Debate on Oxford's Bible
Terry Ross
[i.e., Oxfordian] Fellowship in Boston, Roger Stritmatter and I debated
the topic "Resolved: the annotator of De Vere's Bible was the author of
Shakespeare's Works." The Oxfordian verdict seems to be in: one of the
members of the Shakespeare Fellowship posted this at the group's website:
"most Oxfordians of course felt Roger won hands down, but Terry had his
supporters there too and I'm sure they feel he was the winner."
I put up the notes I used for the debate so that those who had been there
could refer to them if they wanted. I don't know that they make much
sense as is, but I will be fleshing them out with prose when I get a
chance: http://ShakespeareAuthorship.com/sf/debate.html
I was able to meet and speak with quite a few Oxfordians, some of whom I
had "known" from their writings for several years. The people I met
seemed very friendly, and very eager to talk about Shakespeare -- and not
just in terms of Oxford. I may be invited back again for their next
conference, and I would certainly be willing to go.
Although members had been promised to see Roger and me "duke it out," the
two of us were on our very best behavior, and Roger Stritmatter was
graciousness itself.
Yes, THAT Roger Stritmatter.
A few preliminary words about my notes:
1. Augustine http://ShakespeareAuthorship.com/sf/augustine.html
I used this as introduction to an interpretive principle that Augustine
used for scripture, but that I did not think had a valid parallel for
Oxfordians. Since Christianity promotes the reign of charity and opposes
cupidity, Augustine says you should always read scripture in such a way
that it promotes the reign of charity. If you can do this by reading
scripture literally, then do so. If you find a passage that does NOT
promote the reign of charity, then read it figuratively until you have
made it promote the reign of charity.
This works well for Christianity, because Jesus himself reduced the entire
law to two commandments (love God above all, and your neighbor as
yourself). On the other hand, Jesus gave us no Oxfordian commandment, so
even Augustinian Christians should reject any interpretive principle along
the lines of "read evidence figuratively UNTIL it promotes the reign of
Oxfordianism."
2. The Thing Itself: http://ShakespeareAuthorship.com/sf/thingitself.html
Roger spent 10 years on his project. In 1998, while Roger still had two
years to go, David Kathman published his list of the annotations in
Oxford's Bible. There are a number of places where Roger's list differs
from Dave's, and I expected to find that in such cases, Roger would always
be correct. That is not what I found: while we will have to make some
changes in Dave's list, in general, when the two lists disagree, Dave's
seems more reliable.
(The major exception: Dave lists 2 Macc 3.24 and 2 Macc 3.40, when he
should have listed 2 Macc 3.24 THROUGH 2 Macc 3.40.)
Dave gives a much fuller account of the "hands" drawn in the book, and
Roger completely neglects the cross marks that one finds at the start of
about 17 chapters of Oxford's Bible. Dave's transcriptions of annotations
seem more reliable as well.
3. Handwriting: http://ShakespeareAuthorship.com/sf/handwriting.html
When I first commented on Roger's dissertation, I was willing to accept
that the annotations were probably by Oxford. I now think the case for
Oxford is very weak, and has been very tendentiously made. On the
"handwriting" page I show the exemplars that Roger used for the letters
that his handwriting expert, Emily Will, found most compelling: the
letters "g", "p", and "t". I made my own sets of exemplars from two of
Oxford's letters that are reproduced in books that Roger is very familiar
with: a letter of Sept. 24, 1575 (five years after Oxford acquired the
Bible), and a letter of Oct. 7, 1601. The exemplars from the earlier
letter have a white background, and those from the alter one have a grey
background. In each case, these specimens do not support Roger's (or
Wills's) descriptions of what makes Oxford's handwriting so similar to
that of the annotator or annotators.
I also put up scans of the word "the" as is appears in Oxford's Bible, in
the 1575 letter, and in the 1601 letter, as well as scans of "continue"
from Oxford's Bible and from the 1575 letter. It appears to my untrained
eyes that "continue" is not only NOT in Oxford's hand, but is also very
different from the other annotations in Oxford's Bible.
So how many annotators were there? Roger thinks all but one are by Oxford
(the exception is at Job 9.1: "my" and "THen Iob a"); he thinks there are
no underlinings by the second hand. Roger said he ignored the crosses in
pencil because they had nothing to do with anything else in the Bible, but
they seem to represent a third annotator. The person who wrote "continue"
is a fourth annotator. There may be more. There are some markings noted
by Dave that Roger ignores, perhaps thinking they are accidental. Since
the evidence for Oxford's hand in ANY of the annotations is weak, and
since the great majority of annotations are underlinings of verse numbers
or words in a verse, and since I know of no test to identify the
distinctive way that Oxford might have used when he underlined, say, a
number "4," the conclusion that all the annotations (save the one at Job
9.1 and the crosses in pencil) are by Oxford seems unjustified.
4 & 5. "PlusFours": http://ShakespeareAuthorship.com/sf/plusfour.html
Roger calls any verse of the Bible that Shakespeare is thought to have
alluded to four or more times a "Shakespeare Diagnostic." I cannot accept
this term, because there is nothing particularly "diagnostic" about those
verses -- if we had a text by an unknown writer of the period, we would
NOT attribute it to Shakespeare on the grounds that it included the phrase
"fire and brimstone." I used "plusfours" or "PlusFours" as a more neutral
term.
Roger took lists of Biblical allusions to Shakespeare from a variety of
different sources, each of them using different (and mutually
inconsistent) standards for what should count as an allusion. I used
Naseeb Shaheen's *Biblical and Liturgical References in Shakespeare's
Plays*, since it was the most comprehensive, complete, consistent, and
recent source. I would be willing to use some other set of standards than
Shaheen's, but it seems to me to be a basic principle for this kind of
inquiry that whatever standards one uses should be global and consistent
BOTH for Shakespeare's works AND for the entire Bible. Shaheen covers the
plays and not the nondramatic verse, but unless someone has a consistent
set of standards applied even more widely than what Shaheen gave us, I
think we should stick with Shaheen. In addition, Shaheen has the
advantage that he is familiar with the work of his predecessors, and he
tells us that "Whenever a biblical parallel suggested by others does not
appear in this volume, it generally indicates that I have rejected that
parallel as being invalid."
There are about 2300 Biblical passages listed in Shaheen's index, of which
126 are "PlusFours" (passages alluded to 4 or more times by Shakespeare).
Roger counted 80 "diagnostics" using Shaheen AND his predecessors; I have
no way to account for the dozens of PlusFours/diagnostics that Roger
missed.
Oxford's Bible has about 1000 marked verses; of those, 81 appear within
Shaheen's index of Shakespeare's Biblical references. Roger claims that 30
of the marked verses are "diagnostics," but I count only 6 marked verses
among the 126 "PlusFours."
-- Not 30 "diagnostics" but 6 "PlusFours."
Let's consider Shaheen's work on Spenser. Shaheen lists 995 Biblical
passages in his index of Biblical references in the *Faerie Queene*.
OK, before we go on, what would you expect to find if you checked the 126
PlusFours (Biblical verses alluded to 4 or more times by Shakespeare)
against 1000 marked verses in Oxford's Bible AND made the same check
against the verses in the 1000 or so Biblical passages alluded to by
Spenser?
There are 31 verses marked in Oxford's Bible that appear within the
Spenser passages -- at this point, the Spenser/OxBib overlap seems quite
comparable to the Shakespeare/OxBib overlap. But when we look at the
PlusFours, we get a different story. Remember, of the 126 Shakespeare
"PlusFours," there are only 6 that correspond to marked verses in OxBib
(out of 1000 or so marked verses). There are, by contrast 37 passages on
Shaheen's *Faerie Queene* Biblical index (out of a total of about 1000)
that correspond to Shakespeare "PlusFours."
Thus, if we confine ourselves to Biblical verses that Roger considers
"diagnostic" of Shakespeare, we find a much greater overlap with Spenser's
use of the Bible in *The Faerie Queene* than we do with the verses marked
in Oxford's Bible. Here is a pdf chart of these findings:
http://ShakespeareAuthorship.com/sf/diag3.pdf
Now, I could probably whittle the Spenser overlap with Shakespearean
plusfours down to 30 or so by applying stricter standards, but a similar
strictness would reduce the number of OxBib plusfours below 6, and Roger
needs every one he can get.
Readers of this newsgroup may remember that I criticized the two
statistical arguments that Roger (and Jim McGill) had advanced in his
dissertation. Those criticisms have gone unrefuted, and are in themselves
sufficient grounds for the rejection of Roger's book. The "PlusFours" v.
"diagnostics" bit is a new argument, and it appears to be just as damaging
to Roger's case.
6. Greensleeves
The explanation of Roger's "Greensleeves" argument, and the setting out of
everything wrong with it, will have to wait for another day.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Terry Ross Visit the SHAKESPEARE AUTHORSHIP home page
http://ShakespeareAuthorship.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lynne
any time. Delighted that you found us so congenial.
Lynne
Terry Ross <tr...@bcpl.net> wrote in message news:<Pine.GSO.4.44.0210231412580.28011-100000@mail>...
> Last Sunday (October 20), at the first conference of the Shakespeare
> [i.e., Oxfordian] Fellowship in Boston, Roger Stritmatter and I debated
> the topic "Resolved: the annotator of De Vere's Bible was the author of
> Shakespeare's Works." The Oxfordian verdict seems to be in: one of the
> members of the Shakespeare Fellowship posted this at the group's website:
> "most Oxfordians of course felt Roger won hands down, but Terry had his
> supporters there too and I'm sure they feel he was the winner."
>
>>
john_baker
I was given a 1st hand report on your critique of Roger's view on
this. It can be summed up in three words: you crashed and burned.
Let me help. Handwriting isn't DNA and cannot be used for the
purposes of identification.
Those who attempt it are fools.
john
John Baker
Visit my Webpage:
http://www2.localaccess.com/marlowe
or e-mail me at: Mar...@localaccess.com
"The ultimate truth is penultimately always a falsehood.
He who will be proved right in the end appears to be
wrong and harmful before it."
_Darkness at Noon_, Arthur Koestler
Terry Ross
> Terry,
>
> I was given a 1st hand report on your critique of Roger's view on this.
