It is impossible from everything we know of authors in general and the person who composed the latter works in particular to believe that those two bodies of work were the same person. In addition, stylometric tests conclusively disprove it. Any theory that depends on Oxford mysteriously being a second-rater and a genius is suspect from the beginning and fails immediately upon expert examination. This is positive evidence, not the negative evidence you keep needing to rely upon.
Thank you, septimus, for laying out some arguments straight-forward so we can all get on the same page. It was rather difficult to put a handle on what you were actually arguing when all we got was scrambled snippets and continued references to a “fart” that only entered this conversation through your continued beratement of it. I have yet to see anything about a fart that wasn’t written by you.
Let me acknowledge up front I am coming into this conversation with almost no knowledge of the topic. I am aware there is a body of work that is attributed to William Shakespeare, that he was supposedly from Stratford upon Avon, that he was an actor in London and helped form the Globe theater. I do not really know the dates well. I am almost completely ignorant about the Earl of Oxford, Edward de Vere (having only learned about him in this topic, just enough to put those two names together). So forgive me if I ask you for basics.
Now let’s look at some of your arguments.
Wait right there. You just stated he was a well-known writer. How can this be reconciled with your premise that he requires having a frontman, that he is not able to publicly claim ownership of the later plays and sonnets? If he is already well-known as a writer, then what would be lost by continuing to be known as a writer? This detail needs to be addressed in much greater detail, because right now you are simultaneously arguing that it would have been unthinkable for him to be acknowledged as a writer, and yet he was praised and acknowledged as a writer. Color me confused.
More of the same. Retired to concentrate on his writing, and yet cannot acknowledge his writing. Please reconcile.
Cite, please?
“Far from impossible” is a different standard than “reasonably likely”.
Perhaps this is an effort for the proponent of the claim?
[quote]
[ul]
[li]The writings were a team effort, with others than Oxford teaching Oxford, practicing with him, editing his verses, etc.[/li][li]The team was a two-man partnership. I will call them Oxford and the Collaborator, without further clarification. [/li][/quote]
[/ul]Either of these premises makes Oxford a lesser player in the exchange. The “genius and creativity” of Shakespeare is left as much to the additions of the other contributors as to Oxford. While this may allow some room for Oxford to be involved, it hampers the claim that the works of Shakespeare’s are really not Shakespeare’s. Also, there is the problem that there is even less evidence for this claim than either claim that WS wrote his own works, or Oxford did it by himself. The rule of parsimony makes this dis-creditable without something more.
[QUOTE]
[ul]
[li]My understanding is that many of Oxford’s poems were written in the 1560’s by the teen-aged Edward. The poems and plays were mostly written beginning in the 1590’s. We all certainly agree that the Shakespeare Author, whoever he was, was a unique genius. Is it farfetched to imagine that such a genius, writing poems as a lark in his teens, then making it is his life’s work at age 40, could have improved his skills enough to defeat such a statistical test?[/li][/QUOTE]
[/ul]Doubtful. The things that the statistical tests use is not the kind of thing affected by mere improvement of skill. I am certainly not an expert on it, and perhaps someone with more knowledge could contribute here, but as I understand it the analysis looks at things like turn of phrase, sentence construction, framing of thoughts, etc. Of course, an example comparing known works from the same author at different time periods/ages and showing how the models can’t figure it out would be probative. But merely asserting the case won’t get you very far.
A cite here would be nice.
Granted, that has some plausibility to it. Oxford wrote or drafted works, his collaborator took them and edited, reworked, improved, whatever. Some of the works were incomplete, and the collaborator put more into them than the earlier ones. Whatever. Maybe even held back a few explicitly to continue the hoax. Can you point out the specific sonnets?
As previously stated, this claim needs a lot more support. We have plenty of evidence that being a writer was acceptable - Oxford was even noted as such. Please justify the claim there is a taboo, and justify why the taboo allows Oxford to acknowledge being a playwrite without acknowledging which plays he wrote.
Elaborate for the uninformed.
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Why would they leave clues? Wasn’t the intent to create a hoax? What if they created a hoax, and did so well enough that they actually succeeded? Then what?
I was not involved in previous conversations. Specifics should be cited.
