Christopher Marlowe was Shakespeare!
Libyad817
In these skeptical pages I ask serious students who still have an open mind to
regard the plays -- read DOCTOR FAUSTUS and then THE TEMPEST, read DIDO QUEEN
OF CARTHAGE and TAMBURLAINE and then ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. They are written by
the same man. He relies heavily on classical sources, Virgil and Plutarch,
alike, in the plays attributed both to Marlowe and Shakespeare. The same
supreme Poet is interested in many foreign peoples and probably traveled to
Carthage, Libya, and Egypt, as well as Italy and Greece of course, and was
always passionately interested in foreign peoples and the universal mind of
man.
In the 1920s a linguistic scientist named Mandelbaum did a detailed rational
analysis of the styles and word usages of Shakespeare and Bacon, for the Bacon
Society - and found them to be 2 very different authors. For scientific
comparison he did Marlowe, just to augment his studies, and found him and
Shakespeare, much to his amazement and his assistants (mind, this was before
computers) EXACTLY alike. The wordlengths, style, everything, matched
perfectly. It's discussed in a number of books in the stores and libraries.
Students - look to the plays, not to the unpleasant know-it-alls on this ng.
And read what experts said in the 1700s too, including Nicholas Rowe, who first
put the plays in their present textual place headings and stage directions;
Alexander Pope, and Samuel Johnson.
They pretty much refute the Oxfordian case - who, I must say, have done an
invaluable service in battering down the hitherto impregnable edifice of the
Stratford Industry, and its billions of pounds a year investment; which alone
shatters the legitimacy of the Straford man. (But more on that below, and Ben
Jonson's dubious part in the fraud of the pen-name of Wm. Shakespeare) But . .
. there are no plays in Oxford's name. None. Where is he? There are no State
Funerals either for Oxford when he died in 1604 or for shakspere in 1616, as
was usually befitting great Poets (as there was for Edmund Spenser, for
instance, in 1599). Marlowe, on the other hand, was and is acknowledged by one
and all as a supreme playwright of genius and an original poet who
single-handedly created the unique open verse style of Elizabethan Drama.
EDWARD II is an exact match of Shakespeare's HENRY plays, and all the bloody
and magnificent histories. And Comedies match too, all over the place.
Something big occurred in 1622-23 when the explosive Folio came out - Marlowe's
Funeral.
But back to Lord Oxford. Rowe said in 1709 that minor critics were often very
condescending toward Shakespeare's lack of knowledge of the rules of
construction and propriety, which revealed his ignorance of the essentials of a
gentleman's education in the classics.
Alexander Pope in 1723 believed that much rubbish had been foisted into
Shakepseare's plays by the actors, and he transferred what he regarded as the
worst passages to the foot of the page. Pope had no respect for Shakespeare's
audience, "generally composed of the meaner sort of people" who could have no
knowledge or appreciation of "the model of the ancients:
"He writ to the People; and writ at first without patronage
from the better sort, and therefore without aims of pleasing
them: without assistance or advice from the learned, as
without the advantage of education or acquaintance among
them . . . "
Lest Stratfordians leap on this as evidence of the commonality of their man, we
need only read the many passages in Latin in the plays, and massive influence
of the classics on them - Ovid, Plutarch, Virgil, to name a few. Marlowe was
born a commoner in Canterbury in 1564, but went to Cambridge.He was renowned as
a translator of Ovid from the original Greek. But he was not a Nobleman.
On one very vague reference has been built up over the 4 centuries that
Marlowe was killed in 1593, at the age of 29, author of only 6 plays and
several exquisite poems, therefore throwing him out of contention for the
Authorship of the Ages. No. The facts are spurious and detailed in several good
books - including an 1895 novel by william G. Zeigler 'It Was Marlowe: A Story
of the Secret of 3 Centuries'; 'The Murder of the Man Who Was Shakespeare' by
Calvin Hoffman in 1955; and lately Peter Zenner's 1999 'Identifying
Shakepseare'.
For a hundred years after the famous 1623 First Folio came out identifying and
compiling all the plays and poems of Shakespeare, many references are made
assuming everyone knew he was Marlowe. It was obvious to Donne, Dryden, and
Milton, to name a few. Goethe.Only Ben Jon son was his rival, and it's obvious
from Jonson's own writings he was terribly jealous of Marlowe.
In 1604 'Doctor Faustus' was first published (11 years supposedly after
Marlowe's death in 1593) with corrections and amendments made by the author
'Ch. Marl.' Another printing came out in 1616 with more rewrites acknowledged
by the author. When the Folio came out in 1623 that was the big splash after
the author's death, apparently in 1622 at the age of 58. he wrote under other
psuedonyms, analyzed in Zenner's book; and had to go in hiding after 1593
because he had worked in the Secret Service of the dangerous Sir Francis
Walsingham (see the movie 'Elizabeth' about this evil character). All
biographers acknowledge Marlowe's dangerous work as a spy in France and
Germany, with strong contemporary documentation in the records of the Queen's
Privy Council. He was a man on the run. He had to assume another identity.
Best regards,
Dafyd ap Saille
Dyfed cantrev, Wales
Libyad817
Shakespeare Invention'.
James Bond, Jr. - 007½
been given all the credit he deserves?
Erik Nielsen
"James Bond, Jr. - 007˝" wrote:
>
> Everyone assumes someone else was Shakespeare. What if Shakespeare hasn't
> been given all the credit he deserves?
Why can't Shakespeare be Shakespeare, and Marlowe be Marlowe, and never
the twain shall meet? There is almost no similarity in their styles --
even the structure of their very lines are different! If you look at
Shakespeare, you see the acknowledged master at making blank verse sound
like natural speech; Marlowe's "mighty line" (to use Ben Jonson's quote)
is also great art, but in a different manner altogether -- majestic,
admirable, but not natural. Could Marlowe have "progressed" from
_Faustus_ and _Tamburlaine_ to _Titus Andronicus_? Ludicrous!
Add to this the fact that Marlowe, after 1593, was DEAD -- "'E's not
pinin'! 'E's passed on! This Marlowe is no more! He has ceased to be!
'E's expired and gone to meet 'is maker! 'E's a stiff! Bereft of life,
'e rests in peace! If you hadn't nailed 'im to the perch 'e'd be pushing
up the daisies! 'Is metabolic processes are now 'istory! 'E's off the
twig! 'E's kicked the bucket, 'e's shuffled off 'is mortal coil, run
down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisibile!! He's
f*ckin' snuffed it!..... THIS IS AN EX-MARLOWE!!" (To quote Monty
Python, if Monty Python had been alive in the 1590's, and written about
Marlowe... I'd like to add one comment: "'E's come to a great reckoning
in a little room!" I'll leave the part about "nailing him to the perch"
to the Oxfordians and Marlovians to fight over... they should be able to
get about ten years' discussion out of its significance.)
-- Sidwick
Erik Nielsen
similarities between Dido and A+C, it's not as if either Shakespeare or
Marlowe invented these plots. Blank verse was "invented" by neither
Marlowe nor Shakespeare; it existed well before either. And while they
both did some impressive things with it, they were DIFFERENT impressive
things, with no more in common than Ben Jonson, Dekker, Kyd, or any of
the other playwrights of that time had in common with either!
No, wait, maybe all Elizabethan plays were all created by one
schizophrenic but undeniably brilliant man!
... Go to, lunatic.
-- Sidwick
Erik Nielsen
(which the noted halfwit didn't dare address, for what reasons I leave
it to the reader to theorize), corrected some of your flagrant
misconceptions (which the oblivious halfwit has not pulled out of the
dust where they lie, for what reasons I hesitate to provide an
"authoritative answer", though I do have my own guesses), and attempted
to add a bit of humor (which the rigid, fanatical halfwit seemingly did
not appreciate -- I wonder why? Must no-one laugh in the presence of
the sacred cow?) Until the halfwit comes through with a response, which
sadly may prove to be as well-put as he can handle, I remain yours
adamantly,
-- Sidwick
Libyad817
Libyad817
>the twain shall meet? There is almost no similarity in their style
They're the same man. Read the first scene of Tamburlaine (or Dido, especially,
of TWO North African queens abandoned by Romans!), then the first scene of
Antony & Cleopatra; and so on, through the plays. Do you really think all of a
sudden in the exact same years (1587 onwards, in which Stratfordians say
Shakespeare started writing, AND, we know for a fact, so did young Marlowe) and
the same place TWO great original playwrights invented the same unique blank
verse Elizabethan Drama? That's like saying there were TWO Charles Dickens at
the same time with the same style walking around London. It doesn't happen.
This kind of genius only comes along once every few hundred years.
Cheers,
Dave
Libyad817
>But their styles have nothing whatsoever in common! As for plot
>similarities between Dido and A+C, it's not as if either Shakespeare or
>Marlowe invented these plots.
NOTHING? whatsoever . . . But they both did borrow directly and liberally from
Virgil and Plutarch; very same inclination and classical affinity for Africa.
Kyd and the rest of the boys are nowhere near the league of Marlowe and/or
Shakespeare.
>Blank verse was "invented" by neither
>Marlowe nor Shakespeare; it existed well before either.
Who? exactly. Terence, maybe? Seneca?
And I love Monty Python as much as the next bloke -or Robin in Faustus,
Dogberry, etc.
>. Go to, lunatic.
Since when did admiration for the moon become synonymous with madness? That's
moon-ism.
But back to the issue - you haven't addressed the factual points of my
argument, of the scientific proof of their exact same styles (or aren't you
aware of that Study in question?), the quartos of Marlowe's works rewritten by
him 11 and 23 years after his spurious 'death', signed by 'Ch. Marl.' . . .
and the word of damn good poets in the 17th century who never gave the
stratfordian ruse a thought - it was Marlowe all the way with them. The
references are many many many . . . But what does Milton know about it,
compared to Academia now? And Goethe? (whoops, 18th century, the Profs almost
gleefully caught me on that one) etc. It was obviously so obvious to them as to
be a moot point, hence the lack of any real discussion for 150 years after the
Folio.
Dafyd
Symposium1
> If you look at
>Shakespeare, you see the acknowledged master at making blank verse sound
>like natural speech; Marlowe's "mighty line" (to use Ben Jonson's quote)
>is also great art, but in a different manner altogether -- majestic,
>admirable, but not natural. Could Marlowe have "progressed" from
>_Faustus_ and _Tamburlaine_ to _Titus Andronicus_? Ludicrous!
Whoa. Titus is NOT the vehement example I would use as "un-Marlow-like."
I agree with you that the great majority of Shakespearean verse seems created
out of a natural verse rhythm (which seems to suggest someone who works
aurally) and Marlowe sounds more "athletic" (my usual word for it) -- I don't
find the particular examples you pressed together to be ridiculously disparate.
I find it hard to be absolutely sure that a poet's work cannot evolve radically
from one style to the other. We see it within the Shakespeare canon itself,
though it seems more likely to me that Shakespeare evolved from heavy influence
by Marlowe and Kyd to more gossamer lines -- Spenserian influence, perhaps, and
more. One of my favorite poets, Delmore Schwartz, went from a lean Yeatsian
style to an effluent, Swinburnian symphony of sound. Of course, his mental
state was also disintegrating throughout his lifetime. But some fans of his
early work find his later stuff categorically bad, while I find enjoyment in
some of each.
I'm no "Marlovian," though I find Peter Farey's web site very interesting, and
I can't be as firm as you in ruling out one person having written Faustus and
Titus, just based on the text. When you add biographical records then it's a
different matter. Certainly I've heard no two Marlowe theories that are very
similar, past the issue of surviving the "incident" at Deptford.
--Ann
Erik Nielsen
> Whoa. Titus is NOT the vehement example I would use as "un-Marlow-like."
>
would progress from works like Marlowe's to more simplistic, less
ambitious works like Andronicus... for better or worse, it has always
seemed to me that an author's work becomes more elaborate as he
continues. Compare Shakespeare's early work to his later work -- it
grows steadily more nuanced -- again, not always for the better, but
Andronicus is definitely the work of a playwright who has not written
many (if any) tragedies before, or else a playwright fundamentally
unlike Marlowe to begin with.
> I agree with you that the great majority of Shakespearean verse seems created
> out of a natural verse rhythm (which seems to suggest someone who works
> aurally) and Marlowe sounds more "athletic" (my usual word for it) -- I don't
> find the particular examples you pressed together to be ridiculously disparate.
Again, maybe not in tone, but in ambitiousness of plot, and definitely
in sense of humor. Shakespeare could not have written Marlowe's clowns,
or vice versa. And even in style -- though Andronicus is more like
Marlowe than, say, Romeo And Juliet, let alone Hamlet, it is well away
from Marlowe. On the other hand, maybe being dead will do that to a
guy...
>
> I find it hard to be absolutely sure that a poet's work cannot evolve radically
> from one style to the other. We see it within the Shakespeare canon itself,
> though it seems more likely to me that Shakespeare evolved from heavy influence
> by Marlowe and Kyd to more gossamer lines -- Spenserian influence, perhaps, and
> more. One of my favorite poets, Delmore Schwartz, went from a lean Yeatsian
> style to an effluent, Swinburnian symphony of sound. Of course, his mental
> state was also disintegrating throughout his lifetime. But some fans of his
> early work find his later stuff categorically bad, while I find enjoyment in
> some of each.
I'm not familiar with Schwartz -- I'll have to look him up. But it
seems unlikely to me that the same guy who was writing Faustus, etc.
could simultaneously have been writing The Comedy of Errors. Though
Hamlet, King Lear, etc. aren't exactly all sweetness and light, there is
always a fluency about Shakespeare. Marlowe doesn't have it. To use a
bit of a forced analogy, could James Joyce have been Ernest Hemingway?
Both are definitely great writers, but there is a blunt power about one
and a sense of verbal acrobatics about the other which are unmistakable.
>
> I'm no "Marlovian," though I find Peter Farey's web site very interesting, and
> I can't be as firm as you in ruling out one person having written Faustus and
> Titus, just based on the text. When you add biographical records then it's a
> different matter. Certainly I've heard no two Marlowe theories that are very
> similar, past the issue of surviving the "incident" at Deptford.
This is the part I like best. It seems to me you think a well-known
figure in London playwriting circles who was stabbed in a brutal fight
and buried shortly afterward would be specifically OUT as the author of
further plays. I know that if I am ever killed in a brawl (not that
this is remarkably likely), I doubt that anybody will have any doubt, or
even that they will fail to express doubt... it's rather a hard thing to
fake, that.
