How did Shakespeare come to know so much?

[kookbreaker]

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?

You are applying a modern mentality to someone in 16th/17th century England. Most common folks rarely cared how their name was spelled.

 

[theprestige]

The problem with the Shakespeare of the Gaps hypothesis is that it can only carry us so far:

We get as far as, these people could conceivably have done it, and there's nothing that definitively rules out the possibility that they did do it.

And that's about as far as we can get, on the hypothesis alone.

We don't have any good evidence that they did do it. Occam's razor says they probably didn't.

 

[Gyronaut]

Cool.

If you ever find any of the conspirators' writings, where they document their plan to manufacture "William Shakespeare", please do let us know.

A conspiracy of silence requires no paper trail.

Who was/is Nakamoto?

No-one's saying, except cranks claiming it was them.

 

[Lucian]

I gave a talk about Shakespeare denialism a few years ago at the skeptic track at Balticon. I didn't talk specifically about the Earl of Derby theory, but I did try to explain why there is no reason to think that anyone other than Shakespeare was the primary author of Shakespeare's works.

 

[bruto]

That looks very interesting and I will get to it later when I have the free time.

In the mean time, I don't know whether it's come up in so many words, but it would help the authorship conspirators a great deal if they could come up with writing from their pet candidates that is Shakespearean in quality.

Maybe I'm just a blindered bardolater to say that, but so far I don't see work that convinces.

 

[Gyronaut]

That looks very interesting and I will get to it later when I have the free time.

In the mean time, I don't know whether it's come up in so many words, but it would help the authorship conspirators a great deal if they could come up with writing from their pet candidates that is Shakespearean in quality.

Maybe I'm just a blindered bardolater to say that, but so far I don't see work that convinces.

Well, you could start with the one I posted up-thread.
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=13379373&postcount=243

It's on the tomb of Stanley's son, from 1632, inside Chelsea Old Church in London. Stanley himself died in 1642.

Scholars have discovered distinct word and phrase similarities, and overall 'feel' to something in "Shakespeare"'s works. [I'll try and dig it out].

There's another one in Shropshire, England on a Stanley tomb from the 1630s. [original spellings]

Ask who lyes heare, bvt do not wheep
He is not dead; He dooth bvt sleep
This stony register, is for his bones
His Fame is more perpetvall then theise stones
And his owne goodnes wt him self being gon
Shall lyve when earthlie monament is non
Not monventall stone preserves ovr Fame
Nor sky aspyring piramids ovr name,
The memory of him for whom this stands
Shall ovtlyve marbl, and defacers hands
When all to tymes consvmption shall be geaven
Standly for whom this stands shall stand in heaven


There's a recent (2015) book focusing on Stanley as "Shakespeare", by John M. Rollett.
I think he identifies "Hand D" as Stanley's work, based on 'unusual' spellings and stylistics used by Stanley in his surviving letters.

 

[Lucian]

That looks very interesting and I will get to it later when I have the free time.

In the mean time, I don't know whether it's come up in so many words, but it would help the authorship conspirators a great deal if they could come up with writing from their pet candidates that is Shakespearean in quality.

Maybe I'm just a blindered bardolater to say that, but so far I don't see work that convinces.

Well, Christopher Marlowe wrote some astonishingly good verse, but he wrote almost all of it before he died. The vast majority of Shakespeare's output was written after Marlowe's death, and despite Marlowe's influence on Shakespeare, their styles are not that similar.

 

[bruto]

Well, you could start with the one I posted up-thread......snip>....

I did.

 

[Gyronaut]

I did.

Similarities, from the Sonnets

(55) Not marble, nor the gilded monuments

____ Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme

(81) Your name from hence immortal life shall have

____ Though I once gone, to all the world must die;

____ The earth can yield me but a common grave,

____ When you entombed in men’s eyes shall lie.

(101)To make him much outlive a gilded tomb

(107) And thou in this shalt find thy monument.

____ When tyrants’ crests and tombs of brass are spent.


from elsewhere in the Works [sorry, I don't have exact references]


Chelsea poem: ______________Shakespeare:

noe brass, noe stone ...___________brass, nor stone, nor earth..

noe glorious tombe ...____________a glorious tomb

noe guilded trophy ...____________... than gilt his trophy

quitt this roome________________quit presently the chapel

Abram’s bossome theres his tombe__... sleep in Abraham’s bosom

lodg’d in good mens harts_________lodged in my heart

this shall out last tyme____________outlive the age

 

[kookbreaker]

You do realize that artists stole, quoted, and rehashed other artists lines all the time, right?