Remember Franklin’s adage: “Two can keep a secret, if one of them is dead.” I don’t think that sentiment is particularly not understood prior to Franklin. Coopting a friend into your hoax is giving your friend leverage over you. No? What if there’s a falling out? What if Oxford doesn’t want anyone else involved, because they’d reveal his role and blow the whole thing? This seems to work in favor of the Oxford claim.
Why? I will grant you there may be a reason why a man could get away with writing poetry as a lad that as an adult would get him looked down upon as a dillitante or a fool or whatever. I grant you that he could have structured his later hoax because of his exposure or near exposure from his youth, prompting him to seek a better cover. Of course, that assumes that anonymity is required, which you have not proven.
Something that is easily lost because of Septimus’ arguments is that there are not two sides to this issue. He insists on making the issue black and white: if Shakespeare is not the author then Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, must be. This is artful sleight of hand, but denies reality. It’s exactly as meaningful as presenting the argument that if Lee Harvey Oswald didn’t kill Kennedy then the Mafia must have.
There are dozens of candidates for the “Real Shakespeare.” Why? People like reading them. Conspiracy theories sell like crazy. Dozens of books about the completely idiotic delusion that the Mayans predicted that the world will end in 2012 are selling like crazy, several even ending up on the bestseller list. A few authors have debunked it, but who’s going to buy them? Everybody sane knows the theory is crazy. Why spend money for a whole book to tell us that? To refute the “arguments” made by people who are either insane or deliberately trying to make a buck on the gullible? Few ordinary readers are going to bother.
Creating fake Shakespeares is an industry. A book offering a candidate will sell. This has been true since the 19th century. Dozens, literally dozens, of alternate candidates have been proposed. Queen Elizabeth has been named many times. If you believe this… And yet there have probably been more unlikely names dropped.
It never ends. The “anti-Stratfordians” can’t settle on any one alternate candidate. Two major reasons. The major one is that since Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare there is no positive evidence for anyone else. Putting together coincidences, suppositions, and bad history will allow you to put forth a case but it can’t refute anything. The Oxfordians can’t refute the Baconians and vice versa. All they can do is rail against Shakespeare. The second is the obvious one that you can’t make money selling someone else’s theory. Go for your own candidate at all costs.
Since 1922, a group, now named the Shakespeare Authorship Trust has kept this nonsense alive. Of course they have never proved a thing in 83 years, yet there are a repository for all the silliness. They report that:
66 candidates! Eight of them major! (IF you include that silly reference to some name named Shakspere.]
But wait, there’s more!
There’s a group theory - it’s like an Agatha Christie novel: they all did it!
And there are minor candidates. And they have books about them too!
Whenever you see Septimus asking questions (just as in all those conspiracy theory threads: I’m not saying anything - I’m just asking questions), ask yourself whether any of them refute William Stanley. Or Mary Sidney Herbert. Or Queen Elizabeth.
Just don’t for a second make the mistake of allowing the discussion to become one of two equal sides, with William Shakespeare against Edward de Vere. It’s not. It never has been. This is “teach the controversy” all over, and the opponents have as much scientific credibility as the Creationists. That’s the only reason why this silly dispute has any traction. It continues to be crucial to expose the vast gulf between lifelong expert professionals who truly know their fields and amateur cranks who have beliefs that they want brought into schools. That’s a fight worth fighting.
What is scary is that the makers of the movie “Anonymous” were not happy by making just a movie, there were also lesson plans made so this can be thought in schools!
The idea, I presume, is that they announce the lesson plans and then the media covers the fact that they’re offering lesson plans. Which they did. If the plans convince anyone to see the movie that would be a bonus.
The problem isn’t just that some of the plays came out after Oxford’s death, but that some of them are about events that happened after Oxford’s death. So at the least he’s going to need a collaborator who can perfectly and undetectably mimic the literary style of the greatest ever writer in the English language.
So I was driven into the rabbit hole with this one also…
I was checking the recent Shakespeare webinar (that included Stephen Fry) and there was a very disturbing part on it regarding some questionable educational institutions making money from this [del]trash[/del] controversy.
