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Steven Brake
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 01 January 2016
Posts: 648
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| Posted: 18 June 2024 at 3:03pm | IP Logged | 1
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Michael Penn wrote: The argument that "Shakespeare" is a pen name is one of the most murky elements in the alternative author position. In whatever ways the Stratford man and others spelled and pronounced his name, and it certainly was variable in both during his lifetime, all those varieties are still either akin to or very close to or even exactly like "Shakespeare." So, if the author was not Shaksper (just to use that one version of the Stratford man's name), it's utterly obscure how and why the works were published as "Shakespeare."
SB replied: As I've noted above, the supposed significance of "Shakspere" versus "Shakespeare" is a non-starter, and, as you've acknowledged, spelling was pretty fluid in Elizabeth/Jacobean times, and Will of Stratford's surname was spelled in a variety of ways, including "Shakespeare".
Michael Penn wrote: The earliest surviving record of a purchase of the work of "Shakespeare" is in the 1593 diary of Richard Stonley. The poem had only just then been published, and its printed dedication shows "Shakespeare." Yet, Stonley's diary records "Venus and Adhonay pr Shakspere."
SB replied: Venus and Adonis was published by Richard Field, a contemporary and probable - no, not proven! - acquaintance or perhaps even friend of Will of Stratford. Again, I'm not sure how this proves, or even suggests, that Will of Stratford wasn't the author?
Michael Penn wrote: **I've never found arguments that Gabriel Harvey's 1578 Latin oration to Oxford about his countenance shaking a spear (a shaky translation, that) at all credible as a precursory hint to the "Shakespeare" pen name.
SB replied: Agreed. And...
JB wrote: My own best guess, tho, is that DeVere himself had nothing to do with the invention of “Shakespeare”. I think it more likely that the name was chosen by others (possibly including Ben Jonson) as a “brand” to protect the very profitable plays from interference from On High—perhaps Burleigh or even Oxford himself.
SB replied: I thought it was one of the cornerstones of the Oxfordian case that "Shakespeare" was a sneaky reference to Harvey's oration, as Michael's posted above. Has that changed?
And the argument, or suggestion, that Ben Jonson was complicit in the cover-up, or obfuscation, of the real identity of the author simply doesn't hold water. Jonson questions the quality of the writing, sometimes teasingly, sometimes more harshly, but never states, or even suggests, that Shakespeare wasn't the producer of it. Indeed, his criticism of Shakespeare's writing in his commendatory poem in the First Folio is based on a jibe at Shakespeare's lack of learning.
Jonson was a man for whom the phrase "He could start a fight in an empty room" could almost have been invented. He was proud, truculent, pugnacious and quarrelsome. It beggars belief that he would have kept the supposed secret of the true author of the plays as a secret.
Edited by Steven Brake on 18 June 2024 at 3:08pm
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Michael Penn
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 April 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 12545
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| Posted: 18 June 2024 at 4:21pm | IP Logged | 2
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QUOTE:
| Venus and Adonis was published by Richard Field, a contemporary and probable - no, not proven! - acquaintance or perhaps even friend of Will of Stratford. Again, I'm not sure how this proves, or even suggests, that Will of Stratford wasn't the author? |
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The Oxfordian (I'm not one) might counter with the following: neither does Richard Field being the printer prove that Stratford Will was the author. Even if we accept that he knew Field (hardly unlikely), it could well be that Stratford Will somehow acquired the poem and brought it to his hometown acquaintance to have it printed. Makes sense, in an of itself, and yet still leaves open the possibility of another author.
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Mark Haslett
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 April 2004
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| Posted: 18 June 2024 at 4:31pm | IP Logged | 3
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Michael Penn: Even being okay with that mystery still means that
"Shakespeare" wasn't a pen name except oddly** after-the-fact of
Shaksper continually claiming authorship right from the get-go
**
This premise involves inventing evidence.
Please identify any evidence of Shaksper ever claiming authorship.
The opposite is actually true.
Shaksper, who sued people over insignificant debts, never makes a single
effort to protect his works or his name. “Shakespeare” is associated with an
entire body of “apocryphal” work, much of it quite successful and valuable
— but not written by the Bard. Where is Shaksper’s claiming authorship in
this scenario?
The entire Stratford case rests on the idea that two people with the same
name in the same profession at the same time is just too bizarre to
contemplate. So, I want to congratulate our host once more on his marriage
to Tilda Swinton.
Shaksper was born “Shaksper” and he died “Shaksper.” The author, on the
other hand, was never “Shaksper” and was quite often “Shake-speare.”
His contemporaries, Joseph Hall and John Marsten, then famous and
successful, published in clear terms that Shakespeare wrote as a “Crafty
Cuttle” who “shifted his fame onto another’s name.” No one ever corrected
or contradicted them, though they were themselves in a long public battle
over petty things regarding poetry.
The evidence FOR Shaksper is Shakespeare has to overcome that.It
doesn’t. Because, bottom line, there isn’t ANY.
Edited by Mark Haslett on 18 June 2024 at 4:47pm
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Mark Haslett
Byrne Robotics Member
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| Posted: 18 June 2024 at 4:35pm | IP Logged | 4
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The evidence for Shaksper’s connection to Richard Field is a complete red
herring. Field was in London before Shaksper was “out of school” (which he
never actually went to in the first place).
They were not peers and no evidence of their “friendship” actually exists.
It’s just another straw which we often seen grasped for as the Stratford
case searches and searches for anything connecting the wool-dealer’s son
to the works.
