Actors question Bard's authorship

[Stoneage Dinosaur]

Actors including Sir Derek Jacobi and Mark Rylance have launched a debate over who really wrote the works of William Shakespeare.

Almost 300 people have signed a "declaration of reasonable doubt", which they hope will prompt further research into the issue.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6985917.stm

[Chloe]

I don't understand why it matters.

[Tarquin Farquart]

It doesn't matter at all, they still exist whoever wrote them.

The wikipedia page has some interesting information.

[Dog Friendly]

Robert Heinlein has an anecdote, probably imaginary, in his book Double Star. According to this story, there was once a professor of history who spent his entire career developing the case that the Iliad and the Odyssey were not written by Homer, but by another ancient Greek with the same name.

OK by me. Knock yourself out.

Dog (And this above all: To thine own self be true) Friendly

[UEL]

Their doubts are based upon, according to my understanding:

• his family was illiterate, but he is a great writer
• he was raised in a poor area, but writes exclusively about the upper classes
• he was a commoner, but has extensive knowledge on law
• he has great knowledge of things not English, despite not being there
• his will has no fancy Shakespearean wit
• there is no record of him being paid for the work.

In his defence, I would submit (in order of points made):

• he was a prodigious, showing intelligent intellect that was perhaps the result of a combination of intelligence, genetics, environment and passion
• given the possibilty of selling his work, I don't think a story on a poor shepherd in the Cotswalds would get him employment
• he was sued quite frequently, and being a litigant in almost any case will give you a schooling in law. Just ask anyone who has been divorced
• his knowledge was not that extensive. It was also not unheard of to hear of travellers and their tales
• his will was a legal document, not something that you'd want someone to probate based upon imagery, metaphor and allusion
• payment records from that era are not likely that common, especially considering that the theatre that boasts itself as Shakespeare's theatre burned down

Comparing it to another famous person, Albert Einstein:

• his family were not scientists, but he is a great scientist
• he was educated in a normal school, but writes exclusively about higher level physics
• he was a patent clerk, but has extensive knowledge on physical laws
• he has great knowledge of things not visible to the human eye, despite not being able to see them
• his will has no discussion on his general theory of relativity
• there is no record of him being paid for the work he did as a patent clerk while dreaming up his theories.

In general, I may be in the minority, but I believe that he created the works credited to him.

[Brad from Georgia]

Originally Posted by UEL

Their doubts are based upon, according to my understanding:

• his family was illiterate, but he is a great writer
• he was raised in a poor area, but writes exclusively about the upper classes
• he was a commoner, but has extensive knowledge on law
• he has great knowledge of things not English, despite not being there
• his will has no fancy Shakespearean wit
• there is no record of him being paid for the work.

Good example with Einstein. Another one, Samuel Clemens:

• He never finished grammar school, but he is a great writer.
• He was an uncouth American, but he wrote knowedgeably about kings (The Prince and the Pauper; A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court)
• He had no legal education, but wrote about law courts and rules of evidence, including fingerprints (so new that most courts had not recognized them) in Pudd'nhead Wilson
• He has great knowledge of Joan of Arc and Henry VIII despite never having studied history.
• He was a great humorist, but his will doesn't have a single joke in it.
• I've never seen his income tax records.

As to Shakespeare's having no record of ever being paid, that's not true. There ARE records of payments to his company (and sometimes specifically to him) by Queen Elizabeth, for example, when the company put on plays just for the court. We don't have Christopher Marlowe's pay stubs, either, or Ben Jonson's.

In fact, we have far more evidence that William Shakespeare of Stratford wrote the Shakespeare plays than we do that Christopher Marlowe wrote the plays attributed to him, or that Nathaniel Greene wrote his plays, or that John Webster wrote Webster's plays. The only dramatist contemporary with Shakespeare whose career is better attested is Ben Jonson--and he was extremely egotistical, one of the first English writers ever to compose his own autobiography.

ETA: Shakespeare's geographical knowledge of things outside England isn't exactly sterling. Bohemia has no sea coast, for example, as he says it does; the distances between Italian cities in Romeo and Juliet are grossly off; and his version of Athens and surroundings is just wrong geographically.

