WTF? John Lennon and Princess Diana?

[Provost Harrison]

Well this is exactly it Boris. Literature is just a hobby for enjoyment. If you have to constantly refer to footnotes and videos of it, it really seems to defeat the object.

Civilised world refers to those nations with a high level of education.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
Well this is exactly it Boris. Literature is just a hobby for enjoyment. If you have to constantly refer to footnotes and videos of it, it really seems to defeat the object.

I enjoy researching literature. I enjoy researching music. I enjoy researching movies. Many people do. If you don't, that's fine, but stop accusing others of being snobs because you're not as dilligently-inclined.

Civilised world refers to those nations with a high level of education.

Like...the United States, where the population is overwhelmingly religious and those who describe themselves as religious are growing in number moreso than those who do not?

[Provost Harrison]

The US is eliminated from being counted as civilised on other counts

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
The US is eliminated from being counted as civilised on other counts

So is India uncivilized?

[Dauphin]

PH, you are acting the in the antithesis of snobbery - discounting Shakespeare on the account of it being enjoyed by the "establishment".

I think Shakespeares plays are easy enough to read. The intricasies of some of the wording make it difficult to follow in detail but the plot is understandable.

Considering that the audience didn't read the plays but rather watched them means that to appreciate Shakespeare properly you have to see a play. Have you? I have once, and I thought it a very good rendition of Hamlet.

[Provost Harrison]

Well we just got the book Henry V rammed down our neck, and it really didn't make much sense. English at school really put me off literature for life.

[Tuberski]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
Perhaps because you're an uncivilized redneck who'd rather fire his pistols into the air at the next Lynyrd Skynyrd concert

Uhhhhhh...........

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Tuberski



Uhhhhhh...........

It was teasing, Tube, teasing.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
More to the point of the list...the William Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon, the one in all the paintings, didn't write the damn plays anyway. It was Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford. He should be the one on the list, not the illiterate grain merchant.

I would have thought indulging this snobbish theory was beyond you, Boris.
First proposed by a J Thomas Looney, loony was the theory when first proposed, and loony is it now.
Firstly, William Shakespeare had a more than decent grammar school education- a sound grounding in Latin, rhetoric, grammar, history, religion and so forth. The business was a glover's, by the way. None of Shakespeare's contemporaries (even his rivals) doubted that the 'Shake-scene' actor and part owner of a successful theatre, was also the upstart crow who wrote the plays which he himself acted in.
It must irk all the descendants of Bacon and Oxford and Southampton that a scion of the growing middle classes
from a province too, could write the plays that we now have. But then, Ben Jonson's alternative to a university scholarship was a career in bricklaying. Dickens's father dwelt in debtors' prison, and Dickens himself worked in a bottling works. Time to lay this nonsense to rest. As regards Isambard Kingdom Brunel- he's one of leading figures of Victorian Britain- you should acquaint yourself with his polymath engineering genius.

[Sandman]

I have a theory that Brunel's surprise appearance on this list is a result of the pitiful state of Britain's railways. I guess the public yearns for someone who could make the trains run on time...

Ironically, Brunel's father was French, and their rail system seems to embody his values much better than Britain's.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by molly bloom
I would have thought indulging this snobbish theory was beyond you, Boris.

Referring to those who believe in Oxford's authorship as "snobs" is the common way Stratfordians dismiss the de Vere arguments without having to deal with the facts. It has nothing to do with snobbery, merely trying to answer some very legitimate questions that do not make sense under the traditional history. I would have thought you beyond reverting to the tired old "snob" argument.

First proposed by a J Thomas Looney, loony was the theory when first proposed, and loony is it now.

First, the notion that "Shaksper" of Stratford is not the author has been around long before Looney's 1920 work. Authorship debates go back to the 1750s at least.

Second, dismissing it and other theories as "loony," while a clever turn of phrase, is insulting to those extremely respected Shakespeare scholars and other intelligent figures who believed otherwise, a list that includes Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, Charlie Chaplin, Harry Blackmun, Sigmund Freud, Walt Whitman, Ralph Waldo Emerson, John Gielgud, Orson Welles, Derek Jacobi, Henry James, Hamilton Basso, Richard Bentley, Otto von Bismarck, Benjamin Disraeli, John Galsworthy, Charles DeGaulle, James Joyce, Helen Keller (what a snob she was, huh?), David Lloyd Kreeger, Lincoln Schuster (of Simon & Schuster), Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Thomas Hardy and Oliver Wendell Holmes. Among others. So are they all loony, too?

