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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132343
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| Posted: 24 April 2019 at 12:27pm | IP Logged | 1
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Steven, you grow tiresome. As is so often the case with Stratfordians, you start with an unsupported assumption and build from there. References to “Shakespeare” are in no way proof that he was Shaksper. Again, this is the fallback. Same name, must be the same man. But, as noted, NOT the same name. (In my own life I have been confused with three other artists named John Byrne, two from Great Britain, one even from Calgary! And “William Shakespeare” is not so uncommon a name as you seem to think.)Try to find a reference to the Stratford Man AS Shakespeare that predates Jonson’s mythmaking. And remember that “outing” De Vere as someone whose plays were preformed strictly for the Court is/was very different from showing him to be allowing them into public theaters. (If “allow” is even the right word. He could not protest, after all, without claiming the plays as his own.)
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Steven Brake
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 01 January 2016
Posts: 562
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| Posted: 24 April 2019 at 1:24pm | IP Logged | 2
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@Mark:
There's a difference between conflating characters or compressing history for narrative simplicity, and misunderstanding history.
Shakespeare, or "Shakespeare", didn't understand that the Edmund Mortimer who was Richard II's appointed heir and the Edmund Mortimer who rebelled against Henry IV were two different people.
He didn't understand in Henry IV that the Earl of Warwick was a member of the Beaumont family, rather than the Neville's.
He didn't understand in Richard III that one man with three titles was a single personage, rather than three different people (this one is bugging me - I think it's confusion over Earl Rivers, Grey and Vaughan. I can provide more details if requested!).
There are other such mistakes, and I've cited some of them above. A member of the nobility could never have made these, particularly the ones related to English noble families.
@JB:The examples I've noted from Meres, Buc, the Parnassus Plays, Webster and Beaumont ALL pre-date Jonson's commendatory verse and later snide private remarks. I suppose you could add to the mix Greene's jibe at "Shake-scene" in his Groatsworth of Wit, published in 1592, and which complains about the uneducated actor who presumes to think he can write as well as those who went to university.
Heminges & Condell spent years trying to find as many copies of the plays as possible, and obviously honestly believed that the William Shakespeare they knew was the author of them. If the Warwickshire lad wasn't the author, he must have been a damn fine actor!
This is obviously a contentious issue, and I don't think we're going to persuade one another to join our respective camps. I'm pretty much happy to let this drop, although, obviously, if either of you, or any other member of the JBF, posts anything, taking either position, I'd be interested to read it.
Edited by Steven Brake on 24 April 2019 at 1:37pm
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Brian Floyd
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 07 July 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 8365
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| Posted: 24 April 2019 at 1:26pm | IP Logged | 3
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I've tried to read some of the books mentioned in the old thread, but sadly the library system here is lacking.
Have acquired a used copy of James Shapiro's CONTESTED WILL - WHO WROTE SHAKESPEARE?, but I've yet to crack it open.
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Steven Brake
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 01 January 2016
Posts: 562
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| Posted: 24 April 2019 at 1:30pm | IP Logged | 4
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@Brian Floyd:
Blimey, I'm posting again already! :)
You might want to get a copy of Who Wrote Shakespeare by John Michell, which gives a nice overview of the authorship question, and discusses a range of candidates. If memory serves, Michell tends towards a Baconian position.
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Mark Haslett
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 6112
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| Posted: 24 April 2019 at 6:05pm | IP Logged | 5
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Steven: A member of the nobility could never have made these, particularly
the ones related to English noble families.
**
I find such a sweeping generalization suspect on its face. Having written a lot, I
have been advised more than once to "never let the facts get in the way of a
good story." On the other hand, this contention of yours seems more or less
reasonable. I can't be persuaded until I look more into it.
Is this what you find to be the most persuasive evidence against De Vere?
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Ted Pugliese
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 05 December 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 7979
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| Posted: 24 April 2019 at 6:25pm | IP Logged | 6
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So I used to teach with a guy named Jim. Jim was
pretty smart. Used to be a political lawyer in DC
before 'taking it easy' in the English classroom.
