Strangest Anti-Stratfordian (Shakespeare) Arguement

Cafe Society
21

True, but Hammestein was writing for a definite character (I don’t know what song you’re quoting, but I’ll guess that it’s a woman’s line), while Shakespeare’s sonnets were much closer to autobiographical.

Consider the Dark Lady; while no one knows who she was exactly, there’s general agreement that there was a Dark Lady and that Shakespeare was in love with her and wrote sonnets to/for her. Similarly, a substantial subset of the sonnets (I’m at work and don’t have time to look up specifics right now; sorry) are written to a young man and are written in praise of his beauty and perfection, &c., but are clearly not written in a woman’s voice.

Example from Sonnet 20 (linies 10-14):

Till Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting,
And by addition me of thee defeated,
By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.
But since she prick’d thee out for women’s pleasure,
Mine be thy love and thy love’s use their treasure.

Clearly, this is a man, talking to a boy with whom he’s infatuated. “Dang that Nature, for making you soooo perfect and then putting a penis on you! Oh well, since you’re made for having sex with women, give your love to me and let them enjoy your passion.” (I love the phrase “prick’d thee out” in this context.)

Is he sexually infatuated with the boy? I don’t think so; I think the narrator (who, again, seems to be a pretty close analog of the author here) is in love with the boy’s perfection, and is disappointed because, being heterosexual, he can enjoy the boy’s love in every way except sexually.

I guess this begs a pretty close definition of what exactly hetero- and homosexuality are. In my mind this isn’t homosexual, but someone may come along to correct me.

For text and some commentaries (though I haven’t read closely enough to decide how much I trust the commentaries), check out:

http://www.shakespeares-sonnets.com/

In my (university) sophomore English class, we were discussing this sonnet one day…

Professor: What is the “addition” he’s talking about here?

My friend Mike, after considerable pause: A penis?

Professor: Correct.

Mike: Good, because man, I was gonna be embarrassed if that was wrong…

22

Ha! I love it… :wink:

That’s one of my favorite sonnets, btw. And, since you mention it, most of the sonnets are addressed to the young man – if you want numbers, 1 through 126. The dark lady turns up in sonnet 127, although it’s mentioned in some of the earlier ones that the youth is sleeping with the speaker’s mistress.

Well, it’s fair to call it homoerotic, I think. Though there are a couple of other things that bear mentioning: one is that early modern people didn’t really have a conception of sexual orientation, at least not as we have. Which, of course, isn’t to say that it didn’t exist until we invented it. The other is that male friendship was highly idealized in Shakespeare’s day – it was considered purer than heterosexual love precisely because it wasn’t sexual (or at least was not supposed to be). Although, again, some critics would say this “cult of male friendship” is overstated by people squeamish about homoerotic undertones. It’s all terribly complicated.

In any case, it’s impossible to determine Shakespeare’s orientation definitively solely on the basis of his poetry. Though we do know that he was capable of writing fairly intense love poetry to a man, in a male persona. I sorta like Jonathan Bate’s split-the-difference theory, in The Genius of Shakespeare…

23

After reading some of the many theories and controversies on this subject, I am still prepared to use Occam’s Razor here: we know there was a Shakespeare, we know he was famous in London, we know he died pretty rich, considering his original station (son of a glover), we know all these poems and plays are attributed to him. The simple answer is that he is, in fact, the real deal. One day I hope the scholars who obsess over this issue will just give it up and concede that the British middle class might have produced a bone fide genius. Then maybe they can pursue studies of actual merit.

24

One truly out-in-left-field claim made by some (very extreme) African American centric education groups*argued that Shakespeare was Black. They offer little proof beyond “Well, he wrote Othello” & quotes like from Two 'Gents.

“Black men are pearls in beauteous ladies’ eyes.” Two Gentlemen of Verona, act v. sc. 2

*Let me say that these are extreme groups that 90% of groups favoring afro-centric education laff at. There was alot of newspaper ink spent on this in the '80-'90’s & everyone, including responsible (virtually all) african american leaders/educators, were duly aghast. Also the sillies list will usually include Jesus, Ceasar & Lincoln as Africans. This is one link, but may not be exactly what I was talking about

http://www.wesleyan.edu/alumni/event2001/weseminars/ws9.html

25

Well, to be fair to the scholars, this is not a topic of much professional obsession or debate. You’ll find few, if any, academic types who take the anti-Stratfordian arguments seriously, for precisely the same reasons you’ve just outlined.

They still have trouble producing studies of actual merit, though. :slight_smile:

26

Hear, hear!

This is the most sensible statement I’ve ever seen written on this subject. Most of the Anti-Stratfordian argument is just intellectual snobbery.

