STRAT EXCUSES: Missing MSS Due To Religious Turn of His Posterity.
Elizabeth
Here's another in the irregular feature 'Strat Excuses.'
This one comes from an 1849 copy of 'Notes and Queries:'
Mickleham, Nov. 14. 1849.
"We cannot insert the interesting Query which our correspondent has
forwarded on the subject of the disappearance of Shakespeare's MSS.
without referring to the ingenious suggestion upon that subject so
skilfully brought forward by the Rev. Joseph Hunter in his New
Illustrations of the Life, Studies, and Writings of Shakspeare, vol. i.
p. 105.:-"That the entire disappearance of all manuscripts of
Shakspeare, so entire that no writing of his remains except his name,
and only one letter ever addressed to him, is in some way connected
with the religious turn which his posterity took, in whose eyes there
would be much to be lamented in what they must, I fear, have considered
a prostitution of the noble talents which had been given him."
Enjoy,
Elizabeth
bobgr...@nut-n-but.net
Puritans thought the theatre sinful. It's very probably wrong, though.
In any case, Stratfordians do not need "excuses" for the absence of
Shakespeare manuscripts since only a moron or a psychotic would expect
one necessarily to have survived from c. 1600.
--Bob G.
Chess One
<bobgr...@nut-n-but.net> wrote in message
news:1109334713.0...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
I didn't understand your last comments Bob. Are you confusing what is
demotic with what is despotic?
Phil
> --Bob G.
>
bobgr...@nut-n-but.net
think so, but I like your combination of very much related adjectives.
I'm just expressing my weariness of reading baloney by people who think
we should have lots of material evidence from long ago, and who think,
in particular, that we should have manuscripts from Shakespeare,
considering that we have manuscripts of just about no plays from the
time, and that there are dozens of very sound reasons why we should not
expect to have any from Shakespeare. (There is also the high
probablility that we WOULD have them from him if somebody with more
brains than a cucumber were trying to make him falsely seem an author.)
--Bob G.
Paul Crowley
news:1109307617.3...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
Well, Hunter got two elements right --
both almost completely ignored by
modern commentators. He did notice
(a) that the plays and poems of the
Great Bard are packed with bawdy and
scatology, and
(b) that there was, from around 1580
onwards, a radical shift towards
Puritan values that made the creation
of new work containing such matter
almost impossible.
If our poet had not been fully mature
(aged 30) in 1580, having already
produced much of his great work,
(and if he had not the protection from
the highest in the land) then he would
never have been able to write any of it.
Paul.
Chess One
<bobgr...@nut-n-but.net> wrote in message
news:1109337129.5...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> Am I "confusing what is demotic with what is despotic," Phil? I don't
> think so, but I like your combination of very much related adjectives.
Its not published yet, but "The Third Translation" by Matt Bondurant
/Hyperion is a good romp around our subject of textual determinations as
papyrii and incised stela, only with Egyptian motives instead of Elizabethan
ones.
> I'm just expressing my weariness of reading baloney by people who think
> we should have lots of material evidence from long ago, and who think,
> in particular, that we should have manuscripts from Shakespeare,
> considering that we have manuscripts of just about no plays from the
> time, and that there are dozens of very sound reasons why we should not
> expect to have any from Shakespeare. (There is also the high
> probablility that we WOULD have them from him if somebody with more
> brains than a cucumber were trying to make him falsely seem an author.)
If I had one I would sell it for 10 zillion dollars :)
I think the criticial aspect of demanding 'lost manuscipts' is simply a
retort to those who would accept Hitler Diaries uncriticially. Should you
not wish to have your thinking performed for you by /les experts/ who prove
oh so fallible, then independent investigation runs into the awkward factor
that there is really no proving of our Issue by historical means alone.
That is not a gloss - but to people who do not uncritically accept Will
Shakespeare as Author, it is as it is percieved. [lol, thats an unusual form
of exclamation]
We have after all preserved and maintained Egyptian material from some 5,000
years before, and can make what we term 'objective' determinations about
them. So, is there some modern mystery about missing the entirety of some
400 year old documents of the most popular writer who ever lived, plus all
his confreres, that we might think strange, without being immediately
branded as parano?
[I leave you to rhyme parano, some nice choices]
What do I care? I also have a boar on my family crest, and I boar for
Britain!
Evenyng, Roxeburghe.
> --Bob G.
>
Jim KQKnave
In article
<1109337129.5...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>
Well, we DO have one from Shakespeare: Hand D of Sir Thomas
More.
See my demolition of Monsarrat's RES paper!
http://hometown.aol.com/kqknave/monsarr1.html
The Droeshout portrait is not unusual at all!
http://hometown.aol.com/kqknave/shakenbake.html
Agent Jim
-=-
This message was sent via two or more anonymous remailing services.
John W. Kennedy
> Am I "confusing what is demotic with what is despotic," Phil? I don't
> think so, but I like your combination of very much related adjectives.
> I'm just expressing my weariness of reading baloney by people who think
> we should have lots of material evidence from long ago, and who think,
> in particular, that we should have manuscripts from Shakespeare,
> considering that we have manuscripts of just about no plays from the
> time,
We have absolutely no manuscripts of any play of the period that was
printed. We have a fair number of manuscripts of plays that were not
printed.
And we have the play of Thomas More, of which "Hand D" is generally
accepted as Shakespeare's. I gather that some of the correction slips in
"The Second Maiden's Tragedy" just might be his, as well (though he
certainly didn't write the whole thing, as Charles Hamilton thought).
---
John W. Kennedy
"The bright critics assembled in this volume will doubtless show, in
their sophisticated and ingenious new ways, that, just as /Pooh/ is
suffused with humanism, our humanism itself, at this late date, has
become full of /Pooh./"
-- Frederick Crews. "Postmodern Pooh", Preface
Elizabeth
As I was just writing to the Grummbunny, the More MS has never been
authenticated by qualified Elizabethan documents examiners.
Unqualified Strat biographers 'declared' Hand D to be in the actor's
handwriting.
When push comes to shove on the Folger Geneva Bible, Strats will
finally drag out qualified paleographers to disqualify Oxford's
authorship
of 'Shakespeare's Bible,' as Oxfordians falsely adverstise it--hey,
Kathman, there's another one--but the Strat double standard doesn't
apply when it comes to the actor's so-called evidence.
Cordially,
Elizabeth
Adam Selzer
of which are admittedly garbage, I don't see how anyone can hold every
Stratfordian to one note from 1849, back when it probably barely occured
to the author that she might be defending the authorship with her
comments. Moreover, I'd say that this is, at least in tangent, part of
the Victorian efforts to clean Shakespeare up and make his image hold up
to the standards of the day (as in the portrait of Shakespeare as a
happy family man from about that time). Heck, this idea even makes it
seem that Shakespeare got too religious for current tastes in his old age.
It is, however, one of nearly countless possible reasons why we don't
have many manuscripts left over. Maybe he got religious and renounced
his old works. Maybe the Puritans were involved. Maybe they got eaten by
the same Slime That Ate Poetry that devoured the works of everyone else.
bobgr...@nut-n-but.net
fully convinced about the More manuscript. Regardless of how much
Elizabeth thinks she's teaching me, I have always said that we may well
have a manuscript in Shakespeare's hand, but we can't be sure. And we
won't be sure even afte some "proper" expert "authenticates" it.
--Bob G.
Elizabeth
Re: manuscripts, there are about ten surviving
documents in manuscript that relate to the
Shakespeare works but only the only authenticated
authorial ms is the Henry IV ms in Bacon's
handwriting. That made a big splash in the
London papers, was immediately withdrawn from
auction and like the other Bacon mss, disappeared.
The Dering is the only ms of a play other than
the Thomas More fragment. Hand D is similar to
Bacon's handwriting but I'm not going to claim
that it is Bacon's/
Re: the actor's 'missing manuscripts,' Jonson
explains that in Discoveries. The friends are
impressed by the perfect manuscripts. Jonson says,
sarcastically, 'would he had blotted a thousand.'
In other words, Jonson wishes he had actually
written the manuscripts instead of pretending
that he wrote the plays. He is Jonson's
poet=ape.
The point Jonson was making, Bob, is exactly
the same point made by Greene in Groatsworth,
that is, the actor was a play-broker who was
fencing the perfect manuscripts that had
circulated in private literary coteries and
as Greene states, he was passing them around the
theatre as his own. Shake-scene (the crow or
thief) was claiming that he was the Onely Poet.
This infuriated Greene as it would later infuriate
Jonson. There are numerous references to a
Onely Poet
There is scholarship on the fact that the
professionally written mss or sometimes bad
copies, gravitated via thieving servants from
private literary coteries to printers and
the theatres. We wouldn't have all the Shakespeare
plays were it not for thieves and 'crows.'
Cordially,
Elizabeth
Elizabeth
Bacon was renown for his bawdy wit. Cockburn
produces evidence and I have posted on Bacon's
lines from the Promus which appear as bawdy
jokes in Romeo and Juliet.
Bacon was raised by Puritans but Puritans were
not prudes until the run up to the English Civil War
when a religious 'end times' hysteria gripped
England.
Bacon is the only author who could have gotten
the salacious V & A licensed. Bacon lived in
Headmaster of Trinity Dr.John Whitgift's house
for three years between 1574 and 1578. Whitgift
was the Archbishop and head censor in 1593 and
his name appears on the license. Whitgift's
licensing of the V & A is an astonishing thing that
Strats will not deal with, even to the point of
suppressing the facts. I checked many sources
and Chambers was the only one willing to print the
license with Whitgift's name on it.
Cordially,
Elizabeth
Fryzer
> Bob,
>
> Re: manuscripts, there are about ten surviving
> documents in manuscript that relate to the
> Shakespeare works but only the only authenticated
> authorial ms is the Henry IV ms in Bacon's
> handwriting. That made a big splash in the
> London papers, was immediately withdrawn from
> auction and like the other Bacon mss, disappeared.
>
> The Dering is the only ms of a play other than
> the Thomas More fragment. Hand D is similar to
> Bacon's handwriting but I'm not going to claim
> that it is Bacon's/
>
> Re: the actor's 'missing manuscripts,' Jonson
> explains that in Discoveries. The friends are
> impressed by the perfect manuscripts. Jonson says,
> sarcastically, 'would he had blotted a thousand.'
> In other words, Jonson wishes he had actually
> written the manuscripts instead of pretending
> that he wrote the plays. He is Jonson's
> poet=ape.
You might like to try reading things in context.
Paraphrase of Jonson: The players mention it as an honour that
shakespeare never blotted a line. To the players i said i wish he had
blotted a thousand. They thought me malevolent to speak so. But i say it
because they commend shakespeare where he most faulted...[gushing praise
omitted]... he lacked rule of his own wit and many times fell into an
expression of things that could but evoke laughter. For instance in the
case of caesar where one speaking to him said: Caesar you do me wrong
and caesar replied: Caesar never did wrong but with just cause- this and
the like were ridiculous things to say.
-----------------
Contrary to your baseless assertion there is no indication in this
passage that shakes was a 'poet-ape'. The reference to blotting a line
is *clearly* expounded as a reference to the fact that shakespeare
sometimes failed to notice logical errors in his expression (which
merely adds strength to the 'strat' case- not that it needs any more).
> The point Jonson was making, Bob, is exactly
> the same point made by Greene in Groatsworth,
> that is, the actor was a play-broker who was
> fencing the perfect manuscripts that had
> circulated in private literary coteries and
> as Greene states, he was passing them around the
> theatre as his own. Shake-scene (the crow or
> thief) was claiming that he was the Onely Poet.
> This infuriated Greene as it would later infuriate
> Jonson. There are numerous references to a
> Onely Poet
Note again what Greene actually says:
"He supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blanke verse as the
best of you."
Note greenes use of language here. He specifically says that shakes
supposes he is *able to bombast out verse* as the best of the
universtity wits. i.e that shakes thinks he is able to write verse as
well as the best of the university wits.
If shakes was passing the plays off as his own then we should not expect
a reference to him as bombasting verse because, in such a case, he would
not be writing anything at all.
[So whta we have here is shakespeare being dissed by greene, an
intellectual snob- funny how nothing changes]
> There is scholarship on the fact that the
> professionally written mss or sometimes bad
> copies, gravitated via thieving servants from
> private literary coteries to printers and
> the theatres. We wouldn't have all the Shakespeare
> plays were it not for thieves and 'crows.'
No, shakespeares fellow players collected his works after his death and
published them. That is why they survived.
There is no cogent evidence to the contrary.
> Cordially,
>
> Elizabeth
>
Fryzer
> Crowley,
>
> Bacon was renown for his bawdy wit. Cockburn
> produces evidence and I have posted on Bacon's
> lines from the Promus which appear as bawdy
> jokes in Romeo and Juliet.
OTOH, a more likely scenario, supposing that there is an undeniable
idenity between parts of the promus and romeo and juliet, is thta bacon
lifted the lines from shakespeare.
> Bacon was raised by Puritans but Puritans were
> not prudes until the run up to the English Civil War
> when a religious 'end times' hysteria gripped
> England.
>
> Bacon is the only author who could have gotten
> the salacious V & A licensed.
I don't think venus and adonis to be any more or less lascivious than
much of the other writing published in the period.
So much for that.
Chess One
"Fryzer" <fri...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:N7hUd.177494$K7.8...@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
> Elizabeth wrote:
>> Re: the actor's 'missing manuscripts,' Jonson
>> explains that in Discoveries. The friends are
>> impressed by the perfect manuscripts. Jonson says,
>> sarcastically, 'would he had blotted a thousand.'
>
>> In other words, Jonson wishes he had actually
>> written the manuscripts instead of pretending
>> that he wrote the plays. He is Jonson's
>> poet=ape.
>
> You might like to try reading things in context.
I note both opinions here on deciding a context, and have committed snippage
to identify the main points:-
> -----------------
> Contrary to your baseless assertion there is no indication in this passage
> that shakes was a 'poet-ape'. The reference to blotting a line is
> *clearly* expounded as a reference to the fact that shakespeare sometimes
> failed to notice logical errors in his expression (which merely adds
> strength to the 'strat' case- not that it needs any more).
I think these cited errors are not of logic, but contextual. The grammatical
logic of the statement is not at issue, the psychological behavior
[verisimilitude] of the character is.
>> The point Jonson was making, Bob, is exactly
>> the same point made by Greene in Groatsworth,
>> that is, the actor was a play-broker who was
>> fencing the perfect manuscripts that had
>> circulated in private literary coteries and
>> as Greene states, he was passing them around the
>> theatre as his own. Shake-scene (the crow or
>> thief) was claiming that he was the Onely Poet.
>> This infuriated Greene as it would later infuriate
>> Jonson. There are numerous references to a
>> Onely Poet
>
> Note again what Greene actually says:
> "He supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blanke verse as the best
> of you."
>
> Note greenes use of language here. He specifically says that shakes
> supposes he is *able to bombast out verse* as the best of the universtity
> wits. i.e that shakes thinks he is able to write verse as well as the best
> of the university wits.
Yes. Agree. But this is not refutation of the point to which it responds. It
simply avers that Shakespeare is also capable of a poetic gloss on a subject
equal to the Univ wags, no?
What really infuriated Greene was the emergence of this seeming
rentier-intellectual poet who existed outside the normal [bitchy] means of
support and commendation for poesy - the university system of gallant
address, one male to another.
He takes great exception to it, ostensibly to resent the quality of the
early Sonnets, but, may we assume from his own /vehement/ comments, an equal
psychological resentment based perhaps on a sense that it supercedes all
else in worth, and yet promises more in potential. Jeolosy.
> If shakes was passing the plays off as his own then we should not expect a
> reference to him as bombasting verse because, in such a case, he would not
> be writing anything at all.
You are as prescriptive to what this must mean as your interlocutor! Might
it not mean that the poet who appears on the surface of things has not the
same qualities, or ever personality, as the playwright who underwrites the
structure? Greene does not contend with the dramatic structure as much its
explication. He contends with the poetical fellow, not the playwright,
right?
> [So whta we have here is shakespeare being dissed by greene, an
> intellectual snob- funny how nothing changes]
An arid group of males. Themselves lampooned in LLL. "Wherefore the love of
women?"
>> There is scholarship on the fact that the
>> professionally written mss or sometimes bad
>> copies, gravitated via thieving servants from
>> private literary coteries to printers and
>> the theatres. We wouldn't have all the Shakespeare
>> plays were it not for thieves and 'crows.'
>
> No, shakespeares fellow players collected his works after his death and
> published them. That is why they survived.
>
> There is no cogent evidence to the contrary.
There is no 'cogent evidence' at all.
An unlikely-seeming supporter of Elizabeth Weir's point is Ted Hughes, a
nominal Strat, but of a type; a Rowsian Strat. That Plath and Hughes wrote a
great majority of their work based on the Work is not in dispute, and the
character of 'crow' is much developed in Hughes.
Cordially, Phil Innes
>
>> Cordially,
>>
>> Elizabeth
>>
lar...@yahoo.com
>then we should not expect
>a reference to him as bombasting verse
>because, in such a case, he would
>not be writing anything at all.
We have a reference to him supposing to be able to bombast verse, not
actually doing it.
>No, shakespeares fellow players collected his
>works after his death and
>published them. That is why they survived.
Where did they get them? Perhaps they got them either from him before
his death (because manuscripts are not mentioned in his will) or from
somewhere or someone else.
It has been suggested that the Globe fire of 1613 might have destroyed
many of Shakespeare's manuscripts, which, if plausible, suggests that
manuscripts might have been kept at the theatre rather than in
someone's personal possession. That makes even more sense if the
playwright had retired and had stopped writing.
C.
Elizabeth
after his death and
published them. That is why they survived."
Strats have never been able to grapple with the problem of the quartos
and how this was all brought together in the First Folio.
J. Dover Wilson, the very great Shakespeare critic who has done the
best work on the quarto problem and published an entire book on it
wrote it off as 'hopeless.'
No Strats, as far as I know, still believe that Heminges and Condell
published the First Folio.
Someone with a lot of money--no doubt Bacon's cousin Pembroke--pulled
the manuscripts together. Several of the parties holding licenses for
some plays were going to print a folio in 1620. Pembroke used his
clout as Lord Chamberlain to have it stopped. At least five different
individuals or partnerships held the rights to more than half the
plays. Jonson didn't have the money to buy rights to the quartos and
Heminges and Condell certainly didn't.
Jonson awas Bacon's 'literary assistant' at the time the First Folio
was edited. Jonson had just finished editing the Novum Organum--it was
printed in 1622--and Jonson's edition of the Shakespeare First Folio
appears in 1623. No one doubts it was edited by Jonson whose adoring
patron was Pembroke. The best explanation is that Jonson and Pembroke
conceived of preserving the Shakespeare plays--which were scattered all
over the place and we've lost at least one--into a folio. We have very
few manuscripts from that period--manuscripts are perishable--but many
Elizabethan and Early Modern books survive. One interesting fact is
that the Novum Organum and the First Folio are 'twin volumes.' Every
single printing detail down to the exact mix of letter styles is
exactly the same.
Pembroke, then the richest man in England and a great lover of the
theatre, would have paid for the rights to the plays that were licensed
but . . . half the plays had never been printed--at least eight plays
were unknown in 1623--yet many of those appear in the author's style
with no errors.
Moreover, there are 20,000 emendations in the authorial hand (many
could be Jonson's--he also added a second prologue to Henry VIII in
blatantly Jonsonian style) and there are whole new scenes, speeches and
lines in the AUTHORIAL HAND added to some of the plays in quartos. No
scholar doubts that the author made these edits and emmendations and of
course the thieving Crow had been dead for years.
So it's a mystery . . .if you think a burgher from Stratford wrote
history's greatest literary works. Otherwise it's easy.
Cordially,
Elizabeth
Elizabeth
The 'context' is Greene's Groatsworth. Greene is furious because a
'crow' or thief (according to the OED a 'crow' was literally a crowbar
used by thieves to pry open doors and windows) is misrepresenting
stolen manuscripts of plays as his own works. He's a 'Shake-scene'
bombasting out lines he did not write. He's 'supposing' that he's the
Onely Poet. The Onely or Onlie or One and Only Poet is mentioned by
numerous other poets and playwrights including Greene, Thomas Edwards,
Jonson, Nashe, Hall and Marston. Edwards, Hall and Marston credit the
Onely Poet with Spenser and Marlowe's works.
You missed all the posts on this subject starting with one posted by
Price on Thomas Edwards. Price thinks that Edwards was referring to an
'anonymous gentleman,' that is, Oxford, but Price is wrong because
Marston and Hall make it crystal clear that the Onely Poet is Bacon.
They put his family motto in the satires seized and burned by
Whitgift--one copy of each satire miraculously escaped although the
explosive original versions printed right after the V & A were all
burned.
Jonson several times explicitly refers to Greene's allusion to the
Onely Poet and his Poet-Ape, Eccho, Clown, Crow, Mask or what have you.
Jonson--a professional satirist--is dripping with sarcasm when he
condescendingly states that the actor's 'friends' (a class denigration)
are impressed by the perfect manuscripts (coterie manuscripts written
by scribes were perfect) that the actor/playbroker brought to the
theatre and claimed as his own work.
Frizer wrote: "Note again what Greene actually says:
"He supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blanke verse as the
best of you."
That's right. Look up 'supposes' for the late 16th century in the OED.
It meant 'feigns or pretends.' We went through this argument before
you arrived.
Cordially,
Elizabeth
David L. Webb
"Elizabeth" <elizabe...@mail.com> wrote:
> Frizer wrote: "You might like to try reading things in context."
Frizer is overly exacting. Elizabeth might try reading things
*period* -- if and when that elusive goal is accomplished, she could
progress to trying to read things in context. Indeed, this simple
expedient would have saved her from idiocies like her claims, on at
least four occasions, that Dave Kathman's essay on dating _The Tempest_
ascribes to Richard Field the role of courier of the Strachey letter
(Field is nowhere mentioned in Dave's essay).
> The 'context' is Greene's Groatsworth. Greene is furious because a
> 'crow' or thief (according to the OED a 'crow' was literally a crowbar
> used by thieves to pry open doors and windows)
The first sense the OED lists is this:
"1. a. A bird of the genus Corvus; in England commonly applied to the
Carrion Crow (Corvus Corone), Śa large black bird that feeds upon the
carcasses of beastsą (Johnson); in the north of England, Scotland,
and Ireland to the Rook, C. frugilegus; in U.S. to a closely allied
gregarious species, C. americanus."
The second sense of the word is also avian. Since Greene refers to the
crow in question as "beautified with our feathers," the likelihood that
the word is being used in OED sense 5 ("A bar of iron usually with one
end slightly bent and sharpened to a beak, used as a lever or prise; a
CROW-BAR") seems exceedingly remote. Although it must surely be news to
Elizabeth, crowbars are rarely adorned with feathers, either their own
or others'.
> is misrepresenting
> stolen manuscripts of plays as his own works.
Even if that were the case, the avian sense of "crow" is quite apt,
as the bird figures in Aesop's fable.
> He's a 'Shake-scene'
> bombasting out lines he did not write. He's 'supposing' that he's the
> Onely Poet. The Onely or Onlie or One and Only Poet is mentioned by
> numerous other poets and playwrights including Greene, Thomas Edwards,
> Jonson, Nashe, Hall and Marston. Edwards, Hall and Marston credit the
> Onely Poet with Spenser and Marlowe's works.
Can Elizabeth elaborate upon this extraordinary claim?
> You missed all the posts on this subject starting with one posted by
> Price on Thomas Edwards. Price thinks that Edwards was referring to an
> 'anonymous gentleman,' that is, Oxford, but Price is wrong because
> Marston and Hall make it crystal clear that the Onely Poet is Bacon.
> They put his family motto in the satires seized and burned by
> Whitgift--one copy of each satire miraculously escaped although the
> explosive original versions printed right after the V & A were all
> burned.
Fascinating!
> Jonson several times explicitly refers to Greene's allusion to the
> Onely Poet and his Poet-Ape, Eccho, Clown, Crow, Mask or what have you.
>
> Jonson--a professional satirist--is dripping with sarcasm when he
> condescendingly states that the actor's 'friends' (a class denigration)
> are impressed by the perfect manuscripts (coterie manuscripts written
> by scribes were perfect) that the actor/playbroker brought to the
> theatre and claimed as his own work.
>
> Frizer wrote: "Note again what Greene actually says:
>
> "He supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blanke verse as the
> best of you."
>
> That's right. Look up 'supposes' for the late 16th century in the OED.
> It meant 'feigns or pretends.'
The first OED sense of the word "suppose" is the following:
" {dag}1. a. trans. To hold as a belief or opinion; to believe as a
fact; to think, be of opinion. Usually const. clause; also with obj.
and compl., acc. and inf., rarely with simple obj. Obs."
The OED lists many closely related senses, including some still in use;
for example:
"8. trans. To entertain as an idea or notion sufficiently probable to
be practically assumed as true, or to be at least admitted as
possibly true, on account of consistency with the known facts of the
case; to infer hypothetically; to incline to think: sometimes
implying mistaken belief."
For this sense, the OED furnishes quotations dating from 1526 to the
twentieth century. Virtually all these senses of the word are just as
likely to be what Greene had in mind as the twelfth sense, the one that
Elizabeth prefers:
"{dag}12. To feign, pretend; occas. to forge. Obs."
> We went through this argument before
> you arrived.
...and true to form, Elizabeth learned nothing when this matter was
discussed earlier, nor has she apparently consulted the OED in the
meantime.
Elizabeth
*period* -- if and when that elusive goal is accomplished, she could
progress to trying to read things in context."
I had no problem reading your plagiarized
'précis,' Webb and if I didn't know that
you are only in HLAS hoping to be humiliated
I'd post a chart showing your dependence on
mythinglink.org as your sole source, not on
Fitzgerald's translation of the Iliad as you
claimed.
Cordially,
Elizabeth
Chess One
"David L. Webb" <david....@dartmouth.edu> wrote in message
news:david.l.webb-F0FC...@merrimack.dartmouth.edu...
> In article <1109529865.3...@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>,
> "Elizabeth" <elizabe...@mail.com> wrote:
>
>> Frizer wrote: "You might like to try reading things in context."
>
> Frizer is overly exacting. Elizabeth might try reading things
> *period* -- if and when that elusive goal is accomplished, she could
> progress to trying to read things in context. Indeed, this simple
> expedient would have saved her from idiocies like her claims, on at
> least four occasions, that Dave Kathman's essay on dating _The Tempest_
> ascribes to Richard Field the role of courier of the Strachey letter
> (Field is nowhere mentioned in Dave's essay).
>
>> The 'context' is Greene's Groatsworth. Greene is furious because a
>> 'crow' or thief (according to the OED a 'crow' was literally a crowbar
>> used by thieves to pry open doors and windows)
>
> The first sense the OED lists is this:
ROFL! <balance snipped>
Phil
David L. Webb
"Elizabeth" <elizabe...@mail.com> wrote:
> Crowley,
>
> Bacon was renown [sic] for his bawdy wit. Cockburn
> produces evidence and I have posted on Bacon's
> lines from the Promus which appear as bawdy
> jokes in Romeo and Juliet.
One possibility is that Bacon was familiar with Shakespeare's play,
but doubtless this contingency has never occurred to you. You really
should read _Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern are Dead_ -- no doubt the
experience would convert you from a Baconian to a Stoppardian, just as
you were converted from Oxfordian to Baconian (after the former cult had
"sucked your brains out").
> Bacon was raised by Puritans but Puritans were
> not prudes until the run up to the English Civil War
> when a religious 'end times' hysteria gripped
> England.
>
> Bacon is the only author who could have gotten
> the salacious V & A licensed.
Huh?
> Bacon lived in
> Headmaster of Trinity Dr.John Whitgift's house
> for three years between 1574 and 1578. Whitgift
> was the Archbishop and head censor in 1593 and
> his name appears on the license. Whitgift's
> licensing of the V & A is an astonishing thing that
> Strats will not deal with, even to the point of
> suppressing the facts.
Suppressing the facts?! What will your paranoia devise next?
> I checked many sources
> and Chambers was the only one willing to print the
> license with Whitgift's name on it.
If it is in Chambers, one of the most authoritative and widely
consulted sources in Shakespeare scholarship, then it is scarcely
"suppressed."
> Cordially,
>
> Elizabeth
>
Adam Selzer
> not prudes until the run up to the English Civil War
> when a religious 'end times' hysteria gripped
> England.
From what I've read, they were never THAT prudish by today's standards,
what with the practice of "bundling" and all. It was very depressing for
me to read about Puritans in college and find out that most of them were
much more sexually active than I. It's easy to forget, seeing things
from the age past the prudery-mania that (sort of) gripped the
Victorians (and from which many of us have never recovered), that
bawdiness wasn't quite as terrifying to people in the 16th, 17th and
18th century.
> Bacon is the only author who could have gotten
> the salacious V & A licensed.
Then why wasn't it necessary to have his name on it? Would Joe Prude on
the street see and thing "egad! Such salaciousness...who does this
Shakespeare chap think he it? Now, if this were Frank Bacon, I would
understand, but surely this calls for an investigation and whatever
exactly the Elizabethan equivalent of new FCC regulations would be,
which I'm sure I could rememember if it weren't 8am?"
Adam "Eggs, Sausage, and Shakespeare...the Breakfast of Champions" Selzer
Adam Selzer
> One possibility is that Bacon was familiar with Shakespeare's play,
> but doubtless this contingency has never occurred to you.
I was going to say that, but I see that two others already did, so I'll
just say that a third possibility is that the jokes (or ones similar to
them) had been in common circulation around the pubs for some time.
Similarly, I'm pretty sure my favorite joke about buying an elephant for
$200 comes from a Sholem Aleichem story, but I've never been able to
find out which one; I've just heard it told. I've told it myself, and I
may put it in a story or book some day. But I'm pretty sure that Sholem
Aleichem isn't writing over my shoulder.
Joke in question:
A man hears a knock at the door, answers it and sees a dingy, dirty
fellow with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth.
"It's your lucky day," says the guy. "I know the people at the circus,
and I'm gonna get you an elephant...for $200."
"I, uh, didn't order an elephant," says the man. "I didn't order ANY
wild animals."
"This elephant isn't wild!" says the guy, "it's tame! It'll be your butler!"
"Look," says the man, "I don't know if you noticed on your way up, but
this is a third-floor walk-up studio apartment. Even if pets were
allowed, I don't have room for a chihuahua, let alone an elephant!"
"Okay," says the guy, "I'll tell you what I'm gonna do for you. I'm
gonna get you TWO elephants...for $300."
The man pauses. "Ah." he says. "NOW you're talkin!"
Works better spoken than it does in print. You have to do the voices and
get all the timing down.
You really
> should read _Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern are Dead_ -- no doubt the
> experience would convert you from a Baconian to a Stoppardian, just as
> you were converted from Oxfordian to Baconian (after the former cult had
> "sucked your brains out").
>
Oh, yes! Let's immediately get started on novelty authorship candidates.
I'll lead the charge for the Seussicrutions.
Adam "If I was rich man, da da da da da" Selzer
Elizabeth
No Strat has ever suggested that Bacon plagiarized any part of the
Shakespeare works.
Why? Because Bacon was qualified to have written every word of the
Shakespeare works. His science, politics, religious doctrine, his
philosophies, his vast knowledge,
his huge and highly specialized vocabulary saturate the Shakespeare
works.
The Shakespeare works are even written
in a new rhetoric that Bacon and his
cousin Sidney invented. Only the
Arcadia, Bacon's works in English and
the Shakespeare works appear in it
until the Bacon and Shakespeare works
begin to influence prose writing.
(Williamson, The Senecan Amble from
Bacon to Coleridge).
Pick a theme, Selzer, and I will prove that neither the actor or Oxford
have any evidence to show that they could have written it. Moral
philosophy? Bacon left works on moral philosophy. Doctrine? Bacon's
modified Calvinism exactly fits the theological statements in Hamlet
and The Tempest.
The actor and Oxford are disqualified by the fact that both were
Catholics while the Shakespeare plays, like Bacon, are mildly
anti-Catholic. Not Catholic but willing to make doctrinal
accomodations
with Roman Catholicism so that Catholics could live with Anglicanism.
The editors of the Catholic Encyclopedia (seminarians ca 1910) state
that 'Shakespeare' is going straight to hell for writing anti-Catholic
plays. They only hope that he made a death bed confession.
The evidence that the Stratford actor was a Catholic is overwhelming.
The Catholic actor WOULD NOT have written the Shakespeare works, were
he literate.
Neither would the ultra Catholic Oxford
(his documents of reconciliation with the Catholic Church are extant in
Rome) have written the Shakespeare works.
The Shakespeare works go against their
beliefs.
The worst thing I'm confronted with in HLAS is Strat ignorance about
their own candidate. Strats really know very little about this
character. They prefer to read the romantic and disengenous biographies
of Schoenbaum, Bloom, Greenblatt, Honan--Honan finally coughed up a
fact in that he admitted that the actor wrote Hathaway out of the will,
depriving her of her dower rights.
Strats in HLAS know little about Oxford and absolutely nothing about
Bacon.
Webb only knows what he reads on
mythinglink.org.
Cordially,
Elizabeth
Elizabeth
Shakespeare manuscripts since only a moron or a psychotic would expect
one necessarily to have survived from c. 1600."
I know of at least ten manuscripts or at least manuscript writing
connected to the Shakespeare
works that have survived since 1600, several of
which were matched--by experts--to the Stratford actor's handwriting
but sadly for Strats no
matches. In three instances the handwriting was
either Bacon's or the document was found to have
Bacon's elaborate WS manuscript on the pages.
Since Strats are kept in a state of ignorance
about their own facts and documents--how many
Strats in HLAS know that the actor cheated
Hathaway out of her dower share?--I'll write
a post on each document.
Fondly,
Elizabeth
David L. Webb
"Elizabeth" <elizabe...@mail.com> wrote:
[Entertaining delusions snipped]
> The actor and Oxford are disqualified by the fact that both were
> Catholics while the Shakespeare plays, like Bacon, are mildly
> anti-Catholic. Not Catholic but willing to make doctrinal
> accomodations
> with Roman Catholicism so that Catholics could live with Anglicanism.
>
> The editors of the Catholic Encyclopedia (seminarians ca 1910) state
> that 'Shakespeare' is going straight to hell for writing anti-Catholic
> plays. They only hope that he made a death bed confession.
Here is the Catholic Encyclopedia's entry on Shakespeare:
---------------------------------------------------
Of both Milton and Shakespeare it was stated after their deaths, upon
Protestant authority, that they had professed Catholicism. In Milton's
case (though the allegation was made and printed in the lifetime of
contemporaries, and though it pretended to rest upon the testimony of
Judge Christopher Milton, his brother, who did become a Catholic) the
statement is certainly untrue (see The Month , Jan., 1909, pp. 1-13 and
92-93). This emphasizes the need of caution ‹ the more so that
Shakespeare at least had been dead more than seventy years when
Archdeacon R. Davies (d. 1708) wrote in his supplementary notes to the
biographical collections of the Rev. W. Fulman that the dramatist had a
monument at Stratford, adding the words: "He dyed a Papyst". Davies, an
Anglican clergyman, could have had no conceivable motive for
misrepresenting the matter in these private notes and as he lived in the
neighbouring county of Gloucestershire he may be echoing a local
tradition. To this must be added the fact that independent evidence
establishes a strong presumption that John Shakespeare, the poet's
father, was or had been a Catholic. His wife Mary Arden, the poet's
mother, undoubtedly belonged to a family that remained conspicuously
Catholic throughout the reign of Elizabeth. John Shakespeare had held
municipal office in Stratford-on-Avon during Mary's reign at a time when
it seems agreed that Protestants were rigorously excluded from such
posts. It is also certain that in 1592 John Shakespeare was presented as
a recusant , though classified among those "recusants heretofore
presented who were thought to forbear coming to church for fear of
process of debt". Though indications are not lacking that John
Shakespeare was in very reduced circumstances, it is also quite possible
that his alleged poverty was only assumed to cloak his conscientious
scruples.
A document, supposed to have been found about 1750 under the tiles of a
house in Stratford which had once been John Shakespeare's, professes to
be the spiritual testament of the said John Shakespeare, and assuming it
to be authentic it would clearly prove him to have been a Catholic. The
document, which was at first unhesitatingly accepted as genuine by
Malone, is considered by most modern Shakespeare scholars to be a
fabrication of J. Jordan who sent it to Malone (Lee, Life of William
Shakespeare , London, 1908, p. 302). It is certainly not entirely a
forgery (see The Month , Nov., 1911), and it produces in part a form of
spiritual testament attributed to St. Charles Borromeo . Moreover, there
is good evidence that a paper of this kind was really found. Such
testaments were undoubtedly common among Catholics in the sixteenth
century. Jordan had no particular motive for forging a very long,
dreary, and tedious profession of Catholicism, only remotely connected
with the poet; and although it has been said that John Shakespeare could
not write (Lee, J.W. Gray, and C.C. Stopes maintain the contrary), it is
quite conceivable that a priest or some other Catholic friend drafted
the document for him, a copy of which was meant to be laid with him in
his grave. All this goes to show that the dramatist in his youth must
have been brought up in a very Catholic atmosphere, and indeed the
history of the Gunpowder Plot conspirators (the Catesbys lived at
Bushwood Park in Stratford parish) shows that the neighbourhood was
regarded as quite a hotbed of recusancy.
On the other hand many serious difficulties stand in the way of
believing that William Shakespeare could have been in any sense a
staunch adherent of the old religion. To begin with, his own daughters
were not only baptized in the parish church as their father had been,
but were undoubtedly brought up as Protestants , the elder, Mrs. Hall,
being apparently rather Puritan in her sympathies. Again Shakespeare was
buried in the chancel of the parish church, though it is admitted that
no argument can be deduced from this as to the creed he professed (Lee,
op. cit., p. 220). More significant are such facts as that in 1608 he
stood godfather to a child of Henry Walker, as shown by the parish
register, that in 1614 he entertained a preacher at his house "the New
Place", the expense being apparently borne by the municipality, that he
was very familiar with the Bible in a Protestant version, that the
various legatees and executors of his will cannot in any way be
identified as Catholics, and also that he seems to have remained on
terms of undiminished intimacy with Ben Johnson, despite the latter's
exceptionally disgraceful apostasy from the Catholic Faith which he had
for a time embraced. To these considerations must now be added the fact
recently brought to light by the researches of Dr. Wallace of Nebraska,
that Shakespeare during his residence in London lived for at least six
years (1598-1604) at the house of Christopher Mountjoy, a refugee French
Huguenot, who maintained close relations with the French Protestant
Church in London ( Harper's Magazine , March, 1910, pp. 489-510). Taking
these facts in connection with the loose morality of the Sonnets, of
Venus and Adonis, etc. and of passages in the play, not to speak of
sundry vague hints preserved by tradition of the poet's rather dissolute
morals, the conclusion seems certain that, even if Shakespeare's
sympathies were with the Catholics, he made little or no attempt to live
up to his convictions. For such a man it is intrinsically possible and
even likely that, finding himself face to face with death, he may have
profited by the happy incident of the presence of some priest in
Stratford to be reconciled with the Church before the end came. Thus
Archdeacon Davies's statement that "he dyed a Papyst" is by no means
incredible, but it would obviously be foolish to build too much upon an
unverifiable tradition of this kind. The point must remain forever
uncertain.
As regards the internal evidence of the plays and poems, no fair
appreciation of the arguments advanced by Simpson, Bowden, and others
can ignore the strong leaven of Catholic feeling conspicuous in the
works as a whole. Detailed discussion would be impossible here. The
question is complicated by the doubt whether certain more Protestant
passages have any right to be regarded as the authentic work of
Shakespeare. For example, there is a general consensus of opinion that
the greater part of the fifth act of "Henry VIII" is not his. Similarly
in "King John" any hasty references drawn from the anti-papal tone of
certain speeches must be discounted by a comparison between the
impression left by the finished play as it came from the hands of the
dramatist and the virulent prejudice manifest in the older drama of "The
Troublesome Reign of King John", which Shakespeare transformed. On the
other hand the type of such characters as Friar Lawrence or of the friar
in "Much Ado About Nothing", of Henry V, of Katherine of Aragon, and of
others, as well as the whole ethos of "Measure for Measure", with
numberless casual allusions, all speak eloquently for the Catholic tone
of the poet's mind (see, for example, the references to purgatory and
the last sacraments in "Hamlet", Act I, sc. 5).
Neither can any serious arguments to show that Shakespeare knew nothing
of Catholicism be drawn from the fact that in "Romeo and Juliet" he
speaks of "evening Mass". Simpson and others have quoted examples of the
practice of occasionally saying Mass in the afternoon, one of the places
where this was wont to happen being curiously enough Verona itself, the
scene of the play. The real difficulty against Simpson's thesis comes
rather from the doubt whether Shakespeare was not infected with the
atheism , which, as we know from the testimony of writers as opposite in
spirit as Thomas Nashe and Father Persons, was rampant in the more
cultured society of the Elizabethan age. Such a doubting or sceptical
attitude of mind, as multitudes of examples prove in our own day, is by
no means inconsistent with a true appreciation of the beauty of
Catholicism, and even apart from this it would surely not be surprising
that such a man as Shakespeare should think sympathetically and even
tenderly of the creed in which his father and mother had been brought
up, a creed to which they probably adhered at least in their hearts. The
fact in any case remains that the number of Shakespearean utterances
expressive of a fundamental doubt in the Divine economy of the world
seems to go beyond the requirements of his dramatic purpose and these
are constantly put into the mouths of characters with whom the poet is
evidently in sympathy. A conspicuous example is the speech of Prospero
in "The Tempest", probably the latest of the plays, ending with the
words:
"We are such Stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep".
Whether the true Shakespeare speaks here no one can ever tell, but even
if it were so, such moods pass and are not irreconcilable with faith in
God when the soul is thrown back upon herself by the near advent of
suffering or death. A well-known example is afforded by the case of
Littré.
---------------------------------------------------
<http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13748c.htm>
Where does it say that Shakespeare "is going straight to hell for
writing anti-Catholic plays," as Elizabeth claims? Indeed, the article
says quite explicitly:
"As regards the internal evidence of the plays and poems, no fair
appreciation of the arguments advanced by Simpson, Bowden, and others
can ignore the strong leaven of Catholic feeling conspicuous in the
works as a whole. Detailed discussion would be impossible here. The
question is complicated by the doubt whether certain more Protestant
passages have any right to be regarded as the authentic work of
Shakespeare. For example, there is a general consensus of opinion
that the greater part of the fifth act of 'Henry VIII' is not his.
Similarly in 'King John' any hasty references drawn from the
anti-papal tone of certain speeches must be discounted by a
comparison between the impression left by the finished play as it
came from the hands of the dramatist and the virulent prejudice
manifest in the older drama of 'The Troublesome Reign of King John',
which Shakespeare transformed. On the other hand the type of such
characters as Friar Lawrence or of the friar in 'Much Ado About
Nothing', of Henry V, of Katherine of Aragon, and of others, as well
as the whole ethos of 'Measure for Measure', with numberless casual
allusions, all speak eloquently for the Catholic tone of the poet's
mind (see, for example, the references to purgatory and the last
sacraments in 'Hamlet', Act I, sc. 5)."
Apparently Elizabeth has not the Catholic Encyclopedia's article on
Shakespeare either.
> The evidence that the Stratford actor was a Catholic is overwhelming.
>
> The Catholic actor WOULD NOT have written the Shakespeare works, were
> he literate.
It must be interesting to be vouchsafed such vivid hallucinatory
insights into what someone who lived four hundred years ago and about
whom little is known categorically WOULD NOT have done! The hypothesis
that the actor was illiterate is also interesting.
> Neither would the ultra Catholic Oxford
> (his documents of reconciliation with the Catholic Church are extant in
> Rome) have written the Shakespeare works.
>
> The Shakespeare works go against their
> beliefs.
>
> The worst thing I'm confronted with in HLAS is Strat ignorance about
> their own candidate.
No, the worst thing Elizabeth is confronted with in h.l.a.s. is her
own ignorance of virtually every subject that she brings up: history,
physics, classical languages, mathematics, philosophy, modern foreign
languages, linguistics, paleography, English, etc., etc.
> Strats really know very little about this
> character. They prefer to read the romantic and disengenous [sic]
Is a vehicle "disengenous" if its engine has been removed?
> biographies
> of Schoenbaum, Bloom, Greenblatt, Honan--Honan finally coughed up a
> fact in that he admitted that the actor wrote Hathaway out of the will,
> depriving her of her dower rights.
>
> Strats in HLAS know little about Oxford and absolutely nothing about
> Bacon.
>
> Webb only knows what he reads on
> mythinglink.org.
I know what I read in the _Iliad_ and in other classical texts; it is
a pity that Elizabeth has never read any of them, or she would never
have made her farcical pronouncements about Hephaestus/Vulcan being the
god of the underworld, etc.
<http://groups-beta.google.com/group/humanities.lit.authors.shakespeare/m
sg/86ecceb3afa57a6b?dmode=source>
But then, if Elizabeth had ever actually *read* her supposed sources,
she would know that (for example) Akrigg does *not* aver that
Southampton was homosexual -- indeed, he says that until better evidence
is found, only a fool would say that. However, Elizabeth, never having
read Akrigg, has to content herself with hilarious citations like the
following:
"Why else would a site on queer studies have a book on Southampton
listed in the biography [sic -- she presumably means 'bibliography']?"
<http://groups-beta.google.com/group/humanities.lit.authors.shakespeare/m
sg/d2c6dd8a53f500b1?dmode=source>
lyra
"We are such stuff
As dreams are made on and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep..."
--From The Tempest (IV, i, 156-157)
Prospero has consented to the marriage of his daughter and Ferdinand in
this whimsical play about reconciling with family, forgiveness, and
faith in the future. Prospero lives on a magical island with his
daughter, Miranda, and a host of spirits and sprites. He was banished
by his brother over a decade ago, and has now used his magic to cause
the ship on which his brother and King Alonso and his entourage were
sailing to come under his influence. They have been shipwrecked on
Prospero's island, and a series of magical events occur. When Miranda
and Ferdinand are about to marry, Prospero speaks the famous line which
celebrates that uniquely human blend of mind and matter.
Themes/Keywords: dreams, magic, spells
Paul Crowley
> Elizabeth wrote:
> > Crowley,
> >
> > Bacon was renown for his bawdy wit.
Evidence? (Since this is Elizabeth, that's a
silly request.)
> > Cockburn produces evidence
Where? What is it?
> > Puritans were
> > not prudes until the run up to the English Civil War
> > when a religious 'end times' hysteria gripped
> > England.
This is nonsense. The phrase"non-
prudish Puritan" is an oxymoron.
> > Bacon is the only author who could have gotten
> > the salacious V & A licensed.
It was not an author who was needed,
but someone who had influence with
the Archbishop. How about his boss,
the Queen? Or the premier Earl?
> I don't think venus and adonis to be any more or
> less lascivious than much of the other writing
> published in the period.
More nonsense. There was nothing
else around remotely comparable.
Maybe there were some bawdy
ballads sung by peasants, or in low-
class inns. But there is nothing in
print.
> So much for that.
It must be nice to be able to make up
your mind so quickly and so categorically
on the basis of your own non-evidence.
Paul.
Adam Selzer
> Prospero has consented to the marriage of his daughter and Ferdinand in
> this whimsical play about reconciling with family, forgiveness, and
> faith in the future.
Interesting description; my familiarity with it isn't high (not my
favorite play, I guess), but I thought the colonialism issue was a large
enough part to warrant a merit. I'm not at all sure I'd call it
whimsical (though, if we want to get bogged down on semantics, we can
discuss what the post meant by whimsical) (what am I saying? Of COURSE
we want to get bogged down on semantics!)
Adam "Float like an ampersand, sting like a pound sign" Selzer
Elizabeth
My post didn't go so here's a second try.
First, there are many--probably fifty exant-- attestations to Bacon's
wit, this one from a contemporary who knew him at the end of his life:
"(Lord Bacon) was of middling stature; his prescence grave and comely,
of a high flying and lively wit, striving in some things to be rather
admired than understood; yet so quick and easy where he would express
himself and his memory so strong and active that he appeared the master
of a large and plenteous storehouse of knowledge, being (as it were)
nature's midwife stripping her callow brood and cloathing them in new
attire. His wit was quick to the last."
Arthur Wilson in "History of Great Britain containing the Life and
Reign of King James I.," 1652.
Here are examples of Bacon's bawdy wit in R & J. The lines are taken
from two entries out of one hundred and twelve notes for R & J found in
the Promus.
Promus 1217 (Fol. 112)
I pray God your early rising do you no hurt;
Amen when I use it.
Bacon's scribbled note is meant for a dialogue between
two characters. The first says to the second "I pray
your early rising do you no hurt." The second, pretending to miss the
gist, responds "Amen when I use it."
The bawdy nurse in makes a similar pun on "rise."
Nurse: O, he is even in my mistress' case,
Just in her case! O woful sympathy!
Piteous predicament! Even so lies she,
Blubbering and weeping, weeping and blubbering.
Stand up, stand up; stand, an you be a man:
For Juliet's sake, for her sake, rise and stand;
Why should you fall into so deep an O?
<http://www.sirbacon.org/graphics/promus2.gif>
Some of the jokes in Bacon's jokebook, Apothegms,
are borderline. Apothegms was called 'the best
joke book ever written' into the 19th century
although I don't find it that funny. The referents
are lost, apparently.
Bacon did not write bawdy jokes into his philosophical works as far as
I know but
he did leave some bawdy jokes in the Historie
of the Raigne of Henrie VII. One refers
to Prince Arthur calling for a drink of water
on his wedding night because it's 'hot in
the south of Spain,' refering to his Spanish
bride. Bacon tells it better.
Cordially,
Elizabeth
Elizabeth
> > Cockburn produces evidence
> Where? What is it?
I just posted it. I don't have Cockburn's
book at this location so I can't post the
page numbers.
> > Puritans were
> > not prudes until the run up to the English Civil War
> > when a religious 'end times' hysteria gripped
> > England.
> This is nonsense. The phrase"non-prudish Puritan" > is an oxymoron.
I've posted several times on Prof. Kirsten Poole's
book which argues that Falstaff was a Puritan figure,
not in the sense of the Lollard Oldcastle, but a
bawdy Puritan of the sort called 'transgressors' of social boundaries
in the 16th century.
Bacon's cousins the Sidneys were Puritans and his patron Leicester was
a Puritan. The Sidney-Dudleys were hardly puritanical.
There were many varieties of Puritans before the apocalyptic hysteria
of the 1630s when Puritanism came to mean repression and conformity.
The Cecils were Puritans, meaning perfect hypocrites--Robert Cecil was
a sexual predator, seduced or attempted to seduce every woman he met.
Mary Sidney had affairs, her son Pembroke was a very ardent Christian
but also a notorious womanizer.
The reason the Puritans were sexually uninhibited was because of their
(non-Catholic) doctrine on Adam and Eve which found that Adam and Eve
were sexual equals. Some centuries later this doctrine morphed into
constitutional equality for women but we see the very beginning in
Bacon's 'life, liberty and dower,' which is a typical Puritan
republican statement about rights although Bacon was the first to make
it a constitutional issue.
> > Bacon is the only author who could have gotten
> > the salacious V & A licensed.
> It was not an author who was needed,
> but someone who had influence with
> the Archbishop. How about his boss,
> the Queen? Or the premier Earl?
Only the Archbishop, the bishops or certain
stationers could license works, the latter
in a very restricted category.
The Queen, despite Oxfordian fantasies, had
no interest in giving patronage to literary
works. She wasn't an intellectual, she had
a crude sense of humor, her wonderful speeches
were written for her by Bacon (the Tilbury
speech being the best that survives).
I think Essex and Southampton got involved--
Southampton perhaps nefariously--when Essex
got into trouble over the Cecil allegation that
he was giving patronage to the author of
Richard II, generally assumed to be Hayward,
but Bacon was a suprise witness (it was a suprise
to Bacon when Coke put him, the assistant prosecutor,
on the stand in Essex' hearing before the Star Chamber) to be
questioned, as Bacon put it, 'about some old tales of mine.'
What could that possibly mean in the middle
of a grilling over the 'seditious' Richard II?
> It must be nice to be able to make up
> your mind so quickly and so categorically
> on the basis of your own non-evidence.
> Paul.
Baconians have evidence. Oxfordians have
good imaginations.
Cordially,
Elizabeth
Fryzer
For one: Chaucer
Art Neuendorffer
> > The actor and Oxford are disqualified by the fact that both were
> > Catholics while the Shakespeare plays, like Bacon, are mildly
> > anti-Catholic. Not Catholic but willing to make doctrinal
> > accomodations with Roman Catholicism
> > so that Catholics could live with Anglicanism.
> >
> > The editors of the Catholic Encyclopedia (seminarians ca 1910) state
> > that 'Shakespeare' is going straight to hell for writing anti-Catholic
> > plays. They only hope that he made a death bed confession.
"David L. Webb" <david....@dartmouth.edu> wrote
> Here is the Catholic Encyclopedia's entry on Shakespeare:
> <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13748c.htm>
> in "The Tempest", ending with the words:
>
> "We are such Stuff As dreams are made on,
> and our little life Is rounded with a sleep".
>
> Whether the true Shakespeare speaks here no one can ever tell, but even
> if it were so, such moods pass and are not irreconcilable with faith in
> God when the soul is thrown back upon herself by the near advent of
> suffering or death.
> ---------------------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer
> Let's immediately get started on novelty authorship candidates.
> I'll lead the charge for the Seussicrutions.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
<<The most impressive runestone of the early Viking Age
is the Rok stone (Sweden, ca. 800).
http://www.control.chalmers.se/vikings/LVS/photos.runes.rok.html
This huge stone is carved all over with an inscription which includes
verse, coded "twig-runes", a description of a Gothic battle
(in which the Hreidhgoths, who are referred to a number of times
in Old English & Norse legends and who may be the Ostrogoths, fall),
a call to the hero THEODERIC (possibly THEODERIC the Great)
who sits "ready on his steed, his shield strapped on">>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
<<Dr. SEUSS was born THEODORE Geisel March 2, 1904 in Springfield,
Mass. His father was the curator of Forest Park Zoo. His first book
_To Think That I Saw It on MULBERRY Street_ is the prototype for
all his outlandish books. We start with a simple situation, in this case,
young MARCO going home from school but he knows that his father
will interrogate him on his return home and be dissatisfied with his
observation of nothing more than a HORSE & wagon on MULBERRY Street.
So, he starts adding interest to the sight, changing first the HORSE
and then the wagon to bigger more outrageous things. We worry
about MARCO, knowing that his father will not believe him,
urging him to stay closer to reality, stretching the truth only slightly,
but MARCO's imagination is in full gear. Then, he reaches home and his
father asks the dreaded question, "What did you see on the way home
from school.?" and MARCO tells him, not the wild sights in his head,
but what he really saw, "a horse and a wagon on MULBERRY Street".>>
http://www.anapsid.org/aboutmk/seuss.html
----------------------------------------------------------------
http://members.tripod.lycos.nl/LiesAGR/shakeparents.htm
<<Neither John nor Mary could write-- John used a pair of glovers'
compasses as his signature while Mary used a RUNNING HORSE.>>
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
<<One of the best-known [memorial runestone] is the Kylver stone
(Gotland, ca. 400-450 C.E., thought to be part of a grave chamber),
gives us the whole futhark for the first time, together with the
palindrome "SUEUS" => Gotlandic EUS: 'HORSE'" - a creature
which is certainly most meaningful in Germanic religion,
especially where the dead are concerned.>>
http://www.batcave.net/business/web/elements/runic.html
http://zurix.apana.org.au/asatru/Webpage2/Ftpstone.htm
--------------------------------------------------------
Fuþark Formulas:
<<"...the Fuþark, cut in the right sequence,
was believed to confer powerful magical protection".
Jansson examines an example of this kind of formula found on the
Kylver stone in Gotland and comments that the inscription is
a sort of grave-magic (the runes were carved onto the side
of a coffin after all) to protect the grave and stone from any
disturbance. What is interesting about the Kylver stone is
that a two of the runes, 'a' and 'b', are reversed.
Why would this be? Well if Thorsson and Jansson are correct and the
sequence of the runes is of magical importance, then by reversing
certain runes, or omitting runes all together would be symbolically
eliminating or changing elements from the order. For example the
reversed 'a' rune could mean that the runester wished to eliminate
rumours about the person buried in the coffin, or perhaps even
preventing someone from "communicating" with the dead.
And the reversed 'b' may have been used to prevent
the person being re-born or even re-animated.>>
---------------------------------------------------------
LOVE'S LABOURS LOST Act 5, Scene 1
ADRIANO DE ARMADO
[To HOLOFERNES] Monsieur, are you not lettered?
MOTH Yes, yes; he teaches boys the hornbook. What is
a, b, spelt backward, with the horn on his head?
HOLOFERNES Ba, pueritia, with a horn added.
---------------------------------------------------------
Master Tubal Holophernes. The great sophister-doctor,
who, in the course of five years and three months,
taught Gargantua to say his A B C's backward.
(Rabelais: Gargantua, book i. 14.)
--------------------------------------------------------------
<<Bind-runes are interesting and almost impossible to interpret. They
are somewhat simple to create, but to try and interpret one someone else
has made is almost impossibile. Quite simply, bind-runes are a group of
runes that have been positioned around one another to form one glyph.
I suppose an example of this in the Roman script that we use could
be 'æ'. Here we have the letters 'a' and 'e' that have been
"joined" to form the one letter 'æ'.
A good example of a bind-rune can also be found on the Kylver stone.
After the Fuþark formula there is what appears to be a simply drawn
fir-tree. Jansson suggests that this "fir-tree" is a 't' rune with its
"branches" repeated six times. He then goes on to explain that the 't'
rune is a representation of the Norse God "Tyr, who was associated
with war and success in war.it's magic power, its invocation
of the god, has been magnified six times"
There is perhaps a clue to this in the eddaic poem Sigrdrífumál where
a Valkyrie imparts some runic lore onto the young hero of the story,
Sigurðr Fáfniabani:
"Victory-runes you must know,
If victoty you will have,
And carve them on the hilt,
Some on the grasp,
Some on the inlay,
And name Tyr twice."
The reason that bind-runes are so hard to interpret is because of the
"secret" runes that are formed when two or more runes are joined.>>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
GOODFRENDFO [R] IESVSSAKEFORBEAR
ETODIGGTHED __ [V] STENCLOASEDHEARE
BLESEBEYEMA _ [N] YTSPARESTHESSTON
ESANDCVRSTB _ [E] HEYTMOVESMYBONES
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
<<The authorized biography, _Dr. Seuss & Mr. Geisel_ (Random House, 1995)
chronicles many of Geisel's trips to obscure villages and sacred ruins in
Peru, Mexico, Panama, Britain, France, Turkey, Egypt, Israel, India, Japan,
Tibet, Australia and New Zealand. This biography also contains revealing
detail about one of Geisel's first experiments in corporeal-environmental
equilibrium. In 1934, he rented a studio on Park Avenue in New York City
& lined it with lead. He installed an elaborate system of high-power vacuum
pumps to simulate the air pressure of the Peruvian mountain sanctuary
Maccu Piccu. Geisel, himself, was the first test subject of this virtual
environmental unit. He later involved dozens of volunteers, many of whom
reported spontaneous relief from headaches and insomnia resulting from
periods of isolation in the chamber. This experiment attracted the
attention of both Albert Schweitzer and Nikola Tesla.
http://netgeist.com/Dr_Seuss/Death.htm
_Dr. Seuss & Mr. Geisel_ confirms that Geisel died "at about 10:00 p.m.
on September 24, 1991," and "on that day his body was cremated."
In accordance with Geisel's supposed final wishes, there was
no funeral and there is no grave or physical memorial.>>
------------------------------------------------------------
the Sun's transit of the cardinal points-originally:
March 25, June 24, September 24 and December 25
--------------------------------------------------------------
Walburga, OSB Abbess
(also known as Bugga, Gaudurge, Vaubourg, Walpurga, Walpurgis)
http://207.172.3.91/saintpat/ss/0225.htm
Born in Devonshire, Wessex, England, 710 AD;
died at Heidenheim, Swabia, Germany, February 25, 779;
feasts of her translation:
May 1, 870 (translation to Eichstatt)
October 12, (Columbus Day) and
SEPTEMBER 24, 893 (translation to ZUTPHEN
- scene of Sidney's Sept.22, 1586 wounding).
---------------------------------------------------------------
September 24, 1493, Columbus' 2nd expedition to New World
[Venus in conjunction with Spica.]
September 24, 1501, Girolamo Cardano born (mathematician/physician)
[Venus in conjunction with Spica.]
Cardano predicts he will live to the age of 75
[but he commits suicide 3 days early.]
September 24, 1848, Branwell Bronte dies STANDING UP.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Seuss was active in the more important conspiracy of generating
ROSICRUCIAN propaganda like his mentor Johnny Gruelle:
----------------------------------------------------------------
King of _Raggedy Ann and Andy_ -- Johnny Gruelle
[ HAMLET A king of SHREDS and patches]
----------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.nuvo-online.com/97/12/25/cover/
<<Young Johnny Gruelle grew up surrounded by art, poetry and
storytelling. James Whitcomb Riley, then at the peak of his popularity
as "the Hoosier Poet," was a frequent visitor and regaled the Gruelles
with his homespun anecdotes and folk tales. Riley also occasionally
joined in seances which stemmed from R.B. Gruelle's interest in the
philosophies of the Ancient Mystical Order of the ROSAE CRUCIS,
better known as the ROSICRUCIANS. Throughout his adult life,
Johnny maintained this early fascination with spirituality & psychic
phenomena, often incorporating them into his children's writings.>>
----------------------------------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer
Fryzer
PS: There are plenty more, but i thought we might go through them one by
one...
David L. Webb
"Elizabeth" <elizabe...@mail.com> wrote:
> Grumman wrote: "Stratfordians do not need "excuses" for the absence of
> Shakespeare manuscripts since only a moron or a psychotic would expect
> one necessarily to have survived from c. 1600."
>
> I know of at least ten manuscripts or at least manuscript writing
> connected to the Shakespeare
> works that have survived since 1600, several of
> which were matched--by experts--to the Stratford actor's handwriting
> but sadly for Strats no
> matches. In three instances the handwriting was
> either Bacon's or the document was found to have
> Bacon's elaborate WS manuscript on the pages.
Does anyone know what Elizabeth is gibbering about here?
> Since Strats are kept in a state of ignorance
> about their own facts and documents--how many
> Strats in HLAS know that the actor cheated
> Hathaway out of her dower share?
If Elizabeth is referring to Shakespeare's will, it has been
discussed thoroughly and upon many occasions. Elizabeth must not have
been paying attention.
Adam Selzer
>> For one: Chaucer
>
>
> PS: There are plenty more, but i thought we might go through them one by
> one...
Oh, DO lets! I love old-time bawdiness. You haven't heard Chaucer until
you've heard the naughty bits read aloud by a woman in her eighties with
a thick southern drawl. Who knew you could get so many syllables into
the word "turd?"
Adam "Off to California, See You Guys On Monday" Selzer
David L. Webb
"Art Neuendorffer" <aneuendor...@comcast.net>
(aneuendor...@comicass.nut) wrote:
> "Adam Selzer" <ad...@adamselzer.com> wrote
>
> > Let's immediately get started on novelty authorship candidates.
> > I'll lead the charge for the Seussicrutions.
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> <<The most impressive runestone of the early Viking Age
> is the Rok stone (Sweden, ca. 800).
> http://www.control.chalmers.se/vikings/LVS/photos.runes.rok.html
>
> This huge stone is carved all over with an inscription which includes
> verse, coded "twig-runes", a description of a Gothic battle
> (in which the Hreidhgoths, who are referred to a number of times
> in Old English & Norse legends and who may be the Ostrogoths, fall),
> a call to the hero THEODERIC (possibly THEODERIC the Great)
> who sits "ready on his steed, his shield strapped on">>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> <<Dr. SEUSS was born THEODORE Geisel March 2, 1904 in Springfield,
> Mass.
But Art -- what about THEODORE Roosevelt? And THEODOR Adorno? And
FYODOR Dostoyevsky? Were they Freemasons as well, merely because a
Viking runestone mentions Theodoric?!
Far better evidence is obtained from Seuss's writing. For example,
"The Lorax" is an anagram of "Ox, th'Earl"! Of course, there's also his
famous "Greene Eggs on Ham(let)." And "Fox in Socks" is an anagram of
"Oxf. skins O.C." (O.C. is of course Orazio Cogno).
[Lunatic logorrhea snipped]
> http://members.tripod.lycos.nl/LiesAGR/shakeparents.htm
"Pagina kan niet worden gevonden."
> <<Neither John nor Mary could write-- John used a pair of glovers'
> compasses as his signature while Mary used a RUNNING HORSE.>>
This is typical aneuendor...@comicass.nut "scholarship" --
quoting an unknown source of dubious reliability from a web page that
does not exist!
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> <<One of the best-known [memorial runestone] is the Kylver stone
> (Gotland, ca. 400-450 C.E., thought to be part of a grave chamber),
> gives us the whole futhark for the first time, together with the
> palindrome "SUEUS" => Gotlandic EUS: 'HORSE'" - a creature
> which is certainly most meaningful in Germanic religion,
> especially where the dead are concerned.>>
The horse's hindquarters is most meaningful in the Oxfordian cult.
[Lunatic logorrhea snipped]
Art Neuendorffer
> >
> > > Let's immediately get started on novelty authorship candidates.
> > > I'll lead the charge for the Seussicrutions.
> "Art Neuendorffer" <aneuendor...@comcast.net>
> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> > <<The most impressive runestone of the early Viking Age
> > is the Rok stone (Sweden, ca. 800).
> > http://www.control.chalmers.se/vikings/LVS/photos.runes.rok.html
> >
> > This huge stone is carved all over with an inscription which includes
> > verse, coded "twig-runes", a description of a Gothic battle
> > (in which the Hreidhgoths, who are referred to a number of times
> > in Old English & Norse legends and who may be the Ostrogoths, fall),
> > a call to the hero THEODERIC (possibly THEODERIC the Great)
> > who sits "ready on his steed, his shield strapped on">>
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
> > <<Dr. SEUSS was born THEODORE Geisel March 2, 1904 in Springfield,
> > Mass.
"David L. Webb" <david....@dartmouth.edu> wrote
> But Art -- what about THEODORE Roosevelt? And THEODOR Adorno? And
> FYODOR Dostoyevsky? Were they Freemasons as well, merely because a
> Viking runestone mentions Theodoric?!
> > http://members.tripod.lycos.nl/LiesAGR/shakeparents.htm
>
> "Pagina kan niet worden gevonden."
>
> > <<Neither John nor Mary could write-- John used a pair of glovers'
> > compasses as his signature while Mary used a RUNNING HORSE.>>
>
> This is typical aneuendor...@comicass.nut "scholarship" --
> quoting an unknown source of dubious reliability from a web page that
> does not exist!
OK, then, what did Mary Shaksper use as a signature?
> > -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> > <<One of the best-known [memorial runestone] is the Kylver stone
> > (Gotland, ca. 400-450 C.E., thought to be part of a grave chamber),
> > gives us the whole futhark for the first time, together with the
> > palindrome "SUEUS" => Gotlandic EUS: 'HORSE'" - a creature
> > which is certainly most meaningful in Germanic religion,
> > especially where the dead are concerned.>>
>
> The horse's hindquarters is most meaningful in the Oxfordian cult.
THOU SHALT NOT PLOW WITH AN OX AND AN ASS TOGETHER.
Art N.
Fryzer
> Frizer wrote: "No, shakespeares fellow players collected his works
> after his death and
> published them. That is why they survived."
>
> Strats have never been able to grapple with the problem of the quartos
> and how this was all brought together in the First Folio.
>
> J. Dover Wilson, the very great Shakespeare critic who has done the
> best work on the quarto problem and published an entire book on it
> wrote it off as 'hopeless.'
He might not be able to grasp it- but the fact remains it was done.
> No Strats, as far as I know, still believe that Heminges and Condell
> published the First Folio.
Rubbish.
> Someone with a lot of money
the first folio was dedicated to the pembrokes.
>--no doubt Bacon's cousin Pembroke--pulled
> the manuscripts together.
Not that pembroke would have nay idewa how to pull a manuscript together.
> Several of the parties holding licenses for
> some plays were going to print a folio in 1620. Pembroke used his
> clout as Lord Chamberlain to have it stopped.
Actually, as far as i am aware, some of the plays were published despite
his orders.
> At least five different
> individuals or partnerships held the rights to more than half the
> plays. Jonson didn't have the money to buy rights to the quartos and
> Heminges and Condell certainly didn't.
The kings men, Pembroke, the king...
> Jonson awas Bacon's 'literary assistant' at the time the First Folio
> was edited. Jonson had just finished editing the Novum Organum--it was
> printed in 1622--and Jonson's edition of the Shakespeare First Folio
> appears in 1623.
O really, well seeing as the kings men would have had around 18 of the
plays in their hot little hands, that would have been a little difficult.
> No one doubts it was edited by Jonson
nonsense
> whose adoring
> patron was Pembroke.
> The best explanation is that Jonson and Pembroke
> conceived of preserving the Shakespeare plays--which were scattered all
> over the place and we've lost at least one--into a folio.
WHich just flies in the face of every known fact on the matter.
We have very
> few manuscripts from that period--manuscripts are perishable--but many
> Elizabethan and Early Modern books survive. One interesting fact is
> that the Novum Organum and the First Folio are 'twin volumes.' Every
> single printing detail down to the exact mix of letter styles is
> exactly the same.
> Pembroke, then the richest man in England and a great lover of the
> theatre, would have paid for the rights to the plays that were licensed
> but . . . half the plays had never been printed--at least eight plays
> were unknown in 1623--yet many of those appear in the author's style
> with no errors.
> Moreover, there are 20,000 emendations in the authorial hand (many
> could be Jonson's--he also added a second prologue to Henry VIII in
> blatantly Jonsonian style) and there are whole new scenes, speeches and
> lines in the AUTHORIAL HAND added to some of the plays in quartos. No
> scholar doubts that the author made these edits and emmendations and of
> course the thieving Crow had been dead for years.
>
> So it's a mystery . . .if you think a burgher from Stratford wrote
> history's greatest literary works. Otherwise it's easy.
Theres no mystery here. Heminge and condell had access to shakespeares
papers (foul and fair), prompt books, published quartos, scribes
copies... as these papers wewre either written by shakes or copies 9of
what shakes had written, they would naturally be in the AUTHORIAL HAND.
Elizabeth
"Does anyone know what Elizabeth is gibbering about here?"
Everyone knows except you, Webb, because
you're the only one in HLAS with no
knowledge base with which to discuss
the topic.
I'm referring to extant manuscripts or
manuscript marginalia that relate in
some way to the Shakespeare plays that
include Henry Collin's ms reference to the
V & A, the Schoyen Henry IV fragment,
Bacon's Northumberland MS with
'William Shakespeare' written next to
a list of plays, the Dering manuscript,
the Shakespeare marginalia in the
Holinshed Chronicles, the marginalia
at first thought to be Shakespeare's in the
Halle's Chronicles, the Sir Thomas More
MS that doesn't have the actor's handwriting
on it, etc.
Cordially,
Elizabeth
Paul Crowley
> >>I don't think venus and adonis to be any more or
> >>less lascivious than much of the other writing
> >>published in the period.
> >
> > More nonsense. There was nothing
> > else around remotely comparable.
> > Maybe there were some bawdy
> > ballads sung by peasants, or in low-
> > class inns. But there is nothing in
> > print.
>
> For one: Chaucer
Chaucer was active before 1400 -- around
200 years before V & A. He was also
before printing, so his work was read
(or 'performed') in court, or circulated in
manuscript. Quoting Chaucer as backing
for your (new) theory (whatever it now
states) is like quoting Byron as a guide to
21st century literature.
Paul.
Paul Crowley
news:1109648439.3...@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
> First, there are many--probably fifty exant-- attestations to Bacon's
> wit, this one from a contemporary who knew him at the end of his life:
Your claim was about his 'bawdy wit' -- a fairly
specific concept. There is no point in quoting
contemporary references to his 'wit' -- which
was, in any case, a word with a much broader
sense generally (vide the statement on the
gravestone of Susanna Hall).
> Here are examples of Bacon's bawdy wit in R & J. The lines are taken
> from two entries out of one hundred and twelve notes for R & J found in
> the Promus.
>
> Promus 1217 (Fol. 112)
> I pray God your early rising do you no hurt;
> Amen when I use it.
>
> Bacon's scribbled note is meant for a dialogue between
> two characters. The first says to the second "I pray
> your early rising do you no hurt." The second, pretending to miss the
> gist, responds "Amen when I use it."
Do you think this is evidence that Bacon
actually wrote R & J ? (I can imagine
nothing less counter-productive. It shows
a weak imagination trailing in the wake of
a far more powerful one . . . and a long
way behind.
> The bawdy nurse in makes a similar pun on "rise."
>
> Nurse: O, he is even in my mistress' case,
> Just in her case! O woful sympathy!
> Piteous predicament! Even so lies she,
> Blubbering and weeping, weeping and blubbering.
> Stand up, stand up; stand, an you be a man:
> For Juliet's sake, for her sake, rise and stand;
> Why should you fall into so deep an O?
One is truly bawdy. The other is pathetic.
> <http://www.sirbacon.org/graphics/promus2.gif>
>
> Some of the jokes in Bacon's jokebook, Apothegms,
> are borderline. Apothegms was called 'the best
> joke book ever written' into the 19th century
> although I don't find it that funny. The referents
> are lost, apparently.
>
>
> Bacon did not write bawdy jokes into his philosophical works as far as
> I know but
> he did leave some bawdy jokes in the Historie
> of the Raigne of Henrie VII. One refers
> to Prince Arthur calling for a drink of water
> on his wedding night because it's 'hot in
> the south of Spain,' refering to his Spanish
> bride. Bacon tells it better.
It's an ancient story which might even
have some truth. Or it might not. I'm
sure Prince Arthur was sick of it long
before he married the woman. But it
certainly doesn't do much for the
notion of Bacon's "wit". Shakespeare
would have given it a wide berth.
Paul.
Fryzer
> Frizer wrote: "You might like to try reading things in context."
>
> 'crow' or thief (according to the OED a 'crow' was literally a crowbar
> stolen manuscripts of plays as his own works. He's a 'Shake-scene'
> bombasting out lines he did not write. He's 'supposing' that he's the
> Onely Poet. The Onely or Onlie or One and Only Poet is mentioned by
> numerous other poets and playwrights including Greene, Thomas Edwards,
> Jonson, Nashe, Hall and Marston. Edwards, Hall and Marston credit the
> Onely Poet with Spenser and Marlowe's works.
Are you now suggesting that bacon also wrote marlowe and spenser?
> You missed all the posts on this subject starting with one posted by
> Price on Thomas Edwards. Price thinks that Edwards was referring to an
> 'anonymous gentleman,' that is, Oxford, but Price is wrong because
> Marston and Hall make it crystal clear that the Onely Poet is Bacon.
> They put his family motto in the satires seized and burned by
> Whitgift--one copy of each satire miraculously escaped although the
> explosive original versions printed right after the V & A were all
> burned.
>
> Jonson several times explicitly refers to Greene's allusion to the
> Onely Poet and his Poet-Ape, Eccho, Clown, Crow, Mask or what have you.
>
> Jonson--a professional satirist--is dripping with sarcasm when he
> condescendingly states that the actor's 'friends' (a class denigration)
> are impressed by the perfect manuscripts (coterie manuscripts written
> by scribes were perfect) that the actor/playbroker brought to the
> theatre and claimed as his own work.
> Frizer wrote: "Note again what Greene actually says:
>
> "He supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blanke verse as the
> best of you."
>
> That's right. Look up 'supposes' for the late 16th century in the OED.
> It meant 'feigns or pretends.' We went through this argument before
> you arrived.
That is an obscure usage of the word.
Chess One
> Webb wrote:
> "Does anyone know what Elizabeth is gibbering about here?"
An interesting word!
GIBBER is from Hamlet, viz. to chatter. Its root is older, and as with
GIB-CAT, GIB~ is also used as a term of reproach to a woman. "Playeth the
gib", /Schole House of Women, p. 73, i.e. the wanton. It is A. Norman, and
may be associated with the older word [north] GHYBE: to scold or gibe.
such star crossed correspondance!
The kyng red the letturs anon,
And seid, So mot I the,
Ther was never /w/oman in mery Ingland
I longut so sore to see.
/MS Cantab. Ff. v. 48, f. 130
> Everyone knows except you, Webb, because
> you're the only one in HLAS with no
> knowledge base with which to discuss
> the topic.
O dear me! Such a rebuke to his 'wanton' approach:-
I have spyed the false felone,
And he stondes at his masse
Hit is long of the, seide the munke,
And ever he fro us passe.
/MS Cantab. Ff. v. 48, f. 127
Which I think the alert reader will note anticipates Bob Dylan.
Cordially, Phil Innes
Chess One
>> condescendingly states that the actor's 'friends' (a class denigration)
>> are impressed by the perfect manuscripts (coterie manuscripts written
>> by scribes were perfect) that the actor/playbroker brought to the
>> theatre and claimed as his own work.
>
>> Frizer wrote: "Note again what Greene actually says:
>>
>> "He supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blanke verse as the
>> best of you."
>>
>> That's right. Look up 'supposes' for the late 16th century in the OED.
>> It meant 'feigns or pretends.' We went through this argument before
>> you arrived.
>
> That is an obscure usage of the word.
To speake with him she kindly doth entreat,
Desiring him to cleare her darke suppose.
/Taylor's Workes, 1630, iii. 22.
But SUPPOSAL: a supposition is used in;-
Hee incroches often upon admittance (where
thinges be well delivered) to multiply his observa-
tion, and he will verifie things, through a scandal-
ous supposall, as if they were now committed.
/Stephen's Essayes and Characters, 1615, p. 219.
SUPPOELLE: a root~ term originally meant otherwise; to support
And to live in reste and in quiete
Thoru/ / this supporte and this suppowaille.
/Ms. Digby 230.
Or so, I supervize [Shak]; 'view'.
Cordially, Phil.
bobgr...@nut-n-but.net
OED.
> > It meant 'feigns or pretends.' We went through this argument
before
> > you arrived.
>
> That is an obscure usage of the word.
One, furthermore, that there is no recorded instance of in the literary
works of the time.
--Bob G.
Art Neuendorffer
> > http://members.tripod.lycos.nl/LiesAGR/shakeparents.htm
>
> "Pagina kan niet worden gevonden."
>
> > <<Neither John nor Mary could write-- John used a pair of glovers'
> > compasses as his signature while Mary used a RUNNING HORSE.>>
"David L. Webb" <david....@dartmouth.edu> wrote
> This is typical aneuendor...@comicass.nut "scholarship"
> -- quoting an unknown source of dubious reliability from
> a web page that does not exist!
-------------------------------------------------------
http://www.the-quill.com/AboutShakespeare/ShakespearesAncestry/ShakespearesParents.htm
http://www.ancientworlds.net/aw/Thread/384635
http://childoffortune.com/shakespeare.bio.htm
http://damoo.csun.edu:8888/11604
Mabillard, Amanda. "Shakespeare of Stratford." Shakespeare Online. 2000.
http://www.shakespeare-online.com/biography/index.html
REFERENCES
Bentley, Gerald Eades. Shakespeare:
A Biographical Handbook. New Haven: Yale UP, 1968.
Brooke, Tucker. Shakespeare of Stratford. New Haven: Yale UP, 1926.
Burgess, Anthony. Shakespeare. London: Jonathan Cape, 1970.
Child, Harold. English Drama to 1642. The Cambridge History of
English and American Literature. An Encyclopedia in Eighteen Volumes.
2000. http://bartleby.com. (04/04/00).
Hosking, G.L. The Life and Times of Edward Alleyn.
London: Jonathan Cape, 1952.
Kay, Dennis. Shakespeare. New York: William Morrow, Inc., 1992.
Levi, Peter. The Life and Times of William Shakespeare.
London: Macmillan, 1988.
Neilson, Francis. Shakespeare and the Tempest.
New Hampshire: Richard C. Smith Inc., 1956.
Rowse, A.L. Shakespeare the Man. London: Macmillan, 1973.
Speaight, Robert. Shakespeare: The Man and his Achievement.
New York: Stein and Day, 1977.
SHAKESPEARE'S ANCESTRY
As a brief introductory detail it should be mentioned that, during the
sixteenth century, there were many families with the name Shakespeare in
and around Stratford. "Shakespeare" appears countless times in town
minutes and court records, spelled in a variety of ways, from Shagspere
to Chacsper. Unfortunately, there are very few records that reveal
William Shakespeare's relationship to or with the many other Stratford
Shakespeares. Genealogists claim to have discovered one man related to
Shakespeare who was hanged in Gloucestershire for theft in 1248, and
Shakespeare's father, in an application for a coat of arms, claimed that
his grandfather was a hero in the War of the Roses and was granted land
in Warwickshire in 1485 by Henry VII. No historical evidence has been
discovered to corroborate this story of the man who would be William
Shakespeare's great-grandfather, but, luckily, we do have information
regarding his paternal and maternal grandfathers. The Bard's paternal
grandfather was Richard Shakespeare (d. 1561), a farmer in Snitterfield,
a village four miles northeast of Stratford. There is no record of
Richard Shakespeare before 1529, but details about his life after this
reveal that he was a tenant farmer, who, on occasion, would be fined for
grazing too many cattle on the common grounds and for not attending
manor court. There is no record of Richard Shakespeare's wife, but
together they had two sons (possibly more), John and Henry. Richard
Shakespeare worked on several different sections of land during his
lifetime, including the land owned by the wealthy Robert Arden of
Wilmecote, Shakespeare's maternal grandfather. Robert Arden (d. 1556)
was the son of Thomas Arden of Wilmecote, Shakespeare's maternal
great-grandfather, who probably belonged to the aristocratic family of
the Ardens of Park Hall. He was catholic and married more than once (we
know the name of his second wife -- Agnes Hill) and he fathered no fewer
than eight daughters. He became the stepfather of Agnes' four children.
Robert Arden had accumulated much property, and when he died, he named
his daughter (Shakespeare's mother) Mary, only sixteen at the time,
one of his executors. He left Mary some money and, in his own words,
"all my land in Willmecote cawlide Asbyes and the crop
apone the grounde, sowne and tyllide as hitt is".
SHAKESPEARE'S PARENTS
Shakespeare's father, John, came to Stratford from Snitterfield before
1532 as an apprentice glover and tanner of leathers. John Shakespeare
prospered and began to deal in farm products and wool. It is recorded
that he bought a house in 1552 (the date that he first appears in
the town records), and bought more property in 1556. Because John
Shakespeare owned one house on Greenhill Street and two houses on
Henley Street, the exact location of William's birth cannot be known for
certain. Sometime between 1556 and 1558 John Shakespeare married Mary
Arden, the daughter of the wealthy Robert Arden of Wilmecote and owner
of the sixty-acre farm called Asbies. The wedding would have most likely
taken place in Mary Arden's parish church at Aston Cantlow, the burial
place of Robert Arden, and, although there is no evidence of strong
piety on either side of the family, it would have been a Catholic
service, since Queen Mary I was the reigning monarch. We assume neither
John nor Mary could write -- John used a pair of glovers' compasses as
his signature while Mary used a running horse -- but it did not prevent
them from becoming important members of the community. John Shakespeare
was elected to a multitude of civic positions, including ale-taster of
the borough (Stratford had a long-reaching reputation for its brewing)
in 1557, chamberlain of the borough in 1561, alderman in 1565,
(a position which came with free education for his children at the
Stratford Grammar School), high bailiff, or mayor, in 1568, and chief
alderman in 1571. Due to his important civic duties, he rightfully
sought the title of gentleman and applied for his coat-of-arms in 1570.
However, for unspecific reasons the application was abruptly withdrawn,
and within the next few years, for reasons just as mystifying, John
Shakespeare would go from wealthy business owner and dedicated civil
servant to debtor and absentee council member. By 1578 he was behind in
his taxes and stopped paying the statutory aldermanic subscription for
poor relief. In 1579, he had to mortgage Mary Shakespeare's estate,
Asbies, to pay his creditors. In 1580 he was fined 40 pounds for missing
a court date and in 1586 the town removed him from the board of aldermen
due to lack of attendance. By 1590, John Shakespeare owned only his
house on Henley Street and, in 1592 he was fined for not attending
church. However, near the very end of John Shakespeare's life, it seems
that his social and economic standing was again beginning to flourish.
He once again applied to the College of Heralds for a coat-of-arms in
1596, and, due likely to the success of William in London, this time
his wish was granted. On October 20 of that year, by permission of the
Garter King of Arms (the Queen's aid in such matters) "the said John
Shakespeare, Gentlemen, and...his children, issue and posterity" were
lawfully entitled to display the gold coat-of-arms, with a black banner
bearing a silver spear (a visual representation of the family name
"Shakespeare"). The coat-of-arms could then be displayed on their door
and all their personal items. The motto was "Non sanz droict" or "not
without right. The reason cited for granting the coat-of-arms was
John Shakespeare's grandfather's faithful service to Henry VII, but
no specifics were given as to what service he actually performed. The
coat-of-arms appears on Shakespeare's tomb in Stratford. In 1599 John
Shakespeare was reinstated on the town council, but died a short time
later, in 1601. He was probably near seventy years old and he had
been married for forty-four years. Mary Shakespeare died in 1608
and was buried on September 9.
SHAKESPEARE'S BIRTH
The baptismal register of the Holy Trinity parish church, in Stratford,
shows the following entry for April 26, 1564: Gulielmus filius Johannes
Shakespeare. The actual date of Shakespeare's birth is not known, but,
traditionally, April 23, St George's Day, has been Shakespeare's
accepted birthday, and a house on Henley Street in Stratford, owned
by William's father, John, is accepted as Shakespeare's birth place.
However, the reality is that no one really knows when the great
dramatist was born. According to the Book of Common Prayer, it was
required that a child be baptized on the nearest Sunday or holy day
following the birth, unless the parents had a legitimate excuse. As
Dennis Kay proposes in his book Shakespeare "If Shakespeare was indeed
born on Sunday, April 23, the next feast day would have been St. Mark's
Day on Tuesday the twenty-fifth. There might well have been some cause,
both reasonable and great -- or perhaps, as has been suggested, St.
Mark's Day was still held to be unlucky, as it had been before the
Reformation, when altars and crucifixes used to be draped in black
cloth, and when some claimed to see in the churchyard the spirits
of those doomed to die in that year. . . .but that does not help
to explain the christening on the twenty-sixth."
No doubt Shakespeare's true birthday will remain a mystery forever.
But the assumption that the Bard was born on the same day of
the month that he died lends an exciting esoteric highlight
to the otherwise mundane details of Shakespeare's life.
SHAKESPEARE'S SIBLINGS
William Shakespeare was indeed lucky to survive to adulthood in
sixteenth-century England. Waves of the plague swept across the
countryside, and pestilence ravaged Stratford during the hot summer
months. Mary and John Shakespeare became parents for the first time in
September of 1558, when their daughter Joan was born. Nothing is known
of Joan Shakespeare except for the fact that she was baptized in
Stratford on September 15, and succumbed to the plague shortly after.
Their second child, Margaret, was born in 1562 and was baptized on
December 2. She died one year later. The Shakespeares' fourth child,
Gilbert, was baptized on October 13, 1566, at Holy Trinity. It is likely
that John Shakespeare named his second son after his friend and neighbor
on Henley Street, Gilbert Bradley, a glover and the burgess of Stratford
for a time. Records show that Gilbert Shakespeare survived the plague
and reached adulthood, becoming a haberdasher, working in London as
of 1597, and spending much of his time back in Stratford. In 1609 he
appeared in Stratford court in connection with a lawsuit, but we know
no details regarding the matter. Gilbert Shakespeare seems to have had
a long and successful career as a tradesman, and he died a bachelor in
Stratford on February 3, 1612. In 1569, John and Mary Shakespeare gave
birth to another girl, and named her after her first born sister,
Joan. Joan Shakespeare accomplished the wondrous feat of living to be
seventy-seven years old -- outliving William and all her other siblings
by decades. Joan married William Hart the hatter and had four children
but two of them died in childhood. Her son William Hart (1600-1639)
followed in his famous uncle's footsteps and became an actor, performing
with the King's Men in the mid-1630s. His most noted role was that
of Falstaff. William Hart never married, but the leading actor of the
restoration period, Charles Hart, is believed to have been William
Hart's illegitimate son and grandnephew to Shakespeare. Due to the fact
that Shakespeare's children and his other siblings did not carry on the
line past the seventeenth century, the descendants of Joan Shakespeare
Hart possess the only genetic link to the great playwright. Joan
Shakespeare lost her husband William a week before she lost her brother
William in 1616, and she lived the rest of her life in Shakespeare's
birthplace. Joan died in 1646, but her descendants stayed in Stratford
until 1806. Undoubtedly already euphoric that Joan had survived the
precarious first few years of childhood, the Shakespeares' joy was
heightened with the birth of their fourth daughter, Anne, in 1571, when
William was seven years old. Unfortunately, tragedy befell the family
yet again when Anne died at the age of eight. The sorrow felt by the
Shakespeares' over the loss of Anne was profound, and even though they
were burdened by numerous debts at the time of her death, they arranged
an unusually elaborate funeral for their cherished daughter. Anne
Shakespeare was buried on April 4, 1579. In 1574, Mary and John
Shakespeare had another boy and they named him Richard, probably after
his paternal grandfather. Richard was baptized on March 11 of that year,
and nothing else is known about him, except for the fact that he died,
unmarried, and was buried on February 4, 1613 -- a year and a day after
the death of Gilbert Shakespeare. Mary gave birth to one more child in
1580. They christened him on May 3 and named him Edmund, probably in
honor of his uncle Edmund Lambert. Edmund was eager to follow William
into the acting profession, and when he was old enough he joined William
in London to embark on a career as a "player". Edmund did not make a
great reputation for himself as an actor, but, in all fairness, cruel
fate, and not his poor acting abilities, was likely the reason. Edmund
died in 1607 -- not yet thirty years old. He was buried in St. Saviour's
Church, in Southwark, on December 31 of that year. His funeral was
costly and magnificent, with tolling bells heard across the Thames. It
is most likely that William planned the funeral for his younger brother
because William would have been the only Shakespeare wealthy enough to
afford such an expensive tribute to Edmund. In addition, records show
that the funeral was held in the morning, and as Dennis Kay points out,
funerals were usually held in the afternoon. It is probable that the
morning funeral was arranged so that Shakespeare's fellow actors
could attend the burial of Edmund.
SHAKESPEARE'S EDUCATION AND CHILDHOOD
Shakespeare probably began his education at the age of six or seven
at the Stratford grammar school, which is still standing only a short
distance from his house on Henley Street and is in the care of the
Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. Although we have no record of Shakespeare
attending the school, due to the official position held by John
Shakespeare it seems likely that he would have decided to educate young
William at the school which was under the care of Stratford's governing
body. The Stratford grammar school had been built some two hundred years
before Shakespeare was born and in that time the lessons taught there
were, of course, dictated primarily by the beliefs of the reigning
monarch. In 1553, due to a charter by King Edward VI, the school became
known as the King's New School of Stratford-upon-Avon. During the years
that Shakespeare attended the school, at least one and possibly three
headmasters stepped down because of their devotion to the catholic
religion proscribed by Queen Elizabeth. One of these masters was Simon
Hunt (b. 1551), who, in 1578, according to tradition, left Stratford to
pursue his more spiritual goal of becoming a Jesuit, and relocated to
the seminary at Rheims. Hunt had found his true vocation: when he
died in Rome seven years later he had risen to the position of Grand
Penitentiary. Like all of England's great future poets and dramatists,
Shakespeare learned his reading and writing skills from an ABC,
or horn-book. Robert Speaight in his book, Shakespeare:
The Man and His Achievement, describes this book as a primer
framed in wood and covered with a thin plate of transparent horn.
It included the alphabet in small letters and in capitals, with
combinations of the five vowels with b, c, and d, and the Lord's
Prayer in English. The first of these alphabets, which ended with the
abbreviation for 'and', began with the mark of the cross. Hence the
alphabet was known as 'Christ cross row' -- the cross-row of Richard
III, I, i, 55. A short catechism was often included in the ABC book
(the 'absey book' of King John, I, i, 196).
In The Merry Wives of Windsor, there is a comical scene in which the
Welsh headmaster tests his pupil's knowledge, who is appropriately named
William. There is little doubt that Shakespeare was recalling his own
experiences during his early school years. As was the case in all
Elizabethan grammar schools, Latin was the primary language of
learning. Although Shakespeare likely had some lessons in English, Latin
composition and the study of Latin authors like Seneca, Cicero, Ovid,
Virgil, and Horace would have been the focus of his literary training.
One can see that Shakespeare absorbed much that was taught in his
grammar school, for he had an impressive familiarity with the stories by
Latin authors, as is evident when examining his plays and their sources.
Even though scholars, basing their argument on a story told more than a
century after the fact, accept that Shakespeare was removed from school
around age thirteen because of his father's financial and social
difficulties, there is no reason whatsoever to believe that he had not
acquired a firm grasp of Latin and English at the school and that he had
continued his studies despite his removal from the Stratford grammar
school. The famous quote by Nicholas Rowe in 1709, in which he states
that Shakespeare "acquir'd that little Latin he was Master of" and tells
us that Shakespeare was prevented by his father's poor fortune from
"further proficiency in that Language" should be read with an extremely
critical eye. As we all know, Shakespeare was a young man when he began
to write magnificent plays that had plots based entirely on Latin
stories, such as the Menaechmi of Plautus, and striking imagery that
was drawn from the Metamorphoses of Ovid and the Lives of Plutarch.
There are other fragmented and dubious details about Shakespeare's life
growing up in Stratford. He is supposed to have worked for a butcher,
in addition to helping run his father's business. There is a fable that
Shakespeare stole a deer from Sir Thomas Lucy at Charlecote, and instead
of serving a prison sentence, fled from Stratford. Although this is
surely a fictitious incident, there exist a few verses of a humorous
ballad mocking Lucy that has been connected to Shakespeare. "Edmond
Malone records a version of two verses of the Lucy Ballad collected
by one of the few great English classical scholars, Joshua Barnes,
at Stratford between 1687 and 1690. Barnes stopped overnight at
an inn and heard an old woman singing it. He gave her a new
gown for the two stanzas which were all she remembered":
Sir Thomas was so covetous
To covet so much deer
When horns enough upon his head
Most plainly did appear
Had not his worship one deer left?
What then? He had a wife
Took pains enough to find him horns
Should last him during life. (Levi, 35)
Shakespeare's daily activities after he left school and before he
re-emerged as a professional actor in the late 1580s are impossible to
trace. Suggestions that he might have worked as a schoolmaster or
lawyer or glover with his father and brother, Gilbert, are all
plausible. So too is the argument that Shakespeare studied intensely
to become a master at his literary craft, and honed his acting skills
while traveling and visiting playhouses outside of Stratford. But,
it is from this period known as the "lost years", that we obtain
a vital piece of information about Shakespeare: he married
a pregnant orphan named Anne Hathaway.
SHAKESPEARE'S MARRIAGE AND CHILDREN
Recordings in the Episcopal register at Worcester on the dates of
November 27 and 28, 1582, reveal that Shakespeare desired to marry
a young girl named Anne. There are two different documents regarding
this matter, and their contents have raised a debate over just whom
Shakespeare first intended to wed. Were there two Annes? Was Shakespeare
in love with one but in lust with the other? Was Shakespeare ready to
join in matrimony with the Anne of his dreams only to have an attack
of conscience and marry the Anne with whom he had carnal relations?
To discuss the controversy properly we should look at the documents
in question. The first entry in the register is the following record
of the issue of a marriage license to one Wm Shakespeare:
Anno Domini 1582...Novembris...27 die eiusdem mensis. Item eodem die
supradicto emanavit Licentia inter Wm Shaxpere et Annam Whateley de
Temple Grafton.
The next entry in the episcopal register records
the marriage bond granted to one Wm Shakespeare:
Noverint universi per praesentes nos Fulconem Sandells de Stratford
in comitatu Warwici agricolam et Johannem Rychardson ibidem agricolam,
teneri et firmiter obligari Ricardo Cosin generoso et Roberto Warmstry
notario publico in quadraginta libris bonae et legalis monetae Angliae
solvend. eisdem Ricardoet Roberto haered. execut. et assignat. suis ad
quam quidem solucionem bene et fideliter faciend. obligamus nos et
utrumque nostrum per se pro toto et in solid. haered. executor. et
administrator. nostros firmiter per praesentes sigillis nostris
sigillat. Dat. 28 die Novem. Anno regni dominae nostrae Eliz. Dei gratia
Angliae Franc. et Hiberniae Reginae fidei defensor &c.25.2 The condition
of this obligation is such that if hereafter there shall not appear any
lawful let or impediment by reason of any precontract, consanguinity,
affinity or by any other lawful means whatsoever, but that William
Shagspere on the one party and Anne Hathwey of Stratford in the diocese
of Worcester, maiden, may lawfully solemnize matrimony together, and
in the same afterwards remain and continue like man and wife
according unto the laws in that behalf provided...
