The Stratford 'Mythos'
Paul Crowley
news:1174767100.6...@y66g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
>> > This would mean that (for you) we have a historical
>> > first: a theory which is 100% wrong, yet believed (for CENTURIES) by a
>> > huge majority of people knowing of it, including people who have
>> > devoted a great deal of time and study--and writing--to it.
>>
>> There is nothing remotely new in that.
>> Remember Noah's Ark? Or the date
>> of the creation of the universe? Or
>> the fact that the sun goes around the
>> earth every day? Such a list could
>> readily be extended into the hundreds,
>> perhaps the thousands.
>
> Stupid evasion. I'm obviously talking about secular beliefs in the
> sciences or empirical history, not faith-based beliefs in myths.
The Stratford story contains a huge amount
of myth. That is not disputable. But it also
has so little fact that I find it hard to see how
Strats (such as Grumman here) can maintain
that it is fact-based 'empirical history'.
It has all the characteristics of a pure myth
-- a quite unbelievable fairy-story, but one
which its adherents try to make credible.
To make up for the almost complete lack of
fact, all manner of nonsense is invented.
Below are a few extracts from Schoenbaum,
where he refers to 'myth'. A 'biography' of
Father Christmas would ring more true.
So I devote some of my pages to the deer-poaching escapade at Charlecote,
the Bidford toping contest, the bruited amour with Mrs. Davenant, and the other
curious episodes that make up the Shakespeare mythos.
(Schoenbaum, William Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life, page ix)
. . . and Charlecote, seat of the Lucys and setting for the myth of
Shakespeare the Deerslayer
(Schoenbaum, William Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life, page 4
Aubrey's anecdote, however, belongs not to the biographical record proper
but to the mythos: that accretion of legend and lore which comes to surround
the names of famous men.
Legendary heroes have legendary thirsts. If we may trust the mythos,
Shakespeare quaffed deep draughts of good Warwickshire brown ale.
(Schoenbaum, William Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life, page 95)
Much later, in the next century, a descendant of the Lucys reported that not the
Queen but her special favourite, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, interceded to
stay the vengeful Knight from prosecuting a crime punishable by death;
subsequently Shakespeare wrote The Merry Wives of Windsor to please
Leicester. 12 Such belated fancies, products of the myth-making imagination,
need no longer detain the sober biographer; but the essential story of poaching,
capture, prosecution, and flight has come down
(Schoenbaum, William Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life, page 103)
But Charlecote has had to compete with another setting for this melodramatic
episode. Late in the eighteenth century, custodians of the mythos, aware that
Sir Thomas kept no park at Charlecote, shifted the scene across the river to
Fulbrook, two miles north, and midway between Stratford and Warwick
(Schoenbaum, William Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life, page 104)
The first hints emerge late in the seventeenth century, a half-century and more after
Shakespeare's death. We have already encountered Mr. Dowdall, on his way back
from Stratford, writing a letter filled with parish clerk's gossip about the butcher-boy
who bolted and 'was received into the playhouse as a serviture'. 1 The first serious
inquirer has nothing substantive to add: 'He was receiv'd into the Company then in
being, at first in a very mean Rank; but his admirable Wit, and the natural Turn of it
to the Stage, soon distinguish'd him, if not as an extraordinary Actor, yet as an
excellent Writer.2 These statements affirm what we would anyway assume, that
Shakespeare began his theatrical career as a hired man rather than a sharer.
They do not tell us much else.
For the colourful elaboration that gives sustenance to the mythos we must wait until
1753 and the curious relation made in the memoir of Shakespeare in The Lives of
the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland, published as by 'Mr. Cibber' . .
(Schoenbaum, William Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life, page 143)
Shakespear found higher employment, but as long as the practice of
riding to the play-house continued, the waiters that held the horses
retained the appellation of Shakespear's Boys.4
The anecdote is clearly a pendant to the myth of the deer-poaching at Charlecote;
early capitalist enterprise furnishes a heartening postlude to romantic pseudo-
delinquency.
(Schoenbaum, William Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life, page 145)
The mythos adds its morsel of corroboration. In 1865 William Cory, then a master at
Eton, was received at Wilton House by Lady Herbert, who told him, 'we have a letter,
never printed, from Lady Pembroke to her son, telling him to bring James I from
Salisbury to see As You Like It; "we have the man Shakespeare with us".
(Schoenbaum, William Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life, page 167)
. . . my Lord Southampton, at one time, gave him a thousand Pounds, to enable
him to go through with a Purchase which he heard he had a mind to. 31
Although any intelligence transmitted on the authority of Davenant-playwright, poet
laureate, theatrical entrepreneur, and self-promoting embellisher of the Shakespeare
mythos-must awaken suspicions in the wary,
(Schoenbaum, William Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life, page 179)
Rowe tells the story:
. . .His Acquaintance with Ben Johnson began with a remarkable piece of
Humanity and good Nature; Mr. Johnson, who was at that Time altogether
unknown to the World, had offer'd one of his Plays to the Players, in order
to have it Acted; and the Persons into whose Hands it was put, after having
turn'd it carelessly and superciliously over, were just upon returning it to him
with an ill-natur'd Answer, that it would be of no service to their Company,
when Shakespear luckily cast his Eye upon it, and found something so well
in it as to engage him first to read it through, and afterwards to recommend
Mr. Johnson and his Writings to the Publick. After this they were profess'd
Friends; tho' I don't know whether the other ever made him an equal return
of Gentleness and Sincerity.32
The dark connotations of the last sentence evoke the familiar picture of Shakespeare
and Jonson as mighty opposites, with Gentle Will inspiring envious passions in rare and
rivalrous Ben. Such images, belonging to the mythos, will in due course occupy us, as
will Jonson's comments on Shakespeare.
(Schoenbaum, William Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life, Page 203-4)
The mythos, to which we owe so many small pleasures, outdoes itself in the legendary
playhouse encounter of the actor and the Queen. Much repeated, the story achieves
definitive statement in a bookseller's compilation, the Dramatic Table Talk of Richard Ryan,
published in 1825:
It is well known that Queen Elizabeth was a great admirer of the immortal
Shakspeare, and used frequently (as was the custom with persons of great
rank in those days) to appear upon the stage before the audience, or to sit
delighted behind the scenes, when the plays of our bard were performed.
(Schoenbaum, William Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life, page 204)
Attempts to calculate the poet's earnings have produced widely divergent figures. The
earliest report derives from the mythos: a diary entry made sometime between 1661 and
1663 by the Revd. John Ward, who was vicar of Stratford in the days when Shakespeare's
daughter Judith still lived. For supplying the stage with two plays a year, Ward notes, the
dramatist had 'an allowance so large' that 'he spent at the rate of a 1,000 L a year,
as I have heard'
(Schoenbaum, William Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life, page 211)
. . . records the burial of his son Hamnet, aged eleven and a half. His death doomed the
male line of the Shakespeares to extinction.
On occasion, according to the mythos, Shakespeare found solace at the sign of the bush
in Oxford, where he would break the journey between London and Stratford. This wine-
house was called the Taverne, rechristened the Crown half a century after the poet's
death; an unpretentious two-storey house with twin gables, fronting on the Cornmarket,
just a few yards from the High Street, and convenient to the main highway running to
Warwickshire and the north. The landlord, John Davenant, was a melancholy sort, never
seen to laugh; yet his fellow townsmen so well esteemed him that in 1621 they made
him the mayor of Oxford
(Schoenbaum, William Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life, page 224)
Formal records neglect the unsensational events of quotidian life, although the mythos
does now and then gratify curiosity with an informal glimpse of the playwright in his
provincial setting. George Steevens preserves a tradition, plausible enough, that
Shakespeare enjoyed his weekly cup at his local: 'The late Mr. James West, of the
Treasury, assured me,
. . that at his house in Warwickshire he had a wooden bench, once the
favourite accommodation of Shakspeare, together with an earthen half-pint
mug, out of which he was accustomed to take his draughts of ale at a certain
publick house in the neighbourhood of Stratford, every Saturday afternoon.'
(Schoenbaum, William Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life, page 241-2)
The mythos is crueller to John Combe, the wealthiest bachelor- indeed the wealthiest
citizen-in Stratford, who reputedly amassed his fortune by exacting his usury at the legally
acceptable rate of ten in the hundred. This Combe, the tale went round, served as a butt
for Shakespeare's extempore wit. Amongst 'the Gentlemen of the Neighbourhood',
Rowe records,
it is a Story almost still remember'd in that Country, that he had a particular
Intimacy with Mr. Combe, an old Gentleman noted thereabouts for his Wealth
and Usury:
(Schoenbaum, William Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life, page 242)
A tradition so variously reported might, at first glance, seem worthy of credit, but the
doggerel
rhyme itself, so un-Shakespearian in flavour, invites scepticism. Doubts are reinforced by
the fact that similar epitaphs . . . Richard Brathwait included the familiar verses 'upon one
John Combe of Stratford upon Aven, a notable usurer, fastened upon a tomb that he had
caused to be built in his lifetime'. No matter that Combe built no tomb in his lifetime;
Brathwait has the right usurer. But he, neglects to mention Shakespeare. Only later did the
oft-repeated epitaph become attached, through the machinery of myth, to a celebrated
Stratford name.
(Schoenbaum, William Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life, page 243
The mythos ratifies fame after its own fashion. Once again Davenant is the ultimate source.
An advertisement to an anonymously edited Collection of Poems . . . By Mr. William
Shakespeare, printed for the stationer Bernard Lintot about 1709, offers this information:
'That most learn'd Prince, and great Patron of Learning, King James the First,
was pleas'd with his own Hand to write an amicable Letter to Mr. Shakespeare;
which Letter, tho now lost, remain'd long in the Hands of Sir William D'avenant,
as a credible Person now living can testify.'
(Schoenbaum, William Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life, page 254)
These miscellaneous testimonials of the minnows who swam in the Elizabethan literary
and theatrical stream receive confirmation from the mythos. Aubrey, in touch with a living
tradition through the actor Beeston, admired Shakespeare the more because 'he was
not a company keeper' in Shoreditch-he 'wouldn't be debauched', excusing himself
when approached ('and if invited to, writ: he was in pain'). So Aubrey jotted down . .
(Schoenbaum, William Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life, page 255)
Nowhere, one suspects, was Shakespeare's good nature more severely tested than in
his complexly ambivalent relationship with Jonson; ambivalent at least on the latter's
side.12 The mythos fastens upon the rivalry between the two masters. In the seventeenth
century, hearsay anecdotes found a place in the notations of Sir Nicholas L'Estrange,
Nicholas Burgh, and Thomas Plume. These anecdotes (with one exception) show agile
Will overcoming ponderous Ben.
(Schoenbaum, William Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life, page 256)
Ward notes that 'Shakespear, Dray-ton and Ben Jhonson had a merry meeting,
and it seems drank too hard, for Shakespear died of a fever there contracted.'
Ward's report, half a century after the event, must be consigned to the mythos
(Schoenbaum, William Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life, page 296)
lackpurity
<slkwuoiutiuytciu...@slkjlskjoioue.com> wrote:
> <bobgrum...@nut-n-but.net> wrote in message
>
> news:1174767100.6...@y66g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
>
> >> > This would mean that (for you) we have a historical
> >> > first: a theory which is 100% wrong, yet believed (for CENTURIES) by a
> >> > huge majority of people knowing of it, including people who have
> >> > devoted a great deal of time and study--and writing--to it.
>
> >> There is nothing remotely new in that.
> >> Remember Noah's Ark? Or the date
> >> of the creation of the universe? Or
> >> the fact that the sun goes around the
> >> earth every day? Such a list could
> >> readily be extended into the hundreds,
> >> perhaps the thousands.
>
> > Stupid evasion. I'm obviously talking about secular beliefs in the
> > sciences or empirical history, not faith-based beliefs in myths.
>
> The Stratford story contains a huge amount
> of myth. That is not disputable. But it also
> has so little fact that I find it hard to see how
> Strats (such as Grumman here) can maintain
> that it is fact-based 'empirical history'.
MM:
Of course, you don't mention that there are more "facts," associated
with Stratfordianism than with Non-Stratfordianism. Typical Anti-
Strat maneuver, just sweep this under the rug.
> It has all the characteristics of a pure myth
> -- a quite unbelievable fairy-story, but one
> which its adherents try to make credible.
> To make up for the almost complete lack of
> fact, all manner of nonsense is invented.
MM:
Again, this is a typical Anti-Strat spinning, skating, and dodging
maneuver. We are 400 years removed from the truth, so it will be
relative. Anti-Strats might just want to sweep this little tidbit
under the rugh, too. We have to look at the RELATIVE cases,
Stratfordianism vs. Anti-Stratfordianism. Crowley doesn't want to
metion his side, which has even less facts to bolster his beliefs.
> Below are a few extracts from Schoenbaum,
> where he refers to 'myth'. A 'biography' of
> Father Christmas would ring more true.
>
> So I devote some of my pages to the deer-poaching escapade at Charlecote,
> the Bidford toping contest, the bruited amour with Mrs. Davenant, and the other
> curious episodes that make up the Shakespeare mythos.
> (Schoenbaum, William Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life, page ix)
>
> . . . and Charlecote, seat of the Lucys and setting for the myth of
> Shakespeare the Deerslayer
> (Schoenbaum, William Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life, page 4
MM:
Shakespeare the Deerslayer? Hmmm. Uh, Crowley, I just commented on a
passage from As You Like It, in which Shakespeare mentioned that a
hunter had wounded a deer, and the deer had tears rolling out his eyes
into a stream. I mentioned, as a result, that Shakespeare must have
been vegetarian. So, these references have no credibility and are
incongruent with the Stratford Sat Guru.
> Aubrey's anecdote, however, belongs not to the biographical record proper
> but to the mythos: that accretion of legend and lore which comes to surround
> the names of famous men.
> Legendary heroes have legendary thirsts. If we may trust the mythos,
> Shakespeare quaffed deep draughts of good Warwickshire brown ale.
> (Schoenbaum, William Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life, page 95)
MM:
Why not trust what Ben Jonson wrote? He implied that it would be a
better course to be a teetotaler. Course, Anti-Strats will probably
not like to face that reality, so likely, they will just sweep it
under the rug. So, far, you're losing on all fronts, Crowley.
> Much later, in the next century, a descendant of the Lucys reported that not the
> Queen but her special favourite, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, interceded to
> stay the vengeful Knight from prosecuting a crime punishable by death;
> subsequently Shakespeare wrote The Merry Wives of Windsor to please
> Leicester. 12 Such belated fancies, products of the myth-making imagination,
> need no longer detain the sober biographer; but the essential story of poaching,
> capture, prosecution, and flight has come down
> (Schoenbaum, William Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life, page 103)
MM:
Anti-Strats will believe anything? Shakespeare was known as "Pleasant
Willie," and he was most compassionate.
MM:
I'm glad that he admitted that he didn't know.
MM:
I doubt if Shakespeare drank anything in his later years. Read what
Jonson had to say about it. This is typical of Crowley. He will post
all sorts of demeaning crap regarding Shakespeare, whether it has any
truth to it, or not.
I challenge him to post "The Oxfodian Mythos," and post all the
various theories regarding Edward de Vere. Many of them have been
posted here, already. What Crowley is doing is same ol', same ol."
Oxfordians should adopt another course, IMO. Their last course has
arrived at a dead end. Strats have posted recently about alleged
money-grubbing or homosexuality on the part of Edward de Vere. Why
doesn't Crowley discuss them?
Does anyone really think that it was Edward de Vere, who wrote the
mystic teachings embedded in "As You Like It?"
MIchael Martin
Richard Kennedy
Last night I saw a program of recent discoveries in Troy, and along
with the digging up of hard evidence, the Trojan Horse was spoken of,
with some serious speculation of what it might have looked like (like
the slim, square-nosed horses on pottery...?), the amount of men it
would have held, and how it would have been presented at the main gate
of Troy, and what effort it would have been to drag the thing inside,
and how Ulysses and the nimble Greeks dropped from its belly in the
dark and overtook great Troy, all hacked dead from a baby-like trust
following ten years of craft and deception at their doorstep.
The Trojan Horse is part of a schoolboy's history, God bless Homer,
Virgil, and Schliemann, but do serious scholars believe this literary
invention, this figure of storytelling, to be the truth? I'm reminded
of the man from Stratford.
lackpurity
MM:
Your mind must be in a pitiful condition, then.
Michael Martin
hj
> > sciences or empirical history, not faith-based beliefs in myths.
>
> The Stratford story contains a huge amount
> of myth. That is not disputable. But it also
> has so little fact that I find it hard to see how
> Strats (such as Grumman here) can maintain
> that it is fact-based 'empirical history'.
>
> It has all the characteristics of a pure myth
> -- a quite unbelievable fairy-story, but one
> which its adherents try to make credible.
> To make up for the almost complete lack of
> fact, all manner of nonsense is invented.
==> So here we have a recitation of stories and urban legends made up
about Will Shakespeare, made up because he was famous and therefore an
attraction, and we are supposed to jump from their existence to doubt
that he wrote those dratted plays and poems.
==> Can you see my problem? They have nothing to do with the issue at
hand. Did Ireland's forgeries mean WS didn't write? Malone would
disagree. Did the "mythos" disprove authorship? Check with Schoenbaum
before you begin dancing with joy.
==> We are, apparently, supposed to ignore the facts of WS being an
actor and sharer in the King's Men, which produced the plays; of the
works published under his name during his life; of contemporary
statements about him by Meres and many others; of the Groatsworth
slander (or to disregard *that* on the bizarre theory that it referred
to Alleyn); of the monument; of the Folio; of Jonson's private
writings about Shakespeare; of the "stylometric" work -- both
statistical and other -- that shows a consistent hand (not Oxford's!);
of mentions in wills (Will's and other of his fellows) of Kingsmen;
and so on.
==> In contrast what do we have at this newsgroup? Fanciful stories
were later told about Shakespeare; and maybe his daughters couldn't
write. Sigh. I'm waiting for the grain-hoarding issue to be brought up
again. This is so tiring and so useless and so stupid!
hj
lackpurity
MM:
Good post. Many good points are mentioned here. I just replied to
Mylear in another thread, that it is difficult to rationalize the
belief of Anti-Strats. Somebody would have leaked something, some
enemy. Take a recent case, in which Valerie Plame was the object of
"leaked information."
Marlowe and Shakespeare had their Judas Iscariots. They had Robert
Green and Henry Chettle. They (RG and HC) ended up biting the hand
that fed them, but I will admit that Mr. Chettle, apparently,
apologized later. The fact is, much to the chagrine of stubborn Anti-
Strats, that nothing was EVER leaked about the alleged massive cover-
up, nor about any alleged collaboration. Even from Shakespeare's
worst enemies, there was nothing to support the Anti-Strat fantasies.
When you take all that into consideration, especially including the
other points which you made, and which Agent Jim has been posting,
that it just isn't logical that the Anti-Strat theories have any
validity to them. There is nothing to support those fantasies. It
seems to me, that they might as well give up the lost cause. They
just look silly going around in circles, like ships without rudders,
or flogging dead horses, which have already been flogged numerous
times, and they are STILL DEAD.
Michael Martin
Jim KQKnave
"Richard Kennedy" <kenned...@charter.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> The Trojan Horse is part of a schoolboy's history, God bless Homer,
> Virgil, and Schliemann, but do serious scholars believe this literary
> invention, this figure of storytelling, to be the truth? I'm reminded
> of the man from Stratford.
Why? There is far more factual information about
Shakespeare. See for example:
http://www.shakespeareauthorship.com
and:
Here is just some of the evidence which demonstrates
that William Shakespeare of Stratford is the author
of the works attributed to him:
His name on over forty title pages; his monument in Stratford,
which quite clearly states that he is a writer, and compares
his art to Virgil's;
IVDICIO PYLIVM, GENIO SOCRATEM, ARTE MARONEM,
TERRA TEGIT, POPVLVS MAERET, OLYMPVS HABET.
("In judgement a Nestor, in wit a Socrates, in
art a Virgil; the earth buries him, the people
mourn him, Olympus possesses him")
STAY PASSENGER, WHY GOEST THOV BY SO FAST,
READ IF THOV GANST, WHOM ENVIOVS DEATH HATH PLAST
WITH IN THIS MONVMENT SHAKSPEARE: WITH WHOME,
QVICK NATVRE DIDE WHOSE NAME, DOTH DECK YS TOMBE,
FAR MORE, THEN COST: SIEH ALL, YT HE HATH WRITT,
LEAVES LIVING ART, BVT PAGE, TO SERVE HIS WITT.
("SIEH" is a typo for "Sith")
Robert Greene's attack on Shakespeare in Greene's Groatsworth
of Wit (1592), where he paraphrases a play by Shakespeare while
referring to "Shake-scene", a clear pun on his name; the
Parnassus plays (1598-1601), where Shakespeare is mentioned by name
and Venus and Adonis and Romeo & Juliet are parodied, and
where Shakespeare is said to have "put them [university playwrights]
all down, aye, and Ben Jonson too"; Gabriel Harvey (nlt 1603), who said
"The younger sort takes much delight in Shakespeares Venus, &
Adonis: but his Lucrece, & his tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of
Denmarke, have it in them, to please the wiser sort," and who
called Shakespeare "one of our florishing metricians;" and
Francis Meres (1598), who said "...so the English tongue is mightily
enriched, and gorgeously invested in rare ornaments and
resplendent abiliments by sir Philip Sidney, Spencer, Daniel,
Drayton, Warner, Shakespeare, Marlow and Chapman...."
[notice that he distinguishes between Marlowe and Shakespeare
and mentions Oxenforde separately in another section as well]
and who also said that Shakespeare was one of England's
"best Lyrick Poets" and "our best for tragedie" and among the
"best Poets for Comedy" and "the most passionate among us
to bewaile and bemoane the perplexities of Love;" and
Francis Beaumont (1608), who said "...here I would let slippe/
(If I had any in mee) schollershippe,/ And from all Learning keepe
these lines as cleere/ as Shakespeare's best are, which our
heires shall heare/ Preachers apte to their auditors to showe/
how farre sometimes a mortall man may goe/ by the dimme
light of Nature...;"
In 1604 appeared Antony Scolloker's "Diaphantus; or, the
Passions of Love." In his preface, telling us what an epistle
to the reader should be, Scolloker writes: "It should be like
the Never-too-well read Arcadia, where the Prose and verce
(Matters and Words) are like his Mistresses eyes, one still
excelling another and without Co-rivall: or to come home to
the vulgars Element, like Friendly Shakespeare's Tragedies,
where the Commedian rides, when the Tragedian stands on
tip-toe: Faith it should please all, like Prince Hamlet."
It's difficult to see how Scolloker could refer to Shakespeare as
"friendly" unless he knew him personally.
The source of the following quotation is
http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~ahnelson/price.html:
"a letter survives in the hand of Leonard Digges, who in 1613
compared the sonnets of Lope de Vega to those of "our Will Shakespeare"
- notice the use of the familiar "Will" by a close neighbor of Shakespeare's
in both Aldermarston and in London....Leonard Digges was the step-son
(from 1603) of Thomas Russell, a man who was not only a neighbor of
Shakespeare's both in London and in Stratford, but whom Shakespeare
remembered in his will, and indeed appointed one of the two overseers of
his will."
In addition:
That Jonson was acquainted with Shakespeare
personally is indisputable: Shakespeare's name
appears on the list of players who acted in
"Every Man in His Humour", and Jonson's
extended comments upon Shakespeare in his
"Timber" (see below) are proof of that: he
says that Shakespeare was "(indeed) honest,
and of an open, and free nature:" and that
he "loved the man". Jonson, moreover, was
familiar with many of the nobility and gentleman
of his time due to his close associations with
the court of King James, and would certainly
have heard any rumours involving the Earl
of Oxenforde if there had been any related
to playwrighting.
Jonson's comments on his contemporaries were
typically a mix of praise and censure. Here
are some examples from "Conversations with
William Drummond":
"Samuel Daniel was a good honest man, had no
children: but no poet."
"That Michael Drayton's Poly-Olbion (if he had
performed what he promised to write, the deeds
of all the worthies) had been excellent: his
long verses pleased him not."
"He esteemeth John Donne the first poet in the
world, in some things: his verses of the lost
chain he hath by heart; and that passage of
'The Calm', that dust and feathers do not stir,
all was so quiet. Affirmeth Donne to have written
all his best pieces ere he was twenty-five
years old."
And many more. His comment on Shakespeare in
these conversations is quite typical:
"Shakespeare, in a play, brought in a number of men
saying they had suffered shipwreck in Bohemia, where there
is no sea near by some 100 miles."
In "Timber: or Discoveries", Jonson again mixes
criticism with praise:
"De Shakespeare Nostrat
I remember, the players have often
mentioned it as an honour to Shakespeare, that
in his writing (whatsoever he penned) he never
blotted out line. My answer hath been, would
he had blotted a thousand. Which they thought
a malevolent speech. I had not told posterity
this, but for their ignorance, who choose that
circumstance to commend their friend by,
wherein he most faulted. And to justify mine
own candour (for I loved the man, and do honour
his memory - on this side idolatry - as
much as any). He was (indeed) honest, and of
an open, and free nature: had an excellent
fancy; brave notions, and gentle expressions:
wherein he flowed with that facility, that
sometime it was necessary he should be
stopped: sufflaminandus erat; as Augustus said
of Haterius. His wit was in his own power;
would the rule of it had been so too. Many
times he fell into those things, could not escape
laughter: as when he said in the person of
Caesar, one speaking to him; "Caesar, thou
dost me wrong'. He replied: 'Caesar did never
wrong, but with just cause': and such like;
which were ridiculous. But he redeemed his
vices, with his virtues. There was ever more in
him to be praised, than to be pardoned."
Jonson clearly doesn't feel that the portrait
in the Folio does Shakespeare any justice
as far as portraying his wit, as his little poem
shows:
"This Figure, that thou here seest put,
It was for gentle Shakespeare cut,
Wherein the Graver had a strife
with Nature, to out-doo the life :
O, could he but have drawne his wit
As well in brasse, as he hath hit
His face ; the Print would then surpasse
All, that was ever writ in brasse.
But, since he cannot, Reader, looke
Not on his Picture, but his Booke."
And finally, Jonson's masterful eulogy
for Shakespeare, where he seems to be
quite convinced that the man who acted in
his plays was a better playwright than
Marlowe, and worthy of Euripides and
Sophocles. Notice that he calls Shakespeare
the "sweet swan of Avon", not the "tempestuous
tin-miner of tuxbury" or some such:
"TO THE MEMORY OF MY BELOVED THE AUTHOR,
MR. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, AND WHAT HE
HATH LEFT US.
