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the first eight iambic lines
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Arthur Neuendorffer
Feb 4, 2016, 11:00:52 AM2/4/16
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Evidence That Christopher Marlowe Was The "Ghost" Of William Shakespeare
http://tinyurl.com/h2wrrrh
<<I have cited Roberta Ballantine's book a number of times above, but without citing any of her anagrams, mainly because so many people automatically dismiss anagrams as evidence. Now it is necessary to introduce the subject more formally. Contrary to common opinion, anagrams are not codes or ciphers. The Encyclopedia Britannica (11th edition) defines anagrams as "the result of transposing the letters of a word or words in such a manner as to produce other words that possess meaning." The anagram of a word is another word constructed from the same set of letters. Anagrams may also apply to sequences of words, such as a sentence, constructed from the same letters (and punctuations) as another sequence or sentence.
The use of anagrams for purposes of "interior writing" goes back at least to the Greek theater (Thompson and Padover 1963) Appendix p.253.
"Authors of the Greek tragedies constructed the first eight iambic lines so that they not only made sense but also provided letters to make eight other iambic lines, the first two giving the writer's name, the next two the Olympiad, the third a homage to Athena, and the last couplet a warning that the show was about to begin"
It is likely that Kit Marlowe learned about this tradition from his schoolmaster at the King's School, John Gresshop, who was a Greek scholar (op cit, p. 3). In fact, creating anagrams seems to have been a common word-game among educated people in the 16th and 17th centuries, who had fewer books to read and no TV to distract them. It seems that King Louis XIII of France (1610-1643) actually appointed an official "Anagrammatist to the King". William Camden, antiquarian, historian and sometime headmaster of Winchester School, author of Remaines Concerning Britain, wrote a chapter on anagrams (Camden 1605 (1657)).
The 11th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica pointed out that anagrams were also used on occasion by scientists like Galileo, Hooke, Kepler and Huygens to assert their discoveries to the initiated without alerting the religious thought police. In particular, Gallileo did it. He announced his discovery of the phases of the planet Venus as follows: "Haec immature a ma jam frustra leguntur--oy" meaning "Cynthiae figuras aemulatur Mater Amorum".
So notwithstanding the fact that the use of anagrams has lapsed into disrepute, it is an indisputable fact that anagrams were widely used by educated people like Christopher Marlowe and his contemporaries. Indeed, it would be surprising if Marlowe had not inserted anagrams in his plays and poems. As it happens, extensive anagrams have been found in virtually every play or poem written by Marlowe, writing as "Shakespeare" (Ballantine 2007). His anagrams always correspond to pairs of verses (each one consisting of two lines) usually at the beginning of a piece, identifying himself (Marlowe) as the author. In some cases only one pair of verses is thus "anagrammed". But in some other cases the anagrams continue for more than a hundred verses, telling a story or explaining how he feels about something that has happened.
It is true that, in principle, anagrams are not necessarily unique. If there are two meaningful sets of words with the same lexicon, it is theoretically possible that there might be three (or more). Most literary critics dismiss anagrams altogether, based on the Friedman's critique (Friedman and Friedman 1957). There is a mathematical proof that the number of possible anagrams in a set of letters increases as an exponent of the number of letters (Malioutov 2004). I will not attempt to explain the reasons in detail, here, but it is really very difficult to create a meaningful anagram of a verse or a long sentence., and even harder to create a sequence of meaningful anagrams that tell a story, such as "Captain Bargrave: A form of Polisie" by "Ignotus" which runs continuously from p. 508 to p. 545 of her book. The last several pages are messages to his wife, apologizing for his coming departure (death from cancer) and advising her as to where to go and how to raise the children when he is gone. He wants her to educate them so they could grow up to be independent and self-sufficient but NOT dependent on working for unscrupulous people like the heads of SSS. He advises her to take the children to Guarini's family estate where they will find a home. If you can read those pages without weeping, you have a very hard heart.