Three possible conclusions can be reached from the above records: 1) The
Anne Whateley in the first record and the Anne Hathwey in the second
record are the same woman. Some scholars believe that the name Whateley
was substituted accidentally for Hathwey into the register by the
careless clerk. "The clerk was a nincompoop: he wrote Baker for Barber
in his register, and Darby for Bradeley, and Edgock for Elcock, and Anne
Whateley for Anne Hathaway. A lot of ingenious ink has been spilt over
this error, but it is surely a simple one: the name Whateley occurs in
a tithe appeal by a vicar on the same page of the register; the clerk
could not follow his own notes, or he was distracted" (Levi, 37).
Moreover, some believe that the couple selected Temple Grafton as the
place for the wedding for reasons of privacy and that is why it is
recorded in the register instead of Stratford. 2) The Wm Shaxpere and
the Annam Whateley who wished to marry in Temple Grafton were two
different people entirely from the Wm Shagspere and Anne Hathwey who
were married in Stratford. This argument relies on the assumption that
there was a relative of Shakespeare's living in Temple Grafton, or a
man unrelated but sharing Shakespeare's name (which would be extremely
unlikely), and that there is no trace of this relative after the issue
of his marriage license. 3) The woman Shakespeare loved and the woman
Shakespeare finally married were two different Annes. Not many critics
support this hypothesis, but those that do use it to portray Shakespeare
as a young man torn between the love he felt for Anne Whateley and the
obligation he felt toward Anne Hathwey and the child she was carrying,
which was surely his. In Shakespeare, Anthony Burgess constructs
a vivid scenario to this effect:
It is reasonable to believe that Will wished to marry a girl named Anne
Whateley. The name is common enough in the Midlands and is even attached
to a four-star hotel in Horse Fair, Banbury. Her father may have been a
friend of John Shakespeare's, he may have sold kidskin cheap, there are
various reasons why the Shakespeares and the Whateleys, or their nubile
children, might become friendly. Sent on skin-buying errands to Temple
Grafton, Will could have fallen for a comely daughter, sweet as May and
shy as a fawn. He was eighteen and highly susceptible. Knowing something
about girls, he would know that this was the real thing. Something,
perhaps, quite different from what he felt about Mistress Hathaway of
Shottery. But why, attempting to marry Anne Whateley, had he put himself
in the position of having to marry the other Anne? I suggest that, to
use the crude but convenient properties of the old women's-magazine
morality-stories, he was exercised by love for the one and lust for
the other. I find it convenient to imagine that he knew Anne Hathaway
carnally, for the first time, in the spring of 1582... (57)
Whichever argument one chooses to accept, it is fact that Shakespeare, a
minor at the time, married Anne Hathaway, who was twenty-six and already
several months pregnant. Anne was the eldest daughter, and one of the
seven children of Richard Hathaway, a twice-married farmer in Shottery.
When Richard died in 1581, he requested his son, Bartholomew, move
into the house we now know as Anne Hathaway's Cottage, and maintain the
property for his mother, Richard's second wife and Anne's stepmother.
Anne lived in the cottage with Bartholomew, her step-mother, and her
other siblings. No doubt she was bombarded with a barrage of household
tasks to fill her days at Hewland Farm, as it was then called. After
her marriage to Shakespeare, Anne left Hewland Farm to live in John
Shakespeare's house on Henley Street, as was the custom of the day.
Preparations for the new bride were made, and for reasons unknown,
her arrival greatly bothered John Shakespeare's current tenant in
the house, William Burbage. A heated fight ensued, and John refused
to release Burbage from his lease, so Burbage decided to take the
matter to a London court. On July 24, 1582, lawyers representing
both sides met and reached an agreement - John would release
Burbage from his lease.
The Shakespeares' first child was Susanna, christened on May 26th, 1583,
and twins arrived in January, 1585. They were baptized on February 2 of
that year and named after two very close friends of William -- the baker
Hamnet Sadler and his wife, Judith. The Sadlers became the godparents of
the twins and, in 1598, they, in turn, named their own son William. Not
much information is known about the life of Anne and her children after
this date, except for the tragic fact that Hamnet Shakespeare died of an
unknown cause on August 11, 1596, at the age of eleven. By this time
Shakespeare had long since moved to London to realize his dreams on the
English stage and we do not know if he was present at Hamnet's funeral
in Stratford. We can only imagine how deeply the loss of his only son
touched the sensitive poet, but his sorrow is undeniably reflected in
his later work, and, particularly, in a passage from King John,
written between 1595 and 1597:
Young Arthur is my son, and he is lost:
I am not mad: I would to heaven I were!
For then, 'tis like I should forget myself:
O, if I could, what grief should I forget!
Preach some philosophy to make me mad,
And thou shalt be canonized, cardinal;
For being not mad but sensible of grief,
My reasonable part produces reason
How I may be deliver'd of these woes,
And teaches me to kill or hang myself:
If I were mad, I should forget my son,
Or madly think a babe of clouts were he:
I am not mad; too well, too well I feel
The different plague of each calamity....
I tore them from their bonds and cried aloud
'O that these hands could so redeem my son,
As they have given these hairs their liberty!'
But now I envy at their liberty,
And will again commit them to their bonds,
Because my poor child is a prisoner.
And, father cardinal, I have heard you say
That we shall see and know our friends in heaven:
If that be true, I shall see my boy again;
For since the birth of Cain, the first male child,
To him that did but yesterday suspire,
There was not such a gracious creature born.
But now will canker-sorrow eat my bud
And chase the native beauty from his cheek
And he will look as hollow as a ghost,
As dim and meagre as an ague's fit,
And so he'll die; and, rising so again,
When I shall meet him in the court of heaven
I shall not know him: therefore never, never
Must I behold my pretty Arthur more. (III.iv.45-91)
SHAKESPEARE AS ACTOR AND PLAYWRIGHT
We know very little about Shakespeare's life during two major spans of
time, commonly referred to as the "lost years". The lost years fall into
two periods: 1578-82 and 1585-92. The first period covers the time after
Shakespeare left grammar school until his marriage to Anne Hathaway
in November of 1582. The second period covers the seven years of
Shakespeare's life in which he must have been perfecting his dramatic
skills and collecting sources for the plots of his plays. "What could
such a genius accomplish in this direction during six or eight years?
The histories alone must have required unending hours of labor to gather
facts for the plots and counter-plots of these stories. When we think of
the time he must have spent in reading about the pre-Tudor dynasties, we
are at a loss to estimate what a day's work meant to him. Perhaps he was
one of those singular geniuses who absorbs books. George Douglas Brown,
when discussing Shakespeare, often used to say he knew how to 'pluck
the Guts' out of a tome" (Neilson 45). No one knows for certain how
Shakespeare first started his career in the theatre, although several
London players would visit Stratford regularly, and so, sometime between
1585 and 1592, it is probable that young Shakespeare could have been
recruited by the Leicester's or Queen's men. Whether an acting troupe
recruited Shakespeare in his hometown or he was forced on his own to
travel to London to begin his career, he was nevertheless an established
actor in the great city by the end of 1592. In this year came the first
reference to Shakespeare in the world of the theatre. The dramatist
Robert Greene declared in his death-bed autobiography that "There is
an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tygers
heart wrapt in a Players hide supposes he is as well able to bombast
out a blank verse as the best of you; and, being an absolute Johannes
Factotum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country."
After Green's death, his editor, Henry Chettle, publicly apologized
to Shakespeare in the Preface to his Kind-Heart's Dream:
About three months since died M. Robert Greene, leaving many papers in
sundry booksellers' hands, among other his Groatsworth of Wit, in which
a letter written to divers play-makers is offensively by one or two
of them taken, and because on the dead they cannot be avenged, they
willfully forge in their conceits a living author....With neither of
them that take offence was I acquainted, and with one of them I care not
if I never be. The other, whom at that time I did not so much spare as
since I wish I had, for that, as I have moderated the heat of living
writers and might have used my own discretion (especially in such a
case, the author being dead), that I did not I am as sorry as if the
original fault had been my fault, because myself have seen his demeanor
no less civil than he excellent in the quality he professes. Besides,
the diver of worship have reported his uprightness of dealing, which
argues his honesty, and his facetious grace in writing that approves
his art. Such an apology indicates that Shakespeare was already a
respected player in London with influential friends and connections.
Records also tell us that several of Shakespeare's plays were popular
by this time, including Henry VI, The Comedy of Errors, and Titus
Andronicus. The company that staged most of the early productions of
these plays was Pembroke's Men, sponsored by the Earl of Pembroke, Henry
Herbert. The troupe was very popular and performed regularly at the
court of Queen Elizabeth. Most critics conclude that Shakespeare spent
time as both a writer and an actor for Pembroke's Men before 1592. The
turning point in Shakespeare's career came in 1593. The theatres had
been closed since 1592 due to an outbreak of the plague and, although
it is possible that Shakespeare toured the outlying areas of London with
acting companies like Pembroke's Men or Lord Strange's Men, it seems
more likely that he left the theatre entirely during this time to work
on his non-dramatic poetry. The hard work paid off, for by the end of
1593, Shakespeare had caught the attention of the Earl of Southampton.
Southampton became Shakespeare's patron, and on April 18, 1593,
Venus and Adonis was entered for publication. Shakespeare had made his
formal debut as a poet. The dedication Shakespeare wrote to Southampton
at the beginning of the poem is impassioned and telling,
"phrased with courtly deference" (Rowse 74):
TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE HENRY WRIOTHESLEY, EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON,
AND BARON OF TICHFIELD. RIGHT HONORABLE,
I KNOW not how I shall offend in dedicating my
unpolished lines to your lordship, nor how the world will
censure me for choosing so strong a prop to support so weak a
burden only, if your honour seem but pleased, I account
myself highly praised, and vow to take advantage of all idle
hours, till I have honoured you with some graver labour. But if
the first heir of my invention prove deformed, I shall be
sorry it had so noble a god-father, and never after ear so
barren a land, for fear it yield me still so bad a harvest.
I leave it to your honourable survey, and your honour to your
heart's content; which I wish may always answer your own wish
and the world's hopeful expectation.
Your honour's in all duty,
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.
Although there is no concrete proof that Shakespeare had a long and
close friendship with Southampton, most scholars agree that this was
the case, based on Shakespeare's writings, particularly the early
sonnets. Shakespeare returned to the theatre in 1594, and became a
leading member of the Lord Chamberlain's Men, formally known as
Lord Strange's Men. The manuscript accounts of the treasurer of the
royal chamber in the public records office tells us the following:
To William Kempe, William Shakespeare, and Richard Burbage, servants to
the Lord Chamberlain, upon the council's warrent dated at Whitehall xv
die Marcij 1594 for two several comedies or interludes showed by them
before her Majesty in Christmas time last past, viz; upon St. Stephan's
day and Innocent's day, xiiij li. vj s. viij d. and by way of her
Majesty's reward...
This is proof that Shakespeare had performed with the Chamberlain's
Men before Elizabeth I on several occasions. As payment for their
performance the actors each received 10 pounds. During his time with
the Chamberlain's Men Shakespeare wrote many plays, including Romeo
and Juliet, Richard II, King John, and Love's Labour's Lost. As G.E.
Bentley points out in Shakespeare and the Theatre, Shakespeare had by
this time become immersed in his roles as actor and writer. He was
"more completely and more continuously involved in theatres and acting
companies than any other Elizabethan dramatist. [Shakespeare is] "the
only one known who not only wrote plays for his company, acted in the
plays, and shared the profits, but who was also one of the housekeepers
who owned the building. For seventeen years he was one of the owners
of the Globe theatre and for eight years he was one of the housekeepers
of the company's second theatre, the Blackfriars, as well" (Rowse 128).
During the years Shakespeare performed with the Chamberlain's Men,
before their purchase of the Globe in 1599, they played primarily at the
well-established theatres like the Swan, the Curtain, and the Theatre.
The troupe would also give regular performances before Elizabeth I and
her court, and tour the surrounding areas of London. Some important
events in Shakespeare's personal life also take place during this time
period. The Shakespeares finally received a coat of arms 1596 (see
"Shakespeare's Parents" for more information on the coat-of-arms),
and on August 11 of the same year, Shakespeare's son, Hamnet, died at
the age of eleven. Shakespeare no doubt returned to Stratford for the
burial, although we have no documented proof. In 1597, Shakespeare
purchased the second largest house in Stratford: New Place. The house
stood at the corner of Chapel Lane and Chapel Street, north of the Guild
Chapel and right across from the very school he attended in his youth.
He bought it from William Underhill for the low price of 60 pounds,
and below is the actual deed (translated from the original Latin)
transferring New Place from Underhill to Shakespeare on May 4, 1597:
Between William Shakespeare, complainant, and William Underhill,
deforciant [wrongful occupier, supposed by the legal fiction on which
the fine method of transfer was based to be keeping the complainant out
of his rightful property], concerning one dwelling house, two barns, and
two gardens with their appurtenances in Stratford-on-Avon, in regard to
which a plea of agreement was broached in the same court: Namely, that
the said William Underhill acknowledged the said tenements with their
appurtenances to be the right of W. Shakespeare as being those which the
same William Shakespeare has by gift of the said W. U., and remitted and
waived claim to them from himself and his heirs to the said W.S. and his
heirs forever....and agreement the same W.S. has given the foresaid
W./U. sixty pounds sterling. (Brooke 21)
Many theorize that Shakespeare renewed his interest in Stratford only
after the death of Hamnet and that, for the many years he was away in
London, he neglected his family back home. However, it is just as
likely that he made frequent yet unrecorded trips to Stratford
while he was trying to find success in London.
SHAKESPEARE'S FELLOW ACTORS
Richard Burbage (b.1567? d.1619)
Richard Burbage is considered to be the first great actor in the
English theatre. He was the son of James Burbage, the theatrical
entrepreneur who built "the Theatre" in Shoreditch on the outskirts of
London, and the brother of another famous actor of the day, Cuthbert
Burbage. Richard Burbage achieved success as performer by the age of
20 and during his career he appeared in plays by Jonson, Kyd, Beaumont
and Fletcher, and John Webster. He also played many of the major
Shakespearean characters, including Othello, Hamlet, Lear, & Richard
III. "It is likely that Richard III was the most popular of all
Shakespeare's plays with the Elizabethan public; it provided a
superlative part for Burbage" (Rowse 130). Legend tells us that a woman
fell in love with Burbage when she saw him play Richard III and begged
him to come to her chambers that night under the name of King Richard.
But Shakespeare overheard the proposition and, as a joke, left the
theatre early to take Burbage's place. Shakespeare was 'at his game ere
Burbage came. Then, message being brought that Richard III was at the
door, Shakespeare caused return to be made that "William the Conqueror"
was before Richard III" (Rowse 130). Early in his career Burbage
probably would have been a member of both Lord Strange's Men and the
Admiral's Men. Both companies performed at James Burbage's Theatre
between 1590 and 1591. We do know that Burbage was a member of the
Chamberlain's Men after 1594 and stayed with the group through its
evolution into the King's Men in 1603. Although his last recorded
performance was in 1610, he remained with the King's Men
until his death in 1619.
In addition to acting, Richard Burbage was also an entrepreneur much
like his father. When James Burbage died in 1597 he left the Theatre
to Richard and his brother. Together they disassembled the Theatre and
built the Globe in 1599. The Burbages kept half the shares in the new
theatre and the rest were assigned equally to Shakespeare and other
members of the Chamberlain's Men. James Burbage also left another
theatre to Richard - the Blackfriars Theatre. Richard Burbage leased it
to an acting company called the Children of the Chapel, but, after they
could not make the payments, Burbage bought back the lease with his
brother and four new partners from the King's Men - Shakespeare, Henry
Condell, William Sly, and John Heminge. Richard Burbage was also a
wonderful painter. Some believe that the anonymous oil painting of
Burbage is actually a self-portrait, and he has often been credited
with painting the Chandos portrait of Shakespeare. Burbage's skills as
an artist were often in demand. With Shakespeare as his partner,
providing the commemorative words, Burbage designed an impresa, or
personal badge, for the Earl of Rutland (1578-1632). The badge was to
be worn on the Earl's shield at a tournament on March 24, 1613 to honor
James I. When Shakespeare died in 1616, he left his dear friend Burbage
money to buy a mourning-ring in his memory. Burbage died on March 9,
1619, and "the true sound of Shakespeare's lines, as he had conceived
them [and] Burbage had interpreted them, was silenced forever".
William Kempe (b.1560? d.1603?)
William Kempe was one of the most beloved clowns in the Elizabethan
theatre. Records tell us that Kempe was an actor with Leicester's Men
on a tour of the Netherlands and Denmark in 1585-86. By 1593 Kempe was
a member of Strange's Men, and theatre-goers and fellow actors were
beginning to recognize his comedic talent. Thomas Nashe declared him
the successor to the great Elizabethan performer, Richard Tarlton. Kempe
joined the Chamberlain's Men in 1594 and acted in many of Shakespeare's
plays. He was the original portrayer of Dogberry in Much Ado About
Nothing, Peter in Romeo and Juliet, and possibly Falstaff. He also
likely played Lancelot Gobbo in The Merchant of Venice and Bottom in
A Midsummer Night's Dream. However it appears that Kempe suddenly
left the Chamberlain's Men in 1599. The reason for his departure is
not documented, although many believe that he was asked to leave due
to his chronic improvising, and that Shakespeare made reference
to this in Hamlet:
And let those that play
your clowns speak no more than is
set down for them;
for there be of them that will themselves laugh, to
set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh
too (3.2.40-5)
Once Kempe left the troupe Shakespeare's comic characters changed
dramatically, indicating that earlier parts were written to fit Kempe's
unique style. Examining Shakespeare's changes provides us with even
more information about Kempe's stage presence. "He was a big man who
specialized in Plebian clowns who spoke in earthly language...Kempe's
characters have a tendency to confuse and mispronounce their words, and
contemporary references to his dancing and ability to "make a scurvy
face" suggest a physical brand of humour." (Boyce 335) Now finished with
Shakespeare's troupe and looking for another way to entertain the people
of London, Kempe planned a wild publicity stunt. In 1600 he danced a
morris dance from London to Norwich, almost 100 miles north. He wrote
his own account of the event called Kempe's Nine Days Wonder. Kempe
returned to acting in 1601 when he left England to tour Europe. When
he arrived home in 1602 he joined Worcester's Men, but he disappears
from the records shortly after. Some scholars conclude that he died
from the 1603 plague in London - the year of one of the largest
outbreaks of the disease during Shakespeare's life.
Fryzer
You said there was nothing comparable in print.
Chaucer was in print.
Tom Veal
it was impossible, according to Mr. Crowley, to publish bawdy works
after 1580, it is obvious that "Chaucer" must have been another
Oxenford pseudonym. Only a royal favorite could have gotten away with
putting such stuff into the hands of the public!
See http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AnS/english/plummerj/chprnted.htm
Paul Crowley
> >>>>I don't think venus and adonis to be any more or
> >>>>less lascivious than much of the other writing
> >>>>published in the period.
> >>>
> >>>More nonsense. There was nothing
> >>>else around remotely comparable.
> >>>Maybe there were some bawdy
> >>>ballads sung by peasants, or in low-
> >>>class inns. But there is nothing in
> >>>print.
> >>
> >>For one: Chaucer
> >
> >
> > Chaucer was active before 1400 -- around
> > 200 years before V & A. He was also
> > before printing, so his work was read
> > (or 'performed') in court, or circulated in
> > manuscript. Quoting Chaucer as backing
> > for your (new) theory (whatever it now
> > states) is like quoting Byron as a guide to
> > 21st century literature.
>
> You said there was nothing comparable in print.
I was contradicting the foolishness
of your statement here:
> >>>>I don't think venus and adonis to be any more or
> >>>>less lascivious than much of the other writing
> >>>>published in the period.
> Chaucer was in print.
Big deal. Chaucer did not represent any
kind of challenge to contemporary culture.
You might as well quote Ovid or any of
the classical authors. The country where
I live (Ireland) went through a period of
intense narrow-mindedness between the
1920s and 1950s -- banning (by a Censorship
Board) almost every modern novel as
'indecent'. Yet the very bawdy 'Midnight
Court' dating from Tudor times was
published. That was OK (in limited circles)
since it was ancient and written in Gaelic.
You promised more of 'other lascivious
writing published in the period'.
What is the next item on your list?
Paul.
Paul Crowley
news:1109824430....@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
> Editions of The Canterbury Tales were printed in 1598 and 1602. Since
> it was impossible, according to Mr. Crowley, to publish bawdy works
> after 1580,
Of course, I said no such thing.
But what's a lie in the mouth of
a Strat? It's as unremarkable as
cold weather in winter.
Paul.
Elizabeth
putting such stuff into the hands of the public!"
I suppose you could call Elizabeth's 'little black husband'
<http://216.239.57.104/search?q=cache:ts_9ZnJU4AwJ:www.elizabethi.org/us/elizabethanchurch/archbishops>
Archbishop John Whitgift 'a royal favorite' since Whitgift remained her
chaplain even through promotions to Headmaster of Trinity, Bishop of
Worcester and Archbishop of Canterbury--I think he was hearing her
confession--but the astonishing thing about the printing of the
'salacious' V & A is that Whitgift personally signed the license to
print.
It looks like the bishops and even the common licensers didn't want to
touch it.
There was an outburst of outrage by Puritans, notably Marston and
Hall's attack on the poet. Whitgift burned their 'satires' in 1595 and
the much expergated versions again in 1598. Marston and Hall identify
the poet as 'Labeo,' a poet-lawyer akin to the 'onely poet' mentioned
by Thomas Edwards and others as the author of the Spenser and Marlowe
works as well as the V & A.
Marston puts Bacon's family motto, 'Mediocria Firma'--'take the middle
way'--in his satire to Hall which as I stated, Whitgift seized and
burned--miraculously one copy of each of the three 1599 satires
survived. Here's Marston's rant against the 'black vomiture' as Hall
put it, of the V & A.
<http://fly.hiwaay.net/~paul/marston/reactio.html>
I think it's significant that Whitgift was Bacon's mentor at Cambridge.
Bacon lived in the Headmaster's house for three years.
There are dozens of witnesses who state that to know Bacon was to love
him--Jonson certainly experienced this after he went up to Gorhambury
to edit the Novum Organum--and I think Whitgift fell in love with Bacon
and became his protector of sorts. God knows Bacon needed a protector.
Thanks for your website,
Elizabeth
Elizabeth
sb Whitgift burned their satires again in '1599.'
Fryzer
> Tom Veal wrote: "Only a royal favorite could have gotten away with
> putting such stuff into the hands of the public!"
>
> I suppose you could call Elizabeth's 'little black husband'
> <http://216.239.57.104/search?q=cache:ts_9ZnJU4AwJ:www.elizabethi.org/us/elizabethanchurch/archbishops>
> Archbishop John Whitgift 'a royal favorite' since Whitgift remained her
> chaplain even through promotions to Headmaster of Trinity, Bishop of
> Worcester and Archbishop of Canterbury--I think he was hearing her
> confession--but the astonishing thing about the printing of the
> 'salacious' V & A is that Whitgift personally signed the license to
> print.
>
> It looks like the bishops and even the common licensers didn't want to
> touch it.
>
> There was an outburst of outrage by Puritans, notably Marston and
> Hall's attack on the poet. Whitgift burned their 'satires' in 1595 and
> the much expergated versions again in 1598. Marston and Hall identify
> the poet as 'Labeo,' a poet-lawyer akin to the 'onely poet' mentioned
> by Thomas Edwards and others as the author of the Spenser and Marlowe
> works as well as the V & A.
Incorrect. Hall satirised Marston (who was "sometimes of the Middle
Temple") as Labeo.
Fryzer
> Elizabeth wrote:
>
>> Tom Veal wrote: "Only a royal favorite could have gotten away with
>> putting such stuff into the hands of the public!"
>>
>> I suppose you could call Elizabeth's 'little black husband'
>> <http://216.239.57.104/search?q=cache:ts_9ZnJU4AwJ:www.elizabethi.org/us/elizabethanchurch/archbishops>
>>
>> Archbishop John Whitgift 'a royal favorite' since Whitgift remained her
>> chaplain even through promotions to Headmaster of Trinity, Bishop of
>> Worcester and Archbishop of Canterbury--I think he was hearing her
>> confession--but the astonishing thing about the printing of the
>> 'salacious' V & A is that Whitgift personally signed the license to
>> print.
>>
>> It looks like the bishops and even the common licensers didn't want to
>> touch it.