Firstly, William Shakespeare had a more than decent grammar school education- a sound grounding in Latin, rhetoric, grammar, history, religion and so forth.

There is absolutely no evidence of Shaksper's education documented, unless you have a smoking gun no Stratfordian has ever been able to produce. Any idea of what his education consisted on is pure conjecture. What IS certain is that his formal education stopped at 13, when his father's business hit the skids, and that he never attended university.

There are only 6 documents supposedly with Shakespeare's signature on them, and on three instances the name is spelled differently each time. The most reliable one would be on his will (which, curiously, makes no mention whatsoever of ANY literary legacy, or even any books!), and it is scrawled so badly as to be the work of someone who undoubtedly had at least modest difficulty writing.

More telling is that there is no record of Shaksper leaving Stratford until he was 26, and only then to London, never abroad. Yet he writes in even his earliest plays about foreign locales, royal courts, nobility and political intrigue. Where did this come from? Every author will tell you that a fundamental aspect of great writing is the author writing of that which he knows. Whoever wrote the plays had a vast and intimate knowledge of the nobility, something Shaksper certainly would not have had. In fact, why would a merchant be almost exclusively concerned with the affairs of the nobles? Chaplin scoffed at the notion quite rightly:

"In the work of the greatest geniuses, humble beginnings will reveal themselves somewhere but one cannot trace the slightest sign of them in Shakespeare... Whoever wrote [Shakespeare] had an aristocratic attitude."

The business was a glover's, by the way.

His father was a glover, but Shaksper the merchant branched into other businesses, as he was quite successful. His primary source of income was as a grain merchant.

None of Shakespeare's contemporaries (even his rivals) doubted that the 'Shake-scene' actor and part owner of a successful theatre, was also the upstart crow who wrote the plays which he himself acted in.

Really? What contemporaries? Since there are no contemporary accounts of him, I'm perplexed how you can say this. For an actor, why is his name absent from any specific cast lists for shows? Sure, the name appears on a roll of actors for the Globe, but for no specific productions. Curious, until one realizes that the names of financial backers were often included on the rolls, and Shaksper did have a financial stake in the Globe Theater (not uncommon for wealthy merchants).

It must irk all the descendants of Bacon and Oxford and Southampton that a scion of the growing middle classes
from a province too, could write the plays that we now have. But then, Ben Jonson's alternative to a university scholarship was a career in bricklaying.

The snob card again. Emotionally appealing, but irrelevant to the arguments.

Dickens's father dwelt in debtors' prison, and Dickens himself worked in a bottling works.

Funny how Dickens himself didn't believe in Shakespeare being done by the Stratfordian, isn't it?

At any rate, that's not comparable. First, Dickens lived two and a half centuries later in a world very changed from Elizabethan times. Second, Dickens's works are very clearly reflective of the life we know he led. His roots come out in all of his works, and there is no dischord whatsoever between what we know of the man and the world his characters inhabit. The same, alas, is not true for Shaksper, who probably never set foot inside a noble court in his life.

Time to lay this nonsense to rest.

I agree, it is high time we dispense with the legacy of the Stratford grain merchant as Shakespeare. It simply doesn't fit.

[Boris Godunov]

Oh, and I would add I am not saying all of the works now attributed to Shakespeare are by de Vere. While I believe him to be the most preponderent author, I think there is good reason to believe several plays and sonnets may have other authors, such as Marlowe, and are wrongly attributed to "Shakespeare."

[Provost Harrison]

Yeah, I've always been impressed by Brunels engineering, and strives forward in the field. I would describe him as a worthy entry in the top 10 myself...definitely a big mover and shaker in the industrial age.

As for Princess Di...

[molly bloom]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by Boris Godunov


'I would have thought you beyond reverting to the tired old "snob" argument.'

Alas it still holds water- snobs abound today, as much as ever.

'First, the notion that "Shakespeare" of Stratford is not the author has been around long before Looney's 1920 work. Authorship debates go back to the 1750s at least.'

Looney was first to propose de Vere- I believe that's what I said. None of Shakespeare's contemporaries are shown to have doubted his authorship.

Being famous and being an actor or even a psychiatrist doesn't make one an expert on literature. Or linguistics.
Freud has been shown to be wrong on occasions when he strayed outside his field of psychiatry, and even inside it. You don't mention the reasons why these esteemed 'scholars' believe the man from Stratford not be the dramatist, so we are led to conclude from this absence of supporting detail that they have some special knowledge that we do not.