Does this mean that Ballantine's 366 pages of anagrams are completely trustworthy? No, it does not. She herself has noted cases where exchanging words, for instance, can change meanings. On the other hand, the anagrams are not meaningless verbal garbage. On the contrary, they can provide clues. In the present context, the most important example is the name Gregorio de'Monti itself, which appears (usually as 'Greg' in scores of different anagrams, almost always in combination with one of Marlowe's various signatures (Chr.M, Kit, Kit M.).
Other clues from the anagrams worth following up in the future include (1) the name of his wife, Micaela Lujan (and her former relationship with Lope de Vega); his relationship with Cervantes and his likely identification as "Thomas Shelton", based on the names of Thomas Walsingham and his wife Audrey Shelton; his children, notably his illegitimate son William Davenant (who later became Poet Laureate of England under Charles II); not to mention some mysteries from his earlier life, such as his true father (Sir Roger Manwood); his true relationships with the Earls of Oxford and Southampton, the identity of the "Dark Lady", his relationship with Mary Sidney Herbert and the likely identity of Mr. W.H. The anagrams provide plausible resolutions of these mysteries, and more.
The anagrams tell many interesting anecdotes with obvious relevance to the plays. In Captain Bargrave's Polisie, he describes the circumstances of the writing (with John Fletcher) of "Two Kinsman". His experience of a great storm at sea inspired "The Tempest". The murder of Guarini's daughter Anna by her own husband and brother (an "honor killing") was the inspiration for "Othello". There are many other literary links. But while the anagrams create a remarkable - and very plausible - tapestry, with many surprises - they are icing for the cake, not essential to the argument. But even if all of the other "clues" to be found in Roberta Ballantine's anagrams are rejected as products of her imagination, the essence of the case for Marlowe as the ghost-writer for Shakespeare remains unaffected The "profile" evidence, cited above, is sufficient by itself to demonstrate that Kit Marlowe did survive. The murder was a fake.>>
--------------------------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer
Evidence That Christopher Marlowe Was The "Ghost" Of William Shakespeare
http://tinyurl.com/h2wrrrh
<<I have cited Roberta Ballantine's book a number of times above, but without citing any of her anagrams, mainly because so many people automatically dismiss anagrams as evidence. Now it is necessary to introduce the subject more formally. Contrary to common opinion, anagrams are not codes or ciphers. The Encyclopedia Britannica (11th edition) defines anagrams as "the result of transposing the letters of a word or words in such a manner as to produce other words that possess meaning." The anagram of a word is another word constructed from the same set of letters. Anagrams may also apply to sequences of words, such as a sentence, constructed from the same letters (and punctuations) as another sequence or sentence.
The use of anagrams for purposes of "interior writing" goes back at least to the Greek theater (Thompson and Padover 1963) Appendix p.253.
"Authors of the Greek tragedies constructed the first eight iambic lines so that they not only made sense but also provided letters to make eight other iambic lines, the first two giving the writer's name, the next two the Olympiad, the third a homage to Athena, and the last couplet a warning that the show was about to begin"
It is likely that Kit Marlowe learned about this tradition from his schoolmaster at the King's School, John Gresshop, who was a Greek scholar (op cit, p. 3). In fact, creating anagrams seems to have been a common word-game among educated people in the 16th and 17th centuries, who had fewer books to read and no TV to distract them. It seems that King Louis XIII of France (1610-1643) actually appointed an official "Anagrammatist to the King". William Camden, antiquarian, historian and sometime headmaster of Winchester School, author of Remaines Concerning Britain, wrote a chapter on anagrams (Camden 1605 (1657)).
The 11th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica pointed out that anagrams were also used on occasion by scientists like Galileo, Hooke, Kepler and Huygens to assert their discoveries to the initiated without alerting the religious thought police. In particular, Gallileo did it. He announced his discovery of the phases of the planet Venus as follows: "Haec immature a ma jam frustra leguntur--oy" meaning "Cynthiae figuras aemulatur Mater Amorum".