>>
>> There was an outburst of outrage by Puritans, notably Marston and
>> Hall's attack on the poet. Whitgift burned their 'satires' in 1595 and
>> the much expergated versions again in 1598. Marston and Hall identify
>> the poet as 'Labeo,' a poet-lawyer akin to the 'onely poet' mentioned
>> by Thomas Edwards and others as the author of the Spenser and Marlowe
>> works as well as the V & A.
>
>
> Incorrect. Hall satirised Marston (who was "sometimes of the Middle
> Temple") as Labeo.
Marston clearly identifies himself with the Labeo of halls satire when
he mockingly declares:
"Ends not my Poem then surpassing ill?
Come, come, Augustus , crowne my laureat quill."
[Labeo, of course, being a lawyer in the time fo Augustus]
bookburn
I have the impression that Shakespeare's long poems--and plays--are
influenced by the vogue for masques that was part of court life and
liked by the gentry. Of the two, VA seems to develop in masque-like
scenes of homoerotic delectation. RL also seems to use the formula
of "procrastinated rape" religious leaders censured, but less
tragicomedy in orientation. That VA was apparently written first
might say something about how well it was received and what RL would
emphasize.
From searching the Internet, I discover masque and tragicomedy writing
lend themselves to satire, and topics such as antimasque, mock masque,
lampoon, and even Elizabethan country farce come up in this context.
If VA, especially, is looked at in this way, I suppose it might be
somewhat comic, even satirical about court masques. To me, some bits
do seem silly.
But if religious attitude was hostile to VA and RL, perhaps the court
was not?
I understand Lanier's study on Elizabethan court masques describes
them as fertility-motif oriented, but with homoerotic tendencies,
especially for James I court, when Jonson seems to have tried to
return to "fertility" again and was himself censured. One study
refers to a "Spenserian censure of Tudor court on moral grounds,"
which is interesting considering how Spenser Elizabeth's allowed
Spenser to starve after his service in Ireland. I had only heard
about a possible satire of her as The Faerie Queene.
I haven't read The Rings trilogy, so can't imagine satire, tragicomic,
or even comic in it, but evidently writers of lampoon and mock masque
did use dwarves and midgets as it apparently does. My suspicions
about a VA comictragedy treatment would be supported if Mel Brooks
would do a lampoon of it featuring characters out of a satyr play. I
wonder what would happen to Hamlet, Othello, Lear, Macbeth if one of
those played the title character without cracking a smile?
bookburn,
Fryzer
Correction: Having perused a few things, i see that the likely source of
Halls reference to Labeo is the poet ''attius labeo'' found in the work
of the roman satirist Persius. Persius uses labeo as an example of a bad
poet.
Following Persius, Hall uses labeo as a generic nickname for a bad poet.
He does not use it as a label for a specific person. The name labeo in
halls satires may thus be variously identified inter alia with drayton,
marston and nashe.
There is no reason to identify labeo with a 'poet lawyer'.
Richard Kennedy
This fellow drops by the tav for a beer, and he stinks like
shit and looks like shit. But that's his job, he explains, he
gives enemas to the circus elephants before they go prancing for the
public, better to clean up in the stalls than out on the runway.
Sometimes, doing his duty, and the elephant doing his, the man doesn't
get out of the way in time, and so his shitty condition.
"What do they pay you for doing that?"
"Fifty dollars a week."
"Jeeze, not nearly enough. You oughta quit."
"What, and get out of show business?!"
Tom Veal
When Mr. Crowley wrote, "If our poet had not been fully mature (aged
30) in 1580, having already produced much of his great work, (and if he
had not the protection from the highest in the land) then he would
never have been able to write any of it", I took him to say that even
what was written before 1580 needed royal protection if it was to be
presented to the public after than epochal year. Evidently I mistook
his meaning.
Am I correct, however, to infer that plays written by commoners after
1580 were free from bawdiness? Were the sort of drama with which Mrs.
Grundy's could not find fault?
Fryzer
Marlowe, Edward II
GAVESTON. Do. These are not men for me,
I must have wanton poets, pleasant wits,
Musicians, that with touching of a string
May draw the pliant King which way I please.
Music and poetry is his delight;
Therefore I'll have Italian masks by night,
Sweet speeches, comedies, and pleasing shows;
And in the day, when he shall walk abroad,
Like sylvan nymphs my pages shall be clad;
My men, like satyrs grazing on the lawns,
Shall with their goat feet dance the antic hay.
Sometime a lovely boy in Dian's shape,
With hair that gilds the water as it glides,
Crownets of pearl about his naked arms,
And in his sportful hands an olive tree,
To hide those parts which men delight to see,
Shall bathe him in a spring; and there, hard by,
One like Actćon, peeping through the grove,
Shall by the angry goddess be transformed,
And running in the likeness of an hart,
By yelping hounds pulled down, shall seem to die:
Such things as these best please his majesty,
My lord! Here comes the King and the nobles
From the parliament. )
Paul Crowley
Yeah, yeah. You wouldn't want to
have any of this on TV before the
'watershed', would you?
Shakespeare was, as we all know,
commonly 'bowdlerised' in editions
after 1818. Does anyone know if that
was done to the works of other
Elizabethan or Jacobean authors?
Probably not, I guess, since even if
they had 'unsuitable material', few
had sales large enough to risk
offence to innocent eyes and ears.
Paul.
Paul Crowley
> When Mr. Crowley wrote, "If our poet had not been fully mature (aged
> 30) in 1580, having already produced much of his great work, (and if he
> had not the protection from the highest in the land) then he would
> never have been able to write any of it", I took him to say that even
> what was written before 1580 needed royal protection if it was to be
> presented to the public after than epochal year. Evidently I mistook
> his meaning.
>
> Am I correct, however, to infer that plays written by commoners after
> 1580 were free from bawdiness?
No.
Without Shake-speare (i.e. Oxford) --
the COURT poet and COURT dramatist
of the 1560s, 70s and 80s, then there
would have been no drama of the least
literary value. In in absence of that
playwright, and assuming that the Queen
had no reason to provide similar protection
to anyone else, and given the energy and
political power of the Puritan movement,
especially at local level, then there
probably would have been no drama
at all -- as was the case in many or most
European countries.
Paul.
bobgr...@nut-n-but.net
> the COURT poet and COURT dramatist
> of the 1560s, 70s and 80s, then there
> would have been no drama of the least
> literary value. In in absence of that
> playwright, and assuming that the Queen
> had no reason to provide similar protection
> to anyone else, and given the energy and
> political power of the Puritan movement,
> especially at local level, then there
> probably would have been no drama
> at all -- as was the case in many or most
> European countries.
>
>
> Paul.
Sure, he's made the same kind of remarks before, but I still laugh out
loud when at his incredibly creativity-hating best. Ben Jonson, for
instance, would not have been capable of working out a comedy of "the
least literary value" without Oxford's example. And how lucky Spenser
was to have had Oxford around when he was. And Sidney--Wyatt and
Surrey having been of no use to any serious poet.
Hey, is it true that ANY European country of the time had no drama at
all? I vaguely recall some penisula in the Mediterranean having things
called plays that, incredible as it may seem to Crowley, preceded
Shakespeare's. Somebody who died the same year as Shakespeare wrote
some plays in Spain, where Lope de Vega did something that line during
Shakespeare's time, too.
Interestingly, I found that Calderon, a little later in Spain, made no
effort to see his plays into print--except for a few "sacred ones."
I've read of English actors performing in Denmark, so Denmark had
theatres and, presumably, home-grown plays. Germany, too. Who didn't,
Paul? Oh, none of these countries had plays at the level of . . . The
Bard's, so, in effect, had no drama. I understand.
--Bob G.
Tom Veal
> Shakespeare was, as we all know,
> commonly 'bowdlerised' in editions
> after 1818. Does anyone know if that
> was done to the works of other
> Elizabethan or Jacobean authors?
> Probably not, I guess, since even if
> they had 'unsuitable material', few
> had sales large enough to risk
> offence to innocent eyes and ears.
>
It takes only a few minutes of research to find examples. "Famous
Elizabethan Plays", published in 1890, is subtitled "Expurgated and
Adapted for Modern Readers". It contains plays by Dekker, Beaumont and
Fletcher, Jonson, Massinger and Ford, plus "The Two Noble Kinsman".
See
http://www.elibron.com/english/other/item_detail.phtml?msg_id=10022101
Similarly, a review of "The Best Elizabethan Plays", also published in
1890, states that "the editor's best service lies in the expurgation of
those frequent and miserable indelicacies which ought to keep these old
plays from being used by many who might otherwise enjoy them." The
plays in question are by Marlowe, Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, and
Webster, completed again by "Noble Kinsmen". See
http://www.elibron.com/english/other/item_detail.phtml?msg_id=10022101
Tom Veal
Paul Crowley
news:1110126660.2...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
> > Without Shake-speare (i.e. Oxford) --
> > the COURT poet and COURT dramatist
> > of the 1560s, 70s and 80s, then there
> > would have been no drama of the least
> > literary value. In in absence of that
> > playwright, and assuming that the Queen
> > had no reason to provide similar protection
> > to anyone else, and given the energy and
> > political power of the Puritan movement,
> > especially at local level, then there
> > probably would have been no drama
> > at all -- as was the case in many or most
> > European countries.
>
> Sure, he's made the same kind of remarks before, but I
> still laugh out loud when at his incredibly creativity-
> hating best. Ben Jonson, for instance, would not have
> been capable of working out a comedy of "the
> least literary value" without Oxford's example.
No, you dope. The institutions simply
would not exist. There would no more
have been a vibrant theatre in London
around 1600 than there was one in
Moscow either then or in 1980.
> And how lucky Spenser
> was to have had Oxford around when he was.
Yep. Although you have to understand
the whole tradition of the 'courtly poet'
coming out of the court of Francis I. Had
Mary I lived (or even Edward VI before her)
the nature of the court would have been
very different, with little or no joy or
poetry, and certainly none of any quality.
> Hey, is it true that ANY European country of the time
> had no drama at all? I vaguely recall some penisula in
> the Mediterranean having things called plays
Except that somehow you can't recall any
names of any plays and remarkably, nor
can you remember any being put on -- or
not that you've attended anyway and,
strangely, you don't seem to see translations
of them in the bookshops, . There must be
a good explanation for all these mysterious
facts somewhere.
> I've read of English actors performing in Denmark, so
> Denmark had theatres
Err . . . you don't have to have theatres
to put on plays, Bob.
Check that collection of Danish and German
plays in your bookshelves -- or maybe the
translations of them, if you can't read
those languages.
Paul.
Tom Veal
drama derive from Lord Oxenford's pioneering efforts in England, he has
jumped so many sharks that he'll probably land somewhere near Sri
Lanka.
Paul Crowley wrote:
> <bobgr...@nut-n-but.net> wrote in message
> news:1110126660.2...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
> > Hey, is it true that ANY European country of the time
Paul Crowley
> Paul Crowley wrote:
> > <bobgr...@nut-n-but.net> wrote in message
> > news:1110126660.2...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
>
> > > Hey, is it true that ANY European country of the time
> > > had no drama at all? I vaguely recall some penisula in
> > > the Mediterranean having things called plays
> >
> > Except that somehow you can't recall any
> > names of any plays and remarkably, nor
> > can you remember any being put on -- or
> > not that you've attended anyway and,
> > strangely, you don't seem to see translations
> > of them in the bookshops, . There must be
> > a good explanation for all these mysterious
> > facts somewhere.
> >
> If Mr. Crowley is trying to tell us that Italian, Spanish and French
> drama derive from Lord Oxenford's pioneering efforts in England, he has
> jumped so many sharks that he'll probably land somewhere near Sri
> Lanka.
It would help if Mr Veal would stop trying
to read things into my words that are not
there. His capacity for incomprehension
appears limitless.
The question I pose is clear: Why, of all
these wonderful works, that apparently
flood Europe, and inform us of an active,
dynamic theatre throughout the continent
around 1600, do we see none -- or almost
none -- in print, or on stage, or reproduced
in any form? And what happened to that
wonderful tradition through 1700, 1800
and 1900?
Or might something special have taken
place in England? And if it did, was it
merely 'something in the English air'?
Paul.
bobgr...@nut-n-but.net
> Temple") as Labeo.
The only thing I've seen on this is what Michell has in Who Wrote
Shakespeare. Any writings you could cite about it, F?
--Bob G.
Tom Veal
being merely ridiculous (i. e., asserting that all European drama
derives from Oxenford/Shakespeare) rather than preposterous (asserting,
as he seems to now, that England had the only worthwhile theater in the
16th and 17th Centuries). I don't know how matters stand in Ireland,
but here in America, we have heard of Goldoni, Lope de Vega, Calderon,
Corneille, Racine, Moliere et al. Translations of their works are
readily available in our bookstores, and readers who care about drama
at all tend to regard them highly.
Fryzer
>>If shakes was passing the plays off as his own
>>then we should not expect
>>a reference to him as bombasting verse
>>because, in such a case, he would
>>not be writing anything at all.
>
>
> We have a reference to him supposing to be able to bombast verse, not
> actually doing it.
As pointed out to elizabeth this is an obscure reading of 'suppose'.
DConsult your local OED. WHat greene says is tio the effect that
shakespeare thinks he can write verse as well as the university wits.
i.e. he actually does write. Tah6t interpretation is supported by (1)
Most of the usages of 'suppose' recorded in the OED'. and (2) by the
wealth of material external to greene that supports the fact that
shakespeare of stratford on avon was a writer.
>
>>No, shakespeares fellow players collected his
>>works after his death and
>>published them. That is why they survived.
>
>
> Where did they get them? Perhaps they got them either from him before
> his death (because manuscripts are not mentioned in his will) or from
> somewhere or someone else.
PLays belonged to the compoany thta produced them, not the playwright.
Given this it is a reasonable to propose that the company retained the
plays.
> It has been suggested that the Globe fire of 1613 might have destroyed
> many of Shakespeare's manuscripts, which, if plausible, suggests that
> manuscripts might have been kept at the theatre rather than in
> someone's personal possession. That makes even more sense if the
> playwright had retired and had stopped writing.
Given that many previously unpublished plays were printed in the folio
in 1623 i think it unlikely many were destroyed by fire.
Fryzer
>
>>Elizabeth wrote:
>
>
>
>>>Re: the actor's 'missing manuscripts,' Jonson
>>>explains that in Discoveries. The friends are
>>>impressed by the perfect manuscripts. Jonson says,
>>>sarcastically, 'would he had blotted a thousand.'
>>
>>>In other words, Jonson wishes he had actually
>>>written the manuscripts instead of pretending
>>>that he wrote the plays. He is Jonson's
>>>poet=ape.
>>
>>You might like to try reading things in context.
>
>
> I note both opinions here on deciding a context, and have committed snippage
> to identify the main points:-
>
>
>>-----------------
>>Contrary to your baseless assertion there is no indication in this passage
>>that shakes was a 'poet-ape'. The reference to blotting a line is
>>*clearly* expounded as a reference to the fact that shakespeare sometimes
>>failed to notice logical errors in his expression (which merely adds
>>strength to the 'strat' case- not that it needs any more).
>
>
> I think these cited errors are not of logic, but contextual. The grammatical
> logic of the statement is not at issue, the psychological behavior
> [verisimilitude] of the character is.
I disagree. The pyschological characteristics of caesar are not evident
from the small excerpt that jonson gives. If the psychology of the
character were in issue we should have expected some background to that
effect.
>
>>>The point Jonson was making, Bob, is exactly
>>>the same point made by Greene in Groatsworth,
>>>that is, the actor was a play-broker who was
>>>fencing the perfect manuscripts that had
>>>circulated in private literary coteries and
>>>as Greene states, he was passing them around the
>>>theatre as his own. Shake-scene (the crow or
>>>thief) was claiming that he was the Onely Poet.
>>>This infuriated Greene as it would later infuriate
>>>Jonson. There are numerous references to a
>>>Onely Poet
>>
>>Note again what Greene actually says:
>>"He supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blanke verse as the best
>>of you."
>>
>>Note greenes use of language here. He specifically says that shakes
>>supposes he is *able to bombast out verse* as the best of the universtity
>>wits. i.e that shakes thinks he is able to write verse as well as the best
>>of the university wits.
>
>
> Yes. Agree. But this is not refutation of the point to which it responds. It
> simply avers that Shakespeare is also capable of a poetic gloss on a subject
> equal to the Univ wags, no?
No, Ms Weir is claiming that shakespeare DID not write but was a mere
ape that fenced plays. Contrary to her point I am saying that
shakespeare actually wrote and that greene avers to this
> What really infuriated Greene was the emergence of this seeming
> rentier-intellectual poet who existed outside the normal [bitchy] means of
> support and commendation for poesy - the university system of gallant
> address, one male to another.
> He takes great exception to it, ostensibly to resent the quality of the
> early Sonnets, but, may we assume from his own /vehement/ comments, an equal
> psychological resentment based perhaps on a sense that it supercedes all
> else in worth, and yet promises more in potential. Jeolosy.
Agree.
>
>>If shakes was passing the plays off as his own then we should not expect a
>>reference to him as bombasting verse because, in such a case, he would not
>>be writing anything at all.
>
>
> You are as prescriptive to what this must mean as your interlocutor! Might
> it not mean that the poet who appears on the surface of things has not the
> same qualities, or ever personality, as the playwright who underwrites the
> structure? Greene does not contend with the dramatic structure as much its
> explication. He contends with the poetical fellow, not the playwright,
> right?
???
>
>>[So whta we have here is shakespeare being dissed by greene, an
>>intellectual snob- funny how nothing changes]
>
>
> An arid group of males. Themselves lampooned in LLL. "Wherefore the love of
> women?"
>
>
>>>There is scholarship on the fact that the
>>>professionally written mss or sometimes bad
>>>copies, gravitated via thieving servants from
>>>private literary coteries to printers and
>>>the theatres. We wouldn't have all the Shakespeare
>>>plays were it not for thieves and 'crows.'
>>
>>No, shakespeares fellow players collected his works after his death and
>>published them. That is why they survived.
>>
>>There is no cogent evidence to the contrary.
>
>
> There is no 'cogent evidence' at all.
Not to dissemblers, no.
> An unlikely-seeming supporter of Elizabeth Weir's point is Ted Hughes, a
> nominal Strat, but of a type; a Rowsian Strat. That Plath and Hughes wrote a
> great majority of their work based on the Work is not in dispute, and the
> character of 'crow' is much developed in Hughes.
>
> Cordially, Phil Innes
>
>
>>>Cordially,
>>>
>>>Elizabeth
>>>
>
>
>
Chess One
>>
>> I think these cited errors are not of logic, but contextual. The
>> grammatical logic of the statement is not at issue, the psychological
>> behavior [verisimilitude] of the character is.
>
> I disagree. The pyschological characteristics of caesar are not evident
> from the small excerpt that jonson gives. If the psychology of the
> character were in issue we should have expected some background to that
> effect.
Your points are here noted - I made another post this morning amplfying the
same idea from this mean and very limited source, and indeed hope to
illustrate it with another post, following a note you have made below...
<>
>> Yes. Agree. But this is not refutation of the point to which it responds.
>> It simply avers that Shakespeare is also capable of a poetic gloss on a
>> subject equal to the Univ wags, no?
>
> No, Ms Weir is claiming that shakespeare DID not write but was a mere ape
> that fenced plays. Contrary to her point I am saying that shakespeare
> actually wrote and that greene avers to this
This does appear to be a dominant perception and interest here in this
newsgroup - ie, the singularity of authorship, and a rejection of what Rowse
proposed in the 1940s, that several hands were at work. I have not
understood from anyone's writing why this is so, or what it means to them
personally. It is of minor interest to me as a subject, and interesting only
inasmuch as cargo-cults are of interest in illustrating varieties of group
behavior.
My own interest in the Work lies elsewhere, and I think it best to proceed
by furthering what is begun in Kosinsky/Kosinsky threads on the subject of
Mac-Beth, and not any concentration on authorship per se, but to stimulate a
somewhat larger and more acquitous question, if I may say so, on what the
Work represented in its time, and in ours.
I will recontinue in a new thread 'The Tragic Equation'.
Cordially, Phil Innes
Elizabeth
It would be an 'obscure reading' if there was not
so much corroboration from Jonson, et al.
The rejection of the Playbroker as the author goes
on to the point of the English Civil War in works
such as the The Great Assizes holden in Parnassus by
Apollo and his Assessours in which 'William Shakespeare'
is placed at the bottom of the list as 'The Writer of
Weekly Accounts.'
That's not only insulting but fitting since the locals
only knew him as a ruthless money grubber who was 'sharp
at trade.'
Lord Bacon is The Chancellor of Parnassus, of course,
and Jonson, who may have conceived of the project,
is the Keeper of the Trophonian Den.
So they weren't buying the Strat party line in 1645,
Fryzer.
Cordially,
Elizabeth
pete
> history's greatest literary works. Otherwise it's easy.
>
> Cordially,
>
> Elizabeth
colored folk make the argument that,
OJ couldn't have made such a mess all by himself.
so, if you think OJ did it alone[or at all?],
it's a mystery. Otherwise, they claim, it's easy.
respectfully
ben j
Fryzer
> Fryzer,
>
> It would be an 'obscure reading' if there was not
> so much corroboration from Jonson, et al.
There is no real corroboration elizabeth. Antistrats have the tendency
to automatically consider any negative referecne to a poet/playwrite to
be about will shakespeare.
> The rejection of the Playbroker as the author goes
> on to the point of the English Civil War in works
> such as the The Great Assizes holden in Parnassus by
> Apollo and his Assessours in which 'William Shakespeare'
> is placed at the bottom of the list as 'The Writer of
> Weekly Accounts.'
Only based on the dubious inferecnes of lawrence-durning.
As you are aware the title page to The Great Assizes lists on one side
the Jurours. Amongst their number is william shakespeare. A dividing
line occurs then there is a lists the malefactors (See here:
http://www.sirbacon.org/apollo.htm). Sir Edwin contends that we should
ignore the line, for the jurours correspond exactly to the malefactors.
Sir Edwin proceeds to show (supposedly) how the jurours corespond to the
malefactactors:
---
"A little examination will teach us that the jurors are really the same
persons as the malefactors and that we ought to read right across the
page as if the dividing line did not exist.
Acting on this principle we perceive that George Wither [Withers] is
correctly described as Mercurius Britanicus. Mr. Sidney Lee tells us
that Withers regarded "Britain's Remembrancer" 1628 and "Prosopopaeia
Britannica" 1648 as his greatest works.
Thomas Cary [Carew] is correctly described as Mercurias Aulicus--Court
Messenger. He went to the French Court with Lord Herbert and was made
Gentleman of the Privy Chamber by Charles I who presented him with an
estate at Sunninghill.
Thomas May is correctly described as Mercurius Civicus. He applied for
the post of Chronologer to the City of London and James I wrote to the
Lord Mayor (unsuccessfully) in his favour.
Josuah Sylvester is correctly described as The Writer of Diurnals. He
translated Du Bartas "Divine Weekes," describing day by day, that is
"Diurnally," the creation of the world.
Georges Sandes [Sandys] is The Intelligencer. He travelled all over
the world and his book of travels was one of the popular works of
the period.
Michael Drayton is The Writer of Occurrences. Besides the "Poly-Olbion,"
he wrote "England's Heroicall Epistles" and "The Barron's Wars."
Francis Beaumont is The Writer of Passages. This exactly describes him
as he is known as writing in conjunction with Fletcher. "Beamount and
Fletcher make one poet, they single dare not adventure on a play."
William Shakespeere is "The writer of weekely accounts." This exactly
describes him, for the only literature for which he was responsible was
the accounts sent out by his clerk or attorney."
---
Now, lets see. I count eight persons discussed by Sir Edwin as
'malefactors'. Which is odd, for there are in fact TWELVE jurors.
Sir Edwin it seems could not inform us how the missing four jurors match
their descriptions (he is, in other words, gilding the truth for his own
advantage).
In any case the correspoondence of the jurours to their supposed
malefactors is dubious. The "writer of occurences" , "the intelligencer"
and the "writer of passages" are all terms of obscure meaning that could
apply to almost any of the jurours.
Note also that William Shakespeare is listed amongst his fellows-
beaumont, fletcher, heywood, massinger- he is in the middle of them- and
what is the profession of them all. They are all known playwrites. WHat
would a "writer of weekely accounts" be doing in such company? THe
answer of course is that he would not be there at all.
Some more from Sir Edwin:
"Turning over the pages of the little book on page 9 the cryer calls out
"Then Sylvester, Sands, Drayton, Beaumont, Fletcher, Massinger,
Shakespeare (sic) and Heywood, Poets good and true." This statement
seems to be contradicted so far as Shakespeare is concerned by the
defendant who says on page 31 "Shakespear's (sic) a mimicke" (that is a
mere actor not a poet).