I'm sure your source was unbiased. So far, the only person I know of who
has put down my discussion of Roger's handwriting analysis is Dan Wright.
> It can be summed up in three words: you crashed and burned.
That's four words, John. Actually, several people came up to congratulate
me after the debate, and not only did I not crash and burn, I was bumped
up to first class for the flight back to Baltimore. Once aloft, I toasted
my new Oxfordian acquaintances with complemetary Jack on the rocks. Next
time (if I do anything like this again), I must find time to bar-hop with
a few of these fine people.
>
> Let me help. Handwriting isn't DNA and cannot be used for the purposes
> of identification.
>
It's OK with me if Oxfordians wish to argue that way -- but Roger
Stritmatter makes a very different point. According to Roger, most of the
marginal annotations were written by Oxford. According to Roger, "the
first possible line of attack for critics ... is to deny or cast doubt
upon the premise that the annotations are by Edward de Vere. If true,
this argument would of course obviate the significance of any alleged
relationship between those annotations and 'Shakespeare'" (Stritmatter's
dissertation, page 630). Roger considers his Appendix B a refutation of
this "line of attack."
Can you now understand the issue?
Roger knows that if his critics can either "deny or cast doubt upon the
premise that the annotations are by Edward de Vere," then his entire
project is pointless. In order to defend against this "line of attack"
(Roger's phrase), Roger went to a great deal of trouble to compare samples
of Oxford's writing with the annotations in Oxford's Bible (and to samples
by Lyly and Peele). He hired a document examiner to offer her "expert
opinion" in his support.
If Roger agreed with you that handwriting could never be used for purposes
of identification, then he would have no argument at all. If he thought as
you, all he could say is this: a book that once belonged to Oxford somehow
over the centuries acquired a number of markings, but there's no reason
trying to figure out who made them, because handwriting analysis isn't DNA
and therefore is worthless. Unlike you (and perhaps unlike the person who
gave you a "1st hand account"), I take Roger and his work seriously, and I
think it is worth a little effort to understand his argument on its own
ostensible terms.
When we look at the comparisons that Roger's examiner thought were the
strongest points for Oxford's having written the annotations, we find
something very curious: Oxford's actual handwriting in documents that we
know Roger was very familiar with is noticeably different from that of any
of the annotators.
What is more troubling is that Roger seems to have chosen his exemplars
from Oxford's writing on the basis of their perceived resemblance to the
annotations. He also seems to have deliberately omitted exemplars that
looked very different from those in the annotations. Look, for instance,
at what he did with the lowercase "g":
http://shakespeareAuthorship.com/sf/hwg.html
On the left side is Roger's presentation of exemplars: the top line shows
what each "g" looks like in the OxBib; the second line shows samples from
Oxford's writing; the third line has samples from Lyly; and the fourth
from Peele.
Now look on the right side of the page: here are samples taken from two of
Oxford's letters. The ones from the 24 Sept. 1575 letter have a white
background, while those from the 7 Oct. 1601 letter have a gray
background.
Here is some of Roger's description of Oxford's "g":
"The regularity and gracefulness of formation of letters so characteristic
of Oxford is nowhere more apparent than in the formation of the exemplar,
and this affords an impressive correspondence with the four samples from
the de Vere Bible" (579).
Wait a minute -- the way Oxford formed his "g" in the 1575 letter is
completely different from the way he formed his "g" in the 1601 letter.
While the formations are reasonably "regular" within a document, they vary
considerably from one document to the other. Why did Roger deliberately
exclude any "g" that looked like the one Oxford used in 1575 (five years
after he acquired the OxBib)?
In a remarkable concession, Roger admitted that he had considered asking
his friend Mark Anderson, who helped him with the handwriting analysis,
whether they should include any sample of Oxford's "variant 'g.'" What
this suggests is that Roger deliberately ignored exemplars that he
considered "variant" (and it appears that his sense of what made an
exemplar "variant" was that it looked even less like the characters found
in the annotations than other Oxford exemplars). For Roger to conceal
evidence this way, and then, knowing that Oxford's "g" was susceptible to
considerable "variation," to say that "the regularity and gracefulness of
formation of letters so characteristic of Oxford is nowhere more apparent
than in the formation of the exemplar" (i.e., the letter "g") is
mind-boggling. He conceals evidence of variation and then praises
Oxford's letter "g" for its "regularity."
Roger's "expert" Emily Will says, "Comparison of the letter 'g' reveals
that B [i.e., Lyly] and C [i.e., Peele] are different in proportion,
slant, and motion from the Q1 [i.e., OxBib] annotations." (618).
When we look at the samples of "g" from Oxford's 1575 and 1601 writings,
what do we find? They are different in proportion, slant, and motion from
the OxBib examples; indeed, the examples of "g" from Oxford's 1575 letter
are much more different from those in the OxBib than the examples from
Lyly and Peele are.
I am not an expert in Elizabethan paleography (neither is Roger; neither
is his "expert" Emily Will). I will look at other samples of Oxford's
writing when I get a chance, and I will build some pages based on what I
have found.
At the moment, it appears that Roger's analysis is deeply flawed; the bits
of handwriting evidence that Emily Will singled out as particularly
impressive do not, in fact, support the belief that Oxford penned ANY of
the annotations, let alone almost all of them. There appear to have been
at least three annotators (if you agree with Roger) or four (if you agree
with me) marking up the Oxbib over the years.
> Those who attempt it are fools.
I have never called Roger Stritmatter a fool; I don't think he is one,
although I do think Oxfordianism is folly. I don't even think that what
appears to be a shading of the evidence by Roger is evidence of
dishonesty: he really believes this stuff, and I think he often allows his
rooting interest to overrule whatever scholarly impulses he may feel. I
don't think detachment comes easily to Roger.
If you wish to rule out handwriting evidence altogether, then you are
telling Roger out of hand that he has no case. I have more respect for
Roger than that.
Of course, handwriting was not all we talked about in the debate. I also
used Augustine to discuss interpretive principles that would not be
legitimate in the debate; I discussed problems with Roger's transcription
of the OxBib annotations; I did a more accurate count of the marked verses
that correspond to Biblical passages used repeatedly by Shakespeare ("my
"PlusFours" v. Roger's "Diagnostics"), and showed that there is a much
stronger correlation between Spenser's use of Scripture in *The Faerie
Queene* and Shakespeare's "PlusFours" than between the OxBib markings and
Shakespeare's "PlusFours"; I countered Roger's "Greensleeves" bit (which
is presented in the dissertation as if it is very strong evidence). A
page with links to some of my debate notes is available at
http://shakespeareAuthorship.com/sf/debate.html
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Terry Ross Visit the SHAKESPEARE AUTHORSHIP home page
http://ShakespeareAuthorship.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
Toby Petzold
Bible:
> Roger knows that if his critics can either "deny or cast doubt upon the
> premise that the annotations are by Edward de Vere," then his entire
> project is pointless.
Interesting double standard there, Terry. Most Stratfordians ---who
shamelessly pretend that there is paleographic support for Shakspere
as Hand D--- also claim other grounds for attributing parts of Sir
Thomas More to their man. Yet, beyond their literary judgements, there
aren't any. Contrarily, the Geneva Bible in question WAS, in fact, de
Vere's; he has an actual connection to the object. Are you saying that
the variations and inconsistencies in the letter-formation in the
annotations of that book conclusively destroy Oxford's claim to them,
but that the (imagined) paleographic consistencies that Thompson found
between Shakspere and Hand D may be reserved as supportive?
> In order to defend against this "line of attack"
> (Roger's phrase), Roger went to a great deal of trouble to compare samples
> of Oxford's writing with the annotations in Oxford's Bible (and to samples
> by Lyly and Peele). He hired a document examiner to offer her "expert
> opinion" in his support.
>
> If Roger agreed with you that handwriting could never be used for purposes
> of identification, then he would have no argument at all.
Are underlinings as subject to paleographical analyses as actual
handwriting?
> If he thought as
> you, all he could say is this: a book that once belonged to Oxford somehow
> over the centuries acquired a number of markings, but there's no reason
> trying to figure out who made them, because handwriting analysis isn't DNA
> and therefore is worthless. Unlike you (and perhaps unlike the person who
> gave you a "1st hand account"), I take Roger and his work seriously, and I
> think it is worth a little effort to understand his argument on its own
> ostensible terms.
Tee hee.
> When we look at the comparisons that Roger's examiner thought were the
> strongest points for Oxford's having written the annotations, we find
> something very curious: Oxford's actual handwriting in documents that we
> know Roger was very familiar with is noticeably different from that of any
> of the annotators.
Handwriting style is liable to evolve. Oxford's seemed to. Of course,
when we look at the evolution of Shakspere's hand, the problem is that
all of his specimens (which vary enough from each other as it is) come
from the last four years of his life; we can't trace it through the
intermediate forms because there are (and, probably, were) none. Yet,
Thompson and the others were somehow able to discern this evolution
and [show] that Hand D (from 1590 or so) belonged to a man whose only
handwriting dates from 1612-16.
Why do Stratfordians claim to know what Shakspere's handwriting looked
like from a quarter-century before the first known exemplar was made?
> In a remarkable concession, Roger admitted that he had considered asking
> his friend Mark Anderson, who helped him with the handwriting analysis,
> whether they should include any sample of Oxford's "variant 'g.'" What
> this suggests is that Roger deliberately ignored exemplars that he
> considered "variant" (and it appears that his sense of what made an
> exemplar "variant" was that it looked even less like the characters found
> in the annotations than other Oxford exemplars). For Roger to conceal
> evidence this way, and then, knowing that Oxford's "g" was susceptible to
> considerable "variation," to say that "the regularity and gracefulness of
> formation of letters so characteristic of Oxford is nowhere more apparent
> than in the formation of the exemplar" (i.e., the letter "g") is
> mind-boggling. He conceals evidence of variation and then praises
> Oxford's letter "g" for its "regularity."
It's almost Stratfordian in its duplicity!
> Roger's "expert" Emily Will says, "Comparison of the letter 'g' reveals
> that B [i.e., Lyly] and C [i.e., Peele] are different in proportion,
> slant, and motion from the Q1 [i.e., OxBib] annotations." (618).
>
> When we look at the samples of "g" from Oxford's 1575 and 1601 writings,
> what do we find? They are different in proportion, slant, and motion from
> the OxBib examples; indeed, the examples of "g" from Oxford's 1575 letter
> are much more different from those in the OxBib than the examples from
> Lyly and Peele are.
>
> I am not an expert in Elizabethan paleography (neither is Roger; neither
> is his "expert" Emily Will). I will look at other samples of Oxford's
> writing when I get a chance, and I will build some pages based on what I
> have found.
>
> At the moment, it appears that Roger's analysis is deeply flawed; the bits
> of handwriting evidence that Emily Will singled out as particularly
> impressive do not, in fact, support the belief that Oxford penned ANY of
> the annotations, let alone almost all of them. There appear to have been
> at least three annotators (if you agree with Roger) or four (if you agree
> with me) marking up the Oxbib over the years.
So, what's the nub of your gist, Terry? Do you believe that Edward de
Vere made no marks in his own Bible and that others did? You won't
even give him a few underlined passages? It's HIS Bible! I can see
what partisan necessity there is in breaking this connection on the
rack (since there is no comparable Stratfordian connection to even a
single letter), but it seems uncharitable and pretty well unreasonable
to deny the great likelihood that, yes, Edward de Vere made some notes
in a Bible he actually owned.
<snip>
> I have never called Roger Stritmatter a fool; I don't think he is one,
> although I do think Oxfordianism is folly. I don't even think that what
> appears to be a shading of the evidence by Roger is evidence of
> dishonesty: he really believes this stuff, and I think he often allows his
> rooting interest to overrule whatever scholarly impulses he may feel. I
> don't think detachment comes easily to Roger.
The letter, met; the spirit, ravished.
> If you wish to rule out handwriting evidence altogether, then you are
> telling Roger out of hand that he has no case. I have more respect for
> Roger than that.
Shakespeare was apparently influenced by the Geneva Bible as by few
other works. Whether that Author would have been obligated to have
underlined and annotated every passage that interested him or only a
few or even none, it doesn't seem as important as the fact that an
actual connection exists between Oxford and that influence.
Stratfordians would love to have anything like the same.
<snip>
Toby Petzold
Much love and respect to Jam Master Jay (1965-2002)
Bob Grumman
the annotations. Only a complete loon would think that a man's underlining
biblical passages about subjects like cherubs must therefore be considered
to have written plays that refer to subjects like cherubs. Particularly, if
the underliner also underlined a great many biblical passages about subjects
the playwright was silent about, and the playwright referred to many
subjects there are passages in the Bible about which the underliner did not
underline.
--Bob G.
"Toby Petzold" <Neogno...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:ad8b29ae.02110...@posting.google.com...
Alan Jones
> Shakespeare was apparently influenced by the Geneva Bible as by few
> other works. Whether that Author would have been obligated to have
> underlined and annotated every passage that interested him or only a
> few or even none, it doesn't seem as important as the fact that an
> actual connection exists between Oxford and that influence.
> Stratfordians would love to have anything like the same.
Could you direct me to the evidence that Shakespeare was influenced
specifically by the Geneva Bible? I assume someone has demonstrated that his
biblical allusions are unmistakably and overwhelmingly to that translation.
What other translations might have been readily available to him in his
younger years?
Alan Jones
john_baker
Terry,
Sounds like you had fun!! Good to hear your side of the tale!!
I remember flying back like that, from D.C., and got bumped up to
First Class and thus rode with an old Texas millionaire who had been a
personal friend of President Hoover, we'd sat at the conference with
Reagan...but the flight to Atlanta was the most fun of all...he told
me story after story....and it started with a gester...he made the
sign of a fuble and said "Hoover dropped the ball." He went on
to teach me that it isn't how you get the ball that counts, but what
you do with it while you have it....
In Change and the Law Goedecke, one of my major professors and
a life long friend and mentor, writes "the great argument for law is
the arguing itself."
I find the Shakespeare debate, no matter which side one is on, to
be of this nature.
All of us are enriched by the debate or by the "arguing itself."
The one thing that I see, as a critic of your position, is that
Stratfordianism is not open to understanding how important it is
to have these conflicting views and, thus, this "arguing."
\
My first dissertation, the one in philosophy at FSU, which I would
love to have you review and edit for me sometime, was on the
importance of "multiple working hypotheses" to the progression of
human knowledge.
Maybe you can tell us why Strats think it is so unimportant?
Bob Grumman
> Stratfordianism is not open to understanding how important it is
> to have these conflicting views and, thus, this "arguing."
Then why shouldn't we also be arguing who created the works of Dickens,
either Eliot, Sterne, Stevens, Bierce, Beethoven, Imhotep, Rembrandt, Plato,
Basho, etc., as well as who Elizabeth I really was, who built the pyramids,
whether Elvis, Hitler, Hughes, Hoffa, John F. Kennedy, Richard Kennedy,
etc., etc., are alive or not, and whether perpetual motion machines less
than the size of the universe are possible, and what color cheese the moon
is made out of, and whether fairies are real, etc., etc., etc.
--Bob G.
>
> Maybe you can tell us why Strats think it is so unimportant?
Only if you first tell us why you think "Strats" think multiple hypotheses
about genuine problems are unimportant. Or why we should have multiple
hypotheses about how many suns are within a hundred million miles of our
planet.
--Bob G.
Terry Ross
> Ross to Baker, on Stritmatter's Oxfordian defense of de Vere's Geneva
> Bible:
>
> > Roger knows that if his critics can either "deny or cast doubt upon the
> > premise that the annotations are by Edward de Vere," then his entire
> > project is pointless.
>
> Interesting double standard there, Terry.
In what sense is it a double standard to quote Roger Stritmatter's own
judgment about the importance to his case of establishing beyond doubt
that the annotations are in Oxford's hand? Let me paste some of what you
snipped:
According to Roger, most of the marginal annotations were written by
Oxford. According to Roger, "the first possible line of attack for
critics ... is to deny or cast doubt upon the premise that the annotations
are by Edward de Vere. If true, this argument would of course obviate the
significance of any alleged relationship between those annotations and
'Shakespeare'" (Stritmatter's dissertation, page 630). Roger considers
his Appendix B a refutation of this "line of attack."
> Most Stratfordians ---who shamelessly pretend that there is paleographic
> support for Shakspere as Hand D--- also claim other grounds for
> attributing parts of Sir Thomas More to their man.
Many scholars believe that a good case can be made that the additions are
probably in Shakespeare's hand, and there are, of course, other grounds
than the judgment that Hand D is consistent with Shakespeare's. If,
however, you remove Hand D from the table, the fact that Shakespeare wrote
the great bulk of the Shakespearean canon does not thereby become
doubtful, and the case that he contributed to *Thomas More* does not
evaporate. Nor is the case for Oxford's having written any of the
annotations in the OxBib strengthened.
> Yet, beyond their literary judgements, there aren't any. Contrarily, the
> Geneva Bible in question WAS, in fact, de Vere's; he has an actual
> connection to the object.
I have no problem accepting that Oxford owned the object, and that it is
very likely the book whose purchase was noted in 1570. It is also the
case that at least three different hands (according to Roger) or four
different hands (according to me) made marks in that book at some time.
> Are you saying that the variations and inconsistencies in the
> letter-formation in the annotations of that book conclusively destroy
> Oxford's claim to them, but that the (imagined) paleographic
> consistencies that Thompson found between Shakspere and Hand D may be
> reserved as supportive?
I have never made any detailed comment on the Hand D paleography. What I
am saying is this:
1. Roger Stritmatter tell us that is doubt can be cast on whether Oxford
wrote the annotations, such doubt would of course obviate the significance
of any alleged relationship between those annotations and 'Shakespeare'"
(Stritmatter's dissertation, page 630).
Are you with me so far? Whether you agree with Roger on this point or
not, do you at least understand it? Fine; let's go on.
2. Roger says, "a refutation of Smith's reasoning [i.e., the argument that
the handwriting is not Oxford's], accompanied by extensive paelological
proofs, is set forth in Appendix B [sic] of the present document" (630).
By "Appendix B," Roger clearly meant Appendix H, "Forensic Paleography."
Are you still with us? Again, the point is not whether you agree with
Roger but whether you understand him. If serious doubt can be cast on
whether the annotations are Oxford's, the game is over. Roger's
refutation of the attempt to cast doubt is his appendix called "Forensic
Paleography."
Roger hired a documents examiner (who does not appear to be an expert in
Elizabethan paleography), whose "expert opinion" gave qualified support to
the conclusions of Roger's Appendix I. There were a number of caveats in
her opinion, but she sided with Roger, and she was particularly impressed
by the evidence concerning the letters "g," "P," and "t" -- these were the
only ones she mentioned.
3. When we look at two of Oxford's actual epistles -- epistles that we
KNOW Roger was familiar with, because they are reprinted in two of his
favorite books -- we find that Roger's descriptions of the way key letters
of the alphabet are formed in Oxford's handwriting are misleading: and (to
judge by Roger's admission during his rebuttal) they are probably
deliberately misleading. We find that Oxford's characters are NOT formed
with the "regularity" claimed for them by Roger; we find that they have
features that Roger describes as so distinctive of the Lyly or Peele
samples that they may be used to distinguish those writers' hands both
from Oxford's and from the annotations in the OxBib.
>
> > In order to defend against this "line of attack"
> > (Roger's phrase), Roger went to a great deal of trouble to compare samples
> > of Oxford's writing with the annotations in Oxford's Bible (and to samples
> > by Lyly and Peele). He hired a document examiner to offer her "expert
> > opinion" in his support.
> >
> > If Roger agreed with you that handwriting could never be used for purposes
> > of identification, then he would have no argument at all.
>
> Are underlinings as subject to paleographical analyses as actual
> handwriting?
I don't see how they could be in this case. Roger's claim here is that
all of the underlinings are in the same inks as the written words that he
believes are in Oxford's hand; therefore, the writer of the words in those
colors of ink also made all the annotations in those color of ink. He
thinks there are six shades of ink in the book, but David Kathman was able
to group the markings into those made in black ink, those in red ink, and
those in pencil (Roger says nothing about the pencil annotations).
