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'.
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?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??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.
Last edited by joelavine; 09-27-2011 at 12:31 PM.
Right, no good can come from ordinary people... Einstein could never have thought up any of the theories he did...
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."
It should be a matter of how strong the evidence is.
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.
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'
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.
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??
Last edited by KCV16; 09-30-2011 at 03:39 PM. Reason: NMS part adjusted
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.
"L'art de la statistique est de tirer des conclusions erronèes a partir de chiffres exacts." Napoléon Bonaparte.
"Je crois que beaucoup de gens sont dans cet état d’esprit: au fond, ils ne sentent pas concernés par l’Histoire. Mais pourtant, de temps à autre, l’Histoire pose sa main sur eux." Michel Houellebecq.
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.
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....?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....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 knowAnd 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.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....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....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...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.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...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....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.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...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 eitherYes, 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..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.
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.
He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher... or, as his wife would have it, an idiot. ~ Douglas Adams
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.
George W Bush.
"L'art de la statistique est de tirer des conclusions erronèes a partir de chiffres exacts." Napoléon Bonaparte.
"Je crois que beaucoup de gens sont dans cet état d’esprit: au fond, ils ne sentent pas concernés par l’Histoire. Mais pourtant, de temps à autre, l’Histoire pose sa main sur eux." Michel Houellebecq.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote