John Baker
Harris Reavin
Gang. What follows in an essay I have been working on this past week.
I attribute it in part to my sabbatical and review of Feynman's life
and works.
Regarding any Faker howlers you notice please don't be bashful about
pointing out. At this point the idea, at least, should be clear
enough to stand muster. Like Feynman I think a bit of confusion in
presentation is required for original thought.
Which reminds me, I may actually have come up here with something
original, then again I may simply have missed an essay suggesting the
same notion by some other errant truant. So if any of you
happen to know this, please point this out as well.
Strats who wish, after reading it, to run up the white flag can just
sign a pledge to this effect at the bottom.
It should say, without preamble, they renounce being part of a group
that lies about the historical context, the biographic relationship
between the actor and the author, has been rude to rivals, ignored the
classical and neoclassical content of the works, obscured evidence,
etc., etc., while at the same time loving these unique works and the
mind behind them just sort of idiolatry.
Then we'll work together on a 12 step program for recovering
Stratfordians, once they've come out.
john
*************** ******************* *****************
The Null Hypothesis: There Was No Shakespeare Problem Until 1623
While Stratfordians rally and chant against John Michell's Who Wrote
Shakespeare ? the _Washington Post_ and I consider it "the best
overview yet of the authorship controversy."
Last night I devoted a few minutes to rereading Michell's
comprehensive and dead on critique of the authorship problem, couched
in an imitable style, many times more readable than anything other
than Greenwood's marvelous The Shakespeare Question Restated . After
noting "the silence of a little-known man, John Chamberlain, the
letter-writer, is perhaps the strangest of all," (111) Michell
concludes his appraisal of the Stratfordian case as follows:
In this and other cases, where Shakespeare's name was
surprisingly omitted from lists of contemporary writers and poets, the
Stratfordians offer explanations, and sometimes plausibly. No single
silence is entirely fatal to the Orthodox belief. It is the unanimity
of silence that is so impressively disconcerting. This has never been
explained. Apart from Jonson, whose remarks on Shakespeare are
strangely inconsistent, none of his literary contemporaries seems to
have known much about him, and whatever they did know they kept to
themselves.
"The life of William Shakspere, factually examined, gives no
independent support to his traditional identification as Shakespeare.
Yet successive waves of anti-Stratfordian theorists have broke in vain
upon the rock of Orthodoxy. Shakspere may seem an unlikely candidate,
but no conclusive case has yet been made for any of his rivals...The
truth about Shakespeare may one day emerge, but only when new evidence
is discovered; and that is most likely to happen when scholars
diversify their efforts, and research the lives and claims of other
possible candidates with the same obsessive attention that they have
devoted to William Shakspere." (112)
Earlier in this same chapter Michell has noted:
"Moreover, in this particular case [i.e., that there was a conspiracy
of silence] there are such difficult questions as who organized the
conspiracy, why it was necessary in the first place and how it was so
efficiently kept secret." (108)
In the following pages, I offer a working hypothesis that seems, I
think, to avoid the most difficult of these pitfalls, namely that "the
life of William Shakspere, factually examined, gives no independent
support to his traditional identification as Shakespeare" and how was
this "secret" so efficiently kept, i.e., how the "unanimity of
silence" happened. We all know the times were full of gossip, as
newsy letters record, so keeping a secret of this magnitude seems
difficult it not impossible to account for. We also know as
Trevor-Roper observed, that Shakspere,
"lived in the full daylight of the English Renaissance, in the
well-documented reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King James I.Since his
death, and particularly in the last century, he has been subjected to
the greatest battery of organized research that has ever been directed
upon a single person. Armies of scholars, formidably equipped, have
examined all the documents that could possibly contain at least a
mention of Shakespeare's name. One hundredth of this labor applied to
one of his insignificant contemporaries would be sufficient to produce
a substantial biography. And yet the greatest of all Englishmen,
after this tremendous inquisition, still remains so close to a mystery
that even this identity can still be doubted."
So suppose for a moment that there wasn't a "mystery," suppose no
secret was kept? Suppose there is an explanation that explains why no
one asked about the relationship between the actor and the author and
even why no one asked about a relationship between the actor and the
plays. Suppose this same explanation reveals why the actor left no
biographic trail as a writer.
Now keep in mind that what is difficult for Stratfordians to explain,
i.e., the "unanimity of silence," has been equally problematic for
rivals to explain. Michell asserts it is this failure that has doomed
ALL anti-Stratfordians.
What we are about to see is a rather simple explanation that explains
all of these problems. Unfortunately for Stratfordians it spells doom
for their candidate, which signals us why it has not been advanced by
these consensus holders.
While rivals will be heartened by it, it does little to point towards
who the real author was, so no camp emerges as a clear winner.
However by closing the door, intellectually, to William Shakspere,
once and for all, we will have opened it for the sort of intensive
study of the several rivals that is, as Michell notes, necessary to
correctly identify the Author.
Because it is an essential part of the puzzle, I begin by differing
with Michell on two pivotal points. First Jonson did not break the
silence about the Shakspere/Shakespeare problem during the actor's
lifetime. Thus we hear nothing from him about either until 1623.
This is a major point and we must keep it to the fore. Secondly while
Michell is no doubt correct, that additional facts will eventually
surface, what scholars need is a feasible paradigm that makes sense of
the facts we presently have. They aren't going to disappear. Towards
this end I offer the following explanation or thought experiment.
The Null Hypothesis:
Let us entertain, for a time, the proposition that until 1623 there
was no Shakespeare/Shakspere problem. No one, not even Jonson, ever
linked the two personas prior to 1623. Since it is the linkage or
the reconciliation of the two lives into one that is the problem, then
to avoid it we only have to suppose that those there at the time knew
there was no such linkage and thus never spoke about it.
This hypothesis explains why there is an "unanimity of silence," among
both Elizabethans and Jacobeans regarding this question. It wasn't a
problem for them. It is only a impediment for those who lived after
1623 when the First Folio made the linkage in it's prefatory
advertisements.
There are numerous examples of complications in history that have been
resolved by similar analysis. For example the problems associated
with the historical life of Jesus are best satisfied by understanding
that it is only to Christians that he was the son God. For his
contemporaries he was simply another trouble making Messianic figure.
The reason for this is simple. It is not proper, intellectually
speaking, for us to take our context back into these periods. We
cannot fault Shakespeare for not knowing about Darwinism or nuclear
physics. In our context we assume that those there at the time knew
Shakespeare and Shakspere were one and the same individuals, and find
it inexplicable they didn't speak of and act upon this connection.
And it is this unwarranted assumption that makes for the problem. So
lets drop our post-1623 context and simply suppose, at least for the
duration of this paper, that no one prior to 1623 thought this to be
the case.
As evidence for this we have the "unanimity of silence." I shall
point out, in some depth, that so long as no one thought the two were
the same, that this silence is perfectly understandable. It is only
when one supposes them to have been the same individual that a problem
arises. Equally as important, the problem is not acute at any time
other than during the pre-1616 period, i.e., when both men would have
been alive to bump shoulders or to be pointed at by skeptics. So
the hull hypothesis simply suggests there was no Shakespeare problem
until 1623. Why? Because prior to that time, no one considered the
two to have been one.
Actually it's more helpful to think of this morass not just as two
lives but as three circles, a bit like the Venn Diagrams in logic.
So long as the three circles are independent there is nothing
remarkable about them. It is only when one attempts to overlap the
three that problems begin to arise on a wholesale level. The first
circle is that of Shakespeare's pre-1623 works and any and all
references and allusions to them. The second and third circles
contain the lives of the poet and the actor. Three circles,
independent and unrelated. Now imagine overlapping them the way the
Venn Diagrams overlap, so just a portion of each circle is common.
It is only the common or overlapping area that is causing scholars
trouble. So until they were overlapped by the ads in the First Folio,
no problem was apparent. And this is our whole point.
I do not think it entirely accidental this problem invokes the Arian
or Trinity mystery. How are these three circles to be reconciled as
one? Newton was himself an Arian, rejecting the Trinity, joking
privately he was too much the mathematician to believe three was
somehow one. Newton later thought himself Christ, after all they
shared birthdays, so I'm not too surprised to see similar evidence of
megalomania in the works of Shakespeare. On the other hand, perhaps
they were not mere mortals?
In any case, I'm proposing if there was no suspicion the three were
one until 1623, when the First Folio suggested they were. This is the
Null Hypothesis.
If we think about this proposal we'll see it avoids any wide spread
conspiracy problems at all. This thesis explains the silences and
the dichotomies are all pushed into the future, where they belong and
can be more easily understood and reconciled. Obviously Stratfordians
aren't going to like this thesis, because it supposes an independent
life for the Stratfordian, one that did not include authorship of
these great works. However this supposition is the ONLY way to avoid
the problem.
I remind the reader it was not until after the actor had been dead for
seven years and until after the appearance of the First Folio in 1623,
that the size, scope and nature of Shakespeare's works first became
apparent. Indeed we can see someone went to considerable trouble to
exclude the poems from the Folio, works that increase the size, scope
and nature of the canon, to say nothing of it's literary value and
popularity. I say it was problematic because whoever wrote the ads
still refers to the writer as a poet in them, so this context is
surely implied. However because it was obvious from the biographic
content of the poems that the author wasn't the actor, they were
wisely excluded from the Folio. Why? Because they would have invited
immediate questions. Indeed it was the rediscovery and inclusion of
the poems in the late 18th century that began to fuel the authorship
controversy. If we didn't have them the case against Shakspere would
not be nearly as certain.
In any event, nearly two thirds of the works said Shakespeare's in the
First Folio had never been published, most of them had never been
heard of, if we limit our inquiry to discussions of their content
detailed enough to be certain that they were, if fact, the same plays
that appear in the First Folio. Was the "The Moor of Venis," seen
before the King on Hallowmas Day, 1 November 1604, really Othello ?
Scholars simply do not know, despite the many claims the contrary.
All we have his this phrase title, one
that isn't obviously related to the present title.
To three give examples of this over zealous attribution of plays
claimed for Shakespeare, Simon Forman, the astrologer, left a detailed
account of plays he'd seen, mainly at the Globe, in a note book he
called his " Booke of Plaies ." His account of "Mackbeth at the Glob"
is comprehensive enough to assure us it was the Folio's Macbeth .
The same is true for his notes of "Cimbalin king of England." However
his story line of "Richard the 2 At the Glob 1611 the 30 Aprill,"
assures us this wasn't the Folio's version of Richard II !
Scholars say very little about this startling fact, but Forman's notes
are proof positive plays with the same titles as Shakespeare's Folio
Plays simply weren't his, even when they were preformed at the "Glob."
The second proof is the curious reader's address to Troilus and
Cressida , the one which claims older versions of it had been
"clapperclawed by the palms of the vulgar." Last is the Folio's own
account which reminds us that in the First Folio we have the canon
complete and as the author intended it to be for the first time,
"complete and whole in their numbers."
With this in mind it is correct to say William Shakespeare along with
his dramatic canon did NOT appear until 1623, when they both
materialized whole cloth. It as at that moment they were first joined
to William Shakspere of Stratford and not a second sooner. So why
should we expect any prior problems?
Now let's take this knowledge and our Null Hypothesis back into the
1590s and the early 1600s and see what it shows us. What if the inner
circle around Shakspere, which would include Shakspere's fellow
actors, his family and his townsmen knew he wasn't Shakespeare? Why
should they talk about it? I mean they knew it. It was obvious to
all who talked with this Warwickshire hillbilly, this hempen-homespun,
that he wasn't the writer William Shakespeare. And, so far as the
record goes, he never claimed to be. Or pretended to be. This man
had no books, no manuscript, no papers. To say he had on education,
is an understatement. Ward's Diary records the as "without any art at
all," meaning Harrison says in 1 Henry VI , "book learning."
So there would be no reason to raise questions about something that
was both impossible and common knowledge to the contrary. Indeed
since many, if not most, of his circle were functional illiterates, it
is unlikely they would have stumbled over any of the printed books
with a name similar to his on their title pages. If they had, they
couldn't recognize it, so it would figure into the picture. Indeed
his own daughter, Susanna Hall, could not recognize her own husband's
signature or hand, when asked. So this explains why we hear no
crowing from Stratford. This is why his daughters and granddaughter
made no pretensions of being kin to the greatest playwright and poet
England had ever produced.
Now this I suggest would explain why Henslowe and Alleyne never hired
him as a writer. He wasn't writing for the stage. There was no
Shakespeare to hire, until 1623 and by then Shakspere the
actor/producer was officially dead.
Shakspere, as the Rev. Dr. John Ward discovered, was the official
producer of these plays. According to Ward's Diary he merely
"supplied" plays to his stage and he was handsomely paid to do so.
One of the certain things about the plays is that they were the
product of their times, i.e., they were acted and the playwright,
whoever he or she was, knew it and saw them staged. So Shakspere's
role was essential and should not be ignored. But it was not that of
a writer. He produced the plays and everyone in the two inner circles
(the one around him and the one around "Shakespeare") knew that he
wasn't the writer. Consequently no one spoke of him as the writer.
Thus he left no biographic trail as a writer. No books, no papers, no
manuscripts, no letters and no intellectual circle. Most importantly
in that repressive age that arrested, tortured, maimed and killed
writers for their opinions, he left no evidence of having ever been
hassled by the establishment for works was were obviously actionable.
So the null hypothesis explains the present facts.
Now this view does not involve a large circle of conspirators, indeed
it easily eliminates them. It simply supposes those there at the
time knew something we don't know and because of this knowledge never
once attempted to connect the author to the actor. Is that clear?
With this in mind I think the proper question for scholarship would be
for it to ask why in 1623 didn't anyone challenge the Folio's
attribution of the plays to the actor? Now this question seems
relatively simple to answer. Large events were taking place in the
world at that time. England was on a collision course with another
civil war. America was beckoning. The Thirty Year War was raging in
Europe. So the social and political conditions were simply not
conducive to asking essentially unimportant biographic questions.
Equally important, the union of the three circles in the minds of what
must have been, given the lack of modern communications, an
ill-informed general readership, meant few questions would be asked.
It is only our generation with its deep knowledge and erudition of the
actor's life and the works that can seriously raise these questions.
And since as I have pointed out the poems weren't included with the
plays, the obvious questions were not apparent.
It is true those in Shakspere's circle must have known he wasn't the
author, but as we have pointed out they are not likely to have even
known of the attribution. Indeed in 1623, with Shakspere's wife
recently dead, none of Shakspere's remaining family was likely to have
even heard of the First Folio let alone see it. Indeed no one has
ever found one in Stratford. So we cannot expect that circle to have
challenged the attributions. Indeed they may have been invited to
participate in the charade and any reluctance assuaged with some ready
pence. Evidence of this pence in Stratford is to be found in the
monument, a monument mentioned in the First Folio's ads. The key to
the monument, which appears to be a rebus or a puzzle in words and
pictures, is its dual inscription, either of which would have been far
beyond the abilities of Shakspere's immediate kin to decipher. (
http//www2.prestel.co.uk/rey/epitaph.htm ) They could, of course,
easily understand the effigy. So this had to obviously resemble
Shakspere. This, in turn, would explain why the early sketches show a
lowly merchant type chap clutching a bag of malt.
Back in London, since it was only Shakespeare's "private friends" who
knew who the real author was, there would be no objection from them.
They wanted the works published and knew the real author wished to
remain anonymous. So the only "group" motivated to set the record
straight would be a group (or an individual) with something to gain
from it. It is difficult to see who this might have been. The
players were scattered. Those that remained must have been paid for
their manuscripts, so why should they want to strip a fellow the honor
of authorship if it was to be bestowed upon him by history? I may
have missed something but I don't see a group of independent scholars
interested in setting the record straight at work in London in 1623
or, to tell the truth, anywhere until the mid 1800s, when questions
began to surface. We are the only people with such an interest. We
meaning modern scholars. We are far enough removed from these times
not to be biased and we are the only group, so far, to be formidably
armed for these important endeavors. What we have lacked is a
paradigm that makes sense of the facts that have been amassed. The
Null Hypothesis does, I hope, precisely this.
Returning now to the1590s. It is surely true the name "William
Shakespeare" had begun its slow burn into the fabric of our collective
consciousness in 1593 with the appearance of Venus and Adonis.
Ripples of this slow burn are discernable in the extended record as
readers began to acquaint themselves with these astonishing materials.
So it is at this point that the well documented allusions and
references to Shakespeare and to his works begin to appear.
The essential point is that not one of these connect the two as one as
Price, Michell and Greenwood have proven. In fact none of these
allusions refer to the man, either man. They all simply allude to
the author "Shakespeare." This is quite natural, since the general
public, in not knowing who the author was, would simply assume they
were written by someone named William Shakespeare. However they would
have had no face, no personality, no referent to put with the name.
This "William Shakespeare" could have been anyone of hundreds of
"William Shaksperes" living in England.
So again we have no need to invoke a conspiracy of silence. As time
went on, and the fame of the actor who was, after all, producing and
acting in these plays, began to spread, some, in the reading public,
must have assumed they were the same individual. However the Null
Hypothesis suggests this assumption was only warranted in ignorance
and points out that no one in this small group left a word about it
that has survived to this day.
Minor confusion in the mind of the general public many account for why
the actor was eventually picked as the mask for the author. The few
people literate people who knew otherwise, the group called by Meres
as Shakespeare's "private friends," had no motivation to say
anything about the charade.
The only obvious possible exception to this observation was the
Cambridge scholar, Francis Meres, who was by far the most
knowledgeable reader of Shakespeare's works, and who in Palladis
Tamia: Wits Treasury , (1598) gave us a comprehensive list of works
that would later be considered Shakespeare's. If we are to pay close
attention to our null hypothesis, we have to suppose Meres did not
connect the actor with the author. A close reading of what he said,
assures us of this fact. Meres never connected the two. If he had
the hypothesis would fail.
Indeed we catch a hint of underlying dichotomy in his phrase
concerning Shakespeare's Sonnets. Meres writes they had circulated
"among his private friends." So while it is possible to suppose Meres
knew the author (if only because his list is so complete) and knew
some of his "private friends" among whom "his sugred Sonnets" were
circulating, it is not possible to suppose he thought he was the
actor. If Meres had thought this, let alone known this, he almost
certainly would have said this.
Meres wrote that Shakespeare possessed "the sweet wittie soule of
Ouid...in [his] mellifluous & hony-tonued" poems. Later he compares
him to Plautus and Seneca in his plays, giving him the laurel wreaths
for both comedy and tragedy. Still later he speaks of " Shakespeares
fine filed phase[s]..."
Surely with all his knowledge about the works, if Meres had know him
to be the actor he would have said something like "why even our actor
chap, Shakespeare, rivals Ovid..." After all, the nature of Meres'
book was to boast to the world of the accomplishments of the English.
It would have been a great accomplishment for a lowly actor to rise to
the heights of Shakespeare, so if Meres had known of this feat he
would surely have mentioned it.
No one has ever accused Meres of mincing words. We can be certain
then that Meres did not equate the two and that the Null Hypothesis
remains unchallenged until 1623, where the three circles were wed in
the advertisements of the First Folio.
Now let's reverse the proposition. If it was widely known the actor
and the author were one and the same persons, then scholars are
confronted with the astonishing silence about this connection and with
a cascade of abnormalities in his life. Surely people who knew the
actor or who saw the plays and who learned there the actor was the
author would have spoken about it and written about it? Surely Meres
would have.
Surely the Queen would have had him arrested, tortured and killed over
Richard II . Just as surely, he would have had to have led a very
different sort of lifestyle. A lifestyle would have left an indelible
imprint in the records of the time. Manuscripts, books, papers,
letters, records and an intellectual circle with him at it's center
would all have been left in his wake, as the ordinary detritus of the
life of a writer and intellectual.
Said differently only the Null Hypothesis explains all we know about
this period, this man and these works. It raises no problems. It
creates no paradoxes. It merely posits an unidentified party, with
solid friendships and high political contacts, who was well schooled,
well traveled and well supported worked closely with the Cecils behind
the scenes to prevent a pending civil war over succession.
Judging from the trail in the plays, he groomed King James VI both
personally and publically, as scholars beginning with Lillian
Winstanley have noted via Hamlet, Macbeth and Edward II . Having
done so he parleyed his "trifles" into the world's foremost literary
canon in 1623, by attributing them to the little known actor, William
Shakspere. If he was Marlowe, he was just 59
years old.
So we are suggesting that for the general public the name "William
Shakespeare" had no referent except as Meres put it, "among his
private friends." None of those people thought him the actor and
there was no reason for them to this think this, because prior to 1623
he wasn't ever said to have been the actor. Who these private friends
were we simply don't know, but they cannot have been many in number
and Meres is clear that they were "private." (I shall name them in a
moment, on the assumption they were Marlowe and his private friends,
however if Bacon or Oxford prove the author, another group would be in
contention.)
Setting aside the problem, for now, as to how Meres, a Cambridge
graduate and scholar like Marlowe, came to know so much about
Shakespeare's works, well before they were printed, what we have here
are three circles. Let's enumerate them again, for clarity's sake.
One is the literary circle that surrounds the works of "William
Shakespeare," and is thus in some sense a nebulous circle. The other
two are the circles enclosing the tangible lives of the rusticated
actor and producer, William Shakspere, while the other circles
surrounds the hidden poet, his works and life. These three circles
weren't overlapping or squared until 1623.
The Null Hypothesis maintains that as long as we _separate_ these
three circles there is no Shakespeare/Shakspere problem until 1623,
when they are forcibly conjoined in the First Folio. If we keep this
Null Hypothesis in mind the necessity for a wide spread conspiracy of
silence vanishes like will-o-the-wisps in the dawn. No longer are
legions of silent Jacobeans needed to enforce the paradigm. The
problem has been attempting to reconcile the two as one before _
1623. This should be avoided at all costs, because we cannot be
certain without new evidence that the connection was ever made prior
to that time. And this is the whole point of this essay.
After the appearance of the First Folio the pseudo connection began
its rapid burn though our history. The ad stipulated, albeit vaguely,
that the little known actor, William Shakspere, and the well known
author, William Shakespeare, were one and the same individual. This
we all know. Or think we know. As evidence for this, his far away
monument in Stratford was cited, a monument few had ever seen and
fewer still understood. A monument which, if we focus on what it
says, calls Shakspere a Socratic figure, i.e., " Genio Socratem,
arte Maronem ." Socrates, we should all remember, wrote nothing and
paid for it with his life.
So simply put there is no Shakespeare/Shakspere problem until 1623 and
then it was only a problem to anyone who actually attempted to
reconcile the two. Due to a number of post 1623 events, not the least
of which were the English Civil War, the formation of America, and
the Thirty Years War, all of which the Author seems to have played a
part in, a formal reconciliation did not begin to take place until
the late 18th century. By that time the memory of these events and
persons had passed tone and tint. The lack of evidence thus made it
possible to assume the three were one, as the Folio proclaimed them to
be.
This was fairly easy to reconcile until the poems were rediscovered
and included in the canon. When this happened obvious biographic
questions began to arise. When had Shakspere been exiled? When did
he have an illicit relationship with Mary Sidney Herbert? Why was he
the de facto father of William Herbert? What was their hidden shame?
How had the writer escaped notice during the Essex Rebellion, when his
Richard II was employed to foment it? When and where had he
traveled? How had he met King James VI?
Returning to the Rev. Dr. John Ward, Ward provides us with, another
essential piece of the puzzle. Ward wrote Shakspere received an
"allowance so large, yt hee spent at ye Rate of a 1000 [Pounds] a
year." This caps the cost of the Shakespeare enterprise at 18,000
Pounds. Hardly a king's random. At today's exchange rate (an ounce
of silver is worth about $6.00 and there are 12 ounces in a Troy
pound, or $72.00 to a Pound.) Eighteen thousand pounds is thus a bit
less than $1,300,000.00. While that's no small chunk of change, it
was spread out over an eighteen year period making it less than
$75,000.00 a year, a manageable sum, for a man like Lord Burghley or
his son, Sir Robert Cecil, the Earl of Salisbury. Men who were called
the King Makers because of their successful brokerage of James VI's
rise to the English throne as James I.
The publication of the First Folio was held under a 1,000 pounds if we
suppose a 1,000 copies of it were produced, since we know how much
they sold for and must suppose that the selling price offset the
capital outlay for the printing two to one. In a like fashion the
plays, as they were produced, must have generated or at the very
least, off-set, some of the cost of their production, so it is
possible to suppose the actual cost of producing these works, which
included having them printed and paying, in one sense or another, for
their composition, was less than 700 Pounds a year (or to convert to
American dollars, about $48,000.00 to $50,000.00 a year.) On a yearly
basis beginning in 1593 and ending in 1623, the Shakespeare project
was costing someone slightly less than $50,000.00 a year at the time
or 650 Pounds Sterling. Given what they accomplished in just the
prevention of an English Civil war over succession they were Pounds
well spent.
So we see that the Null Hypothesis has merit. It does away with any
and all of the Orthodox objections offered by Stratfordian pundits.
It reduces the "conspirators" to a handful of people, namely, in my
opinion to Marlowe, the Cecils and the Sidney Herberts backed, or
rather fronted, by the publisher Edward Blount, who along with
Marlowe's "private friends," who would have included Sir Thomas
Walsingham, George Chapman, John Hayward, Jonson, Nicholas Faunt,
Anthony Bacon, etc, would have helped the exiled poet at every
possible opportunity. Obviously either Oxford or Bacon would have a
different group of "private friends," but importantly all would share
the active cooperation of Cecils, who are the primary suspects in the
organization and backing of the plays.
New scholarship on Lord Burghley, Sir William Cecil, is explaining
what they were up to: a reorganization of power that stripped the
monarchy of its reins and replaced it with counsels, precisely the
manifesto promulgated in the introduction to _The Rape of Lucrece ,
entered a year after Marlowe's official demise. This anti-royal
sentiment is found writ large in the works of Shakespeare whose cast
of kings presents the most demented of rulers and caused Queen
Elizabeth I. to scream, "I am Richard II know thee not that? This
play has been acted 40tie times in public houses and streets."
Similar new scholarship on Marlowe's life, particularly that of
Patrick Cheney, has placed Marlowe's work cursus (or Ovidian life
plan) on a collision course with the monarchy. Cheney has proven that
Marlowe was writing a "counterfeit nationalism, an anti-royal politics
that replaced kings" with counsels or what Ovid called "libertas."
It does not take a rocket scientist to connect the dots.
What was their purpose? It was three fold. Their primary purpose was
to advert a pending English Civil war over succession. Towards this
end the Author explored the problems and horors of the previous civil
war over succession, i.e., the War of Roses. Secondarily their
purpose was to create a sort of psychological terra firma from which
kings could be replaced with counsels. Lastly they were to spawn what
Burke called the "better school," a school where the sentiments of man
could be outranged and brought into a white hot focus for the
betterment of mankind.
We go to these great works not to see what happens in them or to their
characters, but what will happen to us. And something positive does
happen to us, as Bloom so rightly observes. He has made us human and
the good in us is mostly his gift to us.
John Baker
Visit my Webpage:
http://www2.localaccess.com/marlowe
or e-mail me at: Mar...@localaccess.com
"The ultimate truth is penultimately always a falsehood.
He who will be proved right in the end appears to be
wrong and harmful before it."
_Darkness at Noon_, Arthur Koestler
Peter Groves
news:X5Iz9.5910$4N1....@nwrddc04.gnilink.net...
| This article posted by John Baker may interest you.
Nothing posted by you, Faker, could possibly interest anyone with an IQ
above room temperature.
Peter G
Laila Roth
On the contrary, Doctor Groves, anything posted by Doctor Baker is of
the greatest interest to anyone except Stratfordian dumbells, mainly
because those are the only ones to get annoyed by his originality.
L.R.
Peter Groves
Laila Roth <lail...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:fb346be4.0211...@posting.google.com...
I think this response rather neatly exemplifies my point. Incidentally, the
cretin *still* believes that Faker has a Ph.D.
Peter G.
Peter Groves
David L. Webb <David....@Dartmouth.edu> wrote in message
news:111120021920165790%David....@Dartmouth.edu...
| In article <fb346be4.0211...@posting.google.com>,
| lail...@yahoo.co.uk (Laila Roth) wrote:
|
| > "Peter Groves" <Monti...@bigpond.com> wrote in message
| > news:<4EMz9.74501$g9.2...@newsfeeds.bigpond.com>...
| > > Harris Reavin <harris...@verizon.net> wrote in message
| > > news:X5Iz9.5910$4N1....@nwrddc04.gnilink.net...
| > > | This article posted by John Baker may interest you.
| > >
| > > Nothing posted by you, Faker, could possibly interest anyone with an
IQ
| > > above room temperature.
| > >
| > > Peter G
| >
| >
| > On the contrary, Doctor Groves, anything posted by Doctor Baker
|
| academic credentials, his intellectual pretensions, and his boasts
| about his exploits have been shown to be completely fraudulent (with
| the possible exception of his boast to have copulated with trees, which
| is just crazy enough to be possibly true).
|
| > is of
| > the greatest interest to anyone except Stratfordian dumbells, mainly
| > because those are the only ones to get annoyed by his originality.
|
| reliable historians. Speculative theories are judged -- at least by
| the sane -- by their accord with evidence and experiment. There are
| plenty of profoundly original theories that are dead wrong.
|
| For example, Faker is under the impression that César Franck wrote
| an organ symphony -- that may indeed be original, but it is simply
| wrong. Faker also claims to have "solved" Fermat's Last Theorem, and
| while his proof is original, it is also complete nonsense. If Faker
| ever says anything worth serious consideration (except as a source of
| mirth), I'll be the first to congratulate him.
|
| David Webb
Dr Johnson once famously wrote to an aspiring author "Your manuscript is
both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the
part that is original is not good."
Peter G.
Laila Roth
The fact that I honour Dr Baker by calling him "Dr" doesn't mean that
I believe he has a Ph.D., which in fact I never believed. Many are
created honorary doctors without their having a Ph.D, which is why you
could call almost anyone a doctor just to honour him. The word means
just 'teacher'.
However, we have an agreement concerning Dr Johnson, whose words apply
perfectly to "Dr" Baker.
Laila Roth, Derbyite
Peter Groves
No, moron, doctorates (honorary or earned) are awarded by universities. Are
*you* a university (a question I have not previously found any occasion to
ask--I'm not even sure it's grammatical!)?
The word means
| just 'teacher'.
|
No, moron, in contemporary English the word means "someone awarded a
doctorate or a license to practice medicine by a university". The Latin
word "doctor" does indeed mean "teacher", but our conversation has been in
English, not Latin.
| However, we have an agreement concerning Dr Johnson, whose words apply
| perfectly to "Dr" Baker.
A breakthrough, perhaps.
|
| Laila Roth, Derbyite
Mark Hansen
that we are more certain of the identity of Jack The Ripper,
than Shakespeare!
One reason we know so little about Shakespeare,
the poet, playwright, artist,
is he WASN'T a nobleman, an aristocrat, a man of "class", etc.
Mark
Art Neuendorffer
> One reason we know so little about Shakespeare,
. . . .
> is he WASN'T a nobleman, an aristocrat, a man of "class", etc.
No, he was a man of business:
---------------------------------------------------------------
<<[Shakspere] made a will,
and signed each of its three pages with his name.
A thoroughgoing business man's will. It named in minute detail
every item of property he owned in the world -- houses, lands, sword,
silver-gilt bowl, and so on -- all the way down to his "second-best
bed" and its furniture.
It carefully and calculatingly distributed his riches among the
members of his family, overlooking no individual of it. Not even
his wife: the wife he had been enabled to marry in a hurry by
urgent grace of a special dispensation before he was nineteen; the
wife whom he had left husbandless so many years; the wife who had
had to borrow forty-one shillings in her need, and which the lender
was never able to collect of the prosperous husband, but died at
last with the money still lacking. No, even this wife was
remembered in Shakespeare's will.
He left her that "second-best bed." And NOT ANOTHER THING;
not even a penny to bless her lucky widowhood with.
It was eminently and conspicuously a business man's will,
not a poet's.
It mentioned NOT A SINGLE BOOK.
Books were much more precious than swords and silver-gilt bowls and
second-best beds in those days, and when a departing person owned
one he gave it a high place in his will.
The will mentioned NOT A PLAY, NOT A POEM, NOT AN UNFINISHED
LITERARY WORK, NOT A SCRAP OF MANUSCRIPT OF ANY KIND.
Many poets have died poor, but this is the only one in history that
has died THIS poor; the others all left literary remains behind.
Also a book. Maybe two.
If Shakespeare had owned a dog -- but we need not go into that:
we know he would have mentioned it in his will. If a good dog,
Susanna would have got it; if an inferior one his wife would have
got a dower interest in it. I wish he had had a dog, just so we
could see how painstakingly he would have divided that dog among
the family, in his careful business way.>>
Is Shakespeare Dead - Mark Twain ** ( CHAPTER III )
----------------------------------------------------------
John W. Kennedy
> I think this response rather neatly exemplifies my point. Incidentally, the
> cretin *still* believes that Faker has a Ph.D.
Ah, but as a secret member of the royal family, she's empowered to award him one.
--
John W. Kennedy
"The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly;
the rich have always objected to being governed at all."
-- G. K. Chesterton, "The Man Who Was Thursday"
Laila Roth
A university is a building which as such is not qualified to award
doctorates, since it's dead matter. Only people OF a university can
award doctorates. So it's wrong to say that doctorates are awarded by
universities. They are awarded by those who run universities.
> The word means
> | just 'teacher'.
> |
>
> No, moron, in contemporary English the word means "someone awarded a
> doctorate or a license to practice medicine by a university". The Latin
> word "doctor" does indeed mean "teacher", but our conversation has been in
> English, not Latin.
>
I was discussing the original meaning of the word. The modern meaning
has only existed for some 700 years. The original meaning remains
simply 'teacher' in a much broader sense than the modern meaning. I
find it worth while to take original meanings of a word into
consideration.
