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Allan, I could supply a point by point refutation of your last post but suffice it to to say that you are incorrect on all your points. (Are you prepared to discover for yourself how? if not, why not? and if not well then you support that ...) Now I am convinced you suffer from a confirmation bias. You can lead a horse to water ...
:beatdeadhorse5:
Emil,Quote:
Originally Posted by Emil Miller
Shakespeare's legal knowledge, and the Stratfordian stance on it, has been examined by a Baconian legal expert and an Oxfordian teacher of law, independently of each other, and they have both provided much evidence showing that it would be VERY unlikely for a non-legally trained person to have written the Shakespeare works. You can say that they're biased but you still need to refute their evidence.
The Earl of Oxford's supporters are much more numerous than the Baconians because the early Baconians got overconfident and produced some poor evidence which was shown to be very faulty, and this collapsed much of their momentum. Their theory has been revamped with new research by some well-trained scholarly Baconians and now is making a comeback. Hardly any Oxfordians, if any, (and of course none of the Stratfordians) have examined the new Baconian evidence. I'm looking forward to seeing their movie 'Anonymous' . I've liked all the trailers that have come out. I'm even going to a sneak preview of it tomorrow at an Oxfordian authorship conference (where a staunch Stratfordian (Alan Nelson) has been invited back to argue for the Strats).
xman,Quote:
Originally Posted by xman
I've posted refutations of pretty much all the key Stratfordian evidence. So please show how it's in error. Also, I've posted several hundred pieces of Baconian evidence on Stratfordian websites that has been viewed some 60,000 times and still not one Stratfordian has tried to challenge it. So please you be the first to refute this evidence.
Who cares if Shakespeare wrote his plays? He's bad enough as it is.
There are a great many people who care about the authorship of the plays. You are entitled to your view of Shakespeare but others are equally entitled to theirs.Quote:
Originally Posted by Arrowni
I actually find the debate interesting to a fundamental level, because I care deeply about works with multiple authors -very often overlooked by mainstream author-inclined analysis-. Shakespeare can only gain from not writing all his plays, from a certain point of view.
Objectively I don't think it would change how the plays are read, which is the part I find disappointing.
But I agree the argument it's interesting to a point, that's what inclined me to chime in with such a "trollish" comment. But your answer was too polite and respectful.
Shame on you!
What I wrote is just a plain statement of fact, it wasn't intended to be polite or otherwise. I would add that there has been increased trolling on these forums in recent times and I'm surprised that the moderators haven't reacted to it. There has also been an increase in childish personal attacks between certain members which has rendered LitNet less of an interesting site than when I first joined. If you bother to read this thread from the beginning you will see some good examples. People shouldn't take themselves so seriously.Quote:
Originally Posted by Arrowni
Well, to be fair, statements of facts and neutrality isn't the thing that literary people like the most about speech.
Just a followup note on the movie Anonymous that I saw last night at the Oxfordian conference. I won't describe any of the plot - you'll be reading a great deal about it soon I'm sure. I will say though that it's an idealized portrayal of the Oxfordian theory and definitely not like a documentary. Aside from the portrayal of the Earl of Oxford as the real Shakespeare, the film takes many historical liberties. But, as director Emmerich pointed out, that's what film makers and story writers do. I didn't have any problem with any of that and enjoyed the movie overall (even though there wasn't any hint in it anywhere of even the existence of Francis Bacon, who was friends with the earls of Essex and Southampton, cousin of Oxford, and advisor to Elizabeth). I'm sure many conservative Stratfordians will hate the movie, just as religious conservatives hate any depiction of their religion differently than how they believe it. This is similar to how many political conservatives in the US hated the movie Avatar because they felt (they read) that the movie promoted a liberal agenda. And they wouldn't even go see the movie because of this! And I even went to this event with a Baconian friend and he hated it because he feels it will detract from the truth of Bacon as the true author! I don't think the movie will win an Academy award but overall it seemed pretty well done. But again, I'm not that harsh a critic as I tend to see what good I can in about any movie, especially ones regarding Shakespeare. A historian there was on a panel discussion after the movie and he said he hoped that it will help bring a 'spirit of inquiry' into the authorship question. Arch Stratfordian Prof. Alan Nelson was there and he complained about a scene at the end of the movie with Ben Jonson. Personally, I would never take a movie as a substitute for historical evidence and logical argument. So it will be fun sitting on the sidelines (this time) and watching the Strats and Oxfordians talk past each other.
