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Steven Brake
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| Posted: 06 May 2025 at 6:01pm | IP Logged | 1
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The Royal Charter of 1603, which lists William Shakespeare, John Heminges and Henry Condell.
The last will and testament of William Shakespeare of Stratford-Upon-Avon upon his death in 1616 which gives small bequests to John Heminges and Henry Condell.
The First Folio of 1623, in which John Heminges and Henry Condell state that they've arranged for it to be published to commemorate the memory of William Shakespeare.
As far as I can tell, there are four conclusions to be drawn from this:
1) Will of Stratford-Upon-Avon was the author, or co-author, of the plays ascribed to William Shakespeare in the First Folio.
2) Will of Stratford-Upon Avon fooled Heminges and Condell (and others, including Ben Jonson) into believing that he was the author, or co-author, of the plays ascribed to William Shakespeare in the First Folio.
3) Heminges and Condell (and others, including Ben Jonson) knew that Will of Stratford-Upon-Avon wasn't really the author, but maintained the pretense that he was, either through;
3a) a free choice of their own, or because
3b) they were influenced, bribed or threatened by another party.
Option one is the overwhelming consensus.
Option two seems unlikely. No-one realised for decades that Will of Stratford-Upon-Avon was a fraud?
Option 3a) isn't impossible, I suppose. I don't think it's likely.
Option 3b) begs the question of who this third party was, and why they were so determined to maintain the facade of Will of Stratford-Upon-Avon's authorship.
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Michael Penn
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| Posted: 06 May 2025 at 6:39pm | IP Logged | 2
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QUOTE:
| Unless, that is, the Stratford [name] game is played... |
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To borrow from Monty Python (who wasn't a person but a collaborative), that's the nub of the Stratoridian gist: the works, when named, are all variants of William Shakespeare and the non-author documents indisputably related to Stratford Will are all variants of the same name. The name itself is the connection between the works and Stratford Will. The Stratfordian position, though, is that this isn't a game at all, or rather, it's the game that the doubters insist the non-doubters are playing but won't admit, and that it's a rigged game they're playing.
The name isn't the only divide between doubters and non-doubters, but it seems to me chasmic. Consider that the starting point of many a doubter is asking: what if the works were all completely un-named, what would then lead us from Stratford Will to the works or vice versa? But then that's what non-doubters would label the doubters' own name-game.
What an abyss the name is!
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Mark Haslett
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| Posted: 06 May 2025 at 7:38pm | IP Logged | 3
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I personally don't see how there is a "name game."
There is an authorship question: who wrote the works.
If it's the guy from Stratford, then that guy often used the spelling "Shaksper".
If it was someone else, then this other writer never used "Shaksper" and neither did anyone else in referring to him.
It does not prejudge the issue or cause disrespect-- it is conceivable that a man who went by "Shaksper" for his whole life could use "Shakespeare" on a published poem which he called the first heir of his invention.
If there's a "game" it's in trying to rewrite history so that "Shaksper" somehow disappears as a legitimate name.
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Petter Myhr Ness
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| Posted: 07 May 2025 at 10:41am | IP Logged | 4
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I find this, and other related threads, fascinating to follow, and few years ago I would never have thought that I would invest so much time and study in the Authorship Question.
To me, there seem to be four categories of opinions:
1. William Shakespeare, who was from Stratford-upon-Avon, wrote all the plays and poems attributed to him.
2. William Shakespeare, who was from Stratford-upon-Avon, wrote SOME of the plays attributed to him and occasionally collaborated with other writers. He still wrote all the poems.
3. William Shakespeare, who was from Stratford-upon-Avon, was a theatre manager and actor when he resided in London, but didn't write all, if any, of the plays attributed to him. He did not write the poems.
4. William Shakespeare the writer and William Shakspere from Stratford are two completely different people, wholly unrelated to one another. The Stratford man was NOT a writer. The name Shakespeare is most likely a nom de plume disguising one or several other writers.
Thoughts?
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Mark Haslett
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| Posted: 07 May 2025 at 11:06am | IP Logged | 5
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I think that covers things well, Petter.
I would only add that Shakespeare’s works appeared in a thriving period of
writers collaborating in London- interacting, corresponding and
collaborating. We have evidence of them all meeting, living together and
keeping tabs on each other.
All that is, except for one man. One writer whom we have no contemporary
record of interactions with of any kind, though he is the most famed and
accomplished of them all- the one they said should have been their chief-
William Shakespeare.
So I would add to your list that the Stratfordian theories incorporate these
facts.