>
> > If he thought as
> > you, all he could say is this: a book that once belonged to Oxford somehow
> > over the centuries acquired a number of markings, but there's no reason
> > trying to figure out who made them, because handwriting analysis isn't DNA
> > and therefore is worthless. Unlike you (and perhaps unlike the person who
> > gave you a "1st hand account"), I take Roger and his work seriously, and I
> > think it is worth a little effort to understand his argument on its own
> > ostensible terms.
>
> Tee hee.
OK, so DON'T take Roger seriously; suit yourself.
>
> > When we look at the comparisons that Roger's examiner thought were the
> > strongest points for Oxford's having written the annotations, we find
> > something very curious: Oxford's actual handwriting in documents that we
> > know Roger was very familiar with is noticeably different from that of any
> > of the annotators.
>
> Handwriting style is liable to evolve. Oxford's seemed to.
Now that might have been a very interesting and useful point for Roger to
have suggested. IF Oxford's handwriting evolved, and IF the OxBib
annotations are in a consistent hand, then (IF Oxford is one of the
annotators), it might be possible to date some of the annotations by
comparing them to Oxford's hand at various stages in its evolution.
That, however, is not what Roger believes. He believes that Oxford's hand
is consistent and regular (and the regularity of his letter "g" is
particularly notable), unlike the hands of Lyly and Peele.
Your attempt to bail Roger out only reinforces the weakness of his case.
What is distressing is that Roger KNEW that Oxford's handwriting changed,
but deliberately concealed this knowledge from his readers. Roger KNEW,
for example, that the "g" in the 1575 epistle was very different from any
"g" in the samples from Lyly or Peele or the examples in the OxBib, but he
deliberately hid this information.
> Of course, when we look at the evolution of Shakspere's hand, the
> problem is that all of his specimens (which vary enough from each other
> as it is) come from the last four years of his life; we can't trace it
> through the intermediate forms because there are (and, probably, were)
> none.
If you want to see extreme variation, look at Walter Raleigh's signatures.
Shakespeare's are much more consistent.
> Yet, Thompson and the others were somehow able to discern this evolution
> and [show] that Hand D (from 1590 or so) belonged to a man whose only
> handwriting dates from 1612-16.
If you wish to reject the suggestion that Hand D is Shakespeare's, go
right ahead; you will not be alone. Neither your acceptance nor your
rejection would establish whether Oxford wrote any of the annotations in
the OxBib.
Again, you may, if you wish, reject the attribution of Hand D to
Shakespeare -- whether you accept it or reject it has no bearing on
whether Oxford wrote any of the annotations in the OxBib. There were
three or more different people marking up the OxBib (I would say at least
4); I don't think any of them was Shakespeare; I don't think any of them
was the person who wrote in Hand D; Roger has not made a case that any of
the annotations were by Oxford.
>
> > In a remarkable concession, Roger admitted that he had considered asking
> > his friend Mark Anderson, who helped him with the handwriting analysis,
> > whether they should include any sample of Oxford's "variant 'g.'" What
> > this suggests is that Roger deliberately ignored exemplars that he
> > considered "variant" (and it appears that his sense of what made an
> > exemplar "variant" was that it looked even less like the characters found
> > in the annotations than other Oxford exemplars). For Roger to conceal
> > evidence this way, and then, knowing that Oxford's "g" was susceptible to
> > considerable "variation," to say that "the regularity and gracefulness of
> > formation of letters so characteristic of Oxford is nowhere more apparent
> > than in the formation of the exemplar" (i.e., the letter "g") is
> > mind-boggling. He conceals evidence of variation and then praises
> > Oxford's letter "g" for its "regularity."
>
> It's almost Stratfordian in its duplicity!
I have not accused Roger of duplicity, but his deliberate withholding of
what he knows to be crucial evidence is difficult to justify.
>
> > Roger's "expert" Emily Will says, "Comparison of the letter 'g' reveals
> > that B [i.e., Lyly] and C [i.e., Peele] are different in proportion,
> > slant, and motion from the Q1 [i.e., OxBib] annotations." (618).
> >
> > When we look at the samples of "g" from Oxford's 1575 and 1601 writings,
> > what do we find? They are different in proportion, slant, and motion from
> > the OxBib examples; indeed, the examples of "g" from Oxford's 1575 letter
> > are much more different from those in the OxBib than the examples from
> > Lyly and Peele are.
> >
> > I am not an expert in Elizabethan paleography (neither is Roger; neither
> > is his "expert" Emily Will). I will look at other samples of Oxford's
> > writing when I get a chance, and I will build some pages based on what I
> > have found.
> >
> > At the moment, it appears that Roger's analysis is deeply flawed; the bits
> > of handwriting evidence that Emily Will singled out as particularly
> > impressive do not, in fact, support the belief that Oxford penned ANY of
> > the annotations, let alone almost all of them. There appear to have been
> > at least three annotators (if you agree with Roger) or four (if you agree
> > with me) marking up the Oxbib over the years.
>
> So, what's the nub of your gist, Terry? Do you believe that Edward de
> Vere made no marks in his own Bible and that others did?
The book is probably the one Oxford acquired in 1570. Oxford could have
made some of the marks in the Bible; Roger seems to think at least two
people who were NOT Oxford made marks in the Bible at some time during the
three an a half centuries between the time it was printed and the time it
was purchased by Folger. The case that the most of the handwritten
annotations were made by Oxford is extremely weak.
> You won't even give him a few underlined passages?
Sure it's possible -- but which ones? Roger attempts to give him ALL the
underlined verses and verse numbers on the grounds that the color of the
ink in the underlinings matches the colors of the ink in the words written
by a single annotator whom Roger believes was Oxford. The problem with
that line of argument is that the words do not appear to have been written
in Oxford's hand. There is, at a minimum, serious doubt whether ANY of
the words in the OxBib were written by Oxford, and the presence of such
doubt is enough, in Roger's words, to "obviate the significance of any
alleged relationship between those annotations and 'Shakespeare'" (630).
> It's HIS Bible!
It was; it has passed through a great many hands in the last 430 years.
Roger believes that some of the annotations were made by a "child," but
those annotations are closer to the style of most of the other annotations
than the word "continue" is. Somebody (somebody else?) made the marks in
pencil that one sees in the book.
> I can see what partisan necessity there is
There is nothing partisan in any of my examinations of Roger's
dissertation. What I have done from the first is to take his efforts and
arguments seriously and to subject them to scrutiny through the
application of neutral principles that even Oxfordians could (and that
even some Oxfordians do) appreciate. I am not using any "Oxford-only" or
"Shakespeare-only" rules here.
> in breaking this connection on the rack (since there is no comparable
> Stratfordian connection to even a single letter), but it seems
> uncharitable and pretty well unreasonable to deny the great likelihood
> that, yes, Edward de Vere made some notes in a Bible he actually owned.
As Roger said, "the first possible line of attack for critics ... is to
deny or cast doubt upon the premise that the annotations are by Edward de
Vere. If true, this argument would of course obviate the significance of
any alleged relationship between those annotations and 'Shakespeare'"
(630).
You may wish to disagree with Roger on this point, but I give him credit
for understanding how vital to his entire enterprise it is to establish
that the annotations were indeed in Oxford's hand.
So COULD Oxford have made SOME of the marks? Sure he could have; so could
anybody else who had access to the book. Roger, however, claims to have
shown beyond any serious doubt that Oxford did in fact mark close to 1000
verses in the book. The basis for his claim is extremely weak, and the
way he built his case is, shall we say, unscholarly. His readers had a
right to expect something better from him.
Initially, I was willing to agree with Roger and his "expert" that the
verbal annotations were probably by Oxford, and I was willing to consider
the underlinings and drawings as probably Oxford's as well. It hardly
matters, since there is no relationship between the pattern of marked
verses and Shakespeare's own use of the Bible. Then I decided to check
the details of Roger's work on handwriting, and when I did so, serious
questions were raised not only about whether Oxford wrote ANY of the
verbal annotations, but also about Roger's tendentious approach to the
evidence.
>
> <snip>
>
> > I have never called Roger Stritmatter a fool; I don't think he is one,
> > although I do think Oxfordianism is folly. I don't even think that what
> > appears to be a shading of the evidence by Roger is evidence of
> > dishonesty: he really believes this stuff, and I think he often allows his
> > rooting interest to overrule whatever scholarly impulses he may feel. I
> > don't think detachment comes easily to Roger.
>
> The letter, met; the spirit, ravished.
>
> > If you wish to rule out handwriting evidence altogether, then you are
> > telling Roger out of hand that he has no case. I have more respect for
> > Roger than that.
>
> Shakespeare was apparently influenced by the Geneva Bible as by few
> other works.
Well, let's say he was very familiar with the Bible. Naseeb Shaheen, the
expert in the field, says, "although the Geneva Bible may have been the
version that Shakespeare knew best, and which he seems to refer to most
often, the influence of other versions is also clearly evident, and no one
version can be called 'Shakespeare's Bible'" (*Biblical Influences in
Shakespeare's Plays* 44). One of the books Shakespeare referred to most
often was Psalms, but he generally alluded not to the Geneva Psalms but to
Coverdale's Psalter. Shaheen notes that "the Psalter was frequently bound
with copies of the popular Geneva Bible" (45) -- but the book Oxford owned
did NOT include this version of the Psalms. If Shakespeare owned a Geneva
Bible, wouldn't it more likely have been one of the later editions that
included the Psalter, rather than an edition that was printed when he was
6 years old?
> Whether that Author would have been obligated to have underlined and
> annotated every passage that interested him or only a few or even none,
> it doesn't seem as important as the fact that an actual connection
> exists between Oxford and that influence.
According to one estimate I read, there were something like 600,000 Bibles
or New Testaments in English published during Shakespeare's lifetime (this
in a country with a population of about 6 million). Of those 600,000,
there were far more Geneva Bibles than any other version. I don't know
how many Bibles printed between 1564 and 1616 have survived --certainly
hundreds; perhaps thousands. None of them, including the OxBib, can be
shown to have any connection to the author of the works of Shakespeare.
If you think the fact that Oxford owned a copy of the most popular Bible
of the day is in and of itself strong evidence that he wrote Shakespeare's
works, then you must believe the same thing of every other person (and
there were hundreds of thousands of them) who also owned such a book.
