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Mark Haslett
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| Posted: 19 June 2024 at 2:41pm | IP Logged | 1
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SB replied: This is a typical cheap trick by Alternative Authorship theorists -
"we don't know exactly when something was written, so it could have been
written at any time".
The truth is, we pretty much can go by the first recorded performance as a
pretty reasonable barometer of when a play was written.
**
Speaking of cheap tricks…
THIS is your constant argument from authority. A broad and exclusive
declaration of something which would be crushing if true… but is unsourced
and, actually, untrue.
“the truth is..”?
Where on earth is your humility?
You may believe this, but the more you look into the dating of any particular
play, the more ridiculous this statement gets. We cannot date any play
except within a span of years.
The popular dating of some plays, like Macbeth, is tied to misconceptions
which fall apart on close inspection.
And this MATTERS.
This faulty scholarship is what you hold in such lofty esteem while sneering
down at scholars who produce breakthrough after breakthrough in pursuit
of the authorship question.
I called you on this consistent tone of yours because this example is typical
— your argument from authority is consistently unsourced and too broad.
Here, and elsewhere you answer legitimate questions with blanket
statements of fact that are totally unverified and, really, unverifiable. We
simply lack the evidence to date the plays within more than a window of
years— and even that can’t account for how long any play may have taken
to write, how many hands were involved, where those authors worked, how
they worked, etc.
And all of this pained reasoning comes into the conversation after you
straw-man the opposing notion. Literally no one says what you’ve termed a
“typical cheap trick.”
So it’s ad hominem on the cheap tricksters, straw-man on their argument,
and overstate your authority in rebuttal. Such “scholarship” informed
dialogue is useless to the matter at hand.
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Mark Haslett
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| Posted: 19 June 2024 at 3:02pm | IP Logged | 2
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SB: And the same pattern as with Newton/Einstein would follow. However
resistant they were at first, more and more academics would come round.
Further evidence would be searched for. Plays would be reassessed.
Biographies and articles written. The previous consensus would be
overturned.
**
This is not what I asked, but it does describe what we see happening. The
title of this thread shows this slow march. Every historian who actually looks
at the question (which is, sadly, very few) acknowledges the legitimacy of it.
And it really is a question of history, fit for historians, not literature profs.
But I asked the question because literature profs who acknowledge the
perfectly reasonable position that good faith, informed people have
legitimate doubts about the identity of the author and that such doubts are
as old as the works themselves find themselves attacked and cast out.
Atlantic journalist Elizabeth Winkler wrote a book about this last year,
finding many professors who would speak off the record about the
legitimacy of the question while fearing the consequences of speaking out.
I am sorry for what that means- to scholars today and to the timeline of
your prediction about the trajectory of the argument, if successful.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
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| Posted: 19 June 2024 at 3:07pm | IP Logged | 3
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A frustration I’ve run into repeatedly with some of my literary minded friends and associates is that when confronted with the mountain of evidence against Stratford Will they fall back on “in the end it doesn’t matter. Only the Work matters.”
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Mark Haslett
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| Posted: 19 June 2024 at 3:48pm | IP Logged | 4
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Michael: And that lack direct evidence then leads to questions about other
kinds of direct evidence, e.g., direct evidence of education, of any
correspondence from him or to him identifying him as a writer, of his being
paid to write, of his personal relationship with a patron (not a dedication,
but direct evidence, all of this direct)
***
Adding to this are the “dogs who didn’t bark”— people who demonstrate
that they would have spoken of Shaksper as an author, but didn’t.
Chief among those is the famous historian William Camden.
Camden acknowledges the importance of Shakespeare the writer.
He also wrote a history of Warwickshire and its notable citizens.
He also personally knew Will Shaksper of Stratford, having opined on the
validity of his claim for a coat of arms.
And YET…
Camden does NOT list the great Shakespeare as a man from Stratford on
Avon when, by all reason, he should have —if it were true.
