Proofs that Shakespeare Wrote Shakespeare

[Jim KQKnave]

Here is just some of the evidence which demonstrates
that William Shakespeare of Stratford is the author
of the works attributed to him:

His name on over forty title pages; his monument in Stratford,
which quite clearly states that he is a writer, and compares
his art to Virgil's:

IVDICIO PYLIVM, GENIO SOCRATEM, ARTE MARONEM,
TERRA TEGIT, POPVLVS MAERET, OLYMPVS HABET.
("In judgement a Nestor, in wit a Socrates, in
art a Virgil; the earth buries him, the people
mourn him, Olympus possesses him")

STAY PASSENGER, WHY GOEST THOV BY SO FAST,
READ IF THOV GANST, WHOM ENVIOVS DEATH HATH PLAST
WITH IN THIS MONVMENT SHAKSPEARE: WITH WHOME,
QVICK NATVRE DIDE WHOSE NAME, DOTH DECK YS TOMBE,
FAR MORE, THEN COST: SIEH ALL, YT HE HATH WRITT,
LEAVES LIVING ART, BVT PAGE, TO SERVE HIS WITT.

("SIEH" is a typo for "Sith");

Robert Greene's attack on Shakespeare in Greene's Groatsworth
of Wit (1592), where he paraphrases a play by Shakespeare while
referring to "Shake-scene", a clear pun on his name; the
Parnassus plays (1598-1601), where Shakespeare is mentioned by name
and Venus and Adonis and Romeo & Juliet are parodied, and
where Shakespeare is said to have "put them [university playwrights]
all down, aye, and Ben Jonson too"; Gabriel Harvey (nlt 1603), who said
"The younger sort takes much delight in Shakespeares Venus, &
Adonis: but his Lucrece, & his tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of
Denmarke, have it in them, to please the wiser sort," and who
called Shakespeare "one of our florishing metricians;" and
Francis Meres (1598), who said "...so the English tongue is mightily
enriched, and gorgeously invested in rare ornaments and
resplendent abiliments by sir Philip Sidney, Spencer, Daniel,
Drayton, Warner, Shakespeare, Marlow and Chapman...."
[notice that he distinguishes between Marlowe and Shakespeare
and mentions Oxenforde separately in another section as well]
and who also said that Shakespeare was one of England's
"best Lyrick Poets" and "our best for tragedie" and among the
"best Poets for Comedy" and "the most passionate among us
to bewaile and bemoane the perplexities of Love;" and
Francis Beaumont (1608), who said "...here I would let slippe/
(If I had any in mee) schollershippe,/ And from all Learning keepe
these lines as cleere/ as Shakespeare's best are, which our
heires shall heare/ Preachers apte to their auditors to showe/
how farre sometimes a mortall man may goe/ by the dimme
light of Nature...;"

In 1604 appeared Antony Scolloker's "Diaphantus; or, the
Passions of Love." In his preface, telling us what an epistle
to the reader should be, Scolloker writes: "It should be like
the Never-too-well read Arcadia, where the Prose and verce
(Matters and Words) are like his Mistresses eyes, one still
excelling another and without Co-rivall: or to come home to
the vulgars Element, like Friendly Shakespeare's Tragedies,
where the Commedian rides, when the Tragedian stands on
tip-toe: Faith it should please all, like Prince Hamlet."
It's difficult to see how Scolloker could refer to Shakespeare as
"friendly" unless he knew him personally.

The source of the following quotation is
http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~ahnelson/price.html:

"a letter survives in the hand of Leonard Digges, who in 1613
compared the sonnets of Lope de Vega to those of "our Will Shakespeare"
- notice the use of the familiar "Will" by a close neighbor of Shakespeare's
in both Aldermarston and in London....Leonard Digges was the step-son
(from 1603) of Thomas Russell, a man who was not only a neighbor of
Shakespeare's both in London and in Stratford, but whom Shakespeare
remembered in his will, and indeed appointed one of the two overseers of
his will."

In addition:

That Jonson was acquainted with Shakespeare
personally is indisputable: Shakespeare's name
appears on the list of players who acted in
"Every Man in His Humour", and Jonson's
extended comments upon Shakespeare in his
"Timber" (see below) are proof of that: he
says that Shakespeare was "(indeed) honest,
and of an open, and free nature:" and that
he "loved the man". Jonson, moreover, was
familiar with many of the nobility and gentleman
of his time due to his close associations with
the court of King James, and would certainly
have heard any rumours involving the Earl
of Oxenforde if there had been any related
to playwrighting.
Jonson's comments on his contemporaries were
typically a mix of praise and censure. Here
are some examples from "Conversations with
William Drummond":

"Samuel Daniel was a good honest man, had no
children: but no poet."

"That Michael Drayton's Poly-Olbion (if he had
performed what he promised to write, the deeds
of all the worthies) had been excellent: his
long verses pleased him not."

"He esteemeth John Donne the first poet in the
world, in some things: his verses of the lost
chain he hath by heart; and that passage of
'The Calm', that dust and feathers do not stir,
all was so quiet. Affirmeth Donne to have written
all his best pieces ere he was twenty-five
years old."

And many more. His comment on Shakespeare in
these conversations is quite typical:

"Shakespeare, in a play, brought in a number of men
saying they had suffered shipwreck in Bohemia, where there
is no sea near by some 100 miles."

In "Timber: or Discoveries", Jonson again mixes
criticism with praise:

"De Shakespeare Nostrat

I remember, the players have often
mentioned it as an honour to Shakespeare, that
in his writing (whatsoever he penned) he never
blotted out line. My answer hath been, would
he had blotted a thousand. Which they thought
a malevolent speech. I had not told posterity
this, but for their ignorance, who choose that
circumstance to commend their friend by,
wherein he most faulted. And to justify mine
own candour (for I loved the man, and do honour
his memory - on this side idolatry - as
much as any). He was (indeed) honest, and of
an open, and free nature: had an excellent
fancy; brave notions, and gentle expressions:
wherein he flowed with that facility, that
sometime it was necessary he should be
stopped: sufflaminandus erat; as Augustus said
of Haterius. His wit was in his own power;
would the rule of it had been so too. Many
times he fell into those things, could not escape
laughter: as when he said in the person of
Caesar, one speaking to him; "Caesar, thou
dost me wrong'. He replied: 'Caesar did never
wrong, but with just cause': and such like;
which were ridiculous. But he redeemed his
vices, with his virtues. There was ever more in
him to be praised, than to be pardoned."

Jonson clearly doesn't feel that the portrait
in the Folio does Shakespeare any justice
as far as portraying his wit, as his little poem
shows:

"This Figure, that thou here seest put,
It was for gentle Shakespeare cut,
Wherein the Graver had a strife
with Nature, to out-doo the life :
O, could he but have drawne his wit
As well in brasse, as he hath hit
His face ; the Print would then surpasse
All, that was ever writ in brasse.
But, since he cannot, Reader, looke
Not on his Picture, but his Booke."

And finally, Jonson's masterful eulogy
for Shakespeare, where he seems to be
quite convinced that the man who acted in
his plays was a better playwright than
Marlowe, and worthy of Euripides and
Sophocles. Notice that he calls Shakespeare
the "sweet swan of Avon", not the "tempestuous
tin-miner of tuxbury" or some such:

"TO THE MEMORY OF MY BELOVED THE AUTHOR,
MR. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, AND WHAT HE
HATH LEFT US.

To draw no envy, Shakespeare, on thy name,
Am I thus ample to thy book and fame;
While I confess thy writings to be such
As neither man nor muse can praise too much;
'Tis true, and all men's suffrage. But these ways
Were not the paths I meant unto thy praise;
For seeliest ignorance on these may light,
Which, when it sounds at best, but echoes right;
Or blind affection, which doth ne'er advance
The truth, but gropes, and urgeth all by chance;
Or crafty malice might pretend this praise,
And think to ruin, where it seem'd to raise.
These are, as some infamous bawd or whore
Should praise a matron; what could hurt her more?
But thou art proof against them, and indeed,
Above th' ill fortune of them, or the need.
I therefore will begin. Soul of the age!
The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage!
My Shakespeare, rise! I will not lodge thee by
Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie
A little further, to make thee a room:
Thou art a monument without a tomb,
And art alive still while thy book doth live
And we have wits to read and praise to give.
That I not mix thee so, my brain excuses,
I mean with great, but disproportion'd Muses,
For if I thought my judgment were of years,
I should commit thee surely with thy peers,
And tell how far thou didst our Lyly outshine,
Or sporting Kyd, or Marlowe's mighty line.
And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek,
From thence to honour thee, I would not seek
For names; but call forth thund'ring Aeschylus,
Euripides and Sophocles to us;
Pacuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead,
To life again, to hear thy buskin tread,
And shake a stage; or, when thy socks were on,
Leave thee alone for the comparison
Of all that insolent Greece or haughty Rome
Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come.
Triumph, my Britain, thou hast one to show
To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe.
He was not of an age but for all time!
And all the Muses still were in their prime,
When, like Apollo, he came forth to warm
Our ears, or like a Mercury to charm!
Nature herself was proud of his designs
And joy'd to wear the dressing of his lines,
Which were so richly spun, and woven so fit,
As, since, she will vouchsafe no other wit.
The merry Greek, tart Aristophanes,
Neat Terence, witty Plautus, now not please,
But antiquated and deserted lie,
As they were not of Nature's family.
Yet must I not give Nature all: thy art,
My gentle Shakespeare, must enjoy a part.
For though the poet's matter nature be,
His art doth give the fashion; and, that he
Who casts to write a living line, must sweat,
(Such as thine are) and strike the second heat
Upon the Muses' anvil; turn the same
(And himself with it) that he thinks to frame,
Or, for the laurel, he may gain a scorn;
For a good poet's made, as well as born;
And such wert thou. Look how the father's face
Lives in his issue, even so the race
Of Shakespeare's mind and manners brightly shines
In his well-turned, and true-filed lines;
In each of which he seems to shake a lance,
As brandish'd at the eyes of ignorance.
Sweet Swan of Avon! what a sight it were
To see thee in our waters yet appear,
And make those flights upon the banks of Thames,
That so did take Eliza and our James!
But stay, I see thee in the hemisphere
Advanc'd, and made a constellation there!
Shine forth, thou star of poets, and with rage
Or influence, chide or cheer the drooping stage;
Which, since thy flight from hence, hath mourn'd like night,
And despairs day, but for thy volume's light."

On the other hand, here is how the Earl of Oxenforde
sounded (http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~ahnelson):

Oxford to Burghley; [30 October 1584] (W247-8;F320-1,332).

(In hand of amanuensis)
It is not vnknowne to your Lordship that I haue entred into a
greate nomber of bondes to suche, as haue purchasyd landes
of me, to discharge them of all Incombraunces: And bycause
I stande indebtid vnto her Maiestie (as your Lordship knowythe)
many of ye said purchasers do greatly feare somme troble likely
to fall vppon them, by reason of her Maiestyes said debt, &
espesially if the Bondes of ye Lord Darcy and Sir William Walgraue
should be extendyd for the same, who haue two seuerall statutes
of great sommes for their discharge Wheruppon [diu] many of ye
said purchasers haue ben suters vnto me to procuer the discharginge
of her Maiestyes said Debt, and do seme very willinge to beare the
burden therof, yf by my meanes the same might be stalled paiable
at some convenyent dayes / I haue therfore thought good to
acquaynte your Lordship with this their suyte, requierynge moste
earnestly your Lordships furtheraunce in this behalfe, wherby I
shalbe vnburdened of a greate care, which I haue for the savynge
of my honor, And shall by this meanes also vnburden my wyves
Ioincture of yat charge which might happen herafter to be ymposyd
vppon ye same, yf god should call your Lordship and me away before her. /

(Oxford's hand takes over)
Yowre Lordships

(signed) Edward Oxenford (sec. f; 4+7)

Doesn't sound much like Shakespeare, does he? In fact he seems
to be the very business man that Oxfordians like to claim William
Shakespeare must have been, which I find to be...well, ironic. Are
there any letters in Shakespeare's hand showing him to be
as interested in money and tin mining as Oxenforde's letters show?
No. In fact, the only document in Shakespeare's hand is part of
a play, ("Sir Thomas More") in his style, typical of his concerns
and in every way consistent with what we know about William
Shakespeare's writing.

As for Shakespeare not having the proper background to be
the author, he was the son of a middle class homeowner,
like most great writers past and present. For example, here
are most of the records related to John Shakespeare, William's
father. Even at the end of his life, his estate was valued at
500 pounds, an enormous sum at a time when 40 pounds could
purchase a house with land. Shakespeare's family was in
fact a good deal better off than either Marlowe's family
or Ben Jonson's (sons of a shoemaker and bricklayer, respectively):

1556 - purchased an estate with garden and croft in
Greenhill street
1556 - purchased a house with garden in Henley street.
1556 - chosen as one of two "ale-tasters" (inspector of
bread and beer makers)
1558 - sworn in as constable
1559 - witnessing the minutes of the Leet as an afeeror,
and appointed one of the town's 14 burgesses.
~1560-62 Inherited his father's property and either gave
or sold it to his brother-in-law.
1565 - Elected alderman
1568 - Elected bailiff*
1571 - Elected chief alderman and deputy to the new bailiff
1572 - Along with the bailiff, rode to London together on
borough business, with permission from the aldermen
and burgesses to proceed 'according to their discretions'.
1572 - awarded 50 pounds by a court for money owed to him
1575 - Bought two houses with garden and orchard for 40 pounds
1578 - raised 40 pounds by mortgaging a house and 56 acres in
Wilmcote that he owned. (He was unable to pay the
mortgage on time and lost the land).
~1580 - Paid the bail of Michael Price (10 pounds)
~1580 - Forfeited a bond of 10 pounds on behalf of a debt
incurred by his brother Henry. Escaped jail because
a friend (Alderman Hill) paid his bail.
1582 - Petitioned for sureties of the peace against 4 men,
one of whom was the bailiff, for 'fear of death
and mutilation of his limbs'. This may or may not
have had something to do with his financial troubles.
Before 1590 - sold the house on Greenhill street.
1592 - Twice called on to assist in making inventories of
deceased neighbors.
1596 - The grant of his coat-of-arms notes that he has
"land and tenements of good wealth and substance"
worth 500 pounds.
1597 - sold small plot of land (one-half yard by 28 yards)
at the Henley street property for 50 shillings
(equal to about 100 days pay for an artisan).
At about the same time he also sold a 17 by 17
foot piece of land on Henley street.
1601 - Richard Quiney rode to London to plead the borough's
cause, listing on a document the names of John
Shakespeare and other town worthies to the effect
that he (Quiney) was able to speak on behalf of
the borough.
============================================
Search HLAS for: "bloopers part" for mistakes in "Shakespeare, Co-Author"

Despite the many candidates proposed as the "true" author
of Shakespeare's works by the tin foil hats on this newsgroup,
William Shakespeare of Stratford remains the only candidate
supported by the historical evidence.

http://tinyurl.com/cojgwl

see also

http://ShakespeareAuthorship.com

The Droeshout portrait isn't unusual at all!
http://shakesandbacon.yolasite.com

Agent Jim
Fighting Pseudoscholarship One Day At A Time

[marco]

[Jim KQKnave]

I know I should know better than to ask,
but what is the point of quoting a post
in its entirety (especially a long one)
without adding anything of your own?
====================================
Check out the current thread: "Dedication of the Funeral Elegy: Not By Ford."

[Algernon H. Nuttsakk]

Proofs? These fairy tales are hardly proofs.
The wool-sack wing-nut, no matter how profitable
his petty dealings in sawdust and shit, could
not possibly have written the refulgent strains
of As You Like It. No, only a mighty Earl, thrusting
his powerful loins into the culture of England,
could have written the transcendent lines of
Midsummer Night's Dream. Only the haughty, striding
power of a superior Lord could have conceived of
Henry V. Oh of course, I'm sorry, dear Stratfordian
"scholars", I had no idea that because Shaxzsplat
owned a 40 pound house that he must have written Hamlet!
Dear me, dear me, what a silly little fool I am.

AHN

[Algernon H. Nuttsakk]

More to be further digested anon:
It should be pointed out that the Shaxster,
in the midst of all of these vile business
deals, would not have had time to write
the monumental Anthony and Cleopatra, or
have had the energy to devise the brilliant
political metaphors of Cymbeline. His
time was taken entirely by the need to
count his layno lucre with his filthy fingers,
using his caca calculus ennabled with
the assistance of a stick smeared with poop.
Only a glorious Lord like Oxford could gather the
requisite resources to plunder to the verbal
treasure of the English language. Only
a dunderhead like Shixnrx could plunder the
treasures of dung and whoremastering.

