MUST be seen NOT as alegorical but as intensely Personal and Historical . Shakespeare definitely loves anne and continues a working relationship with her long after impostors death. Make no mistake Queen Anne Of D-(enm) -ARK (got it ?) is definitely Shakespeares Lady DARK Too tired to write further almost time to go to work
23 Anne is a fascinating figure but She is definitely trouble 24 Anne fits the profile of the Dark lady perfectly I want Anne to be named as the dark lady and I want to keep the 1605 split so that impostor theory gets falsified 25 The Dark Lady has remained dark because NOONE (apart from me) is focusing on her if you research her its obvious that She and she alone is THE PERFECT FIT. She is too obvious to be ignored and Monican theory correctly identifies her as solving the mystery outright
18 The sonnets very clearly imply intimate relations Anne was in a much better position than Elizabeth to do this. 19 Monican Theory definitly thinks Anne is an independent woman who has had many affairs 20 Anne is Known to be linked to Ben Jonson and has probably also been intimate with him She is definitely attracted to actors/playwrights 21 Jonson definitely knows WS and sees him as a rival in more than one way 22 Anne is pregnant during her performance But whose baby is it ???
15 She is linked to John Florio A vital source to WS The link between JF and WS has now certainly been established Pls refer Shakespeare enigma 16 Anne is a definite loose cannon who makes Elizabeth look dull She is living a separate life from James and can do as she pleases (which she most definitely does) 17 WS is definitely in a love hate relationship with her 18 1605 sonnets both put Anne and WS in the correct age bracket for the sonnets ie middle aged
5 She Has firsthand information about both Danish and Scottish courts 6 She has nearly been in a shipwreck herself source for tempest 7 Shakespeare is her favorite author
8 She is an accomplished muscian 9 She is clearly working in association with Shakespeares troup 10 She would have found Shakespeare attractive 11 And vice versa 12 She is very accessible to actors13 She has an identical temperament to the Dark Lady 14 She can demonstrably be linked to Actors WS knows
1605 is the date of Queen Annes performance in Masque of Blackness this would have made an indelible impression on Shakespeare and thereafter nicknames her Dark lady Impostor theory of course does not like this date But I am very confident that No Dark lady Sonnet was written prior to 1605 Anne Is the best candidate for being the Dark Lady 1 She Paints herself black 2 She wears a black wig 3 She makes her eyes black with Belladonna 4 She is a royal
Out of Respect for Queen Anne I will be serious 1 Conventional Stratfordian theory doesnt have anything to say about Queen Anne 2 Neither does impostor theory 3 Monican Theory picks this person as being very pivotal to understanding Shakespeare and particularly the Sonnets Monican theory is very confident in naming this person as the Dark Lady Monican Theory states The sonnets have been written in two stages and the split is 1605
1605 Lu You know you want to 1605 it certainly fits with Shakespeares life LoL shakespeares will links him to the Kingsmen and his plays via the coeditors of First folio Does deVeres Will do any thing of the sort ? no doesnt leave anything so its1605 COME ON LU it can't ALL be conspiracy HINT if you cook with conspiracy only use a dash DONT cook like LU or the WHOLE dish gets hashed
Looks like you're the conspiracy theorist with this fantasy of yours. I have no problem with 1605. What makes you think I do? Oxford left NO will.
The link in Shaksper's will is a later interlineation. It is not in the original. It is not known who wrote this or when. Why was nothing left to Jonson with whom he supposedly drank his last?
Where in the Sonnets does it say both were middle aged?
Why are you dodging the canopy? Would this be the canopy over the second best bed?
If Shakespeare only came to London in 1592, he must have been a prodigious playwright because Francis Meres who was the almost same age as Shakespeare (one year different), lists, in a work published in 1598, 12 plays by Shakespeare. It seems more likely that Shakespeare came to London before 1592.
It seems even more likely it was permissible for Meres to list plays that had been published anonymously because Lord Burghley died in 1592
and censorship was eased up a bit. It's thought the Stratford man came to London between 1585 and 1592. Since there were earlier versions of many of the plays (The Troublesome Reign of King John , e.g.) it makes sense Oxford wrote them in the 1580s and then revised and updated them over the years.
@librarylu Francis Meres says that Shakespeare was the author of the plays and is complementary about him. So that's a second contemporary writer that attributes the plays to Shakespeare.
@librarylu Another piece of evidence to link the Stratford Shakespeare with the London Theatre (for those who doubt the link) comes from what is known about his younger brother Edmund, born 1680 in Stratford-on Avon died 1607 in London. Edmund had a son born who died in 1607 and was baptised in St Leonard's church Shoreditch, which is the church where other Shakespearian actors are buried. The child is recorded as "base born" with his father from "Moorfields" location of the Curtain Theatre.
@librarylu A month later Edmund's son was buried in St Giles Cripplegate near the fortune Theatre.Edmund himself died and was buried over 4 months later in St Saviour's Southwark the parish church of the Globe Theatre. He had a more than usually expensive burial, inside the church and with a forenoon knell of the great bell. It is thought that the location of the burial and extra expense lavished on it was organised and paid for by his brother William.
There's no doubt William of Stratford made money, but the documents point to association with "lewd persons" and it's quite possible he made his money in the seamy side of the theater rather than on the stage. The one document that puts William of Stratford in London associates him with the "debauched" Mountjoys and George Wilkins, brothel-keeper and writer.
If playhouses were dens of gambling, usury, and prostitution, why wouldn't one of 7 people on a Globe lease be involved in money-lending? We know of a restraining order against him by a theatre owner, including a woman of ill-repute named in the complaint. We know WS of stratford was such a money-lender. Why no conjecture on him being a pimp and moneylender, when proof exists which leads one in that sordid direction? AND WHY NO POEMS ABOUT DEAD HAMNET? what a thoughless father!!!!
Not only was he named in the writ he was named first. The practice was to name the chief culprit first which strongly suggests he was Langley's "enforcer". Langley took out the first writ. "Be it known that Francis Langley craves sureties of the peace against William Gardiner and William Wayte for fear of death, and so forth." Langley was charged with extortion and violence in Star Chamber and was involved with a stolen diamond.
It's certain Shaksper made a great deal of money in a short time but the going rate for a play was £5-£10. Supposedly he "supplied" two plays a year. Hm.
An actor had to learn a part, rehearse and perform all in the same day, then do it again for a new play the next day. Light was smoky candles. The hard work of writing would have to have been done in the evening with time left over for trips to the Mermaid Tavern.
There's conjecture in David Roper's book, but he's a "looney".
@librarylu John Cooke in his epigrams 1604 refers to Shakespeare, Jonson and Green as writers. John Manningham, a lawyer, in his diary of 1603 refers to Shakespeare, Jonson and Greene as poets.
The silver Swan, who, living, had no Note, when Death approached, unlocked her silent throat. Leaning her breast upon the reedy shore, thus sang her first and last, and sang no more: "Farewell, all joys! O Death, come close mine eyes!