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John Byrne
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| Posted: 19 June 2024 at 4:00pm | IP Logged | 5
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Something upon which Stratfordians are apt to fall back is the general paucity of information on ANY commoners of this period. Just plain folk were lucky if they even got their birth and/or death noted. So, it will be argued that little or no support for Shaksper as the author should not be seen as anything extraordinary. But, at the same time, we will be shown copious documentation of his day to day life—some of it quite unsavory! It would seem the history is well detailed EXCEPT in the matter of his career as a popular author.
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Mark Haslett
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| Posted: 19 June 2024 at 4:06pm | IP Logged | 6
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SB replied: I've agreed that Joseph Hall had doubts over Shakespeare's
authorship. That isn't proof, it's a suspicion, or an accusation.
**
This response particularly baffles me.
First off, you bat aside published accusations from professional
contemporaries who would have every occasion to know (and publishing
acquaintances who could verify) that Shakespeare is a pen name. You act
as if this proof that doubts about authorship are as old as the works is
irrelevant. You act as if this couldn’t be informing Johnson’s cryptic lines
about “refusing to praise the name Shakespeare for fear of misleading
people.” You seem to think this is of no interest.
Why not? Because it “isn’t proof.”
?
You want to use Shaxper’s tiny gifts to two business partners as “proof”
that an uneducated Warwickshire man wrote Hamlet and Richard II with no
consequences from the Queen or William Cecil—
But widely read published accusations in print that the name is a pen name
which never get contradicted just don’t prove anything?
Can we put those goal posts somewhere in the ground please?
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Mark Haslett
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| Posted: 19 June 2024 at 4:09pm | IP Logged | 7
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John: But, at the same time, we will be shown copious documentation of his
day to day life—some of it quite unsavory! It would seem the history is well
detailed EXCEPT in the matter of his career as a popular author.
**
This is another reason I keep bringing up Joseph Hall, for here at last we
hear someone of the period addressing the AUTHOR on personal terms.
Is he saying “good show, Warwickshire man”?
Not quite.
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Steven Brake
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| Posted: 19 June 2024 at 5:07pm | IP Logged | 8
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Michael Penn wrote: And that lack direct evidence then leads to questions about other kinds of direct evidence, e.g., direct evidence of education,
SB replied: The argument that the plays required a high level of education is one only made by Alternative Authorship theorists.
Most Stratfordians argue that Shakespeare attended The King's New School - no, before you say it, there's no absolute proof that he did! - and that he would have received at least some degree of grammar school education there.
Contemporaries of Shakespeare, like the authors of The Parnassus Plays and Ben Jonson scorned or teased Shakespeare for his lack of learning.
Most contemporary editions of Shakespeare's plays have footnotes pointing out where he's made mistakes.
Michael Penn wrote: There's not a paucity of this kind of direct evidence for most or all of Shakespeare's contemporaries.
SB replied: By contemporaries of Shakespeare, do you mean Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Middleton, John Fletcher, Henry Beaumont - all widely accepted as having also been collaborators on the plays collected in the First Folio while being solely attributed to William Shakespeare?
Edited by Steven Brake on 19 June 2024 at 5:37pm
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Paul Kimball
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| Posted: 19 June 2024 at 5:09pm | IP Logged | 9
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A frustration I’ve run into repeatedly with some of my literary minded friends
and associates is that when confronted with the mountain of evidence against
Stratford Will they fall back on “in the end it doesn’t matter. Only the Work
matters.”
+++++++
Sounds like a nice way of saying that either they don't care or they disagree
but don't want to debate it. Could be worse
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Steven Brake
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| Posted: 19 June 2024 at 5:26pm | IP Logged | 10
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Mark Haslett wrote: We cannot date any play except within a span of years.
SB replied: I agree. It's difficult to precisely date when a play was written, and impossible to state why it was. But if, say, Richard II is recorded as a new play on the Stationer's Register in 1597, I'm assuming it was probably written around the same time, and if Francis Meres attributes it to William Shakespeare in 1598 in Palladis Tamia, I'm going to assume it was written by William Shakespeare. Or at least co-authored by him.