"Beamount and Fletcher make one poet, they
Single, dare not adventure on a play."
Each of these statements seems to be true."
-----------------
Incorrect Sir Edwin, for if you had bothered to consult a book you would
ahve observed:
Beaumont, Francis- alone: The Knight of the Burning Pestle; The Masqve
of the Inner Temple and Grayes Inne; The Woman-Hater
Fletcher, alone: The Faithfull Shepheardesse; Valentinian; Monsieur
Thomas; The Womans Prize; Bonduca; The Mad Lover; The Chances; The
Loyall Subject; Women Pleas'd; The Island Princesse; The Humorous
Lieutenant; The Wild-Goose Chase; The Pilgrim; Rule a Wife And have a
Wife; A Wife for a Moneth.
I defer further comment on parnassus because as i am unable to locate a
copy of it.
> That's not only insulting but fitting since the locals
> only knew him as a ruthless money grubber who was 'sharp
> at trade.'
He was known as a poet and a playwright. Parnassus attests to this- it
does not refute it.
> Lord Bacon is The Chancellor of Parnassus, of course,
> and Jonson, who may have conceived of the project,
> is the Keeper of the Trophonian Den.
Shakespeare is referred to in the play as a poet. He is distinguished
from sir francis on the title page. He is listed amongst his peers.
You, elizabeth, are walking on treacherous ground.
> So they weren't buying the Strat party line in 1645,
Shoddy baconian scholarship isn't buying it.
> Fryzer.
>
>
> Cordially,
>
> Elizabeth
>
Elizabeth
> ---
> Now, lets see. I count eight persons discussed by Sir Edwin as
> 'malefactors'. Which is odd, for there are in fact TWELVE jurors.
I don't know what you're looking at but I'm looking at the
Plate on page 389 of James Phinney Baxter. The Apollo headpiece
is at the top of the page. The page is split into six sections.
In the middle section on the left hand side are twelve names
under 'Jurors.'
George Wither
Thomas Cary
Thomas May
William Davenant
Joshuah Sylvester
George Sandes
Michael Drayton
Francis Beaumont
John Fletcher
Thomas Haywood
William Shakespeere (their spelling)
Philip Massinger
> Sir Edwin it seems could not inform us how the missing four jurors
match
> their descriptions (he is, in other words, gilding the truth for his
own
> advantage).
There aren't four missing jurors.
> In any case the correspoondence of the jurours to their supposed
> malefactors is dubious. The "writer of occurences" , "the
intelligencer"
> and the "writer of passages" are all terms of obscure meaning that
could
> apply to almost any of the jurours.
During-Lawrence was not wrong because this pamphlet has
at least forty-four pages. Durning-Lawrence is also
corroborated by Phinney Baxter.
> Note also that William Shakespeare is listed amongst his fellows-
> beaumont, fletcher, heywood, massinger- he is in the middle of them-
and
> what is the profession of them all. They are all known playwrites.
WHat
> would a "writer of weekely accounts" be doing in such company? THe
> answer of course is that he would not be there at all.
You're missing the line about 'mimic.'
> Some more from Sir Edwin:
>
> "Turning over the pages of the little book on page 9 the cryer calls
out
> "Then Sylvester, Sands, Drayton, Beaumont, Fletcher, Massinger,
> Shakespeare (sic) and Heywood, Poets good and true." This statement
> seems to be contradicted so far as Shakespeare is concerned by the
> defendant who says on page 31 "Shakespear's (sic) a mimicke" (that is
a
> mere actor not a poet).
>
> "Beamount and Fletcher make one poet, they
> Single, dare not adventure on a play."
>
> Each of these statements seems to be true."
> -----------------
>
> Incorrect Sir Edwin, for if you had bothered to consult a book you
would
> ahve observed:
It doesn't matter what D-L believes--you're quotation above
was made in the 17th century. The writer of Assizes believed
that 'Beaumont and Fletcher make one poet, they
single, dare not adventure on a play.'
Anyway, you're missing the point. These are the CHARGES.
On another page, five or six of the writers above are
CLEARED of the charges.
Shakespeere/Shakespeare is not cleared. He's found guilty
of being a 'mimic' or as in the original Parnassus at
Cambridge, a 'mimic-ape.'
The clever part, for those who knew their classics,
is that Apollo's mouthpiece, the Chancellor of Parnassus,
Francis Bacon, gets to deliver the verdict against his
own errant mimic-ape. I'm sure that evoked a big laugh
in 1644.
> Beaumont, Francis- alone: The Knight of the Burning Pestle; The
Masqve
> of the Inner Temple and Grayes Inne; The Woman-Hater
>
> Fletcher, alone: The Faithfull Shepheardesse; Valentinian; Monsieur
> Thomas; The Womans Prize; Bonduca; The Mad Lover; The Chances; The
> Loyall Subject; Women Pleas'd; The Island Princesse; The Humorous
> Lieutenant; The Wild-Goose Chase; The Pilgrim; Rule a Wife And have a
> Wife; A Wife for a Moneth.
As I said, it doesn't matter what moderns think and let me
add that there is not a lot of agreement in literary criticism
about who wrote what when, particularly when the original
manuscripts were known to drift out of aristocratic coteries
into the hands of play brokers like Shake-scene in Groatsworth
to be given to hacks like Fletcher to be 'overwritten' for
the low tastes of the illiterate public.
> I defer further comment on parnassus because as i am unable to locate
a
> copy of it.
I've got Durning-Lawrence and Phinny Baxter and when I find
Cockburn within the next few days I'll see what he has to say.
> > That's not only insulting but fitting since the locals
> > only knew him as a ruthless money grubber who was 'sharp
> > at trade.'
>
> He was known as a poet and a playwright. Parnassus attests to this-
it
> does not refute it.
There's your near contemporary reference to Shakespeare above.
If you're right, that reference should be on the Strat evidence
lists.
With the exception of the printed title pages, Kathman and
Reedy rely entirely on literary attestations but how many
times have you seen the Assizes holden on Parnassus on any
Strat evidence list?
N-E-V-E-R.
> > Lord Bacon is The Chancellor of Parnassus, of course,
> > and Jonson, who may have conceived of the project,
> > is the Keeper of the Trophonian Den.
>
> Shakespeare is referred to in the play as a poet. He is distinguished
> from sir francis on the title page. He is listed amongst his peers.
OUR Shakespeare. Do you have a glimmer of the Elizabethan
class system? One Shakespeare was 'our Shakespeare.' The
other was the 'poet-ape,' 'mimic-ape,' 'eccho,' 'clown,'
uh--'swine without a head ramping to gentilitie,' 'bore
without a brain,' (plays on Bacon's coat of arms),
'crow,' etc.
Jonson hated Bacon until 1619 or so. Jonson called him
horrible names and wrote a nasty satire (The Voyage) about
Bacon and another poet traveling down the alimentary canal
(the backwaters of the Thames) but Jonson never called Bacon
stupid. He called Bacon the genius that he was.
.
>
> You, elizabeth, are walking on treacherous ground.
Get a grip, This is not academia it's a batty newsgroup
on Usenet.
> > So they weren't buying the Strat party line in 1645,
>
> Shoddy baconian scholarship isn't buying it.
Bacon wrote the Shakespeare works, Fryzer, he's just
a very politically incorrect author.
Cordially,
Elizabeth
Fryzer
I was quoting Sir Edwin he only matches 8 of the jurorors to the 12
malefactors- see the text i quoted.
>
>>In any case the correspoondence of the jurours to their supposed
>>malefactors is dubious. The "writer of occurences" , "the
>
> intelligencer"
>
>>and the "writer of passages" are all terms of obscure meaning that
>
> could
>
>>apply to almost any of the jurours.
>
>
> During-Lawrence was not wrong because this pamphlet has
> at least forty-four pages. Durning-Lawrence is also
> corroborated by Phinney Baxter.
>
>>Note also that William Shakespeare is listed amongst his fellows-
>>beaumont, fletcher, heywood, massinger- he is in the middle of them-
>
> and
>
>>what is the profession of them all. They are all known playwrites.
>
> WHat
>
>>would a "writer of weekely accounts" be doing in such company? THe
>>answer of course is that he would not be there at all.
>
>
> You're missing the line about 'mimic.'
You're missing the point about beaumont and fletcher.
>
>
>>Some more from Sir Edwin:
>>
>>"Turning over the pages of the little book on page 9 the cryer calls
>
> out
>
>>"Then Sylvester, Sands, Drayton, Beaumont, Fletcher, Massinger,
>>Shakespeare (sic) and Heywood, Poets good and true." This statement
>>seems to be contradicted so far as Shakespeare is concerned by the
>>defendant who says on page 31 "Shakespear's (sic) a mimicke" (that is
>
> a
>
>>mere actor not a poet).
>>
>> "Beamount and Fletcher make one poet, they
>> Single, dare not adventure on a play."
>>
>>Each of these statements seems to be true."
>>-----------------
>>
>>Incorrect Sir Edwin, for if you had bothered to consult a book you
>
> would
>
>>ahve observed:
>
>
> It doesn't matter what D-L believes--you're quotation above
> was made in the 17th century. The writer of Assizes believed
> that 'Beaumont and Fletcher make one poet, they
> single, dare not adventure on a play.'
>
And they were wrong - just lkike they were wrong about shakespeare-
> Anyway, you're missing the point. These are the CHARGES.
> On another page, five or six of the writers above are
> CLEARED of the charges.
Have you read the play? Or are you taking advice from a secondary source?
They got it wrong about beaumont and flethcer, but you are happy to say
they got it right against shakespeare- draw your own conclusions.
How about you get a copy of the play and see what *it* has to say.
>
>
>>>That's not only insulting but fitting since the locals
>>>only knew him as a ruthless money grubber who was 'sharp
>>>at trade.'
>>
>>He was known as a poet and a playwright. Parnassus attests to this-
>
> it
>
>>does not refute it.
>
>
> There's your near contemporary reference to Shakespeare above.
> If you're right, that reference should be on the Strat evidence
> lists.
>
> With the exception of the printed title pages, Kathman and
> Reedy rely entirely on literary attestations but how many
> times have you seen the Assizes holden on Parnassus on any
> Strat evidence list?
>
>
> N-E-V-E-R.
Probably because they don't need it.
>
>
>>>Lord Bacon is The Chancellor of Parnassus, of course,
>>>and Jonson, who may have conceived of the project,
>>>is the Keeper of the Trophonian Den.
>>
>>Shakespeare is referred to in the play as a poet. He is distinguished
>
>
>>from sir francis on the title page. He is listed amongst his peers.
>
>
> OUR Shakespeare. Do you have a glimmer of the Elizabethan
> class system? One Shakespeare was 'our Shakespeare.' The
> other was the 'poet-ape,' 'mimic-ape,' 'eccho,' 'clown,'
> uh--'swine without a head ramping to gentilitie,' 'bore
> without a brain,' (plays on Bacon's coat of arms),
> 'crow,' etc.
Only in your imagination elizabeth.
> Jonson hated Bacon until 1619 or so. Jonson called him
> horrible names and wrote a nasty satire (The Voyage) about
> Bacon and another poet traveling down the alimentary canal
> (the backwaters of the Thames) but Jonson never called Bacon
> stupid. He called Bacon the genius that he was.
Well, maybe that was just bacon exercising his irony against bacon.
>
>
>>You, elizabeth, are walking on treacherous ground.
>
>
> Get a grip, This is not academia it's a batty newsgroup
> on Usenet.
Really? and here i was thinking i was contributing to a scholarly online
journal.
>
>
>>>So they weren't buying the Strat party line in 1645,
>>
>>Shoddy baconian scholarship isn't buying it.
>
>
>
> Bacon wrote the Shakespeare works, Fryzer, he's just
> a very politically incorrect author.
Parnassus is *not* evidence fot bacons authorship- at least from what i
ahve seen - they get it wrong about beaumont and fletcher, there is no
reason to think they don't similary get it wrong about shakespeare.
>
> Cordially,
>
> Elizabeth
>
Fryzer
the net:
"There is a mellower spirit in The Great Assizes holden in Parnassus, at
which the scholars of the renascence acting as judges, the great English
poets (including Drayton, Shakespeare and Massinger) as jury, with Ben
Jonson as keeper of the “Trophonian Denne” and John Taylor as crier of
the court, arraign these new-fledged periodicals for perverting the
truth, defiling literature, seducing readers from more serious books and
disseminating poisonous doctrines. The proceedings are narrated in
smooth decasyllabic verse, with many sly touches of humour."
Doesn;t sound much to me like you describe it. Still i'd i'd prefer to
find a copy before i comment further on it... but my library doesn't
seem to have one...maybe the masons have destoyed all the compies.
Fryzer
suspected the Baconian authors have wildy rewritten the thing to serve
their own nefarious purposes. A brief exegis follows:
1. When Apollo endorses Bacon as his Chancellor, the scene is described
thus:
"They all in the Praetorian HAll were met:
Where Phoebus, on his high tribunall fate,
With his Affeffours, in triumphant ftate;
Sage Verulam fublim'd for science great,
As Chancellor, next him had firft feat:" (at page 7).
[I have not modernised the verse]
Note that Bacon is described as SUBLIMED FOR GREAT SCIENCE.
-------------
2. The malefactors are rounded up (for offences against apollo) and
brought before the court. The court consists in part of the 12 jurors.
The malefactors question the jurors right to hear their cases.
It is quite obvious from these circumstances that the the jurors and the
malefactors are not identical.
-------------
3. As I note is 2. the malefactors question all of the jurors. This
essentially involves derogatory comments being made by the malefactors
against ALL the jurors. Shakespeare is not singled out.
--------------
4.It is said (Page 9):
"Then Cary, May and Davenant were call'd forth,
Renowned Poets all, and men of worth,
If wit may paffe for worth. Then Sylvefter,
Sands, Drayton Beaumont, Fletcher, Mafsinger,
Shakefpeare, and Heywood, Poets good and free;
Dranatic writers all, but the fir'ft three:
Thefe were empanell'd all, and being fworne
A juft and perfect verdict to returne,"
Note Shakespeare is desribed as a POET AND A DRAMATIC WRITER and is
specifically listed AMONGST HIS PEERS.
-------------
5. Like the other jurors, the dramatic writers are questioned as to
their right to sit on the jury by the "he who weekly did difpence /A
mifcellany of intelligence". (Presumably this is the intelligencer of
the title page).
[The crimes of the intelligencer are set out]
"Thefe were the crimes, whereof he was accus'd
To which he pleads not guilty, but refus'd
By Hiftriomicke Poets to be try'd
'Gainft whom, he thus malicioufly enveigh'd
Juftice (fayd he) and no finister fury,
Difwades me from a tryall by a jury,
That of worfe mifdemeanours guilty bee,
Then thofe which are objected againft mee:
Thefe mercinary pen-men of the Stage.
That fofter the grand vifes of this age.
Should in this Common-wealth no office beare,
But rather ftand with vs Delinquents here:
Shakefpear's a Mimicke, Mafsinger a Sot,
Heywood for Aganippe takes a plot:
Beaumont and Fletcher make one poet, they
Single, dare not adventure on a Play:
Thefe things are all but th' errour of the Mufes,
Abortive wits, foul fountains of abufes:
Reptiles, which are equivocally bred,
Under fome hedge, not in geniall bed
Where lovely art with brave wit conjoyn'd
Engenders Poets of the nobleft kind,
Plato refus'd fuch creatures to admit
Into his cCommonwealth, and is it fit
Parnaffus flould the exiles entertaine"
Note: All the poets/playwrightes are said to be "maliciously" attacked.
They are all attacked together and are all condemned together for the
same fate. Shakespeare is not singled out in particular. It is true that
he is said to be a mimicke, but that is because he, like the rest of the
poet-dramatists in the passage was being, MALICIOUSLY ATTACKED. The
claims made by the intelligencer are FALSE and/or misleading. Take the
case of Beaumont and Fletcher they both succesfully wrote plays ALONE.
This clearly shows the intelligncer to be a liar (Indeed this is
confirmed in the intelligencers list of crimes: it is said that he
devised false intelligence, cared not who he gulled or who he beguiled-
see page 31)
Note that Shkaespeare is called one of the "pen men of the stage", and
listed amongst his playwright peers.
--------------
5. See here, how the poets of old react to the comments of the
intelligencer:
"Plautus, and Terence 'gan to mutter loud,
And old MEander was ill apayd,
While Ariftophanes his wrath bewray'd
With words opprobr'ous; for it gall'd him fhrewed
To fee dramatick Poets tax'd fo lewdly:"
i.e. they are appalled at such things being said of their fellows. This
further supports the view that what was said was but a malicious and
slanderous attack.
Note that Shakespeare is once again counted amongst the DRAMATICK POETS.
-------------
6. Apollo (NOT BACON) speaks in judgment on the accusation of the
intelligencer of ALL the POET/DRAMATISTS thus:
"The Court was filent, then Apollo fpake:
...
We fhould to thy exception give confent,
But fince we are affur'd 'tis thy intent,
By this refufall, onely to deferre
That cenfure, which our juftice muft conferre
Upon thy merits; we muft needs decline
From approbation of thefe pleas of thine,
And are refolv'd that at this time, and place,
They fhall as Jurours, on the tryall paffe,
But if our Cenfour, fhall hereafter find,
They have deferved ill, we have defign'd
That they likewife fhall be to judgment brought,
To fuffer for thofe crimes which they have wrought,
Thus fpake the Sovereign of the two topp'd Mount" (at 33)
So, Shakespeare IS NOT singled out from the rest of the poet/dramatists.
Nor is judgment passed against him (or any of the other poet/dramatists).
Of course the passage quoted directly above suggests that Judgment
*might* be passed against the poet/dramatists (if the censor finds they
deserve ill). The substantial grounds of accusation against all the
poet/dramatists being that they: foster vices, are not poets of the
noblest kind (not worthy of platos commonwealth), are abortive wits, and
that they are foul fountains of abuses (See Parnassus 31-32). The fact
that shakespeare is an actor as well as a dramatist (for the text
clearly and unambiguously states this to be the case) might count
against him if the playhouses are in disrepute (it was 1645)- however
there is no ground to support your contention that shakespeare was to be
condemned solely on the ground that he was an actor.
---------
7. Some Conclusions
Based upon my brief perusal of Withers Parnassus.
i) You contend that Bacon passes judgment on shakespeare and condemn him
as a mimick and that this was a great source of mirth amongst the crowds
circa 1645. This is FALSE. APOLLO speaks of the crimes of the
dramatists. He does NOT condemn them.
ii) BACON is reputed for being a MAN OF SCIENCE- "Sage Verulam fublim'd
for science great". That is NOT a great poet/dramatist.
iii) Shakespeare is CLEARLY identified as both a (great) POET and an ACTOR.
iv) There is nothing in the verse set down by george withers in his
Great Assizes that is inconsistent with Orthodox shakespearian theory.
v) If anything Withers Parnassus tends to DISPROVE the Baconian thesis
by virtue of the fact that Bacon is counted for his great science- NOT
for being a poet/playwright.
vi) Baconian scholars apparently cannot a) Read and/or b) Are liars
and/or c) are hopeless scholars. At the moment I am favoring the
proposition that they cannot read AND they are liars AND they are
hopeless scholars.
Regards,
Fryzer.
PS. I suggest you get a copy of Withers Parnassus and read it for
yourself. Secondary sources are notoriously unreliable- more so in the
case of baconian scholar-apes.
Elizabeth
> Elizabeth, i have found a copy of George Withers Great Assises.
Very good!
> As I
> suspected the Baconian authors have wildy rewritten the thing to
serve
> their own nefarious purposes.
Oh please. The Baconians are sweet old tea drinkers.
> A brief exegis follows:
>
> 1. When Apollo endorses Bacon as his Chancellor, the scene is
described
> thus:
>
> "They all in the Praetorian HAll were met:
> Where Phoebus, on his high tribunall fate,
> With his Affeffours, in triumphant ftate;
> Sage Verulam fublim'd for science great,
> As Chancellor, next him had firft feat:" (at page 7).
>
> [I have not modernised the verse]
>
> Note that Bacon is described as SUBLIMED FOR GREAT SCIENCE.
Bacon was a polymath genius with myriad interests.
The classical reference is to Bacon as the mouthpiece
of Apollo, the classical god of the arts.
Apollo is not the god of science in Greek mythology (Hermes is)
but the god of music, poetry and the theatre. In some texts Apollo
is also the god of healing and the god of law (the ancient bards
were both poets and law givers).
Bacon is identified with Apollo in several works. He's
called 'Apollo' in the Manes Verulamiani, James I
referred to Bacon as 'my Apollo,' and here's a woodcut
from Peacham's Minerva Britanna in which Bacon, the
shepherd swain of Apollo, is killing the Serpent of Ignorance,
also an attribute of Apollo's sister Pallas Athene, the Spear
Shaker and Bacon's muse (letter, Jean de Jesse).
<http://www.fbrt.org.uk/pages/apollo/frameset-apollo.html>
<http://www.fbrt.org.uk/images/pictures/spear_shaker.gif>
Peacham's reference ties into Jonson's classical allusion
to the 'Sweet Swan/Swain of Avon' in the First Folio mock
eulogy. Wilton, the seat of Bacon's cousins and patrons
was situated on the Avon River. Wilton, not Stratford, is the
locus of the English literary Renaissance. The 'man
Shakespeare' was at Wilton and 'Shakespeare's house,' built
in exactly the same early English baroque style as Bacon's
Verulam House (Bacon was also an architect) is a tourist
attraction on the grounds of Wilton.
The OED shows 'swan/swain' as 'swain' in the early 17th
century and the 'flight along the Thames' in Jonson's mock
encomium is a lengthy play on the classical reference to
Parnassus and the River Lethe (Theobald).
I have to post this in parts.
Cordially,
Elizabeth
lyra
> >
> > Note that Bacon is described as SUBLIMED FOR GREAT SCIENCE.
>
>
> Bacon was a polymath genius with myriad interests.
> The classical reference is to Bacon as the mouthpiece
> of Apollo, the classical god of the arts.
>
> Apollo is not the god of science in Greek mythology (Hermes is)
> but the god of music, poetry and the theatre.
Isn't Dionysus the god of drama?
and Apollo of science?
here's some stuff, anyway...
1. Dionysus
(quote)
under the influence of wine, one could feel possessed by a greater
power. Unlike the other gods Dionysus was not only outside his
believers but, also within them. At these times a man might be greater
then himself and do works he otherwise could not. The festival for
Dionysus is in the spring when the leaves begin to reappear on the
vine. It became one of the most important events of the year. It's
focus became the theater. Most of the great Greek plays were initially
written to be performed at the feast of Dionysus. All who took part
writers, actors, spectators were regarded as scared servants of
Dionysus during the festival.
http://www.hol.gr/greece/ogods.htm
2. Apollo
(quote)
Apollo
Domain - Healing, Music, Intellect, Seer, Archer,
Patron of the Arts, Slayer of the Serpent which went after Leto
(Serpent was originally sent by Hera who didn't like Zeus' consorting,
etc).
Music
Poetry
Philosophy
Astronomy
Mathematics
Medicine
Science
Archery
http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehistory/aegean/amazons/artemisandapollo.html
lyra
>
> Isn't Dionysus the god of drama?
>
> and Apollo of science?
>
> here's some stuff, anyway...
>
>
>
> 1. Dionysus
>
> (quote)
>
> under the influence of wine, one could feel possessed by a greater
> power. Unlike the other gods Dionysus was not only outside his
> believers but, also within them. At these times a man might be
greater
> then himself and do works he otherwise could not. The festival for
> Dionysus is in the spring when the leaves begin to reappear on the
> vine. It became one of the most important events of the year. It's
> focus became the theater. Most of the great Greek plays were
initially
> written to be performed at the feast of Dionysus. All who took part
> writers, actors, spectators were regarded as scared servants of
> Dionysus during the festival.
>
> http://www.hol.gr/greece/ogods.htm
Scared servants??? oh, well...
(anagrams)
Scared?
sacred
cedars
Elizabeth
> -------------
> 2. The malefactors are rounded up (for offences against apollo) and
> brought before the court. The court consists in part of the 12
jurors.
> The malefactors question the jurors right to hear their cases.
>
> It is quite obvious from these circumstances that the the jurors and
the
> malefactors are not identical.
As Phinney Baxter states, the Malefactors are personifications of 17th
c. newspapers.
The Cambridge History of English Literature lists numerous 17th century
newspapers, some with the same titles which Withers may have used in
his satire.