So notwithstanding the fact that the use of anagrams has lapsed into disrepute, it is an indisputable fact that anagrams were widely used by educated people like Christopher Marlowe and his contemporaries. Indeed, it would be surprising if Marlowe had not inserted anagrams in his plays and poems. As it happens, extensive anagrams have been found in virtually every play or poem written by Marlowe, writing as "Shakespeare" (Ballantine 2007). His anagrams always correspond to pairs of verses (each one consisting of two lines) usually at the beginning of a piece, identifying himself (Marlowe) as the author. In some cases only one pair of verses is thus "anagrammed". But in some other cases the anagrams continue for more than a hundred verses, telling a story or explaining how he feels about something that has happened.
It is true that, in principle, anagrams are not necessarily unique. If there are two meaningful sets of words with the same lexicon, it is theoretically possible that there might be three (or more). Most literary critics dismiss anagrams altogether, based on the Friedman's critique (Friedman and Friedman 1957). There is a mathematical proof that the number of possible anagrams in a set of letters increases as an exponent of the number of letters (Malioutov 2004). I will not attempt to explain the reasons in detail, here, but it is really very difficult to create a meaningful anagram of a verse or a long sentence., and even harder to create a sequence of meaningful anagrams that tell a story, such as "Captain Bargrave: A form of Polisie" by "Ignotus" which runs continuously from p. 508 to p. 545 of her book. The last several pages are messages to his wife, apologizing for his coming departure (death from cancer) and advising her as to where to go and how to raise the children when he is gone. He wants her to educate them so they could grow up to be independent and self-sufficient but NOT dependent on working for unscrupulous people like the heads of SSS. He advises her to take the children to Guarini's family estate where they will find a home. If you can read those pages without weeping, you have a very hard heart.
Does this mean that Ballantine's 366 pages of anagrams are completely trustworthy? No, it does not. She herself has noted cases where exchanging words, for instance, can change meanings. On the other hand, the anagrams are not meaningless verbal garbage. On the contrary, they can provide clues. In the present context, the most important example is the name Gregorio de'Monti itself, which appears (usually as 'Greg' in scores of different anagrams, almost always in combination with one of Marlowe's various signatures (Chr.M, Kit, Kit M.).
Other clues from the anagrams worth following up in the future include (1) the name of his wife, Micaela Lujan (and her former relationship with Lope de Vega); his relationship with Cervantes and his likely identification as "Thomas Shelton", based on the names of Thomas Walsingham and his wife Audrey Shelton; his children, notably his illegitimate son William Davenant (who later became Poet Laureate of England under Charles II); not to mention some mysteries from his earlier life, such as his true father (Sir Roger Manwood); his true relationships with the Earls of Oxford and Southampton, the identity of the "Dark Lady", his relationship with Mary Sidney Herbert and the likely identity of Mr. W.H. The anagrams provide plausible resolutions of these mysteries, and more.
The anagrams tell many interesting anecdotes with obvious relevance to the plays. In Captain Bargrave's Polisie, he describes the circumstances of the writing (with John Fletcher) of "Two Kinsman". His experience of a great storm at sea inspired "The Tempest". The murder of Guarini's daughter Anna by her own husband and brother (an "honor killing") was the inspiration for "Othello". There are many other literary links. But while the anagrams create a remarkable - and very plausible - tapestry, with many surprises - they are icing for the cake, not essential to the argument. But even if all of the other "clues" to be found in Roberta Ballantine's anagrams are rejected as products of her imagination, the essence of the case for Marlowe as the ghost-writer for Shakespeare remains unaffected The "profile" evidence, cited above, is sufficient by itself to demonstrate that Kit Marlowe did survive. The murder was a fake.>>
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Art Neuendorffer
graham.a...@btinternet.com
Feb 4, 2016, 7:17:53 PM2/4/16
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