I think Lucian’s video even has an example of Shakespeare using lines from Marlowe.

 

[Lucian]

You do realize that artists stole, quoted, and rehashed other artists lines all the time, right?

I think Lucian’s video even has an example of Shakespeare using lines from Marlowe.

"Dead shepherd, now I find thy saw of might,
'Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?'" (As You Like It, 5.3, quoting Hero and Leander)

It's not the only time Shakespeare borrowed from other authors,* but it is the only time he cited the source (Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" was enormously popular, and Marlowe was, you know, dead).

Some of the similarities Gyronaut quotes are commonplaces, such as a reference to a dead person resting in Abraham's bosom.

*And, of course, other authors borrowed from him.

 

[Gyronaut]

You do realize that artists stole, quoted, and rehashed other artists lines all the time, right?

I think Lucian’s video even has an example of Shakespeare using lines from Marlowe.

Lol. I think some Stratfordians have gone as far as to concede these lines are in fact by Shakespeare, offering convoluted reasons why that might be so!

But there is much, much more info, such as dozens of words and phrases, confidently ascribed by the OED as first being coined by Shakespeare, are also found in Stanley's letters.

The English of the Works is a form of English then found predominantly in the North of England [Stanley's home patch], with nothing from the Warwickshire dialect.

 

[theprestige]

A conspiracy of silence requires no paper trail.

A lack of evidence is not a license to make claims without evidence.

If your theory depends on there being no evidence to support it... Well. You do see how this makes the theory completely laughable, right? You do see how this makes proponents of the theory look like clowns, right?

 

[theprestige]

The English of the Works is a form of English then found predominantly in the North of England [Stanley's home patch], with nothing from the Warwickshire dialect.

And Colin Farrell regularly sets aside his thick Irish brogue for a more widely commercial accent. I guess he's just an impostor, right? No real Irishman could possibly deliver the lines credited to Colin Farrell in Tigerland, right?

 

[Gyronaut]

A lack of evidence is not a license to make claims without evidence.

If your theory depends on there being no evidence to support it... Well. You do see how this makes the theory completely laughable, right? You do see how this makes proponents of the theory look like clowns, right?

I've provided plenty of evidence, although I freely admit it's not conclusive.

Are we talking about Nakamoto or Shakespeare, btw?

Does a conspiracy of silence need a paper trail?

Do conspiracies of silence exist?

 

[kookbreaker]

Lol. I think some Stratfordians have gone as far as to concede these lines are in fact by Shakespeare, offering convoluted reasons why that might be so!

But there is much, much more info, such as dozens of words and phrases, confidently ascribed by the OED as first being coined by Shakespeare, are also found in Stanley's letters.

For someone who claims to have so much, you show so very little.

 

[Gyronaut]

And Colin Farrell regularly sets aside his thick Irish brogue for a more widely commercial accent. I guess he's just an impostor, right? No real Irishman could possibly deliver the lines credited to Colin Farrell in Tigerland, right?

I haven't the foggiest notion of who or what you're talking about. No need to enlighten me.

 

[kookbreaker]

I've provided plenty of evidence, although I freely admit it's not conclusive.

Actually, you really haven't.

Are we talking about Nakamoto or Shakespeare, btw?

Nakamoto is irrelevant with regards to Shakespeare. A name chosen at random really does not mean very much.

Does a conspiracy of silence need a paper trail?

Do conspiracies of silence exist?

Your conspiracy manages to have everyone being silent, including the alleged 'true Shakespeare', who manages to conveniently stop the majority of his writing once Shakespeare retires. Then you are suddenly left with only a pathetic handful of common lyric comparisons on tombstones. One wonders, given he outlived Shakespeare by 30 years that he didn't just grab another proxy author and continue to produce? I really doubt he would have feared stylistics of the 17th century to expose him.

 

[abaddon]

I find this entire topic fascinatingly odd. Starting some 40 years ago I was inflicted with two Shakespeare plays in school. Julius Caesar and Othello.

Julius Caesar was interesting, political intrigue and all that.

Othello was irritating. Apparently, a genius general and tactician was impossibly gullible.

Not once did I give a flying **** who actually wrote them.

Yet here we are with people who think it is even vaguely important in any way.

Why is it important? I have no idea and don't really care. I am more fascinated with the psychology of those that think it is, somehow, for some reason, that they are unable to explain in any way.

 

[dudalb]

I always treat yelps of "Conspiracy Theory" as code for:-

"I'm annoyed that someone might just be better informed than I am..."

Ever hear of Qanon?