More Geese than Swans now live, more Fools than Wise."~Orlando Gibbons 1612
zurapDOR 2 days ago
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donSatalic 1 week ago
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StaggerLee70 3 weeks ago
@mitchellriggs I meant "soap operas" as a kind of compliment. While I am no expert, it wouldn't be too far off the mark to say that the bard was trying to create potboilers..melodramatic pieces that would be appeal to the audiences of the time..That these works are far more than what he intended them to be is a testament to his supreme genius and an irritant to pompous academicians..
drdilipabraham 3 weeks ago
@simonj I am a whole hearted admirer of the plays, but I don't claim to know about Elizabethan England. I was pointing out that the main argument these detractors use as a starting point is that of pure snobbishness. I was criticising that attitude.
drdilipabraham 3 weeks ago
The book "Contested Will" settles all these non-sense arguments. Here's what I teach my students this "controversy." It takes all of four words: "It is all bullshit." Enough said.
angryliberal1984 3 weeks ago
@angryliberal1984 - you sound like a great teacher.
mitchellriggs 3 weeks ago
@mitchellriggs Indeed, I am a great teacher: I've won two teaching awards, earned National Board Certification, am certified to teach in four different areas and run a department at one of best high schools in Illinois. I use the same response to a wide range of "debates" - creationism, Holocaust denial, flat earth society, the "pray the gay away" movement, etc. Some things really are bullshit the discussion needs to end there. Some ideas just don't deserve to be dignified by a response, period.
angryliberal1984 3 weeks ago
@angryliberal1984 you sound like you receive royalties? Is anger a sideeffect or a permanent situation? The term Ludibrium from J.Valentinius Andrea's book "Peregrini In Patria errores" shows the world as a theatre, where we all play characters, and all sorts of plays, should be sought out for a deeper understanding, how a matriarch underground culture, where the grail symbolizes the female principle has been and will always be the greatest source pleasure, and the most profound song there is.
zurapDOR 2 days ago
@angryliberal1984 Lesson of life...a book is not a chain* -Guy Debord, Situationist Int.
zurapDOR 2 days ago
In previous post, I meant he wrote Elizabethan soap operas..sorry for mispost. Was ranting..
drdilipabraham 1 month ago
@drdilipabraham - "soap operas"?. The greatest literary works known in the English language? ..and Henry V was kinda like Bear Grylls wasn't he?
mitchellriggs 3 weeks ago
If shakespeare was alive today, he would probably say to these snobs - "EPIC FAIL"
drdilipabraham 1 month ago
@drdilipabraham Gee, what a well-rounded argument.
What makes these people "snobs"?
And sure - you know him better than those who've spent much of their lives studying his works and the people and culture that surrounded him.
cinesimonj 4 weeks ago
Its always amusing to watch some over educated academician shake his head and protest the idea that these glorious plays were written by this uneducated country bumpkin; this hack, who was merely seeking to churn out popular victorian soap operas. Well, Shakespeare did exactly that and in the process of doing so, gave an eternal inferiority complex to those snobs at cambridge and oxford. In their world view, the muses share their contempt for the "commoners".
drdilipabraham 1 month ago
One needs to resist the temptation to ridicule - that is what the orthodox specialises in. I will only say with the greatest respect that this is a long stretch. This Oxfordian is not for changing, I'm afraid. But to be fair, if the orthodoxy could mount a tenth of the historical facts that are presented here, the heresy would never have got off the ground. Certainly Mrs Lanier's claims to authorship are far superior to those of the Stratfordian!
cellis5384 1 month ago
This is extremely biased.
carrvo 2 months ago
Well, I can see the intelligence level of man has considerably dropped back into the half brained neandathol era again, yet another island earth of dogs I've come back to! Not one of you has wrapped his girdle roundabout the earth and upstarted the other half of the dual hemisphered brains you were born with, and not one of you has the intelligence to know how much menapausal beards were the fashion of the times in the age of Shakespeare! $ $
KaOssis 2 months ago
It's an interesting hypothesis. Personally, I need more evidence BUT give Mr. Huston some credit-he SOLVED the Christopher Marlowe murder enigma! He was killed by the elite for exposing the NT as an elaborate FRAUD. Something similar happened w/ Tut and the 'mummy's curse.' Carter etc found evidence that the Exodus as told in the Old Test is B.S.-and they were 'offed' before they could talk. Many major works of literature ALSO have hidden meanings for the elite:e.g.Gulliver's Travels&The Odyssey
JackTheBaptizer 3 months ago
Bollocks.
EpifanesEuergetes 4 months ago 5
can you imagine if sheakspear, did act out his set of works,down at his local taven in, merry.
or maybe he did and on stage too,maybe he was a good reader and poor writer..!!!!!but still the best there ever was and his works were polished up later,hence the pedominant female contributes as sheakspear himself proberly was and i will put my last ginney on the table and think he was dislexit too,that 's my wishing thought.it was on my mind i thought i'd come back here.
wishshewaswithme 6 months ago
YOU CAN TELL IT WAS WROTE BY A FEMALE.
I CAN..
STILL FANTASTIC FEMALE LINES.
wishshewaswithme 6 months ago
Your discussion presumes that there was a conspiracy including Jonson, Marlowe, the entire court of England, and all the shareholders of the Lord Chamberlain's/King's Men (the Globe Theater company).
Absolutely stupid. This is the work of someone who is incapable of developing any substantive exploration of Shakespeare or any other literature. Please change careers and go into some profession that welcomes fables.
thomasmandalla 6 months ago
This is laughably desperate, cobbled-together stuff. Sure, there are one or two reflections of Lanyer, but if that's the sum total of them in a corpus as vast as Shakespeare, then it impoverishes the argument. What may be the case is that Lanyer colloborated with WS, or that WS read some of Lanyer and pilfered it. That's much easier to believe than the idea that Aemelia Lanyer is the author of works as obviously 'male' as Coriolanus; many Shakespearean works neglect female experience.
esteban30100 7 months ago
On second thought, where I think Shakspeare himself was a front man, this Lanier person theory is complete bullshit. Just my gut instinct here. The man's just trying to get your inner paranoid working... probably a psychologist something.
Capt777harris 11 months ago
The entire concept of Shakespeare as the author of these incredible works is the ludicrous one, and if any conspiracy exists, is the one forced upon history.
The lady in question had ample opportunity to be informed enough to conceive of such stories.
1000buffalos 11 months ago
bulldog01209. You haven't done your homework! WS is mentioned as a senior member of the players as early as 1589. His contemporaries were varioulsy critical (Groatsworth) and then full of praise. Do you seriously think Ben Johnson's To draw no envy (Shakespeare) on thy name,
Am I thus ample to thy Booke, and Fame is a deciet intending to praise Amelia Lanier? And how could it be that the 'first heir of my invention' has WS's name on it dedicted to HW? Sonnet 136 confirm My name is Will not AL!
m1klgordon 1 year ago
I can't seem to reply here to those of you that took issue with my brief post. So I hope you get a personal message via Googlemail/Youtube.....Briefly, the evidence that WS wrote WS is not circumstantial, it is conetmporary and authoritative. BTW, women were published authors during ER's reign. Mary Sidney for example! Or is this an inconvenient truth? ER herself was published which seems a bit odd if there were 'rules' denying women's rights. Oops!
m1klgordon 1 year ago
What a distortion. In 1593 and 1594 the London theatres were closed becasue of plague. During this period Shakespeare and the Fair Youth Henry Wriothseley were libeled in Willobie His Avisa. Shakespeare was close to HW and we can surmise that their relationship included WS included spending time wirh access to learning and to courtly matters. If Amelia is the author, why is he named by and published as the author? Don't fall for this nonsense!
m1klgordon 1 year ago
@m1klgordon You use the word surmise well that is the problem with shakespeare you have to assume too much to believe he wrote these works. His biography is filled with conjecture and assumptions. As far as his name being on the works, it is SURMISED ( there, you can have a taste of it ) that he was given the plays because the true authorship could not be divulged. Play writing was not highly regarded in those times and if the author was from the royal court it might have been a scandal.
bulldog01209 1 year ago
@m1klgordon and to finish my thought did you know plays that we know for sure weren't written by shakespeare had his name on the title page ? Did you know that in his will he make NO mention of his works at all !! Go to the library or search online for FACTS regarding shakespeares life and prepare to be disappointed, It's all conjecture and surmise. No one can proved as a matter of fact that he gained the tools necessary to write these works, it's all SURMISE.
bulldog01209 1 year ago
@m1klgordon , your argument ignores that fact that women were simply not allowed to publish plays.
If I understand you correctly, you think that Shakespeare learned everything he needed to understand in a year?
Is that really a more plausible scenario?
mitchellriggs 1 year ago 9
@mitchellriggs
"is that really a more plausible scenario"
Yes. Sorry, but yes.
1878EFC2008 10 months ago
@1878EFC2008 There isn't even any proof he didn't already know those things.
recneps96 8 months ago
This guy seems to not mention that Shakespeare was a extremely clever and gifted man recording this fantastic ability by writing a few plays about 36 in about 20 odd years. As has been shown they have had a good shelf life and still amaze amuse and baffle us mortals How could an every day guy be so gifted yet in later years people challenge a dead mans ability and knowledge to record such information with such limited re sauces no question the man was good THE BEST EVER
rothwellss 1 year ago
@rothwellss Huh, Did you you even watch the video ? He is saying that Shakespeare didn't write the works attributed to him. He is not making the case that the plays are not good. Go read a biography about Shakespeare there is maybe five pages worth of material. The rest is supposition and assumption. Read Mark Twain's book ' Is Shakespeare Dead' free online and he will lay out the best case against Shakespeare as the author of all these fantastic works.
bulldog01209 1 year ago
@bulldog01209 But read James Shapiro's "Contested Will" published in 2010 (chapter entitled Shakespeare) for the best evidence) in favour of Shakespeare being the playwright while acknowledging that he collaborated on some plays as was normal for playwrights of the time.
heliotropezzz333 1 year ago
@heliotropezzz333 The premise of his book in his own words is " smart people think dumb things". Thats what he said in an interview. Unlike James shapiro i have no stake in shakespeare being the author or not. On the other hand james shapiro has been teaching shakespeare for 25 yrs or so, explaining the works in the context of shakespeare as the author. If shakespeare is not the author of the works then he has to admit that the motivations behind the plays are different than his conclusions.
bulldog01209 1 year ago
@bulldog01209 I can tell you've not read the book from the assumpions you are making. Shapiro says that in a sense it would not matter who wrote the plays as they stand up on their own. He presents evidence from other authors that Shakespeare wrote them and I'd not seen all of that collected together before. On the contrary he says you can't attribute motivations of the author to the play or draw autobiographical assumptions from them, as people did not write autobiographically at that time.
heliotropezzz333 1 year ago
@heliotropezzz333 How does shapiro know that authors in the past didn't use personal experience to inform their works ? Writing fiction is not an academic exercise. You don't write great works based on abstract theory.
bulldog01209 1 year ago
@bulldog01209 Because independent research has been done on the subject i.e not connected with the Shakespearian authorship question, and very little was found that was in any way autobiographical. There was no tradition of it.
heliotropezzz333 1 year ago
I've never heard of this woman before, but, if she was around, and had the proximity and education as claimed, then it would seem likely that she helped contribute to the body of work. However, I've never heard of her before, so I am understandably skeptic, and remain the Edward DeVere camp.
Capt777harris 1 year ago
When did Shakespeare have the time to study the law, and Norman French--as much of the law was written then-- to such a degree of familiarity, not only with specific, even arcane cases, but to where he could use legalisms with acute metaphoric and figurative allusion?
angerdux8 1 year ago
why does this guy keep stuttering like a nervous liar?
TheFranklyman 1 year ago
@TheFranklyman This is a typical Stratfordian ad hominem attack. Whoever debates the authorship question is dismissed as a crank.
angerdux8 1 year ago
Here is the website to check: shakespeareauthorshipDOTcom
zahir13 1 year ago
SIr francis bacon? i dont know if anyone of you have seen the norwegian series of the shakspeare theory, it was sent on the norwegian national channel - NRK.
apelofff 1 year ago
I wrote all the plays attributed to William Shakespeare & my wife & I wrote the sonnets. "How does this concur with the fact that the plays themselves were performed on stage 400 years ago"? Well, this is where my clam falls to the ground I can see I won't last a minute with you. "Next we have Mr. Voles from Gravesend..."
I was right
RasMajnouni 1 year ago
Previous comments deny any link. People too lazy to take time to think.
Benjaminwolf 1 year ago
Read the First Folio fool, there is page after page of forwards commending Shakespeare as the Uber-genius he was. These were people who KNEW him. Some people just love a bad conspiracy theory.
trackydog 1 year ago
@trackydog Why were there no words given by peers/contemporaries at the time of his death (I know of Francis Bacon doing so 7 years later by the way)?
Also, who amended Othello? Changes to the manuscript were made after the death of Shakespeare.
And of course, where were the pens, books, ink, quills and even book shelves in his will?
I think it's more than a bad conspiracy theory, Shakespeare's own granddaughter claimed her grandfather wasn't a poet!
Almuric7 1 year ago
@Almuric7 Ben Jonson lamented his passing in his writings. Just because he was a Warwickshire boy, does not mean he could not be a genius too. Plays were often rewritten and Shakespeare would not have been able to prevent that, had he wanted to, after he was dead.
heliotropezzz333 1 year ago
@heliotropezzz333 I realize Shakespeare's background does not inhibit him from an education as Christopher Marlowe's own working class roots prove - their childhood years were the first in which workers progeny could gain a good education. I know of Ben Johnson's praise of Shakespeare too, but upon his death no-one said a thing for over 7 years including Johnson. There is just so much odd in the lack of any contemporary eulogy for the greatest writer of his time from all those with lesser pens.
Almuric7 1 year ago
@Almuric7 People's reputations are not necessarily the same in their lifetimes as in retrospect - Vincent Van Gogh for instance, and Shakespeare retired back to Stratford 3 years before he died so people may not have been so aware of his death, and it wasn't customary to eulogise writers then. They were not socially regarded in the same way as they are today. 2 actors were named in his will and arranged to have his work published afterwards (Hemmings and Condell).
heliotropezzz333 1 year ago
@heliotropezzz333 Yeah, very good points. Personally, I think there's reasonable doubt about Shakespeare and it's interesting to question, but you make some of the points that the mainstream/normal/stratfordian groups argue. I personally think it's going to be like Leif Erickson's discovery of America - unbelieved until evidence is found - not that I think it's a dead cert. - one thing is certain, we know less of Shakespeare as an artist than we do of any comparably popular contemporary of his.
