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Andrew Hess
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 9844
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| Posted: 18 June 2024 at 7:50pm | IP Logged | 1
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Recently listened to (since I was working) the documentary "Nothing is Truer Than True" found in our local libraries Hoopla catalogue.
It's based on the book "Shakespeare by Another Name", which is a great introduction to the controversy.
The documentary features Derek Jacobi (extensively) and Mark Rylance giving their thoughts, too.
Check to see if your library has access to this.
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Steven Brake
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 01 January 2016
Posts: 648
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| Posted: 18 June 2024 at 7:51pm | IP Logged | 2
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Mark Haslett wrote: The question is what evidence do we have to suggest such an unlikely thing occurred? The answer is NONE.
SB replied: What evidence do we have that John Shakespeare employed other men to help him?
Why wouldn't, or couldn't, he have done? In what sense is it "unlikely" that he could or would have? Mark Haslett wrote: How does a thing which was in no case "Shakespeare" somehow comment on the spelling of "Shakespeare"?
SB replied: I'm not sure what point you think you're making?
The 1610 signature shows Gilbert spelling his family name as "Shakespeare" or maybe "Shakespear", with the "r" being written as a large flourish.
We also have six signatures which by common consent are from Will, each showing a different spelling of his surname.
We have a royal patent, giving again another variant.
In other words, and as was conventional for the time, the spelling of the Shakespeare surname - I'll use this version, as its the commonly accepted spelling - was fluid.
Edited by Steven Brake on 18 June 2024 at 7:53pm
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Steven Brake
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 01 January 2016
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| Posted: 18 June 2024 at 9:26pm | IP Logged | 3
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Mark Haslett wrote: The evidence AGAINST Shaksper as Shakespeare has nothing to do with the case for any alternate candidate.
Mark Haslett earlier wrote: Once we agree who the author ISN’T, we can begin solving the mystery of who the author IS.
SB replied: So is the case for an alternative author contingent upon first proving it wasn't Will or not?
Mark Haslett wrote: There IS clear and undeniable evidence from the period by credible witnesses of a hidden poet (DeVere or whoever) using "Shakespeare" as a pen name (Joseph Hall).
SB replied: Hall seems to have doubted that Will of Stratford wrote Venus & Adonis. This doesn't prove that he didn't.
Mark Haslett wrote: Being declared a good playwright does not, in any way, mean you might not have reasons to work anonymously.
SB replied: Why would it be necessary to conceal your identity as a playwright when it's known that you're a playwright?
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Mark Haslett
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 6263
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| Posted: 18 June 2024 at 10:00pm | IP Logged | 4
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In a discussion about whether or not a man born as “Shaksper” is actually
the great author referred to almost exclusively as “Shakespeare”, you want
to be able to describe all the spellings as variations of “Shakespeare.”
That’s a bias that leads from starting with a conclusion.
If the Stratford man is the author, then Shakespeare is a variation of
Shaksper.
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Mark Haslett
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| Posted: 18 June 2024 at 10:30pm | IP Logged | 5
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SB replied: Why would it be necessary to conceal your identity as a playwright when it's known that you're a playwright?
**
If the play you don’t want attached to your name is, say, Richard II --then one reason might be that it would be potentially treasonous.
Or maybe you want to poke fun at William Cecil in a way he can’t retaliate against.
Those are explanations that suit any alternate candidate.
But to answer your first question, it seems like I’ve confused you.
Let me put it this way: Unseating Stratford Will from his traditionally seen seat is an important first step in understanding who the author is. Only when he is seen as one candidate among many can the evidence be fairly judged.
The “name problem” is unique to Shaksper in that it could diminish his claim since “Shakespeare” is not a spelling he commonly used, but it is the definitive spelling of the author on poems and plays.
Edited by Mark Haslett on 18 June 2024 at 11:32pm
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 19 June 2024 at 1:00am | IP Logged | 6
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BECAME the definitive spelling. Remember that hyphen—and what it meant to a Tudor audience.
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Steven Brake
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Joined: 01 January 2016
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| Posted: 19 June 2024 at 7:45am | IP Logged | 7
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Mark Haslett wrote: The “name problem” is unique to Shaksper in that it could diminish his claim since “Shakespeare” is not a spelling he commonly used, but it is the definitive spelling of the author on poems and plays.
SB replied: In 1597, the records of his purchase of New House give his name as Willielum Shakespeare.
In 1598, Francis Meres acclaims the plays written by William Shakespeare (and also separately praises Oxford, making it difficult to see how they can be one and the same person).
In 1603, the royal patent for the creation of The King's Men gives his name as William Shakespeare.
