theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
This is starting to sound like a bad parody of a Guy Ritchie script.
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How did Shakespeare come to know so much?
- Thread starter CplFerro
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kookbreaker
Evil Fokker
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Nah.
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William Stanley, initials "WS", who signed himself as "Will:", as 6th Earl of Derby, took over the "Shakespeare" troupe, under the name of "Derby's Men".
Will was a brilliant, accomplished, cultured man, who had graduated from St. John's College, Oxford and qualified as a lawyer. He had spent many years travelling through the courts of Europe; France, Italy, Denmark and into Egypt and the Levant.
He was known to be obsessed with the plays that were performed by his troupe. Several are thought to have been "written for him", such as A Midsummer Night's Dream, believed to have premiered at his wedding in 1595.
Will Stanley, although not directly in line to the throne, was still thought of by France and Spain as sympathetic to the Catholic cause, and plots swirled around him as a possible successor to Elizabeth.
But, somewhat like Hamlet, Will Stanley shrank away from politics, and dedicated himself to cultural pursuits. Just as in the play, like Fortinbras in Denmark, the eventual successor to the English throne, James VI of Scotland, was from the kingdom to the North...
Two hundred years after the event, two letters from a Jesuit spy were discovered in an archive, stating "The Earl of Derby is busied only in penning comedies for the common players". No plays or comedies exist under any of Will Stanley's names or titles.
The First Folio, which was printed at great expense in 1623, is dedicated to the "incomparable pair of brethren", the Earls of Pembroke and Montgomery.
These two Earls were Derby's own brothers-in-law. Five years later, Derby placed his own estates in the trust of these brothers-in-law, and retired from public life.
Scholars have noted two epitaphs on Stanley/Derby mausoleums. One, in London, on Stanley's son's tomb, erected in 1632 [almost two decades after the death of the Stratford Man], reads....
To say a Stanley lies here, that alone
were epitaph enough; no brass, no stone,
no glorious tomb, no monumental hearse,
no guilded trophy or lamp-laboured verse
can dignify his grave or set it forth
like the immortal fame of his own worth.
Then, reader, fix not here, but quit this room
and fly to Abraham's bosom – there's his tomb.
There rests his soul, and for his other parts
they are embalmed and lodged in good men's hearts.
A braver monument of stone or lime,
no art can raise, for this shall outlast Time.
Will was a brilliant, accomplished, cultured man, who had graduated from St. John's College, Oxford and qualified as a lawyer. He had spent many years travelling through the courts of Europe; France, Italy, Denmark and into Egypt and the Levant.
He was known to be obsessed with the plays that were performed by his troupe. Several are thought to have been "written for him", such as A Midsummer Night's Dream, believed to have premiered at his wedding in 1595.
Will Stanley, although not directly in line to the throne, was still thought of by France and Spain as sympathetic to the Catholic cause, and plots swirled around him as a possible successor to Elizabeth.
But, somewhat like Hamlet, Will Stanley shrank away from politics, and dedicated himself to cultural pursuits. Just as in the play, like Fortinbras in Denmark, the eventual successor to the English throne, James VI of Scotland, was from the kingdom to the North...
Two hundred years after the event, two letters from a Jesuit spy were discovered in an archive, stating "The Earl of Derby is busied only in penning comedies for the common players". No plays or comedies exist under any of Will Stanley's names or titles.
The First Folio, which was printed at great expense in 1623, is dedicated to the "incomparable pair of brethren", the Earls of Pembroke and Montgomery.
These two Earls were Derby's own brothers-in-law. Five years later, Derby placed his own estates in the trust of these brothers-in-law, and retired from public life.
Scholars have noted two epitaphs on Stanley/Derby mausoleums. One, in London, on Stanley's son's tomb, erected in 1632 [almost two decades after the death of the Stratford Man], reads....
To say a Stanley lies here, that alone
were epitaph enough; no brass, no stone,
no glorious tomb, no monumental hearse,
no guilded trophy or lamp-laboured verse
can dignify his grave or set it forth
like the immortal fame of his own worth.
Then, reader, fix not here, but quit this room
and fly to Abraham's bosom – there's his tomb.
There rests his soul, and for his other parts
they are embalmed and lodged in good men's hearts.
A braver monument of stone or lime,
no art can raise, for this shall outlast Time.
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DevilsAdvocate
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Good gravy! This isn't QAnnon where you can drip-drip vague suggestions and refuse to get to the evidence until after people stay tuned and then dig into a gish-gallop. This a skeptic's site.
