# Did Shaksper write the Sonnets? \[edited title\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 19, 2010, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-shaksper-write-the-sonnets-edited-title/536631 "2010-04-19T15:39:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2010, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-shaksper-write-the-sonnets-edited-title/536631/21 "2010-04-20T07:45:52Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > ("Septimus: some of the Sonnets … do seem bizarre given what is known of Shaksper. Without speaking of “proof”, do you deny the bizarrity? ") Not at all. Just to be clear: you’re agreeing that the Sonnets seems “bizarre” compared with what is known about Shaksper? _Even those who are certain Shaksper wrote the Sonnets should agree there’s some puzzles_, but most avoid admitting it. > [@HazelNutCoffee](#): > > This bears repeating. I don’t think the anti-Stratford crowd have ever been taken seriously by serious academic scholars. > > The OP says he’s read “(pro-Stratford) biographies, several plays, most of the Sonnets, and, on the Authorship question, some magazine articles and by now, 4 dozen webpages.” You do understand that Shakespeare scholars spend _decades_ poring over volumes and volumes of research - not only every single one of the sonnets and plays, but even the most mundane legal documents that contain even a mention of his name. The vast majority of anti-Strafordians are not Shakespeare scholars. There’s relatively little contemporaneous document about Shaksper; even laymen like myself can acquaint ourselves with much of the evidence. I hope to present some serious arguments _that will be judged on their merits_. If the response is just going to be “You’ve already admitted to ignorance, septimus; we’ll ignore your ‘evidence’ because the PhD’s say …; Yadda, yadda yadda” perhaps I shouldn’t bother. There certainly _are_ some intriguing pieces of evidence _I’ve never seen “traditional” Shakespeare scholars_ even acknowledge. If I say something crackpottish, call me on it. Let’s not call me a crackpot a priori! 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2010, 11:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-shaksper-write-the-sonnets-edited-title/536631/22 "2010-04-20T11:00:02Z")
Don’t the Intelligence services have some sort of programme where by word analysis/count etc.they can determine who exactly wrote anonymus letters and suchlike ? And if so couldn’t they put this to use by determining that all the works attributed to an author named Shakespeare were actually written by the same person ? It would at least be a start. ---
**Author:** ![APB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e8cbc/32.png) [@APB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/APB)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2010, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-shaksper-write-the-sonnets-edited-title/536631/23 "2010-04-20T11:02:03Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Ben Jonson (“what Author would conceale his name?”): > > Who takes thy volume to his vertuous hand, > Must be intended still to understand: > Who bluntly doth but looke upon the same, > May aske, what Author would conceale his name? > Who reads may roave, and call the passage darke, > Yet may as blind men sometimes hit the marke. > Who reads, who roaves, who hopes to understand, > May take thy volume to his vertuous hand. > Who cannot reade, but onely doth desire to understand, > Hee may at length admire. That is simply irrelevant. That is a prefatory poem by Jonson (or at least ‘B. I.’) to _Cinthias Revenge_ by ‘I. S.’, who is usually thought to be John Stephens. There is no reason at all to think that Jonson’s comments have anything whatsoever to do with Shakespeare. > [@septimus](#): > > Just to be clear: you’re agreeing that the Sonnets seems “bizarre” compared with what is known about Shaksper? Even those who are certain Shaksper wrote the Sonnets should agree there’s some puzzles, but most avoid admitting it. How many sonnets by other Elizabethan poets have you read? Because, far from them merely agreeing that there are ‘some puzzles’ in Shakespeare’s sonnets, all literary scholars revel in the fact that those sonnets - and most of those of his contemporaries as well - are crammed with them. Sonnets were _supposed_ to be cryptic, obscure, playful, ambiguous, surprising and, yes, bizarre. Which means that this is not exactly the strongest grounds on which to question Shakespeare’s authorship. [QUOTE=Marley23] I’ve never seen that happen. Is this an actual example? Because I’ve never heard anyone say Shakespeare must’ve had legal training. [/QUOTE] Er, actually hundreds of writers, most of them lawyers, have argued that Shakespeare must have had some legal experience. [Daniel Kornstein’s _Kill all the lawyers?_ has a good - and suitably sceptical - discussion of that whole Shakespeare-as-scrivener tradition](http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=gh8iA6IeNNkC&pg=PA227&lpg=PA227&dq=shakespeare+scrivener&source=bl&ots=KjH4VVGu7_&sig=pWh3QKQHjVDAuVBYU8uZ3MNL3xs&hl=en&ei=RXjNS4ebNtPD_gbp54meAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CA4Q6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=shakespeare%20scrivener&f=false). [QUOTE=SecondJudith] I blame the Romantics for all this nonsense about poetic narrators necessarily being a reflection of the poet’s life and experience. [/QUOTE] A point which is the central theme of James Shapiro’s brand-new _Contested Will_. Although it is specifically Edmond Malone whom he blames. And, while Shapiro is superb on why the case against Shakespeare-as-Shakespeare is very obviously complete bollocks, he is fully aware that this is as much a challenge to many of the conventional biographers as well. [So much so that the Shakespeare Oxford Society has given him a positive review](http://shakespeareoxfordsociety.wordpress.com/2009/12/05/shapiros-contested-will/)!! ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2010, 11:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-shaksper-write-the-sonnets-edited-title/536631/24 "2010-04-20T11:04:59Z")
> [@pepperlandgirl](#): > > Along the same lines, I have my doubts that Johnny Cash wrote **Folsom Prison Blues**. I mean, Johnny Cash writes as though he’s been disgraced and has been imprisoned for essentially the rest of his life. Now clearly we know that can’t be the case since he was never in prison and he certainly never killed a man in Reno just to watch him die. I don’t know what to make of this, except the only logical conclusion–Cash didn’t write the song! You’re comparing a single work to a body of work. A person might take on a character for a particular piece, but for him to take on that same exact character for all or nearly all of his works is unlikely. The bigger issue would be trying to presume an age, profession, etc. for the writer. Authors often come back to certain themes and ideas in their works, but those represent their interests as concerns poetic topics, not necessarily their interests in daily life. Writing romantic poetry may just have been considered fun by the author. It doesn’t need to imply that there was actually a romantic interest. ---
**Author:** ![HazelNutCoffee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@HazelNutCoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HazelNutCoffee)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2010, 11:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-shaksper-write-the-sonnets-edited-title/536631/25 "2010-04-20T11:35:18Z")
I wouldn’t say the sonnets seem bizarre given what we know of Shakespeare. We don’t know much about him to begin with. 99% of what we know about him comes from his writings. And that link you have in your OP - I couldn’t even get past the first paragraph. > [@](#): > > Oxfordians say that literature is subjective, that the best writers are the most subjective, and that Shakespeare is highly subjective. Stratfordians, on the other hand, say that literature is objective, that the best writers are the most objective, and that Shakespeare is highly objective. Is Shakespeare objective or subjective, personal or impersonal? This is one of the central questions of the Stratford-Oxford debate. Seriously, what? Point me to one notable Shakespeare scholar that says “Shakespeare is highly objective” or “the best writers are the most objective.” That first paragraph reads like a crap high school term paper. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2010, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-shaksper-write-the-sonnets-edited-title/536631/26 "2010-04-20T12:33:46Z")
> [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](#): > > I agree, Shaksper didn’t write any sonnets or plays. Now _Shakespeare_ is another matter… In his will, the Bard’s name appears three times and is spelt _Shakspere_. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2010, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-shaksper-write-the-sonnets-edited-title/536631/27 "2010-04-20T13:48:39Z")
> [@APB](#): > > [the Jonson poem) is simply irrelevant… There is no reason at all to think that Jonson’s comments have anything whatsoever to do with Shakespeare. Thank you. I’d included that poem in the same “confusing poems” notebook as some of the Sonnets and thoughtlessly posted it with them. Glad to get that cleared up. > [@](#): > > [Many non-Shakespeare sonnets are puzzling…] Which means that this is not exactly the strongest grounds on which to question Shakespeare’s authorship. Thank you again. By the way, as a mathematician I approach many questions as probabilistic. If the Sonnets match Oxford like a glove but are incongruous with Shaksper, I do not think of that as _proof_. Rather it affects my guesses of a priori probabilities. > [@](#): > > Er, actually hundreds of writers, most of them lawyers, have argued that Shakespeare must have had some legal experience. Thanks. I was beginning to wonder if those posting here had acquainted themselves with the issues! (“Shakespeare’s Sonnets were unattributed” ! … in an earlier SDMB thread “The Oxfordian case is based on alleged ciphers” ! etc.) > [@](#): > > And, while Shapiro is superb on why the case against Shakespeare-as-Shakespeare is very obviously complete bollocks, he is fully aware that this is as much a challenge to many of the conventional biographers as well. [So much so that the Shakespeare Oxford Society has given him a positive review](http://shakespeareoxfordsociety.wordpress.com/2009/12/05/shapiros-contested-will/)!! Both the Stratford case and the Oxford case have serious weaknesses. I’m agnostic myself. One comment I _would_ make is that many of the vociferous Stratford supporters have a knack for pedantry or taking their eyes off the ball. That it was the _Oxfordians_ with the favorable review may support my finding that _that_ side, perhaps surprisingly, often seems most objective. On the matter of Oxfordian URL’s (and surely it’s not too much to ask that participants click on a few, rather than relying on _Why we know Oxfordians are idiots_ Google hits to learn of Oxfordian ideas? 