-- Sidwick
Sabyha
>and
>the same place TWO great original playwrights invented the same unique blank
>verse Elizabethan Drama? That's like saying there were TWO Charles Dickens at
>the same time with the same style walking around London. It doesn't happen.
>This kind of genius only comes along once every few hundred years.
>Cheers,
>Dave
It is an interesting theory, however you cannot compare Marlowe to Shakespeare.
Marlowe was not a universal genius, he did not tell and re-tell the profound
truths and themes of humanity and did not articulate all the passions, emotions
and feelings unique to the human condition. Shakespeare, however did, and that
is why he is the greatest playwright of all time in the English language.
Shakespeare revolutionised the Iambic pentameter. It is not enough to say he
merely wrote using it.
Jodie-Australia
Peter Zenner
>I find it hard to be absolutely sure that a poet's work
>cannot evolve radically from one style to the other.
>We see it within the Shakespeare canon itself,
Marlowe was forever experimenting with new ideas.
After he 'invented' the character of 'Shakespeare', he
regretted that he could not do this any more. He had
to stay 'in character', otherwise people might suspect
that something was wrong. I am not 'inventing' this --
he said so himself, in Sonnet 76:
Why is my verse so barren of new pride,
So far from variation or quick change?
Why, with the time, do I not glance aside
To new-found methods and to compounds strange?
Why write I still all one, ever the same
And keep invention in a noted weed
That every word doth almost tell my name,
Showing their birth and where they did proceed?
He INVENTED Shakespeare and he was stuck with him!
The only way he could experiment further was to publish
his "new-found methods and compounds strange" under
other pseudonyms -- and he did. He also wrote under the
names Richard Barnfield, Barnabe Barnes, Robert Chester,
Adrian Dorrell, Charles Best and Ignoto.
>Certainly I've heard no two Marlowe theories that are very
>similar, past the issue of surviving the "incident" at Deptford.
Until I had a look at the possibility, people were only going on
the works and the circumstances. I found hard proof. Van Dyck
backs me, John Florio backs me, Kenelm Digby backs me,
Ben Jonson backs me. John Milton backs me (thanks Art for
pointing that one out!). If you don't want to do all the research
yourself, read my book!
Peter Zenner
+44 (0) 1246 271726
Visit my web site 'Zenigmas' at
http://www.pzenner.freeserve.co.uk
BobGr...@nut-n-but.net
RICHARD!!!! Libyad just called Sidwick a halfwit! I hesitate to read
further in this thread for fear Sidwick will call Libyad
something even more horrible.
--Bob G.
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Caius Marcius
(Libyad817) writes:
>
>
>>Blank verse was "invented" by neither
>>Marlowe nor Shakespeare; it existed well before either.
>
>Who? exactly. Terence, maybe? Seneca?
The introduction of blank verse into English drama is credited to
Thomas Sackville and Thomas Norton in Gorboduc, which was acted before
Queen Elizabeth in 1562 (before Shakespeare or Marlowe were born). The
introduction of blank verse ("strange meter") in English is credited to
Henry Howard, the Earl of Surrey (1517? -1547) in his translation of
Books II & IV of the Aeneid (the Queen Dido sections).
- CMC
Caius Marcius
(Libyad817) writes:
Do you really think all of a
>sudden in the exact same years (1587 onwards, in which Stratfordians
say
>Shakespeare started writing, AND, we know for a fact, so did young
Marlowe) and
>the same place TWO great original playwrights invented the same unique
blank
>verse Elizabethan Drama? That's like saying there were TWO Charles
Dickens at
>the same time with the same style walking around London. It doesn't
happen.
>
>This kind of genius only comes along once every few hundred years.
Genius, as King Claudius said of troubles, come not in spies, but in
whole battalions. The Victorian era was a wonderfully fecund time for
literature - Dickens' contemporaries included Thackeray, George Eliot,
Antony Trollope, the Bronte sisters, Charles Reade, George Meredith,
etc. And that is only a listing of the novelists!
- CMC
The introduction of blank verse intoEnglish drama is credited to Thomas
Sackville and Thomas Norton in Gorboduc, which was acted before Queen
Elizabeth in 1562 (before Shakespeare or Marlowe were born). English
blank vers
e is credited to Henry Howard, the Earl of Surrey (1517? -1547) in his
translation of Books II & IV of the Aeneid (the Queen Dido sections).
- CMC
I turned the conversation back to Shakespeare. "When one, to some
degree, disengages himself from English literature" I said, "and
considers him transformed into a German, one cannot fail to look upon
his gigantic greatness as a miracle. But if one seeks him in his home,
transplants oneself to the soil of his country, and to the atmosphere
in which he lived; further, if one studies his contemporaries, and his
immediate successors, and inhales the force wafted to us from Ben
Jonson, Massinger, Marlowe, and Beaumont & Fletcher, Shakespeare still
indeed appears a being of the most exalted magnitude; but still, one
arrives at the conviction that many of the wonders of his genius are,
in some measure, accessible, and that much is due to the powerfully
productive atmosphere of his age and time".
"You are perfectly right" returned Goethe. "It is with Shakespeare as
with the mountains of Switzerland. Transplant Mount Blanc at once into
the large plain of Lüneburg Heath, and we should find no words to
express our wonder at its magnitude. Seek it, however, in its gigantic
home, go to it over its immense neighbors, the Jungfrau, the
Finsteraarhorn, the Eiger, the Wetterhorn, St. Gothard, and Monte Rosa;
Mount Blanc will, indeed, still remain a giant, but it will no longer
produce in us such amazement.
- Conversations with Eckerman, Jan 2. 1824
Libyad817
>Dickens' contemporaries included Thackeray, George Eliot,
>Antony Trollope, the Bronte sisters, Charles Reade, George Meredith,
>etc. And that is only a listing of the novelists!
Hardly in Dickens' league - and of the poets only Tennyson. But then Marlowe
had Spenser around too.
>The introduction of blank verse intoEnglish drama is credited to Thomas
>Sackville and Thomas Norton in Gorboduc, which was acted before Queen
>Elizabeth in 1562 (before Shakespeare or Marlowe were born). English
Thomas Sackville? Wow.
>"You are perfectly right" returned Goethe.
To whom did Goethe express "undying gratitude" for FAUSTUS? Hmm.
David
Libyad817
>It is an interesting theory, however you cannot compare Marlowe to
>Shakespeare.
> Marlowe was not a universal genius, he did not tell and re-tell the profound
>truths and themes of humanity and did not articulate all the passions,
>emotions
>and feelings unique to the human
Yes he did. Read the plays. It's not a theory. SOMEBODY wrote the plays
attributed to Shakespeare, and there is not one play proven to be from the
Stratford fellow, or Oxford, or Bacon. Everybody at the time and for 150 years
KNEW that Marlowe was the Star of Poets.
David
Neuendorffer
> (Libyad817) writes:
> >
> >>Blank verse was "invented" by neither
> >>Marlowe nor Shakespeare; it existed well before either.
> >
> >Who? exactly. Terence, maybe? Seneca?
Caius Marcius wrote:
>
> The introduction of blank verse into English drama is credited to
> Thomas Sackville and Thomas Norton in Gorboduc, which was acted before
> Queen Elizabeth in 1562 (before Shakespeare or Marlowe were born).
--------------------------------------------------------
Arthur Brooke was admitted to the Inner Temple on December 18, 1561,
with his sponsors being Grandmaster Thomas Sackville and Thomas Norton,
the authors of the play *Gordobuc*, which had been the entertainment at
the Inner Temple revels the previous Christmas season.
Brooke wrote *Romeus and Juliet* the next year.
---------------------------------------------------------
Arthur Brooke - DROWNS in Sea, 1563
William Shaxpere - DROWNS in Avon, 1579
Katherine Hamlett - DROWNS in Avon, 1579.
--------------------------------------------------------
Shallow: The very same day did I fight with one Sampson Stockfish,
a fruiterer, behind Gray's Inn. Jesu! Jesu!
the mad days that I have spent.
---------------------------------------------------------
<<The early Elizabethan drama owed much stimulus to the performance by
barristers of plays in their halls at festive seasons. It was in the
Hall of the Inner Temple on Twelfth Night, 1561, that the first English
tragedy, Gorboduc, which was written by two members of the Inn,
was first acted. Again, the first regular English comedy,
Supposes, was first acted in Gray's Inn Hall, five years later,
the authors, George Gascoigne and Francis Kilwelmershe, being
both students of the Society; in both these plays the actors as well as
the authors belonged to the legal profession. Instances of like
procedure abound throughout the period of Shakespeare's professional
career, although the pieces which were presented in the halls of the
Inns were not always from lawyers' pens. It was for a Christmas revel at
the Middle Temple that Shakespeare wrote Twelfth Night; and The Comedy
of Errors certainly played in Gray's Inn Hall in 1594 in the intervals
of 'dancing and revelry with gentlewomen'.>>
Almost ALL of Shakspere's business associates were
alumni of Middle Temple.
Almost ALL major Shake-speare authorship candidates
(Oxford, Bacon, Rutland, Southampton) attended GRAY's INN.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Second on PUTTENHAM's (1589) List of Noble poets
[ in "The Arte of English Poesy"]
was Grandmaster Freemason (1561-1567) Sackville:
--------------------------------------------------------
1) Edward, Earl of Oxford (1550-1604)
2) Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, (1536-1608)
- Grandmaster Freemason (1561-1567)
{Stone Guild => Guildensteen}
3) Henry, Lord Paget, of Beaudesert ( -1572?)
4) Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586) Oxford 'foil' &
fellow John Dee(007) protegee with Oxford.
5) Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618) Jonson's boss
6) Master Edward Dyer (1543-1607) Rosicrucian
{Rosenkreutz => Rosencrantz}
7) Master Fulke Greville (1554-1628) Sidney friend,
classmate & biographer; stabbed to death by servant!
8) George Gascoigne (1525-1577) Oxford/Turberville mentor
9) Nicholas Bretton (1553-1625) Mary Sidney Pembroke friend
10) George Turberville (1540-1610) pioneer of blank verse
--------------------------------------------------------------
Fulke Greville/Baron Brooke - STABbed by servant, 1628.
Christopher Marlowe - STABbed by a spy, 1593.
Edward deVere - STABs a servant, 1567.
--------------------------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer
Libyad817
>there is
>always a fluency about Shakespeare. Marlowe doesn't have it.
Yes he does.
>It seems to me you think a well-known
>figure in London playwriting circles who was stabbed in a brutal fight
>and buried shortly afterward would be specifically OUT as the author of
>further plays.
No one who knew Marlowe identified the body, when it was very hastily and
secretly buried. The facts are very very thin of his death. But I'll refer you
to the experts on this. A lot of research has been done on it, and even
objective non-Marlovians are skeptical.
David
Dogbrain
Libyad817 wrote in message <19991201215403...@ng-co1.aol.com>...
>Hi Sidwick -
>
>>But their styles have nothing whatsoever in common! As for plot
>>similarities between Dido and A+C, it's not as if either Shakespeare or
>>Marlowe invented these plots.
>
>NOTHING? whatsoever . . . But they both did borrow directly and liberally
from
>Virgil and Plutarch; very same inclination and classical affinity for
Africa.
>Kyd and the rest of the boys are nowhere near the league of Marlowe and/or
>Shakespeare.
That's simply not true. You have either not read very broadly in the
Elizabethan and Jacobean literature, not to mention the Golden Age of
Spanish Drama (Lope de Vega and Calderon), or you have read with a blind
devotion to your favorites. Webster's DUCHESS OF MALFI is an astonishing
play on all levels. And there are many, many other examples of wonderful
work. Great art emerges in great big schools. Aescylus, Sophocles and
Euripedes wrote in relatively close proximity to each other.
>>Blank verse was "invented" by neither
>>Marlowe nor Shakespeare; it existed well before either.
>
>Who? exactly. Terence, maybe? Seneca?
>
>And I love Monty Python as much as the next bloke -or Robin in Faustus,
>Dogberry, etc.
>
>>. Go to, lunatic.
>
>Since when did admiration for the moon become synonymous with madness?
That's
>moon-ism.
>
>But back to the issue - you haven't addressed the factual points of my
>argument, of the scientific proof of their exact same styles (or aren't you
>aware of that Study in question?), the quartos of Marlowe's works rewritten
by
>him 11 and 23 years after his spurious 'death', signed by 'Ch. Marl.' . .
.
>and the word of damn good poets in the 17th century who never gave the
>stratfordian ruse a thought
Where do you see this? What evidence do you have?
- it was Marlowe all the way with them. The
>references are many many many . . . But what does Milton know about it,
>compared to Academia now? And Goethe? (whoops, 18th century, the Profs
almost
>gleefully caught me on that one) etc. It was obviously so obvious to them
as to
>be a moot point, hence the lack of any real discussion for 150 years after
the
>Folio.
>
>Dafyd
Neuendorffer
> >
> >>Blank verse was "invented" by neither
> >>Marlowe nor Shakespeare; it existed well before either.
> >
> >Who? exactly. Terence, maybe? Seneca?
>
> The introduction of blank verse into English drama is credited to
> Thomas Sackville and Thomas Norton in Gorboduc, which was acted before
> Henry Howard, the Earl of Surrey (1517? -1547) in his translation of
> Books II & IV of the Aeneid (the Queen Dido sections).
/----------------------------\
| |
| Thomas --- Constance
William Blount Tyrrell | Blount /------\
[Lord Mountjoy] | | Frances---H.Howard
| Charles Tyrrell - Margery --- John deVere (E.SURREY)
| | |
Katherine Blount --- Maurice Berkeley | |
| | | P. Bertie
| Edward deVere Mary---WILLOUGHBY
Widow Russell --- Henry BERKELEY (Ambassador
| to Elsinore)
THOMAS RUSSELL --- Anne Digges (Aldermanbury neighbor
(Shak's will) | of Heminges & Condell)
Leonard Digges
("Stratford moniment")
-----------------------------------------------------------------
THOMAS RUSSELL
-----------------------------------------------------------------
<<In Appendix I of William Urry's Christopher Marlowe and Canterbury
(London: Faber and Faber, c1988) there is a list headed "Contemporaries
of Christopher Marlowe at the King's School,
Michaelmas 1578 - Michaelmas 1579.
The first name on the list is THOMAS RUSSELL (p.99)>>
--------------------------------------------------------------
From Kathman's homepage
http://www.clark.net/pub/tross/ws/friends.html
<<The final Shakespeare friend I'm going to mention is Thomas Russell.