Present the argument, complete, in one post. That must include arguments not only supporting the position, but also in defense of the opposing positions.
If that is not done, the position has failed. Failed utterly and miserably. Unworthy of even consideration.
kookbreaker
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So basically just the Derbyite claims. Which require the usual amount of Dan Brown level silly intrigue and collusion among hundreds of artists and nobles with titter-titter-tee-hee levels of 'hints' written vaguely into the poems and plays.
I'll give you this, IMHO Derby was a better candidate than Oxford and his double-incest plotlines of utter silliness along with a complete detachment from the theater community. At least Derby was a friggin' sponsor of a company.
But in the end it has the same problems. A noble isn't going to have the intricacies and knowledge to write for an acting company with a set cast unless he is among them. Again you cannot mail that in from his Lordship's house. The little hints and connections are tenuous at best and rely on the God of the Gaps to fill in the details. And of course we are given the usual level of snobbery where the son of a glovemaker could not possibly be a great poet and playwright.
I'll also echo what DevilsAdvocate says with the further caveat: We don't do argument by Youtube around here.
I'll give you this, IMHO Derby was a better candidate than Oxford and his double-incest plotlines of utter silliness along with a complete detachment from the theater community. At least Derby was a friggin' sponsor of a company.
But in the end it has the same problems. A noble isn't going to have the intricacies and knowledge to write for an acting company with a set cast unless he is among them. Again you cannot mail that in from his Lordship's house. The little hints and connections are tenuous at best and rely on the God of the Gaps to fill in the details. And of course we are given the usual level of snobbery where the son of a glovemaker could not possibly be a great poet and playwright.
I'll also echo what DevilsAdvocate says with the further caveat: We don't do argument by Youtube around here.
You might also be intrigued to know that Derby was in fact Oxford's son-in-law.
Where is the snobbery? Where did I say the son of a glovemaker could not possibly have done it?
I just deal in facts. Not straw men.
There is scant evidence Shaxper was "Shakespeare." There ought to be such evidence, based both on the survival of records for every contemporary author, and of Shaxper's own surviving records [as an actor and businessman]
Therefore I conclude, on the evidence, that Shaxper was most likely not "Shakespeare".
Unless there is some undiscovered smoking gun, it's unlikely we will ever conclusively identify the true author, all the moreso since if Shaxper was not "Shakespeare", the true author wishes to remain concealed.
It was all such a long time ago, and in the absence of conclusive evidence, all we are left with are theories. We may test our theories. I think it is called "abductive reasoning."
If people theorise over the identity of "Satoshi Nakamoto", while largely conceding that he is not in fact Satoshi Nakamoto, I don't see why "Shakespeare" should be treated differently, while conceding that there is even less chance of solving the second puzzle than the first.
And I only posted the Youtube videos to give a flavour of the debate, and that the authorship question seems to be gaining traction. Make of it what you will.
Where is the snobbery? Where did I say the son of a glovemaker could not possibly have done it?
I just deal in facts. Not straw men.
There is scant evidence Shaxper was "Shakespeare." There ought to be such evidence, based both on the survival of records for every contemporary author, and of Shaxper's own surviving records [as an actor and businessman]
Therefore I conclude, on the evidence, that Shaxper was most likely not "Shakespeare".
Unless there is some undiscovered smoking gun, it's unlikely we will ever conclusively identify the true author, all the moreso since if Shaxper was not "Shakespeare", the true author wishes to remain concealed.
It was all such a long time ago, and in the absence of conclusive evidence, all we are left with are theories. We may test our theories. I think it is called "abductive reasoning."
If people theorise over the identity of "Satoshi Nakamoto", while largely conceding that he is not in fact Satoshi Nakamoto, I don't see why "Shakespeare" should be treated differently, while conceding that there is even less chance of solving the second puzzle than the first.
And I only posted the Youtube videos to give a flavour of the debate, and that the authorship question seems to be gaining traction. Make of it what you will.
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CORed
Penultimate Amazing
Perhaps this thread should be moved to Conspiracy Theories, because that's exactly what claims that Shakespeare's works were written by somebody else are. They seem to be based mostly on sheer snobbery: The notion that a mere commoner couldn't possibly have written such good stuff. I'm not sure exactly when they started, but they are a great demonstration of the ability of conspiracy theories to persist in the complete absence of supporting evidence.
DevilsAdvocate
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And I might not. I am not.
kookbreaker
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Well that is the heart of just about every conspiracy theory belief: with minimal effort you connect a handful of micro-thin threads regarding your subject matter to get the smug warm feeling that you "know" better than the sheeple.