Mark Hansen
> we know he would have mentioned it in his will. If a good dog,
> Susanna would have got it; if an inferior one his wife would have
> got a dower interest in it. I wish he had had a dog, just so we
> could see how painstakingly he would have divided that dog among
> the family, in his careful business way.>>
If Shakespeare had owned three rings --
but we need not go into that:
Mark
Art Neuendorffer
>>If Shakespeare had owned a dog -- but we need not go into that:
>> we know he would have mentioned it in his will. If a good dog,
>>Susanna would have got it; if an inferior one his wife would have
>>got a dower interest in it. I wish he had had a dog, just so we
>>could see how painstakingly he would have divided that dog among
Mark Hansen wrote:
> If Shakespeare had owned three rings --
> but we need not go into that. . .
<<There is nothing whatever in Shakspere's Will to connect the
testator with either plays or actors, except one erasure and one
interlineation. The Christian name of Hamnet Sadler has been scratched
out and someone has written above it Hamlett instead of Hamnet in order
to suggest that the testator was familiar with the name of the play.
There is an interlineation of gifts "to my fellowes John Heminge,
Richard Burbage and Henry Condell of 26s. each to buy rings". Neither of
these alterations was initialled by the testator or the witnesses as was
customary. Why should the only indications in the will that Shakspere
had anything to do with the plays or actors have been apparently
inserted as an after-thought? >>
Art Neuendorffer
Tom Veal
purport to list "every item of property he owned in the world". It
identifies property bequeathed to specific legatees. He left "All the
Rest of my goodes chattels Leases plate Jewels & household stuffe
whatsoever, after my dettes and Legasies be paied & my funerall
expences discharged" to his daughter Susanna and her husband John
Hall. If the will named "every item of property he owned in the
world", it wouldn't make much sense to have residuary legatees, would
it?
All that one can conclude from the will about Shakespeare's ownership
of books is that he was content to leave any and all that he possessed
to Susanna's family. Since Dr. Hall was a notably bookish chap,
that's not a very surprising decision.
One occasionally has the feeling that anti-Stratfordians read only
each other and therefore perpetuate long-refuted claims without being
aware of how vacuous they sound. Purblind as you may believe folks
like Matus, Kathman and Ross to be, they have at least taken the
trouble to digest the other side's case.
Art Neuendorffer <aneuendor...@comcast.net> wrote in message news:<3DD564AA...@comcast.net>...
Art Neuendorffer
> This is all such old, old ground. Shakespeare's will does *not*
> purport to list "every item of property he owned in the world".
Then he might well have owned a dog as part of "household stuffe"
> It identifies property bequeathed to specific legatees.
> He left "All the Rest of my goodes chattels Leases plate
> Jewels & household stuffe whatsoever,
> after my dettes and Legasies be paied & my funerall
> expences discharged" to his daughter Susanna and her husband John
> Hall. If the will named "every item of property he owned in the
> world", it wouldn't make much sense to have residuary legatees,
> would it?
Was it the residuary legatees who added those interlineations?
> All that one can conclude from the will about Shakespeare's ownership
> of books is that he was content to leave any and all that he possessed
> to Susanna's family. Since Dr. Hall was a notably bookish chap,
> that's not a very surprising decision.
If Dr. Hall was a notably bookish chap and he got the books
then what the Hell happened to those books????
> One occasionally has the feeling that anti-Stratfordians read only
> each other and therefore perpetuate long-refuted claims without being
> aware of how vacuous they sound.
One always has the feeling that Stratfordians read only each other
and therefore perpetuate long-refuted claims without being aware
of how vacuous they sound.
> Purblind as you may believe folks
> like Matus, Kathman and Ross to be, they have at least taken the
> trouble to digest the other side's case.
They don't seem to be willing to digest my case.
------------------------------------------------------
>>Mark Hansen wrote:
>>
>>>One reason we know so little about Shakespeare,
>>
>> . . . .
>>
>>>is he WASN'T a nobleman, an aristocrat, a man of "class", etc.
Tom Veal
> Tom Veal wrote:
>
> > This is all such old, old ground. Shakespeare's will does *not*
> > purport to list "every item of property he owned in the world".
>
> Then he might well have owned a dog as part of "household stuffe"
Yes, indeed, he might have owned a dog, which would have become part
of his residuary estate if not specifically bequeathed. I'm afraid
that I don't see your point.
> > It identifies property bequeathed to specific legatees.
> > He left "All the Rest of my goodes chattels Leases plate
> > Jewels & household stuffe whatsoever,
> > after my dettes and Legasies be paied & my funerall
> > expences discharged" to his daughter Susanna and her husband John
> > Hall. If the will named "every item of property he owned in the
> > world", it wouldn't make much sense to have residuary legatees,
> > would it?
>
> Was it the residuary legatees who added those interlineations?
I doubt it. They were almost certainly inserted by the attorney at
the testator's direction. If they were forged (as you seem to
believe), Dr. and Mrs. Hall are unlikely suspects, as they would have
been committing fraud to the detriment of their own interests. In any
event, I again don't see what point you are trying to make.
> > All that one can conclude from the will about Shakespeare's ownership
> > of books is that he was content to leave any and all that he possessed
> > to Susanna's family. Since Dr. Hall was a notably bookish chap,
> > that's not a very surprising decision.
>
> If Dr. Hall was a notably bookish chap and he got the books
> then what the Hell happened to those books????
Most books that existed 400 years ago have vanished. Of those that
survive, any once owned by William Shakespeare would be identifiable
as such only if he signed his name in them. A great many owners of
many books (me, for instance) don't do that.
> > One occasionally has the feeling that anti-Stratfordians read only
> > each other and therefore perpetuate long-refuted claims without being
> > aware of how vacuous they sound.
>
> One always has the feeling that Stratfordians read only each other
> and therefore perpetuate long-refuted claims without being aware
> of how vacuous they sound.
This discussion of Shakespeare's will is evidence to the contrary.
Stratfordians have frequently addressed all of the points that you
raise. No anti-Stratfordian has ever added anything new in response.
In this very exchange, you have repeated the groundless claim that
Shakespeare's will lists all of his possessions. You have done so
despite the fact that about 500 Stratfordians before me have pointed
out that the text of the document itself refutes that view. Do you
have evidence to the contrary? Can you establish, for example, that
residuary clauses in 17th Century English wills were a mere formality
and that the text of the will incorporated an inventory of the estate,
each item of which was bequeathed specifically?
> > Purblind as you may believe folks
> > like Matus, Kathman and Ross to be, they have at least taken the
> > trouble to digest the other side's case.
>
> They don't seem to be willing to digest my case.
The gentlemen named, along with a few other Stratfordians, have
devoted immense and unremunerated labor to tracking down the facts
behind anti-Stratfordian assertions. They conceivably could be wrong,
but they can't reasonably be accused on lack of attention to their
opponents' positions.
Art Neuendorffer
>>>This is all such old, old ground. Shakespeare's will does *not*
>>>purport to list "every item of property he owned in the world".
> Art Neuendorffer wrote:
>> Then he might well have owned a dog as part of "household stuffe"
Tom Veal wrote:
> Yes, indeed, he might have owned a dog, which would have become part
> of his residuary estate if not specifically bequeathed. I'm afraid
> that I don't see your point.
There was a sad TV program tonight about a faithful dog who became
encased in dolomite that I just can't get out of my mind.
>>Tom Veal wrote:
>>
>>> It identifies property bequeathed to specific legatees.
>>> He left "All the Rest of my goodes chattels Leases plate
>>>Jewels & household stuffe whatsoever,
>>>after my dettes and Legasies be paied & my funerall
>>>expences discharged" to his daughter Susanna and her husband John
>>>Hall. If the will named "every item of property he owned in the
>>>world", it wouldn't make much sense to have residuary legatees,
>>> would it?
> Art Neuendorffer wrote:
>> Was it the residuary legatees who added those interlineations?
Tom Veal wrote:
> I doubt it. They were almost certainly inserted by the attorney at
> the testator's direction. If they were forged (as you seem to
> believe), Dr. and Mrs. Hall are unlikely suspects, as they would have
> been committing fraud to the detriment of their own interests.
Far be it for me to accuse Mrs. Hall of anything (; I understand
that she doesn't take kindly to that sort of thing).
Tom Veal wrote:
> In any event, I again don't see what point you are trying to make.
There was a sad TV program tonight about a faithful dog who became
encased in dolomite that I just can't get out of my mind.
>>Tom Veal wrote:
>>
>>>All that one can conclude from the will about Shakespeare's ownership
>>>of books is that he was content to leave any and all that he possessed
>>>to Susanna's family. Since Dr. Hall was a notably bookish chap,
>>>that's not a very surprising decision.
> Art Neuendorffer wrote:
>> If Dr. Hall was a notably bookish chap and he got the books
>> then what the Hell happened to those books????
Tom Veal wrote:
> Most books that existed 400 years ago have vanished. Of those that
> survive, any once owned by William Shakespeare would be identifiable
> as such only if he signed his name in them. A great many owners of
> many books (me, for instance) don't do that.
If Dr. Hall was a such a notably bookish chap wouldn't
he have marked Shakespeare's books and manuscripts as such.
And I'm not talking 400 years but rather half that:
--------------------------------------------------------------------
<<The first outright denial of Shakespeare's authorship was made by the
Reverend James Wilmot (1726-sometime after 1805). He became rector of
Barton-on-the-Heath, just north of Stratford, in 1781. Upon assuming
the rectorship, Wilmot eagerly explored the Stratford area for
historical information on Shakespeare. But he was gradually forced to
conclude that Shakespeare could not have been the author. Scouring
every private library within a 50-mile radius, he was unable to find
any book that could be proven to have belonged to Shakespeare; he
collected a great many local legends from the Stratford area (which,
he felt, anyone growing up in the area must have known of), but found
no reference to them in any of Shakespeare's works. He began to
suspect that the plays were actually written by Bacon, noting the many
parallels between the philosophy of Bacon and the thoughts expressed in
Shakespeare's works. Being a cautious man, he kept these views to
himself. But in 1805, he permitted his friend James Corton Cowell to
present his theory before a meeting of the Ipswich Philosophical
Society, on the condition that his identity remain a secret. Cowell,
with considerable trepidation, presented the theory to the Society (who
received them, apparently, in stony silence) but swore his fellow
members to secrecy. Wilmot burned all of his personal papers on the
topic just before his death.>>
---------------------------------------------------------------
>>Tom Veal wrote:
>>
>>>One occasionally has the feeling that anti-Stratfordians read only
>>>each other and therefore perpetuate long-refuted claims without being
>>>aware of how vacuous they sound.
> Art Neuendorffer wrote:
>> One always has the feeling that Stratfordians read only each other
>> and therefore perpetuate long-refuted claims without being aware
>> of how vacuous they sound.
>
Tom Veal wrote:
> This discussion of Shakespeare's will is evidence to the contrary.
> Stratfordians have frequently addressed all of the points that you
> raise.
Actually, they were points that Mark Twain raised.
> No anti-Stratfordian has ever added anything new in response.
We thought that a look in incredulity would be sufficient.
Tom Veal wrote:
> In this very exchange, you have repeated the groundless claim that
> Shakespeare's will lists all of his possessions.
I'm just quoting Mark Twain whose *main point* is:
Shakespeare's will was a business man's will that itemized bowls
& 2nd best beds but said *absolutely nothing* about his life's
great literary achievements.
Tom Veal wrote:
> You have done so
> despite the fact that about 500 Stratfordians before me have pointed
> out that the text of the document itself refutes that view.
These 500 Stratfordians apparently have nothing whatever to say
about the fact that:
Shakespeare's will was a business man's will that itemized bowls
& 2nd best beds but said *absolutely nothing* about his life's
great literary achievements.
Tom Veal wrote:
> Do you
> have evidence to the contrary? Can you establish, for example, that
> residuary clauses in 17th Century English wills were a mere formality
> and that the text of the will incorporated an inventory of the estate,
> each item of which was bequeathed specifically?
If the author of the works of Shakespeare had the opportunity to write
a will I have no doubt that it would have *something* to say about
those immortal works (and very little to say about 2nd best beds).
>>Tom Veal wrote:
>>
>>>Purblind as you may believe folks
>>>like Matus, Kathman and Ross to be, they have at least taken the
>>>trouble to digest the other side's case.
> Art Neuendorffer wrote:
>> They don't seem to be willing to digest my case.
Tom Veal wrote:
> The gentlemen named, along with a few other Stratfordians, have
> devoted immense and unremunerated labor to tracking down the facts
> behind anti-Stratfordian assertions. They conceivably could be wrong,
> but they can't reasonably be accused on lack of attention to their
> opponents' positions.
I read the thin little monograph by Matus and found it obsessed with
unimportant trivialities (such as the case you have tried to make here)
while totally ignoring the important issues.
As for Kathman & Ross: they fly off "like a scared white doe in
the woodlands" rather than attempt to argue with the likes of me.
Art Neuendorffer
Lorenzo4344
>From: Art Neuendorffer aneuendor...@comcast.net
>Date: 11/17/2002
Tom Veal wrote:
> All that one can conclude from the will about Shakespeare's ownership of
books is that he was content to leave any and all that he possessed to
Susanna's family. Since Dr. Hall was a notably bookish chap, that's not a very
surprising decision.
Art Neuendorffer wrote:
>> If Dr. Hall was a notably bookish chap and he got the books then what the
Hell happened to those books????
C.W.Barrell wrote:
"Hall supervised the distribution of all bequests in the will. Again, it must
be noted that no books, manuscripts, unpublished plays, or theatrical company's
shares are mentioned in that document, though Hall himself leaves his 'study of
books' to a young relative in his own will."
Tom Veal wrote:
> Most books that existed 400 years ago have vanished. Of those that survive,
any once owned by William Shakespeare would be identifiable as such only if he
signed his name in them. A great many owners of many books (me, for instance)
don't do that.
Art Neuendorffer wrote:
>> If Dr. Hall was a such a notably bookish chap wouldn't he have marked
Shakespeare's books and manuscripts as such.
Wrote by rote:
Having died 12 years post-famous First Folio, and 3 years post-famous Second
Folio, I've got to think he probably would have marked the chap's notable
books, yes.
Lorenzo
"Mark the music."
Christian Lanciai
The fact remains, that Shakespeare in his will does not mention one
single book, although books were priceless in his days. Nor is there
any indication that Shakespeare ever had any access to any library of
that sort which the Canon would imply intimacy with.
Chris
Tom Veal
>
> > Most books that existed 400 years ago have vanished. Of those that
> > survive, any once owned by William Shakespeare would be identifiable
> > as such only if he signed his name in them. A great many owners of
> > many books (me, for instance) don't do that.
>
> If Dr. Hall was a such a notably bookish chap wouldn't
> he have marked Shakespeare's books and manuscripts as such.
Why should he have done so? To assist disputants in a future
controversy of whose existence he was unaware?
> And I'm not talking 400 years but rather half that:
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> <<The first outright denial of Shakespeare's authorship was made by the
> Reverend James Wilmot (1726-sometime after 1805). He became rector of
> Barton-on-the-Heath, just north of Stratford, in 1781. Upon assuming
> the rectorship, Wilmot eagerly explored the Stratford area for
> historical information on Shakespeare. But he was gradually forced to
> conclude that Shakespeare could not have been the author. Scouring
> every private library within a 50-mile radius, he was unable to find
> any book that could be proven to have belonged to Shakespeare; he
> collected a great many local legends from the Stratford area (which,
> he felt, anyone growing up in the area must have known of), but found
> no reference to them in any of Shakespeare's works. He began to
> suspect that the plays were actually written by Bacon, noting the many
> parallels between the philosophy of Bacon and the thoughts expressed in
> Shakespeare's works. Being a cautious man, he kept these views to
> himself. But in 1805, he permitted his friend James Corton Cowell to
> present his theory before a meeting of the Ipswich Philosophical
> Society, on the condition that his identity remain a secret. Cowell,
> with considerable trepidation, presented the theory to the Society (who
> received them, apparently, in stony silence) but swore his fellow
> members to secrecy. Wilmot burned all of his personal papers on the
> topic just before his death.>>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
Two centuries is ample time for books to disappear. What percentage
of the volumes published c. 1800 do you suppose are still extant
today? And if Shakespeare didn't write his name in his books, they
wouldn't be identifiable as his even if they survived.
> Tom Veal wrote:
>
> > This discussion of Shakespeare's will is evidence to the contrary.
> > Stratfordians have frequently addressed all of the points that you
> > raise.
>
> Actually, they were points that Mark Twain raised.
I presumed, perhaps wrongly, that you quoted them because you regarded
them as persuasive. If you were merely exercising your quirky (and
much appreciated) sense of humor, I apologize for missing the joke.
> Tom Veal wrote:
>
> > In this very exchange, you have repeated the groundless claim that
> > Shakespeare's will lists all of his possessions.
>
> I'm just quoting Mark Twain whose *main point* is:
>
> Shakespeare's will was a business man's will that itemized bowls
> & 2nd best beds but said *absolutely nothing* about his life's
> great literary achievements.
>
> Tom Veal wrote:
>
> > You have done so
> > despite the fact that about 500 Stratfordians before me have pointed
> > out that the text of the document itself refutes that view.
>
> These 500 Stratfordians apparently have nothing whatever to say
> about the fact that:
>
> Shakespeare's will was a business man's will that itemized bowls
> & 2nd best beds but said *absolutely nothing* about his life's
> great literary achievements.
In the 17th Century, as today, men's wills were drafted by their
lawyers, whose interest lay then, as now, in disposing of the
testator's goods, not satisfying the curiosity of literary historians
yet to be born. This, too, is an old, old point that Stratfordians
have addressed over and over again.
> Tom Veal wrote:
>
> > Do you
> > have evidence to the contrary? Can you establish, for example, that
> > residuary clauses in 17th Century English wills were a mere formality
> > and that the text of the will incorporated an inventory of the estate,
> > each item of which was bequeathed specifically?
>
> If the author of the works of Shakespeare had the opportunity to write
> a will I have no doubt that it would have *something* to say about
> those immortal works (and very little to say about 2nd best beds).
The immortal works did not form part of Shakespeare's estate. The
King's Men and various printers owned the manuscripts and copyrights.
Hence, the lawyer who drafted the will had not a shadow of a reason to
mention them (and wouldn't have mentioned them in any event unless
they had been bequeathed to someone other than the residuary
legatees). The bed, on the other hand, was the object of a specific
bequest and therefore had to be mentioned.
> >>Tom Veal wrote:
> >>
> >>>Purblind as you may believe folks
> >>>like Matus, Kathman and Ross to be, they have at least taken the
> >>>trouble to digest the other side's case.
>
> > Art Neuendorffer wrote:
>
> >> They don't seem to be willing to digest my case.
>
> Tom Veal wrote:
>
> > The gentlemen named, along with a few other Stratfordians, have
> > devoted immense and unremunerated labor to tracking down the facts
> > behind anti-Stratfordian assertions. They conceivably could be wrong,
> > but they can't reasonably be accused on lack of attention to their
> > opponents' positions.
>
> I read the thin little monograph by Matus and found it obsessed with
> unimportant trivialities (such as the case you have tried to make here)
> while totally ignoring the important issues.
You seem to think that Shakespeare's will is important to the
authorship question. Which of the objections to your position are
"unimportant trivialities"?
Similarly, Mr. Matus diligently addresses arguments that
anti-Stratfordians thought it important to make. Many of those
arguments are very silly, but one can read them in Ogburn pere, mere
et fils.
>
> As for Kathman & Ross: they fly off "like a scared white doe in
> the woodlands" rather than attempt to argue with the likes of me.
But most of your postings are cryptographic jeux d'esprit that you
obviously present for your readers' amusement. How does one argue
with anagrams and puns?
Tom Veal
> The fact remains, that Shakespeare in his will does not mention one
> single book, although books were priceless in his days. Nor is there
> any indication that Shakespeare ever had any access to any library of
> that sort which the Canon would imply intimacy with.
>
> Chris
Another anti-Stratfordian myth, which I would label "long-exploded" if
it had ever been more than a damp squib.
Books were not "priceless" in 16th Century London. They were sold
from bookstalls for a few shillings or pence. Will Shakespeare was
perhaps in a better position to buy or borrow them than most men,
because Richard Field, one of the leading booksellers, hailed from
Stratford-upon-Avon and was a friend of the Shakespeare family.
Ben Jonson, far poorer in his youth than Shakespeare, managed to read
enough to become one of the most learned men of his generation. If he
could get his hands on books, so could Will.
Art Neuendorffer
>>Tom Veal wrote:
>>
>>>Most books that existed 400 years ago have vanished. Of those that
>>>survive, any once owned by William Shakespeare would be identifiable
>>>as such only if he signed his name in them. A great many owners of
>>>many books (me, for instance) don't do that.
> Neuendorffer wrote:
>> If Dr. Hall was a such a notably bookish chap wouldn't
>> he have marked Shakespeare's books and manuscripts as such.
Tom Veal wrote:
> Why should he have done so?
It's the sort of thing that bookish chaps do.
> Neuendorffer wrote:
>> And I'm not talking 400 years but rather half that:
>>--------------------------------------------------------------------
>><<The 1st outright denial of Shakespeare's authorship was made by the
>>Reverend James Wilmot (1726-sometime after 1805). He became rector of
>>Barton-on-the-Heath, just north of Stratford, in 1781. Upon assuming
>>the rectorship, Wilmot eagerly explored the Stratford area for
>>historical information on Shakespeare. But he was gradually forced to
>>conclude that Shakespeare could not have been the author. Scouring
>>every private library within a 50-mile radius, he was unable to find
>>any book that could be proven to have belonged to Shakespeare; he
>>collected a great many local legends from the Stratford area (which,
>>he felt, anyone growing up in the area must have known of), but found
>>no reference to them in any of Shakespeare's works. He began to
>>suspect that the plays were actually written by Bacon, noting the many
>>parallels between the philosophy of Bacon & the thoughts expressed in
>>Shakespeare's works. Being a cautious man, he kept these views to
>>himself. But in 1805, he permitted his friend James Corton Cowell to
>>present his theory before a meeting of the Ipswich Philosophical
>>Society, on the condition that his identity remain a secret. Cowell,
>>with considerable trepidation, presented the theory to the Society
>>(who received them, apparently, in stony silence) but swore his fellow
>>members to secrecy. Wilmot burned all of his personal papers
>> on the topic just before his death.>>
>>---------------------------------------------------------------
Tom Veal wrote:
> Two centuries is ample time for books to disappear.
Two centuries is a remarkably quick vanishing time for every single
personal letter, manuscript & book of a prolific & highly praised
author.
> What percentage of the volumes published c. 1800
> do you suppose are still extant today?
Do you know of a prolific & highly praised (c. 1800) author
for whom every personal letter, manuscript & book has vanished?
> And if Shakespeare didn't write his name in his books, they
> wouldn't be identifiable as his even if they survived.
Do you know of a prolific author who didn't annotate his books
(as Oxford so profusely annotated his Geneva Bible).
>>Tom Veal wrote:
>>
>>>This discussion of Shakespeare's will is evidence to the contrary.
>>>Stratfordians have frequently addressed all of the points that you
>>>raise.
> Neuendorffer wrote:
>> Actually, they were points that Mark Twain raised.
Tom Veal wrote:
> I presumed, perhaps wrongly, that you quoted them
> because you regarded them as persuasive.
I quoted them because his opinion carries considerably more weight
than either yours or mine.
Tom Veal wrote:
> If you were merely exercising your quirky (and much appreciated)
> sense of humor, I apologize for missing the joke.
BENEDICK I may chance have some odd quirks
and remnants of wit broken on me,
because I have railed so long
Three quirks for Muster Veal!
Sure he hasn't got that much appeal
And sure any he has doesn't make much of a meal.
But O, Wreneagle Almighty, it beats talking with Tom Larque.
VIOLA I am no fighter. I have heard of some kind of men that
put quarrels purposely on others, to taste their valour:
belike this is a man of that quirk.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Quirk, n. [Written also {querk}.] [Cf W. chwiori to turn briskly.]
1. An ARTful evasion or subterfuge;
``Some quirk or . . . evasion.'' --Spenser.
2. A fit or turn; a short paroxysm; a caprice. [Obs.]
``Quirks of joy and grief.'' --Shak.
3. A smart retort; a quibble; a Shallow conceit.
------------------------------------------------------------------
>>Tom Veal wrote:
>>> In this very exchange, you have repeated the groundless claim
Anti-Strat claims are only groundless in the sense that they hath no
bottom.
>>> that Shakespeare's will lists all of his possessions.
> Neuendorffer wrote:
>> I'm just quoting Mark Twain whose *main point* is:
>> Shakespeare's will was a business man's will that itemized bowls
>> & 2nd best beds but said *absolutely nothing* about his life's
>> great literary achievements.
>>Tom Veal wrote:
>>> You have done so
>>>despite the fact that about 500 Stratfordians before me have pointed
>>>out that the text of the document itself refutes that view.
> Neuendorffer wrote:
>>These 500 Stratfordians apparently have nothing whatever to say
>> about the fact that:
>> Shakespeare's will was a business man's will that itemized bowls
>> & 2nd best beds but said *absolutely nothing* about his life's
>> great literary achievements.
Tom Veal wrote:
> In the 17th Century, as today, men's wills were drafted by their
> lawyers, whose interest lay then, as now, in disposing of the
> testator's goods, not satisfying the curiosity of literary historians
> yet to be born.
Do you know of any prolific & highly praised (c. 1800) authors for
whom this was true?
> This, too, is an old, old point that Stratfordians
> have addressed over and over again.
The standard Stratfordian argument is that Shakspere was doing the
typical thing for a boring petty small town businessman c1600. While
this may be true it hardly instills confidence that this typical boring
petty small town businessman did indeed write the works of Shake-speare.
Strats seem to claim that the *real life Shakespeare* had absolutely
nothing in common with the joking punster who wrote the gravedigging
scene in Hamlet nor the regretful poet of the Sonnets who bemoaned his
anonymity.
>>Tom Veal wrote:
>>
>>> Do you have evidence to the contrary? Can you establish, for
example, that
>>>residuary clauses in 17th Century English wills were a mere formality
>>>and that the text of the will incorporated an inventory of the estate,
>>>each item of which was bequeathed specifically?
The standard Stratfordian argument is that Shakspere was doing the
typical thing for a boring petty small town businessman c1600. While
this may be true it hardly instills confidence that this typical boring
petty small town businessman did indeed write the works of Shake-speare.
> Neuendorffer wrote:
>>If the author of the works of Shakespeare had the opportunity to write
>> a will I have no doubt that it would have *something* to say about
>> those immortal works (and very little to say about 2nd best beds).
Tom Veal wrote:
> The immortal works did not form part of Shakespeare's estate. The
> King's Men and various printers owned the manuscripts and copyrights.
They certainly didn't own the poetry or the first drafts of the plays.
Besides, over half the plays had not even been registered at that
point.
> The bed, on the other hand, was the object of a specific
> bequest and therefore had to be mentioned.
So what ever happened to the bed? Was it used as a pie bottom?
>>>>Tom Veal wrote:
>>>>>Purblind as you may believe folks
>>>>>like Matus, Kathman and Ross to be, they have at least taken the
>>>>>trouble to digest the other side's case.
>>> Art Neuendorffer wrote:
>>
>>>> They don't seem to be willing to digest my case.
>>>
>>Tom Veal wrote:
>>
>>>The gentlemen named, along with a few other Stratfordians, have
>>>devoted immense and unremunerated labor to tracking down the facts
>>>behind anti-Stratfordian assertions. They conceivably could be wrong,
>>>but they can't reasonably be accused on lack of attention to their
>>>opponents' positions.
> Neuendorffer wrote:
>>I read the thin little monograph by Matus and found it obsessed with
>>unimportant trivialities (such as the case you have tried to make here)
>>while totally ignoring the important issues.
Tom Veal wrote:
> You seem to think that Shakespeare's will is important to the
> authorship question. Which of the objections to your position are
> "unimportant trivialities"?
Whether or not Shakspere's will lists all of his possessions.
Shakspere's will (like everybody elses) lists what he himself
considered
his most important possessions: e.g. a bowl & a 2nd best bed.
Tom Veal wrote:
> Similarly, Mr. Matus diligently addresses arguments that
> anti-Stratfordians thought it important to make.
Matus pointed out some flaws in a few irrelevant details.
Tom Veal wrote:
> Many of those arguments are very silly,
> but one can read them in Ogburn pere, mere et fils.
The Ogburns required 2,000 large pages to say what they needed to say.
Matus could barely muster 331 small ones.
> Neuendorffer wrote:
>> As for Kathman & Ross: they fly off "like a scared white doe in
>> the woodlands" rather than attempt to argue with the likes of me.
Tom Veal wrote:
> But most of your postings are cryptographic jeux d'esprit that you
> obviously present for your readers' amusement. How does one argue
> with anagrams and puns?
I never said that it would be easy.
When I persuasively use Ross's own methods to argue that:
-------------------------------------------------------------------
The chance of finding *HENRY W.H. Mr.*
(or something to that effect)
within one of the two Shak. poetry dedications
to *Henry* Wriothesley
is about 1 in 4,000,000
s *T* i
l *L* i
[H] *A* v
[E] *H* o
[N] [O.] u
[R] [E.] d
[Y] *O* u
[W.] *I* t
[H.] [S] o
[M] [E] g
[r.] [A] v
e [R] l
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Then what else can Terry do but remain silent & hope nobody notices.
Art Neuendorffer
Mark Hansen
> The fact remains, that Shakespeare in his will does not mention one
> single book, although books were priceless in his days. Nor is there
> any indication that Shakespeare ever had any access to any library of
> that sort which the Canon would imply intimacy with.
>
> Chris
because, my sources tell me,
most of his books were in London,
where he worked, and wrote
they may be priceless today, but not then;
expensive, yes
Mark
Mark Steese
wrote news:c87247a2.02111...@posting.google.com, on the day of
18 Nov 2002:
> clan...@hotmail.com (Christian Lanciai) wrote in message
> news:<7e67b43b.02111...@posting.google.com>...
>> The fact remains, that Shakespeare in his will does not mention one
>> single book, although books were priceless in his days. Nor is there
>> any indication that Shakespeare ever had any access to any library of
>> that sort which the Canon would imply intimacy with.
>>
>> Chris
>
> Another anti-Stratfordian myth, which I would label "long-exploded" if
> it had ever been more than a damp squib.
>
> Books were not "priceless" in 16th Century London. They were sold
> from bookstalls for a few shillings or pence.
While quartos were certainly cheap and plentiful, there were also the
more expensive folios. The fact that more of these folios have survived
has contributed to the myth that books were expensive at the time; then
as now, people were more likely to take good care of a big expensive book
than a small cheap one.
That the antis would use the myth of scarcity as evidence against
Shakespeare is especially comic given that so many of Shakespeare's own
works were widely distributed in cheap quarto editions (some of them
going through multiple printings). That quartos were less likely to be
preserved than folios can be seen by examining the collections of a large
modern library of Elizabethan texts, e.g., the Folger, which has 79
copies of Shakespeare's First Folio and 1 copy of the First Quarto
edition of _Titus Andronicus_, which happens to be the only copy of that
edition known to exist.
> Will Shakespeare was perhaps in a better position to buy or borrow them
> than most men, because Richard Field, one of the leading booksellers,
> hailed from Stratford-upon-Avon and was a friend of the Shakespeare
> family.
>
> Ben Jonson, far poorer in his youth than Shakespeare, managed to read
> enough to become one of the most learned men of his generation. If he
> could get his hands on books, so could Will.
Lanciai is a Marlovian. I wonder what evidence he has for Marlowe's
access to works published after May 1593, e.g., Samuel Harsnett's _A
Declaration of Popish Impostures_, entered on the Stationers' Register 16
March 1603, which Shakespeare read before he wrote King Lear. Poor
Marlowe! Not only was he obliged to pretend to be dead, but he also had
to somehow acquire numerous 'priceless' books that he had no means to pay
for and could not let anyone know he had. Imagine his frustration at
having such a collection and not even being able to bequeath it to anyone
in a will!
-Mark Steese
--
It was the saying of Bion, that though the boys throw stones at frogs in
sport, yet the frogs do not die in sport but in earnest. - Plutarch
Art Neuendorffer
>>>> You have done so despite
>>>> the fact that about 500 Stratfordians before me have pointed
>>>>out that the text of the document itself refutes that view.
>> Neuendorffer wrote:
>>> These 500 Stratfordians apparently have
>>> nothing whatever to say about the fact that:
>>>
>>> Shakespeare's will was a business man's will that itemized bowls
>>> & 2nd best beds but said *absolutely nothing* about his life's
>>> great literary achievements.
David L. Webb wrote:
> As has been pointed out to you countless times, Art,
> Shakespeare did not own "his life's great literary achievements."
It hard to believe that Shakespeare owned *none* of
"his life's great literary achievements."
David L. Webb wrote:
> I realize that you find reality uncongenial,
I find the crap that much of the establishment
tries to pawn off as reality uncongenial.
>>In the 17th Century, as today, men's wills were drafted by their
>>lawyers, whose interest lay then, as now, in disposing of the
>>testator's goods, not satisfying the curiosity of literary historians
>>yet to be born. This, too, is an old, old point that Stratfordians
>>have addressed over and over again.
>>>Tom Veal wrote:
>>>> Do you
>>>>have evidence to the contrary? Can you establish, for example, that
>>>>residuary clauses in 17th Century English wills were a mere formality
>>>>and that the text of the will incorporated an inventory of the estate,
>>>>each item of which was bequeathed specifically?
>> Neuendorffer wrote:
>>>If the author of the works of Shakespeare had the opportunity to write
>>> a will I have no doubt
David L. Webb wrote:
> "You have no doubt"?!
I realize that it is big word for you, Dave.
--------------------------------------------------
Doubt, n. [OE. dute, doute, F. doute, fr. douter to doubt.]
Difficulty expressed or urged for solution;
point unsettled; objection.
{No doubt}, undoubtedly; without doubt.
--------------------------------------------------
>> Neuendorffer wrote:
>>> that it would have *something* to say about those immortal
>>> works (and very little to say about 2nd best beds).
>Tom Veal wrote:
>>The immortal works did not form part of Shakespeare's estate. The
>>King's Men and various printers owned the manuscripts and copyrights.