🆒 ) some of the better ones have disappeared :mad: I don’t see Tom Bethel’s articles on-line; a periodical with interesting articles is now pay-per-view. (Fortunately I often _download_ rather than _bookmark_ and have some pages now otherwise gone.) Do you recommend the Shapiro book? Googling just know I see excerpts from a Google book which do _not_ impress me: [McCrea arguing against Bethel](http://books.google.com/books?id=c95vhdF1qiYC). I object to his argument and would argue that it is guilty of the circular thinking it accuses Oxfordians of. (I’m curious if you’d see what I mean there, **APB**. I’ll send the page numbers if you wish, but basically searched for Bethel.) ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2010, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-shaksper-write-the-sonnets-edited-title/536631/28 "2010-04-20T14:03:18Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Just to be clear: you’re agreeing that the Sonnets seems “bizarre” compared with what is known about Shaksper? [This is what I get for posting late at night.] _I deny the bizarrity._ There is a lot we don’t know about the sonnets: we’re not sure about their subjects or intended audience. But I’m denying the conclusion you are attempting to draw from this. To quote from the article in the OP: > [@](#): > > Oxfordians, on the other hand, believe that Shakespeare’s works reflect Shakespeare’s life and personality; in other words, Oxfordians believe that Shakespeare’s works are subjective and personal. What this essentially comes down to is “Shakespeare must have experienced the things he wrote about,” which is an enormous assumption. You haven’t convinced anybody to make it. > [@](#): > > I hope to present some serious arguments _that will be judged on their merits_. Then please get around to it already! > [@APB](#): > > Er, actually hundreds of writers, most of them lawyers, have argued that Shakespeare must have had some legal experience. [Daniel Kornstein’s _Kill all the lawyers?_ has a good - and suitably sceptical - discussion of that whole Shakespeare-as-scrivener tradition](http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=gh8iA6IeNNkC&pg=PA227&lpg=PA227&dq=shakespeare+scrivener&source=bl&ots=KjH4VVGu7_&sig=pWh3QKQHjVDAuVBYU8uZ3MNL3xs&hl=en&ei=RXjNS4ebNtPD_gbp54meAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CA4Q6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=shakespeare%20scrivener&f=false). I was not familiar with that theory. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2010, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-shaksper-write-the-sonnets-edited-title/536631/29 "2010-04-20T14:39:31Z")
Is it just me or does anyone else find the tossing around of words like “Oxfordian” and “Stratfordian” to be extremely precious? ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2010, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-shaksper-write-the-sonnets-edited-title/536631/30 "2010-04-20T15:01:22Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > There’s relatively little contemporaneous document about Shaksper; even laymen like myself can acquaint ourselves with much of the evidence. And that is the problem. Maybe Shakespeare did work in a law office. We don’t have any evidence that he DIDN’T. Lack of evidence is not proof it didn’t happen - its just an unknown hole - and history is full of places where we just don’t have evidence one way or another. When you try to build a case for history on lack of evidence, its likely to be a pretty weak case. It can be a fun case of “did the future of England hinge on Anne Boleyn being Rh negative?” and “How much did Catherine the Great have to do with killing her husband?” But there aren’t answers. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2010, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-shaksper-write-the-sonnets-edited-title/536631/31 "2010-04-20T15:20:51Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > A charge often leveled against anti-Stratfordians is that they’re “elitist.” Who’s being elitish here? Oh, please. This is the same argument made by Jenny McCarthy saying that autism is caused by vaccines and the guy on the Texas School Board who said that somebody has to take a stand against the experts. Saying that people who have spent their entire lives studying an issue know more about it than amateurs dabbling for a few hours is not elitism, but sheer common sense. I’ve spent decades on certain subjects and I’m damn sure I know more about them than you do. Not because I’m elitist but because I did the hard, and often boring, work. When people come onto the Board and proclaim that 0.9999+ can’t be equal to 1 do you say, you may be right, after all I’m just a mathematician and my understanding of the subject is only as good as yours? > [@Lust4Life](#): > > Don’t the Intelligence services have some sort of programme where by word analysis/count etc.they can determine who exactly wrote anonymus letters and suchlike ? You know who does this? English professors! Yes, really. Here’s one. [Forensic Linguistics: Advances in Forensic Stylistics, by Gerald R. McMenamin](http://www.amazon.com/Forensic-Linguistics-Advances-Stylistics/dp/0849309662/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233945212&sr=1-1), which I admit I have not read but other Dopers have praised, or [Attributing Authorship: An Introduction, by Harold Love](http://www.amazon.com/Attributing-Authorship-Introduction-Harold-Love/dp/0521783399/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1271776388&sr=1-1), which I have read and recommend. Love has a chapter on Shakespeare. He demolishes any support for other authors and does so without needing to make imaginary claims about the clues in their sonnets. ---
