| Posted: 30 January 2021 at 12:34pm | IP Logged | 4
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@Rebecca "The beard of Avon" did make me laugh! :)
However:
In 1603, the royal patent confirms the creation of The King's Men. William Shakespeare, with the name spelt exactly that way, is second on the list which includes Richard Burbage (spelled that way), John Hemmings (or that how it looks it's spelt on the patent) and Henry Condill (again, that's how it looks it's spelt).
The King's Men perform plays ascribed to Shakespeare in the First Folio.
In the will of Will Shakspeare (for that's how his name is spelt in it) of Stratford-Upon-Avon, he leaves small bequests to Burbage, Heminges and Condell. I have to admit I'm having massive problems reading the spelling on the images of the will that I've seen, so the spelling may not be exact.
The First Folio, collecting the plays performed by The King's Men - and many never published before - is published commemorating the memory of William Shakespeare (which is how it's spelt). In their introduction, Heminges and Condell say that they created the Folio "onely to keepe the memory of so worthy a Friend, & Fellow alive, as was our S H A K E S P E A R E" (which, again, is how it's spelt).
This means:
1) Will of Stratford is the Will named in the royal patent. After he died, Heminges and Condell collected as many of his plays as he could to commemorate his memory.
2) Will of Stratford is the Will named in the royal patent. However, he wasn't the playwright he claimed to be. Not realising this, Heminges and Condell collected as many of his plays as he could to mistakenly commemorate his memory.
3) Will of Stratford is the Will named in the royal patent. However, he wasn't the playwright he claimed to be. Fully aware of this, Heminges and Condell collected as many of his plays as he could to maintain the fiction that he had written them.
4) The will was faked at some point to give the illusion that Will of Stratford had known Burbage, Heminges and Condell.
5) Will of Stratford and the Will in the royal patent aren't the same person at all, and the Burbage, Heminges and Condell in Stratford's will and the Burbage, Heminges and Condell in the royal patent are likewise not the same people, and it's just a massive case of mistaken identity.
Taking these points in sequence:
1) Will of Stratford was the author.
2) Heminges and Condell knew Will of Stratford for years, even before The King's Men were formed. Could he really have fooled them so thoroughly throughout the years that he'd known them that they'd spend years after his death trying to preserve his legacy for posterity?
3) As per point 4, not impossible - but why? Why did Heminges and Condell spend years trying to maintain a lie? Who compelled or paid them to do this? What benefit did they gain by doing so?
4) Possible, but it begs the question of who did this. And why go to such lengths to maintain the fiction?
5) Can't be true. Or the odds must run to millions, perhaps billions, to one.
Shakespeare must have been literate, in order to have successfully faked literary genius to people who knew him for years. OR there was deliberate contrivance on the part of those who'd known him for years to make it seem like he was the author. Either way, the argument that someone else used the pseudonym William Shakespeare and by horrible coincidence it got mixed up with an illiterate rustic with a similar sounding name simply cannot be true.
So - William Shakespeare of Stratford-Upon-Avon was the author, or at least co-author, of the plays ascribed to him.
Occam's Razor shaves the beard! :)
Edited by Steven Brake on 30 January 2021 at 12:38pm
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