'There is absolutely no evidence of Shakespeare's education documented, unless you have a smoking gun no Stratfordian has ever been able to produce. '

There are no school rolls for the Stratford school in Shakespeare's day, so we are led to believe that several schoolmasters were paid, and a school kept open, for show.
There are however contemporaries of Shakespeare's in Stratford who also would have attended the grammar school, and went on to become publishers, printers and even priests at the seminary in Douai. All of them come from the same rising middle class background as Shakespeare, and all are shown to have received a more than decent schooling. One who printed some of Shakespeare's texts, also printed works in French, Latin, Greek and Welsh. Shakespeare alludes not only to a grammar schooling, but also a schooling in what was known as a petty school- the abecedarius, in several of his works.

'There are only 6 documents supposedly with Shakespeare's signature on them, and on three instances the name is spelled differently each time. The most reliable one would be on his will (which, curiously, makes no mention whatsoever of ANY literary legacy, or even any books!), and it is scrawled so badly as to be the work of someone who undoubtedly had at least modest difficulty writing.'

Ever seen James Joyce's handwriting? Appalling. And Yeats was an atrocious speller. Let's make comparisons with Shakespeare's fellow dramatists:

C. Marlowe: one signature only, allegedly at the age of 21, attached to a will in Canterbury and spelled 'Christofer Marley'.
Not once during his lifetime was he ever referred to as a playwright or poet; surviving references spell his name every way from "Marly" to "Marlin," but almost never "Marlowe." The name "Christopher Marlowe," in any of its spellings, was never associated with any play or poem or literary work during the man's lifetime. There is no evidence to connect him with any acting company, or with the theatre in any way. The only play now generally attributed to Marlowe which was printed during his lifetime was 'Tamburlaine the Great', but it was printed anonymously in 1590, and was not attributed to Marlowe until 1671, (78 years after the man's death. In 1594, the year after "Marley" (as he himself spelled it) was murdered under shady circumstances, quartos of two plays --- 'Dido Queen of Carthage' and 'Edward II' --- were published with the names "Christopher Marlowe" and "Chri. Marlow" (respectively) on their title pages; this was the first time the name had appeared in any literary context, but there is nothing to connect it with the recently-murdered shoemaker's son from Canterbury. Of a list of things that "suggest a literary life," only one applies to Marlowe: we have a record of his education, since he (supposedly) went to Cambridge. Shall we play the de Vere standard of proof game? Most of the Cambridge records which are supposed to be to the shoemaker's son spell the name "Marlin," and there was another student there at the same time named Christopher Marley, so those references could be to him; also, what was "Marley" doing in Canterbury to sign that will in 1585, when he was supposedly at Cambridge? Anyone who accepts that Christopher Marlowe wrote plays but refuses to accept that William Shakespeare wrote plays, is applying a double standard of the most monumental proportions. Marlowe is probably the most extreme case, but we could refer at length to other contemporary playwrights. The list of other Elizabethan poets and playwrights for whom there is also no educational record is a distinguished one: Ben Jonson (considered the greatest classical scholar in England), Michael Drayton (one of England's most popular poets, mentioned by Francis Meres in 'Palladis Tamia' more times than Shakespeare), George Chapman (translator of Homer, also a great classical scholar), John Webster, Thomas Dekker, and many others. There are others, such as John Fletcher and Thomas Heywood, for whom the evidence of schooling does not meet the 'de Vere' standards of proof, so we can add them too, if we're going to play by 'de Vere' rules. As for other kinds of evidence, many of the most prominent playwrights of the day have left us astonishingly little evidence of their lives and activities. 'The Duchess of Malfi' and 'The White Devil' are two of the greatest Jacobean tragedies, both still performed today; they were attributed at the time to "John Webster," but this name was not convincingly attached to a real-life person until 1976, when Mary Edmond showed that the dramatist was almost certainly the son of a coachmaker also named John Webster. Even so, we don't know exactly when John Webster was born (1580 is our best guess), where he went to school (the Merchant Taylors' School is a guess), or when he died (it could have been any time from 1625 to 1634); essentially no personal information is known about him. Then there's John Fletcher, one of the most popular and famous Jacobean playwrights (at the time), part of the famous team of Beaumont and Fletcher- the equivalent of an Andrew Lloyd Webber. Large chunks of his life are completely unaccounted for, including the period when he supposedly started writing plays; we know nothing about the last ten years of his life; we don't know for sure if he was married; there are no autograph manuscripts of his plays (though there are some transcripts in other hands), and only a single signature; his name appeared on title pages of four plays during his lifetime, but 22 years after his death a massive folio attributed dozens more plays to him and Beaumont. Back to William Shakespeare. Well, for one thing, his name appeared on the title pages of many plays during his lifetime, plays which were performed by the acting company of which he was a member. A man's name on the title page of a published work seems to me to be evidence that he wrote the work in question, or at the very least, evidence that people thought he wrote the work. It's true that Shakespeare's name appeared on a couple of plays ('The London Prodigal' and 'A Yorkshire Tragedy') which are universally agreed not to be his, because they are markedly inferior to his work and do not appear in the First Folio; that just means that his name was a selling point, and does not affect the fact that the publishers of these plays were asserting that he wrote them. Of course, there's the First Folio, with its commendatory poems and testimony from Shakespeare's fellows Heminge and Condell, which de Vere supporters are forced to dismiss as a hoax. There is nothing about the First Folio to suggest it is a hoax. Aside from all this, there are also numerous references to William Shakespeare during his lifetime, including third-person references and poems addressed to him. De Vere theorists claim that these references do not identify Shakespeare as a person, which is not true; several of them identify him as an actor ('The Parnassus Plays', John Davies' epigram), and/or as unlearned (Francis Beaumont's poem). John Davies' epigram, written in 1611, was manifestly addressed to William Shakespeare, the actor in the King's men, and certainly not to the Earl of Oxford. When Edmund Howes made a list of modern poets in 1615, he scrupulously listed them according to social rank (knight, esquire, gentleman, or none of the above), and Shakespeare was listed as a gentleman, which in fact Shakespeare of Stratford was.