To draw no envy, Shakespeare, on thy name,
Am I thus ample to thy book and fame;
While I confess thy writings to be such
As neither man nor muse can praise too much;
'Tis true, and all men's suffrage. But these ways
Were not the paths I meant unto thy praise;
For seeliest ignorance on these may light,
Which, when it sounds at best, but echoes right;
Or blind affection, which doth ne'er advance
The truth, but gropes, and urgeth all by chance;
Or crafty malice might pretend this praise,
And think to ruin, where it seem'd to raise.
These are, as some infamous bawd or whore
Should praise a matron; what could hurt her more?
But thou art proof against them, and indeed,
Above th' ill fortune of them, or the need.
I therefore will begin. Soul of the age!
The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage!
My Shakespeare, rise! I will not lodge thee by
Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie
A little further, to make thee a room:
Thou art a monument without a tomb,
And art alive still while thy book doth live
And we have wits to read and praise to give.
That I not mix thee so, my brain excuses,
I mean with great, but disproportion'd Muses,
For if I thought my judgment were of years,
I should commit thee surely with thy peers,
And tell how far thou didst our Lyly outshine,
Or sporting Kyd, or Marlowe's mighty line.
And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek,
>From thence to honour thee, I would not seek
For names; but call forth thund'ring Aeschylus,
Euripides and Sophocles to us;
Pacuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead,
To life again, to hear thy buskin tread,
And shake a stage; or, when thy socks were on,
Leave thee alone for the comparison
Of all that insolent Greece or haughty Rome
Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come.
Triumph, my Britain, thou hast one to show
To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe.
He was not of an age but for all time!
And all the Muses still were in their prime,
When, like Apollo, he came forth to warm
Our ears, or like a Mercury to charm!
Nature herself was proud of his designs
And joy'd to wear the dressing of his lines,
Which were so richly spun, and woven so fit,
As, since, she will vouchsafe no other wit.
The merry Greek, tart Aristophanes,
Neat Terence, witty Plautus, now not please,
But antiquated and deserted lie,
As they were not of Nature's family.
Yet must I not give Nature all: thy art,
My gentle Shakespeare, must enjoy a part.
For though the poet's matter nature be,
His art doth give the fashion; and, that he
Who casts to write a living line, must sweat,
(Such as thine are) and strike the second heat
Upon the Muses' anvil; turn the same
(And himself with it) that he thinks to frame,
Or, for the laurel, he may gain a scorn;
For a good poet's made, as well as born;
And such wert thou. Look how the father's face
Lives in his issue, even so the race
Of Shakespeare's mind and manners brightly shines
In his well-turned, and true-filed lines;
In each of which he seems to shake a lance,
As brandish'd at the eyes of ignorance.
Sweet Swan of Avon! what a sight it were
To see thee in our waters yet appear,
And make those flights upon the banks of Thames,
That so did take Eliza and our James!
But stay, I see thee in the hemisphere
Advanc'd, and made a constellation there!
Shine forth, thou star of poets, and with rage
Or influence, chide or cheer the drooping stage;
Which, since thy flight from hence, hath mourn'd like night,
And despairs day, but for thy volume's light."
On the other hand, here is how the Earl of Oxenforde
sounded (http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~ahnelson):
Oxford to Burghley; [30 October 1584] (W247-8;F320-1,332).
(In hand of amanuensis)
It is not vnknowne to your Lordship that I haue entred into a
greate nomber of bondes to suche, as haue purchasyd landes
of me, to discharge them of all Incombraunces: And bycause
I stande indebtid vnto her Maiestie (as your Lordship knowythe)
many of ye said purchasers do greatly feare somme troble likely
to fall vppon them, by reason of her Maiestyes said debt, &
espesially if the Bondes of ye Lord Darcy and Sir William Walgraue
should be extendyd for the same, who haue two seuerall statutes
of great sommes for their discharge Wheruppon [diu] many of ye
said purchasers haue ben suters vnto me to procuer the discharginge
of her Maiestyes said Debt, and do seme very willinge to beare the
burden therof, yf by my meanes the same might be stalled paiable
at some convenyent dayes / I haue therfore thought good to
acquaynte your Lordship with this their suyte, requierynge moste
earnestly your Lordships furtheraunce in this behalfe, wherby I
shalbe vnburdened of a greate care, which I haue for the savynge
of my honor, And shall by this meanes also vnburden my wyves
Ioincture of yat charge which might happen herafter to be ymposyd
vppon ye same, yf god should call your Lordship and me away before her. /
(Oxford's hand takes over)
Yowre Lordships
(signed) Edward Oxenford (sec. f; 4+7)
Doesn't sound much like Shakespeare, does he? In fact he seems
to be the very business man that Oxfordians like to claim William
Shakespeare must have been, which I find to be...well, ironic. Are
there any letters in Shakespeare's hand showing him to be
as interested in money and tin mining as Oxenforde's letters show?
No. In fact, the only document in Shakespeare's hand is part of
a play, ("Sir Thomas More") in his style, typical of his concerns
and in every way consistent with what we know about William
Shakespeare's writing.
As for Shakespeare not having the proper background to be
the author, he was the son of a middle class homeowner,
like most great writers past and present. For example, here
are most of the records related to John Shakespeare, William's
father. Even at the end of his life, his estate was valued at
500 pounds, an enormous sum at a time when 40 pounds could
purchase a house with land. Shakespeare's family was in
fact a good deal better off than either Marlowe's family
or Ben Jonson's (sons of a shoemaker and bricklayer, respectively):
1556 - purchased an estate with garden and croft in
Greenhill street
1556 - purchased a house with garden in Henley street.
1556 - chosen as one of two "ale-tasters" (inspector of
bread and beer makers)
1558 - sworn in as constable
1559 - witnessing the minutes of the Leet as an afeeror,
and appointed one of the town's 14 burgesses.
~1560-62 Inherited his father's property and either gave
or sold it to his brother-in-law.
1565 - Elected alderman
1568 - Elected bailiff*
1571 - Elected chief alderman and deputy to the new bailiff
1572 - Along with the bailiff, rode to London together on
borough business, with permission from the aldermen
and burgesses to proceed 'according to their discretions'.
1572 - awarded 50 pounds by a court for money owed to him
1575 - Bought two houses with garden and orchard for 40 pounds
1578 - raised 40 pounds by mortgaging a house and 56 acres in
Wilmcote that he owned. (He was unable to pay the
mortgage on time and lost the land).
~1580 - Paid the bail of Michael Price (10 pounds)
~1580 - Forfeited a bond of 10 pounds on behalf of a debt
incurred by his brother Henry. Escaped jail because
a friend (Alderman Hill) paid his bail.
1582 - Petitioned for sureties of the peace against 4 men,
one of whom was the bailiff, for 'fear of death
and mutilation of his limbs'. This may or may not
have had something to do with his financial troubles.
Before 1590 - sold the house on Greenhill street.
1592 - Twice called on to assist in making inventories of
deceased neighbors.
1596 - The grant of his coat-of-arms notes that he has
"land and tenements of good wealth and substance"
worth 500 pounds.
1597 - sold small plot of land (one-half yard by 28 yards)
at the Henley street property for 50 shillings
(equal to about 100 days pay for an artisan).
At about the same time he also sold a 17 by 17
foot piece of land on Henley street.
1601 - Richard Quiney rode to London to plead the borough's
cause, listing on a document the names of John
Shakespeare and other town worthies to the effect
that he (Quiney) was able to speak on behalf of
the borough.
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
Jim KQKnave <kqknave
"Richard Kennedy" <kenned...@charter.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> Virgil, and Schliemann, but do serious scholars believe this literary
> invention, this figure of storytelling, to be the truth? I'm reminded
> of the man from Stratford.
Why? There is far more factual information about
Paul Crowley
news:1175005276.6...@p77g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...
>> The Stratford story contains a huge amount
>> of myth. That is not disputable. But it also
>> has so little fact that I find it hard to see how
>> Strats (such as Grumman here) can maintain
>> that it is fact-based 'empirical history'.
>>
>> It has all the characteristics of a pure myth
>> -- a quite unbelievable fairy-story, but one
>> which its adherents try to make credible.
>> To make up for the almost complete lack of
>> fact, all manner of nonsense is invented.
>
> ==> So here we have a recitation of stories and urban legends made up
> about Will Shakespeare, made up because he was famous and therefore an
> attraction, and we are supposed to jump from their existence to doubt
> that he wrote those dratted plays and poems.
For which other famous person -- since
Early Modern times -- have an equivalent
number of "stories and urban legends"
been made up?
For which other famous person does the
quantity of "mythos" so vastly outweigh
the number of historically sound records?
> ==> Can you see my problem? They have nothing to do with the issue at
> hand. Did Ireland's forgeries mean WS didn't write? Malone would
> disagree. Did the "mythos" disprove authorship?
They have much to do with the authorship
question. They indicate an enormous and
unsatisfied hunger for information. There
was no genuine information available, so
people invented all manner of stories. They
gained currency and no one was in a
position to deny them -- not wanted to.
IF the Stratford story contained a sliver of
the truth, numerous people would have met
the man when he was alive (often going a long
distance out of their way to do so) noted down
real facts about him, and published them in a
form that would have come down to us. The
hunger for information is not new; it did not
suddenly come into existence after all who had
known the man had died. Davenant et al, were
able to spin all manner of absurd nonsense
about him, within the living memory of many
who would have known it was false. They did
not contradict such stories, because their lips
were sealed.
Paul.
johnan...@johnpandrews.freeserve.co.uk
<slkwuoiutiuytciu...@slkjlskjoioue.com> wrote:
> "hj" <h_jekyll2...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>
> news:1175005276.6...@p77g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...
>
>
>
>
>
> >> The Stratford story contains a huge amount
> >> of myth. That is not disputable. But it also
> >> has so little fact that I find it hard to see how
> >> Strats (such as Grumman here) can maintain
> >> that it is fact-based 'empirical history'.
>
> >> It has all the characteristics of a pure myth
> >> -- a quite unbelievable fairy-story, but one
> >> which its adherents try to make credible.
> >> To make up for the almost complete lack of
> >> fact, all manner of nonsense is invented.
Dear Paul, you are our resident expert on "all manner of (invented)
nonsense". I have never understood how any fair reader could come away
from a book such as E.K. Chambers' two-volume biography of Shakespeare
without being impressed by the sheer volume of documentary evidence
that Shakespeare was pretty much the person most people have thought
him to have been. You shouldn't keep ignoring the fact that very few
playwrights of the time have biographical information to fill a
pamphlet let alone two volumes. Shakespeare is our greatest writer yet
he lived, unfortunately for us, at a time when the kind of records we
hanker after were simply not produced. The interest in him that has
created the "mythos" you talk of is a direct function a) of his
importance to subsequent generations (not necessarily something his
peers at the time would have thought of) and b) the understandable and
explicable lack of documentary evidence. Subsequent times, with
changed expectations of writers and the penumbra of literary
documentation that surrounds most writers' lives in the print age had
to fill the absence from somewhere. To argue otherwise simply shows
ignorance of how past ages functioned.
Why? There's no tradition of literary gossip or literary letters at
this time. Writing materials were very expensive, Shakespeare was a
mere playwright - an emphemeral artform probably looked on snobbishly
and suspiciously from the point of view of high literary status. The
kinds of snippets and half-truths that have come down to us are
exactly the kind of material one could have predicted from the facts
we know. Any more evidence - Shakespeare's first drafts - his
autobiography - literary correspondence - would be sure-fire evidence
of a cover up and consipiracy in that they would the unlikeliest kinds
of evidence to exist or survive in the given circumstances.
The
> hunger for information is not new; it did not
> suddenly come into existence after all who had
> known the man had died. Davenant et al, were
> able to spin all manner of absurd nonsense
> about him, within the living memory of many
> who would have known it was false. They did
> not contradict such stories, because their lips
> were sealed.
And you have evidence of some kind for this? Amazing! Where is it???
The sad part is that you seem to think you have privileged knowledge
of this man's life and works denied his friends, family and the
generations who lived in ignorance of your amazing revelations for
hundreds of years before Looney et.al. let fly. If there were at least
one unambiguous piece of evidence in favour of your invented nonsense
I could forgive the misdirection of your undoubted intelligence but
no, there's not a shred of it and the irony is that you question the
evidence for "stratfordianism" - now that *is* rich. There's none so
blind as those who will not see, I suppose.
>
> Paul.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
Best wishes
John Andrews
Mark Houlsby
Dear John
Wishing Crowley the best will do no good, I fear. He's deranged, as is
Nilges (spinoza1111). Most probably Crowley will killfile you as a
heretic, in order to maintain his absurd, imagined façade of his never
having been refuted (when, in fact, he's even refuted *his own
argument* on a number of occasions [as you'll know if you've been
reading the group]). Reasonable, reasoned discussion with the deranged
is impossible.
Cheers
Mark Houlsby
Mark Houlsby
>
> news:1175005276.6...@p77g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...
>
>
>
>
>
> >> The Stratford story contains a huge amount
> >> of myth. That is not disputable. But it also
> >> has so little fact that I find it hard to see how
> >> Strats (such as Grumman here) can maintain
> >> that it is fact-based 'empirical history'.
>
> >> It has all the characteristics of a pure myth
> >> -- a quite unbelievable fairy-story, but one
> >> which its adherents try to make credible.
