https://sites.google.com/site/understandingbenjonson
See if you can understand
Happy new year all
https://sites.google.com/site/understandingbenjonson
See if you can understand
Happy new year all
I have heard Shakespeare was not a single person. I mean all that we have in the name of Shakespeare was not written singly by him and it was just under his name and all were not his creations and there is no document to disapprove of this notion too
So this whole thing starts with Ben Johnson's epitaph...Originally Posted by mike thomas
O RARE
BEN JOHNSON
..and then continues like this (unedited)....
---------------------------------------------------------------
When Ben was alive he used I not J, the sound of each letter is entirely different. I makes a Y sound as in York, but J makes a G sound as in George, but not like in Gloucester or Glorious:
Duke of Gloucester. Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York;
And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house ......
........ but, as I can learn,
He hearkens after prophecies and dreams;
And from the cross-row plucks the letter G.
And says a wizard told him that by G
His issue disinherited should be;
And, for my name of George begins with G,
It follows in his thought that I am he.
These, as I learn, and such like toys as these .....
Richard III Act I, Scene 1
Remembering Ben's words about things two by two, we pluck out the four initial letters O R and B I.
(See later why J suddenly turned to I).
We have chosen four letters which form a Latin word: ORBI meaning circle, round and even world.
The first of Shakespeare's Sonnets, line 9, word 6 is WORLDS.
If we inspect the two numerals 6 and 9 we might realise that they kind of turn around - when joined as the number 69.
In fact, the letter O itself is like a ring, and in Ben's day, it was the 14th letter in the alphabet, so it is interesting to see that the same sonnet, line 14, has WORLDS a second time, along with the place where we started from. A place where the first letter is an O:
To eate the worlds due, by the graue and thee
Next, consider that the alphabet in Ben's day would have O as 14th, R as 17th, B as second, and I as the ninth. Thus we have four numbers:
14, 17, and 2 , 9.
Compare Shakespeare's Sonnet 14, word 17: OR.
It is the same as Ben's two top letters.
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Leaving aside for a moment the observation that you'd expect Johnson to get the Latin right (the word in Latin is orbis, plural orbes), I think the tortuousness of the pseudologic falls down at about this point...
the alphabet in Ben's day would have O as 14th, R as 17th, B as second, and I as the ninth. Thus we have four numbers:
14, 17, and 2 , 9.
Compare Shakespeare's Sonnet 14, word 17: OR.
It is the same as Ben's two top letters
I really am quite worried about whoever wrote the linked webpage.
Last edited by MarkBastable; 01-11-2012 at 03:44 AM.
With respect to Shakespeare's first plays the Henry VI trilogy, the evidence that Robert Greene and John Nash (much inferior poets) had a hand in them is overwhelming.
I would say that Shakespeare is a made up name, like a company name let's consider
Esther Lauder...
Shake spear
I believe there are descrepencies in all of his works and therefore everything is written let say by a group of motivate people for one reason or another.
it may never try
but when it does it sigh
it is just that
good
it fly
Sorry - what's Estee Lauder got to do with it?
You're misreading. Nash and Greene were criticising the author of those plays as an "Upstart Crow". There can be little doubt that they despised the man.
He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher... or, as his wife would have it, an idiot. ~ Douglas Adams
Every company in the world would go belly up if people wouldn't/couldn't collaborate because of personal animosities.
Anyway, I'll take a reputed scholar's words on this matter which is where I'm coming from.
What of the hundreds of other scholars who refute that position. Honestly, My2cents, everyone knows what Nash and Greene thought of Shakespeare. It isn't a mystery.
He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher... or, as his wife would have it, an idiot. ~ Douglas Adams
There can be lots of doubt. How do you know the reference to 'upstart crow' doesn't mean something other than what you think?
Define an 'upstart crow' please.
Yes I do agree with ORBI but I'm not sure you are a wind-up merchant. What do you mean by "I really am quite worried about whoever wrote the linked webpage" ?
Worried? Why so friend?
There's enough similarities between the plays to show that it is not implausible that Shakespeare may have just been one guy.
I agree with that
He did EXIST indefinitely. the authorship of his 36+ plays and hundreds of sonnets, poems however is the real question. I personally don't believe he was absolutely fictitious in the sense that we made him up and accredited all the works to him. I firmly believe he did in fact write all of his works, with collaborations of many playwrights. People argue because he wasn't necessarily born into aristocracy he could not have possibly lived such a life that granted him to be immersed in theatre and the intellect to write such pieces. He didn't follow suit as expected and wasn't damned to be a woodworker or leather worker or glove maker such as his father. He went to school, learned languages spoke latin, became educated and well versed and wrote his plays and it was hard for him to get into the guilds but he did eventually.
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