Now I begin to understand your error a little better. You believe that the stylometric and circumstantial 'evidence' you are interpreting (with confirmation bias) to be as relevant and indeed as strong as actual evidence such as, say a fingerprint (not the story about a fingerprint) or a signature (not the promise of one). The onus is on you to show that it couldn't have been this man in Stratford, not to interpret his art to say what you see on it.Quote:
Originally Posted by AllanAlbert
I find the arguments why not William Shakespeare could not have been the writer always smells like snobbery....
People are saying they favor someone else over William himself because of...
- illiterate son of a glover!!
- less knowledge than X on matters concerning geography/legal/nautical/court life/etc
But...
No records of anybody attending that school in Stratford exist, did noobody go? Including those Stratfordians of those days accepted by Oxford university??
His father was elected (by his fellow townspeople) as mayor., City council members could put their sons in school for free....
The plays show an icredible lack of knowledge on Italy (Milan has a sea port??, waiting for the tide in the Mediterranean, a sail maker at the foot of the Alps??)
Court life....
A king going to the kitchen to talk to the cook??
A king having to fetch his own clothes??
What about the Stratfordian dialect words for all lot of nature references..
The whole conspiracy rests on keeping the identity of the courtier secret yet many Oxfordians say look at what happens in the plays it is his life in there.... not a very good tactic to keep your identity hidden if you wirte of your life for plays to be performed in court or in public.
BTW why would he give his best plays to a company that was in a fierce rivalry over the popularity in court and in the streets of London??
And as for Marlowe he died too soon...
Bacon?? Didn't he have too much work as it was already??
No I think that William Shakespeare kept his eyes and ears wide open, picked up any plot he could in reading old books, listening to court gossip.
He wrote for his company, the roles were tailor-made for his fellow actors, his wife was a strong woman (reason for his strong female roles??? She was running the Stratford house for all those years alone, making all kinds of legal and financial decisions in his name) while Will was a lodger in London for most of the time, did not buy a house there untill later in his life, and acted, wrote plays, managing the theater to pay the bills.
His name appeared on plays submitted to the censor, his rivals and fellows all knew those plays were his.
As for the hyphenation... I read that in that the name was hyphenated and not-hyphenated on different editions of the same publication during his lifetime.... so it was not a deliberate hyphenation on the writer's part but a typesetters initiative.
BTW more names of people have been hyphenated in print in that time, Fitzgeoffrey, Oldcastle, Munday, Waldegrave... all very real people
All i will say it that shakespeare was a lyrical genius,with a great understanding of the human condition and how to express this condition. But,i thinks his works are entertainment and ethical possibilities primarily,not 'truth'.
Have you read Clarkson and Warren's The Law of Property in Shakespeare and Elizabethan Drama, and also the recent book Kill All the Lawyers?Quote:
Originally Posted by AllanAlbert
These are 2 writers that say that the knowledge is not all that impressive.
There's also J. M. Robertson's The Baconian Heresy, which reached the same conclusion 85 years ago.
Are you going to read those and refute their arguments or are you going to ignore them....
An Oxfordian has a website devoted to the arguments on law http://www.shakespeare-oxford.com/?p=22
So no reply means no refute??Quote:
xman,
I've posted refutations of pretty much all the key Stratfordian evidence. So please show how it's in error. Also, I've posted several hundred pieces of Baconian evidence on Stratfordian websites that has been viewed some 60,000 times and still not one Stratfordian has tried to challenge it. So please you be the first to refute this evidence.
Did you look for the counter arguments already posted on the websites before posting your arguments?? Are you sure your arguments are so new that they could not been refuted in the past?
You seem to be thinking that saying your arguments have no refute means that they must be right, I have no idea how your arguments line up against the arguments of others....
I have yet to find a strong argument against William Shakespeare that will convince me of any conspiracy, for any of the 50+ candidates put forward.
I am not unwilling to change my mind but I am only going to ddo that if someone puts ALL the evidence pro and contra on the table and not ignore half of it.
I have read the pro-Bacon legal knowledge and the contra-Bacon legal knowledge and concluded that there are too many legal mistakes (bad legal mistakes) to warrant a great legal mind having to have written those... unless of course the legal mind had to have made the mistakes to hide his identity, but that would take the argument in faovr of Bacon into the undecided...... back to the one that has his name written on the covers of all those publlications both during his lifetime and after..
Perhaps Shakespeare did not write his works, but I find specious the argument that an author must have enjoyed an aristocrat's formal education and travel in order to have devoted himself to the learning necessary to have produced works of astounding erudition.
If that were the case, perhaps we should also doubt that Chaucer, da Vinci, Erasmus, Luther, Marlowe and Cervantes were responsible for their works.
Right, no good can come from ordinary people... Einstein could never have thought up any of the theories he did...Quote:
Originally Posted by joelavine
No. It's a matter of where the preponderance of the evidence lies based on unbiased expert judgment. It shouldn't be a matter of "We have more power because we have more followers."Quote:
Originally Posted by xman
It should be a matter of how strong the evidence is.Quote:
Originally Posted by AllanAlbert
How irrefutable the conclusion, one person can make the difference, if his/her arguments are strong enough.
That sounds good to me. What the (I guess they/we are called) "anti-stratfordians" would like to see is a panel of 'experts' in various fields, that can look at all the available evidence. Discuss it. Throw some out. Examine some in greater detail. And then perhaps suggest further research on some pieces of evidence. Or perhaps even render a judgement, or a vote, for a candidate based on the strongest evidence. Or something along these lines. The feeling is that there's enough evidence and educated opinion that casts doubt on the traditional authorship attribution. And so this justifies the question itself becoming a legitimate subject of debate and research. I don't really think we'll be changing any opinions on any of these web comment areas or forums. There's just too much evidence and argument to review.Quote:
Originally Posted by KCV16
I overlooked this earlier post. So to answer: Clarkson and Warren's The Law of Property... has been reviewed by (in 1989 as I recall) by an expert Lawyer as well as by a teacher of legal writing. Their reviews were independent of each other and both showed the flaws in Clarkson and Warren and brought new legal evidence to bear. As far as I can tell this newer evidence on Shakespeare's law has not been faulted, and shows that Shakespeare, whoever it was, was very likely formally trained in law. Much of J. M. Robertson's work has also been faulted. You need to read N.B.Cockburn's 'The Bacon Shakespeare Question'Quote:
Originally Posted by KCV16
I've reviewed much of the Stratfordian evidence and keep up on it nearly every day. Every once in a while I come across an argument I haven't see before but never anything forbidding. I don't say that because I haven't seen refutations to my arguments that therefore they must be right. I just haven't seen them yet to judge. And so far there haven't been any Stratfordians that seem willing to take them on. So currently they seem to best the opposition. And most aren't my arguments personally. I mostly collect what I think are the best and that are suitable for a forum website. Some are too complex for the medium though. Barry Clarke has written several articles for journals that argue that Shakespeare could not have written The Tempest, Comedy or Errors, or Third Night. You might want to search for his book for some of his writings.
I read parts of his book The Shakespeare puzzle.Quote:
Originally Posted by AllanAlbert
A few things jumped from the pages immediately for me...
The NMS....
There were 2 boxes with a number of papers and a sort of index, which was not written by Bacon (from the book), after reading the chapter 3 times I could not find any reason to assume that the box had belonged to Bacon.
It seems like someone (perhaps that Nevill that is on the top left corner) was collecting all kinds of documents and put an index in the boxes to see what was in which box.
The conclusion that Bacon knew of Shakespeare at the end of the chapter is not substantiated, yet repeated at the end as a conclusive ....
The writer on Shakespeare...
He does everything to seperate the Stratford from the actor from the writer that he overlooks some very simple things.
The difference between printed and written names, that many people had their name hyphened in print, and that there was no standard way to write a name.
The mark as sign of illiteracy is shaky considering known literate people (of whom letters remain) signed with a mark....
The story of Dowdall (p 44 on the pdf) is odd since William was not a son of a butcher so any reference about a son of a butcher are not about William Shakespeare.. or does he know something he doesn't print....
The connection between Stratford man and the actor are strong, his will is one...and the reference to Shakespeare in London as gentleman after his father died and he got the title...
He refers to the actor as being listed as Shakespeare and Shake-speare in the same sentence, so.....
The Jonson line- had he blotted out thousand- yeah if I were to praise a man for writing quickly and without many errors, I might hear that line from a competing author as badmouthing, more like if only he did...