27

Point taken, Fretful, but the fact that any time or effort is wasted by scholars (presumably intelligent people) on this subject just rubs me the wrong way.

28

Thanks, man. I try to keep my viewpoint pragmatic. And I hate intellectual snobbery. Being well-read doesn’t make you a superior human being, as I learned while listening to any number of pedantic schmucks at university.

29

This is probably the most important thing I learned in college :slight_smile:

30

Ah! I love the anti-Stratfordians; they’re always good for a hearty laugh. Their main problem with the Shakespeare-wrote-Shakespeare seems to be that Big Billy wasn’t high-born enough for them.

To compensate, they come up with these marvelously wild theories that Shakespeare was the illegitimate love-child of Queen Elizabeth and the Earl of Oxford (who was also her son, doncha know!), that he was only one of her identical triplets (the other two being Christopher Marlowe and Miguel de Cervantes, doncha know!) and he was raised by Sir Walter Raleigh and defeated the Spanish Armada single-handedly while composing “To be or not to be” at the same time.

Of course, that’s much more exciting than accepting that Billy Shakespeare was the son of Stratford’s resident glover-turned-high bailiff. Ah well.

.:Nichol:.

31

I think Marie Antoinette wrote all of Shakespeare’s plays. Do we have any proof that they were actually performed before the 1770s? The so-called “French Revolution” was just a conspiracy to silence the real author of the newly popular plays.

32

I’m sure we all agree that intellectual snobbery is bad and we’d hate to see any of it showing up around here.

33

Well, it’s not really snobbery to point it out when an argument is completely spurious, is it? This is, after all, a board devoted to fighting ignorance…

34

Which assumes the argument is completely spurious. As I said before, I’m not convinced that the Oxfordians are right. But I’ve read several works on the subject with an open mind and they present some real evidence to back up their claims (although I’ll be the first to admit that there are also a lot of anti-Stratfordian arguments that are in fact ridiculous). The problem is many Stratfordians refute their opponents not with counterevidence but with straw men arguments and dismissive sneers.

35

My favorite Stratfordians: Frirtz Leiber in “Four Ghosts in Hamlet” and Isaac Asimov with his arugment that no one that well educated would have made the following error.

My favorite anti-Strafordian: Eric Flint in “1632”. He backed away from it a little in"1633".

36

I also try to keep an open mind when reading new evidence, such as the Oxfordian arguments. However, I have not yet seen any evidence which conclusively disproves the Stratfordian authorship or conclusively proves someone else’s. In light of that, and the fact that we do have enough evidence to suggest that the dead guy in Stratford was the author of these works, I would rather see these scholars devote their efforts to pursuing real historical conundrums (did Richard really off the twins?) or investing some time into studying the actual works of Shakespeare for their artistic merit.

Again, the thing that most bothers me about the various anti-Stratfordian theories is that they start by assuming that no author of low station could have written this stuff, simply because he was of low station. The notion that someone from the middle classes could be extraordinary is simply unpalatable to these people. That is the ultimate in snobbery, IMO, and that is what puts me off.

37

I am a complete Stratfordian; however, Little Nemo has a point. Of course one can reject spurious arguments, and personally, I’ve never seen any anti-Stratfordian ones that were anything but - but you shouldn’t call them snobs and be glibly dismissive at the same time.

A charge that they are coming to conclusions first based on their prejudices, then finding evidence and creating theories to back it, needs to be rejected as carefully as possible. Glass houses, and all that.

For the record, I’d call Baconians intelletual snobs and Oxfordians social snobs.

38

One theory is that “Anne Whalen” was Shakespeare’s jilted lover and that she wrote the plays in his name. Why a jilted woman would do this is uncleare. More problematic is that “Whalen” is actually “Anne Hathaway,” Shakespeare’s wife.

Another theory is that it was a committee. Several sceances “proved” this, although the committees often varied. Some of the committees even include Shakespeare as a lovable rogue who added most of the naughty bits.

There’s also a theory that Shakespeare actually wrote most of Bacon’s later works, but that’s a bit off the subject.

39

Well, that one’s not totally off the mark, actually – most Elizabethan playwrights collaborated, at least some of the time. It would be surprising if Shakespeare didn’t ask a colleague to write a few scenes for him on occasion.

40

Including, of course, Shakespeare himself – in, for instance, The Two Noble Kinsmen, the lost play Cardenio, in all likelihood Henry VIII, and it’s generally thought he had a hand (pun intended) in Sir Thomas More. Then, too, some critics argue that Shakespeare wasn’t the sole author of the Henry VI plays, but that’s a really complicated issue…

Though I do find the attribution of “the naughty bits” to Shakespeare highly amusing. :wink: