I doubt anyone would accuse Mark Twain of snobbery or class consciousness yet he concluded that of all the candidates for writing the works attributed to William Shakespeare the lest likely was the Man from Stratford on Avon.
@@JeffhowardmeadeYes I am well aware they are one and the same. same . When I was young I tried to chew my way through everything he wrote don't remember being struck by snobbishness quite the opposite in A Tramp Abroad he was hilarious on opera snobs. Of course he is probably overdue for a visit from the revisionists probably hear he was a racist next and was unkind to men who wear dresses.
@@alexanderwaugh7036 Lord Clownhair, I am surprised that I should have to explain to you what "complete" means. As opposed to one who might be snobbish toward certain people or regarding specific subjects, Clemens thought himself smarter than everyone. He was particularly susceptible to flattery. His daughter Clara wrote of him "By his own admission, he had few defenses against flattery, and his secretary regularly buttered him up, not with a knife but a trowel." Whatever self-deprecating humor the character of Mark Twain presented, the author Samuel Clemens possessed none of it. By the end of his life he was the most famous writer in the United States, he knew it, and he believed it was justly so. And, just FYI, one does not need to be superior or even think himself superior in order to be a snob. Even one of low status can believe that people of high status are inherently superior, which is how you and members of the Clownhair Coterie can be snobs about Shakespeare, though you are not, yourselves, superior in any way.
Genius , as potential is inherent, but to realize that potential to the actual heights of genius requires "knowledge": which requires a means to attain. It is this lack of means to attain the incredible depths of knowledge/expertise in so many diverse fields (which are plainly apparent in the works written under the pen name of Shakes-speare) that make it naive to accept the the Stratfordian view. See this wonderful little presentation on the distinction between inherent genius, and knowledge and the realization of genius.ruclips.net/video/QYuwJDxG4hs/видео.html
Here's a thing that just occurred to me. The argument always goes .... 'how could this uneducated kid write words of such depths without some kind of higher education?' etc. Are we supposed to believe it's just innate talent' ..... and so on Well. One of the best musicals of the 20th century was written by Lionel Bart. He was a man of such profound musical ignorance that he numbered his piano keys, and wrote down his tunes by recording lists of numbers. He had an impoverished childhood as the the son of Jewish immigrants. BUT he had a knack for coming up with catchy tunes. And when it came to writing 'Oliver' he proved himself a witty and intelligent lyricist as well. So .... how did this happen? Genuinely don't know. I assume he spent alot of time hammering at the family piano and just ... absorbed what he needed. And living in a tough neighbourhood maybe sharpened his wits. I honestly don't know. Now look at Lennon and McCartney. Neither could actually write music. Paul's dad was in a band. John's mother played a bit of ukulele. But the boys had no formal musical education whatsoever. And yet I'm pretty sure at this distance in time that the musical critic who described them as the best songwriters since Schubert was not indulging in hyperbole. They just learned it all by doing it. By doing it alot. Working hard in smoky night-clubs. Learning the craft. First as performers, then as writers. Then look at Shakespeare. Just a basic education. Then working as a performer in the demanding world of Elizabethan theatre. Then rewriting old plays, slowly finding his way, and finally writing work that was entirely his own. If you can't believe this could happen, then you have to question whether Lionel Bart, Lennon and McCartney, and Ben Jonson actually wrote their own stuff.
@@bozo5632 It's the entire proposition of Antistratfordia. That's its entire basis. Illiterate son of tanner/glover can't possibly be a writer. Otherwise, what IS it based on? His name is on the books. Other people say is is the writer. People write elegies after his death, he's listed on the revels list 1604 as 'poet'. So please enlighten me. What OTHER reason do you have for doubt?
It is interesting to google "American novelists who never went to college." There are many including Nobel Laureates for literature. I suspect they had innate linguistic skill. A recent survey found that the most widely read novel in the English language is Pride and Prejudice. We have reason to believe that Shakespeare did attend the local school but Jane Austen's parents taught her to read. There is some contradiction about whether she attended school, as one source said she briefly was a student. But, Will and Jane were linguistically gifted and they knew people. If you see one of his plays, and, if you read one of her novels, you might just find that they described people you know.
@@jenssylvesterwesemann7980 Well I am sure there are some examples of genius who had very little education. I mean was Socrates well educated? Maybe he was, I don't know.
@@smoothbeak The problem is, with those geniuses that acquired recognition, we at least can trace their education. Genius without education usually remains undeveloped. For Will, there's nothing.
@@jenssylvesterwesemann7980 Yes I fully agree with you there that there is really nothing for William Shakespeare, however I was just speaking in the more general sense that in terms genius it can arise in an inexplicable way from time to time. Just to be very clear I agree with you, and with William Shakespeare (of Statford upon Avon), as you say, there really is little to suggest genius that we have access to. Of course the plays display genius, but the link between the two is tenuous (as you well know).
@@jenssylvesterwesemann7980 Can you trace the education of anyone not of noble birth from the Early Modern era? We know what the curriculum of an Elizabethan grammar school was, and it aligns quite nicely with the works of Shakespeare, but student records from the era are almost nonexistent. We have no records from Stratford prior to 1800, except to know that they employed a long string of Oxford-trained schoolmasters. What are the odds, do you think, that a wealthy alderman and sometime mayor of Stratford would not send his sons to the local school he was already paying assessments for?
Evidently those people can't fathom the fact that Shakespeare met people in his daily life and travels that expanded his knowledge of things and lifestyles outside of those to which he had been born. I think your thoughts have merit because I think the critics felt they were losing their distinction and authority with the influence of the new rich.
This is what gets to me. "How could Shakespeare have gotten X details right??" He talked to people. Meanwhile, they have no explanation for the details he got wrong 😆
I personally don't know if Shakespeare is the "Bard" or if it was a cumulative of many writers. I say let's just enjoy it for what it is. Entertainment. Elizabethan style.
I believe it is the same person, but whether it is or isn’t? 🤷♀️ (De Vere seems to be the most likely person OTHER than Shakespeare). However, I do think-whoever it was...didn’t write Titus Andronicus. I think that was likely someone else-it doesn’t fit his “Canon” or writing style and just doesn’t seem to “fit.”
Hear, hear! The plays are the important things. Granted, I want to believe that William Shakespeare wrote them, but that's only because I love the rather romantic idea of some native genius who managed to absorb enough education, probably through reading on his own, to make such lasting and wonderful works. But I'm not married to the idea.
Honestly, the most bare bones argument by the Anti-Stratfordians comes down to "We don't know the details, so we're going to fill in them in with what makes sense to us." Okay, well, that is fine but it is not history. More, and frankly a lot of Anti-Stratfordians do this, the movement routinely gets their facts wrong, make some pretty wild assumptions on extremely flimsy evidence, and most importantly use different rules of evidence. Examples: Shakespeare's tomb, so often described in its original form (it was vandalized and repaired years later) as a man holding a sack of grain. But grain merchants never used this iconography in their tombs during this period. But many people did use a pillow, indicative of the "sleep of death" until one is woken on the great Judgement Day. Shakespeare's will, which mentions no books. Nor does it mention shoes. Or shirts. It mentions a "second best bed" but not the "best" one. Quite simply, the presumption that a will by its very nature will itemize every single object or group of objects a person owns is erroneous. In fact there were individuals in that era who had wonderful libraries yet did not mention those libraries in their will. Shakespeare's education. Now, apart from anything else we know Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon was the same Shakespeare in the Lord Chamberlain's Men. We know this because he applied for a coat of arms for the former's father. And we know the latter was literate because we have his writing on tax records, applications, etc. Shakespeare's family was illiterate, so where did he learn to read? He was entitled to attend the local school for free, and the plays show signs of that level of education (but not much further), but--and this detail is vital--no records exist of the students at that school in this period. So...we cannot prove he attended that school. But likewise there is absolutely no reason to suppose he did not, and circumstantial evidence to say he did. I have also read/heard people insist the plays show no correlation between what we know of William Shakespeare's life--which is not true. He himself had fraternal twins, a boy and a girl, just like TWELFTH NIGHT. He lost a son, Hamnet, about the time he wrote a play about a son grieving for his dead father, HAMLET. He got his betrothed pregnant before they were formally wed, like MEASURE FOR MEASURE. His daughter Judith married a man who was in many ways Shakespeare's enemy, as a Puritan who opposed all theatre, just like in THE TEMPEST. His heir was not his son, but his daughter like CYMBELINE, KING LEAR, MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, etc. You can go on and on. It isn't as if there aren't plenty of mysteries about William Shakespeare and the Elizabethan/Jacobean theatre. But this particular conspiracy theory, which began in the 1800s and whose basic tenets one hears repeated over and over and over again, springs from a specific way of looking at the world. And I keep coming up against it again and again and again. I for one would be thrilled and fascinated if some tangible evidence were found indicating these plays and sonnets had a different author (although to be fair it is now clear the plays were much more collaborative than previously believed). The attraction of such an idea is palpable, simply because there's a lot of mystery around it and we'd all like the answer to come to light as well as proving delightfully surprising. But honestly, the arguments I keep hearing/reading aren't very good.
"We don't know the details, so we're going to fill in them in with what makes sense to us." - This is funny, because that is what Shakespeare biographers have been doing from the start. BTW, doubts regarding the authorship had been expressed back in Shakespeare's lifetime, as you probably know.
@@jenssylvesterwesemann7980 Well, there is zero evidence AT ALL to suggest such doubts existed prior to the 19th century. But since you have made ridiculous, sweeping comments about mainstream scholarship, I'm not surprised. Cherry picking out of context and ignoring all the evidence (of which there is plenty) that does not support your precious conspiracy theory is what I have come to expect of Anti-Stratfordians. But--the world is not flat, evolution really happens, vaccines work, the Holocaust happened, and William Shakespeare wrote the bulk of the plays with which he is credited. Yes, I am putting in the same room with Birthers, Sandy Hook Truthers, believers in the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion," Bigfoot enthusiasts, anti-vaxxers, those who insist Queen Elizabeth is the head of the Mafia, and anyone who believes white (or gray) aliens built Egypt's pyramids.
It would still be the center for Shakespeare scholarship, with theaters, libraries and living history. There's no chance anyone will ever be proved to be the "true" Shakespeare, though, so it's a moot point.
Dimmy, do you use a dictionary? I doubt it. Proof is ‘evidence sufficient (or contributing) to establish a fact or produce belief in the certainty of something’ (OED). Why close the stable door when the horse has already bolted?
Stratford Upon Avon is a tourist trap. Nothing there is original but they lead you to believe it is. Shaxsper’s grave is hoax. I feel sorry for the townspeople and I think academia and greed has led them down a false path.
I think there's a crucial difference between arguing that someone of Shakespeare's class and background was just too coarse and common to have possibly written such wonderful plays (which is indeed an argument many anti-Stratfordians make, and is certainly classist and not based on real logic), and pointing to the literary references in his works and saying they imply a certain level of education. Shakespeare couldn't, after all, have reasonably referenced or adapted a source he hadn't read. That said, him being widely read doesn't necessarily imply a formal university degree (and certainly not a noble background, as seen with many of his fellow playwrights who were also commoners.) He obviously could have borrowed books from people and self-educated, and I'd like to see more analysis not limited to Shakespeare specifically, but about how common that kind of self-education was in the Elizabethan era, and what resources would've been available to him.
Shakespeare's works do not actually demostraste a high degree of education, autodidactic or otherwise. Ben Jonson, who was the son of a brick layer and mostly self-educated, said Shakespeare had "small (i.e. a schoolboy's) Latin and less Greek". He said Shakespeare "wanted art". Francis Beaumont said the works of Shakespeare were "without scholarship". Shakespeare rarely included Greek classical references in his works the way his university-educated peers did, and generally ignored Aristotelian rules for poetry. Claims that Shakespeare was a master of this academic discipline or that are highly overstated. He was from a wealthy middle-class family. There is no reason to suppose that he couldn't find everything he needed in books of the era, or in the environment around him.
Dimmy, you need to read up on Ramus and the anti-scholastic movement in England in the 16th century to understand the nationalistic drive to purge English poetical forms of overweening Classical influence. I know you find academic books difficult but give Michael Wainwright’s ‘Rational Shakespeare’ a try. It will help you to understand what Jonson meant by Shakespeare’s ‘small Latin and less Greek’ and what Harvey and Nashe meant by describing Oxford as a ‘persecutor of Priscian’ who used ‘wonted Chaucerisms’ like ‘stout lout’ only allowing the Classics to ‘come in now and again with a snuff of a sentence’. There is a great deal of contemporary evidence identifying Oxford as a patron of the anti-scolastic movement and none alas to support Strat-Shax interest in or involvement with it. Mythomanes keep telling us that Shakespeare was uneducated in order to keep the laurels on his mercantile head. Sad!
@@alexanderwaugh7036 Jonson's "Small Latin and less Greek" requires no explanation, thank you. And if you wish to reference scholarship on Shakespeare to prove a point, please stick to actual scholars, not members of the Clownhair Coterie. I wouldn't want to spend all my time trying to discover what was fact and what was just made up drivel.
Genius , as potential is inherent, but to realize that potential to the actual heights of genius requires "knowledge": which requires a means to attain. It is this lack of means to attain the incredible depths of knowledge/expertise in so many diverse fields (which are plainly apparent in the works written under the pen name of Shakes-speare) that make it naive to accept the the Stratfordian view. See this wonderful little presentation on the distinction between inherent genius, and knowledge and the realization of genius. ruclips.net/video/QYuwJDxG4hs/видео.html
I just fell down the anti-Stratfordian rabbit hole last night and finally realized that I should come to your channel (which I enjoy) to get your take on it. Very interesting to highlight the "why" of the authorship debate coming from the 19th century -- who decides who is capable of great art. That is telling. Also, I wonder why, if any of the anti-Stratfordian camps are ultimately revealed as true, WHY would the true author or authors want to hide their identities by ciphers and symbols and hoohah to begin with in the 1600s? Many of the proposed writers were doing plays at "Her Majesty's pleasure" so we're they afraid to reveal themselves and hung all the political risk on "the man from Stratford, the son of a Glover" if the #&+# hit the fan? I don't know. One thing is sure, I am not a reader of Shakespeare -- those plays and sonnets are WAY over my head. Just emerging, a little messy, from the rabbit hole. Thank you for your channel ☺️
Edward De Vere was a freemason. So of course he used codes and symbols. It's a bit like Leonardo Vinci he was one too. And yes he had to hide the truth. Because of reasons: 1. Nobleman were not sopposed to write things like that. (You get a bad reputation or worse) 2. The Court was filled with "snakes". Everybody was hiding something to take advantage or to gain power. 3. Some content was very risky and offensive if you are smart enough to get it or read between the lines. 4. It's so much more than just for pleasure or entertainment. It's philosophical, it's going deep into the nature and problems of mankind. 5. Not everybody likes it if you (as a writer) are telling the truth and what people did wrong or make fun of them. 6. Hamlet is quite autobiographical in terms of De Vere's life. Puting moments of your real life in a play is always a risk, at least if someone knows of these real moments. So yes it was indeed very risky to write under his true name, so he had to hide it and become a ghostwriter you could say. And just as a bonus: Edward De Vere's bible was full of markings. He used many lines from there in his plays. And some were used word by word. I still don't understand why the stratfordians don't get the truth. I think they don't want to because they could lose there jobs or reputation. They don't want to change anything in the history books and print everything again. And Stratfort is going to lose a lot of tourists and money. And that's why we have to live with this lie for another long time.
@@novadarkknight9135 The Freemasons didn't exist at any time during De Vere's life, or for more than a hundred years after that. 1. The was no prohibition, socially or otherwise, which prevented noblemen from writing "things like that". De Vere, for example, was well known, as one critic put it, as "best for comedy". 2. The Court might well have been filled with snakes. De Vere wasn't there much, as he kept getting himself into trouble whenever he was. 3. Shakespeare's patron was William Carey, who was the Lord Chamberlain (responsible for, among other things, court entertainments), and the cousin and close confidant of Queen Elizabeth. Are you suggesting that THAT GUY let "risky and offensive" plays be performed in court, or, worse yet, IN PUBLIC? With HIS name attached? Shakespeare borrowed the character Sir John Oldcastle from an earlier play, which offended his descendant, Baron Cobbham, and Shakespeare was forced to change the name to Falstaff and include an apology at the end of 2 Henry IV. But more offensive stuff was okay at Court? 4. Wutcherpoint? Could a middle-class gentleman not go deep into the nature and problems of mankind? 5. If an earl would be in danger for making fun of powerful people, how long do you suppose a bankside poet would last? Yet nobody ever went after Shakespeare, who would have given up the real author in a heartbeat if the works were actually that dangerous. 6. Hamlet isn't autobiographical at all. Polonius isn't Burghley, Hamlet didn't actually get captured by pirates, Shakespeare's fellow Will Kempe performed at the Danish royal court, and Rosenkrantzes and Guildensterns (two very powerful Danish families) lived in London. His father wasn't murdered, he wasn't deprived of his patrimony (he blew it), and his wife lived to bear him four children and died of a fever. Oh, and the markings in a bible which belonged to A De Vere, not necessarily Edward, and is annotated in an unknown hand (though probably three different ones) at an unknown date/s, has barely more than a random overlap with the more then two thousand biblical allusions found in the works of Shakespeare. Depending on how much of the Holy Bible is really quotable, the overlap could be even less than random.
@@Jeffhowardmeade Your the one Alexander Waugh calls Dimmy in the comments...well if even he can't change your mind then there is no point in trying for me. That wasn't my purpose anyway.
@@novadarkknight9135 Lord Clownhair is confusing me with some guy who lives in Texas. Not surprised, the way he jumps to so many other conclusions. And I could be easily persuaded if only someone could produce some evidence. If you're the sort to blame conspiracies on entities which had their genesis more than a century later, you're probably not the sort of person to give a damn about silly things like evidence, are you?
@@Jeffhowardmeade Of course it would be nice to have the so called "evidence" your talking about, but what do you exspect to find? I guess there never will be found a sheet of paper or anything like that. The hidden messages Waugh is talking about are the only evidence we are going to find unfortunately. Because it was on purpose to not let the people know...whatever the reason was. And about the freemasons... I can't think of any other group that would be capable of hiding something that big in such a brilliant way. I read that there were Freemasons already around 1500 so...some information here is just wrong. Marlowe had also connections to them so how can they not exist at that time?
More personal opinion: whoever Shakespeare “really was”, he stands alone in his class for both poetry and drama; an opinion shared around the world. I’ve read and heard some pretty convincing arguments lately, one by an American scholar, too, that he really was the Earl of Oxford, one hypothesis I have heard a lot and am leaning towards. Unless some incredible cache of authentic, previously undiscovered, contemporary documents shows up, I doubt we will ever know for sure. I love your videos, more, please!
That cache of documents has already been found. Nobody who is peddling an Anti-Stratfordian story is going to tell you about them, though. They will claim they don't exist. Yet they're very easy to find. Go to Shakespearedocumented.org and see them for yourself.
You might try reading The Genius of Shakespeare by Jonathan Bate, who is a fabulous writer. Another book, entitled Shakespeare's Book by Chris Laoutaris, who is the historian for the Royal Shakespeare Company, has nothing to do with the authorship controversy but outlines the process by which the First Folio was published. It is long and very scholarly. The amount of documentation amazes. You will learn so much about how printing was done and how the rights to written materials evolved. You will also feel that the new historianism that declared Henry VIII the first early modern king and not, as he was traditionally labeled, the last Medieval king. While I never had a good opinion of the Anti-Avonians, the sheer numbers of people involved in printing and book selling at the time says there were too many people involved in the process to keep secret the so-called real playwright. I read Charles Beauclerk's book, Shakespeare's Lost Kingdom; The True Story of Shakespeare and Elizabeth. Beauclerk is a descendant of Edward de Vere and makes a pitch for his ancestor, crediting him not only with Shakespeare's plays but also those of Lyly and others. The Anti-Avonian "proofs" generally go nowhere. They argue for hints in Ditchley portrait that are easily overturned. They draw Masonic triangles on pages that would disappear if a different typeface were used.
I'm only going to grab one thread of this and give it a proper tug: If the son of a glover had no chance of becoming a literary lion; what chance did an orphan foraging in the wild have of becoming a world-reshaping military leader (Genghis Khan), what chance did the son of impoverished weavers have of becoming a billionaire steel magnate (Andrew Carnegie), what chance did an academic failure turned record shop owner have of getting anywhere (Richard Branson) - and the list goes on and on. Humble beginnings mean just that: humble _beginnings_ ! They are absolutely no indicator of an individual's talent or potential and it has been proven again and again that rising above is one of the most enduring aspects of humanity.
This is so very true. There were also statesman around that time (Cromwell and Wolsey were obvious examples) who had very humble beginnings. And they WERE as you say , just beginnings. Although in view of their ultimate faith, maybe they sometimes wished they'd just followed gone into blacksmithing or butchery!
This is so wholly irrelevant, as if even stating the motives for researching the topic as being somehow based on an upper class/aristocratic bias, and that that would wipe out all the contradicting evidence and render the question obsolete.
@@erikuslatinevivit348 Here's the thing. I''m not going to waste time researching whether Dickens wrote Dickens. Because there is (in spite of his working class origins and lack of education) absolutely no reason to doubt that he was the author. Nor am I going to look into the case of John Webster, also an Elizaabethan playwright. His dad was a carriage maker and he was born around 1580. We don't know when he died. But his name is on the plays and I might spend time watching the plays (which are great) but I'm not going to waste time working out whether his name was pseudonym and the plays were written by Lord Snot. Because there is literally no reason to doubt his authorship. Ben Jonson, Edward Alleyn and Christoper Marlowe all had the same background. As to Shakespeare, his name is on the books, his friend Jonson said he was Shakespeare, Heminges and Condell said he was Shakespeare, and William Camden said he was Shakespeare. So in the same way I'm not going to spend time researching whether the earth is flat, whether men really went to the moon, whether Ted Cruz's dad shot JFK or whether Tom Hanks eats babies. Because all those propositions are balls. Evidence? There is no evidence. As soon as you actually look at it,, it crumbles into dust. And yes, of course the whole thing has its origins in an age of extreme snobbery, so of course that 's what it's all about.