If, on the other hand, you are interested in Roger's claims about who
wrote the annotations and what relationship there may be between those
annotations and Shakespeare's use of the Bible, then you will have to be
willing to examine such minutiae as
* the actual marks in the book (Kathman is a more reliable guide in this
than Stritmatter where the two disagree);
* Oxford's actual handwriting as compared with that of the various
annotators (Roger is not a reliable guide here, but I will be putting up
more evidence when I get a chance);
* Shakespeare's pattern of Biblical reference (Shaheen is a more reliable
guide here than anybody else).
I said this last December:
"As for Roger Stritmatter's dissertation: it has been acclaimed by
Oxfordians not so much for the quality of its arguments and evidence but
for the mere fact of its existence: a dissertation that is
antistratfordian has been accepted by a reputable university, and its
author has been awarded a doctorate. Based on what readers of Roger's
tome have posted to this newsgroup, it seems clear that Roger's panel
failed in their duty, and that the acceptance of his dissertation was a
mistake -- there is, by the way, much, much else that is wrong with
Roger's work, and more of his blunders will be discussed later."
The statistical arguments advanced in Roger's dissertation were rebutted
last year. Thomas Larque's discussion of Roger's "diagnostics" exposed
grievous deficiencies in Roger's methods and arguments; Tom Veal's
criticisms provide further grounds against Roger.
> Stratfordians would love to have anything like the same.
Why is it that no Oxfordian can defend Roger's work on its own terms? He
wrote a 700-page dissertation that you seem to think was entirely beside
the point.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Terry Ross Visit the SHAKESPEARE AUTHORSHIP home page
http://ShakespeareAuthorship.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
Bob Grumman
> judgment about the importance to his case of establishing beyond doubt
> that the annotations are in Oxford's hand? Let me paste some of what you
> snipped:
>
> According to Roger, most of the marginal annotations were written by
> Oxford. According to Roger, "the first possible line of attack for
> critics ... is to deny or cast doubt upon the premise that the annotations
> are by Edward de Vere. If true, this argument would of course obviate the
> significance of any alleged relationship between those annotations and
> 'Shakespeare'" (Stritmatter's dissertation, page 630). Roger considers
> his Appendix B a refutation of this "line of attack."
Oddly unimaginative of Roger, I would say. Why couldn't he then say that
Oxford had a secretary underline certain passages? In fact, wouldn't he
have to?! Otherwise, the Bible might incriminate him!
--Bob G.
Elizabeth Weir
It has to be a monumental task to distinguish between English bibles
because they are built, one by one, on the textual foundations of the
one before. The text of the KJV is nearly identical to the Geneva.
Entire pages are verbatim. The distinction, in terms of the source,
may be the study notes in the margins of the Geneva. Those pithy
exegeses could easily find their way into the Shakespeare plays.
Ken Kaplan
you did not rebut the core initial statistical assertions. You did
force a recanting concerning the second set of statistics. Whether
Larque's criticisms are as powerful and valid as you claim remains to
be seen. Stritmatter has a response but he has not replied "en mass".
I think some of his essays on the Fellowship site deal with issues
Larque raised. In private communication he revealed at least one
egregious error by Larque equal to the mistake he "took a pounding
over" about Mary by you, Webb, and others. At some point he will have
to reply to people like Larque but the non response is not because
Larque has "shaken" his position soundly. Stritmatter claims that your
own analysis of the "plus fours" is compromised methodologically.
You bring up valid points. These kinds of criticisms are necessary and
welcome.
Just don't go assuming everything you write is correct until all is
done.
What interests me from reading Stritmatter's dissertation, is that the
exploration of the remarkable depth of Shakespeare's mind through this
arena of the Bible, a philosophical mind, one that seems to be denied
by many Strats on this NG and in general prompts counter questions.
Such as, given what is apparently a life long association with and
deep familiarity and study of the Bible, and its formative impact, why
do we get no evidence or contemporary's
comment on one who clearly had a strong comtemplative nature. Where
are the books? Where are comments of use of books? Where are comments
about this intellect, the "Soul of the Age". Why is he such a phantom?
Something is amiss here, as always. And it does not invalidate your
questions as to Oxford's role in annotating his Bible and its
association or non association with Shakespeare. But I'll tell you
Terry, just the fact that the verse from MOV was annotated that
changed the attribution of Portia's speech rings a great deal to me.
Ken Kaplan
Terry Ross <tr...@bcpl.net> wrote in message news:<Pine.GSO.4.44.0211020651500.15444-100000@mail>...
John W. Kennedy
> I have not accused Roger of duplicity, but his deliberate withholding of
> what he knows to be crucial evidence is difficult to justify.
Well, of course, I'm just a poor ol' academic layman from East
Vassalboro, and I don't know all that there fancy kol-ee-jit tawk,
but it sounds bloody duplicitous to me.
> Sure it's possible -- but which ones? Roger attempts to give him ALL the
> underlined verses and verse numbers on the grounds that the color of the
> ink in the underlinings matches the colors of the ink in the words written
> by a single annotator whom Roger believes was Oxford. The problem with
> that line of argument is that the words do not appear to have been written
> in Oxford's hand.
I rather thought that, in this period, ink was ink was ink.
> Well, let's say he was very familiar with the Bible. Naseeb Shaheen, the
> expert in the field, says, "although the Geneva Bible may have been the
> version that Shakespeare knew best, and which he seems to refer to most
> often, the influence of other versions is also clearly evident, and no one
> version can be called 'Shakespeare's Bible'" (*Biblical Influences in
> Shakespeare's Plays* 44). One of the books Shakespeare referred to most
> often was Psalms, but he generally alluded not to the Geneva Psalms but to
> Coverdale's Psalter. Shaheen notes that "the Psalter was frequently bound
> with copies of the popular Geneva Bible" (45) -- but the book Oxford owned
> did NOT include this version of the Psalms. If Shakespeare owned a Geneva
> Bible, wouldn't it more likely have been one of the later editions that
> included the Psalter, rather than an edition that was printed when he was
> 6 years old?
Coverdale's Psalms are used in the Book of Common Prayer. His entire
version of the Psalter was bound into the BCP from the Restoration
on, and even today the American BCP of 1976 includes a newly revised
Coverdale, rather than any other version. I cannot at the moment
discover whether the complete Psalter was bound into the Elizabethan
BCP, but, bound in or not, it was the version recited.
So, if Shakespeare is dependent on Coverdale, that indicates little more
than that he outwardly conformed, just as all the other evidence tends
to show.
--
John W. Kennedy
"The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly;
the rich have always objected to being governed at all."
-- G. K. Chesterton, "The Man Who Was Thursday"
Alan Jones
"Elizabeth Weir" <elizabe...@mail.com> wrote in message
news:efbc3534.02110...@posting.google.com...
[...]
> It has to be a monumental task to distinguish between English bibles
> because they are built, one by one, on the textual foundations of the
> one before. The text of the KJV is nearly identical to the Geneva.
> Entire pages are verbatim. The distinction, in terms of the source,
> may be the study notes in the margins of the Geneva. Those pithy
> exegeses could easily find their way into the Shakespeare plays.
Quite so: "may", "could". And do they appear, incontrovertibly, in the
plays? Would you care to cite a few examples? (I hope the exegeses are not
so pithy as to be no more than commonplaces.)
Alan Jones
Terry Ross
Fellowship site. Since only members of that club can access the private
boards, I will posts here as well, in cased anybody is interested.
On the Shakespeare Fellowship boards, Roger posts as "Bassanio," and
refers to Stritmatter in the third person. Thus "Bassanio" will say,
"Stritmatter is an ass for not having spelled this out more directly in
his dissertation."
I am not making this up.
Roger as Bassanio also posted the following: "Terry, of course, with his
superior precision and care and more sophisticated comprehension of all
matters pertaining to intellectual excellence, got it right."
One of the SF members replied, "Oh dear, I'm lost. Got what right,
Bassanio?" Poor Roger/Bassanio had to come back with "Sorry, that was
intended to be sarcastic."
What I got wrong, according to Roger, is my count of PlusFours. Roger
counts 81 "diagnostics" in the Bible -- passages Shakespeare referred to
four or more times -- but when I made a somewhat similar count using
Roger's principle authority, I came up with 126 rather than 81. Of the
126, only 6 passages contain verses marked in Oxford's bible, while of
Roger's 81 "diagnostics," we are told that 30 contain marked verses.
Obviously, Roger and I are counting different things, or we are counting
things differently, or both. Here is what I posted today on the
Shakespeare Fellowship site:
=========
Roger Stritmatter says in his dissertation,
"A group of verses qualifies as a diagnostic if cited four or more times
in Carter (1905), Noble (1935), Shaheen (1987, 1989, 1993, 1999), Milward
(1987), Booth (1977), Stritmatter (1997, 1999a, 199b), or some combination
of these authorities. All citations must refer to the same motif or topic
within a verse" (Roger's dissertation, p.402).
Roger finds Shaheen the most reliable of his sources in this area: "of the
four major authorities on whom I primarily depend for compilation of the
Shakespeare Diagnostics, Shaheen is the most comprehensive and empirically
exact in his discriminations. However, Shaheen has not published a book on
the Romances nor has he treated the Sonnets or the Narrative Poems.
Also, in my opinion, he overlooks subtle but pertinent references which
were accepted by other scholars such as Carter, Noble or Milward" (402).
Roger is not entirely correct: in fact the Romances are indeed covered in
Shaheen's 1999 *Biblical References in Shakespeare's Plays*, a work to
which Roger refers on the very same page of his dissertation. Note that
Roger faults Shaheen not for the looseness but for the excessive
strictness of his standards.
I have discussed my own reasons for relying on Shaheen (1999):
"Roger took lists of Biblical allusions to Shakespeare from a variety of
different sources, each of them using different (and mutually
inconsistent) standards for what should count as an allusion. I used
Naseeb Shaheen's *Biblical References in Shakespeare's Plays*, since it
was the most comprehensive, complete, consistent, and recent source. I
would be willing to use some other set of standards than Shaheen's, but it
seems to me to be a basic principle for this kind of inquiry that whatever
standards one uses should be global and consistent BOTH for Shakespeare's
works AND for the entire Bible. Shaheen covers the plays and not the
nondramatic verse, but unless someone has a consistent set of standards
applied even more widely than what Shaheen gave us, I think we should
stick with Shaheen. In addition, Shaheen has the advantage that he is
familiar with the work of his predecessors, and he tells us that 'Whenever
a biblical parallel suggested by others does not appear in this volume, it
generally indicates that I have rejected that parallel as being invalid.'"