**Author:** ![APB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e8cbc/32.png) [@APB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/APB)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2010, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-shaksper-write-the-sonnets-edited-title/536631/32 "2010-04-20T15:41:05Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Do you recommend the Shapiro book? Yes. Shapiro is one of the very best Shakespeare scholars working today and he’s now at the very top of his game. He’s also doing what the anti-Stratfordians always accuse their opponents of not doing - taking them on directly. Will he convince them to change their minds? Almost certainly not. But I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he hasn’t just shifted the terms of the whole controversy. He also manages the neat trick of being very funny, while, at the same time, scrupulously avoiding any of the obvious cheap laughs. I also second the recommendation of Love’s _Attributing Authorship_. ---
**Author:** ![pepperlandgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f17d59/32.png) [@pepperlandgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pepperlandgirl)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2010, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-shaksper-write-the-sonnets-edited-title/536631/33 "2010-04-20T15:55:26Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > You’re comparing a single work to a body of work. A person might take on a character for a particular piece, but for him to take on that same exact character for all or nearly all of his works is unlikely. Actually, I think my comparison does hold up. Cash had a veritable crapload of songs about committing crimes and being in jail. A number of people actually believe he _had_ been in jail because of nothing more than his songs. But whether it’s 1 song or a dozen songs with the same character or narrator, it’s still never a good idea to think that the narrator’s voice is the author’s. > [@](#): > > The bigger issue would be trying to presume an age, profession, etc. for the writer. Authors often come back to certain themes and ideas in their works, but those represent their interests as concerns poetic topics, not necessarily their interests in daily life. Writing romantic poetry may just have been considered fun by the author. It doesn’t need to imply that there was actually a romantic interest. I agree 100%. Also, if you’re reading the sonnets simply to figure out who they’re about or why Shakespeare wrote them (or why Shakespeare didn’t write them as it were), I think you’re really missing the point of the sonnets. There’s so much going on in the sonnets on so many levels. You could spend hours reading and analyzing them, choosing a different, legitimate angle for each one. It’s like reading Petrarch and getting all caught up in figuring out Laura’s identity. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2010, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-shaksper-write-the-sonnets-edited-title/536631/34 "2010-04-20T17:25:39Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > It’s interesting to note that the people who claim that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare are professional professors of English and literary history, who study the entire literature of the day using professional tools that most of the public isn’t even aware exist. All the people who doubt that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare are amateurs who come into the field from elsewhere and prove that they don’t know how to do a professional study of authorship. I have some specific questions which might help me evaluate conflicting authorship theories. Are you in contact with any of these scholars, and willing to relay my questions? If so, should I post the questions here? Or via pm? > [@APB](#): > > Sonnets were _supposed_ to be cryptic, obscure, playful, ambiguous, surprising and, yes, bizarre. I’ve already thanked you for this APB. It’s good to feel like we’re “on the same page.” But… > [@Marley23](#): > > [This is what I get for posting late at night.] _I deny the bizarrity._ There is a lot we don’t know about the sonnets: we’re not sure about their subjects or intended audience. But I’m denying the conclusion you are attempting to draw from this. Do you want to debate APB in a side thread? Or do you accept the “bizarrity” now, but “deny the conclusion [septimus is] attempting to draw …”? > [@septimus](#): > > By the way, as a mathematician I approach many questions as probabilistic. If the Sonnets match Oxford like a glove but are incongruous with Shaksper, I do not think of that as _proof_. Rather it affects my guesses of a priori probabilities. More unfinished business: > [@](#): > > Googling just know I