[geminilee]

Originally Posted by Brad from Georgia

one of the first English writers ever to compose his own autobiography.

Maybe I am being dense, but can you really have an autobiography written by anyone other than the subject? Otherwise it is just a biography.

[UEL]

Originally Posted by Brad from Georgia

Good example with Einstein. Another one, Samuel Clemens....

Excellent example with Clemens. I only went with what I know.

I adore Shakespeare and Hemingway, never had a fond thought for Clemens (maybe it's been all the dreck associated to him )

Thanks for that, Brad.

[Fantine]

I crossed over to the Oxfordian side of the debate in college. There is much evidence to support the idea that Edward DeVere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, was the true author. My alma mater, Concordia University in Portland, OR, hosts an annual conference dedicated to the debate. I attended the conference in 2000 and 2001. It's amazing how defensive and excited people can get about it, on both sides!

To anyone who is interested in the subject, whether to debunk the theory or simply to learn more about it, I highly recommend the book Shakespeare: Who Was He? The Oxfordian Challenge to the Bard of Avon by Richard F. Whalen as an introduction to the topic.

[snopes]

Originally Posted by geminilee

Maybe I am being dense, but can you really have an autobiography written by anyone other than the subject?

Yes. It wasn't uncommon for "autobiographies" to be ghost-written by authors hired by the subjects. (Nowadays, they're more typically credited as "by John Famousperson, as told to Jim Somewriter.")

- snopes

[snopes]

Good example with Einstein. Another one, Samuel Clemens

Or Abraham Lincoln: came from a poor, rural background, raised by uneducated parents, had very little formal education himself -- yet he taught himself to become a skilled lawyer, crafted some of the most memorable speeches in American history, and ended up as the most renowned U.S. president.

- snopes

[Mycroft]

As far as I am aware, what we know as Shakespeare's plays was a collection published after his death by his friends and fellow actors. All the plays in this collection had been performed by these actors, who had been told by Shakespeare himself that he had written them. Whilst it is certainly possible (although unlikely) that Shakespeare lied to them and had bought them from somebody else, it would not be someone known to us as a playwright. One problem is that although we know of many playwrights contemporary with Shakespeare, much of their work has not survived; for example we know that many of Shakespeare's history plays had similar titles and plotlines to those of his contemporaries which have not survived.

wrt his supposed poor upbringing/education, most of his history plays are based on one history book; and his other comedies/tragedies, whilst largely set abroad are parodies of contemporary english life, well known to the audience but setting them in strange foreign lands gave him an excuse if challenged, he certainly never left England, and few of his contemporaries would have done so, especially Italy which as well as a strange distant land was of course Catholic at a time when all things Catholic were at best treated with suspicion if not complete hatred.

[Silas Sparkhammer]

Originally Posted by Fantine

I crossed over to the Oxfordian side of the debate in college. There is much evidence to support the idea that Edward DeVere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, was the true author. My alma mater, Concordia University in Portland, OR, hosts an annual conference dedicated to the debate. I attended the conference in 2000 and 2001. It's amazing how defensive and excited people can get about it, on both sides!

To anyone who is interested in the subject, whether to debunk the theory or simply to learn more about it, I highly recommend the book Shakespeare: Who Was He? The Oxfordian Challenge to the Bard of Avon by Richard F. Whalen as an introduction to the topic.

Some years ago, I read "Alias Shakespeare" by Joe Sobran. I find it quite convincing. I opened the book with very strong prejudices, both against the idea and against Sobran himself. (He used to deliver offensive far-right radio diatribes in the days prior to Rush Limbaugh; he is a pioneer of "hate radio.")

His book convinced me that the case has real merit, and it convinced me very much against my will. Also, none of the rebuttals I've heard have really deflected the arguments he made. For instance, one rebuttal was based on "class warfare," arguing that the "Oxfordians" were all royalists and snobs and refused to believe in the creativity of the common man. That is completely untrue in my case, and struck me as a very weak ad hominem argument rather than as anything backed by evidence.

(Again, if I had my preferences, the theory would be false. To say that I'm swayed by "what I want to believe" is exactly wrong in this case!)

