Was Shakespeare a Woman?
October 22, 2013 6:41 PM Subscribe
Did Amelia Bassano Lanier write William Shakespeare? Her single volume of poetry, Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum was published in 1611, but Amelia Bassano Lanier (1569–1645) may have left us even more. John Hudson, a British Shakespeare scholar and director of the New York theatre ensemble the Dark Lady Players has written that if Bassano did not write all of the plays, she was certainly a major collaborator. He is not alone.
I mean, just consider this chaos: I mean, really!
posted by dis_integration at 6:48 PM on October 22, 2013 [8 favorites]
posted by dis_integration at 6:48 PM on October 22, 2013 [8 favorites]
Thank thee for the poo poo upon my curiosities, for thy ad hominems convince so clearly in spite of yonder academical evidence.
posted by Israel Tucker at 6:52 PM on October 22, 2013 [3 favorites]
posted by Israel Tucker at 6:52 PM on October 22, 2013 [3 favorites]
But wait, if we humor enough people with crazy authorship theories, maybe one of them will be rich enough to make a prize with poorly-worded terms that means it ends up funding research discrediting their ideas!
posted by 23 at 6:54 PM on October 22, 2013 [3 favorites]
posted by 23 at 6:54 PM on October 22, 2013 [3 favorites]
dis: that link is amazing, thanks for sharing. (And on preview, 23, your link is pretty great too.)
posted by louie at 6:57 PM on October 22, 2013
posted by louie at 6:57 PM on October 22, 2013
Apart from being attractive as clickbait, I don't understand why this kind of crankery gets such serious press. I mean, it's pretty easy for even a non-Shakespeare-specialist to see that the journal described in the Globe & Mail story's freaking lead sentence as "One of the most prestigious academic journals devoted to Shakespearean authorship studies," The Oxfordian, is essentially the International Journal of Crank Theories on this subject. And I'm bowled over by how graceful and courteous this line is:
"John's evidence is entirely circumstantial, or depends on quasi-allegorical readings of the texts," says Kate McLuskie, director of the Shakespeare Institute at the University of Birmingham. "It is elegant and ingenious, but has no documentary foundation - a beautiful story that is not less beautiful for being entirely false."
But I'm also a little dismayed that it is so obviously prepared and polished and rehearsed, that is that it's apparently so often needed. Why are Shakespeare cranks cut so much more slack than, say, cold-fusion cranks?
posted by RogerB at 7:02 PM on October 22, 2013 [6 favorites]
"John's evidence is entirely circumstantial, or depends on quasi-allegorical readings of the texts," says Kate McLuskie, director of the Shakespeare Institute at the University of Birmingham. "It is elegant and ingenious, but has no documentary foundation - a beautiful story that is not less beautiful for being entirely false."
But I'm also a little dismayed that it is so obviously prepared and polished and rehearsed, that is that it's apparently so often needed. Why are Shakespeare cranks cut so much more slack than, say, cold-fusion cranks?
posted by RogerB at 7:02 PM on October 22, 2013 [6 favorites]
You have to admit it. It's refreshing.
"There's no way an educated white guy could have written this..."
Too bad most of the alternates are rich educated white guys.
posted by eriko at 7:07 PM on October 22, 2013 [2 favorites]
"There's no way an educated white guy could have written this..."
Too bad most of the alternates are rich educated white guys.
posted by eriko at 7:07 PM on October 22, 2013 [2 favorites]
Pretty much all of these alternate theories of authorship read as: "If this turns out to be true, how awesome will I be for having asserted it?!"
posted by Navelgazer at 7:10 PM on October 22, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by Navelgazer at 7:10 PM on October 22, 2013 [2 favorites]
eriko, actually most of the older authorship theories run on the premise that William Shakespeare couldn't possibly have been educated enough to write the things attributed to him.
posted by 23 at 7:14 PM on October 22, 2013 [11 favorites]
posted by 23 at 7:14 PM on October 22, 2013 [11 favorites]
Bill Bryson's Shakespeare: The World As A Stage is one of the best books on the esteemed playwright because it attempts to address exactly what facts we know for certain about Shakespeare. He also spends a nice chunk of time eviscerating the alternate authorship theories. Highly recommended and a nice mental antidote from this BS.
posted by Joey Michaels at 7:15 PM on October 22, 2013 [8 favorites]
posted by Joey Michaels at 7:15 PM on October 22, 2013 [8 favorites]
On the one hand, the Shakespeare authorship stuff seems thin, and pretty much all of could be explained by Shakespeare and Lanyer knowing each other, and being influenced by each other's work.
On the other hand, Aemilia Lanyer sounds like a fascinating person, and I'm now really keen to read Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum.
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 7:16 PM on October 22, 2013
On the other hand, Aemilia Lanyer sounds like a fascinating person, and I'm now really keen to read Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum.
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 7:16 PM on October 22, 2013
Given the content of his comedies, I could very easily believe that the plays were authored by William Shakespeare disguised as Amelia Bassano.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 7:18 PM on October 22, 2013 [11 favorites]
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 7:18 PM on October 22, 2013 [11 favorites]
I'm now really keen to read Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum.
Full text here, in case you hadn't already found it.
posted by RogerB at 7:26 PM on October 22, 2013 [4 favorites]
Full text here, in case you hadn't already found it.
posted by RogerB at 7:26 PM on October 22, 2013 [4 favorites]
After all, all (s)he did was string together a lot of old, well-known quotations.
-- H.L. Mencken, on Shakespeare
posted by benzenedream at 7:37 PM on October 22, 2013 [5 favorites]
-- H.L. Mencken, on Shakespeare
posted by benzenedream at 7:37 PM on October 22, 2013 [5 favorites]
Israel Tucker: "Thank thee for the poo poo upon my curiosities, for thy ad hominems convince so clearly in spite of yonder academical evidence."
Not to pile on - I love talking about Shakespeare as much as anyone - but you have one article published in a relatively crank-y web site on the subject (or more charitably, one apparently dedicated entirely to promoting theories of this type), and a link to something that said "Hey, this lady may have some interesting link to Shakespeare" but without any reference to the claim she authored any of the plays.
This is not overwhelming academic evidence.
Amelia Bassano Lanier seems like an interesting person in her own right and I'm all for expanding the scholarly examination and general appreciation of women writing anytime and in Shakespeare's day in particular, but this is a really ass backwards way to do it.
posted by dismas at 7:38 PM on October 22, 2013 [7 favorites]
Not to pile on - I love talking about Shakespeare as much as anyone - but you have one article published in a relatively crank-y web site on the subject (or more charitably, one apparently dedicated entirely to promoting theories of this type), and a link to something that said "Hey, this lady may have some interesting link to Shakespeare" but without any reference to the claim she authored any of the plays.
This is not overwhelming academic evidence.
Amelia Bassano Lanier seems like an interesting person in her own right and I'm all for expanding the scholarly examination and general appreciation of women writing anytime and in Shakespeare's day in particular, but this is a really ass backwards way to do it.
posted by dismas at 7:38 PM on October 22, 2013 [7 favorites]
John Hudson, for those new to his beliefs, thinks that Lanier is both the Dark Lady of the sonnets AND Shakespeare. When asked in an interview why she would write love sonnets to herself, his reply was, "Well, why would she not write the sonnets to herself?"
He believes his strongest evidence is that each time a reference to a dying swan appears in Shakespeare's work, there is a character present who bears a name associated with Lanier. For example, he says, in King John, the character in question is King John's son, Henry, and "Johnson" was Amelia Lanier's mother's maiden name. How strong does he think this evidence is? According to Hudson, "The probability that these signatures are not a coincidence is 99.999999999999999999 percent. Eighteen decimal places."
This is not serious scholarship, and no one with any credibility takes it seriously.
Amelia Bassano Lanier is a fascinating person in her own right, though.
posted by kyrademon at 7:44 PM on October 22, 2013 [20 favorites]
He believes his strongest evidence is that each time a reference to a dying swan appears in Shakespeare's work, there is a character present who bears a name associated with Lanier. For example, he says, in King John, the character in question is King John's son, Henry, and "Johnson" was Amelia Lanier's mother's maiden name. How strong does he think this evidence is? According to Hudson, "The probability that these signatures are not a coincidence is 99.999999999999999999 percent. Eighteen decimal places."
This is not serious scholarship, and no one with any credibility takes it seriously.
Amelia Bassano Lanier is a fascinating person in her own right, though.
posted by kyrademon at 7:44 PM on October 22, 2013 [20 favorites]
It was actually Amelia Earhart.
posted by codswallop at 7:45 PM on October 22, 2013 [3 favorites]
posted by codswallop at 7:45 PM on October 22, 2013 [3 favorites]
Your "not alone" link only discusses the possibility that Lanier was the Dark Lady, and that she may have had an affair with Shakespeare. It says nothing about them collaborating, let alone the idea that she wrote any (or all) of his plays.
She sounds like an interesting person, though.
posted by Sticherbeast at 7:48 PM on October 22, 2013
She sounds like an interesting person, though.
posted by Sticherbeast at 7:48 PM on October 22, 2013
It was actually Amelia Earhart.
DID AMELIA BEDELIA WRITE SHAKESPEARE
posted by Sticherbeast at 7:49 PM on October 22, 2013 [25 favorites]
DID AMELIA BEDELIA WRITE SHAKESPEARE
posted by Sticherbeast at 7:49 PM on October 22, 2013 [25 favorites]
I've always preferred the original Klingon versions.
posted by kmz at 8:12 PM on October 22, 2013 [4 favorites]
posted by kmz at 8:12 PM on October 22, 2013 [4 favorites]
Aemilia Lanyer is significant enough in her own right without needing to try to somehow hook her to Shakespeare. Rowse's theories about her being the "Dark Lady" are pure speculation. Her writing is also not much like Shakespeare's. (She's more comparable to Spenser or Sidney.)
(For that matter, there's no reason to insist that the "Dark Lady" was herself a single, specific individual or that there's any significant biographical content to the Sonnets at all.)
There's no evidence that anyone besides the man we know as William Shakespeare was the primary author in all of the plays ascribed to him. Alternative authorship theories are based on elaborate "what ifs," unfounded assumptions, and misguided interpretations.
As for John Hudson as a scholar, I'm unaware of anything he's published in any scholarly journals. Looking at his Scribd page suggests he reads primarily through the lens of strict religious allegory, which is fine as far as it goes but ultimately very, very reductive and not all that interesting.
posted by Saxon Kane at 8:15 PM on October 22, 2013 [6 favorites]
(For that matter, there's no reason to insist that the "Dark Lady" was herself a single, specific individual or that there's any significant biographical content to the Sonnets at all.)
There's no evidence that anyone besides the man we know as William Shakespeare was the primary author in all of the plays ascribed to him. Alternative authorship theories are based on elaborate "what ifs," unfounded assumptions, and misguided interpretations.
As for John Hudson as a scholar, I'm unaware of anything he's published in any scholarly journals. Looking at his Scribd page suggests he reads primarily through the lens of strict religious allegory, which is fine as far as it goes but ultimately very, very reductive and not all that interesting.
posted by Saxon Kane at 8:15 PM on October 22, 2013 [6 favorites]
It has been postulated that many of the great works of English Literature are only regarded thusly because they were written by famous nobles such as Francis Bacon. I set out to test this hypothesis, using a selection of timeless "great" works of English literature and a time machine. I traveled back in time with a folio compiled from the greatest plays and sonnets in English literature. Then I published them prior to their original authorship under the guise of a middle class playwright named William Shakespeare. The experiment demonstrated that the nobility of the authors did not significantly affect the long term criticism of the works themselves. As evidence of my experiment I left behind a fake will for "Shakespeare" where his estate is given to Anne Hathaway. I found this amusing as it is the same name as a popular American actress who rose to fame as the star of the Princess Diaries series of movies.
posted by humanfont at 8:44 PM on October 22, 2013 [10 favorites]
posted by humanfont at 8:44 PM on October 22, 2013 [10 favorites]
As it turns out, the greatest playwright from Great Britain who ever lived was, in fact, not William Shakespeare! Rather, it was another man who went by the same name.
posted by surazal at 9:09 PM on October 22, 2013 [11 favorites]
posted by surazal at 9:09 PM on October 22, 2013 [11 favorites]
Bollocks. Read Shakespeare's Imagination. People pretend that Shakespeare was just some hick from the boonies, but they seem to deny the possibility that he could be a prodigy. Shakespeare's Imagination shows that fact pretty clearly.
posted by sutt at 9:15 PM on October 22, 2013
posted by sutt at 9:15 PM on October 22, 2013
most of the older authorship theories run on the premise that William Shakespeare couldn't possibly have been educated enough to write the things attributed to him.
I always found this line of thought odd, as if education leads to a predictable outcome. I went to the same school and had the same education as many other people, including family members. Our intellectual abilities are greatly varied. One of the smartest people I ever knew barely ever went to class and ended up murdering someone execution style, before he was 18. He went to the same school as the rest of us. Few of us, as far as I know, were quite so intelligent and also insane.
There are extraordinary people out there. There are people that excel far beyond others in the same educational and other environments and there are some that don't excel at all in the same situations.
Look at Fredrick Douglass. Learning to read and write well after most (due to being a slave) and yet a brilliant thinker and orator. Read his works and then read how the party in Orwell's 1984 works to do the opposite of what Douglass says can enrich and free people. I imagine the same people who point out that Shakespeare didn't have the eduction to possibly have the vocabulary and imagination he had would say the same about Douglass and countless other great writers, be they male or female from whatever background.
The evidence says otherwise. Shakespeare was brilliant when it came to writing. Many have been throughout history. The obsession some have with proving such brilliance is not possible is odd but familiar. Someone else secretly wrote it. It was a team of writers under a sort of Shakespeare Corp, etc. It is common among sports fans. Athlete Y only won a championship because of factor X, it was this team or this athlete who is the "real" champion.
Thus with Shakespeare, thus with Kubrick. There's some nutter going on about how Kubrick filmed the fake Moon landings and the Shining is really Kubrick revealing this to us with a bunch of subtle clues in the hilarious Room 237. This is another sort of brilliance I suppose.
posted by juiceCake at 9:18 PM on October 22, 2013 [3 favorites]
I always found this line of thought odd, as if education leads to a predictable outcome. I went to the same school and had the same education as many other people, including family members. Our intellectual abilities are greatly varied. One of the smartest people I ever knew barely ever went to class and ended up murdering someone execution style, before he was 18. He went to the same school as the rest of us. Few of us, as far as I know, were quite so intelligent and also insane.
There are extraordinary people out there. There are people that excel far beyond others in the same educational and other environments and there are some that don't excel at all in the same situations.
Look at Fredrick Douglass. Learning to read and write well after most (due to being a slave) and yet a brilliant thinker and orator. Read his works and then read how the party in Orwell's 1984 works to do the opposite of what Douglass says can enrich and free people. I imagine the same people who point out that Shakespeare didn't have the eduction to possibly have the vocabulary and imagination he had would say the same about Douglass and countless other great writers, be they male or female from whatever background.
The evidence says otherwise. Shakespeare was brilliant when it came to writing. Many have been throughout history. The obsession some have with proving such brilliance is not possible is odd but familiar. Someone else secretly wrote it. It was a team of writers under a sort of Shakespeare Corp, etc. It is common among sports fans. Athlete Y only won a championship because of factor X, it was this team or this athlete who is the "real" champion.
Thus with Shakespeare, thus with Kubrick. There's some nutter going on about how Kubrick filmed the fake Moon landings and the Shining is really Kubrick revealing this to us with a bunch of subtle clues in the hilarious Room 237. This is another sort of brilliance I suppose.
posted by juiceCake at 9:18 PM on October 22, 2013 [3 favorites]
Robin Williams (not the comedian, rather the woman who wrote Mac design help books) has a different theory and actually went to London to study and got an MA in Shakespeare Authorship at Brunel University.
posted by jabo at 9:35 PM on October 22, 2013
posted by jabo at 9:35 PM on October 22, 2013
I've said this before, but everything you need to know about Shakespeare the author is in the plays. Does it really help to know any biographical trivia about him/her/it? I could care less they were written by a man, woman, corporation or a talking dog.
posted by empath at 10:29 PM on October 22, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by empath at 10:29 PM on October 22, 2013 [1 favorite]
I could care less they were written by a man, woman, corporation or a talking dog.
But if they were written by a talking dog, imagine the implications for canine intelligence research!
posted by 23 at 10:37 PM on October 22, 2013
But if they were written by a talking dog, imagine the implications for canine intelligence research!
posted by 23 at 10:37 PM on October 22, 2013
People pretend that Shakespeare was just some hick from the boonies, but they seem to deny the possibility that he could be a prodigy
Read Gladwell's Outliers. The idea that anyone, Shakespeare included, could be a pure, untrained prodigy is outmoded and blatantly false.
There is no evidence that Shakespeare received any education at all (though it's likely he attended the local grammar school to around the age of fourteen). No one mentions him as someone they know who is an author, while he's alive (and only Ben Jonson does, fairly elliptically, several years later). The whole era is full of anonymous publication, misattributed publications and state persecution of writers.
There is plenty of mystery about how Shaksper of Stratford could have written Shakespeare, and the idea that he could have been a front is really not as wild as detractors claim. However the onus is certainly on doubters to provide a more plausible alternative.
posted by iotic at 12:07 AM on October 23, 2013
Read Gladwell's Outliers. The idea that anyone, Shakespeare included, could be a pure, untrained prodigy is outmoded and blatantly false.
There is no evidence that Shakespeare received any education at all (though it's likely he attended the local grammar school to around the age of fourteen). No one mentions him as someone they know who is an author, while he's alive (and only Ben Jonson does, fairly elliptically, several years later). The whole era is full of anonymous publication, misattributed publications and state persecution of writers.
