Debate on Authorship
Melanie Vessels
may end up in my mouth, but that's okay).
An idea: perhaps scholars should be examining the collaborative art of the
theatre during the English Renaissance rather than actual authorship. My
understanding is that the actors often contributed to the "script" during
both rehearsals and actual performances. This could certainly account for
language usage, plot direction, and character development.
Okay, I know that someone like Ben Jonson would have killed the actors
rather than have his works tampered with :-), but Burbage's troupe may have
had a more Second City approach to theatre.
Why, then, is Shakespeare credited for writing the plays? Perhaps he was
the idea man; perhaps he was responsible for putting the prompters script
together; perhaps he coordinated the plays for their consistency. Who
really knows?
What I find interesting are the poems and memorials written about
Shakespeare by his contemporaries (Mr. Jonson again comes to mind). If the
author wasn't Shakespeare, wouldn't he be offended that his peers where
lauding someone else?
Just my $.02 worth,
Melanie V.
Wednesday Jones
> An idea: perhaps scholars should be examining the collaborative art of the
> theatre during the English Renaissance rather than actual authorship. My
> understanding is that the actors often contributed to the "script" during
> both rehearsals and actual performances. This could certainly account for
> language usage, plot direction, and character development.
i've never heard of actors doing that on the elizabethan stage, but then i
haven't made a detailed study of production methods at that time. and who
knows? maybe this practice is what shakespeare was talking about when he wrote
hamlet's advice to tragedians. still, i find it hard to believe that actors
would be given anything more than extremely limited license in contributing to
the script because...
1. most of each play is written in verse, so you can only have so many
syllables in a line and the accents on those words must be in a particular
order. i would think it difficult for actors to add to the existing dialogue
without destroying the meter. but then, maybe this would account for
shakespeare's seemingly loose attitude toward meter and sometimes bizarre
syntactical constructions.
2. i think having several actors contribute to a script would be more likely to
obscure (rather than contribute to) character development and plot direction.
and in my opinion, most of the plays are distinctly marked with the stamp of a
single hand.
3. i simply don't like the currently popular trend to attribute creative
advances to a team effort. it stinks of yuppie conservative corporate america
to me. "here at Corporation X, you're part of a winning TEAM. therefore, when
you contribute to our development, do not expect any kind of recognition or
merit pay. you did nothing. it was a _team_ effort."
> Okay, I know that someone like Ben Jonson would have killed the actors
> rather than have his works tampered with :-), but Burbage's troupe may have
> had a more Second City approach to theatre.
i saw the second city once. they exemplify the problem i have with group
creativity. the evening was a mixed bag of sketch comedy that ranged from
brilliance to rank mediocrity. you could tell who was really carrying the team
in that troupe.
> Why, then, is Shakespeare credited for writing the plays? Perhaps he was
> the idea man; perhaps he was responsible for putting the prompters script
> together; perhaps he coordinated the plays for their consistency. Who
> really knows?
i think the overall consistency of the work shows the evidence of one writer.
no group could turn out such consistently good writing over such a long period
of time. look at film. movies are a team effort. you've got your
screenwriter, director, actors, editors, art directors, special effects people,
etc. there are a few, but only a few, films that are strong in every aspect of
production. usually, an incredible screenplay is destroyed by poor acting, or
great acting gets spoiled by weak directing. or a great director can be let
down by any number of people under him, etc., etc. how many times have you said
of a film, "beautiful special effects, but everything else sucked" or "gene
hackman was great, even with that lousy screenplay." (or for that matter: how
often have you seen a great shakespeare play destroyed by lousy direction or
acting). well, in my experience, that's what comes of a team effort. it's a
gargantuan task to assemble a group of truly talented artists who can complement
(rather than hinder) each other. and even if you do get them together (cf. the
original cast and writers on saturday night live), they don't stay together very
long.
take care
---jones
lamil
Melanie Vessels concluded a statement about Shakespearean authorship by
saying (sensibly, I think):
>
> What I find interesting are the poems and memorials written about
> Shakespeare by his contemporaries (Mr. Jonson again comes to mind). If
the
> author wasn't Shakespeare, wouldn't he be offended that his peers were
> lauding someone else?
>
> Just my $.02 worth,
>
> Melanie V.
>
Why any contemporary American needs to doubt that a player named William
Shakespeare wrote at least the great majority of the works attributed
traditionally to him is puzzling. I can understand why a few
class-conscious Britishers of previous generations might have wanted to
reject the idea that the Shakespeare canon could have been written by
someone other than an aristocrat privileged to education at Cambridge or
Oxford. But a modern American reader should be free from such social
assumptions. And after reading the works of Ben Jonson, the notes of
Jonson's conversations with Drummond of Hawthornden, the front matter of
the First Folio, and Samuel Schoenbaum's documentary life, I do not see why
a person would prefer a conspiracy theory about the authorship to
down-to-earth acceptance of the notion that shareholders in the King's Men
such as Hemings and Condel would have known who was the author of the plays
and would not very likely have spent the time and trouble to gather and
prepare the plays for publications except to honor an old friend seven
years after his death. I wish that people who really need conspiracy
theories would confine themselves to speculation concerning the deaths of
Marilyn Monroe, John F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King.
>
Poetaster>
Gary K. Allen
>
> An idea: perhaps scholars should be examining the collaborative art of the
> theatre during the English Renaissance rather than actual authorship. My
> understanding is that the actors often contributed to the "script" during
> both rehearsals and actual performances. This could certainly account for
> language usage, plot direction, and character development.
>
> rather than have his works tampered with :-), but Burbage's troupe may have
> had a more Second City approach to theatre.
A good reason not to think the actors added lines to the plays they
performed is that the theaters in London were required to submit their
scripts to the Master of the Revels for examination before they could be
performed. He checked for blasphemy, obscenity and lčse majesté before
issuing a license. There was a substantial fine to the actors if they
were found to have added unlicensed material.
Committee authorship (2 to 6 authors) was more the province of the
theaters managed by Henslowe. His account books list hundreds of plays
which he commissioned for a quick turnaround by dividing the play up
among several authors. Perhaps not coincidentally, these plays had a
high failure rate, with few performances (say--1), before being replaced
by another. While we do not have similar accounts for Shakespeare's
company, the indications are (based on the surviving plays which they
are known to have performed) that they used multiple authorship much
less often. Shakespeare is not known to have collaborated more than a
few times. Even those authors who wrote for both sides of the fence
were more likely to be a sole author when writing for Shakespeare's
company and more likely to collaborate for Henslowe.
BobGr...@nut-n-but.net
"A good reason not to think the actors added lines to the plays they
performed is that the theaters in London were required to submit their
scripts to the Master of the Revels for examination before they could be
performed. He checked for blasphemy, obscenity and lèse majesté before
issuing a license. There was a substantial fine to the actors if they
were found to have added unlicensed material."
Knowing a little about actors, I find it near impossible to believe they
didn't re-work their lines a little here and there. Knowing a little
about how plays evolve nowadays, I find it hard to believe actors didn't
collaborate, to a small degree, with playwrights--suggest bits, and new
lines, etc. For an actor to re-do lines in blank verse, by the way,
shouldn't have been hard since speaking blank verse would have been
pretty much second-nature to many of them. As for the substantial fine,
there is a substantial fine here in the US in most places for littering.
Need I say more?
--Bob G.
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volker multhopp
> What I find interesting are the poems and memorials written about
> Shakespeare by his contemporaries (Mr. Jonson again comes to mind). If the
> lauding someone else?
There weren't any eulogies written to Shakespeare, the great
playwright, which we can date with any confidence before 1623-- with the
*First Folio*. Oxford would have been dead almost 20 years by then, so
he took it lying down.
--Volker
volker multhopp
> Why any contemporary American needs to doubt that a player named William
> Shakespeare wrote at least the great majority of the works attributed
> traditionally to him is puzzling. I can understand why a few
> class-conscious Britishers of previous generations might have wanted to
> reject the idea that the Shakespeare canon could have been written by
> someone other than an aristocrat privileged to education at Cambridge or
> Oxford. But a modern American reader should be free from such social
> assumptions.
Snobbery has nothing to do it-- Mark Twain is the quintessential
American democrat, just read what he had to say about the authorship.
One cannot write great literature in pure pretense-- no one is that
good. Great literature requires the author throw himself entirely into
the work, he can't hold himself back. I can see Oxford on every page of
the canon-- do you see the Stratford man anywhere? Show me, I would
love to believe in the great common man again.
--Volker
volker multhopp
> > Okay, I know that someone like Ben Jonson would have killed the actors
> > rather than have his works tampered with :-), but Burbage's troupe may have
> > had a more Second City approach to theatre.
> performed is that the theaters in London were required to submit their
> scripts to the Master of the Revels for examination before they could be
> issuing a license. There was a substantial fine to the actors if they
> were found to have added unlicensed material.
There is even better reason to believe theater companies did not take
every requirement absolutely seriously-- sort of like the speed limit
today. For instance, iirc, there were occasions where the London
authorities ordered all theaters closed, and the companies simply
ignored the edicts. More to the point, we have only one "part", an
actor's personal script from the Elizabethan theater. It is Edward
Alleyn's for a Greene play. It was written by a scribe, and alterations
were made in another hand-- likely Alleyn's own. Presumably the part
was written and modified after the play had been approved. Do you
really think, after making some alteration, they said, "Hey, let's run
this by the Master of the Revels, pay another fee, face an indefinite
delay, and risk having this alteration or something all together
different disapproved!"? We can also see in *Hamlet* with the
Mousetrap, or in *MDN* where the Mechanicals freely alter the play as
they go.
--Volker
Melanie Vessels
Gary K. Allen wrote in message <35FB2A...@pacbell.net>...
>A good reason not to think the actors added lines to the plays they
>performed is that the theaters in London were required to submit their
>scripts to the Master of the Revels for examination before they could be
>performed. He checked for blasphemy, obscenity and lèse majesté before
>issuing a license. There was a substantial fine to the actors if they
>were found to have added unlicensed material.
>
Based on the Elizabethan/Jacobean plays I've read, I wonder if the "Master
of the Revels" ever went to the theatre after he examined the scripts. Talk
about bawdy, whew! And all those incestuous characters - it's no wonder the
Puritans left for the new world (grin).
As a director, I often take liberties with scripts - cutting, changing role
genders, etc.
As an actor, I must confess I have been know to go-up on a line or ad-lib a
time or two.
My original question was posted mainly to point out that, since we weren't
there (and we don't have a lot of autobiographical writings from those who
were) we can only speculate as to what went on during the actual rehearsal
process.
Xanthippe Yorick
You know Oxford, and yes, you know the sonnets, and the plays, but you
have a little something to learn about Clemens.
volker multhopp wrote:
>
> lamil wrote:
>
> > Why any contemporary American needs to doubt that a player named William
> > Shakespeare wrote at least the great majority of the works attributed
> > traditionally to him is puzzling. I can understand why a few
> > class-conscious Britishers of previous generations might have wanted to
> > reject the idea that the Shakespeare canon could have been written by
> > someone other than an aristocrat privileged to education at Cambridge or
> > Oxford. But a modern American reader should be free from such social
> > assumptions.
>
> Snobbery has nothing to do it-- Mark Twain is the quintessential
> American democrat,
Clemens married for money and became quite "Babbitzed" as he climbed the
social ladder. Like you, he comes from a moderately humble background
but buys into the the "noble lie" that the nobilitly are "better" than
the common man, judging by his essay, "Shakespeare is Dead." You are
familiar with Plato's _Republic_, aren't you? You should be, if you want
to theorise on the "common man" and identify "quintissential democrats."
A better treatment of the nature of man and class society does not
exist, IMHO.
just read what he had to say about the authorship.
> One cannot write great literature in pure pretense-- no one is that
> good. Great literature requires the author throw himself entirely into
> the work, he can't hold himself back.
You always lose me on this one, Volker. I read your science fiction
story, btw. It was very - IMAGINATIVE. If you really believed what you
are saying here- you'd never have written it, which is a shame.
I can see Oxford on every page of
> the canon--
This I do see, and if you focused on this tactic, you might net this
wriggling little fish. I've read the text from what I imagine to be an
"Oxfordian lens" and there is much to be said for this. The text gains
an odd extra dimension, does it not? It's exciting and fun to read it
this way. Sure, I suspended my disbelief to do this.
I merely "exchanged one myth of the author for another." (You thought no
one was taking you seriuosly:) Still- it isn't *that* convincing. While
Bacon doesn't make the grade in my imagination, Marlowe did too.
(I don't demand 100 % proof like many other people. I'm happy with
reasonable doubts;)
do you see the Stratford man anywhere? Show me, I would
> love to believe in the great common man again.
I still do, Volker. There are others- Lincoln, Socrates, Mozart, etc.
You will never win by attacking the common man, because we all know
better.
I think I know WHY you attack the common man myth of Shakespeare,
though. So many people won't let go of the cherished image of Bill the
middle class man who wrote the works. (I get sentimental about it at
times, myself;) You attack this because you think if you play on
people's predjudices, they will fly to DeVere. I think that this was how
Clemens was trying to herd people to Bacon, too.
This isn't the way to get to the truth, now is it? Surely you aren't so
small that this is the real, the one and only, and the largest reason
you think DeVere wrote the works of Shakepeare? I like to have a better
impression of you than this, Volker. I really do.
Regards,
Xanthippe
volker multhopp
> > Snobbery has nothing to do it-- Mark Twain is the quintessential
> > American democrat,
> Clemens married for money and became quite "Babbitzed" as he climbed the
> social ladder. Like you, he comes from a moderately humble background
> but buys into the the "noble lie" that the nobilitly are "better" than
> the common man, judging by his essay, "Shakespeare is Dead."
Could you show us any passage from Twain's piece on Shakespeare that
indicates the nobility is "better" than commoners?
>You are
> familiar with Plato's _Republic_, aren't you? You should be, if you want
> to theorise on the "common man" and identify "quintissential democrats."
> A better treatment of the nature of man and class society does not
> exist, IMHO.
I read *Republic* back in adolescence. How is it germane?
> > One cannot write great literature in pure pretense-- no one is that
> > good. Great literature requires the author throw himself entirely into
> > the work, he can't hold himself back.
> You always lose me on this one, Volker. I read your science fiction
> story, btw. It was very - IMAGINATIVE. If you really believed what you
> are saying here- you'd never have written it, which is a shame.
My little Mars adventure is a long, long way from great literature.
> > do you see the Stratford man anywhere? Show me, I would
> > love to believe in the great common man again.
> I still do, Volker. There are others- Lincoln, Socrates, Mozart, etc.
> You will never win by attacking the common man, because we all know
> better.
I haven't given up on the common man generally, just the specific
Stratford man.
> I think I know WHY you attack the common man myth of Shakespeare,
> though. So many people won't let go of the cherished image of Bill the
> middle class man who wrote the works. (I get sentimental about it at
> times, myself;) You attack this because you think if you play on
> people's predjudices, they will fly to DeVere. I think that this was how
> Clemens was trying to herd people to Bacon, too.
I don't understand how you see Twain and me "herding people". We just
don't think Shakspere wrote the plays, but opposition to the "common
man" is off-putting to most people-- not helpful to winning converts.
--Volker
Xanthippe Yorick
volker multhopp wrote:
>
> Xanthippe Yorick wrote:
>
> > > Snobbery has nothing to do it-- Mark Twain is the quintessential
> > > American democrat,
>
> > Clemens married for money and became quite "Babbitzed" as he climbed the
> > social ladder. Like you, he comes from a moderately humble background
> > but buys into the the "noble lie" that the nobilitly are "better" than
> > the common man, judging by his essay, "Shakespeare is Dead."
>
> Could you show us any passage from Twain's piece on Shakespeare that
> indicates the nobility is "better" than commoners?
Where did I mention the essay in this way, Volker?
>
> >You are
> > familiar with Plato's _Republic_, aren't you? You should be, if you want
> > to theorise on the "common man" and identify "quintissential democrats."
> > A better treatment of the nature of man and class society does not
> > exist, IMHO.
>
> I read *Republic* back in adolescence. How is it germane?
I alreqady gave you the hint- It's the story about the "noble lie."
>
>
> > > One cannot write great literature in pure pretense-- no one is that
> > > good. Great literature requires the author throw himself entirely into
> > > the work, he can't hold himself back.
>
> > You always lose me on this one, Volker. I read your science fiction
> > story, btw. It was very - IMAGINATIVE. If you really believed what you
> > are saying here- you'd never have written it, which is a shame.
>
> My little Mars adventure is a long, long way from great literature.
I dunno- I liked it. You wrote from pure pretense. At least you are
defining your terms and focusing your remarks a bit more. Let's work on
the statement that an author can't hold himself back. That has little
meaning, it seems to me. For instance, you can't reconcile this idea to
the fact thatt he works contain stories about Ancient Romans aor
Fairies, two instances in which the author had to rely on his
imagination, and not personal experience.
I'm not finding fault with your basic premise, Volker- it's just so
broadly stated, I'm not sure what you mean. Hey- it happens to the best
of us.
>
>
> > > do you see the Stratford man anywhere? Show me, I would
> > > love to believe in the great common man again.
>
> > I still do, Volker. There are others- Lincoln, Socrates, Mozart, etc.
> > You will never win by attacking the common man, because we all know
> > better.
>
> I haven't given up on the common man generally, just the specific
> Stratford man.
This is what I wanted to know. Thanks. I won't give up on you generally,
jsut the specifically classist remarks.
>
> > I think I know WHY you attack the common man myth of Shakespeare,
> > though. So many people won't let go of the cherished image of Bill the
> > middle class man who wrote the works. (I get sentimental about it at
> > times, myself;) You attack this because you think if you play on
> > people's predjudices, they will fly to DeVere. I think that this was how
> > Clemens was trying to herd people to Bacon, too.
>
> I don't understand how you see Twain and me "herding people".
I read the essay as a polemic, because of it's tone, and it's arrogance.
You and I are not going to agree on this point, because it's a matter of
taste. I'm not interested n argueing about taste. I'm not interested in
arguing about the authorship issue. I just wanted a little
clarification, and I got it. I honestly was not sure where your focus
has been lately. Part of the problem is that you've pu out more posts
than I can keep with, for sure.
We just
> don't think Shakspere wrote the plays, but opposition to the "common
> man" is off-putting to most people-- not helpful to winning converts.
Here we agree.
Xanthippe
david joseph kathman
>
> Melanie Vessels wrote:
>
> > What I find interesting are the poems and memorials written about
> > Shakespeare by his contemporaries (Mr. Jonson again comes to mind). If the
> > author wasn't Shakespeare, wouldn't he be offended that his peers where
> > lauding someone else?
>
> There weren't any eulogies written to Shakespeare, the great
> playwright, which we can date with any confidence before 1623-- with the
> *First Folio*.
I was about to say, "What about the Basse eulogy, which Jonson's FF poem
responds to?", but then I remembered that you somehow argued that
Jonson's poem came first. In fact, I now remember a longish thread
in which I listed all the dozens of manuscript copies of the Basse poem,
and we went on and on without, of course convincing each other of anything.
I don't want to repeat that thread (those who really want to see it can
find it in DejaNews with a little effort), but I seem to recall that you
acknowledged that the Basse poem might have been written before 1623,
but the crucial part about "he died in April 1616" could been added
any time after the alleged "Stratford hoax" had taken hold and before
that line first appeared in print in 1640. Is that reasonably accurate?
> Oxford would have been dead almost 20 years by then, so
> he took it lying down.
Good one, Volker.
Dave Kathman
dj...@ix.netcom.com
volker multhopp
> > > Clemens married for money and became quite "Babbitzed" as he climbed the
> > > social ladder. Like you, he comes from a moderately humble background
> > > but buys into the the "noble lie" that the nobilitly are "better" than
> > > the common man, judging by his essay, "Shakespeare is Dead."
> > Could you show us any passage from Twain's piece on Shakespeare that
> > indicates the nobility is "better" than commoners?
> Where did I mention the essay in this way, Volker?
Did I mis-read *he ... buys into the the "noble lie" that the nobilitly
are "better" than the common man, judging by his essay, "Shakespeare is
Dead."*?
> > My little Mars adventure is a long, long way from great literature.
> I dunno- I liked it. You wrote from pure pretense. At least you are
> defining your terms and focusing your remarks a bit more. Let's work on
> the statement that an author can't hold himself back. That has little
> meaning, it seems to me. For instance, you can't reconcile this idea to
> the fact thatt he works contain stories about Ancient Romans aor
> Fairies, two instances in which the author had to rely on his
> imagination, and not personal experience.
He only superficially wrote about Rome, Greece, Italy, Denmark,
fairies, etc-- actually he was always writing about the trials and
tribulations of Elizabethan nobility. The dialogs in his head are
discussions among lords and ladies.
--Volker
volker multhopp
> > There weren't any eulogies written to Shakespeare, the great
> > playwright, which we can date with any confidence before 1623-- with the
> > *First Folio*.
> I was about to say, "What about the Basse eulogy, which Jonson's FF poem
> responds to?", but then I remembered that you somehow argued that
> Jonson's poem came first. In fact, I now remember a longish thread
> in which I listed all the dozens of manuscript copies of the Basse poem,
> and we went on and on without, of course convincing each other of anything.
> I don't want to repeat that thread (those who really want to see it can
> find it in DejaNews with a little effort), but I seem to recall that you
> acknowledged that the Basse poem might have been written before 1623,
> but the crucial part about "he died in April 1616" could been added
> any time after the alleged "Stratford hoax" had taken hold and before
> that line first appeared in print in 1640. Is that reasonably accurate?
Right, mostly-- we can agree that of Jonson and Basse, one was
responding to the other, but from the texts it's impossible to tell who
the original was. The "he died..." business isn't the only crucial
part, Basse's poem also puts Shakespeare's death after Beaumont. For
dating Basse-- we have only the initial printing in 1633 for a youngest
possible limit. That it was handwritten on the flyleaf of any book
tells us nothing-- there are a couple of 19th c books lying around here
with my name written in them, but I'm not that old.
--Volker
david joseph kathman
>
> david joseph kathman wrote:
>
> > > There weren't any eulogies written to Shakespeare, the great
> > > playwright, which we can date with any confidence before 1623-- with the
> > > *First Folio*.
>
> > I was about to say, "What about the Basse eulogy, which Jonson's FF poem
> > responds to?", but then I remembered that you somehow argued that
> > Jonson's poem came first. In fact, I now remember a longish thread
> > in which I listed all the dozens of manuscript copies of the Basse poem,
> > and we went on and on without, of course convincing each other of anything.
> > I don't want to repeat that thread (those who really want to see it can
> > find it in DejaNews with a little effort), but I seem to recall that you
> > acknowledged that the Basse poem might have been written before 1623,
> > but the crucial part about "he died in April 1616" could been added
> > any time after the alleged "Stratford hoax" had taken hold and before
> > that line first appeared in print in 1640. Is that reasonably accurate?
>
> Right, mostly-- we can agree that of Jonson and Basse, one was
> responding to the other, but from the texts it's impossible to tell who
> the original was.
Others, including virtually all Shakespeare scholars, would disagree
with you, but we've already had this argument.
> The "he died..." business isn't the only crucial
> part, Basse's poem also puts Shakespeare's death after Beaumont.
That's right. So you agree that it clearly does not refer to Oxford,
who died 12 years before Beaumont did?
> For
> dating Basse-- we have only the initial printing in 1633 for a youngest
> possible limit. That it was handwritten on the flyleaf of any book
> tells us nothing-- there are a couple of 19th c books lying around here
> with my name written in them, but I'm not that old.
So you agree that the Basse poem was written between 1616 (Beaumont's
death) and 1633 (the poem's first publication)? Do you think it was
a deliberate attempt to mislead people, and that Basse was somehow
employed by the conspirators for this purpose? Or do you think
that Basse really believed that William Shakespeare of Stratford
wrote the works published under the name William Shakespeare?
Dave Kathman
dj...@ix.netcom.com
volker multhopp
> > Right, mostly-- we can agree that of Jonson and Basse, one was
> > responding to the other, but from the texts it's impossible to tell who
> > the original was.
> Others, including virtually all Shakespeare scholars, would disagree
> with you, but we've already had this argument.
Your chorus of Shakespeare scholars are all pre-committed to the
Stratford paradigm, along with which they also buy the available
auxilary features. As you said, we've gone over this; and there is
nothing to tell who wrote first.
> > The "he died..." business isn't the only crucial
> > part, Basse's poem also puts Shakespeare's death after Beaumont.
> That's right. So you agree that it clearly does not refer to Oxford,
> who died 12 years before Beaumont did?
Right.
> So you agree that the Basse poem was written between 1616 (Beaumont's
> death) and 1633 (the poem's first publication)?
Yes.
>Do you think it was
> a deliberate attempt to mislead people, and that Basse was somehow
> employed by the conspirators for this purpose? Or do you think
> that Basse really believed that William Shakespeare of Stratford
> wrote the works published under the name William Shakespeare?
The latter.
--Volker
Paul Crowley
>Why any contemporary American needs to doubt that a player named William
>Shakespeare wrote at least the great majority of the works attributed
>traditionally to him is puzzling. I can understand why a few
>class-conscious Britishers of previous generations might have wanted to
>reject the idea that the Shakespeare canon could have been written by
>someone other than an aristocrat privileged to education at Cambridge or
>Oxford. But a modern American reader should be free from such social
>assumptions.
But Shakespeare was not a modern American. He was a Brit; or
more precisely, he was English. If you have any acquaintance
with the forelock-tugging rural lower and middle English classes,
especially of the midlands and southern counties, you will know
why so many have doubts. The notion of, say, writing a sonnet
would be utterly foreign to members of such classes. Even today,
the idea that an ordinary person might know as much as someone
with an Oxbridge degree is nearly unthinkable to them.
Oxfordians, such as myself, don't like or approve of the way in
which class attitudes permeate the whole of the English way of
life. But we recognise that they exist, and determine the lives
of everyone in such a society; and we know that they were even
stronger in Tudor times.
I am mostly Irish and am appalled at the English class system. I
view it with a sort of detached, but fascinated horror -- but at
least I can talk about it, although not easily. Most of those
who know it from experience, find it nearly impossible to
discuss. It is, inevitably, an extremely sensitive part of their
own personalities. To illustrate this, and show how it works,
let me mention that my son (who actually lives in Stratford) has
just got, as fully expected, straight A's for his 'A levels'
(pre-university examinations) -- he's always got straight A's in
everything. Did he apply to go to Oxford or Cambridge? Hell No!
_He_is_not_from_the_right_class_. (If you detect a touch of
bitterness and a hint of family arguments, you would not be too
far wrong.)
It is, for better or worse, simply not possible that someone from
an illiterate tradesman's family in an almost entirely illiterate
small, midland town (with 212 houses) in Elizabethan times, could
have become the world's greatest writer. Everyone in England
knows this in their bones, even if they might be loath to admit
it. Social, political and economic facts have to be recognised,
however enjoyable alternative fantasies may be.
Paul.
book...@my-dejanews.com
Thank's for sharing your views with us in this electronic village. I
appreciate the difficulty many have in crossing walls set in social
conventions, but "something there is that does not love a wall" and on this
side of the pond we do that. Some make a business of it.
When you say it's "not possible" don"t you mean "not probable"? If you grant
this opening, then I suggest Stratfordians are at least on the playing field
in some Darwinian sense where "accident" in genes manifests.
I heard James Joyce was the second greatest tenor in Ireland, after William
McCormic(sp?), before he wrote "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man."
Paul Crowley
> crow...@hxtmail.cxm (Paul Crowley) wrote:
>> It is, for better or worse, simply not possible that someone from
>> an illiterate tradesman's family in an almost entirely illiterate
>> small, midland town (with 212 houses) in Elizabethan times, could
>> have become the world's greatest writer. Everyone in England
>> knows this in their bones, even if they might be loath to admit
>> it. Social, political and economic facts have to be recognised,
>> however enjoyable alternative fantasies may be.