The praise of Bacon as the mark of our language... I do not find that a problem, Bacon was more a writer/philosopher and Shakespeare an entertainer, both good at what they did but legacy wise.... Bacon wins according to Jonson.
That the works of Shakespeare would be considered plagarism in these days of copyright is completely right, but there was no such protection in those days.
He took other plots he read or heard of and rewrote/combined them in such a way that they became more witty more dramatic etc etc, that is the genius of Shakespeare he could MAKE a story not necessarily invent one.
The Tempest
If the play was performed at court in front of men of whom at least some knew that nobody outside a small group (not including the playwrite) was supposed to know, why did nobody question where the info came from...
If Bacon knew that Shakespeare was not supposed to know why write the play for court, that does not make sense...
Comedy of errors:
That is a slightly confusing chapter, way way to many sidebars etc.
It made me think that there could be a better way to explain, more precise and that makes my mind wander away from the writer's intent..
It is a pity that no names were recorded for the what the Chamberlain's men performed for the queen, she would probably not be amused with old plays, one of them was love's labour's lost the other one.... comedy of errors
So...
What if....Shakespeare wrote it to play for the Queen and his patron got the text to perform at the inns .. his patron was member of the Inns, the connection is easily made.
But....
My main resistance to the Baconian theory is cyphering.... the book you mention has a lot of it as well.... based on typesetting of the first folio amongst others (typesetting was in the early days of printing more a printer's initiative than a writer's) and some highly humourous take the last letter of the first word on a line except..... and substitute.....
That is when the idea totally looses credibility, I am sorry.
Like the Oxford idea that he wanted to remain anonymous but laces the plays with his private life.....
The main problem i have with most pen-name ideas is why why why not just anonymous. Or a more generic name Jack London, or something like that.
Involving an aspiring writer/actor and hoping the man will never even drop a hint....
BTW I assumed you meant Twelfth night with the third night, but I could not find it, which play are you referring to??
Regarding the NMS: The 'index' is not of items in each box nor is it in Nevill's hand. The handwriting appears to be in one of Bacon's secretary's hand. Nevill may have been given a copy of a bundle of manuscripts from Bacon or he may have acquired it elsewhere. The other items in the boxes are not relevant. They just seemed to have been put in boxes when the house occupants were recovering from the fire mentioned. The important points are that on the 'index' of items of the bundle of manuscripts were known writings of Bacon along with known Shakespeare works and this index is dated to a time when no Shakespeare play had been published with the name of William Shakespeare on it, or any variant of that name. They were published anonymously. There were the two long poems that were published with the name William Shakespeare, but no plays at that time. So one question was how did this secretary of Bacon seem to know that William Shakespeare was the playwright of such plays as Richard II or Richard III? And why was he so obsessed with the name that he would write it over and over many times or write variants of it many times along with the name of Francis Bacon and in the context of the phrases "By Mr. Francis Bacon' as well as "Your William Shakespeare'? And why do not Shakespeare scholars acknowledge the existence of this historical document? These are some of the questions about this document, though there's more to it.
He is separating the Stratford man from the actor from the writer just to keep various arguments straight. This is because most Stratfordian writers just assume that all mentions of Shakespeare are to the man from Stratford or the actor, when they are often to the writer, who may not be the actor man from Stratford.
Re Dowdall: Here Clarke is merely reporting what others have said. He's not claiming it as a fact. He's showing how scholars like Schoenbaum pick and choose what hearsay evidence they prefer and ignoring heresay evidence that they don't prefer. I don't think that Clarke or probably any other Baconians, or many Oxfordians would argue that the man from Stratford became somewhat of an actor in London. Though there are debates in how much acting he actually did.
Clarke wrote: "By 1602, Shake-speare had written over 20 plays so one wonders why Shakspere did not present himself as a dramatist". He does not say that the Stratford man/actor was the writer Shake-speare.
Clarke doesn't fault Shake-speare the author for taking plots from other writers. That's common knowledge. Both Shake-speare, the writer, and Bacon are known from taking other's ideas and rewriting them in more attractive ways.
The Tempest: Just because it was played at court does not mean that those at court realized that the play was partly based on the Virginia company's expedition to America. Same answer for the second point. The play and the Virginia company report weren't connected until sometime later, maybe a few centuries later.