>>Hence, the lawyer who drafted the will had not a shadow of a reason to
>>mention them (and wouldn't have mentioned them in any event unless
>>they had been bequeathed to someone other than the residuary
>>legatees). The bed, on the other hand, was the object of a specific
>>bequest and therefore had to be mentioned.
David L. Webb wrote:
> Of course, Art has been told this time and time again. Art knows
> that experts in mathematics or physics understand quite well many facts
> that are bewilderingly counterintuitive to nonexperts -- or at any
> rate, he ought to know that, as he claims to have studied theoretical
> physics.
Art himself is an expert in mathematic & physics.
David L. Webb wrote:
> However, he just cannot wrap his mind around the idea that Shakespeare
> did not retain some sort of authorial right to his works as
> bequeathable possessions, a fact well known to literary historians,
> however counterintuitive it may seem to nonexperts.
Everything in the Stratford case is counterintuitive.
David L. Webb wrote:
> Art would never
> trust the unfounded intuition of an utter ignoramus in mathematics or
> physics, yet he is quite prepared to repose full confidence in the
> unfounded intuition of an ignoramus in literary history.
It's sometimes called horse-sense.
Most literary history is pure bullshit.
>>>>>Tom Veal wrote:
>>>>>>Purblind as you may believe folks
>>>>>>like Matus, Kathman and Ross to be, they have at least taken the
>>>>>>trouble to digest the other side's case.
>>>> Art Neuendorffer wrote:
>>>>> They don't seem to be willing to digest my case.
David L. Webb wrote:
> *What* "case"?
Well for one:
When I persuasively use Ross's own methods to argue that:
-------------------------------------------------------------------
The chance of finding *HENRY W.H. Mr.*
(or something to that effect)
within one of the two Shak. poetry dedications
to *Henry* Wriothesley
is about 1 in 4,000,000
s *T* i
l *L* i
[H] *A* v
[E] *H* o
[N] [O.] u
[R] [E.] d
[Y] *O* u
[W.] *I* t
[H.] [S] o
[M] [E] g
[r.] [A] v
e [R] l
--------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>Tom Veal wrote:
>>>
>>>>The gentlemen named, along with a few other Stratfordians, have
>>>>devoted immense and unremunerated labor to tracking down the facts
>>>>behind anti-Stratfordian assertions. They conceivably could be wrong,
>>>>but they can't reasonably be accused on lack of attention to their
>>>>opponents' positions.
>> Neuendorffer wrote:
>>>I read the thin little monograph by Matus and found it obsessed with
>>>unimportant trivialities (such as the case you have tried to make here)
>>>while totally ignoring the important issues.
David L. Webb wrote:
> *What* "important issues"? Matus refuted -- decisively -- many of
> the points that numerous Oxfordians insisted were important.
Matus never refuted anything I considered important.
David L. Webb wrote:
> The mere fact that Matus could write an entire book
You call that "an entire book?"
David L. Webb wrote:
> exploding myth after myth from Ogburn ought to be a tip-off (to
> those with IQs requiring at least two digits to express in decimal
> notation, at any rate) of the quality of "scholarship" to be found
> in Ogburn's tome -- and the elder Ogburns are far funnier still.
The mere fact that Matus wrote *absolutely nothing* that either
Strats find worth repeating or Anti-Strats find worth refuting ought to
be a tip-off about the total worthlessness of his book.
>> Neuendorffer wrote:
>>> As for Kathman & Ross: they fly off "like a scared white doe in
>>> the woodlands" rather than attempt to argue with the likes of me.
David L. Webb wrote:
> Dave and Terry have answered you numerous times in the past, Art --
> however, you just ignore their rejoinders, without exhibiting even the
> slightest sign of comprehension.
Dave and Terry have answered me from time to time in the past,
however, after they lose the argument they just drift off,
without exhibiting even the slightest sign of comprehension.
David L. Webb wrote:
> When someone comes to me with a
> manuscript "proving" that one can classically trisect the angle, I
> patiently explain his misunderstanding, and I am inclined to regard him
> initially as possibly an original, if misguided, thinker.
It has been mathematically proved that one cannot classically trisect
an angle with compass & beint edge.
Nobody have even come close to making a case that the illiterate
Stratford boob could possibly have written the works of Shake-speare.
Art Neuendorffer
Christian Lanciai
Tom, Mark and Mark,
Your arguments are quite appropriate, there is nothing wrong with
them, you have answered well, but isn't it odd, that Shakspere, who
according to his first biographer went home to Stratford to write his
works in summertime, since he had no spare time in the theatres of
London, and who spent his last three years at home in Stratford, left
no book at all, not even an old torn copy of Plutarch, from which he
got so many excellent plays and which he must have read most
meticulously, and not even any Bible, which he quoted all his life and
therefore must have read all his life, to bequeath at least to his
stepson, who seems to have been the only person in his family who at
least could read something... nor any collection of manuscripts or
letters... For surely he would not have left such favourite books of
universal value like the Bible, Plutarch and Ovid behind him in
London, when he had nothing to do in his old age at Stratford but to
read....
Chris
Tom Veal
Art Neuendorffer <aneuendor...@comcast.net> wrote in message news:<3DD91D4C...@comcast.net>...
If I may risk summarizing (lest these posts grow unwieldy), you argue
that -
1. The will of a famous author who died in 1616 would necessarily
bequeath books and manuscripts and would not read like a document
prepared for "a boring petty small town businessman". You buttress
this assertion by claiming that wills typically list "what [the
testator] considered his most important possessions" and that it is
incredible that the author of Shakespeare's works would devote no
space in his will to his literary achievements.
2. If Shakespeare of Stratford had really been a famous literary
figure, an amateur researcher two centuries later would have found
books that he could be proven to have owned and letters that he had
written.
For reasons that I've touched on in previous posts and that many
others over the years have discussed at length, neither of those
propositions is plausible. But let's suppose that they were. All
that you would have proven is that Shakespeare was unusual among
authors. Authors are such a variegated group, however, that one could
almost say that it is typical for them to be unusual.
Moreover, anti-Stratfordians do not propose a more typical and
intuitively obvious candidate for authorship of the Shakespearean
corpus. Instead, they present highly counterintuitive scenarios. It
is far rarer in history for noblemen to write great literature in
secret and pass it off as someone else's work than for authors to have
somewhat boring personalities, be attentive to their business
interests and not write their names in books. Anti-Stratfordians
insist that nothing slightly odd can be true, then swallow the
grotesque.
Tom Veal
or a Bible or other books or manuscripts or letters. None of those
goods would have been mentioned in his will unless he bequeathed them
to persons other than his residuary legatees, nor would books, even if
they survived to the present, be identifiable as having belonged to
Shakespeare unless he labeled them in some fashion.
It would be no surprise if this famous playwright kept no manuscripts
of his plays. The scripts were property of the theatrical company,
not of the author, and no one in those days regarded them as having
intrinsic value. Nor would it have been out of the ordinary for him
to have failed to preserve his letters (and if he had, the likelihood
that they would survive is not especially high).
To claim that Shakespeare owned no books, manuscripts or letters
because his will mentions none is a tenuous argument from silence.
Not untypical of anti-Stratfordian argumentation but not convincing.
clan...@hotmail.com (Christian Lanciai) wrote in message news:<7e67b43b.02111...@posting.google.com>...
> Your arguments are quite appropriate, there is nothing wrong with
Art Neuendorffer
> If I may risk summarizing (lest these posts grow unwieldy),
O base Hungarian wight! wilt thou the spigot wield?
Tom Veal wrote:
> you argue that -
>
> 1. The will of a famous author who died in 1616 would necessarily
> bequeath books and manuscripts and would not read like a document
> prepared for "a boring petty small town businessman". You buttress
> this assertion by claiming that wills typically list "what [the
> testator] considered his most important possessions" and that it is
> incredible that the author of Shakespeare's works would devote no
> space in his will to his literary achievements.
That sounds about right.
Tom Veal wrote:
> 2. If Shakespeare of Stratford had really been a famous literary
> figure, an amateur researcher two centuries later would have found
> books that he could be proven to have owned and letters that he had
> written.
If the amateur was as persistent & ultimately as frustrated
as James Wilmot seems to have been.
Tom Veal wrote:
> For reasons that I've touched on in previous posts and that many
> others over the years have discussed at length, neither of those
> propositions is plausible.
For reasons that I've touched on in previous posts,
none of your objections are plausible.
Tom Veal wrote:
> But let's suppose that they were. All
> that you would have proven is that Shakespeare was unusual among
> authors. Authors are such a variegated group, however, that one
> could almost say that it is typical for them to be unusual.
Assuming my propositions are plausible then I haven't "proven"
anything.
However, it does lay the groundwork for reasonable doubt vis-a-vis the
authorship of the works.
Science is involved with generating a series of hypotheses that (whether
true or not) help to explain observed phenomenon.
Walt Whitman's hypothesis that:
---------------------------------------------------------------
<<only one of the "WOLFISH earls" so plenteous in the plays
themselves, or some born descendant and knower, might seem
to be the TRUE author of those amazing works >>
--WALT WHITMAN 19th century romantic
-------------------------------------------------------------
rings true because it helps to explain much about Shake-speare.
Whether true or not, the Stratfordian hypothesis that Shakespeare was
written by a small town entrepeneur who has left us no books,
manuscripts or letters and whose family may have been largely illiterate
explains *absolutely nothing*.
Tom Veal wrote:
> Moreover, anti-Stratfordians do not propose a more typical and
> intuitively obvious candidate for authorship of the Shakespearean
> corpus. Instead, they present highly counterintuitive scenarios. It
> is far rarer in history for noblemen to write great literature in
> secret and pass it off as someone else's work than for authors to have
> somewhat boring personalities, be attentive to their business
> interests and not write their names in books.
This is a tautology.
There has never been a perfect crime because
whenever one is revealed then it would no longer be perfect.
Tom Veal wrote:
> Anti-Stratfordians insist that nothing slightly odd can be true,
> then swallow the grotesque.
grotesque, n. [Middle French & Old Italian; Middle French, from Old
Italian (pittura) grottesca, literally, cave painting, feminine of
grottesco of a cave, from grotta, Date: 1561] a style of decorative art
characterized by fanciful or fantastic human and animal forms often
interwoven with foliage or similar figures that may distort the natural
into absurdity, ugliness, or caricature b : a piece of work in this
style:
http://web.uvic.ca/shakespeare/Library/Texts/Cym/Cym_FI/Cym_Fbbb6r.html
Art Neuendorffer
Art Neuendorffer
>
>> isn't it odd, that Shakspere, who
>>according to his first biographer went home to Stratford to write his
>>works in summertime, since he had no spare time in the theatres of
>>London, and who spent his last three years at home in Stratford, left
>>no book at all, not even an old torn copy of Plutarch, from which he
>>got so many excellent plays and which he must have read most
>>meticulously, and not even any Bible, which he quoted all his life and
>>therefore must have read all his life, to bequeath at least to his
>>stepson, who seems to have been the only person in his family who at
>>least could read something... nor any collection of manuscripts or
>>letters... For surely he would not have left such favourite books of
>>universal value like the Bible, Plutarch and Ovid behind him in
>>London, when he had nothing to do in his old age at Stratford but to
>>read....
Tom Veal wrote:
> We do not know whether Shakespeare left behind an old, torn Plutarch
> or a Bible or other books or manuscripts or letters. None of those
> goods would have been mentioned in his will unless he bequeathed them
> to persons other than his residuary legatees, nor would books, even if
> they survived to the present, be identifiable as having belonged to
> Shakespeare unless he labeled them in some fashion.
>
> It would be no surprise if this famous playwright kept no manuscripts
> of his plays. The scripts were property of the theatrical company,
> not of the author, and no one in those days regarded them as having
> intrinsic value. Nor would it have been out of the ordinary for him
> to have failed to preserve his letters (and if he had, the likelihood
> that they would survive is not especially high).
>
> To claim that Shakespeare owned no books, manuscripts or letters
> because his will mentions none is a tenuous argument from silence.
> Not untypical of anti-Stratfordian argumentation but not convincing.
James Wilmot was hardly a typical anti-Stratfordian:
--------------------------------------------------------------------
<<The first outright denial of Shakespeare's authorship was made by the
Reverend James Wilmot (1726-sometime after 1805). He became rector of
Barton-on-the-Heath, just north of Stratford, in 1781. Upon assuming
the rectorship, Wilmot eagerly explored the Stratford area for
historical information on Shakespeare. But he was gradually forced to
conclude that Shakespeare could not have been the author. Scouring
every private library within a 50-mile radius, he was unable to find
any book that could be proven to have belonged to Shakespeare; he
collected a great many local legends from the Stratford area (which,
he felt, anyone growing up in the area must have known of), but found
no reference to them in any of Shakespeare's works. He began to
suspect that the plays were actually written by Bacon, noting the many
parallels between the philosophy of Bacon and the thoughts expressed in
Shakespeare's works. Being a cautious man, he kept these views to
himself. But in 1805, he permitted his friend James Corton Cowell to
present his theory before a meeting of the Ipswich Philosophical
Society, on the condition that his identity remain a secret. Cowell,
with considerable trepidation, presented the theory to the Society (who
received them, apparently, in stony silence) but swore his fellow
members to secrecy. Wilmot burned all of his personal papers on the
topic just before his death.>>
---------------------------------------------------------------
Wilmot's search was a scientific test of the Stratfordian hypothesis.
Science is involved with generating a series of hypotheses that
(whether true or not) help to explain observed phenomenon.
Whether true or not, the Stratfordian hypothesis that
Shakespeare was written by a small town entrepeneur
who has left us no books, manuscripts or letters
and whose family may have been largely illiterate
has not only failed every test but is a hypothesis
that explains *absolutely nothing*.
Walt Whitman's hypothesis that:
---------------------------------------------------------------
<<only one of the "WOLFISH earls" so plenteous in the plays
themselves, or some born descendant and knower, might seem
to be the TRUE author of those amazing works >>
--WALT WHITMAN 19th century romantic
-------------------------------------------------------------
rings true because it helps to explain much about Shake-speare.
Art Neuendorffer
Peter Groves
news:c87247a2.02111...@posting.google.com...
Precisely so: "Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a
camel." (Matthew 23:24 ).
Peter G.
Roundtable
a) How do we know that he only wrote in the summertime?
b) I recall reading somewhere that he showed up in London a few
of times during those last three years where he was supposedly
cooped up in Stratford.
c) I have a lot of paperbacks but nothing really valuable, so I wouldn't
necessarily mention them in a testament - I'd tell my family they could
have them. The manuscripts were with his acting friends, presumably.
d) How do you know he had nothing else to do but read in his "old age"
at Stratford? The man had orchards, buildings and land - and family
and friends. I doubt he was holed up in his bedroom reading.
A testament is written up usually to ensure that property and financial
settlements are disposed of correctly. All matters concerning the theatre
were in the hands of his fellow actors. That some of those actors were
his good friends is shown by the fact that he left them money for rings.
What about Oxford, Bacon and Marlowe's testaments?
Roundtable
Tom Reedy
> Art Neuendorffer <aneuendor...@comcast.net> wrote in message news:<3DD91D4C...@comcast.net>...
>
> If I may risk summarizing (lest these posts grow unwieldy), you argue
> that -
>
> 1. The will of a famous author who died in 1616 would necessarily
> bequeath books and manuscripts and would not read like a document
> prepared for "a boring petty small town businessman". You buttress
> this assertion by claiming that wills typically list "what [the
> testator] considered his most important possessions" and that it is
> incredible that the author of Shakespeare's works would devote no
> space in his will to his literary achievements.
<snip>
Complied from _Playhouse Wills, 1558-1642_, E. A. J. Honigmann and Susan
Brock, Manchester: Manchester UP, 1993.
TABLE: * = written will
# = books mentioned
^ = interlineations present in will
Francis Beaumont - (1619) administration only.
Thomas Campion - (1620) noncupative will, no mention of books or manuscripts
*Lodiwick Carlell - (1675) written will, no mention of books or manuscripts
Sir William Davenant - (1668) administration only.
Thomas Dekker - (1632) administration only.
Thomas Goffe - (1629) noncupative will, no mention of books or manuscripts
William Haughton - (1605) noncupative will, no mention of books or manuscripts
Ben Jonson - (1637) administration only.
Thomas Kyd - (1594) administration only.
Thomas Lodge - (1625) administration only.
*^John Marston - (1634) written will, no mention of books or manuscripts
*#^Samuel Rowley - (1624) written will, gives books to his brother, no mention
of manuscripts
*^William Shakespeare - (1616) written will, no mention of books or
manuscripts
*^Edward Sharpham - (1608) written will, no mention of books or manuscripts
*^James Shirley - (1666) written will, no mention of books or manuscripts
George Wilkins - (1618) administration only.
*#Arthur Wilson - (1652) written will, gives books to cousin, son-in-law, and
library, no mention of manuscripts
TOTALS
7 written wills
2 mention books
0 mention manuscripts
5 have interlineations
CONCLUSION: Of 7 written wills by playwrights, only 2 mention books and none
mention manuscripts.
TR
David Kathman
reed...@earthlink.net (Tom Reedy) wrote:
>Tom...@ix.netcom.com (Tom Veal) wrote in message
>news:<c87247a2.02111...@posting.google.com>...
>> Responding to -
>> Art Neuendorffer <aneuendor...@comcast.net> wrote in message
>news:<3DD91D4C...@comcast.net>...
>>
>> If I may risk summarizing (lest these posts grow unwieldy), you argue
>> that -
>>
>> 1. The will of a famous author who died in 1616 would necessarily
>> bequeath books and manuscripts and would not read like a document
>> prepared for "a boring petty small town businessman". You buttress
>> this assertion by claiming that wills typically list "what [the
>> testator] considered his most important possessions" and that it is
>> incredible that the author of Shakespeare's works would devote no
>> space in his will to his literary achievements.
>
><snip>
>
>Complied from _Playhouse Wills, 1558-1642_, E. A. J. Honigmann and Susan
>Brock, Manchester: Manchester UP, 1993.
>
>TABLE: * = written will
> # = books mentioned
> ^ = interlineations present in will
>
>Francis Beaumont - (1619) administration only.
>
>Thomas Campion - (1620) noncupative will, no mention of books or manuscripts
Sorry to nitpick, but the word is "nuncupative".
Nice list, Tom. Of course, it won't make a bit of
difference to antistrats.
Dave Kathman
dj...@ix.netcom.com
Tom Veal
> Tom Veal wrote:
>
> > 2. If Shakespeare of Stratford had really been a famous literary
> > figure, an amateur researcher two centuries later would have found
> > books that he could be proven to have owned and letters that he had
> > written.
>
> If the amateur was as persistent & ultimately as frustrated
> as James Wilmot seems to have been.
You assume that there would have been books and letters to find, but -
1. The books would be identifiable as Shakespeare's only if he marked
them, and many men do not write their names in their books.
2. Many men do not preserve the letters that they receive. Many
letters that they write are not preserved by their recipients. Many
recipients of Shakespeare's letters may have lived in places other
than Warwickshire. As it happens, extremely few letters written by
commoners to other commoners survive from the Elizabethan/Jacobean
period. You are free to believe, if you wish, that they tended to
perish between 1805 and the present rather than between 1616 and 1781.
3. Since Shakespeare didn't own the manuscripts of his plays - you
can check this point in any standard account of Elizabethan theatrical
practices - the Rev. Mr. Wilmot had little hope of locating them in
Warwickshire. Hence, your argument turns entirely on the
disappearance of the manuscripts of a small number of poems written
over 20 years before the poet's death. Not the most formidable of
anomalies.
Also, writing and receiving letters are not confined to literary
figures. Businessmen also correspond, often more extensively than
professional writers. If the failure to find Shakespeare's letters is
evidence that he was not a playwright, it is also evidence that he was
not a prosperous burgher with fairly extensive investments.
> Walt Whitman's hypothesis that:
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
> <<only one of the "WOLFISH earls" so plenteous in the plays
> themselves, or some born descendant and knower, might seem
> to be the TRUE author of those amazing works >>
> --WALT WHITMAN 19th century romantic
> -------------------------------------------------------------
> rings true because it helps to explain much about Shake-speare.
List three examples. Wolfish earls abounded in Elizabethan
literature. Was it *all* written by disguised noblemen?
> Whether true or not, the Stratfordian hypothesis that Shakespeare was
> written by a small town entrepeneur who has left us no books,
> manuscripts or letters and whose family may have been largely illiterate
> explains *absolutely nothing*.
The Stratfordian hypothesis explains, inter alia -
* why the plays and poems were published under the name "William
Shakespeare",
* why contemporaries referred to the author as "William Shakespeare",
* why contemporaries associated the author with Stratford-upon-Avon,
* why contemporaries described the author as an actor,
* why Ben Jonson, in recounting a conversation with the author of
"Julius Caesar", referred to him as "Shakespeare",
* why a monument was erected to William Shakespeare in Stratford
comparing him to Vergil,
* why visitors to Shakespeare's grave, beginning within a few years
after his death, consistently identified him as the famous playwright,
* why the plays show little awareness of how royalty and the upper
tier of the aristrocracy led their lives (Capulet personally directing
the preparation of dinner, a low-ranking soldier bursting in on the
King of Scotland, the King of Denmark wandering alone in his castle),
* why places and people from the vicinity of Stratford appear in the
induction to "The Taming of the Shrew",
* why traces of Warwickshire dialect are found in the plays,
* why the Sonnets contain puns on the names "Will" and "Hathaway".
I realize that anti-Stratfordians have their alternative explanations
for all of these facts, but one cannot reasonably assert that the
Stratfordian theory has no explanatory power.
Art Neuendorffer
> You assume that there would have been books and letters to find, but -
>
> 1. The books would be identifiable as Shakespeare's only if he
> marked them, and many men do not write their names in their books.
*Anyone* could have, would have, & should have
marked them as having belonged to
"OUR late FAMOUS Poet WILL. SHAKESPEARE"
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
<<One thing more, in reference to this antient TOWN is observable, that
it gave BIRTH and sepulture to OUR late FAMOUS Poet WILL. SHAKESPEARE,
whose Monument I have inserted in my discourse of the Church.>>
-- William Dugdale
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Tom Veal wrote:
> The Stratfordian hypothesis explains, inter alia -
> * why visitors to Shakespeare's grave, beginning within a few years
> after his death, consistently identified him as the famous playwright,
Indeed they did, Tom, *consistently* !!!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Your assignment for today is to write
some witty & FACETIOUS verses about your:
a) TRAVELL "through"
b) STRATFORD UPON AVON noted
c) BIRTH place of the
d) FAMOUS
e) WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.
Be sure to go
f) IN THE CHURCH where WS is buried
- but immediately(!) become distracted by someone else's tomb.
Extra credit if you mention that Shakespeare was OUR/ENGLISH poet
(least we become confused and think somehow that we are referring
to Pushkin's Stratford monument.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------
JEST, n. [OE. JESTe, geste, deed, action, story, tale, OF. geste, LL.
gesta, orig., exploits, neut. pl. from L. gestus, p. p. of gerere to
bear, carry, accomplish, perform; perh. orig.,
to make to come, bring, and perh. akin to E. come. Cf. {REGISTER}]
REGISTER, n. [OE. registre, L. regesta, pl., fr. regerere, regestum,
to carry back, to register. See {JEST}.]
-------------------------------------------------------------------
In 1630 an anonymous volume was published, entitled
*A Banquet of JEASTS or Change of Cheare*.
JEST no. 259 is as follows:
[Take heed that this JEST do not one day turn to EARNEST. - Sidney.]
<<One TRAVELLing through STRATFORD UPON AVON, a TOWNE most
remarkeable for the BIRTH of FAMOUS WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE,
and walking IN THE CHURCH to doe his devotion, espyed a
thing there worthy observation, which was a tombestone laid
more that three hundred years agoe, on which was ingraven
an Epitaph to this purpose, I Thomas such a one, and Elizabeth
my wife here under lye buried, and know Reader I. R. C. and
I. Chrystoph. Q. are alive at this houre to witnesse it.>>
-------------------------------------------------------------------
<<In that dayes TRAVELL we came by STRATFORD UPON AVON, where
IN THE CHURCH in that TOWNE there are some Monuments which
Church was built by Archbishop Stratford; Those worth observing
and of which wee tooke notice were these...A NEAT [Ox] Monument
of that FAMOUS ENGLISH Poet, Mr. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE; who
was BORNE heere. And one of an old Gentleman a Batchelor,
*Mr. COMBe* ,
upon whose name, the sayd Poet, did merrily fann up some
witty, and FACETIOUS verses, which time would nott give
us leave to sacke up.>>
- HAMmond, LT., TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 9, 1634, DIARY
--------------------------------------------------------------------
On January 4, 1450, "[Malory] and 26 other armed men were said
to have laid an ambush for [the Duke of] Buckingham
in the Abbot of *COMBe* 's woods near Newbold Revel".
--------------------------------------------------------------------
John Ward's [C]urious
[O]riginal
[M]onument
& [B]ust
-------------------------------------------------------------------
<<As the generous proposals of the Proprietors of the two greatest
Play Houses in this Kingdom, were kindly accepted and encourage'd, in
relation to each of them Acting a Play,for the Sole purpose of erecting
a New Monument to the Memory of S H A K E S P E A R E, in Westminster
Abbey; And as the [C]urious [O]riginal [M]onument & [B]ust of that
incomparable Poet, erected above the Tomb that enshrines his Dust, in
the Church of Stratford upon Avon Warwickshire, Is through length of
Years and other accidents be come much impair'd and decay'd; An offer
has been kindly made by the Judicious and much Esteem'd Mr. John Ward,
and his Company To Act one of S H A K E S P E A R E'S P L A Y S. Viz.
Othello, or the Moor of Venice.
At Stratford, on Tuesday the Ninth of this instant September [1746]
The Receipts arising from which Reperesentation are to be Solely
Appropriated to the Repairing the Original Monument aforesaid.>>
-- WARD, JOHN, TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 9, 1746, Playbill
---------------------------------------------------------------------
WARD, REV. JOHN, 1661-63, DIARY
<<Shakspear had but two daughters, one whereof Mr. Hall, the physitian,
married, and by her had on daughter married, to wit, the Lady Bernard of
Abbingdon. I have heard that Mr. Shakspeare was a natural wit, without
any art at all; hee frequented the plays all his younger time, but in
his elder days lived at Stratford, and supplied the stage with two plays
every year, and for itt had an allowance so large, that hee spent
att the rate of £1,000 a-year, as I have heard. Shakespeare,
DRAYTON & Ben JONSON, had a merie meeting, and itt seems drank too hard,
for Shakespear died of a feavour there contracted. Remember to peruse
Shakespeare's plays; and bee much VERsED in them, that I may not bee
ignorant in that matter. Whether Dr. Heylin does well, in reckoning
up the dramatick poets which have been famous in England,
to omit Shakespeare.>>
--------------------------------------------------------------------
"REVEREND WARD"
E D W A R D V E R E
R
N
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Shakespeare & Cervantes died on St. George's day, 1616
April 23 is preceded by 113 days
September 9 precedes 113 days
---------------------------------------------------------------------
September 9, 1566, 12 yr. old Philip Sidney visits Stratford
Friday September 9, 1603, George Carey dies from mercury poisoning!
Friday September 9, 1608, Shakespeare's mother, Mary, buried
Tuesday September 9, 1634, Lt. Hammond (Ham.Lt.) visits Stratford.
Tuesday September 9, 1746, John Ward plays Othello in Stratford.
Friday September 19, 1746, Bonnie Prince Charlie leaves for good.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer
Art Neuendorffer
> 2. Many men do not preserve the letters that they receive. Many
> letters that they write are not preserved by their recipients. Many
> recipients of Shakespeare's letters may have lived in places other
> than Warwickshire. As it happens, extremely few letters written by
> commoners to other commoners survive from the Elizabethan/Jacobean
> period.
Few commoners wrote ingenious satires of the Elizabethan court.
Even fewer such commoners got away without lossing a nose or a limb.
Even fewer such commoners actually prospered from writing such satires.
Art Neuendorffer
Art Neuendorffer
> Also, writing and receiving letters are not confined to literary
> figures. Businessmen also correspond, often more extensively than
> professional writers. If the failure to find Shakespeare's letters is
> evidence that he was not a playwright, it is also evidence that he
> was not a prosperous burgher with fairly extensive investments.
Failure to find Shakespeare's business letters is confirmation
that he was as illiterate as the rest of his family and
as illiterate as his pathetic signatures indicate that he was.
Art Neuendorffer
Art Neuendorffer
> 3. Since Shakespeare didn't own the manuscripts of his plays - you
> can check this point in any standard account of Elizabethan theatrical
> practices - the Rev. Mr. Wilmot had little hope of locating them in
> Warwickshire.
Shakspere didn't rightly own the 40 shillings that
poor Richard Whittington loaned his wife either
but that didn't prevent him from pocketing the money:
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Terry Ross wrote:
<<Richard Hathaway also left a bequest in his will to pay money he owed
to a shepherd in his employ, Richard Whittington. In his own will (in
1601), Whittington included this item" "I give and bequeath unto the
poor people of Stratford xls. that is in the hand of Anne Shaxpere, wife
unto Mr. Wyllyam Shaxpere, and is due debt unto me, being paid to mine
executor by the said Wyllyam Shaxpere or his assigns according to the
true meaning of my will.">>
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Tom Veal wrote:
> * why traces of Warwickshire dialect are found in the plays,
---------------------------------------------------------------------
<< Many years ago, Mr. Appleton Morgan, the president of The
Shakespeare Society of New York, produced a glossary of 518 words
which he claimed as words exclusively used in Warwickshire. The English
Dialect Society's Dictionary shows that of those 518 so called pure
Warwickshire words only 46 were not current in Surrey, Sussex, Kent,
Wiltshire, Hampshire, Lincolnshire and Leicestershire. How is it,
therefore, that not a single one of the 46 words which can be shown to
have been used exclusively in Warwickshire are to found in the
"Shakespeare" Plays? If Will Shakspere wrote the plays we should
naturally expect that he would use some of the local words. There is
only one character in all the plays who speaks a rustic dialect and
that character is Edgar in "King Lear". Edgar was son and heir to the
Earl of Gloucester so he might reasonably be expected when talking in
dialect for the purpose of disguise to use the Gloucestershire
dialect, instead of which he uses the Kentish dialect.>>
--------------------------------------------------------------
"David L. Webb" wrote:
> But he does *not* write _Venus and Adonis_ in dialect, nor would any
> sane person expect him to use dialect in a long, elegant poem on a
> classical theme -- yet his failure to use "Warwickshire patois" is
> exactly the idiotic point raised in the "Shakespeare quiz" that Art
> posted. It's a bit like expecting an educated person from the
> southestern United States or from some minority ethnic background to
> be utterly unable to avoid using hick regional expressions ("y'all,"
> "you'uns," etc.) in a piece of formal writing. I grew up speaking a
> very idiosyncratic and easily ridiculed "mountaineer" dialect; that
> does not mean that I choose to use that dialect in my scientific
> papers. Nor do my African-American colleagues choose to use the
> dialects they grew up speaking in circumstances where they deem
> such dialects inappropriate.
> He would *only* be expected to use "special Warwickshire words" if
> the character in question was intended to be a hick from Warwickshire;
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
AS YOU LIKE IT Act 5, Scene 1
WILLIAM
Ay, sir, I have a pretty WIT.
TOUCHSTONE
Why, thou sayest well. I do now remember a saying,
'The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man
knows himself to be a fool.'
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
> if he were depicting a comic Welsh parson, he would be expected to use
> Welsh dialect, as in fact he does. There is no reason whatever to
> expect "Warwickshire dialect" in his plays unless one believes that he
> absolutely could not resist ridiculing his Warwickshire compatriots.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer
Art Neuendorffer
>>Walt Whitman's hypothesis that:
>>---------------------------------------------------------------
>> <<only one of the "WOLFISH earls" so plenteous in the plays
>> themselves, or some born descendant and knower, might seem
>> to be the TRUE author of those amazing works >>
>> --WALT WHITMAN 19th century romantic
>>-------------------------------------------------------------
>> rings true because it helps to explain much about Shake-speare.
Tom Veal wrote:
> List three examples.
1) The sensitivity & sympathy shown to the noble class.
2) The knowledge & chutzpa to write a detailed satire of Lord Burghley
as Polonius.
3) The ability to not only get away with it without lossing a nose or
a limb but to actually prosper finacially (a difficult task for artists
even in the best of times).
> Wolfish earls abounded in Elizabethan literature.
> Was it *all* written by disguised noblemen?
Quite possibly.
Genius thrives in a competitive environment.
Art Neuendorffer
Art Neuendorffer
> The Stratfordian hypothesis explains, inter alia -
>
> * why the plays and poems were published under the name
> "William Shakespeare",
Then why did he go by the name William Shakspere?
Tom Veal wrote:
> * why contemporaries referred to the author as "William Shakespeare",
Posthumously
Tom Veal wrote:
> * why contemporaries associated the author with Stratford-upon-Avon,
1) One cryptic mention of a Stratford moniment.
[Which most Londoners would assume to be: Stratford atte Bowe.]
2) And one cryptic mention of a certain Swan of AVON:
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Sweet SWAN of Avon! what a sight it were
To see thee in our WATERS yet appeare,
And make those flights upon the bankes of Thames,
That so did take ELiZA, and our James !
-------------------------------------------------------------------
ELiZA, and our James
-------------------------------------------------------------------
<<In celebration of the 1613 marriage of James' daughter ELiZAbeth to
the Elector Palatine, the plays: The Tempest, Julius Caesar, Much Ado,
Othello, The Winter's Tale and both parts of Henry IV were played. The
festivities were marred by the sudden death of Henry, Prince of Wales.>>
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Rhine Sagas, as they have been told in Germany *throughout history* :
http://www.operastars.com/saga1.htm
Lohengrin, The SWAN Knight of Kleve
<<Once upon a time ELSA, daughter of a deceased Duke lived in the castle
called Kleve, sometimes called the "SWAN Castle". ELSA had barely come
of age when both of her parents died, and her younger brother followed
them after a short illness.
. . . .