The mystery for the Stratford theory is not just how did an illiterate wool
dealer’s son achieve the stated literary goals of the English aristocracy with
no evidence of education, but having done this amazing thing— how did he
retreat to Stratford and die without leaving a trace of having ever done so?
Edited by Mark Haslett on 07 May 2025 at 12:24pm
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Michael Penn
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| Posted: 07 May 2025 at 12:37pm | IP Logged | 6
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QUOTE:
| I personally don't see how there is a "name game." ... If it's the guy from Stratford... it is conceivable that a man who went by "Shaksper" for his whole life could use "Shakespeare"... |
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It is the "if" that necessitates the accusation of a game.
The works have only one name attached to them, and it belongs to Stratford Will: thus, game over, or rather, no need for one, Stratfordians declare. Why bother arguing the same name would somehow point to anybody but Stratford Will? Sure, we don't know how he got to be an author or why other kinds of author documents are not in the record, which is all a shame, but... so what? Stratfordians think it's a game to un-name Stratford Will because of variants and the disputed relevance of a hyphen, to discount through that the name itself as documentary evidence, the only name listed as the author, which belongs to only one man in all of this: Stratford Will[iam Shakespeare].
Doubters, however, consider that a game is being played instead by Stratfordians, whose arguments stand solely upon the asserted fact that the author's name was the same as Stratford Will's, either because it's not the same name or because even if it is, it is still a pseudonym, that somehow attached to the works but nonetheless still falsely links the works and Stratford Will, and the reason to doubt the probative value of the name as documentary evidence in any case lies precisely in the Stratfordian "so what?" above, i.e., we don't know how Stratford Will got to be (or even could have become) an author and why other kinds of author documents (beyond being a named author on title pages) are not in the record.
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John Byrne
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| Posted: 07 May 2025 at 1:09pm | IP Logged | 7
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There’s also an amusing moment created by scholars discovering there was another, unrelated “Shakespeare” who owned land outside Stratford, and who had to be disentangled from Shaksper.
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Mark Haslett
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| Posted: 07 May 2025 at 1:31pm | IP Logged | 8
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Michael: It is the "if" that necessitates the accusation of a game
**
Interesting idea. I don’t think I agree. By that score, any re-examination of
conventional wisdom is a “game”.
Was Darwin’s theory a game until it became accepted science?
Hypotheticals and testing accepted theories are the coin of realm in history
studies. Nothing is known so well that new understandings or new evidence
can’t cause significant revisions or reversals. This is so because historians
are scientists, not because they’re playing games.
In this way, Stratfordian Lit Professors remind me of the creationists who
want to argue for their belief, but have located no new evidence to support
their belief since it was first founded in the distant past.
Edited by Mark Haslett on 07 May 2025 at 1:37pm
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Michael Penn
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| Posted: 07 May 2025 at 1:53pm | IP Logged | 9
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Of course, we're not discussing any re-examination of conventional wisdom, but specifically only the authorship question -- which for Stratfordians is not a question at all, even if they are willing to play with doubters (and it can be fruitfully and sincerely), because there's no reason to doubt that the name Shakespeare refers to Stratford Will as the author. That's enough of the game metaphor, anyway! :)
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John Byrne
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| Posted: 07 May 2025 at 2:37pm | IP Logged | 10
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Let’s not be too literal with “game”, guys!
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Mark Haslett
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| Posted: 07 May 2025 at 2:50pm | IP Logged | 11
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I'm reading a Stratfordian book about Shakespeare's money, and it is fascinating for how much the facts of his family's finances reduce or even extinguish the likelihood of key points of the traditional narrative.
From the age of 13, Shaksper's father couldn't leave the house. Thus Will Shaksper’s labor was needed to keep his younger siblings fed. Then, in 1582-3 he added 3 more mouths to feed in the household.
Then he left for London, leaving his father in this state of insolvency. Traveling Shaksper remained on the hook for his family's finances-- whatever he did, it was to make money to send home.
...But he has all those books to locate and read, histories to learn, theatrical traditions to internalize and creative writing skills to master... while earning (at best) about 6p a week IF he found full-time employment.
And, presumably, he wasn't being paid to become a poet/playwright.
All of that work had to happen in his off-hours, by expensive candlelight, using expensive paper and ink.
The biggest enemy of the Stratford story is a careful look at the facts.
Edited by Mark Haslett on 07 May 2025 at 3:49pm
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John Byrne
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| Posted: 07 May 2025 at 3:19pm | IP Logged | 12
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The biggest enemy of the Stratford story is a careful look at the facts.••• Stratfordians have a loose relationship with facts. Note that in this very thread we’ve seen De Vere’s verse dismissed as “rubbish” when his contemporaries praised him as “the best for comedy”.
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