Almuric7 1 year ago
@Almuric7 In Jonson's famous eulogy, he claims Shakespeare had little Latin and less Greek, even though Shakespeare Anglicized aprox. 5000 Latin words, which then passed into modern English usage, and most of the source material for the plays were available only in their language of origin, so Shakespeare was fluent in all the Romance languages, as well as the esoteric languages of the Law, astronomy, math, medicine--to great specificity. It's odd and that is what fuels the authorship issue.
angerdux8 1 year ago
@heliotropezzz333 How could Shakespeare, with his vast literary, historical, humanities education, his uncanny understanding of man's condition, his references in his own writing that his words would live on for posterity, allow his daughters to be illiterate? This man gave eternal voice to his female characters, yet his daughters he consigned to the darkness of illiteracy. No way.
angerdux8 1 year ago
@angerdux8 How can you look at this from such a 21st century perspective? In those days only a few aristocratic women were educated.What jobs would an educated woman be able to get? There were no work opportunities for educated women. Women's status depended on their father's status and the person that they married. There is evidence that Susannah signed her name though.
heliotropezzz333 1 year ago
@heliotropezzz333 Do you really believe that Shakespeare would equate language exclusively with work and nothing deeper? No. Someone with that kind of genius and breadth of knowledge would never leave his children in the dark. And records show that Shakespeare was very well off, so the question of a suitable marriage was answered by his daughters' dowries.
angerdux8 1 year ago
@angerdux8 I never said that Shakespeare equated language exclusively with work and nothing deeper. I was just explaining how his telent did not come out of a vaccuum as you suggested would have to be the case for Shakespeare to be the author of the plays.
heliotropezzz333 1 year ago
@heliotropezzz333 So you believe that Shakespeare would have allowed his daughters to be illiterate? You say there were no work opportunities for women, etc. Shakespeare had a fortune. His daughters had dowries. Why would the greatest writer of all time keep his daughters illiterate? Why would a writer with such an expansive soul and understanding of the human condition visit illiteracy upon his daughters, regardless the century.
angerdux8 1 year ago
@angerdux8 Re his daughters' education or lack of - you are still looking at this with 21st century eyes and judgements rather than 16th century ones.
heliotropezzz333 1 year ago
@heliotropezzz333 No. I am well versed in Tudor England. I am simply saying that Shakespeare, the man, the personal man, would not countenance illiteracy in his daughters. I am not speaking of the village butcher here. And, as I have repeatedly said, Shakespeare was prosperous. You speak of women "working"--who has the 21 c. mindset here? Not I. The dowry was what secured a woman's future. The Shakespeare girls were well settled. Why should they not read?
angerdux8 1 year ago
@heliotropezzz333 I am looking at it from a Shakespearian perspective.
angerdux8 1 year ago
@heliotropezzz333 So Susannah signed her name. Wow. And she was never compelled to write about her genius father? If Shakespeare was who he is credited as being, I cannot believe that he would fail to educate his children. Wouldn't he wish to send them to the magical grammar school that fairy dusted him with an inherent knowledge of all literature, history, and languages?
angerdux8 1 year ago
@angerdux8 Name any daughters of famous but non-aristocratic men at this period of history who left behind writings in praise of their fathers.
heliotropezzz333 1 year ago
Respond to this video... We are not speaking about 'fame'. And your condition of "non-aristocratic" is a loaded one and you know it. Shakespeare had an uncanny understanding of court life, did he not? So that condition is one problem of the authorship question. You say only boys attended grammar school. Granted. Did the male members [husbands and descendants] of Shakespeare make a scribble or two about their beloved, genius relative? Did no descendant favor the bard's talent?
angerdux8 1 year ago
@angerdux8 Shakespeare understood court life but that does not put him in the same position as an aristocrat. Shakespeare also had no male descendants as you should know. One of his sons-in-law was rather a rogue and it's doubtful they got on. The other was a doctor with his own medical concerns - a scientist rather than an appreciator of the creative arts.
heliotropezzz333 1 year ago
@heliotropezzz333 Again, you prove my point. One would imagine Shakespeare's daughter could do better than a rogue or that a rogue would unduly capitalize on his marital connection to Shakespeare; as for the doctor, again, did not this man have anything to say about his connection to the Bard? What of Shakespeare's neighbors--were there any pilgrimages to visit the Bard after his retirement? And why all the confusion and contention over dating the folio, identifying co-authorship?
angerdux8 1 year ago
@Almuric7 You can take just about any Elizabethan poet and playwright and find substantive paper trails--evidence of their lives--manuscripts--letters in their own hand, but none of Shakspere, the grain merchant. The Stratfordians believe that the authorship question is premised by snobbery--that only an aristocrat could have owned such genius. It's not. The problem is that Shakspere of Avon did not behave like a writer of genius, or like a writer at all.
angerdux8 1 year ago
@angerdux8 finally someone who has looked at the evidence left us, and the countless problems assigning the plays to the man William Shakspere where only a similar name seems to be the link. People treat it like it's crazy to question - it's impossible not to in my view. You make a fantastic comparison with contemporary poets' recorded popular lives and celebrated deaths against that of Shakespeare.
Almuric7 1 year ago
@Almuric7 "Shake-spear" was a common pseudonym for poets who preferred to remain anonymous. Any academic who wants to seriously publish on Shakespeare MUST accept the Stratfordian theory, otherwise he/she is looking at a short career. It is like Scientology or something--I don't understand it, especially for scholars truly immersed in Shakespeare. Shakespeare demonstrates that he knew the Law, real Law, arcane cases well enough to practice, yet he preferred to be a grain merchant.
angerdux8 1 year ago
@angerdux8 You said " 'Shake-spear' was a common pseudonym for poets who preferred to remain anonymous." What's your source on that?
librarylu 1 year ago
@librarylu Lu-I came across a source on one of the authorship sites that made the claim and also claimed that other plays that can not be attributed to "Shakespeare" used the pseudonym similarly. I need to retrace my web history, but I'll find it for you.
angerdux8 1 year ago
@librarylu On Google video I caught Dr. Kier Cutler performing Twain's "Is Shakespeare Dead." I am currently sorting through Twain to source the exact quote, although it may be Cutler's own research. Cutler says that Shake--Spear was a popular Elizabethan nom de plume [Pallas Athena] , which began to pop up after the Mayor of London made a threatening proclamation against theater in 1594. Some plays using "Shake-spear" were "The London Prodigal" "The Puritan Maiden of Wattly Street"[sic]
angerdux8 1 year ago
@angerdux8 Isn't Dr. Cutler wonderful? I found him on the SAC website and immediately read Twain online. I now own my first book by Sir George Greenwod. He made mincemeat of J.M. Robertson on the law issue.
Have you found Michael Dunn's show yet?
"Shaking the spear at ignorance" came up somewhere. Bacon?
librarylu 1 year ago
@librarylu Ben Jonson wrote: "he seemes to shake a Lance, as brandish't at the eyes of ignorance." in the famous poem in the First Folio.
vaja95 1 year ago
@vaja95 Right. Thank you. Sir Edwin Durning-Lawrence associated the phrase with Francis Bacon in 1910.