He was one of two overseers of Shakespeare's will, an honor which
implies a close friendship. Russell was born in 1570, six years after
Shakespeare; his father, Sir Thomas Russell, had been a Member of
Parliament. Sir Thomas died when Thomas Jr. was four, and the boy was
brought up by his mother and her second husband, Sir Henry Berkeley, in
very comfortable circumstances. He was educated at Queen's College,
Oxford, and in 1590 he married Katherine Bampfield. Unfortunately,
Katherine and one of their two daughters died around 1595, after which
Russell moved to Alderminster, about four miles south of Stratford. He
certainly was familiar with Stratford around this time, since he sued a
Stratford butcher, William Parry, for debt in 1596. In 1599 he began
wooing Anne Digges, the widowed mother of Leonard Digges, (future
Shakespeare eulogist) and Dudley Digges (future knight and Member of
Parliament). Anne had a London house in Philips Lane, Aldermanbury, just
around the corner from John Heminges and Henry Condell, and she also had
an estate in Rushock, Worcestershire, a few miles from Heminges's
birthplace of Droitwich. Unfortunately, Russell and Anne Digges could
not get married right away because of the onerous conditions of her
husband's will, but in 1600 she and her children moved in with Russell
anyway, at his estate in Alderminster. In 1601 Russell tried to buy
Clopton House, the largest house in Stratford, two years after
Shakespeare had bought New Place, the second largest house in Stratford;
but in the end William Clopton refused to complete the sale. In 1603,
Russell finally married Anne Digges officially, and they divided their
time between Alderminster and Rushock until his death in 1634. (Anne
survived her husband by three years, even though she was 15 years
older.)
Russell had plenty of friends and relatives in high places. The
half-brother with whom he was raised, Sir Maurice Berkeley, became a
prominent Member of Parliament, as did his (Russell's) stepson Sir
Dudley Digges. One of his stepfather's good friends and neighbors was
Sir John Harington, the courtier, godson of Queen Elizabeth, and author
of The Metamorphosis of Ajax; Russell no doubt knew Harington well when
he was growing up. Another family friend was Tobie Matthew senior, Dean
of Christchurch at Oxford and Archbishop of York. Thomas Russell was at
Oxford with Matthew's son, Tobie Matthew junior, and the two men
maintained a friendship for many years after. Tobie junior was one of
Francis Bacon's closest friends (Bacon called him "my alter ego" and
asked for his advice in writing his Essays); he was also a friend of
John Donne and a retainer of the Earl of Essex. Still another of Thomas
Russell's friends was Endymion Porter, a courtier, patron of poets, and
favorite of Kings James and Charles I; the two men's familes were close
for years, and there survives a letter from Russell to Porter in which
he offers to take in Porter's wife and children during a plague
outbreak, promising to give them "fatherlike care." Russell himself was
invited to be knighted at the coronation of King Charles I, but he
refused the honor, preferring to pay a fine of 15 pounds instead.>>
--------------------------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer
Erik Nielsen
confused of trying to get any kind of advantage.
Erik Nielsen
Shelley? Were THEY all the same person? And the novelists of the
mid-eighteenth century? And all the Irish authors at the turn of this
one? Other fields -- Impressionist artists in France, Russian composers
at the same time (but, mind you, few before 1800), the Renaissance in
Italy, the 17th century in the Netherlands -- The fact is, success
breeds success, as a genius attracts other geniuses to his field and
inspires them to produce more than they could alone. Both Marlowe and
Shakespeare were inspired by playwrights before them, and inspired those
after them (Jonson, Webster, Beaumont/Fletcher...) History has
repeatedly shown that the oddity would be if only ONE great artist of
the same type existed in a certain time and place.
Erik Nielsen
disappear -- forget an elaborate faked death which might well be found
out! Just leave! And if you care enough to get your works secretly
published during your lifetime, are you the sort of man to not even
confess after death what you did (and what you wrote)? Somehow, I don't
think so. (And I'm ignoring all the OTHER guys who never told!)
Caius Marcius
(Libyad817) writes:
>
>Holla Caius Marcius,
>
>>Dickens' contemporaries included Thackeray, George Eliot,
>>Antony Trollope, the Bronte sisters, Charles Reade, George Meredith,
>>etc. And that is only a listing of the novelists!
>
>Hardly in Dickens' league - and of the poets only Tennyson. But then
Marlowe
>had Spenser around too.
Dickens v. Thackeray is one of the more enduring literary
controversies: I enjoy both authors, but I definitely prefer Thackeray.
- CMC
greet scoot, duckings, and thuggery
- Joyce, Finnegans Wake p. 177
Symposium1
<pe...@pzenner.freeserve.co.uk> writes:
>Marlowe was forever experimenting with new ideas.
>After he 'invented' the character of 'Shakespeare', he
>regretted that he could not do this any more. He had
>to stay 'in character', otherwise people might suspect
>that something was wrong. I am not 'inventing' this --
>he said so himself, in Sonnet 76:
> Why is my verse so barren of new pride,
> So far from variation or quick change?
> Why, with the time, do I not glance aside
> To new-found methods and to compounds strange?
> Why write I still all one, ever the same
> And keep invention in a noted weed
> That every word doth almost tell my name,
> Showing their birth and where they did proceed?
You left out some lines, Peter.
O know sweet love I always write of you,
And you and love are still my argument:
So all my best is dressing old words new,
Spending again what is already spent:
For as the sun is daily new and old,
So is my love still telling what is told.
>He INVENTED Shakespeare and he was stuck with him!
I get a much different meaning from this sonnet, Peter. I hear him saying that
his writing is monotonous (to the reader) because he is compelled by love to be
forever extolling the virtues of the beloved.
I find it slightly absurd for you to say that Marlowe was *stuck* with being
Shakespeare, when you also claim he was also "Richard Barnfield, Barnabe
Barnes, Robert Chester, Adrian Dorrell, Charles Best and Ignoto." First,
"being" Shakespeare, that is, writing his plays, couldn't have been the work
"far from variation" that you seem to think it is. The sonnet sequences,
maybe. But even they progress.
--Ann
Symposium1
>> Whoa. Titus is NOT the vehement example I would use as "un-Marlow-like."
>>
>It was less a matter of style than a certain disbelief that the same man
>would progress from works like Marlowe's to more simplistic, less
>ambitious works like Andronicus... for better or worse, it has always
>seemed to me that an author's work becomes more elaborate as he
>continues.
I see I have simply missed the sarcasm with which you meant "progressed."
Beyond that I think we are much closer in agreement.
>I know that if I am ever killed in a brawl (not that
>this is remarkably likely), I doubt that anybody will have any doubt, or
>even that they will fail to express doubt... it's rather a hard thing to
>fake, that.
I agree it's really hard to write plays when you're dead. But I think these
Marlovians actually believe their man was not dead. :) Well, I think it would
be much harder to fake one's own death and live secretly elsewhere today than
it would have been before photo ID's and Social Security numbers existed,
though they can be forged as well. And Marlowe, at least according to what
I've read, did have motive to want to be "not found" (i.e., the probability of
being tortured by the Star Chamber). But it seems just as likely that he also
had people who must have wished him dead...if it were possible he had
blasphemies to confess about others.
So...sorry to not get your meaning about Titus.
--Ann
KQKnave
cori...@ix.netcom.com(Caius Marcius) writes:
>Dickens v. Thackeray is one of the more enduring literary
>controversies: I enjoy both authors, but I definitely prefer Thackeray.
>
I haven't read Thackeray. Any recommendations?
Jim
Tom Reedy
Start with *Vanity Fair*. Once you get the bug, you'll read all of him
the same way you did Dickens. Then pick up Trollope.
TR
Sabyha
>>It is an interesting theory, however you cannot compare Marlowe
toShakespeare.
Marlowe was not a universal genius, he did not tell and re-tell the profound
truths and themes of humanity and did not articulate all the
>
>Yes he did. Read the plays. It's not a theory. SOMEBODY wrote the plays
attributed to Shakespeare, and there is not one play proven to be from the
Stratford fellow, or Oxford, or Bacon. Everybody at the time and for 150 years
KNEW that Marlowe was the Star of Poets.
>David
David,
I am a Stratfordian, so I believe wholeheartedly that the person who wrote the
plays attribute to William Shakespeare was one man from Stratford - William
Shakespeare. These theories about nom de plums etc are just that, theories.
There is absolutely no evidence that William Shakespeare did not write the
plays. There is a great deal of speculation and debate (which I think is a
good thing) but no Oxfordian or whoever, has shown me real evidence that
William Shakespeare was someone else.
I think that instead of analysing the plays and cerebralising the plays, just
play the plays and the answer is there. They were written by one man, William
Shakespeare and Marlowe, in my humble opinion, was no Shakespeare.
Cheers!
John W. Kennedy
>
> Everyone assumes someone else was Shakespeare. What if Shakespeare hasn't
> been given all the credit he deserves?
For the same reason Marlowe can't be Shakespeare. To anyone who doesn't
regard Elizabethan English as half a foreign language, the differences
in style, versification, and weltanschaung are huge. Believing Marlowe
and Shakespeare to be the same is as ludicrous as believing Robert E.
Howard and J. R. R. Tolkien to be the same, or Gene Roddenbury and J.
Michael Straczynski.
--
-John W. Kennedy
-rri...@ibm.net
Compact is becoming contract
Man only earns and pays. -- Charles Williams
John W. Kennedy
>
> >Why can't Shakespeare be Shakespeare, and Marlowe be Marlowe, and never
> >the twain shall meet? There is almost no similarity in their style
>
> They're the same man. Read the first scene of Tamburlaine (or Dido, especially,
> of TWO North African queens abandoned by Romans!), then the first scene of
> sudden in the exact same years (1587 onwards, in which Stratfordians say
> Shakespeare started writing, AND, we know for a fact, so did young Marlowe) and
> the same place TWO great original playwrights invented the same unique blank
> verse Elizabethan Drama?
Neither one of them did that, twit. Do something about your appalling
ignorance before you start annoying educated people in public.
> That's like saying there were TWO Charles Dickens at
> the same time with the same style walking around London. It doesn't happen.
Marlowe is no more like Shakespeare than Dickens is like Charlotte
Bronte.
> This kind of genius only comes along once every few hundred years.
Shakespeares are rare, though not quite so rare as all that. Marlowes
come two or three per generation.
John W. Kennedy
> >But their styles have nothing whatsoever in common! As for plot
> >similarities between Dido and A+C, it's not as if either Shakespeare or
> >Marlowe invented these plots.
>
> NOTHING? whatsoever . . . But they both did borrow directly and liberally from
> Virgil and Plutarch; very same inclination and classical affinity for Africa.
> Kyd and the rest of the boys are nowhere near the league of Marlowe and/or
> Shakespeare.
To quote Michael Moorcock, Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
I guess Marlowe also wrote the Divine Comedy. Hey, it explains all
those popes in Hell!
> >Blank verse was "invented" by neither
> >Marlowe nor Shakespeare; it existed well before either.
> Who? exactly. Terence, maybe? Seneca?
Hey, dig yourself a little deeper.
Here's a little Latin for you to look up: "Pons asinorum".
Dogbrain
Libyad817 wrote in message <19991202120425...@ng-co1.aol.com>...
>Holla Caius Marcius,
>
>>Dickens' contemporaries included Thackeray, George Eliot,
>>Antony Trollope, the Bronte sisters, Charles Reade, George Meredith,
>>etc. And that is only a listing of the novelists!
>
>Hardly in Dickens' league - and of the poets only Tennyson.
They are definitely in the same league, even if you think Dickens is Most
Valuable Player.
Dogbrain
KQKnave wrote in message <19991202223603...@ngol05.aol.com>...
>In article <8272g3$7vm$1...@nntp8.atl.mindspring.net>,
>cori...@ix.netcom.com(Caius Marcius) writes:
>
>>Dickens v. Thackeray is one of the more enduring literary
>>controversies: I enjoy both authors, but I definitely prefer Thackeray.
>>
>
>I haven't read Thackeray. Any recommendations?
>
>
>Jim
Vanity Fair
Dogbrain
Peter Farey
>
> In the 1920s a linguistic scientist named Mandelbaum did a detailed rational
> analysis of the styles and word usages of Shakespeare and Bacon, for the Bacon
> Society - and found them to be 2 very different authors. For scientific
> comparison he did Marlowe, just to augment his studies, and found him and
> Shakespeare, much to his amazement and his assistants (mind, this was before
> computers) EXACTLY alike. The wordlengths, style, everything, matched
> perfectly. It's discussed in a number of books in the stores and libraries.
Just a few things wrong with this, I'm afraid.
It was Thomas Corwin Mendenhall (not Mandelbaum), an American
physicist and meteorologist (not linguistic scientist), who, in
1887, published an article outlining his proposed method for
determining authorship, based upon the frequency with which words
of different lengths were used (and no other measure). He said
that "preliminary trials of the method have furnished strong
grounds for the belief that it may prove useful as a method of
analysis leading to identification or discrimination of authorship".
He was careful to point out that, to do this, at least 100,000
words would be needed from an author, and concluded:
"If striking differences are found of known and suspected
compositions of any writer, the evidence against identity of
authorship would be quite conclusive. If the two compositions
should produce curves which are practically identical, the
proof of a common origin would be less convincing; for it is
possible, although not probable, that two writers might show
identical characteristic curves".
Several years later, a Mr. Augustus Heminway of Boston offered
to fund the application of this method to the question of whether
Francis Bacon had been responsible for the works of Shakespeare.
Teams of 'word counters' were employed, and some 400,000 words of
Shakespeare and some 200,000 words of Bacon counted and classified.
As controls, extensive counting was also done from the works of
Jonson, Addison, Milton, Marlowe, Goldsmith and Lord Lytton.
Here is what Mendenhall had to say about the comparison:
"Figure 2 shows the characteristic curves of Bacon and Shakespeare
side by side and may be regarded, perhaps, as the objective point
of the entire investigation. The reader is at liberty to draw any
conclusions he pleases from this diagram. Should he conclude that,
in view of the extraordinary differences in these lines, it is
clear that Bacon could not have written the things ordinarily
attributed to Shakespeare, he may yet, possibly, be willing to
admit that, in Mr. Heminway's own words, "the question still
remains, who did?". Assuming this question to be a reasonable
one, the method under consideration can never do more than
direct inquiry or suspicion."
It is with this strong *caveat*, therefore, that his words
concerning Marlowe should be read.
"It was in the counting and plotting of the plays of Christopher
Marlowe, however, that something akin to a sensation was produced
among those actually engaged in the work. ...it was discovered
that in the characteristic curve of his plays Christopher Marlowe
agrees with Shakespeare about as well as Shakespeare agrees with
himself."
There are three ways in particular in which Mendenhall was at a
considerable disadvantage compared with what he might have been
able to achieve today.