There are about 2300 Biblical passages listed in Shaheen's 1999 index, of
which 126 are what I call "PlusFours" (passages referred to 4 or more
times by Shakespeare). Shaheen lists "not only the principle passages in
Scripture to which Shakespeare refers, but also all of the secondary texts
that parallel them. These secondary passages are sufficiently similar to
Shakespeare's principle passages to warrant their inclusion in the
appendix" (Shaheen 769).
We could, if we wished exclude the "secondary texts" from our counts; the
result would be to reduce the number of "PlusFours" -- but among those
that would be lost would be *every one* of the six marked verses in the
OxBib that qualify as PlusFours:
1 Samuel 24.11
2 Samuel 1.14
1 Kings 2.32
Mark 10.21
Revelation 20.12
Revelation 21.8
Not one of these would qualify as a "PlusFour" if we considered only
"principle passages" in Shaheen. Let us restate the point: if we wish to
restrict "PlusFours" or "diagnostics" to those Shaheen describes as the
"principle passages" in Scripture to which Shakespeare refers in his
plays, we will find that NONE of the 1000 or so marked verses in Oxford's
Bible qualifies. Yet, as Shaheen says, "the secondary passages are
sufficiently similar to Shakespeare's principle passages to warrant their
inclusion in the appendix," and I think they are sufficiently similar to
warrant their inclusion in either Roger's list of "diagnostics" or in a
list of PlusFours. Remember: Roger's complaint against Shaheen was NOT
that his standards were too loose, but that, even with his inclusion of
"secondary texts," that they were too restrictive.
Given that Roger's complaint against Shaheen is that his standards are too
strict, one would expect the number of Stritmatter "diagnostics" to be
substantially greater than the number of "PlusFours." Roger wishes to add
to Shaheen's list "references which were accepted by other scholars such
as Carter, Noble or Milward" -- references which Shaheen tells us he
generally considered invalid (that is, not even worth listing as
"secondary texts").
How much does Roger wish to subtract from Shaheen's index? Roger lists a
handful of what he calls "false positives in Shaheen's data," only three
of which (Mt 19.5-6, Mt 20.30, Lk 18.13) will be found among the 126
PlusFours (see p. 403 for Roger's complete list of Shaheen "false
positives"). Actually, these three passages have at least as strong a
claim to be included as the six OxBib PlusFours, but even if we were to
subtract those three (and I am not inclined to do so), the number of
"PlusFours" would be 123.
Roger counted only 81 "diagnostics" using Shaheen's separate works on the
tragedies, histories, and comedies; AND Shaheen's comprehensive volume
covering all of the plays, including the romances; AND the suggestions of
other writers; AND a number of references that Roger himself added to the
mix.
How can one add any positive number to 126 (or even to 123) and end up
with 81?
As I said before, I have no way to account for the dozens of
PlusFours/diagnostics that Roger missed.
Here is a link to a new version of my chart of Shakespearean PlusFours:
http://ShakespeareAuthorship.com/sf/diag4a.pdf
This chart shows the 126 Biblical passages that appear at least 4 times in
Shaheen's 1999 index ("PlusFours").
Of those 126 PlusFours, 48 correspond to Roger's "diagnostics" (these
appear in orange on the chart) and 78 do not (these appear in blue).
Even if we throw out the 3 passages among the 126 that Roger considers
"false positives" (and I see no particular reason to do so; if we were to
purge the list of all "secondary texts" then the number of OxBib PlusFours
would be reduced to zero), we are still left with 75 other
PlusFours/diagnostics that Roger somehow overlooked.
The headings on the chart are "4+" (the PlusFours are sequentially
numbered in the order in which the appear in the Bible, from 1 to 126);
"Book" (the book of the Bible in which the PlusFour appears); "Verse" (the
chapter and verse or verses of the PlusFour); "Count" (the number of times
this Biblical passage is listed in Shaheen's Index); "Sp?" (the verses in
Shaheen's Index to Biblical References in *The Faerie Queene* that
correspond to Shakespearean PlusFours); and "Ox?" (the verses marked in
Oxford's Bible that correspond to Shakespearean PlusFours).
There are 6 PlusFours that correspond to verses marked in Oxford's Bible.
Although only 38% of the 126 PlusFours correspond to Roger's
"diagnostics," every one of the 6 PlusFours that happened to correspond to
marked OxBib verses also happened to be dubbed a "diagnostic." Would
somebody care to state the odds against such a thing happening by chance?
Put 6 white balls and 120 black balls into a sack. Draw out 48 of the
balls without looking. What is the chance that all 6 while balls will be
among the 48 that you drew?
The Shakespeare Fellowship member "Bassanio," who amusingly refers to
Roger Stritmatter as if he were an entirely different person,
misinterpreted my observations when he said, "although Terry chose his
words carefully so as not to accuse Stritmatter of being dishonest, the
implication was very well present and intended in his presentation: the
implication was that Stritmatter must have more or less deliberately
undercounted the relevant data by more than 50%."
There was no implication of deliberate dishonesty in my discussion of
PlusFours/diagnostics. Let me repeat: I have no way to account for the
78 PlusFours/diagnostics that Roger missed.
I think sloppiness probably played a part. Anyone who looks at Roger's
Appendix A closely will notice that the "Table of Shakespeare Diagnostics"
is, frankly, a mess. I have put the table up so that readers may see for
themselves: http://ShakespeareAuthorship.com/sf/strit398-401.pdf
The "diagnostics" are supposed to be numbered in the order in which they
appear in the Bible, but "diagnostic" numbers 10 through 12 are from Job,
the 18th book of the Old Testament, while numbers 13 through 17 are from 1
Samuel, the 9th book.
Even within the group from 1 Samuel, Roger shuffles the "diagnostics":
number 15 (1 Samuel 10.1/16.13) comes *AFTER* "diagnostic" number 14 (1
Samuel 16.23).
Roger's "diagnostic" number 18 is from "Kings 2.32-38," but as he
elsewhere seems to know, there are *two* books called Kings. Roger
recovers a bit, noting that number 19 is from "1 Kings," but just when you
thought it was safe to go back into the Bible, we're back to the book of
Job for "diagnostic" number 20.
If Roger were following canonical order, Job should be followed by Psalms,
but the "diagnostics" in Psalms have the numbers 27 through 31, because
Roger has inserted Ezekiel, Isaiah, and Ecclesiastes between Job and
Psalms. Then, after the Psalms, it's back again to Isaiah for
"diagnostic" number 32.
Roger tops this by moving Tobit and Ecclesiasticus (numbers 33 and 34)
to the Old Testament, something that would have surprised readers of the
Geneva Bible. OK, it's time for the Apocrypha, with a "diagnostic" from
Wisdom, but then Roger returns to Ecclesiasticus for "diagnostics" 36-41.
Roger does a somewhat better job with the New Testament, but "diagnostic"
number 56 is Matthew 23.23; then comes "diagnostic" number 57, which is
Matthew 20.28; then we go forward again at diagnostic 58 (Matthew
25.14-29). In Ephesians we have number 74 (Ephesians 6.14-17 et alia)
followed by the earlier verses in number 75 (Ephesians 4.22-24). Roger
cannot even make it through Revelation in the proper order:
78 (Revelation 12.9);
79 (Revelation 3.5);
80 (Revelation 20.12);
81 (Revelation 21.8/20.10).
Such remarkable sloppiness is found everywhere in Roger's dissertation,
and it is one of the factors that makes the tome so difficult to read.
Roger's dissertation is full of jaw-dropping howlers (his errors would
number in the thousands if anyone could stand to tally them all). The
reader is constantly forced to wonder whether such howlers are the result
of carelessness, of ignorance, of a credulous belief in Oxfordian myths,
of fatigue, of difficulty in such simple tasks as counting, or of design.
The extraordinary sloppiness also, to some extent, insulates Roger from
the accusation of dishonesty -- an accusation, let me repeat, that (pace
Bassanio) I have not made concerning the PlusFours/Diagnostics issue.
Somebody who has such great difficulty arranging his "diagnostics" in the
order in which they appear in the Bible, someone who can't seem to
remember whether Ecclesiasticus and Tobit are in the Old Testament or the
Apocrypha, someone who cannot place Revelation 3.5 *before* Revelation
12.9 -- such a person may not be capable of carrying out a deliberate
campaign of disinformation.
Xr...@pxcr8.pxcr.com
On Tue, 5 Nov 2002, Terry Ross wrote:
<snip>
>
> There are 6 PlusFours that correspond to verses marked in Oxford's Bible.
> Although only 38% of the 126 PlusFours correspond to Roger's
> "diagnostics," every one of the 6 PlusFours that happened to correspond to
> marked OxBib verses also happened to be dubbed a "diagnostic." Would
> somebody care to state the odds against such a thing happening by chance?
> Put 6 white balls and 120 black balls into a sack. Draw out 48 of the
> balls without looking. What is the chance that all 6 while balls will be
> among the 48 that you drew?
According to my calculator:
(48/120)*(47/119)*(46/118)*(45/117)*(44/116)*(43/115)=0.0033595311
So the odds against are about 99.66%
<snip>
Rob
Xr...@pxcr8.pxcr.com
Oops. That should have been (48/126)*(47/125) etc. which
would have resulted in the odds being 99.75% against.
Rob
Terry Ross
> Not so fast. From my reading of the posts between you and Jim McGill you
> did not rebut the core initial statistical assertions.
Ken, you know not whereof you speak. The core statistical assertions in
Roger's dissertation have been thoroughly rebutted, and Roger has made no
attempt that I know of either to resuscitate the poor creatures or to
replace them with valid arguments. Jim McGill himself granted that his
and Roger's chi-square argument was completely without merit, and he also
granted that if Dave Kathman's and my counts were more accurate than
Roger's counts, his and Roger's hypergeometric method would support the
claim that the overlap between Shakespeare's Biblical references and
Oxford's Bible was no more significant than that between Spenser's
Biblical references and Oxford's Bible.