AHN

[Geoff Banks]

So Shakespeare's name on all those title pages means nothing?

[Dr. Robert Englestadt]

>So Shakespeare's name on all those title pages means nothing?

They mean nothing to those who want to ignore the historical
record and replace it with their own fantasies. Trust me,
I've been dealing with deluded fantasies for most of my adult
life. They can't be removed because the patient's self-worth
is too intimately connected to the value system the fantasy
represents. If they flunked or did poorly in higher education,
for example, they may need to believe that all professors are
liars or ignoramuses or something like that.

[Jim KQKnave]

What's interesting is that the Oxfordians can't
create similar post for their guy.
===============================================

Search HLAS for: "bloopers part" for mistakes in "Shakespeare, Co-Author"

Despite the many candidates proposed as the "true" author
of Shakespeare's works by the tin foil hats on this newsgroup,
William Shakespeare of Stratford remains the only candidate
supported by the historical evidence.

http://tinyurl.com/cojgwl

see also

http://ShakespeareAuthorship.com

The Droeshout portrait isn't unusual at all!
http://shakesandbacon.yolasite.com

[Afrin Symbolist Jr.]

I know, it's sad. All they can do is post over it.

[Donald Renford]

You would think that the abject beggary and bloviated diction
evidenced by
Oxford's known letters would be evidence enough that his authorship
of the
plays is highly unlikely. But I don't believe logic has much to do
with the
true believer's beliefs.

[Jim KQKnave]

In fact, they sometimes have logic, but their
logic is applied to incorrect premises so they
derive false conclusions.

[Charles Grant]

Wasn't Jonson the son of a bricklayer, and Marlowe the
son of shoemaker? Don't see what's so surprising about
Shakespeare's history.

[Richard Carlson]

There's nothing surprising about his history; maybe the fact that
his parents
were a little wealthier than the usual writer's parents (William
Faulkner,
nobel prize winner, had a failed businessman father and worked in a
power
plant as a security guard while writing "As I Lay Dying", for
example).

[Richard Carlson]

Come to think of it, he's probably more like Hemingway, whose
parents
were quite well off (his father was a physician, as I recall).

[Jim KQKnave]

It really doesn't matter how wealthy
his parents were because the historical
record says that Shakespeare wrote the
works attributed to him.

[Gordon Sanderson]

Shakespeare's life is evident in his works. Didn't someone do a
study
of the imagery in his plays that showed all the Warwickshire and
country-related imagery?

[Algernon H. Nuttsakk]

A turd bird like Shixnrax could not possibly have been the author of our
lovely Midsummer Night's Dream, no matter what aspersions you cast on
the families of Hemingway and Faulkner. Shaxsplatter was too deep in his
own shit (literally) to have had time to compose the nostalgic aires of
Cymbeline, much less the utter genius of Hamlet. Only a mighty Lord with
the power and connections to avoid having to wipe his own ass could have
written the glorious works by the author known as "Shakespeare", and there
were few, if any, other Lords with no other gainful employment occupying
their time. The mighty Oxford, with a mere wave of his fingers, could
command armies, and armies of boys, to handle his toilette, freeing him
from any manual labor whatsoever, thus freeing his imagination to fly from
the crapper to the heavens. Shuxnrax could only stare at his floating
freebirds in the bowl, saying "Look mama, that one's a horsie, that one's
a duckie...."

AHN

[Garth Straw]

Yes, Caroline Spurgeon wrote a book on his imagery. She noted
how much of his imagery was derived from the natural world.

[neon...@gmail.com]

On Sunday, June 2, 2013 8:36:02 AM UTC-7, Jim KQKnave wrote:
> Here is just some of the evidence which demonstrates
>
> that William Shakespeare of Stratford is the author
>
> of the works attributed to him:
>
>
>
> His name on over forty title pages; his monument in Stratford,
>
> which quite clearly states that he is a writer, and compares
>
> his art to Virgil's:
>

> His name on forty title pages? What works would that be?
>
> I haven't seen his name on any literary work, not a play,
>
> not a book, his name IS on the 1623 First Folio but that
>
> was Jonson's jeste because Bacon was hiding his identity
>
> behind Pallas Athene, the Greek Goddess whose statute
>
> is atop some acropolis, she's killing the Serpent of Ignorance.
>
>
> As far as Bacon's writing goes, and Paul De Puey has proven
>
> that Bacon wrote over six hundred printed books on a
>
> huge range of subjects, Bacon could not aspire to the
>
> State and still write works of poetry and fiction. Even
>
> the Luminarian website posts the titles of hundreds
>
> of works written by Bacon. Bacon loved his nation, he
>
> was wholly dedicated to bringing the literacy of the
>
> then illiterate English up to that of the literacy level of
>
> the states on the Continent.

> Bacon simply took the pseudonym "Shakespeare," a title
>
> he had taken from the Spear Shaker Pallas Athene when
>
> Bacon was a young student at Cambridge University.
>
> Obviously the Stratford Panderer had priority to the
>
> name which I believe he besmirched by investing his
>
> time and money in the "rough trade" in Blackfriars.
>
> Killed a lot of young women, inevitably killed himself.

> Uhhh, I don't think that was penned by the Stratford Broker.
>
> but I can go over to Sirbacon. org and check for the name
>
> of the Author.

[Richard Carlson]

I would think that if Oxford had written the plays, that
lots of tin-mine related imagery would be in the plays,
at least the later plays.

[Jason Grimes]

>I would think that if Oxford had written the plays, that
>lots of tin-mine related imagery would be in the plays,
>at least the later plays.

It's also difficult to see how Oxford would have had the life
experience necessary to write a play like "The Merry Wives of
Windsor". The suburbanite experience just isn't something he
would know about, with his huge debts to nobility and his
prancing about on foreign soils looking for boys to play with.

[neon...@gmail.com]

On Sunday, June 2, 2013 8:36:02 AM UTC-7, Jim KQKnave wrote:

> Here is just some of the evidence which demonstrates
>
> that William Shakespeare of Stratford is the author
>
> of the works attributed to him:
>
>

> Elizabeth writes: ok, it's time to admit that I am intimidated by KQKnave,
>
> but sooner or later I have to get it together in order to dispute Knave's
>
> claims.

>
> His name on over forty title pages; his monument in Stratford,
>
> which quite clearly states that he is a writer, and compares
>
> his art to Virgil's:
>

> Wait a minute, you're suggesting what? How did Shakespeare's
>
> name appear on over forty title pages when he never wrote a
>
> single page of any play?
>
> I don't know if you are as sick of the Strats as I am but they
>
> tried to pull off a thievery of Bacon and Jonson's thirty-seven
>
> plays in the 1623 First Folio which did NOT contain a single
>
> play by Shappere whom Joseph Lenz Dean at a College at
>
> Drake University who went deep into the Blackfriar's modern
>
> era collection of Shappere's writs and deeds only to find that
>
> Shappere was never playwright but only a panderer of whores
>
> in the Blackfriar's District.
>
> Lenz found that Shappere was deeply into making money off
>
> the backs of young boys and girls, I gag when I think about it.
>
> Shortly thereafter, Shappere contracted the diseases (about five)
>
> that was being transmitted from Johns to young girls, he went
>
> back to Stratford to die, I say good riddance, London was freed
>
> of at least one panderer who made his living off killing young kids
>
> via Lenz list of venereal diseases, I say good riddance, he crawled
>
> sick, dizzy, nauseaus back to Stratford and died in his bed. I see
>
> this whore mongering panderer burning in HELL. Well, I descend
>
> from New England Puritans, we have values, and I've never found
>
> a single case of venereal disease in my family since they all
>
> followed the New England custom of the Puritan Lusty Marriage.

>
> IVDICIO PYLIVM, GENIO SOCRATEM, ARTE MARONEM,
>
> TERRA TEGIT, POPVLVS MAERET, OLYMPVS HABET.
>
> ("In judgement a Nestor, in wit a Socrates, in
>
> art a Virgil; the earth buries him, the people
>
> mourn him, Olympus possesses him")
>
>
>
> STAY PASSENGER, WHY GOEST THOV BY SO FAST,
>
> READ IF THOV GANST, WHOM ENVIOVS DEATH HATH PLAST
>
> WITH IN THIS MONVMENT SHAKSPEARE: WITH WHOME,
>
> QVICK NATVRE DIDE WHOSE NAME, DOTH DECK YS TOMBE,
>
> FAR MORE, THEN COST: SIEH ALL, YT HE HATH WRITT,
>
> LEAVES LIVING ART, BVT PAGE, TO SERVE HIS WITT.
>

> Oh, blah blah blah, this is wasted on a spreader of
>
> diseases that according to Dean Joseph Lenz were spread
>
> all over Blackfriars by this Bastard.

>
> ("SIEH" is a typo for "Sith");
>

> Who gives a crap, in this era, nearly no one.

[Jason Grimes]

He is clearly not Bacon or Jonson either, as contemporary
witness shows:

"...the Parnassus plays (1598-1601), where Shakespeare is

mentioned by name and Venus and Adonis and Romeo & Juliet
are parodied, and where Shakespeare is said to have "put them
[university playwrights] all down, aye, and Ben Jonson too";
Gabriel Harvey (nlt 1603), who said "The younger sort takes
much delight in Shakespeares Venus, & Adonis: but his Lucrece,
& his tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke, have it in them,

to please the wiser sort."

Gabriel Harvey didn't know who Bacon was? Not very likely.

[Carl Jacobsen]

He is not Oxford either, unless you just don't want to believe
the historical record:

"a letter survives in the hand of Leonard Digges, who in 1613
compared the sonnets of Lope de Vega to those of "our Will
Shakespeare" - notice the use of the familiar "Will" by a close
neighbor of Shakespeare's in both Aldermarston and in London....
Leonard Digges was the step-son (from 1603) of Thomas Russell,
a man who was not only a neighbor of Shakespeare's both in London
and in Stratford, but whom Shakespeare remembered in his will,
and indeed appointed one of the two overseers of
his will."

So one of Shakespeare's neighbors (and related to another)
states in a private letter that Shakespeare wrote sonnets,
and we are supposed to believe that Oxford wrote them? Did
Digges know Oxford? He would have to wouldn't he, if he
were to be part of a conspiracy promoting Shakespeare as the
writer of the plays? Or am I missing something?

[neon...@gmail.com]

On Tuesday, June 25, 2013 3:40:21 AM UTC-7, Carl Jacobsen wrote:
> He is not Oxford either, unless you just don't want to believe
>
> the historical record:
>
>
>
> "a letter survives in the hand of Leonard Digges, who in 1613
>
> compared the sonnets of Lope de Vega to those of "our Will
>
> Shakespeare" - notice the use of the familiar "Will" by a close
>
> neighbor of Shakespeare's in both Aldermarston and in London....
>
> Leonard Digges was the step-son (from 1603) of Thomas Russell,
>
> a man who was not only a neighbor of Shakespeare's both in London
>
> and in Stratford, but whom Shakespeare remembered in his will,
>
> and indeed appointed one of the two overseers of
>
> his will."
>

> Leonard Digges is a familiar name, did Digges have anything
>
> to do with building the first telescope in England? Iirc, the
>
> Digges were trying to build a telescope to compete with
>
> Galileo's, Bacon had visited Galileo in Italy, he inspected
>
> Galileo's telescope which gave Bacon knowledge to help
>
> the Digges.

>
> So one of Shakespeare's neighbors (and related to another)
>

> states in a private letter that Shakespeare wrote sonnets.
>
> The problem here is that Bacon assumed the pseudonym
>
> "Shakespeare" when he was thirteen or fourteen years old
>
> completing his studies at Cambridge University. I don't
>
> think it's much of a problem because Shakespeare died
>
> much earlier than Bacon, Shakespeare lacked a knowledge
>
> of the germ theory, that's what got him.
>
> And we are supposed to believe that Oxford wrote them? Did

>
> Digges know Oxford? He would have to wouldn't he, if he
>
> were to be part of a conspiracy promoting Shakespeare as the
>
> writer of the plays? Or am I missing something?
>

> No, we are not to take it for granted that Oxford wrote the
>
> the Shakespeare plays, All I know is what I've read, and
>
> that is Oxford wrote seventeen plays, although we haven't
>
> seen them.
>
> Bacon (and Jonson's) 1623 First Folio is filled with thirty-
>
> seven or thirty eight plays, we're all familiar with the titles,
>
> of the Comedies, Histories and Tragedies, starting with
>
> The Tempest.
>
> Unlike Webb, I don't pick on Oxford, he had a traumatic
>
> birth and YES the Queen was his mother which makes
>
> Bacon his brother. I have seen NO conflict between these
>
> two Elizabethan brothers, they seemed to get along,
>
> when Oxford needed some legal help, especially with the
>
> many lands his mother Elizabeth endowed him with via
>
> Lord Burghley, Bacon would do pro bono legal work for
>
> his brother and infact Oxford rose in the hearing and
>
> gave thanks to his brother Bacon and Serjeant Harris
>
> for their help in correcting Oxford's deeds. Of course
>
> Art doesn't believe this but he can find the court room
>
> scene in Alan Nelson's book Monstrous Adversary and
>
> I certainly believe that Oxford outgrew his tendency for
>
> losing his temper, he seemed to grow mellow as he aged,
>
> and in his second marriage he produced a number of sons.
>
> It's kind of uncanny, Bacon produced beautiful daughters
>
> while Oxford produced sons.
>
>
>
>

[neon...@gmail.com]

[neon...@gmail.com]

On Wednesday, June 26, 2013 3:52:18 AM UTC-7, neon...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Wednesday, June 26, 2013 12:51:53 AM UTC-7, neon...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> > On Tuesday, June 25, 2013 3:40:21 AM UTC-7, Carl Jacobsen wrote:
>
> >
>
> > > He is not Oxford either, unless you just don't want to believe
>
> >
>

> > > Elizabeth writes: I don't think the Oxfordians have evere
>
> > > believed that Oxford wrote all the plays in the 1623 First Folio,
>
> > > those plays were written by Oxford's brother Francis Bacon
>
> > > with Bacon's scribe (and friend) Jonson supplying the
>
> > > wonderful poetry in the Front Matter.
>
> > > It seems that the Strats are the most overwrought re
>
> > > the Stratford Broker but at the same time, don't want
>
> > > to know anything about him. Again, Bacon and Jonson
>
> > > provided the Magnificent 1623 First Folio containing
>
> > > all the "Shakespeare Plays," -- there's a problem here
>t
> > > because Bacon took the nom de plume "Shakespeare"
>
> > > when only a twelve or thirteen year old at Cambridge
>
> > > University, I doubt this will ever be properly sorted out.
>
> >
>
> > > Re the Digges below, Bacon was a close friend of the
>> > > Digges, they shared an interest in astronomy. Bacon
>
> > > had traveled to Italy where he met Galileo, his insights
>
> > > in Italy in regard to telecopy was carried back to England
>
> > > where it was shared with the Digges.
>
> > > Now you're going to tell me that the Stratford Broker was
>
> > > an astronomer. This poor fellow was so unschooled I doubt
>
> > > he could find his bum with both hands.

>
> > >
>
> >
>
> > >
>
> >
>
> > >
>
> >
>
> > >
>
> >
>
> > > "a letter survives in the hand of Leonard Digges, who in 1613
>
> >
>

> > > Again, the Bacons were very close to the Digges, I think
>
> > > through some marriage of a Bacon to a Digges via the
>
> > > Lord Chancellor Sir Nicholas Bacon and his genius wife,
>
> > > Lady Anne.

>
> >
>
> > > compared the sonnets of Lope de Vega to those of "our Will
>
> >
>
> > >
>
> >
>
> > > Shakespeare" - notice the use of the familiar "Will" by a close
>
> >
>

> > > Here's a clue: The 1623 First Folio was a wonderful mix
>
> > > of Jonson's verses and Bacon's plays. The name "Will"
>
> > > was just a ploy on the part of Bacon because the aristocracy
>
> > > did not publish their plays, most of them "closet plays"
>
> > > written by literate women like Lady Mary Sydney
>
> > > (Bacon's first cousin).