- many texts are now available in electronic form
- even the least powerful of modern PCs has counting/processing
power making such tasks extremely simple.
- We now have a statistical method of quantifying the similarity
of such profiles (Pearson's coefficient of correlation) which
was not available to him at the time.
Being especially interested in the possible link between
Shakespeare and Marlowe, I therefore decided to carry on where
Mendenhall left off, and to see what an extension of his research
might reveal.
- He counted some 400,000 words of Shakespeare's; I counted
all of them
- He counted from the works of about a dozen authors; I counted
from 36.
What I found was:
- That he was right to predict a 'characteristic curve' for each
writer, but only if like is compared with like. Prose with prose;
verse with verse; essays with essays; plays with plays. (This
means that his findings about Bacon vs Shakespeare tell us next
to nothing).
- That people's profiles do change to a certain extent over time.
For example Marlowe's early works correlate much less well with
his later works than Shakespeare's early works do with them.
Bearing this in mind, I split the Marlowe figures into 'early' and
'late' and split out a 'non-comedy' category for Shakespeare
(making a total equivalent to 38 'authors' in all) and then
compared every single one with every other, a total of 740
'pairings' to be calculated. This confirmed Mendenhall's finding,
as - out of ALL 740 pairs - the top two correlations were (1)
'later Marlowe' with 'non-comedy Shakespeare' and (2) 'later
Marlowe' with 'all Shakespeare'.
Not only were these correlations higher than any other
"inter-author" comparison, but also many of the "intra-author"
ones too. For example, even though the following all showed
very high correlations, the top one had a higher correlation
than any of them:
Longfellow's *Hiawatha* with his other poems
Shakespeare's histories with his tragedies
Hardy's *Mayor of Casterbridge* and *Far from the Madding Crowd*
with his *Tess of the d'Urbervilles* and *Return of the Native*
Austen's *Mansfield Park* and *Pride & Prejudice* with her
*Northanger Abbey* and *Persuasion*
Marlowe's *Tamburlaine the Great* (part one) with *Tamburlaine
the Great* (part two).
Dicken's *A Christmas Carol* and his *Tale of Two Cities*
Eliot's *Silas Marner* with her *Middlemarch*
Milton's *Paradise Lost* (Books 1-6) with *Paradise Lost*
(Books 7-12)
There can be no doubt at all that, as far as this method is
concerned, the later works of Marlowe and the works of Shakespeare
(especially his histories and tragedies) are almost identical.
Given that, albeit starting from similar origins, their lives had
followed such totally different paths - with massive differences
in their education, their experiences, and their acquaintances -
this similarity (together with several others) is little short of
mind-boggling.
Peter F.
pet...@rey.prestel.co.uk
http://www2.prestel.co.uk/rey/index.htm
Caius Marcius
kqk...@aol.comspamslam (KQKnave) writes:
>
>In article <8272g3$7vm$1...@nntp8.atl.mindspring.net>,
>cori...@ix.netcom.com(Caius Marcius) writes:
>
>>Dickens v. Thackeray is one of the more enduring literary
>>controversies: I enjoy both authors, but I definitely prefer
Thackeray.
>>
>
>I haven't read Thackeray. Any recommendations?
>
deservedly his most popular novel. Two very under-rated novels are
Pendennis, the story of an aspiring young writer, and The Newcomes, a
panaromic Victorian family saga. These are all "long" reads, but
anyone who can get through a Dickens novel with pleasure should have no
trouble with Thackeray.
A briefer introduction to Thackeray is his first novel, Barry Lyndon,
familiar as the basis of the 1975 Kubrick film. Another very
interesting work is The Virginians, which displays a number of
allegedly "post-modern" devices, e.g., introducing "real" historical
characters, such as George Washington, Samuel Johnson, Samuel
Richardson, etc. into the narrative. The Virginians is the sequal to
Henry Esmond - despite its popularity, this is probably my least
favorite Thackeray novel.
- CMC
Libyad817
Thank you very much. I stand corrected. I had just read all your website and
came back here to say so, but you beat me to it, and in spades!
Dafyd
Libyad817
May I refer you to Peter Farey's scientific report of Mendenhall's in a post
above, today, proving otherwise?
Meanwhile, I'll return to reading Tamburlaine and Antony & Cleopatra, marveling
at the exact same style, theme, locale, and genius of the Author.
Dafyd
Libyad817
>confused of trying to get any kind of advantage.
Huh? Duh . . .
Monty P.
Libyad817
>Webster's DUCHESS OF MALFI is an astonishing
>play on all levels. And there are many, many other examples of wonderful
>work.
You're right, I haven't read this play. I'll try to find it. I'm always looking
for wonderful works i haven't read. Thanks.
>Great art emerges in great big schools. Aescylus, Sophocles and
>Euripedes wrote in relatively close proximity to each other.
Yes. Cervantes was a contemporary of Shakespeare's, and Milton was born in
1608, and Bacon, Spenser.
Dafyd
Xr...@xpcr8.xpcr.com
On Fri, 3 Dec 1999, Peter Farey wrote:
<snip report of Peter's Mendenhall study>
> There can be no doubt at all that, as far as this method is
> concerned, the later works of Marlowe and the works of Shakespeare
> (especially his histories and tragedies) are almost identical.
I have some doubts concerning authorship determinations made via tests
along the lines of Mendenhall.
Your data at http://www.homeusers.prestel.co.uk/rey/apprx4a.htm makes it
look like Middleton was Shakespeare too. The average of the two Middleton
correlations(.9973) handily beats the average of the four of the Marlow
correlations(.9954125).
The marks for Middleton and Marlowe are pretty close. I suspect that
there are a number of ways of dividing up the canons, where a different
"winner" would be announced. For instance, if you split Middleton into
early and late plays (as you did Marlowe), you might very well have a new
winner.(Early Middleton?) Since Christopher Marlowe doesn't appear to
have written comedy, you might also consider splitting Middleton's single
profile into a comedy profile and a non-comedy profile.
Just out of curiosity, how did Fletcher do in the comparison? I didn't
see any results posted for him on your site.
<snip>
It might be interesting to see Shakespeare's and Marlowe's usage of
compound words plotted against chronology. Have you done it? If
not, perhaps I'll undertake the effort myself.
Rob
Remove the Xs to reply.
Libyad817
>
Ite ad inferos. (Or are you already there, in some academic bastion? C'mon
'fess up, are you a ph.d. - piled higher and deeper?)
C'mon, keep making a fool of yourself . . .
D
Gary Kosinsky
Peter Farey <f...@rey.prestel.co.uk> wrote:
>Bearing this in mind, I split the Marlowe figures into 'early' and
>'late' and split out a 'non-comedy' category for Shakespeare
>(making a total equivalent to 38 'authors' in all) and then
>compared every single one with every other, a total of 740
>'pairings' to be calculated. This confirmed Mendenhall's finding,
>as - out of ALL 740 pairs - the top two correlations were (1)
>'later Marlowe' with 'non-comedy Shakespeare' and (2) 'later
>Marlowe' with 'all Shakespeare'.
I'm not sure that I understand your procedure, Peter.
Why did you split Marlowe into 'early' and 'late' when
you split Shakespeare into 'comedy' and 'non-comedy'? Did you
split Shakespeare into 'early' and 'late'? If not, why not?
It seems to me that 'late' Marlowe and 'early' Shakespeare should
be nearly identical. Yes? No?
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Gary Kosinsky gk...@vcn.bc.ca
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Crowley
<snip>
> "You are perfectly right" returned Goethe. "It is with Shakespeare as
> with the mountains of Switzerland. Transplant Mount Blanc at once into
> the large plain of Lüneburg Heath, and we should find no words to
> express our wonder at its magnitude. Seek it, however, in its gigantic
> home, go to it over its immense neighbors, the Jungfrau, the
> Finsteraarhorn, the Eiger, the Wetterhorn, St. Gothard, and Monte Rosa;
> Mount Blanc will, indeed, still remain a giant, but it will no longer
> produce in us such amazement.
>
> - Conversations with Eckerman, Jan 2. 1824
So what was remarkable about the 'English air' that produced
such a crop of geniuses (genii?) and near-geniuses?
Or is that an impertinent question?
Paul.
Paul Crowley
> >Why can't Shakespeare be Shakespeare, and Marlowe be Marlowe, and never
> >the twain shall meet? There is almost no similarity in their style
>
> They're the same man. Read the first scene of Tamburlaine (or Dido, especially,
> of TWO North African queens abandoned by Romans!), then the first scene of
> Antony & Cleopatra; and so on, through the plays. Do you really think all of a
> sudden in the exact same years (1587 onwards, in which Stratfordians say
> Shakespeare started writing, AND, we know for a fact, so did young Marlowe) and
> the same place TWO great original playwrights invented the same unique blank
> the same time with the same style walking around London. It doesn't happen.
>
They were the same man, alright. But his name
wasn't Marlowe, and he didn't come late, falling
into line behind a lot of lesser figures who had
so generously created modern theatre for him,
and so kindly already established the greatness
of English literature.
Paul.
Paul Crowley
> This is the part I like best. It seems to me you think a well-known
> figure in London playwriting circles who was stabbed in a brutal fight
> and buried shortly afterward would be specifically OUT as the author of
> further plays.
No one ever commented (so far as we know) on
Marlowe's literary skills or playwriting ability while
_he_was_alive_. Everything that bears his name
was published 'posthumously'. That was rather
convenient, as if he'd been alive, he'd probably
have got into a lot of trouble. It was also
convenient for anyone else who wanted to use
his name -- for the same sort of reason.
Paul.
BobGr...@nut-n-but.net
> Given that, albeit starting from similar origins, their lives had
> followed such totally different paths - with massive differences
> in their education, their experiences, and their acquaintances -
> this similarity (together with several others) is little short of
> mind-boggling.
Not really, given that their education was probably pretty similar up
to college (and probably while Marlowe was "in" college, too, as
it looks like Marlowe attendance wasn't that great), and their social
background was similar, and--of course--their year of birth the same.
The most important de-boggler, though, is that Shakespeare was probably
(praiseworthily) the most suggestible author in English, so it'd hardly
be surprising if he recognized the genius of Marlowe right off, and
started imitating him (and perhaps even reworked one of his plays,
and/or worked with him on a play). That would account for much that
the two had in common. Others might have tried to imitate Marlowe,
too, but not had the genius to equal him.
I wounder how this Mendenhall (I forget the guy's name) test would
have come out with the Romantic poets. Or, applied to illumagery,
with Braque and Picasso during the beginnings of cubism. (Those two
were born about eight months apart, by the way).
--Bob G.
Peter Farey
this. It's been there for nearly two years, but I have been
almost totally unsuccessful in getting anyone to talk about
it. Even Gary K. baulked at it first time round as far as I
recall!
Rob wrote:
>
> On Fri, 3 Dec 1999, Peter Farey wrote:
>
> <snip report of Peter's Mendenhall study>
>
> > There can be no doubt at all that, as far as this method is
> > concerned, the later works of Marlowe and the works of Shakespeare
> > (especially his histories and tragedies) are almost identical.
>
> I have some doubts concerning authorship determinations made via tests
> along the lines of Mendenhall.
Oh so do I. I do believe, however, that such things add fairly
good support for other evidence.
> Your data at http://www.homeusers.prestel.co.uk/rey/apprx4a.htm makes it
> look like Middleton was Shakespeare too. The average of the two Middleton
> correlations(.9973) handily beats the average of the four of the Marlow
> correlations(.9954125).
I'm sorry. I have tried to work out what you mean by this, but
can't. There is one "Middleton correlation", where one group of
Middleton's plays is correlated with another group of his plays.
The result is 0.99973. I don't understand your "average of the
four of the Marlowe correlations (.9954125)."
> The marks for Middleton and Marlowe are pretty close.
If we correlate all of the 12 Middleton plays I counted with
all of the Marlowe, we get .995, which would come out at about
57th on the list of 740.
> I suspect that
> there are a number of ways of dividing up the canons, where a different
> "winner" would be announced. For instance, if you split Middleton into
> early and late plays (as you did Marlowe), you might very well have a new
> winner.(Early Middleton?)
Here's what we would get.
Late Marlowe / Shakespeare .9997 (2nd)
Early Middleton / Shakespeare .9966 (45th)
Late Middleton / Shakespeare .9979 (16th) - just behind Oscar
Wilde and Conan Doyle!
> Since Christopher Marlowe doesn't appear to
> have written comedy, you might also consider splitting Middleton's single
> profile into a comedy profile and a non-comedy profile.
Could do. But I'll need to find out which is which, as I
confess to only having read a couple, and that rather a long
time ago.
> Just out of curiosity, how did Fletcher do in the comparison? I didn't
> see any results posted for him on your site.
At the time, I could find e-texts of only 2 plays, which is
not really good enough. The results for this, however gave
a .9976 result (21st on the list) with Shakespeare. Compared
with Shakespeare's comedies, however, he would have got a
much higher score (.9992), which would lift him up to fourth.
(Non-comedies, .9965, 46th)
> <snip>
>
> It might be interesting to see Shakespeare's and Marlowe's usage of
> compound words plotted against chronology. Have you done it? If
> not, perhaps I'll undertake the effort myself.
It would indeed be interesting, and no I haven't. Sounds a bit too
much like hard work to me! I would certainly expect Shakespeare to
have a much higher average score than Marlowe, but for there to be
considerable variation from play to play. My guess would be for
them to be especially high in the poems and, paradoxically, in
plays (such as the 'Falstaff' group) having a lot of comedy prose.
Peter Farey
>
> In article <3847C0...@rey.prestel.co.uk>,
> Peter Farey <f...@rey.prestel.co.uk> wrote:
> >'late' and split out a 'non-comedy' category for Shakespeare
> >(making a total equivalent to 38 'authors' in all) and then
> >compared every single one with every other, a total of 740
> >'pairings' to be calculated. This confirmed Mendenhall's finding,
> >as - out of ALL 740 pairs - the top two correlations were (1)
> >'later Marlowe' with 'non-comedy Shakespeare' and (2) 'later
> >Marlowe' with 'all Shakespeare'.
>
> Why did you split Marlowe into 'early' and 'late' when
> you split Shakespeare into 'comedy' and 'non-comedy'? Did you
> split Shakespeare into 'early' and 'late'? If not, why not?
> It seems to me that 'late' Marlowe and 'early' Shakespeare should
> be nearly identical. Yes? No?
Yes.
It would push 'late' Marlowe and Shakespeare into third place,
but doesn't quite beat 'late' Marlowe and Shakespeare 'non-comedy'.