Silas

[RealityChuck]

Originally Posted by Fantine

I crossed over to the Oxfordian side of the debate in college. There is much evidence to support the idea that Edward DeVere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, was the true author. My alma mater, Concordia University in Portland, OR, hosts an annual conference dedicated to the debate. I attended the conference in 2000 and 2001. It's amazing how defensive and excited people can get about it, on both sides!.

Biggest problem with Oxford: The Tempest refers to historical events that happened after Oxford died.

There is NO actual evidence that Oxford (or anyone other that Shakespeare) wrote the plays -- just speculation, usually grounded in false assumptions.

And before you reply: evidence = contemporaneous statements by Oxford, those who knew him, those who knew Shakespeare, those involved in the theater scene, gossip, etc. that say clearly, "Oxford wrote this."

There is, however, evidence that Shakespeare wrote the plays: his name is on the top of them, listing him as author. That's proof of authorship so strong that you'd need to produce some very extraordinary proof to dispute it.

Admittedly, authors use pen names, but there is no evidence of any case where an author used the name of another living person AND the fact of that use did not become public knowledge during the lifetime of those involved (the authorship controversy did not occur until the 19th century, when no one was around to refute the evidence, and when people looked at the facts through 200+ years of different assumptions).

[Silas Sparkhammer]

Originally Posted by RealityChuck

. . . There is, however, evidence that Shakespeare wrote the plays: his name is on the top of them, listing him as author. . . .

Never spelled the same way twice...

(Actually, that works against Oxford, who was probably more formally literate.)

Silas

[Fantine]

Originally Posted by RealityChuck

Biggest problem with Oxford: The Tempest refers to historical events that happened after Oxford died.

That's interesting, thanks. I'll have to look that up. Can you give some examples?

There is NO actual evidence that Oxford (or anyone other that Shakespeare) wrote the plays -- just speculation, usually grounded in false assumptions.

True. But the funny thing is, there is no actual evidence that the guy from Stratford wrote the plays either, just speculation based on the name. We have no samples of the man's handwriting, other than a six signatures, and he spelled the name differently every time. He owned no books at the time of his death, not even copies of the plays he supposedly wrote. There is no evidence that he was ever enrolled in any school or ever learned to read. Everything we "know" about the man is based on assumptions.

[Silas Sparkhammer]

One of the arguments Joe Sobran made which I did not find convincing was that Shakespeare's will -- last will and testament -- is written in a dull, stodgy, prosaic style. Sobran argues that the brilliant mind behind "A Midsummer Night's Dream" would never have scratched out so boring a scrap of boilerplate. To me, this isn't a contradiction at all: the author of the plays was able to mimic all sorts of diaclects, from hoi polloi to hoi aristoi. He could make you believe in his kings and his gravediggers. So, most likely, he mimicked the "legalese" of the time to write his will.

But, as I said, a lot of Sobran's book was very convincing to me -- and I didn't want it to be! At very least, no one can accuse me of selective perception on the basis of preference!

Silas

[pob14]

David Mamet, in True and False, makes the point that passionate, deeply moving plays such as the Shakesperian canon do not come from comfortable rich people such as the 17th Earl of anything; they come from someone who knows pain and oppression. Certainly they aren't plays that uphold the perfection of the aristocracy.

[snopes]

Biggest problem with Oxford: The Tempest refers to historical events that happened after Oxford died.

To me that's the major flaw in the Oxfordian argument: One has to be able to explain away everything connected with the plays that occurred after 1604 (the year de Vere died). Granted, most evidence is not in the form of hard-and-fast facts but rather information to which varying degrees of meaning or interpretation can be applied, but one has to interpret all such date evidence in de Vere's favor for the Oxfordian argument to hold.

- snopes

[snopes]

Originally Posted by pob14

David Mamet, in True and False, makes the point that passionate, deeply moving plays such as the Shakesperian canon do not come from comfortable rich people such as the 17th Earl of anything; they come from someone who knows pain and oppression. Certainly they aren't plays that uphold the perfection of the aristocracy.

As I usually say when this subject comes up, four centuries from now people will probably be arguing it's just not possible that a group of lower/middle class, non-musically trained, teenaged provincials from the north of England could have become the most renowned popular composers/musicians of the 20th century.

- snopes