On Dramatic Verse and Shakespeare's Illiteracy
john_baker
Critics of the Fakefordian paradigm, return time and again, to the
paradigm busting facts which prove the actor's immediate family appear
in the record as illiterates and that the records of his own life
indicate a similar, or nearly similar, status for himself.
Its a very odd finding.
Do you suppose that Woody Allen's children are illiterates or that
they might simply toss out in the trash one of his unpublished
scripts?
I'd like to suggest a writer of dramatic verse stands much closer to
the oral tradition than a writer of novels or histories.
Dramatic verse connects to speech more intimately than novels or
essays (such as this errant one).
Most first grade readers are simple stories: "See Jill run. Jill ran
up the hill. Jack ran up the hill."
They are not dialogues. A dialogue Reader would start: "Jack! Watch
me run up the hill. Now Jack you run up the hill."
Dialogue is much closer to speech than novels or essays.
And they are, thus, easier to learn.
I mean this in a literate and not pre-literate sense. If a person is
learning to read, in order to memorize lines, the code is simpler to
break when the material is spoken and dramatic than when its a novel
or an essay. (Or so it seems to this old man.)
It is also easier in the home.
When the writer is writing a novel or an essay or a history, he or she
has no particular reason to verbalize the story line. But a play must
be verbalized. It must be sounded. It must be blocked for staging.
A kind of primitive choreography. This player stands here and says
this...that one there and says that...etc. The parts cry to be read
aloud.
Given these elementary facts, the presence of illiterate persons in
the household of the writer William Shakespeare seems nearly an
insurmountable obstacle to him having any actual identity with the
writer.
I'd ask Kathman, that fountainhead of facts, if Strats have any data
on the literacy of writer's homes from the period? They have found
writers without wills. Is it known period playwrights raised
illiterate families? I know Fletcher received his father's library of
books. I know my library contains books that belonged to my
grandfather, as well as my father, and that I recently received a few
crates of dad's books that had ended up with his sister (my paternal
aunt) who is now approaching 100 and in an extended care facility. So
I don't buy the idea that literacy is routinely lost in a family once
established.
We have a surviving character list from Fletcher's play The Spanish
Curate, where the producer, Sir Edward Dering's mysterious librarian,
is forced to draw upon "Jake of the Buttery" for one of the parts.
Replacing Lord Wotton. Parts must be filled. Roles must be played.
And in the playing of them the actors learn by a form of natural human
ability to read and thus to write.
They master breaking the code between the written letters and the
spoken word.
No place is the connection more clear than in a dramatic dialogue or
in plays such as those evidenced writ large by Shakespeare's works.
So I say again, the absence of extensive literacy within the actor's
immediate family is good proof he wasn't the author of these great
plays.
Moreover its proof his role in the Globe theater was something less
than writer/producer. A businessman's family, of course, had little
need for these skills. Taking change at the gate, sweeping the dust
from behind the door, these were skills enough.
This is why his Stratford record doesn't evidence any interest in the
theater. He was an empty shell. He was more interested in hording
malt or real estate than in drama.
Surely, if he was the producer at the Globe, he could have produced
plays in Stratford and Warwickshire for more gain than his malt
business brought him. People were thirsty for his plays. But the
Stratfordian did not produce plays in Warwickshire. Nor did he see
after his family's literacy. I suspect he did not produce plays at
the Globe either. More likely his interests were pecuniary.
Based on biographic evidence, he had other, more mundane interests
and wasn't the writer as claimed by the ads in the First Folio.
There were no doubt actors who couldn't read or write and who like
singers just memorized their lines as sounds. I know Russians who
sing perfect English but can't speak a single word of it. But we are
not talking about a simple actor here.
The author wasn't simply memorizing or even generating dramatic
dialogues in his head. He was putting them on paper. And in drew
them from the depths of the world's great literature. So we know he
was reading and writing.
The question for Stratfordians is how could anyone in this man's
immediate family have escaped learning these basic skills? Skills
that are implemented effortlessly as children interact with the
written dramatic verse that is pouring out of the writer like an
artesian spring.
The record of English homes is that in families where the father was
literate the family was as well.
How could the creator of Portia and Miranda have allowed his own
daughters to mature into the darkness of illiteracy? How could he
have allowed his wife to remain in that darkness for her entire life?
I know one of his daughters could supposedly sign her own name, but
this is not evidence of literacy.
Nothing in the actor's life is evidence of it either. (Unless of
course, he was the author.)
My library card, my personal library, my 5,000 or so published
essays and my output here on hals is proof of my literacy, however
humble and errant it may be.
My signature is only proof that I can sign my own name.
AntiFakefordians have every right to demand proof of a connection.
Anything that would tie this titian to the puny life of the actor.
I'm not boasting. But my intellectual life has left an indelible
trace on my personal history. Its reflected in all kinds of public
records. As I'm certain Kathman's is too. (Unlike Kathman I've been
certified sane. Over and over again when I was working with nukes for
the USAF.) My record's on file.
We'd expect much more for a genius on the level of ole Willy
Fakespeare.
An intellectual complement to a life cannot be hidden. It leaves an
immutable biographic imprint.
It is this imprint that's missing from the actor's life and the lives
of his family.
The only reasonable explanation is that he wasn't the author.
bookbu...@my-deja.com
john baker wrote:
> On Dramatic Verse and Shakespeare's Illiteracy:
>
> Critics of the Fakefordian paradigm, return time and again, to the
> paradigm busting facts which prove the actor's immediate family appear
> in the record as illiterates and that the records of his own life
> indicate a similar, or nearly similar, status for himself.
> Its a very odd finding.
>
> Do you suppose that Woody Allen's children are illiterates or that
> they might simply toss out in the trash one of his unpublished
> scripts?
>
> I'd like to suggest a writer of dramatic verse stands much closer to
> the oral tradition than a writer of novels or histories.
I've heard the argument that dramatic playwrights are linked to
vernacular speech and popular entertainment, whereas novelists, etc.,
are literate and educated, writing for the closet; but from this we
shouldn't conclude that playwrights are uneducated or novelists removed
from the oral tradition, IMO.
(snip)
> When the writer is writing a novel or an essay or a history, he or she
> has no particular reason to verbalize the story line. But a play must
> be verbalized. It must be sounded. It must be blocked for staging.
> A kind of primitive choreography. This player stands here and says
> this...that one there and says that...etc. The parts cry to be read
> aloud.
>
> Given these elementary facts, the presence of illiterate persons in
> the household of the writer William Shakespeare seems nearly an
> insurmountable obstacle to him having any actual identity with the
> writer.
Perhaps this explains why Shakespeare went missing from '86-'92? He
just went off like Hawthorne or a Greek dramatist, found a room or
cave, and learned his craft.
>
> I'd ask Kathman, that fountainhead of facts, if Strats have any data
> on the literacy of writer's homes from the period? They have found
> writers without wills. Is it known period playwrights raised
> illiterate families? I know Fletcher received his father's library of
> books. I know my library contains books that belonged to my
> grandfather, as well as my father, and that I recently received a few
> crates of dad's books that had ended up with his sister (my paternal
> aunt) who is now approaching 100 and in an extended care facility. So
> I don't buy the idea that literacy is routinely lost in a family once
> established.
Song catchers in America have recorded British ballads
among "illiterate" peoples in Southern rural areas no longer extant in
Britain, dating from the 16th C. These people, arguably
once "literate," have preserved lyrical versions in an oral tradition,
generation to generation, generally thought to be highly literary--as
the whole American Southeast has proved to be.
>
> We have a surviving character list from Fletcher's play The Spanish
> Curate, where the producer, Sir Edward Dering's mysterious librarian,
> is forced to draw upon "Jake of the Buttery" for one of the parts.
> Replacing Lord Wotton. Parts must be filled. Roles must be played.
> And in the playing of them the actors learn by a form of natural human
> ability to read and thus to write.
>
> They master breaking the code between the written letters and the
> spoken word.
>
> No place is the connection more clear than in a dramatic dialogue or
> in plays such as those evidenced writ large by Shakespeare's works.
>
> So I say again, the absence of extensive literacy within the actor's
> immediate family is good proof he wasn't the author of these great
> plays.
To support this contention, perhaps you should identify the author's
immediate family, 1586-92?
>
(snip)
>
> Based on biographic evidence, he had other, more mundane interests
> and wasn't the writer as claimed by the ads in the First Folio.
All this is mere conjecture based on what I do not know. Do you know a
hawk from a handsaw?
> There were no doubt actors who couldn't read or write and who like
> singers just memorized their lines as sounds. I know Russians who
> sing perfect English but can't speak a single word of it. But we are
> not talking about a simple actor here.
Samuel Johnson, among the most literate of men, once exactly repeated
an 18 verse poem he was read. But somehow you are suggesting that
people who can't read don't know what words mean; that Shakespeare knew
what words mean; qed, Shakespeare could read: where can this logic
take us?
>
> The author wasn't simply memorizing or even generating dramatic
> dialogues in his head. He was putting them on paper. And in drew
> them from the depths of the world's great literature. So we know he
> was reading and writing.
>
> The question for Stratfordians is how could anyone in this man's
> immediate family have escaped learning these basic skills? Skills
> that are implemented effortlessly as children interact with the
> written dramatic verse that is pouring out of the writer like an
> artesian spring.
By basic skills do you mean acting and playwrighting? How do you know
the family wasn't like "The Waltons" and Shakespeare was like Jon-boy
who went off to the city to learn to be a writer?
>
> The record of English homes is that in families where the father was
> literate the family was as well.
Again you refer to records among the illiterate?
(snip)
>
> AntiFakefordians have every right to demand proof of a connection.
> Anything that would tie this titian to the puny life of the actor.
Do you need proof that other playwrights were also actors?
(snip)
> We'd expect much more for a genius on the level of ole Willy
> Fakespeare.
>
> An intellectual complement to a life cannot be hidden. It leaves an
> immutable biographic imprint.
>
> It is this imprint that's missing from the actor's life and the lives
> of his family.
>
> The only reasonable explanation is that he wasn't the author.
You could have stated these points barebones in the beginning and saved
a lot of wandering in the swamp. If it's Shakespeare's genius you
identify with and want to sort out, why not give us your recipe on
that?
bookburn
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
volker multhopp
> By basic skills do you mean acting and playwrighting? How do you know
> the family wasn't like "The Waltons" and Shakespeare was like Jon-boy
> who went off to the city to learn to be a writer?
Didn't Jon-boy write about his own life?
--Volker
John W. Kennedy
>
> On Dramatic Verse and Shakespeare's Illiteracy:
>
> Critics of the Fakefordian paradigm, return time and again, to the
> paradigm busting facts which prove the actor's immediate family appear
> in the record as illiterates
That's a lie.
> and that the records of his own life
> indicate a similar, or nearly similar, status for himself.
That's another lie.
--
-John W. Kennedy
-rri...@ibm.net
Compact is becoming contract
Man only earns and pays. -- Charles Williams
Tom Reedy
news:38C81D7C...@bellatlantic.net...
> john, baker wrote:
> >
> > On Dramatic Verse and Shakespeare's Illiteracy:
> >
> > Critics of the Fakefordian paradigm, return time and again, to the
> > paradigm busting facts which prove the actor's immediate family appear
> > in the record as illiterates
>
>
> > and that the records of his own life
> > indicate a similar, or nearly similar, status for himself.
>
>
> --
> -John W. Kennedy
> -rri...@ibm.net
> Compact is becoming contract
> Man only earns and pays. -- Charles Williams
True, but that's all Baker has. If he had no lies to post, he could not
post at all.
TR
richie miller
to school as a rule until the 18th or 19th centuries. What women or young
girls were given formal educations in 16th century England? What
percentage of women in 1600 could write or read The Fairie Queen?
Isn't it possible that Shakespeare never wrote down the plays? That he
made them all up in his head and merely spoke them to other actors or to a
secretary who wrote it down for him? If he was a genius like Mozart then
he had a great memory and simply knew what went where and when. I think
this is a strong possibility to support the Strats. The problem is the
Sonnets. They have "nobleman" written all over them. Perhaps Shakespeare
also liked pretending that he was an upper-cruster with shallow,
pretentious desires and problems, problems that no commoner would give a
rat's plague-ridden ass about.
Yours truly
Mr. Miraculous
www.omencity.com
volker multhopp
> What
> percentage of women in 1600 could write or read The Fairie Queen?
What is remarkable is how the women of the canon so naturally read, and
furthermore how often we learn of that literacy. We see the heroines of
the canon often reading or writing things. The women of the E nobility
were literate; the common women, including apparently the Shakspere
women, were generally illiterate.
--Volker
bookburn
<vol...@erols.com> wrote:
>bookbu...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
>> By basic skills do you mean acting and playwrighting? How do
>> you know
>> the family wasn't like "The Waltons" and Shakespeare was like
>> Jon-boy who went off to the city to learn to be a writer?
>
> --Volker
Drat, I seem to remember now that he went to college to become a
writer, that he did write about his family, and the author does
write about himself as Jon-boy in "The Waltons." Perhaps I
should have asked if he was like Pip in _Great Expectations_.
bookburn
* Sent from RemarQ http://www.remarq.com The Internet's Discussion Network *
The fastest and easiest way to search and participate in Usenet - Free!
David Kathman
>
> In article <38C8425C...@erols.com>, vol...@erols.com says...
Doubt all you want, but you'll be wrong. We have documentary
evidence that girls did attend school in Stratford in the
late 16th century. In fact, there are only two people who
lived in Stratford in the late 16th century for whom we have
documentary evidence that they attended school there, and
both are female. Interestingly enough, though, only one
of the two signed her name, while the other one made her
mark. Even more interesting, the one who signed her name
(in a nice italic hand) was a prostitute. The following
is an excerpt from a post I made here on March 10 of last year:
****************
I would draw everyone's attention to a record I've referred to
before: the 1598 trial of Elizabeth Evans for being a prostitute.
Evans testified that she had grown up in Stratford upon Avon, and
she was at least roughly of William Shakespeare's generation. By
1598 she was living in London and working as a prostitute. One
of the witnesses against her was Joyce Cowden, another Stratfordian
now living in London and married to John Cowden, a dyer in Seacoal
Lane. Elizabeth Evans had been going under false names, and Joyce
Cowden was called to identify her since they had grown up in the
same town. She testified that "she doth knowe Elizabeth Evans and...
she saith she [i.e. Cowden] was borne on Stratford vppon hauen
and further she saith that she this ex[amina]te went to schole
with the said Elizabeth Evans." Elizabeth Evans then confirmed
this: "Elizabeth Evans being present at the examinacion of the
said Joice confessed the same to be true and that the said Joice
did go wth her the said Elizabeth to schole togethir At Stratford
vppon hauen."
So both of these women said that they had gone to school together
in Stratford upon Avon. Yet Joyce Cowden signed her deposition
with a mark, an approximation of a capital "I" or "J", while
Elizabeth Evans signed "Elis evens" in a neat italic hand, with
little loops on the capital "E". So we have one woman who
apparently could not write, even though she admitted in court
that she had gone to school. What do you suppose Joyce Cowden
learned in school, Volker? Could she have learned to read, since
that was the first thing children were taught? I know, you'll
say this isn't clear enough evidence. But I'd be interested to
hear what you think Joyce Cowden learned in school in Stratford,
if she didn't learn to read.
*****************************
> Did Shakespeare bring his family with him to London? Would you?
I don't know for sure whether he brought his family with him
to London, though in the absence of evidence to that effect,
I have to assume that he did not. However, I don't see what
this has to do with the authorship question.
> If Shakesper was such a great wit, how could he possibly have acquired it
> in the backwoods of Stratford?
Stratford was not a "backwoods", at least not in the disparaging
sense you're using it. It was a good-sized market town with
lots of cultured and literate people living there. Please see
my essay "Shakespeare's Stratford Friends" on the Shakespeare
Authorship Page.
> The city is where he had to learn his
> craft. So he shows up by when? 1590? And writes the two greatest non-
> dramatic poems in English history within, say, a year of his arrival?
Huh? If he arrived in 1590, that means Venus and Adonis was published
three years after his arrival, and Lucrece was published four years
after.
And I think you'll get plenty of argument if you consider those
"the two greatest non-dramatic poems in English history".
> And
> to boot becomes the fawning admirer and best buddy of a great Earl!
He was a fawning admirer of Southampton, but the "best buddy"
part is pure conjecture, looked upon skeptically by most
scholars today.
> To
> what do we attribute these amazing powers of genius and charm?
>
> Maybe Shak just split the moment his third child arrived, and legged it to
> London ("To hell with you, Anne! I'm off to live my youth in the big city.
> I'll be back when I've made my fortune.) He got there in 1586 and
> therefore had plenty of time to get it all together.
I think this is probably closer to the truth. He probably went
to London some time in the late 1580s, which is the closest thing
to a consensus view today.
> His charm and wit
> made him a secret darling of the Queen!
Where do you get this from? Who believes this "secret darling of
the Queen" business? Not me, I can assure you.
> Meanwhile his wife and daughters lived in "Illiterateland"
There was no such place as "Illiterateland". Shakespeare's
daughter Susanna could sign her name, which is a very strong
indicator of literacy. Are you not aware of this?
> squandering away
> the days till Dad returned with a hoard of cash and an alcohol problem,
Where do you get this "alcohol problem" from? Are you making
stuff up so you can attack a straw man?
> which made his wife so mad that she spelled his name wrong on his tomb and
> had his effigy grasp a sack of hops (It's plain that a man interested in
> grain hoarding would do so for fear of running out of the precious winter-
> warming elixir!) "That man's writings made a widow of me and I'll have none
> of it in this house!"
I know you're being facetious, but I know you've read my essay on
17th-century references to the monument, and presumably also the
accompanying essay by Spielmann. Kidding aside, do you believe
the anti-Stratfordian claims that the monument originally
depicted Shakespeare holding a sack of some sort?
Dave Kathman
dj...@ix.netcom.com
BobGr...@nut-n-but.net
Mary or Judith could not at least read, and possibly write. But
let's assume that they were all illiterate. Why couldn't a Stratfordian
claim that Shakespeare's heroines were inspired by his wishes rather
than reality--as, say, Al Capp's heroines were undoubtedly much better
looking thatn the women in his life? Not that I would claim this. I
think Shakespeare's heroines could read and write because that helped
advance the plot. It had nothing to do with any women in his life. But
his heroines' blank verse WAS taken directly from his mother's, wife's
and daughter's manner of speech.
As for Richie's attempt to help us out by suggesting that Shakespeare
was an oral poet, the facts of the matter unfortunately contradict
the idea: his monument spoke of his writing, his fellow actors referred
to the written scripts he brought to them, we have signatures of
his--and we have no reports of his having been an oral poet, as we
surely would have had, had he been one, since it would have been worthy
of comment for certain.
--Bob G.
richie miller
> richie miller wrote:
>
> > What
> > percentage of women in 1600 could write or read The Fairie Queen?
>
> What is remarkable is how the women of the canon so naturally read, and
> furthermore how often we learn of that literacy. We see the heroines of
> the canon often reading or writing things. The women of the E nobility
> were literate; the common women, including apparently the Shakspere
> women, were generally illiterate.
>
> --Volker
>
Did girls attend the grammar school in Stratford? Doubt it!
Did Shakespeare bring his family with him to London? Would you?
If Shakesper was such a great wit, how could he possibly have acquired it
in the backwoods of Stratford? The city is where he had to learn his
craft. So he shows up by when? 1590? And writes the two greatest non-
dramatic poems in English history within, say, a year of his arrival? And
to boot becomes the fawning admirer and best buddy of a great Earl! To
what do we attribute these amazing powers of genius and charm?
Maybe Shak just split the moment his third child arrived, and legged it to
London ("To hell with you, Anne! I'm off to live my youth in the big city.
I'll be back when I've made my fortune.) He got there in 1586 and
therefore had plenty of time to get it all together. His charm and wit
made him a secret darling of the Queen!
Meanwhile his wife and daughters lived in "Illiterateland" squandering away
the days till Dad returned with a hoard of cash and an alcohol problem,
which made his wife so mad that she spelled his name wrong on his tomb and
had his effigy grasp a sack of hops (It's plain that a man interested in
grain hoarding would do so for fear of running out of the precious winter-
warming elixir!) "That man's writings made a widow of me and I'll have none
of it in this house!"
You may now return to your own regularly scheduled babblings.
Richie
www.omencity.com
Tom Reedy
news:MPG.1331d915c...@news.earthlink.net...
> I am curious. I am under the (false?) impression that women were not sent
> to school as a rule until the 18th or 19th centuries. What women or young
> percentage of women in 1600 could write or read The Fairie Queen?
I don't know what percentage of women in 1600 could read The Fairie Queen,
but I'm certain the percentage of women who could write it was zero. The
percentage of men who could write it approaches zero.
TR
Clark
<snip>
> Meanwhile his wife and daughters lived in "Illiterateland" squandering
away
> the days till Dad returned with a hoard of cash and an alcohol problem,
> which made his wife so mad that she spelled his name wrong on his tomb and
> had his effigy grasp a sack of hops (It's plain that a man interested in
> grain hoarding would do so for fear of running out of the precious winter-
> warming elixir!)
richie, read this and see if it changes your mind about the "sack" theory:
http://members.home.net/cjh5801/Shakespeare~monument.htm
If you have trouble with the big words, there are plenty of pretty pictures.
- Clark
Visit my Shakespeare web page at:
http://members.home.net/cjh5801/Shakespeare.htm
richie miller
> richie miller wrote:
> >
> > In article <38C8425C...@erols.com>, vol...@erols.com says...
> > > richie miller wrote:
> > >
> > > > What
> > > > percentage of women in 1600 could write or read The Fairie Queen?
> > >
> > > What is remarkable is how the women of the canon so naturally read, and
> > > furthermore how often we learn of that literacy. We see the heroines of
> > > the canon often reading or writing things. The women of the E nobility
> > > were literate; the common women, including apparently the Shakspere
> > > women, were generally illiterate.
> > >
> > > --Volker
> > >
> > Did girls attend the grammar school in Stratford? Doubt it!
I added the "doubt it!" cause I thought without it this questions would be
ignored...instead it inspired the following response which demolished my
assumption:
OK! I wish the Oxfordians could be this precise!
>
> *****************************
>
> > Did Shakespeare bring his family with him to London? Would you?
>
> I don't know for sure whether he brought his family with him
> to London, though in the absence of evidence to that effect,
> I have to assume that he did not. However, I don't see what
> this has to do with the authorship question.
Nothing. It's just that I wouldn't. Would you?
>
> > If Shakesper was such a great wit, how could he possibly have acquired it
> > in the backwoods of Stratford?
>
> Stratford was not a "backwoods", at least not in the disparaging
> sense you're using it. It was a good-sized market town with
> lots of cultured and literate people living there. Please see
> my essay "Shakespeare's Stratford Friends" on the Shakespeare
> Authorship Page.
>
> > The city is where he had to learn his
> > craft. So he shows up by when? 1590? And writes the two greatest non-
> > dramatic poems in English history within, say, a year of his arrival?
>
> Huh? If he arrived in 1590, that means Venus and Adonis was published
> three years after his arrival, and Lucrece was published four years
> after.
I see, so it is plainly clear to everyone but me when he actually "wrote"
his poems and plays. I didn't know writing and publishing were synonymous
terms. I'm guessing here Dave...tell me who isn't?
> And I think you'll get plenty of argument if you consider those
> "the two greatest non-dramatic poems in English history".
I also think "Excalibur" by John Boorman is the best movie ever made and
I'll get argument for that too...
> > And
> > to boot becomes the fawning admirer and best buddy of a great Earl!
>
> He was a fawning admirer of Southampton, but the "best buddy"
> part is pure conjecture, looked upon skeptically by most
> scholars today.
I do find it hard to believe that Oxford would talk that way unless of
course he was his hard up father looking for a handout!
>
> > To
> > what do we attribute these amazing powers of genius and charm?
> >
> > Maybe Shak just split the moment his third child arrived, and legged it to
> > London ("To hell with you, Anne! I'm off to live my youth in the big city.
> > I'll be back when I've made my fortune.) He got there in 1586 and
> > therefore had plenty of time to get it all together.
>
> I think this is probably closer to the truth. He probably went
> to London some time in the late 1580s, which is the closest thing
> to a consensus view today.