Comedy of Errors: The sidebars, etc. are because he's documenting everything. This is unlike many Stratfordian writers that just expect readers to believe what they're told without documentation. Clarke writes mainly for scholarly readers, and that writing is more difficult to follow. Plays for Gray's Inn were written by Inn members, so Shakspere would not be one of the writers. There's no documentary evidence that Shakspeare had a patron, even that of Southampton. Stratfordians have just been assuming these connections.
Cyphers: There have been many bad ciphers offered in the past, and these were rightly criticized. But there are many good ciphers that haven't been faulted. And the one cipher expert 'Friedman' that criticized many of the old Baconian ciphers was reported to have said that he was wrong to have dismissed all ciphers. And since then another cipher expert has faulted Friedman's work. Also, Clarke is an expert at puzzles. He has written puzzle books and created them for MENSA. If you're going to criticize an expert you better have much better evidence that just a personal opinion. For instance, if you claim that the typesetting wasn't consistent, then you're in essence claiming that some remarkable coincidences were purely by chance. But that itself can strain credulity when the odds against chance are extremely high.
Pen name: One of the arguments of using a pen-name like, or the same as, that of a real person, is that with just 'anonymous' then the authorities or whoever could come investigating who the true author is. Or with a generic name where no one is identified with it, then there could still be investigations. But with a real person's name, there's less like investigations and the person can just be kept an eye on. In reality, we'll never know why Bacon chose to use a real person's name likeness.
Yes, I meant Twelfth Night. Sometimes I don't review what I post, like I won't this time either.
By the way, the legal arguments are all on-line. One doesn't need to get a hold of the book mentioned earlier.
A panel of experts would be useful in assessing the available evidence but would they arrive at a genuine conclusion? I would think it difficult to find a body of people who were not already biased one way or the other, such is the hold that this question has over those who have even a passing interest in the subject. Even if they proclaimed their disinterest, how would we know that they weren't manipulating the evidence in favour of their undeclared candidate. There are long-standing reputations at stake and the panel would probably be influenced by this also.Quote:
Originally Posted by AllanAlbert
The index is of the NMS itself within one of the boxes, you are right I mistyped that, but if you were to read NMS instead of box you get m argument.Quote:
Originally Posted by AllanAlbert
You have knowledge on that NMS writer I never saw, where does the knowledge of the scribe of Bacon having written it.
And that does still not explain why the name Nevill is on the top LEFT of the index...
Your dating of the NMS is of....?Quote:
The important points are that on the 'index' of items of the bundle of manuscripts were known writings of Bacon along with known Shakespeare works and this index is dated to a time when no Shakespeare play had been published with the name of William Shakespeare on it, or any variant of that name. They were published anonymously. There were the two long poems that were published with the name William Shakespeare, but no plays at that time.
The best guess I can make is before 1603 and by that time there were 13 plays published with Shakespeare's name on it.
If you were to take the oldest entry is from 1580, so it is obviously a compilation of all kinds of documents by somebody... Nevill??
I am not a mindreader but I suspect that Bacon in his attempt to keep things secret would not have his scribe be so obviously looking for a pen-name on a paper he decided to keep all his life... in other words if you want to keep a secret do not put it in writing so obviously....Quote:
So one question was how did this secretary of Bacon seem to know that William Shakespeare was the playwright of such plays as Richard II or Richard III? And why was he so obsessed with the name that he would write it over and over many times or write variants of it many times along with the name of Francis Bacon and in the context of the phrases "By Mr. Francis Bacon' as well as "Your William Shakespeare'?
And the index was an attempt to make 2 column but they made an absolute mess of it.
Maybe not on the internet but in other publications, I do not knowQuote:
And why do not Shakespeare scholars acknowledge the existence of this historical document? These are some of the questions about this document, though there's more to it.
But since I have not seen any proof, that could be their reason too, a bad one I know, but that does not mean that you have won by default, or that these arguments have them running for the hills.
So a William Shakespere from Stratford leaves and years later a William Shakespeare buy the second biggest house in Stratford is a coincidence, the same as the appearance of gentleman after the name William Shakespeare the actor when the Strattford man gets the title after his father died is coincidence? And the same name is used for the part-owner of the Globe theater, and all the plays were written for the company that performed at the Globe... the upstart crow, jack of all trades is also a reference that people regarded the player to be the same as the author.Quote:
He is separating the Stratford man from the actor from the writer just to keep various arguments straight. This is because most Stratfordian writers just assume that all mentions of Shakespeare are to the man from Stratford or the actor, when they are often to the writer, who may not be the actor man from Stratford.