Weren't you paying attention last year?
Why is this important? Roger in his dissertation lists four possible
lines of attack against his work (there are more than four, but let's give
Roger credit for counting at least that high on this occasion). He says,
"A second line of attack is to admit that the annotations are made by de
Vere but to contest the alleged connection to Shakespeare. This strategy
has been followed by David Kathman in his claim that the connections
between Shakespeare and the de Vere Bible are 'random.' A response to this
claim is included in the present document as appendix l [sic]" (630).
By "appendix l," Roger mean Appendix C, "Statistical Observations Related
to the Marked Verses in the de Vere Bible" by poor Jim McGill, whom Roger
hung out to dry last year. It is NOT the case that one must grant that
the markings in the OxBib were made by Oxford before one "contests the
alleged connection to Shakespeare." As David Kathman said, "One could
argue about whether the handwriting of the written annotations is
Oxford's, but this is largely a moot point, because the pattern of marked
marked verses in this Bible shows very little similarity to Shakespeare's
pattern of Bible use."
See Dave's essay "Oxford's Bible" at
http://ShakespeareAuthorship.com/ox5.html and his list of annotations in
de Vere's Bible at http://ShakespeareAuthorship.com/oxbib.html
While we will have to make a few changes to Dave's list, it is more
reliable than anything Roger has yet produced, and Dave's essay remains
the best introduction to the OxBib and to the issues. My counts of the
number of passages listed in Shaneen's Spenser and Shakespeare indices
have not been supplanted in the last year.
Nothing Roger or any of his defenders have said or written in the last
year has cause me to change my mind about what I said in my first post on
Roger's statistical problems:
===
Imagine that a Bible belonging to the author of Shakespeare's works were
to turn up. Wait -- it gets better. This imaginary Bible has a great
many marks and a few annotations, presumably in the owner's hand. What
would such a Bible be like? Roger Stritmatter thinks it would be like
this:
* It would not bear the name of Shakespeare or any of his friends, family,
relatives, associates, or acquaintances.
* It would not bear the names of any of his plays or poems.
* Nowhere in any of the annotations would there be so much as half a line
that we would recognize as Shakespeare's.
Well, OK -- that might be disappointing, but perhaps not surprising. We
do not find many traces of Shakespeare in the copy of *Archaionomia* that
bears his probable signature.
What of the marks and annotation in this imaginary Bible belonging to the
author of Shakespeare's works? What relation would they bear to biblical
passages alluded to in Shakespeare's works? The Stritmatter answer would
be that there would be very little overlap between the verses of the
imaginary Bible annotated by Shakespeare and the Biblical verses he
alludes to in his works. In fact, the overwhelming majority of verses
alluded to in Shakespeare's works would NOT be marked in his Bible; and
the overwhelming majority of verses marked in his Bible would NOT be
alluded to in his works. This, although hardly trumpeted by Roger, is the
key fact about Oxford's Bible -- its marked verses do not correspond
particularly well to the set of verses Shakespeare is thought to have
alluded to in his works.
===
What I said in October of last year remains true today: the marked verses
in Oxford's Bible do not correspond particularly well to the set of verses
Shakespeare is thought to have alluded to in his works.
In the absence of a statistical argument to the contrary, Roger's entire
project is finished.
> You did force a recanting concerning the second set of statistics.
Look again; neither statistical argument stands. At the Shakespeare
Fellowship Conference last month, I asked Dan Wright about the matter; he
said that the statistical parts had been "forced on" Roger by U Mass or
his department, and I suppose the implication is that since Roger was
forced to do something that looked like a statistical argument, the
validity of the argument didn't matter. Obviously, Roger had no
conception of how to form a statistical argument (although he at least
recognized that such an argument was crucial to his case), and it appears
that his readers either did not bother to assess the statistical parts of
Roger's dissertation, or they were not competent to judge those parts.
Nevertheless, they approved the dissertation "as to style and content."
> Whether Larque's criticisms are as powerful and valid as you claim
> remains to be seen.
There has not been a counter to them.
> Stritmatter has a response but he has not replied "en mass". I think
> some of his essays on the Fellowship site deal with issues Larque
> raised. In private communication he revealed at least one egregious
> error by Larque equal to the mistake he "took a pounding over" about
> Mary by you, Webb, and others.
If that "egregious error" is the one Roger mentioned during the debate,
and that he has made part of his canned response to critics, you are
wrong.
Here is Thomas's original error, from November 18, 2001:
====
And yet again Stritmatter does not have the authority of real Shakespeare
scholars to support his claims for this verse. Carter and Milward, he
tells us, refer to 1 Corinthians 7.5 - "For a time, that ye may give
yourselves to fasting and prayer", Mark 9:29 - "By praier and fasting" and
Matthew 17:21 - "How be it this king goeth not out, but by prayer and
fasting", but Stritmatter claims that "None of the cited verses is closer
to Sh[akespeare's] wording than the marked Tobit 12:8-9. This seems to be
a rather desperate lie, or Stritmatter just isn't too bright, since all of
the Shakespeare verses he cites contain references to fasting *AND*
prayer. Fasting and prayer appear in all the verses listed by Carter and
Milward, but there is no prayer at all in Tobit 12:8-9, so when
Stritmatter claims that Shakespeare is referring to these verses, he is
clearly wrong.
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=hdqfvtst22rgiqqub...@4ax.com
Thomas made two mistakes here: first, his tone was riskily abusive ("a
rather desperate lie," "just isn't too bright"). We're all tempted to
abuse the honesty or intelligence of those we disagree with, and sometimes
with what seems to us good cause, but our opponents can always dismiss us
as people who are merely abusive, and if it turns out that what we called
a "lie" was not a mistake on our opponent's part at all, then we have left
ourselves open for a considerable hiding. Thomas's second mistake was not
noticing that the word "prayer" DOES appear in Tobit 12:8-9 --
8 Prayer is good with fasting, and almes, and righteousnesse. A litle with
righteousnesse is better then much with vnrighteousnes: it is better to
giue almes then to lay vp golde.
9 For almes doth deliuer from death, & doeth purge all sinne. Those which
exercise almes & righteousnes, shalbe filled with life.
===
OK, that's a horse on Thomas. What sometimes happens in such cases is
that an opponent will post the correct information and denounce the person
who falsely claimed to have found an error as the sort of jabbernowl who
should never again be taken seriously as long as the earth continues to
turn.
That's not what happened here. It was Thomas himself who spotted his
error, and who posted a correction and apology immediately:
=====
OK. This one is my stupid mistake. The word "Prayer" appears as the very
first word in Tobit 12:8. I must have had some sort of peculiar
brainstorm to miss it. This means that this is one less Roger cheat and
one more in the "doubtful" category. This means that if you only reject
the instances where Roger is clearly cheating then he has found a possible
22 matches between his "Shakespeare Diagnostics" and marks in the Oxford
Bible.
I apologise to Roger and everybody else for my stupid error.
http://groups.google.com/groups?&selm=kndgvt446vcatqssg...@4ax.com
=========================
Thomas's correction and apology was posted the SAME DAY as his original
blunder. No Oxfordian, no supporter of Roger showed Thomas where he had
been wrong -- he himself was the first person to catch his mistake; he
promptly posted a correction; he apologized.
But that is not the end of the story. Roger has incorporated Thomas's use
of the word "lie," his error about whether "prayer" appears in Tobit
12.8-9, and the fact that Thomas was wrong at all into his Powerpoint
Presentation on the OxBib. It is his sole "refutation" to Thomas's
devastating examinations of Roger's "diagnostics." Roger does not tell
his audience that Thomas himself spotted his mistake very quickly and very
quickly published a public correction and apology. Roger does not deal
with any of Thomas's substantive criticisms. For him, it is sufficient that
on one of the occasions where Thomas thought he had caught Roger in an
error, it was Thomas himself who was wrong. And what of the great
majority of places where Thomas's analysis of Roger's methods was correct?
Not a peep from Roger.
Roger's confusing Mary Tudor and Mary Queen of Scots is a very different
matter. For one thing, it does not seem to have been the sort of hasty
oversight that led Thomas to his mistake. It appears that Roger genuinely
confused the two queens who happened to be named Mary -- a fundamental
howler in any work that purports to deal with 16th century England. Here
is part of a passage I quote last year:
"In reaction, counter-reformationist plots swirled thickly about Mary
Queen of Scots, Elizabeth I's Spanish half-sister and Catholic heir to
Henry VIII. As Elizabeth fretted over and deferred the execution of her
sister, Mary's cousin, the Spanish King Phillip II, aided by powerful
English nobles such as Oxford's antagonist Charles Arundel, prepared for
military conquest and counter-reformation" (Roger's dissertation, p. 60).
Here is a sentence from Roger's dissertation that I have NOT posted
before: "Only after the 1587 execution of the Scots Queen, Elizabeth's own
half-sister Mary Stuart, was her reign secured, and even then the price of
security was high" (186).
I suppose Roger's confusing the two Marys in ONE of these passages might
be chalked up to editorial gremlins, but the fact that he made the same
error in two widely-spaced places, in very different words, suggests that
he really was NOT able to distinguish Mary the Queen of England from Mary
Queen of Scots. Thomas Larque very quickly spotted, corrected, and
apologized for his error within hours of his initial post. I don't know
that Roger was aware of his Mary-Mary confusion until I pointed it out
last year.
> At some point he will have to reply to people like Larque but the non
> response is not because Larque has "shaken" his position soundly.
> Stritmatter claims that your own analysis of the "plus fours" is
> compromised methodologically.
I didn't mention this to the hlas group, but Roger has offered a copy of
his dissertation (not the real one, but Roger's partial reprint) to
anybody who can supply the response Roger seems to wish he had come up
with during the debate. I thought I was supposed to be the one who had
"crashed and burned."
----- THIS JUST IN ----
Roger has announced a winner in his "Help Me Against Terry" contest -- Jim
Brooks, who thinks some of the various Biblical passages that I have
listed separately should be grouped together: "For example, in Terry's
list, #2 (Gen. 2.24) should be grouped with #108 (Eph. 5.31), #117 (2
Peter 2.4) with #118 (Jude 6), and #33 (Ps. 6.2) with #35 (Ps. 9.13)."
