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Steven Brake
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| Posted: 26 July 2023 at 3:43pm | IP Logged | 1
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Michael Penn wrote: You've cited from The Art Of English Poesie (usually attributed to George Puttenham), but the point of the quote isn't that it's forbidden for a member of the nobility to be known to be an author, but rather that it was inappropriate with their station.
In 1598, De Vere was named by Francis Meres in Palladis Tamia - alongside Shakespeare, making it difficult to see how they could be the same man - as being one of the best playwrights for comedy. De Vere didn't suffer any kind of disgrace for this.
In 1601, De Vere's daughter Elizabeth wrote to Robert Cecil, protesting against his ban on her husband, William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby, writing plays for the common people, rather than insisting that the secret was kept at all cost.
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Mark Haslett
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| Posted: 26 July 2023 at 3:47pm | IP Logged | 2
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Mark Haslett wrote: Stephen, you claim publishers employed nameless craftsmen who were in the habit of taking 900 page manuscripts and providing exacting and artful editing services without credit.
SB replied: I don't. I've pointed out that publishers employ a range of staff when producing works for publication, and can add that both Blount and Jaggard received credit for the Folio's publication.
**
I point out that the evidence shows Jonson was the editor. You say no. You say the Publishers have staff for that. I repeat your claim --and you deny you made the claim.
Such a serious person.
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SB replied: Jonson was proud of his work, and expected it to be appreciated. Why would he be so clandestine about being the true prime mover behind the creation of the Folio?
*
If only you were actually curious about the answer to this question. But alas.
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Mark Haslett
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| Posted: 26 July 2023 at 3:54pm | IP Logged | 3
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Scott Gray (quoting some joker): That’s the problem with the conspiracy theories. Why would someone spend so much time and effort writing the plays and poems only to allow a lowly Stratford actor to take all the credit?
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The fallacy of this question is there is no evidence that Shaksper of Stratford ever received a single iota of credit for the works during his lifetime. He became rich, but there isn't the least bit of evidence that he ever got a penny for writing. There's not the least bit of evidence that anyone ever thought he could write or did write.
When, in the years following the folio, some people put the clues together and looked in Stratford for hints that the great bard had walked there, they found no one who could tell them anything about Shakespeare the writer from Stratford because-- a) he was long dead, and b) he had zero reputation as a writer.
The "Stratford moniment" in the church was a memorial to a wool dealer holding a sack of wool.
So put Occam's razor to the facts, not to the bullshit that got invented to fill the utter blank left behind by this wool-dealing, grain-hording son of a yeoman. Answer the simple question: WHO got the credit for the works during his lifetime?
Edited by Mark Haslett on 26 July 2023 at 3:55pm
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Michael Penn
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| Posted: 26 July 2023 at 4:03pm | IP Logged | 4
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QUOTE:
| ...but the point of the quote isn't that it's forbidden for a member of the nobility to be known to be an author, but rather that it was inappropriate with their station. |
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"...as if it were a discredit for a Gentleman, to seeme learned, and to shew himselfe amorous of any good Art."
ergo
"I know very many notable Gentlemen in the Court that haue written commendably, and suppressed it agayne, or els suffred it to be publisht without their owne names to it."
I make no claim that De Vere was Shakespeare. I was simply addressing the prior inquiry of why someone else would write the plays and allow them to be credited to Shaksper (or anybody else, for that matter).
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Mark Haslett
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| Posted: 26 July 2023 at 5:00pm | IP Logged | 5
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A bigger problem for the "Why would someone spend so much time and effort writing the plays and poems only to allow a lowly Stratford actor to take all the credit?" camp is that the biggest play of the 16th/17th century is attributed to Shakespeare, but Stratfordian scholars say it wasn't written by him.
MUCEDORUS was massively popular. It went through 16 quarto editions -- but everyone agrees that the fact is someone didn't want the credit and gave that valuable credit and glory to Shakespeare.
According to the logic of the smart-ass pro-Stratfordian quoted by Scott, this is a logical impossibility which is so undeniable that you should physically attack anyone who suggests it's true.
Except it is true.
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Steven Brake
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| Posted: 26 July 2023 at 5:30pm | IP Logged | 6
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Mark Haslett wrote: I point out that the evidence shows Jonson was the editor. You say no.
SB replied: In your own words "The editor of the Ben Jonson folio was Ben Johnson, because it was necessary to have an editor".
This isn't "evidence", it's circular reasoning. And you still haven't provided any kind of rationale for Jonson being happy to be known as having written the commendatory poem in the First Folio, but felt it necessary to hide his role as the prime mover in creating it.
Mark Haslett wrote: You say the Publishers have staff for that. I repeat your claim --and you deny you made the claim.