There is plenty of mystery about how Shaksper of Stratford could have written Shakespeare, and the idea that he could have been a front is really not as wild as detractors claim. However the onus is certainly on doubters to provide a more plausible alternative.
posted by iotic at 12:07 AM on October 23, 2013
The idea that anyone, Shakespeare included, could be a pure, untrained prodigy is outmoded and blatantly false.
Mozart made his first composition when he was five.
posted by three blind mice at 12:41 AM on October 23, 2013 [5 favorites]
Mozart made his first composition when he was five.
posted by three blind mice at 12:41 AM on October 23, 2013 [5 favorites]
Yes. It wasn't very good, he was very much trained and his training by his father is very well documented.
We have no such reports ("this guy's a bit clever") for Shakespeare. Not just when he was five, but for the whole of his life.
posted by iotic at 1:03 AM on October 23, 2013
We have no such reports ("this guy's a bit clever") for Shakespeare. Not just when he was five, but for the whole of his life.
posted by iotic at 1:03 AM on October 23, 2013
> "No one mentions him as someone they know who is an author, while he's alive ..."
Well, except in 1601, when he's mentioned as a playwright in "The Second Part of the Return from Parnassus". Oh, and in 1610, when John Davies refers to him as a playwright in "The Scourge of Folly". Oh, and also in 1615, when he appears in Edmund Howes' list of "moderne, and present excellent Poets".
> "... and only Ben Jonson does, fairly elliptically, several years later ..."
Well, Ben Jonson ... and William Basse and John Heminges and Henry Condell and Leonard Digges and William Davenant and Richard Baker. Most of whom knew Shakespeare personally when he was alive.
And exactly how "elliptical" is a poem entitiled "To the memory of my beloved, The Author Mr. William Shakespeare" that begins "To draw no envy, Shakespeare, on thy name, / Am I thus ample to thy book and fame; / While I confess thy writings to be such / As neither man nor muse can praise too much ..."
The evidence that Shakespeare wrote the plays of Shakespeare is incredibly strong. There is no mystery.
posted by kyrademon at 1:18 AM on October 23, 2013 [18 favorites]
Well, except in 1601, when he's mentioned as a playwright in "The Second Part of the Return from Parnassus". Oh, and in 1610, when John Davies refers to him as a playwright in "The Scourge of Folly". Oh, and also in 1615, when he appears in Edmund Howes' list of "moderne, and present excellent Poets".
> "... and only Ben Jonson does, fairly elliptically, several years later ..."
Well, Ben Jonson ... and William Basse and John Heminges and Henry Condell and Leonard Digges and William Davenant and Richard Baker. Most of whom knew Shakespeare personally when he was alive.
And exactly how "elliptical" is a poem entitiled "To the memory of my beloved, The Author Mr. William Shakespeare" that begins "To draw no envy, Shakespeare, on thy name, / Am I thus ample to thy book and fame; / While I confess thy writings to be such / As neither man nor muse can praise too much ..."
The evidence that Shakespeare wrote the plays of Shakespeare is incredibly strong. There is no mystery.
posted by kyrademon at 1:18 AM on October 23, 2013 [18 favorites]
We have no such reports ("this guy's a bit clever") for Shakespeare.
But we have lots of evidence that the "William Shakespeare" who wrote the plays and poetry was very clever -- clever like Leonardo da Vinci and Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton -- and we have no evidence (other than some straws people like to grasp at) that this "William Shakespeare" wasn't simply the William Shakespeare everyone at the time said wrote the plays and poetry.
posted by pracowity at 1:20 AM on October 23, 2013
But we have lots of evidence that the "William Shakespeare" who wrote the plays and poetry was very clever -- clever like Leonardo da Vinci and Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton -- and we have no evidence (other than some straws people like to grasp at) that this "William Shakespeare" wasn't simply the William Shakespeare everyone at the time said wrote the plays and poetry.
posted by pracowity at 1:20 AM on October 23, 2013
We have no such reports ("this guy's a bit clever") for Shakespeare. Not just when he was five, but for the whole of his life.That's not actually true at all. There are a number of contemporary references and testimonials to Shakespeare's literary talent published or circulated while he was still alive, including those of Francis Meres and John Davies. There's a comprehensive, logical setting out of the evidence here.
posted by Sonny Jim at 1:28 AM on October 23, 2013 [3 favorites]
> "We have no such reports ('this guy's a bit clever') for Shakespeare. Not just when he was five, but for the whole of his life."
You don't count his being called "Our English Terence" and being said to have a "raigning Wit"?
posted by kyrademon at 1:30 AM on October 23, 2013 [1 favorite]
You don't count his being called "Our English Terence" and being said to have a "raigning Wit"?
posted by kyrademon at 1:30 AM on October 23, 2013 [1 favorite]
kyrademon - the Parnassus plays, Davies of Hereford and Howes do not say they knew him. Only the plays.
Jonson calls him "beloved", yes, but really never goes into any detail about having known anything about him except his writings.
Many scholars believe that Condell and Heminges' part of the dedication to the First Folio was written by Jonson. We'd like to think Digges knew him as he was a local to Stratford, but he doesn't say that either. Davenant blatantly tried to cash in on an implied connection to Shakespeare, but there's also no evidence that he met him. Baker again, doesn't mention knowing him.
The evidence that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare really isn't that strong. Not in a "beyond doubt" sort of way, at all.
But in any case, if we believe that he did, there is still a mystery about how he learnt to write so well, and know about all the things he did. that really is a mystery, and an important one for understanding the author.
posted by iotic at 1:33 AM on October 23, 2013
Jonson calls him "beloved", yes, but really never goes into any detail about having known anything about him except his writings.
Many scholars believe that Condell and Heminges' part of the dedication to the First Folio was written by Jonson. We'd like to think Digges knew him as he was a local to Stratford, but he doesn't say that either. Davenant blatantly tried to cash in on an implied connection to Shakespeare, but there's also no evidence that he met him. Baker again, doesn't mention knowing him.
The evidence that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare really isn't that strong. Not in a "beyond doubt" sort of way, at all.
But in any case, if we believe that he did, there is still a mystery about how he learnt to write so well, and know about all the things he did. that really is a mystery, and an important one for understanding the author.
posted by iotic at 1:33 AM on October 23, 2013
You're shifting the goalposts. You're also underestimating the levels of intimacy and acquaintanceship that characterised literary circles (and indeed professional circles generally) in early modern London. The place was small and the economy functioned like an expanded friendship or credit network. People in literary circles would have known each other because their circuits of acquaintance were constantly overlapping.
posted by Sonny Jim at 1:47 AM on October 23, 2013
posted by Sonny Jim at 1:47 AM on October 23, 2013
Not this nonsense again. Fortunately, kyrademon has done most of my talking for me, but I'll say it anyway: There's no solid evidence for any of the non-Shakespeare candidates, Hudson's "eighteen decimal places" notwithstanding. (And how's that for certainty? Most authorship identification researchers--the reputable kind, not the Oxfordians et al.--would be happy with one or two.)
Also, not to get all argumentum ad hominem, but it's too bizarre to pass up. Even if I were inclined to listen to Hudson about his authorship theory, his insistence that plays like A Midsummer Night's Dream were heavily coded religious allegories would put me off. He takes one line--one line--from Titania about honey bees ("And for night-tapers crop their waxen thighs") and turns it into an elaborately-staged bee murder scene where their legs are chopped off and hung up on stage. Why? Because "bees" is obviously code for "Maccabees", duh, and "Titania" is "Titus Caesar", who apparently cut the limbs off a Jewish leader. Meanwhile, Bottom sits in the bower off to one side reading a newspaper called News of the Jewes with a headline reading "Titus Caesar cuts off Maccabee’s Limbs". No lie. You can read it on page 18 of his master's thesis.
That is some grade-A Bible Code apophenia right there.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 1:59 AM on October 23, 2013 [7 favorites]
Also, not to get all argumentum ad hominem, but it's too bizarre to pass up. Even if I were inclined to listen to Hudson about his authorship theory, his insistence that plays like A Midsummer Night's Dream were heavily coded religious allegories would put me off. He takes one line--one line--from Titania about honey bees ("And for night-tapers crop their waxen thighs") and turns it into an elaborately-staged bee murder scene where their legs are chopped off and hung up on stage. Why? Because "bees" is obviously code for "Maccabees", duh, and "Titania" is "Titus Caesar", who apparently cut the limbs off a Jewish leader. Meanwhile, Bottom sits in the bower off to one side reading a newspaper called News of the Jewes with a headline reading "Titus Caesar cuts off Maccabee’s Limbs". No lie. You can read it on page 18 of his master's thesis.
That is some grade-A Bible Code apophenia right there.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 1:59 AM on October 23, 2013 [7 favorites]
iotic, you are having to veer in sheer conjecture and prettying it up by coyly referring to "many scholars".
There is much less evidence than has been presented here that, say, John Webster wrote the plays of John Webster, or that Christopher Marlowe wrote the plays of Christopher Marlowe.
These ever-increasing standards now appear to be, "not only does there have to be a written record of his being mentioned as the author of the works in question publicly and multiple times, but he must be referred to as the author on record by someone who says in the context of what they wrote that they personally knew him, and since that's actually the case as well not only that but by it must be by someone who includes proof that they and not someone else were the person who wrote that they knew him and he was a playwright".
By that standard, I doubt that anyone can be proven to have written anything before the age of modern media.
posted by kyrademon at 2:17 AM on October 23, 2013 [4 favorites]
There is much less evidence than has been presented here that, say, John Webster wrote the plays of John Webster, or that Christopher Marlowe wrote the plays of Christopher Marlowe.
These ever-increasing standards now appear to be, "not only does there have to be a written record of his being mentioned as the author of the works in question publicly and multiple times, but he must be referred to as the author on record by someone who says in the context of what they wrote that they personally knew him, and since that's actually the case as well not only that but by it must be by someone who includes proof that they and not someone else were the person who wrote that they knew him and he was a playwright".
By that standard, I doubt that anyone can be proven to have written anything before the age of modern media.
posted by kyrademon at 2:17 AM on October 23, 2013 [4 favorites]
kyrademon, the standard I have been applying is exactly the one I originally stated. You are unfortunately making a straw man argument.
Here's a table of comparison of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, in terms of literary biography. Perhaps we could refer to the specifics laid out there, rather than claiming my standards are unreachable?
posted by iotic at 2:28 AM on October 23, 2013
Here's a table of comparison of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, in terms of literary biography. Perhaps we could refer to the specifics laid out there, rather than claiming my standards are unreachable?
posted by iotic at 2:28 AM on October 23, 2013
All you need to know about what we know about Shakespeare, and a comprehensive debunking of all the silly conspiracy theories, is contained in 'Shakespeare:The World As Stage' by Bill Bryson.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 2:45 AM on October 23, 2013
posted by GallonOfAlan at 2:45 AM on October 23, 2013
*has flashbacks to first library job where answering the phone to Francis-Bacon-wrote-Shakespeare-ians railing about how we had destroyed all the evidence!!!!!! was a sadly frequent occurrence*
posted by halcyonday at 2:53 AM on October 23, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by halcyonday at 2:53 AM on October 23, 2013 [1 favorite]
Here's a table of comparison of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, in terms of literary biography. Perhaps we could refer to the specifics laid out there, rather than claiming my standards are unreachable?
You just linked to someone who believes a man murdered in 1593 somehow miraculously continued to write plays and poems for 23 years after his death quoting a list of "evidence" compiled by a noted Usenet crank.
In terms of selective use of standards of evidence, lets also note that while Barber rejects all the documentary evidence for Shakespeare's playwriting career and Marlowe's death, she's perfectly happy to illustrate her website with a supposed portrait of Marlowe for which there is no supporting evidence at all, presumably on the basis that the subject is a handsome young man.
posted by Sonny Jim at 2:57 AM on October 23, 2013 [1 favorite]
You just linked to someone who believes a man murdered in 1593 somehow miraculously continued to write plays and poems for 23 years after his death quoting a list of "evidence" compiled by a noted Usenet crank.
In terms of selective use of standards of evidence, lets also note that while Barber rejects all the documentary evidence for Shakespeare's playwriting career and Marlowe's death, she's perfectly happy to illustrate her website with a supposed portrait of Marlowe for which there is no supporting evidence at all, presumably on the basis that the subject is a handsome young man.
posted by Sonny Jim at 2:57 AM on October 23, 2013 [1 favorite]
But in any case, if we believe that he did, there is still a mystery about how he learnt to write so well, and know about all the things he did. that really is a mystery, and an important one for understanding the author.
What mystery? We know exactly what sources he lifted his stories from.
posted by empath at 3:09 AM on October 23, 2013 [1 favorite]
What mystery? We know exactly what sources he lifted his stories from.
posted by empath at 3:09 AM on October 23, 2013 [1 favorite]
You just linked to someone who believes a man murdered in 1593 somehow miraculously continued to write plays and poems for 23 years after his death quoting a list of "evidence" compiled by a noted Usenet crank.
This is the very definition of ad hominem. Where is your argument based on the evidence?
... she's perfectly happy to illustrate her website with a supposed portrait of Marlowe ...
So does every single scholarly book about Marlowe. Seriously?
What mystery? We know exactly what sources he lifted his stories from.
Yes and many of them didn't exist in English translation. Where did he get his education to read several languages, and write knowledgeably about so many topics? Aren't you in the least bit curious?
posted by iotic at 3:17 AM on October 23, 2013
This is the very definition of ad hominem. Where is your argument based on the evidence?
... she's perfectly happy to illustrate her website with a supposed portrait of Marlowe ...
So does every single scholarly book about Marlowe. Seriously?
What mystery? We know exactly what sources he lifted his stories from.
Yes and many of them didn't exist in English translation. Where did he get his education to read several languages, and write knowledgeably about so many topics? Aren't you in the least bit curious?
posted by iotic at 3:17 AM on October 23, 2013
This is the very definition of ad hominem. Where is your argument based on the evidence?
Where your sources are biased and unreliable, ad hominem is a perfectly justifiable mode of argument.
The use of the portrait is just a demonstration of Barber's inconsistency. There is rather less evidence connecting the picture with Marlowe than there is suggesting that Shakespeare had a literary career, yet she accepts one line of evidence rather than the other. Why is that, do you think? Could it be that she assembles her "facts" on the basis of her own pre-existing biases and assumptions rather than comes to them objectively?
posted by Sonny Jim at 3:35 AM on October 23, 2013 [2 favorites]
Where your sources are biased and unreliable, ad hominem is a perfectly justifiable mode of argument.
The use of the portrait is just a demonstration of Barber's inconsistency. There is rather less evidence connecting the picture with Marlowe than there is suggesting that Shakespeare had a literary career, yet she accepts one line of evidence rather than the other. Why is that, do you think? Could it be that she assembles her "facts" on the basis of her own pre-existing biases and assumptions rather than comes to them objectively?
posted by Sonny Jim at 3:35 AM on October 23, 2013 [2 favorites]
Yes and many of them didn't exist in English translation. Where did he get his education to read several languages, and write knowledgeably about so many topics? Aren't you in the least bit curious?
I imagine that he read books. How do you imagine he did it? Have you never met an auto-didact?
posted by empath at 3:41 AM on October 23, 2013 [1 favorite]
I imagine that he read books. How do you imagine he did it? Have you never met an auto-didact?
posted by empath at 3:41 AM on October 23, 2013 [1 favorite]
Sonny Jim, ad hominem is in no way justifiable, and you still aren't talking about the actual evidence in that table.
And to attack Barber for using the same picture that everyone uses to represent Marlowe is simply preposterous. As I already mentioned.
empath, that in no way answers my point.
If Shakespeare authorship is really in so little doubt, why are the arguments against the doubters always so weak, personally-aimed and completely unfocused on facts?
posted by iotic at 3:43 AM on October 23, 2013
And to attack Barber for using the same picture that everyone uses to represent Marlowe is simply preposterous. As I already mentioned.
empath, that in no way answers my point.
If Shakespeare authorship is really in so little doubt, why are the arguments against the doubters always so weak, personally-aimed and completely unfocused on facts?
posted by iotic at 3:43 AM on October 23, 2013
You realize you're just using the standard argumentation of a conspiracy theorist, right? You could just as well be talking about the Kennedy assassination.
posted by empath at 3:46 AM on October 23, 2013 [4 favorites]
posted by empath at 3:46 AM on October 23, 2013 [4 favorites]
No, I'm not.
posted by iotic at 3:59 AM on October 23, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by iotic at 3:59 AM on October 23, 2013 [2 favorites]
> "If Shakespeare authorship is really in so little doubt, why are the arguments against the doubters always so weak, personally-aimed and completely unfocused on facts?"
Because we gave you the documented facts first and you rejected them as not meeting your arbitrary standards.
The chart you link to includes several categories where Shakespeare is marked "No" where he should be market "Yes". (We've already mentioned, in this thread, "commendatory verses received" and "miscellaneous records" referring to him as a writer.). It doesn't bother to include some obvious categories where Shakespeare would have been marked "Yes" (how about "works published under his name"?) solely so that it can present that exciting, yet still inaccurate, line of blanks.
... But you know what? I got into this with you during the last thread on this subject, and nothing has changed since then. I see no need to keep going here.
posted by kyrademon at 4:05 AM on October 23, 2013 [13 favorites]
Because we gave you the documented facts first and you rejected them as not meeting your arbitrary standards.
The chart you link to includes several categories where Shakespeare is marked "No" where he should be market "Yes". (We've already mentioned, in this thread, "commendatory verses received" and "miscellaneous records" referring to him as a writer.). It doesn't bother to include some obvious categories where Shakespeare would have been marked "Yes" (how about "works published under his name"?) solely so that it can present that exciting, yet still inaccurate, line of blanks.