Mark Haslett wrote: This faulty scholarship is what you hold in such lofty esteem while sneering down at scholars who produce breakthrough after breakthrough in pursuit of the authorship question.
SB replied: What "scholars" are these and what "breakthroughs" have they made? Alternative Authorship theories of whatever stripe simply haven't gained much in the way of public acceptance.
Mark Haslett wrote: You act as if this couldn’t be informing Johnson’s cryptic lines about “refusing to praise the name Shakespeare for fear of misleading people.” You seem to think this is of no interest.
SB replied: What's cryptic about Johnson's lines, whether in the commendatory poem, conversation with William Drummond, or in the posthumously published Timber?
Mark Haslett wrote: You want to use Shaxper’s tiny gifts to two business partners as “proof” that an uneducated Warwickshire man wrote Hamlet and Richard II with no consequences from the Queen or William Cecil—
SB wrote: Who is this "Shaxper"? I'm referring to William Shakespeare of Stratford-Upon-Avon, who was named alongside Richard Burbage, Henry Condell and John Heminges in the royal patent forming The King's Men, who named all three in turn in his will, and the latter two in turn naming him as the author of the plays collected in the First Folio.
Mark Haslett wrote: But widely read published accusations in print that the name is a pen name which never get contradicted just don’t prove anything?
SB replied: The only thing that Joseph Hall's accusation shows is that he had suspicions about the real authorship of Venus and Adonis. It isn't proof.
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Edited by Steven Brake on 19 June 2024 at 5:37pm
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Steven Brake
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| Posted: 19 June 2024 at 5:36pm | IP Logged | 11
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JB wrote: A frustration I’ve run into repeatedly with some of my literary minded friends and associates is that when confronted with the mountain of evidence against Stratford Will they fall back on “in the end it doesn’t matter. Only the Work matters.”
SB replied: Really? I'm surprised by that. Most people who take any interest in the authorship question, whether Stratfordians, Oxfordians, Baconians, Marlovians, etc, accept that proving the author was someone other than Will of Stratford couldn't help but change our interpretation of the plays.
And there isn't a mountain of evidence against Will of Stratford. There's lots of speculation, contradictory arguments, unprovable theories, but no evidence.
JB wrote: Something upon which Stratfordians are apt to fall back is the general paucity of information on ANY commoners of this period. Just plain folk were lucky if they even got their birth and/or death noted. So, it will be argued that little or no support for Shaksper as the author should not be seen as anything extraordinary. But, at the same time, we will be shown copious documentation of his day to day life—some of it quite unsavory! It would seem the history is well detailed EXCEPT in the matter of his career as a popular author. SB replied: Mockery of the plays from the unknown authors of The Parnassus Plays, praise from people like Francis Meres, repeated stationer's entries confirming his authorship, the elevation of The Lord Chamberlain's Men to The King's Men, three of whom are named in Shakespeare's will and two of them (Burbage dying in 1619) arranging for the publication of the First Folio and again identifying Shakespeare as the author, Ben Jonson's public, private and posthumous comments on Shakespeare's writing... There's more. But that's enough to be getting on with.
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Mark Haslett
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| Posted: 19 June 2024 at 7:13pm | IP Logged | 12
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SB: And there isn't a mountain of evidence against Will of Stratford. There's lots of speculation, contradictory arguments, unprovable theories, but no evidence.
**
...Except the fact that a professional author of the time declared the name was a pen name.
You are correct to say it isn't "proof".
You are wrong to say it is not evidence.
And you are wrong to say that it is not accompanied by mountains of other evidence.
The circumstances of Shaksper's education are evidence. The fact he owned no books is evidence. The fact no one ever referred to him as a poet in his lifetime is evidence.
And THAT is a lot of evidence, but not even the beginning of the total.
Yes, we can invent excuses and speculate why these things might be true even if Shaksper is the true author, but THOSE inventions are NOT evidence. They are just "speculation, contradictory arguments, unprovable theories" -- to use your terms against you.
Your claim that there is "no evidence" against Will of Stratford is flatly (and obviously) wrong.
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