This is the second time Dave has agreed with me and I'll tell you it gives
me the strength to make it through another day!
>
> > His charm and wit
> > made him a secret darling of the Queen!
>
> Where do you get this from? Who believes this "secret darling of
> the Queen" business? Not me, I can assure you.
If you don't know then you haven't read that much Oxfordian (scholarly)
literature. This is the lynch pin of their whole argument!
>
> > Meanwhile his wife and daughters lived in "Illiterateland"
>
> There was no such place as "Illiterateland". Shakespeare's
> daughter Susanna could sign her name, which is a very strong
> indicator of literacy. Are you not aware of this?
Yes, and now I know that women went to school so the premise of
Illiterateland is suddenly catapulted into Disneyland.
>
> > squandering away
> > the days till Dad returned with a hoard of cash and an alcohol problem,
>
> Where do you get this "alcohol problem" from? Are you making
> stuff up so you can attack a straw man?
Isn't there a story about Shakespeare dying after an over consumption of
booze and pickled herring? And Terry says that if anything biographical
can be inferred from the canon it is that Shakespeare liked his ale. I
came up with the alcohol problem all by myself!
I'll be just as happy, if however perplexed, if you prove to me that Sk
wrote Sk. Perhaps at that point I'll actually read some of the things he
wrote!
>
> > which made his wife so mad that she spelled his name wrong on his tomb and
> > had his effigy grasp a sack of hops (It's plain that a man interested in
> > grain hoarding would do so for fear of running out of the precious winter-
> > warming elixir!) "That man's writings made a widow of me and I'll have none
> > of it in this house!"
>
> I know you're being facetious, but I know you've read my essay on
> 17th-century references to the monument, and presumably also the
> accompanying essay by Spielmann. Kidding aside, do you believe
> the anti-Stratfordian claims that the monument originally
> depicted Shakespeare holding a sack of some sort?
I did, but the refutation I was directed to makes sense. The walls of the
Oxfordian castle are definitely crumbling, as far as I'm concerned. I'll
let you know when it's surrender time...
>
> Dave Kathman
> dj...@ix.netcom.com
>
Richie Miller
www.omencity.com
(Where you can see pictures of Richie when he liked ale as much as
Shakespeare did...just click on music)
richie miller
cjh...@home.com says...
> richie miller wrote
> <snip>
> > Meanwhile his wife and daughters lived in "Illiterateland" squandering
> away
> > the days till Dad returned with a hoard of cash and an alcohol problem,
> > had his effigy grasp a sack of hops (It's plain that a man interested in
> > grain hoarding would do so for fear of running out of the precious winter-
> > warming elixir!)
>
> http://members.home.net/cjh5801/Shakespeare~monument.htm
>
> If you have trouble with the big words, there are plenty of pretty pictures.
>
>
> - Clark
>
> Visit my Shakespeare web page at:
> http://members.home.net/cjh5801/Shakespeare.htm
>
>
>
>
He seems more of a fan of architecture than the human form (the difference
between the two is embarrassing). I can see that if anyone copied his lead
they were bound to be in error, so the argument is very reasonable and
ultimately convincing.
Richie like pretty pictures!
volker multhopp
> We have documentary
> evidence that girls did attend school in Stratford in the
> late 16th century. In fact, there are only two people who
> lived in Stratford in the late 16th century for whom we have
> documentary evidence that they attended school there, and
> both are female. Interestingly enough, though, only one
> of the two signed her name, while the other one made her
> mark. Even more interesting, the one who signed her name
> (in a nice italic hand) was a prostitute.
Too bad the Shakspere girls couldn't do likewise.
--Volker
Deirdre E Shaw
witness statement is the only evidence of her schooling (you may have other
evidence), surely it is more likely that she only attended a petty school
and that her education ceased after that. My understanding is that only
boys attended grammar schools. I'd be interested to hear more.
Deirdre
"David Kathman" <dj...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
news:38C887...@ix.netcom.com...
gita...@my-deja.com
>
> Critics of the Fakefordian paradigm, return time and again, to the
> paradigm busting facts which prove the actor's immediate family appear
> in the record as illiterates and that the records of his own life
> indicate a similar, or nearly similar, status for himself.
>
> I agree that Shakespeare “drew his dramatic dialogue from the depths
of the world’s great literature.” He could not have picked up the
literary and other kinds of knowledge that he displays from only casual
reading and conversation. So while this is proof of a sort that the
Sratford man could not have been the author, I don’t think it
necessarily follows that Shakespeare’s children had to be literate and
that “the absence of extensive literacy within the actor’s family” can
be construed as proof that he wasn’t the author. Even if he were, he
left home when the children were small. They were then in the care of
their illiterate mother. Hasn’t there been a recent finding that the
intelligence of a child depends more on the mother than on the father?
> Gita Balagopalan
RLamb
BobGr...@Nut-N-But.Net wrote in message <8a9je5$fp3$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
>Susannah Shakespeare could write, and we don't know for sure that
>Mary or Judith could not at least read, and possibly write.
This is true, and barring the emergence of some exciting new evidence, we
ain't gonna know. But a friend who's made an in-depth study of Lowestoft
documents for this period told me that it's hard to generalize about
literacy rates anyway: they varied from place to place. For example, a
Cambridge study in which he took part suggests a "literacy crescent” along
the East Anglian coast, with a quite high rate of literacy in Lowestoft
itself due perhaps to sea trade, with official requirements to sign bills of
lading etc He also added: "The rate among women was also high as they often
acted as surrogates for men away at sea. By the late 16/ early 17 century
they are witnessing wills as or more often than men."
Well obviously that doesn't mean the same rates of literacy applied to women
in Stratford, which was a market town and not a seaport; and of course the
"literacy" of women in Lowestoft may not have stretched much further than
signing their names. But it does suggest that some sort of educational
structure was available for ordinary women, even humble mariners' wives.
Like Deirdre, I imagine a kind of dame school where they might learn their
letters - nothing so grand as grammar schooling. (Though that joke in LLL,
where the old parson compliments Holofernes on his prowess as a
schoolmaster - "Sir, I praise the Lord for you, and so may my parishioners;
for their sons are well tutored by you, and their daughters profit very
greatly under you.." - doesn't make sense unless some country schoolmasters
were also instructing girls, does it? Yes, I realise it's a double-entendre.
But Sir Nathaniel is an old innocent, sincerely attempting a compliment. He
can't be intending the remark to be taken in the off-colour sense in which
we the audience understand it, he must mean it literally.)
And lastly, although this is at a slightly higher social level, I quote a
letter (c. 1592) in which a woman taking care of a gentlewoman's little
daughter writes: "...letel betty is a great scoller & doth larn as fast as I
can tech her for som time I am veri much trobled wyth my nyes that I cannat
se the letters & than she sayth a you blynd betel can you nat se" She also
mentions that little Betty "Is very womanly whan she list & she wyl
manytimes drinke to her mother ...& to her syster all in french and she hath
sum french for me but it is not veri good & now I larn her to sow & she doth
lose al my nedels but she sayth whan the pedler com she wyl by me sum more &
so I trust her of her word..."
This picture of a not-very-highly-educated woman passing on her basic
literacy skills in the same way as her embroidery stitches and scraps of
French implies that, though education for women wasn't taken very seriously,
it was at least considered necessary for little gentlewomen to know their
letters. And whether you believe Shakespeare of Stratford to be a great
writer or just a grain dealer, he certainly was keen to be seen to belong to
the gentry. He had a nice house, land, sword, silvergilt bowl, coat of arms
etc etc. If he was so eager to collect these badges of gentility, why would
he allow his daughters to grow up like peasants? Did he want them to marry
farmers?
Rita
Greg Reynolds
volker multhopp wrote:
> David Kathman wrote:
>
> > We have documentary
> > evidence that girls did attend school in Stratford in the
> > late 16th century. In fact, there are only two people who
> > lived in Stratford in the late 16th century for whom we have
> > documentary evidence that they attended school there, and
> > both are female. Interestingly enough, though, only one
> > of the two signed her name, while the other one made her
> > mark. Even more interesting, the one who signed her name
> > (in a nice italic hand) was a prostitute.
>
> Too bad the Shakspere girls couldn't do likewise.
>
> --Volker
Do you mean read or turn tricks?
--Greg
Clark
> volker multhopp wrote:
> > Too bad the Shakspere girls couldn't do likewise.
> >
> > --Volker
>
> Do you mean read or turn tricks?
>
> --Greg
I dunno, I have my suspicions about Judith. Marrying out of season and all.
volker multhopp
> And whether you believe Shakespeare of Stratford to be a great
> writer or just a grain dealer, he certainly was keen to be seen to belong to
> the gentry. He had a nice house, land, sword, silvergilt bowl, coat of arms
> etc etc. If he was so eager to collect these badges of gentility, why would
> he allow his daughters to grow up like peasants? Did he want them to marry
> farmers?
A counter possibility was that Shakspere, businessman, was indeed
illiterate, albeit ambitious. He then would have been proud, however,
that he had achieved his position without schooling. He might well
believe, if he could make it without "wasting his time in school", so
could his children. If ambition itself were enough to get parents to
put children in school, then we would have had widespread literacy many,
many centuries before we did, because literacy, once acquired, does get
passed down, since literate parents appreciate the myriad advantages of
literacy and do take care to get their children educated. The
active/passive resistance of the unread majority, mistrustful of
book-learning, was what hindered the spread of literacy. The evidence
does seem to show that Judith was illiterate, and Susanna's "literacy"
might well have restricted to signing her name (would WS have educated
one daughter, but not the other?).
--Volker
Nigel Davies
> RLamb wrote:
>
> > And whether you believe Shakespeare of Stratford to be a great
> > writer or just a grain dealer, he certainly was keen to be seen to belong to
> > the gentry. He had a nice house, land, sword, silvergilt bowl, coat of arms
> > etc etc. If he was so eager to collect these badges of gentility, why would
> > he allow his daughters to grow up like peasants? Did he want them to marry
> > farmers?
>
> A counter possibility was that Shakspere, businessman, was indeed
> illiterate, albeit ambitious. He then would have been proud, however,
> that he had achieved his position without schooling. He might well
> believe, if he could make it without "wasting his time in school", so
> could his children. If ambition itself were enough to get parents to
> put children in school, then we would have had widespread literacy many,
> many centuries before we did, because literacy, once acquired, does get
> passed down, since literate parents appreciate the myriad advantages of
> literacy and do take care to get their children educated.
"possibility", "would have been", "might", "if", "could", "If", "would have",
etc.
> The
> active/passive resistance of the unread majority, mistrustful of
> book-learning, was what hindered the spread of literacy.
Nonsense. Where do you get this rubbish from? The lack of access to educational
facilities and printed material hindered the spread of literacy. Stratford,
having a Grammar school, had no such hinderances, as we all know: page 118 of
Asa Briggs' "The Social History of England" comments on "the proliferation after
the Reformation of a wide range of educational institutions, from small private
establishments, often kept by a single master, to well-endowed grammar schools"
and "Literacy increased during the 1560s and 1570s."
It is genuinely amazing how you rewrite history despite the facts proving the
complete opposite of what you fabricate.
> The evidence
> does seem to show that Judith was illiterate, and Susanna's "literacy"
> might well have restricted to signing her name (would WS have educated
> one daughter, but not the other?).
Volker "Canute" Multhopp.
______________________________________________________________________
Nigel....@BTInternet.com
Neuendorffer
Too bad nobody remembers going to scole with Will:
Is Shakespeare Dead - Mark Twain
http://www.concordance.com/cgi-bin/begnr.pl
<<About two months ago I was illuminating this
Autobiography with some notions of mine concerning the Bacon-
Shakespeare controversy, and I then took occasion to air the
opinion that the Stratford Shakespeare was a person of no public
consequence or celebrity during his lifetime, but was utterly
obscure and unimportant. And not only in great London, but also in
the little village where he was born, where he lived a quarter of a
century, and where he died and was buried. I argued that if he had
been a person of any note at all, aged villagers would have had
much to tell about him many and many a year after his death,
instead of being unable to furnish inquirers a single fact
connected with him. I believed, and I still believe, that if he
had been famous, his notoriety would have lasted as long as mine
has lasted in my native village out in Missouri. It is a good
argument, a prodigiously strong one, and a most formidable one for
even the most gifted, and ingenious, and plausible Stratfordolater
to get around or explain away. To-day a Hannibal Courier-Post of
recent date has reached me, with an article in it which reinforces
my contention that a really celebrated person cannot be forgotten
in his village in the short space of sixty years. I will make an
extract from it:
Hannibal, as a city, may have many sins to answer for, but
ingratitude is not one of them, or reverence for the great men she
has produced, and as the years go by her greatest son Mark Twain,
or S. L. Clemens as a few of the unlettered call him, grows in the
estimation and regard of the residents of the town he made famous
and the town that made him famous. His name is associated with
every old building that is torn down to make way for the modern
structures demanded by a rapidly growing city, and with every hill
or cave over or through which he might by any possibility have
roamed, while the many points of interest which he wove into his
stories, such as Holiday Hill, Jackson's Island, or Mark Twain
Cave, are now monuments to his genius. Hannibal is glad of any
opportunity to do him honor as he has honored her.
So it has happened that the "old timers" who went to school with
Mark or were with him on some of his usual escapades have been
honored with large audiences whenever they were in a reminiscent
mood and condescended to tell of their intimacy with the ordinary
boy who came to be a very extraordinary humorist and whose every
boyish act is now seen to have been indicative of what was to come.
Like Aunt Beckey and Mrs. Clemens, they can now see that Mark was
hardly appreciated when he lived here and that the things he did as
a boy and was whipped for doing were not all bad after all. So
they have been in no hesitancy about drawing out the bad things he
did as well as the good in their efforts to get a "Mark Twain
story," all incidents being viewed in the light of his present
fame, until the volume of "Twainiana" is already considerable and
growing in proportion as the "old timers" drop away and the stories
are retold second and third hand by their descendants. With some
seventy-three years young and living in a villa instead of a house
he is a fair target, and let him incorporate, copyright, or patent
himself as he will, there are some of his "works" that will go
swooping up Hannibal chimneys as long as gray-beards gather about
the fires and begin with "I've heard father tell" or possibly "Once
when I.">>
------------------------------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer
Neuendorffer
Cowen/Cowden/Cowdung
Coal: It is by no means certain that the Hebrews were acquainted with
mineral coal, although it is found in Syria. Their common fuel was dried
dung of animals and wood charcoal. Two different words are found in
Hebrew to denote coal, both occurring in Prov. 26:21, "As coal [Heb.
peham; i.e., "black coal"] is to burning coal [Heb. gehalim]." The
latter of these words is used in Job 41:21; Prov. 6:28; Isa. 44:19. The
words "live coal" in Isa. 6:6 are more correctly "glowing stone." In
Lam. 4:8 the expression "blacker than a coal" is literally rendered in
the margin of the Revised Version "darker than blackness." "Coals of
fire" (2 Sam. 22:9, 13; Ps. 18:8, 12, 13, etc.) is an expression used
metaphorically for lightnings proceeding from God. A false tongue is
compared to "coals of juniper" (Ps. 120:4; James 3:6). "Heaping coals of
fire on the head" symbolizes overcoming evil with good. The words of
Paul (Rom. 12:20) are equivalent to saying, "By charity and kindness
thou shalt soften down his enmity as surely as heaping coals on the fire
fuses the metal in the crucible."
---------------------------------------------------
David Kathman wrote:
> I would draw everyone's attention to a record I've referred to
> before: the 1598 trial of Elizabeth Evans for being a prostitute.
> Evans testified that she had grown up in Stratford upon Avon,
> and she was at least roughly of William Shakespeare's generation.
> By 1598 she was living in London and working as a prostitute.
> One of the witnesses against her was Joyce Cowden,
> another Stratfordian now living in London and married to John Cowden,
> a dyer in SEACOAL Lane.
---------------------------------------------------
Lesser Bourgeoisie, by de Balzac
<<Cerizet burned sea-coal when the weather was severe.>>
---------------------------------------------------
Ivanhoe - Sir Walter Scott ** ( CHAPTER XL. )
<< She bade him go bask by his sea-coal fire,
For she was the widow would say him nay. >>
--------------------------------------------------------
Don Juan - Lord Byron
The sea-coal fires the 'earliest of the year;'
Without doors, too, she may compete in mellow,
As what is lost in green is gain'd in yellow.
And for the effeminate villeggiatura-
In sight, then lost amidst the forestry
Of masts; a wilderness of steeples peeping
On tiptoe through their sea-coal canopy;
A huge, dun cupola, like a foolscap crown
On a fool's head- and there is London Town!
---------------------------------------------------
King Henry IV Part II: Act 2, Scene 1
London. A street.
FALSTAFF What is the gross sum that I owe thee?
MISTRESS QUICKLY
Marry, if thou wert an honest man, thyself and the
money too. Thou didst swear to me upon a
parcel-gilt goblet, sitting in my Dolphin-chamber,
at the round table, by a sea-coal fire, upon
Wednesday in Wheeson week, when the prince broke
thy head for liking his father to a singing-man of
Windsor, thou didst swear to me then, as I was
washing thy wound, to marry me and make me my lady
thy wife. Canst thou deny it? Did not goodwife
Keech, the butcher's wife, come in then and call me
gossip Quickly? coming in to borrow a mess of
vinegar; telling us she had a good dish of prawns;
whereby thou didst desire to eat some; whereby I
told thee they were ill for a green wound? And
didst thou not, when she was gone down stairs,
desire me to be no more so familiarity with such
poor people; saying that ere long they should call
me madam? And didst thou not kiss me and bid me
fetch thee thirty shillings? I put thee now to thy
book-oath: deny it, if thou canst.
-----------------------------------------------------
Moby Dick - Melville
<<"I have sat before the dense coal fire and watched it all aglow,
full of its tormented flaming life; and I have seen it wane at last,
down, down, to dumbest dust. Old man of oceans! of all this fiery life
of thine, what will at length remain but one little heap of ashes!"
"Aye," cried Stubb, "but sea-coal ashes- mind ye that, Mr. Starbuck-
sea-coal, not your common charcoal. Well, well! I heard Ahab mutter,
'Here some one thrusts these cards into these old hands of mine;
swears that I must play them, and no others.' And damn me, Ahab, but
thou actest right; live in the game, and die in it!" >>
<<Then standing as if incredulous for a while, he calmly walked
towards the astonished steward slowly saying, "Ginger? ginger? and
will you have the goodness to tell me, Mr. Dough-Boy, where lies the
virtue of ginger? Ginger! is ginger the sort of fuel you use,
Dough-boy, to kindle a fire in this shivering cannibal? Ginger!-
what the devil is ginger?- sea-coal? firewood?- lucifer matches?-
tinder?- gunpowder?- what the devil is ginger, I say, that you offer
this cup to our poor Queequeg here.">>
--------------------------------------------------------------
The Merry Wives of Windsor: Act 1, Scene 4
MISTRESS QUICKLY
Go; and we'll have a posset for't soon at night, in
faith, at the latter end of a sea-coal fire.
Exit RUGBY
An honest, willing, kind fellow, as ever servant
shall come in house withal, and, I warrant you, no
tell-tale nor no breed-bate: his worst fault is,
that he is given to prayer; he is something peevish
that way: but nobody but has his fault; but let
that pass. Peter Simple, you say your name is?
---------------------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer
Neuendorffer
David Kathman wrote:
> I would draw everyone's attention to a record I've referred to
> before: the 1598 trial of Elizabeth Evans for being a prostitute.
> Evans testified that she had grown up in Stratford upon Avon,
> and she was at least roughly of William Shakespeare's generation.
> By 1598 she was living in London and working as a prostitute.
> One of the witnesses against her was Joyce Cowden,
>another Stratfordian now living in London and married to John Cowden,
> a dyer in SEACOAL Lane.
--------------------------------------------------------------
The Merry Wives of Windsor: Act 1, Scene 4
MISTRESS QUICKLY
Go; and we'll have a posset for't soon at night, in
faith, at the latter end of a SEA-COAL fire.
Exit RUGBY
An honest, willing, kind fellow, as ever servant
shall come in house withal, and, I warrant you, no
tell-tale nor no breed-bate: his worst fault is,
that he is given to prayer; he is something peevish
that way: but nobody but has his fault; but let
that pass. Peter Simple, you say your name is?
--------------------------------------------------------------
David Kathman:
> Elizabeth Evans had been going under false names, and Joyce
> Cowden was called to identify her since they had grown up in the
> same town. She testified that "she doth knowe Elizabeth Evans and...
> she saith she [i.e. Cowden] was borne on Stratford vppon hauen
> and further she saith that she this ex[amina]te went to schole
> with the said Elizabeth Evans." Elizabeth Evans then confirmed
> this: "Elizabeth Evans being present at the examinacion of the
> said Joice confessed the same to be true and that the said Joice
> did go wth her the said Elizabeth to schole togethir At Stratford
> vppon hauen."
--------------------------------------------------------------
Much Ado About Nothing: Act 3, Scene 5
DOGBERRY Go, good partner, go, get you to FRANCIS SEACOLE;
bid him bring his pen and inkhorn to the gaol:
we are now to examination these men.
VERGES And we must do it wisely.
DOGBERRY We will spare for no wit, I warrant you;
here's that shall drive some of them to a non-come:
only get the learned writer to set down our
excommunication and meet me at the gaol.
---------------------------------------------------
David Kathman wrote:
> So both of these women said that they had gone to school together
> in Stratford upon Avon. Yet Joyce Cowden signed her deposition
> with a mark, an approximation of a capital "I" or "J", while
> Elizabeth Evans signed "Elis evens" in a neat italic hand, with
> little loops on the capital "E". So we have one woman who
> apparently could not write, even though she admitted in court
> that she had gone to school. What do you suppose Joyce Cowden
> learned in school, Volker? Could she have learned to read, since
> that was the first thing children were taught?
---------------------------------------------------------------
Much Ado About Nothing: Act 3, Scene 3
DOGBERRY First, who think you the most desertless man
to be constable?
First Watchman Hugh Otecake, sir, or GEORGE SEACOLE;
for they can write and read.
DOGBERRY Come hither, neighbour SEACOLE. God hath blessed
you with a good name: to be a well-favoured man is
the gift of fortune; BUT TO WRITE AND READ COMES BY NATURE.
Second Watchman Both which, master constable,–
DOGBERRY You have: I knew it would be your answer. Well,
for your favour, sir, why, give God thanks, and make
no boast of it; and for your writing and reading,
let that appear when there is no need of such
vanity. You are thought here to be the most
senseless and fit man for the constable of the
watch; therefore bear you the lantern. This is your
charge: you shall comprehend all vagrom men; you are
to bid any man stand, in the prince's name.
---------------------------------------------------
Cowen/Cowden/Cowdung
Coal: It is by no means certain that the Hebrews were acquainted with
mineral coal, although it is found in Syria. Their common fuel was dried
dung of animals and wood charcoal. Two different words are found in
Hebrew to denote coal, both occurring in Prov. 26:21, "As coal [Heb.
peham; i.e., "black coal"] is to burning coal [Heb. gehalim]." The
latter of these words is used in Job 41:21; Prov. 6:28; Isa. 44:19. The
words "live coal" in Isa. 6:6 are more correctly "glowing stone." In
Lam. 4:8 the expression "blacker than a coal" is literally rendered in
the margin of the Revised Version "darker than blackness." "Coals of
fire" (2 Sam. 22:9, 13; Ps. 18:8, 12, 13, etc.) is an expression used
metaphorically for lightnings proceeding from God. A false tongue is
compared to "coals of juniper" (Ps. 120:4; James 3:6). "Heaping coals of
fire on the head" symbolizes overcoming evil with good. The words of
Paul (Rom. 12:20) are equivalent to saying, "By charity and kindness
thou shalt soften down his enmity as surely as heaping coals on the fire
fuses the metal in the crucible."
