Did they ever resolve the theory that Francis Bacon wrote the Shakespeare plays?

[Marley23]

And that’s why conspiracy theories don’t go away. They’re essentially impervious to facts because they’re based on feelings.

[Alessan]

You know what the huge irony is? The anti-Stratfordians claim that only nobles can write about nobility, but still think that people who aren’t Shakesperean scholars can write about Shakespeare.

[Chronos]

There was also an article published in, of all things, Games Magazine that laid out the case for de Vere. Even without any formal education on Shakespeare at all at the time, I was able to see how error-ridden it was.

[Alka_Seltzer]

@Sam_A.Robrin

Stratfordians have no argument and know it, which is why they resort to vituperative insult, circular reasoning, and misdirection before the discussion even gets started: Oxfordians are “snobs”; the guy who broke the theory had a funny name; Oxford died before plays were written (in a chronology determined by the life of William of Stratford); tradition is on our side; you can’t prove he didn’t; back it all up with more citations than anyone possibly has time for, every one of which will be dismissed; experts all agree, and if they don’t, they’re not experts… not to mention the liberal sprinkling of ridiculous, nonsense, codswallop, ballocks, etc. Even knowing nothing on a topic, I’m capable of recognizing the signs of a weak case, and they’re all here. (And on this site, of all places…!)

That is pit-worthy. You seem to think that everyone who disagrees with you is intellectually dishonest.

[Fretful_Porpentine]

@APB

The immediate problem with any claim that the daughters were ‘illiterate’ is that it rather suggests that the person making that claim doesn’t understand that literacy isn’t an either/or skill. Especially in early-modern England. But then the point is counterintuitive.

The basic point that needs to be grasped is that reading and writing were taught separately in early-modern England. Children were taught to read and only then progressed to writing. Moreover, many children never progressed beyond the first stage, leaving them able to read but unable to write. This was especially true for girls.

The third skill was learning to sign one’s name. This could, in theory, be learnt without either being able to read or write, but was, unsurprisingly, usually acquired when first learning to write. The usual assumption is therefore that someone who could sign their name could probably read. So the fact that Shakespeare’s daughter, Susanna, could sign her name tends to suggest that she could read.

Of course, there is the claim by James Cooke that when he tried to buy her husband’s manuscripts off her, Susanna mistakenly disputed with him over whether parts of the manuscripts were in her late husband’s hand. But that is nowhere near as surprising as it might seem. The notes in question were all in Latin and no one is suggesting that she could read Latin. Moreover, educated men such as Hall - and no one disputes that Hall was highly educated - could often write in several different styles of handwriting, which they could switch between depending on the context. And one such context was often whether they were writing in English or Latin. It is therefore not at all obvious that Hall’s Latin notes would have been written in the same hand as any writings in English with which she might have been familiar. In any case, Cooke’s story doesn’t make a lot of sense unless he believed that Susanna could read; that’s why he found her mistake so surprising.

It’s also worth noting that Susanna’s epitaph in the Stratford church describes her as “Witty beyond her sex” (which connotes intelligence, not just verbal wit, in seventeenth-century English) and notes that “Something of Shakespeare was in that.” This would make no sense if Shakespeare were not generally acknowledged to be exceptionally clever.

[Sam_Lowry]

There’s a lot of conspiracy theories that are crazy, but I can at least see how the pieces fit together. But with the Oxfordians, I can’t follow the logic. I believe fully that Shakespeare wrote the Shakespeare plays, but I just am curious if anyone can explain how the Oxfordians explain the following things:

[ul]
[li]I don’t understand the timeline. Some of the support for Shakespeare not being the author is that he wasn’t mourned when he died, which he would have been if he was the great author. But his plays were fairly popular back then, and the author would have been mourned. So who was the author thought to be then? [/li][li]It seems that most everyone agrees that an actor named William Shakespeare existed. So why did de Vere use Shakespeare’s name as a pseudonym? One website I found said that publishing anonymously or pseudonymously was common, but I don’t understand why he would use an existing man’s name as a pseudonym. What would de Vere get out of it? What would Shakespeare get out of it? Why not make up a name like most authors who use pseudonyms do?[/li][/ul]

I don’t know if I’m explaining myself well, but I’m curious to see how the logic follows. From the little searching I’ve done, I’ve found a lot explaining why de Vere definitely could or could not be the author, but I don’t think I’ve seen these two things explained.

To reiterate, I don’t believe de Vere wrote Shakespeare’s plays, I believe that Shakespeare did. I just find conspiracy theories interesting, and would like to know more about how these conspiracy theorists think.