... But you know what? I got into this with you during the last thread on this subject, and nothing has changed since then. I see no need to keep going here.
posted by kyrademon at 4:05 AM on October 23, 2013 [13 favorites]
kyrademon, the reason I entered this present discussion is that I am dismayed by all the responses disparaging people who entertain any doubt that Shakespeare wrote the works attributed to him. I don't see any further justification for the statement that Shakespeare's authorship is beyond all doubt, here or in previous threads.
However I am glad that you have been willing to discuss the actual facts from a position of knowledge - that certainly raises the bar. I'm sorry if you feel the discussion needs to end, as I think it's a very interesting one - and the reading of the arguments on either side, with a healthy insistence on scepticism and evidence, can further peoples' understanding of a fascinating topic.
Regarding Diana Price's table, I will concede the "commendatory verses received". I think she may mean within a published work by the author, and within their lifetime - in which case it is valid, but perhaps too stringent a stipulation. Regarding "miscellaneous records" referring to him as a writer, she does specify "personal" - i.e. exactly what I have said above, people saying "I know / met Shakespeare - and he's a great writer" etc.
Certainly the works being published under the name Shakespeare constitute important evidence. And I have said that the onus is on doubters to provide evidence for an alternative. But there really is a surprising lack of evidence specifically tying Shakespeare of Stratford to the works attributed to him, and Price is not wrong to point this out.
I think it's a shame that any mention of the Shakespeare authorship question receives howls of derision whenever it is mentioned here - there really is much, much less evidence for Shakespeare's authorship than there is for any of the dull conspiracy theory comparisons that get trotted out, and many authorship doubters are fully rational, sceptical and scholarly people who will absolutely change their views depending on the evidence.
And some questions raised are relevant regardless of the authorship question - such as how on earth Shakespeare got so well educated. It would be nice if these could be discussed rationally without name-calling etc.
posted by iotic at 4:36 AM on October 23, 2013 [1 favorite]
However I am glad that you have been willing to discuss the actual facts from a position of knowledge - that certainly raises the bar. I'm sorry if you feel the discussion needs to end, as I think it's a very interesting one - and the reading of the arguments on either side, with a healthy insistence on scepticism and evidence, can further peoples' understanding of a fascinating topic.
Regarding Diana Price's table, I will concede the "commendatory verses received". I think she may mean within a published work by the author, and within their lifetime - in which case it is valid, but perhaps too stringent a stipulation. Regarding "miscellaneous records" referring to him as a writer, she does specify "personal" - i.e. exactly what I have said above, people saying "I know / met Shakespeare - and he's a great writer" etc.
Certainly the works being published under the name Shakespeare constitute important evidence. And I have said that the onus is on doubters to provide evidence for an alternative. But there really is a surprising lack of evidence specifically tying Shakespeare of Stratford to the works attributed to him, and Price is not wrong to point this out.
I think it's a shame that any mention of the Shakespeare authorship question receives howls of derision whenever it is mentioned here - there really is much, much less evidence for Shakespeare's authorship than there is for any of the dull conspiracy theory comparisons that get trotted out, and many authorship doubters are fully rational, sceptical and scholarly people who will absolutely change their views depending on the evidence.
And some questions raised are relevant regardless of the authorship question - such as how on earth Shakespeare got so well educated. It would be nice if these could be discussed rationally without name-calling etc.
posted by iotic at 4:36 AM on October 23, 2013 [1 favorite]
And some questions raised are relevant regardless of the authorship question - such as how on earth Shakespeare got so well educated.
Again, why can't he have just read books?
I think it's a shame that any mention ofthe Shakespeare authorship 9/11 question receives howls of derision whenever it is mentioned here - there really is much, much less evidence for Shakespeare's authorship 9/11 Commission report than there is for any of the dull conspiracy theory comparisons that get trotted out, and many authorship 9/11 Commission doubters are fully rational, sceptical and scholarly people who will absolutely change their views depending on the evidence.
posted by empath at 4:56 AM on October 23, 2013 [3 favorites]
Again, why can't he have just read books?
I think it's a shame that any mention of
posted by empath at 4:56 AM on October 23, 2013 [3 favorites]
The so-called "authorship question" always receives howls of derision because its proponents trot out the same ten or fifteen arguments over and over and over and over, and after a point it just gets exhausting.
While we're on the subject, though, Shakespeare wasn't unusually highly educated for an Elizabethan man of his class, and was less well-educated than many of his fellow playwrights, several of whom--Ben Jonson, for instance--had university degrees. Jonson famously mentioned Shakespeare's "small Latin and less Greek" in the First Folio, but this should be considered in context. Given the likelihood that Shakespeare attended the grammar school in Stratford-upon-Avon, he would have had a background in Latin and the classics and would have been more than capable of reading, say, Ovid in the original.
Putting all that aside, just for the sake of argument let's say that Shakespeare didn't write Shakespeare. The question then is, if I can haul out a little Latin myself, cui bono? Who benefits? What possible advantage is there to constructing such a Byzantine conspiracy that involves hiding the "true" authorship of the plays behind the son of a Warwickshire glovemaker? If the idea is to avoid the supposed shame of producing works for such a "low" art form as theatre, why not disseminate them anonymously? Or if anonymity isn't feasible, why choose such a seemingly unlikely candidate? Why not choose, say, one of the other University Wits like Thomas Lodge or Christopher Marlowe, whose educations were beyond question? (I mean beyond the fact that Marlowe was dead by 1593, but you get the idea.)
People who question Shakespeare's authorship are asking us to believe that Oxford/Marlowe/The Dark Lady/Queen Elizabeth/Elvis was desperate enough to hide the fact that he/she wrote the plays, but not desperate enough to cover their tracks by selecting a more plausible front man. They're also asking us to believe that not once over the decades, not a single person involved in this conspiracy--actors, playwrights, performing company shareholders, theater owners, etc.--ever talked, and that they not only stayed silent, but were so dedicated to the whole ruse that seven years after their front man's death, they put together and published a volume of works dedicated to him full of glowing praise. Not a single one of them ever even confessed on his deathbed.
You can only sharpen Occam's Razor for so long...sooner or later you've got to use the thing.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 5:52 AM on October 23, 2013 [9 favorites]
While we're on the subject, though, Shakespeare wasn't unusually highly educated for an Elizabethan man of his class, and was less well-educated than many of his fellow playwrights, several of whom--Ben Jonson, for instance--had university degrees. Jonson famously mentioned Shakespeare's "small Latin and less Greek" in the First Folio, but this should be considered in context. Given the likelihood that Shakespeare attended the grammar school in Stratford-upon-Avon, he would have had a background in Latin and the classics and would have been more than capable of reading, say, Ovid in the original.
Putting all that aside, just for the sake of argument let's say that Shakespeare didn't write Shakespeare. The question then is, if I can haul out a little Latin myself, cui bono? Who benefits? What possible advantage is there to constructing such a Byzantine conspiracy that involves hiding the "true" authorship of the plays behind the son of a Warwickshire glovemaker? If the idea is to avoid the supposed shame of producing works for such a "low" art form as theatre, why not disseminate them anonymously? Or if anonymity isn't feasible, why choose such a seemingly unlikely candidate? Why not choose, say, one of the other University Wits like Thomas Lodge or Christopher Marlowe, whose educations were beyond question? (I mean beyond the fact that Marlowe was dead by 1593, but you get the idea.)
People who question Shakespeare's authorship are asking us to believe that Oxford/Marlowe/The Dark Lady/Queen Elizabeth/Elvis was desperate enough to hide the fact that he/she wrote the plays, but not desperate enough to cover their tracks by selecting a more plausible front man. They're also asking us to believe that not once over the decades, not a single person involved in this conspiracy--actors, playwrights, performing company shareholders, theater owners, etc.--ever talked, and that they not only stayed silent, but were so dedicated to the whole ruse that seven years after their front man's death, they put together and published a volume of works dedicated to him full of glowing praise. Not a single one of them ever even confessed on his deathbed.
You can only sharpen Occam's Razor for so long...sooner or later you've got to use the thing.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 5:52 AM on October 23, 2013 [9 favorites]
I made a nice little website with CSS. 960 grid, cross-browser support, nice clean code. Looking back after my death, people might wonder: "Who really made Biblio's website? She had an English degree and no training at all in computer science or web design. How did she know CSS? There's no way she could have learned this all on her own, just from reading. Maybe it was really Matt Haughy."
Now I'm just being silly, because of course it's somewhat easier to be an autodidact today than in Shakespeare's day. But really, we accept and celebrate the self-taught in the technology realm all the time. Why is it so hard to believe that a middle class man sought out language and literature for his own enrichment and enjoyment and then turned his hand to writing?
posted by Biblio at 5:59 AM on October 23, 2013 [4 favorites]
Now I'm just being silly, because of course it's somewhat easier to be an autodidact today than in Shakespeare's day. But really, we accept and celebrate the self-taught in the technology realm all the time. Why is it so hard to believe that a middle class man sought out language and literature for his own enrichment and enjoyment and then turned his hand to writing?
posted by Biblio at 5:59 AM on October 23, 2013 [4 favorites]
Mr. Bad Example - actually Ben Jonson didn't have a degree. But his extensive education via the schoolmaster William Camden is well documented.
The cui bono question is certainly valid and depends on who one thinks did write the works. I can't speak for the other theories, but with Marlowe the reason would be that he was supposed to be dead. Also Marlowe's works were heavily censored by Archbishop Whitgift.
The Shakespeare sources that no known English translation existed for cover several languages. It's not straightforward to explain how he could have been able to read them all, or even access them all, given his background. The classical allusions in just the two lyric poems suggest Jonson's "small Latin and less Greek" was not quite right, and that's before we get to the huge list of diverse European contemporaneous and historical sources used in the plays.
posted by iotic at 6:05 AM on October 23, 2013
The cui bono question is certainly valid and depends on who one thinks did write the works. I can't speak for the other theories, but with Marlowe the reason would be that he was supposed to be dead. Also Marlowe's works were heavily censored by Archbishop Whitgift.
The Shakespeare sources that no known English translation existed for cover several languages. It's not straightforward to explain how he could have been able to read them all, or even access them all, given his background. The classical allusions in just the two lyric poems suggest Jonson's "small Latin and less Greek" was not quite right, and that's before we get to the huge list of diverse European contemporaneous and historical sources used in the plays.
posted by iotic at 6:05 AM on October 23, 2013
(Mea culpa on the Jonson degree thing. He was supposed to go to Cambridge, but didn't. I had him filed in my head with the University Wits for some reason.)
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 6:08 AM on October 23, 2013
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 6:08 AM on October 23, 2013
The Shakespeare sources that no known English translation existed for cover several languages. It's not straightforward to explain how he could have been able to read them all, or even access them all, given his background.
I'm not sure what anyone's background has to do with their ability to read books or learn languages.
posted by empath at 6:12 AM on October 23, 2013
I'm not sure what anyone's background has to do with their ability to read books or learn languages.
posted by empath at 6:12 AM on October 23, 2013
I can't speak for the other theories, but with Marlowe the reason would be that he was supposed to be dead.
Answering the cui bono question by presuming that Marlowe faked his own death, despite the scant evidence to support that proposition, isn't really answering the question. There's no reason to believe that Marlowe died any time other than 1593 unless you're trying to prove that he's wrote Shakespeare's plays.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 6:13 AM on October 23, 2013 [4 favorites]
Answering the cui bono question by presuming that Marlowe faked his own death, despite the scant evidence to support that proposition, isn't really answering the question. There's no reason to believe that Marlowe died any time other than 1593 unless you're trying to prove that he's wrote Shakespeare's plays.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 6:13 AM on October 23, 2013 [4 favorites]
Bulgaroktonos, I think perhaps Marlowe is kind of off-topic for this thread (while the authorship question in general isn't) - but see here, by two-time winner of the above mentioned Hoffman Prize, Peter Farey.
posted by iotic at 6:17 AM on October 23, 2013
posted by iotic at 6:17 AM on October 23, 2013
I mean Shakespeare's genius was his understanding of what it is to be human, his ability to put those thoughts into lovely words, and secondarily, his ability to invent words, none of which take a great education, and the latter might be actively hindered by having a large vocabulary. Almost everything else in his work was essentially a grab bag of stuff he stole from popular fiction and drama, well known mythology or recent history. His work is full of anachronisms and bad errors of geography and history.
As for how he got his sources in other languages-- creative people talk to each other. Shakespeare could very well have told people he was working on Romeo and Juliet, someone says oh, have you read the Italian book, and he says no, I don't know Italian, and they say, oh well it has this, that, or the other thing. Just because Shakespeare happened to reference a particular Italian book, that in no way must imply that he had encyclopedic knowledge of Italian literature.
posted by empath at 6:18 AM on October 23, 2013 [6 favorites]
As for how he got his sources in other languages-- creative people talk to each other. Shakespeare could very well have told people he was working on Romeo and Juliet, someone says oh, have you read the Italian book, and he says no, I don't know Italian, and they say, oh well it has this, that, or the other thing. Just because Shakespeare happened to reference a particular Italian book, that in no way must imply that he had encyclopedic knowledge of Italian literature.
posted by empath at 6:18 AM on October 23, 2013 [6 favorites]
But in any case, if we believe that he did, there is still a mystery about how he learnt to write so well, and know about all the things he did. that really is a mystery, and an important one for understanding the author.
How so? Why is it important to "understand" the author and what does that mean? Do we know how the authors of other great works of literature learned to "write so well" and how they knew about all thing things they knew about?
Look at William Blake, educated until he was 10 and then educated at home and yet he wrote some of the greatest poetry in the English language, the structure of which is quite impressive, as a reading of Frye's Fearful Symmetry illustrates.
Where is the evidence that Education X = Ability Y?
posted by juiceCake at 6:28 AM on October 23, 2013 [4 favorites]
How so? Why is it important to "understand" the author and what does that mean? Do we know how the authors of other great works of literature learned to "write so well" and how they knew about all thing things they knew about?
Look at William Blake, educated until he was 10 and then educated at home and yet he wrote some of the greatest poetry in the English language, the structure of which is quite impressive, as a reading of Frye's Fearful Symmetry illustrates.
Where is the evidence that Education X = Ability Y?
posted by juiceCake at 6:28 AM on October 23, 2013 [4 favorites]
If Shakespeare authorship is really in so little doubt, why are the arguments against the doubters always so weak, personally-aimed and completely unfocused on facts?
They aren't. They are incredibly strong and well-documented.
Shakespeare Authorship
Contested Will by James Shapiro
Shakespeare Beyond Doubt by Paul Edmondson & Stanley Wells
posted by Saxon Kane at 6:33 AM on October 23, 2013 [3 favorites]
They aren't. They are incredibly strong and well-documented.
Shakespeare Authorship
Contested Will by James Shapiro
Shakespeare Beyond Doubt by Paul Edmondson & Stanley Wells
posted by Saxon Kane at 6:33 AM on October 23, 2013 [3 favorites]
juiceCake - Blake clearly had an education, and was able to take the time to have an education. He studied at the Royal Academy!
I have no issue with the idea of a self-taught middle or lower class genius, but they do need to be able to have the time to study. If they've read a lot of books they need to have had access to books - which were a luxury item in Shakespeare's day. And to be versed in the classics ... that does usually come from a formal education.
All these things are possible with Shakespeare but it does strain the credulity.
posted by iotic at 6:37 AM on October 23, 2013
I have no issue with the idea of a self-taught middle or lower class genius, but they do need to be able to have the time to study. If they've read a lot of books they need to have had access to books - which were a luxury item in Shakespeare's day. And to be versed in the classics ... that does usually come from a formal education.
All these things are possible with Shakespeare but it does strain the credulity.
posted by iotic at 6:37 AM on October 23, 2013
LOVE'S LABOURS LOST AGAIN
or
The Horse At Water
A Doctor, who was passing through
Did beckon to Iotic thus: "Come here!"
And Timey-Wimey passage made anew
To Stratford, albeit in a very distant year
"This is my friend Bill," the Doctor quoth
And indicated one with fingers blue.
Of ink; be-furrowed brow; and, on his loaf,
A pate that shone like winter-crowned Moon
Iotic scowled. "What trickery be this?"
He grabbed a page from Bill's be-strata'd table
""Macbeth"? You chavish hacks all take the piss.
From whence stole you this sacred master fable?"
Bill signed, and made a certain Glance
Which made in turn the Doctor wince in shame
And made his foppish bow-tie sit askance
Another one? Please, not again.
"It is a Tragedie", Bill said, "Of such I write.
And Comedies, and Histories the main
They are much lov'd and play night after night
My pen and perseverance make my name."
"You jest!" Iotic lanced his words. "Such mirth!
You are a country lad, and never heard of Google.
No man not noble or of exalted birth
Would write such words. You can no more than doodle."
"I read books," said Bill, "and talk to those well-travell'd
London's full of drunken, learn'd elite
Can't shut 'em up, in truth, Many a night's unravelled
With tales from far and wide. Bit like a MeFi meet."
"Such nonsense", Iotic's spittle bub'd and ran
"Your words are cloack'd about with fail
How come you write with such elan?
Without once taking English Lit at Yale?"
"I write the words I write," Bill sighed, "No-one
Can write as I. Name names, my dear
Here, prithee, take Love's Labours Won.
The ink's still wet, and by my hand, I fear"
Iotic snatched up the proffered script
"Another of these miscegenated japes"
He tore it into pieces, bit by bit
And threw the dismal dandruff in the grate.
"YOU CUNT!" The vaunted vocab of the Bard
Did not quite rise to match the wretched crime
"That went well", the Doctor said "As feared,
I think we've quite run out of time."
The feather of the quill remembered flight
As did the pot, and chair, and writing-desk
With TARDIS door shut fast in safety tight
Iotic said with satisfaction: "My case rests."
posted by Devonian at 6:56 AM on October 23, 2013 [15 favorites]
or
The Horse At Water
A Doctor, who was passing through
Did beckon to Iotic thus: "Come here!"