After a sleepless night, ELSA confronted her husband with the
oath-breaking question: "In the name of out sons - what do you call
yourself? And from where do you come?" He stared at her clutching his
heart: "Such happiness and now it is in shreds! You should never have
asked that question, as you well know. I shall answer you, but then I
must leave you!" ELSA implored him not to say such a thing, but he
continued:
"Know this: in a far-off land, inaccessible to you all, there stands a
castle, called Montsalwatsch. In the center gleams a glittering house of
God, more splendid than any ever built on earth. And this house contains
the most precious thing in existence: the Holy Grail. Twelve brave
heroes were selected to protect it. They are also available to come to
the assistance of innocent people who ask for help. King Percival is the
leader and all who serve him recieve strength from the Grail. But no one
is allowed to ask their names or who sent them. They have to leave
anyone who discovers their identity." ELSA cried out at this declaration
but the the SWAN knight voice continued as though it were coming from
another world: "I was sent here from the Grail. My father is King
Percival. I, his knight-errant, am named Lohengrin!"
As he spoke these words, the SWAN came gliding by, still harnessed to
the golden boat as it was so many years ago. It barely touched the bank
and Lohengrin was already inside. As the SWAN and the boat moved off,
Lohengrin did not glace back. Desperately, ELSA followed along the bank,
but she could not catch him. Heart-broken she returned to the castle and
she never again saw Lohengrin, no matter how often she visited the banks
in the vain hope of finding him. Her three sons remained her only
friends. They developed great chivalrous virtues, and they passed on
their strength and wisdom to many a later generation. They all bore
the SWAN in their coat of arms, and proudly called themselves
"the SWAN Knights of Kleve".
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Tom Veal wrote:
> * why Ben Jonson, in recounting a conversation with the author
> of "Julius Caesar", referred to him as "Shakespeare",
--------------------------------------------------------------
<< Many times he fell into those things [that] could not
escape laughter, as when he said in the person of Caesar,
one speaking to him, "Caesar thou dost me wrong".
He replied, "CAESAR NEVER DID WRong, but with just cause",
and such like, which were ridiculous.>> -- Ben Jonson
----------------------------------------------------------
*CAESAR NEVER DID WR* ong
*EDWARD VERE'S CAIRN*
-------------------------------------------------------------
Tom Veal wrote:
> * why a monument was erected to William Shakespeare
> in Stratford comparing him to Vergil,
---------------------------------------------------------------
*UNO.VERE-VIRGIL* POET.
*OUR.EVER-LIVING* POET.
---------------------------------------------------------------
The Swan of MANTUA: VIRGIL.
Virgil's tomb, once was treated like a shrine, has disappeared.
His epitaph was supposedly:
Mantua me genuit, Calabri rapuere, tenet nunc Parthenope.
Mantua GAVE me BIRTH, the Calabrians took me, now Naples holds me;
------------------------------------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer
Tom Reedy
news:arensi$f6s$1...@slb3.atl.mindspring.net...
You're right.
> Nice list, Tom. Of course, it won't make a bit of
> difference to antistrats.
It didn't make any difference the first time I posted
it in April of 1999, so I doubt it will make an
impression now.
But that's the great thing about antiStrats: in their
world, there is nothing new under the sun. They keep
trotting out the same old arguments and after a while
all you have to do is recycle the same answers.
TR
> Dave Kathman
> dj...@ix.netcom.com
>
Greg Reynolds
Art Neuendorffer wrote:
> Tom Veal wrote:
>
> > Also, writing and receiving letters are not confined to literary
> > figures. Businessmen also correspond, often more extensively than
> > professional writers. If the failure to find Shakespeare's letters is
> > evidence that he was not a playwright, it is also evidence that he
> > was not a prosperous burgher with fairly extensive investments.
>
> Failure to find Shakespeare's business letters is confirmation
> that he was as illiterate as the rest of his family
The ease with which we find Oxford's business letters is
confirmation that if we want plays, we go to Shakespeare
and if we want business letters, we go to Oxford.
> and as illiterate as his pathetic signatures indicate that he was.
Using signatures to prove illiteracy? Good one.
Greg Reynolds
Art Neuendorffer
> But that's the great thing about antiStrats: in their
> world, there is nothing new under the sun. They keep
> trotting out the same old arguments and after a while
> all you have to do is recycle the same answers.
No other antiStrat trots out quite the arguments that I do:
-----------------------------------------------------------
From: Art Neuendorffer (aneuendor...@comcast.net)
Subject: Set & match
Newsgroups: humanities.lit.authors.shakespeare
Date: 2002-11-05 13:59:16 PST
bookburn wrote:
> Sonnet CXXIII.
>
> NO, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change
> Thy PYRAMIDS built up with newer might
> To me are nothing novel, nothing strange;
> They are but dressings of a former sight.
> Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire
> What thou dost foist upon us that is old;
> And rather make them born to our desire
> Than think that we before have heard them told.
> Thy registers and thee I both defy,
> Not wondering at the present nor the past,
> For thy records and what we see doth lie,
> Made more or less by thy continual HASTE.
> This I do vow, and this shall EVER be;
> I will be TRUE, despite thy scythe and thee.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
/T/ O T /H\ EONLIEBEGE /T/ TEROFTHESEINSUINGS
/O/ N N /E T\ SMRWHALL /H/ APPINESSEANDTHATETE
/R/ N I /T(I)E\ PROMIS /E/ DBYOUREVERLIVINGPOET
/W/ I S /H_E_T_H\ THEW /E/ LLWISHINGADVENTURERIN
S E /T T I N G fo/rT/ HTT
T O T H/E/ O /N/LIEB/E/G E TTER *oF* THES /E/ IN
\S\U I N/G/ S /O/NNET/ß/MRW\H\ ALLH *A* PPI /N/ ESS
\E\A N/D/ T /H/ATET/E/RNITI\E\ PRO *M* IS /E/ DBYO
\U\R/E/ V /E/RLIV/I/NGPOETW\I\ SH *E* T /H/ THEWE
\L L/ W /I/SHIN/G/ADVENTURE\R\ IN /S/ ETTING
\F/ O /R/THTT . . . . . . . TOTH
*E!O* NLIE BEGET[T]E ROFTHESEI
/N/*S* UING SONNE[T]S M RWHALLH
/A/p[P I* NES [S]EAND[T]HA\T\ ETERN
/I/Ti[E]p*R* OM [I]SEDB Y OUR\E\ VER
/L/IVi[N]gp *O.E*[T]WI[S]HETHTH\E\ W
/E/LLWi[S]hing [A]DV[E]NTURERI\N\
*SET* *TIN* GFORT HT[T]
---------------------------------------------------------------
Ben Jonson (1623) _To the Memory of Shakespeare_
My Shakespeare, *RISE*! I will not LODGE thee by
Chaucer or *SPENSer*, or bid Beaumont LYE
A LITTLE FURTHER, to make thee a room.
----------------------------------------------------------
"What needs my *Shakespear* for his honour'd BONES,
The labour of an age in piled STONES?
Or that his hallow'd reliques should be HID [HUT]
Under a STAR-y-pointing *PYRAMID*?
Dear son of MEMORY, great *HEIR of FAME* ,
What need'st thou SUCH WEAK WITNES OF THY NAME?
Thou in our wonder and astonishment
Hast built thy self a live-long Monument.
For whilst to th' shame of slow-endeavoring art,
Thy *EASIE NUMBERS FLOW* , and that each heart
Hath from the leaves of thy unvalu'd Book
Those *Delphick lines* with deep impression took,
Then thou our fancy of it self bereaving,
Dost make us Marble with too much conceaving;
And so Sepulcher'd in such pomp dost *LIE* ,
That Kings for such a TOMB would wish to die." - Milton
------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.sirbacon.org/gallery/pyramid.html
"His shoulders, *FLEDGE* with wings." --Milton.
"Throned in celestial *SHENE.* " --Milton.
"Dear son of MEMORY, great *HEIR of FAME*,
Under a STAR-y-pointing *PYRAMID* " -- Milton (1630)
/T/ O T /H\ EONLIEBEGE /T/ TEROFTHESEINSUINGS
/O/ N N /E T\ SMRWHALL /H/ APPINESSEANDTHATETE
/R/ N I /T(I)E\ PROMIS /E/ DBYOUREVERLIVINGPOET
/W/ I S /H_E_T_H\ THEW /E/ LLWISHINGADVENTURERIN
S E /T T I N G fo/rT/ HTT
T O T H/E/ O /N/LIEB/E/G E TTER *oF* THES /E/ IN
\S\U I N/G/ S /O/NNET/ß/MRW\H\ ALLH *A* PPI /N/ ESS
\E\A N/D/ T /H/ATET/E/RNITI\E\ PRO *M* IS /E/ DBYO
\U\R/E/ V /E/RLIV/I/NGPOETW\I\ SH *E* T /H/ THEWE
\L L/ W /I/SHIN/G/ADVENTURE\R\ IN /S/ ETTING
\F/ O /R/THTT . . . . . . . TOTH
*E!O* NLIE BEGET[T]E ROFTHESEI
/N/*S* UING SONNE[T]S M RWHALLH
/A/p[P I* NES [S]EAND[T]HA\T\ ETERN
/I/Ti[E]p*R* OM [I]SEDB Y OUR\E\ VER
/L/IVi[N]gp *O.E*[T]WI[S]HETHTH\E\ W
/E/LLWi[S]hing [A]DV[E]NTURERI\N\
SETTIn GFORT HT[T]
----------------------------------------------------------
*E.O* , *R I S E*!
I will not LODGE thee by *S P E N S*
-----------------------------------------------------------
T O T H E O (N)l I[E| B E G E T T E R O
F T H E S E (I)n[S| U I N G S O N N E
T S M R W H A (L*L|H] a P P I *N* E S S
E A N D T H A T (E|T] (E)r N I T *I* E P
R O M I S E D B [Y|O] u (R)e V E R *L* I
V I N G P O E T w|I] sh (E)t H T H *E*
[W] E L L W I S H i nga (d V e) N T U
[R] E R I N S E T t ing f o r T H
------------------------------------------------------------------
[W]ith my Sonne, my Gold, my Nightingale, and Rose,
[I]s gone: for t'twas in him and no other where:
and well though mine eies run downe like fountaines here
[T]he stone wil not speak yet, that doth it INCLOSE.
(1584) Foure Epytaphes, made by the Countes of Oxenford,
after the death of her young Sonne, the Lord Bulbecke, &c.
Idall, for Adon, nev'r shed so many teares:
Nor Thet', for Pelid: nor Phoebus, for Hyacinthus
Nor for *A T I S*, the mother of Prophetesses
At the brute of it, the Aphroditan Queene,
----------------------------------------------------------------------
<<In his Lydian logos in the 1st book, HERODOTUS includes an account of
the death of *ATYS* at the hands of his protector Adrastus. The story
is clearly derived from the myth of Attis, the Phrygian god; the
whole Croesus-logos is constructed from Greek story-elements in a
timeless way, to create a 'morality play' (as the presence of SOLOn
demonstrates), and the Atys myth has been added to this in Greek tragic
form. Atys is the valued son of Croesus, about whom he dreamed that he
would be killed by an iron weapon. Croesus attempted to protect his son
from this fate, but was unable to resist his request to participate in
an expedition to hunt a monstrous boar in Mysia. Croesus sent with his
son his xenos Adrastos, to whom he had offered asylum after he was
exiled for the accidental killing of his brother, with orders to protect
Atys, but when the boar was tracked down it was Adrastos himself who
accidentally struck Atys with his spear and killed him. Adrastos
(whose name means 'inescapable') then killed himself in remorse.>>
--------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.indirect.com/user/reddog/julie4.html
Osiris Fragment by Julie Noterman
<<In ancient Egypt, the goddess ISIS reigned over the Earth, over
creation and death. She had a son Osiris who was torn to pieces by
his war-like brother *SET*. In his wrath, *SET* scattered the parts
over the face of the Earth.
A heartbroken ISIS searched the world over, found the pieces and
put him back together. She found all the parts except for his penis;
that she ingeniously fashioned out of clay and attached to the body.
The life force breathed into Osiris once again.
Legend has this event recurring year after year just
as the seasons continue to pass by anew each cycle.>>
---------------------------------------------------------------------
The River Thamesis
Rising in the Cotswolds, the Thames flows east for 210 miles
through Oxford (where it is also known as the ISIS).
http://www.camelotintl.com/heritage/thames.html
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~lgboyd/chapter5.htm
<<The DE VERES were an ancient dynastic family seated at their ancestral
village of VER (from which they took their name), near Bayeaux and
the River VIRE, in MANCHE on the Normandy coast of present-day northern
France. The name of the town itself came from the "VER," a Norse word
meaning *FISHDAM* that the Vikings had introduced into Normandy.>>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mar-F-loW
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mar-loW
MarFloW
WolFraM
WolFraM [von ESCHENBACH]
----------------------------------------------------------------
'ESCHENBACH' is German for 'ASH-TREE BROOK'
ASH-TREE BROOK
ARTHUR BROOKE
(The Tragical Historye of Romeus and Juliet - 1562)
-------------------------------------------------------------------
<<Hee [Shakespeare] was (indeed) honest, and of an open & free nature
had an excellent Phantsie ; brave notions & gentle expressions
wherein hee *FLOW'D* with that facility,
that sometime it was necessary he should be *STOP'd* :>>
-----------------------------------------------------------------
<<[SOCRATES to Hermogenes]: *ARETE* signifying in the 1st place
ease of motion, then that the STREAM of the good soul is UNIMPEDED,
and has therefore the attribute of *EVER FLOWING* without
let or hindrance, and is therefore called *ARETE*,
or, more correctly, aeireite (EVER-FLOWING)>> - CRATYLUS by Plato
----------------------------------------------------------------
T O T H E O (N)l I[E| B E G E T T E R O
F T H E S E (I)n[S| U I N G S O N N E
T S M R W H A (L*L|H] a P P I *N* E S S
E A N D T H A T (E|T] (E)r N I T *I* E P
R O M I S E D B [Y|O] u (R)e V E R *L* I
V I N G P O E T w|I] sh (E)t H T H *E*
[W] E L L W I S H i nga (d V e) N T U
[R] E R I N S E T t ing f o r T H
144 [= *72* x 2] letters
----------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.bulfinch.org/fables/bull34.html
Bulfinch's Mythology
The Age of Fable
MYTH OF OSIRIS AND ISIS
<<Osiris & ISIS were at one time induced to descend to the earth to
bestow gifts and blessings on its inhabitants. ISIS showed them first
the use of wheat and barley, and Osiris made the instruments of
agriculture and taught men the use of them, as well as how to harness
the ox to the plough. He then gave men laws, the institution of
marriage, a civil organization, and taught them how to worship the gods.
After he had thus made the valley of the NILE a happy country, he
assembled a host with which he went to bestow his blessings upon the
rest of the world. He conquered the nations everywhere, but not with
weapons, only with music and eloquence. His brother, *SET* (Typhon) saw
this, and filled with envy and malice sought during his absence to usurp
his throne. But ISIS, who held the reins of government, frustrated his
plans. Still more embittered, he now resolved to kill his brother.
This he did in the following manner: Having organized a conspiracy
of *72* members, he went with them to the feast which was celebrated
in honour of the king's return. He then caused a box or chest to be
brought in, which had been made to fit exactly the size of Osiris, and
declared that he would give that chest of precious wood to whomsoever
could get into it. The rest tried in vain, but no sooner was Osiris in
it than *SET* and his companions closed the lid and flung the chest
into the NILE.
When ISIS heard of the cruel murder she wept and mourned, & then with
her hair shorn, clothed in black and beating her breast, she sought
diligently for the body of her husband. In this search she was
materially assisted by Anubis, the son of Osiris and Nephthys. They
sought in vain for some time; for when the chest, carried by the waves
to the shores of Byblos, had become entangled in the reeds that grew
*at the edge of the water* , the divine power that dwelt in the
body of Osiris imparted such strength to the shrub that it grew
into a mighty tree, enclosing in its trunk the coffin of the god.>>
----------------------------------------------------------------
T O T H E O (N)l I[E| B E G E T T E R O
F T H E S E (I)n[S| U I N G S O N N E
T S M R W H A (L*L|H] a P P I *N* E S S
E A N D T H A T (E|T] (E)r N I T *I* E P
R O M I S E D B [Y|O] u (R)e V E R *L* I
V I N G P O E T w|I] sh (E)t H T H *E*
[W] E L L W I S H i nga (d V e) N T U
[R] E R I N S E T t ing f o r T H
--------------------------------------------------------------
<<This tree with its sacred deposit was shortly after felled,
and erected as a column in the palace of the king of Phoenicia.
But at length by the aid of Anubis and the sacred birds,
ISIS ascertained these facts, and then went to the royal city.
There she offered herself at the palace as a servant, and being
admitted, threw off her disguise and appeared as the goddess, surrounded
with thunder and lightning. Striking the column with her wand she caused
it to split open and give up the sacred coffin. This she seized and
returned with it, and concealed it in the depth of a forest, but *SET*
discovered it, and cutting the body into fourteen pieces scattered them
hither and thither. After a tedious search, ISIS found thirteen pieces,
the fishes of the NILE having eaten the other. This she replaced by an
imitation of sycamore wood, and buried the body at Philoe (Philae),
which became ever after the great burying place of the nation,
and the spot to which pilgrimages were made.>>
--------------------------------------------------------------------
14 pieces: "hideOUS PHANTOM" [TOUS par UNG]
hide S
O
U
H A M P T O N
<<Fagin . . . looked less like a man, than like some
[hideOUS PHANTOM], moist from the grave, and worried
by an evil spirit. He sat crouching over a cold hearth,
wrapped in an old torn coverlet,>> -- Oliver Twist
--------------------------------------------------------------------
The "DROESHOUT"/"HERODOTUS" anagram,
and the DROESHOUT portrait
(with its 'two left shoulders' & 'two right eyes')
represent a SPARAGMOS of Southampton & Oxford portraits combined:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
S O U T H A M P T O N : D U L C E T
S
I
R
I
S
------------------------------------------------------------------
MARTIN DROESHOUT(HERODOTUS) Jr. was baptized on
April 26, 1601 => 37 years after Shakspere.
(Raphael's age at death)
------------------------------------------------------------------
M
A
D R O E S H O U T : S C U L P S I T
T
I
N
----------------------------------------------------------------
<<A temple of surpassing magnificence was erected there in honour of
the god, and at every place where one of his limbs had been found minor
temples and tombs were built to commemorate the event. Osiris became
after that the tutelar deity of the Egyptians. His soul was supposed
always to inhabit the body of the bull Apis, and at his death to
transfer itself to his successor.
Milton, in his "Hymn on the Nativity,"
alludes to the Egyptian deities,
not as imaginary beings, but as real demons,
put to flight by the coming of Christ.:
"The brutish gods of NILE as fast,
ISIS and Horus and the dog Anubis HASTE.
Nor is Osiris seen
In Memphian grove or green
Trampling the unshowered grass with lowings loud;
Nor can he be at rest
Within his sacred chest;
Nought but profoundest hell can be his shroud.
In vain with timbrel'd anthems dark
The sable-stoled sorcerers bear his worshipped ark.">>
---------------------------------------------------------------------
HERODOTUS & Myth
http://www.usask.ca/antharch/cnea/CourseNotes/HdtNotes.html
<<HERODOTUS' use of myth is quite cunning, at times seeming to
translate specific literary genres into the medium of prose "history."
Many have noted, e.g., that the story of Croesus' son Atys has been
developed along lines that directly recall the practices of the Greek
tragedians. This is even more interesting when we consider:
(1) that an ancient tradition held that HERODOTUS was
a friend of Sophocles, the famous tragic playwright;
(2) that he & Sophocles sound similar themes in their works.
Like Chaucer, HERODOTUS presents us with a narrator who at times
seems incredibly naive, even absurd, but there is evidence that,
like Chaucer, a cunning intelligence lies beneath that humble facade.>>
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
(1939) Encyclopedia Britannica on "Drama"
HERODOTUS had a lot to say
about TRAGEDY (i.e., a goat-song) being
a PATHOS (i.e., the violent death of Dionysus/Osiris
by "sparagmos" or dismemberment):
<<. . .we have the express testimony of HERODOTUS that the ritual
worship of Dionysus (the god of Drama) was the same as the ritual
worship of Osiris such that it involved a "sparagmos"
(dismemberment), mourning, search, discovery and resurrection.>>
However, HERODOTUS avoided directly mentioning
Dionysus OR Osiris in this regard:
"When the Egyptians lament the god
whom I may not name in this connection"
"They lament but whom they lament I must not say" -- HERODOTUS
For in the manner of ancient religion, it was always necessary
that Dionysus or Osiris be represented by some surrogate.
In fact, ALL TRAGIC HEROS are simply surrogates of Dionysus/Osiris:
<<We find a frequent sparagmos of beings who have committed some sin:
Pentheus by Maenads
Orpheus by Maenads
Lycurgus by horses
Hyppolytus by horses
Dirce by a bull
Actaeon by hounds. . .
This use of a surrogate was made easier by the fact that both at Eleusis
and in the Osiris rite the myth was conveyed by tableaux (i.e., 'things
shown') rather than by words. Thus the death of Pentheus, wearing
Dionysiac dress, would be shown by exactly the same tableau as that of
Dionysus.
THE TRUTH COULD BE SHOWN TO THE WISE
AND AT THE SAME TIME VEILED FROM THE UNKNOWING.
Such facts help to explain the charge of
"profaning the mysteries" brought against Aeschylus.>>
- Drama in 1939 _Encyclopedia Britannica_
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer
Art Neuendorffer
>>
>>>Also, writing and receiving letters are not confined to literary
>>>figures. Businessmen also correspond, often more extensively than
>>>professional writers. If the failure to find Shakespeare's letters is
>>>evidence that he was not a playwright, it is also evidence that he
>>> was not a prosperous burgher with fairly extensive investments.
> Art Neuendorffer wrote:
>> Failure to find Shakespeare's business letters is confirmation
>> that he was as illiterate as the rest of his family
Greg Reynolds wrote:
> The ease with which we find Oxford's business letters is
> confirmation that if we want plays, we go to Shakespeare
> and if we want business letters, we go to Oxford.
William Cecil was not your standard commoner
. . . he kept his letters.
> Art Neuendorffer wrote:
>>and as illiterate as his pathetic signatures indicate that he was.
Greg Reynolds wrote:
>
> Using signatures to prove illiteracy? Good one.
In the Shakspere case it works quite nicely, thank you:
http://home.att.net/~tleary/sigs.htm
Art Neuendorffer
Greg Reynolds
Art Neuendorffer wrote:
> >>Tom Veal wrote:
> >>
> >>>Also, writing and receiving letters are not confined to literary
> >>>figures. Businessmen also correspond, often more extensively than
> >>>professional writers. If the failure to find Shakespeare's letters is
> >>>evidence that he was not a playwright, it is also evidence that he
> >>> was not a prosperous burgher with fairly extensive investments.
>
> > Art Neuendorffer wrote:
>
> >> Failure to find Shakespeare's business letters is confirmation
> >> that he was as illiterate as the rest of his family
>
> Greg Reynolds wrote:
>
> > The ease with which we find Oxford's business letters is
> > confirmation that if we want plays, we go to Shakespeare
> > and if we want business letters, we go to Oxford.
>
> William Cecil was not your standard commoner
> . . . he kept his letters.
Oxford invented the automobile! When the queen asked him
if he was good at anything, he said, "Tin, Lizzie."
> > Art Neuendorffer wrote:
>
> >>and as illiterate as his pathetic signatures indicate that he was.
>
> Greg Reynolds wrote:
> >
> > Using signatures to prove illiteracy? Good one.
>
> In the Shakspere case it works quite nicely, thank you:
>
> http://home.att.net/~tleary/sigs.htm
Even though this website has all that typical hypocritical
charm and all, we are no longer accepting blatant
propaganda as fact at HLAS, Art.
Your chosen site goes on to say: "There is also very strong
evidence that he was likewise unable to read."
Care to back that up? Your source is a dud.
You're brainwashed, Art--no wonder you have that
clean, fresh feeling everyday!.
Greg Reynolds
Art Neuendorffer
>>>
>>>>>Also, writing and receiving letters are not confined to literary
>>>>>figures. Businessmen also correspond, often more extensively than
>>>>>professional writers. If the failure to find Shakespeare's letters is
>>>>>evidence that he was not a playwright, it is also evidence that he
>>>>>was not a prosperous burgher with fairly extensive investments.
>>>Art Neuendorffer wrote:
>>
>>>> Failure to find Shakespeare's business letters is confirmation
>>>> that he was as illiterate as the rest of his family
>>>
>>Greg Reynolds wrote:
>>
>>>The ease with which we find Oxford's business letters is
>>>confirmation that if we want plays, we go to Shakespeare
>>>and if we want business letters, we go to Oxford.
> Art Neuendorffer wrote:
>> William Cecil was not your standard commoner
>> . . . he kept his letters.
Greg Reynolds wrote:
> Oxford invented the automobile! When the queen asked him
> if he was good at anything, he said, "Tin, Lizzie."
Oh, if the Stratman only had a brain!
>> > Art Neuendorffer wrote:
>>>>and as illiterate as his pathetic signatures indicate that he was.
>>>
>>Greg Reynolds wrote:
>>
>>>Using signatures to prove illiteracy? Good one.
> Art Neuendorffer wrote:
>> In the Shakspere case it works quite nicely, thank you:
>>
>> http://home.att.net/~tleary/sigs.htm
Greg Reynolds wrote:
> Even though this website has all that typical hypocritical
> charm and all, we are no longer accepting blatant
> propaganda as fact at HLAS, Art.
You mean you've quit the Goon Squad, Greg?
> Your chosen site goes on to say: "There is also very
> strong evidence that he was likewise unable to read."
> Care to back that up?
--------------------------------------------------------------------
<<The first outright denial of Shakespeare's authorship was made by the
Reverend James Wilmot (1726-sometime after 1805). He became rector of
Barton-on-the-Heath, just north of Stratford, in 1781. Upon assuming
the rectorship, Wilmot eagerly explored the Stratford area for
historical information on Shakespeare. But he was gradually forced to
conclude that Shakespeare could not have been the author. Scouring
every private library within a 50-mile radius, he was unable to find
any book that could be proven to have belonged to Shakespeare; he
collected a great many local legends from the Stratford area (which,
he felt, anyone growing up in the area must have known of), but found
no reference to them in any of Shakespeare's works. He began to
suspect that the plays were actually written by Bacon, noting the many
parallels between the philosophy of Bacon and the thoughts expressed
in Shakespeare's works. Being a cautious man, he kept these views to
himself. But in 1805, he permitted his friend James Corton Cowell to
present his theory before a meeting of the Ipswich Philosophical
Society, on the condition that his identity remain a secret. Cowell,
with considerable trepidation, presented the theory to the Society
(who received them, apparently, in stony silence) but swore his fellow
members to secrecy. Wilmot burned all of his personal papers on the
topic just before his death.>>
---------------------------------------------------------------
Greg Reynolds wrote:
> You're brainwashed, Art--no wonder you have that
> clean, fresh feeling everyday!.
I have a clean, fresh feeling everyday from avoiding
having to rely upon terrible puns such as: "Tin, Lizzie."
Art Neuendorffer
Tom Reedy
wrote in message news:3DDB275C...@comcast.net...
> Tom Reedy wrote:
>
> > But that's the great thing about antiStrats: in
their
> > world, there is nothing new under the sun. They
keep
> > trotting out the same old arguments and after a
while
> > all you have to do is recycle the same answers.
>
> No other antiStrat trots out quite the arguments that
I do:
> -----------------------------------------------------
------
If you had an argument, I presume you would post it.
That you post thousands of words of--what,
exactly?--shows that you don't have an argument. If you
consider what you post to be an argument, I suggest you
seek psychiatric help, or at the very least look the
word up in a dictionary and try to comprehend the
meaning if it.
TR
<snip>
Art Neuendorffer
>>No other antiStrat trots out quite the arguments that
>> I do.
Tom Reedy wrote:
> If you had an argument, I presume you would post it.
> That you post thousands of words of--what,
> exactly?--shows that you don't have an argument. If you
> consider what you post to be an argument, I suggest you
> seek psychiatric help, or at the very least look the
> word up in a dictionary and try to comprehend the
> meaning if it.
If you consider yourself to "the phantom" I suggest
that you seek psychiatric help, Tom.
Art N.
JPWearing
>letters that they write are not preserved by their recipients.
Currently I'm preparing an edition of the correspondence between Bernard Shaw
and Nancy Lady Astor. Interestingly, I have located numerous letters written by
Shaw to Astor, but so far fewer by Astor to Shaw (and I suspect the ratio will
remain the same). What that reveals, of course, is the different habits of
these two correspondents, at least with regard to the importance they each
attached to the other's correspondence.
JPW
Art Neuendorffer
>>letters that they write are not preserved by their recipients.
>
> Currently I'm preparing an edition of the correspondence between Bernard Shaw
> and Nancy Lady Astor. Interestingly, I have located numerous letters written by
> Shaw to Astor, but so far fewer by Astor to Shaw (and I suspect the ratio will
> remain the same). What that reveals, of course, is the different habits of
> these two correspondents, at least with regard to the importance they each
> attached to the other's correspondence.
Yes. If someone receives a letter from the leading playwright
of the time they would surely preserve it.
Art N.
John W. Kennedy
> Hence, your argument turns entirely on the
> disappearance of the manuscripts of a small number of poems written
> over 20 years before the poet's death. Not the most formidable of
> anomalies.
Especially considering that they _must_ have left his possession,
if only in order to be printed, and there is no special reason
to think they came back.
--
John W. Kennedy
"The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly;
the rich have always objected to being governed at all."
-- G. K. Chesterton, "The Man Who Was Thursday"
Art Neuendorffer
>
>> Hence, your argument turns entirely on the
>> disappearance of the manuscripts of a small number of poems written
>> over 20 years before the poet's death. Not the most formidable of
>> anomalies.
>
> Especially considering that they _must_ have left his possession,
> if only in order to be printed, and there is no special reason
> to think they came back.
Not everything got printed and they were able to make handwritten
copies even before the invention of the Xerox.
Art N.
Roundtable
>
> >>>> Failure to find Shakespeare's business letters is confirmation
> >>>> that he was as illiterate as the rest of his family
> >> . . . he kept his letters.
I just finished reading "Lost Laysen" by Margaret Mitchell. Apparently
she wrote this longish short story in two school copybooks and gave them
to her boyfriend Henry Love Angel (what a lovely name for a boyfriend!)
who was her close friend from 1916 to 1922.
He kept them in a shoebox, along with a ring, lots of printed photographs
and negatives without prints, of them together, and all her letters and
postcards to him.
Upon his death in 1945, the shoebox remained in his mothers house, who
then gave the box to his son Henry Angel jr. in 1952, who, although he
knew that his family was acquainted with Margaret Mitchell, thought
"What should I do with this old pack of love letters and photos?" (!)
So he put it in a chest-of-drawers, and forgot about them until one day
he heard about the "Road to Tara" museum. So in August 1994 - 49 years
after his fathers death and 42 years after he received the box - he
telephoned the museum and told them about the shoebox.
Although MM never specifically said so, her husband John Marsh claimed
in his testament that she had told him to destroy all her papers and
manuscripts and letters, so he did so, and the job was completed after
his death my MM's brothers Stephens Mitchell. (Why?!)
The book "Lost Laysen", edited by Debra Freer, contains photographs of
Margaret's letters to Henry Love Angel, and at the end of the forward,
she writes:
"There are two questions that remain unanswered:
Why didn't Margaret Mitchell marry Henry Angel?
Why did he keep these mementoes?"
I find it strange that she should have to ask this last question -
I keep photos and letters and postcards from people I cared about in
the past - but then again, many people don't.
Thankfully, we have some of Margaret Mitchell's letters, otherwise we
would perforce have to believe she was illiterate and a commoner.
> Greg Rynolds wrote:
> > Oxford invented the automobile! When the queen asked him
> > if he was good at anything, he said, "Tin, Lizzie."
Haha!
Roundtable
Art Neuendorffer
>>>>>> Failure to find Shakespeare's business letters is confirmation
>>>>>> that he was as illiterate as the rest of his family
>>>> William Cecil was not your standard commoner
>>>> . . . he kept his letters.
Roundtable wrote:
> I just finished reading "Lost Laysen" by Margaret Mitchell. Apparently
> she wrote this longish short story in two school copybooks and gave them
> to her boyfriend Henry Love Angel (what a lovely name for a boyfriend!)
We're all H.L.A.'s here.
--------------------------------------------------------------
All classic American anti-bigot novels were Freemasonic:
Moby Dick
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Huckleberry Finn
Gone With the Wind
To Kill a Mockingbird
--------------------------------------------------------------
2002-02-16 Roundtable wrote:
> I am reading "Daughter of the South" by Darden A. Pyron.
> He writes that Margaret Mitchell's heirs destroyed:
> - the original manuscripts of Gone With The Wind
--------------------------------------------------------------
On August 16, 1949, Margaret Mitchell died at 49 years old
from (allegedly) being struck by a drunken taxi driver
on Atlanta's PEACHtree Street while on her way
to a movie with her husband.
--------------------------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer
Tom Veal
> > Art Neuendorffer <aneuendor...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> >>Walt Whitman's hypothesis that:
> >>---------------------------------------------------------------
> >> <<only one of the "WOLFISH earls" so plenteous in the plays
> >> themselves, or some born descendant and knower, might seem
> >> to be the TRUE author of those amazing works >>
> >> --WALT WHITMAN 19th century romantic
> >>-------------------------------------------------------------
> >> rings true because it helps to explain much about Shake-speare.
>
> Tom Veal wrote:
>
> > List three examples.
>
> 1) The sensitivity & sympathy shown to the noble class.
Can you provide some examples? I won't dispute the position that
Shakespeare was a conservative in terms of his own day (i. e., a black
reactionary in terms of ours), but what in the political or social
views expressed in his plays is outside the Elizabethan mainstream?
Many non-nobles have throughout history believed that hierarchy is a
sound organizing principle for society. The idea that the 16th
Century English aristocracy held one set of views and "the people"
unanimously held a different set may have been credible to a naif like
Walt Whitman but isn't remotely true.
