SB replied: Shakespeare would have had the opportunity to attend The King's New School. We don't have absolute proof that he did, but he could.

On the assumption that he did - and even so, we don't know for how long - he would have received a grounding in the classics, because that's pretty much what a grammar school education meant.

By modern standards, such a grounding would have been pretty intense, but I don't think I've ever seen a Stratfordian assert that The King's New School offered a curriculum or a standard of teaching "rivalling" or "exceeding" Oxford or Cambridge (the only universities in England at the time). 

Educated contemporaries of Shakespeare, like the authors of The Parnassus Plays, Ben Jonson - who, while not attending university, nevertheless prided himself on his learning - weren't in awe of Shakespeare's learning, they scoffed at its inadequacy.

JB wrote: (Some even going so far as to assert Shaksper was lucky not to have attended those other schools as they would only have dulled his magically brilliant mind.)

SB replied: As above, who's ever argued this? Most modern scholarship acknowledges Shakespeare's errors. The English history plays have footnotes galore explaining, or trying to explain, the mistakes in them.

SB replied: Gilbert Shakespeare did indeed have a very nice signature. An example of it can be found in his witnessing of a deed in 1610, in which he clearly spells his surname as "Shakespeare".

SB replied: Terence was a Roman playwright famous for his comedies, which formed a standard part of the curriculum that Shakespeare could have studied at the King's New School (could! could! I concede there's no absolute proof that he did!).

I've never heard that his name was a "famous front", and it's generally accepted that Davies is simply praising Shakespeare by describing him as a similarly successful writer of comedy.

 

 

But it clearly isn't "Shakspere" or "Shaxper".

Mark Haslett wrote: Why would a dealer in illegal wool send son after son to grammar school, leaving no one to help with his labor-intensive business?

SB wrote: John's marriage to Mary, socially a bit above him, and his repeated attempts to be granted a coat of arms, suggests he was a man with social ambitions.

Why would such a man - any father, really, but particularly an ambitious one - not take the opportunity to have his son, or sons, educated, education then, as now, being one of the great enablers of social mobility?

Was it really not possible for him to have employed other men in their stead?

SB replied: Yes, I've repeatedly tried to explain to you why the supposed difference between "Shakspere", or "Shaxper", referring to Will from Stratford, and "Shakespeare", the pseudonym of the true author, is a non-starter as an argument...

Mark Haslett write: The dispute is whether or not the similarity in names is enough to add to the case that Shaksper is Shakespeare.

SB replied:...but I'm obviously not getting anywhere. :)

Mark Haslett wrote: Gilbert's signature does not do that.

SB replied: Gilbert's signature shows that, as is perfectly conventional for the times, the spelling of "Shakespeare" was fluid. Any attempts to build a case by insisting that "Shakspere" or "Shaxper" refers to a different person from "Shakespeare" founders from the first.