[Dread_Pirate_Jimbo]

Stylistic analysis demonstrates that there is no other candidate among the many potential ghost authors who fit the bill. Oxford died a decade before many of the plays were written. Science and history make it abundantly clear that the conspiracy theories have no merit. I’m therefore at a bit of a loss as to how this debate continues to rage on.

[Irishman]

In the case of conspiracy theories, there is one thing I have found. No matter how solid the mainstream case, or how loony the theory, nobody accepts as an answer “That’s ridiculous. All the scholars/experts have concensus on Y. These conspiracy theories are nutty and have no relationship to the truth.”

Condescension may be felt for those theories, but expressing it does not convince anyone that you have the truth, only that you don’t respect your opponents. And it just makes the other side whine harder.

I’ve seen some good responses and actual cites and replies to the content of the claims. It’s trivial - for either side - to claim “There’s a simple response to that so I won’t bother to provide it.” If the response is so simple, it is much cleaner to actually provide it, or a link to it.

[GIGObuster]

Of course that works only by ignoring that cites and links were also provided with the evidence and reasons, after that, that the “scholars/experts have concensus on Y” is just also an important fact because, as it is clear you are missing it, one side is counting on many not being aware of that consensus. (this is an important feature on other conspiracy theories like the one proposed by the global warming deniers, not letting the readers be aware of the consensus in academia is important to make people believe that there is a “raging controversy” and we should at least “teach the controversy”.

Be as it may, one simple explanation why many scholars and historians are convinced that the plays were written by Shakespeare can be found here:

Shakespeare Resource Center - The Simple Case for Shakespeare

For those that ask me, ultimately, why I believe in Shakespeare as the author, I have a simple (if often frustrating to those who fervidly believe in another author) answer: it’s the simplest explanation. The issue is complex, fraught with logic pitfalls even for those who defend the orthodoxy, but Shakespeare remains the easiest of any authorship candidate to defend. For elaboration, let me first introduce my friend, William of Occam, and his proposition that forms the basis of my stance.

De Vere is the current favorite among alternate author enthusiasts, but stylistic analysis of de Vere’s poetry compared with that of Shakespeare finds the earl lacking as well. In addition, the majority of evidence presented by Oxford supporters is circumstantial at best, coincidental in some instances, and pure conjecture in other examples. In addition, there is an incongruity in the rationale posited by Oxfordians. Oxford, it is said, needed to publish under a pseudonym because courtiers were discouraged or forbidden from publishing poetry and drama. Yet, as part of their supporting evidence, Oxford supporters point out that Oxford was not only an acknowledged patron of the arts, but that he was a recognized poet and playwright (for whom no play titles are mentioned). If, in fact, Oxford was recognized and even praised by his contemporaries for his qualities as a poet and dramatist, what need then did Oxford have for publishing his work anonymously? In the bid to establish credibility for de Vere, Oxford supporters undermine de Vere’s motive for maintaining anonymity.

William Shakespeare, on the other hand, has the requisite connections to the company that produced the works and to the men who acted the roles. Ironically, we know more about Shakespeare than we know about any other Elizabethan playwright; hence, there is more to question. No one ever seriously disputes Marlowe, Jonson, or Kyd in the authorship of the works that bear their names, in part because we have to trust that the attribution of their work is genuine. But where William Shakespeare is concerned, it has become fashionable to seize upon every discrepancy and mold them into a conglomeration of conspiracy that masks another hand at work. The more convoluted the alternate hypotheses must be made to fit, the less likely it is that the posited other candidates can remain viable. Is it simpler to believe that a man named William Shakespeare wrote the works that bear his name, or is it simpler to believe that:

Francis Bacon had enough time and developed an entirely different writing style to write 36 or more plays, 154 sonnets, and two major poems while maintaining an active political career during the time in which these works were written?
Christopher Marlowe did not die and continued writing plays in Italy that were credited to another man to protect Marlowe's identity?
Edward de Vere had to maintain anonymity despite being acknowledged as a poet and playwright in his lifetime and despite other nobles being published under their own names when supposedly such activity was discouraged?

Occam’s Razor, based on the above criteria, seems to favor Shakespeare. Ultimately, it is as simple as it is plausible to accept, without being introduced to hard evidence to the contrary, that William Shakespeare wrote the works attributed to him. And the plausibility, just as it has been argued for the other candidates, exists within the dramatic works themselves.

