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Topic: OT: Candidates For Shakespeare Authorship (Topic Closed Topic Closed) Post ReplyPost New Topic
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J W Campbell
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Posted: 08 September 2015 at 8:25am | IP Logged | 1  

 John Byrne wrote:
In the end, it IS possible to create Shakespeare from Shaksper, but it takes Olympian effort, and seems rather pointless when, in DeVere, we have a candidate who comes already equipped with all the necessary parts, no effort required.

Isn't a certain amount of hand-waving required to account for De Vere's date of death and the Shakespeare works which post-date it?

It's also slightly mystifying why he would choose to present his finest works via the semi-fictional "Shakespeare" construction when he was apparently noted as both a poet and a playwright in his own right.

Don't get me wrong — I'm not saying the De Vere argument isn't persuasive… it is. I'm just not persuaded.

Occam's razor, for me, points fairly directly to the man who was an actor in the company that performed Shakespeare's plays, was part-owner of the theatre in which those plays were performed, and is identified as the author of those plays.
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John Byrne
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Posted: 08 September 2015 at 8:35am | IP Logged | 2  

Isn't a certain amount of hand-waving required to account for De Vere's date of death and the Shakespeare works which post-date it?

••

No more than for the works that post-date the death of the Stratford Man. (Remembering that the dates in question refer only to first PERFORMANCES. We have no idea when the plays were WRITTEN.)

+++

It's also slightly mystifying why he would choose to present his finest works via the semi-fictional "Shakespeare" construction when he was apparently noted as both a poet and a playwright in his own right.

••

Mystifying if we assume DeVere was in on it. But if it was happening without his blessing -- which he could not give, because of his postion in Court -- it all makes sense.

+++

Occam's razor, for me, points fairly directly to the man who was an actor in the company that performed Shakespeare's plays, was part-owner of the theatre in which those plays were performed, and is identified as the author of those plays.

••

But who. . .

• Was not identified as an actor in those plays until years after his death

• Was not identified with the Author until, again, years after his death.

The second one is the hardest to swallow. Jonson, Marlowe, Kidd, Lyly, Bacon, and even DeVere were acknowledged as playwrights during their lifetimes. DeVere was hailed as "the best for comedy" at the same time Shakespeare was writing. DeVere's name tops a list of the greatest poets of the Elizabethan Age, a list upon which Shakespeare is not even mentioned.

The Stratford man had no known literary life, Shakespeare has ONLY a literary life. If we marry the two -- with no direct evidence to support such a marriage -- we end up with the Shakespeare we know. But if we take ONLY what is actually known, we end up with two people who seem to have no connection.

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Joseph Greathouse
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Posted: 08 September 2015 at 8:52am | IP Logged | 3  

I do get how some are convinced that Shakespere isn't Shakespere.  I haven't heard a convincing argument, personally. But I do find the conspiracy theory intriguing enough.  Does anyone have any good and objective sites/articles that would be a worthwhile start to look over? 
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John Byrne
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Posted: 08 September 2015 at 8:59am | IP Logged | 4  

I do get how some are convinced that Shakespere isn't Shakespere. I haven't heard a convincing argument, personally. But I do find the conspiracy theory intriguing enough. Does anyone have any good and objective sites/articles that would be a worthwhile start to look over?

•••

Skipped the whole thread, did you?

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J W Campbell
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Posted: 08 September 2015 at 9:02am | IP Logged | 5  

 John Byrne wrote:
The Stratford man had no known literary life, Shakespeare has ONLY a literary life. If we marry the two -- with no direct evidence to support such a marriage -- we end up with the Shakespeare we know. But if we take ONLY what is actually known, we end up with two people who seem to have no connection.

But this requires us to disregard the fact that he is identified as the author of these works, not least by the pre-eminent literary figure of his age.

I shall take my leave at this point, since this is a step too far for me. Please accept my thanks for taking the time to explain elements of the Oxfordian position clearly and at length. I don't think, at this point, there's anything more than frustration on offer from knocking our viewpoints together, and I suspect neither of our blood pressures would find that beneficial.

As I say: persuasive but, for me, not quite persuasive enough. My thanks, again.


Edited by J W Campbell on 08 September 2015 at 9:02am
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John Byrne
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Posted: 08 September 2015 at 9:18am | IP Logged | 6  

John Byrne wrote:The Stratford man had no known literary life, Shakespeare has ONLY a literary life. If we marry the two -- with no direct evidence to support such a marriage -- we end up with the Shakespeare we know. But if we take ONLY what is actually known, we end up with two people who seem to have no connection.