> >> To make up for the almost complete lack of
> >> fact, all manner of nonsense is invented.
>
> > ==> So here we have a recitation of stories and urban legends made up
> > about Will Shakespeare, made up because he was famous and therefore an
> > attraction, and we are supposed to jump from their existence to doubt
> > that he wrote those dratted plays and poems.
>
> For which other famous person -- since
> Early Modern times -- have
"...has..." not "...have...". Had you written "...persons..." or
"...people...", then "...have..." would have been correct.
Subjunctive, though. You were wrong, o infallible one.
> an equivalent
> number of "stories and urban legends"
> been made up?
>
Adolf Hitler, Martin Bormann, Elvis Presley,...
> For which other famous person does the
> quantity of "mythos" so vastly outweigh
> the number of historically sound records?
>
See above. The proportion of fact to myth seems similar. That is,
rather more fact than myth. Not that you'd be able to tell the
difference, you deranged fuck.
> > ==> Can you see my problem? They have nothing to do with the issue at
> > hand. Did Ireland's forgeries mean WS didn't write? Malone would
> > disagree. Did the "mythos" disprove authorship?
>
> They have much to do with the authorship
> question. They indicate an enormous and
> unsatisfied hunger for information. There
> was no genuine information available, so
> people invented all manner of stories. They
> gained currency and no one was in a
> position to deny them -- not wanted to.
>
"...nor...".
> IF the Stratford story contained a sliver of
> the truth, numerous people would have met
> the man when he was alive (often going a long
> distance out of their way to do so) noted down
> real facts about him, and published them in a
> form that would have come down to us.
Why?
No such culture of celebrity existed in those days. Well, Elizabeth I
aside, of course. Had Britney Spears lived then, she'd've been in
trouble. On the plus side, we'd've been spared. BTW did you know that
"Britney Spears" is an anagram of "Presbyterians"?
> The
> hunger for information is not new; it did not
> suddenly come into existence after all who had
> known the man had died.
True. The same is even true of Yeshua-bar-Yusef, of course.
> Davenant et al, were
> able to spin all manner of absurd nonsense
> about him, within the living memory of many
> who would have known it was false.
That may be, but did such spinning take place? Ay, there's the rub.
> They did
> not contradict such stories, because their lips
> were sealed.
>
But their pens were not? No doubt they should have procured one of
them there new-fangled "magic pens" like the one wielded by the author
of the canon.
Mark.
> Paul.
Paul Crowley
in message news:1175114220.1...@p77g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...
>> >> The Stratford story contains a huge amount
>> >> of myth. That is not disputable. But it also
>> >> has so little fact that I find it hard to see how
>> >> Strats (such as Grumman here) can maintain
>> >> that it is fact-based 'empirical history'.
>>
>> >> It has all the characteristics of a pure myth
>> >> -- a quite unbelievable fairy-story, but one
>> >> which its adherents try to make credible.
>> >> To make up for the almost complete lack of
>> >> fact, all manner of nonsense is invented.
>
> Dear Paul, you are our resident expert on "all manner of (invented)
> nonsense". I have never understood how any fair reader could come away
> from a book such as E.K. Chambers' two-volume biography of Shakespeare
> without being impressed by the sheer volume of documentary evidence
> that Shakespeare was pretty much the person most people have thought
> him to have been.
The " . . . sheer volume of documentary
evidence that Shakespeare was pretty much
the person most people have thought him to
have been . . " could easily be written on a
postage stamp. Spreading it over 15 volumes
-- with detailed discussions on what other
people have thought about it over the centuries
-- is perfectly feasible, but it would not expand
the number nor the quality of the original
records.
> You shouldn't keep ignoring the fact that very few
> playwrights of the time have biographical information to fill a
> pamphlet let alone two volumes.
The is either an appalling mistake or a lie.
> Shakespeare is our greatest writer yet
> he lived, unfortunately for us, at a time when the kind of records we
> hanker after were simply not produced. The interest in him that has
> created the "mythos" you talk of is a direct function a) of his
> importance to subsequent generations (not necessarily something his
> peers at the time would have thought of)
This first main plank of Stratfordian theory
is : "Dey woz differen den". Here you rely
on that, but you also depend on the second :
"Dey woz awl reely stoopit den".
Strats assert that the canonical plays were
hugely popular when first staged yet, at the
same time, they claim that the audiences did
not appreciate nor understand them -- that
had to wait for future generations and the
creation of Professorships of English
Literature.
[..]
>> IF the Stratford story contained a sliver of
>> the truth, numerous people would have met
>> the man when he was alive (often going a long
>> distance out of their way to do so) noted down
>> real facts about him, and published them in a
>> form that would have come down to us.
>
> Why? There's no tradition of literary gossip or literary letters at
> this time.
Quite wrong. There was plenty of it. The
'literary scene' of the day is fully recognisable.
There were plenty of theories and controversies
-- several published in books, such as those by
Sidney and 'Puttenham'. Writers formed them-
selves into 'camps' and proposed all manner of
semi-crazy ideas -- similar enough to now. They
had fierce controversies in print; they routinely
got into trouble with the authorities, and so on
and on.
> Writing materials were very expensive,
Agreed -- by modern standards. The field was
closed to the great bulk of the society (most of
which was illiterate). Those who did take part
came from the small privileged, wealthy literate
and educated elite. They knew each other
intimately.
> Shakespeare was a
> mere playwright - an emphemeral artform probably looked on snobbishly
> and suspiciously from the point of view of high literary status.
This is where you descend into idiot Stratford-
ianism. Firstly he was NOT a 'mere playwright' --
he was a great poet and recognised as such.
Secondly, the Queen, the royal court, and
much of the aristocracy loved the theatre.
The real poet's father (and his grandfather
before that) had his own theatre company --
with the actors resident in his house during
the winter. THAT was the kind of upbringing
needed to produce a truly great playwright.
Our poet famously refers to it:
HAMLET [Takes the skull]
Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow
of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath
borne me on his back a thousand times . . .
> The
> kinds of snippets and half-truths that have come down to us are
> exactly the kind of material one could have predicted from the facts
> we know.
You mean "from the facts you imagine" --
with huge illiterate audiences attending
(and loving) those extraordinarily complex
canonical plays.
> Any more evidence - Shakespeare's first drafts - his
> autobiography - literary correspondence - would be sure-fire evidence
> of a cover up and consipiracy in that they would the unlikeliest kinds
> of evidence to exist or survive in the given circumstances.
Nope -- what we would expect are a few
references by the poet to his upbringing, or
his home town or his family or his mentors or
patrons. Or a few by them to him. Or a real
live person who had brushes with the law or
the authorities, or with other writers.
> The
>> hunger for information is not new; it did not
>> suddenly come into existence after all who had
>> known the man had died. Davenant et al, were
>> able to spin all manner of absurd nonsense
>> about him, within the living memory of many
>> who would have known it was false. They did
>> not contradict such stories, because their lips
>> were sealed.
>
> And you have evidence of some kind for this? Amazing! Where is it???
What do you expect? A sworn statement
from the poet?
> The sad part is that you seem to think you have privileged knowledge
> of this man's life and works denied his friends, family and the
> generations who lived in ignorance of your amazing revelations for
> hundreds of years before Looney et.al. let fly.
It is not too difficult to work out.
There are plenty of clues.
> If there were at least
> one unambiguous piece of evidence in favour of your invented nonsense
Preferably this sworn statement from the poet?
> I could forgive the misdirection of your undoubted intelligence but
> no, there's not a shred of it and the irony is that you question the
> evidence for "stratfordianism" - now that *is* rich. There's none so
> blind as those who will not see, I suppose.
Like all confirmed believers in semi-religious
doctrines you are incapable of taking on board
the nature of the opposing argument -- let
alone its details. It is not about having "one
unambiguous piece of evidence" -- but about
being able to see the wide picture, treating the
issue as though the question was open, and
seeing the problems as though they were
actually problems.
Paul.
bobgr...@nut-n-but.net
> > sciences or empirical history, not faith-based beliefs in myths.
>
> The Stratford story contains a huge amount
> of myth. That is not disputable.
Actually, it is completely disputable. The Stratford story consists
of facts like birth and death records, deeds, records of occupation, a
monument, many works with a relevant name on their title-pages or the
equivalent, one of them with a relevant picture in it, and the written
testimony of contemporaries. There are questionable anecdotes (as
well as ones that are very probably true) in the background--as there
are with any famous person. Like the Virgin Queen. There's no
mythology. Unless you count the more deliriously fact-free
hallucinations of the anti-Stratfordians myths, and I don't.
--Bob G.
hj
<slkwuoiutiuytciu...@slkjlskjoioue.com> wrote:
> For which other famous person -- since
> Early Modern times -- have an equivalent
> number of "stories and urban legends"
> been made up?
>
> For which other famous person does the
> quantity of "mythos" so vastly outweigh
> the number of historically sound records?
==> Those statements assume facts *not* in evidence.
==> Tales of famous people are the stock in trade of gossips,
pamphleteers, antique dealers, even biographers. The more famous the
person the more they spread. Most accounts in the Shakespeare "mythos"
come from the period well after his death, when his fame was spreading
but the original witnesses were dead. Some are probably true on the
whole, having come from the mouths of doddering people who had been
there in the day (say Beeston).
==> Even among people who lived over 200 years later and were
political leaders, thereby leaving much better documented lives (say
Abraham Lincoln), there exist many fabulous tales.
==> Now, your job would be to demonstrate that there are more tall
tales about Shakespeare than about other famous people whose lives
weren't incessantly chronicled because of their standing in court.
==> More -- show that there is less documentary history to Shakespeare
than there is to his contemporaries. The best known, Jonson, had a
murky past.
hj
Paul Crowley
news:1175163794.5...@o5g2000hsb.googlegroups.com...
So give some examples. In the biography of
the subject there should be roughly the same
number of references to its 'mythos', or the
word 'myth' should be used to about the same
extent. (In the case of the Stratman we have
to put the word 'biography' into quotes)
There are certainly myths about the Virgin
Queen, and about Mary QS, but in the
hundreds of biographies of these people
the words occur only a tiny fraction of the
number we see for the Stratman.
Paul.
Mark Houlsby
<slkwuoiutiuytciu...@slkjlskjoioue.com> wrote:
> "johnantis...@johnpandrews.freeserve.co.uk" <johnanti-s...@johnpandrews.freeserve.co.uk> wrote
> in messagenews:1175114220.1...@p77g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...
>
>
>
>
>
> >> >> The Stratford story contains a huge amount
> >> >> of myth. That is not disputable. But it also
> >> >> has so little fact that I find it hard to see how
> >> >> Strats (such as Grumman here) can maintain
> >> >> that it is fact-based 'empirical history'.
>
> >> >> It has all the characteristics of a pure myth
> >> >> -- a quite unbelievable fairy-story, but one
> >> >> which its adherents try to make credible.
> >> >> To make up for the almost complete lack of
> >> >> fact, all manner of nonsense is invented.
>
> > Dear Paul, you are our resident expert on "all manner of (invented)
> > nonsense". I have never understood how any fair reader could come away
> > from a book such as E.K. Chambers' two-volume biography of Shakespeare
> > without being impressed by the sheer volume of documentary evidence
> > that Shakespeare was pretty much the person most people have thought
> > him to have been.
>
> The " . . . sheer volume of documentary
> evidence that Shakespeare was pretty much
> the person most people have thought him to
> have been . . " could easily be written on a
> postage stamp.
Only an unusually large postage stamp containing microscopically small
writing.
> Spreading it over 15 volumes
> -- with detailed discussions on what other
> people have thought about it over the centuries
> -- is perfectly feasible, but it would not expand
> the number nor the quality of the original
> records.
>
Why is that relevant?
> > You shouldn't keep ignoring the fact that very few
> > playwrights of the time have biographical information to fill a
> > pamphlet let alone two volumes.
>
> The is either an appalling mistake or a lie.
>
Or an appealing mistake. Or true. Or partially true. Or....
> > Shakespeare is our greatest writer yet
> > he lived, unfortunately for us, at a time when the kind of records we
> > hanker after were simply not produced. The interest in him that has
> > created the "mythos" you talk of is a direct function a) of his
> > importance to subsequent generations (not necessarily something his
> > peers at the time would have thought of)
>
> This first main plank of Stratfordian theory
> is : "Dey woz differen den". Here you rely
> on that, but you also depend on the second :
> "Dey woz awl reely stoopit den".
>
In what sense does Stratfordian theory actually do this? I'm genuinely
curious, since I don't know much about Stratfordian theory.
> Strats assert that the canonical plays were
> hugely popular when first staged yet, at the
> same time, they claim that the audiences did
> not appreciate nor understand them -- that
> had to wait for future generations and the
> creation of Professorships of English
> Literature.
> [..]
>
Which Strats assert this? Where? Is there proof that they're wrong, or
do you agree with them? If you don't agree with them, are *you* wrong?
> >> IF the Stratford story contained a sliver of
> >> the truth, numerous people would have met
> >> the man when he was alive (often going a long
> >> distance out of their way to do so) noted down
> >> real facts about him, and published them in a
> >> form that would have come down to us.
>
> > Why? There's no tradition of literary gossip or literary letters at
> > this time.
>
> Quite wrong. There was plenty of it. The
> 'literary scene' of the day is fully recognisable.
So...what evidence remains then? Is it all in your head?