> > > his brother and in fact Oxford rose in the hearing and

[neon...@gmail.com]

On Sunday, June 2, 2013 8:36:02 AM UTC-7, Jim KQKnave wrote:
> Here is just some of the evidence which demonstrates
>
> that William Shakespeare of Stratford is the author
>
> of the works attributed to him:
>
>
>

> His name on over forty title pages; his monument in Stratford,
>
> which quite clearly states that he is a writer, and compares
>
> his art to Virgil's:
>
>
>

> IVDICIO PYLIVM, GENIO SOCRATEM, ARTE MARONEM,
>
> TERRA TEGIT, POPVLVS MAERET, OLYMPVS HABET.
>
> ("In judgement a Nestor, in wit a Socrates, in
>
> art a Virgil; the earth buries him, the people
>
> mourn him, Olympus possesses him")
>
>
>
> STAY PASSENGER, WHY GOEST THOV BY SO FAST,
>
> READ IF THOV GANST, WHOM ENVIOVS DEATH HATH PLAST
>
> WITH IN THIS MONVMENT SHAKSPEARE: WITH WHOME,
>
> QVICK NATVRE DIDE WHOSE NAME, DOTH DECK YS TOMBE,
>
> FAR MORE, THEN COST: SIEH ALL, YT HE HATH WRITT,
>
> LEAVES LIVING ART, BVT PAGE, TO SERVE HIS WITT.
>
>
>

> ("SIEH" is a typo for "Sith");
>
>
>

> Robert Greene's attack on Shakespeare in Greene's Groatsworth
>
> of Wit (1592), where he paraphrases a play by Shakespeare while
>
> referring to "Shake-scene", a clear pun on his name; the
>

> Parnassus plays (1598-1601), where Shakespeare is mentioned by name
>
> and Venus and Adonis and Romeo & Juliet are parodied, and
>
> where Shakespeare is said to have "put them [university playwrights]
>
> all down, aye, and Ben Jonson too"; Gabriel Harvey (nlt 1603), who said
>
> "The younger sort takes much delight in Shakespeares Venus, &
>
> Adonis: but his Lucrece, & his tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of
>

> "a letter survives in the hand of Leonard Digges, who in 1613
>

> compared the sonnets of Lope de Vega to those of "our Will Shakespeare"
>

> - notice the use of the familiar "Will" by a close neighbor of Shakespeare's
>
> in both Aldermarston and in London....Leonard Digges was the step-son

>
> (from 1603) of Thomas Russell, a man who was not only a neighbor of
>
> Shakespeare's both in London and in Stratford, but whom Shakespeare
>
> remembered in his will, and indeed appointed one of the two overseers of
>
> his will."
>
>
>

[neon...@gmail.com]

> A little disambiguation here, of course Jonson knew
>
> "Shakespeare" he lived with him at Twickenham for
>
> four years on the reversion of a lease given to "Shakespeare"
>
> by "Shakespeare's" cousin Edmund. That was the beginning of
>
> a life long friendship between Bacon and Ben Jonson. By the
>
> way, both had naughty wits, I can just see them falling over
>
> laughing, and a lot of this laughter appears in Bacon's plays.

>
> Jonson's comments on his contemporaries were
>
> typically a mix of praise and censure. Here
>
> are some examples from "Conversations with
>
> William Drummond":
>
>
>
> "Samuel Daniel was a good honest man, had no
>
> children: but no poet."
>
>
>
> "That Michael Drayton's Poly-Olbion (if he had
>
> performed what he promised to write, the deeds
>
> of all the worthies) had been excellent: his
>
> long verses pleased him not."
>
>
>
> "He esteemeth John Donne the first poet in the
>
> world, in some things: his verses of the lost
>
> chain he hath by heart; and that passage of
>
> 'The Calm', that dust and feathers do not stir,
>
> all was so quiet. Affirmeth Donne to have written
>
> all his best pieces ere he was twenty-five
>
> years old."
>
>
>
> And many more. His comment on Shakespeare in
>
> these conversations is quite typical:
>
>
>
> "Shakespeare, in a play, brought in a number of men
>
> saying they had suffered shipwreck in Bohemia, where there
>
> is no sea near by some 100 miles."
>

> Well, it turns out that Bohemia has a very narrow outlet
>
> into the sea but the mountains in Bohemia are the attraction.

>
> In "Timber: or Discoveries", Jonson again mixes
>
> criticism with praise:
>
>
>
> "De Shakespeare Nostrat
>

> We have a little loggerheads here since Bacon
>
> WAS Shakespeare from the time he was twelve
>
> or thirteen, studying at Cambridge University.
>
> In the lines below, Jonson is speaking of his
>
> long time friend (and roomie) Francis Bacon.
>
> If you got Bacon laughing he would laugh until
>
> he choked. And oh yes, Bacon was famous for
>
> never leaving ink blots on anything he wrote.

> That long passage above is Ben Jonson on his
>
> friend Francis Bacon. I don't know whether
>
> Jonson outlived Bacon but when they lived
>
> together, laughter was certainly good medicine,
>
> it's supposed to extend life.

>
> Jonson clearly doesn't feel that the portrait
>
> in the Folio does Shakespeare any justice
>
> as far as portraying his wit, as his little poem
>
> shows:
>
>
>
> "This Figure, that thou here seest put,
>
> It was for gentle Shakespeare cut,
>
> Wherein the Graver had a strife
>
> with Nature, to out-doo the life :
>
> O, could he but have drawne his wit
>
> As well in brasse, as he hath hit
>
> His face ; the Print would then surpasse
>
> All, that was ever writ in brasse.
>
> But, since he cannot, Reader, looke
>
> Not on his Picture, but his Booke."
>

> OK, CLASS WARFARE ALERT.
>
> I was online reading Jonson's verses on
>
> a website dedicated to the 1623 First Folio
>
> when Jonson wrote in his long verse that
>
> HIS, Jonson's poet was "gentle," meaning
>
> that Bacon belonged to the gentry. There's
>
> another verse in which Jonson corrects
>
> in which he doesn't refer to Shakespeare as
>
> gentle. I'm not a fan of the British class system,
>
> but I guess that the Stratford Broker did come
>
> from the working class, nothing wrong with that.

>
>
>
>
> And finally, Jonson's masterful eulogy
>
> for Shakespeare, where he seems to be
>
> quite convinced that the man who acted in
>
> his plays was a better playwright than
>
> Marlowe, and worthy of Euripides and
>
> Sophocles. Notice that he calls Shakespeare
>
> the "sweet swan of Avon", not the "tempestuous
>
> tin-miner of tuxbury" or some such:
>

> Well, Bacon and Jonson spent SEVEN YEARS on
>
> their 1623 First Folio, then went down to Wilton
>
> house to spend another seven years testing the
>
> First Folio plays out on Bacon's cousin Mary's
>
> indoor stage, there is another funny anecdote
>
> that survives, Jonson follows Bacon to Wilton
>
> a few weeks later, he knocks on the door,
>
> Mary Sidney says to Jonson "the man Shakespeare
>
> is here, and she was NOT referring to the Stratford
>
> broker, she was a member of the aristocracy, the
>
> Sidneys descended from the same earls as Bacon,
>
> come to think of it where did Bacon get his work
>
> ethic? It must have come from his "first mother,"
>
> the famous linguist Lady Anne Bacon who received
>
> Bacon as an infant made him the genius that he is.

> Isn't that Jonson's verse?

>
> On the other hand, here is how the Earl of Oxenforde
>
> sounded (http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~ahnelson):
>
>
>
> Oxford to Burghley; [30 October 1584] (W247-8;F320-1,332).
>
>
>
> (In hand of amanuensis)
>
> It is not vnknowne to your Lordship that I haue entred into a
>
> greate nomber of bondes to suche, as haue purchasyd landes
>
> of me, to discharge them of all Incombraunces: And bycause
>
> I stande indebtid vnto her Maiestie (as your Lordship knowythe)
>
> many of ye said purchasers do greatly feare somme troble likely
>
> to fall vppon them, by reason of her Maiestyes said debt, &
>
> espesially if the Bondes of ye Lord Darcy and Sir William Walgraue
>
> should be extendyd for the same, who haue two seuerall statutes
>
> of great sommes for their discharge Wheruppon [diu] many of ye
>
> said purchasers haue ben suters vnto me to procuer the discharginge
>
> of her Maiestyes said Debt, and do seme very willinge to beare the
>
> burden therof, yf by my meanes the same might be stalled paiable
>
> at some convenyent dayes / I haue therfore thought good to
>
> acquaynte your Lordship with this their suyte, requierynge moste
>
> earnestly your Lordships furtheraunce in this behalfe, wherby I
>
> shalbe vnburdened of a greate care, which I haue for the savynge
>
> of my honor, And shall by this meanes also vnburden my wyves
>
> Ioincture of yat charge which might happen herafter to be ymposyd
>
> vppon ye same, yf god should call your Lordship and me away before her. /
>

> That has to be Oxford's letter to his father in lave (as Oxford spelled it)
>
> William Cecil, Lord Burghley.

>
> (Oxford's hand takes over)
>
> Yowre Lordships
>
>
>
> (signed) Edward Oxenford (sec. f; 4+7)
>
>
>
> Doesn't sound much like Shakespeare, does he? In fact he seems
>
> to be the very business man that Oxfordians like to claim William
>
> Shakespeare must have been, which I find to be...well, ironic. Are
>
> there any letters in Shakespeare's hand showing him to be
>
> as interested in money and tin mining as Oxenforde's letters show?
>
> No. In fact, the only document in Shakespeare's hand is part of
>
> a play, ("Sir Thomas More") in his style, typical of his concerns
>
> and in every way consistent with what we know about William
>
> Shakespeare's writing.
>

> I dunno, I have zero animosity toward Oxford, he had a
>
> very difficult birth. I've read Nelson, I've read all his
>
> additional materials, I've read a riveting acount of
>
> a high tribunal which mounted an inquiry into Oxford's
>
> birth, given the hand he was delt, I think Oxford made
>
> a very good life for himself, his wife, his children, he
>
> was very angry in adolescence but he evenually grew
>
> into a man who took care of his family. I have no
>
> complaints at all about Oxford and how he managed
>
> his life. I think he did a comendable job of it.

>
> As for Shakespeare not having the proper background to be
>
> the author, he was the son of a middle class homeowner,
>
> like most great writers past and present. For example, here
>
> are most of the records related to John Shakespeare, William's
>
> father. Even at the end of his life, his estate was valued at
>
> 500 pounds, an enormous sum at a time when 40 pounds could
>
> purchase a house with land. Shakespeare's family was in
>
> fact a good deal better off than either Marlowe's family
>
> or Ben Jonson's (sons of a shoemaker and bricklayer, respectively):
>

> Jim, I can't tell you how tired I am of the recitation of Shakespeare's
>
> whatever, it's blots out the sky, it's bigger than God, will we
>
> ever get over it? By the standards of rural 16th century England
>
> the Stratford Broker had it good. He had money from his
>
> pandering, he was rich, he owned shares in just about everything,
>
> I don't feel any empathy with this historical figure, I just
>
> wish he had read the works of Lenz and Shapiro before he
>
> got into the very lucrative business of prostitution 'cause
>
> that's what killed him.

> Thanks for the post, I enjoyed reading it.

[neon...@gmail.com]

On Monday, June 10, 2013 7:09:16 AM UTC-7, Afrin Symbolist Jr. wrote:
> I know, it's sad. All they can do is post over it.

Damn, you are witty (signed Eliz).

[neon...@gmail.com]

On Saturday, June 8, 2013 10:17:24 AM UTC-7, Geoff Banks wrote:
> So Shakespeare's name on all those title pages means nothing?

> Darn it, Gnaedinger is going around advertising that Oxford wrote
> seventeen plays, so I asked, "what are the titles of Oxford's
> seventeen plays, I got nothing. I'm still asking because of the
>
> fact that Jonson and Bacon worked for seven years to compile
> the 1623 First Folio, and worse, the STRATS for godsake, are
> filching plays from Jonson and Bacon's Folio. I'm not having it,
> it really pisses me off. Wow, I finally got tired, if you see
> Neuendorffer, tell him to kiss my *ss.

[neon...@gmail.com]

> Jonson's comments on his contemporaries were
>
> typically a mix of praise and censure. Here
>
> are some examples from "Conversations with
>
> William Drummond":
>
>
>
> "Samuel Daniel was a good honest man, had no
>
> children: but no poet."
>
>
>
> "That Michael Drayton's Poly-Olbion (if he had
>
> performed what he promised to write, the deeds
>
> of all the worthies) had been excellent: his
>
> long verses pleased him not."
>
>
>
> "He esteemeth John Donne the first poet in the
>
> world, in some things: his verses of the lost
>
> chain he hath by heart; and that passage of
>
> 'The Calm', that dust and feathers do not stir,
>
> all was so quiet. Affirmeth Donne to have written
>
> all his best pieces ere he was twenty-five
>
> years old."
>
>
>
> And many more. His comment on Shakespeare in
>
> these conversations is quite typical:
>
>
>
> "Shakespeare, in a play, brought in a number of men
>
> saying they had suffered shipwreck in Bohemia, where there
>
> is no sea near by some 100 miles."
>
>
>

> In "Timber: or Discoveries", Jonson again mixes
>
> criticism with praise:
>
>
>
> "De Shakespeare Nostrat
>
>
>

> Jonson clearly doesn't feel that the portrait
>
> in the Folio does Shakespeare any justice
>
> as far as portraying his wit, as his little poem
>
> shows:
>
>
>
> "This Figure, that thou here seest put,
>
> It was for gentle Shakespeare cut,
>
> Wherein the Graver had a strife
>
> with Nature, to out-doo the life :
>
> O, could he but have drawne his wit
>
> As well in brasse, as he hath hit
>
> His face ; the Print would then surpasse
>
> All, that was ever writ in brasse.
>
> But, since he cannot, Reader, looke
>
> Not on his Picture, but his Booke."
>
>
>

> And finally, Jonson's masterful eulogy
>
> for Shakespeare, where he seems to be
>
> quite convinced that the man who acted in
>
> his plays was a better playwright than
>
> Marlowe, and worthy of Euripides and
>
> Sophocles. Notice that he calls Shakespeare
>
> the "sweet swan of Avon", not the "tempestuous
>
> tin-miner of tuxbury" or some such:
>
>
>

> "TO THE MEMORY OF MY BELOVED THE AUTHOR,
>
> MR. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, AND WHAT HE
>
> HATH LEFT US.
>

> Elizabeth notes: Here's the problem, there are two
>
> Shakespeare's, the Stratford Broker and the London
>
> student who took as his pseudonym "Shakespeare."
>
> I don't know how we're ever going to sort this out,
>
> I'd be happy if the Strats would stop attributing
>
> Bacon's plays to an illiterate broker but I doubt that
>
> is going to happen.

> Isn't that Jonson's tribute to Bacon? I'll have to look.

>
>
> On the other hand, here is how the Earl of Oxenforde
>
> sounded (http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~ahnelson):
>
>
>
> Oxford to Burghley; [30 October 1584] (W247-8;F320-1,332).
>
>
>
> (In hand of amanuensis)
>
> It is not vnknowne to your Lordship that I haue entred into a
>
> greate nomber of bondes to suche, as haue purchasyd landes
>
> of me, to discharge them of all Incombraunces: And bycause
>
> I stande indebtid vnto her Maiestie (as your Lordship knowythe)
>
> many of ye said purchasers do greatly feare somme troble likely
>
> to fall vppon them, by reason of her Maiestyes said debt, &
>
> espesially if the Bondes of ye Lord Darcy and Sir William Walgraue
>
> should be extendyd for the same, who haue two seuerall statutes
>
> of great sommes for their discharge Wheruppon [diu] many of ye
>
> said purchasers haue ben suters vnto me to procuer the discharginge
>
> of her Maiestyes said Debt, and do seme very willinge to beare the
>
> burden therof, yf by my meanes the same might be stalled paiable
>
> at some convenyent dayes / I haue therfore thought good to
>
> acquaynte your Lordship with this their suyte, requierynge moste
>
> earnestly your Lordships furtheraunce in this behalfe, wherby I
>
> shalbe vnburdened of a greate care, which I haue for the savynge
>
> of my honor, And shall by this meanes also vnburden my wyves
>
> Ioincture of yat charge which might happen herafter to be ymposyd
>
> vppon ye same, yf god should call your Lordship and me away before her. /
>
>
>

> (Oxford's hand takes over)
>
> Yowre Lordships
>
>
>
> (signed) Edward Oxenford (sec. f; 4+7)
>
>
>
> Doesn't sound much like Shakespeare, does he? In fact he seems
>
> to be the very business man that Oxfordians like to claim William
>
> Shakespeare must have been, which I find to be...well, ironic. Are
>
> there any letters in Shakespeare's hand showing him to be
>
> as interested in money and tin mining as Oxenforde's letters show?
>
> No. In fact, the only document in Shakespeare's hand is part of
>
> a play, ("Sir Thomas More") in his style, typical of his concerns
>
> and in every way consistent with what we know about William
>
> Shakespeare's writing.
>

> Elizabeth writes, I dunno, I cut slack for Oxford, he had a very
>
> difficult birth, his mother (the Queen) was only fourteen when
>
> she gave birth to Oxford and in my humble opinion, the De Vere's
>
> were raised by wolves, they resided in a then-filthy old keep with
>
> Oxford in diapers crawling around on the floor. And stabbings
>
> were the entertainment of the night, De Vere's bullies would
>
> hide along the roads robbing and killing pilgrims on their way
>
> to Rome. The whole DeVere thing is simply a farce and Burghley
>
> hurried in with bags of money to pay off the jury that would
>
> have otherwise convicted Oxford for killing young Thomas Bryncknell.
>
> Anyway, there is a moral to this story, and the morality is all due
>
> to the fact that when he married, young Oxford grew into a man.
>
> I have no problem with Oxford, he did a lot better than his critics
>
> thought he would and he certainly made pretty children.