And Timey-Wimey passage made anew
To Stratford, albeit in a very distant year
"This is my friend Bill," the Doctor quoth
And indicated one with fingers blue.
Of ink; be-furrowed brow; and, on his loaf,
A pate that shone like winter-crowned Moon
Iotic scowled. "What trickery be this?"
He grabbed a page from Bill's be-strata'd table
""Macbeth"? You chavish hacks all take the piss.
From whence stole you this sacred master fable?"
Bill signed, and made a certain Glance
Which made in turn the Doctor wince in shame
And made his foppish bow-tie sit askance
Another one? Please, not again.
"It is a Tragedie", Bill said, "Of such I write.
And Comedies, and Histories the main
They are much lov'd and play night after night
My pen and perseverance make my name."
"You jest!" Iotic lanced his words. "Such mirth!
You are a country lad, and never heard of Google.
No man not noble or of exalted birth
Would write such words. You can no more than doodle."
"I read books," said Bill, "and talk to those well-travell'd
London's full of drunken, learn'd elite
Can't shut 'em up, in truth, Many a night's unravelled
With tales from far and wide. Bit like a MeFi meet."
"Such nonsense", Iotic's spittle bub'd and ran
"Your words are cloack'd about with fail
How come you write with such elan?
Without once taking English Lit at Yale?"
"I write the words I write," Bill sighed, "No-one
Can write as I. Name names, my dear
Here, prithee, take Love's Labours Won.
The ink's still wet, and by my hand, I fear"
Iotic snatched up the proffered script
"Another of these miscegenated japes"
He tore it into pieces, bit by bit
And threw the dismal dandruff in the grate.
"YOU CUNT!" The vaunted vocab of the Bard
Did not quite rise to match the wretched crime
"That went well", the Doctor said "As feared,
I think we've quite run out of time."
The feather of the quill remembered flight
As did the pot, and chair, and writing-desk
With TARDIS door shut fast in safety tight
Iotic said with satisfaction: "My case rests."
posted by Devonian at 6:56 AM on October 23, 2013 [15 favorites]
I have no issue with the idea of a self-taught middle or lower class genius, but they do need to be able to have the time to study.
He was a professional playwright. It was his job to study and adapt other people's work. His early plays were not full of obscure references to foreign material. He got more ambitious as the years went on.
posted by empath at 7:03 AM on October 23, 2013
He was a professional playwright. It was his job to study and adapt other people's work. His early plays were not full of obscure references to foreign material. He got more ambitious as the years went on.
posted by empath at 7:03 AM on October 23, 2013
Romeo & Juliet, Venus & Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece, Titus Andronicus etc are all early and all contain plenty of references to "foreign material". As well as being a playwright he was apparently an actor and grain merchant. It seems likely he would have taken up his father's business. It would be nice to know exactly how he could have fitted in educating himself to such a remarkable degree. I'm not saying it's impossible, but for it to happen with no one remarking upon it, and no foreign travel ... alternative authorship claims are not so much more far fetched than this.
posted by iotic at 7:12 AM on October 23, 2013
posted by iotic at 7:12 AM on October 23, 2013
iotic, didn't you get enough of this fight previously? Perhaps the best evidence, while we're accepting tautologies and Malcolm Gladwell books as evidence, for Shakespeare's greatness is everyone's need to hang their own portrait on his wall in proxy.
posted by yerfatma at 7:16 AM on October 23, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by yerfatma at 7:16 AM on October 23, 2013 [2 favorites]
What in the early plays is material that Shakespeare couldn't have learned as a grammar school student in Stratford (granted, this is assuming he went, but not a far-fetched or unreasonable assumption at all) or as a member of a professional acting company in London?
posted by Saxon Kane at 7:20 AM on October 23, 2013
posted by Saxon Kane at 7:20 AM on October 23, 2013
> "If they've read a lot of books they need to have had access to books - which were a luxury item in Shakespeare's day ... it does strain the credulity."
I guess I just can't stay out of this. But I just can't let this one slide by.
Growing up down the block from Shakespeare in Stratford, about a year and a half older than Shakespeare himself, was a fellow named Richard Field, the son of a tanner. Field grew up to become one of the most prominent printers and publishers in London. Were the two well acquainted? Well, aside from growing up together in the same town, Field printed the first editions of several of Shakespeare's early works, such as Venus and Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece, and The Phoenix and the Turtle.
So, aside from Shakespeare himself, what did Field print and publish?
Well, there was Bright's Treatise of Melancholy, which had images and ideas that showed up in Hamlet. There was Golding's English translation of the Ovid, which Shakespeare used extensively in many of his plays, and Latin editions that Shakespeare used as well.
There was the 1587 edition of Holinshed's Chronicles, used as the basis of almost all of the history plays. There was North's translation of Plutarch, used as the basis for the Roman plays. There was Harington's translation of Orlando Furioso, a primary source for Much Ado About Nothing. There was Greene's Pandosto, a source for A Winter's Tale. There was Sidney's Arcadia, used in King Lear and Pericles, and Crompton's Mansion of Magnanimitie, used as a source for Henry V.
But there's more. You know what else Field was known for?
He was the leading publisher of foreign language instruction manuals in his day.
Field published, among other similar works, John Eliot's Ortho-epia Gallica, a manual for English speakers learning French. An Italian Grammar by Henry Grantham. The French Alphabet, Teaching In a Very Short Tyme, by G. Delamonthe. Campo di Fior, For the furtherance of the learners of Latine, French, English, but chieflie of the Italian tongue by Claude de Sainliens. The French Littleton. A most easie way to learne the Frenche tongue, by Claude de Sainliens. The Spanish Schoole-master, by William Stepney.
Does it strain credulity that Shakespeare might have had access to these books when they were printed and published by the guy who lived down the street from him growing up, and who became his first publisher?
posted by kyrademon at 7:22 AM on October 23, 2013 [27 favorites]
I guess I just can't stay out of this. But I just can't let this one slide by.
Growing up down the block from Shakespeare in Stratford, about a year and a half older than Shakespeare himself, was a fellow named Richard Field, the son of a tanner. Field grew up to become one of the most prominent printers and publishers in London. Were the two well acquainted? Well, aside from growing up together in the same town, Field printed the first editions of several of Shakespeare's early works, such as Venus and Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece, and The Phoenix and the Turtle.
So, aside from Shakespeare himself, what did Field print and publish?
Well, there was Bright's Treatise of Melancholy, which had images and ideas that showed up in Hamlet. There was Golding's English translation of the Ovid, which Shakespeare used extensively in many of his plays, and Latin editions that Shakespeare used as well.
There was the 1587 edition of Holinshed's Chronicles, used as the basis of almost all of the history plays. There was North's translation of Plutarch, used as the basis for the Roman plays. There was Harington's translation of Orlando Furioso, a primary source for Much Ado About Nothing. There was Greene's Pandosto, a source for A Winter's Tale. There was Sidney's Arcadia, used in King Lear and Pericles, and Crompton's Mansion of Magnanimitie, used as a source for Henry V.
But there's more. You know what else Field was known for?
He was the leading publisher of foreign language instruction manuals in his day.
Field published, among other similar works, John Eliot's Ortho-epia Gallica, a manual for English speakers learning French. An Italian Grammar by Henry Grantham. The French Alphabet, Teaching In a Very Short Tyme, by G. Delamonthe. Campo di Fior, For the furtherance of the learners of Latine, French, English, but chieflie of the Italian tongue by Claude de Sainliens. The French Littleton. A most easie way to learne the Frenche tongue, by Claude de Sainliens. The Spanish Schoole-master, by William Stepney.
Does it strain credulity that Shakespeare might have had access to these books when they were printed and published by the guy who lived down the street from him growing up, and who became his first publisher?
posted by kyrademon at 7:22 AM on October 23, 2013 [27 favorites]
The evidence that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare really isn't that strong.
This only demonstrates how ignorant you are of Shakespeare.
posted by octobersurprise at 7:23 AM on October 23, 2013 [3 favorites]
This only demonstrates how ignorant you are of Shakespeare.
posted by octobersurprise at 7:23 AM on October 23, 2013 [3 favorites]
As much as my deepseated feminism wants Shakespeare to have been a woman
As a deep seated humanist, I don't give a crap what kind of naughty parts the author had.
The Marlowe breaks down because at his best he's not a touch on Shakespeare. Same can be said of this woman, based on her poetry. That said, I'm perfectly willing to believe that he had input on re-writes after initial stage readings. ("I'm sorry, Will, but that just doesn't play the way it's written. Can you not see it?")
no foreign travel
Name escapes me, but I have a vague recollection of some 19th century(?) writer widely admired for his travel writing and evocation of place who in fact never moved an inch from his writing desk.
(Plus all of kyrademon. Bookish people will find their way to books.)
posted by IndigoJones at 7:23 AM on October 23, 2013 [1 favorite]
As a deep seated humanist, I don't give a crap what kind of naughty parts the author had.
The Marlowe breaks down because at his best he's not a touch on Shakespeare. Same can be said of this woman, based on her poetry. That said, I'm perfectly willing to believe that he had input on re-writes after initial stage readings. ("I'm sorry, Will, but that just doesn't play the way it's written. Can you not see it?")
no foreign travel
Name escapes me, but I have a vague recollection of some 19th century(?) writer widely admired for his travel writing and evocation of place who in fact never moved an inch from his writing desk.
(Plus all of kyrademon. Bookish people will find their way to books.)
posted by IndigoJones at 7:23 AM on October 23, 2013 [1 favorite]
Elizabethan books were hardly a "luxury item". One of the more reliable sources I've found (Robert Miola's Shakespeare's Reading, Oxford University Press) sets the price of a quarto edition--about the size of a modern slim-ish paperback book--at around 7 to 9 pence, or about a day's wages for an average Elizabethan journeyman. Not inexpensive, but not unattainable, either.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 7:24 AM on October 23, 2013
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 7:24 AM on October 23, 2013
I thought writing the Shakespeare plays was one of Nellie Bly's stunts.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 7:24 AM on October 23, 2013
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 7:24 AM on October 23, 2013
Since it hasn't apparently been linked yet and we are talking about the curriculum of the Early Modern English grammar school, here's T. W. Baldwin's Shakespeare's Small Latin and Lesse Greek, which looks at the teaching of reading and writing in places like King Edward's School in Stratford in great detail.
posted by Sonny Jim at 7:35 AM on October 23, 2013
posted by Sonny Jim at 7:35 AM on October 23, 2013
kyrademon- thanks, that is indeed interesting and relevant. Honestly, I do still think it strains the credulity somewhat to assume that Shakespeare entirely taught himself a bunch of languages and immersed himself in a bunch of foreign cultures purely through his connection to Richard Field, with no other apparatus or support for his learning, having graduated from high school at fourteen to take on his dad's business, as well as being an actor and businessman connected with the King's Men, with no one mentioning it or any association with him as a writer at all, his whole life. But it's a start.
Of course Marlovians have their own take on what's interesting about the connection with Field - and Southampton, the dedicatee of the lyric poems.
posted by iotic at 7:37 AM on October 23, 2013
Of course Marlovians have their own take on what's interesting about the connection with Field - and Southampton, the dedicatee of the lyric poems.
posted by iotic at 7:37 AM on October 23, 2013
But it's a start.
Yes, it's a start. Maybe one day someone will even write a book on this guy Shakespeare.
posted by octobersurprise at 7:45 AM on October 23, 2013
Yes, it's a start. Maybe one day someone will even write a book on this guy Shakespeare.
posted by octobersurprise at 7:45 AM on October 23, 2013
Iotic, as kyrademon has suggested (and the Baldwin link above demonstrates in great detail), a grammar school education in early modern England was in no way comparable to attending a modern high school. The emphasis on Latin and Greek was much higher, there was a lot of preparation for oratory, and a surprising degree also of play acting and play reading. A better analogue might be being forced to do much of a full Classics degree in your teens. It would've been very, very demanding indeed.
posted by Sonny Jim at 7:50 AM on October 23, 2013
posted by Sonny Jim at 7:50 AM on October 23, 2013
Betteridge thanks you for your headline, Israel Tucker.
posted by yoink at 7:54 AM on October 23, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by yoink at 7:54 AM on October 23, 2013 [1 favorite]
iotic, you do get that a lot of what you're saying -- like the notions that he had no other apparatus or support for learning, that he had no education after 14 even by some kind of informal arrangement, or that he took on his father's business -- are entirely speculation on your part, right? That I could assert with exactly as much authority that he was extensively tutored by private hired instructors until he left for London in his late 20's -- which is to say no authority whatsoever, because there's no evidence either way?
As for no one mentioning his possible autodidacticism or his writing, plenty of contemporaries mentioned him as an author -- there are ones I haven't even brought up so far, like Barksted and Barnfield -- with several of them basically saying that he came from rougher roots than some of the other authors of his day. And while you have tried to spin it that none of them actually knew him personally, the fact is that some of them almost certainly did, even if they never specifically said "This poem is dedicated to Shakespeare, who is my friend whom I know personally and we met in a bar just last night". For goodness sake, he's known to have acted in several of Jonson's plays, very likely as a lead. The idea that Jonson only knew of Shakespeare through his writings, which you brought up earlier on, really does "strain credulity".
posted by kyrademon at 8:05 AM on October 23, 2013
As for no one mentioning his possible autodidacticism or his writing, plenty of contemporaries mentioned him as an author -- there are ones I haven't even brought up so far, like Barksted and Barnfield -- with several of them basically saying that he came from rougher roots than some of the other authors of his day. And while you have tried to spin it that none of them actually knew him personally, the fact is that some of them almost certainly did, even if they never specifically said "This poem is dedicated to Shakespeare, who is my friend whom I know personally and we met in a bar just last night". For goodness sake, he's known to have acted in several of Jonson's plays, very likely as a lead. The idea that Jonson only knew of Shakespeare through his writings, which you brought up earlier on, really does "strain credulity".
posted by kyrademon at 8:05 AM on October 23, 2013
Iotic, you sure do like having people point out your difficulties in understanding either the nature of historical argument, or the patchy nature of the Elizabethan historical record with respect to almost anyone who wasn't a major political figure, or the comparative plenitude of contemporary references to Shakespeare as a writer (which you forget immediately every single time they are painstakingly pointed out to you--along with the fact that we have more such references for Shakespeare as writer than for almost any of the various candidates for the Real Shakespeare that you get enthused about--it used to be Marlowe, but I guess you're happy for it to be anyone so long as it isn't Will). You've had every single false claim you are repeating here painstakingly debunked for you--not in just one thread, but several (here's another: http://www.metafilter.com/109592/Before-you-ask-no-its-not-eponysterical). And yet you never absord a single one of the facts that I and kyradaemon and others have so carefully and patiently laid out for you. It is clear at this point that you are either trolling or that you are simply so fixated on the premise that Shakespeare Must Not be Shakespeare that there is simply no point in debating the issue with you. If anyone wants to know, though, just why it is that your claims are utterly without foundation, I refer them to the thread I just linked and the other thread linked above.
posted by yoink at 8:08 AM on October 23, 2013 [6 favorites]
posted by yoink at 8:08 AM on October 23, 2013 [6 favorites]
juiceCake - Blake clearly had an education, and was able to take the time to have an education. He studied at the Royal Academy!
For engraving, not poetry.
posted by juiceCake at 8:08 AM on October 23, 2013
For engraving, not poetry.
posted by juiceCake at 8:08 AM on October 23, 2013
I have no issue with the idea of a self-taught middle or lower class genius, but they do need to be able to have the time to study. If they've read a lot of books they need to have had access to books - which were a luxury item in Shakespeare's day. And to be versed in the classics ... that does usually come from a formal education.
All these things are possible with Shakespeare but it does strain the credulity.
See Frederick Douglass. Books were even more of a luxury item for slaves and yet he came to write books himself.
The only strain on credulity is your argument I'd say.
posted by juiceCake at 8:10 AM on October 23, 2013
All these things are possible with Shakespeare but it does strain the credulity.
See Frederick Douglass. Books were even more of a luxury item for slaves and yet he came to write books himself.
The only strain on credulity is your argument I'd say.
posted by juiceCake at 8:10 AM on October 23, 2013
kyrademon - a real literary paper trail does exist for other authors of the time, as Price successfully argues. Shakespeare is credited by Jonson as acting in one of his plays as far as I know, and that posthumously.
yoink - I still am only interested in Marlowe and not any other candidate; I just don't want to have that discussion here. I don't feel you have comprehensively defeated any doubt of Shakespeare being the true author, here or elsewhere. You have presented your argument, and I have presented mine. I do not forget that you have pointed out contemporary references to Shakespeare - I just point out, correctly, that none of them during his lifetime suggest that they were written by someone who knew the man through anything but his writings.
both of you seem to be veering towards the standard "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" Stratfordian stance, in backing up your own speculations. But absence of evidence where we might reasonably expect evidence is important - and there are huge and glaring absences of what we know about the man Shakespeare, that really are very surprising given his stature even at the time, and what we should expect given what we know of his contemporaries.
posted by iotic at 8:25 AM on October 23, 2013
yoink - I still am only interested in Marlowe and not any other candidate; I just don't want to have that discussion here. I don't feel you have comprehensively defeated any doubt of Shakespeare being the true author, here or elsewhere. You have presented your argument, and I have presented mine. I do not forget that you have pointed out contemporary references to Shakespeare - I just point out, correctly, that none of them during his lifetime suggest that they were written by someone who knew the man through anything but his writings.
both of you seem to be veering towards the standard "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" Stratfordian stance, in backing up your own speculations. But absence of evidence where we might reasonably expect evidence is important - and there are huge and glaring absences of what we know about the man Shakespeare, that really are very surprising given his stature even at the time, and what we should expect given what we know of his contemporaries.
posted by iotic at 8:25 AM on October 23, 2013
> "Shakespeare is credited by Jonson as acting in one of his plays as far as I know, and that posthumously."
He's credited as appearing in both Sejanus: His Fall and Every Man in His Humour, at the very least, and what earthly motivation would Jonson have had for publishing fake cast lists in the first edition of his collected works? Is the argument now that Jonson was simply a habitual pathological liar where Shakespeare was concerned? I have no idea where you're trying to go with that.
posted by kyrademon at 8:46 AM on October 23, 2013
He's credited as appearing in both Sejanus: His Fall and Every Man in His Humour, at the very least, and what earthly motivation would Jonson have had for publishing fake cast lists in the first edition of his collected works? Is the argument now that Jonson was simply a habitual pathological liar where Shakespeare was concerned? I have no idea where you're trying to go with that.
posted by kyrademon at 8:46 AM on October 23, 2013
Well, in so far as we can assume Jonson intended to mean by "beloved" that he knew the man, and that he thought the same man acted in his plays, then yes - Jonson would have to be complicit in any hiding of the true authorship. Not a habitual liar, just party to the knowledge that the author and the actor were not the same man.
I'm not debating that Shakespeare acted in Jonson's plays. We don't know how major a part he would have played.
That Jonson only states his connection to Shakespeare after the latter's death (openly, though see the character of Sogliardo in Every Man Out of His Humour for a probable send up of the Stratfordian while he was alive), in both his own and Shakespeare's Folios, makes that complicity easier. And it falls short of being a "conspiracy theory" (disregarding for the moment the obvious negative connotations of that term besides being about conspiracies), because Jonson is the only person who would probably have to be complicit, that we know about, for an alternative author to be considered.
posted by iotic at 8:54 AM on October 23, 2013
I'm not debating that Shakespeare acted in Jonson's plays. We don't know how major a part he would have played.
That Jonson only states his connection to Shakespeare after the latter's death (openly, though see the character of Sogliardo in Every Man Out of His Humour for a probable send up of the Stratfordian while he was alive), in both his own and Shakespeare's Folios, makes that complicity easier. And it falls short of being a "conspiracy theory" (disregarding for the moment the obvious negative connotations of that term besides being about conspiracies), because Jonson is the only person who would probably have to be complicit, that we know about, for an alternative author to be considered.
posted by iotic at 8:54 AM on October 23, 2013
Also, what speculations have I used absence of evidence to back up? I specifically said I *could not* assert that Shakespeare had been tutored or what have you.
Please note the difference between that and your stating, as if it were established fact, that he graduated from high school at fourteen, took on his father's business immediately, and had no further education.
That's stating "absence of evidence is evidence of my personal beliefs!"
posted by kyrademon at 8:58 AM on October 23, 2013
Please note the difference between that and your stating, as if it were established fact, that he graduated from high school at fourteen, took on his father's business immediately, and had no further education.
That's stating "absence of evidence is evidence of my personal beliefs!"
posted by kyrademon at 8:58 AM on October 23, 2013
"... while you have tried to spin it that none of them actually knew him personally, the fact is that some of them almost certainly did"
"... known to have acted in several of Jonson's plays, very likely as a lead"
those are speculations. there is an absence of evidence for them, but you make them anyway.
posted by iotic at 9:06 AM on October 23, 2013
"... known to have acted in several of Jonson's plays, very likely as a lead"
those are speculations. there is an absence of evidence for them, but you make them anyway.
posted by iotic at 9:06 AM on October 23, 2013
I have no investment in the belief that Shakespeare left school at fourteen. As far as I know that's a late estimate - are you suggesting it's possible he stayed at school to a later age?
There is plenty of legal evidence that Shakespeare was a small-town businessman, and a pretty unpleasant one at that. You're right that we don't know he went straight to that from school - especially since we don't know if he went to school at all.
posted by iotic at 9:10 AM on October 23, 2013
There is plenty of legal evidence that Shakespeare was a small-town businessman, and a pretty unpleasant one at that. You're right that we don't know he went straight to that from school - especially since we don't know if he went to school at all.
posted by iotic at 9:10 AM on October 23, 2013
I have no issue with the idea of a self-taught middle or lower class genius, but they do need to be able to have the time to study. If they've read a lot of books they need to have had access to books - which were a luxury item in Shakespeare's day. And to be versed in the classics ... that does usually come from a formal education.
1 - In Shakespeare's time, education was based around reading books and particularly reading classics (and memorizing them) from an early age. Today we have STEM subjects to contend with and the list of books is overwhelming. But in a time when less was known, the focus was clearer from the beginning. Being able to read the Bible, the Greeks, the Romans, and various important works from middle and later European authors was something that a schoolboy could have got started on well before high school without being a prodigy.
2 - we think of reading Shakespeare as being somewhat highbrow and complex, but remember that that's how people spoke at the time. He was not writing in any sort of "fancy" way - it rhymed and had rhythm, but it wasn't hard to parse for ordinary audiences at the time. What he wrote is a better analog to witty, smartly referential rap lyrics than to some sort of unfathomable academic commentary.
posted by mdn at 9:15 AM on October 23, 2013 [4 favorites]
1 - In Shakespeare's time, education was based around reading books and particularly reading classics (and memorizing them) from an early age. Today we have STEM subjects to contend with and the list of books is overwhelming. But in a time when less was known, the focus was clearer from the beginning. Being able to read the Bible, the Greeks, the Romans, and various important works from middle and later European authors was something that a schoolboy could have got started on well before high school without being a prodigy.
2 - we think of reading Shakespeare as being somewhat highbrow and complex, but remember that that's how people spoke at the time. He was not writing in any sort of "fancy" way - it rhymed and had rhythm, but it wasn't hard to parse for ordinary audiences at the time. What he wrote is a better analog to witty, smartly referential rap lyrics than to some sort of unfathomable academic commentary.
posted by mdn at 9:15 AM on October 23, 2013 [4 favorites]
Was Shakespeare a Woman?
NO
A man dressed as a woman, then? You have to admit he's got prior.
posted by cromagnon at 9:20 AM on October 23, 2013
NO
A man dressed as a woman, then? You have to admit he's got prior.
posted by cromagnon at 9:20 AM on October 23, 2013
mdn - I agree Shakespeare is not "highbrow" in tone for the time. In fact it's almost as if he was at pains to not make explicit classical allusions or have characters e.g. talk in Latin, in contrast to Jonson's overt scholasticism and, indeed, the earlier Marlowe works. However, below the surface is an enormous amount of erudition in several languages, and this does require some explanation.
posted by iotic at 9:20 AM on October 23, 2013
posted by iotic at 9:20 AM on October 23, 2013
it's almost as if he was at pains to not make explicit classical allusions
Can you not see how that's begging the question? Now you're not only telling us who he is but how he thought. No matter how great the genius, I would think anyone, having painted themselves into a corner via Iambic Pentameter would use any allusion or language they knew to weasel out of the spot. I find it difficult to conceive of genius so great that he's throwing lines in the trash because they might look too high-brow.
posted by yerfatma at 9:36 AM on October 23, 2013
Can you not see how that's begging the question? Now you're not only telling us who he is but how he thought. No matter how great the genius, I would think anyone, having painted themselves into a corner via Iambic Pentameter would use any allusion or language they knew to weasel out of the spot. I find it difficult to conceive of genius so great that he's throwing lines in the trash because they might look too high-brow.
posted by yerfatma at 9:36 AM on October 23, 2013
It's clear from an analysis of his sources that he read a lot, including Ovid and various other classical sources. But unlike some contemporaries he didn't make a big thing of being scholastic, through his characters. I don't think I'm making any bold claim there. Certainly not "begging the question" or "telling ... how he thought".
posted by iotic at 9:41 AM on October 23, 2013
posted by iotic at 9:41 AM on October 23, 2013
You're looking at the body of work and seeing an absence as evidence. You think there should be more "explicit classical allusions or have characters e.g. talk in Latin" than there are based on the person you've decided he is. That feels like begging the question to me. If I feel there should be more Navajo in Shakespeare's work because my theory is he's a WWII code talker, I think you'd see the problem more clearly.
posted by yerfatma at 9:45 AM on October 23, 2013
posted by yerfatma at 9:45 AM on October 23, 2013
"... known to have acted in several of Jonson's plays, very likely as a lead"
He is listed in the cast for two of Jonson's plays. Evidence, and reasonably conclusive; I feel confident saying is known to have acted in them. He is listed first on the cast list for Every Man in His Humor. Order in the cast list at the time was traditionally according to prominence of the part. Evidence. Not absolutely conclusive proof, of course, which is why I said "very likely" instead of "definitely". But it's not based on "absence of evidence"; it's based on a piece of evidence.
"... while you have tried to spin it that none of them actually knew him personally, the fact is that some of them almost certainly did."
He acted in Jonson's plays. Leonard Digges' stepfather was one of the overseers of Shakespeare's will. John Heminges and Henry Condell were actors in the same company as Shakespeare, appeared onstage with Shakespeare, and were named in Shakespeare's will (among other connections.) Evidence, and for some of them quite conclusive. You have tried to make much of the fact that the bulk of writings lionizing Shakespeare as a playwright by people who definitely knew him were written after Shakespeare's death (so what?), or tried to imply that they were not actually the people who wrote the words their names were appended to (a pretty much baseless statement.) But this is evidence. People who almost certainly knew Shakespeare -- and that's putting it rather mildly -- wrote about what a great playwright Shakespeare was.
Those are not speculations based on absence of evidence. Those are conclusions based on the facts at hand. Modified by the term "very likely" in the one case where it's just likely and not a certainty. And that one wasn't particularly essential to the overall point.
"... are you suggesting it's possible he stayed at school to a later age?"
... Oy. I'm suggesting that "we don't know the nature of Shakespeare's education" ACTUALLY MEANS "we don't know the nature of Shakespeare's education."
posted by kyrademon at 9:46 AM on October 23, 2013 [3 favorites]
He is listed in the cast for two of Jonson's plays. Evidence, and reasonably conclusive; I feel confident saying is known to have acted in them. He is listed first on the cast list for Every Man in His Humor. Order in the cast list at the time was traditionally according to prominence of the part. Evidence. Not absolutely conclusive proof, of course, which is why I said "very likely" instead of "definitely". But it's not based on "absence of evidence"; it's based on a piece of evidence.
"... while you have tried to spin it that none of them actually knew him personally, the fact is that some of them almost certainly did."
He acted in Jonson's plays. Leonard Digges' stepfather was one of the overseers of Shakespeare's will. John Heminges and Henry Condell were actors in the same company as Shakespeare, appeared onstage with Shakespeare, and were named in Shakespeare's will (among other connections.) Evidence, and for some of them quite conclusive. You have tried to make much of the fact that the bulk of writings lionizing Shakespeare as a playwright by people who definitely knew him were written after Shakespeare's death (so what?), or tried to imply that they were not actually the people who wrote the words their names were appended to (a pretty much baseless statement.) But this is evidence. People who almost certainly knew Shakespeare -- and that's putting it rather mildly -- wrote about what a great playwright Shakespeare was.
Those are not speculations based on absence of evidence. Those are conclusions based on the facts at hand. Modified by the term "very likely" in the one case where it's just likely and not a certainty. And that one wasn't particularly essential to the overall point.
"... are you suggesting it's possible he stayed at school to a later age?"
... Oy. I'm suggesting that "we don't know the nature of Shakespeare's education" ACTUALLY MEANS "we don't know the nature of Shakespeare's education."
posted by kyrademon at 9:46 AM on October 23, 2013 [3 favorites]
yerfatma - I don't get this. All I'm saying is, despite his erudition, he doesn't lay it on with a trowel. Is that really a shocking statement?
posted by iotic at 9:47 AM on October 23, 2013
posted by iotic at 9:47 AM on October 23, 2013
kyrademon -
1. it is nevertheless speculation that he acted a lead role in this or any play. it is not supported by any other evidence (e.g. reports of him as a lead part actor), and his name appearing at the top (not next to a role) might be due to his name being well known for other reasons.
2. seven years after someone dies there's more leeway in what you can claim about them. but still we are far from "almost certainly" for Digges' knowing him. Regarding Heminges and Condell, I've been trying to find more scholarly references as I'm sure I've read some, but it's really not that extraordinary to suggest they might not have written the dedication themselves - and there are comparisons to be made with Jonson's style. Here's a recent non-scholarly reference: "They are signed by Heminges and Condell, but the cost of the project suggests they were written by a more experienced hand. The obvious candidate would seem to be Ben Jonson."
I'm going to have to leave this argument, enjoyable as it's been. Thanks for entertaining so patiently my evidence-based conclusions which are different from your own. You're welcome, of course, to continue disputing my comments. Please don't assume as yoink seems to with regards to previous threads that the argument is settled just because I'm not still taking part - although I'll certainly be very interested if you or anyone else can bring anything new (to me) to the table. I liked your take on Richard Field, for example.
Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow
posted by iotic at 10:05 AM on October 23, 2013
1. it is nevertheless speculation that he acted a lead role in this or any play. it is not supported by any other evidence (e.g. reports of him as a lead part actor), and his name appearing at the top (not next to a role) might be due to his name being well known for other reasons.
2. seven years after someone dies there's more leeway in what you can claim about them. but still we are far from "almost certainly" for Digges' knowing him. Regarding Heminges and Condell, I've been trying to find more scholarly references as I'm sure I've read some, but it's really not that extraordinary to suggest they might not have written the dedication themselves - and there are comparisons to be made with Jonson's style. Here's a recent non-scholarly reference: "They are signed by Heminges and Condell, but the cost of the project suggests they were written by a more experienced hand. The obvious candidate would seem to be Ben Jonson."
I'm going to have to leave this argument, enjoyable as it's been. Thanks for entertaining so patiently my evidence-based conclusions which are different from your own. You're welcome, of course, to continue disputing my comments. Please don't assume as yoink seems to with regards to previous threads that the argument is settled just because I'm not still taking part - although I'll certainly be very interested if you or anyone else can bring anything new (to me) to the table. I liked your take on Richard Field, for example.
Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow
posted by iotic at 10:05 AM on October 23, 2013
But in a time when less was known
In the middle of this thread, you're going to assert that ignorance has had a more triumphant era than right now? Never mind how ridiculous an (anti-)historical argument this "they didn't know STEM" thing is in the first place, there couldn't possibly be a better example of how what a society supposedly already "knows" and what its individual members believe diverge than the tenaciously anti-factual crankery on display right here.
posted by RogerB at 10:36 AM on October 23, 2013
In the middle of this thread, you're going to assert that ignorance has had a more triumphant era than right now? Never mind how ridiculous an (anti-)historical argument this "they didn't know STEM" thing is in the first place, there couldn't possibly be a better example of how what a society supposedly already "knows" and what its individual members believe diverge than the tenaciously anti-factual crankery on display right here.
posted by RogerB at 10:36 AM on October 23, 2013
This whole thread has basically been one man breathlessly rushing into a pharmaceutical lab and saying "Guys...GUYS. What if, okay, what if...homeopathy works?".
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 10:41 AM on October 23, 2013 [10 favorites]
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 10:41 AM on October 23, 2013 [10 favorites]
In the middle of this thread, you're going to assert that ignorance has had a more triumphant era than right now?
The hell? Are you really trying to say that we have less knowledge now than during the Elizabethan era?
Never mind how ridiculous an (anti-)historical argument this "they didn't know STEM" thing is in the first place
They weren't saying there was no STEM at all, just that it wasn't exactly a heavy topic in grammar school. Which is absolutely true.
posted by kmz at 11:05 AM on October 23, 2013
The hell? Are you really trying to say that we have less knowledge now than during the Elizabethan era?
Never mind how ridiculous an (anti-)historical argument this "they didn't know STEM" thing is in the first place
They weren't saying there was no STEM at all, just that it wasn't exactly a heavy topic in grammar school. Which is absolutely true.
posted by kmz at 11:05 AM on October 23, 2013
Are you really trying to say that we have less knowledge now than during the Elizabethan era?
Patronizing the past like this is an obvious symptom of ahistorical or antihistorical thinking. What they knew then doesn't count as knowledge in this framing (presentism). They were people then, too, you know; Shakespeare's learning was just as real, and exactly as difficult to attain, as our own.
posted by RogerB at 11:10 AM on October 23, 2013
Patronizing the past like this is an obvious symptom of ahistorical or antihistorical thinking. What they knew then doesn't count as knowledge in this framing (presentism). They were people then, too, you know; Shakespeare's learning was just as real, and exactly as difficult to attain, as our own.
posted by RogerB at 11:10 AM on October 23, 2013
Patronizing the past like this is an obvious symptom of ahistorical or antihistorical thinking. What they knew then doesn't count as knowledge in this framing (presentism). They were people then, too, you know; Shakespeare's learning was just as real, and exactly as difficult to attain, as our own.
I didn't read that way at all. The statement was that "in a time when less was known, the focus was clearer from the beginning. Being able to read the Bible, the Greeks, the Romans, and various important works from middle and later European authors was something that a schoolboy could have got started on well before high school without being a prodigy."
You're really focusing on the first part and ignoring the rest. The point was that education was different; people learned different things, so the assumption that it would take a prodigy to leave school at 14 and know Ovid is wrong. There's not statement that knowing Ovid doesn't count as knowledge or that it was easy to obtain, just that the average school curriculum was different.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 11:28 AM on October 23, 2013 [4 favorites]
I didn't read that way at all. The statement was that "in a time when less was known, the focus was clearer from the beginning. Being able to read the Bible, the Greeks, the Romans, and various important works from middle and later European authors was something that a schoolboy could have got started on well before high school without being a prodigy."
