MetalDad 23 April 2013 11:00am
My research is limited to watching "Anonymous" - which was very good as a work of speculative fiction.
That said a few of the questions they raise in the accompanying discussions with the writer make me wonder. Shakespeare is supposedly of fairly middling birth, and yet, had an intimate knowledge of the geography and stories from parts of the world more normally associated with an upper class grand tour
TerribleLyricist 23 April 2013 3:43pm
Exactly. We do not know. The dountaboutwill website is compelling on this point.
But while we do not know who actually did write those works, we should be very cautious when claiming that William Shakspere of Stratford was the author.
It strikes me as too absurd that the greatest writer in English could have come from a family that signed with marks, and who left his own children illiterate (they too signed with marks)
Bassanio 25 April 2013 3:54pm
@miranda07 - Isn't it funny how people who have never bothered to investigate this question for themselves, but depend on the third hand accounts of alleged experts, continue to repeat the dogma that no one questioned the authorship of the plays within the author's lifetime. This is simply not true. The fact that you are not familiar with the evidence for it does not make it true. Capisce?
Underwhat 23 April 8:59am
@territorialisation - Well, as we can see it's doing a very good job of generating publicity for Leahy. If the Shakespeare-industrial complex (or whatever he wants to call it) really had it in for him, they wouldn't rebut him, they'd just ignore him.
ChristopherHervet 23 April 2013 8:32am
Unless the whole of Elizabethan England spoke using Warwickshire dialect words I think it unlikely that somebody who wasn't brought up in Warwickshire wrote these works.
I suppose you could counter that by arguing that Elizabethan speech was fossilized in Warwickshire dialect.
Pat262 24 April 2013 7:11pm
@ChristopherHervet - That claim is made by David Kathman. There is no evidence that Shakespeare used Warwickshire dialect words any more than any other dialects. David Kathman's chapter "showing how the works are 'peppered' with signs that the author came from around Stratford, points to local dialect words such as 'batlet', a paddle to beat laundry. "Batlet" is an unfortunate choice, since Joseph Wright, editor of The English Dialect Dictionary (London 1898) lists the word primarily as located in Yorkshire, noting that the word was "not known to our correspondents in Warwickshire" while listing a Shakespearean usage (1:186). Likewise, words that may occur in early Warwickshire dialect but also occur in various other shires, do not make for a good case that the dramatist was born and bred in Warwickshire.
Pat262 24 April 2013 7:39pm
@Dapper - He left behind about 70 personal records. Unlike his presumed contemporaries, none of these records indicates that he was a writer. No manuscripts, no books, no payments for writing, no letters to or from other writers, no letters or records of patronage. Perhaps that is why so many scholars are trying so hard to "prove" that Shakespeare's hand appears in the Thomas More manuscript.
Pat262 24 April 2013 9:17pm
@Porthos - Manuscripts, books, inscriptions in books, letters and accounts do survive from the era. Price is exactly right on that point. Unfortunately, not one such record belongs to William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon. Your speculation on Shakespeare's role in the acting companies is just that.One would think Shakespeare would be present when his company played at Court. His biographers assure you he must have been present. Unfortunately, the documentary record indicates that he was actually in Stratford going about his business, How do biographers account for such discrepancies? By putting the information in different chapters.
Calendar 25 April 2013 6:17pm
@Tacgnol -
For starters - the author HAD to have traveled Italy extensively. Read - Roe - "The Shakespeare Guide to Italy."
Pat262 25 April 2013 10:55pm
@CaptainCheesebones - Macdonald P Jackson is only looking at stylistic characteristics. He may demonstrate that the author of Hamlet also wrote More but that does not prove William Shakespeare of Stratford wrote either play. He does not consider the hand-writing analysis, which is very weak, since it is based on the six signatures. Nor does he address the evidence that Hand D is a scribal transcript. The More fragment has example of "eye-skip" which typically happens when the scribe looks at the original, turns to the copy, writes a line or two, and then returns to the original and loses his place by a line of two.
Robert Peters 23 April 2013 1:26pm
@reasonforlife - He went to a very fine grammar school, probably had very learned friends in Stratford with huge libraries and a lot of opportunity in the lost years to learn a lot of things. The idea that some guys are born talented seems to bother you.
Reasonforlife 23 April 2013 2:59pm
@Robert Peters - you said:
The idea that some guys are born talented seems to bother you.
My comment was:
It couldn't have been the man from Stratford Upon Avon, he didn't have an education and was about as bright as a Toc H lamp.
I was criticising his lack of education, so how do you somehow consider that I have a problem with 'guys who are talented'?
You attack everyone with an opinion which is not your own which makes you look like an employee of Stratford Upon Avon Tourist Board.
Ted Alexander 24 April 2013 5:07pm
@Robert Peters - A Facebook friend posted recently this quote from Wayne Dyer - "The highest form of ignorance is when you reject something you don't know anything about." This post and many others here well demonstrate this. It is obvious you know nothing of the skeptics arguments and make up stuff on their behalf. So let's try something. Here's an article about Shakespeare's (whoever he may be) knowledge of the law http://www.shakespearefellowship.org/virtualclassroom/Law/index.htm. It is a survey of articles by orthodox scholars and doesn't involve any discussion of the authorship question. I recommend you read this article and the related articles on this page - http://www.shakespearefellowship.org/virtualclassroom/Law.htm - as they are interesting regardless of who you believe is the true author. But afterwards (or even before if you are a true believer) if you don't have questions or doubts about who the true author is I recommend you go straight to the last article on the second web page by Dave Kathman and take comfort in your own ignorance.
Robert Peters 24 April 2013 6:21pm
The end here is silence - because there is simply no evidence that Shakespeare did not write the plays and poems. Everyone is free to doubt everything but doubt is not evidence.
Cherrytreeleaves 24 April 2013 6:58pm
@Robert Peters - This is not the end, this is the beginning. Right,
doubt is not evidence, but the litany of your assertions is not evidence
either. Who on earth claimed the writer had to be a lawyer or a nobleman? It
just turned out to be so if you favour Oxford.
As an academic it is natural to ask questions; the questions that bother me
(mind you, I say questions, not answers) are:
Why is there no connection between the Stratfordian's life and his works? No correspondence concerning literary matters?