---------------------------------------------------
<<Then standing as if incredulous for a while, he calmly walked
towards the astonished steward slowly saying, "Ginger? ginger? and
will you have the goodness to tell me, Mr. Dough-Boy, where lies the
virtue of ginger? Ginger! is ginger the sort of fuel you use,
Dough-boy, to kindle a fire in this shivering cannibal? Ginger!-
what the devil is ginger?- sea-coal? firewood?- lucifer matches?-
tinder?- gunpowder?- what the devil is ginger, I say, that you offer
this cup to our poor Queequeg here.">>
--------------------------------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer
volker multhopp
> volker multhopp wrote:
> > A counter possibility was that Shakspere, businessman, was indeed
> > illiterate, albeit ambitious. He then would have been proud, however,
> > that he had achieved his position without schooling. He might well
> > believe, if he could make it without "wasting his time in school", so
> > could his children. If ambition itself were enough to get parents to
> > put children in school, then we would have had widespread literacy many,
> > many centuries before we did, because literacy, once acquired, does get
> > passed down, since literate parents appreciate the myriad advantages of
> > literacy and do take care to get their children educated.
> "possibility", "would have been", "might", "if", "could", "If", "would have",
> etc.
Rotfl. You Strats absolutely refuse to be satisfied. If I write
without qualifiers, you jump and down, if I have qualifiers, you don't
like that either. We all write about things we don't have absolute
knowledge, so we're constantly expounding theory-- and that includes you
Strats and your "Shakspere went [could have gone] to the Free School,
and all your other suppositions."
> > The
> > active/passive resistance of the unread majority, mistrustful of
> > book-learning, was what hindered the spread of literacy.
> Nonsense. Where do you get this rubbish from?
It's obvious.
>The lack of access to educational
> facilities and printed material hindered the spread of literacy.
Bullshit. Facilities and written material ["printed" matierial is not
required for teaching] were available since writing was invented. The
commitment to education is the only thing that was in short supply.
>Stratford,
> having a Grammar school, had no such hinderances,
Stuff it. When did Stratford have near universal literacy?
>as we all know: page 118 of
> Asa Briggs' "The Social History of England" comments on "the proliferation after
> the Reformation of a wide range of educational institutions, from small private
> establishments, often kept by a single master, to well-endowed grammar schools"
> and "Literacy increased during the 1560s and 1570s."
So, what's your point? What was the literacy level, the rate of its
increase, and when and why did that change?
> It is genuinely amazing how you rewrite history despite the facts proving the
> complete opposite of what you fabricate.
You have no facts here.
> > The evidence
> > does seem to show that Judith was illiterate, and Susanna's "literacy"
> > might well have been restricted to signing her name (would WS have educated
> > one daughter, but not the other?).
> Volker "Canute" Multhopp.
???
Canute King of England (1016-1035), Denmark (1018-1035),
and Norway (1028-1035) whose reign, at first brutal, was
later *marked by wisdom and temperance*. He is the subject of
many legends.
[ http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=canute ]
Thank you.
--Volker
Neuendorffer
David Kathman wrote:
> I would draw everyone's attention to a record I've referred to
> before: the 1598 trial of Elizabeth Evans for being a prostitute.
> Evans testified that she had grown up in Stratford upon Avon,
> and she was at least roughly of William Shakespeare's generation.
> By 1598 she was living in London and working as a prostitute.
> One of the witnesses against her was Joyce Cowden,
>another Stratfordian now living in London and married to John Cowden,
> a dyer in SEACOAL Lane.
--------------------------------------------------------------
The Merry Wives of Windsor: Act 1, Scene 4
MISTRESS QUICKLY
Go; and we'll have a posset for't soon at night, in
faith, at the latter end of a SEA-COAL fire.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Dogb. Goe good partner, goe get you to Francis SEA-COALE,
bid him bring his pen and inkehorne to the Gaole:
we are now to examine those men.
VERGES. And we must doe it wisely.
Dogb. Wee will spare for no witte I warrant you:
heere's that shall driue some of them to a non-come, on-
ly get the learned writer to set downe our excommuni-
cation, and meet me at the Iaile.
[Much Ado About Nothing (Folio) 3.5]
http://castle.uvic.ca/shakespeare/Annex/DraftTxt/Ado/Ado_F/Ado_FScenes/Ado_F3.5.html
---------------------------------------------------
David Kathman:
> Elizabeth Evans had been going under false names, and Joyce
> Cowden was called to identify her since they had grown up in the
> same town. She testified that "she doth knowe Elizabeth Evans and...
> she saith she [i.e. Cowden] was borne on Stratford vppon hauen
----------------------------------------------------------------
Cowden => Cowley => Verges => ?
----------------------------------------------------------------
[Much Ado About Nothing (Quarto) 4.2]
http://castle.uvic.ca/shakespeare/Annex/DraftTxt/Ado/Ado_Q/Ado_QScenes/Ado_Q4.2.html
Keeper Is our whole dissembly appeard?
COWLEY O a stoole and a cushion for the Sexton.
Sexton Which be the malefactors?
Andrew Mary that am I, and my partner.
COWLEY Nay thats certaine, we haue the exhibition to
examine.
----------------------------------------------------------------
> and further [Cowden] saith that she this ex[amina]te went to schole
> with the said Elizabeth Evans."
---------------------------------------------------
Enter SIR HUGH EVANS
How now, Sir Hugh! no school to-day?
SIR HUGH EVANS No; Master Slender is let the BOYS leave to play.
-------------------------------------------------------
> Elizabeth Evans then confirmed this:
> "Elizabeth Evans being present at the examinacion of the
> said Joice confessed the same to be true and that the said Joice
> did go wth her the said Elizabeth to schole together At Stratford
> vppon hauen."
---------------------------------------------------------------
[Much Ado About Nothing (Folio) 3.3]
http://castle.uvic.ca/shakespeare/Annex/DraftTxt/Ado/Ado_F/Ado_FScenes/Ado_F3.3.html
Dog. First, who thinke you the most desartlesse man
to be Constable? [1340]
Watch.1. Hugh Ote-cake sir, or GEORGE SEA-COALE, for
they can write and reade.
Dogb. Come hither neighbour SEA-COALE, God hath
blest you with a good name: to be a wel-fauoured man,
is the gift of Fortune, but to write and reade, comes by
Nature.
---------------------------------------------------
> So both of these women said that they had gone to school together
> in Stratford upon Avon. Yet Joyce Cowden signed her deposition
> with a mark, an approximation of a capital "I" or "J", while
> Elizabeth Evans signed "Elis evens" in a neat italic hand, with
> little loops on the capital "E". So we have one woman who
> apparently could not write, even though she admitted in court
> that she had gone to school.
> What do you suppose Joyce Cowden learned in school, Volker?
> Could she have learned to read, since
> that was the first thing children were taught?
---------------------------------------------------------------
Dogb. Come hither neighbour SEA-COALE, God hath
blest you with a good name: to be a wel-fauoured man,
is the gift of Fortune, but to write and reade, comes by
Nature.
---------------------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer
RLamb
volker multhopp wrote in message <38CA1A9C...@erols.com>...
>RLamb wrote:
<snip>
Volker wrote
> A counter possibility was that Shakspere, businessman, was indeed
>illiterate, albeit ambitious. He then would have been proud, however,
>that he had achieved his position without schooling. He might well
>believe, if he could make it without "wasting his time in school", so
>could his children.
Volker, even if I could accept "Shakespeare was only a grain dealer" theory
I still wouldn't buy the "and therefore illiterate" notion. I seriously
doubt a businessman of his age and background would have been illiterate.
We know he was alive in Stratford at a time when free grammar education was
available to him. For him not to have attended school would imply his
father deliberately chose to deprive his eldest son of a very useful
commercial skill. Why would he do that? It can't be that Shakespeare's
father was unambitious; it's a matter of record that he rose in the world,
even if that world was a provincial one. He came from a family of tenant
farmers but he married a woman with land, ran a business, owned property,
rose to be a businessman respected enough to be chosen as bailiff, etc. I
can accept he might have been semi-literate himself, because his generation
predated the rise in educational provision that came with the founding of
grammar schools. So I suppose HE might, therefore, have taken the attitude
to education you describe; but it would have been deeply uncharacteristic of
the age. Elizabethans were always moaning about everyone (else) trying to
climb out of the class they were born in and into the one above. Once
business gets beyond the spit-on-my-palm-and-shake-hands stage and into
written agreements, it's obvious that literacy is a great advantage; and if
your son could acquire such a skill for nothing, why wouldn't you let him?
Shakespeare's contemporary Quiney could read and write. I think at this
period it would be unusual for a businessman of similar background not to be
literate.
>If ambition itself were enough to get parents to
>put children in school, then we would have had widespread literacy many,
>many centuries before we did, because literacy, once acquired, does get
>passed down, since literate parents appreciate the myriad advantages of
>literacy and do take care to get their children educated.
I disagree about the causes of illiteracy. In largely agricultural
economies children are deprived of education because their parents need
their labour. I don't think literacy rates in some third world countries
today are low because the parents don't value education, it's because they
can't spare their children to sit in schoolrooms all day.
>The
>active/passive resistance of the unread majority, mistrustful of
>book-learning, was what hindered the spread of literacy.
I TOTALLY disagree. It was cost. Education costs. A child at school is
draining your resources and contributing nothing. If you're at subsistence
level, you can't afford that. Literacy only took off in England when the
1870 Education Act provided free education for all children up to the age of
twelve - and even after that act was passed, parents in rural districts were
notorious for keeping their children away during harvest time. I doubt if
any of my great-grandparents were literate, though a couple of the men
signed their marriage licences. My grandmother left school at twelve, and
though I know she could read a woman's magazine, she could only sign her
name and never wrote a letter. For all that, out of a very limited income
she happily bought her children sets of Dickens, Everyman's Library and all
the rest of those books they could read and she couldn't. I think the
hostility of semi-literates to literacy is rather a myth. Most parents want
better opportunities for their children than they had themselves.
>The evidence
>does seem to show that Judith was illiterate, and Susanna's "literacy"
>might well have restricted to signing her name (would WS have educated
>one daughter, but not the other?).
>
> --Volker
Surely that would have depended on their intelligence and personality, about
which we know nothing (other than the "witty above her sex" reference to
Susanna). Maybe Susanna took to learning like a duck to water, and Judith
just cried? If so I doubt Shakespeare - since I believe he wrote the works,
and therefore was a man of great empathy and insight - would have bullied
the poor girl to conform to his genteel aspirations. I don't see him
flogging Judith into a more intellectual frame of mind. But poor old Judith
seems not to have been too bright, or at least not upwardly mobile. She
didn't make a very good marriage, whereas Susanna did; she moved into a
social group where inability to read and write would be an embarrassment,
even for a woman. This move obviously happened with her father's blessing
because, although there's no sign Shakespeare (whether grain-dealer or
author) intended his daughters to be educational prodigies, there certainly
is proof he was setting up Susanna and her children to rise higher in the
world - his will. It's carefully constructed to ensure that, however kindly
he dealt with his younger daughter, the bulk of his estate would go to the
girl who'd showed most promise of producing a gentleman.
With that grand aim in view - fixing his descendants securely in the social
class his father and he had struggled to gain for them - I think he would
have educated his daughters to the level he thought beneficial, which would
have been basic literacy. That would have suited their station in life, and
their limited opportunities, as girls. (Had Hamnet lived and shown even
average intelligence, I feel sure Shakespeare would have provided funds for
a university education. It was the obvious next step.)
Rita
Nigel Davies
> Nigel Davies wrote:
>
>
> > > A counter possibility was that Shakspere, businessman, was indeed
> > > illiterate, albeit ambitious. He then would have been proud, however,
> > > that he had achieved his position without schooling. He might well
> > > believe, if he could make it without "wasting his time in school", so
> > > put children in school, then we would have had widespread literacy many,
> > > many centuries before we did, because literacy, once acquired, does get
> > > passed down, since literate parents appreciate the myriad advantages of
> > > literacy and do take care to get their children educated.
>
> > etc.
>
> Rotfl. You Strats absolutely refuse to be satisfied. If I write
> without qualifiers, you jump and down, if I have qualifiers, you don't
> like that either. We all write about things we don't have absolute
> knowledge, so we're constantly expounding theory-- and that includes you
> Strats and your "Shakspere went [could have gone] to the Free School,
> and all your other suppositions."
Your paragraph above is a total invention. You have placed William Shakespeare
in a fantasy world and attributed characteristics to him for which there is no
evidence atall.
There is not a scrap of evidence that "Shakspere, businessman, was indeed
illiterate": the signatures are evidence to the contrary.
There is not a scrap of evidence that "He might well believe, if he could make
it without wasting his time in school, so could his children": his free
schooling option at Stratford thanks to the privileges earned by his ambitious
father are evidence to the contrary.
There is not a scrap of evidence that "we would have had widespread literacy
many, many centuries before we did": the Reformation accelerated provision of
education and Caxton didn't make printing available in England until a century
before Shakespeare. It's idiotic to claim the advent of widespread literacy
would have arrived "many, many centuries before it did" in England when the
social and technical means of delivering widespread literacy didn't exist until
the century before Shakespeare. Name any source from anywhere that posits your
ludicrous assertion that the rate of literacy amongst the people was due to
"active/passive resistance of the unread majority". Were people beaten around
the head for not reading? Was there forced-reading sessions? Or were people
naturally inclined to read and write what they could speak, draft maps, describe
places, translate the Bible, write letters, communicate in written as well as
oral means? What a potty perception of the development of literacy you have.
> > > The
> > > active/passive resistance of the unread majority, mistrustful of
> > > book-learning, was what hindered the spread of literacy.
>
> > Nonsense. Where do you get this rubbish from?
>
> It's obvious.
The only thing obvious is that your statement is the most ludicrous on literacy
imagineable. Certain authorities were mistrustful of what providing the masses
with translations of the Bible would bring about but to claim that the "unread
majority" were mistrustful of the concept and ability to read and write is utter
twaddle. What on earth motivated the "unread majority" of Stratford to finance a
grammar school then?
> >The lack of access to educational
> > facilities and printed material hindered the spread of literacy.
>
> Bullshit. Facilities and written material ["printed" matierial is not
> required for teaching] were available since writing was invented. The
> commitment to education is the only thing that was in short supply.
Good grief. Widespread, relatively large-volume printed material, thanks to
Caxton, was a fillip to facilitating literacy. Having your own copy of the
standard texts studied in school accelerates personal learning. Printed material
was required for teaching in the Stratford grammar school and its contemporaries
- that's why as a matter of recorded fact they existed and they were provided as
it was an everyday school essential. Your argument is as daft as saying football
posts are not necessary for a game of football - sure, they could use pullovers
for goals at a push but it just so happens that the normal unalarming approach
is to have proper goal-posts just as schools, totally unsurprisingly, have as a
matter of course and principle, books which are used for the purpose of
teaching.
> >Stratford,
> > having a Grammar school, had no such hinderances,
>
> Stuff it. When did Stratford have near universal literacy?
And where did you pluck the phrase "universal literacy" from? Who claimed
Stratford was universally literate? What relevance is it to your literacy that
there are other people who are not literate? The case for Shakespeare's literacy
is well-established. You live in a Disney world where responsible societies like
Stratford must have refrained from giving their schoolchildren books a century
after Caxton introduced the printing press in order to observe the irrelevant
Volker principle that printed material is not an utterly essential teaching aid.
If you can't see your desperateness I assure you we can.
> >as we all know: page 118 of
> > Asa Briggs' "The Social History of England" comments on "the proliferation after
> > the Reformation of a wide range of educational institutions, from small private
> > establishments, often kept by a single master, to well-endowed grammar schools"
> > and "Literacy increased during the 1560s and 1570s."
>
> So, what's your point? What was the literacy level, the rate of its
> increase, and when and why did that change?
Well, it's a pity we can't supply precise stats for you but it's sufficient to
state that the Reformation gave rise to a proliferation of academic
establishments in England that are the engine rooms to spreading literacy in
children. The introduction of the printing press by Caxton provided the material
to study. So, surprise, surprise, in the 1560s and 1570s we can see an increase
in literacy in the social classes in England. The material was there, the
academic establishments were created, and the audience. These factors are what
conspired to giving us William Shakespeare.
> > It is genuinely amazing how you rewrite history despite the facts proving the
> > complete opposite of what you fabricate.
>
> You have no facts here.
Err, we do have facts. Many of them. Stratford grammar school is and was a fact.
The Reformation was a fact. Caxton was a fact. The growth in academic
establishments in England during the 16th. Century is a fact. Availability and
provision of printed material to the masses during this period is a fact.
Attendance of plays by the great unwashed is a fact. Purchase of the published
material by the masses is a fact. Guess what, Volker? Literacy increased as a
natural consequence of these facts! It was not restrained by irrational and
motiveless "resistance of the unread majority".
> > > The evidence
> > > does seem to show that Judith was illiterate, and Susanna's "literacy"
> > > might well have been restricted to signing her name (would WS have educated
> > > one daughter, but not the other?).
>
> > Volker "Canute" Multhopp.
>
> ???
>
> Canute King of England (1016-1035), Denmark (1018-1035),
> and Norway (1028-1035) whose reign, at first brutal, was
> later *marked by wisdom and temperance*. He is the subject of
> many legends.
>
> [ http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=canute ]
>
> Thank you.
>
> --Volker
______________________________________________________________________
Nigel....@BTInternet.com
Neuendorffer
Posset, n. [W. posel curdled milk, posset.] A beverage composed of hot
milk curdled by some strong infusion, as by wine, etc., -- much in favor
formerly.
--------------------------------------------------------------
> The Merry Wives of Windsor: Act 1, Scene 4
>
> MISTRESS QUICKLY
> faith, at the latter end of a SEA-COAL fire.
Act 5, Scene 5
PAGE Yet be cheerful, knight: thou shalt eat a POSSET
to-night at my house; where I will desire thee to
laugh at my wife, that now laughs at thee: tell her
Master Slender hath married her daughter.
------------------------------------------------------
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark Act 1, Scene 5
Ghost Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole,
With juice of cursed hebenon in a vial,
And in the porches of my ears did pour
The leperous distilment; whose effect
Holds such an enmity with blood of man
That swift as quicksilver it courses through
The natural gates and alleys of the body,
And with a sudden vigour doth POSSET
And curd, like eager droppings into milk,
The thin and wholesome blood: so did it mine;
And a most instant tetter bark'd about,
Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust,
All my smooth body.
------------------------------------------------------
Tom Reedy wrote:
> Obviously the time is closer than even I believed.
> Qba'g sbetrg gb qevax lbhe Binygvar!
>
> Agents Grumman, Nathan, et al: use your Goon Squad decoders to decode the
> secret message for important information vital to the sacred mission of
> the Stratford Trust. More later as soon as I get to another safe house.
>
> Major Tom
> Ground Control
> Stratford Trust Goon Squad
---------------------------------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer
Neuendorffer
[Much Ado About Nothing (Folio) 3.5]
http://castle.uvic.ca/shakespeare/Annex/DraftTxt/Ado/Ado_F/Ado_FScenes/Ado_F3.5.html
VergeS And we must do it WISEly.
Dogbery We will spare for no witte I warrant you: heeres
that shall driue some of them to a noncome, only get the LEAR-
ned WRITER to set downe our excommunication, and meet me
at the Iaile.
----------------------------------------------------------------
[Much Ado About Nothing (Quarto) 4.2]
http://castle.uvic.ca/shakespeare/Annex/DraftTxt/Ado/Ado_Q/Ado_QScenes/Ado_Q4.2.html
Sexton Which be the malefactors?
ANDREW Mary that am I, and my partner.
--------------------------------------------------
1600, Much Ado About Nothing (Q STC 22304):
Much adoe about Nothing. As it hath been fundrie times publikely
acted by the right honourable, the Lord Chamberlaine his feruants.
Written by William Shakespeare. LONDON
Printed by (V.S.) for ANDREW (WISE),
and William Asp(LEY). 1600.
--------------------------------------------------
1600, Henry IV Part II (Q1 STC 22288a):
THE Second part of Henrie the fourth,
continuing to his death, and coronation of Henrie the fift.
With the humours of fir Iohn Fal-ftaffe, and fwaggering Piftoll.
As it hath been fundrie times publikely acted by
the right honourable, the Lord Chamberlaine his feruants.
Written by William Shakefpeare. LONDON
Printed by (V.S.) for ANDREW (WISE),
and William Asp(LEY.) 1600.
-----------------------------------------------------------
1597, Richard III (Q1 STC 22314):
THE TRAGEDY OF / King Richard the third. Containing,
His teacherous Plots againft his brother Clarence:
the pittiefull murther of his iunocent nephewes:
his tyrannicall vfurpation: with the whole courfe
of his detefted life, and moft deferued death.
As it hath beene lately Acted by the
Right honourable the Lord Chamber-laine his feruants.
Printed by Valentine Sims, for ANDREW WISE,
dwelling in Paules Church-yard, at the
Signe of the Angell. 1597.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Andrew Wise - Grand Prior 1593-1631
--------------------------------------------------------
http://www.montaguemillennium.com/research/crusaders.htm
<< "... the Knights (these would be the Hospitallers, ed.), having
lost their stronghold ... to Timur the Lame ("Tamurlane",) in 1402, were
establishing a new base at Bodrum, the site of the ancient Halicarnassus
and its famous Mausoleum, stone from which was used in the construction
of the Christian fortress dedicated to St. Peter. This fortress was to
act not simply as a military post, but also as a refuge for fugitive
Christians from the Ottoman Empire. ...
The castle of St. Peter itself provides more striking witness to English
participation. Over the gateway to one of its towers, known as the
English Tower, twenty-six coats of arms were set up in stone, including
those of Henry IV, the Prince of Wales, the dukes of Clarence, Bedford,
and Gloucester (the kings sons), the duke of York, and the families of
Grey, Zouche, DE LA POLE, Neville, Percy, Holland, Beauchamp, Burleigh,
STRANGE, Arundel, MONTAGUE, Stafford, DE VERE, Courtenay, FitzHugh,
Cresson, WOOLFE, and FAIRFAX, many of who could boast of both long
and recent crusading traditions." (Tyerman, pp. 313-314)>>
------------------------------------------------------------------
THE KNIGHTS OF SAINT JOHN IN ENGLAND, SCOTLAND AND IRELAND
http://www.saintjohn.org/priory.htm
<<With the death of Edward VI and the accession of Mary I permission was
given for Cardinal-Legate Pole to re-instate the Order in England, by
Letters Patent of Philip and Mary dated 2 April 1557. On 6 May following
Cardinal Pole issued a decree recognizing the Grand Priory of England,
restoring its ancient dignities and ten commanderies while also
re-instating the Priory of Ireland. Four new grand crosses were
appointed (two of whom were not actually professed at the time of their
appointment), of whom the Bailiff of Egle was a Spaniard, a professed
knight of the Langue of Castile, rewarded for his assistance in the
negotiations to restore the Grand Priory (and causing great resentment
among his fellow Castillians, jealous of his preferment). Unfortunately,
before the Auberge could be revived in Malta, Queen Mary died and,
although the Order was not legally suppressed, its estates were
confiscated once again (in 1560). Elizabeth proved to be no less a
scourge of the knights than her father had been and several more knights
died for their faith in exile, on the scaffold or in her prisons. By
1567 the only English knights remaining on Malta were the titular Grand
Prior Richard Shelley (who was an active participant in several plots
against Elizabeth) and Oliver Starkey (commander of Quenington), later
titular Bailiff of Egle (from 1569). Starkey, who had been La Valette's
Latin Secretary and was the only Englishman at the Great Siege, died in
1588 and Shelley in 1590, when a French knight was appointed to the
titular Grand Priory. This appointment was challenged by an Irish knight
resident in the convent, one ANDREW WISE from Waterford who, after
complaining, was appointed Bailiff of Egle but, still unsatisfied,
appealed to the Pope. In 1593 Wise was appointed titular Grand Prior, a
dignity he held until his death in 1631. From thenceforth the offices of
Grand Prior of England, Turcopilier, Bailiff of Egle and Prior or Grand
Prior of Ireland became honorifics given to knights whom the Grand
Master and Council wished to honor with the grand cross and membership
of the Chapter-General.>>
-----------------------------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer
bookburn
tourist consumption was no doubt conditioned by his experiences
celebrated in _A Tramp Abroad_,et al., which exposed him to the
tricks of the trade. If you notice, he carefully includes an
ironic note about realistic versus romantic attitudes in
Hanibal. And he alludes to the historical irony about a
philosopher not being recognized in his own home town during his
lifetime.
James Herriot, author of _All Creatures Great and Small_, tried
to continue running his vetrinary surgury in Yorkshire following
his popular success with autobiographies and travelogs, but the
locals apparently gave him a bad time for it, saying that his
surgury had never been successful and was in decline. Herriot,
himself, complained that his popularity interferred with his
life and work there.
