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Michael Penn
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| Posted: 29 July 2012 at 3:58pm | IP Logged | 1
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When one side posits that dozens and dozens and dozens etc. of sources constitute evidence that Shakspere was incontrovertibly Shakespeare while the other side avers that that very same wealth of sources in its entirety amounts to ZERO evidence, this dispute can't be only a matter of alternative interpretive models.
My "Shake-speare" sense is tingling! Facts must be being fudged, nu...?!
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Glen Keith
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| Posted: 29 July 2012 at 4:29pm | IP Logged | 2
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Actually, Michael, it really does come down to "alternative interpretive models". One side sees the name William Shakespeare, and it's variant spellings, as referring to William Shakespeare of Stratford. The other sees those same references as referring to somebody else. Both sides accept that those sources exist, they simply interpret them differently.
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Glen Keith
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| Posted: 29 July 2012 at 4:39pm | IP Logged | 3
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"But don't you think that all partisans of fringe theories say something like that?"
====================
I once had a discussion with a 9-11 truther who was telling me his belief was legitimate because his side published a peer-reviewed journal. When I pointed out that such beliefs as cryptozoology, UFOs, and other fringe beliefs do as well, he replied that 9-11 trutherism was different because it didn't involve the supernatural. Of course, this missed my whole argument, which was that a scholarly patina does not validate a fringe belief.
In my experience, when it comes to questions about their point of view, true believers can never see the forest for the trees.
Edited by Glen Keith on 30 July 2012 at 4:25am
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Michael Penn
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| Posted: 29 July 2012 at 4:56pm | IP Logged | 4
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A quick perusal of those arguing for or against Shakspere immediately reveals both sides accuse the other of unfaithfulness to fact. There is not a singular core of mutually accepted evidence that each side then proceeds to interpret differently. Instead, each side defines the very evidence itself differently. Ask a Stratfordian and then ask an Oxfordian what hyphenation in a name means....!
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Glen Keith
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| Posted: 29 July 2012 at 6:35pm | IP Logged | 5
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All that's true, Michael, but it really doesn't mean anything. Ask a truther, a birther, a moon hoaxer, a Kennedy conspiracy theorist, Young Earth Creationist, etc. the interpretation of their facts and they will be just as at odds with what is considered the truth as between Shakespearean and Oxenfordian. This doesn't mean that the opposing view is actually valid, or has anything to constructively contribute to the study of facts. It also doesn't mean that the defenders of "orthodoxy" are a bunch of ossified old men who are desperately struggling to maintain power over their discipline.
Edited by Glen Keith on 29 July 2012 at 6:35pm
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Doug Campbell
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| Posted: 29 July 2012 at 9:21pm | IP Logged | 6
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Michael: A quick perusal of those arguing for or against Shakspere immediately reveals both sides accuse the other of unfaithfulness to fact. There is not a singular core of mutually accepted evidence that each side then proceeds to interpret differently. Instead, each side defines the very evidence itself differently. Ask a Stratfordian and then ask an Oxfordian what hyphenation in a name means....!
I don't know whether I agree. Both sides acknowledge, for example, that the name "William Shake-speare" appears on the title page of Richard III from 1598. After all, there are still a few copies of the second quarto in existence, so one could actually verify that with one's one eyes. I believe the dispute is over whether that name refers to Shakespeare the player from Stratford, or constitutes some sort of freakishly coincidental pseudonym for Oxford or something like that. That fact that Shakespeare's name is all over the plays and poems, however, isn't really contested.
Perhaps, though, I am underestimating the depth of the dispute. I suppose anybody who contests the brute reality of letters upon the page must by definition be "fudging the facts."
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Mark Haslett
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| Posted: 29 July 2012 at 11:13pm | IP Logged | 7
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Doug: That fact that Shakespeare's name is all over the plays and poems, however, isn't really contested.
Perhaps, though, I am underestimating the depth of the dispute. I suppose anybody who contests the brute reality of letters upon the page must by definition be "fudging the facts."
**
I think you have to define "all over" when you say "all over the plays and poems".
The authorship question rests on the idea that the plays were circulated without clear attribution and then, at some point, became connected to the name Shakespeare.
If this is so, and if Shakespeare was a man who was taken to court for stealing the work of others, isn't it possible that his name is connected to these plays and poems in a way that doesn't necessitate authorship?
The "Fudging the facts" here could be in the presentation of these connections between the works and the name "Shakespeare" as something they are not (for example, holding them as evidence of authorship when they don't actually prove authorship).
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Michael Penn
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| Posted: 30 July 2012 at 4:25am | IP Logged | 8
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In the New Testament Jesus is said to have brothers and sisters. Some churches say they are Joseph's children from a prior marriage. Some say they are Jesus' cousins. Some say they are the later children of Mary and Joseph. In doing so they apply alternative interpretive models. But then some OTHER groups come along and say these brothers and sisters are what they are, Jesus' full blood siblings from both his parents, and he is not divine and he is not the son of God and he is ultimately almost nothing that Christian mythology has said he is. THAT is what the Oxfordians are saying. So much of the subject matter of the Authorship Question can be a matter of "legitimate" dispute between true blue Stratfordians. But then the Oxfordians come along and say the FACTS (including the lack thereof) destroy the entire Stratfordian universe.
The Oxfordian position is positively Copernican!
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Doug Campbell
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| Posted: 30 July 2012 at 4:47am | IP Logged | 9
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But Mark, presumably there is at least agreement that Shakespeare's name is in fact the only one which appears on the title pages of the plays and poems, however one might want to interpret the significance of those appearances.
To assert, however, that "Shakespeare was a man who was taken to court for stealing the work of others" would be full on fact fudgery to the best of my knowledge. There are records of him being taken to court for not paying taxes and for hoarding malt, and of him taking others to court over non-payment of debts, but as far as I know nothing of the sort to which you allude.
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Doug Campbell
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| Posted: 30 July 2012 at 4:53am | IP Logged | 10
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Even Copernicus' position was based upon the same astronomical evidence available to everyone at the time Michael. It was simply a matter of how bestvto explain the apparent motion of the planets through the night sky. Same evidence, different paradigms.
I really want to believe the Shakespeareans and Oxfordians do not live in such different universes that there cannot at least be basic agreement on the raw facts of the documents themselves, even if we feel free to lay in with shivs and cudgels about their meaning.
As I said, though, perhaps I am wrong.
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Michael Penn
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| Posted: 30 July 2012 at 5:54am | IP Logged | 11
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If you are a Stratfordian, an Oxfordian avers that virtually everything you think you know about Shakespeare is wrong. And wrong for a reason:
“I am… haunted by the conviction that the divine William is the biggest and most successful fraud ever practiced on a patient world.” -- Henry James
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Doug Campbell
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| Posted: 30 July 2012 at 10:17am | IP Logged | 12
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Michael, I confess that your point has eluded me. Please clarify.
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