SB replied: ? I haven't denied it, and I'll repeat it again if you like - publishing houses tend to employ a range of staff who possess all kinds of specialist skills.
Mark Haslett wrote: If only you were actually curious about the answer to this question (note from SB - this is about Jonson being the real editor of the Folio).
SB replied: I am. I'm interested to know what the argument is for Jonson being the real editor of the First Folio and how it connects to the Alternative Authorship argument.
I don't think I'll be convinced by it - but I'm interested to read it.
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Steven Brake
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| Posted: 26 July 2023 at 5:36pm | IP Logged | 7
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@ Michael Penn: Writing drama for the common people was seen as incommensurate with being a member of the nobility, but it obviously wasn't an absolute injunction, a secret that had to be kept at all costs.
What was the consequence of De Vere being publicly named - acclaimed, actually - as a dramatist by Meres? Did he suffer any kind of reprimand?
Why did De Vere's own daughter write to Cecil pleading with him to let her husband, William Stanley, the nobly born Earl of Derby, continue to write plays for the common people if it was such an unthinkable scandal that he do so?
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Michael Penn
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| Posted: 26 July 2023 at 5:50pm | IP Logged | 8
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QUOTE:
| Writing drama for the common people was seen as incommensurate with being a member of the nobility, but it obviously wasn't an absolute injunction, a secret that had to be kept at all costs. |
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You should offer this response to somebody who argued that. I didn't.
Likewise, I have not made any argument in favor of De Vere or anybody else. Save those questions for those who do -- not me.
In any event, unless you are declaring that "very many notable Gentlemen in the Court... haue [NOT] written commendably, and suppressed it agayne, or els suffred it to be publisht without their owne names to it" is untrue -- what's your point?
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Mark Haslett
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| Posted: 26 July 2023 at 6:01pm | IP Logged | 9
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Mark Haslett wrote: Stephen, you claim publishers employed nameless craftsmen who were in the habit of taking 900 page manuscripts and providing exacting and artful editing services without credit.
SB replied: I don't.
***
Mark Haslett wrote: You say the Publishers have staff for that. I repeat your claim --and you deny you made the claim.
SB replied: ? I haven't denied it, and I'll repeat it again if you like - publishing houses tend to employ a range of staff who possess all kinds of specialist skills.
**
Not a serious person.
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Steven Brake
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| Posted: 26 July 2023 at 6:10pm | IP Logged | 10
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@Michael Penn: Then what did you mean by posting that excerpt from The Arte of English Poesie? Wasn't it to support the position usually taken by the Oxfordians that a member of the nobility could only write anonymously?
And I'm not quite sure what you mean by your final question? My point is that the argument that the nobility could not be seen to write for the common people is demonstrably untrue.
I'm not sure if we're at crossed wires here? |
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Steven Brake
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| Posted: 26 July 2023 at 6:25pm | IP Logged | 11
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@Mark Haslett: The First Folio includes the names of other people like Jonson and Leonard Digges. It refers to an "I.M", who may be James Mabbe. It has the names of William Jaggard and Edward Blount.
The Folio cover has the Droeshout engraving, by Martin Droeshout.
Some have argued that John Florio may have had a hand in editing the Folio. Others have argued that Edward Knight did. Neither men receive an official credit in the Folio.
The Folio would have had to been put together by bookbinders and typesetters. We don't, as far as I know, know any of their names.
So.
We know that there must have been a range of people involved in creating, compiled and printing the First Folio.
We know that some of these people were given credit.
We suspect others were involved who were not.
Ordinary members of the printing house weren't considered important enough to be name-checked in any way. They were simply men doing their job.
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Michael Penn
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| Posted: 26 July 2023 at 7:27pm | IP Logged | 12
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Steven, again, I was simply addressing the prior inquiry of why someone else would write the plays and allow them to be credited to somebody else.
"I know very many notable Gentlemen in the Court that haue written commendably, and suppressed it agayne, or els suffred it to be publisht without their owne names to it."
This contemporary Elizabethan statement expresses a fact.
If you dispute it, i.e., if you say that very few or maybe no nobles were authors who suppressed their authorship or allowed their work to be published under others' name, then... why do you dispute this?
If you don't dispute it, then we agree that this era featured "very many" nobles who were authors but sought to suppress their authorship or allowed their work to be published under others' names. And that's it. We agree and can move on.
Again, and yet again, I'm not an antistratfordian. I am a lawyer, but I'm not endeavoring to have to you concede to a historical fact in order to turn that around against you in some antistratfordian way.
In fact, I wasn't even responding to you at all. The original inquiry was from another poster. I am happy to engage all posters, of course. But this is definitely dragging out needlessly something that is simply true.
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