You're really focusing on the first part and ignoring the rest. The point was that education was different; people learned different things, so the assumption that it would take a prodigy to leave school at 14 and know Ovid is wrong. There's not statement that knowing Ovid doesn't count as knowledge or that it was easy to obtain, just that the average school curriculum was different.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 11:28 AM on October 23, 2013 [4 favorites]
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
posted by kyrademon at 11:29 AM on October 23, 2013 [1 favorite]
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
posted by kyrademon at 11:29 AM on October 23, 2013 [1 favorite]
Please don't assume as yoink seems to with regards to previous threads that the argument is settled just because I'm not still taking part -
CARRY ON. PLEASE DON'T ASSUME I'M NOT STILL RIGHT JUST BECAUSE I'M NOT HERE.
posted by octobersurprise at 11:40 AM on October 23, 2013 [3 favorites]
CARRY ON. PLEASE DON'T ASSUME I'M NOT STILL RIGHT JUST BECAUSE I'M NOT HERE.
posted by octobersurprise at 11:40 AM on October 23, 2013 [3 favorites]
You're really focusing on the first part and ignoring the rest. The point was that education was different; people learned different things, so the assumption that it would take a prodigy to leave school at 14 and know Ovid is wrong.
Of course I agree with what you say, but you're still translating a bad argument into a reasonable one by switching from the naive and presentist "less was known" comparison to a more reasonable focus on the difference between the Elizabethans' episteme and ours. In any case the word "know" is still bearing a ridiculous and argument-defeating weight of polysemy here: the way that Shakespeare "knew" Ovid very much did take a prodigy, just as it still would today, and this is true even though many ordinary Elizabethan schoolboys would've "known" Ovid in another, much shallower, sense.
posted by RogerB at 11:43 AM on October 23, 2013
Of course I agree with what you say, but you're still translating a bad argument into a reasonable one by switching from the naive and presentist "less was known" comparison to a more reasonable focus on the difference between the Elizabethans' episteme and ours. In any case the word "know" is still bearing a ridiculous and argument-defeating weight of polysemy here: the way that Shakespeare "knew" Ovid very much did take a prodigy, just as it still would today, and this is true even though many ordinary Elizabethan schoolboys would've "known" Ovid in another, much shallower, sense.
posted by RogerB at 11:43 AM on October 23, 2013
Well, in so far as we can assume Jonson intended to mean by "beloved" that he knew the man, and that he thought the same man acted in his plays, then yes - Jonson would have to be complicit in any hiding of the true authorship. Not a habitual liar, just party to the knowledge that the author and the actor were not the same man.
This is the classic broken epistemology of a conspiracy theorist.
New evidence is denied, and when that denial fails, it is then clumsily retrofitted into the preexisting conclusion. See how quickly we go from "no contemporaries spoke of him as an author as he lived!" to "well, Jonson only knew of him through his writings!" to "okay, I guess Shakespeare must have acted in a play of his, but this was only mentioned posthumously!" to "well, maybe if Shakespeare was actually in the cast lists for Jonson's plays, then this means that Jonson was complicit in the hiding of true authorship, and that he was party to the knowledge that the author and the actor were not the same man."
That last one is a whopper.
posted by Sticherbeast at 11:45 AM on October 23, 2013 [7 favorites]
This is the classic broken epistemology of a conspiracy theorist.
New evidence is denied, and when that denial fails, it is then clumsily retrofitted into the preexisting conclusion. See how quickly we go from "no contemporaries spoke of him as an author as he lived!" to "well, Jonson only knew of him through his writings!" to "okay, I guess Shakespeare must have acted in a play of his, but this was only mentioned posthumously!" to "well, maybe if Shakespeare was actually in the cast lists for Jonson's plays, then this means that Jonson was complicit in the hiding of true authorship, and that he was party to the knowledge that the author and the actor were not the same man."
That last one is a whopper.
posted by Sticherbeast at 11:45 AM on October 23, 2013 [7 favorites]
So last night I did some reading on the authorship question, and now read this thread thoroughly, and I have a question:
Is there anyone currently working on the authorship question who is also a highly respected academic in the field of Elizabethan history or literature? And by "respected" I mean recognized as an important thinker, writer and researcher in that field by an overwhelming majority of their colleagues in academia period. Not just respected by academics who agree with their take on the question (or that there even is a question.)
From what I can tell (from admittedly cursory research,) the support for the question being a question comes from a whole lot of lay-researchers, dramatists and actors, and academics from other fields dipping their toes into this one.
posted by griphus at 12:59 PM on October 23, 2013
Is there anyone currently working on the authorship question who is also a highly respected academic in the field of Elizabethan history or literature? And by "respected" I mean recognized as an important thinker, writer and researcher in that field by an overwhelming majority of their colleagues in academia period. Not just respected by academics who agree with their take on the question (or that there even is a question.)
From what I can tell (from admittedly cursory research,) the support for the question being a question comes from a whole lot of lay-researchers, dramatists and actors, and academics from other fields dipping their toes into this one.
posted by griphus at 12:59 PM on October 23, 2013
Sticherbeast, it's like the weirdest game of Calvin-ball, isn't it?
If it cannot be demonstrated that you personally knew Shakespeare, your contemporary comment about Shakespeare the writer is out-of-bounds. You might have been a stranger fooled by a fraud. (There's no evidence that you DIDN'T know Shakespeare, mind you, but if there's any chance you might not have, it doesn't count.)
Wait, this can be demonstrated for someone? Well, if you were the *only* person for whom it can be demonstrated that you personally knew Shakespeare, your contemporary comment about Shakespeare the writer is out-of-bounds. You could have been a fraudster acting alone.
There were others? Then unless it can be demonstrated that you personally knew Shakespeare and it has never been questioned by anyone ever that you wrote the words about Shakespeare you signed your name to, your contemporary comment about Shakespeare the writer is out-of-bounds. The fraudster acting alone could have put those words there.
They themselves published the work those words appear in, so it's pretty clear that they signed off on the concept even in the unlikely event that they weren't responsible for the precise wording? Well, unless it can be demonstrated that you personally knew Shakespeare and you obviously meant the words attributed to you and they were written BEFORE SHAKESPEARE'S DEATH, your contemporary comment about Shakespeare the writer is out-of-bounds. It's ... easier to convince people to participate in a fraud after the subject of it has died?
Anyway, isn't it WEIRD that there is not ONE PERSON for whom we have a four hundred year old document showing that they wrote something about Shakespeare the writer from anyone for whom it can be conclusively demonstrated centuries later that they knew him personally and which was also written before his death? Makes you think, doesn't it? Anyway, on to speculation that he couldn't have learned foreign languages because we know literally nothing about his education and therefore it can't have been good.
posted by kyrademon at 1:32 PM on October 23, 2013 [10 favorites]
If it cannot be demonstrated that you personally knew Shakespeare, your contemporary comment about Shakespeare the writer is out-of-bounds. You might have been a stranger fooled by a fraud. (There's no evidence that you DIDN'T know Shakespeare, mind you, but if there's any chance you might not have, it doesn't count.)
Wait, this can be demonstrated for someone? Well, if you were the *only* person for whom it can be demonstrated that you personally knew Shakespeare, your contemporary comment about Shakespeare the writer is out-of-bounds. You could have been a fraudster acting alone.
There were others? Then unless it can be demonstrated that you personally knew Shakespeare and it has never been questioned by anyone ever that you wrote the words about Shakespeare you signed your name to, your contemporary comment about Shakespeare the writer is out-of-bounds. The fraudster acting alone could have put those words there.
They themselves published the work those words appear in, so it's pretty clear that they signed off on the concept even in the unlikely event that they weren't responsible for the precise wording? Well, unless it can be demonstrated that you personally knew Shakespeare and you obviously meant the words attributed to you and they were written BEFORE SHAKESPEARE'S DEATH, your contemporary comment about Shakespeare the writer is out-of-bounds. It's ... easier to convince people to participate in a fraud after the subject of it has died?
Anyway, isn't it WEIRD that there is not ONE PERSON for whom we have a four hundred year old document showing that they wrote something about Shakespeare the writer from anyone for whom it can be conclusively demonstrated centuries later that they knew him personally and which was also written before his death? Makes you think, doesn't it? Anyway, on to speculation that he couldn't have learned foreign languages because we know literally nothing about his education and therefore it can't have been good.
posted by kyrademon at 1:32 PM on October 23, 2013 [10 favorites]
All this talk of his sources being in other languages... I'm not clear where it follows that he and only he must have been the one reading all of them. One friend who knew Italian, or whatever, could've re-told him the story and that was probably all he needed to make the rest up on his own, right? I'm not aware that he is thought of as being particularly, painstakingly faithful to minor details of his sources.
posted by dnash at 1:54 PM on October 23, 2013
posted by dnash at 1:54 PM on October 23, 2013
It doesn't matter what the subject matter is, there is always someone who has spotted the flaw in received wisdom and thus is suppressed/ignored/ridiculed/not taken seriously.
Sometimes, they're right. Plate tectonics took a lot of flak before it won; the aether similarly hung around for ages despite not actually existing. More often, received wisdom is actually wrong but nobody's spotted it until new evidence turns up: historians of World War II thought they had stuff sewn up about how and why various tides of war changed, but never suspected Bletchley Park until it decloaked of its own accord.
The odds are not good, though. I don't have any serious expertise in Shakespearian matters - I had to do Macbeth at school, and it's taken a while to scrape that off the keel - but I have spent quite some paid-for time in areas such as over-unity energy, fusion, data transmission and storage, wireless and so on, where there is no shortage of people who are Fighting the Conspiracy to get their unique, world-changing insights validated. I suppose between those areas and my purely personal hobby of debating creationists, I've put in the hours over the past thirty years.
Depressingly, the real nutters - as opposed to those who do have true insight and the wherewithal to make effective arguments - are devastatingly easy to spot: they have commonalities of approach which stand out a mile. And while my Shakespearian scholarship goes about as far as knowing the link between the blasted heath and the Stuart court, I will take a stand for having some practical experience of nutterhood.
I know it when I see it. I'm seeing it now. And yes, I'm playing the man, not the ball. There is no ball to play.
posted by Devonian at 2:33 PM on October 23, 2013 [3 favorites]
Sometimes, they're right. Plate tectonics took a lot of flak before it won; the aether similarly hung around for ages despite not actually existing. More often, received wisdom is actually wrong but nobody's spotted it until new evidence turns up: historians of World War II thought they had stuff sewn up about how and why various tides of war changed, but never suspected Bletchley Park until it decloaked of its own accord.
The odds are not good, though. I don't have any serious expertise in Shakespearian matters - I had to do Macbeth at school, and it's taken a while to scrape that off the keel - but I have spent quite some paid-for time in areas such as over-unity energy, fusion, data transmission and storage, wireless and so on, where there is no shortage of people who are Fighting the Conspiracy to get their unique, world-changing insights validated. I suppose between those areas and my purely personal hobby of debating creationists, I've put in the hours over the past thirty years.
Depressingly, the real nutters - as opposed to those who do have true insight and the wherewithal to make effective arguments - are devastatingly easy to spot: they have commonalities of approach which stand out a mile. And while my Shakespearian scholarship goes about as far as knowing the link between the blasted heath and the Stuart court, I will take a stand for having some practical experience of nutterhood.
I know it when I see it. I'm seeing it now. And yes, I'm playing the man, not the ball. There is no ball to play.
posted by Devonian at 2:33 PM on October 23, 2013 [3 favorites]
One friend who knew Italian, or whatever, could've re-told him the story and that was probably all he needed to make the rest up on his own, right?
I could probably write a pretty bang up pastiche of Twilight, Supernatural and My Immortal based solely on the knowledge I've acquired just being on the internet. No reason to think Shakespeare couldn't do the same with the hot new shipwreck story down at the tavern.
posted by Biblio at 2:46 PM on October 23, 2013 [1 favorite]
I could probably write a pretty bang up pastiche of Twilight, Supernatural and My Immortal based solely on the knowledge I've acquired just being on the internet. No reason to think Shakespeare couldn't do the same with the hot new shipwreck story down at the tavern.
posted by Biblio at 2:46 PM on October 23, 2013 [1 favorite]
As long as Mrs. Shakespeare was happy, who cares?
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:52 PM on October 23, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:52 PM on October 23, 2013 [1 favorite]
However, below the surface is an enormous amount of erudition in several languages, and this does require some explanation.
If it's "below the surface", how do you know exactly how erudite it is? Couldn't it just be reasonably common knowledge that he picked up from seeing other people's plays, having conversations, or through superficial scholarship?
RogerB, sorry for any confusion - perhaps I should have said "in a time when less information was available". I didn't mean to make any judgment about the importance of the classics (I'm a student of ancient philosophy myself). The point was just that while you could be very highly educated today without ever reading classics, at that time it would have been the center of your education.
According to wikipedia, they were called grammar schools because the purpose was to teach the grammar of latin, the essential lingua franca of the day, and this was done in large part by reading the Latin classics.
posted by mdn at 3:05 PM on October 23, 2013 [2 favorites]
If it's "below the surface", how do you know exactly how erudite it is? Couldn't it just be reasonably common knowledge that he picked up from seeing other people's plays, having conversations, or through superficial scholarship?
RogerB, sorry for any confusion - perhaps I should have said "in a time when less information was available". I didn't mean to make any judgment about the importance of the classics (I'm a student of ancient philosophy myself). The point was just that while you could be very highly educated today without ever reading classics, at that time it would have been the center of your education.
According to wikipedia, they were called grammar schools because the purpose was to teach the grammar of latin, the essential lingua franca of the day, and this was done in large part by reading the Latin classics.
posted by mdn at 3:05 PM on October 23, 2013 [2 favorites]
It's ironic that the anti-Stratfordians are so unwilling to believe that a playwright could practice any sort of autodidacticism, when almost no anti-Stratfordian is actually a credentialed and respected academic in the field of Elizabethan history.
posted by Sticherbeast at 3:23 PM on October 23, 2013 [8 favorites]
posted by Sticherbeast at 3:23 PM on October 23, 2013 [8 favorites]
You know, applying these false mythologies to Amelia Bassano Lanier really doesn't seem to be doing her a service. She's vanished from a thread that was nominally about her, drowned in the anti-Stratfordian framing.
posted by kyrademon at 3:30 PM on October 23, 2013 [3 favorites]
posted by kyrademon at 3:30 PM on October 23, 2013 [3 favorites]
DID SHAKESPEARE WRITE AMELIA BEDELIA
posted by straight at 4:37 PM on October 23, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by straight at 4:37 PM on October 23, 2013 [2 favorites]
I now want a Roland Emmerich movie, featuring Derek Jacobi, all about how Shakespeare did not actually write Amelia Bedelia.
posted by Sticherbeast at 5:29 PM on October 23, 2013
posted by Sticherbeast at 5:29 PM on October 23, 2013
Didn't we decide sometime in the 1960s that the author is dead anyway?
I don't have a dog in the Shakespeare authorship fight, though I have always found the idea that Shakespeare's children were illiterate to be fascinating.
posted by smithsmith at 6:35 PM on October 23, 2013
I don't have a dog in the Shakespeare authorship fight, though I have always found the idea that Shakespeare's children were illiterate to be fascinating.
posted by smithsmith at 6:35 PM on October 23, 2013
Looking through one of the past threads, I found something iotic considers "strong evidence" for the Marlowe case. I'll just leave it here.
posted by 23 at 6:51 PM on October 23, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by 23 at 6:51 PM on October 23, 2013 [2 favorites]
HA HA OH WOW
"I imagined a riddle inside the text of this monument, and then I imagined that the answer was what I wanted it to be."
CHECKMATE, STRATFORDIANS
posted by Sticherbeast at 9:07 PM on October 23, 2013 [1 favorite]
"I imagined a riddle inside the text of this monument, and then I imagined that the answer was what I wanted it to be."
CHECKMATE, STRATFORDIANS
posted by Sticherbeast at 9:07 PM on October 23, 2013 [1 favorite]
Yeah, I started chuckling as soon as he mentioned the name began with "Christ". Also:
whose surname must begin with either AMR, ARM, MAR, MRA, RAM or RMA
He's so open minded he refused to exclude the possibility that a surname might begin with RMA.
posted by smithsmith at 10:00 PM on October 23, 2013
whose surname must begin with either AMR, ARM, MAR, MRA, RAM or RMA
He's so open minded he refused to exclude the possibility that a surname might begin with RMA.
posted by smithsmith at 10:00 PM on October 23, 2013
Ha, when you all turn on me, fine. I blame myself for lacking the chops to defend my point of view. But when you attack Peter Farey, twice winner of the Hoffman Prize, cited by Park Honan in his scholarly biography of Marlowe, or prize winning bestseller poet and author Ros Barber in the same childish fashion, I know I don't have to pay attention.
I hope I never unwittingly add to any such circle-jerking collection of wannabe playground bullies as is on display on this thread. I know am not, but I'd actually rather be a conspiracy theorist nutter etc than show the kind of behaviour several folks above have put forward.
As you were.
posted by iotic at 4:59 AM on October 24, 2013
I hope I never unwittingly add to any such circle-jerking collection of wannabe playground bullies as is on display on this thread. I know am not, but I'd actually rather be a conspiracy theorist nutter etc than show the kind of behaviour several folks above have put forward.
As you were.
posted by iotic at 4:59 AM on October 24, 2013
I just wonder whether any of these people who believe these conspiratorial theories about Shakespeare are Christian. Because if they think there's puzzles in Shakespeare's work, then they've got an absolute lifetime's worth of fun to have with the Bible.
Wait. Did Marlowe write the Bible, too? He's a magical feller, wouldn't put it past him...
posted by gadge emeritus at 5:05 AM on October 24, 2013
Wait. Did Marlowe write the Bible, too? He's a magical feller, wouldn't put it past him...
posted by gadge emeritus at 5:05 AM on October 24, 2013
But when you attack Peter Farey, twice winner of the Hoffman Prize, cited by Park Honan in his scholarly biography of Marlowe, or prize winning bestseller poet and author Ros Barber in the same childish fashion, I know I don't have to pay attention.