Conclusion
Despite the legitimate (and understandable) questions that can be raised regarding gaps in our knowledge of Shakespeare the man, William Shakespeare remains the most viable candidate as the author of his works. The case for Shakespeare is defensible both on its own merit and relative to the merit of others posited as authorship candidates. It is at least as plausible as any other case that has been presented, and in the decades of questioning that have followed, there has been no hard, empirical evidence either to disprove William Shakespeare’s claim or prove any other’s claim to authorship. Until such definitive proof exists, Shakespeare is, in my opinion, the most plausible author we have.

[SciFiSam]

@septimus

Wow. If you care to focus on 2, or perhaps 3, specific claims, I can try to hunt something up, though it will probably be “just an Internet page.”

To ask for “cites on all of that” while offering zero in the way of counterargument is excessive, IMHO.

And I certainly do not claim to be an expert on the topic. But speaking of “know so much”, I’d be very curious to learn how many of the points I raised, even in the relatively brief quoted synopsis of just a few clues, were even known to those ridiculing the “anti-Stratfordians”? Let’s start with you, SciFiSam. Nevermind if you’ve seen proofs: Were you even aware that the “anti-Stratfordians” made these claims?

Didn’t you read my other posts? I provided plenty of counterarguments of my own. And yes, I was aware that people make those claims; I know the subject very well, having studied it to PhD level, as you’d know if you read my posts. Perhaps they dropped off the bottom of the page or something.

Anyway, I’ve been working 16-hour days, so am glad to see that everyone else has handled the argument well and it’s all been civil. Some reall good points have been raised - too many to quote in one post.

I’ll grant you that there’s always a possibility that someone other than Shakespeare wrote the plays, but that’s because anything’s possible - perhaps the writer was really his wife, or King James, or Ben Jonson, or an Arab living in London (‘Sheik Spear’ - I have seen this one seriously proposed :D) or someone else altogether.

There simply is very little evidence for any of them having written the plays and there’s a huge amount of evidence that Shakespeare did. The likelihood of Shakespeare not being the true author is so small that it ceased to be interesting a long time ago.

[SciFiSam]

Huh. Just noticed this:

I did refuse a useless post asking me to provide cites “every one” of a dozen points, many of which aren’t in dispute. And everyone in this thread has “refused to answer” whether they’ve read anti-Stratfordian material (despite that the non-sequitur nature of two Stratford defenses in this thread show that some debaters didn’t even understand anti-Stratfordians argue there was a hoax).

Now I’m kinda regretting being so polite. A ‘useless’ post because I had the temerity to ask for cites, even though that is the standard on this board and none of the claims made were ‘widely accepted’ at all. I had also provided cites in my own posts, which septimus seems to have missed.

I also find it odd the argument is that people didn’t realise the claim against Shakespeare’s authorship was that it was a hoax. What else is the claim supposed to be? That the plays were misattributed by accident?

And people wonder why it’s so hard to bother to engage in debate with anti-Stratfordians? I have a brick wall handy and beating my head against that would take up far less time.

[Larry_Mudd]

@Sam_A.Robrin

I heard of the de Vere theories, and finally investigated them. While the evidence is circumstantial, there’s a lot of it; the more you dig, the more support the theory gets.

But it doesn’t add up; that’s what is so frustrating about debating this point is.

There’s a lot of evidence that the music industry is controlled by Satanists. Sure, it’s all circumstantial and squinty, but there’s so much of it, there must be something to it, right?

No, you look at every claim and fail to find anything compelling. Nuthin’ + nuthin’ + nuthin’ + nuthin’ adds up to…

[GIGObuster]

@SciFiSam

Huh. Just noticed this:

Now I’m kinda regretting being so polite. A ‘useless’ post because I had the temerity to ask for cites, even though that is the standard on this board and none of the claims made were ‘widely accepted’ at all. I had also provided cites in my own posts, which septimus seems to have missed.

I also find it odd the argument is that people didn’t realise the claim against Shakespeare’s authorship was that it was a hoax. What else is the claim supposed to be? That the plays were misattributed by accident?

And people wonder why it’s so hard to bother to engage in debate with anti-Stratfordians? I have a brick wall handy and beating my head against that would take up far less time.

Indeed, I was wondering if I was the one confusing things, thanks to you I can say that septimus’ bit about a hoax continues to looks to me as an attempt to make things more complicated than needed.

[GIGObuster]

@Larry_Mudd

No, you look at every claim and fail to find anything compelling. Nuthin’ + nuthin’ + nuthin’ + nuthin’ adds up to…

That reminded me of the immortal words from the poet Billy Preston:

“Nothin’ from nothin’ leaves nothin’
You gotta have somethin’ if you wanna be with me”

On a musical note, I remembered also a comment on the BBC regarding the “controversy”

BBC NEWS | UK | Magazine | Shakespeare: The dossier

Thank goodness mass media existed to document the rise of The Beatles in 1963 or someone would maintain that a group of commoners from Liverpool could never write music powerful enough to influence popular culture and academe.