>
> As for Shakespeare not having the proper background to be
>
> the author, he was the son of a middle class homeowner,
>
> like most great writers past and present. For example, here
>
> are most of the records related to John Shakespeare, William's
>
> father. Even at the end of his life, his estate was valued at
>
> 500 pounds, an enormous sum at a time when 40 pounds could
>
> purchase a house with land. Shakespeare's family was in
>
> fact a good deal better off than either Marlowe's family
>
> or Ben Jonson's (sons of a shoemaker and bricklayer, respectively):
>

> Uhhh, I'm a Baconian, I'm not interested in the Stratford Broker,
>
> but I will read everything you post on this question.
>
> Elizabeth

[neon...@gmail.com]

On Wednesday, June 26, 2013 3:52:18 AM UTC-7, neon...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Wednesday, June 26, 2013 12:51:53 AM UTC-7, neon...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> > On Tuesday, June 25, 2013 3:40:21 AM UTC-7, Carl Jacobsen wrote:
>
> >
>
> > > He is not Oxford either, unless you just don't want to believe
>

> > > He "who?" the purveyor of young human flesh? Joseph Lenz,
>
> > > Dean of a college at Drake University went into the records
>
> > > STILL held by the Blackfriar's Records Office to this vereee
>
> > > day and located many 16th century Blackfriar's records that
>
> > > nail the Stratford Panderer as the owner and manager of
>
> > > several whore houses in the Blackfriar's District. Unfortunately
>
> > > for Shakespeare he wasn't acquainted with Bacon's work on
>
> > > the GERM THEORY, Bacon had acquired a microscope, probably
>
> > > when he was in Italy, his goal was to develop remedies to treat
>
> > > these diseases. Louis Pasteur was a latter day fan of Bacon's
>
> > > he believed that Bacon was on to the forumla for making
>
> > > penecillin from the white mold that grows on grapes. The
>
> > > Family Digges were also at the forefront of science in England,
>
> > > as well as having an intense interest in telescopy re Galileo.
>
> > > This is essentially where modern medicine took off, and Bacon
>
> > > had a lot of theories in regard to medicine, not all of them
>
> > > effective but he had a secret laboratory at Gorhambury which,
>
> > > after his meaningless "FALL," he continued his scientific and
>
> > > medical investigations into potential cures. Bacon was a giant,
>
> > > his alter ego William Shakespeare was a vector of deadly germs.

[neon...@gmail.com]

> "a letter survives in the hand of Leonard Digges, who in 1613
>
> compared the sonnets of Lope de Vega to those of "our Will Shakespeare"
>
> - notice the use of the familiar "Will" by a close neighbor of Shakespeare's
>

> in both Aldermarston and in London....Leonard Digges was the step-son

>
> (from 1603) of Thomas Russell, a man who was not only a neighbor of
>
> Shakespeare's both in London and in Stratford, but whom Shakespeare
>
> remembered in his will, and indeed appointed one of the two overseers of
>
> his will."
>
>
>

> Jonson is referring to his close friend and sometime
>
> roomie, Francis Bacon in Jonson's remembrance
>
> above. Jonson did not admire the Stratford Broker,
>
> Bacon and Jonson were living together in Blackfriar's
>
> they knew how Shakspeare made his living, that is,
>
> by putting young kids into prostitution, whereupon
>
> they would pick up horrible microorganisms and
>
> quickly die. We, in this era have penicillin, and as
>
> I posted earlier, Bacon initiated the study of penicillin
>
> by making cultures of the white "frost" that appears
>
> on the skin of grapes. Bacon probably died before
>
> his experiments were completed but he always kept
>
> careful notes.

> As for Shakespeare not having the proper background to be
>
> the author, he was the son of a middle class homeowner,
>
> like most great writers past and present. For example, here
>
> are most of the records related to John Shakespeare, William's
>
> father. Even at the end of his life, his estate was valued at
>
> 500 pounds, an enormous sum at a time when 40 pounds could
>
> purchase a house with land. Shakespeare's family was in
>
> fact a good deal better off than either Marlowe's family
>
> or Ben Jonson's (sons of a shoemaker and bricklayer, respectively):
>
>
>

[neon...@gmail.com]

On Wednesday, June 26, 2013 3:52:18 AM UTC-7, neon...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Wednesday, June 26, 2013 12:51:53 AM UTC-7, neon...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> > On Tuesday, June 25, 2013 3:40:21 AM UTC-7, Carl Jacobsen wrote:
>
> >
>
> > > He is not Oxford either, unless you just don't want to believe
>
> >
>

> > > . . . huh?

>
> >
>
> > > the historical record:
>
> >
>
> > >
>
> >
>
> > >
>
> >
>
> > >
>
> >
>
> > > "a letter survives in the hand of Leonard Digges, who in 1613
>
> >
>
> > >
>
> >
>
> > > compared the sonnets of Lope de Vega to those of "our Will
>
> >
>

> > > Elizabeth notes that the Digges were very close to the
>
> > > Bacons, the brothers Digges were very interested in
>
> > > telescopy, when Bacon returned from Italy (where he
>
> > > met Galileo) Bacon helped the Digges rapidly advance
> > >
> > > their astronomical projects, building better telescopes
>
> > > which featured more modern optical lenses.

> >
>
> > > Shakespeare" - notice the use of the familiar "Will" by a close
>
> >
>

> > > If you had read Lenz you would not want to be "familiar"
>
> > > with Will, I will say no more.

>
> >
>
> > > neighbor of Shakespeare's in both Aldermarston and in London....
>
> >
>
> > >
>
> >
>
> > > Leonard Digges was the step-son (from 1603) of Thomas Russell,
>
> >
>

> > > Yeh, we know that, Lady Russell was related by marriage to
>
> > > Sir Nicholas and Lady Anne Bacon.

>
> >
>
> > > a man who was not only a neighbor of Shakespeare's both in London
>
> >
>

> > > Doesn't this ever get stale? It's been four hundred years, and not
>
> > > a single document or work in his hand has surfaced but Joseph Lenz,
>
> > > Dean of a College at Drake University, went into the Blackfriar's
>
> > > Records Office (still in business after all these centuries, only
>
> > > to find a mass of papers that exposed the Stratford Broker as
>
> > > A VERY RICH PIMP, ONE WHO DIDN'T CARE IF HE KILLED HIS
>
> > > CLIENTS AND WHORES. DOESN'T *MORALITY* MEAN ANYTHING
>
> > > TO THE STRATS, I GUESS NOT.

>
> > > and in Stratford, but whom Shakespeare remembered in his will,
>
> >
>

> > > Yawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwn!

>
> >
>
> > > and indeed appointed one of the two overseers of
>
> >
>
> > >
>
> >
>
> > > his will."
>
> >
>

> > > Where's the exit.

>
> >
>
> > > Leonard Digges is a familiar name, did Digges have anything
>
> >
>
> > >
>
> >
>
> > > to do with building the first telescope in England? Iirc, the
>
> >
>
> > >
>
> >
>
> > > Digges were trying to build a telescope to compete with
>
> >
>
> > >
>
> >
>
> > > Galileo's, Bacon had visited Galileo in Italy, he inspected
>
> >
>
> > >
>
> >
>
> > > Galileo's telescope which gave Bacon knowledge to help
>
> >
>
> > >
>
> >
>
> > > the Digges.
>
> >
>
> > >
>
> >
>
> > > So one of Shakespeare's neighbors (and related to another)
>
> >
>
> > >
>
> >
>
> > > states in a private letter that Shakespeare wrote sonnets.
>
> >
>

> > > NOT A CHANCE if you're referring to the BROKER. Bacon
>
> > > wrote the Shakespeare Sonnets and we know that because
>
> > > there's an oblique reference to Hamnet Shakespeare, a
>
> > > reference in the first person when in fact Hamnet Shakespere
>
> > > had been dead for irrc about three or more years. Deceased.
>
> > > That's sad but had the Stratford Broker written the
>
> > > Shakespeare Sonnets (keeping in mind that "Shakespeare"
>
> > > was Bacon's nom de plume), the verses in regard to his
>
> > > son would be utterly morbid, Hamet was dead, but
>
> > > Bacon was essentially scolding HIS son in the Sonnets,
>
> > > Bacon's son was William Herbert, well, Mary desperately
>
> > > wanted a baby, her old husband was sterile, likely like
>
> > > Shappere was sterile, anyway, the Sidney-Herberts
>
> > > didn't pay much attention to decorum, Bacon did the
>
> > > honors, the result was William Herbert. I don't now
>
> > > who was the father of William Herbert's brother but
>
> > > whoever it was had red hair. Bacon's hair was black
>
> > > as was William Herbert's.

[neon...@gmail.com]

On Sunday, June 2, 2013 8:36:02 AM UTC-7, Jim KQKnave wrote:
> Here is just some of the evidence which demonstrates
>
> that William Shakespeare of Stratford is the author
>
> of the works attributed to him:
>

> That's up in the air since Bacon took the title
>
> Shakespeare when he was just a kid studying at
>
> Cambridge. He vowed to his aegis Pallas Athene
>
> the Speare-Shakere, that he would make the
>
> English literate via printing and selling cheap
>
> books and quartos, and he followed through with
>
> his plan.
>
> It's only a thoughtless coincidence that causes the
>
> Strats to conflate the Stratford Broker with Bacon.

>
> His name on over forty title pages; his monument in Stratford,
>
> which quite clearly states that he is a writer, and compares
>
> his art to Virgil's:
>

> Whatever, we have not a book, not a playscript, not a page
>
> in this untaught fellow's hand, I'm frankly burnt out on this
>
> Broker. he doesn't play any role in modern history, while
>
> Bacon is still read, studied, his thirty-seven magnificent
>
> plays are still played in theaters all over the world whether
>
> they are called the Shake-speare plays or not. That's just
>
> a detail, the educated know the difference between the Broker
>
> and the Man Who Made The English Renaissance.

> "a letter survives in the hand of Leonard Digges, who in 1613
>

> compared the sonnets of Lope de Vega to those of "our Will Shakespeare"
>
> - notice the use of the familiar "Will" by a close neighbor of Shakespeare's
>
> in both Aldermarston and in London....Leonard Digges was the step-son
>
> (from 1603) of Thomas Russell, a man who was not only a neighbor of
>
> Shakespeare's both in London and in Stratford, but whom Shakespeare
>
> remembered in his will, and indeed appointed one of the two overseers of
>
> his will."
>
> Bacon was a close friend of Leonard Digges. The Digges, father and son
>
> were very dedicated to constructing the first astronomical telescope in
>
> England. Bacon had traveled and lived in Italy, he met Galileo, so he
>
> was able to help the Digges with their project. So if Shakespeare is such
>
> hot stuff, why isn't he building telescopes with the Digges?
>
> In addition:
>
> Look, there's two Shakespeares, Bacon and the Broker.
>
> Jonson may have been acquainted with the Broker but
>
> there's no evidence that Jonson liked him. Who would
>
> like a panderer who made a profit off the death of young
>
> boys and girls who worked in his Blackfriar's bawdy houses?
>
> He was all about making money, he made thousands of
>
> pounds via pandering, he got sick from sampling his own
>
> wares, went home to Stratford and eventually died in his
>
> bed.
>
> As I stated above, the English produced many extremely
>
> gifted men and women, we don't need the Blackfriar's
>
> Panderer, he wrote nothing, he couldn't write his own name
>
> and that fact is on the record.

[neon...@gmail.com]

On Thursday, June 27, 2013 10:53:52 PM UTC-7, neon...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Sunday, June 2, 2013 8:36:02 AM UTC-7, Jim KQKnave wrote:

> Elizabeth adds:

>
> > Here is just some of the evidence which demonstrates
>
> >
>
> > that William Shakespeare of Stratford is the author
>
> >
>
> > of the works attributed to him:
>

> > Not hardly, he wrote nothing, he couldn't even spell his
>
> > own name. Prof Michael Delahoyde has established that
>
> > much, type in "Delahoyde" and "Shakespeare" and take a
>
> > look at the worst handwriting in human history, barbaric,
>
> > sad. He must have been very ill when he tried to write his
>
> > name. And whatever he contracted, we know where he got it.
>
> > The Stratford Broker was illiterate, he struggled to spell
]>
> > his own name, as far as we can determine, he never
>
> > published anything. If you type "Delahoyde" in a
>
> > search box you will see Prof. Micheal Delahoye of
>
> > WSU's (Washington State University, my brother's
>
> > alma mater and see Delahoyde's collection of the
>
> Stratford Broker's barbaric STABS at writing his own
>
> name and in fact he can't spell his own name. I don't
>
> know, well . . , I do know, that it's just the erotic name
>
> "Shake Speare" that keeps this pathetic thing going.
>
> I suppose we could call him Shakey Speare since he
>
> can't keep his quill on the paper, it's all over the place.
>
>
> I'm convinced if his name had been Donald Duck, we
>
> would not have paid any attention to this scrofulous
>
> Broker, sickened by his own investment in the Blackfriar's
>
> whorehouse, tasting his own diseased wares as it 'twere.

[neon...@gmail.com]

On Wednesday, June 26, 2013 3:52:18 AM UTC-7, neon...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Wednesday, June 26, 2013 12:51:53 AM UTC-7, neon...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> > On Tuesday, June 25, 2013 3:40:21 AM UTC-7, Carl Jacobsen wrote:
>
> >
>
> > > He is not Oxford either, unless you just don't want to believe
>
> >
>
> > >
>

> > > Elizabeth notes that "posterity" including well-meaning posters
>
> >> in HLAS have conflated the name Shakespeare with the writings
>
> >> of Francis Bacon. jonson would be the leading expert on whom
>
> >> was writing what. And btw, Jonson hated the Broker who sas
>
> >> then making a buttload of money by running whores out of the
>
> >> Blackfriar's District. See Joseph Lenz on the details. Of course
>
> > > medicine being as primitive as it was in then disease-ridden
>
> > > London, there was no cure for Shappere, the little medicine
>
> > > shops on every block (well, Londoners were desperate for
>
> > > cures) dispensed nothing that would cure the kind of diseases
>
> > > that Shappere was dragging back to Stratford, where his
>
> > > young son was mysteriously infected, probably by a kiss from
>
> > > his illiterate and ignorant old dad. Hamnet sadly died too young,
>
> > > of some terrible disease obviously carried down from London by
>
> > > his money grubbing father whose indifference to the lives of young
>
> > > boys and girls Shakespeare turned out to prostitution in London cribs,
>
> > > doubtless came back to infect Hamnet who died when he was very
>
> > > young. See Hamnet's page on Wikipedia.

>
> >
>
> > > the historical record:
>
> >
>
> > >
>
> >
>
> > >
>
> >
>
> > >
>
> >
>
> > > "a letter survives in the hand of Leonard Digges, who in 1613
>
> >
>

> > > Ok, we're at a crux here, the family Digges was very close to Bacon
>
> > > in several family lines the Digges were marrying Bacons and Leonard
>
> > > is EMPHATICALLY NOT comparing Lope de Vega to the Stratford "Bard,"
>
> > > again, he never wrote anything, he was a perfect illiterate, he couldn't
>
> > > write his own name. Never accomplished that task.

>
> >
>
> > > compared the sonnets of Lope de Vega to those of "our Will
>
> >
>

> > > The key word here is "OUR." The Digges had intermarried
>
> >> with the Bacons, Leonard Digges is EMPHATICALLY NOT
>
> > > referring to the scrofulous, horribly infected, PANDERER, who
>
> > > cares nothing for the lives of the young kids he is turning out
>
> > > for prostitution, the Digges family was one of the English elites,
>
> > > a title that the Strats can only MANUFACTURE for the Stratford
>
> > > Broker, dripping with puss as it were, from all his orifices.

>
> >
>
> > > Shakespeare" - notice the use of the familiar "Will" by a close
>
> >
>
> > >
>
> >
>
> > > neighbor of Shakespeare's in both Aldermarston and in London....
>
> >
>
> > >
>
> >
>
> > > Leonard Digges was the step-son (from 1603) of Thomas Russell,
>
> >
>

> > > Jim, I don't care. The Strats have gotten it all wrong for the last
>
> >> more than four centuries, who cares if a Digges or a Russell knew
>
> >> "Shakespeare," in fact they both knew "Shakespeare" very well,
>
> >> because Bacon's nom de plume in the 1623 First Folio is, in fact,
>
> >>
> S H A K E P E A R E
>
> > The Stratford Broker never shook a speare, Bacon shook his speare
>
> >> via his SUBLIME LITERARY WORKS (The Shakespeare Plays) found in
>
> >> Bacon and Jonson's 1623 First Folio filled with thirty-seven marvelous
>
> >> plays which, by the way, are still being staged today !!!
>
> > So WHERE ARE THE BROKER'S MAGNIFICENT PLAYS? WE WANT TO KNOW!!

[Ephraim Ganderfly]

Russell was from Stratford and would have known personally
not only Shakespeare but Shakespeare's acquaintances. Digges
knew Russell. Do you think Digges wrote a poem about
Shakespeare, calling him "our Will Shakespeare" without
knowing exactly who he was? If Shakespeare were known
impersonally by Digges, I would think he would have addressed
him as "Master Shakespeare" or some such formal address.

Your scatalogical obsessions are similar to Nutsack's. Is he
your nom-de-plume? If not, don't take it personally. There are
a number of interesting phenomena occurring in this newsgroup
that would make a good thesis.

[Ilford Scotterton III]

Jonson says that Shakespeare was "(indeed) honest, and of an
open, and free nature:" and that he "loved the man". How
could Jonson make such a statement in print without anyone
questioning it? Jonson was employed by the Court of King
James and would certainly have been aware of any gossip
regarding Shakespeare. Your belief in alternative authorship
is insane.

[neon...@gmail.com]

On Sunday, June 2, 2013 8:36:02 AM UTC-7, Jim KQKnave wrote:
> Here is just some of the evidence which demonstrates
>
> that William Shakespeare of Stratford is the author
>
> of the works attributed to him:
>
>
>

> "a letter survives in the hand of Leonard Digges, who in 1613
>

> compared the sonnets of Lope de Vega to those of "our Will Shakespeare"

>
> - notice the use of the familiar "Will" by a close neighbor of Shakespeare's
>

> in both Aldermarston and in London....Leonard Digges was the step-son
>
> (from 1603) of Thomas Russell, a man who was not only a neighbor of

>
> Shakespeare's both in London and in Stratford, but whom Shakespeare
>
> remembered in his will, and indeed appointed one of the two overseers of
>
> his will."
>
>
>

> In addition:
>
>
>
> That Jonson was acquainted with Shakespeare
>
> personally is indisputable: Shakespeare's name
>
> appears on the list of players who acted in
>
> "Every Man in His Humour", and Jonson's
>
> extended comments upon Shakespeare in his
>
> "Timber" (see below) are proof of that: he
>

> says that Shakespeare was "(indeed) honest,
>
> and of an open, and free nature:" and that
>

> WELL, fighting pseudoscholarship is a good thing
>
> but I am having to fend off Neuendorffer in real time,
>
> Neuendorffer is convinced that I have been hired to
>
> hunt him down and kill him, do you have any suggestions,
>
> Jim, that I can use to get through to Neuendorffer that I
>
> am not being paid forty thousand dollars to kill him?
>
> Elizabeth

[neon...@gmail.com]

On Thursday, June 6, 2013 10:18:30 AM UTC-7, Algernon H. Nuttsakk wrote:
> More to be further digested anon:
>
> It should be pointed out that the Shaxster,
>
> in the midst of all of these vile business
>
> deals, would not have had time to write
>
> the monumental Anthony and Cleopatra, or
>
> have had the energy to devise the brilliant
>
> political metaphors of Cymbeline. His
>
> time was taken entirely by the need to
>
> count his layno lucre with his filthy fingers,
>
> using his caca calculus ennabled with
>
> the assistance of a stick smeared with poop.
>
> Only a glorious Lord like Oxford could gather the
>
> requisite resources to plunder to the verbal
>
> treasure of the English language. Only
>
> a dunderhead like Shixnrx could plunder the
>
> treasures of dung and whoremastering.
>
>
>
> AHN

>I gotta say, Algie, that you are very witty, I'm
>
> still laughing.

[neon...@gmail.com]

> Well, we have to cut slack for Oxford, his mother, Elizabeth
>
> was very young and her delivery of Oxford was terribly difficult,
>
> the testimony of the nurse and her assistant are still held in
>
> the British Archives, I believe at the British Library.

>
>
>
> Doesn't sound much like Shakespeare, does he? In fact he seems
>
> to be the very business man that Oxfordians like to claim William
>
> Shakespeare must have been, which I find to be...well, ironic. Are
>
> there any letters in Shakespeare's hand showing him to be
>
> as interested in money and tin mining as Oxenforde's letters show?
>
> No. In fact, the only document in Shakespeare's hand is part of
>
> a play, ("Sir Thomas More") in his style, typical of his concerns
>
> and in every way consistent with what we know about William
>
> Shakespeare's writing.
>

> I have zero interest in the Stratford Broker because he was
>
> engaged in the profitable business of pandering in the
>
> Blackfriar's District, see Lenz and Shapiro on this point.

[Ilford Scotterton III]

There are too many people who knew Shakespeare from his
hometown for there to have been any conspiracy to hide
the facts. To refuse to admit otherwise is just insane.

[Enrique Yodelmeister]

It's not insane if you believe that conspiracies which
control important events can be maintained at such a low
level of intensity and gossip that no one really realizes
that they are part of conspiracy while they are alive
are possible. As a NY Jets fan, I don't see why that's
impossible.

[Charles Baumgartner]

The facts can't simply be ignored. Why would a vast
conspiracy to hide the true author of Shakespeare's
works even exist? For a playwright? I don't think
the crown would concern itself with such nonsense.

[Jim KQKnave]

Subject: Sanity
From: KQKnave
To: humanities.lit.authors.shakespeare
Date: 2/19/01

This was posted here by one of our illustrious group
members quite a while ago. I think it's time for
an encore.

**************************

Thirty-Six Plays in Search of an Author

by William M. Murphy
Union College Symposium
Summer copyright1964


In libraries that catalogue books by the Dewey Decimal
System works dealing with the supposedly non-Shakespearean
authorship of Shakespeare's plays and poems are classified
under 822.33A (English Literature, Shakespearean
Authorship) - Modern librarians are hardly responsible for a
practice that began quite innocently a long time ago, but
surely the time has come to recognize the melancholy truth
that the books properly belong under 132 (Abnormal or
Pathological Psychology). Abnormal Psychology attempts "to
explain human conduct and thought that cannot be understood
in terms of ordinary common sense," and is therefore precisely
the discipline by which anti-Stratfordianism must be examined
and evaluated.

Most of us know that irrational behavior carried to extremes
can result in a form of mental disturbance that may require
hospitalization. In many cases, however, the victims seem
superficially in control of themselves and act perfectly normal
except when concerned with the subject through which their
derangement is manifested; here they inhabit a universe of
their own creation, like those unfortunate beings in mental
institutions who think they are Napoleon or Jesus Christ. In its
simplest form the affliction is called Paranoia. Any student who
has devoted considerable thought to the question of the
authorship of the Shakespearean plays cannot avoid the
conclusion that the tortured attempts to prove Shakespeare
didn't write his own works are the product of paranoid
thinking. The subject is clearly not one for Professors of
English or of history but for psychologists.

For the evidence that William Shakespeare of
Stratford-on-Avon (1564-1616) wrote the works attributed to
him is not only abundant but conclusive. It is of the kind, as Sir
Edmund Chambers puts it, "which is ordinarily accepted as
determining the authorship of early literature. It is better than
anything we have for many of Shakespeare's dramatic
contemporaries." If, to satisfy those who insist that anything is
possible in a complex world like ours, we admit a theoretical
possibility that someone else wrote the works that possibility
would have to be expressed as 1 : ~. In the real world of our
experience, however, there is not the remotest possibility that
anyone else was the author.

It might be profitable to review very briefly the evidence
bearing on authorship. It is the same kind of evidence we use
to determine what Geoffrey Chaucer wrote, or Dante, or
George Washington. In evaluating it scholars use simple
common sense, the kind that tells you that if your tire is flat it
probably has no air in it. Briefly, it can be reduced to five
positive arguments and one negative.

(1) Of the plays in the First Folio of 1623, all of which are
universally conceded to be by the same man (although some
may be inaccurate in places and may even occasionally show
the work of another hand), fifteen were published as separate
works in one or more editions during Shakespeare's lifetime;
fourteen of these bear Shakespeare's name on the title page.
The First Folio is entitled "Mr. William Shakespeares
Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies." No one else's name is
associated with the quartos or folios, although Shakespeare's
name was used by some unscrupulous publishers on the title
pages of other plays which he did not write. In short, at the
time of the publication of the First Folio, the plays were
commonly believed to have been written by someone named
William Shakespeare, whoever he might be.

(2) The company that produced Shakespeare's plays numbered
among its members John Heminge (or Heminges), Henry
Condell, Richard Burbage, and William Shakespeare. It was
quite common in those times for men to bequeath sums of
money to their friends for the purchase of "memorial rings."
The William Shakespeare who died at Stratford-on-Avon in
1616 and was buried there in the Church of the Holy Trinity
left in his will money for the purchase of memorial rings to
Heminge, Condell, and Burbage. Common sense tells us that
the Stratford Shakespeare was the partner of the other three in
the theatre.

(3) During his lifetime Shakespeare was referred to specifically
by name as a well-known writer at least twenty-three times,
not counting the appearance of his name on title pages. The
references range in time from 1595 (W. Covell's "All praise
worthy Lucretia Sweet Shakespeare") to 1614 (when Sir
Thomas Freeman praises the poet in a sonnet entitled "To
Master William Shakespeare"). Among those who
acknowledged Shakespeare as a poet or playwright during his
lifetime were Richard Barnfield, Gabriel Harvey, William
Drummond of Hawthornden, Sir John Davies, Edmund
Howes (John Stow's successor as editor of the Annals) and,
perhaps most significant of all, William Camden, the great
teacher and antiquarian. After Shakespeare's death his greatest
rival, Ben Jonson, not only commented on his poetry
(including a specific reference to Julius Caesar) but also
acknowledged that Shakespeare was a friend whom he
admired "this side idolatry."

(4) In the most remarkable listing of Elizabethan works
recorded by a contemporary, Francis Meres, a young
clergyman who came up to London in the mid-1590's, in his
Palladis Tamia (1598) mentions Shakespeare by name no
less than nine times and as the author of twelve plays, two
poems, and some sonnets.

(5) In 1623 appeared the First Folio, the title page of which has
already been given. In addition to that, two facts are of interest
to us: (i) that in a commendatory poem Ben Jonson referred to
the author as "Sweet Swan of Avon"; (ii) that the volume was
edited and published by John Heminge and Henry Condell,
who tell us in a preface that they undertook the labor "only to
keep the memory of so worthy a friend and fellow alive as was
our Shakespeare." Common sense would suggest that the
Shakespeare of whom they wrote was the one who left them
money to buy memorial rings. Again, all the known evidence
points to the Stratford Shakespeare as the writer of Hamlet,
Macbeth, Henry V, and the other plays and poems that have
kept the world at the author's knees for almost four hundred
years.

(6) Equally important, in view of the foregoing five arguments,
is the fact that none of the plays or poems is attributed to
anyone but Shakespeare not only during his lifetime but for a
century and a half after his death. No document of the period
has been found which connects any other person directly
with the plays or poems. All such claims have been
thoroughly exploded, but in a brief paper of this kind it is not
possible to consider them in detail. This will infuriate those
anti-Stratfordians who feel that their own arguments have not
been heeded. I must fall back on the same explanation given
by H. N. Gibson in his valuable book, The Shakespeare
Claimants: "It is hardly necessary to state that I cannot include
in my survey every individual argument put forward by every
individual theorist. Their very number makes any such idea
absolutely impossible. Hundreds of books and pamphlets have
been produced in the course of the controversy, and the
literature of the Baconians alone would stock a fair-sized
library. It is true that there is much repetition and overlapping
in these works, but even so it would require several bulky
volumes to review them all adequately."

It should be apparent to anyone possessing normal common
sense, then, that Shakespeare's authorship of the works is not
merely "probable" or "likely," as some softheads have put it,
but absolutely compelling. Yet it is common knowledge that
after Delia Bacon published her vague notions about
authorship in 1856 defenders of her unorthodox views and
creators of others multiplied like rabbits, and any reader of the
modern newspaper knows that the tribe increases every year.
How can it be, one asks, that questions arise about the
authorship of Shakespeare's works but not about Jonson's or
Greene's or Marlowe's? How is it also that the doubts have
given rise to a major preoccupation of thousands of people
with a vast body of writing to their credit?

The answer to the first of these questions is not far to seek. It
lies in Shakespeare's unique position. He is by common
agreement the greatest writer the world has ever known.
Despite certain defects - his carelessness, his willingness to
write about trivial subjects for the sake of the commercial
theatre he worked for - he has spoken directly to the individual
human being in the western world in the centuries since his
death. His manner of expression was such that people of the
most diverse views have found in him the perfect expression of
exactly what they themselves felt. It is a commonplace of
literary evaluation that Hamlet is Everyman -and
Everywoman. We all find something of ourselves in one or
another of the characters in the plays. As Emile Legouis has
expressed it, in a famous passage: "No other literature,
whatever its beauty, does not seem monotonous after
Shakespeare. Free of every theory, accepting all of life,
rejecting nothing, uniting the real and the poetic, appealing to
the most various men, to a rude workman as to a wit,
Shakespeare's drama is a great river of life and beauty. All
who thirst for art or truth, the comic or the tender, ecstasy or
satire, light or shade, can stop to drink from its waters, and at
almost every instant of their changing moods find the one drop
to slake their thirst." To some extent we all share Legouis'
views. But Shakespeare is not only a writer who expresses
himself beautifully: he is an oracle, a prophet, almost a divinity.
No other mortal writer shares his pinnacle. And so it becomes
necessary to deify the poet, to make him more than he is. Just
as thousands of years ago man created God in his image, so
the anti-Stratfordians have created a Shakespeare in their own
image, or in the image of what they would like themselves to
be or imagine themselves to be.

To the second question the answer is equally simple: that
eccentric ideas arise at random about almost every subject.
Whether they catch on is another matter. When the two
answers are combined the aberration falls into place. It was not
in itself surprising that in 1781, a hundred and sixty-five years
after Shakespeare's death, an obscure English divine, James
Wilmot, should profess to find similarities between the works
of Sir Francis Bacon and Shakespeare and suggest a
connection. (His views were not made known until 1805 and
then only to a private society.) Nor was it surprising that a
similar idea should have occurred to a frustrated spinster in
New Haven in 1846. What might appear more surprising to
those who do not recognize the force of Legouis'
interpretation of Shakespeare's universal appeal is that Delia
Bacon's strange spark should have lighted so many fires.

Delia, a crusty, highly intelligent lady, one of the famous
female lecturers of the nineteenth century, was a sister of the
formidable Congregational minister Leonard Bacon, pastor of
the Centre Church on the Green in New Haven, within
slingshot range -- unfortunately for Delia -- of the Yale
Campus. Miss Bacon had developed her theory in its essentials
by 1846, when she took time out to be seduced by a
handsome and wealthy young blackguard eleven years her
junior. Badly hurt emotionally by the experience, she traveled
to England with Emerson's encouragement, bearing his letter
of introduction to Thomas Carlyle. She was to remain there
until her magnum opus was completed and published (at
Nathaniel Hawthorne's expense) in 1857, after which she
completed the descent into the insanity that was to darken the
remaining two years of her life. The prose in her book, The
Philosophy of Shakespeare's Plays Unfolded, was so
impenetrable that, according to Hawthorne, only one person
was known to have read it through. Miss Bacon promised a
second volume dealing with the "historical" proof of
non-Shakespearean authorship; the first (and, as it proved, the
only) confined itself to an analysis of the plays designed to
show that there was a "hidden undercurrent of philosophy" in
the works of both Bacon and Shakespeare. The works of the
latter were the property of Bacon, Ralegh and others;
Shakespeare himself was a blind. The philosophy and the
secret of authorship were concealed in an allegory and cipher
which she intended to explain later. Unfortunately she was
soon committed to a mental institution in England, brought
back in confinement to Connecticut, and died in Hartford in
1859.