Oh hang on you are saying that Shakespeare from Stratford is indeed the actor....Quote:
Re Dowdall: Here Clarke is merely reporting what others have said. He's not claiming it as a fact. He's showing how scholars like Schoenbaum pick and choose what hearsay evidence they prefer and ignoring heresay evidence that they don't prefer. I don't think that Clarke or probably any other Baconians, or many Oxfordians would argue that the man from Stratford became somewhat of an actor in London. Though there are debates in how much acting he actually did.
Is this in the reference to the man saying that some people should not be called gentlemen, like that actor....Quote:
Clarke wrote: "By 1602, Shake-speare had written over 20 plays so one wonders why Shakspere did not present himself as a dramatist". He does not say that the Stratford man/actor was the writer Shake-speare.
So Bacon was not the genius he is thought to be?? Which Bacon documents are you refering to his Henry VII from1622? or his philosophies...Quote:
Clarke doesn't fault Shake-speare the author for taking plots from other writers. That's common knowledge. Both Shake-speare, the writer, and Bacon are known from taking other's ideas and rewriting them in more attractive ways.
Seriously it is one of the arguments of the Baconinan theory... Shakespeare could never have known those details therefor Bacon wrote them... if it is so obvious now only by comparing the 2 why do you think the Jacobians were not so smart.Quote:
The Tempest: Just because it was played at court does not mean that those at court realized that the play was partly based on the Virginia company's expedition to America. Same answer for the second point. The play and the Virginia company report weren't connected until sometime later, maybe a few centuries later.
No the sidebars are in such an order that they are confusing, if only he would make the argument and follow it or preceed it with the rest,not part argument, sidebar,sidebar,sidebar, two paragraphs argument, sidebar,sidebar, sidebar, etc etc... There are these things callednotes at the end of the chapter or book too...Quote:
Comedy of Errors: The sidebars, etc. are because he's documenting everything. This is unlike many Stratfordian writers that just expect readers to believe what they're told without documentation. Clarke writes mainly for scholarly readers, and that writing is more difficult to follow. Plays for Gray's Inn were written by Inn members, so Shakspere would not be one of the writers.
So the dedication to Southampton was a fraud as well.... or was he in on the secret too....Quote:
There's no documentary evidence that Shakspeare had a patron, even that of Southampton. Stratfordians have just been assuming these connections.
[quote]Cyphers: There have been many bad ciphers offered in the past, and these were rightly criticized. But there are many good ciphers that haven't been faulted. And the one cipher expert 'Friedman' that criticized many of the old Baconian ciphers was reported to have said that he was wrong to have dismissed all ciphers. And since then another cipher expert has faulted Friedman's work. Also, Clarke is an expert at puzzles. He has written puzzle books and created them for MENSA. If you're going to criticize an expert you better have much better evidence that just a personal opinion.[quote]I was saying that if you have to resort to the kind of cyphering I described you loose credibility, has a known Baconian cipher been found that decodes Shakespeare?? Because you can let any cipher loose on any document and find something as long as there is enough text. That is it basically why do you need to invent new ciphers not use the ones Bacon used.
Type-setters were the ones that choose the typeface in the early days of printing, it is also found that different folio's have different typesettings, nothing to worry about for anybody BUt sipher seekers.Quote:
For instance, if you claim that the typesetting wasn't consistent, then you're in essence claiming that some remarkable coincidences were purely by chance. But that itself can strain credulity when the odds against chance are extremely high.
Or even if he did...Quote:
Pen name: One of the arguments of using a pen-name like, or the same as, that of a real person, is that with just 'anonymous' then the authorities or whoever could come investigating who the true author is. Or with a generic name where no one is identified with it, then there could still be investigations. But with a real person's name, there's less like investigations and the person can just be kept an eye on. In reality, we'll never know why Bacon chose to use a real person's name likeness.
I suspected that but I could not find his reference to the Twelfth night eitherQuote:
Yes, I meant Twelfth Night. Sometimes I don't review what I post, like I won't this time either.