I've had 9/11 truthers tell me they know better than structural engineers about how buildings should stand. I've had anti-vaxxers claim they know how trace elements in a vaccine are more deadly that trace elements in an apple to biochemists. I've had people whose only experience with firearms is watching bad action movies tell me how firearms work.
Shakespearian scholars and English historians have poured over these matters for decades and found nothing worthy of note. These are people who are trained and experienced to evaluate bodies of evidence, not just little tidbits and oddities. They find these claims wanting, and little better than the claims of every other conspiracy theory. Believe me, if they found the evidence that shows you were right, they would not be sticks in the mud, they would present it and be revolutionaries in their fields (and no, do not give me the 'it would rock their world so they hide/ignore/suppress', we've heard it a thousand times and it never holds true).
What you have given us if not even remotely considerable is definitive evidence. What you have given us is literary creationism. Its niggling with lost bits, tenuous connections, and declaring that due to these shortcomings your version must be true.
DevilsAdvocate
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I always treat such, one way or the other, as juvenile quips against cliques that are entirely irrelevant to the truth.
bruto
Penultimate Amazing
You keep bringing up "Shaxper" as if this meant something. What percentage of the variant forms of Shakespeare's spelling does this accord with, as opposed to those much closer to minor variants of Shakespeare?
Gord_in_Toronto
Penultimate Amazing
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This thread is titled, How did Shakespeare come to know so much?.
Can we just dismiss thinking that because he was poor, his parents were not educated and there is no evidence of formal schooling, he could "know so much"?
There are enough people throughout history with similar or worse childhoods who became world famous for doing things really well. The one that always comes to my mind is Joseph ConradWP. He is acknowledged as one of the best writers in the English language. He only learned to speak English in his twenties.
I would respectfully suggest that there is nothing about Shakespeare's smartness that is particularly unusual. Bell Curve and all.
Can we just dismiss thinking that because he was poor, his parents were not educated and there is no evidence of formal schooling, he could "know so much"?
There are enough people throughout history with similar or worse childhoods who became world famous for doing things really well. The one that always comes to my mind is Joseph ConradWP. He is acknowledged as one of the best writers in the English language. He only learned to speak English in his twenties.
I would respectfully suggest that there is nothing about Shakespeare's smartness that is particularly unusual. Bell Curve and all.
Don't misunderstand. I personally do not attach much weight to differences in spelling, except that (perhaps) it is odd that "Shakespeare" is the one spelling the Stratford Man never used himself.
I just emphasise the difference to clarify the line of argument, that the man from Stratford (Shaxper/Shagsper/Shakspere/../../../../../) may not necessarily be the "Shakespeare" who was named as author on the title pages of [some of] the plays.
This seems to be a 'convention' adopted by Anti-Stratfordians generally, as far as I can see.
In itself, it is not an attempt to 'prove' anything, AFAIK.
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kookbreaker
Evil Fokker
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Its not, really. Miswriting one's name was not unusual. Christopher Columbus, for example, never signed his name 'Columbus' but rather Colum, Columbo, a few other variations, and that silly thing cryptographers have been puzzling over. It was hardly worthy of note.
erwinl
Illuminator
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This all reminds me so much of a CT, read on NewsMax, oh so many years ago.
It was that the Illiad wasn’t written by Homer, but by somebody else, who had the same name.
Gyronaut? That wasn’t you, by the way?
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I think there's a difference. In Latin/Catholic countries there was at that time a convention of Latin-izing many names when referring to prominent people. e.g. Copernicus, Stradivarius, Nostrodamus, etc.
Regarding Shakespeare, it's only a small point that he never used that spelling himself, but perhaps odd. Would not this author have literary control over how his name was spelled on his own works? If he wanted to change/regularise it to "Shakespeare" because it sounded/looked better, why not adopt that spelling in private life?
Yes, but Conrad came from a family of intellectuals and activists, 300 years after Shakespeare. So maybe not the best illustration of your point.
Cervantes, who was an exact contemporary of "Shakespeare", has a far, far, far-better documented life of thrilling adventure, and it does not surprise that he took up writing.
[I've just noticed that Cervantes' life has many parallels with the early, adventurous life of William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby. Stratfordians are sometimes reduced to theorising that Shaxper must have somehow "tagged along" with Stanley on his adventures ! ]
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theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
Cool.
If you ever find any of the conspirators' writings, where they document their plan to manufacture "William Shakespeare", please do let us know.