Marty Celestialteapot If you’re too lazy, judgemental, politically biased and frustrated, then I’m not surprised you arent looking for any potentially contradicting evidence. You’re missing the point by miles by your own attitude to the question, which is unfortunate.
Shakespeare did NOT have humble beginnings. His father was a highly respected member of his community who steadily rose up through the ranks of municipal governance to become High Bailiff (the equivalent of mayor), Justice of the Peace, and Alderman. John Shakespeare started the process of acquiring a coat of arms, a process that was completed by his son. If you imagine that the College of Arms in London passes out coats of arms like candy at Halloween, try it. See how far you get.
Thank you for engaging with the Shake-speare authorship question! Please note that it wasn’t just the 19th-century community who breathed the notion that the plays were not written by William Shakespeare of Stratford. Questions were raised in the 16th century about the authorship of the plays. If the plays are read and understood through the lens that Edward De Vere wrote the plays and were observations of the Elizabethan court, they take on a lot more meaning. Take another piece of evidence that he did not write them. His son-and-law kept an extensive diary and never mentioned that his uncle was the most famous playwright of the time. It is simply that there is overwhelming evidence that De Vere wrote them, and Shake-speare was a pseudonym in the Golden Age of pseudonyms at a time when it would be inappropriate for a nobleman to attach his real name to the plays. If Edward De Vere did write the plays, he would have had to have done it under a pen name.
There isn't a single clearly expressed doubt about Shakespeare's authorship prior to 1847. Just a lot of reinterpreting poetry while adding contrived context. Dr. John Hall did not keep a diary. He kept medical records of his patients, and the surviving record book was not begun until after Shakespeare died. Oh, and there were several noblemen who authored plays which were performed and published under their names. There was no taboo against the nobility writing or publishing. De Vere was well known as a writer of interludes, so it was no secret.
@@Jeffhowardmeade Hi Jeff, it is an interesting debate, and it takes a lot of detective work to piece the whole thing together. Hopefully, you are at least open to the idea. John Hall did keep medical notes, and not a personal diary as you say. He made a note that one patient was a poet. So what is interesting here is just that he kept a journal and took an interest in the personal lives of his patients, but never wrote anything about his father-in-law being a great play writer. Who is the Nobleman that you refer to that wrote plays during the Elizabethan era?
@@arthurchoate5476 The poet Dr Hall mentions is Michael Drayton, who was from Warwickshire, and who was Hall's patient. While one of his patients was his wife, he doesn't mention ANYONE who was not his patient. Since his medical casebook begins after Shakespeare died, there is literally no possibility he could have made an appearance in it. Here's one for an open-minded investigator to consider: in about 1618, a poet named John Weever, who had been a part of the London literary scene at the height of Shakespeare's fame, and even wrote an epigram on him, visited Stratford. He transcribed the inscription on Shakespeare's tombstone and funerary monument. He titled that entry in his notebook "Willm Shakspeare the famous poet". This tells us two things. First, that a fellow poet identified Shakespeare of Stratford as a famous poet. Second, that a monument describing him as a great poet was erected in Dr. John Hall's church at a time when Hall's close friend Vicar Thomas Wilson was in charge, and where he sat under it at least every Sunday from about 1618 until he was laid to rest under it in 1635. Now which piece of evidence do you consider to be most telling? The clear declaration of Shakespeare's identity as a poet, or the failure to mention it in a book there's no reason for it to be mentioned in?
@@Jeffhowardmeade I will look into your John Weever claim. If true that would be more telling then the lack of writing (outside his medical journal) about his father-in-law. However, the situation must be judged pound for pound. And in my current opinion that goes to Edward De Vere, however I know I don't know everything so am not 100% sure. It is speculation though isn't it?
@@arthurchoate5476 The funerary moment is unequivocal. It compares Shakespeare to the Roman poet Virgil, and mentions "all he hath writt". The exact date that Weever transcribed the inscription is open to debate, but the last monument in Weever's undated notebook was for a guy who died in November of 1617. Poet Leonard Digges, whose stepfather was an overseer of Shakespeare's will, mentions the monument in the First Folio, which began production in 1621. The most in-depth analysis of the monument is by Lena Cowen Orlin. She does deep dives into the records on Shakespeare's father, his wedding, his house, his will, and his monument. The Private Life of William Shakespeare (Oxford University Press, 2021). The most thorough work ever done on John Hall's medical casebook is John Hall Master of Physicke by John Wells (Manchester University Press, 2020).
The best they can do is accuse Shakespeare of being the son of a glover. They’re gonna have to do better than that to convince me. It seems like snobbery on steroids.
@@enheduannapax7988 I've read everything on both sides, except the 23 Oxfordian books saying exactly the same things which were self-published last year alone (sorry, I got busy). What would you like to know?
Yes. Delia Bacon, an American from Ohio, was the first person to explicitly say that Shakespeare didn't write the works. There are claims of earlier doubts. An 18th Century pamphlet called "The Tale of the Learned Pig" had as it's protagonist a talking swine who claimed to have been reincarnated multiple times and been many important people throughout history, including the true author of Shakespeare's plays. A document claiming a certain Reverend Wilmot had expressed doubts in the early 19th Century turned out to be a forgery.
@@jenssylvesterwesemann7980 No, it wasn't. The only thing even remotely close to accurate is the spat between Hall and Marston. Anti-Strats argue that the smutty, pseudonymous Ovidian poem Hall is attacking and Marston defending is Venus and Adonis. It's not. Marston wrote his OWN smutty, pseudonymous Ovidian poem, The Metamorphosis of Pygmalion's Image, under the name "W. Kinsayder". It was ordered burned by the Church, while V&A went through 12 editions during Shakespeare's lifetime.
I like Shakespeare being of humble beginnings and rising through the meritocracy of talent. But, I'm biased being American. Surely the King's Men were collaborative and thusly perhaps the script was a more communal effort
There were many. Unfortunately, they made the mistake of referring to him by his name, social rank, and other occupation (actor), rather than the town of his birth. This has allowed conspiracy minded people to claim that when people lauded the poet William Shakespeare, they didn't mean the William Shakespeare who was a member of the acting company which performed all of his plays.
@@alysencameron361 Shakespeare's fellows wrote about him al the time. Ben Jonson even dished dirt on him to a friend who took notes. Anti-Stratfordians (those who believe that someone else besides William Shakespeare of Stratford was the secret author of the works) claim either that William Shakespeare was a "front man" who took credit for works he didn't actually write, or that it was a pen name which was coincidentally the same as that of the actor from Stratford. Those who praised Shakespeare in print or in their private notes were therefore either praising the pen name, or were unaware that the actor William Shakespeare wasn't the real author. That's the theory. It's absurd.
@@Jeffhowardmeade I agree. If the likes of Ben Jonson was criticizing him, then that is evidence he lived and breathed not only as an actor, but as a writer. The genius is usually criticized by their peers, and to me this validates Shakespeare's existence as history states. All that being said, I'm bored with his work. It's been more than 400 years since his death, let him rest and give me some other playwriter's words. Surely Jonson and Fox deserve some attention.
@@alysencameron361 We'll have to agree to disagree about Shakespeare. Been a fan for 40 years and still not bored of him. I do like Jonson (though he's sometimes a bit harder to follow), as well as Beaumont. By "Fox", are you referring to the Jonson play Volpone, or Alan Fox?
He created vibrant, fully-formed characters where his peers generally wrote stock, one-dimensional ones. He gave them deep thoughts. He also gave them great poetry to speak. Even so, he wasn't considered to be the greatest poet ever until more than a century after he died.
Seems to me, Dimmy, that you haven’t read Jonson’s encomium to Shakespeare in the which the ‘Soul if the Age’ is said to ‘shine forth’ as an eternal constellation who influences chides and cheers the ‘drooping stage’, who ‘far outshines’ his contemporary playwriting peers of the 1580’s, Lyly, Marlowe and Kyd and who Is incomparably superior to the great Classical playwrights and all those who ‘since from their ashes come’. Obviously the greatest playwright ever then ... derr!
@@bozo5632 What did Jonson say about Shakespeare when he wasn't being paid to write a blurb for the First Folio? He "wanted art", he should have blotted out a thousand of the lines he wrote, and often wrote things which were ridiculous. The poet Ben Jonson thought was the greatest of his age was Ben Jonson. Aside from that, Shakespeare was considered a lesser light in the poetic firmament, outshined by Beaumont, Fletcher, Davenant, and Jonson himself, until well into the 18th Century. Better?
I first heard of the authorship debate through a lecture by the former theatre critic of the NY Times, John Simon. I was a college student from a blue collar background and my immediate thought was to deny William as the author because he lacked a college degree is sheer snobbery. Consider that Richard Pryor, Woody Allen and Bob Dylan never finished college. A degree won't necessarily make one a writer.
I agree that the idea that someone without a college degree can't produce great books, however I don't feel that is the argument given. The concern about William Shakespeare is that there's no direct evidence of his creativity. For example, let's say that have letters that we know were written by William Shakespeare and that have good "provenance" (I believe that's the correct term), so we know that they were from him and left in his will etc. If we had that it would not matter how he obtained his education, or if he had an education at all, it would just matter that he demonstrated the talent. Like Bob Dylan as you mention, we know Bob Dylan's creative work, and we know he didn't have a college degree, but I don't feel that we have the evidence of Shakespeare's work or the connection between William Shakespeare and the Shakespeare plays
@@smoothbeak Reread your first sentence. I have been following variations on The Who wrote Shakespeare debate for years and one of the leading anti-Avonian arguments is that William -- generally called "the man from Stratford" in these proclamations -- did not have a college degree. The rest of your post makes no argument. There are no extant letters from other famous literary figures, such as Chaucer or Marlowe. What you're essentially saying is because you are co-existent with Dylan, we know him and his work.
@@susanwozniak6354 The first sentence was a typo, sorry for that. It should of course read: "I agree that the idea that someone without a college degree can't produce great books is not an accurate one, however I don't feel that is the argument given." In other words, genius can arise from circumstances that are inexplicable. However then I went on to say essentially that just because genius can arise, does not mean that it's particularly common (otherwise it would not be called genius) and there would information of that genius. I mean look at Leonardo da Vinci. From memory he was not given an education was he? And yet you have clear information that shows the evolution of his ideas. So for Leonardo we can say, he started life humbly, and used genius and made great works. I don't believe the same can be done for William Shakespeare. That does not mean that he didn't write the plays, but it does mean (to me at least) that we don't know whether he did.
@@smoothbeak There is no direct evidence that he had one, and evidence from many sources that he did not. Ben Jonson said that Shakespeare had "Small Latine and less Greeke". Small Latin is what was taught to grammar school kids. Jonson told William Drummond that Shakespeare "Wanted Arte". Vicar John Ward of Stratford wrote in his journal that he had been told that Shakespeare was a "natural poet" without any art. The anonymous author of The Second Return From Parnassus wrote (satirically) that university men don't write good plays, and Shakespeare beats them all. Shakespeare was described by Francis Beaumont as "without scholarship". And ironically, this is what makes Shakespeare great. He didn't lace his works with obscure classical allusions in order to show off his erudition like many of his peers did. He used language freely and ignored rules of Aristotelian poetics. Had Shakespeare gotten an Elizabethan university education, we wouldn't be taking about him right now. What makes Shakespeare Shakespeare would have been educated out of him. Thank God he never went to university.
Hi Ed, unfortunately it is not persuasive. Supporters of the earl describe poems that were published under his name as juvenilia and the promise of things to come, showing early use of the sonnet style and other experimental poetry . Stratfordians generally describe his poems as drivel, the work of a second rate poet who could never be compared to Shakespeare, who was only praised as a great writer in his time because of the sychophancy of others around him. See ruclips.net/video/He5uoVIBQxk/видео.html for a comparison.
@@ContextShakespeare1740 hi I read some of de vere a poems a few days ago, they seem very thin compared to the compression of the Shakespearean style. As. ee cummings once said, of course Bacon wrote Shakespeare, luckily so did every one else, including Shakespeare
@@edfisher6434 well unfortunately, that's true the latest view seams to be that if Shakespeare of Stratford wrote them he had a lot of help, see my other comment above. I think there is influence from Bacon, there is certainly influence from Marlowe. Mr Fisher have you heard of Fisher's folly? Very interesting, possible Shakesperean writing den in the 1580's.
Well here's a sample of de vere's deathless verse. It's kind of in the style of Baldrick, with a bit of Vogon poetry, and a dash of William McGonagall: “These Beauties Make Me Die” 1 What cunning can express 2 The favour of her face, 3 To whom in this distress 4 I do appeal for grace? 5 A thousand Cupids fly 6 About her gentle eye. 7 From whence each throws a dart, 8 That kindleth soft sweet fire, 9 Within my sighing heart, 10 Possessed by desire; 11 No sweeter life I try, 12 Than in her love to die. 13 The Lily in the field, 14 That glories in his white, 15 For pureness now must yield 16 And render up his right; 17 Heaven pictured in her face 18 Doth promise joy and grace. 19 Fair Cynthia’s silver light, 20 That beats on running streams, 21 Compares not with her white, 22 Whose hairs are all sunbeams; 23 Her virtues so do shine, 24 As day unto mine eyne. 25 With this there is a Red 26 Exceeds the Damask Rose, 27 Which in her cheeks is spread, 28 Whence every favour grows; 29 In sky there is no star 30 That she surmounts not far. 31 When Phoebus from the bed 32 Of Thetis doth arise, 33 The morning, blushing red, 34 In fair carnation wise, 35 He shows it in her face 36 As Queen of every grace. 37 This pleasant Lily white, 38 This taint of roseate red, 39 This Cynthia’s silver light, 40 This sweet fair Dea spread, 41 These sunbeams in mine eye, 42 These beauties make me die. Cupids fly around her gentle eye!!!!! Wondeful (she popped her eyeball out presumably, so they could fly around it!) And .... roseate red .... as opposed to bluebell red, I suppose.
Check out the poem that Marty left below...it shows a distinct similarity between Vere and Shakespeare. Unless Shakespeare was stealing the imagery used by the Earl of Oxford...they are the same people the imagery is pure Shakespeare - "With this there is a Red Exceeds the Damask Rose, Which in her cheeks is spread," vs. Sonnet 130 "I have seen roses damask'd, red and white, / But no such roses see I in her cheeks." edit: above not below
I see it 2 ways. 1 way, The actual Shakespeare "stole" extra education and was able to write the plays and sonnets himself. The 2nd way- He was a "helper" to said Earl who didn't want to be seen as a "lesser" person and they had an agreement to where the Earl would help Shakespeare rise in society and not be "piss poor" like he had been all his life. Either way, the works of Shakespeare are taught at many levels of the Education System. I'm in America and here they start us in as early as Jr. High (6th Grade age 11 or so) with Romeo and Juliet, not going so in depth with it, but just showing it as an example. The Higher the grade we are in (Primary Education ends at Grade 12 here) the more in depth we look at it. Thank you for pointing this video out to me! I have seen so many saying he was a "fake" or a "fraud" and all I can think is....Who really gives a rats patookie because the man lined his pockets, provided for his family and for all I know, still gets royalties for his ancestors. That's what I would call a good life plan. Getting things set up in your life that 400 years later your family line is POSSIBLY still getting SOME (even if very little) money from your works, which are now timeless classics.
Royalties were not paid 400 years ago. The author sold the work outright or it was owned by the company he was writing it for. Shakespeare was smart ,and successful , enough to become a sharer in the acting company and theatre he was in. So he got his share of the profits. As to passing his wealth down ,his line died out pretty quickly. His son Hamnet died ,leaving two sisters.,who gave birth to sons but these died pretty young. One of these grandsons by his daughter Judith was given "Shakespeare " as a first name , so in some way it shows how prominent the name was. The boy died as a child. Life was chancy for nippers then.
Shakespeare wasn't 'piss poor' His father was mayor of Stratford twice (?) he made a very successful if dubious living and was able to send William to Grammar School. They were more of the 'Middling Sort' Oldman Shakespeare is a fascinating man in his own right. One thing he wasn't, despite going bankrupt at one point and being charged for dodgy dealing, was 'piss poor'
On the other hand, Biblical scholarship started in the mid-nineteenth century, too. I think it took the scientific revolution to put the use of scientific tools into literary criticism
If Oxford, Marlowe, Bacon, or whoever worked so hard in their lifetimes to keep their authorship of the plays a secret, I think we should honor their wish.
It may not have been a wish, but forced upon the real author, because at the time it would be unacceptable for a Nobleman (Edward De Vere), to have written them.
@@Jeffhowardmeade Hi Jeff, Edward de Vere was known to have been a patron of the arts and a writer of poetry during the Elizabethan era. However, his known poems were not published with his name attached during his lifetime. Many of his poems were circulated among court circles, often in manuscript form, and were later attributed to him by scholars. Further, do you agree that a Nobleman would be more likely a patron of the arts and it would be taboo for him to be the actual writer of the plays? How sure are you that he wrote the plays 25%...50%...75?%
@@arthurchoate5476 Several poems were published under De Vere's name during his lifetime, at least one at his direction. He was also noted by several critics as a writer of comedy and "enterlude". I don't believe anyone ever said he wrote whole plays. It's possible either he or someone under his patronage wrote The Famous Victories of Henry V, as the 11th Earl of Oxford makes an appearance not found in the history books. When Shakespeare rewrote it into the Henry IV/V plays, he deleted the 11th Earl. De Vere was a great patron of poets in his younger years, but by the time Shakespeare arrived on the scene, De Vere was broke and living on the dole. De Vere almost certainly wrote something. I'm 100% certain it wasn't the works of Shakespeare.
@@Jeffhowardmeade Could you provide a poem that was written under his name? Your enthusiasm for the subject has clearly inspired some excellent research on your part. However, it's important to remember that our debate remains largely speculative. Given the proximity of the plays to their author, absolute certainty is elusive. While it's certainly fascinating to delve into this topic, let's ensure we approach it with a measure of open-mindedness.
Dr Kat I think you have a great attitude to this debate. I can't comment on the opinions of the 19th century doubters, but 21st Century doubters do not think that the glover's son couldn't have written the plays because of his background. It is insulting to suggest this. It is also incorrect to say that little is known about William from Stratford upon Avon. For a person of his background who died four hundred years there is a huge amount known about him. He did very well for himself and died a wealthy Gentleman. I think the reason that people doubt his authorship is that despite the amount of historical evidence we have of his lifetime none of it points to him being a writer. I eagerly await a book, co-authored by Alexander Waugh, due to be published soon about Shakespeare's sources. I think that this book will be of interest to any Shakespeare scholar whatever their belief about who the author was. Genius isn't just born it is nurtured. Shakespeare didn't invent all his stories out of his enormous brain, he used his enormous brain to read and study extensively and used the vast knowledge which he acquired in his written work. Once it is revealed that Shakespeare must have used a certain source, or must have had knowledge from personal experience then it leads to the question of how he obtained this knowledge. This is what I believe lies at the heart of the authorship debate. Who does the evidence point to? To quote Mark Twain "Shakespeare biographies resemble those huge brontosaurus skeletons, reconstructed from 'nine bones and six hundred barrels of plaster of Paris". No offence intended.
Thank you for watching and for your insightful comment. I will also be very interested to read that upcoming book. It would be wonderful if someone has found a way to fully map the networks for the transmission of knowledge during the early modern period - both sides of the argument have relied on conjecture about this matter, in order to support their own opinion. Alas, it has proved difficult to obtain consensus on this matter and I think it would require the rediscovery of a collection of letters or an inventory of a personal library for us to get this in any new and meaningful way.
Watch out for Waugh. He just makes stuff up when he needs to. If he doesn't provide a source for a claim, don't trust it. If he does provide a citation, check it.
It is far more important to *live* the questions especially those questions that have no easy answer. Who the person was who wrote those plays is a worthy question to live with, imho. It is an entranceway into the Elizabethan world. But after living with this question for decades, here's where I'm at with it now. Some glover's son was just born curious, thirsty for knowledge, eager to learn. Somehow, he did. (Many scenarios can be imagined.) And he was a hustler. He got out of Stratford, got his writing in front of the right eyes, went to London, and everyone knows the rest. Perhaps this point of view comes from being an American and learning about Abraham Lincoln, the greatest President this nation has yet produced and an exceptional human being. He had little education as a child. His generation were still clearing the land; there was little time for book learning. His mother taught him the alphabet & how to read the single book owned by his family, the Bible. Then he borrowed books from neighbors, and so on. Lincoln's natural, seemingly in-born curiosity led him all the way to the presidency where he freed the slaves and saved the union. So to my (American) mind, it really is not so astounding that a rural child with natural curiousity & motivation to learn could and provably *did* manage to self-educate and achieve things that could and did change the world. But in 19th century Illinois, there were few people to mock, distract, disparage or bully the young Abe out of his love of books, while in 16th/17th century England, I gather there would have been plenty of folks determined to keep young Will in his place -- down. That would be the only difference as far as I can tell. That said, a few months ago I watched a series of 3 documentaries about that Norwegian fellow who has developed his own Alt-Will theory involving ciphers appearing in printed editions of WS's works from the time. Somehow, the Norwegian & crew wound up going to that famous island where many pirate treasures were buried, and digging in a swamp. It was a fun doc to watch! I'll try to find the series & add a link. Who knows? But it is fun to think about! Edit: That video series on the Norwegian guy's Alt-Will theory is Cracking the Shakespeare Code Part 1 ruclips.net/video/tNL0XODSMwU/видео.html
@@erikuslatinevivit348 Lincoln was mostly self-educated, except for some schooling from itinerant teachers of less than 12 months aggregate.[26] He taught himself the law.
Thank you for engaging with this wonderful and all absorbing topic in a serious way. It is an oft repeated and incorrect Stratfordian canard that doubt about the identity of Shake-Speare emerged only in the 19th century. I am putting a lot of examples of much earlier authorship doubt into presentations on my RUclips channel. The one I uploaded two days ago is called ‘John Davies of Hereford Knew’. The cumulative evidence of these contemporary witnesses is overwhelming. I do hope you might find the time to look in on a few of them. Alexander
Except there is no evidence one way or the other for whether the Bible is the word of God, but there is a pile of evidence that the words of Shakespeare were written by him.