I had a lovely discussion on the deal between Claudio and Shylock how Claudio got out of that contract would make any contract invalid..Quote:
By the way, the legal arguments are all on-line. One doesn't need to get a hold of the book mentioned earlier.
I do not think that any lawyer would be stupid enough to write that...
The legal language of Shakespeare was not all that outrageous compared to other contemporary writers, so were they all university graduates in law or is there a trend to be detected.... did all those other legal arguers look into those writers as well??
Webster, Dekker, Heywood, Ben Jonson they used legal terms too, by the dozens... and for a man of whom we have a number of court documents he came in contact with the law no dunbt..
This is why you fail.Quote:
Originally Posted by AllanAlbert
You likely don't research what you read either which is why it's easy to follow a string of half truths to an erroneous conclusion.
The whole problem, all the outpourings of paper, time and effort, stems from a few interllectuals who can't believe that Will wasn't one of them.
This. Though maybe there is some bacon involved?
Let us never tolerate outrageous conspiracy theories.Quote:
Originally Posted by prendrelemick
George W Bush. :smilewinkgrin:
Looking at your videos there are two things that come to mind. The first is that Shakespeare wasn't uneducated as is stated in the first video. He was educated to a standard that today would be considered a good education.Quote:
Originally Posted by slljhnsn80
The second thing that strikes me is why would anyone trust a film made by a man whose previous efforts have been sci-fi nonsense aimed at the juvenile market? It is interesting to note that Mr Emmerich is a campaigner for lesbian and gay rights, which leads me to suspect that his motives for attacking an establishment sacred cow may be rooted in his own insecurities rather than in a genuine desire to show that the Earl of Oxford wrote the the plays.
That clip makes for all the arguments that the movie is telling lies in order to explain the Essex rebellion....Quote:
Originally Posted by slljhnsn80
the other clip oh my ...
Lies...
Fraud...
Dangerous to kids.... (why, a common man should not be able to rise to fame??)
Search for truth where truth cannot find a forum .... (and they call Stratfordians religous zealots...)
It still baffles me that the anti-strats are basing all their ideas on the simple starting point that a common man could not have written such stories... a common man could not have risen to that kind of fame....
If anybody should be honored for the plays that were published under the name William Sakespeare it must NOT be William Shakespeare of Stratford, son of a glover-who-became-mayor, NOT the actor/theater owner, but a nobleman of high stature, who had politics in mind in every sentence he wrote...
And they call the Stratfordians (who think a common man with enough books and imagination could do it) elitists....
The ultimate rags to richess story challenged for the sake of always suspect a conspiracy if the vast majority believes something to be true...
Indeed, when you act and delve into the physicality of Shakespeare, you cannot miss the feeling of a single presence and genius. One thing is for sure, the plays could NOT have been written by a closet Italian! Scandinavian would have been closer, but even then...really!
The evidence that a grammar school educated country boy couldn't possibly have written the incredibly complex and precision-knowledge-rich body of work, which are the plays, is very persuasive. I wouldn't rule it out.
Get ready for this conversation to explode with the release of the movie Anonymous.
Why??? Nobody stays a callow teenager all their life (I hope!). Education is an on-going process - it's called Experience. And people do go on reading all their life beyond school, as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by My2cents
Oh dear, I promised myself I wouldn't get involved in this ridiculous argument.
Ah but you shouldn't have doubts about what a majority have automatically accepted for centuries. Think Galileo.Quote:
Originally Posted by My2cents
Illiteracy for commoners of Will's lot was the norm. His father, John was illiterate, as was Judith, Shakespeare's youngest daughter, and most deduce that Susanna, Will's favorite child, was illiterate as well. The thinking is, how likely is it that the children of the greatest English literary artist would be illiterate? But that's just scratching the surface. The plays abound with a knowledge of things that could not have been known with the precision the writer demonstrates with a mere grammar school education or rubbing shoulders with the aristocratic elite. Those things--such as falconry--had to be part of writer's life, i.e. he had to have lived and known them first hand to have described the process with such accuracy and precision.Quote:
Originally Posted by kasie
Quite likely - girls were not on the whole formally educated in those days and Father was (probably) away in London for much of the time they were growing up. There are large areas of Shakespeare's life that are not known - how do you know he did not spend time in an aristocratic household? The activities going on could have been absorbed by a young man with a lively curiosity and an enquiring mind.
No one's disputing whether an intelligent and an enquiring mind could acquire an understanding of privileged, aristocratic pursuits. The point is that the understanding of those pursuits are so precisely and exquisitely expressed that the writer who wrote them couldn't have been a mere dabbler in those pursuits--pursuits which include astronomy, ornithology, botany, hunting, archery,horsemanship, and royal tennis, among others.Quote:
Originally Posted by kasie
This is nonsense. Like Kasie I thought I wouldn't engage anymore with this but it makes me so mad that such utter rubbish is allowed to pass for truth. So Shakespeare is supposed to be an expert in all those things? Did Marlowe have to sell his soul to the devil in order to know what he was writing about in Dr Faustus? Where's the room for the creative imagination? And as for only having a mere grammar school education, that shows a real misunderstanding of what such an education involved at that time.Quote:
Originally Posted by My2cents
Is it really possible that anyone could hide a conspiracy of such great magnitude that all this nonsense would need in order to succeed? It's a ridiculous theory, and is fanned by snobbery pure and simple. No-one questioned Shakespeare's authorship at the time, Ben Jonson amongst others knew him well, and it's only those who wish to make a name for themselves that would consider giving it any credence, for instance the director of Anonymous. If I see one more person connected to the film parroting these ridiculous notions, I will spontaneously combust. I know they have to plug their film, but really, they do themselves no favours at all, and risk alienating many viewers like myself who will most certainly not be going to see this, or anything else they get involved in in the future if they don't make it clear that it's basically nonsense, and NOT TRUE!
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Originally Posted by wessexgirl
There's an entire book devoted to birds that Shakespeare mentions in his works; namely James Edmund Harting's The Birds of Shakespeare. That should tell you that Shakespeare's knowledge of birds was formidable, that it wasn't something any one just could just pick up by osmosis or by exercising one's imagination. It was firmly rooted in knowledge of the highest order, the accumulated knowledge of painstakingly observed and recorded science.
Of botany, there's
andQuote:
for though the camomile, the more it is trodden on, the faster it grows,
[yet] youth, the more it is wasted, the sooner it wears
which I've personally found extraordinary. Which is to say that they are specific, science based knowledge applied to create drama of incomparable artistry.Quote:
On her left breast
A mole cinque-spotted, like the crimson drops
I' th' bottom of a cowslip.
You should keep an open mind. It's not either/or. A compelling argument can be made for either case and the chances are we'll never know.
Birds? Flowers? He was a country lad! Two hops and a skip and you're out of Stratford and into the Warwickshire countryside. Even I know a cowslip has dark red spots inside the flower and that's from peering into the flowers growing on a bank at the bottom of my grandfather's garden, grangpa who loved the flowers may even have pointed them out to me, but I haven't the talent/inspiration/sheer genius to use that knowledge to paint a word picture of a skin blemish.
I'm no country lad, much less a botanist, so that image/knowledge is utterly new to me and startingly extraordinary. There a bunch of images I could've quoted that (probably) neither of us would know offhand, highly specialized language and terminology dealing with horsemanship, falconry, astronomy, royal tennis, etc. But what would be the point? Pass them off as my superior knowledge on the subject when all I've really done is read up a little on the subject? But going back to the flower images, I made a point of quoting them to show that when Shakespeare writes about the things of the world, there's nothing fanciful or made-up about them. They're firmly rooted in observed facts or science. But what the heck, here's another image or two which show that Shakespeare, whoever he was, knew about things, that no commoner would have such a easy, expert understanding of.Quote:
Originally Posted by kasie
On second thought, just one for now.Quote:
Boyet: Full merrily/ Hath this brave manage, this career, been run.
Berowne: Lo! he is tilting straight.
I can't see why a boy from a country market town should not have known about horsemanship, falconry or jousting. Stratford is not far from Kenilworth or Warwick: during Shakespeare's boyhood, the Queen was entertained with 'princely pursuits' at both castles. Why should he not have listened in to eye-witness accounts, got into conversations with falconers, grooms, attendants who described the Royal entertainments? His father was Mayor of Stratford, the family would have had contacts with all sorts of people from the surrounding towns and establishments. As you say, one should keep an open mind, not least putting the man into the context of his time and place, not assume that it was then as it is now or as nineteenth century readers assumed it was.