Greg Reynolds
> Too bad nobody remembers going to scole with Will:
>
> Is Shakespeare Dead - Mark Twain
> http://www.concordance.com/cgi-bin/begnr.pl
Dear Art and Mark:
Do you guys agree on anything?
> <<About two months ago I was illuminating this
> Autobiography with some notions of mine concerning the Bacon-
> Shakespeare controversy, and I then took occasion to air the
> opinion that the Stratford Shakespeare was a person of no public
> consequence or celebrity during his lifetime, but was utterly
> obscure and unimportant.
You were airing this opinion, yeah...
> And not only in great London, but also in
> the little village where he was born, where he lived a quarter of a
> century, and where he died and was buried.
SO he lived in London 27 years?
> I argued that if he had
> been a person of any note at all, aged villagers would have had
> much to tell about him many and many a year after his death,
> instead of being unable to furnish inquirers a single fact
> connected with him.
Why the aged? They have memories of former generations?
And why the title "Is Shakespeare Dead?"?
Mark, are you the one who's old and feeble minded here?
> I believed, and I still believe, that if he
> had been famous, his notoriety would have lasted as long as mine
> has lasted in my native village out in Missouri.
So Twain is more popular than Shakespeare, according to Twain, yeah...
> It is a good
> argument, a prodigiously strong one, and a most formidable one for
> even the most gifted, and ingenious, and plausible Stratfordolater
> to get around or explain away.
What if someone just disagrees with you?
> To-day a Hannibal Courier-Post of
> recent date has reached me, with an article in it which reinforces
> my contention that a really celebrated person cannot be forgotten
> in his village in the short space of sixty years. I will make an
> extract from it:
Oh, if Mark's gonna read his old news clippings again, I'm gonna go to the
store, anybody want anything?
Mark, you're pretty absorbed in yourself and your fame.
I've read Shakespeare. I've studied Shakespeare.
You, sir, are no Shakespeare.
Art, get new friends.
> -------------------------------------------------------------
> Les Missourables by Victor Hugo First
>
> <<The enigma was more IMPENETRABLE than EVER.>>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
But Art, Orazio Cogno found Ever penetrable!
And enigma is simply the thinly disguised
"N image"
-- your public persona.
Greg Reynolds
volker multhopp
> Volker wrote
> > A counter possibility was that Shakspere, businessman, was indeed
> >illiterate, albeit ambitious. He then would have been proud, however,
> >that he had achieved his position without schooling. He might well
> >believe, if he could make it without "wasting his time in school", so
> >could his children.
> Volker, even if I could accept "Shakespeare was only a grain dealer" theory
> I still wouldn't buy the "and therefore illiterate" notion.
I did not propose such an implication. I said he was a businessman
[undeniable], *and* he possibly was illiterate.
>I seriously
> doubt a businessman of his age and background would have been illiterate.
We'll have to remain in disagreement here. I seem to recall some
tv-report that showed completely paperless commercial dealing continuing
in some English rural areas until very recent times. Deals were
brokered orally, and sealed with a spit and hand-shake.
> We know he was alive in Stratford at a time when free grammar education was
> available to him. For him not to have attended school would imply his
> father deliberately chose to deprive his eldest son of a very useful
> commercial skill. Why would he do that?
Completely free is a stretch. First, there would have been some
primary (petty) education, and that would have required a fee. More
important is the lost time, since children were put to productive
activies asap. Schooling would have also denied the child the valuable
experience of early apprenticeship.
>It can't be that Shakespeare's
> father was unambitious; it's a matter of record that he rose in the world,
> even if that world was a provincial one. He came from a family of tenant
> farmers but he married a woman with land, ran a business, owned property,
> rose to be a businessman respected enough to be chosen as bailiff, etc. I
> can accept he might have been semi-literate himself, because his generation
> predated the rise in educational provision that came with the founding of
> grammar schools. So I suppose HE might, therefore, have taken the attitude
> to education you describe; but it would have been deeply uncharacteristic of
> the age.
If everyone had the attitude you ascribe them, we would have had near
universal literacy much sooner. It must be that many illiterates were
mistrustful of the advantages of literacy.
CADE. Let me alone. Dost thou use to write thy name, or hast thou a
mark to thyself, like a honest plain-dealing man?
CLERK. Sir, I thank God, I have been so well brought up that I can
write my name.
ALL. He hath confess'd. Away with him! He's a villain and a
traitor.
CADE. Away with him, I say! Hang him with his pen and inkhorn about
his neck. Exit one with the CLERK
Or perhaps Shakespeare didn't know what he was writing about.
>Elizabethans were always moaning about everyone (else) trying to
> climb out of the class they were born in and into the one above.
Social climbers have always been marks for derision.
>Once
> business gets beyond the spit-on-my-palm-and-shake-hands stage and into
> written agreements, it's obvious that literacy is a great advantage;
The point is that a spit-and-shake could take one a long ways in the
pre-20th c business world.
> >The
> >active/passive resistance of the unread majority, mistrustful of
> >book-learning, was what hindered the spread of literacy.
> I TOTALLY disagree. It was cost. Education costs. A child at school is
> draining your resources and contributing nothing.
You're arguing against your own point?
>If you're at subsistence
> level, you can't afford that.
Primary education [and that's the real point here, not secondary
education] costs a community perhaps about the same organized religion
(or less), yet societies somehow have always found the resources for
temples and priests.
>Literacy only took off in England when the
> 1870 Education Act provided free education for all children up to the age of
> twelve - and even after that act was passed, parents in rural districts were
> notorious for keeping their children away during harvest time.
I'm just guessing, but wasn't *compulsory* school attendance a key
feature of that act? Are you seriously suggesting societies just
weren't rich enough for universal primary education until 1870?
> I think the
> hostility of semi-literates to literacy is rather a myth.
A myth Shakespeare seems to have believed in-- see above.
> >The evidence
> >does seem to show that Judith was illiterate, and Susanna's "literacy"
> >might well have restricted to signing her name (would WS have educated
> >one daughter, but not the other?).
> Surely that would have depended on their intelligence and personality, about
> which we know nothing (other than the "witty above her sex" reference to
> Susanna). Maybe Susanna took to learning like a duck to water, and Judith
> just cried?
Come, come-- you're posulating either serious retardation or
pathological behavior on Judith's part. Most children, esp girls, enjoy
the socialization process of school. Our society is able to get even
extremely dumb and shy children to read-- Shakspere couldn't do likewise
for his own daughter?
>If so I doubt Shakespeare - since I believe he wrote the works,
> and therefore was a man of great empathy and insight - would have bullied
> the poor girl to conform to his genteel aspirations. I don't see him
> flogging Judith into a more intellectual frame of mind.
You don't have to flog a child to get her to school. At any rate,
Shakespeare's (the author's) principal heroines were clearly and
"naturally" literate-- it was never a state forced on them.
>But poor old Judith
> seems not to have been too bright, or at least not upwardly mobile. She
> didn't make a very good marriage, whereas Susanna did; she moved into a
> social group where inability to read and write would be an embarrassment,
> even for a woman. This move obviously happened with her father's blessing
> because, although there's no sign Shakespeare (whether grain-dealer or
> author) intended his daughters to be educational prodigies, there certainly
> is proof he was setting up Susanna and her children to rise higher in the
> world - his will. It's carefully constructed to ensure that, however kindly
> he dealt with his younger daughter, the bulk of his estate would go to the
> girl who'd showed most promise of producing a gentleman.
Or she'd always been his favorite. The daughter with the prospect of a
sizable inheritance angled the doctor, whereas the other had a more
normal life.
> With that grand aim in view - fixing his descendants securely in the social
> class his father and he had struggled to gain for them - I think he would
> have educated his daughters to the level he thought beneficial, which would
> have been basic literacy.
Well, ok, so why couldn't Judith sign?
>That would have suited their station in life, and
> their limited opportunities, as girls. (Had Hamnet lived and shown even
> average intelligence, I feel sure Shakespeare would have provided funds for
> a university education. It was the obvious next step.)
Alas. If Hamnet had survived, the authorship controversy probably
would be resolved, one way or another.
--Volker
Yaldahtvah
In making a case for Shakespeare's illiteracy, volker writes:
>CADE. Let me alone. Dost thou use to write thy name, or hast thou a
> mark to thyself, like a honest plain-dealing man?
> CLERK. Sir, I thank God, I have been so well brought up that I can
> write my name.
> ALL. He hath confess'd. Away with him! He's a villain and a
> traitor.
> CADE. Away with him, I say! Hang him with his pen and inkhorn about
> his neck. Exit one
As someone new to the group, and relatively illiterate (I am a physician,
smalltime actress in a Shakespearean repetory company in a former life, and not
anything akin to a scholar), I wonder if in citing the lines above, we make a
leap into a pond of error.
What I mean is, if we remember the purpose of the work, which was to entertain
an audience of a certain time, place, and culture, wouldn't Shakespeare have
painted characters and situations that his audience could identify with, in
order to increase the power, if not popularity, of his work?
Seems to me his genius is due in large measure to the fact that though
completely culture bound, the work transcends time, place and culture.
susie
Neuendorffer
> > -------------------------------------------------------------
> > Les Missourables by Victor Hugo First
> >
> > <<The enigma was more IMPENETRABLE than EVER.>>
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
HAMLET To what base uses we may return, Orazio!
MARCELLUS Orazio says 'tis but our fantasy,
------------------------------------------------------------
E.Vere: Alas, poor Yorick! Cognitio, Orazio.
Cognition, n. [L. cognitio, fr. cognoscere, cognitum, to become
acquainted with, to know; co- + noscere,
gnoscere, to get a knowledge of. See {Know}, v. t.] 1. The act of
knowing; knowledge; perception.
------------------------------------------------------------
TrOILUS Fear me not, sweet lord;
(OUTIS-zeus) I will not be myself, nor have COGNITION
(ODYS-seus) Of what I feel: I am all patience.
(NOMAN)
------------------------------------------------------------
First Sailor if your name be Orazio, as I am
let to know it is.
BERNARDO How now, Orazio! you tremble and look pale:
` Is not this something more than fantasy?
MARCELLUS speak to it, Orazio.
BERNARDO mark it, Orazio.
MARCELLUS Question it, Orazio.
HAMLET In my mind's eye, Orazio.
HAMLET There are more things in heaven and earth, Orazio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
HAMLET Orazio, thou art e'en as just a man
As e'er my conversation coped withal.
HAMLET Orazio,--or I do forget myself.
HAMLET O good Orazio,
I'll take the ghost's word for a thousand pound.
HAMLET But I am very sorry, good Orazio,
HAMLET O good Orazio, what a wounded name,
Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me!
If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart
Absent thee from felicity awhile,
And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain,
To tell my story.
HAMLET I am dead, Orazio.
---------------------------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer
bookbu...@my-deja.com
Nigel Davies <Nigel....@BTInternet.com> wrote:
> volker multhopp wrote:
>
> > Nigel Davies wrote:
> >
> > > volker multhopp wrote:
>
> The only thing obvious is that your statement is the most ludicrous
> on literacy imagineable. Certain authorities were mistrustful of what
> providing the masses with translations of the Bible would bring about
> but to claim that the "unread majority" were mistrustful of the
> concept and ability to read and write is utter twaddle. What on earth
> motivated the "unread majority" of Stratford to finance a
> grammar school then?
I agree with your conclusions, but question whether the agruments you
answer are uninformed. 1. The populace would have had attitudes about
book learning because a) it was earlier limited to special classes of
people, b) there was a body of folklore in oral tradition that
reflected values of the illiterate, and c) there may well have been an
anti-intellectualism that assumed that "books make the flesh weak,"
etc. 2. Some clergy may have discouraged book learning as "the work of
the devil," or some such. I have read that women may have understood
that not advancing themselves before their husbands or displaying
learning skills was a virtue, but don't remember if this was in
_Pilgrim's Progress_ or when/where.
Educational motivation of taxpayers to finance the grammar school is in
question because the Guildhall housed it, the Petty School for younger
children was apparently expected to teach the catechism, and support
came from the state, the guild, the church, and wealthy benefactors.
(Maybe Shakespeare's ms. went there and they reused the paper.)
bookburn
mcha...@attglobal.net
AM,
yalda...@aol.com (Yaldahtvah) said:
>>From: volker multhopp
>In making a case for Shakespeare's illiteracy, volker writes:
>>CADE. Let me alone. Dost thou use to write thy name, or hast thou a
>> mark to thyself, like a honest plain-dealing man?
>> CLERK. Sir, I thank God, I have been so well brought up that I can
>> write my name.
>> ALL. He hath confess'd. Away with him! He's a villain and a
>> traitor.
>> CADE. Away with him, I say! Hang him with his pen and inkhorn about
>> his neck. Exit one
>As someone new to the group, and relatively illiterate (I am a physician,
>smalltime actress in a Shakespearean repetory company in a former life,
>and not anything akin to a scholar), I wonder if in citing the lines
>above, we make a leap into a pond of error.
>What I mean is, if we remember the purpose of the work, which was to
>entertain an audience of a certain time, place, and culture, wouldn't
>Shakespeare have painted characters and situations that his audience
>could identify with, in order to increase the power, if not popularity,
>of his work?
>Seems to me his genius is due in large measure to the fact that though
>completely culture bound, the work transcends time, place and culture.
>susie
You are of course correct and a reasonable thinking person. Alas you are
new to the group and you have not yet discovered that Volker is in the
grip of a fantasy which no longer permits him to reason like ordinary
humans. He is one of those, in my kill file, who will not yield to common
sense or correct scholarly arguments. In fact I no longer recall which
particular delusion he is burdened with and I of course do not care,
although judging from the context he thinks WS is illiterate and therefor
incapable of writing poetry, plays, prose, his will, you name it...
Welcome aboard.
--
----------------------------------------------------
------
Monroe Chasson
mcha...@attglobal.net
-----------------------------------------------------------
MR2ICE reg#51
cyndi...@my-deja.com
to make sense of our world?
http://www.freeyellow.com/members6/newsworld/shakes.htm
RLamb
volker multhopp wrote in message <38CB78B1...@erols.com>...
>RLamb wrote:
>
>> Volker wrote
>
>> > A counter possibility was that Shakspere, businessman, was indeed
>> >illiterate, albeit ambitious. He then would have been proud, however,
>> >that he had achieved his position without schooling. He might well
>> >believe, if he could make it without "wasting his time in school", so
>> >could his children.
>
>> Volker, even if I could accept "Shakespeare was only a grain dealer"
theory
>> I still wouldn't buy the "and therefore illiterate" notion.
>
> I did not propose such an implication. I said he was a businessman
>[undeniable], *and* he possibly was illiterate.
>
>>I seriously
>> doubt a businessman of his age and background would have been illiterate.
>
> We'll have to remain in disagreement here. I seem to recall some
>tv-report that showed completely paperless commercial dealing continuing
>in some English rural areas until very recent times. Deals were
>brokered orally, and sealed with a spit and hand-shake.
Deals over the price per head of sheep, maybe. I think you'll find anything
that related to purchase of land was "papered" extremely heavily.
Shakespeare the businessman owned property and invested in tithes - he was
definitely dealing at a level where you needed to use and understand
documents. And his will shows he had the typical profile of an *ambitious*
member of the middle class - the sword, the silver plate, the ten pounds to
the poor and above all, the care to conserve the estate for a future male
heir. He is not a yokel.
>> We know he was alive in Stratford at a time when free grammar education
was
>> available to him. For him not to have attended school would imply his
>> father deliberately chose to deprive his eldest son of a very useful
>> commercial skill. Why would he do that?
>
> Completely free is a stretch. First, there would have been some
>primary (petty) education, and that would have required a fee. More
>important is the lost time, since children were put to productive
>activies asap. Schooling would have also denied the child the valuable
>experience of early apprenticeship.
His father was town bailiff, ran a business and owned land. Are you
suggesting he couldn't afford dame school for his eldest boy if he'd wanted?
If he couldn't, who could - only the parents of Alice Evans? I repeat that
all the evidence suggests John Shakespeare was upwardly mobile, a man keen
to get on. Why would he not push his son another step up the ladder by
educating him? Apprenticeship would only be an issue if the boy was intended
simply to follow his father's footsteps - and there's no evidence I know of
that suggests William was ever a glover.
>
>>It can't be that Shakespeare's
>> father was unambitious; it's a matter of record <snip>. I
>> can accept he might have been semi-literate himself, because his
generation
>> predated the rise in educational provision that came with the founding of
>> grammar schools. So I suppose HE might, therefore, have taken the
attitude
>> to education you describe; but it would have been deeply uncharacteristic
of
>> the age.
>
> If everyone had the attitude you ascribe them, we would have had near
>universal literacy much sooner. It must be that many illiterates were
>mistrustful of the advantages of literacy.
Well, think of the Third World today. Do you seriously claim the illiteracy
rates are high because parents are against their kids learning to read?
>
> CADE. Let me alone. Dost thou use to write thy name, or hast thou a
> mark to thyself, like a honest plain-dealing man?
> CLERK. Sir, I thank God, I have been so well brought up that I can
> write my name.
> ALL. He hath confess'd. Away with him! He's a villain and a
> traitor.
> CADE. Away with him, I say! Hang him with his pen and inkhorn about
> his neck. Exit one with the CLERK
>
>Or perhaps Shakespeare didn't know what he was writing about.
>
AFAIR, Shakespeare never shows a rebellious mob as anything other than
fickle, vicious and ignorant. This is not a portrait of the views of the
average Elizabethan, it's a negative representation of rebels, touched with
savage humour. And you're not seriously comparing a man of Shakespeare's
father's class - a land owner and a trusted town official - with mere
"handicraftsmen", which Cade's followers are described as being? Cade
himself - ex-soldier, former beggar, sheep-stealer and recipient of a public
whipping - isn't even that. He's just an Upright Man.
>>Elizabethans were always moaning about everyone (else) trying to
>> climb out of the class they were born in and into the one above.
>
> Social climbers have always been marks for derision.
No, the point is that for men at the Shakespeares' level, literacy was
essential to upward mobility. Joseph Hall gives a brilliant picture of this
process in 'Virgidemiarum'. A pennypinching farmer scrapes and saves to
send his son to the Inns of Court. When the boy comes back, his airs and
graces astonish the wondering peasantry, and Lolio is so delighted he
decides to push his second son along too. Notice how:
"Nay then his Hodge shall leaue the plough & waine,
And buy a book, and go to school againe:
Why mought not he as well as others done,
Rise from his Festue (primer) to his Littleton (Law book)?
..................................................
And well done Lolio, like a thrifty syre,
T'were pity but thy sonne should prooue a squire."
Hall goes on to picture the sons and grandsons of Lolio rising to grandeur
and inventing phoney pedigrees for themselves, with Lolio's name carefully
left out. But literacy was the essential first step.
>>Once
>> business gets beyond the spit-on-my-palm-and-shake-hands stage and into
>> written agreements, it's obvious that literacy is a great advantage;
>
> The point is that a spit-and-shake could take one a long ways in the
>pre-20th c business world.
Not when it came to ownership of land. Believe me, Volker, no Elizabethan
ever did land deals on a spit-and-shake basis.
>
>> >The
>> >active/passive resistance of the unread majority, mistrustful of
>> >book-learning, was what hindered the spread of literacy.
>
>> I TOTALLY disagree. It was cost. Education costs. A child at school is
>> draining your resources and contributing nothing.
>
> You're arguing against your own point?
Why, no. You say illiteracy was caused by the reluctance of the unread
majority to allow their children to learn: they were inherently
"mistrustful of book-learning". I think the unread majority have always
known literacy cuts you a better deal in life, and therefore wished it for
their children. They just couldn't afford to provide it until they got
beyond the subsistence stage.
<snip>
>
> Primary education [and that's the real point here, not secondary
>education] costs a community perhaps about the same organized religion
>(or less), yet societies somehow have always found the resources for
>temples and priests.
I don't get your point. When have the decisions about what a society finds
the resources to provide been taken by that society's poorest members?
>>Literacy only took off in England when the
>> 1870 Education Act provided free education for all children up to the age
of
>> twelve - and even after that act was passed, parents in rural districts
were
>> notorious for keeping their children away during harvest time.
>
> I'm just guessing, but wasn't *compulsory* school attendance a key
>feature of that act? Are you seriously suggesting societies just
>weren't rich enough for universal primary education until 1870?
>
Sure it was compulsory, but no-one dared make it compulsory until a time
when most poor families could get by without the contribution of child
labour. England was well industrialised by 1870. (I say that because an
American friend once told me the Industrial Revolution only began in the
19th century. In America.) And I'm not suggesting "societies" weren't rich
enough, only that poor working class families weren't.
>> I think the
>> hostility of semi-literates to literacy is rather a myth.
>
> A myth Shakespeare seems to have believed in-- see above.
No, you can't argue from one scene which sets out to show the mob in its
least attractive light that Shakespeare believed all illiterates secretly
hated the idea of literacy. Resented the advantages it gave others, yes;
would deliberately have deprived their children of the same advantages, no.
>
>> >The evidence
>> >does seem to show that Judith was illiterate, and Susanna's "literacy"
>> >might well have restricted to signing her name (would WS have educated
>> >one daughter, but not the other?).
>
>> Surely that would have depended on their intelligence and personality,
about
>> which we know nothing (other than the "witty above her sex" reference to
>> Susanna). Maybe Susanna took to learning like a duck to water, and
Judith
>> just cried?
>
> Come, come-- you're posulating either serious retardation or
>pathological behavior on Judith's part.
>Most children, esp girls, enjoy
>the socialization process of school.
You're not a teacher, are you Volker?
>Our society is able to get even
>extremely dumb and shy children to read
Oh you're *definitely* not a teacher, are you Volker?
>Shakspere couldn't do likewise
>for his own daughter?
I don't imagine he taught her himself, he'd be too busy with his brilliant
career. Well, we have Dave Kathman's evidence about the two little girls
(Joyce and Alice?) who were at school together in Stratford - Alice learned
how to write nicely and became a prostitute while the other one married and
signed with a mark? There's a moral there somewhere, but it does indicate
the same schooling can have different outcomes with different girls. Also -
dragging my own family in again - my sister had twins, a boy and a girl.
They were an even-stevens pair until they went to the school, where the boy
learned effortlessly to read and write while the girl suffered agonies, and
an increasing sense of inferiority. Same school, same teacher. Fortunately
my sister is Dragon Momma and was determined her girl would overcome this
difficulty if she had to wade through the blood of every educationalist in
England, and things are fine now. But I know of many families where
shoulders would have been shrugged and "Well, it doesn't matter so much for
a girl and anyway, she can bake/sew/draw/sing beautifully." Suppose Susanna
was sickeningly bright and Judith gave up trying? And concentrated on
helping her mother in the kitchen. What would Shakespeare do when he made
his twice-yearly visit home and found little Judith was in agonies of
despair because she couldn't make sense of this hornbook they'd given her?
a) Quit the stage and stay at home to help her learn b) tell her she was
lovely just as she was, and the hornbook didn't matter.
<snip>
>At any rate,
>Shakespeare's (the author's) principal heroines were clearly and
>"naturally" literate-- it was never a state forced on them.
Sure. They were all beautiful too. It's not like that in the real world,
unfortunately.
<snip>
>> With that grand aim in view - fixing his descendants securely in the
social
>> class his father and he had struggled to gain for them - I think he would
>> have educated his daughters to the level he thought beneficial, which
would
>> have been basic literacy.
>
> Well, ok, so why couldn't Judith sign?
Alice and Joyce; my nephew and my niece... Susanna and Judith? Provision of
education doesn't guarantee a happy result. I'm theorizing that *if* Judith
couldn't sign her name - and I'm not sure there's proof she couldn't - it
was as likely to be learning difficulties as lack of opportunity. Because,
to recap:
- I can't see that a man who grew up eligible for free education and who
belonged to a social group in which literacy was the norm, would have been
illiterate.
- Being literate himself, I expect he would have wished his daughters to
enjoy the same advantage, if they were capable of learning painlessly.
- But I don't think he would have wished for daughters anything like as
well-educated as the idealised aristocratic girls in his plays, because in
the position in life his daughters were likely to attain, that level of
culture would have made them total misfits.