I think the most telling argument in favour of the "Man From Stratford" is that almost all of the alternative authors died before Shakespeare stopped writing. Marlowe, de Vere, and Queen Elizabeth all died and yet the plays kept on coming. Only Bacon outlived Shakespeare, and Bacon was such a credit-hog that there's no way he would have allowed someone else's name to be attached to his work.
The dating of the plays is very much in question. Almost half of the plays were first published in 1623, 5 years after the Stratford man died. Publishing dates are not the dates they were written. There are plausible arguments for much earlier dating of the works than is put forward by Stratfordians.
@@enheduannapax7988 None of these "plausible arguments" involve a printed play, a recorded performance, a copied passage, or even a passing mention. Shakespeare did not work in a vacuum. His plays referred to events of the day and his style kept up with the times.
Until recently, in the span of history, women were thought to be incapable of intelligent thoughts. Those people were so wrong. There will always be that group of people so in awe of their own intelligence they will try their best to convince everyone else that they know a hidden truth. Personally I don't care who wrote the plays. I just enjoy them for what they are.
As an artist , I can’t believe that da Vinci , Monet, Degas and so many other artists, could produce such wonderful works. They also were “ uneducated “. Why do we question ?
Lovely point, Jennifer! Part of how da Vinci could produce his more scientific works was because he hadn't received an "education", ie, an academic education taught in Latin with all the proscribed texts that told students how the world was (and because his mind was naturally inquiring and questioning). He could certainly read and write, but he made observations of his own to sort out what was going on. Education is important, but sometimes it can also be a source of blindness "oh, I know this, Pliny had the answer" or whatever. And why are some people questioned and others not? Because "genius" can only reside in an appropriate vessel or else the world of the questioner is shaken to the core.
I had no idea that opinions about “the authorship” would be so heated! Being an American born and raised, I was never introduced to this question in school. I only came upon the controversy in adulthood. The body of works by the so named Shakespeare are magnificent and the actual author is immaterial in my opinion.
My I just share with you an ACTUAL poem by the Earl? It is not just bad, but awful. There may be poets on the other side of the galaxy who are worse than this, but I seriously doubt it. “These Beauties Make Me Die” 1 What cunning can express 2 The favour of her face, 3 To whom in this distress 4 I do appeal for grace? 5 A thousand Cupids fly 6 About her gentle eye. 7 From whence each throws a dart, 8 That kindleth soft sweet fire, 9 Within my sighing heart, 10 Possessed by desire; 11 No sweeter life I try, 12 Than in her love to die. 13 The Lily in the field, 14 That glories in his white, 15 For pureness now must yield 16 And render up his right; 17 Heaven pictured in her face 18 Doth promise joy and grace. 19 Fair Cynthia’s silver light, 20 That beats on running streams, 21 Compares not with her white, 22 Whose hairs are all sunbeams; 23 Her virtues so do shine, 24 As day unto mine eyne. 25 With this there is a Red 26 Exceeds the Damask Rose, 27 Which in her cheeks is spread, 28 Whence every favour grows; 29 In sky there is no star 30 That she surmounts not far. 31 When Phoebus from the bed 32 Of Thetis doth arise, 33 The morning, blushing red, 34 In fair carnation wise, 35 He shows it in her face 36 As Queen of every grace. 37 This pleasant Lily white, 38 This taint of roseate red, 39 This Cynthia’s silver light, 40 This sweet fair Dea spread, 41 These sunbeams in mine eye, 42 These beauties make me die. My favourite couplet is: "A thousand Cupids fly About her gentle eye. " Now THAT'S funny. A thousand cupids flying AROUND her eye. Because her eye just popped out or something? What a moron this man was.
@Andro mache Of course it matters. If the plays were written by a man from Stratford with a grammar school education, then it's a wonderful story showing how far education can take you. It makes nonsense of titles and class barriers. This is exactly why the snobs want to tear down Shakespeare. They HATE the idea of an ordinary person doing well. They LIKE class barriers. That's why Prince Charles dislikes the idea of a common person being the author. Because if breeding is NOT the basis of merit, then his whole life is without meaning. So yeh. It matters. It also matters because Edward de Vere was a piece of shit as a human being. That would not prevent him being the author of course. What WOULD prevent him from being the author is that he was a piece of shit as a WRITER, as his terrible poetry eloquently demonstrates.
Right@Andro mache let's take it a point at a time. The onus is on YOU to prove that Shakespeare didn't go to school. The onus is on YOU to prove that his brothers were illiterate. OVer to you.
@Andro mache Whooah. You are attacking ME. If you attack my arguments that's fine. Personal attacks are beneath my notice, as are your evidence-free, snob-based 'theories'. Good day to you.
@Andro mache "His siblings would have attended school with him. They were illiterate." You just keep pulling stuff out of your [expletive deleted], don't you? Nobody has ever claimed that his siblings were illiterate. Here's his brother Gilbert's signature as a witness to a deed: shakespearedocumented.folger.edu/file/er279-witnesses
Speaking for myself, I try - though how well is up for debate - to be respectful to anti-Stratfordians that I talk to, but their arguments all seem to boil down to three elements: (1) We don't know as much about such a great author's life as we would like, and to them, that fact is cause for suspicion; (2) The supposed "true" author's identity was hidden by a complex subterfuge, for which there is no physical, forensic evidence; and (3) Virtually all "evidence" they present for Shakespeare not being the true author is based on codes and cryptograms hidden in Shakespeare's (and others') texts and are only deciphered by the anti-Strats' highly idiosyncratic readings of them. I've grown weary hearing these same elements over and over again. When I ask the anti-Strats for physical evidence of the subterfuge, they are never forthcoming. Regrettably, the constant repetition of these arguments shortens my patience.
Well, I found the way you laid that out to be very respectful - of course, perhaps that is because I agree with you! Nevertheless, I am determined to keep engaging with those who question the authorship as I am bloody-minded and want to provide a counterpoint to the argument the academics refuse to discuss it because we are part of the conspiracy. Thank you for commenting and I hope you enjoyed the video.
The most obvious physical evidence being the signatures all spelling a different name than in the sources of the author. Is that irrellevant to you because you lack patience?
@@erikuslatinevivit348 - That's not a compelling argument because spelling in the Elizabethan era wasn't as standardized as it is today. Also, signers would occasionally abbreviate their names in their signatures, which could be mistaken for a different name. For more on the spelling of Shakespeare's name in Elizabethan/Jacobean documents, check out the website shakespeareauthorship (dot) com and its article "The Spelling and Pronunciation of Shakespeare's Name." Also the website oxfraud (dot) com contains an article on Shakespeare's signatures titled simply "Will’s Handwriting." And any hard, testable evidence of the plot to front Shakespeare in place of the "true" author has still not been presented.
@@erikuslatinevivit348 "The most obvious physical evidence being the signatures all spelling a different name " Wow. So he wasn't a front-man at all, then?
I have heard (and I am not sure if these are all accurate statements) that there is no written record from the time period that shows that William Shakespeare was the author, and no physical evidence that he was a writer, no letters, books, etc. That alone I find very unusual and would lead me to doubt that he was an author of books. If I am mistaken about that then I would be more likely to believe that he was the author.
The question of authorship often elicits comments in the manner of, does it really matter who wrote the works? A rose by any other name perhaps? It's eluded to here also. Imagine if we never knew who painted works by van Gough , Rembrant or Turner. Their art would be as good but the context of the paintings and their lives surely adds another dimension to our appreciation.
While it CAN add to our appreciation for some authors, Shakespeare didn't write his stories. He took existing books and plays and rewrote them, only better. He used the names of local Stratford people in some early plays, and on occasion you can see his own experience poking through (Constance's grief in King John or schoolboy Will getting a Latin pop quiz in Merry Wives), but mostly it's just his source material with funnier jokes, set to beautiful language.
@@Jeffhowardmeade Actually, when you think about it, Shakespeare's plays are like movie adaptations of books, both fictional and non-fictional, for television and films.
Hey Dr Kat, I've really enjoyed your work I must say. The way that you describe people around the Tudor makes me think that you were almost there yourself in a way! You mention the idea that has been put forth as to whether a "lower class" or "lower educated" person could write the plays, and essentially I think you said that was a bit of an elitist concept, though you did not use that particular word. I don't think that the argument is that *no one* of humble origins could have wrote the plays, I think it's more that the particular individual in question could not have, or more accurately that there's not much reason to believe that he did. This is quite an important point here, because much of the time the greatest art, writing, music etc comes from those of humble beginnings and quite often it is those who have all the "advantages" who really have very little creative ability. So personally I am of the view that the conventional attribution of the author is incorrect (in a nutshell)
@@Jeffhowardmeade He could have, but by that piece of knowledge anyone could have written them. Genius can arise in anybody, in a very inexplicable way, for example you might find a wonderful musician who is able to write a composition as good as Mozart but who did not have the same musical training, but in that individual you will still see signs and evidence of that genius. As far as I can see the only evidence of William Shakespeare's abilities is the plays themselves, and that's the issue, because the link between the play's and the person are well non-existent as far as I can see. Does that clear up my thoughts on the matter?
@@smoothbeak And yet there are many links between the plays and the man from Stratford. I can literally go on all day about them. Anti-Stratfordians pile caveats onto the evidence until they declare that it's doesn't exist. But it does exist. In heaps. If you would like to hear about it, let me know.
@@smoothbeak Let's start with the internal evidence of the plays. #1. In The Shrew, Christopher Sly says he's from Burton Heath, a town just outside Stratford. Shakespeare's aunt and uncle lived there. Sly mentions Marian Hacket, the "fat alewife of Wincot", and her daughter Cicily. Wincot was the village where Shakespeare's mother was born. There was a Hacket family living there during his youth. #2. Bardolph and Fluellyn get into a fight in Henry V. Both names appear (along with that of Shakespeare's father) on a list of nine Stratford men who had not been attending church. #3. In Merry Wives, a Welsh schoolmaster gives an impromptu Latin quiz to the only schoolboy in all of Shakespeare's works. During Shakespeare's youth, the schoolmaster in Statford was Welsh. The schoolboy in Merry Wives is named William. #4. On two occasions in the Sonnets, Shakespeare writes: "My name is Will". In Sonnet 145, he makes a pun on his wife's name, Hathaway. #5. Leonard Digges, who refers in the First Folio to Shakespeare's "Stratford Moniment", was the stepson of one of the executors of Shakespeare's estate (not technically internal evidence, as his poem was in the prefatory material). Actual #5. In 1579, a Stratford woman drowned in the Avon. A coroner's inquest determined that it was an accident, not suicide, so she could be buried in hallowed ground. This is identical to what happens to Ophelia. The Stratford woman was named Katherine Hamlett. #6a. In 1596, Shakespeare's son Hamnet died. In the hyponasal Warwickshire dialect, Hamnet is spoken "Hamblet". #6b. Hamnet was named for Hamnet Sadler, a local baker and friend of Shakespeare's. In Shakespeare's will, he leaves a bequest to "Hamlett Sadler". #6c. In the same year Hamnet died, Shakespeare produced King John. In it, Constance delivers a monologue on grief of the loss of her son. As one who recently lost a child, I can tell you that it's positively heart wrenching. I'm not going to claim all of the Warwichshire terms Shakespeare used, as some are disputed, nor his insider knowledge of leather trades, as anyone could have known those and they aren't specific to Warwickshire. I can go into all of the people who claimed Shakespeare was from Stratford, if you wish. Just let me know.
I have little interest in the works of shakespeare, whosoever he was, but i love a good puzzle, and its this debate that has taken me into the Tudor world, and what a fantastically tangled web it is. On Stratford Man, if nothing else, he knew how to make money, give the guy that at least. 400 years from now, will people argue over the identity of Walt Disney, who produced entertainment for, well, nearly a century already. Mysteries cause people to use their minds, THAT is the important part .
No one is saying the works of Shakespeare become less genius, revered or interesting, by virtue of who penned them. It may not matter to some who the author may be but it does matter. I do not understand why the comment is made. They can be enjoyed for what they are by both sides of the debate without devaluing the genius and insight of the human condition the author relates. But if it was the man from Stratford or Bacon or Oxford et al, or all of them, why wouldn't we want to know.
Just discovered you......may I chime in as saying ..you are "the bomb diggity"!!!!...I feel a Dr Kat binge watch is in the future for moi....greetings from Chicago !!
I have enjoyed watching this video and reading the ensuing comment stream. I've also watched and read a bit from the folks who say Shakespeare was not the author of his plays. I freely admit to being fairly uneducated in the subject, but my feelings? Are that the Anti-Strats remind me more and more of the Covid-19-Is-Just-The-Flu folks, who strive to make their case by picking out specific bits of information, taking them out of context, clouding them in a ton of conjecture, and reaching conclusions with no truly strong supporting evidence. It is a very interesting debate, but truly the other side is lacking in it's fact based contributions. Believe me, I am like you Dr. Kat in that if there is empirical evidence? Show me! Let's get to the truth. One thing I will say about collaboration, is that all writers can be said to collaborate to one degree or another much of the time. Some writers more than others, and also some projects require more collaboration than others. Me asking my sister to help me come up with appropriate surnames for a couple of families in the novel I am currently working on, along with some information about the culture they come from and the history behind the names and the roots of the culture etc., being a very small example.
Disappointing to be called an “Anti-Strat” and a Covid denier. This comment actually seems to fit your own description of someone in an Ivory Tower. Mark Anderson and Charlton Ogburn have voluminous books on this subject. The Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship is a good source for articles and reading recommendations.
@@enheduannapax7988 I'm sorry if I've misrepresented you. I also find the Oxford sites useful. Their timeline of de Vere's life is a sad catalogue of the life of a useless wastrel, whose best creative efforts were his begging letters.
@@Diaphanic1 And I'm in the Shakespeare camp, and that, too, is just for fun. As conspiracy theories go, the Shakespeare Authorship Discussion (SAD) is among the least consequential. But yes, I can name more than two score contemporaries of Shakespeare who documented him as the actor, gentleman, and poet from Stratford.
@@bozo5632 Not their claims about anyone or anything in the Early Modern era. The Marlovians aren't bad about facts, but they just have to make up a faked death and bam! there you have their entire argument. Oxfordians and Baconians have to either invent or twist just about everything about Shakespeare and his works and world in order to make their cuckoo hypotheses work.
@@Jeffhowardmeade I'm not going to advocate for Marlowe, but - would you say there was nothing odd about his death? Nothing at all? I don't know how probable it might be, but it doesn't seem impossible.
@@bozo5632 Given all of the odd things about his life, his death fits in quite well. He wasn't in any great judicial peril (he was at liberty, after all), and was hanging with some unsavory sorts. Dying in fights was a surprisingly frequent cause of death among members of the London theater scene.
You all seem to concentrate on Hamlet and the worthy plays. What about the knockabout rude humour? The crowd pleasers? what about the comic routines with dogs? Does this sort of stuff have Francis Bacon's stamp on it?
@@EmoBearRights H'mm I'm not sure that an assertion like this can be dignified with the word 'theory' unless there's some evidence to back it up. As it happens we have a first hand star witness in Ben Jonson: "I REMEMBER the players have often mentioned it as an honor to Shakespeare, that in his writing, whatsoever he penned, he never blotted out a line. My answer hath been, “Would he had blotted a thousand,” which they thought a malevolent speech. I had not told posterity this but for their ignorance, who chose that circumstance to commend their friend by wherein he most faulted; and to justify mine own candor, for I loved the man, and do honor his memory on this side idolatry as much as any. ... Many times he fell into those things, could not escape laughter, as when he said in the person of Cæsar, one speaking to him: “Cæsar, thou dost me wrong.” He replied: “Cæsar did never wrong but with just cause; and such like, which were ridiculous. But he redeemed his vices with his virtues. There was ever more in him to be praised than to be pardoned." Either Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare or Ben Jonson was a liar. I have no reason to believe that Ben Jonson was a liar. And if there was a 'stigma of print' then why did Oxford allow his poems to be published?
Fair enough I'm not married to any particular theory although Johnson did describe Shakespeare as a 'poet ape' who stitched things together from several different sources but then we know that a lot of Shakespeare's works were more liberal adaptations from older sources than original material. The important thing is we have this works and they're great.
@@EmoBearRights You've been listening to Alexander Waugh, haven't you? Here's the verse in question: "Poor Poet-Ape, that would be thought our chief, Whose works are e'en the frippery of wit, From brokage is become so bold a thief, As we, the robb'd, leave rage, and pity it. At first he made low shifts, would pick and glean, Buy the reversion of old plays; now grown To a little wealth, and credit in the scene, He takes up all, makes each man's wit his own: And, told of this, he slights it. Tut, such crimes The sluggish gaping auditor devours; He marks not whose 'twas first: and after-times May judge it to be his, as well as ours. Fool! as if half eyes will not know a fleece From locks of wool, or shreds from the whole piece? " So which is the bit that says 'William Shakespeare'? It's a huge leap to assume that Shakespeare MUST be the target. Believe it or not other playwrights were available. But ... suppose he is, then according to this, his works are "e'en the fripperies of wit". Meaning the plays of Shakespeare are shallow. I think that's a fair criticism of some of them. Secondly, he is accusing Shakespeare of plagiarism - just as Robert Greene had. Again, I can believe that might sometimes be a reasonable accusation. He certainly DID base (for example) Henry V, Hamlet, and King Lear on existing plays. So ... Shakespeare is being accused of being a flippant plagiarist, and of buying up the rights to old plays. Fair enough. So what? Some of the plays genuinely are crap. I'd go along with that. But in what way is this saying that somebody else wrote the stuff? Because it seems to me, for all its bile, that if it IS directed at the bard (and there's no way of proving that) then he is saying that Shakespeare DID write the plays. In fact he accuses the 'poet ape' of nicking other peoples' lines and forgetting that he stole them in the first place. And the audience are lovin' it. Which is just a roundabout way of saying ... that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare. By the way .... writers are ALWAYS accusing other writers of plagiarism. Steven Spielberg NEVER opens the scripts sent to him, because if he if he ever wrote anything remotely like one of those precious manuscripts, there would be a law suit. Writers bitch about each other. Now THERE'S a surprise.
The thing that always gets me about shakespear is, that the plays always seem to be more written for the page than for performance. They just seem.. "strained" , "unauthentic" when you consider that they were writen to be "cast" in the broad brush of performance, and to, a what was a largly uneducated audience at that. The sonnets yeah you can get away with it but to capture and maintain the attention of a rucus london audience with eruudite and at times dence verse seems to me to be pushing the boundries of what would realisticly viable. Also the first folio works seem to pat with what would surly have been works of progrees with bits added and retracted when parts were deemed to work in performance and other bits less so. These performances were not created for historys sake, but for the sake of putting bums on seats and making money. Which ment getting and keeping the attention of a common audience. This is problematic giving the denceaty of the tex Sorry for my spelling im feslexic
I'm coming back to this after a year. You make a point about your involvement in Shakespeare, and how if it was revealed that the author was different it wouldn't have a negative effect on you, yes that's true, but there are some people who are intimately connected with Shakespeare as currently understood, whereas as far as I can see you're more of a general historian.
Finding out that if was actually someone who was already remarkable, like Francis Bacon, or a brilliant poet, like Christopher Marlowe, would not cause too much hand wringing. Too learn that Shakespeare was a profoundly defective human being like Edward De Vere might be a bit hard to take. We would also be left scratching out heads as to how a bunch of whackadoodles figured it out using warped history, bad Latin, goofy ciphers, and a complete misunderstanding of what makes Shakespeare great.
@@Jeffhowardmeade Yeah true, I personally do think it was Francis Bacon. I'm happy for it to be the Stratford-upon-Avon I just feel that there isn't much that makes me think that. To me Francis Bacon makes a lot of sense
@@smoothbeak Ben Jonson would never have said that Bacon had "...small Latin and less Greek," though he might have told William Drummond in private conversation that Bacon "wanted art" (because Bacon truly had no poetry in him). Of course, given that Drummond would have been in on the secret, why refer to Shakespeare in his private notes, and not Bacon?
@@Jeffhowardmeade Perhaps you can clear a few things up for me. First, are you saying that Ben Johnson said that Bacon had "small Latin and less Greek" or am I misinterpreting you? If he said that, what does that mean exactly? Genuinely a bit confuses here ta
@@smoothbeak Jonson said of Shakespeare "And though thou hadst small Latine, and lesse Greeke, From thence to honour thee, I would not seeke." Which is true. Shakespeare was not a scholar. His works demonstrate a heavy dependence upon Latin classics, nearly always in English translation. Poets like Jonson would pepper their works with allusions to Greek philosophy to show off their scholarship. Shakespeare couldn't even be bothered to follow the rules of Aristotelian poetics. Jonson later told fellow poet John Drummond "that Shakespeare wanted art." And it wasn't just Jonson. Poet Francis Beaumont wrote "I would let slipp if I had any in me scholler shippe. and from all Learninge keepe these lines as deare as Shakespeares best are, is our heyres shall teare Preachers apt to their Auditors to show how farr somtimes a mortall man may goe by ye dimme light of Nature" Vicar John Ward of Stratford noted in his journal that "I have heard that Mr. Shakespeare was a natural wit without any art at all." And finally, the anonymous author of an amateur play at Oxford wrote that "Few of the University pen plays well... why here's our fellow Shakespeare puts them all down." If Shakespeare were really Francis Bacon, none of this would have been true. Bacon was perhaps the most educated man of his era. Everything he wrote was infused with learning, and was at the same time stiff and lifeless. His "jests" weren't funny. His poetry was bland. His one play was boring. Jonson actually wrote of Bacon "No man ever spake more neatly, more presly, more weightily, or suffer'd lesse emptinesse, lesse idlenesse, in what hee utter'd." Yet of Shakespeare, Jonson wrote "He was, indeed, honest, and of an open and free nature, had an excellent phantasy, brave notions, and gentle expressions, wherein he flowed with that facility that sometimes it was necessary he should be stopped. “Sufflaminandus erat,” as Augustus said of Haterius. His wit was in his own power; would the rule of it had been so, too. Many times he fell into those things, could not escape laughter, as when he said in the person of Cæsar, one speaking to him, “Cæsar, thou dost me wrong.” He replied, “Cæsar did never wrong but with just cause;” and such like, which were ridiculous. But he redeemed his vices with his virtues. There was ever more in him to be praised than to be pardoned." Nothing any of these men wrote of Shakespeare could apply to Bacon. Nor did it. They were two different people.