'More telling is that there is no record of Shakespeare leaving Stratford until he was 26, and only then to London, never abroad. Yet he writes in even his earliest plays about foreign locales, royal courts, nobility and political intrigue. Where did this come from? Every author will tell you that a fundamental aspect of great writing is the author writing of that which he knows. Whoever wrote the plays had a vast and intimate knowledge of the nobility, something Shakespeare certainly would not have had. '

His acting companies patrons included various aristocrats, he was in two acting companies, The Lord Chamberlain's Men and the King's Men, which appeared at court in plays. That there is no proof he went abroad is largely irrelevant; thousands of Englishmen, merchants, aristocrats, mercenaries, went abroad- to fight for Spain, or Leicester in the Netherlands, to attend the seminary at Douai, or the English College in Rome, or to complete or round out their education. Most have left no record of their sojourns.

Imagination, I would aver, is the primary resource for the creative. Cyrano de Bergerac wrote of a voyage to the moon- there is no evidence for his ever going there.

'His father was a glover, but Shakespeare the merchant branched into other businesses, as he was quite successful. His primary source of income was as a grain merchant.'

His primary source of income was not as a grain merchant- there is no evidence whatsoever that William Shakespeare, actor and playwright, shareholder in theatres, was ever a grain merchant.

'Really? What contemporaries? Since there are no contemporary accounts of him, I'm perplexed how you can say this. For an actor, why is his name absent from any specific cast lists for shows? Sure, the name appears on a roll of actors for the Globe, but for no specific productions. Curious, until one realizes that the names of financial backers were often included on the rolls, and Shakespeare did have a financial stake in the Globe Theater (not uncommon for wealthy merchants).'

Sahespeare is recorded as having acted in Jonson's 'Every Man in his Humour' in 1598, and later, in the same dramatist's 'Sejanus'.
He is also named as one of the actors paid on 15th March, 1594, for showing before the Queen at Christmas "twoe severall comedies or enterludes."
Amongst contemporaries, playwrights, poets and actors who refer to him are:

Heminges and Condell who introduce the First Folio, who were personal friends and business partners.
Ben Jonson, again, who wrote a eulogy for him.

Jonson's inscription refers to the "Sweet Swan of Avon".