In 1613, the purchase of the gatehouse near Blackfriars Theatre gives his name as William Shakespeare.
In 1623, the First Folio, whose publication has been arranged by John Heminges and Henry Condell, and who were also named in the royal patent of 1603, used the name William Shakespeare.
As I've repeatedly explained, spelling was fluid in the Elizabethan/Jacobean period, but far from "not a spelling he commonly used", "Shakespeare" was not only regularly used, but seems to have been the preferred spelling for official business.
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Steven Brake
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| Posted: 19 June 2024 at 7:52am | IP Logged | 8
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JB wrote: BECAME the definitive spelling. Remember that hyphen—and what it meant to a Tudor audience.
SB replied: Nothing.
Oxfordians - and, I presume, other alternative authorship theorists - place great significance on the intermittent use of hyphens. No-one else does, and there's no evidence that they were seen to denote that a pseudonym was being used.
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Mark Haslett
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Joined: 19 April 2004
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Posts: 6263
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| Posted: 19 June 2024 at 8:27am | IP Logged | 9
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Is there anything in this debate that you will not use an “argument of
authority” to counter, Steven?
Your errors are so many that it is hard to keep up, but you post without a
shred of humility or “I have read…” With you it’s always “This is SO and I
have tried to explain this to uou…”
You have long ago acknowledged that Shakespeare’s contemporaries
declared that Venus & Adonis was written under a pen name.
Joseph Hall didn’t “express doubt”. He declared it was so— he called out
Shakespeare and criticized the author for being known under a pen name—
it was trash talk aimed at a fellow poet.
This is a fact. It is evidence to be considered and answered for.
Your entire defense of Shaksper as Shakespeare and of him having an
education and of him being a poet is a tapestry of “he could have” and “why
couldn’t he have” and “it seems to me”…
We all know he COULD have— he COULD have been an alien
masquerading as a human. We don’t have any evidence he wasn’t. But
Why Why Why isn’t there any unambiguous primary source evidence that
he WAS a writer?
You are a Shakespeare Lit professor, right? What would happen to you if
you suddenly looked into Joseph Hall’s work and career and came away
convinced he was credible? What if it led you to question your faith in
Shaksper’s mythical education and his alleged ties to acting and writing? It
is not hard to explain them away or find evidence that contradicts the
common belief in them. They exist on a thread of thin connections woven by
people who, after the fact, wanted to tie the works to a glover’s son in
Stratford on Avon.
So what would happen to your career if you were to embrace these
completely reasonable positions and begin doubting the traditional
attribution?
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 19 June 2024 at 11:09am | IP Logged | 10
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Your entire defense of Shaksper as Shakespeare and of him having aneducation and of him being a poet is a tapestry of “he could have” and “whycouldn’t he have” and “it seems to me”…••• One of the earliest pieces I read on this subject made just this point, that so many biographies of “Shakespeare” are more often documentaries of his time and place, not the man himself. Assumption rules over scholarship. Go back to Mark Twain’s description of the Stratford man as being like a museum dinosaur, a few bones and a lot of plaster of paris.
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Michael Penn
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| Posted: 19 June 2024 at 11:35am | IP Logged | 11
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The basic problem with "Shakespeare" is that even if we assume that William Shakespeare/Skaksper (any spelling, any pronunciation) of Stratford was the author we still have no direct evidence of any of kind from any time about how, when, where, and why he himself actually wrote these works. Positing him as the author as the starting point can lead to a host of further circumstantial assumptions the likelihood of which remains based on that primary authorial assumption. This doesn't mean he wasn't the author. But it renders every biography of "Shakespeare" extraordinarily speculative.
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Rich Johnston
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 04 February 2019
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 24
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| Posted: 19 June 2024 at 12:00pm | IP Logged | 12
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Since this is "famous folk" on Shakespeare's authorship, it might be fun to bring up Ben Elton, co-creator/writer of The Young Ones, Blackadder II, The Third and Goes Forth, and extensive novelist. But also the writer of the rather excellent Shakespeare sitcom Upstart Crow and the more serious Kenneth Branagh Shakespeare film All Is True. Elton talks about the authorship issue as one of class snobbery, a very English obsession. He also tackles this in Upstart Crow's Wolf Hall episode when Shakespeare's staff and the theatre's actors begin to doubt his authorship, as it is more likely that "a posh boy did it". I've heard him speak about the issue in person, but Elton wrote about it for the Radio Times here: https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/comedy/ben-elton-only-snobbish -elitist-britain-could-say-that-shakespeare-didnt-write-his- own-plays/
Edited by Rich Johnston on 19 June 2024 at 12:01pm
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Topic Closed)