Sorry for the typo. I meant Sir George Greenwood, of course.
librarylu 1 year ago
@heliotropezzz333 Every great intuitive genius had the necessary rigorous training in his/her subject before the point of discovery. Issac Newton didn't develop calculus in a vacuum. And all the many literary allusions in the canon point to an extremely well-read and educated author. As for the plays being rewritten, editing comes with writing, but the voice is so consistent throughout the plays, clearly they have one author and editing was minimal.
angerdux8 1 year ago
@angerdux8 Shakespeare worked every day a jobbing actor and playwright along with other playwrighs actors and other literary folk, and he would have been entitled to a free education at grammar school as the sone of a local alderman. His learing did not come out of a vacuum. I've been through this debate before with others. I'm not really interested in going through it again as ultimately people believe what they want to.
heliotropezzz333 1 year ago
@heliotropezzz333 It's not a question of belief. It is a question of evidence, or the lack of evidence and what sense can be made of the thing. A grammar school education would never suffice for such genius.
angerdux8 1 year ago
@angerdux8 There's not much evidence for much of Shakespeare's life at all, record keeping and preservation of records was not strong for ordinary folk. His critic only challenge the parts of his life that suggest he was the author but there is evidence for it. Ben Jonson attributed authorship of the plays to Shakespeare and so did Francis Meres, both his contemporaries, whereas those who attribute the authorship to someone else have no direct contemporary claims for it.
heliotropezzz333 1 year ago
@heliotropezzz333 In the plays Shakespeare writes of his own prosperity through future times...and this man would not keep records...or a library. Jonson and Meres are not effusive about a writer who was clearly remarkable to them. Why not? Where are the essays, the celebratory poems? Look at Chaucer for comparison. Come now. That Shakespeare would pass with so little effect is ludicrous.
angerdux8 1 year ago
@angerdux8 You don't understand the 16th Century and seem to think people would behave as they would with a 21st century mentality, so you are never going to understand what I am saying. Firstly we don't know for sure that his daughters were completely illiterate. I understand there is evidence that Susanna signed her name. I said it before and you ignored it. Secondly the position of women was quite different. There were no "jobs" for them so they were not educated except for a few aristocrats.
heliotropezzz333 1 year ago
@angerdux8 Meres and Jonson were complementary about Shakespeare. They did not write a lot about him but nor did any playwright or writer write a lot about their rivals at that time. Chaucer, unlike Shakespeare, was a government official with links to the Royal family through his wife. Even so he died in mysterious circumstances after the overthrow of Richard II by Henry IV. You seems to think that all should be obvious and documented as in "Hello" magazine?
heliotropezzz333 1 year ago
@heliotropezzz333 It should be as obvious and documented as it is for Shakespeare's contemporaries. We know plenty about Jonson and Marlowe, and Marlowe died young. Maybe you don't understand literary scholarship and the way it is conducted. It is conducted through evidence of the historical record. If that evidence is weak, it cannot be supposed it is true. Shakespeare's biography is a biography of excuses.
angerdux8 1 year ago
Comment removed
angerdux8 1 year ago
@angerdux8 Only aristocrats kept libraries. This was the very beginnings of the involvement of "ordinary" men in literature in England. Shakespeare was also from Catholic origins with Catholic family and friends and would have kept his head down in such dangerous times. Also that seems to have been his nature anyway. He seems to have been quite modest. Ben Jonson described him as "gentle". He did not know at the time that he was "the greatest author of all time". You don't know the period.
heliotropezzz333 1 year ago
@heliotropezzz333 Oh posh. Of course he knew what he was, the same as Newton knew, the same as Michaelangelo knew. And you have made my point: ONLY ARISTOCRATS KEPT LIBRARIES. There you have it.
angerdux8 1 year ago
@angerdux8 You are not open to consideration of evidence that contradicts your opinions so there is no point in having a discussion. We also don't know for sure that his daughter's were illiterate. Only boys attended Grammar school in those times so that shows that you are not well versed in Tudor England, as you say.
heliotropezzz333 1 year ago
@heliotropezzz333 I am open to significant EVIDENCE which determines the authorship question beyond doubt. You say only boys attended Grammar school to explain Shakespeare's daughters [accepting that the maverick writer who wrote female characters so brilliantly would embrace the average for his own], yet you contend that Shakespeare's vast literary exposure was the result of borrowed libraries and inherent genius, which is a greater logical leap than the idea he would educate his women folk.
angerdux8 1 year ago
@heliotropezzz333 I forgot to ask you this: You speak of the dangers of the times, and clearly it was especially dangerous for writers in sensitive positions. That's why a pen name was commonly used by writers who wish to remain anonymous: Shake--Spear
angerdux8 1 year ago
@angerdux8 Leonardo Da Vinci was the illegitimate son of a notary and a peasant woman. There's no evidence of a scientific education but he conceptualised a helicopter, a tank, concentrated solar power, a calculator, the double hull and outlined a rudimentary theory of plate tectonics and invented an automated bobbin winder, and a machine for testing the tensile strength of wire. He greatly advanced the state of knowledge in the fields of anatomy, civil engineering, optics, and hydrodynamics.[
heliotropezzz333 1 year ago
@heliotropezzz333 Leonardo studied classical math and astronomy. From there came ingenuity and applied science. And he left a cohesive and undeniable body of work behind him that was unquestionably his and a product of his life and we are talking about a man who lived almost a century earlier. The is no question who Leonardo was. Shakespeare....
angerdux8 1 year ago
@Almuric7 Jonson wrote a beautiful eulogy, but..odd. Jonson waits for the actor to die first before calling him "Soul of the Age." He notes that Shakespeare had little Latin and less Greek, but I think I made the point that the bard derived over 5000 new English words from Latin antecedents. We need fresh sleuthing.The bard's diction is so unique, honestly, it rules out current candidates. Shakspere is convenient in that he does not speak.We can compare others and say no, for writers WRITE.
angerdux8 1 year ago
@trackydog The 1rst Folio was published after the actor and grain merchant Shakspere's [signature spellings vary] death. There is MORE scholarly documentation about the compilation of the Folios than there is about its author. What Uber-genius retires at his peak [to go back to the grain, rather than practice law of which he had a detailed and esoteric knowledge of], leaves not even a letter in his hand, keeps his children illiterate? It doesn't add up. It's a question of scholarship.
angerdux8 1 year ago
@angerdux8 And Edward de Vere read for the law at Gray's Inn.
librarylu 1 year ago
@librarylu Yes, I knew he studied the law. I didn't know his surviving work was written while so young. Still, a writer is born with his writer's voice, his manner in approaching language. I'm going to have to look into DeVere more closely. Has anyone compiled a concordance of DeVere's usage and vocabulary and compared it to Shakespeare's? I know about the Bible.
angerdux8 1 year ago
@angerdux8 Yes, William Plummer Fowler - Shakespeare Revealed In Oxford's Letters. It's available but expensive. I was lucky to find a good used copy for $25. I didn't try a library. Hudson makes much of Bassano's musicality but Oxford was praised for his skill on the virginals. He composed pieces and sponsored a troup of musicians as well as two acting troups. I can't write, play or paint today the way I did at 15. I've changed and so has my style.
Have you read Mark Anderson's book yet?
librarylu 1 year ago
I have a hard time seeing how Beowulf inspired Hamlet. Really?