Could J.S. Bach have constructed his canon without his musical heritage and education? No, he wouldn't have the tools. So it is with the Man from Stratford upon Avon. I don't buy this "innate knowledge" argument.
It’s not the issue that people disbelieve in the Stratford-mans innate ability, he just proves to have knowledge and since education was a commodity endowed to few people, dependent on not only wealth but on status aswell, there seems to be something askew. With the evidence we have everything indicates that the Stratford-man not only lacks these prerequisite fundaments from his backgrounds, but that theres none that indicates that he acquired that knowledge.
Caius Martius Coriolanus Well, except for the varying knowledge on everything from law to medicine and so on, it’s more the range and variety that. But more significantly and to the point, he had knowledge of foreign countries that a middle class person wouldnt have had because they couldnt have travelled so widely.
@@erikuslatinevivit348 Thank you for that very general response. I'm looking for a specific example. What is one thing about the law that the son of a Justice of the Peace would not have known? What medical knowledge did Shakespeare possess that he couldn't have learned from his physician son-in-law? What knowledge of foreign countries did he display which couldn't have been acquired from books or members of his acting company who we know DID travel extensively?
Caius Martius Coriolanus Nescio quid tam insolenter debeas respondere amice. Theres an article about his knowledge of the law on the Shakespeareoxfordfellowship’s website which I can recommend. How would he learn from his son in law when he moved away to pursue his career basically at the birth of his children? Books were very expensive at the time. He had very accurate knowledge of geographical things in Italy, which is suspicious as second hand knowledge.
@@erikuslatinevivit348 Where did Ben Jonson learn about the law in order to write his play The Case is Altered? From this book: lawlibrary.wm.edu/wythepedia/index.php/Commentaries,_or_Reports_of_Edmund_Plowden The Common Law was a lot more common in those days. How else would a non-lawyer like John Shakespeare manage to become a justice of the peace? Contrary to your assertion that books were expensive, the actor Edward Alleyn purchased a copy of "Shaksper Sonnets" for five pence. Other books, for example Holingshed's Chronicles, could cost a pound. Luckily for Shakespeare, he was raised well off, and became moreso as an adult. But if money - were - an impediment, he just happened to be friends with a printer by the name of Richard Field. Richard Field, it turns out, was the printer of a surprising number of Shakespeare's primary sources, as well as everything Shakespeare himself wrote for publication. Shakespeare certainly had enough money--or access--to this book: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theatrum_Orbis_Terrarum?wprov=sfla1 The 1591 edition accidentally places Padua in Lombardy, rather than in Venice, where it belonged. Someone who had been to those places would not have made such a mistake. But Shakespeare made those mistakes all the time. He gives both Venice and Vienna royal dukes. He has Valentine rushing to catch the tide from a city that was as far from the ocean as it was from his destination. Oh, and that trial in The Merchant of Venice (which has no canals) is a total farce. No lawyer would have written that. In any case, I'm still waiting for you to give me an example of anything that William Shakespeare could not have known. Not areas of study, but SPECIFIC DETAILS. What medical information could he not have possessed? What law could he not have known? What detail about Italy was beyond his knowledge. Give me specifics.
The question is important because HISTORY is important. That should be readily evident. Did the 24-year old butcher's assistant w/no documented education write Hamlet? Or, did the 17th Earl of Oxford write it as it contains dozens of aspects about his travel, incidents, conflicts, scholarship, playwright/poet, & life as a courtier? The Shadow of Stratford sounds like a myth. Able to read books (no libraries at the time) in ancient languages (where did he learn so many by age 24). I don't care who wrote the plays & sonnets. It definitely wasn't the Shadow as Shakpere man is called by dozens of writers of the day including Ben Jonson. You're wrong about the dislike. The Trust is invited to all of the Oxford Fellowships mtgs & activities. Derek Jacobi & Mark Rylance are sober and gentleman about this question. Stanley Wells admitted that there is no evidence Shakpere wrote the plays and the Trust has never accepted their invitation. Neither have they accepted the offer of 75,000 GBP to debate this issue.
"I don't care who wrote the plays and sonnets." You also don't care about facts. You are repeating a bunch of false claims about both Shakespeare and Edward De Vere.
Doubts about the authorship did NOT begin in the 1800s and are not connected to the eugenics movement. That is a either a bald-faced lie or the worst scholarship ever. Along with the “snobbery” charge it’s just another ad hominem attack on Oxfordians to scare off anyone who dares to question the Stratford myth which supports a huge tourist industry and would be a giant embarrassment to orthodox Stratfordians if proved.
Many thanks, Dr. Kat. It's an interesting intellectual argument. I am in no way an expert but what I personally find most interesting is how and whether the sonnets and the tragedies might line up with their author's life history. The sonnets in particular are very difficult to make sense of at face value when I read them as a whole. My own impression is that Oxford's life story might line up very well. The "classist" argument seems way over the top - Will from Stratford may have been perfectly capable of writing these works, but it seems more likely to me that Oxford actually did write them. At the same time, the academic closed-mindedness on the controversy seems every bit as ridiculous. I'm happy to stay on the fringes, but it's a question that has intrigued a lot of bright people over centuries, and maybe for good reason. Anyway, I much appreciate your take on this and I could not agree more that it's the debate itself that I enjoy.
Most of the alignment with the biography of Oxford is assumed. The idea that he wished to persuade This person or that to marry his daughter supposes he gave a damn about them. There's no evidence in all of his extant letters that he cared one bit. He didn't raise them or pay for their keep. Their maternal grandfather, Lord Burghley, did that. It was he who tried to get Southampton and Pembroke to marry his granddaughters. He also hired poets to dedicate poetry to these earls. One of them was most likely William Shakespeare.
@@alexanderwaugh7036 One would expect Lord Clownhair to have a better understanding of his own hero. Professor Nelson transcribed De Vere's letters. None of them express an interest in the wellbeing of his daughters, who were in Burghley's keeping. After Burghley died, his son Robert wrote a letter to his granddaughters' guardian, a Mr. Hyckes, warning him to keep an eye out for De Vere, who might try to take possession of his daughter in order to get at the substantial legacy his father had provided to his nieces. "Tell Mr Bellot, If the Erl of Oxford shold desire the custody he can not haue them of any body, for If he look vppon the Deeds, wherby my Lord hath conveied them their Lands, he shall find that for default of Isswe, their Land comes to the Heires of his body, nor whyther he that never gaue them groat, hath a second wyfe, and another Child be a fitt Gardien consider you ...I wish Mr Bellott to haue good care they be not stollen away by his meanes ..." (Nelson, 373) In 1591, Burghley's secretary John Clapham dedicated a poem on Narcissus to Southampton. Adonis, Fair Youth, Narcissus? Yeah, everyone gets it. Burghley was the person who was most interested in Southampton's marriage. When the Dowager Countess wrote "I doo not fynde a disposition in my sonne to be tyed as yet ", she wrote it to Burghley, not Oxford. Or by "no evidence" did you mean I couldn't find some cockamamie message encoded in Shakespeare's works?
If someone else did write them ,well they didn’t want to own them,so to me they belong to Shakespeare. The people of the times recognised him as the author,why don’t people in this day and age accept it?Some people just love a conspiracy theory methinks🤔
People of the times recognised him, because that was the purpose. Everybody had to think that shaxper wrote the plays otherwise De Vere's life whould be in danger. Thats all. Why is that so hard to believe? It was a hard time back than. Everywere snakes waiting to stab you in the back. At least around the court. And that was not the first time that people had to hide their identity. Think about China or north Korea today. Or the third Reich. Its obviously the reason back then. Today we have a word for that: Ghostwriter. It's a nessesary thing under certain circumstances.
@@novadarkknight9135 It's hard to believe because Shakespeare's works were the epitome of establishment. There was nothing whatsoever dangerous about them. Hell, he carried over the name of a character from a source play and discovered it offended a descendant, so he changed the name to Falstaff and apologized.
@@Jeffhowardmeade too much to write in a youtube response, but there were dangers, political and social, and De Vere was also involved in some serious social scandal which many authors, poets, play writes of his period made numerous allusions to ( as well as allusions as to de Veres writing under a pen name Shake-speare). If you are truly interested in this area, research ( maybe start with Oxford fellowship, read about the book "Shakespeare Identified" by Looney ) with an open mind and you might be amazed at the information there is out there . take care
@@lpt369 I have read it. I have heard all of the theories. Shakespeare's plays were preformed by the Lord Chamberlain's Men. The Lord Chamberlain, Baron Hunsdon, was Queen Elizabeth's cousin and her closest advisor. The Master of Revels who censored plays prior to public performance answered to him. Are you seriously suggesting that Hunsdon let dangerous or scandalous material be performed before the Queen? That he let it be performed in public? That this happened and nobody ever commented on it? It would take more than an open mind for me to believe any of that drivel. I would have to forget everything I know about the Elizabethan era and about common sense. And in the case of Alexander Waugh and his ludicrous codes, I'd have to unlearn how cryptography works.
Wellllll, Dr. Kat, as long as we're playing nice, what about your introduction of Alexander Waugh as a mere eccentric -- English notwithstanding -- and grandson of a famous writer. You say you're not going to do a deep dive into the authorship, but that is precisely what the scholar Waugh has done, to my everlasting gratitude. Nobody wants to tear anybody off a pedestal and say "Well, actually, you're not that great." I just want the truth, because it is far more educational than centuries of mystery and speculation. So what if De Vere was the author of Shakespeare's works? It's a pretty big job to produce them, why can't we thank the glover's son for that, and give credit where credit is due?
All I can say is that you must have really struck a nerve with this video because they’ve all come out the woodwork in this comments section 👀 I’m not one for conspiracy theories. I reckon Shakespeare wrote his plays 🤷🏻♀️ It might well be that as he became more famous and powerful he headed up sort of a studio of writers and collaborators so not every line / scene etc may have been written directly by him, but I think he definitely oversaw / supervised it all. I think if he didn’t write a particular scene / line himself, he would have reviewed, edited and approved it before publication, as he wouldn’t want low quality stuff out there damaging his reputation. He was certainly in charge of all the writings attributed to his name and furthermore probably wrote most of the body of work himself. I think you’re definitely on to something with the elements of classism in thinking a lower class chap couldn’t possibly write the plays. It’s not even like Shakespeare was a peasant or anything - he had by the standards of the day a great education! He was literate for one thing, and that alone meant he was beating 90% of the country. Still attending school in his mid-teens instead of being put out to work in the fields or as an apprentice to his father! Sounds to me like his family were pretty well off actually 🤷🏻♀️
I appreciate what you, and others in this thread, say regarding the thoughts that it is not impossible for the man from Stratford to have written the plays. Nothing to say that he could not at all. However it is important to work out, if possible, who wrote the plays where it not he. The biography of the writer will enable us to make far more sense of the sonnets and many aspects of the plays. I have watched too many youtube videos on this subject to not have come to the conclusion that it is extremely unlikely to have been the man from Stratford and none of this conclusion is derived from the misbelief in a Black Swan genius. Unfortunately there the evidence that Shakespeare wrote the plays is sparse. The proof that he could even write exists in only a few signatures. Diana Price's work could not identify a single piece of such evidence in research which picked on many other known and far less known writers of the day - for all of which she could find such proof. Yes we have his name attributed to some works, but we have his name attributed to others works that clearly were the product of lesser hands (and there is a reason for all those hyphens Mr Shake-Speare?) There are aspects of the plays that would not be accessible to someone who was not a member of the court, books to which he would not have had access, and a multitude of clues that his authorship was a known fraud written at the time. The flip side? The whole story of how Stratford became the Disney Land of the works is well documented, the statue on the wall changed to that of a writer and the dubiousness of the 'Shakespeare properties' is not difficult to research. The provenance of the myth of Stratford raises the question not the unlikely genius of the author. We all love mythology and once upon a time it was not questioned. Shakespeare of Stratford as author of the plays - you are 'T's ing us Dr K! KP
The Earl of Rutland's steward made two interesting entries into his ledgers. One was a small payment to "Danyell the poet". Another was two large payments to "Mr. Shakespeare about my lord's impresa" 10 marks in gold, and a like sum to Richard Burbage "for making it." An impresa is a sort of shield with a witty motto painted on it, and a poem or song to accompany it. Burbage, who was the lead actor in Shakespeare's plays, was also known for his skill at painting. Diana price gives SAMUEL Daniel credit for "being paid to write" though there's no indication it was Samuel or what the payment was for. William Shakespeare she gives bupkiss, though his was spelled out. With the huge pile of documentary evidence that identifies Shakespeare as a poet, how does Price manage to give him zero credit? Simple: she crafted a list of requirements specifically designed to avoid all of the evidence that Shakespeare was a poet. The only way to pull that off is to know damn well what the evidence is and then carefully step around it. You've watched enough videos on RUclips, you say? They don't tell you the other side of the story. They're carefully stepping around all the evidence as well. You've been lied to.
Caius Martius Coriolanus. Thanks for the info on the impresa CMC, I clearly need to look deeper into the supporting evidence. This will be a good start. Having said that there appears to be more than a little disinformation from the Stratfordians eg on the authenticity of the Shakespeare properties and misleading references in their authoritative work 'Beyond Doubt'. The conflict of interest, coupled with the apparent meddling with their supportive evidence makes the subject inherently more provocative. But still I am happy to be guided, learn and come to a different conclusion. Many thanks fir your input. KP
@@desmanage There's no question that Stratford was guilty of outright fraud once upon a time, but times have changed. About 20 years ago, the SBT located a survey which showed that the Arden farm was one door down from what was then known as "Mary Arden's Farm". The actual Arden farm was a much less well preserved structure which had been largely rebuilt in brick in the 19th Century. Nobody hid anything. The SBT announced the discover ly and renamed the Mary Arden Farm "Palmer's Farm" and now treat it as a living history museum. There is solid documentation to show that John Shakespeare was living at the site of the "Birthplace" when Shakespeare was born. Some historians have suggested that house burned and was rebuilt around 1596. The SBT dismantled it in the 19th Century and restored it to what they thought a Tudor house would have looked like. Not everyone agrees with their results. Once upon a time, you could buy "relics" made from the very mulberry tree which grew in Shakespeare's yard. Even today, tchotchke shops and ice cream parlors outnumber historical venues and bookstores in Stratford ten to one. That's tourism for you. They are generally honest and straightforward about what the evidence does and doesn't say. If you want to get the docents there all hot and bothered, start asking detailed history questions. They deal with ignorant tourists all day and LOVE to talk serious history.
The question of authorship did not emerge in the 19th century as she states, but has been a question ever since the works were written. Examine the contemporary literature. Does it matter who the author was? Does it matter who Beethoven was? Dickens? Michelangelo? If it doesn't matter who "Shakespeare" was, it doesn't matter who anybody is or was. What a stupid question.
Thank you for commenting. There is no record of the authorship being questioned before Delia Bacon and Thomas Looney did so in the nineteenth century. What contemporary literature are you referring to? I also did not say that the identity of the author does not matter - it does, however, have little impact on the work of academics of literary history. Unless they are working through biography, which is a tough ask in the case of Shakespeare as there is very little in the way of biography for him.
. And in her majesty’s time that now is are sprung up another crew of Courtly makers [poets], Noblemen and Gentlemen of Her Majesty’s own servants, who have written excellently well as it would appear if their doings could be found out and made public with the rest, of which number is first that noble gentleman Edward Earl of Oxford.” The Arte of English Poesie by George Puttenham, 1598 Henry Peacham’s The Compleat Gentlemen (1622, and many re-prints) gives an exhaustive list of Elizabethan poets. Edward de Vere tops the list but no mention whatever is made of Shakespeare. Thomas Vicars' makes coy reference, in an otherwise conventional list of writers, to that famous poet who takes his name from 'shaking' and 'spear' (Cheiragogia 1628), @@ReadingthePast
Peacham and Puttenham list courtiers, nobles and gentlemen (at a push) who have their fingers in the pie of the literary arts - also excluded are Marlowe, Kyd, Dekker (to name a few). I cannot see how this exclusion is equivalent to the questioning of authorship. The exclusion is due to social rank, not poetic output.
@@ealdredaruspex5819 Vicars was writing in Latin, and had difficulty rendering Shakespeare's name. A more accurate translation is not that he TAKES his name from shake and spear, but rather that his name COMES FROM shake and spear. And it does.
Thanks for the observations. I have read some of the theories but have never found it convincing that it was anyone other than the man from Stratford. I do admit I have become to be dimissive of the other side of the debate. thanks for noting the respect due to all.
Formal education can get in the way of creativity and originality. Not all great artists are tutored, and some are actual renegades who turn the system upside-down. It's possible to educate yourself through reading. So that argument doesn't hold up.
Genius , as potential is inherent, but to realize that potential to the actual heights of genius requires "knowledge": which requires a means to attain. It is this lack of means to attain the incredible depths of knowledge/expertise in so many diverse fields (which are plainly apparent in the works written under the pen name of Shakes-speare) that make it naive to accept the the Stratfordian view. See this wonderful little presentation on the distinction between inherent genius, and knowledge and the realization of genius. ruclips.net/video/QYuwJDxG4hs/видео.html
I think the thing which riles the Anti-Strats the most is that amateurs like myself are more than happy to take them on, but they can't get much of a response from the establishment. Stands to reason, though. THEY are a bunch of amateurs as well. If they want to debate the big boys, they need to spend a decade in school and then another several climbing the academic ladder. Granted, that's hard to do when you don't believe in evidence-based reasoning.
Thank you so much for commenting, it's really interesting for me to read your perspective on this! I have a couple of follow-up questions (hope that's ok) - are you comfortable with there being the barrier that you describe between the "establishment" and "amateurs"? Does someone who enjoys the privilege of these years of education have a responsibility to share their expertise with those who are looking to engage with them in a respectful discussion/debate?
@@ReadingthePast The responsibility of academia is to do the reasearch. The was a time when amateurs like Henry Folger and Charles Wallace could make meaningful additions to our knowledge of Shakespeare, but I think those days are past. Educating students on how to think logically and read analytically is a job for secondary school teachers. Dealing with people whose perspective is warped beyond logic or reason is a task for people with advanced degrees in psychology. To address your concern that silence breeds dissent, these are people for whom the conspiracy is the draw. The opposition of authority merely reinforces their preconceived notions. They want to be the little dogs who discover the true wizard, and you are the curtain trying to hide him. The harder you try to obscure their precious Oxford, or Bacon, or Florio or whoever, the more you reinforce their conviction that they are on the right trail. It also lends them cachet to be opposed by academia, as if they merit equal standing. In short, you forge the weapons. Let us wield them.
Thank you again for another concise and evocatively written response. You have made me consider a lot of things; including my own agenda in being interested in this debate. As criminal psychology is the focus of my hobby reading, you have made me acknowledge that the psychology of both sides may be the prime interest for me; rather than the meat of the debate itself. That being said, I am positively thrilled at the idea of being a figurative forger of weapons!!! Please let me know if there is any topic I could do a video on that you would like in your arsenal!!
@@ReadingthePast Not sure if it's your bailiwick or not, but I'd love to see a video about of The Great Vowel Shift and how that explains why English speakers don't have the same vowels as every other Indo-European language. If you're looking for a psychological hook, I think it may have something to do with the naturally independent nature of the English mind. There is no Académie Française for speakers of English. Our dictionaries describe rather than proscribe. All the different sounds two Os make, stacked end on end, would sound like a distressed cow. Seriously, what's the matter with us? Also, how about one on the anglophone obsession with murder mysteries?
May I share with your viewers an ACTUAL poem by Edward de Vere? It is easily the worst published poem I have ever read in my long life. I imagine that there are regions of some distant galaxy where there is worse poetry, but I doubt it. It is worse than Baldric, worse than William Magonagall. my favourite couplet is 'a thousand cupids fly/about her gentle eye.' Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!!!!! I mean ... really this is just hilariously funny. The idea that the moron who produced this drivel was the writer of the works of William Shakespeare is a JOKE. It goes like this: “These Beauties Make Me Die” 1 What cunning can express 2 The favour of her face, 3 To whom in this distress 4 I do appeal for grace? 5 A thousand Cupids fly 6 About her gentle eye. 7 From whence each throws a dart, 8 That kindleth soft sweet fire, 9 Within my sighing heart, 10 Possessed by desire; 11 No sweeter life I try, 12 Than in her love to die. 13 The Lily in the field, 14 That glories in his white, 15 For pureness now must yield 16 And render up his right; 17 Heaven pictured in her face 18 Doth promise joy and grace. 19 Fair Cynthia’s silver light, 20 That beats on running streams, 21 Compares not with her white, 22 Whose hairs are all sunbeams; 23 Her virtues so do shine, 24 As day unto mine eyne. 25 With this there is a Red 26 Exceeds the Damask Rose, 27 Which in her cheeks is spread, 28 Whence every favour grows; 29 In sky there is no star 30 That she surmounts not far. 31 When Phoebus from the bed 32 Of Thetis doth arise, 33 The morning, blushing red, 34 In fair carnation wise, 35 He shows it in her face 36 As Queen of every grace. 37 This pleasant Lily white, 38 This taint of roseate red, 39 This Cynthia’s silver light, 40 This sweet fair Dea spread, 41 These sunbeams in mine eye, 42 These beauties make me die.
Point 1: the poem was written by a teenager; Point 2: the imagery is pure Shakespeare - "With this there is a Red Exceeds the Damask Rose, Which in her cheeks is spread," vs. Sonnet 130 "I have seen roses damask'd, red and white, / But no such roses see I in her cheeks." It's like the two poems were written by the same person, only separated by 25 years or so...So either Will Shakespeare plagiarized de Vere or they are the same person. The two poems seem to indicate the same person has grown, matured, and changed his opinion about The Rose. Point 3: The self-revealing style is pure Shakespeare. The two poets seem unable to contain themselves, spilling out their guts whenever possible. How do you do it? You take a poem that is almost obviously the work of young Shakespeare and then use it to argue the exact opposite...you are something else!!!
