Most Fascinating Challenges to Classic Novels

[JanVanHogspeuw]

And he's the only presumed writer of his time for whom there is no contemporary evidence of a writing career."

Even a quick google search would show you how obviously wrong that is.

And yes, he wrote some of the most astonishing literature ever, but it wasn't 'perfect'. He made mistakes that a university educated noble probably wouldn't have, and the plays are consistent with someone who 'hadst small Latin and less Greek' (as his contemporary Ben Johnson, who came from as humble a background, stated in his 'To the memory of my beloved Shakespeare, and what he hath left us') and what's more quite a number of the mistakes he made are unerringly consistent with mistakes made in a book by Thomas Cooper which would have been available at the Stratford grammar school at the time he would been there.

The fact that a few great writers have been taken in by this is no more surprising to me than that the creator of Sherlock Holmes believed in that fairy photo.

[OrphanPip]

It's curious that as prolific as Shakespeare was, why haven't they found any handwritten rough drafts of his plays?.. or anything by Shakespeare referencing other literature?

Paper was expensive and reused extensively, you simply didn't write rough drafts of a play to try it out. Thomas Dekker's handwriting survives only in the manuscript of Thomas Moore, along with Shakespeares, it would only be worth noting a lack of Shakespeare manuscripts if this wasn't normal for playwrights of the period. In fact, there is not a single surviving play manuscript for the works of Kyd, Chapman, Jonson (we have one closet masque surviving in his hand), Beaumont, Fletcher, or Ford. Christopher Marlowe was kind enough to leave us some bits of his writing on a Doctor Faustus manuscript.

It is enough for me that we have plenty of attestations of Shakespeare's authorship from contemporaries, or near contemporaries, like Jonson and D'Avenant. If anyone doubted Shakespeare's authorship at the time they didn't leave a record of it. The authorship question wasn't raised until the 19th century.

[JCamilo]

C''mom, Pip, they are using Mark Twain as a reliable source about Shakespeare. It is almost like someone using Jurassic Park in a class to prove Dinossaurs lived with humans

[stlukesguild]

It's curious that as prolific as Shakespeare was, why haven't they found any handwritten rough drafts of his plays?.. or anything by Shakespeare referencing other literature?

WE know for a fact that Shakespeare penned the sonnets attributed to him, as well as the late poems. The quality of these works... especially the sonnets... is more than worthy of the author of the plays. Why are there no hand-written drafts? Money from the theater was earned from the production of the plays. Until Ben Jonson, no one thought to publish plays as a work of literature. Because of a lack of copyright laws, to publish one's plays... or even circulate copies among the actors (who might sell these to competing theatrical houses) was something to be avoided at all costs. Individual actors were given their lines and the lines leading up to their lines, but not the whole play.

The majority of those who fall for the Shakespeare conspiracy theories are those, like our beloved Emile, who could not or cannot believe that an individual not from the upper classes could have become the greatest writer in Western literature. Yes, there is no documentary proof that Shakespeare wrote the plays attributed to him... other than the fact that William Shakespeare, born in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564, an actor and shareholder in the Lord Chamberlain's Men (later the King's Men), the playing company that owned the Globe Theatre, the Blackfriars Theatre, and exclusive rights to produce Shakespeare's plays from 1594 to 1642 was identified as the author of said plays in production... and when they were first published by Ben Jonson. Shakespeare's education was no less than that of Christopher Marlowe or Ben Jonson (or Cervantes for that matter).

In addition to the name appearing on the title pages of poems and plays, his name was given as that of a well-known writer at least 23 times during his lifetime. Several contemporaries corroborate the identity of the playwright as the actor, and explicit contemporary documentary evidence attests that the actor was the Stratford citizen. In 1598, Francis Meres named Shakespeare as a playwright and poet in his Palladis Tamia, referring to him as one of the authors by whom the "English tongue is mightily enriched". He names twelve plays written by Shakespeare, including four which were never published in quarto: The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Comedy of Errors, Love's Labour's Won, and King John, as well as ascribing to Shakespeare some of the plays that were published anonymously before 1598—Titus Andronicus, Romeo and Juliet, and Henry IV, Part 1. He refers to Shakespeare's "sugared Sonnets among his private friends" 11 years before the publication of the Sonnets.

Beyond these, and other facts, none of the arguments in favor of the 80+ other individuals proposed over the years as the authors of Shakespeare's plays have any real convincing evidence... let alone documentation. In the majority of instances, these theories rely upon the most absurd leaps of faith and logic.

[stlukesguild]

Bingo, Pip! Good hearing from you again.

[stlukesguild]

No, but it does mean they fully understood what is required to write at the level of a Shakespeare, and thus found it hard to believe that some of the most astonishingly perfect prose in all of literature was penned by someone who could barely keep a coherent business ledger, and appears to have never referenced another writer, play, poem, or anything of a literary nature.

Plato attempted to dismiss Homer... who might be far more of a candidate for questionable attribution than Shakespeare. Tolstoy dismissed Shakespeare. Nabokov thought Dostoevsky to be amateurish and overrated. Hemingway and Faulkner dissed each other. It all proves nothing... beyond the fact that even the greatest artists are not infallible... nor do they have infallible taste.

[OrphanPip]

Bingo, Pip! Good hearing from you again.

I'm around, just busy. I have a part-time appointment as a lecturer at a small college, but it doesn't pay much so I'm working a call centre at nights.

[Emil Miller]

[COLOR="#B22222"]The majority of those who fall for the Shakespeare conspiracy theories are those, like our beloved Emile, who could not or cannot believe that an individual not from the upper classes could have become the greatest writer in Western literature.

Stlukes', were you to read my last post on this thread, you would find that I believe Shakespeare probably was the author of the plays.
I have posted enough times for you to know that it's Emil rather than Emile: lack of attention to detail tends to undermine a given stance on this or any other serious discussion on Litnet.

[Poetaster]

To be honest, I find the Shakespeare authorship question amusing but ultimately silly. I'm convinced beyond more than doubt that Will Shakespeare wrote the plays attributed to him.