>
>>That would have suited their station in life, and
>> their limited opportunities, as girls. (Had Hamnet lived and shown even
>> average intelligence, I feel sure Shakespeare would have provided funds
for
>> a university education. It was the obvious next step.)
>
> Alas. If Hamnet had survived, the authorship controversy probably
>would be resolved, one way or another.
>
> --Volker
I think it is resolved.
Rita
PS: Actually a festue was "a small stick used for pointing out the letters
to children learning to read". But I couldn't fit all that in brackets.
Geralyn Horton
If he was so eager to collect these badges of
gentility, why would
> > > he allow his daughters to grow up like peasants? Did he want them to marry
> > > farmers?
All this speculation based on role expectations is
tempting,
but alas, there is nothing expected about an 18 year
old glover's son marrying a woman 8 years older and
some--- possibly very short-- time after deserting them
to become a player/playwright. It is an extraordinary
thing to do, and who can even guess what response it
prompted from neighbors, and the abandoned wife? From
the evidence of the plays, WS had some experience of
marriage as a running battle about infidelity,
suspicion, humiliation, bullying, jealousy-- and
probably also a long-distance battle royal over the
children's loyalty and morals and schooling. Millions
of fathers (and mothers) have kept their daughters
illiterate to preserve their chastity and obedience.
(Even today: I watched some of them in Africa saying
just this on TV last night) (Indeed, most of the
letters to and by women in the plays bear out this
worry) It is not unheard of for a deserted wife to try
to bring up her hated husband's children to hate him,
and avoid his wicked ways. Many people of the time
thought the plays we so admire to be nothing but gross
wickedness. Perhaps all WS's grasping at gentility was
a way to win respect for and from his children.
Or more likely, not.
Geralyn Horton, Playwright
Newton, Mass. 02460
<http://www.tiac.net/users/ghorton>
volker multhopp
> Millions
> of fathers (and mothers) have kept their daughters
> illiterate to preserve their chastity and obedience.
So why don't we see any examples of this in the plays? In the plays,
the heroines are easily literate.
--Volker
volker multhopp
> >tv-report that showed completely paperless commercial dealing continuing
> >in some English rural areas until very recent times. Deals were
> >brokered orally, and sealed with a spit and hand-shake.
> Deals over the price per head of sheep, maybe. I think you'll find anything
> that related to purchase of land was "papered" extremely heavily.
> Shakespeare the businessman owned property and invested in tithes - he was
> definitely dealing at a level where you needed to use and understand
> documents.
You don't need literacy to buy land, you need a lawyer, whether you can
read or not. His illiterate father bought land.
>And his will shows he had the typical profile of an *ambitious*
> member of the middle class - the sword, the silver plate,
How does this indicate literacy? Can't illiterates own plate and
swords?
>the ten pounds to
> the poor and above all,
Not so generous. Didn't his friend Combe leave a thousand?
>the care to conserve the estate for a future male
> heir.
Again, there's a lawyer at work, all that was required of Shakspere was
a touch of misogyny.
> > Completely free is a stretch. First, there would have been some
> >primary (petty) education, and that would have required a fee. More
> >important is the lost time, since children were put to productive
> >activies asap. Schooling would have also denied the child the valuable
> >experience of early apprenticeship.
> His father was town bailiff, ran a business and owned land. Are you
> suggesting he couldn't afford dame school for his eldest boy if he'd wanted?
I didn't suggest that at all, merely denied that it would be would
free.
> I repeat that
> all the evidence suggests John Shakespeare was upwardly mobile, a man keen
> to get on. Why would he not push his son another step up the ladder by
> educating him?
Because he might honestly have thought learning to work was more
important for the boy than learning to read.
>Apprenticeship would only be an issue if the boy was intended
> simply to follow his father's footsteps - and there's no evidence I know of
> that suggests William was ever a glover.
There were, in fact, legends that WS was a butcher's apprentice.
Others, nearer to the time, did not think it so extraordinary that he
might have apprenticed.
> > If everyone had the attitude you ascribe them, we would have had near
> >universal literacy much sooner. It must be that many illiterates were
> >mistrustful of the advantages of literacy.
> Well, think of the Third World today. Do you seriously claim the illiteracy
> rates are high because parents are against their kids learning to read?
To some extent-- yes, very much so.
> AFAIR, Shakespeare never shows a rebellious mob as anything other than
> fickle, vicious and ignorant.
Where are those hard-working, upright commoners in the canon?
> > Social climbers have always been marks for derision.
> No, the point is that for men at the Shakespeares' level, literacy was
> essential to upward mobility. Joseph Hall gives a brilliant picture of this
> process in 'Virgidemiarum'. A pennypinching farmer scrapes and saves to
> send his son to the Inns of Court. When the boy comes back, his airs and
> graces astonish the wondering peasantry, and Lolio is so delighted he
> decides to push his second son along too.
Fine, but you don't see that in the works of Shakespeare.
> Hall goes on to picture the sons and grandsons of Lolio rising to grandeur
> and inventing phoney pedigrees for themselves, with Lolio's name carefully
> left out. But literacy was the essential first step.
Maybe that's why others were reluctant to emulate Lolio.
> > The point is that a spit-and-shake could take one a long ways in the
> >pre-20th c business world.
> Not when it came to ownership of land. Believe me, Volker, no Elizabethan
> ever did land deals on a spit-and-shake basis.
Again-- lawyers.
> Why, no. You say illiteracy was caused by the reluctance of the unread
> majority to allow their children to learn: they were inherently
> "mistrustful of book-learning". I think the unread majority have always
> known literacy cuts you a better deal in life, and therefore wished it for
> their children. They just couldn't afford to provide it until they got
> beyond the subsistence stage.
I con't buy this picture of the commoners constantly living on the
verge of starvation. They had good times and they had bad times. In
good times they did not send their children in hordes to school.
> > Primary education [and that's the real point here, not secondary
> >education] costs a community perhaps about the same as organized religion
> >(or less), yet societies somehow have always found the resources for
> >temples and priests.
> I don't get your point. When have the decisions about what a society finds
> the resources to provide been taken by that society's poorest members?
But if, as you say, society (people) recognized education would be
advantageous, why didn't they invest the resources-- regardless who's
making the decisions?
> > I'm just guessing, but wasn't *compulsory* school attendance a key
> >feature of that act? Are you seriously suggesting societies just
> >weren't rich enough for universal primary education until 1870?
> Sure it was compulsory, but no-one dared make it compulsory until a time
> when most poor families could get by without the contribution of child
> labour.
If people were so aware of the positive influence of education, why was
compulsion necessary?
> >> Maybe Susanna took to learning like a duck to water, and Judith
> >> just cried?
> > Come, come-- you're posulating either serious retardation or
> >pathological behavior on Judith's part.
> >Most children, esp girls, enjoy
> >the socialization process of school.
> You're not a teacher, are you Volker?
Sorry, I taught school for 4 years.
> >Our society is able to get even
> >extremely dumb and shy children to read
> Oh you're *definitely* not a teacher, are you Volker?
Still wrong.
> >Shakspere couldn't do likewise
> >for his own daughter?
> I don't imagine he taught her himself, he'd be too busy with his brilliant
> career. Well, we have Dave Kathman's evidence about the two little girls
> (Joyce and Alice?) who were at school together in Stratford - Alice learned
> how to write nicely and became a prostitute while the other one married and
> signed with a mark?
And what happened to the youner daughter of the greatest English
writer?
> Fortunately
> my sister is Dragon Momma and was determined her girl would overcome this
> difficulty if she had to wade through the blood of every educationalist in
> England, and things are fine now. But I know of many families where
> shoulders would have been shrugged and "Well, it doesn't matter so much for
> a girl and anyway, she can bake/sew/draw/sing beautifully."
But there are many other mothers, much less capable than your sister,
but with similarly difficult daughters, any yet somehow those girls also
learn to read.
> >At any rate,
> >Shakespeare's (the author's) principal heroines were clearly and
> >"naturally" literate-- it was never a state forced on them.
> Sure. They were all beautiful too. It's not like that in the real world,
> unfortunately.
But the reading went to their personalities, and that's something
Shakespeare did not fudge on.
> - I can't see that a man who grew up eligible for free education and who
> belonged to a social group in which literacy was the norm, would have been
> illiterate.
And you can't explain why your world didn't become generally literate
centuries earlier.
> - Being literate himself, I expect he would have wished his daughters to
> enjoy the same advantage, if they were capable of learning painlessly.
Whether he himself was literate is debatable-- mere signatures do not
constitute proof. I have personally known illiterate signers. Otoh, I
agree with you, that if Shakspere were literate, then his daughters very
likely would have been also. So why Judith?
> - But I don't think he would have wished for daughters anything like as
> well-educated as the idealised aristocratic girls in his plays, because in
> the position in life his daughters were likely to attain, that level of
> culture would have made them total misfits.
Wait a minute-- you've been busy telling us how important literacy was
in Shakspere's set. Suddenly education in women would be a liability?
Even if we're totally patriarchal, wouldn't literate mothers better
educate the scions?
> > Alas. If Hamnet had survived, the authorship controversy probably
> >would be resolved, one way or another.
> I think it is resolved.
One can be sure one's right, and yet wrong.
--Volker
BobGr...@nut-n-but.net
posted so many obtuse responses to well-stated intelligent arguments
as you have in the post to which I am responding.
--Bob G.
Sabyha
I remember that Madonna once said, "Who would you rather read about? A plain
Jane, or a slut... I'd rather read about a slut". Who would audiences rather
see in a presentational style of theatre? Everyday illiterate girls that may
be lacking a future, or girls who had the knowledge and the know-how that was
the *almost* exclusive domain of men? I know what I would rather. :o)
Cheers!
Jodie - Australia
"O heaven, O earth, Bear witness to this sound!"
John W. Kennedy
> Isn't it possible that Shakespeare never wrote down the plays?
It is inconsistent with the plain and express testimony of his peers.
And the notion that the playwright could have been illiterate is also
inconsistent with his heavy use of source materials.
Not to mention that there is no sane reason to believe that Shakespeare
was illiterate in the first place.
> The problem is the
> Sonnets. They have "nobleman" written all over them.
No they don't.
--
-John W. Kennedy
-rri...@ibm.net
Compact is becoming contract
Man only earns and pays. -- Charles Williams
John W. Kennedy
> Did girls attend the grammar school in Stratford? Doubt it!
No, but that school didn't teach reading and writing in English, which
was assumed going in. I have not studied the matter, but seeing that
the elementary schools of the time were called "Dame Schools", I can
only assume that some number of women received sufficient education to
teach.
> If Shakesper was such a great wit, how could he possibly have acquired it
> in the backwoods of Stratford? The city is where he had to learn his
> craft.
That's perfectly idiotic.
> So he shows up by when?
We don't know.
John W. Kennedy
>
> David Kathman wrote:
>
> > We have documentary
> > evidence that girls did attend school in Stratford in the
> > late 16th century. In fact, there are only two people who
> > lived in Stratford in the late 16th century for whom we have
> > documentary evidence that they attended school there, and
> > both are female. Interestingly enough, though, only one
> > of the two signed her name, while the other one made her
> > mark. Even more interesting, the one who signed her name
> > (in a nice italic hand) was a prostitute.
>
> Too bad the Shakspere girls couldn't do likewise.
You're telling lies again.
Nigel Davies
> Nigel Davies wrote:
> If he was so eager to collect these badges of
> gentility, why would
> > > > he allow his daughters to grow up like peasants? Did he want them to marry
> > > > farmers?
Correction. I didn't write the above. Not sure who did either.
> All this speculation based on role expectations is
> tempting,
> but alas, there is nothing expected about an 18 year
> old glover's son marrying a woman 8 years older and
> some--- possibly very short-- time after deserting them
> to become a player/playwright. It is an extraordinary
> thing to do, and who can even guess what response it
> prompted from neighbors, and the abandoned wife? From
> the evidence of the plays, WS had some experience of
> marriage as a running battle about infidelity,
> suspicion, humiliation, bullying, jealousy-- and
> probably also a long-distance battle royal over the
> children's loyalty and morals and schooling. Millions
> of fathers (and mothers) have kept their daughters
> illiterate to preserve their chastity and obedience.
> (Even today: I watched some of them in Africa saying
> just this on TV last night) (Indeed, most of the
> letters to and by women in the plays bear out this
> worry) It is not unheard of for a deserted wife to try
> to bring up her hated husband's children to hate him,
> and avoid his wicked ways. Many people of the time
> thought the plays we so admire to be nothing but gross
> wickedness. Perhaps all WS's grasping at gentility was
> a way to win respect for and from his children.
> Or more likely, not.
>
> Geralyn Horton, Playwright
> Newton, Mass. 02460
> <http://www.tiac.net/users/ghorton>
--
______________________________________________________________________
Nigel....@BTInternet.com
Nigel Davies
> His father was town bailiff, ran a business and owned land. Are you
> suggesting he couldn't afford dame school for his eldest boy if he'd wanted?
> If he couldn't, who could - only the parents of Alice Evans? I repeat that
> all the evidence suggests John Shakespeare was upwardly mobile, a man keen
> to get on. Why would he not push his son another step up the ladder by
> educating him? Apprenticeship would only be an issue if the boy was intended
> simply to follow his father's footsteps - and there's no evidence I know of
> that suggests William was ever a glover.
Very good point. John's father was a yeoman farmer and we know John didn't
follow him into that occupation. He had a mind of his own and pursued his own
career independent of the sterotypical "my grandfather was a miner, my father
was a miner, so I'm a miner" mentality. Equally, William didn't pursue his
father's occupation.
This is where Crowley's claim of William following father's profession fouls up.
There is no precedent but instead the completely opposite independence of mind
exercised by John that follows through with William.
______________________________________________________________________
Nigel....@BTInternet.com
volker multhopp
> volker multhopp wrote:
> > > Even more interesting, the one who signed her name
> > > (in a nice italic hand) was a prostitute.
> > Too bad the Shakspere girls couldn't do likewise.
> You're telling lies again.
No, I'm not, and your method of discourse is loathsome.
--Volker
David Kathman
>
> Geralyn Horton wrote:
>
> > Nigel Davies wrote:
> > If he was so eager to collect these badges of
> > gentility, why would
> > > > > he allow his daughters to grow up like peasants? Did he want them to marry
> > > > > farmers?
>
> Correction. I didn't write the above. Not sure who did either.
It was Volker.
Dave Kathman
dj...@ix.netcom.com
volker multhopp
> Nigel Davies wrote:
> > > > > > he allow his daughters to grow up like peasants? Did he want them to marry
> > > > > > farmers?
> > Correction. I didn't write the above. Not sure who did either.
> It was Volker.
Wrong, unfortunately. It was our civil and learned friend, Rita Lamb.
--Volker
David Kathman
Gosh darn it, you're right. The attributions got mixed up somewhere
in the transmission, and I was looking at one of the intermediate
posts instead of tracking down the original.
Dave Kathman
dj...@ix.netcom.com
BobGr...@nut-n-but.net
Yes, you are, and your method of discourse is loathsome in a cowardly
indirect way, and moronic, to boot.
RLamb
-----Original Message-----
From: volker multhopp <vol...@erols.com>
Newsgroups: humanities.lit.authors.shakespeare
Date: 14 March 2000 03:33
Subject: Re: On Dramatic Verse and Shakespeare's Illiteracy
>RLamb wrote:
>
>> volker multhopp wrote in message <38CB78B1...@erols.com>...
>
>> > I seem to recall some
>> >tv-report that showed completely paperless commercial dealing continuing
>> >in some English rural areas until very recent times. Deals were
>> >brokered orally, and sealed with a spit and hand-shake.
>
<snip>
> You don't need literacy to buy land, you need a lawyer, whether you can
>read or not. His illiterate father bought land.
We only have your supposition that John Shakespeare was totally illiterate -
completely unable to read and write. I would happily accept, on the
evidence of the position he held in the town and the records that show he
was a man intent on bettering himself, that despite an unpropitious start in
life he was at least partly literate. Like my old granny, he may not have
been able to write a letter but still have been quite capable of reading
within a limited field - women's magazines for her, legal documents and town
records for him. I wouldn't deny that illiterates did buy and sell land,
but they were at a great disadvantage because they could be, and were,
cheated.
>>And his will shows he had the typical profile of an *ambitious*
>> member of the middle class - the sword, the silver plate,
>
> How does this indicate literacy? Can't illiterates own plate and
>swords?
It's less likely at this time that a member of the expanding middle class
would not be able to read. Shakespeare's bequests show him to be a fairly
typical member of that class. Not the most wealthy of gentlemen by any
means - but a gentleman, all the same.
>>the ten pounds to
>> the poor and above all,
>
> Not so generous. Didn't his friend Combe leave a thousand?
Dunno. If he did he was extraordinarily lavish - and much richer than our
boy. "Shakespeare's gift of £10 to the poor of Stratford was extremely
generous...the norm in 1616 wills was a payment of £2 to the local poor,
made by yeoman and esquire alike." (Jane Cox, archivist: 'Shakespeare in
the Public Records'.)
>>the care to conserve the estate for a future male
>> heir.
>
> Again, there's a lawyer at work, all that was required of Shakspere was
>a touch of misogyny.
>
Nothing misogynistic about it. Conserving the bulk of the estate for single
heir (preferably male) was a way of ensuring the family kept its social
position. The directions about how Judith was to receive her portion show
that someone was anxious to protect her against the possibility of being
exploited by her future husband - rightly, as it turned out. It may have
been the lawyer, but I doubt it.
(Have to stop here Volker, because it's too late to go on. I'll come back
to your other points tomorrow though.)
Rita
RLamb
-----Original Message-----
From: volker multhopp <vol...@erols.com>
Newsgroups: humanities.lit.authors.shakespeare
Date: 14 March 2000 03:33
Subject: Re: On Dramatic Verse and Shakespeare's Illiteracy
>RLamb wrote:
>
>> volker multhopp wrote in message <38CB78B1...@erols.com>...
R. Lamb wrote:
I’m shortening this, Volker, because with my fondness for long quotes my
posts are soon unmanageable. Cheers for calling me civil. I reject the
"learned" - learned types can't speculate, which is one of life's greatest
pleasures. Let me know if I misunderstand / misrepresent your position:
Regarding education in Stratford. You pointed out that even if grammar
school was free, petty school would require fees. I think for a man in John
Shakespeare’s position in the 1560s-70s, the cost would not be a serious
factor.
You suggested the father might have preferred an apprenticeship. I said
there was no evidence William carried on business as a glover, so at least
he wasn’t apprenticed to his father. You mentioned Aubrey’s tale about his
being a butcher’s boy. I love Aubrey, but he isn’t wholly reliable. If
William was apprenticed to a butcher, no evidence has survived that he
carried on the trade, e.g no contemporary records refer to William as
“butcher”.
>
We disagree about the main cause of widespread illiteracy; I think it’s
parental poverty, you think it’s parental attitude. I suppose we could
settle this by referring to studies on the subject but - who has time?
You point out that the Cade rebellion scenes in H6 show contempt for the
lowest class and ask where are the hard-working and decent commoners:
- In Henry V, where the soldiers discuss the rights and wrongs of the war;
the gardener in 'Richard II'; old Adam in AYLI; the Old Shepherd in 'A
Winter's Tale'; the fishermen who rescue Pericles and set him back on the
road to fortune; Juliet's nurse, until the moral complexities of clandestine
marriage get too much for her; Falstaff's boy; even that old tart Mistress
Quickly, when she's tending to the dying Falstaff. And I'd sooner be
shipwrecked with Stephano and Trinculo than Sebastian and Antonio. Corin and
Silvius are rather blandly idealized commoners so I leave them out. (I'm
taking "commoners" to mean the working class and not just the non-nobility,
or the list becomes far more extensive.)
That said, I agree Shakespeare nearly always shows a mob as heartless,
easily swayed and frighteningly irresponsible. (I haven't read the excerpt
from 'Sir Thomas More' which I think deals with Sir T. talking a mob out of
a race riot, or I wouldn't hesitate over "always".). But you don't need to
be a member of the aristocracy to know that that's what mobs are like. They
are now and they were then.
I suggested earlier that social-climbing was rife in Elizabethan England,
and supported it with a quote from Hall to show that literacy was one of the
first goals for the upwardly-mobile.
You said fine, but you don't see that in the works of Shakespeare.
Shakespeare didn't write direct social satire much. But as 'The Merry Wives'
shows, he was quite clear about the need to educate the sons of the rising
middle class.
You said, all ages and all times deride social climbers, and that if Lolio’s
reward for pennypinching was to be quietly forgotten by the sons he’s raised
to the gentry, this might be why others didn’t emulate him.
I say on the contrary, Hall's point was Lolio's behaviour wasn’t rare, but
happening all over. That's why Hall devotes a satire to it. He sees it as a
common social evil - wealthy farmers financing their sons' entry into the
lucrative legal profession, so within a generation the family can leapfrog
into the gentry. Another quote - I make no apology, Hall’s very good:
"Thine heire, thine heyres heyre, & his heyre againe
From out the loines of carefull Lolian,
Shall climbe vp to the Chancell pewes on hie
And rule and reign in their rich Tenancie;"
But as Hall showed, to break out of the yeoman class and into the gentry you
needed literacy. And that’s why I think John Shakespeare would have seen to
it his eldest son went to school. The record shows John came from tenant
farmer stock, progressed to middle class prosperity, then hit some hard
times; but his son bought the second largest house in town, inherited a coat
of arms and died leaving a comfortable estate - an inheritance which no
doubt helped his grand-daughter ultimately to marry a knight. The
Shakespeares are like some copybook example of the process Hall was carping
at; why would they have deliberately avoided an advantage like literacy?
You pointed out that illiterates could rely on lawyers for buying and
selling land. This is true, but they obviously ran a much greater risk of
being cheated. Hence the landed class, out of self-interest, not only
mastered literacy but usually strove to send a son to study law. (This is
also in Hall. He was a Fellow of Emmanuel, and deeply resented the way
get-rich-quick types preferred law to a purely academic education.)
You said:
> I don't buy this picture of the commoners constantly living on the
>verge of starvation. They had good times and they had bad times. In
>good times they did not send their children in hordes to school.
You say "the commoners" as if there were no gradations of class between the
nobility and the dirt poor. You mean the largest class? They certainly did
starve, sometimes. Their "good times" were when they didn't starve. Even in
their best times, the majority wouldn't have a hope of financing a boy
through grammar school and university.
<snip a bit about why the poor don’t get a fair deal and move on to why
Judith may not have been an academic success>
You said, regarding Judith:
>> > Come, come-- you're posulating either serious retardation or
>> >pathological behavior on Judith's part.
>> >Most children, esp girls, enjoy
>> >the socialization process of school.
>
>> You're not a teacher, are you Volker?
>
> Sorry, I taught school for 4 years.
>
>> >Our society is able to get even
>> >extremely dumb and shy children to read
>
>> Oh you're *definitely* not a teacher, are you Volker?
>
> Still wrong.
>
I’m only wrong about your not being a teacher – sorry. But I don’t believe
anyone in education believes we’ve achieved 100 per cent literacy. Not even
today, with educational psychologists to back us up. I still know children
leaving school at 16 who are functionally illiterate. You never met any?
Only “retards” don’t learn to read and write without difficulty? You say
England’s greatest writer would have made sure both his girls were literate.
I think he would have paid for them to have the opportunity, but if one girl
had real difficulties, I don’t think he would have pushed her. The girls
weren’t going into a profession. Literacy for women was like an
accomplishment, and to some extent a badge of rank For a middle class boy,
it was essential.
You said:
>
> Whether he himself was literate is debatable-- mere signatures do not
>constitute proof. I have personally known illiterate signers. Otoh, I
>agree with you, that if Shakspere were literate, then his daughters very
>likely would have been also. So why Judith?
Can you prove she was illiterate? And if so, could you prove this was due
to paternal neglect of her education rather than a mild learning disability,
benignly neglected because, in all honesty, learning mattered less in a
girl? Is it inconceivable to you that the elder daughter might have been
bright, confident and clever, and the other a mouse?
I said:
>> - But I don't think he would have wished for daughters anything like as
>> well-educated as the idealised aristocratic girls in his plays, because
in
>> the position in life his daughters were likely to attain, that level of
>> culture would have made them total misfits.
You said:
> Wait a minute-- you've been busy telling us how important literacy was
>in Shakspere's set. Suddenly education in women would be a liability?