SlightlySusan 1 year ago
O God this shit makes me Laugh - yet another boobie who can't see that he's reading his *own* education into Shakespeare.
amaxamon 1 year ago
These arguments ignore all kinds of evidence, like the teachers available in Stratford-upon-Avon's school as well as the background of William Shakespeare's mother. On top of that they derive a picture of the author, assume they made no errors, then try to make other facts fit the picture they have drawn.
zahir13 2 years ago
@zahir13 Every scholar must wrangle with the authorship question at some time in his/her life. The canon is filled with allusions to so many works it is doubtful that even a modern writer could attain that kind of knowledge and reference it in his works without a library.
angerdux8 1 year ago
This has been flagged as spam show
Here's a twist - Stephanie Hopkins-Hughes links Oxford and Bassano. Maybe she was the Dark Lady instead of Anne Vavasour.
politicworm . files . wordpress . com/2009/10/hughes-new-light-on-the-dark-lady . pdf
librarylu 2 years ago
Southampton is supposed to be the patron of the author of Richard II and Southampton was one of the ringleaders of the Essex Rebellion. Why wouldn't the author have been hauled in for questioning along with the players - unless (could it be?) he was the first called on the jury? Southampton's life was spared, possibly because Oxford had influence with his dead wife's brother.
I've read Elizabeth was convinced Christopher Marlowe wrote Richard II. Does that make her the 1st Marlovian?
librarylu 2 years ago
"Some time between 1599 and 1602 the Queen's Lord Chamberlain, Lord Hunsdon, appears to have leased property for the establishing of an especially' notorious brothel in Paris Gardens, while Thomas Nashe declared in 1598 that 'whoredom (the next doore to the Magistrates)' was set up and maintained through bribery, and Gamini Salgado informs us that 'Most theatre owners... were brothel owners too'.'"- Jonathan Dollimore, Transgression and surveillance in Measure for Measure
librarylu 2 years ago
Hamlet with David Tenant as the Prince, is on TV on Boxing Day. I'm so thrilled. I went to see it in the theatre but David Tennant was ill and I only saw his understudy. It was still great, but it will be good to see what I missed. I'm also going to see Twelfth Night on Jan 4.
heliotropezzz333 2 years ago
I envy you your playgoing and British TV, Helio. I have to settle for Branagh's four-hour DVD. I'm having trouble getting around Jack Lemmon.
librarylu 2 years ago
People were whipped and had their ears cut off for criticizing Lord Burghley with just a few lines in print. How could someone get away with a whole character like Carambis/Polonius - unless he outranked him?
Jonson was tortured for Isle of Dogs but Shaksper wasn't for Richard ll. Why not?
Ed, has any Stratfordian explained how a commoner could have borne the canopy? I have not seen an answer to this one yet.
librarylu 2 years ago
@librarylu I don't think Burghley would have recognised himself in Polonius. If he had thought he was Polonius he would not have been stupid enough to draw attention to that unflattering portrait. Hey guys, the bumbling oaf in Hamlet is meant to be me!
heliotropezzz333 2 years ago
To say that Burghley would not have seen himself as Polonius stands in direct contrast to nearly all Stratfordian critics. I wonder if Cecil would have recognized the speech to Laertes, which he sent to his son in Paris in letter form? Too many references to Burghley, as in being called a "fishmongher" at time of promoting a meatless day in addition to Friday, in order to expand the merchant fleet. It would be imprudent of you to doubt the obvious in this regard.
edboswell 2 years ago
@edboswell Maybe Burghley had a sense of humour. I don't know.
heliotropezzz333 2 years ago
@librarylu Richard II was not a seditious play. It was only dangerous in playing at a time when Essex was planning a similar overthrow of Elizabeth and the players could not be expected to know what was in Essex's mind. They could argue they were innocent - just paide for staging one of their plays.
heliotropezzz333 2 years ago
Richard II had previously been censored because of the scene where the ruler is deposed. It was usually performed sans the abdication scene.
They did plead they did it for the money - an extra forty shillings.
The same subject was covered in 1599 by Sir John Hayward. The book was dedicated to Essex. She thought Essex was the true author.
and wanted Hayward tortured to determine the truth. Hayward was imprisoned for life - hers.
"I am Richard II, know ye not that?" spake Elizabeth.
librarylu 2 years ago
A stratfordian would be falling into a trap by answering the problems arising from a commoner lampooning royals in late 16th century England. So many logical explanantions are allowed if one reads about de Vere. A Stratfordian would be best served to attack the messenger, and make fun of J. Thomas Looney's family name. Best to take the short version, where all doubters are fools or members of a cult based upon Peerage Envy, unworthy of thought or open-mindedness.
edboswell 2 years ago
@librarylu I hope you are still following this discussion. Oxford fits into the life of the plays and sonnets, but I've read Oxford's poetry and it just doesn't sound like Shakespeare's voice. Neither does Marlow or Bacon. I believe Shaksper of Avon was not the bard, but because the authorship question is so reviled, scholars can ruin their careers researching it.
angerdux8 1 year ago
@angerdux8 Oxford's surviving poetry was written when he was sixteen or younger (the original compiler, Richard Edwards, died in 1566) and was meant to be sung. He was known as a top courtier poet, but I doubt that his reputation was based on his "dainty devices". See his letter to Thomas Bedingfield for a glimpse of a more mature style, full of Shakespearean sound if not fury.
Bacon was de Vere's cousin, and Marlowe lived blocks away from Fisher's Folly.
librarylu 1 year ago
The upstart crow percheth high on the tree With Phaetans friend and Anne his Danish queen and together they laugh full merilee
And it is within Shakespeares sonnets that they
Shall Live
Immortally
XXX
MM
monicasm123 2 years ago
I shall post my full theory with no rhymes ! on my site and the world will see
That I am right
Give Me 2 hours
XXX
MM
monicasm123 2 years ago
I can hardly wait.
librarylu 2 years ago
I've been reading Stratfordian ideas on who the Dark Lady was. She was Lady Penelope Rich. No, she was Mary Fitton. No, Mrs. Jane Devanante, from Oxford (one of her children was named William and he became a poet). Anne Whateley, who lived at Temple Grafton, unless that was some other William Shakespeare who lived in Rowington or she was a clerical error, Lucy Morgan, AKA Lucy negro-abbess de Clerkenwell, Amelia Lanier Bassano, of course.....
Wait! I've got it! The Dark Lady was a group!
librarylu 2 years ago
Oops! Make that Amelia (or Aemilia or Emilia) Lanier (or Lanyer) Bassano.
librarylu 2 years ago
Reality check:
"After 1607, she and James rarely lived together, by which time she had borne seven children and suffered at least three miscarriages. After narrowly surviving the birth and death of her last baby, Sophia, in 1607, Annes decision to have no more children may have widened the gulf between her and James."
librarylu 2 years ago
The death of Prince Henry in 1612 at the age of eighteen, probably from typhoid, and the departure for Heidelberg of the sixteen-year-old Princess Elizabeth in April 1613, after marrying Elector Frederick V of the Palatine, further weakened the family ties binding Anne and James. Henry's death hit Anne particularly hard; the Venetian ambassador was advised not to offer condolences to her 'because she cannot bear to have it mentioned; nor does she ever recall it without abundant tears and sighs'.
librarylu 2 years ago
From this time forward, Annes health deteriorated, and she withdrew from the centre of cultural and political activities, staging her last known masque in 1614 and no longer maintaining a noble court." -Wikipedia
There may have been scandalous rumors about her but you have shown no evidence she was "wild" or connected in any way with the Stratford man. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
James thought she was "willfull" for wanting custody of her own son. Shocking!
librarylu 2 years ago
@librarylu Lu, People don't attribute writing to names but to people. to support the De Vere theory and discredit Shakespeare of Stratford on Avon as the playwirght, Oxfordians have to stand logic on its head.
heliotropezzz333 2 years ago
There are many examples of authors using pseudonyms. If records had been lost concerning Samuel Langhorn Clemons, who would think Mark Twain wasn't the author's real name? I'm supposed to be related to him on my father's side, but in another generation this bit of oral family legend may be forgotten.