•••

But this requires us to disregard the fact that he is identified as the author of these works, not least by the pre-eminent literary figure of his age.

+++

Nothing is "disregarded," at least not by Oxfordians.

I assume your reference is to Ben Jonson, and his sudden adulation of Shakespeare after years of near silence -- silence broken only by negative commentary until all concerned were dead. At that point Jonson becomes deeply involved in the burgeoning cottage industry that is Shakespeare. He writes two introductory verses for the First Folio, and possibly the letter signed by Others

In one verse he dismisses the portrait (not from life) that decorates the first page, and in the second he makes reference to the river Avon. In another poem, Leonard Digges makes reference to Stratford. For supporters of Will Shaksper the equation is complete. Avon + Stratford + Shakespeare = Will Shaksper of Stratford-on-Avon.

But the connection is not made clearly and directly. Nowhere does ANYONE simply say "William Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon." Perhaps "Honest Ben Jonson" was avoiding a deliberate falsehood. And, of course, there was and is a theatrical district in London called Stratford, and Edward DeVere owned property on the banks of the Avon.

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J W Campbell
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Posted: 08 September 2015 at 9:32am | IP Logged | 7  

As I said… I'm not going to trash this out any further. I understand that you're persuaded, JB, and I acknowledge that the argument is persuasive.

On the other hand, whilst not an expert on Shakespeare, I'm comfortable in asserting that if you lined up any random assemblage of people in ascending order of their knowledge of Shakespeare (and Elizabethan and Jacobean literature) then I'd stand comfortably on the 'expert' side of the median line, so I'm not adopting my position from ignorance.

You may be right, I'm just not convinced.
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John Byrne
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Posted: 08 September 2015 at 9:43am | IP Logged | 8  

As I said… I'm not going to trash this out any further.

••

This must be some new meaning of "take my leave" with which I was not previously familiar.

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Robbie Parry
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Posted: 08 September 2015 at 9:56am | IP Logged | 9  

I do get how some are convinced that Shakespere isn't Shakespere.  I haven't heard a convincing argument, personally. But I do find the conspiracy theory intriguing enough.  Does anyone have any good and objective sites/articles that would be a worthwhile start to look over?

***

:/

I posted three links in my initial topic. No offence, but did you read my initial post? Those three links pertain to three candidates - but click on the home page from those links and you will be directed to more.
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Michael Penn
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Posted: 08 September 2015 at 10:13am | IP Logged | 10  

Avon + Stratford + Shakespeare = Will Shaksper of Stratford-on-Avon.

***

As far as I can see, those THREE WORDS are the ultimate basis of the case for Stratford Will. But the only way even they actually, actively MAKE the case is if you add that Shaksper was one of the greatest literary geniuses of the human species. I think that the work backs that up, but the problem remains because you'd be positing Shaksper was a genius in as much as the work shows genius, yet nothing else but the work shows that Shaksper was a genius, and you still can't tell us anything, not a single demonstrable fact, about how, where, when, why Shaksper wrote the work.

Truth is stranger than fiction, the saying goes, and there's wisdom and truth in it, but even Stratfordians should admit that's really what HAS to be if Shaksper was Shakespeare, in my opinion. 

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John Byrne
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Posted: 08 September 2015 at 10:45am | IP Logged | 11  

Stratfordians are more than willing to invoke miracles to explain the prodigious talents of their man. He sprang onto the stage -- literally! -- fully formed, with no discoverable education, no apprenticeship, no travel, in short no experience of the life and world about which he wrote.

And when miracles still leave some gaps, they happily invoke plagiarism. Their man was copying from the works of others. (Perhaps true, if the "upstart crow" was Shaksper and not Shakespeare.)

Then, on the other hand, we have DeVere, who requires no miracles at all!

(Some Stratfordians curl their lip at DeVere, stating that his surviving works bear no resemblance to Shakespeare, and are, in fact, much inferior. They do this, however, without explaining all the praise directed toward DeVere in his lifetime. Praise which, as noted, included being called the best for comedy.)

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Joseph Greathouse
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Posted: 08 September 2015 at 11:47am | IP Logged | 12  

"Skipped the whole thread, did you?"

Sorry if I was unclear.  I'm a novice. Some of the clicks I made seemed to suggest a required amount of knowledge going in and some others seemed rather determined on their decision. This seemed true from each side of the coin. I was just looking for a basic starting point is all.    
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