No permission is needed to attack the deeply silly linked argument from Farey. There is no evidence or logical argument in it. It uses the power of imagination to invent a riddle, and then it sets out to "solve" that very same riddle, using wordplay beneath even Dan Brown. Prizes or no, his arguments still have to stand on their own.
The Hoffman Prize, by the way, is a prize from an organization that openly espouses the Marlovian Theory. While the prize now goes to "distinguished work" on Christopher Marlowe, the prize had been originally endowed for essays that could prove to the world Marlowe's authorship of Shakespeare's plays. Since the latter never materialized, the mission was reinterpreted.
Peter Farey may have other lovely qualities, but one can't just glare and point to the prizes on his shelf when people disagree with his attempts at historical revisionism.
As for Ros Barber, there are no personal attacks here. Her charts, etc. are sufficient and accurate, or they are not. As with Farey, her work has to stand on its own. Whether or not she's a bestselling poet has nothing to do with anything. The vast majority of competent historians are not poets at all, let alone bestselling ones.
posted by Sticherbeast at 5:30 AM on October 24, 2013 [7 favorites]
No permission is needed to attack the deeply silly linked argument from Farey. There is no evidence or logical argument in it. It uses the power of imagination to invent a riddle, and then it sets out to "solve" that very same riddle, using wordplay beneath even Dan Brown. Prizes or no, his arguments still have to stand on their own.
The Hoffman Prize, by the way, is a prize from an organization that openly espouses the Marlovian Theory. While the prize now goes to "distinguished work" on Christopher Marlowe, the prize had been originally endowed for essays that could prove to the world Marlowe's authorship of Shakespeare's plays. Since the latter never materialized, the mission was reinterpreted.
Peter Farey may have other lovely qualities, but one can't just glare and point to the prizes on his shelf when people disagree with his attempts at historical revisionism.
As for Ros Barber, there are no personal attacks here. Her charts, etc. are sufficient and accurate, or they are not. As with Farey, her work has to stand on its own. Whether or not she's a bestselling poet has nothing to do with anything. The vast majority of competent historians are not poets at all, let alone bestselling ones.
posted by Sticherbeast at 5:30 AM on October 24, 2013 [7 favorites]
The Hoffman Prize, by the way, is a prize from an organization that openly espouses the Marlovian Theory.
I don't look forward to someone, someday, calling people who disagree with him bullies because they took apart a poor argument by someone who has been awarded, twice no less, the Koch prize.
posted by juiceCake at 5:53 AM on October 24, 2013
I don't look forward to someone, someday, calling people who disagree with him bullies because they took apart a poor argument by someone who has been awarded, twice no less, the Koch prize.
posted by juiceCake at 5:53 AM on October 24, 2013
The childish attacks in this thread are not defensible, full stop.
I don't want to get pulled into this again but you are quite incorrect to say the Hoffman Prize is presented by an organisation sympathetic to Marlovian theory. It isn't. It's awarded by the King's School, Canterbury and has been adjudicated by such luminaries of academic Shakespeare scholarship as Stanley Wells and Park Honan. It's usually awarded to non-Marlovians. Ros Barber has also won it.
Perhaps you could check your facts in your rush to dismiss what I have to say. Or not - I've left behind my expectations for decency and fact-checking in this thread.
posted by iotic at 6:13 AM on October 24, 2013
I don't want to get pulled into this again but you are quite incorrect to say the Hoffman Prize is presented by an organisation sympathetic to Marlovian theory. It isn't. It's awarded by the King's School, Canterbury and has been adjudicated by such luminaries of academic Shakespeare scholarship as Stanley Wells and Park Honan. It's usually awarded to non-Marlovians. Ros Barber has also won it.
Perhaps you could check your facts in your rush to dismiss what I have to say. Or not - I've left behind my expectations for decency and fact-checking in this thread.
posted by iotic at 6:13 AM on October 24, 2013
From Wikipedia:
"Anxious that the Marlovian theory should not die with him, Hoffman arranged in 1984 a deal with Marlowe's school, The King's School, Canterbury, that in exchange for his leaving a large sum of money to them in his will they would administer an annual essay competition related to 'the life and works of Christopher Marlowe and the authorship of the plays and poems now commonly attributed to William Shakespeare with particular regard to the possibility that Christopher Marlowe wrote some or all of those poems and plays or made some inspirational creative or compositional contributions towards the authorship of them.'"
The Hoffman Prize was set up to espouse the Marlovian theory. That only a minority of essays have been explicitly Marlovian is due to 1) the fringe nature of the Marlovian theory and 2) the fact that the mission was later reinterpreted so as to distance itself from it.
Either way, even if the Hoffman Prize had had no such association, it still does not affect the qualities of the linked article.
posted by Sticherbeast at 6:21 AM on October 24, 2013
"Anxious that the Marlovian theory should not die with him, Hoffman arranged in 1984 a deal with Marlowe's school, The King's School, Canterbury, that in exchange for his leaving a large sum of money to them in his will they would administer an annual essay competition related to 'the life and works of Christopher Marlowe and the authorship of the plays and poems now commonly attributed to William Shakespeare with particular regard to the possibility that Christopher Marlowe wrote some or all of those poems and plays or made some inspirational creative or compositional contributions towards the authorship of them.'"
The Hoffman Prize was set up to espouse the Marlovian theory. That only a minority of essays have been explicitly Marlovian is due to 1) the fringe nature of the Marlovian theory and 2) the fact that the mission was later reinterpreted so as to distance itself from it.
Either way, even if the Hoffman Prize had had no such association, it still does not affect the qualities of the linked article.
posted by Sticherbeast at 6:21 AM on October 24, 2013
I hope I never unwittingly add to any such circle-jerking collection of wannabe playground bullies as is on display on this thread. I know am not, but I'd actually rather be a conspiracy theorist nutter etc than show the kind of behaviour several folks above have put forward.You've taken a lot of flak in this thread and others, iotic, and I know you don't like being painted as a conspiracy theorist, but what you're engaging in is classic conspiracy theorising. You've had to argue that Jonson lied repeatedly to maintain the supposed fiction of Shakespeare's authorship of his own plays and that he in fact wrote most of the preliminaries to the First Folio himself. You've had to imagine a vast conspiracy to support the supposed fake death and witness-protection-style "rebirth" of Marlowe, which would have been impossible to pull off in a small, close-knit, face-to-face society like early modern London. (Not to mention being a thoroughly anachronistic idea, redolent more of twentieth-century spy fiction than sixteenth-century life.) And, as several people have pointed out to you, your scholarly authorities on this are themselves often conspiracy theorists in ways that go beyond anti-Stratfordianism.
In fact, I'd argue, the Marlovian hypothesis is probably best understood in the context of what Michael Barkun calls stigmatized knowledge rather than mainstream scholarship. The arguments, behaviour, and ideological positions your authorities express outside anti-Stratfordianism provide support for this. People whose thinking is shaped by the "cultic milieu" tend to be very hostile to mainstream belief systems (whatever those are), but because of its intrinsic scepticism of all forms of judgement it is, as Barkun argues, "receptive to all forms of revisionism." And that causes "stigmatised" beliefs to cluster. People who hold one are likely to hold others. Mark Rylance, who you cite above, in addition to being a very fine actor, also holds a veritable panoply of New Age beliefs. He's been quite up-front about his belief that he's still able to communicate with the consciousness of his dead step-daughter, which he believes is still etched somewhere "in the universe." I don't say this to ridicule him. But anyone who holds Rylance up as a scholarly authority has to deal with this. He subscribes to a very different personal epistemology from that of mainstream scholarship, and this helps explain why he also holds beliefs like Marlowe's survival after death. William D. Rubinstein, hailed in the press a few years ago as a "mainstream scholar" who could argue credibly for the anti-Stratfordian position, is the same. He's actually a far-right libertarian who believes that both income tax and the BBC should be abolished and, naturally, has his own theory about the Kennedy assassination.
Seeing Marlovianism, or Oxfordianism or whatever through the lenses of Barkun's concept of "stigmatized knowledge" is quite illuminating. It's deeply suspicious of established authorities and institutions, though open to any suggestions from the "cultic milieu" independent of provenance or probability. It believes in fact-fiction inversions: that the "truth" is hidden in works of fiction, which can then be "read" by initiates to tease out the real story. Moon-landing conspiracists believe the real story about the "fake" Apollo missions is encoded in the plot of Capricorn One. Anti-Stratfordians believe there are hidden codes in Shakespeare left by the true author, and that the biographical details of the true candidate are somehow etched on the plots of Shakespeare's plays.
So while you (I think sincerely) believe you're engaging in "evidence-based" argument, your sources and authorities are not. They conceive of and use "evidence" quite differently than historians and literary historians do, and that's why there are some "translation issues" between the two fields. This is a conspiracy theory, and conspiracy theories and history don't tend to play nicely together.
posted by Sonny Jim at 6:21 AM on October 24, 2013 [4 favorites]
What we call a "conspiracy theorist" is, as you say, someone who rejects mainstream knowledge systems wholesale. That is not true of me or Marlovians in general.
Additionally, the Marlovians mentioned above have great respect for orthodox scholarship, as do I. And, in so far as they have been cited and awarded prizes by leading exponents of orthodox scholarship, that respect is reciprocated. Park Honan goes so far as to explicitly say that much valuable research has been done by those that believe Marlowe didn't die in 1593.
That's rather more meaningful than the attempts to paint all Shakespeare doubters as insane, deluded conspiracy theorists in this thread, frankly.
posted by iotic at 6:40 AM on October 24, 2013
Additionally, the Marlovians mentioned above have great respect for orthodox scholarship, as do I. And, in so far as they have been cited and awarded prizes by leading exponents of orthodox scholarship, that respect is reciprocated. Park Honan goes so far as to explicitly say that much valuable research has been done by those that believe Marlowe didn't die in 1593.
That's rather more meaningful than the attempts to paint all Shakespeare doubters as insane, deluded conspiracy theorists in this thread, frankly.
posted by iotic at 6:40 AM on October 24, 2013
cited by Park Honan in his scholarly biography of Marlowe
Does Honan cite him in his scholarly biography of Shakespeare?
posted by octobersurprise at 7:18 AM on October 24, 2013
Does Honan cite him in his scholarly biography of Shakespeare?
posted by octobersurprise at 7:18 AM on October 24, 2013
Incidentally, for those interested, here is a partial list of people who made known contemporary references to Shakespeare as a writer --
While he was alive: Richard Stonley, William Covell, Richard Barnfield, Francis Meres, Gabriel Harvey, John Weever, John Bodenham, Robert Allot, Francis Davison, Anthony Scoloker, John Cooke, William Camden, William Barksted, Edward Alleyn, John Harington, John Davies, William Drummond, John Webster, Leonard Digges, Richard Carew, Thomas Freeman, Edmund Howes, Thomas Porter, Francis Beaumont, Henry Willobie, and Henry Chettle. (There are also references by unknown or anonymous authors such as the authors of the Parnassus Plays.)
After he died: Edmund Bolton, John Taylor, William Basse, Ben Jonson, John Heminges, Henry Condell, Leonard Digges again, William Davenant, Richard Baker, Hugh Holland, James Mabbe, John Milton, Thomas Bancroft, John Benson, Thomas Heywood, and John Warren. (Again, there are also some references by unknown or anonymous authors.)
Admittedly, these references range the gamut from people writing a note saying, "I just bought a book by that Shakespeare guy" to extended, published, laudatory poems in praise of Shakespeare's brilliance -- although there are actually more of the latter than the former; not surprising since they're more likely to have survived.
But at any rate, we've already jumped from "practically nobody" to "rather a lot, actually" with a little bit of research. And logically, to prove Shakespeare didn't write his own work, you would have to prove that every single one of these 40+ people was either a dupe or a liar. And in fact, this is one of the main approaches taken by the anti-Stratfordians.
Of course, that's not sufficient. You would also, of course, need to demonstrate it about the people who were Shakespeare's writing collaborators (such as, to be extremely conservative about it, Wilkins, Middleton, and Fletcher.) And you'd also honestly have to demonstrate it about people like the printers and publishers who put out editions with Shakespeare's name on them (which looks like it would include, for example, Richard Field, John Harrison, Thomas Creede, Andrew Wise, William White, Cuthbert Burby, Valentine Simmes, Peter Short, Simon Staffort, Richard Bradocke, William Leake, Thomas Fisher, James Roberts, Thomas Hayes, William Aspley, Arthur Johnson, Nicholas Ling, John Trundell, Matthew Law, Nicholas Okes, Nathaniel Butter, Henry Gosson, William Stansby, John Smethwick ...)
And of course you would also need to demonstrate it about the people performing the plays with Shakespeare (for example, Richard Burbage, James Burbage, James Armin, William Kemp, John Lowin, Augustine Phillips, Thomas Pope, John Sincklo, William Sly, Joseph Taylor ...) And of course, Shakespeare himself. All of these people must be proven to be either dupes or frauds.
But let's say you do it. You can, somehow, plausibly demonstrate that every single one of these people either was a dupe or was in on a fraud. (I am, I will admit, discounting some other favorite tactics of anti-Stratfordians, such as claiming that when a printed Quarto used the name "Shake-speare" instead of "Shakespeare", it was indicating the name was a pseudonym because there's a hyphen there; I hope we can all agree that's silly?)
Anyway, you've somehow done it, for each and every one of the people listed above. You can show a plausible scenario in which either dozens and dozens of people were in on a conspiracy that nonetheless remained undiscovered for hundreds of years, or else that some master of plotting could have fooled not only total strangers but people who worked with, printed, published, acted in, and even CO-WROTE these plays.
Now that you've done that, here's the sum total of direct evidence for anyone other than Shakespeare taking on his role:
...
Nothing. Nada. Zip. There is no mention of "Marlowe's Richard III" anywhere. There is no diary entry saying "Saw dear Amelia's Midsummer Night's Dream - pity this can never be told." There is no accounting entry saying "Brought DeVere's mscpt. Tmpst to Burbage, r'cvd sixpence". Only by twisting meanings and inventing cryptograms can people come up with even a potential indirect implication. Think of that in comparison to everything listed above. NOTHING.
The hardest thing to explain to an Anti-Stratfordian is not that their research is bunk (it is), but that it doesn't even start from the place historical research has to start from to make sense. It begins with "if we imagine this to be somehow possible, how could it be true?" Because there is no evidence to support it.
(By the way, just found out that Shakespeare was also listed in 1603, well before his death, as one of "The Principall Trageodians" in Jonson's Sejanus. So, there's that point reasonably well established.)
posted by kyrademon at 7:47 AM on October 24, 2013 [6 favorites]
While he was alive: Richard Stonley, William Covell, Richard Barnfield, Francis Meres, Gabriel Harvey, John Weever, John Bodenham, Robert Allot, Francis Davison, Anthony Scoloker, John Cooke, William Camden, William Barksted, Edward Alleyn, John Harington, John Davies, William Drummond, John Webster, Leonard Digges, Richard Carew, Thomas Freeman, Edmund Howes, Thomas Porter, Francis Beaumont, Henry Willobie, and Henry Chettle. (There are also references by unknown or anonymous authors such as the authors of the Parnassus Plays.)
After he died: Edmund Bolton, John Taylor, William Basse, Ben Jonson, John Heminges, Henry Condell, Leonard Digges again, William Davenant, Richard Baker, Hugh Holland, James Mabbe, John Milton, Thomas Bancroft, John Benson, Thomas Heywood, and John Warren. (Again, there are also some references by unknown or anonymous authors.)
Admittedly, these references range the gamut from people writing a note saying, "I just bought a book by that Shakespeare guy" to extended, published, laudatory poems in praise of Shakespeare's brilliance -- although there are actually more of the latter than the former; not surprising since they're more likely to have survived.
But at any rate, we've already jumped from "practically nobody" to "rather a lot, actually" with a little bit of research. And logically, to prove Shakespeare didn't write his own work, you would have to prove that every single one of these 40+ people was either a dupe or a liar. And in fact, this is one of the main approaches taken by the anti-Stratfordians.
Of course, that's not sufficient. You would also, of course, need to demonstrate it about the people who were Shakespeare's writing collaborators (such as, to be extremely conservative about it, Wilkins, Middleton, and Fletcher.) And you'd also honestly have to demonstrate it about people like the printers and publishers who put out editions with Shakespeare's name on them (which looks like it would include, for example, Richard Field, John Harrison, Thomas Creede, Andrew Wise, William White, Cuthbert Burby, Valentine Simmes, Peter Short, Simon Staffort, Richard Bradocke, William Leake, Thomas Fisher, James Roberts, Thomas Hayes, William Aspley, Arthur Johnson, Nicholas Ling, John Trundell, Matthew Law, Nicholas Okes, Nathaniel Butter, Henry Gosson, William Stansby, John Smethwick ...)
And of course you would also need to demonstrate it about the people performing the plays with Shakespeare (for example, Richard Burbage, James Burbage, James Armin, William Kemp, John Lowin, Augustine Phillips, Thomas Pope, John Sincklo, William Sly, Joseph Taylor ...) And of course, Shakespeare himself. All of these people must be proven to be either dupes or frauds.
But let's say you do it. You can, somehow, plausibly demonstrate that every single one of these people either was a dupe or was in on a fraud. (I am, I will admit, discounting some other favorite tactics of anti-Stratfordians, such as claiming that when a printed Quarto used the name "Shake-speare" instead of "Shakespeare", it was indicating the name was a pseudonym because there's a hyphen there; I hope we can all agree that's silly?)
Anyway, you've somehow done it, for each and every one of the people listed above. You can show a plausible scenario in which either dozens and dozens of people were in on a conspiracy that nonetheless remained undiscovered for hundreds of years, or else that some master of plotting could have fooled not only total strangers but people who worked with, printed, published, acted in, and even CO-WROTE these plays.