Well, Roger might be pleased with that unresponsive response, but it
misses the point. Here's the kicker: Roger is welshing on the deal.
After congratulating Brooks for winning, Roger added this postscript:
"PS -- Jim, your free copy of Stritmatter's dissertation will be mailed as
soon as more copies become available. It is currently out of print."
This is most unfortunate, and unnecessary. Roger can always acquire a
copy of his actual dissertation from UMI at
http://www.umi.com/hp/Products/Dissertations.html
He can then mail the UMI version to Brooks.
> You bring up valid points. These kinds of criticisms are necessary and
> welcome.
Judging by the reactions of confirmed Oxfordians, my criticisms are not
all that welcome. Nor are they necessary. Roger's dissertation is not a
contribution to scholarship in literary history, comparative literature,
or any other field that I know of. His panel was wrong to approve it,
whether they were capable of judging it or not. I happen to have become a
minor player in the Shakespeare authorship game, so Roger's dissertation
may be worth MY time, but I would not advise any reader to trust anything
anywhere in the work that he cannot verify independently.
> Just don't go assuming everything you write is correct until all is
> done.
Such an assumption is not really my style. I may have made a mistake here
or there in my counting of PlusFours (although nobody has spotted any
yet), and if so, I will amend my chart of them, but as it stands it's far
more reliable than Roger's chart of "diagnostics," and it didn't take me
10 years to compile, either.
>
> What interests me from reading Stritmatter's dissertation, is that the
> exploration of the remarkable depth of Shakespeare's mind through this
> arena of the Bible, a philosophical mind, one that seems to be denied by
> many Strats on this NG and in general prompts counter questions.
Do you really think you are equipped by education, training, or
temperament to plumb the depths of Shakespeare's mind?
> Such as, given what is apparently a life long association with and deep
> familiarity and study of the Bible, and its formative impact, why do we
> get no evidence or contemporary's comment on one who clearly had a
> strong contemplative nature. Where are the books?
Lost or destroyed, probably, with one or two possible exceptions, such as
the *Archaionomia*. What became of the overwhelming majority of the
600,000 or so Bibles and New Testaments in English that were printed
during Shakespeare's lifetime? Still, if you think the argument that a
book that Oxford owned, a book that was marked up by at least three or
four different people over the centuries, a book whose marked verses (by
whichever people are responsible) do not correspond particularly well to
Shakespeare's pattern of Biblical reference -- if you think the mere
existence of such a book is a strong argument in Oxford's favor, then you
will never lack for companions in the Shakespeare Fellowship. IF, on the
other hand, you think Roger actually advances an argument or two in his
dissertation, and if you think any of those arguments may be worth
exploring, then hlas is a more useful site.
> Where are comments of use of books? Where are comments about this
> intellect, the "Soul of the Age". Why is he such a phantom?
Halloween was last week. The "soul of the age" comment was made by a
contemporary and friend of William Shakespeare, by the way, a man who
wrote plays for Shakespeare's company (including prominent parts for
Shakespeare himself), a man who did not think Shakespeare was one of the
great intellects of the age, a man who mocked some of the errors in
Shakespeare, a man who seems to have resented the popularity of some of
Shakespeare's plays, a man who loved him and who honored his memory.
Where do you find any contemporary praising Shakespeare (or praising the
works) for erudition or theological insight? If anything, you will find
the opposite. Shakespeare was NOT considered particularly learned by his
contemporaries.
>
> Something is amiss here, as always.
Of course you will believe as you wish to believe. Somehow none of the
thousand things amiss with Oxfordianism has the slightest impact on you.
> And it does not invalidate your questions as to Oxford's role in
> annotating his Bible and its association or non association with
> Shakespeare.
I was willing to grant that Oxford had probably made the marks in the book
until I took a close look at what Roger was passing off as evidence. Now
I doubt that ANY of the written words in the book were penned by Oxford. I
will look at more specimens of Oxford's writings when I get a chance, and
if the evidence starts to turn Oxford's way, I will certainly say so, but
I have seen enough to know that we cannot rely on what Roger presents.
> But I'll tell you Terry, just the fact that the verse from MOV was
> annotated that changed the attribution of Portia's speech rings a great
> deal to me.
One verse? There are about 1000 marked verses in the OxBib, one of which
is Philippians 2.15. There are some 2300 Biblical references in Shaheen's
list, one of which is Philippians 2.15.
Shaheen listed Phil 2.15 as a source for the MoV speech in his *Biblical
References in Shakespeare's Comedies*, which was printed in 1993, and the
source is also given in his comprehensive 1999 study. Roger seems to
suspect that Shaheen first learned about Phil 2.15 from a letter that
Roger sent some time earlier in the same year of 1993. Are we supposed to
believe that upon receipt of the letter Shaheen called his publisher and
inserted the Phil 2.15 reference? If you look at Shaheen's 1993 book,
will you find signs of last-minute revisions? Are there more lines on
that page than on other pages? Is the reference to Phil 2.15 in a subtly
different font? Oh, how crafty are the many anti-Stritmatterians at the
University of Delaware Press to conceal all evidence for Roger's fantasy
of how Shaheen robbed him of the rightful credit for the Phil 2.15
reference.
Actually, the fact that Shaheen suggests Phil 2.15 as a Biblical reference
works against Roger. Shaheen rejects many of the Biblical references
suggested by earlier writers, and lists as probable references many
passages that were overlooked by his predecessors. In this particular
instance, he agrees with (even as he resents) Shaheen, because Shaheen's
judgment adds an instance to that small group, the verses marked in
Oxford's Bible that Shakespeare refers to, and removes an instance from
that vastly larger group of marked verses that Shakespeare does NOT refer
to. If Roger were to use Sahheen's standards exclusively, the number of
PlusFours (or "diagnostics") would drop to 6.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Terry Ross Visit the SHAKESPEARE AUTHORSHIP home page
http://ShakespeareAuthorship.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Ken Kaplan
Bob Grumman
baloney:
To this, am I not correct to add that just about ALL the marked verses that
correspond to verses some of Shakespeare's lines are based on (directly or
indirectly) are ones that just about any writer of the time would have
thought of using?
Also, I still want to know if any study of Shakespeare's sources has been
made to find out how many of his "Biblical allusions" came from them. I
know this was discussed. Perhaps, I've just forgotten the answer. I do
recall that someone said they should still count because his keeping such
"allusions" would indicate his interest in them.
--Bob G.
Jim McGill
I see that my name has appeared, once again, in your postings. And it
seems that, once again, some clarifications are needed.
"Jim McGill himself granted that his and Roger's chi-square argument
was completely without merit,"
The specific Chi-Square argument that I developed for Dr. Stritmatter
was mathematically erroneous and was, indeed, "completely without
merit". Roger used that argument, accepting my word on its accuracy,
but had no part in its development. The mathematical error was
entirely mine and, after acknowledging my mistake in a response to
your postings, I sent to Roger a note of apology which he graciously
accepted. We remain cordial and I believe I still have his respect.
"and he [McGill] also granted that if Dave Kathman's and my counts
were more accurate than Roger's counts, his and Roger's hypergeometric
method would support the claim that the overlap between Shakespeare's
Biblical references and
Oxford's Bible was no more significant than that between Spenser's
Biblical references and Oxford's Bible."
I granted that if the specific alternate counts that Kathman proposed
were accepted (as they certainly have not been by Stritmatter or by
the Oxfordian community, as far as I am aware), then your resulting
calculation using the hypergeometric distribution would not support
rejection of the random hypothesis at the 1% level of significance.
My use of the stringent 1% level dictates that if a calculation shows
even as much as a 2% probability that the corresponding verse overlaps
really could have happened just due to random chance (i.e. a 98%
chance that they didn't), then I would not reject the random
hypothesis. I know that you understand that "not reject" is not the
same as "accept". By not rejecting the random hypothesis, I leave the
matter unresolved. This is not equivalent to actually accepting the
random hypothesis. And it certainly does not imply a probabilistic
equivalence between verse overlaps in de Vere/Shakespeare as compared
with those of de Vere/Spenser. I must also add that David Kathman's
original assertion, which my hypergeometric argument considered,
addressed Roger's counts, not Kathman's.
"… Appendix C, "Statistical Observations Related
to the Marked Verses in the de Vere Bible" by poor Jim McGill, whom
Roger
hung out to dry last year."
You used these same words ("poor Jim McGill" and "hung out to dry") in
your previous postings, seeming to imply that I have somehow been
victimized by a callous or even cowardly Roger. I had hoped that my
responses to those posting made it clear that any such notion is pure
rubbish. Indeed, it is Roger who might exhibit quite justified
annoyance at being "hung out to dry" by my carelessness. But, as I
stated, we remain cordial and he has assured me that he bears me no
ill will for my gaffe. Criticize me as you choose, Terry, but please
do not attempt to extend such criticism into some kind of implied
corresponding character flaw on Roger's part.
"At the Shakespeare Fellowship Conference last month, I [Ross] asked
Dan Wright about the matter; he said that the statistical parts had
been "forced on" Roger by U Mass or his department, and I suppose the
implication is that since Roger was forced to do something that looked
like a statistical argument, the validity of the argument didn't
matter."
I know nothing of this. I do know, as stated in my previous postings,
that the original hypergeometric argument, that I developed and
submitted as a Letter to the Editor of an Oxfordian magazine, was
solely in response to Dr. Kathman's hypothesis of random verse
overlap, as then stated on his Stratfordian website. I am frankly
skeptical that either U Mass or Roger would have considered a
statistical argument to be "crucial to his case" as you go on to
state. Roger's arguments are of a qualitative, not quantitative,
nature. It's my impression that he had no initial intention or
expectation of including any supporting statistical evidence. Indeed,
the development of such evidence would likely not be expected in such
a subjective domain. It was Kathman's specific raising of the
possibility of a random overlap, a notion that one actually can
explore mathematically, that piqued my interest and prompted my paper.
Statistical arguments are certainly not crucial to Roger's case, but
they can offer an additional perspective in viewing the subject. In
this case, the hypergeometric argument, as I previously stated, was
designed to consider Kathman's original comment that Roger's counts
(not the subsequent Kathman counts) could be ascribed to merely chance
overlap. That hypothesis remains rejected.
Jim McGill