I was interested in the two ways in which an author's profile may
change: over time and between 'types'. In Shakespeare's case, the
second seems to have been more the case. (I would say because he
had already gone through most of his 'time-based' learning curve
as 'Marlowe'!)
Peter Farey
>
> >Marlowe can't be Shakespeare.
>
> May I refer you to Peter Farey's scientific report of Mendenhall's in a post
> above, today, proving otherwise?
"the method under consideration can never do more than direct
almost identical does not remove the possibility of there being
some other reason for it to be impossible, such as his really
being dead after 1593.
My own view, as I have made clear on another thread recently,
however, is that Shakespeare's style is what one could easily
have expected Marlowe's to become had he survived, given the
circumstances that would have been necessary for him to do so.
Libyad817
>And if you care enough to get your works secretly
>published during your lifetime, are you the sort of man to not even
>confess after death what you did (and what you wrote)? Somehow, I don't
>think so. (And I'm ignoring all the OTHER guys who never told!)
Good point. But I'm looking at the Droeshout painting of Shakespeare on the
Folio, and the one that is supposed to be Marlowe at age 21 in 1585, and to
several of us here it looks to be the same man - granted after a lifetime of
wear, from age 21 to 58. Same exact eyes and eyebrows, mouth, mustachioes,
shape of head. All but the nose.
Might he have been saying "here I am" and everybody knew it, at least those who
knew him at the time and what he looked like? Might they not have assumed the
painting was proof enough, post-mortem admission/confession? Never imagining
the scent would be lost over the centuries, and hence our confusion?
could it be that simple?
David
Libyad817
>No one ever commented (so far as we know) on
>Marlowe's literary skills or playwriting ability while
>_he_was_alive_. Everything that bears his name
>was published 'posthumously'. That was rather
>convenient, as if he'd been alive, he'd probably
>have got into a lot of trouble. It was
>also
>convenient for anyone else who wanted to use
>his name -- for the same sort of reason.
Who? Am I missing something? (well, I know that)
How much do we really know about how many productions he had before 1593 and
then after? And the publishing history?
D
Erik Nielsen
was for a second, if somebody were to make a picture of William
Shakespeare, one thing they would NOT do is make an engraving (not a
painting, as you said) of another man and try to pass it off as
Shakespeare. I think it would be obvious to just about everybody that
something was up if the Droeshout engraving (although admittedly the
work of a lousy engraver, unless Shakespeare actually had uneven eyes
and shoulders) depicted a man who was clearly NOT Shakespeare.
Otherwise there would be widespread confusion -- "hey, that's not old
Will," all the people would say, "it looks like an elderly Marlowe..."
So, even if Shakespeare WERE actually an impostor, he would be an
impostor whose face was used for the Droeshout engraving.
Bet you never thought of that flaw in your argument, eh?
But of course at "58", as you said, Shakespeare would look more like
Yorick than anyone else, as he died at 52...
BobGr...@nut-n-but.net
Paul, can you name one other field which a single
person brought up from zero to near-maximal greatness
with no predecessors or allies of consequence?
No doubt I'm being purposefully ignorant in claiming I
know of none.
BobGr...@nut-n-but.net
I would be close to insane to attribute a huge book to one man, and
testify that it was this man in commendatory poems and other
introductory material, and then put the portrait of a different man
in the book (and call it the spitting image of the first man).
Everyone who knew the first man would know the picture was not
of him and wonder why, and do so, one would think, in print, since
it would be Very Odd. Certainly there would be gossip about it.
There is also the problem of the portrait's looking much more like the
bust in Stratford of Shakespeare than like Marlowe, whom it really
doesn't much resemble, for me.
And, of course, your theory disregards all the evidence for
Shakespeare as the author and against Marlowe.
BobGr...@nut-n-but.net
> No one ever commented (so far as we know) on
> Marlowe's literary skills or playwriting ability while
> _he_was_alive_. Everything that bears his name
> was published 'posthumously'. That was rather
> convenient, as if he'd been alive, he'd probably
> have got into a lot of trouble. It was also
> convenient for anyone else who wanted to use
> his name -- for the same sort of reason.
>
> Paul.
>
Greene almost surely commented on Marlowe as a gracer of
tragedians before he died, and Chettle was probably
referring to Marlowe when he spoke of one of the
offended playwrights (excuse me, one of the playwrights
who took offense) as being a fine scholar, which isn't
the same as commending him as a playwright, but close.
Peter Farey
>
> Peter Farey wrote:
> > Given that, albeit starting from similar origins, their lives had
> > followed such totally different paths - with massive differences
> > in their education, their experiences, and their acquaintances -
> > this similarity (together with several others) is little short of
> > mind-boggling.
> Not really, given that their education was probably pretty similar up
> to college (and probably while Marlowe was "in" college, too, as
> it looks like Marlowe attendance wasn't that great),
Shakespeare may have (we can't be sure) gone to Stratford Grammar
School. If he did, it was probably (we can't be sure) for only a
couple of years.
Marlowe definitely went to King's School Canterbury. Although he
was not there long, he must have been well-educated before that
to have been accepted. He then won a scholarship to the then St.
Bene't College (now Corpus Christi) Cambridge, which he attended
constantly for the next four years, when he achieved his Bachelor
of Arts degree. Having become 'dominus' Marlowe, he continued
studying for his Masters degree, which would take another three
years. Despite absences starting then, which we now know
(courtesy of a letter from the Privy Council, no less), to have
been while doing "Her Majesty good service", he was awarded his
Master of Arts degree. There was never the slightest question as
to whether he deserved it academically.
> and their social
> background was similar, and--of course--their year of birth the same.
Bob, I spoke of their 'similar origins', but is this 'social
background'?
When I talk of Marlowe's acquaintances, I mean some of the
greatest aristocrats, statesmen, poets, playwrights, scientists,
thinkers, artists and musicians in the land. You also ignore
the different 'experiences' I mentioned - both those we do know
about, and those which (if he had survived 1593) he *must* have
had.
When I talk of Shakespeare's acquaintances, otoh, I mean actors
(Burbage, Hemminge, and Condell) and - a big maybe - a playwright
or two. As for comparable experiences, other than the nastiness
of the roads between London and Stratford and the occasional
court appearance (in two senses), what would you offer?
> The most important de-boggler, though, is that Shakespeare was probably
> (praiseworthily) the most suggestible author in English, so it'd hardly
> be surprising if he recognized the genius of Marlowe right off, and
> started imitating him (and perhaps even reworked one of his plays,
> and/or worked with him on a play). That would account for much that
> the two had in common. Others might have tried to imitate Marlowe,
> too, but not had the genius to equal him.
I have explained why Marlowe's knowledge (just because of the
difference in education, contacts and experience) must have been
far wider and greater than Shakespeare's. 'Genius' simply cannot
explain knowledge, Bob, as you well know. The main point is,
however, that there is (whether you like it or not) a huge
question mark over Marlowe's "death". I therefore find it less
improbable that he survived and wrote "Shakespeare's" works than
that a minimally educated actor somehow managed to replicate,
and even improve upon, Marlowe's abilities.
> I wounder how this Mendenhall (I forget the guy's name) test would
> have come out with the Romantic poets.
I already have data for Wordsworth, Coleridge, Tennyson, Browning
and Keats. What is the question?
> Or, applied to illumagery,
> with Braque and Picasso during the beginnings of cubism. (Those two
> were born about eight months apart, by the way).
You provide enough words from each of them, I'll do the analysis.
(What IS he on about?)
Peter Farey
>
> Paul wrote, mysteriously,
>
> >No one ever commented (so far as we know) on
> >Marlowe's literary skills or playwriting ability while
> >_he_was_alive_.
Well, *he* did.
"The general welcomes Tamburlaine received,
When he arrived last upon our stage,
Hath made our poet pen his second part,
Where death cuts off the progress of his pomp
And murderous fates throw all his triumphs down."
Nigel Davies
> Shakespeare may have (we can't be sure) gone to Stratford Grammar
> School.
I'd re-phrase that to: "As his father's position in the town of Stratford
provided free Grammar School education for his children, and John Shakespeare
was clearly a professionally and socially ambitious man, it is inconceivable
that William Shakespeare did not attend the local Grammar School".
> If he did, it was probably (we can't be sure) for only a
> couple of years.
I'd re-phrase that to: "There is no reason to believe that he didn't receive a
full education from that school and limits of '2 years' are arbitrary and
unjustified".
______________________________________________________________________
nda...@emirates.net.ae
volker multhopp
> Peter Farey wrote:
> > Shakespeare may have (we can't be sure) gone to Stratford Grammar
> > School.
> I'd re-phrase that to: "As his father's position in the town of Stratford
> provided free Grammar School education for his children, and John Shakespeare
> was clearly a professionally and socially ambitious man, it is inconceivable
> that William Shakespeare did not attend the local Grammar School".
Just where did the "inconceivable" come from? Lack of schooling did
not prevent John from achieving success, there's no particular reason to
believe he would have wanted his son to follow any different path. It
wasn't free schooling that brought about universal literacy, it was
compulsory attendance. Hard-working illiterates tend to think hard work
is the best preparation for their children-- there's no reason to
believe John wouldn't have sent his son off into apprenticeship rather
than school.
--Volker
Peter Farey
>
> Peter Farey wrote:
>
> > Shakespeare may have (we can't be sure) gone to Stratford Grammar
> > School.
>
> I'd re-phrase that to: "As his father's position in the town of Stratford
> provided free Grammar School education for his children, and John Shakespeare
> was clearly a professionally and socially ambitious man, it is inconceivable
> that William Shakespeare did not attend the local Grammar School".
Well, there you go. Whilst I don't think it was the case, I can
*conceive* quite easily an ill-educated John Shakespeare having
no truck with this edification nonsense, when he needs young
William helping out in the shop while he's off a-Bailiffing.
Never done *him* no harm; I mean, look where he's got to without
it.
Incidentally, no pupil was admitted to King's School before
he had learned to read and write, and had acquired a moderate
familiarity with Latin grammar. Assuming that Stratford Grammar
was of a comparable standard (as of course you do), where do
you suppose that William would have obtained such skills? No
good asking where did Marlowe, because with him we know he
*must* have done so, which is not the case with Shakespeare.
> > If he did, it was probably (we can't be sure) for only a
> > couple of years.
>
> I'd re-phrase that to: "There is no reason to believe that he didn't receive a
> full education from that school and limits of '2 years' are arbitrary and
> unjustified".
Of course you would, Nigel, of course you would.
My main point was, of course, that *whatever* education he
managed to obtain there was at least matched by Marlowe's
education at the King's School Canterbury and earlier. Marlowe,
however, had a further *seven years* of study at Cambridge.
Now whether he spent those years with his head down studying,
translating rude poems and writing plays, or whether he spent
the whole time getting pissed and engaging in intellectual
banter with other students (when not helping out Her Majesty),
it was a *massively* different learning experience to whatever
may have happened to the Stratford lad.
BobGr...@nut-n-but.net
Peter Farey <f...@rey.prestel.co.uk> wrote:
> Bob Grumman wrote:
> >
> > Peter Farey wrote:
> > > Given that, albeit starting from similar origins, their lives had
> > > followed such totally different paths - with massive differences
> > > in their education, their experiences, and their acquaintances -
> > > this similarity (together with several others) is little short of
> > > mind-boggling.
>
> > Not really, given that their education was probably pretty similar
up
> > to college (and probably while Marlowe was "in" college, too, as
> > it looks like Marlowe attendance wasn't that great),
>
> couple of years.
We can't be 100% sure that Shakespeare went to Stratford Grammar; if he
did, he almost undoubtedly went for more than a couple of years. Why
would he not have?
> Marlowe definitely went to King's School Canterbury. Although he
> was not there long, he must have been well-educated before that
> to have been accepted. He then won a scholarship to the then St.
> Bene't College (now Corpus Christi) Cambridge, which he attended
> constantly for the next four years, when he achieved his Bachelor
> of Arts degree. Having become 'dominus' Marlowe, he continued
> studying for his Masters degree, which would take another three
> years. Despite absences starting then, which we now know
> (courtesy of a letter from the Privy Council, no less), to have
> been while doing "Her Majesty good service", he was awarded his
> Master of Arts degree. There was never the slightest question as
> to whether he deserved it academically.
>
> > and their social
> > background was similar, and--of course--their year of birth the
same.
> Bob, I spoke of their 'similar origins', but is this 'social
> background'?
Of course. It means they would have had similar families, similar kinds
of childhood friends, similar churching (probably).
> When I talk of Marlowe's acquaintances, I mean some of the
> greatest aristocrats, statesmen, poets, playwrights, scientists,
> thinkers, artists and musicians in the land. You also ignore
> the different 'experiences' I mentioned - both those we do know
> about, and those which (if he had survived 1593) he *must* have
> had.
>
> When I talk of Shakespeare's acquaintances, otoh, I mean actors
> (Burbage, Hemminge, and Condell) and - a big maybe - a playwright
> or two. And his neighbor, the author, Thomas Combe; Richard Field,
and through Field, quite likely, some authors. Marlowe.
> As for comparable experiences, other than the nastiness
> of the roads between London and Stratford and the occasional
> court appearance (in two senses), what would you offer?
They probably read the same books. Plus what I previous gave. They
probably collected the same baseball cards . . . Seriously, they
probably played similar games, wore similar clothes. Etc.
> > The most important de-boggler, though, is that Shakespeare was
probably
> > (praiseworthily) the most suggestible author in English, so it'd
hardly
> > be surprising if he recognized the genius of Marlowe right off, and
> > started imitating him (and perhaps even reworked one of his plays,
> > and/or worked with him on a play). That would account for much that
> > the two had in common. Others might have tried to imitate Marlowe,
> > too, but not had the genius to equal him.
>
> I have explained why Marlowe's knowledge (just because of the
> difference in education, contacts and experience) must have been
> far wider and greater than Shakespeare's. 'Genius' simply cannot
> explain knowledge, Bob, as you well know.
Unless the genius can read. And Shakespeare's monument says he could
write, so we have to assume he could read, as well.
> The main point is,
> however, that there is (whether you like it or not) a huge
> question mark over Marlowe's "death".
No, there's a small question mark over some of the details of his death.
> I therefore find it less
> improbable that he survived and wrote "Shakespeare's" works than
> that a minimally educated actor somehow managed to replicate,
> and even improve upon, Marlowe's abilities.
To each his own.
> > I wounder how this Mendenhall (I forget the guy's name) test would
> > have come out with the Romantic poets.
>
> I already have data for Wordsworth, Coleridge, Tennyson, Browning
> and Keats. What is the question?