Now that you've done that, here's the sum total of direct evidence for anyone other than Shakespeare taking on his role:
...
Nothing. Nada. Zip. There is no mention of "Marlowe's Richard III" anywhere. There is no diary entry saying "Saw dear Amelia's Midsummer Night's Dream - pity this can never be told." There is no accounting entry saying "Brought DeVere's mscpt. Tmpst to Burbage, r'cvd sixpence". Only by twisting meanings and inventing cryptograms can people come up with even a potential indirect implication. Think of that in comparison to everything listed above. NOTHING.
The hardest thing to explain to an Anti-Stratfordian is not that their research is bunk (it is), but that it doesn't even start from the place historical research has to start from to make sense. It begins with "if we imagine this to be somehow possible, how could it be true?" Because there is no evidence to support it.
(By the way, just found out that Shakespeare was also listed in 1603, well before his death, as one of "The Principall Trageodians" in Jonson's Sejanus. So, there's that point reasonably well established.)
posted by kyrademon at 7:47 AM on October 24, 2013 [6 favorites]
You would also, of course, need to demonstrate it about the people who were Shakespeare's writing collaborators
Not if they worked on manuscripts passed on to them. "Co-author" is a preferred term, for this very reason.
You can, somehow, plausibly demonstrate that every single one of these people either was a dupe or was in on a fraud.
Who is arguing they would have to be? You alone, it seems.
posted by iotic at 8:06 AM on October 24, 2013
Not if they worked on manuscripts passed on to them. "Co-author" is a preferred term, for this very reason.
You can, somehow, plausibly demonstrate that every single one of these people either was a dupe or was in on a fraud.
Who is arguing they would have to be? You alone, it seems.
posted by iotic at 8:06 AM on October 24, 2013
There is simply no point whatsoever engaging with iotic on this issue. His/her arguments have been systematically demolished on multiple occasions here on Metafilter. His/her claims have been shown repeatedly to be false and s/he has repeatedly had the facts about how much we do, in fact, know about Shakespeare pointed out. Iotic simply has no interest in actually learning anything at all about Shakespeare, about literary scholarship, about the weighing of historical evidence. Iotic has a conclusion, an unshakeable conclusion, and is interested solely in finding people who will agree with that conclusion. You are all being very kind in trying to free iotic of his/her errors, but you simply cannot reason someone out of a position they did not reason their way into.
posted by yoink at 8:12 AM on October 24, 2013 [5 favorites]
posted by yoink at 8:12 AM on October 24, 2013 [5 favorites]
Not if they worked on manuscripts passed on to them. "Co-author" is a preferred term, for this very reason.This isn't how early modern collaboration tended to work. Surviving historical evidence suggests it was very much a social practice, in which authors sat down together in the same room and, well, collaborated. Southbank taverns were apparently prime locations for this activity. Tiffany Stern's recently written quite a good chapter on the "scenes" and practices of early modern collaboration, which lays out the evidence rather well.
posted by Sonny Jim at 8:13 AM on October 24, 2013
I would, and that's interesting, thanks. But surely no one is arguing that all early modern co-authored writing must have been done this way? I'm sure I've seen arguments that Henry VII, and Timon of Athens both, we're likely to be partial works by Shakespeare completed by the coauthor. Indeed, the studies I've seen regarding Shakespeare's works which are believed to be co-authored generally break down into scenes penned by each, from what I've seen. There's no reason the writers would have to be in the same room for that.
posted by iotic at 8:21 AM on October 24, 2013
posted by iotic at 8:21 AM on October 24, 2013
... simply has no interest in actually learning anything at all about Shakespeare, about literary scholarship, about the weighing of historical evidence ...
More childish nonsense, and entirely unsupported by the way I have presented myself. I'll try to ignore such rubbish from now on and stick to the discussion of substance.
posted by iotic at 8:23 AM on October 24, 2013
More childish nonsense, and entirely unsupported by the way I have presented myself. I'll try to ignore such rubbish from now on and stick to the discussion of substance.
posted by iotic at 8:23 AM on October 24, 2013
Shall we move on to how the world is actually flat? Philosophers and poets believe it so it must be true and Kubrick was such a genius (if Kubrick really was Kubrick, let's explore that) that only he could successfully dupe most of us into believing the Moon isn't flat as well.
Then we can tackle the myth of climate change and the fact that not only is Elvis still alive but so to is Bruce Lee.
More childish nonsense, and entirely unsupported by the way I have presented myself. I'll try to ignore such rubbish from now on and stick to the discussion of substance.
A master of not doing what you're saying you're doing and accusing others of doing what you are.
posted by juiceCake at 8:25 AM on October 24, 2013
Then we can tackle the myth of climate change and the fact that not only is Elvis still alive but so to is Bruce Lee.
More childish nonsense, and entirely unsupported by the way I have presented myself. I'll try to ignore such rubbish from now on and stick to the discussion of substance.
A master of not doing what you're saying you're doing and accusing others of doing what you are.
posted by juiceCake at 8:25 AM on October 24, 2013
> "Not if they worked on manuscripts passed on to them."
That would be "a dupe" then, wouldn't it? I'd be very, very much surprised if you could demonstrate that was plausibly the case, but even if so it still fits the "must be a dupe or a liar" stricture.
> "Who is arguing they would have to be?"
... Logic? I mean if someone, for example, writes "Man, that play by Shakespeare was great", and Shakespeare did not write it, then either they have (1) been fooled into thinking that the play was by Shakespeare, or (2) they were in on the deception and are trying to further it. That would also apply to anyone who prints a play with Shakespeare's name on it, promotes a play with Shakespeare's name on it, or co-authors (if you prefer that term) a play with Shakespeare's name on it. Either they didn't know it was a deception, or they knew it was a deception. Those are, well, the only possible options if a deception actually happened at all.
So, if there is no plausible scenario under which each and every one of these many, many people either would (1) not have known about the deception, or (2) have had good reason to lie about the deception for their entire lives, the theory that it was a deception at all in the first place breaks down.
Isn't that basically what you were getting at with the whole "no definite proof that thus-and-so knew Shakespeare personally" thing? That they might have been deceived? And the whole "Jonson .... would probably have to be complicit" thing? That he would have to have been lying? That seemed to be most of your point in posting here, actually.
At any rate, I was trying to indicate that the number of people who need to be shown to be deceived or lying is actually vastly, vastly greater than you had believed. Orders of magnitude greater. Scads and scads of people, rather than the few isolated references you implied. Quite frankly, an implausibly greater number of people.
And even so, as I said, even demonstrating this highly implausible thing is not in and of itself sufficient to show that Shakespeare didn't write the plays. Necessary, but far from sufficient. And no one has come even remotely close to doing even that much.
posted by kyrademon at 8:39 AM on October 24, 2013 [1 favorite]
That would be "a dupe" then, wouldn't it? I'd be very, very much surprised if you could demonstrate that was plausibly the case, but even if so it still fits the "must be a dupe or a liar" stricture.
> "Who is arguing they would have to be?"
... Logic? I mean if someone, for example, writes "Man, that play by Shakespeare was great", and Shakespeare did not write it, then either they have (1) been fooled into thinking that the play was by Shakespeare, or (2) they were in on the deception and are trying to further it. That would also apply to anyone who prints a play with Shakespeare's name on it, promotes a play with Shakespeare's name on it, or co-authors (if you prefer that term) a play with Shakespeare's name on it. Either they didn't know it was a deception, or they knew it was a deception. Those are, well, the only possible options if a deception actually happened at all.
So, if there is no plausible scenario under which each and every one of these many, many people either would (1) not have known about the deception, or (2) have had good reason to lie about the deception for their entire lives, the theory that it was a deception at all in the first place breaks down.
Isn't that basically what you were getting at with the whole "no definite proof that thus-and-so knew Shakespeare personally" thing? That they might have been deceived? And the whole "Jonson .... would probably have to be complicit" thing? That he would have to have been lying? That seemed to be most of your point in posting here, actually.
At any rate, I was trying to indicate that the number of people who need to be shown to be deceived or lying is actually vastly, vastly greater than you had believed. Orders of magnitude greater. Scads and scads of people, rather than the few isolated references you implied. Quite frankly, an implausibly greater number of people.
And even so, as I said, even demonstrating this highly implausible thing is not in and of itself sufficient to show that Shakespeare didn't write the plays. Necessary, but far from sufficient. And no one has come even remotely close to doing even that much.
posted by kyrademon at 8:39 AM on October 24, 2013 [1 favorite]
Well yes, if you insist on saying everyone who took the name at face value must have been a "dupe" then obviously there would have to be plenty, through the ages. That's pretty obvious, if the authorship is in question. I don't see how that adds anything meaningful. Would you apply the same logic to Ian McLellan Hunter taking the oscar for Roman Holiday?
posted by iotic at 8:45 AM on October 24, 2013
posted by iotic at 8:45 AM on October 24, 2013
By the way, if anyone is wondering about how the estimable Marlowe scholar Peter Farey got into the game, and the rigorous scholarly training he had in the history of the period, here's his own account of the process:
posted by yoink at 8:53 AM on October 24, 2013 [2 favorites]
Not long after my demob I joined what was then B.O.A.C., and remained with them (and British Airways as we later became) for the next thirty years. I had a whole range of jobs in that time, some overseas, and finished up specialising in management training and development. This was of enormous benefit to me personally, teaching me many of the techniques of clear thinking, problem solving and decision making that have served me well ever since. The experience also allowed me to go on and get the M.A. degree that my earlier education had not provided, and to set up as an independent consultant when I took early retirement from B.A. in 1989.So, in a nutshell, someone with no expertise of any kind whatsoever in the field read a nutjob conspiracy theory piece, got hooked, and--like all other conspiracy theorists before and since--went looking for supporting evidence rather than dispassionately surveying all available evidence. One of the real hallmarks of the conspiracy theorist is this whole "but you can't disprove this hypothesis!" thing--we see iotic deploying it all the time--rooted in a complete misunderstanding of the nature of historical argument; there are few hypotheses so wild that we could definitively "disprove" them in that sense about anyone from the period. The historical record is too sketchy, too partial. You couldn't "disprove" the claim that Shakespeare wrote all of Marlowe's plays. You couldn't "disprove" a claim that William Cecil wrote Amelia Bassano's poems AND Marlowe's AND a few of Greene's. Not being able to "disprove" something is utterly uninteresting in historical argument. Without 24hr video surveillance, how would we ever "disprove" such idle speculations? So, I'm sure Peter Farey has fun, but his work is of precisely zero interest to actual scholars of the period.
For several years I had also specialised in the design and layout of airport terminals, both passenger and cargo, which involved a great deal of overseas travel. It was on a trip of this type to New York in the early sixties, in fact, that I happened to pick up a copy of Esquire magazine, noticing that it apparently contained an article about Christopher Marlowe.
This turned out to be by a man called Calvin Hoffman, and outlined a theory that Marlowe's death in 1593 had been faked, and that it was really Marlowe who had been responsible for the works we know of as Shakespeare's. It made a great story, but I assumed that a closer look at the facts would show it to be the rubbish that it clearly had to be.
Well, that was some forty-five years ago, and having looked at the facts as closely as anyone can have done since then, I still cannot refute the theory, and much that I have found strongly supports it. Although Calvin Hoffman's actual argument was deeply flawed, and those of others since him often not much better, I now find it far more likely that the basic theory is right than that it is not.
posted by yoink at 8:53 AM on October 24, 2013 [2 favorites]
> "Would you apply the same logic to Ian McLellan Hunter taking the oscar for Roman Holiday?"
Uh ... yes, obviously? Everyone who worked on that movie either had to know it was actually Trumbo or had to have been deceived?
You realize that for Shakespeare you're not talking about one play, but about thirty-six plays and more than 150 poems written and produced over a period of about 25 years? And that many of the people I listed weren't just any old people who wandered in to see a Shakespeare play, but people who were intimately involved in the writing, production, promotion, printing, and publishing of those plays?
posted by kyrademon at 8:57 AM on October 24, 2013
Uh ... yes, obviously? Everyone who worked on that movie either had to know it was actually Trumbo or had to have been deceived?
You realize that for Shakespeare you're not talking about one play, but about thirty-six plays and more than 150 poems written and produced over a period of about 25 years? And that many of the people I listed weren't just any old people who wandered in to see a Shakespeare play, but people who were intimately involved in the writing, production, promotion, printing, and publishing of those plays?
posted by kyrademon at 8:57 AM on October 24, 2013
Uh ... yes, obviously? Everyone who worked on that movie either had to know it was actually Trumbo or had to have been deceived?
And yet, it happened. Not only everyone who worked on it, but everyone who saw it or heard about it etc etc for the many years before the truth was revealed. And that in a time of much greater communication and arguably freedom of expression than there was in Shakespeare's day. By your definition of "duped", that's a lot of people.
Ergo, it's entirely possible, despite your attempts to prove otherwise.
posted by iotic at 9:20 AM on October 24, 2013
And yet, it happened. Not only everyone who worked on it, but everyone who saw it or heard about it etc etc for the many years before the truth was revealed. And that in a time of much greater communication and arguably freedom of expression than there was in Shakespeare's day. By your definition of "duped", that's a lot of people.
Ergo, it's entirely possible, despite your attempts to prove otherwise.
posted by iotic at 9:20 AM on October 24, 2013
If you think I was attempting to prove it was "not possible", you have, quite literally, not understood a single thing I have written.
Bye, iotic. Have a nice life.
posted by kyrademon at 9:28 AM on October 24, 2013 [1 favorite]
Bye, iotic. Have a nice life.
posted by kyrademon at 9:28 AM on October 24, 2013 [1 favorite]
On the plus side to all this, I've now learned an awful lot about the background to early modern English literature and drama (kyrademon, I think I owe you some tuition fees...) and about how shoddy the non-Shakesperian stuff actually is.
Incidentally, if anyone wants to see a real humdinger of a bunch of experts trying and totally failing to make any headway against an, er, differently-logic'd individual take a peek at this thread on the Panda's Thumb evolution v creationism board. Nearly a year old and more than 250 pages long, it is an object lesson in pig-wrestling.
posted by Devonian at 9:30 AM on October 24, 2013 [2 favorites]
Incidentally, if anyone wants to see a real humdinger of a bunch of experts trying and totally failing to make any headway against an, er, differently-logic'd individual take a peek at this thread on the Panda's Thumb evolution v creationism board. Nearly a year old and more than 250 pages long, it is an object lesson in pig-wrestling.
posted by Devonian at 9:30 AM on October 24, 2013 [2 favorites]
If you think I was attempting to prove it was "not possible", you have, quite literally, not understood a single thing I have written.
Bye, iotic. Have a nice life.
Nice logic there. Bye kyrademon. Hope you get better at sticking around when your arguments fail.
posted by iotic at 9:35 AM on October 24, 2013
Bye, iotic. Have a nice life.
Nice logic there. Bye kyrademon. Hope you get better at sticking around when your arguments fail.
posted by iotic at 9:35 AM on October 24, 2013
Hey, winner, here's a gold star. Happy now?
posted by octobersurprise at 9:42 AM on October 24, 2013
posted by octobersurprise at 9:42 AM on October 24, 2013
No. I haven't won anything. And a correction: kyrademon was trying to argue persuasively, not prove, his or her case. I provided a counterexample.
posted by iotic at 9:48 AM on October 24, 2013
posted by iotic at 9:48 AM on October 24, 2013
yoink -
I'm sure Peter Farey has fun, but his work is of precisely zero interest to actual scholars of the period.
That's simply untrue, as noted above.
posted by iotic at 9:51 AM on October 24, 2013
I'm sure Peter Farey has fun, but his work is of precisely zero interest to actual scholars of the period.
That's simply untrue, as noted above.
posted by iotic at 9:51 AM on October 24, 2013
iotic.
(Deep breath.)
I'm sorry I got snarky there. It was uncalled for.
I think -- and still feel -- that you misinterpreted what I was trying to say in my last few posts. I felt very frustrated.
But that does not mean I had to be uncivil about it.
My apologies.
posted by kyrademon at 10:16 AM on October 24, 2013 [2 favorites]
(Deep breath.)
I'm sorry I got snarky there. It was uncalled for.
I think -- and still feel -- that you misinterpreted what I was trying to say in my last few posts. I felt very frustrated.
But that does not mean I had to be uncivil about it.
My apologies.
posted by kyrademon at 10:16 AM on October 24, 2013 [2 favorites]
Mod note: Folks, please make sure this is wrapped up at this point or take stuff to MeMail if it's not?
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 10:19 AM on October 24, 2013
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 10:19 AM on October 24, 2013
Many thanks kyrademon, I admire the guts that takes, and honestly I do respect the patience and knowledge you have brought to this conversation.
I would also like to apologise for being snarky, in response.
posted by iotic at 10:23 AM on October 24, 2013
I would also like to apologise for being snarky, in response.
posted by iotic at 10:23 AM on October 24, 2013
Nice logic there
You can argue what you like, but please don't bring logic into it. You've hit so many fallacies in this thread (including the wonderfully weird use of Argument to Authority using people who turn out to be no authorities at all with even the smallest bit of research) that anyone other than a troll would be ashamed to claim Logic as his cornerman at this point.
posted by yerfatma at 10:24 AM on October 24, 2013 [5 favorites]
You can argue what you like, but please don't bring logic into it. You've hit so many fallacies in this thread (including the wonderfully weird use of Argument to Authority using people who turn out to be no authorities at all with even the smallest bit of research) that anyone other than a troll would be ashamed to claim Logic as his cornerman at this point.
posted by yerfatma at 10:24 AM on October 24, 2013 [5 favorites]
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posted by dis_integration at 6:45 PM on October 22, 2013 [47 favorites]