> There were plenty of theories and controversies
> -- several published in books, such as those by
> Sidney
...who died in 1586, when the author of the canon was still alive...
and 'Puttenham'.
...who died in 1590, when the author of the canon was still alive...
Might this be a flaw in your argument, mayhap?
Could it help if you cited such gossipmongers who wrote about the
Shakespeare authorship question from around the time of the author's
death?
> Writers formed them-
> selves into 'camps' and proposed all manner of
> semi-crazy ideas -- similar enough to now.
Sidney and Puttenham died within the author's lifetime, so anything
which they wrote must have been written within the author's lifetime,
therefore it's fundamentally different from now, four hundred years
later. Can you cite *any* RELEVANT contemporary evidence?
> They
> had fierce controversies in print; they routinely
> got into trouble with the authorities, and so on
> and on.
>
Uh huh. Can you cite *any* RELEVANT contemporary evidence?
> > Writing materials were very expensive,
>
> Agreed -- by modern standards. The field was
> closed to the great bulk of the society (most of
> which was illiterate). Those who did take part
> came from the small privileged, wealthy literate
> and educated elite. They knew each other
> intimately.
>
Perhaps not as intimately as your fellow troll Nilges intimated
recently....
> > Shakespeare was a
> > mere playwright - an emphemeral artform probably looked on snobbishly
> > and suspiciously from the point of view of high literary status.
>
> This is where you descend into idiot Stratford-
> ianism. Firstly he was NOT a 'mere playwright' --
> he was a great poet and recognised as such.
> Secondly, the Queen, the royal court, and
> much of the aristocracy loved the theatre.
>
> The real poet's father (and his grandfather
> before that) had his own theatre company --
> with the actors resident in his house during
> the winter. THAT was the kind of upbringing
> needed to produce a truly great playwright.
Needed? Really? Prove this unequivocally.
> Our poet famously refers to it:
> HAMLET [Takes the skull]
> Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow
> of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath
> borne me on his back a thousand times . . .
>
Would Yorick have spent *all* of his time at court, or might he have
roughed it with the Shaxpers, on occasion? Had he roughed it with the
Shaxpers, why should he not have borne the poet, WS of Stratford, on
his back a thousand times? Do you have access to the contemporary
equivalent of "The National Enquirer" which *proves* beyond doubt that
Yorick definitely *never* bore WS of Stratford on his back more than
673 times, tops? BTW Yorick is just a character. You *do* realise
that, don't you?
> > The
> > kinds of snippets and half-truths that have come down to us are
> > exactly the kind of material one could have predicted from the facts
> > we know.
>
> You mean "from the facts you imagine" --
> with huge illiterate audiences attending
> (and loving) those extraordinarily complex
> canonical plays.
>
Lots of folks love Hamlet without understanding it. Look at you.
> > Any more evidence - Shakespeare's first drafts - his
> > autobiography - literary correspondence - would be sure-fire evidence
> > of a cover up and consipiracy in that they would the unlikeliest kinds
> > of evidence to exist or survive in the given circumstances.
>
> Nope -- what we would expect are a few
> references by the poet to his upbringing, or
> his home town or his family or his mentors or
> patrons. Or a few by them to him. Or a real
> live person who had brushes with the law or
> the authorities, or with other writers.
>
You mean, in the same way that we would expect more evidence of the
author's having been an atheist?
> > The
> >> hunger for information is not new; it did not
> >> suddenly come into existence after all who had
> >> known the man had died. Davenant et al, were
> >> able to spin all manner of absurd nonsense
> >> about him, within the living memory of many
> >> who would have known it was false. They did
> >> not contradict such stories, because their lips
> >> were sealed.
>
> > And you have evidence of some kind for this? Amazing! Where is it???
>
> What do you expect? A sworn statement
> from the poet?
>
No, we expect EVIDENCE from YOU, dummy.
> > The sad part is that you seem to think you have privileged knowledge
> > of this man's life and works denied his friends, family and the
> > generations who lived in ignorance of your amazing revelations for
> > hundreds of years before Looney et.al. let fly.
>
> It is not too difficult to work out.
> There are plenty of clues.
>
Such as...?
> > If there were at least
> > one unambiguous piece of evidence in favour of your invented nonsense
>
> Preferably this sworn statement from the poet?
>
No, preferably EVIDENCE from YOU, dummy.
> > I could forgive the misdirection of your undoubted intelligence but
> > no, there's not a shred of it and the irony is that you question the
> > evidence for "stratfordianism" - now that *is* rich. There's none so
> > blind as those who will not see, I suppose.
>
> Like all confirmed believers in semi-religious
> doctrines you are incapable of taking on board
> the nature of the opposing argument -- let
> alone its details.
No, that would be you, o deranged, infallible one.
> It is not about having "one
> unambiguous piece of evidence" -- but about
> being able to see the wide picture, treating the
> issue as though the question was open, and
> seeing the problems as though they were
> actually problems.
>
There's an idea... why don't you try doing that, Paul?
Mark.
> Paul.
Mark Houlsby
<slkwuoiutiuytciu...@slkjlskjoioue.com> wrote:
> <bobgrum...@nut-n-but.net> wrote in message
It's amazing, you expect examples from others, but decline to give any
yourself.
Mark.
johnan...@johnpandrews.freeserve.co.uk
<slkwuoiutiuytciu...@slkjlskjoioue.com> wrote:
> "johnantis...@johnpandrews.freeserve.co.uk" <johnanti-s...@johnpandrews.freeserve.co.uk> wrote
Oh dear, here we go again. First question - have you read the work I
mentioned? I refer you to it because it goes to great lengths to
separate "mythos" from known facts and, unlike you, Chambers was an
informed expert on the times in question. If you can't obtain or
handle the two volume biography, try the single volume documentary
life. Then come back and repeat and support your comment above - go
through the documents Chambers examines and explain why you think they
don't reveal what Chambers says they do. If that's too much work for
you, try this one: When the Duke of Rutland paid two men called
Burbage and Shakespeare 43 gold shillings each (a very considerable
sum) in 1613, one for creating an impreso, the other for painting it
and we know a) that Burbage was known as a painter and Shakespeare was
known as a poet b) that the two men are mentioned in several documents
as knowing each other c) that an impresa is formed through the
combination of a poetic text with a heraldic emblem - what reasonable
person would not look on this as better documentary evidence that
Shakespeare is who most people think he is than any evidence you can
adduce as to De Vere's supposed authorship of the canon?
> > You shouldn't keep ignoring the fact that very few
> > playwrights of the time have biographical information to fill a
> > pamphlet let alone two volumes.
>
> The is either an appalling mistake or a lie.
My preferred language for USENET is English but I suppose you mean to
infer that we have copious quantities of biographical information
about Middleton, Rowley, Webster, Tourneur, Kyd, Massinger, Ford etc.
etc. If so, and you are in possession of such information, your
fortune is made and you can retire from irritating people on the
internet.
> > Shakespeare is our greatest writer yet
> > he lived, unfortunately for us, at a time when the kind of records we
> > hanker after were simply not produced. The interest in him that has
> > created the "mythos" you talk of is a direct function a) of his
> > importance to subsequent generations (not necessarily something his
> > peers at the time would have thought of)
>
> This first main plank of Stratfordian theory
> is : "Dey woz differen den". Here you rely
> on that, but you also depend on the second :
> "Dey woz awl reely stoopit den".
You are clearly the plank if you mean to suggest that things *weren't*
different then. Nothing I say suggests they were in any way stupid.
> Strats assert that the canonical plays were
> hugely popular when first staged yet, at the
> same time, they claim that the audiences did
> not appreciate nor understand them -- that
> had to wait for future generations and the
> creation of Professorships of English
> Literature.
It's a subtle point I'm trying here - the plays were indeed popular, I
believe, but the art form of playwrighting was relatively new and
therefore didn't have the status of other forms of literary endeavour.
Maybe a little like screenwriters today. I say nothing about whether
audiences understood them although I never see why they shouldn't when
schoolchildren can manage them today despite the way that language has
changed in the intervening 500 years. Do you find them a strain? I'm
not surprised.
>
> >> IF the Stratford story contained a sliver of
> >> the truth, numerous people would have met
> >> the man when he was alive (often going a long
> >> distance out of their way to do so) noted down
> >> real facts about him, and published them in a
> >> form that would have come down to us.
>
> > Why? There's no tradition of literary gossip or literary letters at
> > this time.
>
> Quite wrong. There was plenty of it. The
> 'literary scene' of the day is fully recognisable.
> There were plenty of theories and controversies
> -- several published in books, such as those by
> Sidney and 'Puttenham'. Writers formed them-
> selves into 'camps' and proposed all manner of
> semi-crazy ideas -- similar enough to now. They
> had fierce controversies in print; they routinely
> got into trouble with the authorities, and so on
> and on.
Now you're entering into your very own fantasy land. If you're
referring to things such as the "war of the theatres" then we mainly
know about the gossip and rivalry from the texts that have come down
to us not from literary ephemera. The academic examinations of poetry
you mention (Sidney, Puttenham) deal with poetry not drama and aren't
in the least gossipy in nature. Of course, Shakespeare is mentioned
exactly where and as frequently as one would expect in the literary
documentation that has come down to us - Meres, Greene, Harvey. Funny
that I don't recall mention of De Vere as author of the canon in any
documents I've seen.
> > Writing materials were very expensive,
>
> Agreed -- by modern standards. The field was
> closed to the great bulk of the society (most of
> which was illiterate). Those who did take part
> came from the small privileged, wealthy literate
> and educated elite. They knew each other
> intimately.
>
> > Shakespeare was a
> > mere playwright - an emphemeral artform probably looked on snobbishly
> > and suspiciously from the point of view of high literary status.
>
> This is where you descend into idiot Stratford-
> ianism. Firstly he was NOT a 'mere playwright' --
> he was a great poet and recognised as such.
> Secondly, the Queen, the royal court, and
> much of the aristocracy loved the theatre.
Hmm, it's not impossible for an art form (particularly a relatively
new one) to be popular and yet not have cachet of more established art
forms. Do you have evidence that playwrighting was a high status
acivity? Any references would be welcome.
> The real poet's father (and his grandfather
> before that) had his own theatre company --
> with the actors resident in his house during
> the winter. THAT was the kind of upbringing
> needed to produce a truly great playwright.
> Our poet famously refers to it:
> HAMLET [Takes the skull]
> Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow
> of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath
> borne me on his back a thousand times . . .
Well, what is necessary to make a great writer is an interesting
topic. Your apparent contention that only one set of particular
circumstances can possibly account for the flowering of genius is
highly doubtful.
> > The
> > kinds of snippets and half-truths that have come down to us are
> > exactly the kind of material one could have predicted from the facts
> > we know.
>
> You mean "from the facts you imagine" --
> with huge illiterate audiences attending
> (and loving) those extraordinarily complex
> canonical plays.
Paul, Paul, just because they make *your* brain ache doesn't mean that
your average Joe couldn't enjoy them. 500,000 14-year olds study a
Shakespeare play in detail every year in the U.K and more than a few
understand and enjoy it.
> > Any more evidence - Shakespeare's first drafts - his
> > autobiography - literary correspondence - would be sure-fire evidence
> > of a cover up and consipiracy in that they would the unlikeliest kinds
> > of evidence to exist or survive in the given circumstances.
>
> Nope -- what we would expect are a few
> references by the poet to his upbringing, or
> his home town or his family or his mentors or
> patrons. Or a few by them to him. Or a real
> live person who had brushes with the law or
> the authorities, or with other writers.
Oh dear - I think, if you look, you'll find each and every one of
these bits of documentary evidence in the public record! You just
forgot to look or didn't believe when you read them!
> > The
> >> hunger for information is not new; it did not
> >> suddenly come into existence after all who had
> >> known the man had died. Davenant et al, were
> >> able to spin all manner of absurd nonsense
> >> about him, within the living memory of many
> >> who would have known it was false. They did
> >> not contradict such stories, because their lips
> >> were sealed.
>
> > And you have evidence of some kind for this? Amazing! Where is it???
>
> What do you expect? A sworn statement
> from the poet?
No, just anything. A reference in a letter, record of a
payment...anything...
> > The sad part is that you seem to think you have privileged knowledge
> > of this man's life and works denied his friends, family and the
> > generations who lived in ignorance of your amazing revelations for
> > hundreds of years before Looney et.al. let fly.
>
> It is not too difficult to work out.
> There are plenty of clues.
Are you a "sat guru" like MM? Do you have arcane knowledge that
you're keeping from everyone?
> > If there were at least
> > one unambiguous piece of evidence in favour of your invented nonsense
>
> Preferably this sworn statement from the poet?
No, just anything.. a note, a reference, a record of a payment... (I'm
letting you off lightly here - given the huge amount of documentary
evidence that accrues to the aristocrat in comparison with the artisan
I should ask for a shedload.)
> > I could forgive the misdirection of your undoubted intelligence but
> > no, there's not a shred of it and the irony is that you question the
> > evidence for "stratfordianism" - now that *is* rich. There's none so
> > blind as those who will not see, I suppose.
>
> Like all confirmed believers in semi-religious
> doctrines you are incapable of taking on board
> the nature of the opposing argument -- let
> alone its details.
Unlike you I have looked dispassionately at the evidence. I made
myself read Anderson's terrible book... and Ogburn's and Looney's
because I foolishly believed there couldn't be smoke without fire only
to discover there wasn't even any smoke to anyone who bothered to
inform him or herself about the period.