Well, how do the curves of each compare to each other? I wonder how
Keats's plays compare Mendenhallically to Shakespeare's, too.
While we're on this subject, your .99XX's confuse me. I did take
a course in statistics but can't remember enough of it to understand
what the big difference is between a correlation of .9943 and .9975, or
whatever.
> > Or, applied to illumagery,
> > with Braque and Picasso during the beginnings of cubism. (Those two
> > were born about eight months apart, by the way).
>
> You provide enough words from each of them, I'll do the analysis.
> (What IS he on about?)
I use "illumagery" for "visual art" for valid reasons I won't go into
here. And I wasn't interested in the verbal similarities of the two
but in the fact that even experts can't tell many of each's cubist
works from the other's.
--Bobgee
A pseudonym invented to double my apparent presence
to make up for all the Stratfordians who are deserting the ranks due
to Stephanie's terrific arguments and Richard Kennedy's scolding
BobGr...@nut-n-but.net
> > > School.
>
Stratford
> > provided free Grammar School education for his children, and John
Shakespeare
> > was clearly a professionally and socially ambitious man, it is
inconceivable
> > that William Shakespeare did not attend the local Grammar School".
>
did
> not prevent John from achieving success, there's no particular reason
to
> believe he would have wanted his son to follow any different path. It
> wasn't free schooling that brought about universal literacy, it was
> compulsory attendance. Hard-working illiterates tend to think hard
work
> is the best preparation for their children-- there's no reason to
> believe John wouldn't have sent his son off into apprenticeship rather
> than school.
>
> --Volker
No reason says the rigidnik. Well, I do agree that "inconceivable"
is too strong. I'd go with "improbable." As for the apprenticeship,
where is the record of it? And where did the rube learn to scrawl half
his last name? And why did his monument say he could write?
--Bob G.
Nigel Davies
> Nigel Davies wrote:
>
> > Peter Farey wrote:
>
> > > Shakespeare may have (we can't be sure) gone to Stratford Grammar
> > > School.
>
> > I'd re-phrase that to: "As his father's position in the town of Stratford
> > provided free Grammar School education for his children, and John Shakespeare
> > was clearly a professionally and socially ambitious man, it is inconceivable
> > that William Shakespeare did not attend the local Grammar School".
>
> Just where did the "inconceivable" come from? Lack of schooling did
> not prevent John from achieving success, there's no particular reason to
> believe he would have wanted his son to follow any different path. It
> wasn't free schooling that brought about universal literacy, it was
> compulsory attendance. Hard-working illiterates tend to think hard work
> is the best preparation for their children-- there's no reason to
> believe John wouldn't have sent his son off into apprenticeship rather
> than school.
The existence of the Grammar School. The time it came into being. What that says
about the attitudes of the people of Stratford to education. What that says
about those who held public office in the town (such as John Shakespeare) who
were directly responsible for providing and maintaining such facilities. The
complete absence of any financial barriers to William attending. The natural
tendency for parents to wish better for their offspring which has resulted in
the development of society, not its regression. The utter fallacy of all these
factors contriving a scenario where the boy was more likely not to have
attended.
It's called common sense. I'm not surprised it's a struggle for you to concede
the liklihood of the obviousness of all this.
______________________________________________________________________
nda...@emirates.net.ae
Nigel Davies
> Nigel Davies wrote:
> >
> > Peter Farey wrote:
> >
> > > Shakespeare may have (we can't be sure) gone to Stratford Grammar
> > > School.
> >
> > I'd re-phrase that to: "As his father's position in the town of Stratford
> > provided free Grammar School education for his children, and John Shakespeare
> > was clearly a professionally and socially ambitious man, it is inconceivable
> > that William Shakespeare did not attend the local Grammar School".
>
> *conceive* quite easily an ill-educated John Shakespeare having
> no truck with this edification nonsense, when he needs young
> William helping out in the shop while he's off a-Bailiffing.
> Never done *him* no harm; I mean, look where he's got to without
> it.
Fair enough. That scenario is conceivable. But invention. I think any
non-jaundiced, objective, reasonable person (not that I am saying you aren't
such a person) has to concede that there are no factors regarding the time,
place and academic facilities at Stratford to keep William Shakespeare from
walking through the door of it. You have invented an attitude and personality
for John Shakespeare above out of thin air. His role in influential public
office of the town would suggest that he had a rather more responsible and
forward-looking approach than you have contrived.
> Incidentally, no pupil was admitted to King's School before
> he had learned to read and write, and had acquired a moderate
> familiarity with Latin grammar. Assuming that Stratford Grammar
> was of a comparable standard (as of course you do), where do
> you suppose that William would have obtained such skills? No
> good asking where did Marlowe, because with him we know he
> *must* have done so, which is not the case with Shakespeare.
A petty school, as was the norm.
> > > If he did, it was probably (we can't be sure) for only a
> > > couple of years.
> >
> > I'd re-phrase that to: "There is no reason to believe that he didn't receive a
> > full education from that school and limits of '2 years' are arbitrary and
> > unjustified".
>
> Of course you would, Nigel, of course you would.
> My main point was, of course, that *whatever* education he
> managed to obtain there was at least matched by Marlowe's
> education at the King's School Canterbury and earlier.
Your main point, to which I was objecting, was that if he attended Stratford
Grammar School "it was probably for only a couple of years". I'd like to see you
quantify how you arrived at the figure of "a couple", justify why that warrants
the assertion of "probably", else retract it.
> Marlowe,
> however, had a further *seven years* of study at Cambridge.
> Now whether he spent those years with his head down studying,
> translating rude poems and writing plays, or whether he spent
> the whole time getting pissed and engaging in intellectual
> banter with other students (when not helping out Her Majesty),
> it was a *massively* different learning experience to whatever
> may have happened to the Stratford lad.
So it was. But irrelevant to Shakespeare. The formula isn't "who can we find who
had the better education that could have written these works?" just as our
formula for da Vinci's work isn't "who can we find who had an education more
fitting with our perception of who could have been Renaissance Man?". Chapman
had a vastly superior education and made landmark translations of Homer, but he
was no Shakespeare. The measure of Shakespeare isn't a "best grades contest" -
it's rather more meaningful and substantial than that.
The published works, the shareholding, the occupation of "Ye Player", the
recorded acting lists, the contemporary diaries, the will, the monument in
Stratford itself, are more substantial than fanciful speculation, particularly
speculation concerning those who were evidently dead at the wrong time. It does
strike me as odd that we should dismiss the overwhelming liklihood of the
innocuous probability that Shakespeare attended a school yet take seriously the
suggestion that a guy didn't die when everybody, including Shakespeare himself,
said he did.
______________________________________________________________________
nda...@emirates.net.ae
Peter Zenner
>But of course at "58", as you said, Shakespeare
>would look more like Yorick than anyone else, as
>he died at 52...
Pay attention in class, Erik. A grain merchant called
Shakspere died in 1616 at the age of 52. The author
of the works died in 1622 at the age of 58 -- Marlowe.
My suggestion was that Droeshout was shown the
portrait of Marlowe at the age of 21 and asked to make
an engraving of him as he might look at the age of 58.
Get it?
He had his bit of fun by making out that the face was a
mask (look at that line) and giving him two left arms
(indicating that he was a pseudonynous writer?) and
two left eyes (indicating that there was something wrong
with the right one?).
Anyway, that's where the 58 came from -- 1622 minus
1664 = 58.
Peter Zenner
+44 (0) 1246 271726
Visit my web site 'Zenigmas' at
http://www.pzenner.freeserve.co.uk
Libyad817
>I think that, completely disregarding the question of WHO Shakespeare
>was for a second, if somebody were to make a picture of William
>Shakespeare, one thing they would NOT do is make an engraving (not a
>painting, as you said) of another man and try to pass it off as
>Shakespeare.
Yeah, Erik that's just what they did, that's my point - it IS the Bard.
Pathetic cockeyed and at the end of his rope like Lear, Faustus, etc.
I think it would be
>obvious to just about everybody that
>something was up if the Droeshout engraving (although admittedly the
>work of a lousy engraver, unless Shakespeare actually had uneven eyes
>and shoulders) depicted a man who was clearly NOT Shakespeare.
He IS Shakespeare - PEN NAME (like Mark Twain, Voltaire, Moliere, etc.). Common
practice, and commonly understood by the Literati at the time.
I think you're getting hung up on this name of Shakespeare: the whole Marlovian
point (and the Oxfordian and Baconian for that matter) is that the name
shakespeare is a pseudonym. It's a mistake to think shakspere is Shakespeare,
automatically. Get it?
>Otherwise there would be widespread confusion -- "hey, that's not old
>Will," all the people would say, "it looks like an elderly Marlowe..."
They would say, "Hey that's old Kit, por Bloke, he just died, and he's sticking
to that crazy Shakespeare alias. O well, if that's the way he wants it. It's a
beautiful book, what an honor, paid for by the Oxford family and others, 20
plays we've never read before." And after 150 years people just lost track of
the thing, and that's when they started looking so sedulously for every tax
receipt under every rock to prove the stratford fellow.
>So, even if Shakespeare WERE
shakspere
>actually an impostor, he would be an
>impostor whose face was used for the Droeshout engraving.
Now you're gettng me confused!>Bet you never thought of that flaw in your
argument, eh?
>But of course at "58", as you said, Shakespeare would look more like
>Yorick than anyone else, as he died at 52...
shakspere shakspere SHAKSPERE died in '16. Unnoticed.Then 7 years just go by .
. . nothing happens much . . . And no other engravings connecting shakspere
to the Shakespeare of the Folio - BUT we do have the apparent Marlowe painting
of 1585 that looks a helluva lot like the same guy to me, and others of my
Mates around here.
David
Libyad817
>tragedians before he died, and Chettle was probably
>referring to Marlowe when he
Yeah but they don't actually use his name Marlowe - or Morley . . . it's part
of the continuing mystery to me. AND there's those plays unpublished in his
lifetime, along with dozens by another shadowy guy named Shakespeare.
What the hell was going on? I can't help but think our Bard was up to some very
mysterious things. Strange strange . . . And the relative silence by others at
the time and for long afterward.
David
Libyad817
>I would be close to insane to attribute a huge book to one man, and
>testify that it was this man in commendatory poems and other
>introductory material, and then put the portrait of a different man
>in the book (and call it the spitting image of the first man).
No, it's the same man, everybody would know at the time it was the Bard, going
by his preferred pen-name. It's just a name, it ain't the man dead for 7 years
unnoticed in stratford.
Paul Crowley
> > No one ever commented (so far as we know) on
> > Marlowe's literary skills or playwriting ability while
> > _he_was_alive_. Everything that bears his name
> > was published 'posthumously'. That was rather
> > convenient, as if he'd been alive, he'd probably
> > have got into a lot of trouble. It was also
> > convenient for anyone else who wanted to use
> > his name -- for the same sort of reason.
> Greene almost surely commented on Marlowe as a gracer of
> tragedians before he died, and Chettle was probably
> referring to Marlowe when he spoke of one of the
> offended playwrights (excuse me, one of the playwrights
> who took offense) as being a fine scholar, which isn't
> the same as commending him as a playwright, but close.
You're allowing yourself to be fooled by your
own theories. It may have been widely
assumed throughout numerous interminable
discussions; but that does not make it true;
nor even likely. You're just guessing.
Paul.
Paul Crowley
> "Paul Crowley" <crow...@yyyyyyyyy.com> wrote:
> > They were the same man, alright. But his name
> > wasn't Marlowe, and he didn't come late, falling
> > into line behind a lot of lesser figures who had
> > so generously created modern theatre for him,
> > and so kindly already established the greatness
> > of English literature.
> Paul, can you name one other field which a single
> person brought up from zero to near-maximal greatness
> with no predecessors or allies of consequence?
> No doubt I'm being purposefully ignorant in claiming I
> know of none.
Shake-speare had predecessors, of course. But
they were primarily Classical and Continental. I'm
denying that there was something special in the
'English air' -- which is the foolish and irrational
position that you and all Strats have to maintain;
(as do the Marlites, Baconians, et al.) I'm saying
that before Shakespeare, no one would have
thought that English literature was anything special.
Indeed, they'd have seen the Italians as far ahead,
the French well ahead, and the Germans, Dutch,
Swiss, etc., as least as good.
The analogy with scientific breakthroughs is false.
A literary revolution requires a different kind of
enterprise. It's hard to see how it could be created
by a single person, no matter how great. I'm saying
that it was the remarkable nature of the Elizabethan
court with the presence of a literary giant that made
the revolution. That theatre could only have been
created in a special kind of 'workshop'. Nothing like
it had been seen since the Greeks (not that we know
what they had).
Paul.
Erik Nielsen
quite a well-known man in the London theater world. Born in
Stratford-on-Avon, Shakespeare was INDUBITABLY an actor and part-owner
in the Royal Chamberlain's Men. The reference to Shakespeare as "sweet
swan of Avon" in Jonson's preface to the First Folio indicates that
there WAS such a man, whose name was variously spelled "Shakspere",
"Shagspere", "Shacksper", and yes, "Shakespeare." The multiple
spellings prove nothing, because EVERYBODY's name was spelled variably
in those times -- even Marlowe's. (Marley's, Morley's...)
I don't think you've really done any research for yourself, you're just
swallowing the slop that's fed to you by these lunatics. The reason so
many scholars are sure that Shakespeare wrote his works is not any
ingrained prejudice, it's the fact that even the most cursory knowledge
of Shakespeare's time makes it obvious to anybody looking at the
question from an unbiased viewpoint.
-- nielsen
Erik Nielsen
the anti-Stratfordians... though it may seem we know little of
Shakespeare, we actually have more information about him than any other
Elizabethan playwright except Ben Jonson. The simple fact is, we've
lost lots of records, and there was not the interest in posterity that
there is now. (Nobody would bother to save letters written by some
playwright, and so forth,)
-- nielsen
Neuendorffer
>
> Seriously, [Marlowe & Shakespeare] probably wore similar clothes
--------------------------------------------------------
In the original Dugdale version of Shakspere:
http://www.clark.net/pub/tross/ws/shaxmonc.html
Shakspere's blouse of full of alternating diagonals
just like Christopher Marlowe's shirt:
http://www.dwnet.com/marlowe/01home.html
-----------------------------------------------------------
BobGr...@Nut-N-But.Net wrote:
>
> [Marlowe & Shakespeare] probably played similar games.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Did Shakspere play backgammon?
-----------------------------------------------------------
Ray Smith wrote:
> Arden of Feversham was attacked from behind while playing
> backgammon. Marlowe's killers claimed that he had attacked
> them from behind while they were playing backgammon.