Edited by Mark Haslett on 18 June 2024 at 4:40pm
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 18 June 2024 at 4:47pm | IP Logged | 5
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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. (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.)
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Steven Brake
Byrne Robotics Member
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| Posted: 18 June 2024 at 4:48pm | IP Logged | 6
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@Michael: Fair point. But then you've also got to explain away the royal patent naming William Shakespeare (with his name spelled exactly that way) as one of the founding members of The King's Men alongside Burbage, Heminges and Condell who are also named in the will of Will of Stratford,the latter two naming him in turn as the authors of the plays performed by The King's Men (and The Lord Chamberlain's Men before them) in the First Folio.
The notion of William Shakspere of Stratford-Upon-Avon being incorrectly credited for the work of William Shakespeare, the pseudonym of the true author, doesn't make sense as odd coincidence or conscious contrivance,
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Michael Penn
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| Posted: 18 June 2024 at 4:53pm | IP Logged | 7
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QUOTE:
| This premise involves inventing evidence. |
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I did admit that I was isolating one bit of evidence to the exclusion of all else! :)
But perhaps it would likewise be a matter of presuming undemonstrated facts to posit that Jonson et al., knowing full well of Oxford's authorship, devised* for him "Shakespeare" as a pen name. How well that presumption accords with "all else" is, well, something else.
*I'd be much readier to accept that Jonson et al., knowing that provincial scoundrel Shaksper (whose name was susceptible to a host of variants) was having these works published, had chosen -- to use modern parlance -- riff on Shaksper with the pen name "Shakespeare," rather than accepting the coincidence of Shaksper (of the variant name) was having these works printed with "Shakespeare" listed as the author while many years earlier a Latin phrase used in a single speech to refer to Oxford could at best arguably (I have some Latin, and I don't agree with the translation, just personally speaking) be rendered as shaking a spear.
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Mark Haslett
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| Posted: 18 June 2024 at 5:13pm | IP Logged | 8
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The property records for Shaksper’s father show that he owned a large
acreage with houses far outside of town and a tiny place in Stratford. He
was a dealer in illegal wool. Will was his oldest son, a role that obliged him
to learn his father’s trade and help his father’s business—especially once
his dad was put under house-arrest. Will’s parents were both illiterate.
It was a time of plague and living in close quarters with others was avoided
by those who had options.
But, against all logic and tradition, and without a shred of evidence,
Stratfordians insist John Shaksper ran his illegal wool business, with tons of
illegal wool stacked nearby, out of his tiny Stratford store-front property,
living there during time of plague with his large family. He decided against
all tradition that his oldest son should not help his business, but instead,
should attend grammar school. This would require teaching him Latin
before little Will could enroll, but (darn it) we just really believe this all
happened because we think it could happen.
Illogical wishful thinking that only works if you go backward from the
desired conclusion.
Tradition held that a second oldest son would go to school while the oldest
helped the family trade. Will’s signatures are illegible scrawls. Will’s little
brother Gabriel has a fine and practiced signature. Which one do you think
went to that grammar school?
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
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| Posted: 18 June 2024 at 5:15pm | IP Logged | 9
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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.
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Steven Brake
Byrne Robotics Member
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| Posted: 18 June 2024 at 5:20pm | IP Logged | 10
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Mark Haslett wrote: The entire Stratford case rests on the idea that two people with the same name in the same profession at the same time is just too bizarre to contemplate. So, I want to congratulate our host once more on his marriage to Tilda Swinton.
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.
Mark Haslett wrote: Shaksper was born “Shaksper” and he died “Shaksper.” The author, on the other hand, was never “Shaksper” and was quite often “Shake-speare.”
SB replied: As was common for the times, Will of Stratford's name was spelt in a variety of ways. "Shakespeare" was one of them. This was the spelling used in the coat of arms granted to the Shakespeare's in 1596, and also in the royal patent confirming the creation of The King' s Men in 1603.
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Mark Haslett
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| Posted: 18 June 2024 at 5:23pm | IP Logged | 11
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There are multiple literary instances of referring to Pallas Minerva and to
writers as “shaking their spear”. As a pen-name, it would have been no more
odd at the time than “Tom Telltruth”.
The fact has to be remembered that the works were unrolling at a steady
rate through the 1580’s (and earlier, according to much evidence) before
the name “William Shakespeare” appears, attached to a mytho-erotic poem
which (against all reason) becomes the only non-religious work personally
sanctioned for print by the Archbishop.
The evidence suggests a highly placed individual invented a pen-name
which would look like a pen name to his informed audience and not the
uninformed.
And, indeed, that is the way Joseph Hall, John Marston, and Ben Jonson
and many many others treat the name.
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Steven Brake
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| Posted: 18 June 2024 at 5:24pm | IP Logged | 12
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Mark Haslett wrote: The evidence for Shaksper’s connection to Richard Field is a complete red herring. Field was in London before Shaksper was “out of school” (which he never actually went to in the first place).
They were not peers and no evidence of their “friendship” actually exists.
SB wrote: Field was born in 1561, only three years before Shakespeare. The Field and Shakespeare residences in Stratford-Upon-Avon were in Bridge Street and Henley Street respectively, not far from each other. When Henry Field, Richard's father, died in 1592, John Shakespeare, Williams' father, was one of several who assessed the value of his estate.
We don't know how well Field (Richard) and Shakespeare (William) knew each other. But it's not unreasonable to suggest that they did.
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