-Heather Paige Preston, Boone, North Carolina, USA

[Marley23]

For a couple of years I’ve been kidding that someday, people will attribute the works of the Beatles to Sir Elton John.

[mutantmoose]

He wasn’t necessarily as wife-abandoning as people seem to think. The theatre company went on long extended tours around the country including the Stratford area. These tours would pitch up in a place and then stay there for months. Especially when the London theatres were closed down for plague years and such like.

He might have spent months every year living at home in Stratford even while he was based in London because of these tours. And that doesn’t even count the other times he may have gone home for a week or two when he had the time.

Plus he gave up writing and retired early, went straight back to Stratford and stayed there never to return to London again. Which kinda suggests that home for Shakespeare was always Stratford. London was just business.

[septimus]

Maybe I will open a BBQ Pit thread anyway. For example, look at this:

@APB

The immediate problem with any claim that the daughters were ‘illiterate’ is that it rather suggests that the person making that claim doesn’t understand that literacy isn’t an either/or skill.

We can’t just discuss literacy, we have to focus attention on the ignoramuses like septimus – " is that it rather suggests that the person making that claim doesn’t understand." Does this “precious” phrasing add anything to the debate except to irritate and needle?

(And, “precious” isn’t my diction. In the earlier thread I abbreviated the long phrase “people who think de Vere wrote the works of Shakespeare” to “Oxfordian” and drew a response, from someone with nothing else to contribute, like “Ooooh, people who write ‘Oxfordian’ are sooo … precious.” I lost interest in that earlier thread after seeing that.)

@SciFiSam

@septimus

Let me repeat: I am an agnostic on the matter. If I had proof, I wouldn’t be agnostic. I mentioned this in the previous thread and was told that was impossible – no one is agnostic on the matter! :smack: (About that time there was also a thread on Myers-Briggs personality type and I mentioned I am INTP while more Dopers are INTJ. )

What do I mean that “I am agnostic”? If I were forced to “make book” on the matter, I’d call Wm Shakespeare the most likely candidate for the authorship, perhaps with a 40% chance, or up to twice that in variations where there was a major collaborator. If someone replies “40% is low … I’d call it 75% or even 90%,” I’d certainly have no problem with their views. Those who regard it as a 100% certainty, however, really make me doubt their objectivity … or whether they’ve even studied the case.

And please know that I am quite aware strong case can be made against the de Vere authorship. I regard the authorship as something of a mystery. Indeed there are aspects of the stories about de Vere and Shakespeare (e.g. the confiscation of de Vere’s and Wriothesley’s papers the night of de Vere’s death) that should be considered fascinating mysteries even stipulating Shakespeare’s authorship yet the “doctrinaire Stratfordians” will not even deign to discuss these. (Whether he was the author or not, de Vere’s biography and relation to the theater is interesting, yet a major Shakespeare biography introduces de Vere only to mention condescendingly an alleged (and probably fictitious) FART ! )

The case is involved, and is based on lots and lots of circumstantial clues. Very close parallels have been found between passages in Shakespeare’s writings and those of de Vere’s. And much MUCH more I can’t summarize. I’d post a list of URL’s if I detected any sincere interest; have the debaters here even read the relevant Wikipedia page?

Do debaters here admit that
[ul]
[li] De Vere was a playwright, described as “best”?[/li][li] De Vere’s name appears on lists of playwrights which do not include the name Shakespeare?[/li][li] No plays, or even names of plays, attributed to de Vere have turned up?[/li][li] When the famous playwright de Vere died and when his widow died, King James I ordered a commemorative festival of plays? The plays performed were those of … Shakespeare![/li][/ul]

The earliest references to Shakespeare in London were both spoofish: “Upstart crow” and “Not without mustard.” Jonson’s view may have changed when he was brought into the hoax.

It is valid to point out that there is “no smoking gun” … no clear pointer to a de Vere authorship. Know that in the hoax scenario, Queen Elizabeth and King James I had specifically forbidden the revelation (perhaps due in part to political aspects of some of the plays).

There are plenty of cryptic hints about the authorship. I won’t offer more, until I hear a response to “A never writer to an ever reader.”

I will grant that many people on the anti-Stratford side say false or stupid things. The other side, however is also wildly inconsistent. To the question: Why was Shakespeare’s death almost ignored in 1616?, we hear:
… Yet on the topic of why the Author was spoken of in 1607 with words normally used for dead people, the Stratford side will say “because he was already a legend, spoken of as an immortal.”
Utter nonsense. If this is the gibberish the “other side” chooses to offer here, I’m gone.