When I first heard JB talk about this, years ago, I
asked Jim about it. He knew all about De Vere, and
quickly laughed it off, clearly placing himself in the
Stratford camp.
Then when I met JB, or maybe the second time, I asked
him about this and he gave me a book, "Shakespeare:
Who Was He? The Oxford Challenge to the Bard of Avon"
by Richard F. Whalen. I read it and found myself
convinced by the argument presented.
Now when I see a debate like this, similar to a
biblical one, I find myself cutting through the tape
and wondering if those involved simply know both
sides. Like instead of making your case, do you
already know the case, and knowing the cases, you have
taken a side. If so, then great. Acknowledge that
and get down to the crux of it.
If you know both sides, why did you take the side you
have taken? Is there something that did it for you,
or do you simply subscribe to the balancing test, with
the scales leaning more toward one side? That's what
I want to hear.
You guys, and Mike Penn as usual, seems to know what
you're talking about, so what is it? Do you know both
sides? Is there a specific reason or two for your
position, or do the scales simply tip that way for you
given the weight of the evidence on both sides?
That's what I want to hear, because right now, I'm
going with JB and this book, which he kindly
personalized for me (thanks again, JB).
In closing, I say the best positions are those which
are taken after knowing BOTH SIDES and making a
decision, not just accepting one. #CriticalThinking
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Ted Pugliese
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 05 December 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 7979
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| Posted: 24 April 2019 at 6:34pm | IP Logged | 7
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In re-reading this (above) I hope I'm coming off the
right way. No one should read anything or any tone into
any of it. I guess I am asking how familiar Steven
Brake(speare)* is with the Oxford Challenge, and if you
are familiar, Steven, why do you maintain the position
you do?
And John, knowing you are familiar with both sides,
what would you say is your biggest reason or two for
siding with De Vere? If you do not mind?
*Friendly pun, I assure you.
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Michael Penn
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 April 2006
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| Posted: 25 April 2019 at 7:17am | IP Logged | 8
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QUOTE:
| You guys, and Mike Penn as usual, seems to know what you're talking about, so what is it? Do you know both sides? |
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I'm a law professor, so everything legal in Shakespeare screams out to me, whether right or wrong, as showing an author intimately familiar with the law. I also have an MA in English & Comparative Lit (from Columbia, studying under one of the great Shakespeare scholars, David Kastan), so I might know some things but also probably seem to know more than I do -- admittedly!
I'm not an Oxfordian. The best pro-Oxford books, in my opinion, are Looney's and Ogburn's tome (although Whalen's is a good introduction). Most of the others I've read don't add much. I've yet to be convinced that Oxford was Shakespeare. The best doubting book by far is by Diana Price.
Since first reading Shakespeare, I noted that his work veered constantly toward the nobility, and I've never been disabused of that notion. It's a position that is not, based on what we know about Will Shaksper, easily reconcilable to the facts.
To be clearer, nothing about the factual Shaksper as Shakespeare is impossibly reconcilable. But nothing regarding the factual Shaksper is easily reconcilable to his being the Author.
So, I am agnostic about the authorship question.
If Will Shaksper was Shakespeare, then that "was" is far more complex than the factual record can ever hope to explain. My bias is Stratfordian because that's been my entire education -- I 'fess up to that, completely.
But, as a lawyer, I constantly suspect how an ostensibly complete persuasive story can be made up from bits of evidence, and that's what I've found in every Shakespeare biography I've ever read, without exception. I think it's absolutely crucial to point out every instance of a "Stratfordian-stretch," if for nothing else than to be honest.
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Ted Pugliese
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 05 December 2005
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| Posted: 25 April 2019 at 7:25am | IP Logged | 9
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Thanks, Michael. That's the kind of 'answer' I was
talking about.
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Mark Haslett
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 April 2004
Location: United States
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| Posted: 25 April 2019 at 12:28pm | IP Logged | 10
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Interesting Michael. I came to this forum with no inkling that the authorship
question had any merits. But JB's interest got me to look closer through
articles and arguments posted online at various pro-Stratford and pro-
Oxford sites. I have maintained an amateur status, posting in these threads
to get answers to the things about this question that interest me and (I
hope) stem from the conversations that are already on-going. There are
people who post here who seem to have extreme knowledge on this
subject.
I write for a living and, coming from that bias, I find the evidence for "the
Stratford man" is disturbingly weak. I find the case for De Vere fascinating
and compelling.
There was a very long thread here awhile ago where Michael posed an issue
I couldn't get past in support of Stratford-- and it left me stuck in the
middle with him.
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Steven Brake
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 01 January 2016
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| Posted: 25 April 2019 at 12:42pm | IP Logged | 11
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@Mark:
"Never let the facts get in the way of a good story" isn't a bad principle, but to a classically educated writer in the Elizabethan or Jacobean period, adherence to form, and the principle of unity of time, place and action, was paramount. Shakespeare, or "Shakespeare", pretty much constantly violates in his plays, with the sole exception of The Tempest.
As I've noted before, Jonson prided himself on his classical learning, and publicly teased, and privately scorned, Shakespeare for the dearth of his, jibing in his table talk to Drummond about the "ridiculous" lines that Shakespeare gave to Julius Caesar. Shakespeare, of course, has had the last laugh - who can forget "Et Tu Brute", or "Friends, Romans, Countrymen", and how many people can quote from Jonson's Sejanus? - but this sense of form and structure held sway in his period, and for some time after; hence, as I've also posted above, the preference of the English Augustans for Jonson over Shakespeare.
As I've posted above, Shakespeare, or "Shakespeare", makes repeated and numerous mistakes when it comes to the English nobility - who succeeds who, what family holds what title - that it's impossible, or very difficult, to reconcile with him being De Vere, or any member of the nobility, whose position in society was dependant upon their pedigree, and which they were extremely aware of.
Perhaps the most basic and damning argument is De Vere's death in 1604, and the continued production and publication of new Shakespeare plays. The argument is that we don't know when the plays were written, only when they were performed, but this doesn't hold much water.
Works of art don't exist in isolation, but respond to external pressures - current affairs, and, perhaps even more importantly, other artists - what Bloom called "the anxiety of influence". Certain works can only be produced at a certain time - Buddy Holly couldn't have written "Sergeant Pepper" in 1959, even though he was a huge influence on The Beatles. The Summer of Love has to fail, or be seen to fail, to have the anger of punk. The Marvel Age of Comics needs DC's square-jawed heroes to exist first in order to react against.
Shakespeare's plays, as first performed and registered, tonally match what's going on around him at the time; the exuberance of the early history plays, written in the flush of England's triumph over the Spanish Armada; the increasing concern in them as an ever-aging Elizabeth refuses to confirm her successor and the fears over who will rule; the increasing gloom of the Jacobean period. If De Vere was the author, he somehow managed to forget or mis-remember history, particularly the English political history upon which his status rested, while at the same time divining the future with supernatural accuracy.
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Steven Brake
Byrne Robotics Member
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| Posted: 25 April 2019 at 12:49pm | IP Logged | 12
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@Ted@
Firstly, no offence over being called "Brake(speare)" - I rather like it! It's also the name of the only English pope.
I'm reasonably familiar with the Oxford Challenge, and indeed the Marlovian and Baconian positions. If I were forced to plump for an alternative author, I would probably pick Marlowe, perhaps arguing that he faked his death - the position taken in Calvin Hoffman's book The Murder Of The Man Who Was Shakespeare. It is broadly accepted that Marlowe was the co-author of the Henry VI plays and Richard III, so it's not a massive leap - and there is that odd allusion to Marlowe's death in "As You Like It".
My support for William Shakespeare being William Shakespeare is essentially Occam's Razor - alternative candidates require far too many coincidences or conspiracies to make them work (and yes, I know that Marlow faking his death falls into the latter camp!:))
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