> 2) The knowledge & chutzpa to write a detailed satire of Lord Burghley
> as Polonius.
The satire on Burghley in "Hamlet" is gentle compared to that in other
published works of the day, e. g., Spenser's "Mother Hubberd's Tale"
and Nashe's "Pierce Pennilesse". For a discussion, see D. Allen
Carroll, ed., "Greene's Groatsworth of Wit", Appendix C.
> 3) The ability to not only get away with it without lossing a nose or
> a limb but to actually prosper finacially (a difficult task for artists
> even in the best of times).
Neither Spenser nor Nashe lost any recorded noses or limbs. Contrary
to what many anti-Stratfordians claim, Elizabethan England was a
lively place rife with free expression and disrespect for government
officials. The state once in a while punished those who went too far,
but Elizabeth and James were not Lenin and Stalin.
> > Wolfish earls abounded in Elizabethan literature.
> > Was it *all* written by disguised noblemen?
>
> Quite possibly.
>
> Genius thrives in a competitive environment.
No comment needed.
Art Neuendorffer
>>>>Walt Whitman's hypothesis that:
>>>>---------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> <<only one of the "WOLFISH earls" so plenteous in the plays
>>>> themselves, or some born descendant and knower, might seem
>>>> to be the TRUE author of those amazing works >>
>>>> --WALT WHITMAN 19th century romantic
>>>>-------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> rings true because it helps to explain much about Shake-speare.
>>Tom Veal wrote:
>>>List three examples.
> Art Neuendorffer <aneuendor...@comcast.net> wrote:
>> 1) The sensitivity & sympathy shown to the noble class.
Tom Veal wrote:
> Can you provide some examples?
Anyone who reads the works can readily provide their own examples.
Besides, you'll simply respond:
> I won't dispute the position that
> Shakespeare was a conservative in terms of his own day (i. e., a black
> reactionary in terms of ours), but what in the political or social
> views expressed in his plays is outside the Elizabethan mainstream?
> Many non-nobles have throughout history believed that hierarchy is a
> sound organizing principle for society. The idea that the 16th
> Century English aristocracy held one set of views and "the people"
> unanimously held a different set may have been credible to a naif
> like Walt Whitman but isn't remotely true.
I respect the opinion of a 'naif' like Walt Whitman above your's.
Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977) "In the work of the greatest geniuses,
humble beginnings will reveal themselves somewhere but one cannot trace
the slightest sign of them in Shakespeare... Whoever wrote [Shakespeare]
had an aristocratic attitude."
> Art Neuendorffer <aneuendor...@comcast.net> wrote:
>> 2) The knowledge & chutzpa to write a detailed satire of Lord Burghley
>>as Polonius.
Tom Veal wrote:
> The satire on Burghley in "Hamlet" is gentle compared to that in other
> published works of the day, e. g., Spenser's "Mother Hubberd's Tale"
> and Nashe's "Pierce Pennilesse". For a discussion, see D. Allen
> Carroll, ed., "Greene's Groatsworth of Wit", Appendix C.
Why don't you just paraphrase what Carroll had to say.
> Art Neuendorffer <aneuendor...@comcast.net> wrote:
>> 3) The ability to not only get away with it without lossing a nose or
>> a limb but to actually prosper finacially (a difficult task for
>> artists even in the best of times).
Tom Veal wrote:
> Neither Spenser nor Nashe lost any recorded noses or limbs. Contrary
> to what many anti-Stratfordians claim, Elizabethan England was a
> lively place rife with free expression and disrespect for government
> officials. The state once in a while punished those who went too far,
> but Elizabeth and James were not Lenin and Stalin.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Sohmer on Julius Caesar
From Shakespeare's Mystery Play and the Opening of the Globe 1599,
Manchester University Press 1999.
http://195.167.241.43/globe/education/distancelearning/distancelearning-steve-sohmer.htm
<<Scholars who believe Elizabethan censorship was lax or laissez-faire
at the close of the 16th century would do well to read Hayward's book
and consider the treatment he received for it. Hayward is almost
certainly innocent of any misdemeanor except poor judgment. He very
nearly suffered the rack, and might have lost his life. Coupled with
the burning in June of satirical books by Nashe, Harvey, and others,
1599 was not a year in which any writer would wish to be thought
controversial.>>
---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>Tom Veal wrote:
>>> Wolfish earls abounded in Elizabethan literature.
>>> Was it *all* written by disguised noblemen?
> Art Neuendorffer <aneuendor...@comcast.net> wrote:
>> Quite possibly.
>>
>> Genius thrives in a competitive environment.
Tom Veal wrote:
> No comment needed.
It makes a difference if the competition is
for the amusement of courtiers or of groundlings.
Art Neuendorffer
Tom Reedy
wrote in message news:3DDBBDCB...@comcast.net...
And how do you know that I haven't?
TR
Tom Veal
have their alternative explanations for all of the phenomena explained
by the theory that the author of Shakespeare's plays was an actor
named Shakespeare who lived in Stratford-upon-Avon. The key
difference between the Stratfordian and anti-Stratfordian hypotheses
is that the former is straightforward and the latter highly
convoluted. There's no need to replough these old fields one by one,
but I plucked this message out of your several responses, because I
wanted to point out that Alexander Schmidt's "Shakespeare Lexicon and
Quotation Dictionary" lists (p. 1425) over 60 words and phrases in
Shakespeare that are "characteristic of the Warwickshire or Midland
dialect". Those are, of course, only "traces". The author wasn't
intentionally writing in dialect, but an average of a word or two per
play slipped through. That is to be expected in a native of
Warwickshire but would be very surprising coming from an East Anglian
(such as Edward de Vere).
Art Neuendorffer <aneuendor...@comcast.net> wrote in message news:<3DDB1513...@comcast.net>...
> Tom Veal wrote: [The Stratfordian theory explains -]
Art Neuendorffer
>>--------------------------------------------------------------
>> All classic American anti-bigot novels were Freemasonic:
David L. Webb wrote:
> *All*?! What about _The Scarlet Letter_?
Yes. Include _The Scarlet Letter_ & _Showboat_.
> Art Neuendorffer wrote:
>> Moby Dick
>> Uncle Tom's Cabin
David L. Webb wrote:
> _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ was written by a woman, Art;
> how could she be privy to the secrets of the Craft?
A lot of the women writers of Masonic works are
simply fronts Like Bill Shakespeare & Kit Marlowe.
(Abe Lincoln never wrote the Gettysburg Address
on the back of an envelope either.)
> Art Neuendorffer wrote:
>> Huckleberry Finn
David L. Webb wrote:
> What is "Freemasonic" about _Huckleberry Finn_, Art?
For one: it was sold door to door by an 'army of salesmen.'
Who do you think made up that army?
David L. Webb wrote:
> Art Neuendorffer wrote:
>> Gone With the Wind
David L. Webb wrote:
> What is "Freemasonic" about _Gone With the Wind_, Art?
The mysterious death of the woman author.
The simultaneos production of two blockbuster
Freemasonic movies (both directed by Fleming).
Harry Potter & Lord of the Rings are a similar situation.
> Art Neuendorffer wrote:
>> To Kill a Mockingbird
David L. Webb wrote:
> What is "Freemasonic" about _To Kill a Mockingbird_, Art?
It was a critical time in American Race relations so
it was also time for another anti-bigot blockbuster.
David L. Webb wrote:
> Have you actually read *any* of these novels, Art?
I've certainly read every word of Moby Dick & TKAMB.
> Art Neuendorffer wrote:
>>--------------------------------------------------------------
>>2002-02-16 Roundtable wrote:
>>
>> > I am reading "Daughter of the South" by Darden A. Pyron.
David L. Webb wrote:
> Note that phony-sounding given name "Darden," Art -- surely it must
> be a fake. Indeed, "Darden" is obviously "D'Arden," intimating a
> relationship with Shakespeare's mother, who was an Arden.
Note that phony-sounding Suriname "Pyron," Dave.
Indeed, "Pyron" transforms easily into: "Byron"/"Bacon."
> Art Neuendorffer wrote:
>> > He writes that Margaret Mitchell's heirs destroyed:
>> > - the original manuscripts of Gone With The Wind
>>--------------------------------------------------------------
>> On August 16, 1949, Margaret Mitchell died at 49 years old
>> from (allegedly) being struck by a drunken taxi driver
>> on Atlanta's PEACHtree Street while on her way
>> to a movie with her husband.
David L. Webb wrote:
> What is your point, Art? What momentous cryptogram is concealed in
> the string "peach" you've emphasized?
Something to do with J. Alfred Prufrock.
David L. Webb wrote:
> In fact, "Peachtree Street" is a perfect anagram of
>
> Repeat the secret,
>
> something Masons are famously enjoined neVER to do.
Never to do openly.
David L. Webb wrote:
> Of course, the cryptic title _Gone With the Wind_ might well refer
> to Aubrey's anecdote that Oxford was so abashed that he undertook his
> voyage abroad right after he broke wind in the Queen's presence.
Is that why Altanta went up in flames?
Art Neuendorffer
Art Neuendorffer
> The key
> difference between the Stratfordian and anti-Stratfordian hypotheses
> is that the former is straightforward and the latter highly
> convoluted.
Fundamentalist Creationism is straightforward.
Mutation & natural selection to generate a swan is highly convoluted.
> There's no need to replough these old fields one by one,
> but I plucked this message out of your several responses, because I
> wanted to point out that Alexander Schmidt's "Shakespeare Lexicon and
> Quotation Dictionary" lists (p. 1425) over 60 words and phrases in
> Shakespeare that are "characteristic of the Warwickshire or Midland
> dialect". Those are, of course, only "traces".
Of course!
> The author wasn't
> intentionally writing in dialect, but an average of a word or two
> per play slipped through. That is to be expected in a native of
> Warwickshire but would be very surprising coming from an East
> Anglian (such as Edward de Vere).
One does reject Darwinism for Creationism simply because
one doesn't have a ready simply explaination for every detail.
Art Neuendorffer
JPWearing
preserve it. Interestingly, Shaw kept very few of Nancy Astor's, and I don't
think you can claim she wasn't famous. Hence my original point--the
preservation of letters is frequently mere happenstance.
JPW
Art Neuendorffer
>>
>>>>>I read the thin little monograph by Matus and found it obsessed with
>>>>>unimportant trivialities (such as the case you have tried to make here)
>>>>>while totally ignoring the important issues.
>>David L. Webb wrote:
>>
>>> *What* "important issues"? Matus refuted -- decisively -- many of
>>>the points that numerous Oxfordians insisted were important.
>>
> Neuendorffer wrote:
>> Matus never refuted anything I considered important.
David L. Webb wrote:
> That's because what *you* consider important saner Oxfordians won't
> touch with a ten-foot pole. Like Mr. Streitz, you enjoy the dubious
> distinction of being on the far lunatic fringe, EVEN AMONG OXFORDIANS!
At least I believe in the Bernoulli principle.
>>David L. Webb wrote:
>>
>>> The mere fact that Matus could write an entire book
> Neuendorffer wrote:
>> You call that "an entire book?"
David L. Webb wrote:
> I'm not sure what *you* call a book, Art, but we've seen that your
> command of the English language would put you in the remedial freshman
> English category. Your allusion to the "thin little monograph" of
> Matus suggests that you're grousing about the book's length; if so,
> bear in mind that lunatics often write unreadable 800-page expositions
> of their favorite crackpot theories (Ogburn is a salient example),
> while the sane are aware of a point of diminishing returns.
Stratfordians are aware of diminishing returns of actually
arguing their case as opposed to patting each other on the back
and making ad hominem remarks about anti-Strats.
David L. Webb wrote:
> Even so,
> Matus's books runs to 331 pages, which easily outstrips the 272 pages
> of Michell's silly _Who Wrote Shakespeare?_ by which you profess to set
> such store.
Michell at least says something in his 272 pages.
>>David L. Webb wrote:
>>>exploding myth after myth from Ogburn ought to be a tip-off (to
>>>those with IQs requiring at least two digits to express in decimal
>>>notation, at any rate) of the quality of "scholarship" to be found
>>> in Ogburn's tome -- and the elder Ogburns are far funnier still.
> Neuendorffer wrote:
>> The mere fact that Matus wrote *absolutely nothing* that either
>> Strats find worth repeating
> Huh?! What are you gibbering about? Many people have quoted Matus
> in refuting imbecilic Oxfordian "arguments" in this VERy forum! You
> must not be paying VERy close attention, Art.
Tell me one important argument involving Matus.
> Neuendorffer wrote:
>>or Anti-Strats find worth refuting ought to
>>be a tip-off about the total worthlessness of his book.
David L. Webb wrote:
> Oxfordians *cannot* refute Matus,
> but it certainly isn't for want of trying.
Refute what?! Matus never says anything of import.
>>>> Neuendorffer wrote:
>>
>>>>> As for Kathman & Ross: they fly off "like a scared white doe in
>>>>> the woodlands" rather than attempt to argue with the likes of me.
>>>>
>>David L. Webb wrote:
>>
>>> Dave and Terry have answered you numerous times in the past, Art --
>>>however, you just ignore their rejoinders, without exhibiting even the
>>>slightest sign of comprehension.
>>
> Neuendorffer wrote:
>> Dave and Terry have answered me from time to time in the past,
>> however, after they lose the argument they just drift off,
>> without exhibiting even the slightest sign of comprehension.
David L. Webb wrote:
> HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! When did
> either of them eVER lose an argument with *you*, Art?! Inquiring minds
> want to know!
When did either of them eVER win an argument with *me*, Dave?!
Inquiring minds want to know!
>>David L. Webb wrote:
>>>When someone comes to me with a
>>>manuscript "proving" that one can classically trisect the angle, I
>>>patiently explain his misunderstanding, and I am inclined to regard him
>>>initially as possibly an original, if misguided, thinker.
> Neuendorffer wrote:
>> It has been mathematically proved that one cannot
>> classically trisect an angle with compass & beint edge.
David L. Webb wrote:
> That's what I tell misguided angle trisectors, Art.
Has been mathematically proved that the Stratman wrote Shake-speare?
> Neuendorffer wrote:
>> Nobody have even come close to making a case that the illiterate
>>Stratford boob could possibly have written the works of Shake-speare.
Here comes a "nobody" now:
David L. Webb wrote:
> By all indications, the actor from Stratford whose name appears on
> the title pages of the plays attributed to him and who was a prominent
> shareholder in the acting company that performed those plays was
> neither illiterate nor a boob.
You mean the fictional character named Shake-speare.
Art Neuendorffer
Art Neuendorffer
>>>>2002-02-16 Roundtable wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>I am reading "Daughter of the South" by Darden A. Pyron.
>>David L. Webb wrote:
>>> Note that phony-sounding given name "Darden," Art -- surely it must
>>>be a fake. Indeed, "Darden" is obviously "D'Arden," intimating a
>>>relationship with Shakespeare's mother, who was an Arden.
>> Note that phony-sounding Suriname "Pyron," Dave.
>>
>> Indeed, "Pyron" transforms easily into: "Byron"/"Bacon."
>
> Bacon?!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
ByrON born: Tuesday 22 January, 1788
BacON born: Wednesday 22 January, 1561
ByrON's _Parisina_ published 22 January, 1816
Cervantes' _Persiles_ dedication to "We READ" LEMOS 19 April, 1616
ByrON mortally chilled by rain: 9 April, 1824
ByrON dies a day after EASTER: 19 April, 1824
BacON dies from snow chill: EASTER Sunday: 9 April, 1626
[Gregorian] : a week after EASTER: 19 April, 1626
ByrON's daughter ALLEGRA dies: 19 April, 1822
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Dante Gabriel Rossetti dies: EASTER Sunday 9 April, 1882
Charles Darwin dies: Wednesday 19 April, 1882
Halley's comet within .09 AU of earth: Wednesday 19 April, 607
Francois Rabelais dies: Sunday 9 April, 1553
ByrON's daughter ALLEGRA dies: 19 April, 1822
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer
Tom Veal
aristocracy held one set of views and 'the people' unanimously held a
"archconservative" (Ogburn fils' term) opinions could have been
written only by a nobleman. Is that a fair statement of your
position?
Art Neuendorffer <aneuendor...@comcast.net> wrote in message news:<3DDC50E8...@comcast.net>...
Art Neuendorffer
> I take it, then, that you *do* believe "that the 16th Century English
> aristocracy held one set of views and 'the people' unanimously held a
> different set". Hence, a literary work that embodies
> "archconservative" (Ogburn fils' term) opinions could have been
> written only by a nobleman. Is that a fair statement of your
> position?
A fair statement is the one I already gave:
Walt Whitman's hypothesis that:
---------------------------------------------------------------
<<only one of the "WOLFISH earls" so plenteous in the plays
themselves, or some born descendant and knower, might seem
to be the TRUE author of those amazing works >>
--WALT WHITMAN 19th century romantic
-------------------------------------------------------------
rings true because it helps to explain much about Shake-speare.
Art Neuendorffer
Art Neuendorffer
>>>>>> about 500 Stratfordians before me have pointed out
>>>>>> that the text of the document itself refutes that view.
<<The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins: Bartholomew has taken a basket of
cranberries to town to sell, so he can take the money to his parents.
While there, the king passes by, and the cry goes out, "Hats off to the
King!" Bartholomew complies, but the king glares at him. There's still a
hat on Bartholomew's head, even though he has removed the original one!
The captain of the King's Own Guard grabs Bartholomew and takes him the
castle, where the king gets more and more angry. And more and more hats
keep appearing. Soon, Sir Alaric, Keeper of the King's Records,
indicates there are hundreds. The king tries everything he can think of,
including calling on Sir Snipps {the royal hat maker}, his wise men
(Nadd, father of Nadd, and the father of the father of Nadd), musicians,
magicians, his nephew the Grand Duke Wilfred, bowmen, and even the
executioner. But the executioner cannot even lop off his head to solve
the problem, because the executioner cannot take Bartholomew's hat off.
Grand Duke Wilfred offers to kill Bartholomew by throwing him off the
top of the castle. But a strange thing happens along the way, and
Bartholomew is saved and richly rewarded! Throughout, Bartholomew has
worn his honesty and good intentions well, and he has led a charmed
life. In the end, "They could only say it just 'happened to happen'
and was not very likely to happen again.">>
>>>> Neuendorffer wrote:
>>
>>>>> These 500 Stratfordians apparently have
>>>>> nothing whatever to say about the fact that:
>>>>>
>>>>> Shakespeare's will was a business man's will that itemized bowls
>>>>> & 2nd best beds but said *absolutely nothing* about his life's
>>>>> great literary achievements.
>>>>
>>David L. Webb wrote:
>>
>>> As has been pointed out to you countless times, Art,
>>> Shakespeare did not own "his life's great literary achievements."
<<Neuendorffer has taken a basket of ideas to HLAS to post. While there,
the Goon Squad passes by, and the cry goes out, "Hats off to Stratford
upon Avon!" When Neuendorffer refuses to comply, Dave Webb glares at
him. But there is always a new & better idea in Neuendorffer's head,
even though he has just posted one! The captain of the Goon Squad grabs
Neuendorffer and takes him the white tower of Dartmouth, where the Webb
gets more & more angry. More & more ingenious ideas keep appearing;
soon, Brigadier Corporal Bob Grumman, Keeper of HLAS Records, indicates
there are hundreds. Webb tries everything he can think of, including
calling on Greg Reynolds {the royal hat maker}, his wise men (Kathman &
Ross), musicians, magicians, his nephew the Grand Duke Tom Veal, bowmen,
and even the executioner. But even the executioner cannot stop
Neuendorffer from posting. Major Reedy offers to kill Neuendorffer by
throwing him off the top of the academic white tower. But a strange
thing happens along the way, and Neuendorffer is finally believed and
richly rewarded with a book contract! Throughout, Neuendorffer has worn
his honesty and good intentions well, and he has led a charmed life. In
the end, "They could only say it just 'happened to happen' and was not
very likely to happen again.">>
> Neuendorffer wrote:
>> It hard to believe that Shakespeare owned *none* of
>> "his life's great literary achievements."
David L. Webb wrote:
> See what I mean? As I said, you find reality incongenial, Art.
Only the "reality" peddled by the Birthplace Trust.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Ann Hathaway's House, Shottery
<<Two miles from Stratford-upon-Avon, retrace the steps William
Shakespeare must have taken when courting Anne Hathaway before they
married in 1582. The thatched farmhouse in the village of Shottery, on
the outskirts of Stratford, and home to the descendants of the Hathaway
family until the 19th century. Enjoy the Shakespeare Tree Garden,
the peaceful Shottery Brook and Jubilee Walks.>>
January 17, 1579 marriage entry in Stratford Church Register:
"William WILLSONNE and
Anne HATHAWAY of Shotterye."
---------------------------------------------------------------
>>>Tom Veal wrote:
>>>>The immortal works did not form part of Shakespeare's estate. The
>>>>King's Men and various printers owned the manuscripts and copyrights.
>>>>Hence, the lawyer who drafted the will had not a shadow of a reason to
>>>>mention them (and wouldn't have mentioned them in any event unless
>>>>they had been bequeathed to someone other than the residuary
>>>>legatees). The bed, on the other hand, was the object of a specific
>>>>bequest and therefore had to be mentioned.
>>David L. Webb wrote:
>>> Of course, Art has been told this time and time again. Art knows
>>>that experts in mathematics or physics understand quite well many facts
>>>that are bewilderingly counterintuitive to nonexperts -- or at any
>>>rate, he ought to know that, as he claims to have studied theoretical
>>>physics.
> Neuendorffer wrote:
>> Art himself is an expert in mathematic [sic] & physics.
David L. Webb wrote:
> There is only one possible response, Art:
> HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
In 1967 I got a perfect 900 score on my Physics G.R.E.
David L. Webb wrote:
> The demonstrations of farcical mathematical incompetence exhibited by
> your Quantitatively Clueless Cretin persona have been a source of
> unbounded mirth almost since the group's inception. Perhaps the
> funniest was your triumphant announcement that the number 19 is
> remarkable in being both the sum of two conseuctive integers and the
> difference of their squares, although the nutcase numerology
> accompanying that prounouncement was also priceless.
Do you mean conseductive or consecutive integers?
Perhaps you occasionally post something in haste
that you didn't intend?
Are we to judge your intelligence primarily
on the number of inadvertent mistakes you make?
>>David L. Webb wrote:
>>
>>>However, he just cannot wrap his mind around the idea that Shakespeare
>>>did not retain some sort of authorial right to his works as
>>>bequeathable possessions, a fact well known to literary historians,
>>>however counterintuitive it may seem to nonexperts.
> Neuendorffer wrote:
>> Everything in the Stratford case is counterintuitive.
David L. Webb wrote:
> Only because you're farcically ill-informed, Art. Persons having no
> mathematical background find the Banach-Tarski-Hausdorff "paradox" or
> the rudiments of special relativity far more counterintuitive than "the
> Stratford case."
Most people are not used to traveling near the speed of light
or of playing with objects which are not Lebesgue measurable.
However most people are used to being lied to by others
who are trying to sell them something.
David L. Webb wrote:
> Or, consider the lab demonstration in which a person
> standing on a platform that rotates with little friction holds a
> rapidly spinning bicycle wheel and suddenly changes the direction of
> the axle -- persons ignorant of rudimentary physics find even such a
> tangible demonstration of classical mechanical principles that have
> been understood for centuries bewilderingly counterintuitive.
Bewilder, v. t. [Pref. be- + wilder.]
Wild, a. [OE. wilde, AS. wilde; akin to OFries. wilde, D. wild, OS. &
OHG. wildi, G. wild, Sw. & Dan. vild, Icel. villr wild, bewildered,
astray.] 1. Living in a state of nature; as, a wild boar; a wild ox.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Torquemada mis-spoke about that spinning bicycle wheel
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Torquemada becomes G.I. Oct. 17, 1483
Philip Sidney dies in Holland Oct. 17, 1586
<<The scale of punishments continued up to burning at the stake, which
was performed as a public spectacle called an auto-da-fé ("act of
faith"). If the condemned recanted and kissed the cross, they were
mercifully garroted before the fire was set. If they recanted only, they
were burned with a quick-burning seasoned wood. If not, they were burned
with slow-burning *green* wood.>>
I am not *green* but brown.
No soy verde, sino *moreno* - Sancho Panza
*Marrano* : Spanish Jew who was only nominally converted,
and continued his Jewish customs in secret.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
*Tomás de Torquemada* copyright © 1996 Beth Randall
http://www.mcs.drexel.edu/~gbrandal/Illum_html/Torquemada.html
At his birth (1420, Torquemada, Castile, Spain) Tomás already had
something to hide: his grandmother was a converso; a converted Jew; a
New Christian.
Spain had more converted Jews than any other country; some had converted
by choice, many more by force, but they were all regarded with suspicion
and mistrust by the
Old Christians. Some, called Marranos, were only nominally converted,
and continued their Jewish customs in secret.
The result was the Spanish cult of sangre limpia, "pure blood", that is,
pure white Christian blood. Actually, since Spain had the largest Jewish
population in medieval Europe and conversion and intermarriage were
common, hardly anyone had sangre limpia, but many claimed to, and it was
a constant preoccupation of the nobility. Torquemada's life work was an
attempts to achieve sangre limpia for Spain.
By 1479, when Spain was unified under Ferdinand and Isabella, Torquemada
was a Dominican priest and Isabella's confessor. Four years later [Oct.
17, 1483] he had established himself as the head of the Spanish
Inquisition.
The purpose of the Inquisition was to root out heresy, and for
Torquemada this meant destroying the Marranos. The Inquisition published
a set of guidelines so that Catholics could inform on their Marrano
neighbors:
If you see that your neighbors are wearing clean and fancy clothes
on Saturdays, they are Jews.
If they clean their houses on Fridays and light candles earlier than
usual on that night, they are Jews.
If they eat unleavened bread and begin their meal with celery and
lettuce during Holy Week, they are Jews.
If they say prayers facing a wall, bowing back and forth,
they are Jews.
The mildest penalty imposed on Marranos began with the forfeiture of
their property, which proved to be a convenient fund-raising technique
for the war against the Moors. This was followed by the public
humiliation of being paraded through the streets wearing the sambenito,
a sulfur-yellow shirt emblazoned with crosses that came only to the
waist, leaving the lower body uncovered. They were then flogged at the
church door. This was the punishment suffered by Juan Sánchez de Cepeda,
the grandfather of Teresa [Panza?] de Avila (Jewess founder of an order
of Carmelite nuns).
The scale of punishments continued up to burning at the stake, which was
performed as a public spectacle called an auto-da-fé ("act of faith").
If the condemned recanted and kissed the cross, they were mercifully
garroted before the fire was set. If they recanted only, they were
burned with a quick-burning seasoned wood. If not, they were burned with
slow-burning green wood.
In 1490 Torquemada staged a famous show-trial, the LaGuardia trial. This
involved eight Jews and conversos, who were accused of having crucified
a Christian child. No victim was ever identified and no body was ever
found; nevertheless all eight were convicted, on the strength of their
confessions which were obtained through torture. They were burned at the
stake.
Rumours about Jews committing ritual murder of Christian children have
circulated around Europe for centuries and are known collectively as
"the blood libel." While there is no evidence to support the blood
libel, its opposite, the ritual murder of Jews by Christians, is well
known. The Spanish Inquisition alone committed the ritual murder of
about thirty thousand Jews.
Torquemada used the LaGuardia trial to argue that the Jews were a danger
to Spain. His intention was to convince Ferdinand and Isabella to order
their expulsion. Hearing of this, two influential Jews raised thirty
thousand ducats and offered it to Ferdinand and Isabella, saying they
could give them even more if they would allow the Jews to remain.
Ferdinand and Isabella, always hard up for cash, wavered at this; but
Torquemada said, "Judas sold his Master for thirty ducats. You would
sell Him for thirty thousand ... Take Him and sell Him, but do not let
it be said that I have had any share in this transaction."
On March 31st, 1492, Ferdinand and Isabella issued their Edict of
Expulsion. "[We] have decided to command all of the aforesaid Jews, men
and women, to leave our kingdoms and never to return to them." The Jews
were given until July 1st to leave the kingdom; any found within its
borders after that date would be killed. Some fled to Portugal or North
Africa, where they faced more persecution; some took ship with a
foolhardy explorer named Christopher Columbus; some remained in Spain as
"Secret Jews", and their descendants are still Secret Jews today.
Having accomplished the expulsion of the Jews, Torquemada retired to the
monastery of St. Thomas in Avila, which he had designed himself. In his
last years he was convinced that he would be poisoned, and kept a
unicorn's horn by his plate as an antidote. He was not poisoned,
however, but died a natural death in 1498.
------------------------------------------------------------
David L. Webb wrote:
> Virtually *any* field complex enough to merit study possesses some
> aspects that seem surprising enough to the uninformed to be called
> counterintuitive. All one can conclude from the existence of such
> "counterintuitive" observations is that intuition unaided by careful
> analysis of data can be a VERy poor guide.
But you don't recommend a careful analysis of data!!!
You recommend a blind acceptance of the word of literary historians
many of whom are funded by the Stratford Trust.
>>David L. Webb wrote:
>>> Art would never
>>>trust the unfounded intuition of an utter ignoramus in mathematics or
>>>physics, yet he is quite prepared to repose full confidence in the
>>>unfounded intuition of an ignoramus in literary history.
> Neuendorffer wrote:
>> It's sometimes called horse-sense.
David L. Webb wrote:
> The first syllable is correct; the last syllable rhymes with "sit."
Horse-wit then if you prefer.
> Neuendorffer wrote:
>> Most literary history is pure bullshit.
David L. Webb wrote:
> Most of the literary "history" *you* read certainly is, Art.
Park Honan?
>>>>>>>Tom Veal wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>Purblind as you may believe folks like Matus, Kathman and Ross
to be,
>>>>>>>> they have at least taken the trouble to digest the other
side's case.
>>>>>>Art Neuendorffer wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>> They don't seem to be willing to digest my case.
>>David L. Webb wrote:
>>
>>> *What* "case"?
> Neuendorffer wrote:
>> Well for one:
>>
>> When I persuasively. . .
David L. Webb wrote:
> "Persuasively"?! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Persuade, v. t.; [L. persuadere, persuasum; per + suadere to advise,
persuade: cf. F. persuader.] 1. To influence or gain over by argument,
advice, entreaty, expostulation, etc.; to draw or incline to a
determination by presenting sufficient motives.
Ha-has, and inarticulate hootings of satirical rebuke. --Carlyle.
Ha, [AS.] An exclamation denoting surprise, joy, or grief. When
repeated, ha, ha, it is an expression of laughter, satisfaction,
or triumph, sometimes of derisive laughter; or sometimes
it is equivalent to ``Well, it is so.''
> Neuendorffer wrote:
>> . . . use Ross's own methods to argue that:
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------
>> The chance of finding *HENRY W.H. Mr.*
>> (or something to that effect)
>> within one of the two Shak. poetry dedications
>> to *Henry* Wriothesley
>> is about 1 in 4,000,000
>>
>> s *T* i
>> l *L* i
>> [H] *A* v
>> [E] *H* o
>> [N] [O.] u
>> [R] [E.] d
>> [Y] *O* u
>> [W.] *I* t
>> [H.] [S] o
>> [M] [E] g
>> [r.] [A] v
>> e [R] l
>>--------------------------------------------------------------------
David L. Webb wrote:
> So? Why would any sane person imagine that "henrywhmr" is meaningful?
Any sane person who noticed that the V&A dedication was to *HENRY*
Wriothesley might conclude that *henry* referred to Wriothesley.
Any sane person who noticed that the Sonnets dedication was to a
"Mr.W.H." might remember back to "henrywhmr" and conclude that
"Mr.W.H." referred to Wriothesley.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer
Art Neuendorffer
>>>> Dave and Terry have answered me from time to time in the past,
>>>> however, after they lose the argument they just drift off,
>>>> without exhibiting even the slightest sign of comprehension.
>>David L. Webb wrote:
>>> HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
>>> When did either of them eVER lose an argument with *you*, Art?!
>Neuendorffer wrote:
David L. Webb wrote:
--------------------------------------------------------------
Dave Kathman wrote:
>
> "Art, Cuthbert Burbage the theatrical shareholder (1565-1636)
> and Cuthbert Burby the stationer are two entirely different
> people. I suspect you know this, but are merely playing around
> in your clueless cretin persona. If so, have fun!"
-----------------------------------------------------------------
CUTHE-BIRTH is a shibboleth for FREEMASON!
BUR-BAGE means BOAR-BADGE!
------------------------------------------------------------------
The Halliwell or Regius MS
http://tracingboard.com/Halliwell_MS.htm
Circa 1390 C.E.
<<The existence of this MS. has been known for a long time, but its
contents were mistaken until Mr. Halliwell-Phillips drew attention to
it in a paper "On the introduction of Freemasonry into England," read
before the Society of Antiquaries in the 1838-9 session. He thereafter
published two small editions of a work entitled "The Early History
of Freemasonry in England," giving a transcript of the poem.>>
Neither subject nor servant, my dear brother,
Though he be not so perfect as is another;
Each shall call other fellows by *CUTHE*, (friendship)
Because they come of ladies' *BIRTH*.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
CUTHE-BIRTH is a shibboleth for FREEMASON!
BUR-BAGE means BOAR-BADGE! (Oxford, Bacon)
------------------------------------------------------------
1583 Lessor of Blackfriars Theatre: Edward de Vere
1596 Lessor of Blackfriars Theatre: CUTHBERT BURBage
1608 Lessor of Blackfriars Theatre: Shakspere
---------------------------------------------------------------
Dave Kathman wrote:
<<The publisher of *Palladis Tamia*, CUTHBERT BURBY,
was also a good friend of MUNDAY,
with whom he had engaged in some shady publishing
ventures in the early 1590s. He apparently ticked off Meres, who
at the last minute inserted a Latin epistle at the beginning of
his book in which he accused Burby of being stingy with paper and
holding back some of Meres' best material. When Burby realized
what the epistle said, he tore it out of all subsequent copies,
but some had already been sold, one of which survives today.
------------------------------------------------------------
THE RAIGNE OF
KING EDVVARD the third:
As it hath bin sundrie times plaied about
the Citie of London.
Printed for CUTHBERT Burby. 1596.
-----------------------------------------------------------
CUTHBERT Burby was also publisher of:
_The Repentance of Robert Greene, Maister of Arts_
& _Palladis Tamia_
<<In 1592 the printer Cuthbert Burby offered at his new shop in the
poultry, a translation of a dialogue by Plato- "Axiochus" with an
oration spoken by a page of Edward Devere in the presence of the Queen
at Whitehall at a pageant, the oration & translation were bound in
one volume. The dialogue was described as being translated from the
Greek by "EDW. SPENSER", previously his works were signed "E" or "ED"
- perhaps Burby had a freudian slip, the oration has been attributed
to MUNDAY, or perhaps as "Edmund" himself would say
"Lo I the man, whose Muse whilom did MASKE">> -- JIM CAMPBELL
[http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~rbear/comment.html]
-----------------------------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer
Tom Veal
which arrogant nobles kick peasants, pillage monasteries and chortle
over jus primae noctis, all with the playwright's approval. My
bowldlerized copies omit those passages, however.
I also wouldn't describe Edward de Vere (your favored candidate for
authorship, I believe) as "wolfish", though his life was considerably
less exemplary than than that of William Shakespeare of
Stratford-upon-Avon.
Art Neuendorffer <aneuendor...@comcast.net> wrote in message news:<3DDDFA23...@comcast.net>...
Roundtable
But he was not as odd as your posts make Freemasonism seem to me.
One quesiton: Why is Margaret Mitchell's death supposed to be
mysterious?
She was slightly overweight and out of shape, she had had a back
operation that didn't remove the pain, and she couldn't move fast
enough to avoid the car that hit her.
Seriously injured, she lay semi-conscious while a crowd gathered
around her, and was then transported to the hospital where she
died some time later. I think it not mysterious but rather logical,
as she was prone to illness and injuries and accidents all her life
after her mother died, her letters are full of her descriptions of
sickness and accidents.
Why must one always make a mystery out of everything?
And why do men so often presume that a woman cannot write a
bestseller?
And this is the first time that I've heard that not only WS but
also Kit Marlowe was supposed to be a "front".
HLAS is getting curiouser and curiouser.
As far as blockbuster filmproductions are concerned, I thought it
it was the "in" thing to be a Christian Scientist in Hollywood -
isn't Freemasonry more the "mafia-connection" for industry and
banks and so on?
Actually, I thought Freemasons were a thing of the past. Are they
still going strong, then? I've heard about their secret handshake
where they make a sign in the palm of your hand with their finger.
I've had people shake my hand like that, but it was usually randy
Italian guys, and had absolutely NOTHING to do with Freemasons.
Roundtable
Art Neuendorffer <aneuendor...@comcast.net> wrote in message news:<3DDCBC2B...@comcast.net>...
Art Neuendorffer
> My dad's father was apparently a Freemason. He was also a painter.
> But he was not as odd as your posts make Freemasonism seem to me.
I'm not talking rank & file Freemasons (who are odd enough.)
> One quesiton: Why is Margaret Mitchell's death supposed to be
> mysterious?
>
> She was slightly overweight and out of shape, she had had a back
> operation that didn't remove the pain, and she couldn't move fast
> enough to avoid the car that hit her.
> Seriously injured, she lay semi-conscious while a crowd gathered
> around her, and was then transported to the hospital where she
> died some time later. I think it not mysterious but rather logical,
> as she was prone to illness and injuries and accidents all her life
> after her mother died, her letters are full of her descriptions of
> sickness and accidents.
Oh, fiddle-di-di, I don't feel all that strong about Peggy.
> Why must one always make a mystery out of everything?
It's a mystery.
> And why do men so often presume that a woman cannot write a
> bestseller?
I'm not just a snob, I'm a chauvanist pig, as well.
> And this is the first time that I've heard that not only
> WS but also Kit Marlowe was supposed to be a "front".
He wasn't supposed to be, he was.
> HLAS is getting curiouser and curiouser.
>
> As far as blockbuster filmproductions are concerned, I thought it
> it was the "in" thing to be a Christian Scientist in Hollywood -
> isn't Freemasonry more the "mafia-connection" for industry and
> banks and so on?
I thought the mafia was mostly Catholic.
> Actually, I thought Freemasons were a thing of the past. Are they
> still going strong, then? I've heard about their secret handshake
> where they make a sign in the palm of your hand with their finger.
> I've had people shake my hand like that, but it was usually randy
> Italian guys, and had absolutely NOTHING to do with Freemasons.
They're probably Catholic, too.
Art Neuendorffer
Art Neuendorffer
> Authorship of the plays by a "wolfish earl" would explain scenes in
> which arrogant nobles kick peasants, pillage monasteries and chortle
> over jus primae noctis, all with the playwright's approval.
> My bowldlerized copies omit those passages, however.
They may be wolfish but they aren't stupid; they'll need those
peasants to fight for Harry, St. George and more land for nobles.
Besides, the "wolfish earls" (like today's priviledged classes)
probably thought of themselves as God's gift to mankind.
Authorship of the plays by a "wolfish earl" would explain:
1) Tragedies that end in the death of priviledged nobles.
2) Histories that involve the willing sacrifice of commoners in war.
3) Comedies that end with the restoration of benevolent rulers.
4) Those 'Respectfull' commoner names like:
Bullcalf Costard Dogberry
Dull Elbow Fang
Feeble Snout Froth
Mouldy Nym Sly
Pinch Pistol Quince
Starveling Shadow Wart
Abhorson Bottom Boult
Shallow Simple Snare
A sort of vagabonds, rascals, and runaways,
A scum of Bretons, and base lackey peasants,
Whom their o'er-cloyed country vomits forth
To desperate ventures and assured destruction.
You sleeping safe, they bring to you unrest;
You having lands, and blest with beauteous wives,
They would restrain the one, distain the other.
> I also wouldn't describe Edward de Vere (your favored candidate for
> authorship, I believe) as "wolfish", though his life was considerably
> less exemplary than than that of William Shakespeare of
> Stratford-upon-Avon.
Name *one exemplary thing* in the life of
William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon.
1) stealing deer
2) shotgun wedding
3) hoarding grain during a famine
4) trying to enclose Stratford commons
5) abandoning his family for almost a decade
6) threatened William Wayte with bodily harm
7) not returning Thomas Whittington's 40s
8) rewarding wife with 2nd best bed
9) defaulting on his taxes
10) suing his neighbors
---------------------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer
John W. Kennedy
> And why do men so often presume that a woman cannot write a
> bestseller?
Do they? It seems a peculiarly blind sort of belief, given the
fact that women demonstrably have written bestsellers, for
centuries.
> As far as blockbuster filmproductions are concerned, I thought it
> it was the "in" thing to be a Christian Scientist in Hollywood -
> isn't Freemasonry more the "mafia-connection" for industry and
> banks and so on?
The far more insane cult of Scientology seems to be making considerable
inroads.
> Actually, I thought Freemasons were a thing of the past. Are they
> still going strong, then? I've heard about their secret handshake
> where they make a sign in the palm of your hand with their finger.
> I've had people shake my hand like that, but it was usually randy
> Italian guys, and had absolutely NOTHING to do with Freemasons.
Freemasonry was of huge influence in the early decades of the USA, but
a controversial murder, apparently by Masons, in the name of Masonry,
around 1830 or so, caused a tremendous anti-Masonic reaction. (There
was even an Anti-Masonic Party, which was of considerable, though brief,
importance.) Since then, they have been little more than the Lions,
Odd Fellows, Eagles, Red Men, Rotarians, and other such. The Freemasons
are best known in their offshoot, the Shriners, who are known about
equally for charities and for clownish drunkenness.
I believe Freemasonry is a bit more respectable in the UK than in the
US now, though nowhere near what it was at its height in the US, during
the Federal period.
Art Neuendorffer
>>>My dad's father was apparently a Freemason. He was also a painter.
>>>But he was not as odd as your posts make Freemasonism seem to me.
> Neuendorffer wrote:
>> I'm not talking rank & file Freemasons (who are odd enough.)
>
David L. Webb wrote:
> No, Art; you're confusing the Freemasons with the Order of Odd
> Fellows, of which I always assumed that you were at least
> an honorary member.
No, I'm odd man out.
>>Roundtable wrote:
>>>One quesiton: Why is Margaret Mitchell's death supposed to be
>>>mysterious?
>>>
>>>She was slightly overweight and out of shape, she had had a back
>>>operation that didn't remove the pain, and she couldn't move fast
>>>enough to avoid the car that hit her.
>>>Seriously injured, she lay semi-conscious while a crowd gathered
>>>around her, and was then transported to the hospital where she
>>>died some time later. I think it not mysterious but rather logical,
>>>as she was prone to illness and injuries and accidents all her life
>>>after her mother died, her letters are full of her descriptions of
>>>sickness and accidents.
> Neuendorffer wrote:
>> Oh, fiddle-di-di, I don't feel all that strong about Peggy.
David L. Webb wrote:
> In other words, there is nothing even remotely "Masonic"
> or mysterious about her death.
No, just that there is nothing blatanty "Masonic"
about her work like with Dickens, Melville or Verne.
>>>Why must one always make a mystery out of everything?
David L. Webb wrote:
> Paranoia.
"Even paranoids have enemies."
>>Roundtable wrote:
>>>And why do men so often presume that a woman cannot write a
>>>bestseller?
>>
> Neuendorffer wrote:
>> I'm not just a snob, I'm a chauvanist [sic]
>
>
> Is this another of your "illiteration studies," Art?
Being seVEREly wounded & mutilated I'm the one with Chauvin flu.
http://www.chauvin.org.uk/history.htm
<<Nicolas Chauvin, the mythical super-patriot, was declared to have been
born in Rochefort, France, and reported to have flourished in the late
18th Century and early 19th Century. He was a French soldier under the
First Republic (the French Revolution) and the Empire (the Napoleonic
armies). He was reported to have been born circa 1780, enlisted in
Napoleon's army at age 18, fought in numerous campaigns and wounded
*17 times* . He showed great courage, and being severely wounded and
mutilated, he received from Napoleon a sword (a sabre of honour), a red
ribbon, and a pension of 200 francs. He nourished a blind idolatry for
his hero, Napoleon. His enthusiasm for the emperor and his professions
of militant patriotism won for him the ridicule of his comrades and gave
rise to the term, "chauvinism", the eponym for blind and excessive
nationalism. The character was developed by Arrago in searching for the
etymology of "Chauvinism" for the Dictionnaire de la Conversation 1834.
Presently, exaggerated and excessive nationalism has become a modern
social phenomenon. It exalts consciousness of nationality to the extent
of spreading hatred of minorities and other nations. Hannah Arendt in
"Imperialism, Nationalism, Chauvinism," The Review of Politics, provides
an interesting understanding of the concept:
Chauvinism is an almost natural product of the national concept insofar
as it springs directly from the old idea of the 'national mission.' . .
. (A) nation's mission might be interpreted precisely as bringing its
light to other, less fortunate peoples that, for whatever reason, have
miraculously been left by history without a national mission. As long as
this concept did not develop into the ideology of chauvinism and
remained in the rather vague realm of national or even nationalistic
pride, it frequently resulted in a high sense of responsibility for the
welfare of backward peoples. [p. 457]
Nationalism is associated with militarism, imperialism and racism.
Chauvinism may currently be applied to xenophobia, Christian
fundamentalism, ethnocentrism, male chauvinism, etc., or for basically
any persecution of out-groups by in-groups. If one were culturally
astute, one would be politically correct (to equate the two), and,
therefore, one would not be a chauvinist. Ultimately, chauvinism is the
fanatical attack of the true believer on the government, stirring to
life a complacent and even "decadent" society through a leader who knows
the process of religiofication to ignite a national virility. Such
fanaticism is an important invention, "a miraculous instrument for
raising societies and nations from the dead - an instrument of
resurrection." (Hoffer). Chauvin was lampooned frequently on the French
stage in the 1830s, as in a play by Eugčne Scribe, called Le soldat
laboureur (the citation may have been wrong - and one comprehensive list
does not contain that title). His first appearance was in a vaudeville,
La Cocarde Tricolore, Episode de la guerre d'Alger, by the brothers
Cogniard, Charles Théodore and Jean Hippolyte (1831). Chauvin came to
typify the cult of military glory that was popular after 1815, among the
Veterans of Napoleon's armies. It is probably the effect of the
Napoleonic wars on Napoleon's soldiers that contributed significance to
the concept of "nationalism" and not anything that Napoleon himself
said. Throughout the Nineteenth Century, French chauvinists called for
the regeneration of the spirit that had electrified the Napoleonic
armies. British chauvinism became "jingoism", and chauvinism and
jingoism were matched by "100 percent Americanism". (Generally, the
preceding was taken from the following secondary sources: Encyclopedia
Americana; Webster Biographical Dictionary; New Century Cyclopedia of
Names; Encyclopedia Britannica.) What conjectures follow presume those
simple facts from secondary sources, and of some facts of historical
chronology for the post-Napoleonic period, amplified by the creation of
a multitude of fictions. For example, we have Chauvin being born July 4,
1776, and being conscripted into the Revolutionary army at 17, in 1793,
during the Reign of Terror.>>
>>pig, as well.
David L. Webb wrote:
> Pigs are VERy intelligent -- you should be flattered, Art.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
SOG. Marry, sir, it is your boar without a head, rampant.
A boar without a head, that's VERy rare!
CAR. Ay, and rampant too! troth, I commend the herald's wit, he has
decyphered him well: a swine without a head, without brain, wit,
anything indeed, ramping to gentility.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
>>Roundtable wrote:
>>>And this is the first time that I've heard that not only
>>> WS but also Kit Marlowe was supposed to be a "front".
>>
> Neuendorffer wrote:
>> He wasn't supposed to be, he was.
>
David L. Webb wrote:
> Evidence, Art?
His ritualistic Ramadan/eclipse murder
followed by posthumous publishing.
>>Roundtable wrote:
>>>HLAS is getting curiouser and curiouser.
>>
David L. Webb wrote:
> It's been curious ever since aneuendor...@comcast.net
> (in his former incarnation as ph...@errors.comedy) first appeared.
>
>>Roundtable wrote:
>>>As far as blockbuster filmproductions are concerned, I thought it
>>>it was the "in" thing to be a Christian Scientist in Hollywood -
>>>isn't Freemasonry more the "mafia-connection" for industry and
>>>banks and so on?
>>
> Neuendorffer wrote:
>> I thought the mafia was mostly Catholic.
>
David L. Webb wrote:
>
> But Art -- "La cosa nostra" is an anagram of
>
> Art N., a loco ass.
INPNC = 4/12
"Th-th-th-that's all folks!"
Art Neuendorffer
Art Neuendorffer
>
>> Actually, I thought Freemasons were a thing of the past. Are they
>> still going strong, then? I've heard about their secret handshake
>> where they make a sign in the palm of your hand with their finger.
>> I've had people shake my hand like that, but it was usually randy
>> Italian guys, and had absolutely NOTHING to do with Freemasons.
>
> Freemasonry was of huge influence in the early decades of the USA, but
> a controversial murder, apparently by Masons, in the name of Masonry,
> around 1830 or so, caused a tremendous anti-Masonic reaction. (There
> was even an Anti-Masonic Party, which was of considerable, though
> brief, importance.)
> Roundtable wrote:
>
>> And why do men so often presume that a woman cannot write a
>> bestseller?
John W. Kennedy wrote:
> Do they? It seems a peculiarly blind sort of belief, given the
> fact that women demonstrably have written bestsellers, for
> centuries.
Like that other Peggy:
---------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.ukans.edu/kansas/medieval/108/lectures/margery.html
http://www.luminarium.org/medlit/margery.htm
http://www.geocities.com/Wellesley/Garden/4594/margery.html
<<Margery Burnham Kempe(1373-post 1438) was the daughter of John
Burnham, five times mayor of the town of Lynn, a flourishing town of
Norfolk. An illiterate woman, Margery Kempe's spiritual biography is
often called the first autobiography in English. This book, while not an
extremely popular or well-known source, managed to survive into the 20th
century through a single manuscript. The Book of Margery Kempe provides
us with an atypical look at the medieval world. Instead of the customary
educated male religious or upper class view, we have an alternate
perspective-one from a unique, middle class, uneducated woman, who
achieved piety despite her married and lay status. Margery went on
numerous pilgrimages throughout England and Europe, including one to
the Holy Land where she received a gift from God-tears and sobbing,
sometimes to the point of shrieking, whenever she thought about Christ
and His Passion. This, and her dialogues with Christ, the Virgin Mary,
and other saints, are what classify Margery Kempe as a mystic.>>
------------------------------------------------------------------
Lady MARY WRiOThesLEY MONTAGU Heneage
And as widow of the Treasurer of the Chamber (Thomas Heneage d.1592)
Southampton's mother paid Kempe,
Shakespeare & BURBAGE 20 pounds FOR WORK NOT EVEN DONE:
<<1595-3-15: Royal record. An entry in the accounts of the Treasurer of
the Chamber reads: "To William Kempe, William Shakespeare and Richard
Burbage, servaunts to the Lord Chamberleyne, upon the Councille's
warrant dated at Whitehall XVth Marcij 1594, for two severall comedies
or enterludes shewed by them before her majestie in Christmas tyme laste
part viz St. Stephen's daye and Innocents daye...">>
But it was THE ADMIRAL's men (not the Lord Chamberlain's)
who played for the Queen on Innocent's Day (Dec. 28, 1594).
----------------------------------------------------------------------
_The Second Part of the Return from Parnassus_ (1601)
KEMPE: Few of the university [men] pen plays well, they smell too much
of that writer Ovid,and that writer Metamorphosis, and talk too much of
Proserpina and Jupiter. Why, here's our fellow Shakespeare puts them
all down, aye and BEN JONSON too. O that Ben Jonson is a pestilent
fellow,
he brought up Horace giving the poets a pill, but our fellow
Shakespeare hath GIVEN HIM A PURGE that made him bewray his credit.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
_Imitation of Christ_ by Thomas 'a KEMPIS
It is better to atone for sin now and to cut away vices than
to keep them for PURGATION in the hereafter. In truth, we deceive
ourselves by our ill-advised love of the flesh. What will that
fire feed upon but our sins? The more we spare ourselves
now and the more we satisfy the flesh, the harder
will the reckoning be and the more we keep for the BURNING.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Thomas à Kempis
[I'm a Shakspe moàt.]
http://www.age-of-the-sage.org/sources/a_kempis.html
<<_Of the Imitation of Christ_ was first circulated, and widely copied
out, after 1425 A.D., at which time it's authorship was not made public.
In 1441 however Thomas à Kempis formally affirmed that he was the author
of the some thirteen works including the four books that were
subsequently associated in the Of the Imitation of Christ. This
authorship was challenged for a time in later centuries. It would appear
that the four books that are today associated under the title Of the
Imitation of Christ were not so associated under that title by Thomas a
Kempis. What posterity thus regards as Thomas a Kempis "work" is heavily
imbued with a sincere mysticism where the individual human spirit is
encouraged to seek to approach, and make progress towards, the Divine.>>
"Of two evils the less is always to be chosen."
"Happy they, who penetrate into internal things, and endeavour to
prepare themselves more and more by daily exercises for attaining
to heavenly secrets."
----------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.ukans.edu/kansas/medieval/108/lectures/margery.html
<<Margery Burnham Kempe(1373-post 1438) was the daughter of
John Burnham, five times mayor of the town of Lynn,
a flourishing town of Norfolk.
There is little remarkable about Margery's youth to be noted, except for
two things. The first is that, for some reason or another, she was not
taught to read. This was a normal accomplishment for a middle class girl
of the times, since society was becoming generally literate, at least
among the well to do. The second remarkable thing is something of which
we know little, since it was a secret sin, of which Margery would not
speak.
In 1393, Margery married John Kempe, a young merchant of the town, and a
member of the same Corpus Christi guild as her father. Marriages were
not exactly made in heaven at this time, but Margery and John seemed to
get along well together. He was understanding and kind, and Margery took
immense pleasure in physical love. This being the case, it was not
unusual that she quickly became pregnant. It is understandable that
after her first, difficult childbirth, with a period of personal illness
ensuing, and with a sickly child, Margery was somewhat disturbed.
Fearing death and an eternity of exactly the sort of thing she had been
experiencing -- pain without dignity or understanding -- she asked for a
confessor. She wanted to confess the sin of her youth which she had
never had the courage to mention before and of which she had never been
absolved. Perhaps the confessor had a headache, perhaps he was in a
hurry, in any case he had no sympathy with Margery, and began to bawl
her out even before she got to the big sin. He yelled so much that she
couldn't get to it. She broke. She tried to throw herself out of the
window, screamed, blasphemed, and struck out at all who approached. John
hired some keepers, who locked her in a storeroom. Here she bit through
the veins in her wrists. They then chained her to the bed, and she fell
to raving. She was kept tied up in the storeroom for eight months. One
day Margery looked up from her bed, and Jesus Christ was sitting there.
He said, "Daughter, why have you forsaken me when I never forsook you?"
and went back to Heaven.
This was not an unusual thing. The Church had for many years been
finding it more and more difficult to administer the sacraments in an
effective manner. The waves of plagues following the Great Plague of the
l340's, the administrative breakdown of the Church following the Great
Schism of 1378, and the increasing venality accompanying failing
discipline among clerics were causing many to seek a pathway to God
outside the sacraments. One of the more important such was the Oxford
professor of divinity, John Wycliffe, whose teachings laid the
foundation for the Lollard and Hussite movements. His convictions were
born out of study. Margery couldn't study, but she, too, had to find a
way out of a sacramental system that was supposed to be essential but
which offered her no help or comfort. Hence, Jesus Christ dropped in one
day for a chat.
The effect was miraculous. Margery was suddenly sane once again.
Although the keepers were upset, John saw and trusted her. He ordered
her unchained and gave her the keys to the storeroom where she had been
imprisoned. That night she sat down to supper once more mistress of her
own house. She plunged back into the secular world with great joy. She
bought new clothes, and became the town clothes-horse, she went into the
brewing business, and for two or three years became the biggest
beer-maker in town. Business declined, however, and she formed a horse
milling company. This too failed, however. These failure were the source
of some humiliation for Margery. Her failures could not be for lack of
business sense, since she was John Burnham's daughter and couldn't
possibly lack business sense. It might have been because she couldn't
read or write, but others had succeeded under such a handicap. It could
have been that she had to take time out to have her second, third,
fourth, fifth, and so forth child -- she had fourteen all told. This was
only natural for a woman, however, and Margery was not willing to admit
that was any disadvantage. She couldn't be just a housewife, was a
failure as an entrepreneur, and couldn't see what else she could do. It
was at this point that Jesus Christ dropped in again to mention that he
were prefer her to devote herself to his service. Margery found it hard
to understand why she had not thought of that herself.
Devotion to Christ at this time meant chastity, and Margery suggested to
John that they should start sleeping apart. John agreed that it would be
a good idea someday, but meanwhile the children kept coming. Margery
finally grew desperate, and one night when John was making amorous
advances, she screamed "Oh Dear Jesu Christ, Save me, Jesus!" A miracle
happened, and John didn't feel amorous any more. This chastity wasn't a
joke with Margery, and she found it difficult to keep up. Once she
slipped so far as to proposition a young man outside church. He ran
away, yelling that he would rather be cut up for the stewpot than sleep
with her. Margery asked God about it, and God told her that she had to
sin in order to have something to do penance for.
She began to attend church longer and more often, she began some
personal fasts (For some reason, her refusing herring and snapping up
pike seemed hilarious to people of her age and this story about her
became extremely popular), she began to chat with God more frequently.
Jesus, being only a boy somewhat younger than herself, gradually receded
into the background. Most important, she began to cry. Here she began to
encounter trouble, for seizures of this sort could either be the work of
God or of the devil, and opinion was split in Lynn. In addition, Henry
IV had succeeded Richard III and the Inquisition came to England.
Margery began to search for credentials in the eevent she had to defend
hersel against charges of demonic posession or the like. Finally, in
1413, Margery's chance for freedom came.
IV: Pilgrimage to Jerusalem. (1413-1414)
John Burham had died, and left Margery a substantial inheritance. At the
same time, Henry V had taken over and decided to renew the war with
France. Business was bad, and John Kempe had gone into debt. Times were
troubled and there were hints of a Lollard rebellion. At this point,
Margery told John that she would rather see him killed than ever again
yield to him. This time she had some bargaining power. John agreed to a
contract of chastity and that she should be her own woman, if she would
pay his debts. She agreed. First they went to the shrine of St. Thomas a
Becket in Canterbury. Now she could let herself go, and spent the whole
day moaning and crying full length at the shrine. The people were
amazed, and suspected her a being a Lollard, John fled to the hotel. At
a local Monastery, a monk challenged her, asking what she knew of God,
and she answered that she knew. The monk asked her to name his secret
sin, and she replied "Lechery." He was taken aback, and asked "With
single women or married." "Married," she replied, and he cried, "She is
a right holy woman!" Even so, she had to slip away from Canterbury with
a mob after her. It became clear to her that she needed unimpeachable
credentials. Especially since God had told her to wear a white dress.
She and John went to the Bishop of Lincoln. Phillip Repingdon, the
cultured bishop of Lincoln, had been a student of Wycliffe's and was now
very wary. He witnessed the contract between John and Margery, but told
her that she should go to the archbishop of Canterbury for permission to
wear white. She spent some time sermonizing at him, add he gave her
money "to further her pilgrimage" at least out of Lincoln. She now
embarked upon her great adventure: a pilgrimage to Rome and Jerusalem.
She passed through Constance, where they were busily preparing for the
council that would meet there during the coming year, reached Rome, and
visited all of the shrines and viewed all of the relics that the city
had to offer. She wept often and long, and seems to have been inwardly
pleased at the attention this sign of her special status attracted. One
might suppose that this was the result, in some complex psychological
way, of the long imprisonment and deep isolation she experienced during
her period of madness, but this is a modern point of view that might be
quite inappropriate for the circumstances of her times. This was an age
in which spectacular demonstrations of personal piety were relatively
common, for whatever reason. Juliana of Norwich had walled herself into
a small tower to isolate herself by brute physical means from the
outside world. Although she was generally available for conversation and
consultation with visitors and received meals through a slot in the
wall, her contemporaries saw no contradictions in these arrangements.
Flagellants formed long processions in which they marched along in pairs
with one person whipping his companion and, after a period of rest,
exchanging places with him (or her) and continuing the dreary rehearsal
of Jesus' way to the cross. Although such pious demonstrations required
considerable secular planning and management, and although the
participants were often moved to such penance during public festivals in
which they formed a major attraction, again their contemporaries found
little fault with these displays.
This is perhaps overstating the case. It could not have escaped the
notice of many that such displays were often carried out without
ecclesiastical sanction or direction. In fact, such manifestations of
personal piety implied that the individual lacked a conviction that the
sacraments and the established Church provided sufficient means of
salvation or avenues for penance. That being the case, those prone to
public displays often opened themselves to the suspicion that their
dissatisfaction with the Church may have gone deeper, perhaps as far
deep as actual heresy.
Margery gives no indication that she recognized that many observers of
her transports may have had serious misgivings of her orthodoxy. She
seemed blithely unaware that she was travelling alone through a world
teeming with Beguines and Beghards, Friends of God, Spiritual
Franciscans, Lollards, Hussites, and others for whom the execution block
and stake were never far away. She did know, and it bothered her
greatly, that many people suspected that she was merely putting on a
show to draw attention to herself. Then, too, there was always the
possibility, although she would scarcely admit this to herself, that the
God who was such a close friend of hers was merely one of those deceits
by which Satan snares the souls of the unwary and gullible, and drags
them off to Hell. This may have been what drove her to the sanctuaries
and shrines. Since ecclesiastical authorities would not reassure her and
accord her official license to wear white and weep, she may have hoped
that, in one of these holy places, before a crowd of on- lookers, God
would mark her in the sight of all with some unmistakable sign of His
grace. Or it may simply have been that, once having tasted it, she
enjoyed the adventure of travel and the excitement of new things to see.
In any event, her tour of the Holy Land seems merely to have whetted her
appetite. Much of her book is the story of her travels to various
English shrines, to Santiago de Compostella in Galicia, and to distant
Danzig. Finally, God suggested to her that it might be time to slow
down. She returned to Lynn, hired a lady who could write by dictation,
and settled down to record her life and preserve for future generations
how extraordinary that life had been.
I have heard it said that autobiographies provide a very poor reflection
of the times in which their authors lived, if only because the writers
of autobiographies are eccentrics. res ipse loquitur. On the other hand,
one must admit that the eccentrics are rarely boring.>>
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.luminarium.org/medlit/margery.htm
http://www.geocities.com/Wellesley/Garden/4594/margery.html
<<The Book of Margery Kempe, as stated in 'The Proem', was meant to
provide solace and inspiration to sinners, so that they might understand
the mercy of God. The treatise, then, is a witness describing the life
of a sinner, and the boundless charity and compassion of God to all of
His children. It focuses upon the trials and tribulations of its author
throughout her spiritual life, as well as in her attempts to get the
book written. It was not meant to be a theological treatise or a book of
revelations-Margery did not aim to teach, but to create a record of her
spiritual life.
However, the completion of such a task was somewhat problematic
for a woman such as Margery-for she was illiterate. Therefore,
she had to rely upon scribes to write her book for her,
while she dictated it to them. The scribe who originally wrote the
first book, described in the Proem as an Englishman who had lived much
of his life in Germany, created a text that "?was so evil-written that
he shewed little skill thereon, for it was neither good English nor
Dewch, nor were the letters shaped or formed as other letters were". It
is further stated in the Proem that this man had come to England with
his wife and belongings to live with Margery while he wrote her story.
Afterwards, he died. These circumstances have caused some speculation as
to the identity of the first scribe, for his story sounds very much like
that of Margery's son, who is described in Book Two. However, if this
were the case, one would think that Margery would be proud to tell us
that it was her son who helped her write the book, for it would further
credit her for his reformation. In addition, her son was only in England
for about a month before he died-hardly enough time to accomplish such a
large enterprise.
Regardless, Margery was obliged to find another scribe to rewrite Book
One and to finish her story. This second scribe, one Master Robert
Springold, was a priest who was well known to Margery, and likely one of
her confessors. He began this task of 'translation' in 1436, and
finished it two years later, at which point he wrote Book Two.
Throughout both books, he left traces of himself, as he would either
influence Margery's recollections, or insert his own commentaries on the
subject matter, or how he was involved in the situation being described.
An example of this is found in chapter 62 of The Book of Margery Kempe
in which the priest describes how the preaching of a friar had caused
him to turn his back on Margery. However, the Lord is credited for
drawing him back to her after the priest had read a book on St. Mary of
Oignies-another woman blessed with tears from God, and numerous other
treatises pertaining to holy weeping. In addition, God granted him tears
in Mass one day, so that he was finally convinced of Margery's
sincerity. It would therefore seem that the aforementioned priest had a
stake in the acceptance and credibility of Margery's book, as well as in
the fact that he helped her with it. Thus, he seemed to be just as
concerned for his career and reputation as he was for Margery's soul.
The fact that the scribes obviously played a rather large part in the
compilation of events described in the book, by encouraging Margery to
remember, in addition to their commentaries, often raises questions
concerning the authorship of the book. Lynn Staley has even suggested
that the scribe may have been used as a literary device-in other words,
he never really existed. In such circumstances, Margery would have
written the book herself. The alternative is that the scribes did in
fact write the book while under close supervision. In order to maintain
control of the text, and to assure her authorship, Margery would have
constantly had the scribes read the text back to her.
Yet, the priest's proem confirms Margery's authority as the author of
the book, for he attests to the veracity of the account, and to his role
in its formulation. Nevertheless, the entire Book of Margery Kempe is
permeated with a search for the establishment of her authority-both as
author and as mystic. This would prove to be an extremely difficult
thing for an illiterate woman to do in the Middle Ages. However, her
methods of doing so are quite ingenious. To begin with, the fact that
her second scribe is a priest helps to create a sense that what she is
writing is orthodox and accepted by the church. His involvement in the
book legitimizes her claims to mysticism and her professions to speaking
with God. For female mystics could not speak as themselves, but only as
mediums through which God spoke-they were only able to disclose what had
been divinely revealed to them. Therefore the source of Margery's
knowledge was an important issue for if it was not inspired by God, it
was considered a message from the devil. It was for this reason that
Margery spent much of her time consulting with clerics, confessors,
spiritual doctors and specialists in order to verify the authenticity of
her revelations. Their confirmation that these were truly derived from
God replaced the kind of authority that was unattainable to Margery and
that most medieval texts relied upon, that is, other textual
authorities. In addition, she used the writings concerning women of
biblical authorities, such as St. Paul and St. Jerome, to justify her
behaviour. In the beginning of her book, Margery portrays herself as the
epitome of the proud and ambitious woman whom the saints condemn. Her
conversion, however, turns this portrayal upside-down.
Due to Margery's constant portrayal of herself and her omnipresent
personality, The Book of Margery Kempe has frequently been ascribed the
status of the first autobiography. However, this classification can
prove troublesome, for the book is written in the third person,
recounting various events in the life of 'this creature'-a common term
used in the Medieval tradition to denote a sinner. Furthermore, the
protagonist, or primary agent, in the book is not so much Margery, as it
is God. Finally, the book does not follow the typical format of an
autobiography whereby it begins with the birth and childhood of the
subject.
Other genres for The Book of Margery Kempe have been suggested. One of
these is a travel book because it goes into detail as to the events that
occurred on Margery's numerous pilgrimages. Another, is a memoir because
it relies upon the recollections of the author. Finally, it has been
suggested that the book most fits into the genre of a biography in which
the author, Margery Kempe, is writing about some exemplary
personage-herself. Its manner of prose, because it was dictated,
possesses a storytelling quality, and because Margery distances herself
from the subject matter by using the third person, the book comes off
almost as a fiction. As stated in the preface, the events that are
recounted are not in chronological order, "?but as the creature could
have mind of them?". Thus, this adds to its oral, or anecdotal quality.