>When you say it's "not possible" don"t you mean "not probable"? If you grant
>this opening, then I suggest Stratfordians are at least on the playing field
>in some Darwinian sense where "accident" in genes manifests.
In reality I have to say "not possible". Genes are important,
but attitude, stimulation, education, motivation, encouragement,
experience and so on, are essential as well. Above all it's
attitudes, and IMO the right ones plus appropriate environment
and experience during the pre-teen years are vital for the
development of a great writer, who must necessarily have a broad
mind formed by the discussion of serious and complex issues at
the earliest possible stage. Someone with illiterate parents, in
a largely illiterate village in a 'forelock-tugging' social class
frankly, I'm afraid, hasn't got the remotest hope -- whatever the
quality of the genes.
>I heard James Joyce was the second greatest tenor in Ireland, after William
>McCormic(sp?), before he wrote "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man."
He certainly thought he was, after _John_ MacCormack.
Paul.
david joseph kathman
>
> On Tue, 15 Sep 1998 22:48:01 GMT, book...@my-dejanews.com wrote:
>
> > crow...@hxtmail.cxm (Paul Crowley) wrote:
> >> It is, for better or worse, simply not possible that someone from
> >> an illiterate tradesman's family in an almost entirely illiterate
> >> small, midland town (with 212 houses) in Elizabethan times, could
> >> have become the world's greatest writer. Everyone in England
> >> knows this in their bones, even if they might be loath to admit
> >> it. Social, political and economic facts have to be recognised,
> >> however enjoyable alternative fantasies may be.
>
> >When you say it's "not possible" don"t you mean "not probable"? If you grant
> >this opening, then I suggest Stratfordians are at least on the playing field
> >in some Darwinian sense where "accident" in genes manifests.
>
> In reality I have to say "not possible". Genes are important,
> but attitude, stimulation, education, motivation, encouragement,
> experience and so on, are essential as well. Above all it's
> attitudes, and IMO the right ones plus appropriate environment
> and experience during the pre-teen years are vital for the
> development of a great writer, who must necessarily have a broad
> mind formed by the discussion of serious and complex issues at
> the earliest possible stage. Someone with illiterate parents, in
> a largely illiterate village in a 'forelock-tugging' social class
> frankly, I'm afraid, hasn't got the remotest hope -- whatever the
> quality of the genes.
Once again, Paul is promulgating his historical ludicrous depiction
of Shakespeare and his Stratford peers as practically a bunch of
drooling imbeciles, incapable of achieving anything of merit or
associating with anybody above their own "forelock-tugging" social
class. I know from long and tedious experience that nothing I can
possibly say is going to sway Paul from his virulent hatred of
William Shakespeare and the town that nurtured him, but for the
benefit of any lurkers who might be interested, I'm going to repost
something I wrote for this newsgroup a few months ago about
the people Shakespeare associated with in Stratford. This was
written in response to a description of William Shakespeare of
Stratford as an "unlettered boob", but it's equally relevant to
Paul's fantastical assertion that Shakespeare came from "a largely
illiterat village in a 'forelock-tugging' social class".
Dave Kathman
dj...@ix.netcom.com
********************
Subject: Was William Shakespeare an "unlettered boob"?
Author: david joseph kathman
Email: dj...@midway.uchicago.edu
Date: 1998/04/27
Forums: humanities.lit.authors.shakespeare
Tracey would like to know what evidence there is that William
Shakespeare of Stratford was not an "unlettered boob". Others
have already posted some of the obvious things -- his likely
attendance at the Stratford Free School, and the fact that all those
people said he wrote those plays and poems. But I realize that
Oxfordians refuse to accept those things, so I'd like to bring up
another type of evidence -- namely, Shakespeare's known friends
in Stratford. Surely we can tell something about a man by the
company he keeps; we wouldn't expect an "unlettered boob" as
densely ignorant as the man depicted by Oxfordians to associate
habitually with cultured, educated men with connections to the
nobility and court. Yet that's exactly what we find with William
Shakespeare of Stratford. When Oxfordians have mentioned any
of these friends of Shakespeare, they have done so only very
briefly, and in the most unflattering contexts possible. I'm going
to go into some detail about these people, to show what Shakespeare's
friends were really like.
First, there's Richard Quiney. I've written about him before, and
the following account is mostly taken, with minor changes, from
a couple of posts of mine from last year. Quiney was very
similar to William Shakespeare in social status, according
to all the evidence we have. The fathers of the two men were
friends and neighbors for nearly 50 years; as Edgar Fripp puts it
in his biography *Richard Quyny*, John Shakespeare and Adrian
Quiney "had much in common, and they climbed together, Quyny
leading, the ladder of municipal promotion, from Taster to Constable,
and thence to Principal Burgess, Chamberlain, Alderman, Bailiff
and Capital or Head Alderman." The two men traveled to London
on Stratford business in early 1572, when Adrian Quiney was
Bailiff and John Shakespeare was High Alderman. Adrian
Quiney was a mercer (a dealer in fine fabrics) and John Shakespeare
was a glover, though they both had additional sources of income.
As for Richard Quiney, he was a mercer by trade (like his father),
and though he was fairly well-off, I can't find any evidence
that he owned land, as Shakespeare did. Quiney's famous letter
to Shakespeare is addressed "to my loving good friend and
countryman, Master William Shakespeare". Quiney's son Thomas
eventually married Shakespeare's daughter Judith, and they named
their first son, born in 1617, "Shakespeare". The Quineys and
the Shakespeares were close, in both friendship and social
status, over a span of three generations.
The correspondence of Richard Quiney, which was preserved
in the town archives by a fluke when Quiney died in office
as Bailiff, provides an interesting snapshot of the life of one
of Shakespeare's Stratford friends (who was, as I noted,
very similar to Shakespeare in social class). This
correspondence contains Quiney's famous letter to
Shakespeare (in which he mentions that he is going to Court
on business and may not be back that night).
However, it also includes: a letter in Latin from
Quiney's eleven-year-old son, in which the younger Quiney
quotes Cicero's "Epistolae ad Familiares"; several letters
from Abraham Sturley to Quiney, some entirely in Latin
and others in English with passages in Latin, in one of
which Sturley quotes Erasmus' *Adagia* and in another
of which he alludes to Quiney's study of books; a letter
in which Quiney's wife advises him to read Tully's
*Epistles*; a letter from a representative of Sir Fulke
Greville (father of the courtier and poet), sending Greville's
"love" and inviting Quiney and his friends to spend
Christmas with Greville at Beauchamp's Court; a letter from
Quiney to an unidentified Privy Councillor; and lots
of other interesting stuff. It is only by the purest luck that
this cache of letters managed to survive to the present day,
but it presents a picture of a man who, despite having no
documented education (just like his "loving friend" William
Shakespeare), seems to have been very well-read and to have
been perfectly capable of interacting easily with the rich and
powerful.
Next, let's take a look at Thomas Greene. He was also one
of Shakespeare's closest friends in Stratford, to judge by
the evidence. He was living in New Place in 1609 and possibly
for some time before, and in his diary he refers affectionately
to "my cosen Shakespeare" numerous times around 1614. Three
of his children were born in Stratford, and he named two of
them "William" and "Anne", most likely after Shakespeare
and his wife. Who was Thomas Greene? He was the son of
Thomas Greene Sr., mercer, of Warwick, who in his will of
1590 left eighty pounds and a gray mare to Thomas Jr. In
1595 Thomas entered the Middle Temple (one of the four
Inns of Court, the equivalent of law schools); his sureties
(kind of like sponsors) were John Marston Junior and Senior,
the future playwright and his father. In 1601 he accompanied
Richard Quiney to London on Stratford business, where they
tried unsuccessfully to see the Attorney General, Sir Edward
Coke. (Coke was preoccupied because the Essex rebellion had
just happened.) Greene was a close friend of Michael Drayton,
the poet, and in 1603 he wrote a sonnet to Drayton which
appeared in *The Barons' Wars*; in the same year he wrote
a poem in honor of King James called *A Poets Vision and a
Princes Glorie*. Drayton, in turn, later wrote an elegy for
Sir Henry Rainsford, Greene's good friend and fellow
Middle Templar who he often mentions affectionately in the
same diary where he mentions Shakespeare. Some of Greene's
papers managed to survive at Stratford, and they include Latin
verses and some English jottings about the nature of love.
Greene's literary endeavors (at least those that were published)
seem to have been confined to the period 1602-1603, when
he was in London finishing up his formal studies at the
Middle Temple. He was called to the Bar of the Middle Temple
in October 1602, and in August of the following year he was
appointed Steward (later called Town Clerk) of Stratford. He
held this position for the next 14 years, during which time he
negotiated a new town charter (in 1610), bought a lease of
tithes (in 1609, as Shakespeare had done in 1605), and was
heavily involved in the enclosure controversy of 1614-19, during
which he wrote his famous diary in which he mentions
Shakespeare. In 1617 he resigned his post and sold his house
for 240 pounds and his tithes for 400 pounds, though he
complained that he should have gotten more because of his long
service to the town. He became a Reader at the Middle Temple
in 1621, Master of the Bench in 1623, and Treasurer in 1629.
He died in Bristol in 1640. Here we have a close friend of
William Shakespeare's who also happened to be a published
poet, a friend of Michael Drayton and John Marston, and an
accomplished lawyer.
The final Shakespeare friend I'm going to mention is Thomas
Russell. He was one of two overseers of Shakespeare's will,
an honor which implies a close friendship. Russell was born
in 1570, six years after Shakespeare; his father, Sir Thomas
Russell, had been a Member of Parliament. Sir Thomas died
when Thomas Jr. was four, and the boy was brought up by
his mother and her second husband, Sir Henry Berkeley, in
very comfortable circumstances. He was educated at Queen's
College, Oxford, and in 1590 he married Katherine Bampfield.
Unfortunately, Katherine and one of their two daughters died
around 1595, after which Russell moved to Alderminster,
about four miles south of Stratford. He certainly was familiar
with Stratford around this time, since he sued a Stratford
butcher, William Parry, for debt in 1596. In 1599 he began
wooing Anne Digges, the widowed mother of
Leonard Digges, (future Shakespeare eulogist) and Dudley
Digges (future knight and Member of Parliament). Anne had
a London house in Philips Lane, Aldermanbury, just around
the corner from John Heminges and Henry Condell, and she
also had an estate in Rushock, Worcestershire, a few miles
from Heminges' birthplace of Droitwich. Unfortunately,
Russell and Anne Digges could not get married right away
because of the onerous conditions of her husband's will, but
in 1600 she and her children moved in with Russell anyway,
at his estate in Alderminster. In 1601 Russell tried to buy
Clopton House, the largest house in Stratford, two years
after Shakespeare had bought New Place, the second largest
house in Stratford; but in the end William Clopton refused to
complete the sale. In 1603, Russell finally married Anne Digges
officially, and they divided their time between Alderminster and
Rushock until his death in 1634. (Anne survived her husband
by three years, even though she was 15 years older.)
Russell had plenty of friends and relatives in high places.
The half-brother with whom he was raised, Sir Maurice
Berkeley, became a prominent Member of Parliament, as did
his stepson Sir Dudley Digges. One of his stepfather's good
friends and neighbors was Sir John Harington, the courtier,
godson of Queen Elizabeth, and author of *The Metamorphosis
of Ajax*; Russell no doubt knew Harington well when he was
growing up. Another family friend was Tobie Matthew senior,
Dean of Christchurch at Oxford and Archbishop of York. Thomas
Russell was at Oxford with Matthew's son, Tobie Matthew junior,
and the two men maintained a friendship for many years after.
Tobie junior was one of Francis Bacon's closest friends (Bacon
called him "my alter ego" and asked for his advice in writing his
Essays); he was also a friend of John Donne and a retainer of the
Earl of Essex. Still another of Thomas Russell's friends was
Endymion Porter, a courtier, patron of poets, and favorite of Kings
James and Charles I; the two men's familes were close for years,
and there survives a letter from Russell to Porter in which he offers
to take in Porter's wife and children during a plague outbreak,
promising to give them "fatherlike care". Russell himself was
invited to be knighted at the coronation of King Charles I, but
he refused the honor, preferring to pay a fine of 15 pounds instead.
Quiney, Greene, and Russell were just three of William
Shakespeare's friends in Stratford, but they were representative
of the type of people he associated with outside of London.
Bob Grumman has already posted about the Combes, and Dr.
John Hall, Shakespeare's son-in-law and friend, was another
well-educated man with lots of connections. Now, given all this
that I've just written, do these seem like the type of crowd that
an "unlettered boob" would hang around with? They were all
cultured men, conversant in Latin, at ease with both literary
types and courtiers. Why would these people maintain such
close friendships with the slobbering yokel depicted by Oxfordians?
Could it be that William Shakespeare was not a slobbering
yokel at all, but was himself a cultured man at ease with literary
types and courtiers?
Dave Kathman
dj...@midway.uchicago.edu
P.S. For those who are interested, much of my information about
Quiney comes from Edgar Fripp's biography *Master Richard Quyny*;
about Greene, Part IV of Christopher Whitfield's four-part series
"Some of Shakespeare's Contemporaries at the Middle Temple"
(Notes and Queries, December 1966, pp.445-6); about Russell,
Leslie Hotson's *I, William Shakespeare*; and for all three,
Mark Eccles' invaluable *Shakespeare in Warwickshire*.
Paul Crowley
<dj...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>Paul Crowley wrote:
>> In reality I have to say "not possible". Genes are important,
>> but attitude, stimulation, education, motivation, encouragement,
>> experience and so on, are essential as well. Above all it's
>> attitudes, and IMO the right ones plus appropriate environment
>> and experience during the pre-teen years are vital for the
>> development of a great writer, who must necessarily have a broad
>> mind formed by the discussion of serious and complex issues at
>> the earliest possible stage. Someone with illiterate parents, in
>> a largely illiterate village in a 'forelock-tugging' social class
>> frankly, I'm afraid, hasn't got the remotest hope -- whatever the
>> quality of the genes.
>
>Once again, Paul is promulgating his historical ludicrous depiction
>of Shakespeare and his Stratford peers as practically a bunch of
>drooling imbeciles, incapable of achieving anything of merit or
>associating with anybody above their own "forelock-tugging" social
>class.
This is, of course, not what I say. And it is stupid to set up
such obvious straw men.
>Could it be that William Shakespeare was not a slobbering
>yokel at all, but was himself a cultured man at ease with literary
>types and courtiers?
You are suggesting that there were _in_effect_ only two classes:
(a) "cultured men at ease with literary types and courtiers" and
(b) those who wouldn't be -- and that all we have to decide is
into which group the Stratman fitted. (I am not, in turn,
creating straw men -- this is your argument.) It is, of course,
quite false. However, even if it was acceptable, it would still
miss most of the point.
Firstly, you talk of possible 'friends' _after_ the Stratman had
come into money. But a developing writer requires stimulation in
his early years; that was hardly obtainable in the illiterate
Shaksper household. Given the distance from anywhere to
Stratford, what would have been discussed? Politics and
metaphysics? Poetry, music, theatre, science? It was a small
backwater town -- and some of us have had experience of them
before TV.
Secondly, being a "cultured man at ease with literary types and
courtiers" is not good enough. Many of us might pass that test.
But our man had to become the greatest. He had to measure
himself up against the best of his day, and come out on top. He
had to be doing that (or trying to do it) from his late teens.
That's how it works in every other profession and artistic
calling, and in every other place and time. Now my son who has
just copped out of Oxbridge will never be in that position.
There will always be, in English society, pompous Oxbridge oafs
ready to put him down. And the impositions he will suffer will
be as nothing to compared those laid upon a Warwickshire villager
in Elizabethan England -- not that he would have ever got into
that company in the first place.
Of course, your distinction (of "cultured men at ease with
literary types and courtiers" as against the rest) is quite
absurd anyway. It was an extremely complex social structure,
with many highly codified layers, and all sorts of rules about
dress, manners of speech, duties and obligations, and so on that
were appropriate for each class. This is comes out in most
Elizabethan documents. Almost by definition, people from
different classes were not at ease with each other. They aren't
in England _now_ although hardly a trace of the omnipresent
class distinctions are ever indicated in modern documents.
>I know from long and tedious experience that nothing I can
>possibly say is going to sway Paul from his virulent hatred of
>William Shakespeare and the town that nurtured him,
It's nonsense to suggest that I hate the man or the town. It's a
lovely place that I greatly enjoy visiting.
>Paul's fantastical assertion that Shakespeare came from "a largely
>illiterat village in a 'forelock-tugging' social class".
You cannot deny that it was largely illiterate, that Shaksper's
parents were illiterate and that his children were illiterate.
The class that he came from was unquestionably 'forelock-
tugging". It_still_is, as anyone can see.
> Shakespeare's known friends in Stratford.
<snips>
>First, there's Richard Quiney. I've written about him before, and
>the following account is mostly taken, with minor changes, from
>a couple of posts of mine from last year. Quiney was very
>similar to William Shakespeare in social status, according
>to all the evidence we have. The fathers of the two men were
>friends and neighbors for nearly 50 years; as Edgar Fripp puts it
>in his biography *Richard Quyny*, John Shakespeare and Adrian
>Quiney "had much in common, and they climbed together, Quyny
>leading, the ladder of municipal promotion, from Taster to Constable,
>and thence to Principal Burgess, Chamberlain, Alderman, Bailiff
>and Capital or Head Alderman."
It is important to remember that this "climbing" was done in a
town of ~200 houses and ~1400 people. Cutting out the women, the
children and the elderly, maybe there were 150 to 200 adult males
that could theoretically have participated in these matters.
>The two men traveled to London
>on Stratford business in early 1572, when Adrian Quiney was
>Bailiff and John Shakespeare was High Alderman. Adrian
>Quiney was a mercer (a dealer in fine fabrics) and John Shakespeare
>was a glover, though they both had additional sources of income.
Being a "glover" has always struck me as a bit odd. It's not
highly skilled; the market would be local, small and seasonal;
there would be competition; many people would make their own.
How many could he expect to sell in a year and at what profit?
>As for Richard Quiney, he was a mercer by trade (like his father),
>and though he was fairly well-off, I can't find any evidence
>that he owned land, as Shakespeare did. Quiney's famous letter
>to Shakespeare is addressed "to my loving good friend and
>countryman, Master William Shakespeare".
When you're asking for money, you tend to exaggerate friendship.
They might well not have spoken in years. And why is it a
_letter_? If they were neighbours, why didn't they meet often
enough? If I want a favour (such as a loan) from a friend who
lives nearby I would not consider writing, I'd call and broach
the matter delicately. If he was in bad humour, I leave it for
another time. There is something odd here. Was Shaksper leading
a "Howard Hughes" type of existence? Had he been told that he
shouldn't even show his face?
>Quiney's son Thomas
>eventually married Shakespeare's daughter Judith, and they named
>their first son, born in 1617, "Shakespeare". The Quineys and
>the Shakespeares were close, in both friendship and social
>status, over a span of three generations.
>
>The correspondence of Richard Quiney, which was preserved
>in the town archives by a fluke when Quiney died in office
>as Bailiff, provides an interesting snapshot of the life of one
>of Shakespeare's Stratford friends (who was, as I noted,
>very similar to Shakespeare in social class). This
>correspondence contains Quiney's famous letter to
>Shakespeare (in which he mentions that he is going to Court
>on business and may not be back that night).
So this must mean the local court of law, maybe in Warwick or
Gloucester?
>However, it also includes: a letter in Latin from
>Quiney's eleven-year-old son, in which the younger Quiney
>quotes Cicero's "Epistolae ad Familiares"; several letters
>from Abraham Sturley to Quiney, some entirely in Latin
>and others in English with passages in Latin, in one of
>which Sturley quotes Erasmus' *Adagia* and in another
>of which he alludes to Quiney's study of books; a letter
>in which Quiney's wife advises him to read Tully's
>*Epistles*; a letter from a representative of Sir Fulke
>Greville (father of the courtier and poet), sending Greville's
>"love" and inviting Quiney and his friends to spend
>Christmas with Greville at Beauchamp's Court; a letter from
>Quiney to an unidentified Privy Councillor; and lots
>of other interesting stuff. It is only by the purest luck that
>this cache of letters managed to survive to the present day,
>but it presents a picture of a man who, despite having no
>documented education (just like his "loving friend" William
>Shakespeare), seems to have been very well-read and to have
>been perfectly capable of interacting easily with the rich and
>powerful.
I am always amazed at the extent and the quality of information
that survives from that time. How strange that this collection
of letters and documents (like all the numerous others) makes not
the slightest mention of the famous playwright in their midst:
one who had covered much of the history of England in his cycle
of plays; who had seven of his plays performed (one put on
twice) for the royal court in the Christmas season of 1904/5;
who had, by 1593, written a play at the specific request of the
Queen (I'm referring here to the Merry Wives; you will date it
to 1597 and will probably query this particular story, but you
can't question the overall pattern) -- and so on and on.
>Next, let's take a look at Thomas Greene. He was also one
>of Shakespeare's closest friends in Stratford, to judge by
>the evidence. He was living in New Place in 1609 and possibly
>for some time before, and in his diary he refers affectionately
>to "my cosen Shakespeare" numerous times around 1614.
But never to "my famous cosen Shakespeare" or "my most
accomplished cosen" or "my illustrious cosen" or to "my royally-
favoured cosen". How could anyone refer to the author without
some slight indication of his extraordinary qualities and nature?
<snips>
>Some of Greene's papers managed to survive at Stratford,
But not a single paper from our William did! And he was,
supposedly, in the business of producing and distributing
papers, many in multiple manuscript copies.
>and they include Latin
>verses and some English jottings about the nature of love.
But not one whit of breath about the Stratford man as the famous
playwright. Not from Drayton, not from Greene, not from Quiney,
not from Russell.
>Greene's literary endeavors (at least those that were published)
>seem to have been confined to the period 1602-1603, when
>he was in London finishing up his formal studies at the
>Middle Temple. He was called to the Bar of the Middle Temple
>in October 1602, and in August of the following year he was
>appointed Steward (later called Town Clerk) of Stratford. He
>held this position for the next 14 years, during which time he
>negotiated a new town charter (in 1610), bought a lease of
>tithes (in 1609, as Shakespeare had done in 1605), and was
>heavily involved in the enclosure controversy of 1614-19, during
>which he wrote his famous diary in which he mentions
>Shakespeare.
Is it not amazing that this literary man, this published poet,
noted nothing of the world's greatest poet and playwright, other
than some vague, guarded comment on a local controversy?
<snips>
>He died in Bristol in 1640. Here we have a close friend of
>William Shakespeare's who also happened to be a published
>poet, a friend of Michael Drayton and John Marston, and an
>accomplished lawyer.
>The final Shakespeare friend I'm going to mention is Thomas
>Russell. He was one of two overseers of Shakespeare's will,
>an honor which implies a close friendship.
Does it? This is your only evidence for your claim to the
existence of a friendship. It's thin. Maybe they had recently
done business. Or he may just have been known to the Stratford
lawyer.
<snip of Russell's resume>
>Quiney, Greene, and Russell were just three of William
>Shakespeare's friends in Stratford, but they were representative
>of the type of people he associated with outside of London.
And all of them should have talked about their friendship with
that famous person (as a famous person) left anecdotes, written
to their friends, written to him, and so on and on. If what you
suggest is true, each of them would have had far more to tell
than the stories that we actually have -- from the likes of
Davenant or Beeston.
You've focussed on his alleged friends in Stratford, who you say
were literate, educated and well-connected. He should have had a
much greater number of that nature in London. Where are they
all?
>Bob Grumman has already posted about the Combes, and Dr.
>John Hall, Shakespeare's son-in-law and friend, was another
>well-educated man with lots of connections.
<snip>
>Why would these people maintain such
>close friendships with the slobbering yokel depicted by Oxfordians?
Err . . . he had money?
Paul.
Richard J Kennedy
Kathman has posted a very significant collection of some
scholarly research on a few of Shakespeare's friends. He
gives us Quiney, Greene, and Russell as the chief examples,
yet mentions Dr. John Hall and Coombs as well. (He might
have mentioned Alexander Aspinal as well)
I wouldn't doubt that these men were friends, or at least had
close business and/or family connections. After that, we must
go to speculation.
What's to be noticed in Kathman's good post, is that we have
considerable information on Quiney, Greene, and Russell that well
attests to their gentility, and a level of literacy that would
probably make them well-willing of intelligent conversation.. And
we are given to know quite a lot about these men that history has
forgot, but all of this tells us nothing about Shakespeare. That's
the biography we're looking for, not the biographies of those
three forgotten men.
Which is to say, Kathman has posted something of value for
anti-Stratfordians, and of no use to himself that I can see.
He gives us three obscure biographies, and nothing at all
about Shakespeare of Stratford except that he knew these men
in some roundabout way. What can we say to that?
Kathman can say more. Quiney had a son that could write some
Latin, and I believe Kathman is suggesting that therefore
Shakespeare could read and write Latin. And Greene, well, Greene
once wrote a poem to the great poet Michael Drayton. And Russell?
Russell had a half brother who was in Parliament. Therefore, the
suggestion is that an occasional contact with these three
men gave Shakespeare his knowlege of Latin, his poetic skills,
and his intimate knowlege of high politics. This is a sort of
leapfrog reasoning, and next we might suppose to have
biographies of people Shakespeare passed in the street.
And these intimate friends, as Kathman would have it, said
nothing when Shakespeare died, and can enlist with the rest
of the universe in that. omission.
--
david joseph kathman
>On Wed, 16 Sep 1998 22:49:01 +0100, david joseph kathman
><dj...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
>>Paul Crowley wrote:
>>> In reality I have to say "not possible". Genes are important,
>>> but attitude, stimulation, education, motivation, encouragement,
>>> experience and so on, are essential as well. Above all it's
>>> attitudes, and IMO the right ones plus appropriate environment
>>> and experience during the pre-teen years are vital for the
>>> development of a great writer, who must necessarily have a broad
>>> mind formed by the discussion of serious and complex issues at
>>> the earliest possible stage. Someone with illiterate parents, in
>>> a largely illiterate village in a 'forelock-tugging' social class
>>> frankly, I'm afraid, hasn't got the remotest hope -- whatever the
>>> quality of the genes.
>>
>>Once again, Paul is promulgating his historical ludicrous depiction
>>of Shakespeare and his Stratford peers as practically a bunch of
>>drooling imbeciles, incapable of achieving anything of merit or
>>associating with anybody above their own "forelock-tugging" social
>>class.
>
>This is, of course, not what I say.
Of course not, Paul. Of course not.
>And it is stupid to set up
>such obvious straw men.
This is too, too hilarious. You, the Michaelangelo of
constructing straw men, are lecturing me on the subject?
You're the one who wrote the following elsewhere in
this thread:
>The Stratfordian view of Shakespeare doesn't exist only as the
>result of an historical accident. It's also there because it
>fills a lot of small minds with comfortable illusions: (a) they
>know it all; (b) literature is self-contained without any wider
>meaning; (c) the best is written by semi-morons who have no idea
>what they are doing, while in a sort of trance; (d) fortunately
>we now have the academics to explain it; (e) the best is written
>for money; (f) quality is judged by mass appeal and
>entertainment value; (g) there's no point to writing if it's
>not for money; (h) there's no other point to literature at all,
>and (i) Jeffrey Archer really is the bestest.