<http://www.bartleby.com/217/1503.html>
Intelligencers (letter writers, not newspapers), 'played a part of some
importance in the earlier Stewart period. They were professed writers
of news employed by ambassadors residing abroad, or by persons of
consequence at home,
to furnish them with a continuous budget of news concerning events in
England and in other countries.' Ibid.
So the Intelligencer in the induction is not The Intelligencer the
newspaper.
In Assizes, The Intelligencer is making the point (on behalf of the
Puritan Withers) that the stage poets have no right to sit in judgment
because the stage poets
are more guilty of scurrilous writing than are the newspapers.
> -------------
> 3. As I note is 2. the malefactors question all of the jurors. This
> essentially involves derogatory comments being made by the
malefactors
> against ALL the jurors. Shakespeare is not singled out.
Shakespeare is the only one called 'a mimicke' but Phinney Baxter
states that 'Shakespeare' was spelled four different ways in Assizes.
> --------------
> 4.It is said (Page 9):
>
> "Then Cary, May and Davenant were call'd forth,
> Renowned Poets all, and men of worth,
> If wit may paffe for worth. Then Sylvefter,
> Sands, Drayton Beaumont, Fletcher, Mafsinger,
> Shakefpeare, and Heywood, Poets good and free;
Withers
<http://www.npg.org.uk/live/OC_Data/images/weblg/4/0/mw57840.jpg>says
that Sylvester, Sandys, Drayton, Beaumont, Fletcher, Massinger,
Shakespeare and Heywood are 'poets good and free; dramatic writers
all.' Since this is satire we must expect sarcasm. The Puritan Withers
has just listed the bottom feeders of English Renaissance playwrights.
Fletcher was a hack, a 'fixer,' for Henslowe, at least one scholar is
doubtful that Beaumont contributed anything but wifely duties to his
partnership with Fletcher.
I have no idea what Sandys wrote.
> Dranatic writers all, but the fir'ft three:
> Thefe were empanell'd all,
'But the first three, these were empanell'd all
and being sworne . . . '
Right off the top Withers states that the 'worthy poets'
Cary (Carey), May and Davenant are empanelled (from Fr.
empanelleur or 'listed') and sworn in as jurors.
I just looked in Dyce and Onions and 'worthy' is used by
the author of the Shakespeare works interchangeably with
'excellency' or 'excellence.'
I don't have Assizes but it looks like the other nine or eight
if Withers is one of the 'worthies,' aren't empanelled or sworn.
It sounds like Withers is saying that the less than 'worthy' poets
either aren't going to be on the panel (lit. 'list' from Fr. 'pane' or
parchment) and sworn or they are going to be challenged before
being empanelled.
> and being fworne
> A juft and perfect verdict to returne,"
The first three 'excellencies' will return a 'just and perfect
verdict.' The other nine or eight if Withers is a 'worthy' of
the 'less than worthy' poets are going to get a grilling.
> Note Shakespeare is desribed as a POET AND A DRAMATIC WRITER and is
> specifically listed AMONGST HIS PEERS.
It looks like Sylvester, Sandys, Drayton, Beaumont, Fletcher,
Massinger, Shakespeare and Heywood--most or all of them hacks--
were not worthy so the playbrokering mimicke is indeed 'among
his peers.'
Elizabeth
____________________________
Fryzer wrote:
> 5. Like the other jurors, the dramatic writers are questioned as to
> their right to sit on the jury by the "he who weekly did difpence /A
> mifcellany of intelligence". (Presumably this is the intelligencer of
> the title page).
That's what I thought was going on.
'The Intelligencer' in this case is a personification
of the The Intelligencer newspaper. Some of the names
at Bartlebys are nearly the same" the Mercurius Aulicus, Mercurius
Civicus. The Intelligencer, the Weekly Intelligencer, the Scotish Dove
and the Weekly Account.
> [The crimes of the intelligencer are set out]
> "Thefe were the crimes, whereof he was accus'd
> To which he pleads not guilty, but refus'd
> By Hiftriomicke Poets to be try'd
> 'Gainft whom, he thus malicioufly enveigh'd
> Juftice (fayd he) and no finister fury,
> Difwades me from a tryall by a jury,
> That of worfe mifdemeanours guilty bee,
> Then thofe which are objected againft mee:
The Intelligence says that he's not going to be tried
by melodramatic poets who are guilty of worse literary
crimes than he.
> Thefe mercinary pen-men of the Stage.
> That fofter the grand vifes of this age.
That's a typical Calvinist Purtian sentiment. Withers was an
anti-Royalist PUritan on the Parliament side against Charles I
in the impending war which would start that year.
>From Britannica:
George Wither, or Withers
(1588-1667). Early in his career, the English poet George Wither
wrote mainly pastoral and love poems. After his conversion to
Puritanism, however, he became noted for his hymns and his religious
and political writings.
The Puritan Withers is speaking *through* the Puritan rags that
attacked the theatres and playwrights. The Royalists wanted to keep
the t
heatres open but Parliament by that point was overwhelmed with
Puritans.
(Ideological history is condemned to repeat itself). Puritans closed
the theatres
for eighteen years--many fell down from disrepair. After the war the
Royalists
rebuilt the theatres.
"Zeal-of-the-Land Busy may have been defeated in Jonson's satire of the
puritan attitude to the theatre, but his brethren in parliament were
increasingly active: in September of 1642 the puritan parliament by
edict forbade all stage plays and closed the theatres."
<http://ise.uvic.ca/Library/SLT/history/closing.html>
I don't know what role Wither's pamphlet had in closing
the theatres but it was obviously published before the close
of the theatres because Withers is PROPAGANDIZING for
the closure of the theatres. After the theatres were closed
Withers wouldn't bother to write it.
> Should in this Common-wealth no office beare,
The unworthy penmen, including the Mimicke, should not bear the
'office'
of jurors.
> But rather ftand with vs Delinquents here:
In other words, if the Puritan pamphets were guilty--and Withers
was a Puritan pamphleteer so he's writing from the point of view of
The Intelligencer--then the playwrights were even more guilty and
should not be 'attacking' the Puritans.
Apparently posthumously since all except Davenant were
dead as far as I know.
> Shakefpear's a Mimicke,
I think that says 'Shakespare's a Mimicke.'
> Mafsinger a Sot,
In Shakespeare, Alexander Schmidt shows 'sot' as 'dolt, blockhead.'
> Heywood for Aganippe takes a plot:
This is a reference to pantomime or dumb shows in lieu of
real plotting. It could refer to 'mimicking' someone else's plots.
> Beaumont and Fletcher make one poet, they
> Single, dare not adventure on a Play:
It's possible that the four named above were plagiarists, rewriters, or
like
Fletcher 'co-wrote' with Shakespeare . Henslowe's diaries suggest that
Fletcher was a 'fixer' of pilfered coerie playscripts.
> Thefe things are all but th' errour of the Mufes,
> Abortive wits, foul fountains of abufes:
> Reptiles, which are equivocally bred,
> Under fome hedge, not in geniall bed
These lines are Withers own political sentiments.
> Where lovely art with brave wit conjoyn'd
> Engenders Poets of the nobleft kind,
> Plato refus'd fuch creatures to admit
> Into his cCommonwealth, and is it fit
> Parnaffus flould the exiles entertaine"
There's more than a grain of truth in it.
> Note: All the poets/playwrightes are said to be "maliciously"
attacked.
> They are all attacked together and are all condemned together for the
> same fate.
No, they are not. Withers exempts Sidney, a Calvinist
Puritan who was elevated to near sainthood by the Puritans for openly
opposing the Catholic Marriage (Spedding found the original
draft in Sidney's cousin Francis Bacon's handwriting) and he also
exempts Carey, May and Davenant and apprently himself.
I don't have Assizes but Withers clearly states that
the first three are 'worthy, empanelled and sworne' while
the remaining eight or nine are going to be examined to determine
whether or not they'll are qualified to be empanelled.
> Shakespeare is not singled out in particular.
'Mimicke' doesn't mean 'playwright.' He's a 'mimicke
poet.' A 'mimicke ape' (Return to Parnassus) or as
Jonson put it a 'poet-ape.' Why do you think Kathman and
Reedy are not putting ALL the Shakespeare evidence on
their authorship page?
> It is true that
> he is said to be a mimicke, but that is because he, like the rest of
the
> poet-dramatists in the passage was being, MALICIOUSLY ATTACKED.
He's being maliciously attacked by the Puritan Withers
in a SATIRICAL PAMPHLET.
>The
> claims made by the intelligencer are FALSE and/or misleading. Take
the
> case of Beaumont and Fletcher they both succesfully wrote plays
ALONE.
The scholarship is sketchy on that point. Bacon, for instance,
is listed as the 'chief contriver' of the best masque that ever
appeared
at Court--the lines are said to be 'as fine as those in any Elizabethan
poetry'--yet the name of Bacon's friend Beaumont appears on the
masque.
Bacon was an official who could not put his name on an
'entertainment.' Plays were then ephemeral 'toys.' Full of topical
references and personal allusions most of which are now lost.
> This clearly shows the intelligncer to be a liar (Indeed this is
> confirmed in the intelligencers list of crimes: it is said that he
> devised false intelligence, cared not who he gulled or who he
beguiled-
> see page 31)
This is a satire. Withers is writing insincerely from the official
Royalist side because the Royalists are still clinging to power in the
Church of England and Withers has to get this past the Censors but
Withers is writing SINCERELY from the Puritan side.
Withers has to hedge his political bets.
> Note that Shkaespeare is called one of the "pen men of the stage",
and
> listed amongst his playwright peers.
He's called one of the 'malicious pen men of the stage'
and that's what the Puritan Withers actually thought of him
and the other playwrights.
Playwrighting was a sinne in 1642, Fryzer.
Cordially,
Elizabeth
Elizabeth
Apollo and Dionysus (Bacchus) are both identified
with the theatre. The Apollonian and its opposite,
the Dionysian, come together to make tragedy.
Bacon identified with Dionysus because he had a
'creative frenzy' side to his nature. He signed
his name 'Bacco' in his Latin works which is
a form of Bacchus. Probably Italian since Michaelangelo
used Bacco too. Here's Bacon pushing a Bacchante up
the hill to Parnassus.
<http://www.fbrt.org.uk/pages/shakespeare/frameset-shakespeare.html>
For the purposes of the Assizes holden on Parnassus
the poetry attributes of Apollo apply since Assises is
a satirical trial of unworthy playwrights.
Cordially,
Elizabeth
Ben Fryzer
> Lyra,
>
> Apollo and Dionysus (Bacchus) are both identified
> with the theatre. The Apollonian and its opposite,
> the Dionysian, come together to make tragedy.
Tragedic theatre was a product of the cult of dionysus.
> Bacon identified with Dionysus because he had a
> 'creative frenzy' side to his nature. He signed
> his name 'Bacco' in his Latin works which is
> a form of Bacchus. Probably Italian since Michaelangelo
> used Bacco too.
Why would bacon sign scientific works under a form of the name 'bacchus'?
> Here's Bacon pushing a Bacchante up
> the hill to Parnassus.
> <http://www.fbrt.org.uk/pages/shakespeare/frameset-shakespeare.html>
Pushing up a Bachinnal up a hill? Hardly.
The book on which the pictrure appears is Bacons 'Augmentis
Scientiarum'. It is hardly appropriate that the cover of that book
should show Bacon pushing a Bachinnal up a hill.
What the picture actually shows is that Bacon's learning is superior to
classical (Greek/Roman) learning:
1. Bacon is pointing to a passage in his work and attempting to get the
Greek/Roman man to look at it.
2. He is not pushing him up the hill, but holding him back.
3. That Bacons work is shewn superior to the Greek/Roman by the fact
that the Greek man holds a small work that is shrouded in darkness;
Bacons book OTOH is large, open and envolped in light.
> For the purposes of the Assizes holden on Parnassus
> the poetry attributes of Apollo apply since Assises is
> a satirical trial of unworthy playwrights.
No. Parnassus is an attack on the new periodicals for "perverting the
truth, defiling literature, seducing readers from more serious books and
disseminating poisonous doctrines" (The Cambridge History of English and
American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).Volume VII. Cavalier and
Puritan.)
As the playwrights form a part of the jury that is to judge the merits
of the writers and distributors of these new periodicals they cannot, by
definition, be 'on trial' as unworthy playwrights.
The right on the playwrigths to sit on the jury *is* questioned
(questioning the suitability of jurors to sit on a trial is a part of
standard legal process). But so is the right of *every other* juror to
sit in judgment.
In any case the attack launched on the playwrights is used to show that
that Apollo measures justice with an even hand (Apollo is, as you
should know from Aeshylus, the god law and justice). It does not show
that the playwrights are unworthy- for no judgment is passed against
them (Indeed the playwrights are generally praised as excellent poets-
they are only named as unworthy by a solitary defendant, who is a noted
dissembler and who has the motive of delaying his trial as reason for
maliciousloy attacking the dramatists.)
Finally Parnassus does not just apply the 'poetry attributes' of Apollo.
Apollos spheres of influence reflected in Parnassus include:
1. Learning, knowledge and truth.
2. Law and Justice.
3. His position as the leader of the muses.
>
> Cordially,
>
> Elizabeth
>
Fryzer
> Fryzer wrote:
>
>>Elizabeth, i have found a copy of George Withers Great Assises.
>
>
>
> Very good!
>
>
>>As I
>>suspected the Baconian authors have wildy rewritten the thing to
>
> serve
>
>>their own nefarious purposes.
>
>
>
> Oh please. The Baconians are sweet old tea drinkers.
Well somebody must be dropping some mind altering substance in their tea.
>
>
>>A brief exegis follows:
>>
>>1. When Apollo endorses Bacon as his Chancellor, the scene is
>
> described
>
>>thus:
>>
>>"They all in the Praetorian HAll were met:
>>Where Phoebus, on his high tribunall fate,
>>With his Affeffours, in triumphant ftate;
>>Sage Verulam fublim'd for science great,
>>As Chancellor, next him had firft feat:" (at page 7).
>>
>>[I have not modernised the verse]
>>
>>Note that Bacon is described as SUBLIMED FOR GREAT SCIENCE.
>
>
>
> Bacon was a polymath genius with myriad interests.
> The classical reference is to Bacon as the mouthpiece
> of Apollo, the classical god of the arts.
> Apollo is not the god of science in Greek mythology (Hermes is)
> but the god of music, poetry and the theatre.
Incorrect. Apollo was, inter alia, the god of sciecne, learning and
knowledge. See for instance Robert Graves:
"In classical times music, poetry, philosophy, astronomy, mathematics,
medicine and science came under Apollo's control. As the enemy of
barbarism, he stood for moderation in all things" ('Greek Myths')
In some texts Apollo
> is also the god of healing and the god of law (the ancient bards
> were both poets and law givers).
>
> Bacon is identified with Apollo in several works. He's
> called 'Apollo' in the Manes Verulamiani, James I
> referred to Bacon as 'my Apollo,' and here's a woodcut
> from Peacham's Minerva Britanna in which Bacon, the
> shepherd swain of Apollo, is killing the Serpent of Ignorance,
> also an attribute of Apollo's sister Pallas Athene, the Spear
> Shaker and Bacon's muse (letter, Jean de Jesse).
> <http://www.fbrt.org.uk/pages/apollo/frameset-apollo.html>
> <http://www.fbrt.org.uk/images/pictures/spear_shaker.gif>
None of this is any great surporise for apollo is the god of learning,
knowledge, science, rationality and the law. All traits which Bacon,
without argument, exemplified. The fact that Bacon was identified with
Apollo is no reason to dientify bacon with Will Shakespear.
> Peacham's reference ties into Jonson's classical allusion
> to the 'Sweet Swan/Swain of Avon' in the First Folio mock
> eulogy.
> Wilton, the seat of Bacon's cousins and patrons
> was situated on the Avon River. Wilton, not Stratford, is the
> locus of the English literary Renaissance. The 'man
> Shakespeare' was at Wilton and 'Shakespeare's house,' built
> in exactly the same early English baroque style as Bacon's
> Verulam House (Bacon was also an architect) is a tourist
> attraction on the grounds of Wilton.
1. It is not a mock eulogy, as i have previously pointed out to you:
"Jonson specifically disavows satire in the first folio dedication:
"... But these wayes
Were not the paths I meant unto thy praise;
For seeliest Ignorance on these may light,
Which, when it sounds at best, but eccho's right;
Or blinde Affection, which doth ne're advance
The truth, but gropes, and urgeth all by chance;
Or crafty Malice, might pretend this praise,
And thine to ruine, where it seem'd to raise."
A. He disavows first ignorance as a means of praise,
B. Then he disavows blind affection as a means to priase
C. Then he disavows crafty malice (that might pretend praise and ruine
where it seemed to raise) as a means of to praise."
2. Swan referes to the poet will shakespeare of stratford on Avon. The
identification is definite because besides referring to the Avon the
first folio also talks of shakespeares monument, located at stratford on
Avon and also identifies shakespeare with the actor, will shakespeare
who came from stratford on avon.
Fryzer
>>"They all in the Praetorian HAll were met:
>>Where Phoebus, on his high tribunall fate,
>>With his Affeffours, in triumphant ftate;
>>Sage Verulam fublim'd for science great,
>>As Chancellor, next him had firft feat:" (at page 7).
>>
>>[I have not modernised the verse]
>>
>>Note that Bacon is described as SUBLIMED FOR GREAT SCIENCE.
>
>
>
> Bacon was a polymath genius with myriad interests.
> The classical reference is to Bacon as the mouthpiece
> of Apollo, the classical god of the arts.
>
[snip]
The point here of course is that Withers notes two excellences of Bacons:
1. He explicitly states that Bacons excellence was SCIENCE
2. He implicitly states that Bacons excellence was in law by appointing
him chancellor.
These are all the honour he accords him. He is not cited as a poet or a
playwright. If Bacon was a noted poet or a playwright, then one could
reasonably expect Withers to make some mention of that fact.
In other words, the picuture that Withers paints of the 'polymath
genius' is precisely the picture we should expect if we take Bacon as
but a LAWYER and a SCIENTIST.
Tom Reedy
"Fryzer" <fry...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:423e2f2f$1...@news.iprimus.com.au...
> [snip]
You by now know, of course, that no matter how many times you show her she
is mistaken, she will never learn. She is capable only of making the same
mistakes and misidentifications over and over again. Such is the nature of
obsessive delusion, a mental (and possibly emotional) disorder shared by all
antiStriatfordians to some extent. It's probably a blessing to them that
they seem incapable of identifying it in themselves. "Ignorance is bliss"
should be their motto, or at least Elizabeth's.
TR
Elizabeth
You're just bitter because you don't have the
Strachey letter.
Cordially,
Elizabeth
Elizabeth
Fryzer wrote:
> [snip]
>
> The point here of course is that Withers notes two excellences of
Bacons:
> 1. He explicitly states that Bacons excellence was SCIENCE
> 2. He implicitly states that Bacons excellence was in law by
appointing
> him chancellor.
Apollo's Chancellor.
What is more interesting is that Withers places the
'greatest playwright' at the bottom of the list of
third-rate playwrights and calls him 'a mimicke.'
> These are all the honour he accords him. He is not cited as a poet or
a
> playwright.
Wither's little pamphlet is not direct evidence, it's
circumstantial evidence. That means that inferences have
to be drawn based on other evidence. Circumstantial
evidence requires 'a narrative' even in a court of law.
> reasonably expect Withers to make some mention of that fact.
>
> In other words, the picuture that Withers paints of the 'polymath
> genius' is precisely the picture we should expect if we take Bacon as
> but a LAWYER and a SCIENTIST.
In one little pamphlet we have the playwright Bacon at
the top of Parnassus and his 'mimicke' at the bottom.
Cordially,
Elizabeth
Fryzer
> "Fryzer" <fry...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:423e2f2f$1...@news.iprimus.com.au...
>
>>[snip]
>
>
> You by now know, of course, that no matter how many times you show her she
> is mistaken, she will never learn. She is capable only of making the same
> mistakes and misidentifications over and over again. Such is the nature of
> obsessive delusion, a mental (and possibly emotional) disorder shared by all
> antiStriatfordians to some extent. It's probably a blessing to them that
> they seem incapable of identifying it in themselves. "Ignorance is bliss"
> should be their motto, or at least Elizabeth's.
>
> TR
At least Baconian websites are a source of constant mirth. Elizabeths
favorite seems to be here: http://www.fbrt.org.uk/frameset.html
I have never seen so much ignorance parading as 'truth'. If Bacon could
see what his 'followers' were doing in he'd crawl under a rock. Talk
about an embarassment.
Fryzer
> Fryzer wrote:
>
>>[snip]
>>
>>The point here of course is that Withers notes two excellences of
>
> Bacons:
>
>>1. He explicitly states that Bacons excellence was SCIENCE
>>2. He implicitly states that Bacons excellence was in law by
>
> appointing
>
>>him chancellor.
>
>
> Apollo's Chancellor.
>
> What is more interesting is that Withers places the
> 'greatest playwright' at the bottom of the list of
> third-rate playwrights and calls him 'a mimicke.'
He is not 'at the bottom' he is in the middle: Beaumont, Fletcher,
Mafsinger, Shakefpeare, and Heywood.
Fletcher and Beaumont were FYI two of the very greatests dramatists of
their day. They were by the mid 1600s more popular than shakespeare or
jonson (see Dryden)
Mimick is a derisory term for an actor. It is delivered by a defendant
who is maliciously attacking all of the playwrights.
Use of the term Mimicke is indeed interesting for it indicates that Will
Shakespear was a POET AND AN ACTOR.
NOte that Withers SPECIFICALLY differentiates Will SHakespear a POET AND
ACTOR from BACON his CHANCELLOR (Who was renowned for science).
NOTE ALSO that Withers PRAISES Shakespeare and his fellows EXCEPT where
he and the other playwrights are attacked by the malicious defendant
whose only interest in so attacking is to string the proceedinjgs out
(per Apollo)
>
>>These are all the honour he accords him. He is not cited as a poet or
>
> a
>
>>playwright.
>
>
> Wither's little pamphlet is not direct evidence, it's
> circumstantial evidence. That means that inferences have
> to be drawn based on other evidence. Circumstantial
> evidence requires 'a narrative' even in a court of law.
Withers Parnassus is DIRECT Evidence that Withers thought:
1. William Shakespeare was a poet and actor
2. That William Shakespeare and Francis Bacon were not the same person
3. That Bacon was renowned for science and law.
>>reasonably expect Withers to make some mention of that fact.
>>
>>In other words, the picuture that Withers paints of the 'polymath
>>genius' is precisely the picture we should expect if we take Bacon as
>
>
>>but a LAWYER and a SCIENTIST.
>
>
> In one little pamphlet we have the playwright Bacon at
> the top of Parnassus and his 'mimicke' at the bottom.
FALSE. (Or worse in fact, for it is a known falsehood told in the face
of the truth, so one can call it nothing but a lie)
1.Bacon is NOWHERE said by withers to be a playwright. He is a
LAWYER/SCIENTIST. CAN YOU NOT READ?
2.Shakespeare is not 'at the bottom' he is accused by a defendant BUT
APOLLO DOES NOT CONVICT HIM. HE IS PRAISED AS AN EXCELLENT POET BY ALL
BUT FOR THE DEFENDANT THAT ACCUSES HIM AND THE OTHER POET/DRAMATISTS.
Apparently Baconians cannot read nor do they have any skills in
comprehension- i am beginning to hesitate to call them Baconians- for
that implies some kind of association with sir francis- who would never
have approved the hopeless dissembling and disgusting lies that they
perpetuate in his name.
> Cordially,
>
> Elizabeth
>
Elizabeth
Baconians have not splintered in to querulous
factions because their facts are not 'hollow.'
Their theories, on the other hand, are not always as sound as their
facts. I would except some of the 19th century Baconians that had
legal and scientific training. And the barrister Cockburn, while short
of some facts of literary history, is superb on the analysis of
evidence.
I don't rely on Baconian 'theory' and I don't call myself a Baconian
because I am wedded to the evidence not to a theory. That is not to
say that Francis Bacon isn't an endlessly fascinating genius if you
like complexity. If you can't tolerate complexity you'll prefer
Schoenbaum or the Ogburns or some other packagers of tidy little myths.
Cordially,
Elizabeth
LynnE
"Elizabeth" <elizabe...@mail.com> wrote in message
news:1111394724....@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
> Reedy,
>
> You're just bitter because you don't have the
> Strachey letter.
Why would you want it, Elizabeth?
Regards,
Lynne
>
>
> Cordially,
>
> Elizabeth
>