--------------------------------------------------------------
David Webb wrote:
>And, of course, the initial "G" in "Gammon" is the Masonic insignia, and
>"Ammon" is the name of the chief deity in the Egyptian pantheon (and the
> Masonic conspirators crop up eVERywhere you look, don't they, Art?
> Even a harmless pastime like backgammon is not free
> of their far-reaching influence!
----------------------------------------------
GAMMON, n [obs E. gammon talk, chatter] to stand close to someone while
another person is picking his pocket. Keep someone in GAMMON: to divert
someone's attention while another person is robbing him.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Backgammon's 15 MEN
---------------------------------------------------------------
Backgammon, n. [Origin unknown; perhaps fr.Dan. bakke tray + E. game;
or very likely the first part is from E.back, adv., and the game is so
called because the men are often set back.] A game of chance and skill,
played by two persons on a board marked off into twenty-four
DAGGER-like divisions known as points.
Each player has fifteen pieces, or ``men''.
<<"Aye, aye, mates," said Long John, who was standing by,
with his crutch under his arm, and at once broke out in
the air and words I knew so well:
"FIFTEEN MEN on the dead man's chest--"
And then the whole crew bore chorus:--
"Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!"
And at the third "Ho!"
drove the bars before them with a will.>>
----------------------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer
Gary Kosinsky
"Peter Zenner" <pe...@pzenner.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>There
>has been all this confusion because the 'Shakespeare
>Invention' was a trinity -- three people -- the author, the person
>from whom he took his name and the front-man who offered
>to change his name in order to make the invention complete.
A question, Peter: Given that Marlowe had a front-man
in your scenario, why did he need the Stratford guy? Why not just
attribute the plays to William Shakeshaft, the actor in this
trinity?
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Gary Kosinsky gk...@vcn.bc.ca
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Peter Zenner
>And why did his monument say he could write?
Because somebody came across it in 1748 and
replaced it with one that said that he did. They
presumed something just as everybody else is
doing.
Peter Zenner
>But Shakespeare wasn't a "pen-name" -- there was a man by
>that name, quite a well-known man in the London theater world.
'Shakespeare' was the pen name that appeared first in
1593. There was a man living in Stratford called 'William
Shakspere', from where the name was taken at the
suggestion of Richard Field -- a publisher friend of Marlowe's
who knew the real 'Shakspere' because both their fathers
were in the leather trade.
>Born in
>Stratford-on-Avon, Shakespeare was INDUBITABLY
>an actor and part-owner in the Royal Chamberlain's Men.
No, this was William Shakeshaft from Lancashire. Jonson
and Aubrey told us that 'Shakespeare' had been a school-
master in the country and that his father was a butcher There
has been all this confusion because the 'Shakespeare
Invention' was a trinity -- three people -- the author, the person
from whom he took his name and the front-man who offered
to change his name in order to make the invention complete.
>The reference to Shakespeare as "sweet
>swan of Avon" in Jonson's preface to the First Folio indicates that
>there WAS such a man,
More confusion and another way for Jonson to throw us
off the track. There is another River Avon which passes
very close to Wilton House. Mary Herbert, the Countess of
Pembroke, patronised many of the poets of the day. And
if you don't know what part she and her two sons played
in 'Shakespeare's' life, then you had better do a bit more
swotting.
John W. Kennedy
> Ite ad inferos.
Non delectamur. Thanks for the implied compliment, but the closest I
come to deserving royal honors is that my
great-great-great-great-great-granduncle (or thereabouts) was a buddy of
George IV.
> (Or are you already there, in some academic bastion? C'mon
> 'fess up, are you a ph.d. - piled higher and deeper?)
On the contrary, I'm an ignorant, self-taught college dropout.
Yet not so ignorant as thou.
> C'mon, keep making a fool of yourself . . .
It was not I that made the grotesque error of supposing
blank-verse tragedy to be the invention of Marlowe.
--
-John W. Kennedy
-rri...@ibm.net
Compact is becoming contract
Man only earns and pays. -- Charles Williams
John W. Kennedy
>
> >Neither one of them did that, twit. Do something about your appalling
> >ignorance before you start annoying educated people in public.
>
> Twit?
>
> Ah, just when I was enjoying a civilized British discussion of our favorite
> subject - Literature! - herr docteur professor thunders down from the Mountain
> upon us with the Pronouncements from the Bastions of Learning - the Keeper of
> the Pure Flame hath spoken.
No, I'm correcting an appalling error of fact, to wit, your assertion
that Marlowe and/or Shakespeare invented blank-verse tragedy.
> Never mind the facts, such as the PLAYS, or
> scientific studies like Mendenhall's (see Peter Farey's website), etc.) proving
> Marlowe/Shakespeare, and the opinion of other unedcated hacks like John Milton
> and John Donne thereunto.
Where does Milton say that Marlowe or Shakespeare invented
blank-verse-tragedy? Or, depending on what you mean (it's hard to
tell), where does Milton say that Marlowe was Shakespeare?
Ditto for Donne.
> I have no desire to stoop to these insults and name-calling,
Liar.
> or to argue with
> those who love the Bard and choose to think he was whom he is,
"who", not "whom"
> or the relevance
> of his identity or not to the Works, as long as we all recognize the honor due
> to the Man, and the truth of his life and his suffering to create such Works
> that inspire and help us all. He was a human being, after all.
Then don't make wild, unprovable assertions about him.
> Do we not owe Him the honor of finding his truth, and, if his real Name were
> lost in the misery painfully articulated in the sonnets and plays, declaring it
> once and for all? I for one did not ask for this mystery, and neither did he.
He certainly didn't. That's why he put his name, "William Shakespeare",
on the plays.
> We know full well who Byron and Shelley et. al. really were, and love Dickens
> or Thackeray according to our tastes, but good God, does not our entire English
> Culture depend on its creator and his truth?
If you think that Shakespeare "created" English culture, you're
hopelessly ignorant.
> I'm sure many of you saw the latest poll listing the greatest 100 Britons of
> all time - and Shakespeare topped the list by far. HE is US, whether Brit or
> American or Oz, or anyone who loves the literature.
Your point being? God! You're running on like a cheap politician who,
caught with his fingers in the till, rants on about Mom and Apple Pie
and the Good Ol' USA in the hopes that people will lose track of the
subject.
> Sorry, I'm a bit passionate about this. Got carried away. My apologies. It's as
> important to me as the identity of Homer, or Mark of the Gospels.
The one is a name lost in time, the other nearly so. Though for what
it's worth, I'm of conservative beliefs re: both.
--
-John W. Kennedy
"Learn your A's. And your B's. And your
C's and your D's. THEN you will be at your
ease!" -- Lewis Carroll
John W. Kennedy
> I think that, completely disregarding the question of WHO Shakespeare
> was for a second, if somebody were to make a picture of William
> Shakespeare, one thing they would NOT do is make an engraving (not a
> painting, as you said) of another man and try to pass it off as
> Shakespeare.
Actually, it would be _most_ unwise to take that as a principle. Many
older books demonstrably do just that. Nevertheless, to those without
an anti-Stratfordian prejudice, it is reasonable to believe that the
engraving and the monument are both legitimate portraits of the man.
Libyad817
David
Erik Nielsen
Peter Zenner wrote:
>
> Erik Neilson wrote:-
(Nielsen's name was spelled in many ways throughout his lifetime --
"Neilson", "Neilsen", "Nielson", "Nelson", Nilsson".)
> >But Shakespeare wasn't a "pen-name" -- there was a man by
> >that name, quite a well-known man in the London theater world.
>
> 'Shakespeare' was the pen name...
(lot of nonsensical blather)
You know, as a professional magician, you should be aware of the ways in
which one can distract attention from a simple happening with a complex
one elsewhere. And this is what you seem to be doing. The fact is, if
there WAS a man named William Shakespeare, and he WAS from Stratford,
and he DID live a life much like the one conventionally described, then
why the hell couldn't HE have written the plays?
Your real answer is obvious to me, although you'll surely deny it: it
wouldn't sell any books to fools if that were the case.
-- nielsen
Libyad817
> Nevertheless, to those without
>an anti-Stratfordian prejudice, it is reasonable to believe that the
>engraving and the monument are both legitimate portraits of the man.
We AGREE!! They're portraits of Marlowe, from the 1585 painting. And I have
nothing against Stratford, my grandfather was born there - in Stratford,
Ontario, across the street from the beautiful theatre.
David
Erik Nielsen
the "conspiracy" to discredit you stretches back to 1748. Quite a
titanist trait, or maybe it's just an egotistical one. The fact is,
you're dead wrong. There, there... it'll be better shortly.
-- nielsen
Libyad817
>I don't think you've really done any research for yourself, you're just
>swallowing the slop that's fed to you by these lunatics.
Not ANY research? Gawrsh. I guess only Marchette Chute and Schoenbaum know or
care anything about literature. And if we don't agree with Teacher we'll get a
C-.
>even the most cursory knowledge
>of Shakespeare's time makes it obvious to anybody looking at the
>question from an unbiased viewpoint.
>
>-- nielsen
Obvious?
Cursory is right, if you're going on a few tiny scraps of paper and a few
other fragments of questionable references upon which to hang Lear and Prospero
and the titans. I used to swallow all that drivel about stratford because
that's all we ever got, then Charlton Ogburn blew it wide open for me for the
first time and made elizabethan england breathe, like the plays, and then
Hotson, and Wraight and Zenner et.al., my god! This is exciting! It's got
nothing to do with "bias".
I don't care where it goes, even if back to Stratford, but by god it's gotta be
believable.
David
Erik Nielsen
> We AGREE!! They're portraits of Marlowe, from the 1585 painting. And I have
> nothing against Stratford, my grandfather was born there - in Stratford,
> Ontario, across the street from the beautiful theatre.
Have you ever seen the 1585 painting?
(Somehow, I doubt it.)
Or are you just regurgitating what these fools have told you?
(Sure sounds like it.)
You, and every other Marlovian (Oxfordian, Baconian, blah blah blah),
have yet to give ONE concrete bit of evidence in favor of your
candidate. It's all "could have been", "could have been", "can't
disprove it." Sorry, but the concept of a Vast Conspiracy like this one
requires more than its possibility (which in itself is doubtful) to
make it at all plausible, especially in the absence of any reason to
doubt that Shakespeare was himself. (All the "evidence" you've put
forth for that is fatally flawed, and has been refuted so many times I
wonder you don't feel a bit sorry for it every time you send it back out
there to get shot down again.) Consider the question from an unbiased
viewpoint; most people have, and that is why most people are convinced
that Shakespeare is -- Shakespeare.
-- nielsen
Erik Nielsen
Libyad817 wrote:
>
> C'mon Erik,
>
> >I don't think you've really done any research for yourself, you're just
> >swallowing the slop that's fed to you by these lunatics.
>
> Not ANY research? Gawrsh. I guess only Marchette Chute and Schoenbaum know or
> care anything about literature. And if we don't agree with Teacher we'll get a
> C-.
Well, HAVE you done any research? Not beyond the polemics you mention
in the next paragraph, I suspect. The reason why so many respected
academics scoff at the Marlovian webwork is that even a modicum of
knowledge is sufficient to see how ridiculously unlikely it is.
>
> >even the most cursory knowledge
> >of Shakespeare's time makes it obvious to anybody looking at the
> >question from an unbiased viewpoint.
> >
> >-- nielsen
>
> Obvious?
>
> Cursory is right, if you're going on a few tiny scraps of paper and a few
> other fragments of questionable references upon which to hang Lear and Prospero
> and the titans.
Those "few scraps of paper" are more than we have of any Elizabethan
dramatist except Ben Jonson, and I wouldn't call 37 plays and numerous
poems published as by "William Shakespeare" "questionable references".
I used to swallow all that drivel about stratford because
> that's all we ever got, then Charlton Ogburn blew it wide open for me for the
> first time and made elizabethan england breathe, like the plays,
You let your wish to believe run away with you. It's like detective
stories -- in real life, the most obvious subject is almost always the
killer. But if detective stories were written like that, they'd be
dreadfully boring. So the fictional killer is always some other guy.
Reality, unfettered by the need to hold a reader, shows a strong
tendency to proceed in the manner it appears to do so in. That doesn't
make detective stories less interesting, but it doesn't make them any
more realistic either.
and then
> Hotson, and Wraight and Zenner et.al., my god! This is exciting!
Well, who would fabricate a boring story? I could say "_Julius Caesar_
was written by space aliens," and it would be an interesting story, but
that wouldn't make it true.
It's got
> nothing to do with "bias".
It's got nothing to do with conscious bias.
>
> I don't care where it goes, even if back to Stratford, but by god it's gotta be
> believable.
And what is so unbelievable about this?
William Shakespeare is born in 1564, moves to London, works for the Lord
Chamberlain's Men, writes some plays, and dies.
As opposed to your view, which is...
Christopher Marlowe is born in 1564, moves to London, writes some plays,
gets into trouble with authorities, manages to successfully fake his own
death (has anybody EVER successfully faked his own death in a situation
where there was a body available? I don't think so...), travels about
England, periodically sending his poetry and plays to London where he
arranges for them to be performed and published under the name of a
member of a local acting troupe. (Meanwhile, he has completely changed
his style of writing; he had been writing plays performed under
Shakespeare's name for some time before his death, for no apparent
reason.) Nobody ever finds out, despite the frequent and mysterious
packages Mr. Shakespeare receives from various parts of England. Nobody
confesses, on his deathbed or otherwise. All of the many close friends
of both Shakespeare and Marlowe remain completely in the dark.
Which is the more plausible to you? As you consider, meditating on the
lack of references to Shakespeare in the literature of his day (what do
you expect? Reviews in magazines? Or maybe a miraculously preserved
diary?), think of this: We know even less about Marlowe.
-- nielsen
Peter Farey
>
> I wrote:
> >
<snip>
> > Marlowe,
> > however, had a further *seven years* of study at Cambridge.
> > Now whether he spent those years with his head down studying,
> > translating rude poems and writing plays, or whether he spent
> > the whole time getting pissed and engaging in intellectual
> > banter with other students (when not helping out Her Majesty),
> > it was a *massively* different learning experience to whatever
> > may have happened to the Stratford lad.
> So it was. But irrelevant to Shakespeare. The formula isn't "who can we find who
> had the better education that could have written these works?" just as our
> formula for da Vinci's work isn't "who can we find who had an education more
> fitting with our perception of who could have been Renaissance Man?". Chapman
> had a vastly superior education and made landmark translations of Homer, but he
> was no Shakespeare. The measure of Shakespeare isn't a "best grades contest" -
> it's rather more meaningful and substantial than that.
