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Stéphane Garrelie
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 05 August 2005
Location: France
Posts: 4249
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| Posted: 03 May 2025 at 3:29pm | IP Logged | 1
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Excepted on the last point, did i say anything else?
The main argument for the tradition is the tradition itself, the rest are hints. They were solid enough to build a narative, not enough to make it indisputable.
On the last point: no, a lack of evidence is another reason. But that doesn't mean you can't look for it anyway, it is after all, one of the best ways to find it if it exists.
The hunt is one thing, the affirmations another.
Edited by Stéphane Garrelie on 03 May 2025 at 3:32pm
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Mark Haslett
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Joined: 19 April 2004
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| Posted: 03 May 2025 at 3:45pm | IP Logged | 2
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Stephane: The main argument for the tradition is the tradition itself, the rest are hints. They were solid enough to build a narative, not enough to make it indisputable.
**
This is an argument without evidence.
There is zero evidence that people at the time hinted a man from Stratford wrote the works.
There is copious evidence that people at the time hinted that a courtier poet, writing under a pen name, wrote Venus and Adonis and Lucrece.
Anyone who clings to the traditional narrative as somehow more credible than the alternatives is not accounting for the evidence.
You seem to want to have it both ways. All candidates are equal, but the traditional story is especially credible for unspecified reasons lost to us today.
And I am growing frustrated that you maintain that not being able to prove another candidate is the author constitutes some kind of argument for Shaksper of Stratford. What can I say to stipulate that no candidate has proven their claim? And what can I say to convince you that you do not need a replacement in order to abandon the traditional story?
Edited by Mark Haslett on 03 May 2025 at 3:48pm
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 03 May 2025 at 3:59pm | IP Logged | 3
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Diana Price’s excellent SHAKESPEARE’S UNORTHODOX BIOGRAPHY does a superb job of demolishing the Stratford myth. Altho she presents other candidates (she is a lapsed Oxfordian) she claims none of them as the victor. She merely lets the weight of evidence do its work. The most interesting part of the book, to me, is a four page graph that compares the major authors of the time in terms of the trail they left behind. Stratford Will fails on all counts.
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Stéphane Garrelie
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 05 August 2005
Location: France
Posts: 4249
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| Posted: 03 May 2025 at 4:32pm | IP Logged | 4
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To Mark:
No, my point is that when there's nothing solid to attribute a work to a real man, the biographies are stories for children.
And even when we actually know who is the author of a work, and his life, it isn't enough to explain what matters in his artistic work.
Here in France, that used to be a question: for the major part of the XIXth century, Sainte-Beuve explained the work by the biography, then came Proust who wrote Contre Sainte-Beuve and explained that it is on the contrary an exercice of style, and that the person of the writer we can find in the books isn't the same man he is in everyday's life or in salon discussions. An abym separates the writer from the man who frequents the salons. The writer shows himself only in his books. In the biography, you'll find only all the things where the poet isn't a poet.
Edited by Stéphane Garrelie on 03 May 2025 at 4:33pm
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
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| Posted: 03 May 2025 at 4:42pm | IP Logged | 5
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No, my point is that when there's nothing solid to attribute a work to a real man, the biographies are stories for children.••• The makers of SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE might dispute that assertion.
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Stéphane Garrelie
Byrne Robotics Member
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Location: France
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| Posted: 03 May 2025 at 4:48pm | IP Logged | 6
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Well, sometime, for children above 16 years old. Or even older.The word "adult" is often an abuse of langage.
Edited by Stéphane Garrelie on 03 May 2025 at 4:50pm
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Steven Brake
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Joined: 01 January 2016
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| Posted: 03 May 2025 at 4:57pm | IP Logged | 7
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Petter Myhr Ness wrote: The reasonable alternative, Steven, is that someone else wrote them!
SB replied: But who? The Alternative Authorship theorists deny that Shakespeare was the author, but who would you put up in his place? And what alternative candidate could survive the same tactics used by the Alternative Authorship theorists to cast doubt on Shakespeare's authorship?
And what about the collaborators who worked on the plays? How was their silence bought off, or enforced? By whom, and for what purpose?
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Mark Haslett
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| Posted: 03 May 2025 at 4:57pm | IP Logged | 8
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If the biography of the greatest author in English letters doesn’t matter, what does anyone’s biography matter?
The impact the works of Shakespeare had on human history is widespread enough to boggle the mind. We still live in a shadow.
Anyone is free to content themselves with a children’s story of make believe about the writer. But I am certainly not like that. I would honestly hope that no one is-- but I should add that I respect your choice to do so, if I understand correctly that such is your choice.
Edited by Mark Haslett on 03 May 2025 at 5:05pm
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Stéphane Garrelie
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| Posted: 03 May 2025 at 5:07pm | IP Logged | 9
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It matters when it is actual knowledge, like it matters to know who was anybody who played an important role, but it isn't enough to explain the work.And when there are so few sure things as for Shakespeare, it is as good as any fiction "based on reality."
But i say that and i love Baa Baa Black Sheep.
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Steven Brake
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| Posted: 03 May 2025 at 5:11pm | IP Logged | 10
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Mark Haslett wrote: There is zero evidence that people at the time hinted a man from Stratford wrote the works.
SB replied: From around 1594, William Shakespeare is a shareholder in the theatrical troupe The Lord Chamberlains' Men. Other members of the troupe include Richard Burbage, Henry Condell and John Heminges.
In 1598, Shakespeare is named by Francis Meres in his Palladis Tamia as the author of a dozen plays.
In 1603, William Shakespeare is named as being part of a new theatrical company, The King's Men, which includes Richard Burbage, Henry Condell and John Heminges.
In 1616, William Shakespeare dies in Stratford Upon Avon. In his will, he leaves small bequests to Richard Burbage, Henry Condell and John Heminges.
In 1609, Richard Burbage dies.
In 1623, the First Folio is published. Condell and Heminges state that it has been produced to commemorate the memory of the man they'd known and worked with for decades, and that the plays in it should supersede earlier publications, "surreptitious copies, maimed and deformed by frauds and stealths of injurious impostors".
In his commendatory poem "To The Memory Of My Beloved the Author, Mr William Shakespeare" Ben Jonson calls him "the sweet swan of Avon".
The poem is also back-handed in its praise of Shakespeare, deriding his lack of education, and Jonson will later make some jibes against Shakespeare in private conversation with William Drummond and in his De Shakespeare Nostrat - but even if his opinions over the quality of Shakespeare's writing vary, Jonson never once questions his authorship.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
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| Posted: 03 May 2025 at 5:25pm | IP Logged | 11
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In 1616, William Shakespeare dies in Stratford Upon Avon. ••• And no one seems to notice. +++ In 1609, [actor] Richard Burbage dies. ••• And virtually the whole country goes into mourning. Speaking of death and mourning, the death of Elizabeth I produced a vast outpouring of tributes from practically anyone who could hold a pen. But nothing from “William Shakespeare”.
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Steven Brake
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| Posted: 03 May 2025 at 5:35pm | IP Logged | 12
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@JB: So, in the Alternative Authorship case, how is Burbage viewed? Is he a fool, who didn't realise that Will of Stratford (let's call him that) had been pulling the wool over people's eyes?
Or was he a willing accomplice, who knew the truth but maintained the fiction?
Or was he a reluctant accomplice, who knew the truth but was prevented from revealing it? If so, how and by whom?
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