Warning, one hour long, and they did not close the tool bar :
The interesting bit regarding how this idea of Shakespeare not being the author is just like other conspiracies is here:
The anti-Shakespearean responses slide then shows a classic conspiracy tactic of getting “experts” to sign a declaration claiming that the consensus by the real experts is incorrect, and then we get to see the few academic centers that profit form educating people into the conspiracy. As Paul Edmondson, Stanley Wells and even Stephen Fry noticed, there is no intellectual justification by Brunel University in England and The Concordia University in Oregon to profit from this idea.
:sigh:
What is it with Oregon and conspiracies? It is interesting to notice that one big element that climate change deniers use is also coming from Oregon, the infamous Oregon petition:
So for all that still insist that the anti-shakespearean position is not based on a conspiracy or denial of the facts, you need to get out of the rabbit hole and check what the experts really say:
The best evidence is that some guy named William Shakespeare wrote the plays attributed to William Shakespeare. There is a lot of evidence to ignore to come to another conclusion supported by no evidence at all.
But in the spirit of fun, I think that the real author was Elizabeth I, who as the Virgin Queen would not have been allowed to write such bawdy fun nonsense. Check out some of her writing some time. She was an excellent writer.
Right: so, in 1603 Her Majesty pretended to die, so that her cousin James VI of Scotland could inherit her throne, and she could retire to some secret place, where no one would recognise the late Queen of England, and she could go on writing the plays in peace. No, I don’t think there are any possible holes in that theory.
That’s depressing. I’ve added Contested Will by James Shapiro to my Amazon wishlist, hopefully someone will bite for Christmas. I found his previous book, 1599, very interesting.
Hey, it’s less preposterous than De Vere who died about the same time. I’m going to go with she had them written, finished and delivered to her beard, but the company was already putting on other plays.
Disclaimer: I do not think there is any literary importance to question of whether the glover’s son wrote the plays that bear his name.
However, I do find this position a bit disingenuous:
IANAH, but it seems perfectly reasonable to me that while a person of noble birth might devise a few gentle trifles for the private enjoyment of the court, allowing his name to be publicly bandied about by the groundlings would be frowned upon.
Now, how that might translate into a 400 year old case of mistaken identity is another story. But I don’t think it makes no sense whatsoever that de Vere might not want his name associated with publicly performed plays - unless an historian can set me straight on this point?
Seriously? Your best explanation for your disagreement with me on this point is that I’m lying to you? Are you shitting me?
If you think I’m being disingenuous, then obviously there’s no reason for you even to talk with me. If you want to talk with me like a grownup, though, and not accuse me of dishonesty just because of a disagreement, lemme know.
I haven’t entered this thread, because I consider the subject far too stupid to discuss, but I did skim it today and found Little Nemo claiming (in post #46) that Shapiro’s book Contested Will makes a pro-conspiracy argument. In fact, Professor Shapiro’s well-researched book makes a very sound and strong case for Shakespeare being the author of the plays and poems. In fact every single professor of literature who teaches Shakespeare that I have met argues the same, though not all so skillfully as Shapiro. I wonder if Little Nemo has read the book he’s citing as evidence for his position.
This BTW is the single strongest argument I can find for non-experts in Shakespearean literature: if there were a plausible argument to be made showing that Shakespeare didn’t write Shakespeare, some ambitious Ph. D. student seeking to land a tenure-track job (a very competitive undertaking these days) would write his dissertation on the subject, and his well-researched, logical argument would certainly get published, and Shakespeare scholars all over the world would have to admit that it had some merit, and he would be an academic super-star. The fact that this clear pathway to academic stardom hasn’t been successfully tried by any of thousands of ambitious Ph. D. candidates suggests to me that it is a complete dead end, a total loser of an argument. Q.E.D.
And if you’re wondering, Shapiro gives a thorough report on all the false-Shakespeare identifications over the past 400 years, tracing them out in admirable detail, and his concluding chapters make for a complete positive identification of the author of the works as the butcher’s boy, the actor, the Stradfordian etc. named William Shakespeare. That **Little Nemo **could cite this book as an anti-Shakespeare work suggests that he either didn’t read it or didn’t finish it. Most likely, the former, as Shapiro’s ridicule of the ridiculous Oxford/Vere arguments crops up fairly early, though it doesn’t get really dispositive until close to the end.
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