@@stevenhershkowitz2265 You think two different poets referencing "rosy cheeks" demonstrates they are the same person? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! (Phew!) Good one, dude.
@@Jeffhowardmeade Obviously it does. You think it doesn't? How then do you explain that Shakespeare is copying Vere's imagery? Coincidence? And the word you are looking to explain is DAMASK p.s. I like the way you devolve into nervous laughter when you ain't got nothing. It's cute.
I think there is a good amount of information about the Earl of Oxford to make it possible he was the author. But since Shakespeare, the man from Stratford could very well have been educated at a rather nice school in Stratford (that was run by professors educated at Oxford college)... and we know he was at least educated enough to read and write... there is no reason he couldn't have been able to be the author. He was also an actor and producer for plays. He was in that life. Could that be why someone would use his name. Sure. But it also means that he was given a lot of education through other peoples works, access to people who traveled, and even sponsorship of those who knew the ways of court. He had access to all the information that was necessary to be able to write the plays himself. I do not rule out the Earl of Oxford, but I also say that until more proof comes out that it isn't the man from Stratford-Upon-Avon.... I won't say he isn't the true writer.
What a very balanced and sensible comment. I would just add that ... actually there are many playwrights of the time who had exactly the same background as the Man from Stratford. Ben Jonson and Thomas Dekker come to mind (humble origins, no university education). Which makes me wonder .... why pick on Shakespeare? Even Marlowe was of humble origins, and though he went to university, he only got a degree because of government pressure (he'd been working as a spy, which was why he barely turned up for his studies).
There is no evidence he went to the Grammar School in Stratford nor that he could read or write. His parents could do neither and - think about this one - neither could his offspring. Once you start looking this becomes an amazing story in itself KP
@@desmanage 1 Girls didn't go to grammar school. I'm surprised I have to tell people this. Upper class girls had tutors. Middle class girls didn't. There were no grammar schools for girls. They only went to elementary school, and normally only learned to read. 2 Of course there's no proof. There's no evidence that Thomas Wolsey went to grammar school in Ipswich. But we have to assume he did, because he went to university and became a cardinal. (oooooh! unless Wolsey was just a FRONT for some aristocrat who wanted to avoid the stigma of being a Cardinal and Lord Chancellor. Is that what you're saying?) 3 There is no evidence that William Shakespeare ever had a shit. There is literally not a single turd which has been certified as emerging from the bardal behind. But guess what? I'm going to stick my neck out and assume that he had intestines and defecated in the usual way. And I'm going to assume that the son of a wealthy alderman and mayor went to the grammar school 100 yards from his door, along with all the other middle class kids. Stratford-born Richard Field (printer/publisher) later published Shakespeare's work ... but ... wait! There's no evidence that HE went to the school either ... so Richard Field was obviously just a front for somebody ELSE who actually did the typesetting. Probably the Earl of bleeding Essex. There's no evidence of John Webster's death. According to your logic, he therefore didn't die, and is now 420 years old. Probably writing zombie movies now. William Shakespeare is listed in the cast of two plays by Ben Jonson. Ben Jonson knew him. After Shakespeare's death he spoke affectionately of him NAMING HIM AS A WRITER, and mentioning his version of Julius Caesar!! What is YOUR evidence that Ben Jonson was a liar?
My very basic and non-historical opinion is this: If William Shakespeare is not the author, then whoever is the author wished his name to be used as author. Otherwise there would've been an uproar at the time of publication (if that's the correct term). What does it matter if he is or is not the author? The works are amazing and should be lauded in their own right.
Dear Dr Kat I commented a few months ago, I would like to follow up. I picked up on "you're not that great actually"....... some of the work being done on the sonnets and the plays helps us understand a little about his genius. There is evidence that he read widely in various languages, and had a good grasp of Latin and Greek. The plays such as the early Hamlet, the True History Henry V and others, instead of seeing them as Shakespeare's works that he has modified over time they are seen as the work of someone else. To make the narrative fit into the life and times of the man from Stratford, we hear things such as, he was a plagiarist or he only wrote some parts himself, he made mistakes, his Latin was grammar school and his Greek wasn't that great. So instead of praising the author of the works of Shakespeare as an innovative, learned genius, who developed his craft throughout the 1570's and 1580's then perfected and began publishing under the name of Shakespeare in the 1590's, we have this man who came to London in the late 1580's and started copying and collaborating. So we seem to have a choice? Accept that Shakespeare is a pseudonym and the true author was a really great genius,or we accept what scholars such as Jonathon Bate are telling us that the man from Stratford wrote part of the works and copied from earlier writers. Then perhaps he wasn't that great after all.
That would depend on what makes them "great", wouldn't it? It's beyond question that he took his plots from other writers. We have them clearly identified for all but a few plays. If what made him great was his judgment in selecting plots, his genius at poetry, his ability to create fully-formed, three dimensional characters, his brilliant humor and wit, and his deep understanding of theater practice, then the only thing he wasn't so great at was geography. In that he was terrible. Oh, and he wasn't great a Greek. His works contain almost no Greek classical references and his friend Ben Jonson said he barely knew Greek.
You say that it's telling that the first instances of people saying it wasn't him was in the 19th century, except Alexander Waugh's arguments include works from the earliest references to Shakespeare. I'm interested in people debating that because I don't see how anyone could accept the Stratfordian theory without denying his arguments and there are way too many points to chalk it up to coincidence. It'd be nice to hear someone actually discuss those points.
I’ve just finished reading Elizabeth Winkler’s book after sort of following this debate for fifty years. My question is why does the notion that a nobleman had the specific knowledge base that matches the plays diminish them? Does our appreciation of these plays rest upon the marvel that a humble man of minor importance and almost zero documentation extant from his era somehow produced them?
If either of your claims were true, we could discuss the consequences. But neither is. Shakespeare's plays comport well to the education of a middle-class gentleman, and he is very well documented as the actor and gentleman from Stratford.
Being a yank...who lives England and has friends all over it, I've been to Stratford and it never occurred to me that he wasn't the author. There a plenty of creative prodigies who are uneducated and brilliant. But Dr. Kar, I agree that both sides could do better proving and disproving their arguments. We have Q-anon on the www. I guess anything is possible... Liz Barton
I stopped your video at 8:02, before your conclusions, to add my own two cents. As an American, I can say that, with the exception of the small, specialist academic community here, Americans just don’t really CARE “who” Shakespeare really was. As a lifetime (50-year plus) reader of British literature, and viewer of British popular media like films and television, I have come to the conclusion that there is rarely a STORY of any type, in any British medium, that doesn’t contain an element of class consciousness or struggle. I think the questioning of the “real identity” of Shakespeare is a product of post-world-wars’ Britain’s self-criticism of, the breaking down restrictions on, and the general increased mobility within, its class system, including the abolition of hereditary legal privilege, and perhaps, to a lesser extent, with its population’s interest in socialism/communism, which was much stronger there than here. American consciousness and culture almost completely lacks class-conscious, except for the general acceptance that some people have more or less education and/or money. For example, our differences in accent are regional, not social-class, variations (but grammar and vocabulary are different-that’s where social background shows). When I was a teenager and in my early twenties, I inadvertently offended several British persons when I asked about their accents, I didn’t realize that they thought I was trying to place them socially! No wonder they looked sour. We never had legal privileges of any kind since before our revolution, when, of course, these were granted by the distant UK government. Now, I can’t wait to hear what you say!
That's an interesting theory. How do you square it with the fact that anti-Stratfordism is virtually a purely American invention? The first anti-Stratfordian literature came from the American Joseph C. Hart, followed closely by Delia Bacon, also an American.
Such broad generalizations about Americans when we are so deeply divided due to white supremacy and yes, about the Shakespeare authorship question as well.
Wholeheartedly agree with your premise. We mustn't denigrate any credible argument put forward. This is the very spirit of debate. Personally, however, I have failed to subdue my raised eyebrow at those who contend that the son of a glovemaker lacked the education and the talent to write the plays attributed to Shakespeare. To me, it smacks of elitism. If the de Vere Society is able to prove definitely that these plays were authored by the Earl of Oxford, I will be the first to stand up and cheer. Until then, a rigorous self-examination of their own motives and biases is called for--before its more vehement members are accused of literary QAnonism.
The Stratford attribution hasn’t been “proved definitively” either. There is evidence on both sides. IMO there is much more evidence Oxford was the writer if you are willing to look at it.
@@enheduannapax7988 There is no actual "evidence" that Oxford wrote anything attributed to Shakespeare, as the real world understands the word. Codes which only work when a hoaxter makes up context, vague plot similarities between characters and this life or that, bad Latin translations and the like are not evidence. Every contemporary who ever weighed in on the matter said Shakespeare was the gentleman from Stratford. Not a single person ever said otherwise.
Interesting I find no interest in further research. Obviously a brilliant and thoughtful person. However, it stops with the disinterest in further readings or study. Other then Shapiros could of would should of of his Book. Pontificating does not make it true? I wonder why she has no ? doubt? It seems to stop at Shakespeares school door Stratford on Avon. Which is not his school door.
Having devoted a lot of time to this controversy this video disappoints me. The reason you give as to why there is controversy is traditional in the Stratfordian camp but totally outdated. Essentially, this is the idea the "genius" is enough to explain what seems unlikely to critics. This view is very naive and unrealistic. I also note that in addition to Ed. De Vere, you constantly name Queen Elisabeth )???) Marlowe as possible authors as if the time for research was still very active. Obviously, once a few Shakespeare's admirers began to doubt that the man from Stratford could be the real author, they had to look elsewhere and they examined many more or less probable candidates. Finally, after several decades, Ed. De Vere's hypothesis appeared to be the most probable and the most realistic. It is the one that has best withstood criticism and the one that sticks best to the new facts established by researchers. Finally, If this controversy is so interesting it is not only because it allows to completely renew the field of studies on Shakespeare but also because of its human dimension: it opposes the spirit of orthodoxy and the modern critical spirit. And [this is a more personal reason ]it has many important similarities with the controversy over the real historical origins of Islam, one of my main research topics.
The only thing "genius" explains is poetical talent. No matter who Shakespeare was, he needed that genius. The only question is whether a well-off middle-class gentleman had everything else he needed to write the works attributed to him. If all of his peers are anything to judge by, he did.
@@esprit-critique "The progress and development of a genius should not be completely untraceable." What "progress and development" do we have for Christopher Marlowe? For Robert Greene? For Ben Jonson, himself? We only have an off-handed comment where he refers to "Camden" as his master, and this is assumed to be William Camden who was headmaster of the Westminster grammar school. As far as documentation is concerned, Marlowe, Greene, and Jonson all arrived, fully formed, upon the London stage. Shakespeare's "development" is easy to trace, if you start with his rather simplistic early works, such as Two Gentlemen, Titus, and The Comedy of Errors, and move on to Love's Labors Lost and Julius Caesar, then to the height of his powers with Hamlet, Macbeth, Lear, and Othello, then to his tired-and-resting-on-his-laurels works like Pericles and Kinsmen, his development is obvious. Or did you want his childhood notebooks with his juvenile rhymes?
I understand that when Elizabethan children started grammar school, they were not taught how to read; they were expected to know how to read already. But his parents were illiterate, so they could not have taught him. His brothers were illiterate, too. So how did he get into grammar school? The records from that time are lost, so we don't know for certain that he did attend. So that's one basic question. A larger question is this: if somehow WS did break the cycle of illiteracy, why did he not teach his children how to read? Because they were illiterate too. So the family line was, illiterate, illiterate, illiterate, world's greatest writer, illiterate. For me, this stretches credulity. As to the motivation of the Stratfordians, consider the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. They have an enormous financial motive to protect the booming Stratford tourist industry.
What evidence do you have that any one of these people were illiterate? Are you just taking someone's word for it? Oh, and they had what are known as "dame schools" which taught basic literacy to younger children. In the 16th Century, a Stratford woman testified at the trial of another Stratford woman that they were friends from school. If it were not possible to ever learn something that one's parents did not know, nobody would ever learn anything new.
I think it really is the complete lack of a normal paper trail for a writer that has a lot of us doubting the man from Stratford. ..plenty of working class children turned out to be extraordinarily talented, like Michael Faraday and Christopher Marlowe...though probably a lack of money is very unhelpful for practically everything. But someone like Edward de Vere seemed to be funding a lot of writers, so how much is his own work, or a collaboration? Was he being sort of anonymous because the plays were propaganda? Doesn't Henry V say something like 'we band of Brothers', and then he expects everyone to go and fight and die for him...not let them all sleep over in his palace, with free food and whatever else people usually share with their siblings.
Shakespeare has a perfectly good paper trail. Whoever told you he didn't was fibbing. Here's a clue: when someone rules out evidence because it only refers to someone by their NAME, because that might be a pseudonym, they are trying to hide it and pretend it doesn't exist. Shakespeare is well documented as a poet, as an actor, and as a gentleman from Stratford. The evidence exists in spades.
One documentary mentioned he also went under the name of Sly (?) and had another family in Birmingham, there was a marriage application by him the day before the one to Anne Hathaway to someone else , did that also happen with this other name? Sly turns up in Italy in one of the plays, mentioned by a lawyer checking whether the descriptions of Italy were correct..they were. Listening to the sonnets, they do fit well with 17EO, but I was imagining the Dark Lady as Goddess Kali, or Hekate, and the other lovers as various other Gods , it's very easy to project onto them whatever we like.@@Jeffhowardmeade
@@traceyolsen308 No "documentary" mentions that, because there are no documents that say that. Not sure where you got that. Please name one thing about Italy that Shakespeare got correct. "It's very easy to project them..." For some people, perhaps. Not for anyone rooted in the real world
I watched the program on RUclips a few days ago. A man had set up a little museum in Birmingham(?) and claimed to be a descendent of the family, there was a portrait he said came from one of the Shakespeare (Shakspeare) houses of this ancestor, and he and the news team were remarking on the similarity of the likeness of himself and this person. He said SW's(?) other used name was Sly(?) and he had another family in Birmingham. The other documentary/talk was from a Harvard Lawyer going around Italy with her Lawyer husband trying to convince him that the plays were written by 17EO, showing old maps of canals etc working at the time of EdV, all of the journeys and references seemed correct, In one of the locations, quoting a play, she mentioned someone called Sly(?)..at least that was what it sounded like.. and it reminded me of the other program I'd seen a earlier ...but I've not researched any of these subjects myself, and am only mentioning things that seem easily available on the computer. @@Jeffhowardmeade
@@traceyolsen308 Like the old John Fogerty song said: "I know it's true, 'cause I saw it on TV." Shakespeare never mentions canals in any of his works.
Check out the work of Dennis McCarthy. Unlike Oxfordians, McCarthy has actual evidence/proof that Shakespeare didn’t write anything- but he did adapt the work by others to the stage.
Very disappointing, this. "You're not that great, actually." When did that sentiment become part of the questioning of authorship? It's precisely because the "you" in question is so inconceivably, inexplicably great that one questions the authorship in the first place. Maybe your favorite of the handful of the Bard's signatures should accompany your erudition.
You keep referring to Shakespeare as the "son of a glover," but you fail at the most basic task of a historian to put the past into perspective. Here is what Nathan Rosenberg and L. E. Birdzell Jr. wrote about the pre-industrialized world in "How the West Grew Rich": "The artisan-owners were an elite among the work force. In the towns, they were the leading citizens, not the rank and file." That accurately describes John Shakespeare, a well-respected member of his community who steadily rose up though the ranks of municipal governance to become High Bailiff (the equivalent of mayor), Justice of the Peace, and Alderman. BTW, in some American towns the mayor's office still incorporates a judicial function. If you want to challenge a speeding ticket you got in Bexley, you'll go to the Bexley Mayor's Court.
In his patent of arms, issued by the College of Heralds, John Shakespeare's status as a Justice of the Peace was highlighted among his accomplishments.
None of the factual arguments approached. Again labeling is used to prequalify the speaking persons instead of paying tribute to the facts. Of course the question is cruel to the acad stuff: either you are not specialists in the question, or you are.... in case you close the eyes on the facts you take the part of antigagliley people or anicopernicus who preferred speculations instead of looking at the stars through the telescope or analyzing the facts on the table. Love can only be attributed to people, not texts, as I understand Shakespeare, so what if the the child was substituted or replaced... it’s a question of love by the end... and of course it’s a tremendous possibility to attract today’s commoners to read and discuss Shakespeare, instead of petrifying him under possibly a false statute. Shakespeare being the New Testament of Etics of our times cannot be ignored as the author and a real man of character, so more we discuss the persons who might have written the testament, more we love the real author. The challenge was issued in 2013 by Shahan and Waugh in the book-answer “Shakespeare beyond doubt?” Mirroring another book of a similar title prepared by the Shakespeare Trust. The challenge seems to be unanswered ... so who are the knights of the truth?
The implication that those who consider it impossible for someone who could not have had the opportunities to learn all the things that the Author DID know, has something -- Anything -- in common with the Eugenics views that were the foundation for the sterilization and ultimate genocide of 'inferior' people . . . is just reprehensible. The Author had to have known not only works written in then-contemporary English that were unavailable to the unprivileged (there being no public libraries at the time), but works not-yet-translated from French, Italian, Latin, German, and even Old English (there are elements of BEOWULF in Hamlet). Few people in Elizabeth's time would have had access to such works -- even many of the prolific writers of the time. Certainly not a commoner from a market town! Will Shakspere would have had to have been a telepathic savant with an eidetic memory to accomplish such a feat, whereas Edward de Vere was the one person uniquely qualified -- with access to the source materials we know were used by the Author -- to have written the Works. In the Sonnets, "Shakespeare" referred to himself using the phrase "I am that I am" -- the very name of God, according to the book of Exodus -- a rather ballsy, even blasphemous thing to do . . . and, lo and behold, in a letter to his father-in-law (William Cecil, the most powerful man in England), Edward de Vere does the exact same thing -- he uses the phrase "I am that I am" to refer to himself. It is standard practice for Stratfordians to trot out all the many 'candidates' for the Authorship -- be it Marlowe or Bacon or Neville or eve the Queen herself! -- as if to imply that so many others have been proposed as the Bard that NONE of them should topple the grain-hoarder from Stratford from his pedestal . . . but De Vere, and ONLY him, ever used the phrase "I am that I am" to refer to himself. If a Marlovian could point to a letter written by Marlowe where he had done so, it would be trumpeted as a 'proof' of his identity as "Shakespeare" -- and the same goes for any other 'candidate', be it Bacon or Neville, whoever. It was Edward de Vere. He is the only man -- bar none -- who could have accomplished it. It is not a damn coincidence that "Shakespeare" and De Vere BOTH referred to themselves with the same nomenclatural epithet, "I am that I am." 'They' both did because they were the same man. "Dr. Kat" name-drops Alexander Waugh's claim to know that De Vere was Shakespeare . . . and then artfully avoids confronting the mass of evidence that he has been posting on his RUclips videos that quite literally prove the case for Oxford. We get the build-up to the sickening slander around the 8-minute mark, linking doubters of Shakspere to pro-Eugenics advocates from the Victorian Era who paved the way for the bloody Holocaust. It was bad enough when Anti-Stratfordians were compared to Holocaust deniers, but this??? Utterly disgusting! And it just goes to prove that the Stratfordians will do or say anything to prop up their idol, and keep the tourist wealth flowing into the Stratford cash-cow, the truth be damned. Go research the "Ireland Shakespeare forgeries" to see how Stratfordian lies got into the swing of things, all to prop up the hoax of the millennium. The hoax that is the Stratfordian Theory of Authorship. Shakspere wasn't Shakespeare. Edward de Vere was the true author, writing under a pseudonym. The Oxfordian case has been proven, and Alexander Waugh's contributions on RUclips provide much of the cutting-edge proof that clinches the case. If you care one DAMN about the truth about the writer of the most celebrated dramas of the English-speaking world, you owe it to yourself to learn about De Vere. The Stratfordians have NOTHING. Nothing but a history of shoddy scholarship and downright forgeries, the epitome of disgracefulness masquerading as literary inquiry.
While I believe that the man from Stratford wrote the plays (perhaps with more collaboration than we know) I am happy to engage with those who respectfully disagree. A frequent complaint is that "the Academy" shuts down such discussion with nefarious intent. To be clear I have no financial or reputational dog in this fight - the plays exist and they teach us wonderful things about the society and culture in which they were produced. I have read the arguments and evidence for the various other candidates. They are yet to reach the burden of proof and frequently underestimate the capacity for information to be shared orally or for the potential of texts being accessible through a variety of means. Making biographical links with elements found in the texts doesn't do it for me. As we're "tone policing", ad-hominem and straw-man attacks also don't help to foster respectful discussion.
James Shapiro flagrantly compared Shakspere doubters with Holocaust deniers. As I said before, around the 8-minute mark you imply those who question Shakspere's ability to write the Shakespeare canon due to the impossibility of his having access to the sources the Author had to have been acquainted with . . . with the Victorian-era eugenics proponents? How is that "ad-hominem" or a "straw-man" attack? The "discussion" on your part was inherently disrespectful from the get-go -- a vicious slander. Believe what you want regarding the Authorship of the canon. There IS a respectful conversation that can be had on that topic. But when one side tries to link believers on the other side with Holocaust Deniers, that's beyond the pale, and needs to be called out for what it is. As is your subtle dig attempting to link Anti-Stratfordians with those who intellectually paved the way for the sterilization and genocide of 'undesirables'. Forget "tone-policing" and just admit that your attempt to link Anti-Stratfordians to Pro-Eugenicists from the Victorian era was a slander for which there should be no place in "respectful" discussion.
My interest exploration of the debate over the authorship, as I clearly stated, is, in large part, focused on the context in which it first appeared. That included the political landscape and scientific movements of the time. As no one claimed to have palpated William Shakespeare's skull, the 19th-century interest in phrenology seemed less related. However, none of this is anywhere close to forming an argument that connects those who question the authorship with those who deny the Holocaust. That is a straw-man attack. If I were to state that a bear lives in the woods and had defecated in the woods, it doesn't mean I am claiming the woods are made of faeces. Also, I'm not working under a pseudonym, so putting my title and name in quotation marks is unnecessary and seems to be an accusation or an ad-hominem attack on my veracity. Is that your intention?