William Camden, the foremost antiquary of the time, and Ben Jonson's master at the Westminster School. says about William Shakespeare 'one of the great poets of his time, whom succeeding ages may justly admire',
in a list of 10 in all, culminating with William Shakespeare.
When the theatres were closed by government edict in 1647, there was a commemorative edition to the end, called the Beaumont and Fletcher Folio. The signatories, the ten survivors of the King's Men, recalled the happier time when Heminges and Condell, "those that had steerage of our company," had presented the works of "that sweet swan of Avon, William Shakespeare".

None of de Vere's contemporaries, not his family, not the people he mixed with ever alluded to his being the author of the plays or poems. The convention by which aristocrats did not publish work was more observed in the breach, than anything else. We would also have to accept that de Vere choosing the pseudonym 'Shakespeare' would be like Toni Morrison choosing 'Whoopi Goldberg' to hide her identity.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by molly bloom
Alas it still holds water- snobs abound today, as much as ever.

But since you don't know the intentions of those who have different theories, labeling them all as "snobs" is disingenuous.

Looney was first to propose de Vere- I believe that's what I said. None of Shakespeare's contemporaries are shown to have doubted his authorship.

I think this is answered more adequately here:

http://www.everreader.com/barrell.htm

Being famous and being an actor or even a psychiatrist doesn't make one an expert on literature. Or linguistics. Freud has been shown to be wrong on occasions when he strayed outside his field of psychiatry, and even inside it. You don't mention the reasons why these esteemed 'scholars' believe the man from Stratford not be the dramatist, so we are led to conclude from this absence of supporting detail that they have some special knowledge that we do not.

I never cited these men as proof of anything, merely to show that many intelligent people, people who I wager are far more versed in Shakespeare than you or I (Welles and Gielgud certainly so!), support the alternative theories of authorship. I did this to counter your implications that only "loonies" would believe it, which is insulting and uncalled for.

There are no school rolls... Shakespeare alludes not only to a grammar schooling, but also a schooling in what was known as a petty school- the abecedarius, in several of his works.

What I have read of the Elizabethan grammar schooling is that, while superior to most other such schools in the world at the time, it was no where near the education one would have needed to produce the plays. Regardless, Shaksper did not finish school, leaving when he was 13.

Ever seen James Joyce's handwriting? Appalling. And Yeats was an atrocious speller.

I doubt Yeats misspelled his own name, and Joyce's signature does not change. One cannot deny that several of the Shakespeare signatures are either forgeries or written by different mean using a similar name.

Let's make comparisons with Shakespeare's fellow dramatists... which in fact Shakespeare of Stratford was.

I'm going to stop you right there. I am not a fan of plagiarism, and while this is just an internet message board, is generally excepted than when quoting something, you cite the source. You seem to be passing of David Kathman's words off as your own here, and I think that's pretty reprehensible. Certainly not what I would expect from you. It is certainly highly ironic in the context of the authorship debate, which Stratfordians like to moralize so much. I'm not inclined to continue arguing with a plagiarist, however.

But if you just want to get into a pissing contest with citing those in the authorship debates, fine:

http://www.sobran.com/replykathman.shtml

I will spare the bandwidth and not quote it all here. I will also dispense with the latter parts of your post with futher citations wherein such matters are dealt with:

http://www.everreader.com/barrell.htm

http://www.sourcetext.com/sourcebook/index.htm

That there is no proof he went abroad is largely irrelevant; thousands of Englishmen, merchants, aristocrats, mercenaries, went abroad- to fight for Spain, or Leicester in the Netherlands, to attend the seminary at Douai, or the English College in Rome, or to complete or round out their education. Most have left no record of their sojourns.

Most have not been the greatest author in all of the English language, have they? Certainly there would be some record of man who must have spent time at the courts of Italy?

Imagination, I would aver, is the primary resource for the creative. Cyrano de Bergerac wrote of a voyage to the moon- there is no evidence for his ever going there.

And how accurate was de Bergerac's depiction of the moon? Do you think Tom Clancy could fashion his books solely based on imagination, without any real-world experience with his subject matter or the types of people he is describing? Please, this is a lame stretch of a comparison. Imagination is one thing, Shakespeare's intimate knowledge of the aristocracy and court and with foreign lands goes well beyond imagination.

The primary source of income was not as a grain merchant- there is no evidence whatsoever that William Shakespeare, actor and playwright, shareholder in theatres, was ever a grain merchant.

The proof is on his tombstone, which until 1754 depicted him holding a sack of grain. At that point he acheived enough popularity that the dilligent residents of Avon had the image replaced by a book.

Now please spare me cut-n-paste argumentation.