see excerpts from a Google book which do _not_ impress me: [McCrea arguing against Bethel](http://books.google.com/books?id=c95vhdF1qiYC). I object to his argument and would argue that it is guilty of the circular thinking it accuses Oxfordians of. (I’m curious if you’d see what I mean there, **APB**. I’ll send the page numbers if you wish, but basically searched for Bethel.) > [@acsenray](#): > > Is it just me or does anyone else find the tossing around of words like “Oxfordian” and “Stratfordian” to be extremely precious? I’m sorry if I annoyed you. I’ll back out altogether if someone else agrees I was being “precious”, let alone extremely so. > [@Marley23](#): > > Then please get around to [presenting evidence] already! Marley23: Reread the thread and tell me if you think anyone else is interested in any contribution septimus might make. One intriguing mystery is King James’ behavior on 24 June 1604. But it doesn’t prove anything about the authorship. ---
**Author:** ![pepperlandgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f17d59/32.png) [@pepperlandgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pepperlandgirl)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2010, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-shaksper-write-the-sonnets-edited-title/536631/35 "2010-04-20T17:45:34Z")
What behavior and what does it prove? ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2010, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-shaksper-write-the-sonnets-edited-title/536631/36 "2010-04-20T18:03:33Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > 😕 😕 😕 Here’s [the wikipedia page for the Sonnets](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakespeare's_sonnets). To save you a click, the cover reads “Shake-speare’s Sonnets. Never before imprinted.” Well, I feel stupid. I don’t know where I got that. I was certain the sonnets were printed without an author - so certain I didn’t need to check. And obviously wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2010, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-shaksper-write-the-sonnets-edited-title/536631/37 "2010-04-20T18:15:40Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Do you want to debate APB in a side thread? Or do you accept the “bizarrity” now, but “deny the conclusion [septimus is] attempting to draw …”? How about this: you explain what you find bizarre about the sonnets and what you think it means. I think you’ll find I agree with **APB**. > [@](#): > > One intriguing mystery is King James’ behavior on 24 June 1604. But it doesn’t prove anything about the authorship. What did he do on the day Edward de Vere died, and why does it matter? ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2010, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-shaksper-write-the-sonnets-edited-title/536631/38 "2010-04-21T06:15:31Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > One intriguing mystery is King James’ behavior on 24 June 1604. But it doesn’t prove anything about the authorship. The day of Oxford’s death, the King went into a panic, seized Henry Wriothesley, along with some of his friends and documents, and may have destroyed some of Wriothesley’s and Oxford’s papers. The incident was not widely noted and, AFAIK, the connection with the date of Oxford’s death was noted only recently. Googling just now, I find it mentioned in a [book by Whittemore](http://books.google.com/books?id=KAY39S87vpgC&pg=RA2-PA672&lpg=RA2-PA672&source=bl&ots=dEjwkATyvT&sig=ypYy1-XGxz_Q1KYrEyS5NpzBwA4&hl=en&ei=1pHOS_WTKoG-rAebutmQAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CBcQ6AEwAw#v=onepage). **Please** be aware I don’t endorse Whittemore’s speculations (this was just the mention of incident I found Googling). **Please** be aware I don’t consider the incident “proof” of anything. It is however an interesting fact to consider for anyone approaching the mysteries surrounding Oxford, Southampton, and _perhaps_ the Shakespeare Authorship _with an open mind_. And **please** don’t remind us that the incident proves nothing about the Authorship. I already said that, but two people asked about the incident anyway. > [@bup](#): > > Well, I feel stupid. I don’t know where I got that. I was certain the sonnets were printed without an author - so certain I didn’t need to check. And obviously wrong. Perhaps your half-memory arose from a conflation of an opinion that the provenance and preface of the Sonnets suggest a Shakespeare who was no longer living at the time, or at least had no involvement with their publication(\*). (Yes, I know this sentence will attract sarcastic answers, none of which actually address the question.) (\* - bootlegged playscripts could be easily derived, e.g. from actors or even spectators. How these personal poems were published without author’s involvement, however, is just one of many mysteries that are ignored or given only half-answers by “Stratfordians.”) For those who find “Stratfordian” overly precious, what’s your alternative? “Sane Shakespeare scholars”, I’d guess, judging by some comments here. Please show that you’ve done your research by listing some of the “insane” anti-Stratford thinkers, e.g. Henry James “I am haunted by the conviction that the divine William is the biggest and most successful fraud ever practiced on a patient world.” ---