A year before her book was issued Delia Bacon had found a
publisher for her views in an American magazine. But
Putnam's printed the first part of her two-part article in 1856
only at the insistence of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who feared for
her sanity if the essay should be rejected. With Emerson's
recommendation it was not surprising that Putnam's should
print her first essay; having printed the first it was not
surprising that it should flatly refuse to print the second. Upon
the appearance of the Putnam's article an anguished outcry
arose in England from one William Henry Smith, who claimed
he had the idea first. Whoever deserved the priority, Smith at
least had the advantage of Miss Bacon in the clarity of his
style. He asserted simply that Sir Francis Bacon (with whom
Delia claimed no kinship, incidentally) was the Real Author and
so supplanted Delia's vague and ill-defined notion of multiple
but never clearly defined authorship. Soon other men looking
for a cause flocked to his banner, or to Miss Bacon's. In
America a judge from St. Louis, Nathaniel Holmes, soon to
become a professor at the Harvard Law School, exercised the
logic of his profession to prove," in the teeth of the evidence,
that Sir Francis Bacon was the Real Author. He was not the
last lawyer to enter the fray; indeed the attraction the
anti-Stratfordian madness has always exercised upon lawyers is
enough to persuade any sane person to compose his
differences out of court, especially if his cause be just. Needless
to say, neither Smith nor Holmes, nor Miss Bacon, adduced
any documentary evidence of any kind to link Bacon with the
works.

But Delia Bacon had unconsciously struck a chord that
vibrated in harmony with the newly-educated middle classes of
England and America. By 1877 the hundredth publication on
the subject had been printed. Today a student could spend a
lifetime reading nothing but anti-Stratfordian argumentation
and never come to the end of it. In 1947 a mere listing of
books and articles on the subject filled more than 1,500
typewritten pages; it was so vast that no publisher could afford
to print it. By 1962 the number of rival claimants had
increased to 57. In order to give some idea of the broad
approach of the anti-Stratfordians as a class, however, the
following outlines may be delineated.

First and most important, of course, is the necessity of
destroying the formidable claims of William Shakespeare. This
is done in one of two ways. The first is to deny his authorship
negatively: we are told that a man capable of writing such
great plays would have left behind a treasure-house of
information about himself, or that his contemporaries would
have done so. But we know little of Shakespeare. True, we
know where and when he was born, died, and was buried; we
know the names of his parents, brothers, sisters, wife, children,
and grandchildren; we know the names of his colleagues in the
theatre and the name and location of the house and the land he
bought in Stratford when he became wealthy; we know about
his dealings with the College of Heralds, and with his
townsmen in the controversy over enclosure of the
pasture-land. But we don't know about him. He tells us little
about himself - the Sonnets cannot be autobiographical, of
course - and we don't know the color of his eyes, or his height,
or whether he had table manners and was really in love with
his wife.

The second method of denial is as ingenious as the first and
requires a simple reversal of it. It holds that the author of great
plays must be a great man, as the term "great" is defined by
the anti-Stratfordian conducting the argument. But we have
abundant testimony, it is claimed, to the shabbiness of
Shakespeare's moral character. It is here that the
anti-Stratfordians reveal the first clear symptoms of their
disturbance. From Appleton Morgan, who in 1880 denounced
Shakespeare as "a letterless rustic, with a reputation in his
native village for scapegrace escapades, gallantries, and
poaching expeditions, rather than for meditation, study, or
literary composition," through Gelett Burgess, who in 1948
described him as a "sordid provincial nonentity" who indulged
in "petty lawsuits and peddling malt," to Mr. Robert
Montgomery of Boston, who in 1955 called the Stratfordian a
young provincial" who attended "a hornbook grammar
school" in "the filthy little town of Stratford," the
denunciations have been violent and picturesque. Shakespeare
was a mean and lowly bumpkin who got his wife pregnant
before he married her and then left her only his "second-best"
bed when he died. He hoarded grain in time of peril, probably
to make home-brew. He was a nasty little money-grubber
interested only in buying up real estate in his home town and
waiting for it to rise in value. He reveals in the Sonnets --
which are autobiographical, of course -- that he had latent
homosexual tendencies and that he carried on a protracted and
degrading adulterous affair with a repulsive dark-skinned lady
who probably gave him a loathsome disease. In short,
Shakespeare didn't write the plays because we don't know
enough about him -- or because we know too much. The
layman takes his choice.

Having disposed of the Stratfordian's pretensions with such
thumping finality the doubters then proceed to look for an
author who might have written the plays if Shakespeare hadn't
gotten around to writing them first. Or, it would be more
accurate to say, they reveal the identity of the fellow they've
been hiding in the closet all along until the embarrassingly
present Shakespeare can be shuffled out of the house. It is an
amusing game to watch. The Real Author, when finally
revealed, proves to have been chosen, not necessarily for his
ability to write the plays (although this is always presumed) but
for a variety of other reasons, usually his social position. A
partial list of the Real Authors suggested up to now includes
Sir Francis Bacon, Viscount Verulam; Edward De Vere, the
Seventeenth Earl of Oxford; William Stanley, the Sixth Earl of
Derby; Roger Manners, the Fifth Earl of Rutland; Sir Walter
Ralegh; Sir Edward Dyer; Christopher Marlowe; Sir Philip
Sidney; John Donne; Mary Pembroke (Sidney's sister); Sir
Anthony Sherley; Anne Whately (who probably never existed);
Anne Hathaway; and Queen Elizabeth. All the candidates who
have commanded extensive support are either noble or have
connections with the nobility, a not surprising circumstance
which will be discussed later. It should be added here that there
are those, like Delia Bacon, who are afflicted with what has
been called the "Corporation Syndrome," holding that such
distinguished literature must be the work of a committee. Its
members would include, in addition to Bacon and Oxford,
Robert Greene, George Peele, Samuel Daniel, Thomas Nashe,
Thomas Lodge, Michael Drayton, and Thomas Dekker.

Agreement among such a disparate group can be expected on
only one matter, and there it is unanimous: a loathing of
William Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon. Beyond that
unanimity ceases. Baconians hate Oxfordians even more than
they hate Shakespeare, and the Oxfordians, if with an air of
contemptuous superiority, return the irrationality in kind.
Generally, at any given moment, the two anti-Stratfordian
schools which lead the pack in popular superstition hate each
other most. During the last thirty years or so the Baconians,
after having led the field for almost a century, have given way
to the Oxfordians, after Marlowe's stock rallied briefly, then
plummeted. Since the pretensions of the latter are if possible
even more ridiculous than those of the former, a new
candidate is bound to emerge soon perhaps Desdemona or
Mistress Quickly.

Having decided the Real Author is, the claimants proceed to
"prove" their case. The methods have generally been two in
number. The first, popularized in an enormous book by
Ignatius Donnelly, The Great Cryptogram (1888), is to find a
secret cipher in the works that reveals the fact of
Shakespeare's non-authorship and the identity of the Real
Author. Donnelly's book was persuasive, even though he coyly
refused to reveal the cipher itself but only its message: that
Francis Bacon wrote the works. The most remarkable and
surely the most pathetic of the cryptographers was a Mrs. C.
F. Ashmead Windle, who published two pamphlets at her own
expense, in 1881 and 1882. In Shakespeare's slightest word
she sees more devils than vast Hell can hold. The title of every
play suggests a jingle which is in itself suggestive. For Othello
the jingle is:

A tale, oh! I tell, oh!
Oh, dell, oh! What wail, oh!
Oh, hill, oh! What willow!
What hell, oh! What will, oh!
At will, oh! At well, oh!
I dwell, oh!

"Desdemona" suggests "With a demon A, with a moan, ah!"
and means, to Mrs. Ashmead Windle if to no one else, "the
double tragedy of Bacon's muse." The jingle suggested by
Titus Andronicus is:

Tie t'us and drone accuse;
Tie t'us and drown a curse;
Tie t'us and drum the news.

The play is supposed to be Bacon's judgment of himself, "since
Martius means 'March you us,' and refers to his service;
Publius means Publish us,' and refers to his fame." There is
more, much more, of the same. I have not been able to learn
whether Mrs. Ashmead Windle died in a private institution or a
state hospital. A contemporary successor, one Mr. J. R.
Weagant of Eagle Rock, California, who still lives and should
be available for interrogation, circulates cards and slips of
paper "proving" that Bacon wrote the works. In one offering
he quotes a passage from Antony and Cleopatra and
surrounds it with extracted code letters, as follows:

S
She shall be buried by her Anthony
F
N
No grave upon the earth shall clip in it
C
A
payre so famous: High events as these
RR
Strike upon those that made them:
characteristic pattern of Bacon sig.

After carefully reflecting upon this revelation, which Mr.
Weagant had graciously mailed to me, I wrote him and
confessed that he had me completely baffled. Unhappily, in a
development that was to become characteristic of my
correspondence with anti-Stratfordians, Mr. Weagant declined
to clarify his position and I have not heard from him since. A
numerous breed, most of the cryptographers have been
Baconians. In 1957, William F. Friedman and his wife
Elizebeth published an exhaustive survey and analysis of all the
secret codes or ciphers that had been "found" in the works up
to that time. The Friedmans brought unusual gifts to the study;
he headed the United States cryptanalytic team that cracked
the Japanese diplomatic cipher just before Pearl Harbor; his
wife was chosen by the International Monetary Fund after
World War II to establish its system of secret communications.
Observing that any legitimate cipher must have a key that will
unlock its secret not only for the anti-Stratfordian with a cause
but for everyone else, they demonstrated with crushing finality
that none of the ciphers or cryptograms or codes suggested up
to that time had any validity whatever. The Friedmans, in one
devastating display, employed the system used by one
Baconian to prove that they themselves wrote the plays!

The second method of "proving" authorship is even more
engaging than the first. The cryptologists at least believed, even
if they were deluding themselves, that they had found hidden
messages in the plays. The Historical Reconstructionists are
above such childish behavior. They simply disregard or dismiss
with a lofty contempt all documentary evidence of
Shakespearean authorship and go right to the task of finding
another Elizabethan who might have written the plays during
his lifetime. If the circumstances of the Real Author's life
happen to correspond to the accepted dating of the plays so
much the better. If they do not the doubter is not troubled. He
merely changes the dates, a device freely employed by the
Oxfordians ("Romeo and Juliet was first written in
1581-83"). No documentary evidence is given for the changes;
the reader is expected to assume that in some scholarly work
someone has already established the new date as authoritative,
even though nothing of the kind has ever been done.

HISTORICAL RECONSTRUCTION is the device of Alden
Brooks in his Will Shakespeare and the Dryer's Hand.
Brooks devotes the first 400 pages of his book to demolishing
poor "Will Shakespere" of Stratford. (Brooks, like other
anti-Stratfordians, sees a great difference between
"Shakespere," the Stratford boy, and "Shakespeare," the Real
Author; spelling becomes of enormous significance). The
Stratford fellow, Brooks concludes, "had nothing of the
poetical spirit. . . . He had no literary merit whatever. . . . He
was primarily a money-lender and businessman with eye
always on the main chance. . . . Tavern frequenter, his swagger
and pretense were immense; his morals, of a low standard.
According to those whose ill-will he aroused, he was fool,
knave, usurer, vulgar showman, illiterate bluffer, philanderer,
pander, and brothel keeper."

To a man who can tell us so much about Shakespeare on no
visible evidence, no flight of illogical fancy is impossible. "Will"
was not an "utterly bad fellow," Brooks tells us. For he had a
lasting association with the Real Author, whose achievement
he conspired in and helped to conceal. The breathless reader
turns to the second part of Brooks's volume and discovers that
"Shakespeare" was really Sir Edward Dyer, known to most
readers as a major courtier and minor poet. His dates
(1543-1608) might seem to disqualify him in the eyes of
ordinary people, who note that the earliest published work
attributed to Shakespeare was Venus and Adonis in 1593,
when Dyer was 50. But Brooks is equal to the challenge.
Obviously, the fact that a work was not printed until 1593 or
1595 or 1600 does not mean it could not have been written
earlier; with this proposition no student of elementary logic
could disagree. Buttressed by its irrefutability, Brooks simply
fits the plays and poems as we know them into the known
facts of Dyer's life.

Brooks shares two other dark suspicions with most of his
fellow doubters. One is that Shakespeare of Stratford was a
partner in a gigantic conspiracy of concealment. His name was
allowed to be associated with the plays because those in on the
secret wanted desperately not to have the Real Author's
identity known. The reasons for such modesty vary according
to the Real Author's identity; but whether Bacon, Marlowe,
Derby, or Oxford is the candidate, the champions of each
manage to create hypothetical situations in which exposure
would be dangerous. What none has yet presented is any
documentary proof to support the assumptions.

The other is the Blue Blood theory, the view that only
someone of noble birth and breeding could have written the
works. Shakespeare was too base; no one so lowly in origin
could possibly have conceived the soaring poetry of the plays
and poems. This view is at the root of the position of most of
the principal anti-Stratfordians; Bacon, Rutland, Oxford, Essex,
Southampton, Dyer, and Cecil were all close to the throne; and
even Marlowe, if the son of a shoemaker, at least owned a
degree from Cambridge which was granted out of season at
the special request of the Queen. Elizabeth herself and Mary
Queen of Scots, who have also had champions, are of course
royal and could therefore easily have written the plays. (A
story which we hope, without too much confidence, is
apocryphal is that when a supporter of Queen Elizabeth
expounded his views, a listener objected. "What!" he
exclaimed, "The Shakespeare plays written by a woman?"
"You miss my point," said the first quietly. "Queen Elizabeth
was really a man.")

Nowhere is the Blue Blood theory better observed than in one
of the most amazing and amusing examples of misguided if
laborious scholarship in the history of human folly. This is the
work of Charlton Ogburn, Sr., and his wife Dorothy entitled
This Star of England ( with a foreword by Charlton, Jr.). The
Ogburns believe in the theory first advanced by a man with
the unfortunate name of Looney (a Battey and a Feeley are
also numbered among the anti-Stratfordians) that Edward DeVere,
the Seventeenth Earl of Oxford (1550-1604) was the Real Author
either in his own right or as primus inter pares of a syndicate.
They also claim he was the father of the Earl of Southampton
by a secretly legitimized union with Queen Elizabeth. Since
the English are understandably reluctant to accept such a
novel view of their Virgin Queen, most of the Ogburns'
disciples are American. Their work is of great interest
to toilers in many vineyards: to the philosopher for their
easy substitution of the declarative sentence for logical
argumentation; to the literary historian for their cavalier
treatment of dates; to the general student for their superb
indifference toward all documentary evidence that might dispute
their own superstitions. ("Shakespeare was never referred to,
while living, as a writer," we are told; so Francis Meres and
Thomas Thorpe, Gabriel Harvey and Sir John Davies and all the
rest, are categorically disposed of.)


But it is the psychologist who has most to learn from their
labors. The Ogburns and their supporters are preeminent among
the anti-Stratfordians in their belief in the congenital
literary ability of those of good birth. Any earl would make
a good writer; but DeVere was the Seventeenth Earl, the
premier earl of the kingdom. The imagination reels at the
blueness of his blood. When the Ogburns reflect upon Oxford's
position they cannot restrain their adulation: "heir of the
ancient and honorable family of DeVere which was second in
eminence only to the monarch"; "the proud young Earl, sensitive,
generous, impetuous, bred in a conception of honor as absolute
as a religious code." Sir Philip Sidney, even though he had
demonstrated some poetical ability by writing one of the
world's great sonnet sequences, could not have composed
the poetry of Shakespeare because, the Ogburns sniff, he
was not knighted "until three years before his death." It
is melancholy to report what the reader will already have
suspected: that neither the Ogburns nor any other Oxfordian
presents any documentary evidence of any kind to link Oxford
with the writing of the plays and poems. If for amusement
we were to presume that the Stratford Shakespeare didn't
write the works, we should still have to conclude that Oxford
is among the least likely of the Real Authors.

But A 1200-page volume can be impressive. It convinced some
professional writers like Gelett Burgess (who once wrote that
he never hoped to see a purple cow but who must have seen
even odder fauna in the anti-Stratfordian menagerie). It is
not surprising that other innocents have been taken in. And
of course it is well-known that many men distinguished for
achievements other than those of scholarship or logic have
lent their names to the anti-Stratfordian cause and have
undoubtedly contributed to the swelling ranks of doubters:
Coleridge, Emerson, Mark Twain, Palmerston, Henry James.
But the fact is that none of these men devoted any time to
a consideration of the evidence that leads directly to
Stratfordian authorship and that none was accustomed to
dealing with the common and sensible, if rigid procedures
by which authorship is determined.

