How did Shakespeare come to know so much?

[Pacal]

The Shakespeare authorship controversy is actually pretty funny.

The Anti-Straffordians keep giving the same dull arguments that have been refuted again and again.

1, Shakespeare was a "nobody" and not an Aristocrat therefore he could not have written the plays.

2, Shakespeare could not have written the plays because he / other people spelled his last name differently on different documents.

3, If Shakespeare was such a great writer how come we have so "little" documentation about his life. Because we "know" if Shakespeare had been a great writer their would be acres of documentation.

4, There is no contemporary evidence Shakespeare wrote plays.

5, It would have been embarrassing for a Nobleman, (Or woman), to be known to have written plays therefore the person would hide it has much has possible.

6, This conspiracy would of course continue after the actual playwright's death for "reasons".

Each and everyone of the above are simple crap, nonsense, arguments. For example some Elizabethan playwrights are little more than names. Some contemporary sources do mention Shakespeare has a playwright. Contemporary sources do mention Noblemen has writing plays; so on and so forth. And yes at least some Elizabethan playwrights did come from humble backgrounds - Ben Jonson. (And describing Shakespeare's background has "humble" is just silly to begin with.)

All in all the Shakespeare authorship controversy is dull and rather boring.

 

[bruto]

As Myriad has pointed out, Shakespeare tended not to use rhymed couplets as a poetic form, except in plays - in peripheral songs, and where a set of couplets often announces the end of a scene. Although a small case might be made for a nobleman to have concealed his taste for writing plays, the constraint for poetry was not the same. Plenty of people both common and noble wrote and published poetry, including Queen Elizabeth herself.

Shakespeare left one of the great bodies of Elizabethan sonnets. Where are those of his supposed doppelgangers?

 

[Vixen]

I've been to Stratford. Met the dude himself and hoisted a few lagers (actually ales) with him. Once he was lubed up he wrote a play for me on a bar napkin so I can vouch that he is quite literate. (I sold it for quite a tidy sum and told the publisher it was written by someone named Henry Miller) Anne had to send a couple of their spawn with a wheelbarrow to cart him home once he was legless. They said it is really hard on him having to constantly prove his literacy so he drinks, a lot. That's why his friends call him Shakey, that subsequently somehow became Shakespeare (his actual surname is Willoughby but no one remembers that).

And, for the record, he really does know a lot of stuff. While he was still relatively sober he explained to me why tigers have stripes, and how to make rocket fuel from cow dung. He was just starting in on multiverse cosmology when the booze got the better of him.

A fascinating man really, and honest as the day is long. People really should stop making up lies about him.

How frightfully amusing.

 

[Vixen]

Since when did Shakespeare know so much? About what? He used other people's tales, like many a playwright, and he knew enough to follow the Tudor-Stuart line in his history plays.

But if you look for ideas in Shakey, you'll come up with damn little, and nothing original. That's one reason why the French are no more than lukewarm about him.
He also collaborated with other writers when necessary, again like a sensible man.

And finally: To this day and hour, some of his acting scripts still contain bits by Colley Cibber. And why not, if audiences like 'em?

The play's not the thing! It's the box office!

We all know why the French don't like him.

 

[Vixen]

The signatures on the will are usually rendered as

Shackspere,
Shakspere, and
Shakspear

Of the six extant signatures from the Stratford Man's lifetime [and there is no other literary output whatsoever], none are signed "Shakespeare".

But I've already conceded names/spelling don't matter

Nakamoto/Nakamoto

same unusual name/unusual spelling

Different guy, and a hoax (probably)

In those days names were often spelt phonetically. In addition, the cursive latin copperplate used in legal documents led to a lot of mispellings, too, as capital 'G's often looked like a capital 'B'. Small 'f's looked like 's' and so on.

In addition, in Anglo-Saxon Old English a 'g' was pronounced as 'y', as in the word 'gelou' Anglo-Saxon for 'yellow', thus we have names such as 'Yates' which is literally the same as 'Gates' except in the latter, the 'g' is now hard and the former the original 'y' sound remains.

In my own case, my anglo-saxon origin family name originates in Devon and Wiltshire and the number of spelling variations when I looked up records! It never used to have the addition 'e', for example, and the intial letter would be mysteriously replaced with an 'L' or a 'D' or even a 'T', you name it, all because of the habit of (a) rendering common names into Latin (b) misreading fancy letters (c) phoneticising (d) adding flourishes such as an 'e' at the end to make it look more 'upper class' (i.e, the Norman French). For example, Clark becomes Clarke, etc.

All of the various spellings of Shakespeare in C17 look quite normal and to be expected. If you've ever read Canterbury Tales by Chaucer in the original, or even one of Tynesdale's New Testaments, you will be struck by the fact there was not any conventional or standardised spelling. That came much much later.

As a footnote, I much prefer the name 'Shakespeare' to 'Hall' or 'Stanley'. The latter do not quite have the same ring.

 

[Vixen]

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.

Great talk!

 

[bruto]

Great talk!

Agreed.

One of the features of that cursive hand is that it allows some latitude even in deciding what letters it contains, especially when written hastily or a little sloppily. Deciding whether or not an "e" is contained, etc., can be a matter of judgment.

Another thing noted there (and I've noticed it too) is the way "authorship questioners" always seem to light on the "Shaxper" variant of the name, while ignoring orthographies much closer to the version we've come to use. It's far more fun to find one "X" than it is to notice that a phonetically silent "e" was often skipped.