>Even if we're totally patriarchal, wouldn't literate mothers better
>educate the scions?
>
I’m talking about degrees of education. Shakespeare was happy to retire
into the comfy life of a country gentleman. His fortune was great enough to
entitle his daughters to make good, but not splendid, matches. So at best
they were going to be provincial gentlewomen: running a household, handling
servants, seeing to the basic education of their children and entertaining
their (better-educated) husband’s friends without feeling ill at ease. You
would expect them to read and write English. But you would not expect them
to equal, say, Marina. If Dr. Hall had found his future wife could not only
sing like one immortal but dance as goddess-like to her admired lays, and
then “dumb deep clerks” for an encore – I think he’d have run a mile. So,
basic literacy and general knowledge, yes. Latin and Greek, no.
>> > Alas. If Hamnet had survived, the authorship controversy probably
>> >would be resolved, one way or another.
>
>> I think it is resolved.
>
> One can be sure one's right, and yet wrong.
>
> --Volker
Yep. One can be sure one’s right, and yet be right, too.
- Rita
volker multhopp
> -----Original Message-----
> From: volker multhopp <vol...@erols.com>
> I’m shortening this, Volker, because with my fondness for long quotes my
> posts are soon unmanageable. Cheers for calling me civil. I reject the
> "learned" - learned types can't speculate, which is one of life's greatest
> pleasures.
Agreed.
>Let me know if I misunderstand / misrepresent your position:
> Regarding education in Stratford. You pointed out that even if grammar
> school was free, petty school would require fees. I think for a man in John
> Shakespeare’s position in the 1560s-70s, the cost would not be a serious
> factor.
I agree, my point was merely a denial that it would be "free".
However, though this is not my main point, it is possible that if JS
were tight with a penny, that would strengthen other tendencies he might
have for keeping WS out of school.
> You suggested the father might have preferred an apprenticeship. I said
> there was no evidence William carried on business as a glover, so at least
> he wasn’t apprenticed to his father.
This is a bit of a tangent, but I'm not sure the designation "glover"
is completely descriptive. Iirc, there were many signs JS was a dealer
before a couple of records show him as a glover-- and then there were
his political posts, too. To me it doesn't look like he was always a
full-time glover, but more likely that he was a wheeler-dealer, who
later allowed himself to be identified by a business he had bought and
which gave him a propertied commercial presence in Stratford.
>You mentioned Aubrey’s tale about his
> being a butcher’s boy. I love Aubrey, but he isn’t wholly reliable. If
> William was apprenticed to a butcher, no evidence has survived that he
> carried on the trade, e.g no contemporary records refer to William as
> “butcher”.
The actual exercise of the apprenticed trade may been a secondary
consideration for the father-- more important for him might have been
the discipline and workmanish habits the child would have learned. And,
as I said, the anecdotes tell us people more closer to the E Stratford
culture than we did not think such an apprenticeship odd.
> We disagree about the main cause of widespread illiteracy; I think it’s
> parental poverty, you think it’s parental attitude. I suppose we could
> settle this by referring to studies on the subject but - who has time?
Right. Furthermore, I find it surprising that we don't a better
historical sense of the spread of literacy. A cultural blindspot.
> You point out that the Cade rebellion scenes in H6 show contempt for the
> lowest class and ask where are the hard-working and decent commoners:
> - In Henry V, where the soldiers discuss the rights and wrongs of the war;
> the gardener in 'Richard II'; old Adam in AYLI; the Old Shepherd in 'A
> Winter's Tale'; the fishermen who rescue Pericles and set him back on the
> road to fortune; Juliet's nurse, [...]
You're mixing together disparate types. Naturally an upperclass person
writing about "life" is going to include types from the lower classes,
and those types will include *good* and *bad*. The canon shows some
appreciation for *loyal servants* on the one hand, and *gruff, somewhat
ignorant, yet interesting workers* on the other. But these characters
never carry the action, they are there in service, or for background
color or humor. There are no characters like the Shakspere image, who
pull themselves up by the dint of their stint.
> I suggested earlier that social-climbing was rife in Elizabethan England,
> and supported it with a quote from Hall to show that literacy was one of the
> first goals for the upwardly-mobile.
> You said fine, but you don't see that in the works of Shakespeare.
> Shakespeare didn't write direct social satire much. But as 'The Merry Wives'
> shows, he was quite clear about the need to educate the sons of the rising
> middle class.
The middle class in MMW are clowns (admittedly not too surprising in
comedy), not heros. But not that Fenton, the guy-who-gets-the-girl, is
the highest born, that he and his downward search for a rich bride
strongly resemble Oxford's condition:
FENTON. I see I cannot get thy father's love;
Therefore no more turn me to him, sweet Nan.
ANNE. Alas, how then?
FENTON. Why, thou must be thyself.
He doth object I am too great of birth;
And that, my state being gall'd with my expense,
I seek to heal it only by his wealth.
Besides these, other bars he lays before me,
My riots past, my wild societies;
And tells me 'tis a thing impossible
I should love thee but as a property.
Look at what WS holds attractive:
HOST. What say you to young Master Fenton? He capers,
he dances, he has eyes of youth, he writes verses, he speaks
holiday, he smells April and May; he will carry 't, he will
carry 't; 'tis in his buttons; he will carry 't.
PAGE. Not by my consent, I promise you. The gentleman is
of no having: he kept company with the wild Prince and
Poins; he is of too high a region, he knows too much. No,
he shall not knit a knot in his fortunes with the finger of
my substance; if he take her, let him take her simply; the
wealth I have waits on my consent, and my consent goes
not that way.
See-- WS lets the middle class damn one who "knows too much"; that's no
respect for learning.
> But as Hall showed, to break out of the yeoman class and into the gentry you
> needed literacy. And that’s why I think John Shakespeare would have seen to
> it his eldest son went to school.
Well, apparently *John* Shakspere did make it into the gentry, even
without literacy.
>The record shows John came from tenant
> farmer stock, progressed to middle class prosperity, then hit some hard
> times; but his son bought the second largest house in town, inherited a coat
> of arms and died leaving a comfortable estate - an inheritance which no
> doubt helped his grand-daughter ultimately to marry a knight. The
> Shakespeares are like some copybook example of the process Hall was carping
> at; why would they have deliberately avoided an advantage like literacy?
You keep avoiding the exploration of the alternate possibility-- that
successful illiterates considered schooling a waste of time, that
apprentice taught discipline, and that ultimately the son getting
educated would have represented a repudiation of the lives of the father
and all forefathers.
> You said:
> > I don't buy this picture of the commoners constantly living on the
> >verge of starvation. They had good times and they had bad times. In
> >good times they did not send their children in hordes to school.
> You say "the commoners" as if there were no gradations of class between the
> nobility and the dirt poor.
Of course, there were many gradations.
>You mean the largest class? They certainly did
> starve, sometimes. Their "good times" were when they didn't starve.
Come, come, was *starvation* a major killer of the peasantry (whom I
presume you're referring to) or any other class in pre-industrial
England? (Note, lack of vitamins was a problem, one that afflicted even
the nobles-- it was a consequence of the diet.)
>Even in
> their best times, the majority wouldn't have a hope of financing a boy
> through grammar school and university.
We're not even really talking about grammar school and beyond, but
simply learning to read-- and I maintain even the poor could have
afforded that-- they just lacked the will.
> But I don’t believe
> anyone in education believes we’ve achieved 100 per cent literacy.
Right.
>Not even
> today, with educational psychologists to back us up.
Whom have they taught, or even enabled, to read?
>I still know children
> leaving school at 16 who are functionally illiterate. You never met any?
I even tried to teach them one term in college.
> Only “retards” don’t learn to read and write without difficulty?
There are subcultures today which are still antithetical to education.
The illiterates I confronted in college were smarter than many people
who have learned to read. Moderately retarded people can read.
> > Whether he himself was literate is debatable-- mere signatures do not
> >constitute proof. I have personally known illiterate signers. Otoh, I
> >agree with you, that if Shakspere were literate, then his daughters very
> >likely would have been also. So why Judith?
> Can you prove she was illiterate?
Her marking and not signing seems like a pretty sure signal. Why on
earth should "Shakespeare's" daughter try to pretend she couldn't write?
> Is it inconceivable to you that the elder daughter might have been
> bright, confident and clever, and the other a mouse?
The mousy one is often the more serious student.
> > Wait a minute-- you've been busy telling us how important literacy was
> >in Shakspere's set. Suddenly education in women would be a liability?
> >Even if we're totally patriarchal, wouldn't literate mothers better
> >educate the scions?
> I’m talking about degrees of education. Shakespeare was happy to retire
> into the comfy life of a country gentleman. His fortune was great enough to
> entitle his daughters to make good, but not splendid, matches. So at best
> they were going to be provincial gentlewomen: running a household, handling
> servants, seeing to the basic education of their children and entertaining
> their (better-educated) husband’s friends without feeling ill at ease. You
> would expect them to read and write English.
Which certainly doesn't seem to be the case with Judith, and is even
very questionable with Susanna.
>But you would not expect them
> to equal, say, Marina. If Dr. Hall had found his future wife could not only
> sing like one immortal but dance as goddess-like to her admired lays, and
> then “dumb deep clerks” for an encore – I think he’d have run a mile. So,
> basic literacy and general knowledge, yes. Latin and Greek, no.
Agreed, Latin and Greek are not the issue-- the literacy remains open.
--Volker
RLamb
volker multhopp wrote in message <38D17964...@erols.com>...Volker
I want to wind up this thread because I think we’ve said all we usefully can
say on it. So I’m restating my view (and surprise! it hasn’t changed), and
then leaving the last word with you because I see no reason to be sexist
about who gets last words.
I started by saying I didn’t buy the whole notion that Shakespeare of
Stratford was an illiterate – that even if you set aside the evidence that
he was the same man as Shakespeare of London, actor and playwright, he still
doesn’t fit the profile of some braindead yokel. I still feel this. I know
there isn’t much hard evidence surviving, but what there is seems to point
to his being too high up the social scale for illiteracy to be likely. We
know he was eligible for free secondary schooling at a time it was
available, and that his father was upwardly-mobile. You suggest Shakespeare
Snr. may have been some hardnosed self-made man who deliberately deprived
his son of literacy to set him to a more immediately profitable
apprenticeship. This isn’t impossible, but seems unlikely. We know it was
John Shakespeare who first applied for a coat-of-arms; so he wasn’t just
commercially driven, he was socially ambitious too. To keep his eldest son
illiterate would have been to deprive him not only of a useful commercial
skill but one which was an expected mark of gentility.
Regarding the literacy of Shakespeare’s daughters, as you’d expect, even
less evidence survives. Documents worth keeping usually deal with money or
land, and women were less likely to be involved in these matters. (I just
looked at a checklist I was sent from an aristocratic family’s archive, of
material dating from late 16th to early 18th century. Out of 98 letters,
only 5 are from women.) I argued that by this time you’d expect a gentleman
’s daughters to be able to read and write English, and that since WS of Stra
tford was a gentleman, even if a bit new to the rank, his daughters would
have basic literacy. You say the evidence is that Susanna may have been
able to write her name but Judith couldn’t even do that, and this implies
their father didn’t value culture or intelligence in women to the same
extent as you would expect from the creator of, say, Rosalind.
From the same slim evidence I’d conclude that Susanna, who seems to have
been the stronger character of the two, could probably both read and write;
and that if Judith couldn’t the problem may have been with her rather than
her father’s values or wishes. I accept there’s no evidence the girls were
educated to the level of the heroines in the plays, but that’s unsurprising.
It would be unrealistic to expect two country gentlewomen to be educated up
to the standards of those top-drawer types. In fact I can’t think why, if
WS were a caring father, he would have wished them to be that
highly-educated. The professions were closed to them; their likeliest
chance of happiness lay in marriage. Generally, although men don’t want
their wives to be stupider or less-educated than their friends’ wives, they
don’t usually go looking for bluestockings either.
That’s it. Over to you.
Rita
volker multhopp
> I want to wind up this thread because I think we’ve said all we usefully can
> say on it. So I’m restating my view (and surprise! it hasn’t changed), and
> then leaving the last word with you because I see no reason to be sexist
> about who gets last words.
Who has the last word is unimportant, and moreover has nothing to do
with gender. I would gladly cede it to you, however ...
> From the same slim evidence I’d conclude that Susanna, who seems to have
> been the stronger character of the two, could probably both read and write;
No-- we have a surprisingly well documented account of a situation
where she might have read, when James Cooke, but not she, recognized her
husband's notebook.
> and that if Judith couldn’t the problem may have been with her rather than
> her father’s values or wishes. I accept there’s no evidence the girls were
> educated to the level of the heroines in the plays, but that’s unsurprising.
> It would be unrealistic to expect two country gentlewomen to be educated up
> to the standards of those top-drawer types. In fact I can’t think why, if
> WS were a caring father, he would have wished them to be that
> highly-educated.
Again, the question is not whether they were highly-educated, but
whether they were educated at all. Your theory works much better if you
assume Shakspere was not the author. I find it *very* difficult to
imagine that the greatest author of the language would not have given
his daughters the opportunity to peek into his world, and possibly to
converse intelligently with his fellow-poets.
--Volker
Greg Reynolds
volker multhopp wrote:
> RLamb wrote:
>
> > I want to wind up this thread because I think we’ve said all we usefully can
> > say on it. So I’m restating my view (and surprise! it hasn’t changed), and
> > then leaving the last word with you because I see no reason to be sexist
> > about who gets last words.
>
> Who has the last word is unimportant, and moreover has nothing to do
> with gender. I would gladly cede it to you, however ...
>
> > From the same slim evidence I’d conclude that Susanna, who seems to have
> > been the stronger character of the two, could probably both read and write;
>
> No-- we have a surprisingly well documented account of a situation
> where she might have read, when James Cooke, but not she, recognized her
> husband's notebook.
If that was the genuine message of Cooke's memoir, he may have stated it as such.
Cooke does not literally say she did not recognize her husband's notebook. He
shows little indication for her shortness with him, or her motives. If this to
you satisfies your craving that Susanna be illiterate, I'd like to hear your
arbitrary dismissal of all the possibilities that she shooed him off, and why you
strictly adhere to this one conjecture (she must be illiterate because she's all
riled up) that favors your theory. Cooke does not speak of Susanna's illiteracy,
does he? (Oxfordian predestination at work.)
Keep in mind, world, that Cooke is unrefuted and unquestioned. We don't know his
point but he is referring to the books of the Stratford Shakespeares.
> > and that if Judith couldn’t the problem may have been with her rather than
> > her father’s values or wishes. I accept there’s no evidence the girls were
> > educated to the level of the heroines in the plays, but that’s unsurprising.
> > It would be unrealistic to expect two country gentlewomen to be educated up
> > to the standards of those top-drawer types. In fact I can’t think why, if
> > WS were a caring father, he would have wished them to be that
> > highly-educated.
>
> Again, the question is not whether they were highly-educated, but
> whether they were educated at all. Your theory works much better if you
> assume Shakspere was not the author.
Way to skew the 'last word.'
> I find it *very* difficult to
> imagine that the greatest author of the language would not have given
> his daughters the opportunity to peek into his world, and possibly to
> converse intelligently with his fellow-poets.
And only you are forced to believe he didn't. Ask yourself why you assign
illiteracy to these two women without having any knowledge of their literacy
whatsoever. You accept your own most negative speculation as fact, just to
discredit WS of Stratford. You're playing the class card.
Were the earl's daughters witty above anything?
Greg Reynolds
volker multhopp
> volker multhopp wrote:
> > No-- we have a surprisingly well documented account of a situation
> > where she might have read, when James Cooke, but not she, recognized her
> > husband's notebook.
> If that was the genuine message of Cooke's memoir, he may have stated it as such.
> Cooke does not literally say she did not recognize her husband's notebook.
He doesn't? How do you interpret--
I being acquainted with Mr. Hall's hand, told her that one or two of
them were her Husbhands, and shewed them her; she denied, I affirmed,
till I perceived she begun to be offended.
>He
> shows little indication for her shortness with him, or her motives.
Wrong, the account seems to indicate she was offended from the
disagreement whether the book[s] were written by her husband.
>If this to
> you satisfies your craving that Susanna be illiterate, I'd like to hear your
> arbitrary dismissal of all the possibilities that she shooed him off, and why you
> strictly adhere to this one conjecture (she must be illiterate because she's all
> riled up) that favors your theory.
There are other possibilities, but I'm taking the most reasonable
interpretation of what Cooke actually said. I'm not straining at some
special reading.
>Cooke does not speak of Susanna's illiteracy,
> does he? (Oxfordian predestination at work.)
It would have been unseemly for him to bluntly state the woman was
illiterate. He indicates her condition without crassly blurting it
out-- that's called politeness. We are allowed to draw reasonable
conclusions from the evidence, aren't we?
> Keep in mind, world, that Cooke is unrefuted and unquestioned.
Right.
>We don't know his
> point but he is referring to the books of the Stratford Shakespeares.
Wrong! He's referring to *Mr Hall*'s books. What must be very
dismaying for the Stratfordian cause, he makes not the least mention of
any book or piece of writing of William Shakespeare.
> > I find it *very* difficult to
> > imagine that the greatest author of the language would not have given
> > his daughters the opportunity to peek into his world, and possibly to
> > converse intelligently with his fellow-poets.
> And only you are forced to believe he didn't.
If I am *forced*, it is only because of available evidence, read
without bias, makes that case.
>Ask yourself why you assign
> illiteracy to these two women without having any knowledge of their literacy
> whatsoever.
We do have evidence of their literacy.
>You accept your own most negative speculation as fact, just to
> discredit WS of Stratford. You're playing the class card.
Class has nothing to do with that.
> Were the earl's daughters witty above anything?
They were witty enough to have been involved with the dedicatees of the
First Folio. Who dedicated what to Shakspere's girls?
--Volker
Greg Reynolds
volker multhopp wrote:
> Greg Reynolds wrote:
>
> > volker multhopp wrote:
>
> > > No-- we have a surprisingly well documented account of a situation
> > > where she might have read, when James Cooke, but not she, recognized her
> > > husband's notebook.
>
> > If that was the genuine message of Cooke's memoir, he may have stated it as
> > such. Cooke does not literally say she did not recognize her husband's notebook.
>
> He doesn't? How do you interpret--
>
> I being acquainted with Mr. Hall's hand, told her that one or two of
> them were her Husbhands, and shewed them her; she denied, I affirmed,
> till I perceived she begun to be offended.
That she was negotiating.
Do you really take this anecdote as Cooke's means of belittling her?
> >He
> > shows little indication for her shortness with him, or her motives.
>
> Wrong, the account seems to indicate she was offended from the
> disagreement whether the book[s] were written by her husband.
These are your words. Not his, not hers.
He seems to be making a record that he wasn't harassing her.
Why does a military officer write such an account?
You want him to be Oxfordian? I'm listening.
> >If this to
> > you satisfies your craving that Susanna be illiterate, I'd like to hear your
> > arbitrary dismissal of all the possibilities that she shooed him off, and why you
> > strictly adhere to this one conjecture (she must be illiterate because she's all
> > riled up) that favors your theory.
>
> There are other possibilities, but I'm taking the most reasonable
> interpretation of what Cooke actually said. I'm not straining at some
> special reading.
Your special reading is singled out by you to disallow Susanna's
literacy.
That's what you want/need and therefore get.
> >Cooke does not speak of Susanna's illiteracy,
> > does he? (Oxfordian predestination at work.)
>
> It would have been unseemly for him to bluntly state the woman was
> illiterate. He indicates her condition without crassly blurting it
> out-- that's called politeness. We are allowed to draw reasonable
> conclusions from the evidence, aren't we?
Evidence of what?
That Cooke got some manuscripts from Susanna Shakespeare?
> > Keep in mind, world, that Cooke is unrefuted and unquestioned.
>
> Right.
What was his motive in the passage?
Or can you only glean nutrition for your own slant?
> >We don't know his
> > point but he is referring to the books of the Stratford Shakespeares.
>
> Wrong! He's referring to *Mr Hall*'s books. What must be very
> dismaying for the Stratfordian cause, he makes not the least mention of
> any book or piece of writing of William Shakespeare.
Mr. Hall is dead!
Cooke is dealing with a Shakespeare of Stratford. About books.
Admit it (or cloud the issue of Cooke buying books from her).
Only Cooke contends the books are Hall's. Funny with half the
dispute before you that you are so capable of deciding the
verdict, and then call that reasoning. Is this the lynchpin of
your theory that Susanna was illiterate? Its hollow.
So I will therefore repost the true statement of mine above that
you wrongly called wrong, because it is right! And you're wrong
to call it anything else:
>>We don't know his point but he is referring
>> to the books of the Stratford Shakespeares.
Next time you try to refute that, refute it!
Don't say it's wrong and then fade away.
> > > I find it *very* difficult to
> > > imagine that the greatest author of the language would not have given
> > > his daughters the opportunity to peek into his world, and possibly to
> > > converse intelligently with his fellow-poets.
>
> > And only you are forced to believe he didn't.
>
> If I am *forced*, it is only because of available evidence, read
> without bias, makes that case.
"I never heard of it so it's impossible." -Volker paraphrased.
Oxfordian predestination at work.
The evidence does not make that case--you do. Its nothing more
than your predestined take. Why was Cooke bragging about
visiting Susanna? Does he have a homespun anecdote on record for
every book he owned? Was he name-dropping?
You attack Susanna's literacy with nothing more than a surmisal.
This is nothing to accept and nothing to build on. You need her
illiterate, but here she is with books. And you create a
scenario. She sounds to be negotiating. Do you know Cooke's
motivation for writing something so mundane? Its not a receipt,
its an adventure, involving a historically identifiable
Shakespeare of Stratford dealing books. Was Cooke trying to
cover his tracks for ripping off the testy widow? Was she fed up
with these soldiers raiding the great author's belongings? Would
you like her side of the story?
Really, you give up too easy.
> >Ask yourself why you assign
> > illiteracy to these two women without having any knowledge of their literacy
> > whatsoever.
>
> We do have evidence of their literacy.
Give the evidence of Susanna and Judith's literacy.
> >You accept your own most negative speculation as fact, just to
> > discredit WS of Stratford. You're playing the class card.
>
> Class has nothing to do with that.
You play the defame his daughters and find his guilt by
association card.
> > Were the earl's daughters witty above anything?
>
> They were witty enough to have been involved with the dedicatees of the
> First Folio. Who dedicated what to Shakspere's girls?
WHO dedicated WHAT to Oxford's girls? "Involved" as in rejected?
See how twisted and selfconvinced your tale is? So 'llI restate
the question you glazed over:
> > Were the earl's daughters witty above anything?
Greg Reynolds
volker multhopp
> volker multhopp wrote:
> > He doesn't? How do you interpret--
> > I being acquainted with Mr. Hall's hand, told her that one or two of
> > them were her Husbhands, and shewed them her; she denied, I affirmed,
> > till I perceived she begun to be offended.
> That she was negotiating.
Negotiating what? Her husband's authorship? That's what she's
denying.
> Do you really take this anecdote as Cooke's means of belittling her?
No, where do you get that idea?
> > >He
> > > shows little indication for her shortness with him, or her motives.
> > Wrong, the account seems to indicate she was offended from the
> > disagreement whether the book[s] were written by her husband.
> These are your words. Not his, not hers.
No, they were his words and presumably (unless you hold Cooke for liar)
hers too-- "[I] told her that one or two of them were her Husbhands, and
shewed them her; she denied, I affirmed ..."-- what could be clearer?
> He seems to be making a record that he wasn't harassing her.
Huh?
> Why does a military officer write such an account?
He was a surgeon and was interested specifically in Hall's medical
cases. He eventually did write up Hall's cases-- he's writing here just
an anecdote on the way to accessing the notebooks.
> You want him to be Oxfordian? I'm listening.
Good God, Greg! Where do you get this from?
> > There are other possibilities, but I'm taking the most reasonable
> > interpretation of what Cooke actually said. I'm not straining at some
> > special reading.
> Your special reading is singled out by you to disallow Susanna's
> literacy.
I don't have special reading, it's the apparent reading.
> That's what you want/need and therefore get.
Neither my want nor yours is at issue here, only what Hall wrote, and
what implication that has for judging Susanna literacy.