It is clear that anti-Stratfordianism is a symptom of deeper
disturbance. The fact has been recognized for almost a century
but never thoroughly explored. In 1884, W. C. Wyman noted
that the work of Delia Bacon, William Henry Smith, and Judge
Nathaniel Holmes was important "not so much for the light
which they throw on the question of authorship, as for their
interest as examples of wrongheadedness."

If it is true that Delia Bacon died in a mental institution
and that Mrs. Ashmead Windle belonged in one, it is also true
that most anti-Stratfordians have reconciled their problems
with the necessities of daily living and have learned to walk
abroad among us. But the symptoms of their distress are still
visible. Students of abnormal psychology have neglected a
rich mother-lode of basic research by ignoring the
anti-Stratfordians, who exhibit clearly defined symptoms
that mark the paranoid mind. Among these may be noted the
following:

(1) A belief in conspiracy. Most anti-Stratfordians believe
that there is a vast conspiracy of silence by the members of
what they call the "Stratford Establishment." In May, 1956,
twenty-two Oxfordians, including nine lawyers, took a
half-page ad in The Shakespeare Newsletter to berate members
of the Establishment for refusing to give their case a fair
hearing. The fact is, of course, that their case has been
heard, thoroughly explored, and found without merit. The
modern conspiracy is simply a counterpart of the earlier one
in which the Stratfordian Shakespeare connived with Bacon
(or Oxford, or Dyer, or Derby) to keep the Real Author unknown.
The fact that the conspiracy was so beautifully managed that
no records were left to betray it to later generations is
additional proof of its existence.

(2) An extreme hatred of an imaginary enemy. The enemy, of
course, is William Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon.

(3) The invention of new logical systems to provide desired
answers that fail to be revealed by older and more widely
accepted ones. Here the Ogburns and their crew are supreme
examples. But we should not fail to acknowledge their debt
to Ignatius Donnelly and his ciphers, nor forego a word of
praise for Mrs. Ashmead Windle and Alden Brooks for their
splendid gifts.

(4) Preternatural persuasiveness. When the reader finishes a
hundred pages of Delia Bacon or Ignatius Donnelly or Alden
Brooks or the Ogburns he is so bedazzled by the outpouring
of verbal argumentation that he may forget that none of the
logicians has offered any sensible refutation of the positive
documentary evidence of Shakespearean authorship.

( 5) Unconscious self-identification of the afflicted with
the heroic or the divine. The Real Author must be a person
of unusual distinction, royal or noble; and the one who
unmasks him shares his distinction because of his sole
possession of the knowledge, or of his membership in a
small but distinguished coterie that shares the knowledge.

(6)The intense hatred of other heretics and their false gods.
If the anti-Stratfordians hate Shakespeare they despise
with a raging fury other anti's who don't share their
candidate. Perhaps a quarter of the enormous nervous and
emotional energy expended on the subject has been devoted
to the attempted extermination of rival heresies.

(6)An inability to keep their aberrations within bounds.
This is one of the principal marks of the anti-Stratfordian
disorder. It is not sufficient for the Ogburns to advance
the highly improbable thesis that the Earl of Oxford wrote
the works; he must also become the lover of Queen Elizabeth,
her secret husband, and the father of the Earl of Southampton.
And if Oxford wrote Hamlet why couldn't he have written The
Spanish Tragedy too? And so poor Thomas Kyd is denied the
one play which history has granted him. An extreme exemplar
of this particular aberration is Parker Woodward, whose
illness began when he identified Bacon as the author of
Shakespeare's works; but he was unable to stop, and before
long he had added to Bacon's canon the complete works of
Stephen Gosson, Thomas Watson, John Lyly, George Peele,
Robert Greene, Christopher Marlowe, Edmund Spenser, Thomas
Kyd, Thomas Nashe, Geoffrey Whitney, William Webbe, and
Robert Burton.

In the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual: Mental Disorders
(American Psychiatric Association, 1952) under the main
heading "Disorders of Psychogenic Origin or without clearly
defined physical cause or structural change in the brain,"
and the subheading "Psychotic disorders," there is listed
"Paranoid reactions . . . (b) . . . Paranoia." The
description is given as follows: "This type of psychotic
disorder is extremely rare. It is characterized by an
intricate, complex, and slowly developing paranoid system,
often logically elaborated after a false interpretation of
an actual occurrence. Frequently, the patient considers
himself endowed with superior or unique ability. The paranoid
system is particularly isolated from much of the normal
stream of consciousness, without hallucinations and with
relative intactness and preservation of the remainder of
their personality in spite of a chronic and prolonged
course." (Italics mine.)

When the paranoia is accompanied by a separation of the
personality from its surroundings, schizophrenic paranoia
results, usually requiring institutionalization, as in the
cases of Delia Bacon and, probably, Mrs. Ashmead Windle.
The paranoid anti-Stratfordian, with instinctive shrewdness,
knows he will be carted off to the booby-hatch if he
claims to be George Washington or the Angel Gabriel. But
if he only claims to know who really wrote Hamlet and
can support his assertions with endless verbiage that
dazzles as it dulls, who can prove him wrong?

It must be admitted that the paranoid anti-Stratfordians
have been fantastically successful. Poor Mrs. Ashmead
Windle may have been demented, but her name will live
as long as men study Shakespearean esoterica. She and her
kind are the Jack Rubys of literary history. At least we
can be grateful that minds that expend their substance
on Shakespearean authorship are likely to be harmless
as long as they don't stray into other pastures. Imagine
the damage they might cause if they were involved in
real life. Translated from the world of biography into
the world of politics, they become the John Birchers
of our day who, by the exercise of some mental process
not easily comprehended but closely akin to that of the
anti-Stratfordians, believe in the teeth of all the
evidence that Dwight Eisenhower and Earl Warren are
"conscious agents of the communist conspiracy."

I contend that the irrationalities of the anti-Stratfordians
are as harmless as thunder, a loud noise upon the air
frightening some but hurting none; I contend that the
passionate bickering and the outpouring of verbal
vitriol that characterizes their dialogue is a healthy
medicine for them and a source of endless amusement for
their readers. I confess that I strongly prefer
anti-Stratfordian literature to detective stories.
Among the anti-Stratfordians one is in pure fairyland,
where escape from the pressing problems of real life
is complete. In each work is a villain named William
Shakespeare who is completely different from the William
Shakespeares in other anti-Stratfordian works and is,
like them, totally unreal. One meets strange heroes named
Bacon or Oxford or Manners who resemble nothing so much
as an imaginary ideal in the head of the writer and who
often prove to be only thinly disguised versions of the
author's view of himself or of his imagined ancestors.
The very richness of their dementia is one of their
principal charms, as is their fertility. For it is almost
as certain as daybreak that before long a now unknown
member of the tribe will burst into print with an
ingenious theory not previously dreamed of but more
ridiculous than any yet proposed. I, for one, will welcome
him. He and his kind have provided me with uncountable
hours of pleasure, and in simple gratitude I wish for
them and their movement a continued long and happy life.
===================================================

[Jim KQKnave]

For example, John Weever. See my recent repost of info on him.

[Henry Porch]

I believe the imagery in Shakespeare was found by Spurgeon
to be clustered around the natural world near Warwickshire,
wasn't it? Not imagery likely to be associated with a
dissolute tin-miner like the Earl of Oxford, I would think.

[Jim KQKnave]

Interesting that sonnet 1 uses "increase" to
mean "the product of the womb". I can't find
a sonneteer who uses "increase" in this manner,
although almost all the early sonneteers use
the word "increase". Shakespeare uses it
in works after 1604:

Lear 1.4
Into her womb convey sterility;
Dry up in her the organs of increase;

Cor. 3.3
My dear wife's estimate, her womb's increase,
And treasure of my loins;

Good evidence that the Earl of Oxford had nothing
to do with Shakespeare.
========================================

[Sneaky O. Possum]

Jim KQKnave <kqk...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in news:8932a277-9b63-45ed-b000-
7f7ff7...@googlegroups.com:

> Interesting that sonnet 1 uses "increase" to
> mean "the product of the womb". I can't find
> a sonneteer who uses "increase" in this manner,
> although almost all the early sonneteers use
> the word "increase". Shakespeare uses it
> in works after 1604:
>
> Lear 1.4
> Into her womb convey sterility;
> Dry up in her the organs of increase;
>
> Cor. 3.3
> My dear wife's estimate, her womb's increase,
> And treasure of my loins;
>
> Good evidence that the Earl of Oxford had nothing
> to do with Shakespeare.

Unfortunately, Oxfordians don't care about evidence.
--
S.O.P.

[Charles Desmond]

As if there weren't enough proof already. Sheesh. There are so many
connections
between Shakespeare, the Houghtons, Stratford and Warwickshire in
general
by means of commendatory poems and other remarks in the literature,
in addition
to Shakespeare's connection to the Royal Family through his son-in-
law John
Hall, the King's personal physician, that only those suffering from
personal
delusions could believe that someone else was the author.

[book...@yahoo.com]

Could simply say "Shakespeare" was part of a conspiracy, an industry
that allowed others to anonymously collaborate and carry out an
agenda. Some h.l.a.s. wags even suggest "Shakespeare" was the butt of
rude jests about his name and scholarship, and some of his drama a
satire of low-brows and public theatre travelers across the river.

So your objection to Shakespeare's mis-identification based on a
reading of "connections" is naive, considering how devious the
mind-set is about finding alternative authors in the controversy, IMO.
You may think the anti-Stratford critics are not real Shakespeare
students, but our conversation with them is sometimes illuminating.
bookburn

[Charles Desmond]

In article <ikps19pbpb4t36gvf...@4ax.com>

book...@yahoo.com wrote:
>
> On Wed, 28 Aug 2013 18:47:33 +0200 (CEST), Charles Desmond
> <Charle...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >As if there weren't enough proof already. Sheesh. There are so many
> >connections
> >between Shakespeare, the Houghtons, Stratford and Warwickshire in
> >general
> >by means of commendatory poems and other remarks in the literature,
> >in addition
> >to Shakespeare's connection to the Royal Family through his son-in-
> >law John
> >Hall, the King's personal physician, that only those suffering from
> >personal
> >delusions could believe that someone else was the author.
>
> Could simply say "Shakespeare" was part of a conspiracy, an industry
> that allowed others to anonymously collaborate and carry out an
> agenda.

The point of my post was that an intentional conspiracy to hide
someone's identity is impossible if enough people in enough
different milieu's identify the person involved. Of *course*
you can postulate a conspiracy theory, but only if you ignore
the facts.

[book...@yahoo.com]

On Fri, 30 Aug 2013 10:50:46 +0200 (CEST), Charles Desmond

Can you ignore the fact that others did collaborate with Shakespeare,
like Marlowe and Fletcher, and that his originality is compromised by
borrowed plots and characters from earlier sources? Conspiracy
advocates can admit that the theatre man Shakespeare is a fact, and
still say he was a puppet, standing in for others who wrote the canon.

[Charles Desmond]

You seem to miss the point habitually. What does Shakespeare's
perceived creativity or lack thereof have to do with the
authorship issue concerning Oxford? Are you saying that
Oxford wasn't as creative as some think? Shakespeare never
collaborated with Marlowe. The only sure collaboration
was Thomas More, and there he wrote entire scenes, his
words aren't mixed up on a line-to-line basis with someone
else's writing, as it is claimed (rather idiotically)
for his participation in the writing of Titus Andronicus.
Shakespeare for sure habitually borrowed and re-worked
small portions of other's work, but that is not a
collaboration or alternative authorship.

[Sneaky O. Possum]

Charles Desmond <Charle...@gmail.com> wrote in
news:71ebf9cf8fa3d08d...@dizum.com:

> You seem to miss the point habitually. What does Shakespeare's
> perceived creativity or lack thereof have to do with the
> authorship issue concerning Oxford? Are you saying that
> Oxford wasn't as creative as some think? Shakespeare never
> collaborated with Marlowe. The only sure collaboration
> was Thomas More, and there he wrote entire scenes,

What of /The Two Noble Kinsmen/? Unlike /Sir Thomas More/, TNK was
attributed to "the memorable Worthies of their time; Mr. John Fletcher,
and Mr. William Shakespeare" on its title page. Granted, it was
published in 1634, when both Shakespeare and Fletcher were dead, but
that's hardly a good basis for rejecting the attribution. No
contemporary or near-contemporary evidence associates Shakespeare with
/Sir Thomas More/: I note that no-one associated any part of that
manuscript with Shakespeare prior to 1871, which puts the attribution a
bit later than the 'attribution' of the entire canon to Francis Bacon.

> his words aren't mixed up on a line-to-line basis with someone
> else's writing, as it is claimed (rather idiotically)
> for his participation in the writing of Titus Andronicus.

What a knavish thing to say. The claim that /Titus Andronicus/ is a
collaboration is hardly more idiotic than the claim that Hand D is
Shakespeare's. Both conclusions are, in fact, based on exactly the same
evidence: the impressions scholars have gotten by studying the texts.
Indeed, the same scholars who claim that Shakespeare collaborated on
/Titus Andronicus/ claim that he collaborated on /Sir Thomas More/: I
see no plausible justification for rejecting the first claim while
embracing the second.

> Shakespeare for sure habitually borrowed and re-worked
> small portions of other's work, but that is not a
> collaboration or alternative authorship.

In fact, by modern standards Shakespeare outright plagiarised other
people's works: the fact that he arguably improved Arthur Brooke's
/Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Iuliet/ should not overshadow the fact
that he stole it, lock, stock, and barrel. Of course, Brooke himself
merely reworked Bandello's version, but that was at least acknowledged
on the title page ("written first in Italian by Bandell, and nowe in
Englishe by Ar. Br.").

It is of course quite true that plagiarism is not collaboration.
--
S.O.P.

[David L. Webb]

In article <ikps19pbpb4t36gvf...@4ax.com>,
book...@yahoo.com wrote:

[...]

> You may think the anti-Stratford critics are not real Shakespeare
> students, but our conversation with them is sometimes illuminating.

Oh, they're illuminating, all right -- virtually nowhere else but
from h.l.a.s.'s esteemed anti-Stratfordians can one learn "facts" like
these:

(1) Pandarus is a character in _The Comedy of Errors_;
(2) The King of Navarre is a character in _As You Like It_;
(3) Osric does not appear in the First Folio version of _Hamlet_;
(4) Stratford-Upon-Avon has an international airport;
(5) Wilton is the most visited British tourist attraction;
(6) English military might prevailed at the Battle of Vienna (this is
remarkable, since the English were not even among the combatants at that
engagement);
(7) Old English was still spoken in some shires as late as the 19th
century;
(8) The emperor Claudius (whose reign began in 41 AD) banished Ovid (who
was dead by 18 AD) from Rome -- and that Tomis, in modern Romania,
Ovid's place of exile, is in Yugoslavia;
(9) Hegel (born in 1770) engaged in a rancorous priority dispute with
Newton (who died in 1727);
(10) John Aubrey (born in 1626) was a "corroborative eye witness" to the
sexual indiscretions of the Earl of Oxford, who died in 1604, some two
decades before Aubrey was born;
(11) Thomas Seymour (confined to the Tower by late January 1649 and dead
by March 1649) sired a man born in April 1650 after a six month
pregnancy;
(12) _Don Quixote_ was written in English;
(13) Albert Michelsohn was awarded the first Nobel Prize in Physics;
(14) Milton (who died in 1674) first gained access to Egyptian
hieroglyphics following the English victory (as noted above, the English
were not even among the combatants) at the Siege of Vienna in 1683;
(15) Caxton and Shakespeare were contemporaries;
(16) Virgil predated Herodotus;
(17) Elizabethan courtiers spoke in black verse as a matter of course;
(18) Titus in _Titus Andronicus_ is "a Greek has has gotten the shaft";
(19) Only one of Shakespeare's plays is set in a foreign country other
than Italy;
(20) _Verulam_ means "state of truth" in Latin;
(21) Ann Hathaway was Shakespeare's mother;
(22) G. B. Harrison, in his Preface to Clara Longworth de Chambrun's
_Shakespeare rediscovered by means of public records, secret reports &
private correspondence newly set forth as evidence on his life & work_,
recounts indignantly how Chambrun was "kicked out" of England, how she
and Hotson had "worn out their welcome" at the Southwark office of
public records, how evil "Strats" had "made Clara cry", etc. -- it need
scarcely be added that Harrison's Preface contains not a *single one* of
there vividly hallucinated "facts";
(23) In the Elizabethan era, knowledge of how to sail ships was a state
secret;
(24) Susanna Shakespeare was William Shakespeare’s wife;
(25) Francis Bacon was Queen Elizabeth I's illegitimate son;
(26) The Apollo lunar landings were a NASA-orchestrated hoax;
(27) Mary Queen of Scots was Elizabeth’s sister;
(28) Pre-exilic Hebrew was a Romance language;
(29) The languages of modern Europe have been spoken virtually unchanged
since the Stone Age; in particular, Latin was not a spoken natural
language, but rather an artificially constructed one: a simplified form
of Italian;
(30) Shakespeare's sonnets cannot be about anything as trite and banal
as love, mortality, mutability, etc.; rather, they must instead
celebrate ephemeral court intrigues and (I am not making this up) royal
defecation contests;
(31) Spoken language has no grammar;

and literally scores of other fascinating "facts". Indeed, it is the
abundance of such illuminating "facts" that constitutes so much of the
charm of h.l.a.s., and that firmly establishes h.l.a.s.'s
anti-Stratfordians as erudite and meticulous students of history, of
language and literature, and of Shakespeare.