I don't know which is more side-splitting: this bizarre
caricature you've created of what you imagine Shakespeare
scholars to believe, or the idea that you actually think
there are people who hold these beliefs. And I know you
do believe it; no, you KNOW it, dammit, and you'll respond
to this with the same sneering condescension that drenches
all your posts. At least I was consciously exaggerating
for comic effect, since your posts practically cry out to
be exaggerated and parodied; you, on the other hand, seem
to be deadly serious, which I find a little scary.
>>Could it be that William Shakespeare was not a slobbering
>>yokel at all, but was himself a cultured man at ease with literary
>>types and courtiers?
>
>You are suggesting that there were _in_effect_ only two classes:
>(a) "cultured men at ease with literary types and courtiers" and
>(b) those who wouldn't be -- and that all we have to decide is
>into which group the Stratman fitted.
Now, Paul, where did I ever say that? It's certainly not
what I meant, not even close. I keep marveling at your
complete lack of self-awareness, and wondering if this is
some sort of persona you've created, a persona who
belligerently accuses others of the very things he himself
is most guilty of.
>(I am not, in turn,
>creating straw men -- this is your argument.)
Oh, OK. That makes it all right. You're not creating
straw men. Check.
>It is, of course,
>quite false.
Of course.
>However, even if it was acceptable, it would still
>miss most of the point.
>
>Firstly, you talk of possible 'friends' _after_ the Stratman had
>come into money. But a developing writer requires stimulation in
>his early years; that was hardly obtainable in the illiterate
>Shaksper household. Given the distance from anywhere to
>Stratford, what would have been discussed? Politics and
>metaphysics? Poetry, music, theatre, science?
Sure, why not? Look at that letter to Richard Quiney
from his 11-year old son, which alludes to Cicero. Look
at the letters of Abraham Sturley, who was at least a
decade older than Shakespeare and had no known education;
they're filled with Latin and classical allusions. Your
constant repetition of your unshakable belief that
Stratford was an illiterate backwater devoid of any
culture does not make it any truer. Every small town
in Elizabethan England had lots of music and theatrical
activity, as the REED project is making abundantly clear.
The evidence indicates that the people of Stratford and
other small were perfectly capable of discussing the
things you mention; I can't help it if you adamantly
refuse to believe the evidence.
>It was a small
>backwater town -- and some of us have had experience of them
>before TV.
Ah, I see. As usual, your personal experiences are taken
to be obvious universal truths, applicable to all times and
places. Does this have to do with your son not getting
into University, as you so bitterly recounted in another
thread? Is that where all this bitterness comes from?
I'm grasping at straws here, trying to figure out how
your mind works, because it's so alien from the minds of
anybody else I know.
>Secondly, being a "cultured man at ease with literary types and
>courtiers" is not good enough. Many of us might pass that test.
>But our man had to become the greatest. He had to measure
>himself up against the best of his day, and come out on top. He
>had to be doing that (or trying to do it) from his late teens.
Ah, once again the Bardolatry comes to the fore.
Shakespeare not only was the greatest writer ever, he
*knew* from his cradle (or at least his teens) that
he was the greatest writer ever, and acted according
to your conception of how the greatest writer ever
should have acted. Perhaps he had a halo, and others
tossed flowers in his path wherever he walked. (Note
to lurkers: this is more exaggeration for comic effect.)
>That's how it works in every other profession and artistic
>calling, and in every other place and time. Now my son who has
>just copped out of Oxbridge will never be in that position.
>There will always be, in English society, pompous Oxbridge oafs
>ready to put him down. And the impositions he will suffer will
>be as nothing to compared those laid upon a Warwickshire villager
>in Elizabethan England -- not that he would have ever got into
>that company in the first place.
Once again, the intense bitterness toward academia,
here represented by Oxbridge, comes to the fore, accompanied
by more about your son's thwarted ambitions. I won't
try to psychoanalyze you, Paul; I'll leave that to
those who are qualified. I notice that, as usual, you're
very enamored of absolutes and sweeping, universal
statements. No ambiguities or historical context for you,
no sir!
>Of course, your distinction (of "cultured men at ease with
>literary types and courtiers" as against the rest) is quite
>absurd anyway. It was an extremely complex social structure,
>with many highly codified layers, and all sorts of rules about
>dress, manners of speech, duties and obligations, and so on that
>were appropriate for each class. This is comes out in most
>Elizabethan documents. Almost by definition, people from
>different classes were not at ease with each other. They aren't
>in England _now_ although hardly a trace of the omnipresent
>class distinctions are ever indicated in modern documents.
We had an interminable thread last year about the
Elizabethan class system, in which I questioned your
depiction of absolutely rigid class lines, noted evidence
that different classes often intermingled, and cited
authorities who had spent decades studying the subject
and painted a picture very different from yours.
I realize that that post had no effect on you and would
still have no effect if I reposted it now. If anybody
reading this didn't see that thread and is interested,
e-mail me and I can send you some of it.
>>I know from long and tedious experience that nothing I can
>>possibly say is going to sway Paul from his virulent hatred of
>>William Shakespeare and the town that nurtured him,
>
>It's nonsense to suggest that I hate the man or the town. It's a
>lovely place that I greatly enjoy visiting.
Oh, Paul, are you really so unable to grasp what I'm
saying? I thought it was apparent that I was talking
about sixteenth century Stratford, not Stratford as it
is today. And you do hate William Shakespeare, or at
least you find him very distasteful and look down your
nose at him. Or at least you look down your nose at
the version of him that you've constructed in your mind.
>>Paul's fantastical assertion that Shakespeare came from "a largely
>>illiterat village in a 'forelock-tugging' social class".
>
>You cannot deny that it was largely illiterate, that Shaksper's
>parents were illiterate and that his children were illiterate.
I can and do deny such categorial statements. You once again
state the Oxfordian holy writ that Shakespeare's children
were illiterate, when in fact his daughter Susanna signed
her name in a clear italic hand and was almost certainly
literate. A signature is very strong evidence of literacy,
and in fact, a mark is no certain evidence of illiteracy.
As I've pointed out many times, some people (especially women)
signed documents with a mark even though they could sign
their name, and a significant portion of the people who
couldn't write could still read, because reading was
taught before writing and given a higher priority. I've
cited evidence to this effect from David Cressy, who spent
many years studying literacy in Elizabethan England and wrote
two books on the subject, but of course it has no effect
on Oxfordians. I continue to do so for the benefit of
any lurkers who are still reading this.
>The class that he came from was unquestionably 'forelock-
>tugging". It_still_is, as anyone can see.
Oh, of course. Anyone can see.
>> Shakespeare's known friends in Stratford.
>
><snips>
>
>>First, there's Richard Quiney. I've written about him before, and
>>the following account is mostly taken, with minor changes, from
>>a couple of posts of mine from last year. Quiney was very
>>similar to William Shakespeare in social status, according
>>to all the evidence we have. The fathers of the two men were
>>friends and neighbors for nearly 50 years; as Edgar Fripp puts it
>>in his biography *Richard Quyny*, John Shakespeare and Adrian
>>Quiney "had much in common, and they climbed together, Quyny
>>leading, the ladder of municipal promotion, from Taster to Constable,
>>and thence to Principal Burgess, Chamberlain, Alderman, Bailiff
>>and Capital or Head Alderman."
>
>It is important to remember that this "climbing" was done in a
>town of ~200 houses and ~1400 people. Cutting out the women, the
>children and the elderly, maybe there were 150 to 200 adult males
>that could theoretically have participated in these matters.
Stratford did not, of course, exist in a hermetically
sealed bubble. These men were also climbing in the social
hierarchy of Warwickshire, and more broadly of England
as a whole. Town officials would have dealings with
the officials of other towns, and would represent the
town to the national government in London, as I
noted immediately below.
>>The two men traveled to London
>>on Stratford business in early 1572, when Adrian Quiney was
>>Bailiff and John Shakespeare was High Alderman. Adrian
>>Quiney was a mercer (a dealer in fine fabrics) and John Shakespeare
>>was a glover, though they both had additional sources of income.
>
>Being a "glover" has always struck me as a bit odd.
A lot of things strike you as odd, don't they, Paul?
>It's not
>highly skilled; the market would be local, small and seasonal;
>there would be competition; many people would make their own.
>How many could he expect to sell in a year and at what profit?
Gosh, I don't know. I do know that John Shakespeare was
a quite wealthy man, at least until he fell on hard times
in the late 1570s. He had enough money to buy two houses
and lend out 100 pounds at interest in 1569, among other
things.
>>As for Richard Quiney, he was a mercer by trade (like his father),
>>and though he was fairly well-off, I can't find any evidence
>>that he owned land, as Shakespeare did. Quiney's famous letter
>>to Shakespeare is addressed "to my loving good friend and
>>countryman, Master William Shakespeare".
>
>When you're asking for money, you tend to exaggerate friendship.
>They might well not have spoken in years.
Oh, lord. You obviously have no clue about the context
of the letter, so I guess I'll have to explain it yet again.
This letter is part of a packet of Richard Quiney's papers
which survived by chance, because they happened to be
in the Stratford archives when he died in office as
Bailiff in 1602. Other letters from around the time
of this one make it clear that Richard Quiney was indeed
friends with William Shakespeare and spoke with him often.
In fact, the reason this letter probably survived among
Quiney's papers is that he ran into Shakespeare before
he had a chance to send it, since a letter he wrote to
Abraham Sturley the next day makes it clear that he had
spoken to Shakespeare in the interim.
>And why is it a
>_letter_? If they were neighbours, why didn't they meet often
>enough? If I want a favour (such as a loan) from a friend who
>lives nearby I would not consider writing, I'd call and broach
>the matter delicately. If he was in bad humour, I leave it for
>another time. There is something odd here. Was Shaksper leading
>a "Howard Hughes" type of existence? Had he been told that he
>shouldn't even show his face?
Both Quiney and Shakespeare were in London at the time. Quiney
was there representing Stratford, trying to get the town a
tax break from the government because several wet summers
in the mid 1590s had ruined crops and caused economic
hardship. He had been there for a couple of months and was
running out of money to live on, which is why he needed the
loan from Shakespeare. Shakespeare was in London because he
was acting with the Lord Chamberlain's Men. Quiney undoubtedly
had a lot to do and wasn't sure where to find his friend in
that city of 200,000 people, so he wrote a letter. Apparently
he ran into Shakespeare before it became necessary to send
the letter.
>>Quiney's son Thomas
>>eventually married Shakespeare's daughter Judith, and they named
>>their first son, born in 1617, "Shakespeare". The Quineys and
>>the Shakespeares were close, in both friendship and social
>>status, over a span of three generations.
>>
>>The correspondence of Richard Quiney, which was preserved
>>in the town archives by a fluke when Quiney died in office
>>as Bailiff, provides an interesting snapshot of the life of one
>>of Shakespeare's Stratford friends (who was, as I noted,
>>very similar to Shakespeare in social class). This
>>correspondence contains Quiney's famous letter to
>>Shakespeare (in which he mentions that he is going to Court
>>on business and may not be back that night).
>
>So this must mean the local court of law, maybe in Warwick or
>Gloucester?
No, it's the Court of Queen Elizabeth I. As I said,
Quiney was in London representing Stratford on town
business. I doubt he saw the Queen, but he probably met
with at least one Privy Coucillor, since a letter by
him to an unidentified Privy Councillor survives among
his papers.
>>However, it also includes: a letter in Latin from
>>Quiney's eleven-year-old son, in which the younger Quiney
>>quotes Cicero's "Epistolae ad Familiares"; several letters
>>from Abraham Sturley to Quiney, some entirely in Latin
>>and others in English with passages in Latin, in one of
>>which Sturley quotes Erasmus' *Adagia* and in another
>>of which he alludes to Quiney's study of books; a letter
>>in which Quiney's wife advises him to read Tully's
>>*Epistles*; a letter from a representative of Sir Fulke
>>Greville (father of the courtier and poet), sending Greville's
>>"love" and inviting Quiney and his friends to spend
>>Christmas with Greville at Beauchamp's Court; a letter from
>>Quiney to an unidentified Privy Councillor; and lots
>>of other interesting stuff. It is only by the purest luck that
>>this cache of letters managed to survive to the present day,
>>but it presents a picture of a man who, despite having no
>>documented education (just like his "loving friend" William
>>Shakespeare), seems to have been very well-read and to have
>>been perfectly capable of interacting easily with the rich and
>>powerful.
>
>I am always amazed at the extent and the quality of information
>that survives from that time.
As I've said numerous times, this packet of Quiney's papers
survived by chance because it was in the Stratford archive
when he died in office as Bailiff, and nobody ever bothered
to get rid of it. It's only by the purest chance that
we have this snapshot of Quiney's doings; most such
personal papers from middle-class people like him and
Shakespeare were not preserved in government archives and
thus disappeared long ago.
>How strange that this collection
>of letters and documents (like all the numerous others) makes not
>the slightest mention of the famous playwright in their midst:
These were primarily business documents, so I don't see why
they should mention Shakespeare's literary activities.
Your bardolatrous idea that everybody who came in contact
with Shakespeare should have mentioned his plays and poems
would be quite humorous to any student of Elizabethan
literary history.
>one who had covered much of the history of England in his cycle
>of plays; who had seven of his plays performed (one put on
>twice) for the royal court in the Christmas season of 1904/5;
>who had, by 1593, written a play at the specific request of the
>Queen (I'm referring here to the Merry Wives; you will date it
>to 1597 and will probably query this particular story, but you
>can't question the overall pattern) -- and so on and on.
Oh, Paul, you sly dog, you're trying to get me sucked
into a whole nother thread on the dating of Shakespeare's
plays! Sorry, but I won't bite. You go on insisting
that Merry Wives must have been written in 1593. I'm sure
it makes you feel much better.
>>Next, let's take a look at Thomas Greene. He was also one
>>of Shakespeare's closest friends in Stratford, to judge by
>>the evidence. He was living in New Place in 1609 and possibly
>>for some time before, and in his diary he refers affectionately
>>to "my cosen Shakespeare" numerous times around 1614.
>
>But never to "my famous cosen Shakespeare" or "my most
>accomplished cosen" or "my illustrious cosen" or to "my royally-
>favoured cosen". How could anyone refer to the author without
>some slight indication of his extraordinary qualities and nature?
Again with the bizarre bardolatrous idea mentioned above.
Can't you believe that the people close to Shakespeare saw
him as just a person and a friend, and not a god? The
only people who might possibly have been referred to as
"my famous cosen X" or "my most accomplished cosen" or
"my illustrious cosen" or "my royally-favoured cosen"
are members of the nobility, and then only if somebody
was kissing ass and trying to get something. Shakespeare
was not a member of the nobility, and Greene was writing
in his private diary about his longtime friend.
><snips>
>
>>Some of Greene's papers managed to survive at Stratford,
>
>But not a single paper from our William did! And he was,
>supposedly, in the business of producing and distributing
>papers, many in multiple manuscript copies.
Greene was involved in the town government for many years,
and his papers survived in the Stratford archives along
with Quiney's. Shakespeare was never involved in the
town government of Stratford, and the many manuscripts
he created for the theater were not deemed important
enough to save once they had reached print. Any lurkers
still reading this, please see the article "The Survival
of Manuscripts" on the Shakespeare Authorship web page.
(http://www.clark.net/pub/tross/ws/survival.html)
>>and they include Latin
>>verses and some English jottings about the nature of love.
>
>But not one whit of breath about the Stratford man as the famous
>playwright. Not from Drayton, not from Greene, not from Quiney,
>not from Russell.
Again, you're bizarrely assuming that any time they referred
to their friend in a non-literary context they should have
mentioned his literary achievements, and any time they
referred to him in a literary context they should have
mentioned that he was from Stratford. Sorry, but people
didn't write in such a convoluted way then, any more than
they do now. Drayton did write affectionately about
Shakespeare in *The Battaile of Agincourt*, but since
he neglected to specify "William Shakespeare of Stratford",
this doesn't count for you.
>>Greene's literary endeavors (at least those that were published)
>>seem to have been confined to the period 1602-1603, when
>>he was in London finishing up his formal studies at the
>>Middle Temple. He was called to the Bar of the Middle Temple
>>in October 1602, and in August of the following year he was
>>appointed Steward (later called Town Clerk) of Stratford. He
>>held this position for the next 14 years, during which time he
>>negotiated a new town charter (in 1610), bought a lease of
>>tithes (in 1609, as Shakespeare had done in 1605), and was
>>heavily involved in the enclosure controversy of 1614-19, during
>>which he wrote his famous diary in which he mentions
>>Shakespeare.
>
>Is it not amazing that this literary man, this published poet,
>noted nothing of the world's greatest poet and playwright, other
>than some vague, guarded comment on a local controversy?
This was in a diary that Greene was keeping specifically
to keep a record of the enclosure controversy. I don't
see why he should have mentioned Shakespeare's plays and
poems in such a context. For what it's worth, Greene
was apparently quite familiar with the works of Shakespeare,
including some unpublished ones, to judge by his poetry.
His 1603 poem to King James is heavily indebted to
Shakespeare's *A Lover's Complaint*.
><snips>
>
>>He died in Bristol in 1640. Here we have a close friend of
>>William Shakespeare's who also happened to be a published
>>poet, a friend of Michael Drayton and John Marston, and an
>>accomplished lawyer.
>
>>The final Shakespeare friend I'm going to mention is Thomas
>>Russell. He was one of two overseers of Shakespeare's will,
>>an honor which implies a close friendship.
>
>Does it? This is your only evidence for your claim to the
>existence of a friendship. It's thin. Maybe they had recently
>done business. Or he may just have been known to the Stratford
>lawyer.
No, the overseer was chosen from among the testator's
closest friends. I think you need to read the opening
chapter of Leslie Hotson's *I, William Shakespeare*.
><snip of Russell's resume>
>
>>Quiney, Greene, and Russell were just three of William
>>Shakespeare's friends in Stratford, but they were representative
>>of the type of people he associated with outside of London.
>
>And all of them should have talked about their friendship with
>that famous person (as a famous person) left anecdotes, written
>to their friends, written to him, and so on and on. If what you
>suggest is true, each of them would have had far more to tell
>than the stories that we actually have -- from the likes of
>Davenant or Beeston.
As usual, you're vastly overestimating the amount of such
material which has survived to the present. What we have
is a tiny sliver of what was produced, and for middle-class
people like Shakespeare it tends to be mostly business
and legal stuff. The anecdotes and such that we have for
Shakespeare are quite typical -- not as many as survive
for an outgoing character like Ben Jonson, but more than
for the great majority of Elizabethan poets and playwrights.
>You've focussed on his alleged friends in Stratford, who you say
>were literate, educated and well-connected.
I say that because they were. I notice you've just
been huffing and puffing instead of even trying to
deny that. And they weren't his "alleged" friends,
they were his friends.
>He should have had a
>much greater number of that nature in London. Where are they
>all?
Uh, they're people like Jonson, Drayton, Heywood, Barnfield,
Davies of Hereford, and so on. But you just throw out
all their references because they didn't anticipate your
demands 400 years later and thus carelessly neglected to
specify that they were talking about William Shakespeare
of Stratford.
>>Bob Grumman has already posted about the Combes, and Dr.
>>John Hall, Shakespeare's son-in-law and friend, was another
>>well-educated man with lots of connections.
>
><snip>
>
>>Why would these people maintain such
>>close friendships with the slobbering yokel depicted by Oxfordians?
>
>Err . . . he had money?
Ah, yes. Anybody who behaved in a way which does
not fit into Paul's rigid preconceived conception of
human behavior must have been paid off. Wonderful.
I pity your friends Paul, if you have any.
Dave Kathman
dj...@ix.netcom.com
Paul Crowley
<dj...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
<snips>
>You're the one who wrote the following elsewhere in
>this thread:
Actually it was a different thread. But I'm glad you liked it.
>><snip>
>>not for money; (h) there's no other point to literature at all,
>>and (i) Jeffrey Archer really is the bestest.
>
>I don't know which is more side-splitting: this bizarre
>caricature you've created of what you imagine Shakespeare
>scholars to believe, or the idea that you actually think
>there are people who hold these beliefs.
They weren't "beliefs". I don't really think your Shakespeare
home page is going to say "Jeffrey Archer is the bestest". But
it is the logical conclusion of Stratfordianism, and associated
attitudes and beliefs (such as 'Shakespeare was a middlebrow')
underpin it. It is you who maintains that Shakespeare wrote for
money -- and nothing else. It is you that maintains the basic
motivation for the principal source of all our literature was
money-grubbing.
>>You are suggesting that there were _in_effect_ only two classes:
>>(a) "cultured men at ease with literary types and courtiers" and
>>(b) those who wouldn't be -- and that all we have to decide is
>>into which group the Stratman fitted.
>
>Now, Paul, where did I ever say that? It's certainly not
>what I meant, not even close.
Well you had the opportunity to clarify your line of argument. I
note that you passed up on it.
>>Firstly, you talk of possible 'friends' _after_ the Stratman had
>>come into money. But a developing writer requires stimulation in
>>his early years; that was hardly obtainable in the illiterate
>>Shaksper household. Given the distance from anywhere to
>>Stratford, what would have been discussed? Politics and
>>metaphysics? Poetry, music, theatre, science?
>
>Sure, why not? Look at that letter to Richard Quiney
>from his 11-year old son, which alludes to Cicero. Look
>at the letters of Abraham Sturley, who was at least a
>decade older than Shakespeare and had no known education;
>they're filled with Latin and classical allusions.
Where are these letters published?
>Your
>constant repetition of your unshakable belief that
>Stratford was an illiterate backwater devoid of any
>culture does not make it any truer.
You have to accept that the great bulk of the population was
illiterate around 1600 and even more were before 1550.
>Every small town
>in Elizabethan England had lots of music
It would be surprising if they didn't -- since every human
society ever known has had music or song. I'm sure they had
plenty of traditional rural ballads.
>and theatrical
>activity, as the REED project is making abundantly clear.
Lots of theatrical activity? In a town of ~1400 people? When
the Mystery cycles were the highest form of the art? Btw, what
is the REED project?
>The evidence indicates that the people of Stratford and
>other small were perfectly capable of discussing the
>things you mention; I can't help it if you adamantly
>refuse to believe the evidence.
You should talk to them now. The "people of Stratford" have very
little interest in such matters. Remarkably, few of the educated
middle classes ever go to the theatre (that great national
institution on their doorsteps). They are much more keen on
bridge, bird-keeping and such like. Perhaps it's the
'familiarity breeding contempt' syndrome.
>>It was a small
>>backwater town -- and some of us have had experience of them
>>before TV.
>
>Ah, I see. As usual, your personal experiences are taken
>to be obvious universal truths, applicable to all times and
>places. Does this have to do with your son not getting
>into University, as you so bitterly recounted in another
>thread?
He is going to the university of his choice. As I said, he got
his expected straight 'A's. My gripe was that he did not apply
to Oxbridge, as he believed that, solely on the_grounds_of_
_class_, he would not get in. (And he was highly probably
right.) Actually, he didn't want to go to Oxbridge. He detests
'snobs'.
>I'm grasping at straws here, trying to figure out how
>your mind works, because it's so alien from the minds of
>anybody else I know.
Your problem is that you haven't the slightest grasp of the
English class system, either in Shaksper's time or now. This is
not especially surprising since it is so alien to you. But there
is very little movement from one class to another. The sonnet-
writing classes of Elizabethan times talked about different
things from the country merchant classes. Nor have they changed
since (except that sonnets are not much in fashion).
>>Secondly, being a "cultured man at ease with literary types and
>>courtiers" is not good enough. Many of us might pass that test.
>>But our man had to become the greatest. He had to measure
>>himself up against the best of his day, and come out on top. He
>>had to be doing that (or trying to do it) from his late teens.
>
>Ah, once again the Bardolatry comes to the fore.
>Shakespeare not only was the greatest writer ever, he
>*knew* from his cradle (or at least his teens) that
>he was the greatest writer ever, and acted according
>to your conception of how the greatest writer ever
>should have acted.
Yes, of course. Read the biographies of any good writer. They
have a belief in their potential from their teens. Then they
work at it. They can only do that successfully when in the
company of the best of their generation. The English class
system has produced wonderful writers (far better than the USA)
precisely because it has originated and "hot-housed" such talent.
The generation that emerged from Eton/Oxford in the 1920's
competed with and fed off each other and could not have been so
good without that dynamic, and without being fully aware that
they _were_ the best. People from that sort of society (such as
Connolly) may be despicable, but they can write, and they
demonstrate that potential from an early age. That is the _kind_
of social group that engenders great writers. A bunch of village
merchants don't, from time to time, produce genetic 'writing
freaks'. These are the facts of life, which we all know, however
much we may dislike them. Stratfordian fantasies may be more
politically correct, but they are still fantasies.
> You once again
>state the Oxfordian holy writ that Shakespeare's children
>were illiterate, when in fact his daughter Susanna signed
>her name in a clear italic hand and was almost certainly
>literate.
Except that she repeatedly told Lieutenant Hammond that her
husband hadn't written the books he had written, while Hammond
held them in his hands and showed them to her.
>>It is important to remember that this "climbing" was done in a
>>town of ~200 houses and ~1400 people. Cutting out the women, the
>>children and the elderly, maybe there were 150 to 200 adult males
>>that could theoretically have participated in these matters.
>
>Stratford did not, of course, exist in a hermetically
>sealed bubble.
But it is important to remember how remote it was. The Avon
wasn't navigable to Evesham, let alone Stratford; there were no
roads, as we understand them. All transport was by pack-horse.
>These men were also climbing in the social
>hierarchy of Warwickshire, and more broadly of England
>as a whole.
Some were falling back. Some were trying to climb within that
quite rigid hierarchy. But any progress within one generation
would have been minute by modern standards.
>Town officials would have dealings with
>the officials of other towns, and would represent the
>town to the national government in London, as I
>noted immediately below.
How was it that the most famous son of the town, who was largely
resident in London, who supposedly had excellent contacts with
the most elevated, was never asked to represent it? Did he lack
for verbal fluency? Was his conversation weak? Would he have
been unable to present the case? Hmm . . . .
<snips>
>Other letters from around the time
>of this one make it clear that Richard Quiney was indeed
>friends with William Shakespeare and spoke with him often.
What other letters?
<snip>
>Your bardolatrous idea that everybody who came in contact
>with Shakespeare should have mentioned his plays and poems
>would be quite humorous to any student of Elizabethan
>literary history.
Just the location of this famous playwright in such an obscure
country town cries out for comment. If I happened to be friends
with one of say, Salinger, Seamus Heaney or Salmon Rushdie, it
would be rather surprising if my letters to him or about him
never alluded to his work or to something that indicated his
status.
<snip>
>Can't you believe that the people close to Shakespeare saw
>him as just a person and a friend, and not a god? The
>only people who might possibly have been referred to as
>"my famous cosen X" or "my most accomplished cosen" or
>"my illustrious cosen" or "my royally-favoured cosen"
>are members of the nobility, and then only if somebody
>was kissing ass and trying to get something. Shakespeare
>was not a member of the nobility, and Greene was writing
>in his private diary about his longtime friend.
But literary work would have figured large in the life of the
real author -- if only in terms of the time it took (unless you
believe he had a 'magic pen'). The characters he created (such
as Falstaff) were nationally known. He would have had an entree
into the house of almost any aristocrat or government official.
Surely Greene et al would have found all that useful, or at least
relevant?
<snip>
> Drayton did write affectionately about
>Shakespeare in *The Battaile of Agincourt*, but since
>he neglected to specify "William Shakespeare of Stratford",
>this doesn't count for you.
But there is not one link. Just one small, ordinary one would
do. There should, of course, be hundreds.
<snip>
>>>The final Shakespeare friend I'm going to mention is Thomas
>>>Russell. He was one of two overseers of Shakespeare's will,
>>>an honor which implies a close friendship.
>>
>>Does it? This is your only evidence for your claim to the
>>existence of a friendship. It's thin. Maybe they had recently
>>done business. Or he may just have been known to the Stratford
>>lawyer.