It is not about having "one
> unambiguous piece of evidence" -- but about
> being able to see the wide picture, treating the
> issue as though the question was open, and
> seeing the problems as though they were
> actually problems.
The "broad brush approach", eh, where historical considerations don't
need to weigh too heavily and there's a bit of artistic licence in how
you interpret things? I can see why this would appeal to you.
lackpurity
MM:
I guess Crowley has not been reading the Stratfordian evidence posted
by Agent Jim. It is quite lengthy.
> > Spreading it over 15 volumes
> > -- with detailed discussions on what other
> > people have thought about it over the centuries
> > -- is perfectly feasible, but it would not expand
> > the number nor the quality of the original
> > records.
MM:
Lengthy evidence on a postage stamp, then increased to 15 volumes? He
says it is feasible? Crowley seems to be stumbling over his own feet,
as usual. He can't have it both ways. In fact, the way he has stated
this makes it appear to be a STRATFORDIAN VICTORY, with the Anti-Strat
challenger stumbling over his own feet.
>
> Oh dear, here we go again. First question - have you read the work I
> mentioned? I refer you to it because it goes to great lengths to
> separate "mythos" from known facts and, unlike you, Chambers was an
> informed expert on the times in question. If you can't obtain or
> handle the two volume biography, try the single volume documentary
> life. Then come back and repeat and support your comment above - go
> through the documents Chambers examines and explain why you think they
> don't reveal what Chambers says they do. If that's too much work for
> you, try this one: When the Duke of Rutland paid two men called
> Burbage and Shakespeare 43 gold shillings each (a very considerable
> sum) in 1613, one for creating an impreso, the other for painting it
> and we know a) that Burbage was known as a painter and Shakespeare was
> known as a poet b) that the two men are mentioned in several documents
> as knowing each other c) that an impresa is formed through the
> combination of a poetic text with a heraldic emblem - what reasonable
> person would not look on this as better documentary evidence that
> Shakespeare is who most people think he is than any evidence you can
> adduce as to De Vere's supposed authorship of the canon?
MM:
Very good points. We'll see what he replies.
Michael Martin
> ...
>
> read more »- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -
Mark Houlsby
<johnanti-s...@johnpandrews.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
I see that you've decided to take up the gauntlet which I threw down
to you.
Excellent!
I'm more than willing to take a rest and let you deal with Crowley,
Innes, MM and Nilges after your own most engaging fashion--if that is
what you wish.
Is it?
Cheers,
Mark
Paul Crowley
>> For which other famous person -- since
>> Early Modern times -- have an equivalent
>> number of "stories and urban legends"
>> been made up?
>>
>> For which other famous person does the
>> quantity of "mythos" so vastly outweigh
>> the number of historically sound records?
>
> ==> Those statements assume facts *not* in evidence.
OK. So . . .? I CLAIM that that the level
of 'mythos' (i.e. bullshit) surrounding the
Stratman is not merely far greater than for
any other remotely comparable figure --
it's in a different ball-park.
You can deal with that claim in two ways:
(a) You can meet it face-on and show that
it is false -- by quoting the names of other
famous people, and giving accounts from
their standard biographies of the 'mythos'
surrounding them.
(b) You can duck -- and pretend that I have
not sufficiently made out the case.
Guess what choice you'll make?
As a worthless Strat (and all Strats are
necessarily worthless) there can be no
doubt.
hj
<slkwuoiutiuytciu...@slkjlskjoioue.com> wrote:
> OK. So . . .? I CLAIM that that the level
> of 'mythos' (i.e. bullshit) surrounding the
> Stratman is not merely far greater than for
> any other remotely comparable figure --
> it's in a different ball-park.
==> So *that* point is cleared up.
> You can deal with that claim in two ways:
> (a) You can meet it face-on and show that
> it is false
> (b) You can duck -- and pretend that I have
> not sufficiently made out the case.
>
> Guess what choice you'll make?
>
> As a worthless Strat (and all Strats are
> necessarily worthless)
==> I'll take option number four, which is to refuse to dig your holes
for you. You're making an extravagant claim. While it's fun to thunder
that whatever one says *must* be refuted, the way this actually works
is that you have to try support your claim. Gratuitous insults don't
count toward your word total. Get working!
hj
John W. Kennedy
> It's a subtle point I'm trying here - the plays were indeed popular, I
> believe, but the art form of playwrighting was relatively new and
> therefore didn't have the status of other forms of literary endeavour.
> Maybe a little like screenwriters today.
"Did you hear the one about the blonde so dumb she slept with the
writer? Yeah, but she had an reason: she heard that, in Hollywood,
/everybody/ screws the writer!"
-- Old Hollywood joke
--
John W. Kennedy
"...if you had to fall in love with someone who was evil, I can see why
it was her."
-- "Alias"
* TagZilla 0.066 * http://tagzilla.mozdev.org
Paul Crowley
in message news:1175190395....@r56g2000hsd.googlegroups.com...
>> The " . . . sheer volume of documentary
>> evidence that Shakespeare was pretty much
>> the person most people have thought him to
>> have been . . " could easily be written on a
>> postage stamp. Spreading it over 15 volumes
>> -- with detailed discussions on what other
>> people have thought about it over the centuries
>> -- is perfectly feasible, but it would not expand
>> the number nor the quality of the original
>> records.
> Then come back and repeat and support your comment above - go
> through the documents Chambers examines and explain why you think they
> don't reveal what Chambers says they do.
I began this thread by quoting extensively from
Schoenbaum. I could have done much the same
using Chambers. Your implied claim that (for
some quite unstateable reason) Schoenbaum
doesn't really count is no more than standard
Stratfordian evasion.
> If that's too much work for
> you, try this one: When the Duke of Rutland paid two men called
> Burbage and Shakespeare 43 gold shillings each (a very considerable
> sum) in 1613, one for creating an impreso, the other for painting it
> and we know a) that Burbage was known as a painter and Shakespeare was
> known as a poet b) that the two men are mentioned in several documents
> as knowing each other c) that an impresa is formed through the
> combination of a poetic text with a heraldic emblem - what reasonable
> person would not look on this as better documentary evidence that
> Shakespeare is who most people think he is than any evidence you can
> adduce as to De Vere's supposed authorship of the canon?
This is an excellent example of the nature of
Stratfordian 'proofs'. It reminds me of a
Psychology professor who spent many years
investigating the causes of crime, going into
prisons and interviewing convicts. After
writing several books he realised that criminals
told lies. This revelation meant that every part
of his research was worthless. Most
uneducated people could have told him this
elementary fact on his first day.
It's much the same here. Chambers, Schoenbaum
et al would readily believe that many casual
workers were really named 'Mickey Mouse' and
'Jerry Kat'. The clue here is that whole story, as
recounted by them, is nonsensical. Famous
actors and nationally famous playwrights don't
go around together doing small casual piecework
jobs. When you see 'Brad Pitt' and 'Angelina
Jolie' listed as fixing your drains, you should
not necessarily believe that the careers of the
famous actors have taken a sudden down-turn.
>> > You shouldn't keep ignoring the fact that very few
>> > playwrights of the time have biographical information to fill a
>> > pamphlet let alone two volumes.
>>
>> The is either an appalling mistake or a lie.
>
> My preferred language for USENET is English but I suppose you mean to
> infer that we have copious quantities of biographical information
> about Middleton, Rowley, Webster, Tourneur, Kyd, Massinger, Ford etc.
> etc. If so, and you are in possession of such information, your
> fortune is made and you can retire from irritating people on the
> internet.
If you are prepared to be as prolix as Chambers
et al, and you have 300 or 400 years of previous
'scholarship' to build upon, then it would not
be difficult to fill endless volumes on any
historical personage, no matter how scanty
the original documents. It would not be hard
to write tomes about (say) Atlantis, or the
Loch Ness monster. I'm sure it's been done.
>> > Shakespeare is our greatest writer yet
>> > he lived, unfortunately for us, at a time when the kind of records we
>> > hanker after were simply not produced. The interest in him that has
>> > created the "mythos" you talk of is a direct function a) of his
>> > importance to subsequent generations (not necessarily something his
>> > peers at the time would have thought of)
>>
>> This first main plank of Stratfordian theory
>> is : "Dey woz differen den". Here you rely
>> on that, but you also depend on the second :
>> "Dey woz awl reely stoopit den".
>
> You are clearly the plank if you mean to suggest that things *weren't*
> different then.
Whenever Strats find some wholly
inexplicable fact, they simply claim
"Dey woz differen den". To them that
is a sufficient explanation in itself.
> Nothing I say suggests they were in any way stupid.
You wrote:
>> > is a direct function a) of his
>> > importance to subsequent generations (not necessarily something his
>> > peers at the time would have thought of)
According to you (and to Strats generally)
the people at the time were too stupid to
realise that they had in their presence a
truly remarkable playwright. They had no
comprehension of the nature of his talent
nor of the level of his writing.
>> Strats assert that the canonical plays were
>> hugely popular when first staged yet, at the
>> same time, they claim that the audiences did
>> not appreciate nor understand them -- that
>> had to wait for future generations and the
>> creation of Professorships of English
>> Literature.
>
> It's a subtle point I'm trying here - the plays were indeed popular, I
> believe, but the art form of playwrighting was relatively new and
> therefore didn't have the status of other forms of literary endeavour.
Sure -- Dey woz awl reely stoopit den.
> Maybe a little like screenwriters today. I say nothing about whether
> audiences understood them although I never see why they shouldn't when
> schoolchildren can manage them today despite the way that language has
> changed in the intervening 500 years. Do you find them a strain? I'm
> not surprised.
Are you not aware of the extent to which
the canonical plays had to be dumbed down
for the post-Restoration (and highly-educated)
audiences?
>> > Why? There's no tradition of literary gossip or literary letters at
>> > this time.
>>
>> Quite wrong. There was plenty of it. The
>> 'literary scene' of the day is fully recognisable.
>> There were plenty of theories and controversies
>> -- several published in books, such as those by
>> Sidney and 'Puttenham'. Writers formed them-
>> selves into 'camps' and proposed all manner of
>> semi-crazy ideas -- similar enough to now. They
>> had fierce controversies in print; they routinely
>> got into trouble with the authorities, and so on
>> and on.
>
> Now you're entering into your very own fantasy land. If you're
> referring to things such as the "war of the theatres" then we mainly
> know about the gossip and rivalry from the texts that have come down
> to us not from literary ephemera. The academic examinations of poetry
> you mention (Sidney, Puttenham) deal with poetry not drama
Drama is certainly mentioned. Sidney deplores
current plays that don't respect the 'Unities'
"Now you shall have three Ladies walke to gather flowers, and then we must
beleeve the stage to be a garden. By and by we heare newes of shipwrack in
the same place, then we are too blame if we accept it not for a Rock. Upon the
back of that, comes out a hidious monster with fire and smoke, and then the
miserable beholders are bound to take it for a Cave: while in the meane time
two Armies flie in, represented with foure swords & bucklers, and then what
hard hart wil not receive it for a pitched field. . . "
> and aren't in the least gossipy in nature.
'Gossip' is often conspicuous by its absence.
Of course that's solely because "Dey woz
differen den".
> Of course, Shakespeare is mentioned
> exactly where and as frequently as one would expect in the literary
> documentation that has come down to us - Meres, Greene, Harvey.
Your expectations are low. Of course,
you would not expect much from the
hignorant folks that were around at the
time.
> Funny that I don't recall mention of De Vere as author of the canon in any
> documents I've seen.
Sometime you ought to make an attempt to
grasp the basic points of anti-Stratfordian
cases. There was indeed a silence -- but it
had a reason. The rule "Dey woz differen den"
should not be applied with zero thought.
>> > Shakespeare was a
>> > mere playwright - an emphemeral artform probably looked on snobbishly
>> > and suspiciously from the point of view of high literary status.
>>
>> This is where you descend into idiot Stratford-
>> ianism. Firstly he was NOT a 'mere playwright' --
>> he was a great poet and recognised as such.
>> Secondly, the Queen, the royal court, and
>> much of the aristocracy loved the theatre.
>
> Hmm, it's not impossible for an art form (particularly a relatively
> new one)
Where do you get this idea of a 'relatively
new . . . art form'? The existence of Roman
and Greek drama was well-known. It was
probably quite often performed -- even if not
to mass audiences at the Globe. As I have
told you, the real poet's grandfather had his
own acting company in his own house.
Drama had been common for generations
in the courts of Europe and in the houses
of the aristocracy.
> to be popular and yet not have cachet of more established art
> forms. Do you have evidence that playwrighting was a high status
> acivity?
This is as good an example of Stratfordian
mindlessness as we are likely to see -- not
that there is ever any shortage. Who are
listed as the authors of Gorboduc?
>> The real poet's father (and his grandfather
>> before that) had his own theatre company --
>> with the actors resident in his house during
>> the winter. THAT was the kind of upbringing
>> needed to produce a truly great playwright.
>> Our poet famously refers to it:
>> HAMLET [Takes the skull]
>> Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow
>> of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath
>> borne me on his back a thousand times . . .
>
> Well, what is necessary to make a great writer is an interesting
> topic. Your apparent contention that only one set of particular
> circumstances can possibly account for the flowering of genius is
> highly doubtful.
I used the phrase ". . . KIND of upbringing"
Such a childhood is more likely to produce a
writer than being brought up in a household
of illiterates.
>> > The
>> > kinds of snippets and half-truths that have come down to us are
>> > exactly the kind of material one could have predicted from the facts
>> > we know.
>>
>> You mean "from the facts you imagine" --
>> with huge illiterate audiences attending
>> (and loving) those extraordinarily complex
>> canonical plays.
>
> Paul, Paul, just because they make *your* brain ache doesn't mean that
> your average Joe couldn't enjoy them.
That must be why I see the canonical plays
on most nights of the week on prime-time TV.
And that audience is near 100% literate.
>> > And you have evidence of some kind for this? Amazing! Where is it???
>>
>> What do you expect? A sworn statement
>> from the poet?
>
> No, just anything. A reference in a letter, record of a
> payment...anything...
Sure. There is a state-sponsored cover-
up, but one day the guy forgets, and just
happens to mention his authorship.
>> > If there were at least
>> > one unambiguous piece of evidence in favour of your invented nonsense
>>
>> Preferably this sworn statement from the poet?
>
> No, just anything.. a note, a reference, a record of a payment... (I'm
> letting you off lightly here - given the huge amount of documentary
> evidence that accrues to the aristocrat in comparison with the artisan
> I should ask for a shedload.)
You really haven't the faintest clue as
to the anti-Strat case, have you?
> It is not about having "one
>> unambiguous piece of evidence" -- but about
>> being able to see the wide picture, treating the
>> issue as though the question was open, and
>> seeing the problems as though they were
>> actually problems.
>
> The "broad brush approach", eh, where historical considerations don't
> need to weigh too heavily and there's a bit of artistic licence in how
> you interpret things? I can see why this would appeal to you.
There is little 'broad-brush' in my way
of dealing the issues. Check out the
detail of my sonnet-analyses sometime.
And then note the near-total absence of
any attempt at refutation.
Paul.
lackpurity
<slkwuoiutiuytciu...@slkjlskjoioue.com> wrote:
> "johnantis...@johnpandrews.freeserve.co.uk" <johnanti-s...@johnpandrews.freeserve.co.uk> wrote
>
> >> The " . . . sheer volume of documentary
> >> evidence that Shakespeare was pretty much
> >> the person most people have thought him to
> >> have been . . " could easily be written on a
> >> postage stamp. Spreading it over 15 volumes
> >> -- with detailed discussions on what other
> >> people have thought about it over the centuries
> >> -- is perfectly feasible, but it would not expand
> >> the number nor the quality of the original
> >> records.
> > Then come back and repeat and support your comment above - go
> > through the documents Chambers examines and explain why you think they
> > don't reveal what Chambers says they do.
>
> I began this thread by quoting extensively from
> Schoenbaum. I could have done much the same
> using Chambers. Your implied claim that (for
> some quite unstateable reason) Schoenbaum
> doesn't really count is no more than standard
> Stratfordian evasion.
MM:
You have not proven that they "count." Therefore, it could be his
claim against yours. Your charge that he is "evading," doesn't stand,
under these circumstances.
> > If that's too much work for
> > you, try this one: When the Duke of Rutland paid two men called
> > Burbage and Shakespeare 43 gold shillings each (a very considerable
> > sum) in 1613, one for creating an impreso, the other for painting it
> > and we know a) that Burbage was known as a painter and Shakespeare was
> > known as a poet b) that the two men are mentioned in several documents
> > as knowing each other c) that an impresa is formed through the
> > combination of a poetic text with a heraldic emblem - what reasonable
> > person would not look on this as better documentary evidence that
> > Shakespeare is who most people think he is than any evidence you can
> > adduce as to De Vere's supposed authorship of the canon?
>
> This is an excellent example of the nature of
> Stratfordian 'proofs'. It reminds me of a
> Psychology professor who spent many years
> investigating the causes of crime, going into
> prisons and interviewing convicts. After
> writing several books he realised that criminals
> told lies. This revelation meant that every part
> of his research was worthless. Most
> uneducated people could have told him this
> elementary fact on his first day.
MM:
It is not a little "white lie," that is the problem You Anti-Strats
would have us believe that a good portion of London was lying, the
whole town of Stratford, all of Shakespeare's freinds and families.
You might also discuss your reasons that "no leak," ever came out from
anyone, not even on their deathbeds.
For example, take the UFO incident in Roswell. A father told his
daughter on his deathbed that he saw "little creatures," from the
spacecraft. His daughter firmly believes that he told her the truth.
This was a "deathbed leak," but no such incidence happened regarding
the massive Anti-Strat hypothetical COVER-UP. Understand? All we
have is an incredible hypothesis put forward by a bunch of Anti-
Strats, who came much later, after all the credible witnesses, such as
Spenser, Jonson, etc., had died.
> It's much the same here. Chambers, Schoenbaum
> et al would readily believe that many casual
> workers were really named 'Mickey Mouse' and
> 'Jerry Kat'. The clue here is that whole story, as
> recounted by them, is nonsensical.
MM:
The fact that you have trouble with his name is your problem. Names
are names, and there is nothing weird about his name, anymore than any
other name, at least.
> Famous
> actors and nationally famous playwrights don't
> go around together doing small casual piecework
> jobs.
MM:
What has this got to do with Shakespeare? Is this some Anti-Strat
excursion through the tulips? It looks like it.
> When you see 'Brad Pitt' and 'Angelina
> Jolie' listed as fixing your drains, you should
> not necessarily believe that the careers of the
> famous actors have taken a sudden down-turn.
MM:
Immaterial and irrelevant. It shows the degree of desperation, which
Anti-Strats have reached. Why doesn't Crowley ever defend his
hypothesis regarding Edward de Vere? It seems that most of his time,
he is involved in demeaning campaign against Strats. Maybe it is
because Strats are tired of him flogging the same ol' dead horses?
> >> > You shouldn't keep ignoring the fact that very few
> >> > playwrights of the time have biographical information to fill a
> >> > pamphlet let alone two volumes.
>
> >> The is either an appalling mistake or a lie.
>
> > My preferred language for USENET is English but I suppose you mean to
> > infer that we have copious quantities of biographical information
> > about Middleton, Rowley, Webster, Tourneur, Kyd, Massinger, Ford etc.
> > etc. If so, and you are in possession of such information, your
> > fortune is made and you can retire from irritating people on the
> > internet.
>
> If you are prepared to be as prolix as Chambers
> et al, and you have 300 or 400 years of previous
> 'scholarship' to build upon, then it would not
> be difficult to fill endless volumes on any
> historical personage, no matter how scanty
> the original documents. It would not be hard
> to write tomes about (say) Atlantis, or the
> Loch Ness monster. I'm sure it's been done.
MM:
I think he was looking for "facts," not "fiction."
> >> > Shakespeare is our greatest writer yet
> >> > he lived, unfortunately for us, at a time when the kind of records we
> >> > hanker after were simply not produced. The interest in him that has
> >> > created the "mythos" you talk of is a direct function a) of his
> >> > importance to subsequent generations (not necessarily something his
> >> > peers at the time would have thought of)
>
> >> This first main plank of Stratfordian theory
> >> is : "Dey woz differen den". Here you rely
> >> on that, but you also depend on the second :
> >> "Dey woz awl reely stoopit den".
>
> > You are clearly the plank if you mean to suggest that things *weren't*
> > different then.
>
> Whenever Strats find some wholly
> inexplicable fact, they simply claim
> "Dey woz differen den". To them that
> is a sufficient explanation in itself.
MM:
Crowley, things were different then. Take me, for example. I can
discuss Sant Mat freely and openly. Marlowe, Shakespeare, Bacon,
Spenser, and Donne, had to write cryptically. Can you see the
difference? Shakespeare had to maintain a relatively "low profile,"
for that reason. You have never been able to grasp that fact, for
some weird reason, I suppose. There is always some block in Anti-
Strat thinking. It would be nice, if we could clear out all the dead
wood, so Anti-Strats could see the truth in all its glory.
Since Shakespeare maintained a "low profile," Anti-Strats have taken
the liverty to assume that he was a "front man," for some other
author. Sorry, but no cigar on that one. He was still the author of
the canon. Shakespeare was not a front man for anybody. He bore the
canopy, despite the relatively low profile of the cult. His extern
was honored. Everybody knew whose extern was being honored. It was
that of William Shakespeare, the Sweet Swan of Avon.
> > Nothing I say suggests they were in any way stupid.
> You wrote:
> >> > is a direct function a) of his
> >> > importance to subsequent generations (not necessarily something his
> >> > peers at the time would have thought of)
>
> According to you (and to Strats generally)
> the people at the time were too stupid to
> realise that they had in their presence a
> truly remarkable playwright. They had no
> comprehension of the nature of his talent
> nor of the level of his writing.
MM:
This happens in the life of virtually every Saint. Get with the
program Crowley.
> >> Strats assert that the canonical plays were
> >> hugely popular when first staged yet, at the
> >> same time, they claim that the audiences did
> >> not appreciate nor understand them -- that
> >> had to wait for future generations and the
> >> creation of Professorships of English
> >> Literature.
MM:
The first part is true. The second part is not. Shakespeare is still
understood, even by scholars, after four centuries.
>
> > It's a subtle point I'm trying here - the plays were indeed popular, I
> > believe, but the art form of playwrighting was relatively new and
> > therefore didn't have the status of other forms of literary endeavour.
>
> Sure -- Dey woz awl reely stoopit den.
MM:
It was the Sant Mat teachings, which were given cryptically, and many
never got a grasp on them. This happens, as I already mentioned, in
the life of every Saint. It happened with Moses, Jesus, Socrates,
etc., etc...
>
> > Maybe a little like screenwriters today. I say nothing about whether
> > audiences understood them although I never see why they shouldn't when
> > schoolchildren can manage them today despite the way that language has
> > changed in the intervening 500 years. Do you find them a strain? I'm
> > not surprised.
>
> Are you not aware of the extent to which
> the canonical plays had to be dumbed down
> for the post-Restoration (and highly-educated)
> audiences?
MM:
We're tiptoeing through the tulips, now.
> >> > Why? There's no tradition of literary gossip or literary letters at
> >> > this time.
>
> >> Quite wrong. There was plenty of it. The
> >> 'literary scene' of the day is fully recognisable.
> >> There were plenty of theories and controversies
> >> -- several published in books, such as those by
> >> Sidney and 'Puttenham'. Writers formed them-
> >> selves into 'camps' and proposed all manner of
> >> semi-crazy ideas -- similar enough to now. They
> >> had fierce controversies in print; they routinely
> >> got into trouble with the authorities, and so on
> >> and on.
>
> > Now you're entering into your very own fantasy land. If you're
> > referring to things such as the "war of the theatres" then we mainly
> > know about the gossip and rivalry from the texts that have come down
> > to us not from literary ephemera. The academic examinations of poetry
> > you mention (Sidney, Puttenham) deal with poetry not drama
>
> Drama is certainly mentioned. Sidney deplores
> current plays that don't respect the 'Unities'
MM:
I'll scroll down.
>
> "Now you shall have three Ladies walke to gather flowers, and then we must
> beleeve the stage to be a garden. By and by we heare newes of shipwrack in
> the same place, then we are too blame if we accept it not for a Rock. Upon the
> back of that, comes out a hidious monster with fire and smoke, and then the
> miserable beholders are bound to take it for a Cave: while in the meane time
> two Armies flie in, represented with foure swords & bucklers, and then what
> hard hart wil not receive it for a pitched field. . . "
>
> > and aren't in the least gossipy in nature.
>
> 'Gossip' is often conspicuous by its absence.
> Of course that's solely because "Dey woz
> differen den".
MM:
Crowley, people have always been ignorant. They were ignorant then,
they are ignorant now. That is why we are all "banished." That is
why we are all "sinners." That is why we need to repent for the
Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. Get it?
> > Of course, Shakespeare is mentioned
> > exactly where and as frequently as one would expect in the literary
> > documentation that has come down to us - Meres, Greene, Harvey.
>
> Your expectations are low. Of course,
> you would not expect much from the
> hignorant folks that were around at the
> time.
MM:
Is this a dismissal of some very important Strat evidence? It
figures. They like to pick and choose. Pick a massive cover-up.
Dismiss any contrary evidence.
> > Funny that I don't recall mention of De Vere as author of the canon in any
> > documents I've seen.
>
> Sometime you ought to make an attempt to
> grasp the basic points of anti-Stratfordian
> cases. There was indeed a silence -- but it
> had a reason. The rule "Dey woz differen den"
> should not be applied with zero thought.
MM:
It's funny how the Anti-Strat stumbles over his own feet. He loves
"silence," when it is for his man, Edward de Vere. When there is
"silence," regarding Shakespeare, i.e. the low profile, then he comes
to the brilliant conclusion that William Shakespeare was a front man
for somebody. It seems the imagination of Anti-Strats is
hypocritical, as well as incredible.
MM:
I'd say don't judge all Strats by what one Strat writes. You have a
disgusting tendence to do that, Crowley.
Michael Martin
johnan...@johnpandrews.freeserve.co.uk
<slkwuoiutiuytciu...@slkjlskjoioue.com> wrote:
> "johnantis...@johnpandrews.freeserve.co.uk" <johnanti-s...@johnpandrews.freeserve.co.uk> wrote
>
> >> The " . . . sheer volume of documentary
> >> evidence that Shakespeare was pretty much
> >> the person most people have thought him to
> >> have been . . " could easily be written on a
> >> postage stamp. Spreading it over 15 volumes
> >> -- with detailed discussions on what other
> >> people have thought about it over the centuries
> >> -- is perfectly feasible, but it would not expand
> >> the number nor the quality of the original
> >> records.