It's not about discrediting the Stratford man; it's about discovering the reality. His life is such a mismatch for the works suspicion has been going on for hundred of years. Front man?
Maybe.
librarylu 2 years ago
Logic is what makes me an Oxfordian. When one stacks up a few hundred coincidences, without Stratfordians dealing with them, the logical argument is won by de Vere. He had the experiences, the drama troupes, the squandered fortune, he was the "Italian Earl", his brother in law wrote about Elsinore and the Royal Court there, he died in disgrace. His uncle translated OVID, and another uncle was one of the two first to use English Sonnet. Close to the logical prerequisites for "Shake-speare", no?
edboswell 2 years ago
The Stratford man appears to have been a rather dull sort given to suing for small amounts and living in a seedy part of London when he was there. Real playwrights, such as Robert Greene, died poor while Shaksper grew wealthy doing what, exactly?
De Vere lived an adventurous life, "squandered" his fortune patronizing the arts (with only half the income he needed after Elizabeth and Dudley were though with him) and wrote beautifully, even of business.
But logic says the grain dealer did it?
librarylu 2 years ago
@librarylu You are assuming he is dull because we ony have evidence about his business dealings but the exciting things people did then would have been private, not recorded in documents. He lived in the parts of London that actors and playwrights lived in. Nearly all of London was seedy then but very vibrant.
heliotropezzz333 2 years ago
If Shaksper was involved in some of the activities Alleyn and Henslowe were involved in and really fathered a son by Jane Davenant then maybe he wasn't so dull. He looks dull on the monument (current version, not the original). Henslowe and Alleyn didn't mention him.
When I read the sonnets in light of de Vere's life they make perfect sense. Vavasour was the Dark Lady, Sir Walter Raleigh the Rival Poet.The exciting things EO did were recorded. So were some of the things he probably didn't do.
librarylu 2 years ago
@edboswell Ther's just no concrete evidence . No one in his day refers to de Vere as the author. Francis Meres refers to both De Vere and Shakespeare as two different writers - de Vere as a writer of comedies.
heliotropezzz333 2 years ago
Ever wonder why Will's letters do not exist? Or that he never wrote of his deceased son? Or why Jonson parodied the Stratford man as a buffoon poseur? The Cecils were the keepers of the records. Dramatists were low-lifes in the 16th C, so the Cecils expunged de Vere from almost all the records. They had a Will and a way. Do WS words sound like those of a commoner to you? Walt Whitman had it correct, it was "a wolfish earl, so plentious in the plays themselves".
edboswell 2 years ago
Ed, I'm not so sure Sogliardo is Shaksper. The coat of arms described doesn't resemble the Shaksper family crest. "Not without mustard" recalls Nashe's Pierce Penniless, not just the motto that was derived from an earlier refusal, "Non, sans droit".
He's told how to act like a gentleman -
"CAR. Ay, and sit on the stage and flout, provided you have a good suit.
SOG. O, I'll have a suit only for that, sir."
Why would an actor sit on the stage? See also the epigram to the knight.
librarylu 2 years ago
Perhaps Jonson was lampooning people who tried to get above their station by buying rank rather than a certain person. If it was Shaksper he "comes up every term to learn to take tobacco, and see new motions. He is in his kingdom when in company where he may be well laughed at."
In that case, he's not a full-time actor/playmaker in London.
librarylu 2 years ago
@edboswell No one's letters survive from then unless they were preserved by the government. There wasn't a postal service either you know. WS words don't sound like those of an aristocrat . I don't know what you are implying by the word "commoner" but intelligence and wit is not confined to the aristocracy and I do see the playwright as someone in touch with the common man, knowing how he feels.
heliotropezzz333 2 years ago
Not true. Most letters would be saved in private papers, to be seen or sold after the death of the letter holder. Who delivered the letter is a mute point. I imply "commoner" to WS, as he held no title. Intelligence and "wit", which at the time meant common sense primarily, are not the issue here, as much as the life experiences, travel to Italy, a law degree, access to rare and expensive books, and being a Cortier, coupled with an idle rich schedule of NO WORK. De Vere meets the criteria.
edboswell 2 years ago
@edboswell whoever wrote those plays was no idle rich dilettante. They were the products of much craft and hard work. They must have worked at them non-stop. A person without direct experiences can learn about them from other people and other sources. I don't think commoners commonly wrote letters and how many commoners letters do we find saved in private papers?
heliotropezzz333 2 years ago
Any idea where Will got down the idiomatic french spoken by French royals in Henry V? Remember that no 16thC public libraries existed, or dictionaries of english. Many WS source books cost a fortune back then. Do you really think he nailed down Venice so exactly by talking to returning tourists? I think WS had to have been rich, and hired eminent dramatists to assist him, (Munday and Lyly). I agree it took time. Many letters of Jonson exist. Others as well by 16th C commoner poet/dramatists
edboswell 2 years ago
Don't forget some 200 source texts, many of which were never translated into English. How much time would it take to read them all?
Hamlet is thought to be based on Beowolf, but the only copy was in Lord Burghley's household - The Nowell Codex. Nowell was (drumroll) Edward de Vere's tutor.
librarylu 2 years ago 2
Helio, there's a letter saved to Shaksper asking for a loan.
I agree that the author was no idle rich dillettante. Vere was extremely well-educated, a top courtier, took firsts in tournaments, enlisted with the Earl of Sussex for the Scottish campaign, exposed a plot, sat on legal commitees and juries (most notably those of Mary, Essex and Southampton), was known as a prolific poet (described by William Webbe as most excellent among court poets) and excellent musician...
Idle? Hardly.
librarylu 2 years ago
Did I mention the Armada?
librarylu 2 years ago
Write it up for peer review.
librarylu 2 years ago
Anne has very clearly influenced both Hamlet and McBeth and the sonnets . The Sonnets MUST be seen NOT as alegorical but as intensely Personal and Historical . Shakespeare definitely loves anne and continues a working relationship with her long after impostors death. Make no mistake Queen Anne Of D-(enm) -ARK (got it ?) is definitely Shakespeares Lady DARK Too tired to write further almost time to go to work
XXX
monicasm123 2 years ago
23 Anne is a fascinating figure but She is definitely trouble 24 Anne fits the profile of the Dark lady perfectly I want Anne to be named as the dark lady and I want to keep the 1605 split so that impostor theory gets falsified 25 The Dark Lady has remained dark because NOONE (apart from me) is focusing on her if you research her its obvious that She and she alone is THE PERFECT FIT. She is too obvious to be ignored and Monican theory correctly identifies her as solving the mystery outright
monicasm123 2 years ago
18 The sonnets very clearly imply intimate relations Anne was in a much better position than Elizabeth to do this. 19 Monican Theory definitly thinks Anne is an independent woman who has had many affairs 20 Anne is Known to be linked to Ben Jonson and has probably also been intimate with him She is definitely attracted to actors/playwrights 21 Jonson definitely knows WS and sees him as a rival in more than one way 22 Anne is pregnant during her performance But whose baby is it ???