>
>No, the overseer was chosen from among the testator's
>closest friends.
What happened in the case of the ordinary elderly reclusive
figure whose close friends pre-deceased him or her by twenty
years? There are many like that in the real world. An overseer
had to be disinterested, literate, fairly local, and preferably
educated. 'Friends' like that were not easy to find in rural
Jacobean England. I'll tell you what would have happened -- the
lawyer would have fixed someone up -- as he probably did for the
Stratman.
<snip>
>>You've focussed on his alleged friends in Stratford, who you say
>>were literate, educated and well-connected.
>
>I say that because they were. I notice you've just
>been huffing and puffing instead of even trying to
>deny that.
How many people have you met? How many have they met in turn?
By talking of acquaintances of acquaintances, you can readily
build fantastic cases. Your only link to Russell was his name as
an 'overseer of the will'. Your other links are not a lot
better.
>And they weren't his "alleged" friends, they were his friends.
As you wish. Your time machine must be working well.
Basically, Dave, you are in a hopeless position. Either the
Stratman mixed mostly among illiterates OR he had educated and
literate friends and acquaintances -- that somehow never alluded
to his work. The more you build your case, the more you
undermine it.
Paul.
Neuendorffer
Paul Crowley wrote:
> Except that she repeatedly told Lieutenant Hammond that her
> husband hadn't written the books he had written, while Hammond
> held them in his hands and showed them to her.
Ouch, Paul! NOT Lieutenant Hammond.
Ogburn (p. 117) says it was surgeon James Cooke in 1642.
Art Neuendorffer
david joseph kathman
>
> In article <360e7d40...@news.indigo.ie>,
> crow...@hxtmail.cxm (Paul Crowley) wrote:
> <snip a bunch of stuff>
> > Basically, Dave, you are in a hopeless position. Either the
> > Stratman mixed mostly among illiterates OR he had educated and
> > literate friends and acquaintances -- that somehow never alluded
> > to his work. The more you build your case, the more you
> > undermine it.
> >
> > Paul.
> >
>
> you admit ignorance of the scholarly programs extant investigating the history
> of the theater; you seem unaware of and ask for references to commonly known
> documents about Shakespeare; it is obvious that your attitude toward
> Stratford grows out of the class bias and prejudice which you claim Americans
> can't understand; and you say DAVE IS IN A HOPELESS POSITION??????
>
> Best laugh I've had all day.
Thanks, Tom. I often laugh as well when reading Crowley's posts, when
I'm not shaking my head in astonishment as the combination of ignorance
and mind-blowing arrogance which informs them. I've said many times
before that I'm fully aware that nothing I say is going to change Crowley's
convictions, that he's always going to believe that I'm a mercenary dupe of
the Shakespeare industry, and that when I reply to him I do it for the
benefit of the lurkers. I'm going to be pretty busy in the coming
weeks, and thus doubt that I'll have the time to sit down and compose
a full reply to Crowley's latest batch of hilarious rantings. So if
there's anybody out there who is wondering about any of the specific
claims or charges that Crowley makes, please either e-mail me directly
or post something in this thread, and I'll try to respond to those
specifics.
Dave Kathman
dj...@ix.netcom.com
Tom Reedy
crow...@hxtmail.cxm (Paul Crowley) wrote:
<snip a bunch of stuff>
> Stratman mixed mostly among illiterates OR he had educated and
> literate friends and acquaintances -- that somehow never alluded
> to his work. The more you build your case, the more you
> undermine it.
>
> Paul.
>
You admit ignorance of the most basic facts of the life of Shakespeare;
you admit ignorance of the scholarly programs extant investigating the history
of the theater; you seem unaware of and ask for references to commonly known
documents about Shakespeare; it is obvious that your attitude toward
Stratford grows out of the class bias and prejudice which you claim Americans
can't understand; and you say DAVE IS IN A HOPELESS POSITION??????
Best laugh I've had all day.
TR
KQKnave
>How was it that the most famous son of the town, who was largely
>resident in London, who supposedly had excellent contacts with
>the most elevated, was never asked to represent it? Did he lack
>for verbal fluency? Was his conversation weak? Would he have
>been unable to present the case? Hmm . . . .
>
His conversation may very well have been weak. Two writers that
I know of complained of their inability to express themselves
adequately in speech, Nabokov and Rousseau. Why do you expect
a creative genius to be an extrovert in public affairs?
Jim
KQKnave
> A bunch of village
>merchants don't, from time to time, produce genetic 'writing
>freaks'.
So how does Keats fit into this view?
Jim
BobGr...@nut-n-but.net
>
> >How was it that the most famous son of the town, who was largely
> >resident in London, who supposedly had excellent contacts with
> >the most elevated, was never asked to represent it? Did he lack
> >for verbal fluency? Was his conversation weak? Would he have
> >been unable to present the case? Hmm . . . .
> >
>
writers that I know of complained of their inability to express
themselves adequately in speech, Nabokov and Rousseau. Why do you
expect a creative genius to be an extrovert in public affairs?
I have a few other possible answers. First, two questions for Paul:
how do you know Shakespeare wasn't ever asked to represent Stratford?
How do you know, in fact, that he never did so, especially behind the
scenes?
Now my answers:
(1) The people of Stratford didn't want to impose on Will.
(2) Will had other things to do besides represent his hometown, and
his friends in Stratford knew it.
(3) The people of Stratford had more than enough men right there in
Stratford, who knew the details of the town's needs much better
than Shakespeare would have, to represent them quite well. (The
queen would surely have given them all they wanted rather than
listen for more than a moment or two to their barbarous illiteracy.)
(4) There is little reason to assume that the people of Stratford
would have known much about Shakespeare's London career except that
he was economically successful at it.
(5) People are odd and don't always act precisely as rigidniks think
they would have had to in a given situation.
--Bob G.
BobGr...@nut-n-but.net
the time to respond to all of Paul Crowley's latest melange of
untruths and nonsense. I do wish he'd stop accusing Dave Kathman
and the rest of us of believing Shakespeare only wrote from money
simply because we believe he wrote, IN PART, for financial reasons.
Paul, a question: do you believe it is possible that money had
anything at all to do with what, why and how Shakespeare wrote?
Another question: do you think it's possible for someone to write
both to produce a work of beauty AND to make money?
> Well you had the opportunity to clarify your line of argument. I
> note that you passed up on it.
>
He hasn't denied he was the illegitimate son of Elizabeth I by a
combination of King Kong and Oxford's son, George Washington, either.
> >>It was a small
> >>backwater town -- and some of us have had experience of them
> >>before TV.
> >
Yeah, like Hannibal, Missouri.
Does anyone else know anything about Oxbridge's current admissions'
policies? Is Crowley truly accurate in claiming that Oxbridge is
diametrically opposite all its equivalents in the US like Harvard
and Yale in not practicing affirmative action?
"The English class system has produced wonderful writers (far better
than the USA) precisely because it has originated and "hot-housed"
such talent. The generation that emerged from Eton/Oxford in the 1920's
competed with and fed off each other and could not have been so
good without that dynamic, and without being fully aware that
they _were_ the best."
Baloney. The best poets in English since 1900 have been American
(Frost, Stevens, Cummings, Roethke, Pound, Eliot, Jeffers, Williams,
to name just my own favorites.) Yeats may have been better than
all of them, but no one else I know of in the British Isles is
equal to them except, for me, Dylan Thomas. Larkin and Hughes are
fine poets, too, but not better than dozens of Americans. This is
not mere patriotism on my part: I consider the British still three or
four orders of magnitude better at making plays than Americans, I'm
not sure why. I think Americans and Britishers have been about equal
at writing novels in this century though I tend to like British
novelists better than American (Cary, Kingsley Amis, Snow, for
instance). Joyce is king but I have trouble considering him British.
It seems to me than any objective person would rate our two literatures
for this century about equal.
I meant to ask you this long ago, Paul. If Stratford had only about
200 families in it, who supplied the children for the school we know
it had? Did only four or five boys go to the school? Also, considering
how few people there were in Stratford, how is it that Shakespeare would
not have known any of those literate Stratfordians Dave has suggested
were his friends?
Paul Crowley
<aaa...@ramail.angelo.edu> wrote:
> . . . it is obvious that your attitude toward
>Stratford grows out of the class bias and prejudice which you claim Americans
>can't understand;
How is this obvious? The normal accusation against Stratfordians
is that they are snobs. I don't think that can be directed at me
(but tell me if I'm wrong). The English class system is hard to
grasp, and I don't pretend to have much more than an inkling, in
spite of living there for decades. Being mostly Irish, I was
always a bit of a foreigner. But I can easily see when others
get it wrong, as Americans (and, in this instance, Dave) almost
always do. It goes _deep_ affecting everyone's attitudes. It
renders the Stratfordian scenario impossible. The Stratman
wouldn't have _wanted_ to write poetry or historical plays, quite
apart from not having the slightest possible opportunity.
Paul.
Paul Crowley
>Paul Crowley writes:
>> >How was it that the most famous son of the town, who was largely
>> >resident in London, who supposedly had excellent contacts with
>> >the most elevated, was never asked to represent it? Did he lack
>> >for verbal fluency? Was his conversation weak? Would he have
>> >been unable to present the case? Hmm . . . .
>Jim's Answer: His conversation may very well have been weak. Two
>writers that I know of complained of their inability to express
>themselves adequately in speech, Nabokov and Rousseau. Why do you
>expect a creative genius to be an extrovert in public affairs?
Firstly we have Ben Jonson's words to Drummond. He was clearly
talking about the true author (whoever he was). Secondly, we
have the plays. I find it hard to accept that anyone could read
or see them and believe that the author did not have a ready
tongue. Nabokov and Rousseau wrote very different kinds of
works, which do not imply (to me, anyway) conversational fluency.
>I have a few other possible answers. First, two questions for Paul:
>how do you know Shakespeare wasn't ever asked to represent Stratford?
>How do you know, in fact, that he never did so, especially behind the
>scenes?
>
>Now my answers:
>
>(1) The people of Stratford didn't want to impose on Will.
There are plenty of possible answers. It's just every time we
turn over a stone, we find more questions, and the anwers are
never there. In this case, Quiney was naturally finding it
difficult to continue staying in London, making those
representations. Why couldn't he pass the job onto our Will.
He'd have known all the right people and could have got it done
in a trice.
Now we have another question: Why didn't our Will help his good
friend Quiney to get that appointment? We can have little doubt
that one quick word in the right ear would have done it. Then
there would have been no need to lend him any money. He would
not have had to kick his heels around London for several months.
Quiney's letter is important for what it does _not_ say. It
makes no reference to any request for, or discussion about, such
assistance. He asks the Stratman for the only thing he can
provide -- money.
Here we have, thanks to Dave's researches once again, an
excellent item of proof that the Stratman was _not_ the author.
By 1597 the history plays and the Merry Wives of Windsor and so
on had been written and performed. Yet the Stratman had not the
slightest influence with Southampton, with Essex, with the
Cecils, or with anyone. Quiney's frustrated idleness in London
unquestionably tells us so.
>(5) People are odd and don't always act precisely as rigidniks think
>they would have had to in a given situation.
Hey, last time it was I who was saying people were odd. That was
used by you to show that I was a rigidnik. Quoting your post of
10th July under 'Rigidnikry'
>Ah, you think "people behave in odd, annoying, peculiar and idiosyncratic
>ways all the time!" That has not been my experience. And--sorry, Paul,
>but I have to say this--to find people, and the world, often failing
>to fit one's pre-conceptions (and thus to seem odd and/or annoying) is
>a cardinal feature of the rigidnik.
So it seems that anything and its opposite can be used to
indicate rigidnikry. What a handy concept!
And you wonder why I detest trash psychology.
Paul.
Paul Crowley
>Does anyone else know anything about Oxbridge's current admissions'
>policies? Is Crowley truly accurate in claiming that Oxbridge is
>diametrically opposite all its equivalents in the US like Harvard
>and Yale in not practicing affirmative action?
They claim to practise such a code. It's in all their brochures
which you can get on their web sites (www.ox.ac.uk). But their
figures disprove it. I don't have them, but they are published.
However, once again, you miss the point. The class thing goes
deep, deep, deep. My son did not _want_ to go to Oxbridge. He
believed that even if he had got in, he would have found a
stuffy, pompous, well-monied crowd who would reject him and with
whom he would not want to mix. The class thing goes deep. How
can I convey it? Think color.
Similarly the Stratman would not have _wanted_ to write sonnets.
The idea is ludicrous.
>"The English class system has produced wonderful writers (far better
>than the USA) precisely because it has originated and "hot-housed"
>such talent. The generation that emerged from Eton/Oxford in the 1920's
>competed with and fed off each other and could not have been so
>good without that dynamic, and without being fully aware that
>they _were_ the best."
>
>Baloney. The best poets in English since 1900 have been American
>(Frost, Stevens, Cummings, Roethke, Pound, Eliot, Jeffers, Williams,
>to name just my own favorites.)
This could easily degenerate into a Brit-US slanging match, and
just those names tell me a very different story. However, I was
thinking much more of novels, with possibly the best journalism,
essays, biographies and so on.
>I meant to ask you this long ago, Paul. If Stratford had only about
>200 families in it, who supplied the children for the school we know
>it had? Did only four or five boys go to the school?
Why ask me? Anyway -- there was only one master who took the
whole age range -- not an easy task at the best of times. So
let's say 20-30 pupils. The population was ~1400; so 700 males,
with a life expectancy of, say, 45 years gives us 15 per year.
In the six years 7 to 13 we have: 15 x 6 = 90 boys. So less
than a third would have gone to the school. The catchment area
would probably have covered the local villages, such as
Snitterfield, increasing the numbers and reducing the proportion
attending (thus reducing the likelihood that the Stratman went to
the school to about 1/4).
>Also, considering
>how few people there were in Stratford, how is it that Shakespeare would
>not have known any of those literate Stratfordians Dave has suggested
>were his friends?
I'd be pretty sure that he knew them all. He was a substantial
citizen of that small town by the time he died. So he'd have
known the vicar, the lawyer, the doctor (his son-in-law), the
teacher, and so on. But was he friends with them? Who knows?
Paul.
BobGr...@nut-n-but.net
> (Oxford and Cambridge) claim to practise (affirmative action) . . .
> but their figures disprove it. (snip)
> However, once again, you miss the point. The class thing goes
> deep, deep, deep. My son did not _want_ to go to Oxbridge. He
> believed that even if he had got in, he would have found a
> stuffy, pompous, well-monied crowd who would reject him and with
> whom he would not want to mix. The class thing goes deep. How
> can I convey it? Think color.
>
son, Paul. I think color and I think of all the blacks who go to
Harvard and like places and don't mind it at all, and I think of all
the white liberals who as automatically accept them because of their
color as their forebears automatically rejected them for their color.
Shakespeare of Stratford would not have wanted to write sonnets? Why
did Daniel write them? He was a commoner. Have you never run into
anyone who failed to follow the rules of his class in all things? Do
you really think everyone is a robot forever prevent from having
aspirations beyond his class?
> >I meant to ask you this long ago, Paul. If Stratford had only about
> >200 families in it, who supplied the children for the school we know
> >it had? Did only four or five boys go to the school?
>
> Why ask me?
Because you claim that the people of the town of Stratford were a bunch
of uneducated dolts in Shakespeare's time, and still are. This would
not likely be the case if at least a few of them went to grammar
school--and you admit that maybe 1/4 of them did so. So 1/4 of the
Stratfordian males were not illiterate. Hence, it may just be that
Shakespeare actually talked to one or two of them. As for his own
chance of having gone to the Stratford school's only being 1/4, as you
ridiculously claim while evading the point, which had to do with the
town of Stratford's literacy, you neglect his father's wealth and
standing in the town at the time Will would have been ready to start
school, and John's apparent drive to improve his lot, all of which
increase the odds that Shakespeare went to school considerably.
BobGr...@nut-n-but.net
the playwright, would have had all kinds of influence at court, and
been willing to act on it at the drop of the hat, and would have been
imposed on by his Stratford friends at the drop of a hat. You seem
not to know anything about people and the world at all, Paul, that's
all I can say.
Later I said, "People are odd and don't always act precisely as rigidniks
think they would have had to in a given situation." Paul quickly ignored my
argument to show that I once claimed that he thought "people behave in odd,
annoying, peculiar and idiosyncratic ways all the time!" and was for that
reason a rigidnik. Hence, for Paul, "it seems that anything and its opposite
can be used to indicate rigidnikry. What a handy concept!" (Note the
rigidnikal leap to a simplistic black&white generality based on a single
apparent instance.) Paul then goes on implicitly to belittle my theory of
psychology. Well, Paul, there's a simple explanation for the apparent
contradiction in my use of "odd"; it is that I used it ironically when I said
that "People are odd and don't always act precisely as rigidniks think they
would have had to in a given situation." To suggest unironically that
oddness is the failure of people to act "precisely as rigidniks think they
would have had to in a given situation" is of course absurd.
I might add that you again verify my diagnosis of you as a rigidnik by
writing my psychology off as trash without knowing even as much about
it as you know about Shakespeare and his times.
BobGr...@nut-n-but.net
Stratfordian scenario (is) impossible. (Shakespeare) wouldn't have
_wanted_ to write poetry or historical plays, quite
apart from not having the slightest possible opportunity."
Certainly I would never say it was IMPOSSIBLE that Oxford wrote the
plays of Shakespeare, nor do I think any Stratfordian could believe
that. And no non-rigidnik would ever claim to know what another
person MUST have wanted or not wanted, even if he had a million times
more data on him than Paul has on Shakespeare.
KQKnave
In article <360fdb23...@news.indigo.ie>, crow...@hxtmail.cxm (Paul
Crowley) writes:
>How is this obvious? The normal accusation against Stratfordians
>is that they are snobs. I don't think that can be directed at me
>(but tell me if I'm wrong). The English class system is hard to
>grasp, and I don't pretend to have much more than an inkling, in
>spite of living there for decades. Being mostly Irish, I was
>always a bit of a foreigner. But I can easily see when others
>get it wrong, as Americans (and, in this instance, Dave) almost
>always do. It goes _deep_ affecting everyone's attitudes. It
>renders the Stratfordian scenario impossible. The Stratman
>wouldn't have _wanted_ to write poetry or historical plays, quite
>apart from not having the slightest possible opportunity.
>
So how do you explain your entire system of government? Hasn't
the history of Great Britain been marked by a continous series of
uprising's against the nobility? How do you explain the existence
of the House of Commons? How do you explain the existence of
your current Prime Minister, or Mrs. Thatcher?
And how do you explain the existence of Keats?
Jim
KQKnave
In article <36100ce1...@news.indigo.ie>, crow...@hxtmail.cxm (Paul
Crowley) writes:
>
>>Jim's Answer: His conversation may very well have been weak. Two
>>writers that I know of complained of their inability to express
>>themselves adequately in speech, Nabokov and Rousseau. Why do you
>>expect a creative genius to be an extrovert in public affairs?
>
>Firstly we have Ben Jonson's words to Drummond. He was clearly
>talking about the true author (whoever he was). Secondly, we
>have the plays. I find it hard to accept that anyone could read
>or see them and believe that the author did not have a ready
>tongue. Nabokov and Rousseau wrote very different kinds of
>works, which do not imply (to me, anyway) conversational fluency.
>
I find it hard to accept that anyone who has the ability to write
poetry on such a high level would be anything but an introvert,
and while amongst intimate friends he may have been comfortable
and expressed a ready wit, it is hard to accept the idea that such
a man would be involved in provincial government. I assume that you
are referring to the passage in *Explorata: or Discoveries*, not the
*Conversations with William Drummond*. Here is the passage from
*Discoveries*:
"He was (indeed) honest, and of an open, and free nature: had an
excellent fancy; brave notions, and gentle expressions: wherein
he flowed with that facility, that sometimes it was necessary he
should be stopped: sufflaminandus erat; as Augustus said of
Haterius. His wit was in his own power; would the rule of it had
been so too. Many times he fell into those things, could not
escape laughter; as when he said in the person of Caesar, one
speaking to him; 'Caesar, thou dost me wrong'. He replied: 'Caesar
did never wrong, but with just cause': and such like; which were
ridiculous."
This hardly seems to be the desciption of the public servants that
I know.
Jim
Paul Crowley
>In article <360fdb23...@news.indigo.ie>, crow...@hxtmail.cxm (Paul
>Crowley) writes:
>
>>How is this obvious? The normal accusation against Stratfordians
>>is that they are snobs. I don't think that can be directed at me
>>(but tell me if I'm wrong). The English class system is hard to
>>grasp, and I don't pretend to have much more than an inkling, in
>>spite of living there for decades. Being mostly Irish, I was
>>always a bit of a foreigner. But I can easily see when others
>>get it wrong, as Americans (and, in this instance, Dave) almost
>>always do. It goes _deep_ affecting everyone's attitudes. It
>>renders the Stratfordian scenario impossible. The Stratman
>>wouldn't have _wanted_ to write poetry or historical plays, quite
>>apart from not having the slightest possible opportunity.
>So how do you explain your entire system of government? Hasn't
>the history of Great Britain been marked by a continous series of
>uprising's against the nobility?
I'm a bit lost as to the connection between my post and your
questions. But Americans (and Irish) are always struck by the
docility of the English lower classes. They approve of their
system; they don't question their lower status -- that is what
they were born into, and that's how they feel it should (more or
less) be. "The rich man in his castle, the poor man at the gate
. . . ". If I was a pure Englishman, I'd be unable to discuss
this topic. I would see nothing remarkable in the dominance of
Oxford University by Etonians, Wykehamists, Harrovians and the
like.
>Hasn't
>the history of Great Britain been marked by a continous series of
>uprising's against the nobility?
No. The last (and only real) one was in 1645 and that was
against the Divine Right of the monarchy to rule without
constraint. Since then the upper classes have controlled the
government.
>And how do you explain the existence of Keats?
What exactly needs explaining about Keats?
Paul.
Paul Crowley
>Paul continues to think that Shakespeare of Stratford, had he been
>the playwright, would have had all kinds of influence at court, and
>been willing to act on it at the drop of the hat, and would have been
>imposed on by his Stratford friends at the drop of a hat. You seem
>not to know anything about people and the world at all, Paul, that's
>all I can say.
He was supposed to be a good friend of Quiney -- and to have lots
of good friends in the 'top echelons' of Stratford. They were
all begging the government for a tax break. Their main officer
in this role was hanging around the court for months, trying to
get to see someone. Don't you think they'd have asked their
most famous and successful townsman to put in a word?
<snip>
>Well, Paul, there's a simple explanation for the apparent
>contradiction in my use of "odd"; it is that I used it ironically when I said
>that "People are odd and don't always act precisely as rigidniks think they
>would have had to in a given situation."
You're lying. It was number (5) in a list of reasons why the
Stratman might not have represented his town in seeking the tax
break. There was not a hint of irony. Read your post again.
>I might add that you again verify my diagnosis of you as a rigidnik by
>writing my psychology off as trash without knowing even as much about
>it as you know about Shakespeare and his times.
Bookshops have shelves devoted to junk psychology. I don't read
it 'cos I know it's junk -- as does everyone with a mind. Maybe
I'm wrong, but I'm certainly not going to modify my attitude to
it in this lifetime. And I know your stuff is trash too. Apart
from the fact that it fits in with all the rest, you've just
proved it.
Paul.
Paul Crowley
>I find it hard to accept that anyone who has the ability to write
>poetry on such a high level would be anything but an introvert,
I wouldn't want to apply such a crude term to the man. He was
clearly a highly complicated personality. But he had such an
extraordinary verbal ability, that I'm quite sure he wouldn't
have had the least difficulty in coming out with the right
phrases in a meeting with, say, a privy counsellor when asking
for the tax break.
>and while amongst intimate friends he may have been comfortable
>and expressed a ready wit, it is hard to accept the idea that such
>a man would be involved in provincial government.
No one was suggesting that. It was either (a) whether he might
have represented his home town himself, or more likely (b) put in
a word with a highly placed contact to get an expedited meeting
for Quiney's official delegation.
>I assume that you
>are referring to the passage in *Explorata: or Discoveries*, not the
>*Conversations with William Drummond*. Here is the passage from
>*Discoveries*:
Thanks for the quote. I couldn't track it down in the time I
had.
>"He was (indeed) honest, and of an open, and free nature: had an
>excellent fancy; brave notions, and gentle expressions: wherein
>he flowed with that facility, that sometimes it was necessary he
>should be stopped: sufflaminandus erat; as Augustus said of
>Haterius. His wit was in his own power; would the rule of it had
>been so too. Many times he fell into those things, could not
>escape laughter; as when he said in the person of Caesar, one
>speaking to him; 'Caesar, thou dost me wrong'. He replied: 'Caesar
>did never wrong, but with just cause': and such like; which were
>ridiculous."
>
>This hardly seems to be the desciption of the public servants that
>I know.
Again, no one suggested that he might be a 'public servant'.
Paul.
Gary K. Allen
>
> Of course, we don't have to use the recent examples I've just given.
> Thomas a'Becket, who was born about 1118, was the son of
> a merchant, and for a while worked as a clerk. We all know what
> became of him. David Cecil became a freeman in 1494, and his grandson,
> William Cecil, became Queen Elizabeth's advisor and was made Baron.
> Samuel Daniel was the son of a music master, was a contemporary of
> Shakespeare, and an influence upon him. He wrote fine sonnets that are
> still enjoyed today (especially by me). I'm sure our reading audience can
> supply more (many more) examples.
One might also mention John de Stratford, who began his career as the
rector in Stratford and eventually became Archbishop of Canterbury (not
to mention getting a role in Marlowe's Edward II). And Hugh Clopton,
also of Stratford, who became Lord Mayor of London. And Richard
Field--his father a Stratford tanner and friend of John Shakespeare--who
was apprenticed to a printer in London and eventually became the leading
printer of foreign-language books in the country. One can indeed find
examples of Brits who rose in the world through their own efforts.
KQKnave
In article <36116753...@news.indigo.ie>, crow...@hxtmail.cxm (Paul
Crowley) writes:
>On 29 Sep 1998 16:37:30 GMT, kqk...@aol.com (KQKnave) wrote:
>
>>In article <360fdb23...@news.indigo.ie>, crow...@hxtmail.cxm (Paul
>>Crowley) writes:
>>
>>>How is this obvious? The normal accusation against Stratfordians
>>>is that they are snobs. I don't think that can be directed at me
>>>(but tell me if I'm wrong). The English class system is hard to
>>>grasp, and I don't pretend to have much more than an inkling, in
>>>spite of living there for decades. Being mostly Irish, I was
>>>always a bit of a foreigner. But I can easily see when others
>>>get it wrong, as Americans (and, in this instance, Dave) almost
>>>always do. It goes _deep_ affecting everyone's attitudes. It
>>>renders the Stratfordian scenario impossible. The Stratman
>>>wouldn't have _wanted_ to write poetry or historical plays, quite
>>>apart from not having the slightest possible opportunity.
>
>>So how do you explain your entire system of government? Hasn't
>>the history of Great Britain been marked by a continous series of
>>uprising's against the nobility?
>
>I'm a bit lost as to the connection between my post and your
>questions.
Ok, I'll explain.
You seem to be saying (and correct me if I'm wrong) that the English
class system would somehow have prevented a man with William
Shakespeare's background from writing the works attributed to him.
You even go so far to say (see your post above) that he wouldn't
even have *wanted* to write poetry.
But the evidence of history appears to refute your contention.