> bookburn

[Charles Desmond]

In article <XnsA22F797364164sn...@78.46.70.116>

"Sneaky O. Possum" <sneaky...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Charles Desmond <Charle...@gmail.com> wrote in

> news:71ebf9cf8fa3d...@dizum.com:

>
> > You seem to miss the point habitually. What does Shakespeare's
> > perceived creativity or lack thereof have to do with the
> > authorship issue concerning Oxford? Are you saying that
> > Oxford wasn't as creative as some think? Shakespeare never
> > collaborated with Marlowe. The only sure collaboration
> > was Thomas More, and there he wrote entire scenes,
>
> What of /The Two Noble Kinsmen/? Unlike /Sir Thomas More/, TNK was
> attributed to "the memorable Worthies of their time; Mr. John Fletcher,
> and Mr. William Shakespeare" on its title page. Granted, it was
> published in 1634, when both Shakespeare and Fletcher were dead, but
> that's hardly a good basis for rejecting the attribution.

It's not a "good basis for rejecting the attribution." Of
course it's not. It's part of the evidence for the attribution.
However, when the play is read, it's not so convincing that
Fletcher had a part in it. Harold Bloom, for instance, thinks
that it's entirely by Shakespeare

>No
> contemporary or near-contemporary evidence associates Shakespeare with
> /Sir Thomas More/: I note that no-one associated any part of that
> manuscript with Shakespeare prior to 1871, which puts the attribution a
> bit later than the 'attribution' of the entire canon to Francis Bacon.

The date of association in this case is irrelevant, since the
Shakespearean portion of More is in the middle of a text, and
few (if any) persons were attributing portions of play text
until the 19th century. The evidence for Shakespeare's hand
in More is a huge number of vocabulary and spelling
associations in a brief text.

>
> > his words aren't mixed up on a line-to-line basis with someone
> > else's writing, as it is claimed (rather idiotically)
> > for his participation in the writing of Titus Andronicus.
>
> What a knavish thing to say. The claim that /Titus Andronicus/ is a
> collaboration is hardly more idiotic than the claim that Hand D is
> Shakespeare's. Both conclusions are, in fact, based on exactly the same
> evidence: the impressions scholars have gotten by studying the texts.
> Indeed, the same scholars who claim that Shakespeare collaborated on
> /Titus Andronicus/ claim that he collaborated on /Sir Thomas More/: I
> see no plausible justification for rejecting the first claim while
> embracing the second.

The evidence is *not* the same. The portion of More attributed
to Shakespeare has numerous points of vocabulary, style and
spelling in common with Shakespeare for such small portion of
text, while the Titus attribution to Peele is based only on a
relatively small number of vocabulary words in common. They
were both reading each other, but Peele did not write any of
Titus.

>
> > Shakespeare for sure habitually borrowed and re-worked
> > small portions of other's work, but that is not a
> > collaboration or alternative authorship.
>
> In fact, by modern standards Shakespeare outright plagiarised other
> people's works: the fact that he arguably improved Arthur Brooke's
> /Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Iuliet/ should not overshadow the fact
> that he stole it, lock, stock, and barrel. Of course, Brooke himself
> merely reworked Bandello's version, but that was at least acknowledged
> on the title page ("written first in Italian by Bandell, and nowe in
> Englishe by Ar. Br.").
>
> It is of course quite true that plagiarism is not collaboration.

A lawyer could make a case that Shakespeare plagiarized by
modern standards, but Shakespeare's lawyers could also
make the case that in every instance, Shakespeare did not
literally copy, but improved the source material. It would
be hard to make any case for the Romeo because Brooke
admits on the title page that it's borrowed material.

[Sneaky O. Possum]

Charles Desmond <Charle...@gmail.com> wrote in

news:1cab5e5e0478de4e...@dizum.com:

> In article <XnsA22F797364164sn...@78.46.70.116>
> "Sneaky O. Possum" <sneaky...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Charles Desmond <Charle...@gmail.com> wrote in
>> news:71ebf9cf8fa3d...@dizum.com:
>>
>> > You seem to miss the point habitually. What does Shakespeare's
>> > perceived creativity or lack thereof have to do with the
>> > authorship issue concerning Oxford? Are you saying that
>> > Oxford wasn't as creative as some think? Shakespeare never
>> > collaborated with Marlowe. The only sure collaboration
>> > was Thomas More, and there he wrote entire scenes,
>>
>> What of /The Two Noble Kinsmen/? Unlike /Sir Thomas More/, TNK was
>> attributed to "the memorable Worthies of their time; Mr. John
>> Fletcher, and Mr. William Shakespeare" on its title page. Granted, it
>> was published in 1634, when both Shakespeare and Fletcher were dead,
>> but that's hardly a good basis for rejecting the attribution.
>
> It's not a "good basis for rejecting the attribution." Of
> course it's not. It's part of the evidence for the attribution.
> However, when the play is read, it's not so convincing that
> Fletcher had a part in it. Harold Bloom, for instance, thinks
> that it's entirely by Shakespeare

Where has Bloom said he thinks that? Not in /Shakespeare: The Invention
of the Human/, in which he refers to "the Shakespearean portions of /The
Two Noble Kinsmen/" (694), and argues that Shakespeare's contribution
"contrasts oddly with the rest of the play, written by John Fletcher, in
perhaps the third collaboration between the two" (Ibid.).

In fact, there is a virtual consensus among scholars that /Two Noble
Kinsmen/ is a collaborative work - see, for example, Stanley Wells's
/Shakespeare and Co./ and James Shapiro's /Contested Will/.

>> No contemporary or near-contemporary evidence associates Shakespeare
>> with /Sir Thomas More/: I note that no-one associated any part of
>> that manuscript with Shakespeare prior to 1871, which puts the
>> attribution a bit later than the 'attribution' of the entire canon to
>> Francis Bacon.
>
> The date of association in this case is irrelevant,

Is it?

> since the Shakespearean portion of More is in the middle of a text,
> and few (if any) persons were attributing portions of play text
> until the 19th century. The evidence for Shakespeare's hand
> in More is a huge number of vocabulary and spelling
> associations in a brief text.

Which is, of course, the same as the evidence for Peele's hand in /Titus
Andronicus/.

>> > his words aren't mixed up on a line-to-line basis with someone
>> > else's writing, as it is claimed (rather idiotically)
>> > for his participation in the writing of Titus Andronicus.
>>
>> What a knavish thing to say. The claim that /Titus Andronicus/ is a
>> collaboration is hardly more idiotic than the claim that Hand D is
>> Shakespeare's. Both conclusions are, in fact, based on exactly the
>> same evidence: the impressions scholars have gotten by studying the
>> texts. Indeed, the same scholars who claim that Shakespeare
>> collaborated on /Titus Andronicus/ claim that he collaborated on /Sir
>> Thomas More/: I see no plausible justification for rejecting the
>> first claim while embracing the second.
>
> The evidence is *not* the same. The portion of More attributed
> to Shakespeare has numerous points of vocabulary, style and
> spelling in common with Shakespeare for such small portion of
> text,

More importantly, Donald Foster supports the claim that Shakespeare is Hand
D and rejects the claim that Peele had a hand in /Titus/. And some of the
people who have argued that /Titus/ is not wholly Shakespeare's work have
said terribly nasty things about Foster. Therefore they must be wrong, eh?

> while the Titus attribution to Peele is based only on a
> relatively small number of vocabulary words in common.

In fact, the attribution of portions of /Titus/ to Peele is based on far
more than that: not merely the words in common, but the /types/ of words in
common, and also the measurable differences in such stylistic quirks as
alliteration and preference for vocatives. If, as Vickers claims, vocatives
are used twice as often in some sections of /Titus/ (/Shakespeare, Co-
Author/, p. 228), that suggests (though of course it does not prove) that
two different hands were at work. And there is a great deal more than
vocatives. I doubt that MacDonald Jackson would have written that
ascription of /Titus/ to Shakespeare and Peele "has been fully
substantiated" (/The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare/, 46) if that
ascription were based on nothing more than a handful of common words.

> They were both reading each other, but Peele did not write any of
> Titus.

It may well be that Peele had no hand in /Titus/, but the arguments in
favour of his having done so must be refuted, not merely ignored.

>> > Shakespeare for sure habitually borrowed and re-worked
>> > small portions of other's work, but that is not a
>> > collaboration or alternative authorship.
>>
>> In fact, by modern standards Shakespeare outright plagiarised other
>> people's works: the fact that he arguably improved Arthur Brooke's
>> /Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Iuliet/ should not overshadow the
>> fact that he stole it, lock, stock, and barrel. Of course, Brooke
>> himself merely reworked Bandello's version, but that was at least
>> acknowledged on the title page ("written first in Italian by Bandell,
>> and nowe in Englishe by Ar. Br.").
>>
>> It is of course quite true that plagiarism is not collaboration.
>
> A lawyer could make a case that Shakespeare plagiarized by
> modern standards, but Shakespeare's lawyers could also
> make the case that in every instance, Shakespeare did not
> literally copy, but improved the source material.

Shakespeare often literally copied his source material; nor is "I made it
better" a suitable defence against claims of copyright infringement.

> It would be hard to make any case for the Romeo because Brooke
> admits on the title page that it's borrowed material.

Translating a work from another language is hardly the same thing as
plagiarising the translation. Shakespeare's lawyers would be better off
arguing that the quartos /An excellent conceited Tragedie of Romeo and
Iuliet/ and /The most excellent and lamentable Tragedie, of Romeo and
Iuliet/ had no association with their client - it's not like his name was
on the title pages. (Of course, even if modern copyright laws had existed
in the 1590s, Brooke was in no position to sue, having been dead since
1563.)
--
S.O.P.

[Jim KQKnave]

>If, as Vickers claims, vocatives
>are used twice as often in some sections of /Titus/ (/Shakespeare, Co-
>Author/, p. 228), that suggests (though of course it does not prove) that
>two different hands were at work. And there is a great deal more than
>vocatives.

The vocatives are just another example of Vickers' idiotic attributional
methods, which involve taking a commonplace that writers A and B have in common
and using it to assert that writer B wrote the work, without checking to see how
often it occurs in other works by A.

>I doubt that MacDonald Jackson would have written that
>ascription of /Titus/ to Shakespeare and Peele "has been fully
>substantiated" (/The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare/, 46) if that
>ascription were based on nothing more than a handful of common words.

If he wrote that, he's mistaken. Vickers methods have been shown to be nonsense
many times here in this newsgroup, look in the archives (that is, if you can
find anything under Neuendorffer's crap).
================================================

[Sneaky O. Possum]

Jim KQKnave <kqk...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in

news:4e9dc8a5-11df-4862...@googlegroups.com:

>>If, as Vickers claims, vocatives
>>are used twice as often in some sections of /Titus/ (/Shakespeare, Co-
>>Author/, p. 228), that suggests (though of course it does not prove)
>>that two different hands were at work. And there is a great deal more
>>than vocatives.
>
> The vocatives are just another example of Vickers' idiotic
> attributional methods, which involve taking a commonplace that writers
> A and B have in common and using it to assert that writer B wrote the
> work, without checking to see how often it occurs in other works by A.

Dismissal is not refutation.

>>I doubt that MacDonald Jackson would have written that
>>ascription of /Titus/ to Shakespeare and Peele "has been fully
>>substantiated" (/The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare/, 46) if that
>>ascription were based on nothing more than a handful of common words.
>
> If he wrote that, he's mistaken.

Why the conditional?

> Vickers methods have been shown to be
> nonsense many times here in this newsgroup,

No one posting to this newsgroup has refuted a single one of Vickers's
arguments, though some may think they've done so.
--
S.O.P.

[Dr. Benigrew Dimplestad]

Op vrijdag 13 september 2013 00:31:18 UTC schreef Sneaky O. Possum:

>
> > The vocatives are just another example of Vickers' idiotic
>
> > attributional methods, which involve taking a commonplace that writers
>
> > A and B have in common and using it to assert that writer B wrote the
>
> > work, without checking to see how often it occurs in other works by A.
>
>
>
> Dismissal is not refutation.
>

And dismissal of a refutation is not evidence nor is it convincing. Please,
we don't need to play rhetorical games. Unless of course you have no argument.

My July 24 post in this thread covers some of the vocative issue:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/humanities.lit.authors.shakespeare/GMohAkWOtVM

But frankly, the vocatives are context dependent, and Shakespeare uses them
in scenes where there are public figures speaking to one another, as in many
scenes in the Roman plays. (As for example, today in the Senate someone might
say, "Madame Chairwoman, I respectfully request a recess", where the "Madame
Chairwoman" is the vocative). They are irrelevant to the issue of the authorship
of Titus Andronicus.

Dr. Benigrew Dimplestad
15 De Surmontstratt
Amstelveen, Netherlands

[Dr. Benigrew Dimplestad]

Just as a simple example of Shakespeare's use of vocatives elsewhere,
consider Julius Caesar Act 3 scene 1. The first part of the scene involves an
official group discussion, while the remainder of the scene is private
conversation. Overall: 40 in 295 lines 295/40= 7.38 lines per vocative, which
is a slightly higher rate than the supposed Shakespeare lines (as defined by
Vickers)in Titus.

But the first 95 lines, which contain the group discussion, have a rate
nearly the same as the supposed Peele portions of Titus (again, as defined by
Vickers. I don't believe any of it is by Peele!)

The first 95 lines: 19 vocatives, 95/19 = 5 lines per vocative.

[Jim KQKnave]

In article <2ceb4a21-7c1d-49dd...@googlegroups.com>

I see no one has the answer to the imaginary "vocatives" issue
that has been claimed over the years to be evidence that Peele
wrote Titus. Good work Dr. Dimplestad!

[Dr. Benigrew Dimplestad]

A typical example of the use of vocatives in Shakespeare occurs in Richard III,
act 4 scene 2. There are 26 vocatives in 115 lines, 115/26 = 4.42. The supposed
"Peele scenes" in Titus average a vocative every 4.73 lines, according to
Vickers, so that would make this scene by Peele.

This scene is a scene where we would expect to find many vocatives because it
is where Richard is behaving in his official capacity as a ruler, suborns
Tyrrel to murder and argues with Buckingham, and in general is passing orders
to underlings, as opposed to scenes where he is having private conversations.

[marco]

Art N

[marco]

proofs

Upon surmises, all proofs sleeping else The Winter's Tale: III, ii
And this may help to thicken other proofs Othello: III, iii
Urged on the examinations, proofs, confessions King Henry VIII: II, i

That ring's a thousand proofs. All's Well that Ends Well: V, iii
See, there is such unity in the proofs. the mantle The Winter's Tale: V, ii
Nay, if the devil have given thee proofs for sin, Measure for Measure: III, ii

My fore-past proofs, howe'er the matter fall, All's Well that Ends Well: V, iii
It speaks against her with the other proofs. Othello: III, iii
Come, i'll drink no proofs nor no bullets: i'll King Henry IV, part II: II, iv

Ay, and an ox too: both the proofs are extant. Merry Wives of Windsor: V, v
As proofs of holy writ: this may do something. Othello: III, iii

And proofs as clear as founts in july when King Henry VIII: I, i
A body, we have ten proofs to one that blood hath Much Ado About Nothing: II, iii

Art N

[marco]

Besides, my REVElations continue to
improve in both quantity & quality
and I find satisfaction in that alone.

Art N.

[ArtNea...@germanymail.com]

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an