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Steven Brake Byrne Robotics Member
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Posted: 18 June 2024 at 5:34pm | IP Logged | 1
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JB wrote: Perhaps the most energy expended by the Stratfordians has been in their efforts to transform the local grammar school into an institution of higher learning rivaling—and even exceeding—some of the finest colleges and universities in the country.
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.
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Steven Brake Byrne Robotics Member
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Posted: 18 June 2024 at 5:45pm | IP Logged | 2
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Mark Haslett wrote: Will’s little brother Gabriel has a fine and practiced signature.
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".
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Steven Brake Byrne Robotics Member
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Posted: 18 June 2024 at 5:54pm | IP Logged | 3
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JB wrote: One of my favorite quotes is a reference to Shakespeare as “our English Terrance”. Terrance having been a famous front for authors who wished to remain anonymous.
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.
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Mark Haslett Byrne Robotics Member
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Joined: 19 April 2004 Location: United States Posts: 6430
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Posted: 18 June 2024 at 6:25pm | IP Logged | 4
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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".
**
Clearly "Shakespeare" means different things to you than it does to me.
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Steven Brake Byrne Robotics Member
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Posted: 18 June 2024 at 6:31pm | IP Logged | 5
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@Mark: ? It's plainly not "Shakspere", is it?
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Mark Haslett Byrne Robotics Member
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Posted: 18 June 2024 at 6:42pm | IP Logged | 6
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SB replied: The flaw in this argument, of course, being that there's no evidence of De Vere using William Shakespeare as a pseudonym, and that he wouldn't have found it necessary to have done so, since he was known and acclaimed as a playwright under his own name.
**
How many logical fallacies can you pack into a single sentence?
The evidence AGAINST Shaksper as Shakespeare has nothing to do with the case for any alternate candidate.
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).
Being declared a good playwright does not, in any way, mean you might not have reasons to work anonymously.
These threads routinely spiral into chaos because the Stratford case is based entirely on this kind of thinking.
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Mark Haslett Byrne Robotics Member
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Posted: 18 June 2024 at 6:46pm | IP Logged | 7
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SB: @Mark: ? It's plainly not "Shakspere", is it?
** You stated he clearly signed "Shakespeare" -- but he clearly did not.
It is clearly "Shakesper"
And it is just as clear that this son went to school. Why would a dealer in illegal wool send son after son to grammar school, leaving no one to help with his labor-intensive business?
Edited by Mark Haslett on 18 June 2024 at 6:52pm
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Steven Brake Byrne Robotics Member
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Posted: 18 June 2024 at 6:51pm | IP Logged | 8
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@Mark: The version I've seen - which I can't seem to upload, annoyingly - looks pretty much like "Shakespeare" to me, albeit with the final "e" - or maybe it's an "r", and there is no "e" - as a dramatic flourish.
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?
Edited by Steven Brake on 18 June 2024 at 6:56pm
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Mark Haslett Byrne Robotics Member
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Posted: 18 June 2024 at 6:55pm | IP Logged | 9
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SB: But it clearly isn't "Shakspere", as you've repeatedly asserted was how the Shakespeares from Stratford-Upon-Avon spelt their name.
**
LOL. "Clearly signed Shakespeare" becomes "looks pretty much like "Shakespeare" to me.."
By what logic does it follow that if Gilbert isn't "Shakspere" then... that somehow contributes to the case that his brother is "Shakespeare"?
The variation in spellings is well known. The dispute is whether or not the similarity in names is enough to add to the case that Shaksper is Shakespeare.
Gilbert's signature does not do that.
Edited by Mark Haslett on 18 June 2024 at 6:57pm
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Steven Brake Byrne Robotics Member
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Posted: 18 June 2024 at 7:00pm | IP Logged | 10
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Mark Haslett wrote: The variation in spellings is well known.
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.
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Mark Haslett Byrne Robotics Member
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Posted: 18 June 2024 at 7:03pm | IP Logged | 11
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SB: Was it really not possible for him to have employed other men in their stead?
**
The question is not whether it was possible.
Of course it's possible that this or that unlikely thing happened and, by sheer amazing coincidence, etc.
The question is what evidence do we have to suggest such an unlikely thing occurred?
The answer is NONE.
Again, go to Diana Price. She finds that for 24 authors of the day-- from famous to obscure-- that there is unambiguous primary source evidence that they were paid writers.
Why do we give a pass to Shakespeare?
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Mark Haslett Byrne Robotics Member
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Posted: 18 June 2024 at 7:07pm | IP Logged | 12
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SB replied: Gilbert's signature shows that, as is perfectly conventional for the times, the spelling of "Shakespeare" was fluid.
**
How does a thing which was in no case "Shakespeare" somehow comment on the spelling of "Shakespeare"?
Edited by Mark Haslett on 18 June 2024 at 7:10pm
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