> > >Cooke does not speak of Susanna's illiteracy,
> > > does he? (Oxfordian predestination at work.)
> > It would have been unseemly for him to bluntly state the woman was
> > illiterate. He indicates her condition without crassly blurting it
> > out-- that's called politeness. We are allowed to draw reasonable
> > conclusions from the evidence, aren't we?
> Evidence of what?
That she couldn't recognize her husband's notebook, that thus she had
no intellectual curiosity in his work, and/or that she couldn't read.
> That Cooke got some manuscripts from Susanna Shakespeare?
That and more.
> > > Keep in mind, world, that Cooke is unrefuted and unquestioned.
> > Right.
> What was his motive in the passage?
I still don't get your point here. He's only relating a story, why
does anyone tell anecdotes?
> Or can you only glean nutrition for your own slant?
Don't worry about my slant, just deal with what he said.
> > >We don't know his
> > > point but he is referring to the books of the Stratford Shakespeares.
> > Wrong! He's referring to *Mr Hall*'s books. What must be very
> > dismaying for the Stratfordian cause, he makes not the least mention of
> > any book or piece of writing of William Shakespeare.
> Mr. Hall is dead!
So what? They were *his* books. My usage is entirely proper.
> Cooke is dealing with a Shakespeare of Stratford.
Jeesh! If you're going to be so pedantic as to deny them being Hall's
book because he was dead, then you should equally recognize she was no
longer a Shakspere, but a Hall.
>About books.
> Admit it (or cloud the issue of Cooke buying books from her).
I admit it was about books, and that she couldn't recognize her
husband's work.
> Only Cooke contends the books are Hall's. Funny with half the
> dispute before you that you are so capable of deciding the
> verdict, and then call that reasoning.
Incredible! You are calling Hall a liar. On what basis? What do you
know that you reach back through the centuries and deny his word? Come,
tell us!
>Is this the lynchpin of
> your theory that Susanna was illiterate? Its hollow.
No, it's a solid piece of evidence, and we're lucky to have it. What's
your contrary evidence?
>
> So I will therefore repost the true statement of mine above that
> you wrongly called wrong, because it is right! And you're wrong
> to call it anything else:
Wrong! Right! Wrong! Right!
> >>We don't know his point but he is referring
> >> to the books of the Stratford Shakespeares.
No, they were John Hall's books in Susanna Hall's possession.
> Next time you try to refute that, refute it!
Done!
> Don't say it's wrong and then fade away.
Fade away? What more is there to say?
> Why was Cooke bragging about
> visiting Susanna? Does he have a homespun anecdote on record for
> every book he owned? Was he name-dropping?
See above.
> You attack Susanna's literacy with nothing more than a surmisal.
> This is nothing to accept and nothing to build on.
You need not agree with me, but you can't honestly say there's nothing
there.
>You need her
> illiterate, but here she is with books.
They were her husband's.
>And you create a
> scenario. She sounds to be negotiating.
What the hell is she negotiating? What in the passage tells you that?
>Do you know Cooke's
> motivation for writing something so mundane? Its not a receipt,
> its an adventure, involving a historically identifiable
> Shakespeare of Stratford dealing books. Was Cooke trying to
> cover his tracks for ripping off the testy widow? Was she fed up
> with these soldiers raiding the great author's belongings? Would
> you like her side of the story?
Hell, yeah! Why didn't she *write* her side?
> > We do have evidence of their literacy.
> Give the evidence of Susanna and Judith's literacy.
With "literacy", I meant a measure of their ability to read. Judith
*only* signed, so that's damned good evidence she was illiterate.
Susanna allegedly has a signature, but I have yet to see it. Is a copy
available on the Web? or in a book?
> > >You accept your own most negative speculation as fact, just to
> > > discredit WS of Stratford. You're playing the class card.
> > Class has nothing to do with that.
> You play the defame his daughters and find his guilt by
> association card.
What happened to my class card?
> > > Were the earl's daughters witty above anything?
> > They were witty enough to have been involved with the dedicatees of the
> > First Folio. Who dedicated what to Shakspere's girls?
> WHO dedicated WHAT to Oxford's girls?
Gee, I don't know. There was a literary poem about one of them.
>"Involved" as in rejected?
Susan de Vere *married* Phillip Herbert, one of the dedicatees. Does
that compute as *rejected* in your book?
> See how twisted and selfconvinced your tale is? So 'llI restate
> the question you glazed over:
> > > Were the earl's daughters witty above anything?
I'd say witty above the Shakspere girls, at least they could read.
Seriously-- is "witty" the same as "learned"?
--Volker
Greg Reynolds
volker multhopp wrote:
> Greg Reynolds wrote:
>
> > volker multhopp wrote:
>
> > > He doesn't? How do you interpret--
>
> > > I being acquainted with Mr. Hall's hand, told her that one or two of
> > > them were her Husbhands, and shewed them her; she denied, I affirmed,
> > > till I perceived she begun to be offended.
>
> > That she was negotiating.
>
> Negotiating what? Her husband's authorship? That's what she's
> denying.
He is there to purchase manuscripts, not to determine her literacy.
They are negotiating his purchase of manuscripts. I can't decide which of these two
was correct in their argument, we only know Cooke's argument. He says that what he saw
was (written) in Dr. Hall's hand. She says it is not. Stalemate. We have only half the
story.
> > Do you really take this anecdote as Cooke's means of belittling her?
>
> No, where do you get that idea?
It seems important to you only for throwing stones at Susanna.
The man on the street would never construe from these words that the woman was
illiterate. She is simply telling the man he is mistaken. And she gets impatient. If
we knew the books were in Hall's hand, or why Cooke detailed the moment, we'd know
enough to make a better judgment. We don't. So you imply it is evidence she is
illiterate. Your case again, not the body of the story.
> > > >He
> > > > shows little indication for her shortness with him, or her motives.
>
> > > Wrong, the account seems to indicate she was offended from the
> > > disagreement whether the book[s] were written by her husband.
>
> > These are your words. Not his, not hers.
>
> No, they were his words and presumably (unless you hold Cooke for liar)
> hers too-- "[I] told her that one or two of them were her Husbhands, and
> shewed them her; she denied, I affirmed ..."-- what could be clearer?
Its clear you automatically decide he is right.
(These are not her words.)
I don't hold Cooke a liar. That he believes his own argument is normal. Susanna
contests his argument, according to him. We just can't determine from his viewpoint
the actual circumstance. There are many reasons on both sides to misrepresent items
being negotiated.
> > He seems to be making a record that he wasn't harassing her.
>
> Huh?
They skirmished and she became impatient. He tones it down and he pays her for the
books. Was he too tough on her? He set her off. He was there to get his hands on her
belongings. Did she feel victimized?
> > Why does a military officer write such an account?
>
> He was a surgeon and was interested specifically in Hall's medical
> cases. He eventually did write up Hall's cases-- he's writing here just
> an anecdote on the way to accessing the notebooks.
>
> > You want him to be Oxfordian? I'm listening.
>
> Good God, Greg! Where do you get this from?
Would Cooke know what you know? That her dad was the beard?
> > > There are other possibilities, but I'm taking the most reasonable
> > > interpretation of what Cooke actually said. I'm not straining at some
> > > special reading.
>
> > Your special reading is singled out by you to disallow Susanna's
> > literacy.
>
> I don't have special reading, it's the apparent reading.
It adds that Susanna is illiterate. That wasn't what their disagreement was about.
> > That's what you want/need and therefore get.
>
> Neither my want nor yours is at issue here, only what Hall wrote, and
> what implication that has for judging Susanna literacy.
None. She knows the manuscript wasn't written by her husband and says so. This sounds
that she read it, not that she couldn't. The illiteracy is your invention. It is not
any part of Cooke's message.
> > > >Cooke does not speak of Susanna's illiteracy,
> > > > does he? (Oxfordian predestination at work.)
>
> > > It would have been unseemly for him to bluntly state the woman was
> > > illiterate. He indicates her condition without crassly blurting it
> > > out-- that's called politeness. We are allowed to draw reasonable
> > > conclusions from the evidence, aren't we?
>
> > Evidence of what?
>
> That she couldn't recognize her husband's notebook, that thus she had
> no intellectual curiosity in his work, and/or that she couldn't read.
Okay, use half the story to fulfill your scheme.
Surmising only weakens your scheme.
> > > >We don't know his
> > > > point but he is referring to the books of the Stratford Shakespeares.
>
> > > Wrong! He's referring to *Mr Hall*'s books. What must be very
> > > dismaying for the Stratfordian cause, he makes not the least mention of
> > > any book or piece of writing of William Shakespeare.
>
> > Mr. Hall is dead!
>
> So what? They were *his* books. My usage is entirely proper.
They are at this point her books.
And she says the ones in question were NOT John Hall's (writings).
You suggest I call Cooke a liar, but you absolutely dismiss Susanna. Nothing tells us
who was correct, but only an oxfordian would manufacture the conclusion.
> > Cooke is dealing with a Shakespeare of Stratford.
>
> Jeesh! If you're going to be so pedantic as to deny them being Hall's
> book because he was dead, then you should equally recognize she was no
> longer a Shakspere, but a Hall.
But she says they were not Dr. Hall's.
Who can you believe?
She is a Stratford Shakespeare as are her progeny.
She lived in a literate household.
My usage is entirely proper.
> >About books.
> > Admit it (or cloud the issue of Cooke buying books from her).
>
> I admit it was about books, and that she couldn't recognize her
> husband's work.
Or Cooke couldn't.
Funny how you believe his side unconditionally.
> > Only Cooke contends the books are Hall's. Funny with half the
> > dispute before you that you are so capable of deciding the
> > verdict, and then call that reasoning.
>
> Incredible! You are calling Hall a liar. On what basis? What do you
> know that you reach back through the centuries and deny his word? Come,
> tell us!
Just hear the other side and we will KNOW.
You are happy with his view only, and there's no mention of literacy. You have to glom
that on to Cooke's words.
Its a negotiation, I think, a haggling.
He was not calling her an illiterate.
> >Is this the lynchpin of
> > your theory that Susanna was illiterate? Its hollow.
>
> No, it's a solid piece of evidence, and we're lucky to have it. What's
> your contrary evidence?
It is evidence only of his procurement of manuscripts.
It is not evidence Susanna cannot read.
> > >>We don't know his point but he is referring
> > >> to the books of the Stratford Shakespeares.
>
> No, they were John Hall's books in Susanna Hall's possession.
JOHN HALL WAS DEAD.
"Susanna Hall's possession" is the issue.
> > Next time you try to refute that, refute it!
>
> Done!
Stick a fork in it.
> > You attack Susanna's literacy with nothing more than a surmisal.
> > This is nothing to accept and nothing to build on.
>
> You need not agree with me, but you can't honestly say there's nothing
> there.
I'm saying there is far more than your foregone conclusion.
> >You need her
> > illiterate, but here she is with books.
>
> They were her husband's.
She disagrees.
So I respect that.
You are blinded by Cooke's words. They do not support your contention that Susanna
could not read. You are railroading her.
> >And you create a
> > scenario. She sounds to be negotiating.
>
> What the hell is she negotiating? What in the passage tells you that?
That he pays for books.
There is no price til these two talk.
It gets ugly.
They certainly negotiated, and they set the price. Cooke paid it and wrote the
account.
> >Do you know Cooke's
> > motivation for writing something so mundane? Its not a receipt,
> > its an adventure, involving a historically identifiable
> > Shakespeare of Stratford dealing books. Was Cooke trying to
> > cover his tracks for ripping off the testy widow? Was she fed up
> > with these soldiers raiding the great author's belongings? Would
> > you like her side of the story?
>
> Hell, yeah! Why didn't she *write* her side?
She was clearing out her library, not adding to it.
> > > We do have evidence of their literacy.
>
> > Give the evidence of Susanna and Judith's literacy.
>
> With "literacy", I meant a measure of their ability to read. Judith
> *only* signed, so that's damned good evidence she was illiterate.
I'd keep my mind open.
> Susanna allegedly has a signature, but I have yet to see it. Is a copy
> available on the Web? or in a book?
Either way, you'll annihilate it.
> > > >You accept your own most negative speculation as fact, just to
> > > > discredit WS of Stratford. You're playing the class card.
>
> > > Class has nothing to do with that.
>
> > You play the defame his daughters and find his guilt by
> > association card.
>
> What happened to my class card?
Okay, keep your class card for another hand.
(The earl could have used a get out of jail free card.)
> > > > Were the earl's daughters witty above anything?
>
> > > They were witty enough to have been involved with the dedicatees
> > > of the First Folio. Who dedicated what to Shakspere's girls?
>
> > WHO dedicated WHAT to Oxford's girls?
>
> Gee, I don't know. There was a literary poem about one of them.
Wonder if she was ever able to read it.
> >"Involved" as in rejected?
>
> Susan de Vere *married* Phillip Herbert, one of the dedicatees. Does
> that compute as *rejected* in your book?
Go ahead, Bridget and Elizabeth...
> > See how twisted and selfconvinced your tale is? So 'llI restate
> > the question you glazed over:
> > > > Were the earl's daughters witty above anything?
>
> I'd say witty above the Shakspere girls, at least they could read.
> Seriously-- is "witty" the same as "learned"?
I'm done tormenting the children.
And probably can't jump back in this thread for awhile.
over and out,
Greg Reynolds
Greg Reynolds
Tom Reedy wrote:
> Pardon me for intruding on this thread, but I have a question: Who's on
> first?
Linchpin.
Tom Reedy
news:38D83CC1...@erols.com...
Pardon me for intruding on this thread, but I have a question: Who's on
first?
TR
David Kathman
>
> With "literacy", I meant a measure of their ability to read. Judith
> *only* signed, so that's damned good evidence she was illiterate.
> Susanna allegedly has a signature, but I have yet to see it. Is a copy
> available on the Web? or in a book?
There is a photograph of Susanna's signature in Park Honan's recent
biography of Shakespeare. There is also a photograph of Judith's
mark, and Mary Shakespeare's mark (William's mother), and Gilbert
Shakespeare's signature (William's brother).
Dave Kathman
dj...@ix.netcom.com
volker multhopp
> There is a photograph of Susanna's signature in Park Honan's recent
> biography of Shakespeare.
Thanks, I'll have to stir myself to get a look at that.
--Volker
BobGr...@nut-n-but.net
dj...@ix.netcom.com wrote:
> volker multhopp wrote:
> >
> > With "literacy", I meant a measure of their ability to read. Judith
> > *only* signed, so that's damned good evidence she was illiterate.
> > Susanna allegedly has a signature, but I have yet to see it. Is a
copy
> > available on the Web? or in a book?
>
> mark, and Mary Shakespeare's mark (William's mother), and Gilbert
> Shakespeare's signature (William's brother).
Does Susanna's alleged signature have her address as part of it?
--Bob G.
> Dave Kathman
> dj...@ix.netcom.com
BobGr...@nut-n-but.net
has any bearing whatever on whether her father wrote The Oeuvre or not,
but I agree with you, Greg, that the good name of Susanna is worth
fighting for. She was clearly a good kid. That said, I have to
admit, sadly, that I agree with Multhopp that Cooke was right about
the manuscripts (probably--you give good reasons why it would be
reasonable to doubt it). I feel he would have known, if not at the
time, then afterward what the texts in question were. And there WERE
manuscripts by Hall around.
My working hypothesis is that Susanna simply did not recognize the
texts as her husband's because she had never seen them before. I
feel she would have been close to her husband (the anecdotal evidence
paints her as having been a loving, sympathetic person, and her genes
were partly, at least, from such a person) and therefore could easily
have been dumbfounded enough by the sight of some extensive writings
by her husband that she knew nothing about not to recognize them as in
his hand--especially, as has been stated many times, since they were in
latin, and possibly in a different hand than the one Hall ordinarily
used. To Multhopp her not having been aware of the texts' existence
suggests she had no intellectual curiosity about her husband's work.
To me it only suggests that he wasn't that sharing about it, or maybe he
was generally sharing but not about a mere shop diary.
Or, to mix your interpretation in with mine, Susanna may have thought
Cooke was trying to pull a fast one, and resisted even seeing the
books he said were Hall's as Hall's. There are many other ways the
anecdote can beexplained without requiring Susanna to be illiterate.
Your main point, well-put, is absolutely valid: that we don't know
enough about what happened, finally, to be sure which of these is
coorect.
We can be pretty sure that Susanna was not illiterate, though, from her
signature, her reputation as having been witty above her sex, and from
her having married a doctor.
--Bob G.
volker multhopp
> volker multhopp wrote:
> > > > I being acquainted with Mr. Hall's hand, told her that one or two of
> > > > them were her Husbhands, and shewed them her; she denied, I affirmed,
> > > > till I perceived she begun to be offended.
> > > That she was negotiating.
> > Negotiating what? Her husband's authorship? That's what she's
> > denying.
> He is there to purchase manuscripts, not to determine her literacy.
> They are negotiating his purchase of manuscripts.
Not in that sentence. They're arguing about the authorship of a
notebook.
>I can't decide which of these two
> was correct in their argument, we only know Cooke's argument. He says that what he saw
> was (written) in Dr. Hall's hand. She says it is not. Stalemate. We have only half the
> story.
Yeah. We don't have any argument here about price, but one of
authorship.
> The man on the street would never construe from these words that the woman was
> illiterate.
The man on the street would conclude they disagreed about the
authorship of the notebook(s). Since Cooke actually eventually wrote up
Hall's cases, we have to grant him great credibility. He tells us he
was already "acquainted with Mr. Hall's hand". If they did disagree
about the authorship (and there seems no reason to believe they didn't),
and *he* *was* *wrong*, what would have been his motive in bringing it
all up? The sensible thing to do would have been not to bring it up at
all, or, if he had felt it necessary, at least soften the matter with
something like, "I thought I was acquainted with Mr. Hall's hand"?
>She is simply telling the man he is mistaken. And she gets impatient.
Why should she get impatient? If she was right and literate, she could
have gotten her husband's *real* notebook, and said, "No, this is his
notebook".
>If
> we knew the books were in Hall's hand, or why Cooke detailed the moment, we'd know
> enough to make a better judgment. We don't.
He "detailed the moment" because he was simply telling a story, talking
to us. Why do you need to fabricate a special motive? What is there to
suggest it? Isn't it wonderful that someone "detailed a moment" with a
"Shakespeare"?
>So you imply it is evidence she is
> illiterate. Your case again, not the body of the story.
It's damned good evidence. What would you like as evidence of
illiteracy?
> > No, they were his words and presumably (unless you hold Cooke for liar)
> > hers too-- "[I] told her that one or two of them were her Husbhands, and
> > shewed them her; she denied, I affirmed ..."-- what could be clearer?
> Its clear you automatically decide he is right.
He's the documented expert on Hall's notebook, not she.
> (These are not her words.)
Do you deny she denied?
> I don't hold Cooke a liar. That he believes his own argument is normal. Susanna
> contests his argument, according to him. We just can't determine from his viewpoint
> the actual circumstance.
There's NO reason to question the circumstance-- he affirmed, she
denied.
> > > He seems to be making a record that he wasn't harassing her.
> > Huh?
> They skirmished and she became impatient. He tones it down and he pays her for the
> books. Was he too tough on her? He set her off. He was there to get his hands on her
> belongings. Did she feel victimized?
Playing your little fantasy-- why did he mention a disagreement at
all?
> > > You want him to be Oxfordian? I'm listening.
> > Good God, Greg! Where do you get this from?
> Would Cooke know what you know? That her dad was the beard?
I don't know-- What did Cooke know? I'm still waiting for you to tell
us why you thought I'm claiming Cooke as an Oxfordian. But while we're
on the subject, what does Cooke say about the "famous" father-in-law of
his subject?
> > > Your special reading is singled out by you to disallow Susanna's
> > > literacy.
> > I don't have special reading, it's the apparent reading.
> It adds that Susanna is illiterate. That wasn't what their disagreement was about.
My reading is that she denies the authorship-- you're denying that
"apparent reading" without evidence, only because your Stratfordian bias
compels you.
> > Neither my want nor yours is at issue here, only what Hall wrote, and
> > what implication that has for judging Susanna literacy.
> None. She knows the manuscript wasn't written by her husband and says so.
Finally you acknowledge the sentence is about who wrote the notebook,
not about any "negotiations" you've imagined into place. She may "know"
(ie, believe) that, and yet not be right. But if she was literate, and
had ever taken any interest in her husband's writings, she should have
recognized his hand.
>This sounds
> that she read it, not that she couldn't. The illiteracy is your invention.
Again, Cooke tells us he was familiar with Hall's handwriting.
Furthermore, we know Cooke is literate-- he would see at a glance it was
a manuscript casebook, that's what he was looking for. Assuming there
was no name on the notebook, what are the odds Hall would have had some
other doctor's handwritten casebook in his possession???
>It is not
> any part of Cooke's message.
It does not represent what Cooke wanted to tell us, but it's a logical
inference from what he wrote; it's an incidental gem of information.
> > So what? They were *his* books. My usage is entirely proper.
> They are at this point her books.
I don't deny that, but my usage remains correct, and, indeed, they
remain to this day more John Hall's books than anything else. We can
still call them "John Hall's books".
> And she says the ones in question were NOT John Hall's (writings).
Right, she denies he wrote them. Cooke has no motive to lie.
> You suggest I call Cooke a liar, but you absolutely dismiss Susanna. Nothing tells us
> who was correct, but only an oxfordian would manufacture the conclusion.
You're saying Cooke's a liar-- I say Susanna was mistaken, not lying.
> But she says they were not Dr. Hall's.
> Who can you believe?
Cooke-- he has no reason to lie, he can read. She was mistaken. A
logical scenario was that she thought it wasn't her husband's. He
recognized it, and said, "That's Hall's, I recognize his handwriting".
She's embarassed she didn't, is doubtful of readers' ability to
recognize handwriting, and doesn't understand Cooke's ability to pick up
confirmatory details from the text with a glance, so she thinks she can
avoid acknowledging a faux pas (isn't that difficult for many of us?) by
emphatic denial.
> She is a Stratford Shakespeare as are her progeny.
> She lived in a literate household.
> My usage is entirely proper.
Your usage is suboptimal.
> Its a negotiation, I think, a haggling.
Again, what were they negotiating, and what tells you this?
> > What the hell is she negotiating? What in the passage tells you that?
> That he pays for books.
> There is no price til these two talk.
> It gets ugly.
> They certainly negotiated, and they set the price. Cooke paid it and wrote the
> account.
You're fantasizing. There's nothing in the relevant passage about
negotiating or prices. They're arguing strictly about authorship. For
the umteenth time-- what words in the passage alert you to "negotiating
about price"?
> > With "literacy", I meant a measure of their ability to read. Judith
> > *only* signed, so that's damned good evidence she was illiterate.
> I'd keep my mind open.
Keep your mind open, but admit marking is strong evidence of inability
to write. Give us a glimmer of evidence to suggest maybe she could
read.
> > Susanna allegedly has a signature, but I have yet to see it. Is a copy
> > available on the Web? or in a book?
> Either way, you'll annihilate it.
I suspect it's self-annihilating, hence the difficulty in finding this
bit of Shakespeareana.
> > Gee, I don't know. There was a literary poem about one of them [de Vere daughters].
> Wonder if she was ever able to read it.
What is your reason to wonder about that? Reading was standard for the
daughters of the nobility. It was uncommon among the commoners, esp in
a rural setting like Stratford. Is this your method of debate?-- to
simply deny every point, without evidence or thought; to impede the
progression of the discussion at every step?
> > >"Involved" as in rejected?
> > Susan de Vere *married* Phillip Herbert, one of the dedicatees. Does
> > that compute as *rejected* in your book?
> Go ahead, Bridget and Elizabeth...
Why do you insist on being so obstreperous? Again, doesn't *marriage*
count as being involved? You insist I answer your questions, how about
mine?
> > > > > Were the earl's daughters witty above anything?
> > I'd say witty above the Shakspere girls, at least they could read.
> > Seriously-- is "witty" the same as "learned"?
> I'm done tormenting the children.
And you refuse to consider what "witty" on the tombstone might mean.