During the 14th century, England had no real tradition of female
spirituality in which women held prominent public or prophetic roles.
However, it did have a legacy of nuns and anchoresses. These women were
an important element in Medieval English piety as is evidenced by the
numerous rules that were written for them to follow, for example, the
Ancrene Riwle. These described the ideal behaviour for holy women in
which they were supposed to be quiet, enclosed, hardworking, and humble.
One such woman was Julian of Norwich, whom Margery visited upon one of
her pilgrimages.
The various stories and accounts of female saints and religious women,
who succeeded to live in the world as opposed to outside of it, provided
great inspiration to women such as Margery Kempe. One of these
inspirational women was Birgitta of Sweden. Like Margery, she had also
been married and borne numerous children. She wore a hair shirt, fasted,
kept vigils, and prayed long hours-and she eventually obtained a vow of
chastity from her husband. She went on many pilgrimages and received
numerous revelations and visions from God. Many of the locations she
visited and the visions she received were very similar to those
experienced by Margery, and it has been considered a possibility that
the latter was intentionally tracing the footsteps of Birgitta. Margery
made efforts to go and see various sites in Rome that had been important
in the saint's life, and to stop by an abbey founded by her in Syon.
Essentially, Birgitta, canonized St. Bridget, was the personification of
what Margery wanted to be. A married woman who, through a vow of
chastity, had her virginity and sanctity restored and miraculously
became a nun who founded her own order-the Birgittines. Thus, because of
their similar circumstances, and the significant coincidence that
Birgitta had died the year Margery was born-a point of convergence for
the two women-Margery seemed to see herself as the heiress to Birgitta's
spiritual heritage. This is illustrated in chapter 20, where the Lord
told Margery, "For I tell thee forsooth, right as I spoke to Saint
Bride, right so I speak to thee, daughter, and I tell thee truly that it
is true, every word that is written in Bride's book, and by thee it
shall be known for very truth". It is therefore possible to see how
Margery saw Christ as speaking to both herself and to Birgitta (Bride)
in much the same way. Furthermore, Christ claims that Margery will prove
all the revelations received and recorded by Birgitta, demonstrating the
bond that Margery felt connected herself to the saint.
Other women who provided inspiration to Margery, as well as
justification for her form of mysticism and tears, included Marie
d'Oignies, Dorothy of Montau, and Angela of Foligno. All of these women
had been married, and fought to obtain vows of chastity. In addition,
they all won substantial degrees of freedom for their religious
expression, including (although not inclusively) wearing white clothes,
having weekly communion, and participating in pilgrimages. In addition,
they all shared Margery's habit of tears and of emphasizing these as
evidence for their sanctity. The second scribe of The Book of Margery
Kempe admits that his discovery of the treatise discussing the tears and
outbursts of compassion of Marie d'Oignies caused him to accept
Margery's own cries and weeping as a divine gift. The scribe of Angela
of Foligno fittingly described the situation in which all of these lay
women found themselves:
God Himself hath raised up a woman of the secular state, bound
to the world, entangled by ties to husband and children and riches,
simple in knowledge, weak in strength, but who, by the power of
God?hath broken the chains of the world, and mounted up to the
summit of evangelical perfection.
In addition to these female mystics, Margery had further justification
for her crying in the tradition of holy tears that existed in
Christianity. Medieval Christians had invented the image of the 'tears
of the virgin' to go with that of her weeping at the foot of the cross
and while holding the crucified Christ. They also saw Mary Magdalene as
being redeemed by her tears. Tears were also considered to be connected
to prayer. The Rule of St. Benedict established the relationship of
tears and prayer-they were actively sought and welcome to God. A mass
dedicated to tears in the Sarum Missal contained the following prayer:
All-powerful and merciful God, who brought forth a spring of
living water from the earth for the thirsting people, draw forth
tears of compunction from the hardness of our hearts, so that we
may be able to grieve for our sins and merit receiving their
remission from your pity.
Margery thus had a multitude of sources to draw upon to defend the
validity and the sincerity of her weeping. However, it just so happened
that during Margery's time, such a form of devotion and mysticism was
held to be of less value than others. There was a great emphasis upon
the 'negative' or 'Dionysian' form of mysticism, whereby holy persons
would empty their minds and strip away their ability to feel bodily
sensations, so that their souls became open to receive the word of God.
Thus, most male hagiographers and religious writers focused upon, and
inevitably placed more value upon, the suffering experienced in order to
commune with God. An example of this would be the renown of the anguish
and self-inflicted pain of Saint Catherine of Siena. Any mystic who did
not suffer such pain, and who's knowledge of God came through 'mere'
meditation, was considered less authentic and their visions given less
credibility.
The Book of Margery Kempe remained almost totally unknown for the next
five hundred years and the book as a whole has only survived into
modernity as a sole 15th century manuscript. The manuscript is an early
copy. This is known due to the perfect consistency of the spelling,
style, and vocabulary, which implies that the copyist was faithful to
the original and that he shared the language of the scribe. In addition,
the handwriting and the paper date to the mid 15th century. Taking into
consideration the fact that the second scribe only began Book Two in
1438, this is evidence enough that the surviving copy was not made long
after the original. Included in the manuscript is the name of the
copyist-Salthows-as well as four sets of markings, containing
corrections and comments. This suggests that The Book of Margery Kempe
was sufficiently interesting and valuable as a source of information to
have been perused in depth and annotated. The manuscript had belonged to
Mount Grace, a Carthusian monastery in Northern Yorkshire and was
rediscovered in the library of Colonel William Erdeswick Ignatius
Butler-Bowden in 1934.
The Book of Margery Kempe also exists in an abridged version printed in
London in 1501 by one of the foremost printers of the time, Wynkyn de
Worde. It consisted of a seven page pamphlet called "A shorte treatyse
of contemplacyon" in which various extracts from the original were
pieced together to form a coherent text on the colloquies held between
Margery and Christ. It is improbable that Wynkyn de Worde made the
abridged version himself, for there is no evidence that he ever partook
in such detailed editing-but that it became available to him. This
pamphlet was later reprinted by Henry Pepwell in 1521 in a collection of
mystical writings. From this time onwards, through the diffusion of
these two texts, Margery was mistakenly identified as a 'devout
anchoress from Lynn'.
The rediscovery of The Book of Margery Kempe provided Margery with as
many critics in the 20th century as she had encountered in her lifetime.
Throughout her account, Margery is very blunt in relating and describing
the contempt and scorn that she received from others. Most of these
condemnations came from her own countrymen and especially from her very
own townspeople of Lynn. For example, in Lambeth a woman in a furred
cloak cursed at Margery and told her "I would thou wert in Smithfield,
and I would bring a faggot to burn thee with. It is a pity thou art
alive", and in Lynn many claimed that she was a hypocrite and that she
had devils within her. Furthermore, her fellow pilgrims did her much
shame and much reproof as they went. They cut her gown so short that it
came but little beneath her knee, and made her put on a white canvas, in
the manner of a sacken apron, so that she should be held a fool and the
people should not make much of her or hold her in repute. They made her
sit at the table's end, below all the others, so that she ill durst
speak a word.
It seems likely that most of Margery's contemporaries considered her to
be a hypocrite because they had difficulty in reconciling her former
worldly ways with the fact of her conversion and subsequent renunciation
of those ways.
And they that knew her behaviour beforetime, and now heard
her speaking so much of the bliss of Heaven, said to her:-
'Why speak ye so of the mirth that is in Heaven? Ye know it
not, and ye have not been there, any more than we.'
And were wroth with her, for she would not hear nor speak
of worldly things as they did, and as she did beforetime.
Her rejection of worldliness was also a rejection of what most of the
townspeople held dear. Margery's new way of life questioned the material
values of the society, as well as the public norms that governed
behaviour. Instead of acting in accordance to the dictates of society,
she followed what God instructed her to do, and thus placed God's
approval above that of the townspeople. This was also contrary to the
conduct of most of the population who were more concerned with public
opinion and appearances. In addition Margery challenged the traditional
roles deemed acceptable to women, and therefore may have caused many
townswomen to question their own values and thus scorn Margery for
causing them to do so.
The Church tried to maintain a monopoly over religious treatises.
However, mystics challenged the role of the Church and clergy as the
communicators and transmitters of God because they claimed a direct
communication that bypassed the services and sacraments of the Church.
Furthermore, many mystics began to write down their revelations, and to
do so in the vernacular, and thus reached a much larger part of the
increasingly literate populace. This threat to Church authority made
mystics such as Margery Kempe vulnerable to charges of heresy. This was
an especially dangerous time in England for there was a large Lollard
threat. Lollard's permitted preaching by women, therefore female mystics
who were outspoken such as Margery, were particularly susceptible to
charges. Margery herself was accused, arrested and charged for Lollardy
several times. The fact that her former parish priest, William Sawtree,
from Saint Margaret's was burned for Lollardy made her especially
suspect.
Margery, an illiterate woman, managed to author a book based on her
spiritual life and experiences. This book, while not an extremely
popular or well-known source, managed to survive into the 20th century
through a single manuscript and introduced us to the real Margery Kempe.
A woman who faced much diversity in her life, but who also managed to
break down some of the barriers that existed in medieval society.
Posterity owes much to Margery for leaving a little of herself behind
for us to discover. The Book of Margery Kempe provides us with an
atypical look at the medieval world. Instead of the customary educated
male religious or upper class view, we have an alternate perspective-one
from a unique, middle class, uneducated woman, who achieved piety
despite her married and lay status.>>
------------------------------------------------------------
<<Margery Kempe's spiritual biography is often called the first
autobiography in English. A married woman who attempted to live a life
devoted to Christ, Margery sought official Church recognition for her
status as a spiritual woman and mystic, while continuing to live and
travel in the secular world. She experienced intense emotional visionary
encounters with Christ, which have at times a strikingly homely quality.
Her Book, dictated by her to a scribe, records these visions as well as
her travels in Europe and pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Her particular
spiritual trial, according to her Book, was to be misrepresented,
persecuted, and rejected by many of her clerical and lay peers. The
recording of her spiritual life, despite severe difficulties and her own
illiteracy, became a symbolic act in itself, representing both her claim
to spiritual status and evidence of her special relationship with God.
Rich in detail about the people and places Margery encountered, the Book
is a rich and fascinating record of life in turbulent early 15th century
England.
ST. BRIDGET OF SWEDEN The Book of Margery Kempe,
chapters 17, 20, 58, - "St. Bride's Book"
St. Bridget of Sweden was born in 1303 and died on July 23rd, 1373. Her
father, Birger, was the royal prince of Sweden and her mother, Ingeborg,
was a very pious woman. She received attentive religious training from a
young age and liked to meditate on the Passion of Christ. In 1316, at
age thirteen, she was married to Ulf Gudmarsson, who was eighteen. St.
Bridget and her husband had eight children, the youngest of whom later
became St. Catherine of Sweden.
After her children were born, St. Bridget and her husband made a vow of
chastity. In 1341, she and her husband made a pilgrimage to Santiago de
Compostela. Her husband died in 1344 and thereafter St. Bridget devoted
herself entirely to her religion. Her visions became much more frequent.
She believed that Christ appeared to her and she wrote down her many
revelations. She compiled her revelations into a book, which was later
translated into Latin and into verncaular languages. Well known in
England by the 15th century, Bridget's devotional writings greatly
influenced Margery Kempe?s spirituality. Margery has a vision of the
sacrament fluttering in the priest's hands at the moment elevation and
hears Christ say to her that "Bridget never saw me in this way" ( Chap.
20, lines 1078-1086).
Bridget journeyed to Rome in 1349 and remained there until her death.
While living in Rome, she made several pilgrimages, among them one to
the Holy Land in 1373. St. Bridget was canonized in October 1391 and her
feast day is July 23rd. She is the patron saint of Sweden. She is also
known as St. Birgitta, and to the English, as St. Bride. St. Bridget
founded an order of nuns, the Bridgittines. Syon Abbey, a Bridgittine
house founded by Henry V on the outskirts of London was probably the
most distinguished center of female piety in late-medieval England.
BRIDGET'S VISION OF THE CRUCIFIXION
The Vision Lady Birgitta saw in Jerusalem in the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre, in the chapel of Mount Calvary, on the Friday after the
octave of the Ascension of the Lord, when, caught up in spirit, she saw
the whole passion of the Lord in painstaking detail.
. . . .He ascended gladly like a meek lamb led to the slaughter (and)
extended his arms and opened his right hand and placed it on the cross.
Those savage torturers monstrously crucified it, piercing it with a nail
through that part where the bone was more solid. And then with a rope,
they pulled violently on his left hand and fastened it to the cross in
the same manner. Finally they extended his body on the cross beyond all
measure; and placing one of his shins on top of the other the fastened
to the cross his feet, thus joined, with two nails? Then the crown of
thorns, which they had removed from his head when he was being crucified
they now put back, fitting it onto his most holy head. It pierced his
awesome head with such force that then and there his eyes were filled
with flowing blood ad his ears were obstructed. . . . And as I, filled
with sorrow, gazed at their cruelty, I then saw his most mournful Mother
lying on the earth, as if trembling and half dead. She was being
consoled by John and by those others, her sisters, who were then
standing not far from the cross on the right side. Then the new sorrow
of the compassion of that most holy Mother so transfixed me that I felt,
as it were, that a sharp sword of unbearable bitterness was piecing my
heart.
BRIDGET'S VISION OF THE NATIVITY
St. Bridgit's writings had a profound and lasting impact on 15th century
Renaissance painting in the depiction of the Nativity. Gentile da
Fabriano's Adoration of the Magi, 1423 (Uffizi, Florence) Giovanni di
Paolo's Nativity, 1470s (Vatican Museums, Rome), and Hugo van der Goes's
Portinari Altarpiece, 1475 (Uffizi, Florence), among many others, all
follow Bridget's account of the Nativity. She described seeing Mary
give birth as if light passed through her body. Joseph has brought Mary
a candle since the birth was at night. With the birth, however, the
Infant was bathed in a divine light that overwhelmed the material light
of the candle. Bridget wrote:
Her (Mary's) back was turned against the manger. Verily though all of a
sudden, I saw the glorious Infant lying on the ground naked and shining
. . . Then I heard also the singing of the angels, which was of
miraculous sweetness and great beauty . . . When therefore the Virgin
felt that she had already born her Child, she immediately worshipped
him, her head bent down and her hands clasped, with great honor and
reverence and said to him: Be welcome my God, my Lord, and my Son.>>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer
Art Neuendorffer
>>>>> The mere fact that Matus could write an entire book
>>> Neuendorffer wrote:
>>
>>>> You call that "an entire book?"
>>David L. Webb wrote:
>>
>>> Your allusion to the "thin little monograph" of
>>>Matus suggests that you're grousing about the book's length; if so,
>>>bear in mind that lunatics often write unreadable 800-page expositions
>>>of their favorite crackpot theories (Ogburn is a salient example),
>>>while the sane are aware of a point of diminishing returns.
>Neuendorffer wrote:
>> Stratfordians are aware of diminishing returns of actually
>>arguing their case as opposed to patting each other on the back
>>and making ad hominem remarks about anti-Strats.
David L. Webb wrote:
> Matus refutes what most Oxfordians take to be "important" points
> by exploding myths and placing facts in their proper context.
He helps to explode a few Shakespeare scholar myths as well:
<<In his _Shakespeare and the Stationers_, Leo Kirschbaum states that
"The chief event of 1619 from the viewpoint of the battle between the
players and the stationers was the printing of the so-called '1619
quartos' by William Jaggard." This assumption regarding the publication
of ten plays attributed to Shakespeare in that year has gone
unquestioned by Shakespeare scholars. . .>> Matus p.110
--------------------------------------------------------------------
_Susan Vere, William Jaggard and the 1623 Shakespeare Folio_
by Roger Stritmatter (©1998)
http://www.everreader.com/1619dedi.htm
<<In 1619, two years before the publication of the folio
began (during the summer of 1621), the Jaggard firm, working in
collaboration with Thomas Pavier, published a series of seven
Shakespearean and pseudo-Shakespearean quartos. This series of plays,
known collectively as the Pavier quartos after the name of the printer
Thomas Pavier, included quartos of 2 & 3 Henry VI, Henry V,
Pericles, Merchant of Venice, Merry Wives of Windsor and A Midsummer
Nights Dream. For reasons not well understood, as William J. Neidig
documented in a remarkable 1910 article in Modern Philology,
three of these plays were falsely backdated to 1600 or 1608.>>
--------------------------------------------------------------------
<<Neidig found that the title page of _Pericles_ and of _A Yorkshire
Tragedy_ were printed on separate sheets, and that the one for the
latter was printed first. He next found that only the type for the title
material on the _Pericles_ was removed, leaving in place "Written by W.
SHakespeare," the printer's device and the imprint. It was into this
setup that Jaggard placed the type for _The Merchant of Venice_title,
while "J. Roberts" was tightly set in place of "T. P." and two zeros
were put in place of the "19" in the year.>> -- Matus p.112
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Isn't it amazing what a little sleuthing can accomplish
in demolishing the standard tenents of literary history.
>>David L. Webb wrote:
>>
>>> Even so,
>>> Matus's books runs to 331 pages, which easily outstrips
>>> the 272 pages of Michell's silly _Who Wrote Shakespeare?_
>>> by which you profess to set such store.
>Neuendorffer wrote:
>> Michell at least says something in his 272 pages.
David L. Webb wrote:
> Evidently you haven't even read the book, Art. Michell is
> completely *noncommital* concerning the answer to the VERy question
> that furnishes the title of his book, _Who Wrote Shakespeare?_. In the
> final section where one expects to find conclusions, he draws none.
It's OK to give lots of relevant evidence and then come to no
conclusive final conclusion (other than that no one can really
say for sure who wrote the works) as Michell does.
It's not OK to come to a conclusion and then give very little
(if any) supporting evidence for that conlusion as Matus does.
>>>>David L. Webb wrote:
>>>
>>>>>exploding myth after myth from Ogburn ought to be a tip-off (to
>>>>>those with IQs requiring at least two digits to express in decimal
>>>>>notation, at any rate) of the quality of "scholarship" to be found
>>>>>in Ogburn's tome -- and the elder Ogburns are far funnier still.
>>>>
>>>Neuendorffer wrote:
>>
>>>>The mere fact that Matus wrote *absolutely nothing* that either
>>>> Strats find worth repeating
>>>
>>David L. Webb wrote:
>>> Huh?! What are you gibbering about? Many people have quoted Matus
>>>in refuting imbecilic Oxfordian "arguments" in this VERy forum! You
>>>must not be paying VERy close attention, Art.
>Neuendorffer wrote:
>> Tell me one important argument involving Matus.
>
David L. Webb wrote:
> I don't pretend to know of any argument *you* consider important,
> because as already noted, what *you* consider important the saner
> Oxfordians (an amusing OXyMORON) won't even touch with a ten-foot pole.
I doubt that I would want to be touched with a ten-foot pole.
> HoweVER, if you want an example
> of an issue that most Oxfordians consider important, Matus explodes
> the ridiculous Oxfordian myth that Shakespeare could have invoked some
> vague (nonexistent) intellectual property rights to forestall pirated
> editions of his works, as well as to prevent apocryphal works being
> wrongly attributed to him. As Matus shows decisively, rights such as
> many Oxfordians merely invent did not exist in the sixteenth century.
Matus states very clearly that it was *first come, first serve*
at obtaining rights of publication at the Stationer's Registery.
Therefore, whether he was author or not, Shakspere could have
obtained publication rights on all those plays (which he should
have retained written copies of) not registered as of his death:
----------------------------------------------------------------
Registration after April 23, 1616
----------------------------------------------------------------
OS/NS
-------
Sa./We. Oct. 6, 1621 Othello, Moore of Venice registered
Sa./We. Nov. 8, 1623 All the rest: "The Twelfth Night."
"Two Gentlemen of Verona."
"I Henry VI."
"Comedy of Errors."
"Julius Caesar."
"All's Well That Ends Well."
"Measure For Measure."
"Macbeth."
"Anthony and Cleaopatra."
"Coriolanus."
"Timon of Athens."
"Cymbeline."
"The Winter's Tale."
"The Tempest."
"Henry VIII."
"As You Like It."
Tu./Sat. Apr. 8, 1634 The Two Noble Kinsmen registered
-------------------------------------------------------------
But since he was illiterate he probably didn't have written copies.
Art Neuendorffer
Art Neuendorffer
>>
>>>> These 500 Stratfordians apparently have
>>>> nothing whatever to say about the fact that:
>>>>
>>>> Shakespeare's will was a business man's will that itemized bowls
>>>> & 2nd best beds but said *absolutely nothing* about his life's
>>>> great literary achievements.
>>David L. Webb wrote:
>>
>>> As has been pointed out to you countless times, Art,
>>> Shakespeare did not own "his life's great literary achievements."
----------------------------------------------------------------
Matus states very clearly that it was *first come, first serve*
for obtaining rights of publication at the Stationer's Registery.
> Neuendorffer wrote:
>><<Neuendorffer has taken a basket of ideas to HLAS to post. While there,
>>the Goon Squad passes by, and the cry goes out, "Hats off to Stratford
>>upon Avon!" When Neuendorffer refuses to comply, Dave Webb glares at
>>him.
David L. Webb wrote:
> I've almost neVER "glared" at you, Art -- how could I glare at
> anyone whose posts constitute such a rich font of merriment? In fact,
> I can recall only two posts of yours to which I've reacted with
> annoyance rather than with robust laughter:
>
> (1) Your cretinous suggestion that Nabokov, of all people was
> antisemitic (which is roughly tantamount to claiming that
> Mohandas Gandhi was a warmonger),
Well, Nabokov was a rabid anti-dentite, then.
David L. Webb wrote:
> (2) Your imbecilic post announcing the supposed demise of the
> distinguished historian Peter Gay on the basis of information that
> someone by that name had perished, without regard to the fact that the
> victim was identified as a Raytheon plant manager some two decades
> younger than the historian.
The report of Peter Gay's death was only slightly exaggerated.
<<Mistaken publications of obituaries aren't as rare as one might
expect. A recent example is of Dave Swarbrick, the British folk/rock
violinist, who was killed off mistakenly by the Daily Telegraph in April
1999 when they reported that his visit to hospital in Coventry had
resulted in his death. He did at least get the opportunity to read a
rather favourable account of his life, not something we all get to do,
and to deliver the gag "It's not the first time I have died in Coventry".>>
> Neuendorffer wrote:
>>But there is always a new & better idea in Neuendorffer's head,
>> even though he has just posted one!
David L. Webb wrote:
> Then why does aneuendor...@comicass.nut keep posting
> the SAME idiocies oVER and oVER and oVER?
Because no one appreciated the genius of Neuendorffer's old ideas.
> Neuendorffer wrote:
>>The captain of the Goon Squad grabs
>>Neuendorffer and takes him the white tower of Dartmouth, where the Webb
>>gets more & more angry. More & more ingenious ideas keep appearing;
>>soon, Brigadier Corporal Bob Grumman, Keeper of HLAS Records, indicates
>>there are hundreds. Webb tries everything he can think of, including
>>calling on Greg Reynolds {the royal hat maker}, his wise men (Kathman &
>>Ross), musicians, magicians, his nephew the Grand Duke Tom Veal, bowmen,
>>and even the executioner. But even the executioner cannot stop
>>Neuendorffer from posting. Major Reedy offers to kill Neuendorffer
>> by throwing him off the top of the academic white tower.
David L. Webb wrote:
> Your impersonation of a paranoid moron is spot-on, Art.
Major Tom sure sounds pretty threatening to me:
<<Mr. Grumman's withdrawal from this thread is completely
voluntary, despite your thinly-veiled allegation to the
contrary. Mr. Grumman came to that decision entirely on
his own, without any persuasion from outside
influences. Other interested parties agree he made the
he made the correct choice. Any further communication
on this matter must be addressed to me.
I would suggest you follow "Bob's" example
and discontinue your inquiry.>>
> Neuendorffer wrote:
>> But a strange thing happens along the way,
>> and Neuendorffer is finally believed and
>> richly rewarded with a book contract!
David L. Webb wrote:
> Haven't I encouraged you *numerous times* to write a book, Art?
I'm waiting for some evidence that I am "finally believed."
>>> Neuendorffer wrote:
>>
>>>> Art himself is an expert in mathematic [sic] & physics.
>
>>David L. Webb wrote:
>>
>>> There is only one possible response, Art:
>>> HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
>
> Neuendorffer wrote:
>> In 1967 I got a perfect 900 score on my Physics G.R.E.
David L. Webb wrote:
> I don't doubt it, Art -- but in 1967 you may actually have been
> sane, and in any case the Physics GRE is, as the name suggests, a test
> of physics, not a test of mathematics (duh!).
I was starting to write mathematical physics above; however,
I agree with Landau that the only important mathematics
is that associated with mathematical physics.
David L. Webb wrote:
> Your pronouncement concerning the number 19 is quite sufficient.
The importance of 19 is involves the Metonic cycle and the Quran.
And that like 7 & 37 it is the difference of 2 consecutive cubes.
David L. Webb wrote:
> In fact, your
> pronouncement concerning Peter Gay is also indicative of farcical
> mathematical incompetence -- you appear to be unaware
> of the existence of cardinal numbers exceeding one!
I am aware of my approximate falliability: about 40% on average.
>>David L. Webb wrote:
>>
>>>The demonstrations of farcical mathematical incompetence exhibited by
>>> your Quantitatively Clueless Cretin persona have been a source of
>>> unbounded mirth almost since the group's inception. Perhaps the
>>> funniest was your triumphant announcement that the number 19 is
>>> remarkable in being both the sum of two conseuctive integers & the
>>> difference of their squares, although the nutcase numerology
>>> accompanying that prounouncement was also priceless.
> Neuendorffer wrote:
>> Do you mean conseductive or consecutive integers?
David L. Webb wrote:
> "Consecutive," Art; as you noted, I transposed two letters
> while typing -- thank you for correcting it.
Thank you for correcting my mistake about Peter Gay
and my over hasty initial post on the importance of 19.
> Neuendorffer wrote:
>> Perhaps you occasionally post something in haste
>> that you didn't intend?
> All the time! As I've said before, I don't know how to touch-type,
> so my typing is wildly erratic and inaccurate. Fortunately, my errors
> rarely display etymological cluelessness (they are not "illiteration
> studies").
You don't know how to touch-type!!! How sad. :-(
> Neuendorffer wrote:
>> Are we to judge your intelligence primarily
>> on the number of inadvertent mistakes you make?
David L. Webb wrote:
> Your pronouncement on the number 19 was certainly (or, since I can't
> type accurately, "cretinly") not a mere typo, Art -- it was one of the
> centerpieces of your "argument," along with a bunch of numerology.
I was simply doing a cut & paste on the number 19.
I appreciate it that you were the first person to actually read this
material and point out this obvious math error since I myself was
too busy with other ideas at the time.
It is a pity that you can't find flaws in the important material that
I actually do post oVER and oVER and oVER. Since that stuff is about
90% correct it could use some careful analysis.
David L. Webb wrote:
> In any case, nobody is judging *your* intelligence, Art, only that
> of the moron whom you impersonate so deftly in your h.l.a.s. trolling.
I don't imitate a moron, Dave, I attempt to converse with him.
David L. Webb wrote:
> As I've said many times, you are clearly VERy intelligent, so much so
> that even your determined efforts to parody the drivel of an utter
> idiot are not entirely successful -- the mask often slips.
The drivel of an utter idiot: Shakspere's will.
Art Neuendorffer
Thomas C Lay
snip
: > No, Art; you're confusing the Freemasons with the Order of Odd
: > Fellows, of which I always assumed that you were at least
: > an honorary member.
: No, I'm odd man out.
No, Art, that was James MASON.
[snip]
Tom
Art Neuendorffer
> : > No, Art; you're confusing the Freemasons with the Order of Odd
> : > Fellows, of which I always assumed that you were at least
> : > an honorary member.
>
> : No, I'm odd man out.
Thomas C Lay wrote:
> No, Art, that was James MASON.
<<Odd Man Out recounts the last few hours in the life of Oxfordian Art
Neuendorffer on the run after being wounded in a disastrous authorship
debate. Art roams the streets of HLAS one step ahead of the Goon Squad
until he is finally gunned down. Despite its setting, the film is more
concerned with the metaphysical and moral dimensions of Art's plight
than with the politics of Oxfordianism.>>
Art Neuendorffer as Odd man out
James Mason as Johnny McQueen
Robert Newton as Lukey
Cyril Cusack as Pat
Peter Judge as Shell
William Hartnell as Fencie:the barman
Fay Compton as Rosie
Denis O'Dea as Inspector
W.G. Fay as Father Tom
Maureen Delaney as Theresa OBrien
Elwyn Brook-Jones as Tober
Robert Beatty as Dennis
Dan O'Herlihy as Nolan
Kitty Kirwan as Grannie
Beryl Measor as Maudie
Roy Irving as Murphy
lyra
I always liked the idea that
Byron, if he signed his poems like that,
would seem to be saying they were written
*by Ron*...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"We'll e'en to't, like French falconers..."
lyra
lyra
> Christian Lanciai wrote:
> > Mark Hansen wrote:
> > > >
> > > > The fact remains, that Shakespeare in his will does not mention one
> > > > single book, although books were priceless in his days. Nor is there
> > > > any indication that Shakespeare ever had any access to any library of
> > > > that sort which the Canon would imply intimacy with.
> > > >
> > > > Chris
> > >
> > >
> > > because, my sources tell me,
> > > most of his books were in London,
> > > where he worked, and wrote
> > >
> > > they may be priceless today, but not then;
> > > expensive, yes
> > >
> > > Mark
> >
> >
> > Tom, Mark and Mark,
> >
> > Your arguments are quite appropriate, there is nothing wrong with
> > them, you have answered well, but isn't it odd, that Shakspere, who
> > according to his first biographer went home to Stratford to write his
> > works in summertime, since he had no spare time in the theatres of
> > London, and who spent his last three years at home in Stratford, left
> > no book at all, not even an old torn copy of Plutarch, from which he
> > got so many excellent plays and which he must have read most
> > meticulously, and not even any Bible, which he quoted all his life and
> > therefore must have read all his life, to bequeath at least to his
> > stepson, who seems to have been the only person in his family who at
> > least could read something... nor any collection of manuscripts or
> > letters... For surely he would not have left such favourite books of
> > universal value like the Bible, Plutarch and Ovid behind him in
> > London, when he had nothing to do in his old age at Stratford but to
> > read....
> >
> > Chris
>
>
> a) How do we know that he only wrote in the summertime?
> b) I recall reading somewhere that he showed up in London a few
> of times during those last three years where he was supposedly
> cooped up in Stratford.
> c) I have a lot of paperbacks but nothing really valuable, so I wouldn't
> necessarily mention them in a testament - I'd tell my family they could
> have them. The manuscripts were with his acting friends, presumably.
> d) How do you know he had nothing else to do but read in his "old age"
> at Stratford? The man had orchards, buildings and land - and family
> and friends. I doubt he was holed up in his bedroom reading.
>
> A testament is written up usually to ensure that property and financial
> settlements are disposed of correctly. All matters concerning the theatre
> were in the hands of his fellow actors. That some of those actors were
> his good friends is shown by the fact that he left them money for rings.
>
> What about Oxford, Bacon and Marlowe's testaments?
>
> Roundtable
>
> http://roundtable.iwarp.com
If only we could find Marlowe's will!...
if he *had* died at 29, I guess he wouldn't
have got around to making one...
on the other hand, if he died later,
it would have to be under another name
anyway...
Art Neuendorffer
>>>>>>>I am reading "Daughter of the South" by Darden A. Pyron.
>>>>David L. Webb wrote:
>>>
>>>>> Note that phony-sounding given name "Darden," Art -- surely it must
>>>>>be a fake. Indeed, "Darden" is obviously "D'Arden," intimating a
>>>>>relationship with Shakespeare's mother, who was an Arden.
> Art Neuendorffer wrote:
>
>>>> Note that phony-sounding Suriname "Pyron," Dave.
>>>>
>>>> Indeed, "Pyron" transforms easily into: "Byron"/"Bacon."
>> David L. Webb wrote:
>>> Bacon?!
> Art Neuendorffer wrote:
>>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> ByrON born: Tuesday 22 January, 1788
>> BacON born: Wednesday 22 January, 1561
>>
>> ByrON's _Parisina_ published 22 January, 1816
>> Cervantes' _Persiles_ dedication to "We READ" LEMOS 19 April, 1616
>>
>> ByrON mortally chilled by rain: 9 April, 1824
>> ByrON dies a day after EASTER: 19 April, 1824
>>
>> BacON dies from snow chill: EASTER Sunday: 9 April, 1626
>> [Gregorian] : a week after EASTER: 19 April, 1626
>>
>> ByrON's daughter ALLEGRA dies: 19 April, 1822
>>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Dante Gabriel Rossetti dies: EASTER Sunday 9 April, 1882
>> Charles Darwin dies: Wednesday 19 April, 1882
>> Halley's comet within .09 AU of earth: Wednesday 19 April, 607
>>
>> Francois Rabelais dies: Sunday 9 April, 1553
>> ByrON's daughter ALLEGRA dies: 19 April, 1822
>>---------------------------------------------------------------------
lyra wrote:
> I always liked the idea that
> Byron, if he signed his poems like that,
> would seem to be saying they were written
> *by Ron*...
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/pshelley.htm
<<In 1822 the Shelley household, which now included Jane and Edward
Williams, moved to the Bay of Lerici. There Shelley began to write THE
TRIUMPH OF LIFE. To welcome his friend Leigh Hunt, he sailed to Leghorn.
As much as he was near and on the water Shelley never learned to swim or
navigate. He also forecasted many times his death by drowning. During
the stormy return voyage to Lerici, his small schooner the Ariel sank
and Shelley drowned with Edward Williams on July 8, 1822. Ten days later
their fisheaten bodies were washed ashore at Viareggio, where, in the
presence of Lord Byron and Leigh Hunt, they were burned on the beach -
his heart was given to his wife, who carried it with her in a silken
shroud everywhere she went for the rest of her life.>>
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Was Percy Shell-y when Bysshe washed ashore?