Cites for all of that, please. Not Wikipedia - at least hunt down their sources and quote them. You claim to know so much about it, so it should be easy.

It would save me providing the counter-cites, and, since you made the argument, it’s your turn.

For “all of that”?? Do you want cites for my definition of agnostic? For my (apparently false ) claim that I’d be “gone” from gibberish? Although it was obvious you simply lacked the courtesy to strip these from the excerpt, I was still confused, since most of these claims, AFAIK, while sometimes described as “half-truths,” are not disputed.

@SciFiSam

Huh. Just noticed this:

Now I’m kinda regretting being so polite. A ‘useless’ post because I had the temerity to ask for cites, even though that is the standard on this board and none of the claims made were ‘widely accepted’ at all…

And people wonder why it’s so hard to bother to engage in debate with anti-Stratfordians? I have a brick wall handy and beating my head against that would take up far less time.

“none of the claims made were ‘widely accepted’ at all” ?
“none of the claims made were ‘widely accepted’ at all” ?
“none of the claims made were ‘widely accepted’ at all” ?

Do you claim that “Not without mustard” was not a spoof about Shakespeare?
Do you claim “Upstart crows” was not written against Shakespeare?
Do you claim de Vere did not appear on lists of playwrights?
If I were as rude as the Stratfordians in this debate, I would comment further on your “politeness.”

I conceded at the outset that Stratford was a more likely candidate for the Authorship than Oxford. FWIW, septimus is not as stupid as many people think. There are a few areas in which my expertise is world-class, and many areas where my knowledge and thinking is expert-level. Literature and the Authorship debate are not among those areas. I’ve found it interesting to read about the authorship, but the most interesting aspect is the feverish level of pretension and condescendance which accompanies the Stratfordians, regardless of the “correctness” of their case. For example:

[QUOTE=Exapno Mapcase]

This is the book which spends just a single paragraph on de Vere, a paragraph devoted to the fictitious fart. Would it be rude to ask for your comments on that sort of “scholarship”?

Eminently sensible. That’s all de Vere deserves.
[/QUOTE]

Hello, Exapno Mapcase. I notice in another thread you think PIE arrived with the early farmers, but of course did not find septimus’ contrary opinion worthy of comment. Shall we do a Poll, stage a debate, then do another poll on the topic?

[APB]

@septimus

We can’t just discuss literacy, we have to focus attention on the ignoramuses like septimus – " is that it rather suggests that the person making that claim doesn’t understand." Does this “precious” phrasing add anything to the debate except to irritate and needle?

Actually, I very carefully did not attribute those views to you. It’s not as if the point you were making was original. It is instead a standard argument deployed by those sceptical of Shakespeare’s authorship and, as such, any criticism of it deserves to be directed at its proponents in general. And, you know what, I will intensify my original remark. I consider it shocking how most of those who claim that the daughters were illiterate can be so woefully ignorant of even the most basic facts about early-modern literacy.

[Bridget_Burke]

@APB

Actually, I very carefully did not attribute those views to you. It’s not as if the point you were making was original. It is instead a standard argument deployed by those sceptical of Shakespeare’s authorship and, as such, any criticism of it deserves to be directed at its proponents in general. And, you know what, I will intensify my original remark. I consider it shocking how most of those who claim that the daughters were illiterate can be so woefully ignorant of even the most basic facts about early-modern literacy.

One learns about early-modern literacy by having studied English language, literature & history in depth. (My own knowledge is deep in certain areas but rather sketchy in others. Alas, my Shakespeare professor was a Freud-obsessed bore & my Medieval Lit professor was not interested in my mind; thus I bade not-so-fond farewell to the English program.) Somebody who has only read a few conspiracy books won’t have that depth of knowledge. (Shakespeare as the author of Shakespeare always seemed pretty logical to me, but I’m not here as an expert.) At least I knew about the history of the printed book & the destruction of the monasteries in Britain…

How will future scholars judge excessive use of smilies when analyzing what we now call Late Modern English? I doubt they will take any such texts seriously; I surely don’t.

[Quercus]

Well, as I understand it, the evidence in favor of Shakespeare as the author is far from complete and airtight (though many of the supposed holes are in fact logical and consistent to someone who knows the history of the time).

And the evidence in favor of anyone else being the author is nonexistent.

What’s so hard about this?

I mean, history is never complete; not everything is recorded or written down. Heck, anyone ever tried to figure out why a particular decision in their office was made from five years ago? And you think we have perfect documentation from 400 years ago?