The arguments you put forth are the 19th century arguments. More has come to light in more recent decades. Clues built into the fabric of buildings and codes, as was the fashion of the Elizabethan times. But I do appreciate your open-mind.
Oh, they are still kicking around those nineteenth century arguments, believe me. And they're still crap. As to codes ... well, if you deliberately go looking for something that backs your preference, you will find it. Hence the codes seem to confirm that Marlowe did it. Or Neville, or Oxford, or Bacon, or the bloody Queen... There is literally NO reason to doubt William Shakespeare's authorship. None.
@@MrMartibobs that’s a pseudosceptical argument and very dismissive. There’s finding patterns in clouds and then there is mathematical odds beyond random chance that you simply cannot dismiss. You forget that in the 17th century it was very much the rage amongst those in court to use codes in an age where court intrigue was at its pique. To simply say there is ‘literally NO reason to doubt William Shakespeare’s authorship’ seems to be an assertion that neither you, not I can ever be 100% certain of, and frankly, there is plenty of circumstantial evidence that challenges the orthodoxy you so eloquently zeal for.
@@Problembeing Your reply is eloquent, articulate, and lacks nothing except the little matter of evidence. If you lay a passage of YOUR choosing in a grid size of YOUR choosing and you find 'vere scratched my arse' in it, then it convinces nobody except conspiracy theorists. Tom Hanks doesn't eat babies. Ted Cruz's dad didn't shoot JFK. And Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare. And Occam and his razor are in total agreement with me.
@@MrMartibobs the evidence is available for those that want to actually look at it rather than proclaiming lack of evidence merely by proclamation. It is the height of laziness to cast absolutely everything you simply refuse to engage with as a ‘conspiracy theory’. Again, I remind you, the Elizabethan and Jacobean period WERE a time of conspiracies, not only because it was fashionable in court, but because it was at a time of the inception of the secret service within the court, to which a number implied to be the authors were highly likely to be privy too (Bacon, De Vere, et al). Throwing out daft false equivalences does nothing to bolster your braggadocious and intellectually dishonest stance. Misusing a profoundly misunderstood ‘Occam’s Razor’ argument is as fallacious as it is misapplied. It does not make for good optics when your fundamental argument is exposed as one based in ill-conceived origins based upon ignorance to the subject matter at hand as it is presented boastfully and with religious-like zeal.
@@Problembeing Maybe you can provide an Elizabethan example of someone describing how codes worked. Bacon doesn't count, because his biliteral cipher was meant for handwritten documents, not printed publications in which two contrasting typefaces would have stood out like a sore thumb. Got a source?
I doubt anyone would accuse Mark Twain of snobbery or class consciousness yet he concluded that of all the candidates for writing the works attributed to William Shakespeare the lest likely was the Man from Stratford on Avon.
You should read up on Samuel Clemens some time. He was a complete snob.
@@JeffhowardmeadeYes I am well aware they are one and the same.
same . When I was young I tried to chew my way through everything he wrote don't remember being struck by snobbishness quite the opposite in A Tramp Abroad he was hilarious on opera snobs. Of course he is probably overdue for a visit from the revisionists probably hear he was a racist next and was unkind to men who wear dresses.
Dimmy what is a ‘complete snob’ as opposed to any other type of snob? Do you feel superior to Mark Twain? Please explain yourself.
@@alexanderwaugh7036 Lord Clownhair, I am surprised that I should have to explain to you what "complete" means. As opposed to one who might be snobbish toward certain people or regarding specific subjects, Clemens thought himself smarter than everyone. He was particularly susceptible to flattery. His daughter Clara wrote of him "By his own admission, he had few defenses against flattery, and his secretary regularly buttered him up, not with a knife but a trowel." Whatever self-deprecating humor the character of Mark Twain presented, the author Samuel Clemens possessed none of it. By the end of his life he was the most famous writer in the United States, he knew it, and he believed it was justly so.
And, just FYI, one does not need to be superior or even think himself superior in order to be a snob. Even one of low status can believe that people of high status are inherently superior, which is how you and members of the Clownhair Coterie can be snobs about Shakespeare, though you are not, yourselves, superior in any way.
Genius , as potential is inherent, but to realize that potential to the actual heights of genius requires "knowledge": which requires a means to attain. It is this lack of means to attain the incredible depths of knowledge/expertise in so many diverse fields (which are plainly apparent in the works written under the pen name of Shakes-speare) that make it naive to accept the the Stratfordian view. See this wonderful little presentation on the distinction between inherent genius, and knowledge and the realization of genius.ruclips.net/video/QYuwJDxG4hs/видео.html
Here's a thing that just occurred to me. The argument always goes .... 'how could this uneducated kid write words of such depths without some kind of higher education?' etc. Are we supposed to believe it's just innate talent' ..... and so on
Well.
One of the best musicals of the 20th century was written by Lionel Bart.
He was a man of such profound musical ignorance that he numbered his piano keys, and wrote down his tunes by recording lists of numbers. He had an impoverished childhood as the the son of Jewish immigrants. BUT he had a knack for coming up with catchy tunes. And when it came to writing 'Oliver' he proved himself a witty and intelligent lyricist as well.
So .... how did this happen? Genuinely don't know. I assume he spent alot of time hammering at the family piano and just ... absorbed what he needed. And living in a tough neighbourhood maybe sharpened his wits. I honestly don't know.
Now look at Lennon and McCartney. Neither could actually write music. Paul's dad was in a band. John's mother played a bit of ukulele. But the boys had no formal musical education whatsoever.
And yet I'm pretty sure at this distance in time that the musical critic who described them as the best songwriters since Schubert was not indulging in hyperbole.
They just learned it all by doing it. By doing it alot. Working hard in smoky night-clubs. Learning the craft. First as performers, then as writers.
Then look at Shakespeare. Just a basic education. Then working as a performer in the demanding world of Elizabethan theatre. Then rewriting old plays, slowly finding his way, and finally writing work that was entirely his own. If you can't believe this could happen, then you have to question whether Lionel Bart, Lennon and McCartney, and Ben Jonson actually wrote their own stuff.
well said
It doesn't explain the inconsistencies, however; e.g. how Shakespeare could have acquired knowledge that was not publicly available.
@@jenssylvesterwesemann7980 Well, you'd have to be more specific about that.
What knowledge?
Straw man argument.
@@bozo5632 It's the entire proposition of Antistratfordia. That's its entire basis. Illiterate son of tanner/glover can't possibly be a writer. Otherwise, what IS it based on? His name is on the books. Other people say is is the writer. People write elegies after his death, he's listed on the revels list 1604 as 'poet'.
So please enlighten me. What OTHER reason do you have for doubt?
It is interesting to google "American novelists who never went to college." There are many including Nobel Laureates for literature. I suspect they had innate linguistic skill.
A recent survey found that the most widely read novel in the English language is Pride and Prejudice. We have reason to believe that Shakespeare did attend the local school but Jane Austen's parents taught her to read. There is some contradiction about whether she attended school, as one source said she briefly was a student.
But, Will and Jane were linguistically gifted and they knew people. If you see one of his plays, and, if you read one of her novels, you might just find that they described people you know.
That's an interesting comparison! I can't imagine Austen's education..or lack thereof..would have changed much about her wit either.
No one was ever made into a genius by a university education.
Correct; on the other hand, with everyone who is considered a genius there is also evidence of their education.
@@jenssylvesterwesemann7980 Well I am sure there are some examples of genius who had very little education.
I mean was Socrates well educated? Maybe he was, I don't know.
@@smoothbeak
The problem is, with those geniuses that acquired recognition, we at least can trace their education. Genius without education usually remains undeveloped.
For Will, there's nothing.
@@jenssylvesterwesemann7980 Yes I fully agree with you there that there is really nothing for William Shakespeare, however I was just speaking in the more general sense that in terms genius it can arise in an inexplicable way from time to time.
Just to be very clear I agree with you, and with William Shakespeare (of Statford upon Avon), as you say, there really is little to suggest genius that we have access to.
Of course the plays display genius, but the link between the two is tenuous (as you well know).
@@jenssylvesterwesemann7980 Can you trace the education of anyone not of noble birth from the Early Modern era? We know what the curriculum of an Elizabethan grammar school was, and it aligns quite nicely with the works of Shakespeare, but student records from the era are almost nonexistent. We have no records from Stratford prior to 1800, except to know that they employed a long string of Oxford-trained schoolmasters.
What are the odds, do you think, that a wealthy alderman and sometime mayor of Stratford would not send his sons to the local school he was already paying assessments for?
Evidently those people can't fathom the fact that Shakespeare met people in his daily life and travels that expanded his knowledge of things and lifestyles outside of those to which he had been born.
I think your thoughts have merit because I think the critics felt they were losing their distinction and authority with the influence of the new rich.
This is what gets to me. "How could Shakespeare have gotten X details right??" He talked to people. Meanwhile, they have no explanation for the details he got wrong 😆
I personally don't know if Shakespeare is the "Bard" or if it was a cumulative of many writers. I say let's just enjoy it for what it is. Entertainment. Elizabethan style.
I believe it is the same person, but whether it is or isn’t? 🤷♀️ (De Vere seems to be the most likely person OTHER than Shakespeare). However, I do think-whoever it was...didn’t write Titus Andronicus. I think that was likely someone else-it doesn’t fit his “Canon” or writing style and just doesn’t seem to “fit.”
Yes, but it would make a huge difference in how to interpret it.
Hear, hear! The plays are the important things. Granted, I want to believe that William Shakespeare wrote them, but that's only because I love the rather romantic idea of some native genius who managed to absorb enough education, probably through reading on his own, to make such lasting and wonderful works. But I'm not married to the idea.
@@p.l.g3190 The deVere and Marlowe versions would be equally or more romantic, imho. If Shakespeare was a fiction, that would be a heckuva story.
@@bozo5632, thank you! I'll have to check them out.
Hi Dr Kat, I have been successful in downloading your thesis and will enjoy reading it. Cheers .
Honestly, the most bare bones argument by the Anti-Stratfordians comes down to "We don't know the details, so we're going to fill in them in with what makes sense to us." Okay, well, that is fine but it is not history.
More, and frankly a lot of Anti-Stratfordians do this, the movement routinely gets their facts wrong, make some pretty wild assumptions on extremely flimsy evidence, and most importantly use different rules of evidence.
Examples: Shakespeare's tomb, so often described in its original form (it was vandalized and repaired years later) as a man holding a sack of grain. But grain merchants never used this iconography in their tombs during this period. But many people did use a pillow, indicative of the "sleep of death" until one is woken on the great Judgement Day.
Shakespeare's will, which mentions no books. Nor does it mention shoes. Or shirts. It mentions a "second best bed" but not the "best" one. Quite simply, the presumption that a will by its very nature will itemize every single object or group of objects a person owns is erroneous. In fact there were individuals in that era who had wonderful libraries yet did not mention those libraries in their will.
Shakespeare's education. Now, apart from anything else we know Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon was the same Shakespeare in the Lord Chamberlain's Men. We know this because he applied for a coat of arms for the former's father. And we know the latter was literate because we have his writing on tax records, applications, etc. Shakespeare's family was illiterate, so where did he learn to read? He was entitled to attend the local school for free, and the plays show signs of that level of education (but not much further), but--and this detail is vital--no records exist of the students at that school in this period. So...we cannot prove he attended that school. But likewise there is absolutely no reason to suppose he did not, and circumstantial evidence to say he did.
I have also read/heard people insist the plays show no correlation between what we know of William Shakespeare's life--which is not true. He himself had fraternal twins, a boy and a girl, just like TWELFTH NIGHT. He lost a son, Hamnet, about the time he wrote a play about a son grieving for his dead father, HAMLET. He got his betrothed pregnant before they were formally wed, like MEASURE FOR MEASURE. His daughter Judith married a man who was in many ways Shakespeare's enemy, as a Puritan who opposed all theatre, just like in THE TEMPEST. His heir was not his son, but his daughter like CYMBELINE, KING LEAR, MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, etc.
You can go on and on. It isn't as if there aren't plenty of mysteries about William Shakespeare and the Elizabethan/Jacobean theatre. But this particular conspiracy theory, which began in the 1800s and whose basic tenets one hears repeated over and over and over again, springs from a specific way of looking at the world. And I keep coming up against it again and again and again. I for one would be thrilled and fascinated if some tangible evidence were found indicating these plays and sonnets had a different author (although to be fair it is now clear the plays were much more collaborative than previously believed). The attraction of such an idea is palpable, simply because there's a lot of mystery around it and we'd all like the answer to come to light as well as proving delightfully surprising.
But honestly, the arguments I keep hearing/reading aren't very good.
"We don't know the details, so we're going to fill in them in with what makes sense to us." - This is funny, because that is what Shakespeare biographers have been doing from the start.
BTW, doubts regarding the authorship had been expressed back in Shakespeare's lifetime, as you probably know.
@@jenssylvesterwesemann7980 Well, there is zero evidence AT ALL to suggest such doubts existed prior to the 19th century. But since you have made ridiculous, sweeping comments about mainstream scholarship, I'm not surprised. Cherry picking out of context and ignoring all the evidence (of which there is plenty) that does not support your precious conspiracy theory is what I have come to expect of Anti-Stratfordians. But--the world is not flat, evolution really happens, vaccines work, the Holocaust happened, and William Shakespeare wrote the bulk of the plays with which he is credited. Yes, I am putting in the same room with Birthers, Sandy Hook Truthers, believers in the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion," Bigfoot enthusiasts, anti-vaxxers, those who insist Queen Elizabeth is the head of the Mafia, and anyone who believes white (or gray) aliens built Egypt's pyramids.
So we'll put and reflective of how I felt, without really realizing it ... Love this Show !
“It’s just not very nice.” You nailed it, Dr. Kat.
I also think Stratford would be sunk if Shakespeare was proven not to have written the plays - no one else would be such affected.
It would still be the center for Shakespeare scholarship, with theaters, libraries and living history. There's no chance anyone will ever be proved to be the "true" Shakespeare, though, so it's a moot point.
Dimmy, do you use a dictionary? I doubt it. Proof is ‘evidence sufficient (or contributing) to establish a fact or produce belief in the certainty of something’ (OED). Why close the stable door when the horse has already bolted?
@@alexanderwaugh7036 What does your comment have to do with mine, Lord Clownhair? (Or is it Clownheir?)
Stratford Upon Avon is a tourist trap. Nothing there is original but they lead you to believe it is. Shaxsper’s grave is hoax.
I feel sorry for the townspeople and I think academia and greed has led them down a false path.
I think there's a crucial difference between arguing that someone of Shakespeare's class and background was just too coarse and common to have possibly written such wonderful plays (which is indeed an argument many anti-Stratfordians make, and is certainly classist and not based on real logic), and pointing to the literary references in his works and saying they imply a certain level of education. Shakespeare couldn't, after all, have reasonably referenced or adapted a source he hadn't read. That said, him being widely read doesn't necessarily imply a formal university degree (and certainly not a noble background, as seen with many of his fellow playwrights who were also commoners.) He obviously could have borrowed books from people and self-educated, and I'd like to see more analysis not limited to Shakespeare specifically, but about how common that kind of self-education was in the Elizabethan era, and what resources would've been available to him.
Shakespeare's works do not actually demostraste a high degree of education, autodidactic or otherwise. Ben Jonson, who was the son of a brick layer and mostly self-educated, said Shakespeare had "small (i.e. a schoolboy's) Latin and less Greek". He said Shakespeare "wanted art". Francis Beaumont said the works of Shakespeare were "without scholarship". Shakespeare rarely included Greek classical references in his works the way his university-educated peers did, and generally ignored Aristotelian rules for poetry. Claims that Shakespeare was a master of this academic discipline or that are highly overstated. He was from a wealthy middle-class family. There is no reason to suppose that he couldn't find everything he needed in books of the era, or in the environment around him.
Dimmy, you need to read up on Ramus and the anti-scholastic movement in England in the 16th century to understand the nationalistic drive to purge English poetical forms of overweening Classical influence. I know you find academic books difficult but give Michael Wainwright’s ‘Rational Shakespeare’ a try. It will help you to understand what Jonson meant by Shakespeare’s ‘small Latin and less Greek’ and what Harvey and Nashe meant by describing Oxford as a ‘persecutor of Priscian’ who used ‘wonted Chaucerisms’ like ‘stout lout’ only allowing the Classics to ‘come in now and again with a snuff of a sentence’. There is a great deal of contemporary evidence identifying Oxford as a patron of the anti-scolastic movement and none alas to support Strat-Shax interest in or involvement with it. Mythomanes keep telling us that Shakespeare was uneducated in order to keep the laurels on his mercantile head. Sad!
@@alexanderwaugh7036 Jonson's "Small Latin and less Greek" requires no explanation, thank you. And if you wish to reference scholarship on Shakespeare to prove a point, please stick to actual scholars, not members of the Clownhair Coterie. I wouldn't want to spend all my time trying to discover what was fact and what was just made up drivel.
Genius , as potential is inherent, but to realize that potential to the actual heights of genius requires "knowledge": which requires a means to attain. It is this lack of means to attain the incredible depths of knowledge/expertise in so many diverse fields (which are plainly apparent in the works written under the pen name of Shakes-speare) that make it naive to accept the the Stratfordian view. See this wonderful little presentation on the distinction between inherent genius, and knowledge and the realization of genius. ruclips.net/video/QYuwJDxG4hs/видео.html
I just fell down the anti-Stratfordian rabbit hole last night and finally realized that I should come to your channel (which I enjoy) to get your take on it. Very interesting to highlight the "why" of the authorship debate coming from the 19th century -- who decides who is capable of great art. That is telling. Also, I wonder why, if any of the anti-Stratfordian camps are ultimately revealed as true, WHY would the true author or authors want to hide their identities by ciphers and symbols and hoohah to begin with in the 1600s? Many of the proposed writers were doing plays at "Her Majesty's pleasure" so we're they afraid to reveal themselves and hung all the political risk on "the man from Stratford, the son of a Glover" if the #&+# hit the fan?
I don't know.
One thing is sure, I am not a reader of Shakespeare -- those plays and sonnets are WAY over my head.
Just emerging, a little messy, from the rabbit hole.
Thank you for your channel ☺️
Edward De Vere was a freemason. So of course he used codes and symbols. It's a bit like Leonardo Vinci he was one too. And yes he had to hide the truth. Because of reasons:
1. Nobleman were not sopposed to write things like that. (You get a bad reputation or worse)
2. The Court was filled with "snakes". Everybody was hiding something to
take advantage or to gain power.
3. Some content was very risky and offensive if you are smart enough to get it or read between the lines.
4. It's so much more than just for pleasure or entertainment. It's philosophical, it's going deep into the nature and problems of mankind.
5. Not everybody likes it if you (as a writer) are telling the truth and what people did wrong or make fun of them.
6. Hamlet is quite autobiographical in terms of De Vere's life. Puting moments of your real life in a play is always a risk, at least if someone knows of these real moments.
So yes it was indeed very risky to write under his true name, so he had to hide it and become a ghostwriter you could say.
And just as a bonus: Edward De Vere's bible was full of markings. He used many lines from there in his plays. And some were used word by word. I still don't understand why the stratfordians don't get the truth. I think they don't want to because they could lose there jobs or reputation. They don't want to change anything in the history books and print everything again. And Stratfort is going to lose a lot of tourists and money. And that's why we have to live with this lie for another long time.
@@novadarkknight9135 The Freemasons didn't exist at any time during De Vere's life, or for more than a hundred years after that.
1. The was no prohibition, socially or otherwise, which prevented noblemen from writing "things like that". De Vere, for example, was well known, as one critic put it, as "best for comedy".
2. The Court might well have been filled with snakes. De Vere wasn't there much, as he kept getting himself into trouble whenever he was.
3. Shakespeare's patron was William Carey, who was the Lord Chamberlain (responsible for, among other things, court entertainments), and the cousin and close confidant of Queen Elizabeth. Are you suggesting that THAT GUY let "risky and offensive" plays be performed in court, or, worse yet, IN PUBLIC? With HIS name attached? Shakespeare borrowed the character Sir John Oldcastle from an earlier play, which offended his descendant, Baron Cobbham, and Shakespeare was forced to change the name to Falstaff and include an apology at the end of 2 Henry IV. But more offensive stuff was okay at Court?
4. Wutcherpoint? Could a middle-class gentleman not go deep into the nature and problems of mankind?
5. If an earl would be in danger for making fun of powerful people, how long do you suppose a bankside poet would last? Yet nobody ever went after Shakespeare, who would have given up the real author in a heartbeat if the works were actually that dangerous.
6. Hamlet isn't autobiographical at all. Polonius isn't Burghley, Hamlet didn't actually get captured by pirates, Shakespeare's fellow Will Kempe performed at the Danish royal court, and Rosenkrantzes and Guildensterns (two very powerful Danish families) lived in London. His father wasn't murdered, he wasn't deprived of his patrimony (he blew it), and his wife lived to bear him four children and died of a fever.
Oh, and the markings in a bible which belonged to A De Vere, not necessarily Edward, and is annotated in an unknown hand (though probably three different ones) at an unknown date/s, has barely more than a random overlap with the more then two thousand biblical allusions found in the works of Shakespeare. Depending on how much of the Holy Bible is really quotable, the overlap could be even less than random.
@@Jeffhowardmeade Your the one Alexander Waugh calls Dimmy in the comments...well if even he can't change your mind then there is no point in trying for me. That wasn't my purpose anyway.
@@novadarkknight9135 Lord Clownhair is confusing me with some guy who lives in Texas. Not surprised, the way he jumps to so many other conclusions.
And I could be easily persuaded if only someone could produce some evidence. If you're the sort to blame conspiracies on entities which had their genesis more than a century later, you're probably not the sort of person to give a damn about silly things like evidence, are you?