The English have, from very early times, risen above their class
to challenge the aristocracy in all fields, including government, and
if the lower classes can rise enough to rule their own country and
lead the political life of Great Britain, (for example, Tony Blair
and Margaret Thatcher, for contemporary examples), then surely
a writer, who is involved in the most powerless of vocations, could
rise to greatness as well. In other words (I'll explain as simply as I
can), commoners who are struggling for political power may face
greater obstacles than the nobility, but nevertheless they have been
successful in obtaining power, so a writer, who is not involved in the
great struggle for power and money, should not face insurmountable
obstacles to his ambition, regardless of his social status.
But Americans (and Irish) are always struck by the
>docility of the English lower classes. They approve of their
>system; they don't question their lower status -- that is what
>they were born into, and that's how they feel it should (more or
>less) be. "The rich man in his castle, the poor man at the gate
>. . . ". If I was a pure Englishman, I'd be unable to discuss
>this topic. I would see nothing remarkable in the dominance of
>Oxford University by Etonians, Wykehamists, Harrovians and the
>like.
>
>>Hasn't
>>the history of Great Britain been marked by a continous series of
>>uprising's against the nobility?
>
>No. The last (and only real) one was in 1645 and that was
>against the Divine Right of the monarchy to rule without
>constraint. Since then the upper classes have controlled the
>government.
You are ignoring the example of Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher,
both supreme leaders of Great Britain.
>
>>And how do you explain the existence of Keats?
>
>What exactly needs explaining about Keats?
>
>Paul.
Well, Keats was a commoner, and he rose above his station in
life (apothecary's apprentice, son of an ostler) to become one
of the greatest writers of all time. Apparently, he *wanted* to
be a writer.
Of course, we don't have to use the recent examples I've just given.
Thomas a'Becket, who was born about 1118, was the son of
a merchant, and for a while worked as a clerk. We all know what
became of him. David Cecil became a freeman in 1494, and his grandson,
William Cecil, became Queen Elizabeth's advisor and was made Baron.
Samuel Daniel was the son of a music master, was a contemporary of
Shakespeare, and an influence upon him. He wrote fine sonnets that are
still enjoyed today (especially by me). I'm sure our reading audience can
supply more (many more) examples.
Jim
volker multhopp
> I find it hard to accept that anyone who has the ability to write
> poetry on such a high level would be anything but an introvert,
Imo, the copious dialog of the plays flows from a writer who actually
was able to get in and practice such dialog. I can't imagine him at a
loss for words in a real social situation.
--Volker
KQKnave
In article <3611FC4A...@erols.com>, volker multhopp <vol...@erols.com>
writes:
So where does the copious dialog present in novels like Laurence
Sterne's *Tristram Shandy* come from? Was he an actor too? Have
you ever acted? I'm as introverted as they come, but I have no problem
speaking loudly on stage or delivering the lines in any way. There is no
real social situation on stage, it's completely artificial, with every word
scripted.
Jim
Paul Crowley
>You seem to be saying (and correct me if I'm wrong) that the English
>class system would somehow have prevented a man with William
>Shakespeare's background from writing the works attributed to him.
Yes. In very roughly the same way as a slave on a Virginian
plantation around 1800 wouldn't have had much opportunity to
become a great poet.
>You even go so far to say (see your post above) that he wouldn't
>even have *wanted* to write poetry.
Yes. It follows. In roughly the same was as the thought of
writing poetry would simply not occur to the Virginian slave.
The Stratman would have done what other village boys did; and
writing poetry wouldn't have been on their list. Somehow it got
on John Keats's list -- presumably from the influence of his
mother, his school, and the friends he made there. It was
occasionally on the list of the more 'arty' set at some of the
major English schools. But that's how it has to start.
> But the evidence of history appears to refute your contention.
>The English have, from very early times, risen above their class
>to challenge the aristocracy in all fields, including government,
Sure. A few individuals have made progress, especially in making
money and in some occupations.
>and
>if the lower classes can rise enough to rule their own country and
>lead the political life of Great Britain, (for example, Tony Blair
>and Margaret Thatcher, for contemporary examples),
Tony Blair went to a fee-paying private school (which already put
him into a small privileged minority {?top 2 per cent}). He then
went on to Oxford. Maggie Thatcher was the daughter of a fairly
well-off shop-owner and also went to Oxford.
>then surely
>a writer, who is involved in the most powerless of vocations, could
>rise to greatness as well. In other words (I'll explain as simply as I
>can), commoners who are struggling for political power may face
>greater obstacles than the nobility, but nevertheless they have been
>successful in obtaining power, so a writer, who is not involved in the
>great struggle for power and money, should not face insurmountable
>obstacles to his ambition, regardless of his social status.
I can see what you're saying, but it just doesn't work like that.
Having got started (which is a big thing in itself) it then
becomes fundamentally a matter of attitude, self-confidence and
belief in yourself, and those are the hardest things to acquire.
A clever and hard-working man from a peasant family might, with
luck, make steady progress in a profession, or in making money in
business. But a great writer has to acquire the belief at an
early age that he can become the best. Then he has to work hard
for years, possibly decades, usually with little or no income and
with little or no recognition.
>Well, Keats was a commoner, and he rose above his station in
>life (apothecary's apprentice, son of an ostler) to become one
>of the greatest writers of all time. Apparently, he *wanted* to
>be a writer.
I don't know much about Keats, so I can't say much about his work
except that he was a far lesser figure than Shakespeare. He,
and all his family, had great confidence that he would do
outstanding work. They did not have a peasant mentality. His
mother's family was well educated and she was a remarkable woman.
She inherited 13,000 pounds when he was nine in 1805, so they
weren't lacking. He had excellent schooling and parents who
were ambitious for him. They thought of sending him to Harrow,
but luckily they didn't, given the brutal regime in those schools
at that time. He got a far better education at his small school
in Enfield from John Clarke, an inspired teacher. Clarke's son,
Cowden Clarke, of much fame later, was seven years older; he
gave the young Keats special attention and became a good friend.
Keats was actually slow to produce good work; this came only
after his contact with Leigh Hunt, Shelley, and other literati of
the day. Also he lived on his inheritance, writing for
posterity, not for a living.
>Of course, we don't have to use the recent examples I've just given.
>Thomas a'Becket, who was born about 1118, was the son of
>a merchant, and for a while worked as a clerk. We all know what
>became of him. David Cecil became a freeman in 1494, and his grandson,
>William Cecil, became Queen Elizabeth's advisor and was made Baron.
We are talking about someone brought up in a backwater village in
Tudor England, who had three children by the age of 21, showing
as far as we know, not the slightest indication of literary
talent or ambition by that stage. Thomas a'Becket and the rise
of the Cecil family are hardly relevant. More to my general
point is the continuance in power and wealth of the Cecils --
right up to the present day. It illustrates the stability of
that society, while permitting minor change. The lower orders
know their place and, almost universally, stay in it.
>Samuel Daniel was the son of a music master, was a contemporary of
>Shakespeare, and an influence upon him. He wrote fine sonnets that are
>still enjoyed today (especially by me).
We are not talking about a competent versifier, but about the man
that changed the face of English literature -- I would say, the
man that was responsible for creating it. Whoever he was, he
had an enormous ego. He was fully aware of his stature. Yet,
astonishingly, we have no one making the claim to that position
(although there are some indications in the sonnets). How could
the predominant voice in English literature be so silent about
himself? He could only have been prevented from claiming his
rightful position by external forces. Nothing here, of course,
fits the Stratford man. Instead we have a bastardized, childish
view of literature -- taught with great pomposity and complete
irrelevance, by tiny minds, generation upon generation.
Paul.
BobGr...@nut-n-but.net
some Stratfordian would have asked Will to represent Stratford at
court about taxation since there's no way of knowing that any
Stratfordian would have thought it a good idea, or what Shakespeare's
response to being asked would have been, or even that he might not have
been asked to help and did, behind the scenes begging Elizabeth for
days to give his hometown a tax break or to just discuss the matter
with Will's friend Quiney or whomever in vain.
As for Paul's claim that I was not using "odd" ironically in my sentence,
"People are odd and don't always act precisely as rigidniks think they
would have had to in a given situation," I find it ODD that he thinks
I could seriously believe "odd" a good adjective to describe "people who
don't always act precisely as rigidniks think they would have had to
in a given situation." It's a light sarcasm, and the "and" in the
sentence disguises it a little, but it still seems to me clearly and
overtly ironical. And I didn't know I couldn't be ironical in a list
of reasons. But, for Paul's sake, I ought to have phrased the sentence,
"People don't always behave the way rigidniks are sure they would have
had to in a given situation."
Even if I HAD said Paul's failure to understand that people are odd is
a symptom of rigidnikry after having said that ". . . to find people,
and the world, often failing to fit one's pre-conceptions (and thus
to seem odd and/or annoying) is a cardinal feature of the rigidnik,"
I would not be contradicting myself. I would be attesting to the
inconsistency of the rigidnik. Indeed, I DO believe that rigidniks
are more prone than healthier-minded people BOTH to find other people
annoyingly odd/perverse AND certain that people (the English under-class,
the Etonian grads, youths destined to become artists of the first
magnitude, professors, people living in Stratford, and on and on and
on) are fully predictable robots. Here's how it works: rigidniks
narrowly expect behavior X from subject A in situation Q, and often
fail to get it, but can't learn from reality, so continue always
narrowly to expect behavior X from subject A, etc. Result, whenever
confronted with social reality, they tend to find people to be
annoyingly "odd." Meanwhile, since they can't carry that information
over into their idea of human behavior, they continue to claim IN THIS
ALTERED CONTEXT--however inconsistently--that people are NOT odd,
that social flukes CAN'T occur (like a Stratford villager's becoming
a great poet).
Similarly I can and do claim that rigidniks are both extremely rational
and extremely irrational, depending on the context: rational when their
initial assumptions are sane, and the question they are concerned with
is simple (an automobile engine rather than a society), but irrational,
often, in choice of their initial and later assumptions, and in their
blindness to too many of the variables inevitably associated with large
questions.
Whether Paul is a rigidnik, I can't know, not knowing enough about him.
I can say, though, that at this newsgroup he displays all the symptoms
of one.
--Bob G.
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
Jack
>
> We are not talking about a competent versifier, but about the man
> that changed the face of English literature -- I would say, the
> man that was responsible for creating it. Whoever he was, he
> had an enormous ego. He was fully aware of his stature. Yet,
> astonishingly, we have no one making the claim to that position
> (although there are some indications in the sonnets). How could
> the predominant voice in English literature be so silent about
> himself? He could only have been prevented from claiming his
> rightful position by external forces. Nothing here, of course,
> fits the Stratford man. Instead we have a bastardized, childish
> view of literature -- taught with great pomposity and complete
> irrelevance, by tiny minds, generation upon generation.
>
> Paul.
I've been lurking at this site for some time now, while occasionally
making a few comments. The Oxfordians claim that the Stratfordians rest
their case scarce evidence. But the whole Oxfordian case rests on no
"evidence" at all. It rests on several assumptions. A few of the most
egregious follow:
1) That Stratford was a country backwater and no great writer could come
out of such a place.
2) That an Elizabethan university education, about which we know quite a
bit, was necessary to be a learned person, let alone a successful
writer, in those times and, on the contrary, that the grammar-school
education of a provincial (about which we also know a great deal) could
not possibly produce a poet.
3) That Shakespeare was not only a great playwright, but he introduced
great writing, especially poetry and drama, to a relatively benighted
England.
I'll add a bit to the already voluminous commentary this NG by
commenting briefly on these assmptions.
1) This point is a strong one, especially if we assume that it was
necessary to communicate with London on a timely basis to be connected
to English culture. It is certainly true today, since most provincial
playhouses no longer exist. The center of literary and dramatic art is
now London, but that is most probably because of a coralary to Gresham's
Law. If people can journey to London on a regular basis (as I recall,
one can travel from Lerwick in the Shetland Islands to London in a
couple of hours by air. You can cetainly go by rapid train anywhere in
England, Scotland. or Wales in less than a day. But in Elizabethan times
the roads were mainly wagon tracks. muddy and impassable much of the
year.
Stratfordians argue much on this point from analogy. "Gee, Mark Twain
lived in Hannibal. . ." etc. This is simply not a comparable situation,
say Oxfordians.Hannibal in Mark Twain's time was a thriving frontier
town connected by river traffic to much of the rest of the country, and
certainly to centers of culture like New Orleans. Many theatrical types
entertained on the river boats and it was possible for a young person to
get quite a trickling down of vibrant American culture as it was being
produced. But there wer many provincial tours of Elizabethan companies
(the King's men toured, to judge simply from indications on the title
pages to the plays and Will Kempe quit the Lord Chamberlain's company to
go on tour with his one-man show). Furthermore, there was a yeasty
discussion of education. In Sir Thomas Elyot's _Booke of the Governour_
and several translations about eduational theory (most notably Isocrates
and Eucolpius) he recommended the use of the classics in educating
princes and politicians. Roger Ascham had been tutor to Princesses
Elizabeth and Mary and was appointed as private tutor to Queen Elizabeth
in 1558. He later wrote a book about his theories of education called
_The Scholemaster_. These books were not just of interest to a small
group, but were bought, discussed and taken seriously by a number of the
rising middle classes in England.
2) This leads to item #2. I'm sure that many people have cited the vast
scholarly work of T. H. Baldwin and Sister Miriam Joseph in showing what
the education in Stratford for a young man of Shakespeare's station must
have been like. These researches, while they themselves are full of
debatable assumptions, at least do not argue from false analogy (e.g.,
"Well, When I went to High School in 1964, I. . . ," etc.). It is quite
reasonable to assume that Shakespeare, unless he was remarkably
dull-witted or truant, must have read Plautus and Terrence, not to
mention Vergil and Horace, in the originals and, most likely, even wrote
his own originals in Latin. I realize that this is not at all like
modern high school education (what, no Driver's Training? No LIfe
Experience?) but those are the facts as nearly as we can determine them
using sholarly methods. I know such methods have their limitations, but
they are the best tools we have until we discover more evidence or the
time machine is invented. It's also rather interesting, by the way, that
Shakespeare's plays based on the classics seem to appear after a great
translation is made public. Forexample, Goldings of Ovid's
_Metamorphoses_ or North's of _ Plutarch's _Lives. . . _" Does that mean
that Shakespeare needed ponies to read Ovid and Plutarch or that he was
giving the audiences something that was of current interest? I don't
know.
3) But this brings us to the other point. Most Bardolators seem only to
have read Shakespeare. Tjat there was a significant flowering of
literature in the Elizabethan Age is quite obvious, even from an
undergrad Brit Lit survey. Sir Phillip Sidney seems to have ushered this
in with his patriotic comments in "An Apologie for Poetry" (probably
written about 1580). In this highly anthologized work, the delight of
all literary historians and critics because it serves as a convenient
strarting-point (however artifical) for a great literary period, Sidney
calls for English poetry to flower more brillantly than the rest of
Europe and (perhaps heresy!) that of ancient Greece and Rome. The
Elizabethan period is (these aforementioned literary historians point
out), for English literature, the fortunate confluence of many different
historical social and economic forces which produced a body of
literature which would have been considered great had "shakespeare"
whoever he was, never written a line.
As for Paul's comment that "... we have a bastardized, childish
view of literature -- taught with great pomposity and complete
irrelevance, by tiny minds, generation upon generation" my main reaction
is extreme sadness. I wish he had had the chance, as I have had in one
or two cases, of taking a Shakespeare course from a truly great teacher.
Jack
Greg Reynolds
Wednesday Jones wrote:
> volker multhopp wrote:
>
> > KQKnave wrote:
> >
> > > I find it hard to accept that anyone who has the ability to write
> > > poetry on such a high level would be anything but an introvert,
> >
> > Imo, the copious dialog of the plays flows from a writer who actually
> > was able to get in and practice such dialog. I can't imagine him at a
> > loss for words in a real social situation.
> >
> > --Volker
>
> to me, the above exchange illustrates the problem with attempting to draw an
> author's personal character based on what he writes. volker and kq both make
> sense. yet their conclusions are diametrically opposed. i'll be archiving this
> one.
>
> take care
>
> ---jones
Archive away, Wednes! The joy is in retrieving!
KQKnave
In article <3612351b...@news.indigo.ie>, crow...@hxtmail.cxm (Paul
Crowley) writes:
>Subject: Re: Debate on Authorship
>From: crow...@hxtmail.cxm (Paul Crowley)
>Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1998 17:52:11 GMT
>
>On 30 Sep 1998 02:51:57 GMT, kqk...@aol.com (KQKnave) wrote:
>
>>You seem to be saying (and correct me if I'm wrong) that the English
>>class system would somehow have prevented a man with William
>>Shakespeare's background from writing the works attributed to him.
>
>Yes. In very roughly the same way as a slave on a Virginian
>plantation around 1800 wouldn't have had much opportunity to
>become a great poet.
Shakespeare was not a slave, he was the son of a wealthy businessman.
Even slaves could rise above their station. Spartacus and Frederic
Douglass come to mind, and George Washington Carver was the son of
slaves. When he was only a few months old he and his mother were
stolen and carried into Arkansas by raiders. The mother disappeared, but
he was ransomed for a race horse valued at $300. His father was
killed in an accident. His owner, Moses Carver, a German emigrant, gave
him his name. He stayed with the family until he was 10, when he set out
penniless, to support himself and get an education. He became an outstanding
researcher in the field of agricultural chemistry.
>>You even go so far to say (see your post above) that he wouldn't
>>even have *wanted* to write poetry.
>
>Yes. It follows. In roughly the same was as the thought of
>writing poetry would simply not occur to the Virginian slave.
>The Stratman would have done what other village boys did; and
>writing poetry wouldn't have been on their list.
Well, slaves sang songs in the fields, so I don't see why they
wouldn't like poetry as well, but in any case Shakespeare was
not a slave, he was the son of a wealthy businessman.
>Somehow it got
>on John Keats's list -- presumably from the influence of his
>mother,
Who died when he was 14, by the way.
> his school, and the friends he made there.
So you assume. Why couldn't the same thing have happened to
Shakespeare?
>It was occasionally on the list of the more 'arty' set at some of the
>major English schools. But that's how it has to start.
Why? I found poetry entirely on my own.
>> But the evidence of history appears to refute your contention.
>>The English have, from very early times, risen above their class
>>to challenge the aristocracy in all fields, including government,
>
>Sure. A few individuals have made progress, especially in making
>money and in some occupations.
Sure. So it *is* possible for a person to rise above his class.
I'm glad that's settled.
>>and
>>if the lower classes can rise enough to rule their own country and
>>lead the political life of Great Britain, (for example, Tony Blair
>>and Margaret Thatcher, for contemporary examples),
>
>Tony Blair went to a fee-paying private school (which already put
>him into a small privileged minority {?top 2 per cent}). He then went
>on to Oxford.
But that's astounding! Accepted to Oxford and not a noble. Imagine that!
And since Shakespeare was the son of a wealthy businessman, doesn't
that place him in the top minority of non-nobles of his time?
>Maggie Thatcher was the daughter of a fairly
>well-off shop-owner and also went to Oxford.
But that's astounding! Accepted to Oxford and not a noble. Imagine that!
The point is that Thatcher and Blair's forebearers must have risen above
their non-noble origins.
>>then surely
>>a writer, who is involved in the most powerless of vocations, could
>>rise to greatness as well. In other words (I'll explain as simply as I
>>can), commoners who are struggling for political power may face
>>greater obstacles than the nobility, but nevertheless they have been
>>successful in obtaining power, so a writer, who is not involved in the
>>great struggle for power and money, should not face insurmountable
>>obstacles to his ambition, regardless of his social status.
>
>I can see what you're saying, but it just doesn't work like that.
>Having got started (which is a big thing in itself) it then
>becomes fundamentally a matter of attitude, self-confidence and
>belief in yourself, and those are the hardest things to acquire.
Of course, that's why it doesn't happen to everyone. But it does
happen. And who were all those people that had coats of arms
granted to them by Elizabeth's government? What class did they
belong to before the arms were granted?
>A clever and hard-working man from a peasant family might, with
>luck, make steady progress in a profession, or in making money in
>business. But a great writer has to acquire the belief at an
>early age that he can become the best.
Says who? You? Even if true, so what?
>Then he has to work hard
>for years, possibly decades, usually with little or no income and
>with little or no recognition.
Shakespeare wasn't simply a writer, he was a playwright, and he
owned shares in the theatre, and that is how he supported himself.
>
>>Well, Keats was a commoner, and he rose above his station in
>>life (apothecary's apprentice, son of an ostler) to become one
>>of the greatest writers of all time. Apparently, he *wanted* to
>>be a writer.
>
>I don't know much about Keats, so I can't say much about his work
>except that he was a far lesser figure than Shakespeare.
Says who? You? Keats was the greater pure poet in my opinion,
while Shakespeare was primarily a dramatist. The point is that it
is possible for a person of non-noble origins to become a great
writer. No one (except possibly you for the purposes of this
argument) would say that Keats was only middling. He was one
of the greatest poets in English.
>He, and all his family, had great confidence that he would do
>outstanding work.
This is pure speculation which you are making up. We could say
exactly the same things about Shakespeare.
>They did not have a peasant mentality.
More speculation. Again, we could say the same about Shakespeare's
family.
>His
>mother's family was well educated and she was a remarkable woman.
>She inherited 13,000 pounds when he was nine in 1805, so they
>weren't lacking. He had excellent schooling and parents who
>were ambitious for him. They thought of sending him to Harrow,
>but luckily they didn't, given the brutal regime in those schools
>at that time. He got a far better education at his small school
>in Enfield from John Clarke, an inspired teacher. Clarke's son,
>Cowden Clarke, of much fame later, was seven years older; he
>gave the young Keats special attention and became a good friend.
Sounds remarkably like the background of Shakespeare (Mary Arden,
Shakespeare's mother, inherited her father's estate). So apparently
it was possible for Keats to rise above the shame of his father's profession
of ostler.
>Keats was actually slow to produce good work;
This is a ridiculous statement. Keats wrote all of
his great works before he died at the age of 25.
>this came only
>after his contact with Leigh Hunt, Shelley, and other literati of
>the day. Also he lived on his inheritance, writing for
>posterity, not for a living.
So? Shakespeare lived on the large income generated by the
production of his plays.
>
>>Of course, we don't have to use the recent examples I've just given.
>>Thomas a'Becket, who was born about 1118, was the son of
>>a merchant, and for a while worked as a clerk. We all know what
>>became of him. David Cecil became a freeman in 1494, and his grandson,
>>William Cecil, became Queen Elizabeth's advisor and was made Baron.
>
>We are talking about someone brought up in a backwater village in
>Tudor England, who had three children by the age of 21, showing
>as far as we know, not the slightest indication of literary
>talent or ambition by that stage.
You have no idea whether or not he showed any literary talent or
ambition at that age, because there is no record of Shakespeare's
early life.
>Thomas a'Becket and the rise of the Cecil family are hardly relevant.
Why? Because you say so? The point is that people can and do
rise above their class, and so the case of Beckett is quite relevant.
>More to my general point is the continuance in power and wealth
>of the Cecils -- right up to the present day. It illustrates the stability of
>that society, while permitting minor change.
Minor changes...would you consider a commoner as head of state
rather than a king a minor change?
>The lower orders know their place and, almost universally, stay in it.
And almost universally, from the beginning of time, some people
rise above their class. It happens all the time, in every age.
>
>>Samuel Daniel was the son of a music master, was a contemporary of
>>Shakespeare, and an influence upon him. He wrote fine sonnets that are
>>still enjoyed today (especially by me).
>
>We are not talking about a competent versifier, but about the man
>that changed the face of English literature -- I would say, the
>man that was responsible for creating it.
Shakespeare's reputation came long after his life. His reputation has
nothing to do with how he became a writer. Again, the point of
my bringing up Daniel is that it was possible for a commoner to
become a fine writer. Daniel was more than a competant versifier;
anyone who could write poems that are still interesting to read
400 years later must be quite good. Shakespeare's greatness
comes from the quantity of high quality verse, not the quality alone.
>Whoever he was, he had an enormous ego. He was fully aware
>of his stature.
Where do you get this? A few posts ago you were leaning on Jonson's
comments about Shakespeare's nature. Don't you remember them?
"He was (indeed) honest, and of an open, and free nature:
had an excellent fancy; brave notions, and gentle expressions."
This doesn't sound like a man with an enormous ego to me.
>Yet, astonishingly, we have no one making the claim to that position
>(although there are some indications in the sonnets). How could
>the predominant voice in English literature be so silent about
>himself?
What the hell are you talking about? How many Elizabethan
writers went about proclaiming their greatness? Did Sidney?
Did Spenser? That only happens in today's world of media
hype. I would think it more likely that a mediocre writer would
trumpet his greatness out of insecurity.
>He could only have been prevented from claiming his
>rightful position by external forces.
What rightful position? His plays and poems appear to have
been admired in his time (see Meres).
>Nothing here, of course, fits the Stratford man.
It all fits the Stratford man, especially the case of Beckett,
who was, like Shakespeare, the son of a wealthy businessman.
>Instead we have a bastardized, childish
>view of literature -- taught with great pomposity and complete
>irrelevance, by tiny minds, generation upon generation.
Sounds like you are talking about yourself.
Jim
book...@my-dejanews.com
Meanwhile, since they can't carry that information
> over into their idea of human behavior, they continue to claim IN THIS
> ALTERED CONTEXT--however inconsistently--that people are NOT odd,
> that social flukes CAN'T occur (like a Stratford villager's becoming
> a great poet).
<snipped>
It seems to me that Paul has taken a position, staked out his territory and
defended it pretty well, and with a lot of interesting detail, no doubt
presenting some tenents that are unacceptable. Perhaps Shakespeare, himself,
was tested in this way in order to sort out where he was. It does raise
issues that need to be addressed, I think, like what education did
Shakespeare have? and what are the attributes of his particular genious we
see in his works we want to account for?
Personally, I would deny that a university education can produce a great
writer; mostly they refer to natural genius, noble savage, the road less
traveled by, university of hard knocks, or serendipity. I find in
Shakespeare's works a fund of evidence that he went to school with nature and
compared it favorably with what advantages nobility provided. Just look at
this passage.
As You Like It
Act 2, Scene 1
DUKE SENIOR Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile,
Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods
More free from peril than the envious court?
Here feel we but the penalty of Adam,
The seasons' difference, as the icy fang
And churlish chiding of the winter's wind,
Which, when it bites and blows upon my body,
Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say
'This is no flattery: these are counsellors
That feelingly persuade me what I am.'
Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;
And this our life exempt from public haunt
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones and good in every thing.
I would not change it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I, for one, would be surprised to learn that Shakespeare was the product of
>
> --Bob G.
>
> -----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
> http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
>
--
Wednesday Jones
volker multhopp
> I've been lurking at this site for some time now, while occasionally
> making a few comments. The Oxfordians claim that the Stratfordians rest
> their case scarce evidence. But the whole Oxfordian case rests on no
> "evidence" at all. It rests on several assumptions. A few of the most
> egregious follow:
> 2) This leads to item #2. I'm sure that many people have cited the vast
> scholarly work of T. H. Baldwin and Sister Miriam Joseph in showing what
> the education in Stratford for a young man of Shakespeare's station must
> have been like.
This requires the assumption that Shakspere went to school at all. The
sum of all his acknowledged extant writings (see
http://www.erols.com/volker/Shakes/WSSigs.htm ) suggests he could not
even sign his own name in a consistent fashion. We don't have one line
of text from his pen (unless for want of writing one forces the unsigned
Hand D of *Thomas More* as his, and is willing to make Shake an
assistant playwright for a rival company at the height of his own
career), not one sign that he owned a book.