monicasm123 2 years ago
15 She is linked to John Florio A vital source to WS The link between JF and WS has now certainly been established Pls refer Shakespeare enigma 16 Anne is a definite loose cannon who makes Elizabeth look dull She is living a separate life from James and can do as she pleases (which she most definitely does) 17 WS is definitely in a love hate relationship with her 18 1605 sonnets both put Anne and WS in the correct age bracket for the sonnets ie middle aged
monicasm123 2 years ago
5 She Has firsthand information about both Danish and Scottish courts 6 She has nearly been in a shipwreck herself source for tempest 7 Shakespeare is her favorite author
8 She is an accomplished muscian 9 She is clearly working in association with Shakespeares troup 10 She would have found Shakespeare attractive 11 And vice versa 12 She is very accessible to actors13 She has an identical temperament to the Dark Lady 14 She can demonstrably be linked to Actors WS knows
monicasm123 2 years ago
1605 is the date of Queen Annes performance in Masque of Blackness this would have made an indelible impression on Shakespeare and thereafter nicknames her Dark lady Impostor theory of course does not like this date But I am very confident that No Dark lady Sonnet was written prior to 1605 Anne Is the best candidate for being the Dark Lady 1 She Paints herself black 2 She wears a black wig 3 She makes her eyes black with Belladonna 4 She is a royal
monicasm123 2 years ago
Out of Respect for Queen Anne I will be serious 1 Conventional Stratfordian theory doesnt have anything to say about Queen Anne 2 Neither does impostor theory 3 Monican Theory picks this person as being very pivotal to understanding Shakespeare and particularly the Sonnets Monican theory is very confident in naming this person as the Dark Lady Monican Theory states The sonnets have been written in two stages and the split is 1605
monicasm123 2 years ago
1605 Lu You know you want to 1605 it certainly fits with Shakespeares life LoL shakespeares will links him to the Kingsmen and his plays via the coeditors of First folio Does deVeres Will do any thing of the sort ? no doesnt leave anything so its1605 COME ON LU it can't ALL be conspiracy HINT if you cook with conspiracy only use a dash DONT cook like LU or the WHOLE dish gets hashed
XXX
Monica
monicasm123 2 years ago
Looks like you're the conspiracy theorist with this fantasy of yours. I have no problem with 1605. What makes you think I do? Oxford left NO will.
The link in Shaksper's will is a later interlineation. It is not in the original. It is not known who wrote this or when. Why was nothing left to Jonson with whom he supposedly drank his last?
Where in the Sonnets does it say both were middle aged?
Why are you dodging the canopy? Would this be the canopy over the second best bed?
librarylu 2 years ago
But LU why can't we go to 1605 Lu ???? It puts Will and Anne in exactly the correct age remember the sonnets DO say they were both middle aged
Conspiracy theories please
XXX
Monica
monicasm123 2 years ago
LoL Queen Anne of Denmark goes MUCH further than any of your candidates do. In fact in making Herself Dark She REALLY sets the benchmark LOL
And Lu She is a SERIOUS FAN of Shakespeare too And Shakespeares definitely got a thing for her too LOL !!!
Conspiracy theories with citations please ( Hint make sure they avoid 1605 please) LOL
XXX
Monica
monicasm123 2 years ago
XXX
DON'T LISTEN TO ANY OF THIS
COME TO THE SHAKESPEARE ENIGMA SITE AND I WILL DEMONSTRATE EXACTLY WHO THE DARK LADY IS
Bring ALL your friends and you may also want to collar A SERIOUS Shakesperian Scholar
XXX
Monica
monicasm123 2 years ago
Hi, Monica. Are you going door to door with pamphlets now?
librarylu 2 years ago
If Shakespeare only came to London in 1592, he must have been a prodigious playwright because Francis Meres who was the almost same age as Shakespeare (one year different), lists, in a work published in 1598, 12 plays by Shakespeare. It seems more likely that Shakespeare came to London before 1592.
heliotropezzz333 2 years ago
It seems even more likely it was permissible for Meres to list plays that had been published anonymously because Lord Burghley died in 1592
and censorship was eased up a bit. It's thought the Stratford man came to London between 1585 and 1592. Since there were earlier versions of many of the plays (The Troublesome Reign of King John , e.g.) it makes sense Oxford wrote them in the 1580s and then revised and updated them over the years.
librarylu 2 years ago
@librarylu Francis Meres says that Shakespeare was the author of the plays and is complementary about him. So that's a second contemporary writer that attributes the plays to Shakespeare.
heliotropezzz333 2 years ago
@librarylu Another piece of evidence to link the Stratford Shakespeare with the London Theatre (for those who doubt the link) comes from what is known about his younger brother Edmund, born 1680 in Stratford-on Avon died 1607 in London. Edmund had a son born who died in 1607 and was baptised in St Leonard's church Shoreditch, which is the church where other Shakespearian actors are buried. The child is recorded as "base born" with his father from "Moorfields" location of the Curtain Theatre.
heliotropezzz333 2 years ago
@librarylu A month later Edmund's son was buried in St Giles Cripplegate near the fortune Theatre.Edmund himself died and was buried over 4 months later in St Saviour's Southwark the parish church of the Globe Theatre. He had a more than usually expensive burial, inside the church and with a forenoon knell of the great bell. It is thought that the location of the burial and extra expense lavished on it was organised and paid for by his brother William.
heliotropezzz333 2 years ago
There's no doubt William of Stratford made money, but the documents point to association with "lewd persons" and it's quite possible he made his money in the seamy side of the theater rather than on the stage. The one document that puts William of Stratford in London associates him with the "debauched" Mountjoys and George Wilkins, brothel-keeper and writer.
You might enjoy this article by Charles Nichols.
newtonvillebooks . com/blog/?p=85
librarylu 2 years ago
If playhouses were dens of gambling, usury, and prostitution, why wouldn't one of 7 people on a Globe lease be involved in money-lending? We know of a restraining order against him by a theatre owner, including a woman of ill-repute named in the complaint. We know WS of stratford was such a money-lender. Why no conjecture on him being a pimp and moneylender, when proof exists which leads one in that sordid direction? AND WHY NO POEMS ABOUT DEAD HAMNET? what a thoughless father!!!!
edboswell 2 years ago
Not only was he named in the writ he was named first. The practice was to name the chief culprit first which strongly suggests he was Langley's "enforcer". Langley took out the first writ. "Be it known that Francis Langley craves sureties of the peace against William Gardiner and William Wayte for fear of death, and so forth." Langley was charged with extortion and violence in Star Chamber and was involved with a stolen diamond.
"Gentle master William", huh? (Gentle meant "highborn", BTW.)
librarylu 2 years ago
It's certain Shaksper made a great deal of money in a short time but the going rate for a play was £5-£10. Supposedly he "supplied" two plays a year. Hm.
An actor had to learn a part, rehearse and perform all in the same day, then do it again for a new play the next day. Light was smoky candles. The hard work of writing would have to have been done in the evening with time left over for trips to the Mermaid Tavern.
There's conjecture in David Roper's book, but he's a "looney".
librarylu 2 years ago
@librarylu John Cooke in his epigrams 1604 refers to Shakespeare, Jonson and Green as writers. John Manningham, a lawyer, in his diary of 1603 refers to Shakespeare, Jonson and Greene as poets.
heliotropezzz333 2 years ago