Art Neuendoffer
lyra
> Art Neuendorffer wrote:
>
> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> > << Many years ago, Mr. Appleton Morgan, the president of The
> > Shakespeare Society of New York, produced a glossary of 518 words
> > which he claimed as words exclusively used in Warwickshire. The English
> > Dialect Society's Dictionary shows that of those 518 so called pure
> > Warwickshire words only 46 were not current in Surrey, Sussex, Kent,
> > Wiltshire, Hampshire, Lincolnshire and Leicestershire. How is it,
> > therefore, that not a single one of the 46 words which can be shown to
> > have been used exclusively in Warwickshire are to found in the
> > "Shakespeare" Plays? If Will Shakspere wrote the plays we should
> > naturally expect that he would use some of the local words.
There is
> > only one character in all the plays who speaks a rustic dialect and
> > that character is Edgar in "King Lear". Edgar was son and heir to the
> > Earl of Gloucester so he might reasonably be expected when talking in
> > dialect for the purpose of disguise to use the Gloucestershire
> > dialect, instead of which he uses the Kentish dialect.>>
> > --------------------------------------------------------------
The Kentish dialect??? This would indicate
Kit Marlowe...
* * * * * * *
"We'll e'en to't, like French falconers..."
lyra
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Art Neuendorffer
>>>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>><< Many years ago, Mr. Appleton Morgan, the president of The
>>> Shakespeare Society of New York, produced a glossary of 518 words
>>>which he claimed as words exclusively used in Warwickshire. The English
>>> Dialect Society's Dictionary shows that of those 518 so called pure
>>> Warwickshire words only 46 were not current in Surrey, Sussex, Kent,
>>> Wiltshire, Hampshire, Lincolnshire and Leicestershire. How is it,
>>> therefore, that not a single one of the 46 words which can be shown to
>>> have been used exclusively in Warwickshire are to found in the
>>> "Shakespeare" Plays? If Will Shakspere wrote the plays we should
>>> naturally expect that he would use some of the local words.
>>> There is
>>> only one character in all the plays who speaks a rustic dialect and
>>> that character is Edgar in "King Lear". Edgar was son and heir to the
>>> Earl of Gloucester so he might reasonably be expected when talking in
>>> dialect for the purpose of disguise to use the Gloucestershire
>>> dialect, instead of which he uses the Kentish dialect.>>
>>>--------------------------------------------------------------
lyra wrote:
> The Kentish dialect??? This would indicate
> Kit Marlowe...
Or Superman.
----------------------------------------------------------------
http://icg.harvard.edu/~chaucer/dial-exp.html
The Kentish Dialect
(given here, since Chaucer lived for a while in Kent):
"Oure blisse is ywent into wop, oure karoles inro zorge; gerlondes,
robes, playinges, messinges, and alle guodes byeth ous yfayled."
Zuyche byeth tho zonges of helle as the writing ous telth,
ous vor to ssewy that this world is but a wendynge wel ssort.
[Dan Michel of Northgate, The Ayenbite of Inwit (1340); the most
notable characteristic of Kentish is the initial "z" in "Zonges"
(Chaucer "songes") and "zuyche" (Chaucer "swiche").]
------------------------------------------------------------------
The Northern Dialect:
The Bee has three kindis, Ane is, that scho is never ydill and scho is
nought with thaim that will not wrok, but castis thaim out and puttes
them away. Amothire is that, when scho flies, scho takes erthe in her
fette, that scho be not ligntly overheghed
[carried too high] in the air of wind. . . .
The fyrste comandement es,
"Thy Lorde God thou sall loute and til him anely thou sall serve."
[From Richard Rolle of Hampole (d. 1349); in addition to the features
listed above, note the "es" (Chaucer "beth)," "sall" (Chaucer "shal"),
scho (Chaucer "she"), and "til" (Chaucer "to"). all characteristic of
the Northern dialect.]
------------------------------------------------------------------
The Southern Dialect:
Tho heo was fiftene yer old, the biscop of the lawe
Het uche maide of thulke elde to hire contreie drawe
To take husbonde, as lawe was; the maidnes weren alle vawe
Of thulke heste, bote Marie ne likede noght the sawe;
Tho heo with other was i-hote go hosbonde to take,
"Sire," heo seide, "That the lawe wole, I nul noght vorsake."
[South English legendary, c. 1300; in addition to the features listed
above, note "heo" (Chaucer "she") and "uche," "thulke"
(Chaucer "ech," "thilke").]
------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.sbpublications.swinternet.co.uk/News%20kentish.htm
<<ARZEY-garzeys and snatagogs, dumbledore and ponger, trilly-ally and
boo-boo - mayhap they have you mabbled up summut turrible. Howsomedever,
no need to be umpty if you are mizmazed by dialect for dabster Alan
Major tells you everything you want to know about soodle potting and
umpkey-diddlums, frog's wool and horse feathers.>>
THE BOOK - KENTISH AS SHE WUS SPOKE
THE AUTHOR - ALAN MAJOR
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer
John W. Kennedy
> In article <3DDFC47...@comcast.net>, Art Neuendorffer
> <aneuendor...@comcast.net> (aneuendor...@comicass.nut)
> wrote:
>> Matus states very clearly that it was *first come, first serve*
>> for obtaining rights of publication at the Stationer's Registery.
>> Therefore, whether he was author or not, Shakspere could have
>> obtained publication rights on all those plays (which he should
>> have retained written copies of) not registered as of his death:
> Huh?! What are you suggesting? That immediately following his
> death he should have hastily registered those works not registered by
> April 1616 so that he could bequeath them to his heirs?!
No, he's saying that Shakespeare could have (and hinting that he should
have) cheated his partners, and damaged his or his estate's own future
income, by making a deal behind the King's Men's back.
I suppose if you think Oxfart was a Great Man, this is the pattern
your thoughts start falling into.
>> The importance of 19 is involves the Metonic cycle and the Quran.
>> And that like 7 & 37 it is the difference of 2 consecutive cubes.
> You're missing the point, Art; as I've told you before, 37 is the
> first irregular prime. Known irregular primes are *far* scarcer (in
> the obvious sense of density) than differences of consecutive cubes.
Anyway, it's not in the least remarkable. After all, there is no set
of integers more extensive than the integers that are the difference
of two consecutive cubes!
Hey, I just thought of something. "Neu" is German for "new", and
"endorphins" are natural happy-juice. Maybe someone should be
looking into the rate of Art's drip?
Tom Reedy
wrote in message news:3DDFC47...@comcast.net...
<snip>
> Matus states very clearly that it was *first come,
first serve*
> for obtaining rights of publication at the
Stationer's Registery.
>
> Therefore, whether he was author or not, Shakspere
could have
> obtained publication rights on all those plays
(which he should
> have retained written copies of) not registered as
of his death:
Er, didn't one have to be a member of the Stationer's
Company before one could obtain rights for publication
at the Stationer's Registry?
<snip>
> The drivel of an utter idiot: Shakspere's will.
>
> Art Neuendorffer
You typed it and posted it, so I guess you know. I
agree, you are an utter idiot, as proved countless
times by the drivel you publish here, whether it be a
two-word phrase such as "Shakspere's will" or "Agnes a
Gob."
TR
Greg Reynolds
"John W. Kennedy" wrote:
> Hey, I just thought of something. "Neu" is German for "new", and
> "endorphins" are natural happy-juice. Maybe someone should be
> looking into the rate of Art's drip?
>
Also, one who removes the structural/functional unit
of the nervous system from his head as a salute or
as a show of respect is a neuron-doffer.
Art Neuendorffer
>>>>>> These 500 Stratfordians apparently have
>>>>>> nothing whatever to say about the fact that:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Shakespeare's will was a business man's will that itemized bowls
>>>>>> & 2nd best beds but said *absolutely nothing* about his life's
>>>>>> great literary achievements.
>>>>David L. Webb wrote:
>>>>> As has been pointed out to you countless times, Art,
>>>>> Shakespeare did not own
>>>>> "his life's great literary achievements."
>>----------------------------------------------------------------
>Neuendorffer wrote:
David L. Webb wrote:
> Huh?! What are you suggesting? That immediately following his
> death he should have hastily registered those works not registered by
> April 1616 so that he could bequeath them to his heirs?!
I'm suggesting that *at anytime* before his death he could have
registered these & other works *with no questions asked* .
>> > Neuendorffer wrote:
>>>><<Neuendorffer has taken a basket of ideas to HLAS to post. While there,
>>>>the Goon Squad passes by, and the cry goes out, "Hats off to Stratford
>>>>upon Avon!" When Neuendorffer refuses to comply, Dave Webb glares at
>>>>him.
>>David L. Webb wrote:
>>> I've almost neVER "glared" at you, Art -- how could I glare at
>>>anyone whose posts constitute such a rich font of merriment? In fact,
>>>I can recall only two posts of yours to which I've reacted with
>>>annoyance rather than with robust laughter:
>>>
>>>(1) Your cretinous suggestion that Nabokov was antisemitic
> Neuendorffer wrote:
>> Well, Nabokov was a rabid anti-dentite, then.
David L. Webb wrote:
> A feeble, failed attempt at witticism does not excuse
> your idiotic, contemptible, and utterly groundless accusation.
-------------------------------------------------------------
*FEEBLE* I will do my good will, sir; you can have no more.
FALSTAFF Well said, good woman's tailor!
well said, courageous *F E E B L E* !
--------------------------------------------------------------------
RGTSRVEAIILEHHWONI [ERYE] MPTREHNSNPLHMEONSEHOTG ENHT
TFIEIRNDNSLWTEIEGVREODIRINTA *DEEP* *HART* NGVIE *FEEBLE* O
HONTNETVGHWEHTSTPILVVBSOEIETTASIALWSNSINSTRT EIOT
------------------------------------------------------------
ZECHARIAH 12:8 He that is *FEEBLE* among them at that day
shall be as *David* ; and the house of David shall be as God,
--------------------------------------------------------------
>> David L. Webb wrote:
>>
>>>(2) Your imbecilic post announcing the supposed demise of the
>>>distinguished historian Peter Gay on the basis of information that
>>>someone by that name had perished, without regard to the fact that
>>>the victim was identified as a Raytheon plant manager
>>> some two decades younger than the historian.
> Neuendorffer wrote:
>> The report of Peter Gay's death was only slightly exaggerated.
>><<Mistaken publications of obituaries
>> aren't as rare as one might expect.
David L. Webb wrote:
> But this was ***NOT*** an instance of the mistaken publication of an
> obituary! Rather, it was an instance of the initiation of a completely
> bogus rumor started by a cretinous idiot who cannot use a search engine
> -- or even *read*, for that matter.
Such things aren't as rare as one might expect.
> Neuendorffer wrote:
>>A recent example is of Dave Swarbrick, the British folk/rock
>>violinist, who was killed off mistakenly by the Daily Telegraph
David L. Webb wrote:
> Peter Gay was ***NOT*** mistakenly killed off by the Daily
> Telegraph. Rather, his supposed demise was *publicly* announced,
> in a forum read world-wide,
You mean the whole world reads my posts?!
>>>>But there is always a new & better idea in Neuendorffer's head,
>>>> even though he has just posted one!
>> David L. Webb wrote:
>>
>>> Then why does aneuendor...@comicass.nut
>>> keep posting the SAME idiocies oVER and oVER and oVER?
> Neuendorffer wrote:
>> Because no one appreciated the genius of Neuendorffer's old ideas.
David L. Webb wrote:
> That's because nearly everybody killfiled the moron
> permanently after his tasteless Peter Gay "joke."
Peter Gay "joke?"
>> > Neuendorffer wrote:
>>
>>>>The captain of the Goon Squad grabs
>>>>Neuendorffer and takes him the white tower of Dartmouth, where the Webb
>>>>gets more & more angry. More & more ingenious ideas keep appearing;
>>>>soon, Brigadier Corporal Bob Grumman, Keeper of HLAS Records, indicates
>>>>there are hundreds. Webb tries everything he can think of, including
>>>>calling on Greg Reynolds {the royal hat maker}, his wise men (Kathman &
>>>>Ross), musicians, magicians, his nephew the Grand Duke Tom Veal, bowmen,
>>>>and even the executioner. But even the executioner cannot stop
>>>>Neuendorffer from posting. Major Reedy offers to kill Neuendorffer
>>>> by throwing him off the top of the academic white tower.
>>David L. Webb wrote:
>>
>>> Your impersonation of a paranoid moron is spot-on, Art.
> Neuendorffer wrote:
>> Major Tom sure sounds pretty threatening to me:
>>
>><<Mr. Grumman's withdrawal from this thread is completely
>> voluntary, despite your thinly-veiled allegation to the
>> contrary. Mr. Grumman came to that decision entirely on
>> his own, without any persuasion from outside
>> influences. Other interested parties agree he made the
>> he made the correct choice. Any further communication
>> on this matter must be addressed to me.
>>
>> I would suggest you follow "Bob's" example
>> and discontinue your inquiry.>>
David L. Webb wrote:
> One hesitates to explain a joke.
Tom Reedy is a joke?
>> > Neuendorffer wrote:
>>
>>>>But a strange thing happens along the way,
>>>>and Neuendorffer is finally believed and
>>>> richly rewarded with a book contract!
>>David L. Webb wrote:
>>
>>>Haven't I encouraged you *numerous times* to write a book, Art?
> Neuendorffer wrote:
>> I'm waiting for some evidence that I am "finally believed."
>
David L. Webb wrote:
> Use your book to convince people, Art.
I'll have to waste time explaining who Cuthbert Burby is in a book.
>>>>> Neuendorffer wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>> Art himself is an expert in mathematic [sic] & physics.
>>>>David L. Webb wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> There is only one possible response, Art:
>>>>> HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
>>> Neuendorffer wrote:
>>
>>>> In 1967 I got a perfect 900 score on my Physics G.R.E.
>>David L. Webb wrote:
>>
>>> I don't doubt it, Art -- but in 1967 you may actually have been
>>> sane, and in any case the Physics GRE is, as the name suggests, a test
>>> of physics, not a test of mathematics (duh!).
> Neuendorffer wrote:
>> I was starting to write mathematical physics above;
> There is no mathematical physics GRE, Art.
> Nor is the Physics GRE particularly mathematical.
It was a long time ago but I seem to recall math was involved.
> Neuendorffer wrote:
>>however, I agree with Landau that the only important mathematics
>> is that associated with mathematical physics.
> Then why do you engage in pointless, nutcase numerology that has
> nothing whateVER to do with physics?
Because numerology fascinated 16th century Freemasons.
(Not to mention those who built George Washington
monuments to heights of 333 & 555 feet.)
> In any case, Landau's opinion is
> a negligible minority opinion, especially now that theoretical
> physicists have become eager consumers of mathematics done a
> half-century ago with no physical applications whateVER in mind.
> Landau's notion that primes are to be multiplied but not added
> oVERlooks many deep and breathtakingly beautiful insights from
> algebraic number theory.
Poets are made not born.
>>David L. Webb wrote:
>>
>>> Your pronouncement concerning the number 19 is quite sufficient.
> Neuendorffer wrote:
>> The importance of 19 is involves the Metonic cycle and the Quran.
>> And that like 7 & 37 it is the difference of 2 consecutive cubes.
>
> You're missing the point, Art; as I've told you before, 37 is the
> first irregular prime. Known irregular primes are *far* scarcer (in
> the obvious sense of density) than differences of consecutive cubes.
I don't believe that this was well known to 16th century Freemasons.
> In any case, what of it? What do difference of consecutive cubes
> have to do with Shakespeare? Or far that matter, with Freemasonry?
Freemason's seem to be fascinated by numbers like: 7, 19 & 37.
>>David L. Webb wrote:
>>
>> > In fact, your
>> > pronouncement concerning Peter Gay is also indicative of farcical
>> > mathematical incompetence -- you appear to be unaware
>> > of the existence of cardinal numbers exceeding one!
> Neuendorffer wrote:
>> I am aware of my approximate falliability [sic!]:
> Or is this another of your "illiteration studies"?
Possibiliy.
> Neuendorffer wrote:
>> about 40% on average.
>
> You possess *far* less than 40% of an aVERage I.Q.
>>David L. Webb previously wrote:
>>
>>> As I've said many times, you are clearly VERy intelligent,
>>>>David L. Webb wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>The demonstrations of farcical mathematical incompetence exhibited by
>>>>> your Quantitatively Clueless Cretin persona have been a source of
>>>>> unbounded mirth almost since the group's inception. Perhaps the
>>>>> funniest was your triumphant announcement that the number 19 is
>>>>> remarkable in being both the sum of two conseuctive integers & the
>>>>> difference of their squares, although the nutcase numerology
>>>>> accompanying that prounouncement was also priceless.
>
>>> Neuendorffer wrote:
>>
>>>> Do you mean conseductive or consecutive integers?
>
>>David L. Webb wrote:
>>
>>> "Consecutive," Art; as you noted, I transposed two letters
>>> while typing -- thank you for correcting it.
> Neuendorffer wrote:
>> Thank you for correcting my mistake about Peter Gay
>> and my over hasty initial post on the importance of 19.
>
> Transposing two letters in typing is a trivial error of little
> consequence. Falsely announcing the supposed death of a distinguished
> historian in a forum very possibly read by some of his acquaintances as
> a tasteless joke is idiotic, irresponsible, and cruel.
I thought I was being respectful to an authorship adversary in sharp
contrast to the shabby way Ogburn obituary was handled on Hardy Cooke's
SHAKSPER.
Trying desperately to make debate points by constantly bringing up the
irrelevant Peter Gay issue in a forum very possibly read by
acquaintances of the actual deceased Peter Gay is idiotic,
irresponsible, and cruel.
You are obviously incapable of arguing the actual issues.
>>David L. Webb wrote:
>>
>> > Your pronouncement on the number 19 was certainly (or, since I can't
>> > type accurately, "cretinly") not a mere typo, Art -- it was one of the
>> > centerpieces of your "argument," along with a bunch of numerology.
> Neuendorffer wrote:
>> I was simply doing a cut & paste on the number 19.
>>
>>I appreciate it that you were the first person to actually read this
>>material and point out this obvious math error since I myself was
>>too busy with other ideas at the time.
>
> And what momentous idea were you "too busy with" at the time you
> announced Peter Gay's death, Art?
I was actually quite unsure & curious if it was the same guy and
figured that if it wasn't I'd soon hear about it on HLAS. My haste here
was in not realizing that the first obit lists would obviously be of the
plane passengers rather not the building occupants.
> Neuendorffer wrote:
>> It is a pity that you can't find flaws in the important material that
>> I actually do post oVER and oVER and oVER. Since that stuff is about
>> 90% correct it could use some careful analysis.
>
> Like virtually eVERyone else, I largely stopped reading your idiocy
> after your moronic Peter Gay gaffe, except for occasional amusement.
Virtually eVERyone else stopped reading me
long before the Peter Gay gaffe.
>>David L. Webb wrote:
>>
>> > In any case, nobody is judging *your* intelligence, Art, only that
>> > of the moron whom you impersonate so deftly in your h.l.a.s. trolling.
> Neuendorffer wrote:
>> I don't imitate a moron, Dave, I attempt to converse with him.
>
> Talking to yourself can be a sign of mental instability, Art.
> Trying to conVERse with a sculptural simulacrum of George Mason
> *definitely* is a sign of mental instability.
At least he didn't run away as fast as most folks
I run into sitting on Washington park benches.
>>David L. Webb wrote:
>>> As I've said many times, you are clearly VERy intelligent,
Still, I probably couldn't beat you nearly so handily in these debates
if you didn't have one hand tied behind your back by the illiterate
Stratford boob(; though, of course, you do only type with one hand anyway).
Art Neuendorffer
Tom Veal
write -
Art Neuendorffer <aneuendor...@comcast.net> wrote in message news:<3DDEB656...@comcast.net>...
> 1) Tragedies that end in the death of priviledged nobles.
> 2) Histories that involve the willing sacrifice of commoners in war.
> 3) Comedies that end with the restoration of benevolent rulers.
? It was Aristotle (not a wolfish earl, or do you think that he was a
front man for some Athenian aristocrat?) who defined the greatness of
the protagonist as an essential element of tragedy. Horace (not a
wolfish earl, or do you think that he was a front man for some Roman
aristocrat?) told commoners, dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.
And a comedy that ended in the restoration of a *malevolent* ruler
would not be much of a comedy.
>
> 4) Those 'Respectfull' commoner names like:
>
> Bullcalf <snip>
Hey, *my* name is "Bullcalf" (Frenchified).
More seriously, does one have to be a noble to make fun of the
solecisms of the lower classes? Isn't that a well-known middle class
tendency?
> Name *one exemplary thing* in the life of
> William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon.
>
> 1) stealing deer
> 2) shotgun wedding
> 3) hoarding grain during a famine
> 4) trying to enclose Stratford commons
> 5) abandoning his family for almost a decade
> 6) threatened William Wayte with bodily harm
> 7) not returning Thomas Whittington's 40s
> 8) rewarding wife with 2nd best bed
> 9) defaulting on his taxes
> 10) suing his neighbors
Well, he never, so far as he know, murdered anybody, betrayed friends,
falsely accused his wife of adultery, put indulging in personal
luxuries ahead of paying his creditors, or shirked military service -
unlike the 17th Earl of Oxenford. Not that personal virtues and vices
have anything to do with the authorship of the Shakespearean corpus.
Plenty of great writers have lived less than admirable lives.
FWIW, almost every item on your list is exaggerated or outrightly
false, but we needn't rehash Shakespeare's biography. I've discussed
some of the charges at http://stromata.tripod.com/id115.htm.
Lorenzo4344
>From: jbmi...@world.std.com (Janice Miller)
>Date: 11/24/2002
>And I'm constantly astonished, myself, to see the number and vigor of
>Emily Posters in forums like this one where people can be quite cruel:
>where, for instance, for a period of several months, a year or two ago,
>one could barely read ten posts in a row without encountering a
>suggestion, by one participant, that another's words were so obviously
>incompetent that he or she ought to be on psychiatric medication.
Ovine Strats in particular have always used this child-like approach. Crazy,
ain't it?
Lorenzo
"Mark the music."
Art Neuendorffer
> Ho, hum. You really think that only a member of the nobility can
> write -
Me & Walt Whitman think that only a member of the nobility
could have written Shake-speare.
> Art Neuendorffer <aneuendor...@comcast.net> wrote in message news:<3DDEB656...@comcast.net>...
>
>>1) Tragedies that end in the death of priviledged nobles.
>>2) Histories that involve the willing sacrifice of commoners in war.
>>3) Comedies that end with the restoration of benevolent rulers.
Tom Veal wrote:
> ? It was Aristotle (not a wolfish earl, or do you think that he was a
> front man for some Athenian aristocrat?) who defined the greatness of
> the protagonist as an essential element of tragedy. Horace (not a
> wolfish earl, or do you think that he was a front man for some Roman
> aristocrat?) told commoners, dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.
> And a comedy that ended in the restoration of a *malevolent* ruler
> would not be much of a comedy.
How one comedy that had nothing to do with nobles?
>> 4) Those 'Respectfull' commoner names like:
>>
>> Bullcalf <snip>
> Hey, *my* name is "Bullcalf" (Frenchified).
Well, there you go!
Tom Veal wrote:
> More seriously, does one have to be a noble to make fun of the
> solecisms of the lower classes? Isn't that a well-known
> middle class tendency?
The lower classes aren't real people - just stereotypes.
>> Name *one exemplary thing* in the life of
>> William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon.
>>
>>1) stealing deer
>>2) shotgun wedding
>>3) hoarding grain during a famine
>>4) trying to enclose Stratford commons
>>5) abandoning his family for almost a decade
>>6) threatened William Wayte with bodily harm
>>7) not returning Thomas Whittington's 40s
>>8) rewarding wife with 2nd best bed
>>9) defaulting on his taxes
>>10) suing his neighbors
> Well, he never, so far as he know, murdered anybody, betrayed friends,
> falsely accused his wife of adultery, put indulging in personal
> luxuries ahead of paying his creditors, or shirked military service -
> unlike the 17th Earl of Oxenford. Not that personal virtues and vices
> have anything to do with the authorship of the Shakespearean corpus.
> Plenty of great writers have lived less than admirable lives.
Plenty of illiterate boobs have lived less than admirable lives.
> FWIW, almost every item on your list is exaggerated or outrightly
> false, but we needn't rehash Shakespeare's biography.
(And FWIW, almost every item on your list
is exaggerated or outrightly false.)
> I've discussed
> some of the charges at http://stromata.tripod.com/id115.htm.
Does it name *one exemplary thing* in the life
of William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon.
Art Neuendorffer
Bob Grumman
> >one could barely read ten posts in a row without encountering a
> >suggestion, by one participant, that another's words were so obviously
> >incompetent that he or she ought to be on psychiatric medication.
>
> Ovine Strats in particular have always used this child-like approach.
Crazy,
> ain't it?
>
> Lorenzo
Not if you read any of the insane nonsense such wacks as Buckeye Pete,
Laila, Elizabeth Weir and Paul Crowley have spouted.
--Bob G.
Tom Veal
>
> > It was Aristotle (not a wolfish earl, or do you think that he was a
> > front man for some Athenian aristocrat?) who defined the greatness of
> > the protagonist as an essential element of tragedy. Horace (not a
> > wolfish earl, or do you think that he was a front man for some Roman
> > aristocrat?) told commoners, dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.
> > And a comedy that ended in the restoration of a *malevolent* ruler
> > would not be much of a comedy.
>
> How one comedy that had nothing to do with nobles?
I think that you're asking why Shakespeare didn't write even one
comedy that has nothing to do with nobles. Well, the protagonists of
"The Taming of the Shrew", "The Merry Wives of Windsor" and "The
Comedy of Errors" are commoners. Even if every play were about
nobles, what would that prove? A cat can look at a king, and
playwrights throughout history have filled their productions with
aristocrats.
> > More seriously, does one have to be a noble to make fun of the
> > solecisms of the lower classes? Isn't that a well-known
> > middle class tendency?
>
> The lower classes aren't real people - just stereotypes.
Even if that were true (and most auditors find a great deal of
individuation and liveliness in Shakespeare's pages, peasants, workmen
and clowns), it would be evidence only of snobbery, which is scarcely
confined to the nobility.
John W. Kennedy
> In article <u3ZD9.6968$It3.6...@newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net>, "Tom
> Reedy" <reed...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>>Er, didn't one have to be a member of the Stationer's
>>Company before one could obtain rights for publication
>>at the Stationer's Registry?
> Sure, by this logic, Richard Field was an author and Michael Ovitz is an actor.
No, by this logic, Richard Field was a publisher. Publishers
were members of the Stationer's Company, and publishers, not
authors, owned the right to print a text.
> If Shakespeare had been responsible, anyway, he would have _joined_ the
> Stationers' Company (or at least bribed its members a lot better), to
> ensure that the publication and attribution of his works wouldn't end up
> being left to chance.
No, this would have not been "responsible", because A) this would have
involved cheating his partners and B) he wasn't a publisher in the first
place.
> Civil rights ought to be reserved for members of the bar! Medicine
> distributed only to graduates of medical school (and holders of current
> medical licences)! News reports written only about working journalists --
> sports coverage written by athletes and coaches, obituaries (not to forget
> the police blotter) written by the corpse! (This wouldn't put you out of
> a job, Tom: what it does is let you write your own ticket.)
It's so nice of you to be writing new laws, ex post facto, on behalf of Queen
Elizabeth I, but it seems a little futile.
Roundtable
David L. Webb seems to be writing all these interesting things,
but his posts don't show up on Google.
What a pity.
And as for the mafia being mostly Catholic - what about the Russian and
Eastern Block mafia? (yes, yes, I know, only shallow imitations of the
real thing)
Roundtable
Art Neuendorffer <aneuendor...@comcast.net> wrote in message news:<3DDF9523...@comcast.net>...
Tom Reedy
message
news:jbmiller-251...@192.168.123.161...
> In article
<8WsE9.6897$Go1....@news4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net>, "John W.
> Kennedy" <jwk...@attglobal.net> wrote:
>
> > Janice Miller wrote:
> > > In article
<u3ZD9.6968$It3.6...@newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net
>, "Tom
> > > Reedy" <reed...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> > >>Er, didn't one have to be a member of the
Stationer's
> > >>Company before one could obtain rights for
publication
> > >>at the Stationer's Registry?
> >
> > > Sure, by this logic, Richard Field was an author
and Michael Ovitz is
> an actor.
> >
> > No, by this logic, Richard Field was a publisher.
Publishers
> > were members of the Stationer's Company, and
publishers, not
> > authors, owned the right to print a text.
>
snipped -- how you can say
> that you even know what "this" logic is, when you
aren't using the part of
> the text where the logic is described, is beyond me)
argue that
> Shakespeare is less likely to have been the author,
because he didn't
> bother to obtain the right to print his texts?
Only that's not what Matus argues. Art Neuendorffer is
the person responsible for offering up this "logic," if
that's what you want to call it.
> >
> > > If Shakespeare had been responsible, anyway, he
would have _joined_ the
> > > Stationers' Company (or at least bribed its
members a lot better), to
> > > ensure that the publication and attribution of
his works wouldn't end up
> > > being left to chance.
> >
> > No, this would have not been "responsible", because
A) this would have
> > involved cheating his partners and B) he wasn't a
publisher in the first
> > place.
>
> Yes, my point is that by the logic in question, it
would have been
> responsible for him to have become "certified" (or
the equivalent --
> accepted by the guild, perhaps) as a publisher, for
the purpose of
> protecting whatever rights he had a responsibility to
protect, whether for
> himself or for his partners. He should have done
whatever it took to
> secure the rights involved. If it meant becoming a
publisher, he should
> have become a publisher. If by neglecting to become
a publisher, he
> failed to secure the rights that it was his
responsibility to secure, then
> he failed in his responsibilities, in a way he could
have prevented. In
> this case, he would have been cheating his partners,
had he _not_ become a
> publisher and joined the Stationers' Company.
>
> By leaving a matter, the resolution of which
pertained primarily to him,
> up to his publishers and his publishers' agents, he
neglected to take
> action on his own account, and thus, by this logic,
he failed to behave
> responsibly.
>
> You may be confusing the idea that he would not have
been "true to his
> values" (not trying to be otherwise than what he
should be, not doing
> other than what his associates should expect), with
the idea that he would
> not have been "responsible."
I must be misreading you. I thought your reply was a
sendup that John chose to read literally to further his
feud with you. Are you now saying you were serious?
Surely not.
TR
> >
> > > Civil rights ought to be reserved for members of
the bar! Medicine
> > > distributed only to graduates of medical school
(and holders of current
> > > medical licences)! News reports written only
about working journalists --
> > > sports coverage written by athletes and coaches,
obituaries (not to forget
> > > the police blotter) written by the corpse! (This
wouldn't put you out of
> > > a job, Tom: what it does is let you write your
own ticket.)
> >
> > It's so nice of you to be writing new laws, ex post
facto, on behalf of Queen
> > Elizabeth I, but it seems a little futile.
> >
>
> I think Peter Dickson has opined she's still alive.
>
> ----
> Janice Miller
> Framingham, Massachusetts
> <http://world.std.com/~jbmiller/>
>
>
John W. Kennedy
> In article <8WsE9.6897$Go1....@news4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net>, "John W.
> Kennedy" <jwk...@attglobal.net> wrote:
>>Janice Miller wrote:
>>>In article <u3ZD9.6968$It3.6...@newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net>, "Tom
>>>Reedy" <reed...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>>>>Er, didn't one have to be a member of the Stationer's
>>>>Company before one could obtain rights for publication
>>>>at the Stationer's Registry?
>>>Sure, by this logic, Richard Field was an author and Michael Ovitz is
>>> an actor.
>>No, by this logic, Richard Field was a publisher. Publishers
>>were members of the Stationer's Company, and publishers, not
>>authors, owned the right to print a text.
> Then why would Matus (as was seen in what you snipped -- how you can say
> that you even know what "this" logic is, when you aren't using the part of
> the text where the logic is described, is beyond me) argue that
> Shakespeare is less likely to have been the author, because he didn't
> bother to obtain the right to print his texts?
A) I don't remember Matus saying any such thing.
B) No-one in this thread seems to have claimed that Matus says any
such thing. Art just makes a vague remark about Matus saying
something about "first come, first served".
>>>If Shakespeare had been responsible, anyway, he would have _joined_ the
>>>Stationers' Company (or at least bribed its members a lot better), to
>>>ensure that the publication and attribution of his works wouldn't end up
>>>being left to chance.
>>No, this would have not been "responsible", because A) this would have
>>involved cheating his partners and B) he wasn't a publisher in the first
>>place.
> Yes, my point is that by the logic in question, it would have been
> responsible for him to have become "certified" (or the equivalent --
> accepted by the guild, perhaps) as a publisher, for the purpose of
> protecting whatever rights he had a responsibility to protect, whether for
> himself or for his partners. He should have done whatever it took to
> secure the rights involved. If it meant becoming a publisher, he should
> have become a publisher. If by neglecting to become a publisher, he
> failed to secure the rights that it was his responsibility to secure, then
> he failed in his responsibilities, in a way he could have prevented. In
> this case, he would have been cheating his partners, had he _not_ become a
> publisher and joined the Stationers' Company.
A) Calling yourself a publisher doesn't make you one.
B) It was against the interests of the King's Men to publish.
C) I rather doubt the Stationer's Company would have stood for a false
claim to be a publisher, with the intent to publish nothing, merely
for purposes of estopping the legitimate members from printing certain
texts.
D) If such a strategy was workable, why didn't other playing companies
do it as a matter of course?
> By leaving a matter, the resolution of which pertained primarily to him,
> up to his publishers and his publishers' agents, he neglected to take
> action on his own account, and thus, by this logic, he failed to behave
> responsibly.
No, the resolution did not "pertain[] primarily to him". The texts were
the property (though not in a legal sense) of the King's Men, and theirs,
not his, to approach a legitimate member of the Stationer's Company with,
if and when they thought the plays no longer had sufficient value as
performing texts to be protected. As they, in the fullness of time, did.