 

[Lucian]

In those days names were often spelt phonetically. In addition, the cursive latin copperplate used in legal documents led to a lot of mispellings, too, as capital 'G's often looked like a capital 'B'. Small 'f's looked like 's' and so on.

In addition, in Anglo-Saxon Old English a 'g' was pronounced as 'y', as in the word 'gelou' Anglo-Saxon for 'yellow', thus we have names such as 'Yates' which is literally the same as 'Gates' except in the latter, the 'g' is now hard and the former the original 'y' sound remains.

In my own case, my anglo-saxon origin family name originates in Devon and Wiltshire and the number of spelling variations when I looked up records! It never used to have the addition 'e', for example, and the intial letter would be mysteriously replaced with an 'L' or a 'D' or even a 'T', you name it, all because of the habit of (a) rendering common names into Latin (b) misreading fancy letters (c) phoneticising (d) adding flourishes such as an 'e' at the end to make it look more 'upper class' (i.e, the Norman French). For example, Clark becomes Clarke, etc.

All of the various spellings of Shakespeare in C17 look quite normal and to be expected. If you've ever read Canterbury Tales by Chaucer in the original, or even one of Tynesdale's New Testaments, you will be struck by the fact there was not any conventional or standardised spelling. That came much much later.

As a footnote, I much prefer the name 'Shakespeare' to 'Hall' or 'Stanley'. The latter do not quite have the same ring.

The Old English "g" was pronounced differently depending on its environment. It was only pronounced like a "y" if it was followed by a high vowel.

 

[Lucian]

Great talk!

Thank you.

 

[Myriad]

As Myriad has pointed out, Shakespeare tended not to use rhymed couplets as a poetic form, except in plays - in peripheral songs, and where a set of couplets often announces the end of a scene. Although a small case might be made for a nobleman to have concealed his taste for writing plays, the constraint for poetry was not the same. Plenty of people both common and noble wrote and published poetry, including Queen Elizabeth herself.

Shakespeare left one of the great bodies of Elizabethan sonnets. Where are those of his supposed doppelgangers?

I'm no expert on Eizabethan verse, but after reading those epitaphs more closely, and re-reading some of Shakespeare's poems, I'm willing to opine in public that the epitaphs are doggerel. Yeah they sound similar to Shakespeare at a quick look, because they're from the same era, but creatively they're unimpressive.

For instance this initial couplet:
Ask who lyes heare, bvt do not wheep
He is not dead; He dooth bvt sleep

...reads like epitaph boilerplate. As if for two pounds six your metabolism-challenged Elizabethan gentleman could have that carved on his stone too; with additional couplets available at two pounds each if they're on the list, two and twelve for original ones. The other epitaph at least seems like the writer bothered to inquire whom the inscription was about (even if only to insert the name into a line that would work just as well for any other spondaic surname), but isn't much better. Apart from bearing the name Stanley in the one case, neither offers any clue to what was actually so immortal-fame-worthy about its subject.

 

[theprestige]

Certainly epitaphs that postdate Shakespeare's body of work can be expected to occasionally adapt or plagiarize that work in their doggerel.

I'm sure we could find many a headstone standing today, inscribed with "wherever you go, there you are, "live long and prosper", or "ask not for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for me".

 

[bruto]

I'm no expert on Eizabethan verse, but after reading those epitaphs more closely, and re-reading some of Shakespeare's poems, I'm willing to opine in public that the epitaphs are doggerel. Yeah they sound similar to Shakespeare at a quick look, because they're from the same era, but creatively they're unimpressive.

For instance this initial couplet:
Ask who lyes heare, bvt do not wheep
He is not dead; He dooth bvt sleep

...reads like epitaph boilerplate. As if for two pounds six your metabolism-challenged Elizabethan gentleman could have that carved on his stone too; with additional couplets available at two pounds each if they're on the list, two and twelve for original ones. The other epitaph at least seems like the writer bothered to inquire whom the inscription was about (even if only to insert the name into a line that would work just as well for any other spondaic surname), but isn't much better. Apart from bearing the name Stanley in the one case, neither offers any clue to what was actually so immortal-fame-worthy about its subject.

Indeed, hence my terse reply in post #268.

 

[Wolrab]

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.

Sooooo ... Columbus was Shakespeare! Case closed.

 

[kookbreaker]

Got real quiet in here all of a sudden.

 

[Wolrab]

We figured it out. Nothing more needs to be said.

 

[Dr. Keith]

OK, I was using sloppy language or conflating the general claim, repeated in many places, that Shakespeare "coined" hundreds of words and phrases, with what the OED means when it points to Shakespeare as a source.

Thanks for the clarification.

Is that sort of sloppiness generally seen as useful when trying to cobble together innuendos?

 

[dudalb]

He read a lot.
Next Question?

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

He read a lot.
Next Question?

Exactly. It not as if that were not possible.

Remembering what you have read helps too. Issac Asimov had that ability and would write books such as his Guide to the Bible without having to look up references.

 

[theprestige]

Every so often a poor middle class Elizabethan will rise above his station and by self-education rise to literary heights.

But what are the odds that this rare fellow would turn out to have been William Shakespeare all along?!

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Every so often a poor middle class Elizabethan will rise above his station and by self-education rise to literary heights.

But what are the odds that this rare fellow would turn out to have been William Shakespeare all along?!

And Christopher Marlowe was born to a shoemaker, John Marlowe. (Admittedly he did have better relations on his mother's side and got a good education but . . . )