@@Jeffhowardmeade Of course it would be nice to have the so called "evidence" your talking about, but what do you exspect to find? I guess there never will be found a sheet of paper or anything like that. The hidden messages Waugh is talking about are the only evidence we are going to find unfortunately. Because it was on purpose to not let the people know...whatever the reason was. And about the freemasons... I can't think of any other group that would be capable of hiding something that big in such a brilliant way. I read that there were Freemasons already around 1500 so...some information here is just wrong. Marlowe had also connections to them so how can they not exist at that time?
More personal opinion: whoever Shakespeare “really was”, he stands alone in his class for both poetry and drama; an opinion shared around the world. I’ve read and heard some pretty convincing arguments lately, one by an American scholar, too, that he really was the Earl of Oxford, one hypothesis I have heard a lot and am leaning towards. Unless some incredible cache of authentic, previously undiscovered, contemporary documents shows up, I doubt we will ever know for sure. I love your videos, more, please!
That cache of documents has already been found. Nobody who is peddling an Anti-Stratfordian story is going to tell you about them, though. They will claim they don't exist.
Yet they're very easy to find. Go to Shakespearedocumented.org and see them for yourself.
Saying William Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare is a circular argument. It was a pen name.
You might try reading The Genius of Shakespeare by Jonathan Bate, who is a fabulous writer.
Another book, entitled Shakespeare's Book by Chris Laoutaris, who is the historian for the Royal Shakespeare Company, has nothing to do with the authorship controversy but outlines the process by which the First Folio was published. It is long and very scholarly. The amount of documentation amazes.
You will learn so much about how printing was done and how the rights to written materials evolved. You will also feel that the new historianism that declared Henry VIII the first early modern king and not, as he was traditionally labeled, the last Medieval king.
While I never had a good opinion of the Anti-Avonians, the sheer numbers of people involved in printing and book selling at the time says there were too many people involved in the process to keep secret the so-called real playwright.
I read Charles Beauclerk's book, Shakespeare's Lost Kingdom; The True Story of Shakespeare and Elizabeth. Beauclerk is a descendant of Edward de Vere and makes a pitch for his ancestor, crediting him not only with Shakespeare's plays but also those of Lyly and others. The Anti-Avonian "proofs" generally go nowhere. They argue for hints in Ditchley portrait that are easily overturned. They draw Masonic triangles on pages that would disappear if a different typeface were used.
Thank you . You are always so interesting :)
I'm only going to grab one thread of this and give it a proper tug: If the son of a glover had no chance of becoming a literary lion; what chance did an orphan foraging in the wild have of becoming a world-reshaping military leader (Genghis Khan), what chance did the son of impoverished weavers have of becoming a billionaire steel magnate (Andrew Carnegie), what chance did an academic failure turned record shop owner have of getting anywhere (Richard Branson) - and the list goes on and on. Humble beginnings mean just that: humble _beginnings_ ! They are absolutely no indicator of an individual's talent or potential and it has been proven again and again that rising above is one of the most enduring aspects of humanity.
This is so very true. There were also statesman around that time (Cromwell and Wolsey were obvious examples) who had very humble beginnings. And they WERE as you say , just beginnings.
Although in view of their ultimate faith, maybe they sometimes wished they'd just followed gone into blacksmithing or butchery!
This is so wholly irrelevant, as if even stating the motives for researching the topic as being somehow based on an upper class/aristocratic bias, and that that would wipe out all the contradicting evidence and render the question obsolete.
@@erikuslatinevivit348 Here's the thing. I''m not going to waste time researching whether Dickens wrote Dickens. Because there is (in spite of his working class origins and lack of education) absolutely no reason to doubt that he was the author. Nor am I going to look into the case of John Webster, also an Elizaabethan playwright. His dad was a carriage maker and he was born around 1580. We don't know when he died. But his name is on the plays and I might spend time watching the plays (which are great) but I'm not going to waste time working out whether his name was pseudonym and the plays were written by Lord Snot. Because there is literally no reason to doubt his authorship.
Ben Jonson, Edward Alleyn and Christoper Marlowe all had the same background.
As to Shakespeare, his name is on the books, his friend Jonson said he was Shakespeare, Heminges and Condell said he was Shakespeare, and William Camden said he was Shakespeare.
So in the same way I'm not going to spend time researching whether the earth is flat, whether men really went to the moon, whether Ted Cruz's dad shot JFK or whether Tom Hanks eats babies. Because all those propositions are balls. Evidence? There is no evidence. As soon as you actually look at it,, it crumbles into dust.
And yes, of course the whole thing has its origins in an age of extreme snobbery, so of course that 's what it's all about.
Marty Celestialteapot If you’re too lazy, judgemental, politically biased and frustrated, then I’m not surprised you arent looking for any potentially contradicting evidence. You’re missing the point by miles by your own attitude to the question, which is unfortunate.
Shakespeare did NOT have humble beginnings. His father was a highly respected member of his community who steadily rose up through the ranks of municipal governance to become High Bailiff (the equivalent of mayor), Justice of the Peace, and Alderman. John Shakespeare started the process of acquiring a coat of arms, a process that was completed by his son. If you imagine that the College of Arms in London passes out coats of arms like candy at Halloween, try it. See how far you get.
Thank you for engaging with the Shake-speare authorship question! Please note that it wasn’t just the 19th-century community who breathed the notion that the plays were not written by William Shakespeare of Stratford. Questions were raised in the 16th century about the authorship of the plays. If the plays are read and understood through the lens that Edward De Vere wrote the plays and were observations of the Elizabethan court, they take on a lot more meaning.
Take another piece of evidence that he did not write them. His son-and-law kept an extensive diary and never mentioned that his uncle was the most famous playwright of the time. It is simply that there is overwhelming evidence that De Vere wrote them, and Shake-speare was a pseudonym in the Golden Age of pseudonyms at a time when it would be inappropriate for a nobleman to attach his real name to the plays.
If Edward De Vere did write the plays, he would have had to have done it under a pen name.
There isn't a single clearly expressed doubt about Shakespeare's authorship prior to 1847. Just a lot of reinterpreting poetry while adding contrived context.
Dr. John Hall did not keep a diary. He kept medical records of his patients, and the surviving record book was not begun until after Shakespeare died.
Oh, and there were several noblemen who authored plays which were performed and published under their names. There was no taboo against the nobility writing or publishing. De Vere was well known as a writer of interludes, so it was no secret.
@@Jeffhowardmeade Hi Jeff, it is an interesting debate, and it takes a lot of detective work to piece the whole thing together. Hopefully, you are at least open to the idea.
John Hall did keep medical notes, and not a personal diary as you say. He made a note that one patient was a poet. So what is interesting here is just that he kept a journal and took an interest in the personal lives of his patients, but never wrote anything about his father-in-law being a great play writer.
Who is the Nobleman that you refer to that wrote plays during the Elizabethan era?
@@arthurchoate5476 The poet Dr Hall mentions is Michael Drayton, who was from Warwickshire, and who was Hall's patient. While one of his patients was his wife, he doesn't mention ANYONE who was not his patient. Since his medical casebook begins after Shakespeare died, there is literally no possibility he could have made an appearance in it.
Here's one for an open-minded investigator to consider: in about 1618, a poet named John Weever, who had been a part of the London literary scene at the height of Shakespeare's fame, and even wrote an epigram on him, visited Stratford. He transcribed the inscription on Shakespeare's tombstone and funerary monument. He titled that entry in his notebook "Willm Shakspeare the famous poet".
This tells us two things. First, that a fellow poet identified Shakespeare of Stratford as a famous poet. Second, that a monument describing him as a great poet was erected in Dr. John Hall's church at a time when Hall's close friend Vicar Thomas Wilson was in charge, and where he sat under it at least every Sunday from about 1618 until he was laid to rest under it in 1635.
Now which piece of evidence do you consider to be most telling? The clear declaration of Shakespeare's identity as a poet, or the failure to mention it in a book there's no reason for it to be mentioned in?
@@Jeffhowardmeade I will look into your John Weever claim. If true that would be more telling then the lack of writing (outside his medical journal) about his father-in-law. However, the situation must be judged pound for pound. And in my current opinion that goes to Edward De Vere, however I know I don't know everything so am not 100% sure. It is speculation though isn't it?
@@arthurchoate5476 The funerary moment is unequivocal. It compares Shakespeare to the Roman poet Virgil, and mentions "all he hath writt". The exact date that Weever transcribed the inscription is open to debate, but the last monument in Weever's undated notebook was for a guy who died in November of 1617. Poet Leonard Digges, whose stepfather was an overseer of Shakespeare's will, mentions the monument in the First Folio, which began production in 1621.
The most in-depth analysis of the monument is by Lena Cowen Orlin. She does deep dives into the records on Shakespeare's father, his wedding, his house, his will, and his monument. The Private Life of William Shakespeare (Oxford University Press, 2021).
The most thorough work ever done on John Hall's medical casebook is John Hall Master of Physicke by John Wells (Manchester University Press, 2020).
The best they can do is accuse Shakespeare of being the son of a glover. They’re gonna have to do better than that to convince me. It seems like snobbery on steroids.
Have you read anything on the subject?
@@enheduannapax7988 I've read everything on both sides, except the 23 Oxfordian books saying exactly the same things which were self-published last year alone (sorry, I got busy).
What would you like to know?
Is Bill Bryson's assertion that the authorship debate was kicked off by a 19th century New Englander accurate?
Yes. Delia Bacon, an American from Ohio, was the first person to explicitly say that Shakespeare didn't write the works. There are claims of earlier doubts. An 18th Century pamphlet called "The Tale of the Learned Pig" had as it's protagonist a talking swine who claimed to have been reincarnated multiple times and been many important people throughout history, including the true author of Shakespeare's plays. A document claiming a certain Reverend Wilmot had expressed doubts in the early 19th Century turned out to be a forgery.
No. Authorship doubt was expressed during Shakespeare's lifetime.
ruclips.net/video/qHjOQPx6xhU/видео.html
@@jenssylvesterwesemann7980 No, it wasn't. The only thing even remotely close to accurate is the spat between Hall and Marston. Anti-Strats argue that the smutty, pseudonymous Ovidian poem Hall is attacking and Marston defending is Venus and Adonis. It's not. Marston wrote his OWN smutty, pseudonymous Ovidian poem, The Metamorphosis of Pygmalion's Image, under the name "W. Kinsayder". It was ordered burned by the Church, while V&A went through 12 editions during Shakespeare's lifetime.
Thank you for this talk, it applies to so many other areas of knowledge and opinion today.
👏👏👏🤜🏻🤛an opinion is not the same as a researched, well constructed defendable position.
How many times are we supposed to answer the same questions?
I like Shakespeare being of humble beginnings and rising through the meritocracy of talent. But, I'm biased being American. Surely the King's Men were collaborative and thusly perhaps the script was a more communal effort
There must be Shakespeare contemporaries who wrote about him and his work. Am I wrong on this?
There were many. Unfortunately, they made the mistake of referring to him by his name, social rank, and other occupation (actor), rather than the town of his birth. This has allowed conspiracy minded people to claim that when people lauded the poet William Shakespeare, they didn't mean the William Shakespeare who was a member of the acting company which performed all of his plays.
@@Jeffhowardmeade Please clarify. I get the era's focus points, but after that what you have written is confusing.
@@alysencameron361 Shakespeare's fellows wrote about him al the time. Ben Jonson even dished dirt on him to a friend who took notes. Anti-Stratfordians (those who believe that someone else besides William Shakespeare of Stratford was the secret author of the works) claim either that William Shakespeare was a "front man" who took credit for works he didn't actually write, or that it was a pen name which was coincidentally the same as that of the actor from Stratford. Those who praised Shakespeare in print or in their private notes were therefore either praising the pen name, or were unaware that the actor William Shakespeare wasn't the real author.
That's the theory. It's absurd.
@@Jeffhowardmeade I agree. If the likes of Ben Jonson was criticizing him, then that is evidence he lived and breathed not only as an actor, but as a writer. The genius is usually criticized by their peers, and to me this validates Shakespeare's existence as history states. All that being said, I'm bored with his work. It's been more than 400 years since his death, let him rest and give me some other playwriter's words. Surely Jonson and Fox deserve some attention.
@@alysencameron361 We'll have to agree to disagree about Shakespeare. Been a fan for 40 years and still not bored of him. I do like Jonson (though he's sometimes a bit harder to follow), as well as Beaumont.
By "Fox", are you referring to the Jonson play Volpone, or Alan Fox?
What made Shakespeare plays and sonnets stand out over time as apposed to any other authors plays
He created vibrant, fully-formed characters where his peers generally wrote stock, one-dimensional ones. He gave them deep thoughts. He also gave them great poetry to speak. Even so, he wasn't considered to be the greatest poet ever until more than a century after he died.
Seems to me, Dimmy, that you haven’t read Jonson’s encomium to Shakespeare in the which the ‘Soul if the Age’ is said to ‘shine forth’ as an eternal constellation who influences chides and cheers the ‘drooping stage’, who ‘far outshines’ his contemporary playwriting peers of the 1580’s, Lyly, Marlowe and Kyd and who Is incomparably superior to the great Classical playwrights and all those who ‘since from their ashes come’. Obviously the greatest playwright ever then ... derr!
@@alexanderwaugh7036 Seems to me, Lord Clownhair, that you're just desperate for an insult, and trying to act superior is the only trick in your bag.
@@Jeffhowardmeade "Lord Clownhair" is actually pretty funny. But it didn't address his point which seems to have directly contradicted yours.
@@bozo5632 What did Jonson say about Shakespeare when he wasn't being paid to write a blurb for the First Folio? He "wanted art", he should have blotted out a thousand of the lines he wrote, and often wrote things which were ridiculous. The poet Ben Jonson thought was the greatest of his age was Ben Jonson.
Aside from that, Shakespeare was considered a lesser light in the poetic firmament, outshined by Beaumont, Fletcher, Davenant, and Jonson himself, until well into the 18th Century.
Better?
I first heard of the authorship debate through a lecture by the former theatre critic of the NY Times, John Simon. I was a college student from a blue collar background and my immediate thought was to deny William as the author because he lacked a college degree is sheer snobbery. Consider that Richard Pryor, Woody Allen and Bob Dylan never finished college. A degree won't necessarily make one a writer.
I agree that the idea that someone without a college degree can't produce great books, however I don't feel that is the argument given.
The concern about William Shakespeare is that there's no direct evidence of his creativity. For example, let's say that have letters that we know were written by William Shakespeare and that have good "provenance" (I believe that's the correct term), so we know that they were from him and left in his will etc. If we had that it would not matter how he obtained his education, or if he had an education at all, it would just matter that he demonstrated the talent.
Like Bob Dylan as you mention, we know Bob Dylan's creative work, and we know he didn't have a college degree, but I don't feel that we have the evidence of Shakespeare's work or the connection between William Shakespeare and the Shakespeare plays
@@smoothbeak Reread your first sentence. I have been following variations on The Who wrote Shakespeare debate for years and one of the leading anti-Avonian arguments is that William -- generally called "the man from Stratford" in these proclamations -- did not have a college degree.
The rest of your post makes no argument. There are no extant letters from other famous literary figures, such as Chaucer or Marlowe.
What you're essentially saying is because you are co-existent with Dylan, we know him and his work.
@@susanwozniak6354 The first sentence was a typo, sorry for that.
It should of course read: "I agree that the idea that someone without a college degree can't produce great books is not an accurate one, however I don't feel that is the argument given."
In other words, genius can arise from circumstances that are inexplicable.
However then I went on to say essentially that just because genius can arise, does not mean that it's particularly common (otherwise it would not be called genius) and there would information of that genius.
I mean look at Leonardo da Vinci. From memory he was not given an education was he? And yet you have clear information that shows the evolution of his ideas. So for Leonardo we can say, he started life humbly, and used genius and made great works.
I don't believe the same can be done for William Shakespeare. That does not mean that he didn't write the plays, but it does mean (to me at least) that we don't know whether he did.
@@susanwozniak6354 Is there direct evidence that William Shakespeare had a college degree?
@@smoothbeak There is no direct evidence that he had one, and evidence from many sources that he did not. Ben Jonson said that Shakespeare had "Small Latine and less Greeke". Small Latin is what was taught to grammar school kids. Jonson told William Drummond that Shakespeare "Wanted Arte". Vicar John Ward of Stratford wrote in his journal that he had been told that Shakespeare was a "natural poet" without any art. The anonymous author of The Second Return From Parnassus wrote (satirically) that university men don't write good plays, and Shakespeare beats them all. Shakespeare was described by Francis Beaumont as "without scholarship".
And ironically, this is what makes Shakespeare great. He didn't lace his works with obscure classical allusions in order to show off his erudition like many of his peers did. He used language freely and ignored rules of Aristotelian poetics. Had Shakespeare gotten an Elizabethan university education, we wouldn't be taking about him right now. What makes Shakespeare Shakespeare would have been educated out of him.
Thank God he never went to university.
Has anyone compared the Earl of Oxford s writing style with that of Shakespeare, surely that would be persuasive.
Hi Ed, unfortunately it is not persuasive. Supporters of the earl describe poems that were published under his name as juvenilia and the promise of things to come, showing early use of the sonnet style and other experimental poetry . Stratfordians generally describe his poems as drivel, the work of a second rate poet who could never be compared to Shakespeare, who was only praised as a great writer in his time because of the sychophancy of others around him. See ruclips.net/video/He5uoVIBQxk/видео.html for a comparison.
@@ContextShakespeare1740 hi I read some of de vere a poems a few days ago, they seem very thin compared to the compression of the Shakespearean style. As. ee cummings once said, of course Bacon wrote Shakespeare, luckily so did every one else, including Shakespeare
@@edfisher6434 well unfortunately, that's true the latest view seams to be that if Shakespeare of Stratford wrote them he had a lot of help, see my other comment above. I think there is influence from Bacon, there is certainly influence from Marlowe. Mr Fisher have you heard of Fisher's folly? Very interesting, possible Shakesperean writing den in the 1580's.
Well here's a sample of de vere's deathless verse. It's kind of in the style of Baldrick, with a bit of Vogon poetry, and a dash of William McGonagall:
“These Beauties Make Me Die”
1 What cunning can express
2 The favour of her face,
3 To whom in this distress
4 I do appeal for grace?
5 A thousand Cupids fly
6 About her gentle eye.
7 From whence each throws a dart,
8 That kindleth soft sweet fire,
9 Within my sighing heart,
10 Possessed by desire;
11 No sweeter life I try,
12 Than in her love to die.
13 The Lily in the field,
14 That glories in his white,
15 For pureness now must yield
16 And render up his right;
17 Heaven pictured in her face
18 Doth promise joy and grace.
19 Fair Cynthia’s silver light,
20 That beats on running streams,
21 Compares not with her white,
22 Whose hairs are all sunbeams;
23 Her virtues so do shine,
24 As day unto mine eyne.
25 With this there is a Red
26 Exceeds the Damask Rose,
27 Which in her cheeks is spread,
28 Whence every favour grows;
29 In sky there is no star
30 That she surmounts not far.
31 When Phoebus from the bed
32 Of Thetis doth arise,
33 The morning, blushing red,
34 In fair carnation wise,
35 He shows it in her face
36 As Queen of every grace.
37 This pleasant Lily white,
38 This taint of roseate red,
39 This Cynthia’s silver light,
40 This sweet fair Dea spread,
41 These sunbeams in mine eye,
42 These beauties make me die.
Cupids fly around her gentle eye!!!!! Wondeful (she popped her eyeball out presumably, so they could fly around it!) And .... roseate red .... as opposed to bluebell red, I suppose.
Check out the poem that Marty left below...it shows a distinct similarity between Vere and Shakespeare. Unless Shakespeare was stealing the imagery used by the Earl of Oxford...they are the same people
the imagery is pure Shakespeare -
"With this there is a Red
Exceeds the Damask Rose,
Which in her cheeks is spread,"
vs.
Sonnet 130
"I have seen roses damask'd, red and white, /
But no such roses see I in her cheeks."
edit: above not below
I see it 2 ways. 1 way, The actual Shakespeare "stole" extra education and was able to write the plays and sonnets himself. The 2nd way- He was a "helper" to said Earl who didn't want to be seen as a "lesser" person and they had an agreement to where the Earl would help Shakespeare rise in society and not be "piss poor" like he had been all his life.
Either way, the works of Shakespeare are taught at many levels of the Education System. I'm in America and here they start us in as early as Jr. High (6th Grade age 11 or so) with Romeo and Juliet, not going so in depth with it, but just showing it as an example. The Higher the grade we are in (Primary Education ends at Grade 12 here) the more in depth we look at it.
Thank you for pointing this video out to me! I have seen so many saying he was a "fake" or a "fraud" and all I can think is....Who really gives a rats patookie because the man lined his pockets, provided for his family and for all I know, still gets royalties for his ancestors. That's what I would call a good life plan. Getting things set up in your life that 400 years later your family line is POSSIBLY still getting SOME (even if very little) money from your works, which are now timeless classics.
Royalties were not paid 400 years ago. The author sold the work outright or it was owned by the company he was writing it for.
Shakespeare was smart ,and successful , enough to become a sharer in the acting company and theatre he was in. So he got his share of the profits.
As to passing his wealth down ,his line died out pretty quickly.
His son Hamnet died ,leaving two sisters.,who gave birth to sons but these died pretty young. One of these grandsons by his daughter Judith was given "Shakespeare " as a first name , so in some way it shows how prominent the name was.
The boy died as a child. Life was chancy for nippers then.
Copyright, royalties, the concept of the ownership of intellectual property did not exist at the time & place WS lived. Grand idea, though.
Shakespeare wasn't 'piss poor' His father was mayor of Stratford twice (?) he made a very successful if dubious living and was able to send William to Grammar School. They were more of the 'Middling Sort' Oldman Shakespeare is a fascinating man in his own right. One thing he wasn't, despite going bankrupt at one point and being charged for dodgy dealing, was 'piss poor'
On the other hand, Biblical scholarship started in the mid-nineteenth century, too. I think it took the scientific revolution to put the use of scientific tools into literary criticism
Plus adding a bit of salt and pepper to the Shakespeare lampoon 'Upstart Crow' TV series.