--Volker
Greg Reynolds
NOTE: I'm attaching a reprint of David Kathman's reprint of James Cooke’s “Epistle to the Friendly
Reader” at the end of this ever-lengthening post, for all who need to delve...
volker multhopp wrote:
> Greg Reynolds wrote:
>
> > volker multhopp wrote:
>
> > > > > I being acquainted with Mr. Hall's hand, told her that one or
> > > > > two of them were her Husbhands, and shewed them her; she
> > > > > denied, I affirmed, till I perceived she begun to be offended.
>
> > > > That she was negotiating.
>
> > > Negotiating what? Her husband's authorship? That's what
> > > she's denying.
>
> > He is there to purchase manuscripts, not to determine her literacy.
> > They are negotiating his purchase of manuscripts.
>
> Not in that sentence. They're arguing about the authorship of a
> notebook.
Why put faith in Cooke's opinion? He says he's familiar with Hall's hand(writing), then he doesn't
know if its one book or two. Credibility counts. Is he fudging? If he doesn't know if its one book
or two--maybe
its none! Susanna makes no such blunder in this account.
> >I can't decide which of these two
> > was correct in their argument, we only know Cooke's argument. He
> > says that what he saw was (written) in Dr. Hall's hand. She says it is
> > not. Stalemate. We have only half the story.
>
> Yeah. We don't have any argument here about price, but one of
> authorship.
And Cooke puts himself in the weak position by not knowing what he's looking at.
> > The man on the street would never construe from these words that
> > the woman was illiterate.
>
> The man on the street would conclude they disagreed about the
> authorship of the notebook(s).
You need to use the "(s)" because Cooke is unsure if one or two books are Hall's. I would not send
him shopping for me.
> Since Cooke actually eventually wrote up
> Hall's cases, we have to grant him great credibility.
So this was some ploy to confuse?
He did not know how many of the books were Hall's.
He says so.
And there is no saying from this select context that the one or two other books made it into
"*Select Observations on English Bodies* where this epistle is printed as introductory matter.
> He tells us he
> was already "acquainted with Mr. Hall's hand". If they did disagree
> about the authorship (and there seems no reason to believe they didn't),
> and *he* *was* *wrong*, what would have been his motive in
> bringing it all up? The sensible thing to do would have been not to
> bring it up at all, or, if he had felt it necessary, at least soften the matter
> with something like, "I thought I was acquainted with Mr. Hall's
> hand"?
Since handwriting varies throughout a day and a lifetime, I don't see that he is sure of himself.
Or he would have been precise about the number of books, wouldn't he? Of course, Susanna was
irritated.
More and more it sounds that someone's misrepresenting something.
> >She is simply telling the man he is mistaken. And she gets impatient.
>
> Why should she get impatient? If she was right and literate, she
> could have gotten her husband's *real* notebook, and said, "No, this
> is his notebook".
The book(s) we are speaking about are in addition to the books he had in mind prior to the visit.
He went there for books (maybe Hall's) and these manuscripts in contention are a second negotiation
entirely.
> >If we knew the books were in Hall's hand, or why Cooke
> >detailed the moment, we'd know enough to make a better
> >judgment. We don't.
>
> He "detailed the moment" because he was simply telling a story,
> talking to us. Why do you need to fabricate a special motive?
I have no such motive. You make the scenario seem like he went to the Hall house to show the silly
lady can't read. You are distilling.
> What is there to suggest it? Isn't it wonderful that
> someone "detailed a moment" with a "Shakespeare"?
No, its wonderful that the account survived.
There could have been thousands of far more meaningful exchanges recorded, but they were written on
cheap paper, were eaten by insects, burned in fires...
Lets face it. Your mission is to read anything you can into anything you find to build your case.
> >So you imply it is evidence she is
> > illiterate. Your case again, not the body of the story.
>
> It's damned good evidence. What would you like as evidence of
> illiteracy?
You are the one who would like it. Sorry it doesn't exist for your master plan of making Susanna
Hall illiterate.
> > > No, they were his words and presumably (unless you hold
> > > Cooke for liar) hers too-- "[I] told her that one or two of them were
> > > her Husbhands, and shewed them her; she denied, I affirmed ..."-- > > > > what could be
clearer?
>
> > Its clear you automatically decide he is right.
>
> He's the documented expert on Hall's notebook, not she.
Notebook or notebooks? One or two?
Some expert! Some documentation!
> > (These are not her words.)
>
> Do you deny she denied?
His account says she did. I will believe she denied. Now, why did she deny? Her credibility soars
because he is unclear on how many (one or two) were in Hall's hand. He is unclear, because he does
not know. So she may well be right, and I'll show why.
Keep in mind, he wrote this account AFTER he had the books in hand, SO he had time to determine
their origin. But he doesn't. Why? Because he can't! So here, in the final text, published in the
book, he has to state, "one or two" of the books were Hall's.
> > I don't hold Cooke a liar. That he believes his own argument is
> > normal.
> > Susanna contests his argument, according to him. We just can't
> > determine from his viewpoint the actual circumstance.
>
> There's NO reason to question the circumstance-- he affirmed, she
> denied.
Show motive for her denying other than your permanent sinkhole of a scenario that if its a
Shakespeare, its an illiterate.
> > > > He seems to be making a record that he wasn't harassing her.
>
> > > Huh?
>
> > They skirmished and she became impatient. He tones it down and he
> > pays her for the books. Was he too tough on her? He set her off. He
> > was there to get his hands on her belongings. Did she feel victimized?
>
> Playing your little fantasy-- why did he mention a disagreement at
> all?
To provide a written record that he did not harass her into parting with the books.
We are the ones reviewing and gleaning what we can from the materials available, as in a court
trial. So he has a word on record that he bought the books legitimately even though she was upset.
Its 1/2 the testimony needed to conclude anything. Now answer the question yourself:
Why do YOU think he mentioned the disagreement?
To paint her illiterate? Why didn't he just say that? It is no shame.
> > > > You want him to be Oxfordian? I'm listening.
>
> > > Good God, Greg! Where do you get this from?
>
> > Would Cooke know what you know? That her dad was the beard?
>
> I don't know-- What did Cooke know? I'm still waiting for you to
> tell us why you thought I'm claiming Cooke as an Oxfordian.
Because you take a perfectly innocent tale of a purchase and blow it into some testimony that
Susanna is illiterate. As if Cooke is showing you that. But he isn't. You are needing to believe
that he like you found the woman illiterate.
> But while we're on the subject, what does Cooke say about
> the "famous" father-in-law of his subject?
His subject being Hall (the one with the father in law)?
Well, because his subject was Hall. This is a medical account.
Or because he resented the father.
Or it was so obvious he would sound like a name dropper
OR BECAUSE IT WAS IRRELEVANT IN A MEDICAL TEXT.
Who knows?
> > > > Your special reading is singled out by you to disallow Susanna's
> > > > literacy.
>
> > > I don't have special reading, it's the apparent reading.
>
> > It adds that Susanna is illiterate. That wasn't what their disagreement was about.
>
> My reading is that she denies the authorship-- you're denying that
> "apparent reading" without evidence, only because your Stratfordian
> bias compels you.
I am neutral. And if you had a point, I'd agree. I'm shooting down your invented conclusion because
its unfounded in the text. I don't have a conclusion to make.
> > > Neither my want nor yours is at issue here, only what Hall
> > > wrote, and what implication that has for judging Susanna literacy.
>
> > None. She knows the manuscript wasn't written by her husband and says so.
>
> Finally you acknowledge the sentence is about who wrote the
> notebook, not about any "negotiations" you've imagined into place.
TWISTER! Watch out!
(The whole event was a negotiation!)
We know what the "affirm/deny" was all about--I'm telling you in plain words that Cooke was here to
purchase books, and he paid money after a disagreement. That is their negotiation, and the source
of her turmoil.
Your scenario needs to say that he was affirming and she was denying, and she got bent out of shape
because now Cooke has exposed her secret of being illiterate. Its a laugh!
Why do YOU believe she was upset? Because she was caught being illiterate? She would have been
illiterate all her life if that were the case, so why be irritated about it this time?
Why do you think Susanna was disturbed?
Money is the MOST likely answer, not her ability to read.
> She may "know"
> (ie, believe) that, and yet not be right. But if she was literate, and
> had ever taken any interest in her husband's writings, she should have
> recognized his hand.
OR he was sticking one or two of her father's manuscripts into the mix and pulling a fast one. This
would make a perfect reason to write his side of a very mundane story.
> >This sounds
> > that she read it, not that she couldn't. The illiteracy is your invention.
>
> Again, Cooke tells us he was familiar with Hall's handwriting.
> Furthermore, we know Cooke is literate-- he would see at a glance it
> was a manuscript casebook, that's what he was looking for.
No. These are in addition to what he went there looking for. He is clear on that, be sure to
reread.
> Assuming there
> was no name on the notebook, what are the odds Hall would have had
> some other doctor's handwritten casebook in his possession???
Overwhelmingly in favor!
Please reread. Cooke clearly states, "After a veiw [sic] of them, she told me she had some Books
left, by one that professed Physick, with her Husband" This IS another doctor who left books with
Hall (according to Cooke, see context below).
So the odds are strong. Susanna says so.
If Cooke had said "one," or if Cooke had said "two," it would show he knew what he was talking
about.
BUT NOoooo!
Cooke says, "I being acquainted with Mr. Hall’s hand, told her that one or two of them were her
Husbands..."
Cooke is either
1.) unclear himself
2.) dead wrong, or
3.) conniving
Which is it, Volker?
> >It is not
> > any part of Cooke's message.
>
> It does not represent what Cooke wanted to tell us, but it's a logical
> inference from what he wrote; it's an incidental gem of information.
Except for all my unanswered complaints with your interpretation of it.
A "logical inference" will do that.
> > > So what? They were *his* books. My usage is entirely > > > > >proper.
>
> > They are at this point her books.
>
> I don't deny that, but my usage remains correct, and, indeed, they
> remain to this day more John Hall's books than anything else. We can
> still call them "John Hall's books".
>
> > And she says the ones in question were NOT John Hall's (writings).
>
> Right, she denies he wrote them. Cooke has no motive to lie.
Cooke is either
1.) unclear himself
2.) dead wrong, or
3.) conniving
So you are eliminating #3. Okay.
> > You suggest I call Cooke a liar, but you absolutely dismiss Susanna.
> > Nothing tells us who was correct, but only an oxfordian would
> > manufacture the conclusion.
>
> You're saying Cooke's a liar-- I say Susanna was mistaken, not >lying.
I do not call Cooke a liar (and I will refrain from calling you one, though I have repeatedly said
I don't know that he is lying and you cannot back up your claim that I called him a liar). I am
simply stating that your conclusion is not available in the text of the story. And its obvious you
need Susanna illiterate.
Goes to your motive, not her illiteracy.
> > But she says they were not Dr. Hall's.
> > Who can you believe?
>
> Cooke-- he has no reason to lie, he can read. She was mistaken.
> A logical scenario was that she thought it wasn't her husband's. He
> recognized it, and said, "That's Hall's, I recognize his handwriting".
> She's embarassed she didn't, is doubtful of readers' ability to
> recognize handwriting, and doesn't understand Cooke's ability to pick
> up confirmatory details from the text with a glance, so she thinks she
> can avoid acknowledging a faux pas (isn't that difficult for many of
> us?) by emphatic denial.
And I say she is correct. And that he is unclear (not a liar). And she's getting ticked about
money. It is likely either of them are somewhat misrepresenting the product in the interest of
establishing the price, which is a far better explanation than that she was ashamed of her
education to this stranger.
> > She is a Stratford Shakespeare as are her progeny.
> > She lived in a literate household.
> > My usage is entirely proper.
>
> Your usage is suboptimal.
Just touching all the bases.
> > Its a negotiation, I think, a haggling.
>
> Again, what were they negotiating, and what tells you this?
That man goes to buy books, finds disagreement, finds agreement, leaves with books. What do you
call such a chain of events? (Its a negotiation.)
> <snipped redundancy>
>
> > > With "literacy", I meant a measure of their ability to read.
> > > Judith *only* signed, so that's damned good evidence she was > > > > > illiterate.
>
> > I'd keep my mind open.
>
> Keep your mind open, but admit marking is strong evidence of
> inability to write. Give us a glimmer of evidence to suggest maybe she
> could read.
Before you crucify her, why not scourge her at a pillar?
It is immaterial and indeterminable whether the woman could read or write, and only a predestinator
like yourself, who needs every interpretation to lead to your conclusion would dare take it as
"evidence."
Until further notice, I believe it is inconclusive whether she could read, and you are overboard
declaring she cannot when you absolutely do not know yourself. Done.
> > > Susanna allegedly has a signature, but I have yet to see it. Is a
> > > copy available on the Web? or in a book?
>
> > Either way, you'll annihilate it.
>
> I suspect it's self-annihilating, hence the difficulty in finding this
> bit of Shakespeareana.
Why suspect something you haven't seen? Keep your mind open, especially if you intend to influence
anyone.
> > > Gee, I don't know. There was a literary poem about one of them [de Vere daughters].
>
> > Wonder if she was ever able to read it.
>
> What is your reason to wonder about that? Reading was standard
> for the daughters of the nobility. It was uncommon among the
> commoners, esp in a rural setting like Stratford. Is this your method
> of debate?-- to simply deny every point, without evidence or thought;
> to impede the progression of the discussion at every step?
Mirror-writing at its finest!
You probably pasted that from all the times its been screamed at you.
> > > >"Involved" as in rejected?
>
> > > Susan de Vere *married* Phillip Herbert, one of the
> > > dedicatees. Does that compute as *rejected* in your book?
>
> > Go ahead, Bridget and Elizabeth...
>
> Why do you insist on being so obstreperous?
Thanks, Mister, I got a paper cut looking that up.
Keep in mind, I am ready for a basis to believe you. But you won't help me. And my cross
examination got you to narrow your claim down to the truth, that only one married a dedicatee.
> Again, doesn't *marriage*
> count as being involved? You insist I answer your questions, how
> about mine?
Here's your answer: You condemn WS of S by association by finagling his daughters' illiteracy which
is not known anyway. Then you honor the Vere girls by association by involving them with the
dedicatees until you backed that off to one marriage and the other involvement a broken
engagement (rejection). So, whether any of these daughters read, or were raised by or married to
literate men, has zero to do with authorship of the canon.
I wish we were in a court of law so 12 of your peers could ROTFL!
> > > > > > Were the earl's daughters witty above anything?
>
> > > I'd say witty above the Shakspere girls, at least they could > > > > read.
> > > Seriously-- is "witty" the same as "learned"?
>
> > I'm done tormenting the children.
>
> And you refuse to consider what "witty" on the tombstone might > mean.
"Witty" certainly does NOT mean "illiterate!"
That concludes this Act.
What follows is Cooke's context, plus a bonus question:
Context from David Kathman, Feb 99:
+++
Here is the anecdote, taken from James Cooke’s “Epistle to the Friendly Reader” in the 1657 edition
of John Hall’s *Select Observations on English Bodies* (reprinted on p.238 of Schoenbaum’s *William
Shakespeare: A Documentary Life*. The incident happened during the English Civil War. Cooke lived
in Warwick, where he was the surgeon to Robert Greville, Lord Brooke, cousin and heir to Fulke
Greville, Lord Brooke.
“Being in my Art an Attendent to parts of some regiments to keep the pass at the Bridge of
Stratford upon Avon, There being then with me a Mate allyed to the Gentleman that writ the
following Observations in Latin, he invited me to the house of Mrs. Hall Wife to the deceased, to
see the Books left by Mr. Hall. After a veiw of them, she told me she had some Books left, by one
that professed Physick, with her Husband, for some mony. I told her, if I liked them, I would give
her the mony again; she brought them forth, among which there was this with another of the
Authors, both intended for the Presse. I being acquainted with Mr. Hall’s hand, told her that one
or two of them were her Husbands, and shewed them her; she denyed, I affirmed, till I perceived she
begun to be offended. At last I returned her the mony.”
+++
Is it universally impossible that the "Author's" (I added the apostrophe) mentioned is you know
who?
Cooke = Attendent
Mate = accompanied or led Cooke
Gentleman = Hall
Mrs. Hall = Wife to the deceased
one that professed Physick = another doctor whose book(s) was present
Author = Hall? Was a medical journalist called an Author?
Hmmm?
Greg Reynolds
(someone please splice this agonizing study, maybe rename a thread)
volker multhopp
> So sorry the post I just made was so choppy. I already withdrew it once and repaired all its split
> ends, only to see it break apart again. (Its in its late teens on responses, with three source
> materials in it, and it got out of control.)
> I keep my line width wrapped at 72 characters and usually get decent results, but it overrides when it
> wants somehow. That one was a mess (good reading though--I can't get enough of the Cooke story) and I
> regret the look of it.
I dunno, your msg of 9:45PM looks fine to me, 10:23PM is very slightly
worse. But your line lengths are not 72, but, like, 99 or so.
--Volker
PS-- I respond to your latest Hall/Cooke post later this weekend.
John W. Kennedy
> And you refuse to consider what "witty" on the tombstone might mean.
...whereas I rather suspect you are interpreting the word in its
contemporary sense. Big mistake.
--
-John W. Kennedy
-rri...@ibm.net
Compact is becoming contract
Man only earns and pays. -- Charles Williams
volker multhopp
> volker multhopp wrote:
> > And you refuse to consider what "witty" on the tombstone might mean.
> ...whereas I rather suspect you are interpreting the word in its
> contemporary sense. Big mistake.
Tell me what my big mistake is, John. "Witty" has never meant
*learned*, it's meant *wise, clever, etc* all the way back-- "Witiz god"
--*Beowulf*. Your imaginings about "contemporary sense" for witty are
out of place.
If she be fair and wise, fairness and wit,
The one's for use, the other useth it.
DESDEMONA. Well praised! How if she be black and witty?
IAGO. If she be black, and thereto have a wit,
She'll find a white that shall her blackness fit. [O]
FALSTAFF. ... I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that
wit is in other men. [2H4]
PANDARUS. She's making her ready, she'll come straight; you must be
witty now. [T&C]
PAROLLES. Go to, thou art a witty fool; I have found thee. [AWEW]
How love makes young men thrall, and old men dote;
How love is wise in folly, foolish witty [V&A]
etc, etc.
So, John, tell us how I'm wrong, and how you know what "witty" meant
back then.
--Volker
Paul Crowley
> NOTE: I'm attaching a reprint of David Kathman's reprint of James Cooke's "Epistle to the Friendly
> Reader"
>
> ++++++
> Here is the anecdote, taken from James Cooke's "Epistle to the Friendly Reader" in the 1657 edition
> of John Hall's *Select Observations on English Bodies* (reprinted on p.238 of Schoenbaum's *William
>
> Shakespeare: A Documentary Life*. The incident happened during the English Civil War. Cooke lived
> in Warwick, where he was the surgeon to Robert Greville, Lord Brooke, cousin and heir to Fulke
> Greville, Lord Brooke.
>
> "Being in my Art an Attendent to parts of some regiments to keep the pass at the Bridge of
> Stratford upon Avon, There being then with me a Mate allyed to the Gentleman that writ the
> following Observations in Latin, he invited me to the house of Mrs. Hall Wife to the deceased, to
> see the Books left by Mr. Hall. After a veiw of them, she told me she had some Books left, by one
> that professed Physick, with her Husband, for some mony. I told her, if I liked them, I would give
> her the mony again; she brought them forth, among which there was this with another of the
> Authors, both intended for the Presse. I being acquainted with Mr. Hall's hand, told her that one
> or two of them were her Husbands, and shewed them her; she denyed, I affirmed, till I perceived she
> begun to be offended. At last I returned her the mony."
> ++++++
Is it not amazing that literary work of this country
doctor is so fully authenticated, whereas there
is nothing --- absolutely nothing --- that remotely
authenticates a single word of the astounding,
imperious, and immensely popular works that
are commonly attached the famous name of his
father-in-law?
Paul.
--
Email: pebj...@ubgznvy.pbz (apply ROT13)
BobGr...@nut-n-but.net
> Is it not amazing that literary work of this country
> doctor is so fully authenticated, whereas there
> is nothing --- absolutely nothing --- that remotely
> authenticates a single word of the astounding,
> imperious, and immensely popular works that
> are commonly attached the famous name of his
> father-in-law?
>
> Paul.
Yes, Paul, it is amazing that we have one anecdote about one written
work by a country doctor, and ABSOLUTELY NOTHING that REMOTELY
authenticates Shakespeare's works (except his name on so many of
them, and his picture attached to a collection of them, and the
reference of his fellow actors to his bringing them the works
with scarcely a blotted word, and at least two references to him as
a writer on a monument to him, and many references to the writer
Shakespeare that are as documentative as Cooke's to Hall)--at a time
when all sorts of people where writing letters, journal entries,
broadsides, pamphlets, etc., full of information about the writing
practices of the playwrights of the time [except for Marlowe, Webster,
Dekker, Heywood, Fletcher, Beaumont, etc.]).
John W. Kennedy
> So, John, tell us how I'm wrong, and how you know what "witty" meant
> back then.
I highly recommend C. S. Lewis's "Studies in Words" and its sequel
(sometimes bound with it). It covers a good many words that
20th-century folk think they know the meanings of, but don't.
volker multhopp
> volker multhopp wrote:
> > So, John, tell us how I'm wrong, and how you know what "witty" meant
> > back then.
> I highly recommend C. S. Lewis's "Studies in Words" and its sequel
> (sometimes bound with it). It covers a good many words that
> 20th-century folk think they know the meanings of, but don't.
Show us where it says I was wrong in this matter.
--Volker
TobiasVaughn
>"John W. Kennedy" wrote:
>
>> volker multhopp wrote:
>
>mean.
>
>> ...whereas I rather suspect you are interpreting the word in its
>> contemporary sense. Big mistake.
>
> Tell me what my big mistake is, John. "Witty" has never meant
>*learned*, it's meant *wise, clever, etc* all the way back-- "Witiz god"
>--*Beowulf*. Your imaginings about "contemporary sense" for witty are
>out of place.
>
> If she be fair and wise, fairness and wit,
> The one's for use, the other useth it.
> DESDEMONA. Well praised! How if she be black and witty?
> IAGO. If she be black, and thereto have a wit,
> She'll find a white that shall her blackness fit. [O]
>
> FALSTAFF. ... I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that
>wit is in other men. [2H4]
>
> PANDARUS. She's making her ready, she'll come straight; you must be
> witty now. [T&C]
>
> PAROLLES. Go to, thou art a witty fool; I have found thee. [AWEW]
>
> How love makes young men thrall, and old men dote;
> How love is wise in folly, foolish witty [V&A]
>
>etc, etc.
>
>back then.
Perhaps Langenscheidt's New College Merriam-Webster
English Dictionary is a Stratfordian tool, but under
"witty," it lists "1 archaic: having good intellectual
capacity: INTELLIGENT."
My guess would be it had both meanings then. Many of
the quotes above seem to work best as puns. For
instance, one would expect a fool to be "witty" in the
sense of amusing, but not in the sense of intelligence.
Hence the joke in "witty fool" is that it is true in one
sense, and an oxymoron in another.
volker multhopp
> >From: volker multhopp vol...@erols.com
> > Tell me what my big mistake is, John. "Witty" has never meant
> >*learned*, it's meant *wise, clever, etc* all the way back-- "Witiz god"
> >--*Beowulf*. Your imaginings about "contemporary sense" for witty are
> >out of place.
> >back then.
> Perhaps Langenscheidt's New College Merriam-Webster
> English Dictionary is a Stratfordian tool, but under
> "witty," it lists "1 archaic: having good intellectual
> capacity: INTELLIGENT."
> My guess would be it had both meanings then. Many of
> the quotes above seem to work best as puns. For
> instance, one would expect a fool to be "witty" in the
> sense of amusing, but not in the sense of intelligence.
> Hence the joke in "witty fool" is that it is true in one
> sense, and an oxymoron in another.
On the contrary, your Langenscheidt would appear to be in the hands of
Oxfordians. It is Stratfordians who claim "witty" means *learned*, more
exactly, *literate*-- meanings that somehow escaped Langescheidt.
Moreover, it was John W Kennedy who alleged, but declined to
substantiate, that I was making a "big mistake" by interpreting the word
in new sense not available then. On contrary, by using Shakespeare, I
clearly showed that "witty" back then meant *intelligent/wise* and that
it also was used ironically.
--Volker
TobiasVaughn
Okay, then in that case, I agree with you as to what it
means/meant.