> > Then come back and repeat and support your comment above - go
> > through the documents Chambers examines and explain why you think they
> > don't reveal what Chambers says they do.
>
> I began this thread by quoting extensively from
> Schoenbaum. I could have done much the same
> using Chambers. Your implied claim that (for
> some quite unstateable reason) Schoenbaum
> doesn't really count is no more than standard
> Stratfordian evasion.
If you had read Chambers you'd know why what you say above isn't true.
Many biographies of Shakespeare, I totally agree, are enjoyably
speculative (although not anywhere near as speculative as any
comparable Oxfordian works) but Chambers eschews speculation
deliberately and focuses only on the record and what can reasonably be
deduced from it.
> > If that's too much work for
> > you, try this one: When the Duke of Rutland paid two men called
> > Burbage and Shakespeare 43 gold shillings each (a very considerable
> > sum) in 1613, one for creating an impreso, the other for painting it
> > and we know a) that Burbage was known as a painter and Shakespeare was
> > known as a poet b) that the two men are mentioned in several documents
> > as knowing each other c) that an impresa is formed through the
> > combination of a poetic text with a heraldic emblem - what reasonable
> > person would not look on this as better documentary evidence that
> > Shakespeare is who most people think he is than any evidence you can
> > adduce as to De Vere's supposed authorship of the canon?
>
> This is an excellent example of the nature of
> Stratfordian 'proofs'. It reminds me of a
> Psychology professor who spent many years
> investigating the causes of crime, going into
> prisons and interviewing convicts. After
> writing several books he realised that criminals
> told lies. This revelation meant that every part
> of his research was worthless. Most
> uneducated people could have told him this
> elementary fact on his first day.
You are wriggling, Paul. It's fun to see. Answer the point - explain
the citation and match it with a better of your own or accept it as
fair evidence.
> It's much the same here. Chambers, Schoenbaum
> et al would readily believe that many casual
> workers were really named 'Mickey Mouse' and
> 'Jerry Kat'. The clue here is that whole story, as
> recounted by them, is nonsensical. Famous
> actors and nationally famous playwrights don't
> go around together doing small casual piecework
> jobs. When you see 'Brad Pitt' and 'Angelina
> Jolie' listed as fixing your drains, you should
> not necessarily believe that the careers of the
> famous actors have taken a sudden down-turn.
..like a maggot on a hook... the whole point is that a retired actor
and retired playwright would do exactly this kind of lucrative
literary odd-job. Your analogy is fatuous.
> >> > You shouldn't keep ignoring the fact that very few
> >> > playwrights of the time have biographical information to fill a
> >> > pamphlet let alone two volumes.
>
> >> The is either an appalling mistake or a lie.
>
> > My preferred language for USENET is English but I suppose you mean to
> > infer that we have copious quantities of biographical information
> > about Middleton, Rowley, Webster, Tourneur, Kyd, Massinger, Ford etc.
> > etc. If so, and you are in possession of such information, your
> > fortune is made and you can retire from irritating people on the
> > internet.
>
> If you are prepared to be as prolix as Chambers
> et al, and you have 300 or 400 years of previous
> 'scholarship' to build upon, then it would not
> be difficult to fill endless volumes on any
> historical personage, no matter how scanty
> the original documents. It would not be hard
> to write tomes about (say) Atlantis, or the
> Loch Ness monster. I'm sure it's been done.
I almost pity you - and you're missing the obvious point. Any literary
remains of any contemporary playwright of Shakespeare has been sought
for as assiduously as records of Shakespeare himself and yet almost
nothing can be found about some formidably strong and popular
playwrights. Therefore (hold on, Paul, this is called logical
deduction and it's based on facts...) you shouldn't profess yourself
so amazed at the relative paucity of documentation for Shakespeare -
which, in fact, isn't really "paucity" at all.
> >> > Shakespeare is our greatest writer yet
> >> > he lived, unfortunately for us, at a time when the kind of records we
> >> > hanker after were simply not produced. The interest in him that has
> >> > created the "mythos" you talk of is a direct function a) of his
> >> > importance to subsequent generations (not necessarily something his
> >> > peers at the time would have thought of)
>
> >> This first main plank of Stratfordian theory
> >> is : "Dey woz differen den". Here you rely
> >> on that, but you also depend on the second :
> >> "Dey woz awl reely stoopit den".
>
> > You are clearly the plank if you mean to suggest that things *weren't*
> > different then.
>
> Whenever Strats find some wholly
> inexplicable fact, they simply claim
> "Dey woz differen den". To them that
> is a sufficient explanation in itself.
Not really - I just prefer to try to understand the age Shakespeare
lived in instead of just making it up to suit my theories as you
persistently do.
> > Nothing I say suggests they were in any way stupid.
> You wrote:
> >> > is a direct function a) of his
> >> > importance to subsequent generations (not necessarily something his
> >> > peers at the time would have thought of)
>
> According to you (and to Strats generally)
> the people at the time were too stupid to
> realise that they had in their presence a
> truly remarkable playwright. They had no
> comprehension of the nature of his talent
> nor of the level of his writing.
Not quite what I wrote, actually, and isn't it *you* rather than me
who keeps claiming that the poor Elizabethans and Jacobeans were too
stupid to understand Shakespeare's plays? And no, I don't think
there's evidence that the age were certain of Shakespeare's true
genius in that most references to him are to his poetry rather than to
his plays and often lesser writers are given higher prominence than
Shakespeare in lists and encomiums. It wouldn't be unusual for a
writer to be, to a degree, undervalued by his contemporaries.
> >> Strats assert that the canonical plays were
> >> hugely popular when first staged yet, at the
> >> same time, they claim that the audiences did
> >> not appreciate nor understand them -- that
> >> had to wait for future generations and the
> >> creation of Professorships of English
> >> Literature.
>
> > It's a subtle point I'm trying here - the plays were indeed popular, I
> > believe, but the art form of playwrighting was relatively new and
> > therefore didn't have the status of other forms of literary endeavour.
>
>Sure, dey was reel stupit then
So you keep saying - I don't agree - at least not by standards set by
you.
>
> > Maybe a little like screenwriters today. I say nothing about whether
> > audiences understood them although I never see why they shouldn't when
> > schoolchildren can manage them today despite the way that language has
> > changed in the intervening 500 years. Do you find them a strain? I'm
> > not surprised.
>
> Are you not aware of the extent to which
> the canonical plays had to be dumbed down
> for the post-Restoration (and highly-educated)
> audiences?
Dryden's "All for Love" and Naham Tate's "King Lear"? Sure - they
weren't so much dumbed down as have their "rough edges" removed and
language refined to fit the fashions of a different age. I don't think
basic understanding of the plays of the kind you seem to struggle with
was the issue.
>
>
>
>
> >> > Why? There's no tradition of literary gossip or literary letters at
> >> > this time.
>
> >> Quite wrong. There was plenty of it. The
> >> 'literary scene' of the day is fully recognisable.
> >> There were plenty of theories and controversies
> >> -- several published in books, such as those by
> >> Sidney and 'Puttenham'. Writers formed them-
> >> selves into 'camps' and proposed all manner of
> >> semi-crazy ideas -- similar enough to now. They
> >> had fierce controversies in print; they routinely
> >> got into trouble with the authorities, and so on
> >> and on.
>
> > Now you're entering into your very own fantasy land. If you're
> > referring to things such as the "war of the theatres" then we mainly
> > know about the gossip and rivalry from the texts that have come down
> > to us not from literary ephemera. The academic examinations of poetry
> > you mention (Sidney, Puttenham) deal with poetry not drama
>
> Drama is certainly mentioned.
Well, *mentioned* (once or twice) - hardly the rich ragout of dramatic
literary gossip you seem to think they represent.
Sidney deplores
> current plays that don't respect the 'Unities'
>
> "Now you shall have three Ladies walke to gather flowers, and then we must
> beleeve the stage to be a garden. By and by we heare newes of shipwrack in
> the same place, then we are too blame if we accept it not for a Rock. Upon the
> back of that, comes out a hidious monster with fire and smoke, and then the
> miserable beholders are bound to take it for a Cave: while in the meane time
> two Armies flie in, represented with foure swords & bucklers, and then what
> hard hart wil not receive it for a pitched field. . . "
>
> > and aren't in the least gossipy in nature.
>
> 'Gossip' is often conspicuous by its absence.
> Of course that's solely because "Dey woz
> differen den".
Well - quote the gossip you find then rather than parroting your
mantra. You can't because there isn't any.
> > Of course, Shakespeare is mentioned
> > exactly where and as frequently as one would expect in the literary
> > documentation that has come down to us - Meres, Greene, Harvey.
>
> Your expectations are low. Of course,
> you would not expect much from the
> hignorant folks that were around at the
> time.
Not ignorant by your standards, Paul.
> > Funny that I don't recall mention of De Vere as author of the canon in any
> > documents I've seen.
>
> Sometime you ought to make an attempt to
> grasp the basic points of anti-Stratfordian
> cases. There was indeed a silence -- but it
> had a reason. The rule "Dey woz differen den"
> should not be applied with zero thought.
I understand too well the (very) basic points of anti-stratfordian
"cases" - snobbish and ahistorical conspiracy theorising of the
feeblest kind. I read half a dozen rotten books on De Vere's
authorship and didn't see a single piece of credible evidence.
> >> > Shakespeare was a
> >> > mere playwright - an emphemeral artform probably looked on snobbishly
> >> > and suspiciously from the point of view of high literary status.
>
> >> This is where you descend into idiot Stratford-
> >> ianism. Firstly he was NOT a 'mere playwright' --
> >> he was a great poet and recognised as such.
> >> Secondly, the Queen, the royal court, and
> >> much of the aristocracy loved the theatre.
>
> > Hmm, it's not impossible for an art form (particularly a relatively
> > new one)
>
> Where do you get this idea of a 'relatively
> new . . . art form'? The existence of Roman
> and Greek drama was well-known. It was
> probably quite often performed -- even if not
> to mass audiences at the Globe. As I have
> told you, the real poet's grandfather had his
> own acting company in his own house.
> Drama had been common for generations
> in the courts of Europe and in the houses
> of the aristocracy.
Thanks, Paul, for the lesson. I wasn't, oddly enough, referring to
drama itself which I was aware has an ancient lineage. I should, for
your sake, have been more specific - what is new is the flourishing of
the theatre in the second half of the c.16 with the establishing of
literary reputations based on authored plays. (Lots of the best of
them with Shakespeare's name attached; none, now I come to think of
it, with De Vere's...strange.)
> > to be popular and yet not have cachet of more established art
> > forms. Do you have evidence that playwrighting was a high status
> > acivity?
>
> This is as good an example of Stratfordian
> mindlessness as we are likely to see -- not
> that there is ever any shortage. Who are
> listed as the authors of Gorboduc?
True, Paul. Name another - a single swallow does not a summer make, as
you know. Was Goboduc written for the popular theatre as all of
Shakespeare's plays were?
>
>
> >> The real poet's father (and his grandfather
> >> before that) had his own theatre company --
> >> with the actors resident in his house during
> >> the winter. THAT was the kind of upbringing
> >> needed to produce a truly great playwright.
> >> Our poet famously refers to it:
> >> HAMLET [Takes the skull]
> >> Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow
> >> of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath
> >> borne me on his back a thousand times . . .
>
> > Well, what is necessary to make a great writer is an interesting
> > topic. Your apparent contention that only
>
> ...
>
> read more »- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -
johnan...@johnpandrews.freeserve.co.uk
Dear Mark
I've been bantering with Paul occasionally, on-and-off for a number of
years. It feels a bit like bullying, actually. He only frustrates me
because he seems to hate to read anything to support his case and
therefore it can soon become boring debating with him.
Best wishes
John Andrews
Mark Houlsby
I'll take that as a "no".
Thanks for the heads up.
Regards
Mark Houlsby
Mark Houlsby
>
> news:1175175743.8...@y66g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
>
> >> For which other famous person -- since
> >> Early Modern times -- have an equivalent
> >> number of "stories and urban legends"
> >> been made up?
>
> >> For which other famous person does the
> >> quantity of "mythos" so vastly outweigh
> >> the number of historically sound records?
>
> > ==> Those statements assume facts *not* in evidence.
>
> OK. So . . .?
So you're "whistling Dixie" as the Americans say.
> I CLAIM that that the level
> of 'mythos' (i.e. bullshit) surrounding the
> Stratman is not merely far greater than for
> any other remotely comparable figure --
> it's in a different ball-park.
>
Uh huh and this CLAIM is bullshit (i.e. bullshit) as I've already
indicated. You're deranged, Paul.
> You can deal with that claim in two ways:
> (a) You can meet it face-on and show that
> it is false -- by quoting the names of other
> famous people, and giving accounts from
> their standard biographies of the 'mythos'
> surrounding them.
> (b) You can duck -- and pretend that I have
> not sufficiently made out the case.
>
> Guess what choice you'll make?
>
Hitler, Bormann, Presley. Pay attention.
> As a worthless Strat (and all Strats are
> necessarily worthless) there can be no
> doubt.
>
I'm not a Strat any more than I'm a Gibson. You, however, are
worthless.