>
> The published works, the shareholding, the occupation of "Ye Player", the
> recorded acting lists, the contemporary diaries, the will, the monument in
> Stratford itself, are more substantial than fanciful speculation, particularly
> speculation concerning those who were evidently dead at the wrong time. It does
> strike me as odd that we should dismiss the overwhelming liklihood of the
> innocuous probability that Shakespeare attended a school yet take seriously the
> suggestion that a guy didn't die when everybody, including Shakespeare himself,
> said he did.
This argument, both with you and with Bob, is getting silly.
1. Because I *do* in fact believe that Shakespeare attended the
Free Grammar School and have never said otherwise.
2. Because I have *never* claimed that Shakespeare's lack of
education made him incapable of writing the works.
3. Because what I actually *did* say is being ignored.
In clarifying what Mendenhall had said, and giving information
about what my subsequent use of his theory had shown, I said
that the correlation I had found between the later works of
Marlowe and the works of Shakespeare (particularly his non-
comedies) was very high. In fact, they were higher than any of
the other 738 correlations between authors that I had calculated,
being far more like (or even exceeding) the correlation one
normally seemed to get within a *single* author's works.
I said that I found this mind-boggling, "given that, albeit
starting from similar origins, their lives had followed such
totally different paths - with massive differences in their
education, their experiences, and their acquaintances".
In talking of their education, I admit I played down the
grammar school bit perhaps more than I should, but in terms
of my argument it makes no difference. There *is* a massive
difference in the education of someone who has spent seven
years studying at university to someone who has not. We
should also perhaps acknowledge that growing up in a
cosmopolitan town like Canterbury, on one of the main
routes to and from the continent, a Huguenot stronghold and
a focus of pilgrimage, would have been very different from
a Stratford childhood, where the tourist trade just wasn't
catching on at all.
Second, as far as their experience is concerned, this would,
in Marlowe's case, be related to his non-academic life at
university and his work for the Privy Council. At this time
we know nothing of what Shakespeare was doing, although he
was for most of this time presumably trying to support his
wife and child. What is certain is that there must have been
a huge difference between his experiences at this time and
those of Marlowe.
As for contacts, there is god reason to believe that Marlowe
was well-acquainted with: Lord Burghley and probably Sir
Francis Walsingham, the Lord Chamberlain (Henry Carey), The
Earl of Northumberland, Lord Strange, Sir Walter Raleigh,
Thomas Hariot, Walter Warner, Thomas Nashe, Robert Greene,
Gabriel Harvey, George Peele, Thomas Kyd, Thomas Watson,
Matthew Royden, George Chapman, Thomas Walsingham and Edward
Blount.
The lack of any mention at all of Shakespeare's name within
the orbit of these people is, in this case, a fair indication
that he was not known by them.
Other than his(?) dedication to the Earl of Southampton, and
a (probably apocryphal?) meal with Jonson and Drayton, Shake-
speare's world seems to have been almost entirely among actors.
Again, a 'massive difference'.
I repeat, I am NOT saying that these things render him unable
to write the works attributed to him. I AM saying that, given
these differences, it is astonishing that, using both Menden-
hall's approach and the several other stylometric measures I
use on my website, their styles at the time when the career
of one was over and when the other was only just beginning
appear to be virtually identical.
Peter F.
pet...@rey.prestel.co.uk
http://www2.prestel.co.uk/rey/index.htm
Peter Farey
A couple of other points, though:
Bob Grumman wrote:
> We can't be 100% sure that Shakespeare went to Stratford Grammar; if he
> did, he almost undoubtedly went for more than a couple of years. Why
> would he not have?
I was bearing in mind the possible effect of his father's
worsening financial plight, but (as I have admitted) I did
probably overstate it.
<snip>
> I wrote:
> > I have explained why Marlowe's knowledge (just because of the
> > difference in education, contacts and experience) must have been
> > far wider and greater than Shakespeare's. 'Genius' simply cannot
> > explain knowledge, Bob, as you well know.
> Unless the genius can read. And Shakespeare's monument says he could
> write, so we have to assume he could read, as well.
I don't doubt it for a moment. However, I really think that
general weakness in the Stratfordian case is the over-reliance
upon the importance of his reading, and the under-rating of the
need for a circle of people of greater knowledge with whom he
would have discussed what he read. No HLAS in those days!
<snip>
> > I already have data for Wordsworth, Coleridge, Tennyson, Browning
> > and Keats. What is the question?
> Well, how do the curves of each compare to each other? I wonder how
> Keats's plays compare Mendenhallically to Shakespeare's, too.
Tennyson Browning, R 0.99895631
Wordsworth Browning, R 0.99883874
Wordsworth Tennyson 0.99839476
Coleridge Browning, R 0.99700717
Coleridge Tennyson 0.99699583
Wordsworth Coleridge 0.99675019
Wordsworth Keats 0.99384121
Coleridge Keats 0.99367368
Keats Browning, R 0.99307331
Keats Tennyson 0.99183912
No Keats plays, I'm afraid. Do you know where I can find an
e-text?
Shakespeare Wordsworth 0.99475274
Shakespeare Tennyson 0.99246838
Shakespeare Browning, R 0.99228472
Shakespeare Coleridge 0.98598317
Shakespeare Keats 0.98468064
> While we're on this subject, your .99XX's confuse me. I did take
> a course in statistics but can't remember enough of it to understand
> what the big difference is between a correlation of .9943 and .9975, or
> whatever.
There is a built in similarity which is what one might call
the 'normal curve' of written English, being something like:
1-letter words 4.10% 9-letter words 2.64%
2-letter words 17.47% 10-letter words 1.42%
3-letter words 23.99% 11-letter words 0.71%
4-letter words 19.57% 12-letter words 0.35%
5-letter words 11.53% 13-letter words 0.16%
6-letter words 7.82% 14-letter words 0.05%
7-letter words 6.28% >14-letter words 0.02%
8-letter words 3.90%
None of them is going to deviate very much from this. That is
why so many words are needed before anything like a clear
pattern emerges. But then only a very small difference becomes
significant. What Mendenhall noticed was that Shakespeare's
(and Marlowe's) peak at 4 words was quite unusual. But in fact
Wyatt, Sidney, Spenser and Fletcher had this characteristic too.
BobGr...@nut-n-but.net
You are dead wrong, by the way, because when Dugdale published
his book with the picture of the grain-dealer's monument in it
in 1656, he quoted its inscription--with its reference to all
that William wrote.
--Bob G.
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Nigel Davies
Agreed. There is a big difference between the surviving *recorded* history of
Marlowe's education and the surviving *recorded* history of Shakespeare's
education. But we don't even need external records to know this. Shakespeare
concedes it himself in Sonnets like 78 & 85 where he speaks of himself being
"dumb", his own "heavy ignorance" compared to other "learned's" efforts and that
his patron has inspired him to reach through his poetry "As high as learning my
rude ignorance".
How can Marlowe who spent 7 years at Cambridge University describe himself as
having "reached as high as learning" through his poetry? He was in one of the
highest seats of learning before he even started a career in writing.
I'm inclined to think that Shakespeare's art was best developed in the art of
writing, his reading of Ovid et al, and actually being on the stage perfecting
the dynamism of effective stagecraft rather than hanging out with the likes of
Raleigh and Northumberland. What part of Marlowe's "mighty line" was conditional
on him having moved in Hariot's circle, for example? I'd contend Marlowe's
association with Hariot made no material difference to "Dr. Faustus"'s appeal
whatsoever. Is Stoppard's ability today subject to how many times he dines with
Prince Charles or the time and effort he expends in developing aspects of more
substance and relevance to what he writes and stages?
> I repeat, I am NOT saying that these things render him unable
> to write the works attributed to him. I AM saying that, given
> these differences, it is astonishing that, using both Menden-
> hall's approach and the several other stylometric measures I
> use on my website, their styles at the time when the career
> of one was over and when the other was only just beginning
> appear to be virtually identical.
______________________________________________________________________
nda...@emirates.net.ae
BobGr...@nut-n-but.net
Wordsworth and Coleridge? I'd expect them to be very close.
As for the differences between Shakespeare's background and Marlowe's,
you call them huge, I don't--which is just a tempermental difference
between you and me, I guess. I tend to see samenesses more than you.
The Mendenhall stuff doesn't excite me--all the curves are too similar,
for me.
One last item: Shakespeare's neighbor Thomas Combe, as I keep posting,
had a book published, so Shakespeare could have had at least one
literate person to discuss literature with. I can't believe he
would have had no friends to discuss it with, as well. I don't
think he needed geniuses to nourish him, though. And he could have
caught up very fast once in London.
Oops, also want to mention Monet/Renoir a pairing in illumagery
comparable to the Shakespeare/Marlowe pairing--hard to tell many of
their works from one another, and they were born within a year of
each other. Then there's the case of Cezanne and Zola--raised in
the same town in France, and born within about a year of each other.
Cezanne a Shakespeare-level genius, Zola a Marlowe-level genius, many
commentators would say. How could that have happened? Gah, I see that
Monet and Renoir were born within a year or so of Cezanne and Zola,
too. Certainly Cezanne/Monet/Renoir is more amazing than Shakespeare/
Marlowe. (Note to Art: drop Renoir and you have two two-syllable, first
syllable accented Sh/M's, with Shakespeare's Anne in "Cezanne." MUST
be meaningful, right?)
Peter Zenner
> A question, Peter: Given that Marlowe had a front-man
>in your scenario, why did he need the Stratford guy? Why not just
>attribute the plays to William Shakeshaft, the actor in this
>trinity?
Thank you Gary! A sensible response in the middle of
the storm. This is what I thought it would be like....
I asked myself that question and until I read 'A Funeral
Elegy' I hadn't really got an answer. When Marlowe's
faked death was being arranged, he obviously wanted
to carry on writing. As I have mentioned on here before,
it must have been Field who suggested the name of
William Shakespeare because he was the only one
who would have known the real man. As Field published
'Venus and Adonis' and the author of the sonnets says
"thou thyself dost give invention light", in number 38, it
seems that the was no thought of a front man when they
first had the idea to make Marlowe "twain".
The 'Elegy' concerns three men. I already had my basic
story when I came across this poem and was searching
for other material that had been allegedly written by
'Shakespeare', just to see if anything else fitted in with
my scenario. I realised that the 'William Peter' was not
the true person that 'W.S.' was talking about. (Even
Donald Foster couldn't align what the author was saying
with the known facts of the life of William Peter)
The words "he was not hired" refer to the man who has
just died. I maintain that the author was writing about
William Shakeshaft (alias William Hall), who was the
front man of the 'Invention'. So it seems that Shakeshaft
offered to be 'the front man' AFTER the name Shakespeare
had been registered as the author of 'Venus and Adonis'.
Otherwise, as you say, our National Poet would have been
William Shakeshaft, the butcher's son from Fishwick, and
not William Shakespeare, the glover's son from Stratford.
If you have a copy of Donald Foster's book, I suggest
that you read the 'Elegy', bearing in mind what I have
said. I think that you might understand it.
John W. Kennedy
> Shake-speare had predecessors, of course. But
> they were primarily Classical and Continental. I'm
> denying that there was something special in the
> 'English air' -- which is the foolish and irrational
> position that you and all Strats have to maintain;
> (as do the Marlites, Baconians, et al.)
London under Elizabeth was a city that took exceptional delight in
theatre before Shakespeare arrived on the scene.
> I'm saying
> that before Shakespeare, no one would have
> thought that English literature was anything special.
At the time, no-one thought much of _any_ modern literature; the
classics were still held up as unattainable ideals. But, in hindsight,
English literature was quite as respectable as any other. Chaucer,
Gower, James I and others stand quite as high as their parallels in
other tongues, save, I suppose, Dante and Petrarch.
But the first thing you have to decide is whether you're talking about
"literature" or theatre.
John W. Kennedy
>
> Bob G wrote:-
> >And why did his monument say he could write?
>
> Because somebody came across it in 1748 and
> replaced it with one that said that he did. They
> presumed something just as everybody else is
> doing.
Nope. The inscription on the monument is recorded earlier than that.
Richard Nathan
According to his theory, Marlowe needs a pseudonym. Now Marlowe is one of
the greatest creative geniuses of all time, but he isn't imaginative
enough to come up with a pseudonym on his own. So he goes to Richard
Field. Field remembers the name of an illiterate bumpkin from back in
Stratford, and suggests that Marlowe use this name (since both Marlowe and
Field are incapable of making up a name).
They do so, and when word filters back to William Shakespeare in
Stratford, the bumpkin is smart enough to realize he hasn't written the
plays, so he blackmails Lord Burghley into paying him a fortune in
exchange for the bumpkin not revealing to the world that he isn't the
playwright.
And Zenner wonders why I call him an idiot.
Sabyha
>"literature" or theatre.
>-rri...@ibm.net
>Compact is becoming contract
>Man only earns and pays. -- Charles Williams
When I go into a school to be an "artist-in-residence" the very first thing I
tell students is that Shakespeare's plays are not "literature" but "dramatic
texts": written by an actor to be performed by actors. Usually gets the
English teachers a bit ruffled under the feathers. lol
Jodie - Australia
Neuendorffer
> Shakespeare's neighbor Thomas Combe, as I keep posting,
> had a book published, so Shakespeare could have had at least one
> literate person to discuss literature with. I can't believe he
> would have had no friends to discuss it with, as well.
> I don't think he needed geniuses to nourish him, though.
> And he could have caught up very fast once in London.
---------------------------------------------------------
Erik Nielsen wrote:
> You . . . have yet to give ONE concrete bit of evidence
> in favor of your candidate. It's all "could have been",
> "could have been", "can't disprove it."
---------------------------------------------------------
> Oops, also want to mention Monet/Renoir a pairing in illumagery
> comparable to the Shakespeare/Marlowe pairing--hard to tell many of
> their works from one another, and they were born within a year of
> each other. Then there's the case of Cezanne and Zola--raised in
> the same town in France, and born within about a year of each other.
> Cezanne a Shakespeare-level genius, Zola a Marlowe-level genius, many
> commentators would say. How could that have happened? Gah, I see that
> Monet and Renoir were born within a year or so of Cezanne and Zola,
> too. Certainly Cezanne/Monet/Renoir is more amazing than Shakespeare/
> Marlowe. (Note to Art: drop Renoir and you have two two-syllable, first
> syllable accented Sh/M's, with Shakespeare's Anne in "Cezanne." MUST
> be meaningful, right?)
I can't disprove it, Bob.
Art Neuendorffer