**Author:** ![HazelNutCoffee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@HazelNutCoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HazelNutCoffee)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2010, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-shaksper-write-the-sonnets-edited-title/536631/39 "2010-04-21T06:43:46Z")
When has anyone said that anti-Stratfordians are insane? The point is that most of them aren’t scholars with an extensive knowledge of Shakespeare and his works. Sure, Henry James was a great author, and Walt Whitman was a brilliant poet, but that doesn’t mean they knew more about Shakespeare than, say, modern day scholars like Helen Vendler or Stephen Booth. ---
**Author:** ![Enterprise](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/76d3ee/32.png) [@Enterprise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enterprise)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2010, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-shaksper-write-the-sonnets-edited-title/536631/40 "2010-04-21T07:39:00Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > **Please** be aware I don’t consider the incident “proof” of anything. It is however an interesting fact to consider for anyone approaching the mysteries surrounding Oxford, Southampton, and _perhaps_ the Shakespeare Authorship _with an open mind_. Good, then what, to your open mind, is interesting about this? Could you tie this into a larger argument? Why should King James’s reaction to Oxford’s death have anything to do with Oxford’s authorship of the plays? How do you think we can explain Shakespearian influences (not to say “authorship”) on plays after 1604 [influence that has been proven through the analysis of word frequency, etc; see, for example, the introduction to the Arden edition of _Timon of Athens_)? > [@](#): > > Perhaps your half-memory arose from a conflation of an opinion that the provenance and preface of the Sonnets suggest a Shakespeare who was no longer living at the time, or at least had no involvement with their publication(\*). (Yes, I know this sentence will attract sarcastic answers, none of which actually address the question.) > > (\* - bootlegged playscripts could be easily derived, e.g. from actors or even spectators. How these personal poems were published without author’s involvement, however, is just one of many mysteries that are ignored or given only half-answers by “Stratfordians.”) How so? Could it be that you’re ignoring the evidence, rather than them? After all, you _are_ leaving out (consciously?) that the 1609 version of the Sonnets was the first _complete_ (so far as we know, because, for one thing, we cannot know if those are actually all the Sonnets Shakespeare wrote) edition, but not only had versions of the sonnets previously appeared in print, we have clear, unambigous evidence that “the sweet, witty soul of Ovid lives in mellifluous and jhoney-tongued Shakespeare…his sugared Sonnets among his private friends, etc.” [Greenblatt, Will in the World, 235]; so while we don’t know how many of those sonnets were known, we know that some were. Plus it appears that contemporaries attributed them to the “Man-from-Stratford,” as you so cutely put it, rather than the Shakespeare-as-Oxford – unless the good Earl was a cunning man with masks? > [@](#): > > For those who find “Stratfordian” overly precious, what’s your alternative? “Sane Shakespeare scholars”, I’d guess, judging by some comments here. Please show that you’ve done your research by listing some of the “insane” anti-Stratford thinkers, e.g. Henry James “I am haunted by the conviction that the divine William is the biggest and most successful fraud ever practiced on a patient world.” Frankly, I can see how anyone would be disinclined to show their research with that kind of offering. Argumentation-by-authority isn’t going to cut it, and your showing of measured opinion hasn’t been too good. Your internet link cites Schlegel and Schiller, two men who, though no doubt great, are among _the_ central figures of German romanticism, and of course would, from their vantage point, have problems admitting that great poetry can come from anything but heartfelt personal experience. Plus, the entire opening paragraph is so profoundly ridiculous that it beggars belief: [QUOTE= L. James Hammond] Oxfordians say that literature is subjective, that the best writers are the most subjective, and that Shakespeare is highly subjective. Stratfordians, on the other hand, say that literature is objective, that the best writers are the most objective, and that Shakespeare is highly objective. Is Shakespeare objective or subjective, personal or impersonal? This is one of the central questions of the Stratford-Oxford debate. [/QUOTE] If either “Oxfordians” or “Stratfordians” “say” any of these things, good riddance to them. This kind of laughable reification of what “literature” “is” doesn’t belong in a serious discourse about the sonnets, or any writing for that matter. No literary scholar I know (and I work in a literature department) would ever claim objectivity for either themselves or the literature they study. Could you, perhaps, just suggest a few things that we could actually _discuss_ – facts, problems you see with the attributions of the sonnets, beyond what has already been explained above? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-shaksper-write-the-sonnets-edited-title/536631.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-shaksper-write-the-sonnets-edited-title/536631.md?page=3)