> 3) But this brings us to the other point. Most Bardolators seem only to
> have read Shakespeare. Tjat there was a significant flowering of
> literature in the Elizabethan Age is quite obvious, even from an
> undergrad Brit Lit survey. Sir Phillip Sidney seems to have ushered this
> in with his patriotic comments in "An Apologie for Poetry" (probably
> written about 1580). In this highly anthologized work, the delight of
> all literary historians and critics because it serves as a convenient
> strarting-point (however artifical) for a great literary period, Sidney
> calls for English poetry to flower more brillantly than the rest of
> Europe and (perhaps heresy!) that of ancient Greece and Rome.
Yes, such a golden age requires the cross-pollination of the creative
minds. Shakespeare cannot have only been buried in the theater world--
he must have also had deep contacts to the literate Elizabethan court he
so often sets his plays with (even if disguised as Italy, Denmark, ...),
*and* the other non-dramatic literary lights of his time. But we never
see William Shakespeare in court, and the non-dramatic poets are largely
silent about him. Oxford had those contacts in full.
--Volker
BobGr...@nut-n-but.net
writing one forces the unsigned Hand D of *Thomas More* as his,
and is willing to make Shake an assistant playwright for a rival
Volker, it is writing like the above that is why I have so little
regard for you as a serious seeker of the truth. If Shakespeare
wrote the *Thomas More* passage some ascribe to him it would have
been as a play-doctor called in to pick up a pound or two for
improvements. Or maybe to help out a friend, who knows. He would not
have been an assistant playwright, as you misleadingly claim.
Moreover, whether he was at the height of his career then is unknown:
*Shakespeare A to Z* says the play was "probably written around 1595 or
1600 (scholarly opinions differ). In 1595 he may well have accepted a
chance to earn a little extra money. Also, just as highly competitive
newspapers sometimes lend their presses to rival presses flooded or
otherwise having a hard time (as happened locally a few years ago),
a theatre might help out a rival theatre, especially if both were
doing well, as seems to have been the case here.
KQKnave
>
>1) This point is a strong one, especially if we assume that it was
>necessary to communicate with London on a timely basis to be connected
>to English culture. It is certainly true today, since most provincial
>playhouses no longer exist. The center of literary and dramatic art is
>now London, but that is most probably because of a coralary to Gresham's
>Law. If people can journey to London on a regular basis (as I recall,
>one can travel from Lerwick in the Shetland Islands to London in a
>couple of hours by air. You can cetainly go by rapid train anywhere in
>England, Scotland. or Wales in less than a day. But in Elizabethan times
>the roads were mainly wagon tracks. muddy and impassable much of the
>year.
>
It's not a strong point, it's a weak point. How on earth did Stratford
communicate with the central government and engage in
necessary trade if it were really as isolated as the Oxfordians claim?
How would the town have survived at all if were so isolated?
Here, for example, is a quote from Appleby's book on famine in
Tudor England:
"Faced with shortage and unrest on every side, the Crown
responded with a barrage of directives to all parts of the
kingdom, regulating and directing every aspect of the
grain trade and, at the same time, exhorting the rich to
charity and the poor to patience."
Are you saying that there were no itinerant tradesmen who came
through town, hawking their wares, including books? Are you
saying that there were no wealthy inhabitants who actively sought
books for their libraries? How did the townspeople learn to write
and keep official records, some of which still exist? Are you saying
that there were no people who actively sought artistic input, that
no one in town wanted a traveling troupe to put on a performance at
the end of a long week? Are you saying that there were no travelers
who stopped while passing through, and talked of the great show
they saw in London? Are you saying that in the 20 years after
Wyatt's sonnets first appeared in an edition of Songs and Sonnets (1557)
that not a single copy found its way into Stratford? And what about
Bibles? Did they have no church services?
The supposed isolation of Stratford is a construct of the black
and white mind of Oxfordians, who will take a fact, such as the fact
that Stratford was not a bustling center of artistic activity like London,
and immediately translate that into "The town was completely isolated
with NO artistic input whatsoever", which is an absurdity. The truth,
as it does in so many cases, lies in between the extremes of opinion.
Jim
Jack
> >necessary to communicate with London on a timely basis to be connected
> >to English culture. It is certainly true today, since most provincial
> >playhouses no longer exist. The center of literary and dramatic art is
> >now London, but that is most probably because of a coralary to Gresham's
> >Law. If people can journey to London on a regular basis (as I recall,
> >one can travel from Lerwick in the Shetland Islands to London in a
> >couple of hours by air. You can cetainly go by rapid train anywhere in
> >England, Scotland. or Wales in less than a day. But in Elizabethan times
> >the roads were mainly wagon tracks. muddy and impassable much of the
> >year.
> >
>
Hey, Jim.
Did you read my whole piece, or just that extract? I went on to talk
about two examples of major cultural contact--itinerant players'
companies and one-man shows.
Jack
Jack
>
> Jack wrote:
> > 2) This leads to item #2. I'm sure that many people have cited the vast
> > scholarly work of T. H. Baldwin and Sister Miriam Joseph in showing what
> > the education in Stratford for a young man of Shakespeare's station must
> > have been like.
>
> This requires the assumption that Shakspere went to school at all. The
> sum of all his acknowledged extant writings (see
> http://www.erols.com/volker/Shakes/WSSigs.htm ) suggests he could not
> even sign his own name in a consistent fashion. We don't have one line
> of text from his pen (unless for want of writing one forces the unsigned
> Hand D of *Thomas More* as his, and is willing to make Shake an
> assistant playwright for a rival company at the height of his own
> career), not one sign that he owned a book.
>
I hope no one ever decides how much schooling I've had by MY signature.
Though painstakingly schooled in the Palmer Method and despite constant
complaints from students and friends I write like a physician.
Has there yet been a discussion on this site about Elizabethan wills?
There's been plenty of research on Shakespeare's as representative of
his time. One important thing to keep in mind is that one needn't have
mentioned a thing in a will if it was assumed by the law to go to the
surviving spouse. On the other hand, maybe your punctilious scholarship
requires cash register receipts?
>
> > 3) But this brings us to the other point. Most Bardolators seem only to
> > have read Shakespeare. Tjat there was a significant flowering of
> > literature in the Elizabethan Age is quite obvious, even from an
> > undergrad Brit Lit survey. Sir Phillip Sidney seems to have ushered this
> > in with his patriotic comments in "An Apologie for Poetry" (probably
> > written about 1580). In this highly anthologized work, the delight of
> > all literary historians and critics because it serves as a convenient
> > strarting-point (however artifical) for a great literary period, Sidney
> > calls for English poetry to flower more brillantly than the rest of
> > Europe and (perhaps heresy!) that of ancient Greece and Rome.
>
> Yes, such a golden age requires the cross-pollination of the creative
> minds. Shakespeare cannot have only been buried in the theater world--
> he must have also had deep contacts to the literate Elizabethan court he
> so often sets his plays with (even if disguised as Italy, Denmark, ...),
> *and* the other non-dramatic literary lights of his time. But we never
> see William Shakespeare in court, and the non-dramatic poets are largely
> silent about him. Oxford had those contacts in full.
>
> --Volker
What's this "buried in the theatre" stuff? There was ample access to the
learning of the time without going to court.
Some of this all boils down to a problem in literary scholarship.
Especially in an age so remote. Negative evidence is not evidence. A
former professor of mine, Roland Collins, once claimed in gest that he
envied scientists their ability to publish negative evidence. A Tennyson
scholar, he was quite taken with the story that, upon the death of
Byron, the young Tennyson went out into the garden and wrote, "Byron is
dead, 1824." Collins bemoaned the fact that he could not regularly
publish an article, "Tennyson Graffiti Still Unfound."
Jack
Paul Crowley
>Paul, a question: do you believe it is possible that money had
>anything at all to do with what, why and how Shakespeare wrote?
No. I do not believe that money had the least bearing on what,
why or how Shakespeare wrote. And I think anyone, who takes the
least trouble to reflect on the matter, can see that in his plays
and poetry.
>Another question: do you think it's possible for someone to write
>both to produce a work of beauty AND to make money?
It may be possible, but in the theatre (or for poetry) it is
extremely unlikely. Everyone knows this. Either you write to
put bums on seats or you set out to create something artistic.
If it's bums-on-seats, the theatre manager decides what goes in
and what's cut. There is little trace of 'theatre-manager
editing' in Shakespeare. I don't think it's ever suggested, even
by the 'scholars'.
If the playwright aims for beauty or truth, the work will be
experimental; it will be at the cutting edge of the art; it
will break conventions and will be strange and unfamiliar to the
audience. They will stay away in droves.
Of course, this is a very broad generalisation. Occasionally,
the 'product of truth or beauty' is a commercial success almost
in spite of itself (e.g. 'One flew over the Cuckoo's nest',
'Trainspotting'); or the one aimed at money-making (from say,
Hollywood) turns out to have intrinsic worth in one way or
another.
It's undeniable that Shakespeare wrote for beauty. He was not
interested in bums on seats. At the most superficial level, the
throw-away names of many of the plays tell us that. But the
near-crazy idiosyncracies of some of the plots, the continual
harping on personal obsessions (like jealousy), the deliberate
obscurities, the sheer intensity and complexity (which must pass
over an audience even after several viewings) and so on, all
inform us that he never (or rarely) set out to merely entertain.
Yet we have this foolish story of a playwright out to make money!
It should make your stomach turn. It is, of course, an integral
part of the whole Stratfordian myth. If he knew what he was, and
what he was doing, he'd be impelled to express his personality
and his views. Naturally, that has to be ruled out in Stratfordia
since there is clearly no match between the works and the stooge.
And when a genetic freak emerges from under hedge with a magic
pen in his hand, he must necessarily be ignorant of what he is
doing; his only motivation can be money. Further, the
demeaning of great art to 'automatic writing' by a more-or-less
anonymous 'middlebrow' makes it an awfully lot easier to teach --
for those who select themselves for that 'vocation'.
Paul.
Paul Crowley
>Shakespeare was not a slave, he was the son of a wealthy businessman.
He was the son of a very small time trader whose occupation and
status are both highly obscure. And before the Stratman was
mature he was being harassed for debts.
>Even slaves could rise above their station. Spartacus and Frederic
>Douglass come to mind, and George Washington Carver
They could but 99.999% didn't. And we are talking solely in
probabilities, not fantasies.
>>Somehow it got
>>on John Keats's list -- presumably from the influence of his
>>mother,
>So you assume. Why couldn't the same thing have happened to
>Shakespeare?
It could, but in 99.999% of the cases of country boys it didn't.
And we are talking solely in probabilities, not in fantasies.
>>It was occasionally on the list of the more 'arty' set at some of the
>>major English schools. But that's how it has to start.
>Why? I found poetry entirely on my own.
Firstly, did you start to write it -- in competition with your
peers, so that your style gradually improved? Secondly, how
many books on poetry would have been left lying around Stratford
around 1570? And, thirdly, what chance would you say there is
that the local boys in Stratford competed in producing poetry?
>Sure. So it *is* possible for a person to rise above his class.
>I'm glad that's settled.
It is possible but in 99.999% of the cases it doesn't happen.
And we are talking solely in probabilities, not fantasies.
>>Tony Blair went to a fee-paying private school (which already put
>>him into a small privileged minority {?top 2 per cent}). He then went
>>on to Oxford.
>
>But that's astounding! Accepted to Oxford and not a noble. Imagine that!
>And since Shakespeare was the son of a wealthy businessman, doesn't
>that place him in the top minority of non-nobles of his time?
No, allowing for the obscurity of what his father did, and his
later recorded poverty, he's in, maybe, the 'top 80%'.
<snips>
>>He, [Keats]and all his family, had great confidence that he would do
>>outstanding work.
>
>This is pure speculation which you are making up. We could say
>exactly the same things about Shakespeare.
My source was the DNB which quotes one of the family, saying that
John would make the family name famous, whereas his brother would
make money. There is, of course, nothing like that for the
Stratman.
> >They did not have a peasant mentality.
>
>More speculation. Again, we could say the same about Shakespeare's
>family.
Keats family and background is well understood -- quite unlike
that of the Stratman, about which not much more that the minimal
legalities are known.
>>Keats was actually slow to produce good work;
>
>This is a ridiculous statement. Keats wrote all of
>his great works before he died at the age of 25.
Again my source was the DNB, quoting someone stating that many
others of lesser talent had produced much better at an earlier
age.
>>We are talking about someone brought up in a backwater village in
>>Tudor England, who had three children by the age of 21, showing
>>as far as we know, not the slightest indication of literary
>>talent or ambition by that stage.
>
>You have no idea whether or not he showed any literary talent or
>ambition at that age, because there is no record of Shakespeare's
>early life.
That is all I say. There is no record of the lives of most of
his class. Had he produced work equivalent to, say, Keats then
we'd know a lot more about him. Perhaps he did and it remained
hidden. But in 99.999999% of the cases that doesn't happen. And
we are talking solely in probabilities, not fantasies.
>>The lower orders know their place and, almost universally, stay in it.
>
>And almost universally, from the beginning of time, some people
>rise above their class. It happens all the time, in every age.
It is possible but in 99.99% of the cases it doesn't happen.
And we are talking solely in probabilities, not fantasies.
>Shakespeare's reputation came long after his life.
This is simply not true. His works have been on the stage from
the day they were first performed. His characters entered the
public imagination immediately and have stayed there since. His
books have been in print, with continuous new editions from the
time they were first published. Charles I had his own copy of
the first folio. Pepys attended 36 performances of his plays
during the 1660's although he said he was not much of a fan.
>Again, the point of
>my bringing up Daniel is that it was possible for a commoner to
>become a fine writer.
It is possible but in 99.999% of the cases it doesn't happen.
And we are talking solely in probabilities, not fantasies.
>>Whoever he was, he had an enormous ego. He was fully aware
>>of his stature.
>
>Where do you get this? A few posts ago you were leaning on Jonson's
>comments about Shakespeare's nature. Don't you remember them?
Err . . . have you read the sonnets?
>>Yet, astonishingly, we have no one making the claim to that position
>>(although there are some indications in the sonnets). How could
>>the predominant voice in English literature be so silent about
>>himself?
>
>What the hell are you talking about? How many Elizabethan
>writers went about proclaiming their greatness? Did Sidney?
>Did Spenser?
Err . . . have you read the sonnets? And there is some slight
difference between Shakespeare and Sidney or Spenser. Perhaps
you've not noticed.
>>He could only have been prevented from claiming his
>>rightful position by external forces.
>What rightful position? His plays and poems appear to have
>been admired in his time (see Meres).
Meres was as nothing besides the encomiums of Jonson, Milton and
others after his death. But you completely miss the point of the
man. He was not just another entertainer. He set the course of
English and world literature for all time. And, of course, he
knew exactly what he was doing. That's some position. Meres
didn't quite grasp it -- although he was a lot closer than you.
>It all fits the Stratford man, especially the case of Beckett,
>who was, like Shakespeare, the son of a wealthy businessman.
Very few would apply that description to a man who couldn't go to
church for fear of debt collectors. But even if he was, while
it is possible for his son to become great and powerful, in
99.999% of the cases it doesn't happen. And we are talking
solely in probabilities, not fantasies.
Paul.
BobGr...@nut-n-but.net
with statistics concerning creativity, what is the probablility of a
commoner's getting his name on the title pages of some thirty or forty
books as their author but NOT being their author?
BobGr...@nut-n-but.net
possible that money had anything at all to do with what, why and how
"No. I do not believe that money had the least bearing on what,
why or how Shakespeare wrote. And I think anyone, who takes the
least trouble to reflect on the matter, can see that in his plays
and poetry."
I can't see it at all, Paul. Nor can I connect to anything you say
about creativity. It seems to me that almost all creative artists
have a complicated mixture of motives for creating, including a need
to win approval and money. I believe this from what I have read about
notable artists, what I know of my many friends in poetry, and from
what I know (I think) of the way the human mind works. I also have
had experience as both a poet and a playwright. As a poet I compose
extremely weird poems that mix mathematics and words, and are not likely
ever to make money. NEVERTHELESS, I dream that they will! And I DO
in some cases try to make some of them accessible, even potentially
popular--without, I hope, compromising my main (but never only) aim,
which is to construct something of lasting beauty (or something that
does something that other poets can use to construct something of
lasting beauty; that is, while my main aim as a poet is to produce
lasting works, I would be satisfied if I only contributed to the
advance of my craft). I've done similar things as a playwright--
for example, trying to write a commercial play that was still a
good play--mainly by toning down my love of getting into "philosophical"
discussions, and into controversial issues. If you ever read
Werebird (which is at http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/3228),
you'll see that I was not as successful at that as Shakespeare was
when he wrote the obvious crowd-pleaser, A Comedy of Errors.
In short, from all I know from the outside and the inside of the
creative process, you have it completely wrong.
volker multhopp
> Personally, I would deny that a university education can produce a great
> writer; mostly they refer to natural genius, noble savage, the road less
> traveled by, university of hard knocks, or serendipity. I find in
> Shakespeare's works a fund of evidence that he went to school with nature and
> compared it favorably with what advantages nobility provided.
Our Shake a nature-boy? No, it doesn't work. He loves nature-- but it
is the nature of the garden party and the courtly hunt. Life in real
nature is a constant business of searching for food-- we don't see that
in the canon. Our hero was too busy with other things to spend time in
a very tenuous existence as an Elizabethan nature-boy.
--Volker
Richard J Kennedy
Regarding the people of Stratford, their culture and awareness
of high social events, there is this:
Following David Garrick's 1769 Jubilee at Stratford, the birth
of bardolatry and the placement of the Mecca, one correspondent
to the St. James Chronicle, Oct. 12, 1769, had this to say of the
town of Stratford.
'The low People of Stratford upon Avon are without doubt as
ignorant as any in the whole Island. I could not possibly imagine
that there were such Beings in the most remote, and least
frequented Parts of the Kingdom. I talked with many, particularly
the old People, and not one of them but was frightened at the
Preparations for the Jubilee, and did not know what they were
about....
"It is impossible to describe their Absurdity; and indeed
Providence seems by producing Shakespeare and the rest of his
Townsmen, to shew the two Extremes of Human Nature."
This from Johanne M. Stochholm's book, Garrick's Folly. Keeping
in mind, of course, that the poet was the great claim to fame that
the town enjoyed, or so we must think. There is more of the
above as concerning the ignorance of the people of the Stratford.
They didn't know what the celebration was all about. The man
from Stratford had been long forgotten, evidently.
--
david joseph kathman
>
> volker multhopp wrote:
> >
> > Jack wrote:
>
> > > scholarly work of T. H. Baldwin and Sister Miriam Joseph in showing what
> > > the education in Stratford for a young man of Shakespeare's station must
> > > have been like.
> >
> > sum of all his acknowledged extant writings (see
> > http://www.erols.com/volker/Shakes/WSSigs.htm ) suggests he could not
> > even sign his own name in a consistent fashion. We don't have one line
> > of text from his pen (unless for want of writing one forces the unsigned
> > Hand D of *Thomas More* as his, and is willing to make Shake an
> > assistant playwright for a rival company at the height of his own
> > career), not one sign that he owned a book.
> >
> I hope no one ever decides how much schooling I've had by MY signature.
> Though painstakingly schooled in the Palmer Method and despite constant
> complaints from students and friends I write like a physician.
>
> Has there yet been a discussion on this site about Elizabethan wills?
> There's been plenty of research on Shakespeare's as representative of
> his time. One important thing to keep in mind is that one needn't have
> mentioned a thing in a will if it was assumed by the law to go to the
> surviving spouse. On the other hand, maybe your punctilious scholarship
> requires cash register receipts?
There has indeed been quite a bit of discussion on this group about
Elizabethan wills. In fact, there was so much discussion that after
reposting a summary of my research for roughly the millionth time,
I put it up on my web page so I could just refer people to it.
The URL is http://www.clark.net/pub/tross/ws/shaxwill.html.
The only unusual thing about Shakespeare's will is the apparent
slighting of his wife, which has nothing to do with the authorship
question. The lack of books in his will is not relevant, as books
were rarely mentioned in the bodies of wills, even for obviously
learned people.
As for the other things Volker mentions: the school issue is
discussed on the web page also, in the piece entitled "The Stratford
School"; I've mentioned many times before that people who spend a
lot of time reading Elizabethan secretary hand do not share your
opinion of Shakespeare's handwriting (some hands were considerably
worse, such as Thomas Heywood's); the case for Shakespeare's authorship
of Hand D in Sir Thomas More is multifaceted and strong enough that
a very healthy majority of scholars support it; and yes, there is
evidence from Stratford that a "Mr. Shakspere" (who must have been either
William or his father) owned a book.
Dave Kathman
dj...@ix.netcom.com
Jack
> Elizabethan wills. In fact, there was so much discussion that after
> reposting a summary of my research for roughly the millionth time,
> I put it up on my web page so I could just refer people to it.
> The URL is http://www.clark.net/pub/tross/ws/shaxwill.html.
> The only unusual thing about Shakespeare's will is the apparent
> slighting of his wife, which has nothing to do with the authorship
> question. The lack of books in his will is not relevant, as books
> were rarely mentioned in the bodies of wills, even for obviously
> learned people.
> Dave Kathman
> dj...@ix.netcom.com
The late and much-maligned Samuel Schoenbaum wrote in "The LLife of
Shakespeare<' a brief introductory essay in _A New Companion for
Shakespeare Studies_ (1971) that Ann Hathaway Shakespeare needn't have
been mentioned in the will since "the law entitled a widow to one third
of her husband's estate. . . . The significance of the bequest [of the
secone best bed] can only be guessed, but p[osssibly the bed carried
sentimental associations, the best bed being reserved for guests at New
Place." (p.12).
I've always thought this, like the epitaph (doggerel for the author of
_Hamlet_ a keen sense of Shakespearean wit and irony.
I notice that you don't mention the Schoenbaum speculation on you Web
Site (though you do mention the bequest). I gather from our brief
e-acquaintance that you are strictly a facts man, and a damn good one at
that! Having reread much of the stuff on your site, how do you account
for the persistent exhumation of settled issues. You must be a
frustrated man. I have a recurring nightmare that I'm up in front of the
class but can't talk loudly enough for people to hear me. Sometimes the
words won't come out of my mouth. My students are ignoring me.
Jack
I know a crackpot theory when I hear the words, "I've got an answer for
that one, too!"
KQKnave
In article <36134a88...@news.indigo.ie>, crow...@hxtmail.cxm (Paul
Crowley) writes:
>Yet we have this foolish story of a playwright out to make money!
>It should make your stomach turn.
So how could Oxford be the author then? He was obsessed with
money, as this letter to Burghley concerning tin mines shows
(Courtesy Alan H. Nelson's web site: http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~ahnelson/)
"This last yeare past I have bene a swter [=suitor]
to her Magestie yat I myght ferme her Tynes, gyvinge
3000l a yeare more then she hadd made. yf I had not done
thys, ther weare which thowght to have had yt for a
thowsand markes a yeare. I perseuerd, and yf I wowld have
giuen yt over to suche, I myght have bene recompenced
to my content. but for yat I dyd not a showe hathe bene
made to her Magestie of 10 thowsand poundes of [=a] yeare,
only determininge therby, to stope her Magestie frome
harkeninge to my swte, and so to weare me out therof, which
beinge compassed, to bringe yt to ther fyrst
poynt or at the least to an easier rent, they demanded 30
or 40 thowsand poundes, to be lent them for one yeare,
which they thowght her Magestie wowld absolutly refuse.
and so havinge culler to breake of [=off] all, and my self
forgotten yt myght be, and as they thowght most lekly,
her Maiestie wowld yelde and be browght to be contentend
[=contented] with a small sume, or att the most with so
muche as I had offred. Thus I was to have beaten the bushe,
whylst other howldinge the nett, had taken the bwyrd [=bird].
But as I perceyve, a rude copie of myne altogether vndigested
came to her Magesties hands, wherby she is not so discoraged
as they have made there account. this copie as I perceyve yowre
Lordship hathe sene. yett I am sure, althowghe yow may
discerne sume lyghtes of resonable matter, yt ys so yll [digested]
^\\appearinge// as yt wyll rather incomber yow, then comfort
yow of any possibilite.
Yet vnderstandinge thus muche by yowre servant Hykes, I framed
one other plott, which for that the other stood all vpon
leklywhodes [=likelihoods], & probabilities, myghte vpon a more
assured grownd be bwylt, yf her Maiestie any kynd away
[=of way] can be perswaded to disburse forthe her monie. for
wheras that for whiche was demanded 40tie or 30tie thowsand
poundes, stood altogether vpon coniectures, this dyd only relye
vpon that which was certeyne & what was by her maiesties
informationes of the yere past certefied in her rates how yt
myght be made with a fare [=far] smaller sume of mony layd owt,
and so what difference ys betwiene dout and certeynte betwiene
a great cost and || lesser charge that differencie is apparent
betwiene that vnperfect noote and that I last sent yowre Lordship."
[End Letter of Oxford to Burghley. This is only a small excerpt
of a long-winded plea]
He wrote 16 letters concerning the tin mines to Burghley in 1595 alone!
Most of Oxford's letters are available at
http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~ahnelson/.
Jim
KQKnave
In article <361403F6...@erols.com>, volker multhopp <vol...@erols.com>
writes:
>
> Our Shake a nature-boy? No, it doesn't work. He loves nature-- but it
>is the nature of the garden party and the courtly hunt. Life in real
>nature is a constant business of searching for food-- we don't see that
>in the canon. Our hero was too busy with other things to spend time in
>a very tenuous existence as an Elizabethan nature-boy.
>
> --Volker
>
It's amazing that the most pastoral and nature bound poet ever
produced by England, John Clare, (whose memorial plaque in
Westminster Abbey in poets corner reads 'Fields were the essence
of his song') was a landless laborer like his father, and the
son of an illiterate mother. From Carolyn Kizer's introduction to
*The Essential Clare*:
"The worst curse laid on this physically fragile man was unremitting
poverty and hard labor in the fields, fens, and quarries. Even at
the height of his fame, when his first book sold four thousand
copies in the first year (while Keats and Shelley sold barely
five hundred copies each), his publishers paid him almost nothing,
and he was forced to continue working as a common laborer. This
work, and the unceasing anxiety he felt about keeping his parents,
his wife, and his seven children from starvation, undoubtedly
contributed to the mental illness that confined him to insane asylums
for more than a quarter of a century, until his long life ended"
Even so, he managed to write a huge amount of poetry, which
is now only available in its entirety in a large multivolume set
costing >$200. *The Essential Clare* is a small paperback with
a small selection of his poetry.
This poem by Clare is called "The Flood", and it is in *The
Rattle Bag* ed. by Seamus Heaney and Ted Hughes:
On Lolham Brigs in wild and lonely mood
I've seen the winter floods their gambols play
Through each old arch that trembled while I stood
Bent o'er its wall to watch the dashing spray
As their old stations would be washed away
Crash came the ice against the jambs and then
A shudder jarred the arches - yet once more
It breasted raving waves and stood agen
To wait the shock as stubborn as before
- White foam brown crested with the russet soil
As washed from new ploughd lands would dart beneath
Then round and round a thousand eddies boil
On tother side - then pause as if for breath
One minute - and engulphed - like life in death.
Whose wrecky stains dart on the floods away
More swift than shadows in a stormy day
Straws trail and turn steady - all in vain
The engulphing arches shoot them quickly through
The feather dances flutters and again
Darts through the deepest dangers still afloat
Seeming as faireys whisked it from the view
And danced it o'er the waves as pleasures boat
Light hearted as a thought in May -
Trays - uptorn bushes - fence demolished rails
Loaded with weeds in sluggish motions stray
Like water monsters lost each winds and trails
Till near the arches - then as in affright
It plunges - reels - and shudders out of sight
Waves trough - rebound - and fury boil again
Like plunging monsters rising underneath
Who at the top curl up a shaggy main
A moment catching at a surer breath
Then plunging headlong down and down - and on
Each following boil the shadow of the last
And other monsters rise when those are gone
Crest their fringed waves - plunge onward and are past
- The chill air comes around me ocean blea
From bank to bank the waterstrife is spread
Strange birds like snow spots o'er the huzzing sea
Hang where the wild duck hurried past and fled
On roars the flood - all restless to be free
Like trouble wandering to eternity.
[End Poem by John Clare]
Jim
PFStreitz
There is a difference between having to make money to support oneself, or be
concerned about money, than from having to make money by writing what others
want, ie, those in power or with the money to finance a production.
Second, the letters that Burghley seems to keep may debliberately obliterate
Oxford as an author, to Burghley's satisfaction.
Tom Reedy
crow...@hxtmail.cxm (Paul Crowley) wrote:
> On Mon, 28 Sep 1998 02:57:14 GMT, Tom Reedy
> <aaa...@ramail.angelo.edu> wrote:
>
> > . . . it is obvious that your attitude toward
> >Stratford grows out of the class bias and prejudice which you > >claim
Americanscan't understand;
>
> How is this obvious?
It is obvious to us, not so obvious to you, obviously.
In article <36100b00...@news.indigo.ie>,
crow...@hxtmail.cxm (Paul Crowley) wrote:
> The class thing goes deep, deep, deep. My son did not _want_ > to go to
Oxbridge. He believed that even if he had got in, he > would have found a
stuffy, pompous, well-monied crowd who would > reject him and with whom he
would not want to mix.
There is an old joke that goes like this: A man had a flat tire out in the
country, far from any service stations. Trying to change the tire, he
discovered that he had no jack. He set out to walk to the nearest farmhouse
to borrow one.
Walking down the road, the heat, the effort, and his bad luck set his mind to
thinking. "What if the farmer doesn't have a jack?" he thought. "No, no,
surely he would have a jack."
Walking farther, he thought, "What if the farmer laughs at me for having no
jack? I guess I'll just have to bear the ridicule in hopes that he will pity
me and loan me his jack."
He walked on farther. "What if the farmer sees me coming and refuses to open
the door? After all, I'm dusty and unkempt from walking on the road; who
could blame him for thinking me some unsavory character?"
"Worse yet," he thought as he grew more tired, "What if the farmer has a jack,
but refuses to lend it to me because of how I look? He may think me a thief,
someone who borrows tools with no intention of returning them."
His mind kept on in this track, until he thought, "What if the farmer has a
shotgun, and chases me off his property? What'll I do then?"
His thinking continued in this vein until he reached the farmhouse. He
knocked on the door and a middle-aged man in overalls opened the door.
"May I help you?" the farmer asked.
"Yeah," the disgruntled motorist yelled. "You can take your goddam jack and
cram it up your fat hayseed ass!"
This story may seem off the point but it illustrates the circularity of your
thinking about class. Your son did not want to apply to Oxbridge because "he
would have found a stuffy, pompous, well-monied crowd who would reject him
and with whom he would not want to mix." So he doesn't apply, consequently
not being accepted, which proves what snobs they are and how deep class bias
is imbedded. God only knows how Bill Clinton, who comes from one of the most
backward states in the U. S., managed to get through it when he attended
Oxford.
>
> The class thing goes deep. How can I convey it? Think color.
>
"Think color" is a strange suggestion to make to an inhabitant of a country in
which the most admired persons are Colin Powell, Michael Jordan, and Oprah
Winnefrey.
> Similarly the Stratman would not have _wanted_ to write
> sonnets.
> The idea is ludicrous.
>
The idea only seems ludicrous to someone who has fully digested the class
prejudices of which you complain. The arrogance of stating what Shakespeare
was capable of wanting speaks only of your ignorance and prejudice. Your
proposition that members of a certain class were incapable of even the desire
to create literature, either poetry or drama, is easily disproved by the
example of *even one* writer from the middle or lower class who did.
Ben Jonson was the posthumous son of a clergyman and stepson to a bricklayer.
Neither of these enjoyed the same status as John Shakespeare, who while
wearing the scarlet gown of the bailiff of Stratford served as justice of the
peace, presided over the sessions of the Court of Record, which was a court
of the Crown, and at council meetings. Jonson worked as a bricklayer and a
common soldier in the army, and then went to work as a actor. According to
your standards, Jonson could not have become a poet and a playwright, and
would not have even wanted to.
Edmund Spenser came from a poor family. He was related to a noble family who
had made their fortune in wool, a profession that seems to be in ill repute
among Oxfordians because of John Shakespeare's connections with it. Spenser
was a charity case at the Merchant Taylors' grammar school. He attended
Cambridge classed as a sizer--a student who, out of poverty, performed menial
tasks in exchange for his tuition. Of course, in your model of the rigid
class system in effect at the time, Spenser could never have even attended
school, much less written the best poetry of the Renaissance, so perhaps
Spenser was a front man for Oxford also.
How did Christopher Marlowe, the son of a Canterbury shoemaker, attend Corpus
Christi College in the society which you say was paralyzed by class?
Did class exist? Of course it did, and still does. But since Biblical times
talent has always risen in every society, no matter from which class it
springs. And Shakespeare was not just talented, but supremely talented,
talent elevated to the level of genius.
There are, of course, other examples of Elizabethans transcending class
barriers to achieve, in both industry and the arts. Your abysmal ignorance
of the history of Renaissance literature should make you humble and willing
to learn, but it seems to have had the opposite effect.
In article <36134a88...@news.indigo.ie>,
crow...@hxtmail.cxm (Paul Crowley) wrote:
> On Mon, 28 Sep 1998 17:25:29 GMT, BobGr...@Nut-N-But.Net wrote:
>
> >Paul, a question: do you believe it is possible that money had
> >anything at all to do with what, why and how Shakespeare
> >wrote?
>
> No. I do not believe that money had the least bearing on what,
> why or how Shakespeare wrote. And I think anyone, who takes
> the least trouble to reflect on the matter, can see that in his
> plays and poetry.
Apparently Dr. Johnson did not take the trouble to reflect on the matter. He
wrote, "No one but a blockhead ever wrote except for money." Of course, he
did not have your perspective on literary creativity, being an actual working
writer rather than a newsgroup junkie full of half-baked second-hand
opinions.
>
> >Another question: do you think it's possible for someone to write
> >both to produce a work of beauty AND to make money?
>
> It may be possible, but in the theatre (or for poetry) it is
> extremely unlikely. Everyone knows this.
How do you know that "everyone knows this?" Have you interviewed everyone?
This is typical of the wide, all-encompassing statements you make that you
expect others to accept on your authority alone.
> Either you write to
> put bums on seats or you set out to create something artistic.
I believe Shakespeare put quite a few "bums in the seats." If he hadn't his
plays would never have survived.
> If the playwright aims for beauty or truth, the work will be
> experimental; it will be at the cutting edge of the art; it
> will break conventions and will be strange and unfamiliar to
> the audience. They will stay away in droves.
So you're saying the audience stayed away from his plays?
> It's undeniable that Shakespeare wrote for beauty. He was not
> interested in bums on seats.
Shakespeare was interested in everybody and everything, which is one of the
reasons why he was a genius and you're not.
At the most superficial level, the
> throw-away names of many of the plays tell us that. But the
> near-crazy idiosyncracies of some of the plots, the continual
> harping on personal obsessions (like jealousy), the deliberate
> obscurities,
Obscurities of which only Oxfordians hold the key, no doubt.
> the sheer intensity and complexity (which must pass
> over an audience even after several viewings) and so on, all
> inform us that he never (or rarely) set out to merely entertain.
>
> Yet we have this foolish story of a playwright out to make money!
> It should make your stomach turn.
Ah, here we have it again, the class-conscious contempt for those in the
trade!
> It is, of course, an integral part of the whole Stratfordian
> myth. If he knew what he was, and what he was doing, he'd be
> impelled to express his personality and his views. Naturally,
> that has to be ruled out in Stratfordia since there is clearly
> no match between the works and the stooge.
> And when a genetic freak emerges from under hedge with a magic
> pen in his hand, he must necessarily be ignorant of what he is
> doing; his only motivation can be money.
Of course "of course!" Of course "he'd be impelled!" Of course "naturally!"
Of course "he must necessarily!" And of course "his only motivation can be .
. !" We're in the black-and-white world of Oxfordania, where clear-cut
motivations can be discerned across the centuries by those ignorant of even
the most basic rudiments of that society.
Whatever your reasons for rejecting Stratford for the authorship, it is plain
that they do not rely upon objective fact. You seem to have a particularly
special insight into the creative process of someone who lived 400 years ago.
Bob calls people like this, people who hold sloppy and careless opinions as
if they were revelations from on high, "rigidniks." I have to disagree with
the word; the suffix "-nik" implies that the person under discussion is
consciously choosing his frame of mind, as in "beatnik," "peacenik," etc.
Mr. Crowley and other Oxfordians are obviously operating under a level of
self-deception that is truly amazing. Their subjectivity seems to be the
only commonality between them, and the discipline of serious scholarship and
learning how to think is beyond their mental capabilities. There is no
"debating" with people whose world view is so obviously myopic that they deny
historical fact and ignore all valid argument.
TR
david joseph kathman
>
> In article <3611FC4A...@erols.com>, volker multhopp <vol...@erols.com>
> writes:
>
> >KQKnave wrote:
> >
> >> I find it hard to accept that anyone who has the ability to write
> >> poetry on such a high level would be anything but an introvert,
> >
> > Imo, the copious dialog of the plays flows from a writer who actually
> >was able to get in and practice such dialog. I can't imagine him at a
> >loss for words in a real social situation.
> >
> > --Volker
>
> Sterne's *Tristram Shandy* come from? Was he an actor too? Have
> you ever acted? I'm as introverted as they come, but I have no problem
> speaking loudly on stage or delivering the lines in any way. There is no
> real social situation on stage, it's completely artificial, with every word
> scripted.
That's exactly right. I know quite a few theater people, and they're
all over the map as far as offstage personalities go. Some are
extroverted and gregarious, while others are introverted and shy
when they're not performing. A surprising number of comedians and
comic actors I know are actually rather quiet and almost morose in
everyday life. And as for writers, well, don't get me started.
I don't think you can tell anything about a person's everyday
disposition by their writings.
Dave Kathman
dj...@ix.netcom.com
volker multhopp
> the case for Shakespeare's authorship
> of Hand D in Sir Thomas More is multifaceted and strong enough that
> a very healthy majority of scholars support it;
How did you determine this "very healthy majority of scholars"? Was
there a vote? By whom?
--Volker
volker multhopp
> Hey, Paul, now that you've demonstrated beyond a doubt your expertise
> with statistics concerning creativity, what is the probablility of a
> commoner's getting his name on the title pages of some thirty or forty
> books as their author but NOT being their author?
On how many title pages did Sam Clemens get his name?
--Volker
volker multhopp
> That's exactly right. I know quite a few theater people, and they're
> all over the map as far as offstage personalities go. Some are
> extroverted and gregarious, while others are introverted and shy
> when they're not performing. A surprising number of comedians and
> comic actors I know are actually rather quiet and almost morose in
> everyday life. And as for writers, well, don't get me started.
> I don't think you can tell anything about a person's everyday
> disposition by their writings.
This is, of course, the classic Strat position: the circumstances of a
person's life do not affect his writing; from his writing, one can
determine nothing about his life.
--Volker
volker multhopp
> >Yet we have this foolish story of a playwright out to make money!
> >It should make your stomach turn.
> money, as this letter to Burghley concerning tin mines shows
> (Courtesy Alan H. Nelson's web site: http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~ahnelson/)
> "This last yeare past I have bene a swter [=suitor]
> to her Magestie yat I myght ferme her Tynes, gyvinge
> 3000l a yeare more then she hadd made. yf I had not done
But Oxford is concerned with sums of money 100s and 1000s of times
greater than a playwright's pay. He gets 1000L a year from Elizabeth--
he's supposed to be interested in maybe 16L he might sweat out for 2
plays in a year? Oxford, in fact, was a patron to other writers.
> He wrote 16 letters concerning the tin mines to Burghley in 1595 alone!
> Most of Oxford's letters are available at
> http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~ahnelson/.
The only letters we have of him are those Burghley wanted us to see.
--Volker
Tom Reedy
crow...@hxtmail.cxm (Paul Crowley) wrote:
> On 01 Oct 1998 00:19:31 GMT, kqk...@aol.com (KQKnave) wrote:
>
> >>Somehow it got
> >>mother,
>
> >So you assume. Why couldn't the same thing have happened to
> >Shakespeare?
>
> It could, but in 99.999% of the cases of country boys it didn't.
> And we are talking solely in probabilities, not in fantasies.
Well, let's see. The population of England around 1600 is estimated to be
between 4,000,000 and 4,500,000, call it 5,000,000 to be generous. 95% of
them lived outside of cities.. If we assume 50% of the population was
female, we're left with 2,375,000 "country boys." Crowley says that one in
100,000 did, which leaves 23 persons in Elizabethan times who lived outside
of cities who decided to try to write poetry.
<snip>
> >Sure. So it *is* possible for a person to rise above his class.
> >I'm glad that's settled.
>
> It is possible but in 99.999% of the cases it doesn't happen.
> And we are talking solely in probabilities, not fantasies.
Here Crowley is saying that only 25 males in Elizabethan England were able to
rise above their class (and we're including children in the universe from
which one person in 100,000 is calculated). The ridiculousness of this
statement is easily proved by just examining the applications for
coats-of-arms in the College of Heralds.
<snip>
> >You have no idea whether or not he showed any literary talent or
> >ambition at that age, because there is no record of Shakespeare's
> >early life.
>
> That is all I say. There is no record of the lives of most of
> his class. Had he produced work equivalent to, say, Keats then
> we'd know a lot more about him. Perhaps he did and it remained
> hidden. But in 99.999999% of the cases that doesn't happen. And
> we are talking solely in probabilities, not fantasies.
Here Crowley says that only one person in 100,000,000 showed any literary
talent. So obviously the Elizabethan era produced no literature whatsoever.
> >And almost universally, from the beginning of time, some people
> >rise above their class. It happens all the time, in every age.
>
> It is possible but in 99.99% of the cases it doesn't happen.
> And we are talking solely in probabilities, not fantasies.
Here we have what seems to be a more realistic figure. Crowley says that one
in 10,000 were able to rise above their class, so 250 males were able to
transcend class boundaries and improve their lot. Of course, besides being
wrong, this contradicts his earlier statement. But error and contradiction
is nothing new to Crowley--only his awareness of it is.
<snip>
> >Again, the point of
> >my bringing up Daniel is that it was possible for a commoner to
> >become a fine writer.
>
> It is possible but in 99.999% of the cases it doesn't happen.
> And we are talking solely in probabilities, not fantasies.
Here we are back to the figure of 25, in this case the number of (male)
commoners who became fine writers. Of course, if we calculate the probablity
from the universe of those who wanted to write poetry (23, above), the figure
drops much lower, less than zero.
<snip>
> >It all fits the Stratford man, especially the case of Beckett,
> >who was, like Shakespeare, the son of a wealthy businessman.
>
> Very few would apply that description to a man who couldn't go to
> church for fear of debt collectors. But even if he was, while
> it is possible for his son to become great and powerful, in
> 99.999% of the cases it doesn't happen. And we are talking
> solely in probabilities, not fantasies.
>
> Paul.
>
So we're back to the figure of 23 males (actually 11.5, since his proposition
is that 99.999% of sons).
Crowley's statistics are illustrative of the sloppiness of his thinking. His
mind is obviously unused to actually thinking, and is much more at home
repeating ridiculous Oxfordian arguments that have long since been disproved.
Tis is typical of the mind of an Oxfordian, and numerous examples abound on
this ng. Unfortunately, there is not time enough in one person's life to
point them all out.
Richard Nathan
Schoenbaum revised his opinion somewhat when he wrote the Revides edition
of his book, "WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE A Compact Documentary Life." In the
revised edition he notes that the English common law entitling a widow to
a share of her late husband's estate may actualy have been a local law in
London, and might not have applied in Stratford.
KQKnave
In article <19981001230403...@ng126.aol.com>, pfst...@aol.com
(PFStreitz) writes:
>There is a difference between having to make money to support oneself, or be
>concerned about money, than from having to make money by writing what others
>want, ie, those in power or with the money to finance a production.
>
So who are those people, the ones in power, or those with money to
finance a production, that you are talking about? Why would Shakespeare
have had to kowtow to these people, and why wouldn't Oxford have
been forced to do the same, if he was also desperate for money?
So I guess what you want me to believe is that while Oxford may have
been desperate for money, he would not have let that desperation affect
his playwriting, but that Shakespeare couldn't have been the author
because he was supposedly engaged in grain dealing? Something like
that?
Crowley says in the cases of authors other than Shakespeare that
they had some money to support them, from family in most cases, and
that Shakespeare couldn't have written the plays from his background
because he would have been penniless, and somehow if you are penniless
you are not supposed to be able to acquire the education, self-taught or not,
that is necessary for a great writer, yet Shakespeare was the son
of a wealthy businessman and landowner, and his brother Gilbert was
also a successful man (leaving aside other authors who rose from penurious
circumstances). Oxford was desperate to own a tin mine, but
we are supposed to believe that only a man completely free of financial
difficulty could have written the plays. Doesn't make sense.
Jim
KQKnave
In article <3614C088...@erols.com>, volker multhopp <vol...@erols.com>
writes:
>
> The only letters we have of him are those Burghley wanted us to see.
>
Oh, I should have known. Burghley was in on your insane conspiracy
theory too.
Jim
KQKnave
>
>On 01 Oct 1998 00:19:31 GMT, kqk...@aol.com (KQKnave) wrote:
>
>>Shakespeare was not a slave, he was the son of a wealthy businessman.
>
>He was the son of a very small time trader whose occupation and
>status are both highly obscure. And before the Stratman was
>mature he was being harassed for debts.
John Shakespeare is not obscure at all. There are numerous documents
related to him. He had debts, which he paid, and was even able to raise
bail money for his friends (10 pounds in two cases, at a time when
that was an enormous sum of money. 40 pounds could buy a house with
land, so 10 pounds would be equivalent to at least $50,000 today.)
John Shakespeare sold lands during his life to raise money, yet at the
end of his life he still owned his own house on Henley street, he was
still asked by other townsmen to help out in public affairs, and he lived
to a ripe old age, so he apparently had enough to eat. (See Schoenbaum,
*William Shakespeare, A Compact Documentary Life*)
>>Even slaves could rise above their station. Spartacus and Frederic
>>Douglass come to mind, and George Washington Carver
>
>They could but 99.999% didn't. And we are talking solely in
>probabilities, not fantasies.
All right, let's talk probabilities. There is, at least by your account, only
1 "greatest writer who ever lived", so what is the probability that that
one person would come from the nobility? Since millions of people lived
and died during the period 1400-1650, and since the huge majority of
those people were not nobles (about 99.999999%, or maybe 99.9999999%,
I'm not sure...), it seems to be more likely that that one person would
be a commoner. This is born out by the facts. The greatest writers of the
period were (not including the point of dispute, Shakespeare):
Chaucer
Spenser
Sidney
Donne
Jonson
Milton
(I'm leaving out Daniel, and including Sidney, to give you a break).
How many of these were noble? Only one, Sidney, and I don't think
he rose to quite the level of the other 5.
Jim
KQKnave
In article <3614BE03...@erols.com>, volker multhopp <vol...@erols.com>
writes:
>
> This is, of course, the classic Strat position: the circumstances of a
>person's life do not affect his writing; from his writing, one can
>determine nothing about his life.
>
> --Volker
>
Wrong again, Volker. Everyone knows that the circumstances of a person's
life affect his writing. If we know details of a writer's life, we may be able
to see reflections of that in the works. However, if we don't know any
details, we can't find them in the works because there is no sure way
to correlate the speculation with historical fact. This doesn't prevent
speculation,
but of course, the speculation must be grounded in plausibility. Further, the
clue
to the authors life must *be* there to begin with. You continually try to find
an attitude of contempt for the non-nobility in Shakespeare's plays, where none
exists
at all, and something that doesn't exist can't be correlated with anything.
This entire sequence of posts began with Crowley asserting that Shakepeare
couldn't have written the plays because Shakespeare didn't represent his
town in public affairs, and that whoever wrote the plays must have been
the type of person who would represent his hometown. Those are absurd
assertions to begin with, nevermind finding a correlation in the plays. On the
other hand, I know from my own personal experience that most writers tend
to be introverts, and that you can be an introvert and act (me, for example),
so
it isn't implausible to believe that Shakespeare was an introvert. He may, in
fact, have been an extrovert, but do all extroverts serve in public affairs?
Don't
forget that Crowley says (as if all his assertions lead logically to the next)
that
Shakespeare MUST have been a good public speaker and so therefore he MUST
have served his local government and since Shakespeare did not, he MUST not
be the author.
Jim
Paul Crowley
wrote:
>1) That Stratford was a country backwater and no great writer could come
>out of such a place.
>1) This point is a strong one, especially if we assume that it was
>necessary to communicate with London on a timely basis to be connected
>to English culture. It is certainly true today, since most provincial
>playhouses no longer exist. The center of literary and dramatic art is
>now London, but that is most probably because of a coralary to Gresham's
>Law. If people can journey to London on a regular basis (as I recall,
>one can travel from Lerwick in the Shetland Islands to London in a
>couple of hours by air. You can cetainly go by rapid train anywhere in
>England, Scotland. or Wales in less than a day. But in Elizabethan times
>the roads were mainly wagon tracks. muddy and impassable much of the
>year.
The claustrophobic dullness of small country towns before TV,
radio, and easy travel, is well known and documented. In the
1570's there weren't newspapers and most communication on public
matters was by oral rumour.
>But there wer many provincial tours of Elizabethan companies
No doubt they livened up a holiday week-end once a year. Do you
really think they altered the culture?
>Furthermore, there was a yeasty discussion of education.
Possibly in London and other centres.
>_The Scholemaster_. These books were not just of interest to a small
>group, but were bought, discussed and taken seriously by a number of the
>rising middle classes in England.
Certainly, but they were in the larger towns and cities.
>2) That an Elizabethan university education, about which we know quite a
>bit, was necessary to be a learned person,
On the contrary, very few learned persons had a university
education; and those that thought it mattered were pedants and
fools, not unlike today.
>It is quite
>reasonable to assume that Shakespeare, unless he was remarkably
>dull-witted or truant, must have read Plautus and Terrence, not to
>mention Vergil and Horace, in the originals and, most likely, even wrote
>his own originals in Latin. I realize that this is not at all like
>modern high school education (what, no Driver's Training? No LIfe
>Experience?) but those are the facts as nearly as we can determine them
>using sholarly methods.
I like your typo. I think I'll adopt it. Ignore sholarship for
a moment and put yourself in the position of a boy of grammar
school age (between 7 and 13) in a small rural town in the heart
of the country around 1575. Firstly, your parents can't read.
They have no books in the house. They have never heard of
Plautus, Terence, Vergil or Horace. Books are extremely
expensive (all paper is hand made and imported from France).
They'd be scarce in school (we often had to share at my own
school!). Even IF you could borrow one from school, would you
read it in front of your parents? Would you discuss the topics
in it with them? Remember they are the descendants of
generations of illiterates. Reading had never been necessary
for any of their forebears. Its economic value was quite
uncertain. Its cultural value would have been unknown or
despised. (If anything, it had been associated with heresy,
witchcraft, torture and burnings.) Your father wouldn't even
know which way to hold a book. So it would be an insult to him
to open one in his presence. It would be, in effect, to jeer at
his ignorance and incapacity. It would be to reject all that he
was and all that he knew.
Remember also, that they spoke no other language. Indeed, the
notion that there were other languages would have seemed strange.
Few people in the town would have travelled more than ten miles
away from it thoughout their lives. Would you speak in Latin to
your schoolmates in front of your mother or your uncle? Of
course not. It would be an almost unthinkable degree of bad
manners. Would you sit and write poetry in your densely
occupied, extremely busy and noisy household?
Literacy is a profoundly cultural affair. Many homes in England
today have no books and virtually no printed matter. Children in
them don't read, and even before TV, didn't read. It was, and
is, not merely not expected and not required; it is actively
discouraged. To read a serious book (that your parents couldn't
or wouldn't) in such a household is to implicitly criticise the
values of your parents, your relations, your friends and your
class.
Now you expect someone coming from a home like that to read Latin
authors in the original at the _age_of_13_! How many 13-year-
olds do you know? How many can read Latin? -- even when they
have literate, well-educated, dedicated and enthusiatic parents
and family that can read Latin?
Yet this is the drivel that 'sholars' expect us to believe!
Those schools have their rough equivalents today in Africa and
India. Their primary function was to establish literacy, however
they may have puffed up their role on occasion. And that was no
small achievement.
>3) But this brings us to the other point. Most Bardolators seem only to
>have read Shakespeare. Tjat there was a significant flowering of
>literature in the Elizabethan Age is quite obvious, even from an
>undergrad Brit Lit survey. Sir Phillip Sidney seems to have ushered this
>in with his patriotic comments in "An Apologie for Poetry" (probably
>written about 1580).
But why was there a 'significant flowering of literature in the
Elizabethan Age'? Was it something in the air? You can, of
course, give no real answer. Oxfordians can. There was a giant
presence, created largely by chance but in one person, who had
enormous talents, the best possible education, the best possible
circumstances and who had a learned and appreciative audience in
the most intensely literate part of that society. He also had
the highest form of political protection. Without that, no one
would stand a chance. All this enabled him to set the tone and
establish the precedents. Others followed his example and
leadership, including minor figures like Sidney.
> The
>Elizabethan period is (these aforementioned literary historians point
>out), for English literature, the fortunate confluence of many different
>historical social and economic forces
What historical, social and economic forces? What confluence?
You sound like Polonius: "The best actors in the world, either
for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical,
historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-
historical-pastoral, . ." IOW you're bullshitting.
>which produced a body of
>literature which would have been considered great had "shakespeare"
>whoever he was, never written a line.
Except that it would never have existed if he hadn't written
thousands of lines first.
Paul.
Paul Crowley
>Hey, Paul, now that you've demonstrated beyond a doubt your expertise
>with statistics concerning creativity, what is the probablility of a
>commoner's getting his name on the title pages of some thirty or forty
>books as their author but NOT being their author?
Of course it is unlikely. For most of my adult life I thought
the idea ridiculous. I quite understand how the great majority
take that view. However, placing those names on those title
pages would have taken only one conspiracy. And one cannot put a
figure on its probability.
But one can put rough figures on the probability of a quasi-
peasant emerging from an obscure village and being able to write
such great works. When they are seen to be astronomically high
and when it turns out that every scrap of possibly corroborating
evidence that might indicate he did write them is quite
mysteriously missing, then it's time to look further into the
question.
Paul.
KQKnave
In article <6v2s8d$eq2$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, Tom Reedy
<aaa...@ramail.angelo.edu> writes:
>Crowley's statistics are illustrative of the sloppiness of his thinking. His
>mind is obviously unused to actually thinking, and is much more at home
>repeating ridiculous Oxfordian arguments that have long since been disproved.
>Tis is typical of the mind of an Oxfordian, and numerous examples abound on
>this ng. Unfortunately, there is not time enough in one person's life to
>point them all out.
>
>TR
>
True, and the Red Sox/Indians game is on at 4....
Jim
BobGr...@nut-n-but.net
sloppy and careless opinions as if they were revelations from on high,
"rigidniks." I have to disagree with the word; the suffix "-nik"
implies that the person under discussion is consciously choosing
his frame of mind, as in "beatnik," "peacenik," etc."
I'm sorry, Tom, but I'm afraid that I'll have to consider your
problem with "rigidnik" proof that you're nothing but a beastly
no-goodnik.
--Bob G.
BobGr...@nut-n-but.net
"Hey, Paul, now that you've demonstrated beyond a doubt your expertise
with statistics concerning creativity, what is the probablility of a
commoner's getting his name on the title pages of some thirty or forty
books as their author but NOT being their author?"
Volker, however, didn't, as far as I can tell, for he answered my
question as follows: "On how many title pages did Sam Clemens get
his name?" I don't know what that has to do with my question.
While I'm wasting time posting this, I might as well improve my
question for Paul although there's no need for him to re-answer, his
answer being applicable to the question in its new form. Volker
can try to answer it if he wants to. Here's the improved form of
my question:
What is the probablility of a commoner's getting his name on the
title pages of some thirty or forty books as their author but NOT
being their author, without anyone's suspecting the truth (so far as
we know) for at least two centuries?"
I also continue to wonder how it is that no one of Shakespeare's era
ever commented on the supposedly amazing fact that someone from a
village like Stratford had written fine poetry and drama. If it
were truly impossible for anyone from Stratford or the like to become
a great writer, or even a writer, why weren't those of the times aware
of it?
In another post Volker has a preposterous response to the following,
which was posted by Dave Kathman:
"I know quite a few theater people, and they're all over the map
as far as offstage personalities go. Some are extroverted and
gregarious, while others are introverted and shy when they're
not performing. A surprising number of comedians and comic
actors I know are actually rather quiet and almost morose in
everyday life. And as for writers, well, don't get me started.
I don't think you can tell anything about a person's everyday
disposition by their writings."
Volker: "This is, of course, the classic Strat position: the
circumstances of a person's life do not affect his writing; from
his writing, one can determine nothing about his life."
I've constantly tried to get Volker to cut down on these kinds of
ridiculous mistatements, but have had little success.
Note the logic: Dave says it's hard to tell anything about a person's
everyday disposition by his writings. Volker immediately decides
this means Dave thinks the circumstances of a person's life do not
affect his writing. Of course they do, and I believe ALL Stratfordians
believe that, as many of them at HLAS have acknowledged many times,
including Dave.
Not finished, Volker asserts that Dave is indicating that we
can't determine anything about a writer's life from his writing. But
Dave was writing about Shakespeare's "everyday disposition," not
his life.
What Stratfordians dispute is that ANYTHING in ANY play MUST necessarily
parallel something that actually happened to the writer of that play.
Only a rigidnik could misrepresent this view with the simplistic and
misleading narrowness that Volker does, and do so with such constancy,
against all the evidence he's repeatedly provided with that he's wrong.
Jack
>
> On Wed, 30 Sep 1998 20:21:44 -0700, Jack <van...@earthlink.net>
> wrote:
>
> >1) That Stratford was a country backwater and no great writer could come
> >out of such a place.
> >1) This point is a strong one, especially if we assume that it was
> >necessary to communicate with London on a timely basis to be connected
> >to English culture. It is certainly true today, since most provincial
> >playhouses no longer exist. The center of literary and dramatic art is
> >now London, but that is most probably because of a coralary to Gresham's
> >Law. If people can journey to London on a regular basis (as I recall,
> >one can travel from Lerwick in the Shetland Islands to London in a
> >couple of hours by air. You can cetainly go by rapid train anywhere in
> >England, Scotland. or Wales in less than a day. But in Elizabethan times
> >the roads were mainly wagon tracks. muddy and impassable much of the
> >year.
>
> The claustrophobic dullness of small country towns before TV,
> radio, and easy travel, is well known and documented. In the
> 1570's there weren't newspapers and most communication on public
> matters was by oral rumour.
It's amazing that you accept some contemporary evidence and reject other
evidence. Why do you keep insisting on quoting the pretentious bastard
who calls Stratford a backwater and ignore other assertions of local
culture?
>
> >But there wer many provincial tours of Elizabethan companies
>
> No doubt they livened up a holiday week-end once a year. Do you
> really think they altered the culture?
>
> >Furthermore, there was a yeasty discussion of education.
>
> Possibly in London and other centres.
>
> >_The Scholemaster_. These books were not just of interest to a small
> >group, but were bought, discussed and taken seriously by a number of the
> >rising middle classes in England.
>
> Certainly, but they were in the larger towns and cities.
Still using this shopworn assumption from some pretentious bastard.
>
> >2) That an Elizabethan university education, about which we know quite a
> >bit, was necessary to be a learned person,
>
> On the contrary, very few learned persons had a university
> education; and those that thought it mattered were pedants and
> fools, not unlike today.
>
> >It is quite
> >reasonable to assume that Shakespeare, unless he was remarkably
> >dull-witted or truant, must have read Plautus and Terrence, not to
> >mention Vergil and Horace, in the originals and, most likely, even wrote
> >his own originals in Latin. I realize that this is not at all like
> >modern high school education (what, no Driver's Training? No LIfe
> >Experience?) but those are the facts as nearly as we can determine them
> >using sholarly methods.
>
> I like your typo.
Is this your idea of reasoned debate?
I think I'll adopt it. Ignore sholarship for
> a moment and put yourself in the position of a boy of grammar
> school age (between 7 and 13) in a small rural town in the heart
> of the country around 1575. Firstly, your parents can't read.
> They have no books in the house. They have never heard of
> Plautus, Terence, Vergil or Horace. Books are extremely
> expensive (all paper is hand made and imported from France).
> They'd be scarce in school (we often had to share at my own
> school!). Even IF you could borrow one from school, would you
> read it in front of your parents? Would you discuss the topics
> in it with them? Remember they are the descendants of
> generations of illiterates. Reading had never been necessary
> for any of their forebears. Its economic value was quite
> uncertain. Its cultural value would have been unknown or
> despised. (If anything, it had been associated with heresy,
> witchcraft, torture and burnings.) Your father wouldn't even
> know which way to hold a book. So it would be an insult to him
> to open one in his presence. It would be, in effect, to jeer at
> his ignorance and incapacity. It would be to reject all that he
> was and all that he knew.
Why do you assume this? I've put off arguing evidence from my own family
because I object to the multitude of ahistorical analogy from
commentators of your liver. My grandfather was born in St. Joseph,
Missouri in the 1870's of a drunken father and an illiterate mother both
of whom were in their third marriages as a matter of necessity. My
Grandfather, who had had rheumatic fever at a young age, went to work as
a tobacco stemmer when he was less than 13 years old. He went to school
nights and became a school teacher. Then he read law and became a
prominent lawyer in Pratt County, Kansas. Both my father and his sister
remember lively discussions on literary topics. My grandfather was a
great collector of books, most of which show evidence of having been
read several times. These books included Plato, Dante, Cervantes,
Walton, Pope, and Shakespeare. I've got the books on my own shelves. I
also have a collection of Cicero's essays (in Latin) which my
grandfather used to perfect his own legal oratory. He wrote short
stories and was particularly fond of Shakespeare. He even wrote several
articles which I suppose, by the standards of the day, were considered
scholarly. You can talk, talk, talk all you want, Mr. Crowley, but
nobody marks you. Why don't you go join Mensa. There are plenty of
unschooled intelligent people who will buy what you're selling. But it
will not pass for reasoned debate. It is people like you, I suspect, who
get the Oxfordians thrown off of Listservs. Debate, scholarly or not,
does not merely take pot-shots, but builds up a reasoned argument.
>
> Remember also, that they spoke no other language. Indeed, the
> notion that there were other languages would have seemed strange.
> Few people in the town would have travelled more than ten miles
> away from it thoughout their lives. Would you speak in Latin to
> your schoolmates in front of your mother or your uncle? Of
> course not. It would be an almost unthinkable degree of bad
> manners. Would you sit and write poetry in your densely
> occupied, extremely busy and noisy household?
Who the f**k SPEAKS Latin, anyway? They certainly taught Stratford
schoolboys to READ it. (SEE ABOVE)
>
> Literacy is a profoundly cultural affair. Many homes in England
> today have no books and virtually no printed matter. Children in
> them don't read, and even before TV, didn't read. It was, and
> is, not merely not expected and not required; it is actively
> discouraged. To read a serious book (that your parents couldn't
> or wouldn't) in such a household is to implicitly criticise the
> values of your parents, your relations, your friends and your
> class.
Maybe in YOUR home, Mr. Crowley. Is that why Junior flunked out of
Oxford?
>
> Now you expect someone coming from a home like that to read Latin
> authors in the original at the _age_of_13_! How many 13-year-
> olds do you know? How many can read Latin? -- even when they
> have literate, well-educated, dedicated and enthusiatic parents
> and family that can read Latin?
>
> Yet this is the drivel that 'sholars' expect us to believe!
>
> Those schools have their rough equivalents today in Africa and
> India. Their primary function was to establish literacy, however
> they may have puffed up their role on occasion. And that was no
> small achievement.
Read the books, Paul!
>
> >3) But this brings us to the other point. Most Bardolators seem only to
> >have read Shakespeare. Tjat there was a significant flowering of
> >literature in the Elizabethan Age is quite obvious, even from an
> >undergrad Brit Lit survey. Sir Phillip Sidney seems to have ushered this
> >in with his patriotic comments in "An Apologie for Poetry" (probably
> >written about 1580).
>
> But why was there a 'significant flowering of literature in the
> Elizabethan Age'? Was it something in the air? You can, of
> course, give no real answer. Oxfordians can. There was a giant
> presence, created largely by chance but in one person, who had
> enormous talents, the best possible education, the best possible
> circumstances and who had a learned and appreciative audience in
> the most intensely literate part of that society. He also had
> the highest form of political protection. Without that, no one
> would stand a chance. All this enabled him to set the tone and
> establish the precedents. Others followed his example and
> leadership, including minor figures like Sidney.
This is beneath comment.
>
> > The
> >Elizabethan period is (these aforementioned literary historians point
> >out), for English literature, the fortunate confluence of many different
> >historical social and economic forces
>
> What historical, social and economic forces? What confluence?
> You sound like Polonius: "The best actors in the world, either
> for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical,
> historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-
> historical-pastoral, . ." IOW you're bullshitting.
I've already mentioned several examples but you have, without any
evidence whatsoever, consigned them to the city limits of London. If you
like, I'll send you a bibliography. You might also consult the STC to
find out where copies of these books are located. You'll find that the
provenance of these copies is not always London.
>
> >which produced a body of
> >literature which would have been considered great had "shakespeare"
> >whoever he was, never written a line.
>
> Except that it would never have existed if he hadn't written
> thousands of lines first.
I'll concede that as a debatable point. But remember that noone really
took the works of Shakespeare seriously as literture until the 18th
century. He didn't follow "the rules," so he was considered a "mere"
popular dramatist.
>
> Paul.
Do you think I have an axe to grind? If you could prove to me that
someone else wrote these plays, I would be more than happy to change my
opinion. But considering the twaddle which for you passes as logical
argument, I'm not holding my breath.
Jack
david joseph kathman
No. These things are not decided by a vote. My statement was based
on my knowledge of the literature on the subject, going back to the
first suggestion of Shakespeare's authorship in 1871. The attribution
got a lukewarm reception until Sir Edward Maunde Thompson in 1916 made a
detailed comparison of Hand D with Shakespeare's signatures and
concluded that there were enough distinct characteristics in common
that one could make a good case that they were written by the same
person. That piqued more interest but didn't convince a lot of
people. Then in 1923 Alfred Pollard edited the collection *Shakespeare's
Hand in the Play of Sir Thomas More*, which contained an impressive
array of evidence suggesting Shakespeare's authorship from many different
perspectives: handwriting, spelling, vocabulary, imagery, etc.
This caused the attribution to be taken seriously by all Shakespeare
scholars, though not all of them accepted Shakespeare's authorship
outright. Further arguments have been made in the following decades,
and in 1989 another collection was published (edited by T.H. Howard-Hill)
which provided more evidence and effectively countered the then-recent
suggestion that John Webster may have been the author. The Hand D
scenes were included in the 6-volume *London Shakespeare* (1957),
then in the *Riverside Shakespeare* (1974) and in all major one-volume
editions since then, including the Oxford (1986), Bevington (several
editions, most recently 1996), New Riverside (1996), and Norton (1996).
I would certainly say that a "healthy majority" of Shakespeare scholars
who have considered the subject believe that Shakespeare wrote Hand D;
the rest of them at least believe that it's a strong possibility and a
good case has been made, but their skepticism makes them hesitant to
commit to such an important attribution. I don't know of any scholars
who flat-out reject the attribution or deny that the case for Shakespeare
is strong.
Dave Kathman
dj...@ix.netcom.com
david joseph kathman
>
> > There has indeed been quite a bit of discussion on this group about
> > Elizabethan wills. In fact, there was so much discussion that after
> > reposting a summary of my research for roughly the millionth time,
> > I put it up on my web page so I could just refer people to it.
> > The URL is http://www.clark.net/pub/tross/ws/shaxwill.html
> > slighting of his wife, which has nothing to do with the authorship
> > question. The lack of books in his will is not relevant, as books
> > were rarely mentioned in the bodies of wills, even for obviously
> > learned people.
>
> > Dave Kathman
> > dj...@ix.netcom.com
>
> The late and much-maligned Samuel Schoenbaum wrote in "The LLife of
> Shakespeare<' a brief introductory essay in _A New Companion for
> Shakespeare Studies_ (1971) that Ann Hathaway Shakespeare needn't have
> been mentioned in the will since "the law entitled a widow to one third
> of her husband's estate. . . . The significance of the bequest [of the
> secone best bed] can only be guessed, but p[osssibly the bed carried
> sentimental associations, the best bed being reserved for guests at New
> Place." (p.12).
>
> I've always thought this, like the epitaph (doggerel for the author of
> _Hamlet_ a keen sense of Shakespearean wit and irony.
>
> I notice that you don't mention the Schoenbaum speculation on you Web
> Site (though you do mention the bequest).
Yes, I'm aware of the legal discussions you mention (which originated
long before Schoenbaum), but didn't mention them in the essay on the
web site because the second-best bed issue wasn't relevant to the
issue at hand. My passing mention to "the apparent slighting of
his wife" refers to the fact that, regardless of Anne Shakespeare's
legal rights, William Shakespeare's sole reference to her in the
will is unusually curt compared to other wills of the time. Most of
these prominently referred to the testator's "loving wife" by name,
and often made her executor. (See the book *Playhouse Wills 1558-1642*
for lots of examples.)
> I gather from our brief
> e-acquaintance that you are strictly a facts man, and a damn good one at
> that!
Well, I wouldn't necessarily call myself strictly a facts man, but
I don't really have time to do anything more on this newsgroup.
> Having reread much of the stuff on your site, how do you account
> for the persistent exhumation of settled issues. You must be a
> frustrated man.
Yep, sometimes. But I persevere.
Dave Kathman
dj...@ix.netcom.com
david joseph kathman
>
> david joseph kathman wrote:
>
> > all over the map as far as offstage personalities go. Some are
> > extroverted and gregarious, while others are introverted and shy
> > when they're not performing. A surprising number of comedians and
> > comic actors I know are actually rather quiet and almost morose in
> > everyday life. And as for writers, well, don't get me started.
> > I don't think you can tell anything about a person's everyday
> > disposition by their writings.
>
> person's life do not affect his writing; from his writing, one can
> determine nothing about his life.
Come on, Volker, that's neither what I said nor what I meant, and you
should really know better by now. First of all, I was talking about
a writer's "everyday disposition", meaning his personality and sociability.
And I stand by my statement that you can't tell anything about an author's
personality from his writings; shy, introverted writers can write
swashbuckling adventure tales, and conversely outgoing, gregarious people
can write thoughtful, introspective tales. Complete assholes can write
beautiful poetry. You just can't tell just from the writing, in the
absence of some other kind of evidence. As for what you *claim* I said,
I have denied many times holding the absurd opinion that the circumstances
of a writer's life do not affect his writing. What I *have* said is that
the circumstances of different writers' lives affect their writing in
unpredictable ways, and that it's not possible to decide just from the
writing, in the absence of any other evidence, what the writer's life
was like. If we do have evidence from other sources about the author's
life, then it's often possible to note influences and similarities, but
even then the ease with which such influences and similarities can be
found will vary greatly from writer to writer. Some writers are very
autobiographical in their writings; others write about things that have
nothing to do with their real lives, and the influences of their lives
on their writings are much more subtle. It's not possible to look at
a piece of writing and say categorically that the author *must* have
had certain characteristics; it is possible to venture an opinion that
the author probably had certain characteristics, but even then such an
opinion must be informed by as much knowledge as possible about the
historical and social circumstances in which the work was written,
knowledge which I generally find sorely lacking in most Oxfordians
when it comes to Shakespeare's works and Elizabethan England.
Dave Kathman
dj...@ix.netcom.com
Tom Reedy
BobGr...@Nut-N-But.Net wrote:
> Tom Reedy says: "Bob calls people like (Volker), people who hold
> sloppy and careless opinions as if they were revelations from on high,
> "rigidniks." I have to disagree with the word; the suffix "-nik"
> implies that the person under discussion is consciously choosing
> his frame of mind, as in "beatnik," "peacenik," etc."
>
> problem with "rigidnik" proof that you're nothing but a beastly
> no-goodnik.
>
> --Bob G.
Yeah, Bob, but at least I know it, which proves my contention beyond all
doubt, since it's obvious that that's the only possible interpretation of it.
BTW, I was speaking of Crowley, but it applies to Volker, also. All of the
Oxfordians on this ng seem to suffer from particularly bad cases of self
delusion when it comes to discussing their boy. All objectivity goes out the
window, along with any semblance of logical thought.
Tom Reedy
van...@earthlink.net wrote:
> Paul Crowley wrote:
> >
> > On Wed, 30 Sep 1998 20:21:44 -0700, Jack <van...@earthlink.net>
> > wrote:
> Paul Crowley wrote:
> > On the contrary, very few learned persons had a university
> > education; and those that thought it mattered were pedants and
> > fools, not unlike today.
A pendant is someone who prefers his facts to be true.
<snip>
> > But why was there a 'significant flowering of literature in the
> > Elizabethan Age'? Was it something in the air? You can, of
> > course, give no real answer.
Your putting words in the mouths of Stratfrdians is typical of your "debating"
style: "You can, *of course*, give no real answer.
That "something in the air" is what is commonly referred to as the
Renaissance. It ushered in the beginnings of capitalism, which destabilized
society and set in motion forces which allowed ambitious men to climb, class
lines or no.
Oxfordians can. There was a giant
> > presence, created largely by chance but in one person, who had
> > enormous talents, the best possible education, the best possible
> > circumstances and who had a learned and appreciative audience in
> > the most intensely literate part of that society. He also had
> > the highest form of political protection.
Not only are you ignorant of Elizabethan literary history, you seem to have
not read any biographies of Oxford.
Without that, no one
> > would stand a chance. All this enabled him to set the tone and
> > establish the precedents. Others followed his example and
> > leadership, including minor figures like Sidney.
Name one other person in history who operated under a pseudonym and had such a
wide-reaching effect as you claim.
>
> This is beneath comment.
> >
> > > The
> > >Elizabethan period is (these aforementioned literary historians point
> > >out), for English literature, the fortunate confluence of many different
> > >historical social and economic forces
> >
> > What historical, social and economic forces? What confluence?
> > You sound like Polonius: "The best actors in the world, either
> > for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical,
> > historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-
> > historical-pastoral, . ." IOW you're bullshitting.
Your ignorance is truly astounding, surpassed only by your willingness to
display it.
<snip>
> Do you think I have an axe to grind? If you could prove to me that
> someone else wrote these plays, I would be more than happy to change my
> opinion. But considering the twaddle which for you passes as logical
> argument, I'm not holding my breath.
>
> Jack
None of us are, Jack, despite the oft-repeated prophecies of the collapse of
the Stratford case. Oxfordians have nothing but their own fantasies for
proof. The astonishing thing is that they actually get offended if anyone
challenges their idiotic contentions. Oh well, where would OJ Simpson be
without them?
Sibylle Luise Binder
Paul Crowley schrieb:
> >Shakespeare was not a slave, he was the son of a wealthy businessman.
> He was the son of a very small time trader whose occupation and
> status are both highly obscure. And before the Stratman was
> mature he was being harassed for debts.
So far as I'm informed you're wrong. Shakespeare's father applied for a coat
of arms - that's of course nothing a "very small time trader" could do in the
Elizabethan England. Besides: A "very small time trader" wouldn't get a
chance for a marriage with a woman out of a good and rich family like the
Arden-family where Shakespeare's mother grew up in was.It's right:
Shakespeare's father was later in some trouble - but as his son was born, he
didn't live in the "slums of Stratford" as you wants to tell us.
By the way: Always when I read this debate about Shakespeare's family
background (as a reason he couldn't be the author of this plays) I ask
myself: Is it an achievement from our time, that poor men's sons could become
at least good interprets of Shakespeare's plays? I remember two pretty good
Shakespearean actors with a poor family and education background: Both
Patrick Stewart and Kenneth Branagh as well grew up in poor families...
Nevertheless the both aren't bad in playing the noble men, I believe.... how
do they learn that? On the streets of England after the War?
> >Even slaves could rise above their station. Spartacus and Frederic
> >Douglass come to mind, and George Washington Carver
> They could but 99.999% didn't. And we are talking solely in
> probabilities, not fantasies.
Even if it were only 99,999 % - why couldn't the man of Stratford not be the
exceptional case?I believe this sight of the background is a bit poor and -
for being blunt - arrogante too. Would you really deny that a poor man's
child could become a genius? Then you deny some more as Shakespeare!
> >So you assume. Why couldn't the same thing have happened to
> >Shakespeare?
> It could, but in 99.999% of the cases of country boys it didn't.
> And we are talking solely in probabilities, not in fantasies.
Considering that you're wrong with your statement about John Shakespeare's
state and considering you didn't think of Shakespeare's mother who definitely
came from a good family you could be wrong, I believe.
> >Sure. So it *is* possible for a person to rise above his class.
> >I'm glad that's settled.
> It is possible but in 99.999% of the cases it doesn't happen.
> And we are talking solely in probabilities, not fantasies.
Sometimes the repetition works by Shakespeare ("And Brutus is an honourable
man"). But for being honest: It doesn't work by you. The wrong statement (is
there any profe for your 99,999 %? If I weren't so busy this morning, I'd try
to show you some examples for poor men's child who became great authors,
great composers, great painters, great artists) doesn't become true in
repetitions.
> >But that's astounding! Accepted to Oxford and not a noble. Imagine that!
> >And since Shakespeare was the son of a wealthy businessman, doesn't
> >that place him in the top minority of non-nobles of his time?
> No, allowing for the obscurity of what his father did, and his
> later recorded poverty, he's in, maybe, the 'top 80%'.
As you wrote for yourself: "his later recorded poverty" - but in the first
years this John Shakespeare wasn't a poor man!
[big snip]
> Err . . . have you read the sonnets?
Some people do - and some people interpret some of them as a profe the man
from Stratford was the author.... funny, isn't it?
Yours
Sibyl
---
Ablatum mediis opus es incudibus illud,
Defuit et scriptis ultima lima meis.
Et veniam pro laude peto, laudatus abunde,
Not fastiditus si tibi, lector, ero.
Ovid
volker multhopp
> > Paul Crowley wrote:
> > > On the contrary, very few learned persons had a university
> > > education; and those that thought it mattered were pedants and
> > > fools, not unlike today.
Then everyone is a "pendant".
--Volker
Paul Crowley
>All right, let's talk probabilities. There is, at least by your account, only
>1 "greatest writer who ever lived", so what is the probability that that
>one person would come from the nobility?
It may not sound much, but you might have made a big intellectual
breakthrough. You are actually considering probabilities!
Your question is fundamentally right. But on the way into it we
must first consider the qualities or qualifications such a writer
would need. (1) Were the genes he inherited likely to be among
the best? -- So we need to look at his parents, grandparents and
as far back as possilble; (2) Was his nutrition of the highest
order throughout the year? (3) Did he receive the stimulus
from his earliest years of constant attention from variety of
people who themselves were not starving, over-worked or diseased?
(4) Was he kept in a warm place in winter with all other
facitlities? (5) Was he cossetted and made to feel extra
special? (6) Was he subject to the highest of expectations by
those around him? (7) Was his intellectual, physical, musical,
and other training begun early and carried out with consistency
and attention?
And I've only got to about the age of five. . . . .
Anyway go on with this sort of thing . . about whether his
parents, relations, guardians and associates, talked in foreign
languages, read abstruse books, discussed complex ideas,
entertained powerful and articulate officials, engaged in
politics . . . . etc., etc.
Then apply your several hundred questions to (a) a quasi-peasant
growing up in a remote rural town, populated by illiterates since
time immemorial, and (b) a top aristocrat -- gauging
probabilities, and attempting to measure the importance of each
factor. Then _multiply_ those probabilities (with appropriate
weightings) together.
>Since millions of people lived
>and died during the period 1400-1650, and since the huge majority of
>those people were not nobles (about 99.999999%, or maybe 99.9999999%,
If you included the whole world population, including Chinese,
your figures would be better, if just as unrealistic.
>I'm not sure...), it seems to be more likely that that one person would
>be a commoner. This is born out by the facts. The greatest writers of the
>period were (not including the point of dispute, Shakespeare):
>Chaucer
>Spenser
>Sidney
>Donne
>Jonson
>Milton
>(I'm leaving out Daniel, and including Sidney, to give you a break).
>How many of these were noble? Only one, Sidney, and I don't think
>he rose to quite the level of the other 5.
Apart from Chaucer (who was born into a well-off family in
London) all these other figures followed Shakespeare (in the
Oxfordian scenario) and would have been nothing (or very little)
without him. It's like comparing planets with the sun. They
don't have the same origin. The requirements for their creation
are different.
Paul.
volker multhopp
> volker multhopp <vol...@erols.com> writes:
> > Our Shake a nature-boy? No, it doesn't work. He loves nature-- but it
> >is the nature of the garden party and the courtly hunt. Life in real
> >nature is a constant business of searching for food-- we don't see that
> >in the canon. Our hero was too busy with other things to spend time in
> >a very tenuous existence as an Elizabethan nature-boy.
> It's amazing that the most pastoral and nature bound poet ever
> produced by England, John Clare, (whose memorial plaque in
> Westminster Abbey in poets corner reads 'Fields were the essence
> of his song') was a landless laborer like his father, and the
> son of an illiterate mother. From Carolyn Kizer's [...]
There's a difference between pastoral and nature. Let's note that
Clare wrote about country, Shakespeare about court.
--Volker
volker multhopp
> The significance of the bequest [of the
> secone best bed] can only be guessed, but p[osssibly the bed carried
> sentimental associations, the best bed being reserved for guests at New
> Place." (p.12).
> I've always thought this, like the epitaph (doggerel for the author of
> _Hamlet_ a keen sense of Shakespearean wit and irony.
about his wife?
--Volker
BobGr...@nut-n-but.net
"qualities or qualifications" such a writer (as Oxford/Shakespeare)
would need (before the age of six).
(1) . . . genes . . . among the best
(2) . . . nutrition of the highest order throughout the year
(3) . . . the stimulus from his earliest years of constant
attention from variety of people who themselves were not starving,
over-worked or diseased
(4) . . . a warm place in winter with all other facilities?
(5) . . . cossetting and being made to feel extra special
(6) . . . being subjected to the highest of expectations by
those around him
(7) . . . intellectual, physical, musical, and other training
begun early and carried out with consistency and attention
In what way, Paul, is this list a superior example of theoretical
psychology to the stuff you refer to as trash psychology (and I've
seen Simonton's study of creativity in the trash psychology section
of several bookstores though I would consider it not trash, just
superficial and speculative; Howard Gardner's similarly minor studies
of creativity are often there too--to name two pop psychologists whose
ideas seem pretty similar to yours)?
--Bob G.