If Oxford, Marlowe, Bacon, or whoever worked so hard in their lifetimes to keep their authorship of the plays a secret, I think we should honor their wish.
It may not have been a wish, but forced upon the real author, because at the time it would be unacceptable for a Nobleman (Edward De Vere), to have written them.
@@arthurchoate5476So why did he publish so much mediocre poetry if it was taboo to do so? Was it only verboten of it was good?
@@Jeffhowardmeade Hi Jeff, Edward de Vere was known to have been a patron of the arts and a writer of poetry during the Elizabethan era. However, his known poems were not published with his name attached during his lifetime. Many of his poems were circulated among court circles, often in manuscript form, and were later attributed to him by scholars.
Further, do you agree that a Nobleman would be more likely a patron of the arts and it would be taboo for him to be the actual writer of the plays?
How sure are you that he wrote the plays 25%...50%...75?%
@@arthurchoate5476 Several poems were published under De Vere's name during his lifetime, at least one at his direction. He was also noted by several critics as a writer of comedy and "enterlude". I don't believe anyone ever said he wrote whole plays. It's possible either he or someone under his patronage wrote The Famous Victories of Henry V, as the 11th Earl of Oxford makes an appearance not found in the history books. When Shakespeare rewrote it into the Henry IV/V plays, he deleted the 11th Earl. De Vere was a great patron of poets in his younger years, but by the time Shakespeare arrived on the scene, De Vere was broke and living on the dole.
De Vere almost certainly wrote something. I'm 100% certain it wasn't the works of Shakespeare.
@@Jeffhowardmeade Could you provide a poem that was written under his name?
Your enthusiasm for the subject has clearly inspired some excellent research on your part. However, it's important to remember that our debate remains largely speculative. Given the proximity of the plays to their author, absolute certainty is elusive. While it's certainly fascinating to delve into this topic, let's ensure we approach it with a measure of open-mindedness.
Dr Kat I think you have a great attitude to this debate. I can't comment on the opinions of the 19th century doubters, but 21st Century doubters do not think that the glover's son couldn't have written the plays because of his background. It is insulting to suggest this. It is also incorrect to say that little is known about William from Stratford upon Avon. For a person of his background who died four hundred years there is a huge amount known about him. He did very well for himself and died a wealthy Gentleman. I think the reason that people doubt his authorship is that despite the amount of historical evidence we have of his lifetime none of it points to him being a writer. I eagerly await a book, co-authored by Alexander Waugh, due to be published soon about Shakespeare's sources. I think that this book will be of interest to any Shakespeare scholar whatever their belief about who the author was. Genius isn't just born it is nurtured. Shakespeare didn't invent all his stories out of his enormous brain, he used his enormous brain to read and study extensively and used the vast knowledge which he acquired in his written work. Once it is revealed that Shakespeare must have used a certain source, or must have had knowledge from personal experience then it leads to the question of how he obtained this knowledge. This is what I believe lies at the heart of the authorship debate. Who does the evidence point to? To quote Mark Twain "Shakespeare biographies resemble those huge brontosaurus skeletons, reconstructed from 'nine bones and six hundred barrels of plaster of Paris". No offence intended.
Thank you for watching and for your insightful comment. I will also be very interested to read that upcoming book.
It would be wonderful if someone has found a way to fully map the networks for the transmission of knowledge during the early modern period - both sides of the argument have relied on conjecture about this matter, in order to support their own opinion.
Alas, it has proved difficult to obtain consensus on this matter and I think it would require the rediscovery of a collection of letters or an inventory of a personal library for us to get this in any new and meaningful way.
Watch out for Waugh. He just makes stuff up when he needs to. If he doesn't provide a source for a claim, don't trust it. If he does provide a citation, check it.
This is excellent advice, for everything! Always check the citation and source - thank you!
Exactly, you should always check sources.
@@alexanderwaugh7036 They can't. You never provide any.
It is far more important to *live* the questions especially those questions that have no easy answer. Who the person was who wrote those plays is a worthy question to live with, imho. It is an entranceway into the Elizabethan world. But after living with this question for decades, here's where I'm at with it now. Some glover's son was just born curious, thirsty for knowledge, eager to learn. Somehow, he did. (Many scenarios can be imagined.) And he was a hustler. He got out of Stratford, got his writing in front of the right eyes, went to London, and everyone knows the rest.
Perhaps this point of view comes from being an American and learning about Abraham Lincoln, the greatest President this nation has yet produced and an exceptional human being. He had little education as a child. His generation were still clearing the land; there was little time for book learning. His mother taught him the alphabet & how to read the single book owned by his family, the Bible. Then he borrowed books from neighbors, and so on. Lincoln's natural, seemingly in-born curiosity led him all the way to the presidency where he freed the slaves and saved the union. So to my (American) mind, it really is not so astounding that a rural child with natural curiousity & motivation to learn could and provably *did* manage to self-educate and achieve things that could and did change the world. But in 19th century Illinois, there were few people to mock, distract, disparage or bully the young Abe out of his love of books, while in 16th/17th century England, I gather there would have been plenty of folks determined to keep young Will in his place -- down. That would be the only difference as far as I can tell.
That said, a few months ago I watched a series of 3 documentaries about that Norwegian fellow who has developed his own Alt-Will theory involving ciphers appearing in printed editions of WS's works from the time. Somehow, the Norwegian & crew wound up going to that famous island where many pirate treasures were buried, and digging in a swamp. It was a fun doc to watch! I'll try to find the series & add a link. Who knows? But it is fun to think about!
Edit: That video series on the Norwegian guy's Alt-Will theory is
Cracking the Shakespeare Code Part 1
ruclips.net/video/tNL0XODSMwU/видео.html
Atleast we know that Abraham Lincol had an education, of which we know not of Shakespeare since theres no record of him attending grammar school.
@@erikuslatinevivit348 Lincoln was mostly self-educated, except for some schooling from itinerant teachers of less than 12 months aggregate.[26] He taught himself the law.
Thank you for engaging with this wonderful and all absorbing topic in a serious way. It is an oft repeated and incorrect Stratfordian canard that doubt about the identity of Shake-Speare emerged only in the 19th century. I am putting a lot of examples of much earlier authorship doubt into presentations on my RUclips channel. The one I uploaded two days ago is called ‘John Davies of Hereford Knew’. The cumulative evidence of these contemporary witnesses is overwhelming. I do hope you might find the time to look in on a few of them. Alexander
R.I.P.
It’s kind of like asking a believer if the Bible is “The word ofGod”? For many there is no debate.For others, there is room for debate.
Except there is no evidence one way or the other for whether the Bible is the word of God, but there is a pile of evidence that the words of Shakespeare were written by him.
I think the most telling argument in favour of the "Man From Stratford" is that almost all of the alternative authors died before Shakespeare stopped writing. Marlowe, de Vere, and Queen Elizabeth all died and yet the plays kept on coming. Only Bacon outlived Shakespeare, and Bacon was such a credit-hog that there's no way he would have allowed someone else's name to be attached to his work.
There are no manuscripts so theres no evidence of writing.
@@erikuslatinevivit348 What about three pages in the manuscript of Sir Thomas More? Those are by Shakespeare.
The dating of the plays is very much in question. Almost half of the plays were first published in 1623, 5 years after the Stratford man died. Publishing dates are not the dates they were written. There are plausible arguments for much earlier dating of the works than is put forward by Stratfordians.
@@enheduannapax7988 None of these "plausible arguments" involve a printed play, a recorded performance, a copied passage, or even a passing mention. Shakespeare did not work in a vacuum. His plays referred to events of the day and his style kept up with the times.
"Insert topical gag here" 😂
Until recently, in the span of history, women were thought to be incapable of intelligent thoughts. Those people were so wrong. There will always be that group of people so in awe of their own intelligence they will try their best to convince everyone else that they know a hidden truth. Personally I don't care who wrote the plays. I just enjoy them for what they are.
As an artist , I can’t believe that da Vinci , Monet, Degas and so many other artists, could produce such wonderful works. They also were “ uneducated “. Why do we question ?
Lovely point, Jennifer! Part of how da Vinci could produce his more scientific works was because he hadn't received an "education", ie, an academic education taught in Latin with all the proscribed texts that told students how the world was (and because his mind was naturally inquiring and questioning). He could certainly read and write, but he made observations of his own to sort out what was going on. Education is important, but sometimes it can also be a source of blindness "oh, I know this, Pliny had the answer" or whatever. And why are some people questioned and others not? Because "genius" can only reside in an appropriate vessel or else the world of the questioner is shaken to the core.
There work did not require a super abundance of specialized knowledge, which the 'Shakespeare" canon does.
@@kinglear5952.......Da Vinci was literally an engineer.
I had no idea that opinions about “the authorship” would be so heated! Being an American born and raised, I was never introduced to this question in school. I only came upon the controversy in adulthood. The body of works by the so named Shakespeare are magnificent and the actual author is immaterial in my opinion.
My I just share with you an ACTUAL poem by the Earl? It is not just bad, but awful. There may be poets on the other side of the galaxy who are worse than this, but I seriously doubt it.
“These Beauties Make Me Die”
1 What cunning can express
2 The favour of her face,
3 To whom in this distress
4 I do appeal for grace?
5 A thousand Cupids fly
6 About her gentle eye.
7 From whence each throws a dart,
8 That kindleth soft sweet fire,
9 Within my sighing heart,
10 Possessed by desire;
11 No sweeter life I try,
12 Than in her love to die.
13 The Lily in the field,
14 That glories in his white,
15 For pureness now must yield
16 And render up his right;
17 Heaven pictured in her face
18 Doth promise joy and grace.
19 Fair Cynthia’s silver light,
20 That beats on running streams,
21 Compares not with her white,
22 Whose hairs are all sunbeams;
23 Her virtues so do shine,
24 As day unto mine eyne.
25 With this there is a Red
26 Exceeds the Damask Rose,
27 Which in her cheeks is spread,
28 Whence every favour grows;
29 In sky there is no star
30 That she surmounts not far.
31 When Phoebus from the bed
32 Of Thetis doth arise,
33 The morning, blushing red,
34 In fair carnation wise,
35 He shows it in her face
36 As Queen of every grace.
37 This pleasant Lily white,
38 This taint of roseate red,
39 This Cynthia’s silver light,
40 This sweet fair Dea spread,
41 These sunbeams in mine eye,
42 These beauties make me die.
My favourite couplet is:
"A thousand Cupids fly
About her gentle eye.
"
Now THAT'S funny. A thousand cupids flying AROUND her eye. Because her eye just popped out or something? What a moron this man was.
@Andro mache Of course it matters. If the plays were written by a man from Stratford with a grammar school education, then it's a wonderful story showing how far education can take you. It makes nonsense of titles and class barriers.
This is exactly why the snobs want to tear down Shakespeare. They HATE the idea of an ordinary person doing well. They LIKE class barriers. That's why Prince Charles dislikes the idea of a common person being the author. Because if breeding is NOT the basis of merit, then his whole life is without meaning.
So yeh. It matters.
It also matters because Edward de Vere was a piece of shit as a human being. That would not prevent him being the author of course. What WOULD prevent him from being the author is that he was a piece of shit as a WRITER, as his terrible poetry eloquently demonstrates.
Right@Andro mache let's take it a point at a time. The onus is on YOU to prove that Shakespeare didn't go to school. The onus is on YOU to prove that his brothers were illiterate. OVer to you.
@Andro mache Whooah. You are attacking ME. If you attack my arguments that's fine. Personal attacks are beneath my notice, as are your evidence-free, snob-based 'theories'. Good day to you.
@Andro mache "His siblings would have attended school with him. They were illiterate."
You just keep pulling stuff out of your [expletive deleted], don't you? Nobody has ever claimed that his siblings were illiterate. Here's his brother Gilbert's signature as a witness to a deed:
shakespearedocumented.folger.edu/file/er279-witnesses
Speaking for myself, I try - though how well is up for debate - to be respectful to anti-Stratfordians that I talk to, but their arguments all seem to boil down to three elements: (1) We don't know as much about such a great author's life as we would like, and to them, that fact is cause for suspicion; (2) The supposed "true" author's identity was hidden by a complex subterfuge, for which there is no physical, forensic evidence; and (3) Virtually all "evidence" they present for Shakespeare not being the true author is based on codes and cryptograms hidden in Shakespeare's (and others') texts and are only deciphered by the anti-Strats' highly idiosyncratic readings of them. I've grown weary hearing these same elements over and over again. When I ask the anti-Strats for physical evidence of the subterfuge, they are never forthcoming. Regrettably, the constant repetition of these arguments shortens my patience.
Well, I found the way you laid that out to be very respectful - of course, perhaps that is because I agree with you!
Nevertheless, I am determined to keep engaging with those who question the authorship as I am bloody-minded and want to provide a counterpoint to the argument the academics refuse to discuss it because we are part of the conspiracy.
Thank you for commenting and I hope you enjoyed the video.
The most obvious physical evidence being the signatures all spelling a different name than in the sources of the author. Is that irrellevant to you because you lack patience?
@@erikuslatinevivit348 - That's not a compelling argument because spelling in the Elizabethan era wasn't as standardized as it is today. Also, signers would occasionally abbreviate their names in their signatures, which could be mistaken for a different name. For more on the spelling of Shakespeare's name in Elizabethan/Jacobean documents, check out the website shakespeareauthorship (dot) com and its article "The Spelling and Pronunciation of Shakespeare's Name." Also the website oxfraud (dot) com contains an article on Shakespeare's signatures titled simply "Will’s Handwriting." And any hard, testable evidence of the plot to front Shakespeare in place of the "true" author has still not been presented.
@@erikuslatinevivit348 "The most obvious physical evidence being the signatures all spelling a different name "
Wow. So he wasn't a front-man at all, then?
I have heard (and I am not sure if these are all accurate statements) that there is no written record from the time period that shows that William Shakespeare was the author, and no physical evidence that he was a writer, no letters, books, etc.
That alone I find very unusual and would lead me to doubt that he was an author of books.
If I am mistaken about that then I would be more likely to believe that he was the author.
The question of authorship often elicits comments in the manner of, does it really matter who wrote the works? A rose by any other name perhaps? It's eluded to here also. Imagine if we never knew who painted works by van Gough , Rembrant or Turner. Their art would be as good but the context of the paintings and their lives surely adds another dimension to our appreciation.
While it CAN add to our appreciation for some authors, Shakespeare didn't write his stories. He took existing books and plays and rewrote them, only better. He used the names of local Stratford people in some early plays, and on occasion you can see his own experience poking through (Constance's grief in King John or schoolboy Will getting a Latin pop quiz in Merry Wives), but mostly it's just his source material with funnier jokes, set to beautiful language.
@@Jeffhowardmeade Actually, when you think about it, Shakespeare's plays are like movie adaptations of books, both fictional and non-fictional, for television and films.
Hey Dr Kat, I've really enjoyed your work I must say. The way that you describe people around the Tudor makes me think that you were almost there yourself in a way!
You mention the idea that has been put forth as to whether a "lower class" or "lower educated" person could write the plays, and essentially I think you said that was a bit of an elitist concept, though you did not use that particular word. I don't think that the argument is that *no one* of humble origins could have wrote the plays, I think it's more that the particular individual in question could not have, or more accurately that there's not much reason to believe that he did. This is quite an important point here, because much of the time the greatest art, writing, music etc comes from those of humble beginnings and quite often it is those who have all the "advantages" who really have very little creative ability.
So personally I am of the view that the conventional attribution of the author is incorrect (in a nutshell)
If the writer of Shakespeare's works did not need to be a nobleman, why could Shakespeare not have written them?
@@Jeffhowardmeade He could have, but by that piece of knowledge anyone could have written them.
Genius can arise in anybody, in a very inexplicable way, for example you might find a wonderful musician who is able to write a composition as good as Mozart but who did not have the same musical training, but in that individual you will still see signs and evidence of that genius.
As far as I can see the only evidence of William Shakespeare's abilities is the plays themselves, and that's the issue, because the link between the play's and the person are well non-existent as far as I can see.
Does that clear up my thoughts on the matter?
@@smoothbeak And yet there are many links between the plays and the man from Stratford. I can literally go on all day about them. Anti-Stratfordians pile caveats onto the evidence until they declare that it's doesn't exist. But it does exist. In heaps.
If you would like to hear about it, let me know.
@@Jeffhowardmeade I'm happy to hear some of them :)
@@smoothbeak Let's start with the internal evidence of the plays.
#1. In The Shrew, Christopher Sly says he's from Burton Heath, a town just outside Stratford. Shakespeare's aunt and uncle lived there. Sly mentions Marian Hacket, the "fat alewife of Wincot", and her daughter Cicily. Wincot was the village where Shakespeare's mother was born. There was a Hacket family living there during his youth.
#2. Bardolph and Fluellyn get into a fight in Henry V. Both names appear (along with that of Shakespeare's father) on a list of nine Stratford men who had not been attending church.
#3. In Merry Wives, a Welsh schoolmaster gives an impromptu Latin quiz to the only schoolboy in all of Shakespeare's works. During Shakespeare's youth, the schoolmaster in Statford was Welsh. The schoolboy in Merry Wives is named William.
#4. On two occasions in the Sonnets, Shakespeare writes: "My name is Will". In Sonnet 145, he makes a pun on his wife's name, Hathaway.
#5. Leonard Digges, who refers in the First Folio to Shakespeare's "Stratford Moniment", was the stepson of one of the executors of Shakespeare's estate (not technically internal evidence, as his poem was in the prefatory material).
Actual #5. In 1579, a Stratford woman drowned in the Avon. A coroner's inquest determined that it was an accident, not suicide, so she could be buried in hallowed ground. This is identical to what happens to Ophelia. The Stratford woman was named Katherine Hamlett.
#6a. In 1596, Shakespeare's son Hamnet died. In the hyponasal Warwickshire dialect, Hamnet is spoken "Hamblet".
#6b. Hamnet was named for Hamnet Sadler, a local baker and friend of Shakespeare's. In Shakespeare's will, he leaves a bequest to "Hamlett Sadler".
#6c. In the same year Hamnet died, Shakespeare produced King John. In it, Constance delivers a monologue on grief of the loss of her son. As one who recently lost a child, I can tell you that it's positively heart wrenching.
I'm not going to claim all of the Warwichshire terms Shakespeare used, as some are disputed, nor his insider knowledge of leather trades, as anyone could have known those and they aren't specific to Warwickshire.
I can go into all of the people who claimed Shakespeare was from Stratford, if you wish. Just let me know.
I have little interest in the works of shakespeare, whosoever he was, but i love a good puzzle, and its this debate that has taken me into the Tudor world, and what a fantastically tangled web it is. On Stratford Man, if nothing else, he knew how to make money, give the guy that at least. 400 years from now, will people argue over the identity of Walt Disney, who produced entertainment for, well, nearly a century already. Mysteries cause people to use their minds, THAT is the important part .
No one is saying the works of Shakespeare become less genius, revered or interesting, by virtue of who penned them. It may not matter to some who the author may be but it does matter. I do not understand why the comment is made. They can be enjoyed for what they are by both sides of the debate without devaluing the genius and insight of the human condition the author relates. But if it was the man from Stratford or Bacon or Oxford et al, or all of them, why wouldn't we want to know.
Just discovered you......may I chime in as saying ..you are "the bomb diggity"!!!!...I feel a Dr Kat binge watch is in the future for moi....greetings from Chicago !!
I have enjoyed watching this video and reading the ensuing comment stream. I've also watched and read a bit from the folks who say Shakespeare was not the author of his plays. I freely admit to being fairly uneducated in the subject, but my feelings? Are that the Anti-Strats remind me more and more of the Covid-19-Is-Just-The-Flu folks, who strive to make their case by picking out specific bits of information, taking them out of context, clouding them in a ton of conjecture, and reaching conclusions with no truly strong supporting evidence. It is a very interesting debate, but truly the other side is lacking in it's fact based contributions. Believe me, I am like you Dr. Kat in that if there is empirical evidence? Show me! Let's get to the truth.
One thing I will say about collaboration, is that all writers can be said to collaborate to one degree or another much of the time. Some writers more than others, and also some projects require more collaboration than others. Me asking my sister to help me come up with appropriate surnames for a couple of families in the novel I am currently working on, along with some information about the culture they come from and the history behind the names and the roots of the culture etc., being a very small example.
Really good points Kat the Scribe. Thanks.
Disappointing to be called an “Anti-Strat” and a Covid denier. This comment actually seems to fit your own description of someone in an Ivory Tower.
Mark Anderson and Charlton Ogburn have voluminous books on this subject. The Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship is a good source for articles and reading recommendations.
@@enheduannapax7988 I'm sorry if I've misrepresented you. I also find the Oxford sites useful. Their timeline of de Vere's life is a sad catalogue of the life of a useless wastrel, whose best creative efforts were his begging letters.
The John Dee stuff is very compelling
If only it were documented, and not something cooked up by occult conspiracy theorists.
@@Jeffhowardmeade looks like there was a first rule, “no one openly documents Shakespeare!”
@@Diaphanic1 Strange, then, that I can name about 50 people of the top of my head who did. What rule breakers!
@@Jeffhowardmeade I was just having fun with it…Perhaps I didn’t get what you were saying….I’m Edward de Vere camp or whoever it was
@@Diaphanic1 And I'm in the Shakespeare camp, and that, too, is just for fun. As conspiracy theories go, the Shakespeare Authorship Discussion (SAD) is among the least consequential. But yes, I can name more than two score contemporaries of Shakespeare who documented him as the actor, gentleman, and poet from Stratford.
Loving how the battle is going on here. It's so much more productive when none of the participants can delete the others' comments.
Thank you. Some interesting argument there.
I won't argue very strongly for one position or another - but I insist there is reasonable doubt.
It would only be reasonable if the claims made by Anti-Stratfordians were true.
They aren't.
@@Jeffhowardmeade Not even one claim is true?
@@bozo5632 Not their claims about anyone or anything in the Early Modern era. The Marlovians aren't bad about facts, but they just have to make up a faked death and bam! there you have their entire argument. Oxfordians and Baconians have to either invent or twist just about everything about Shakespeare and his works and world in order to make their cuckoo hypotheses work.
@@Jeffhowardmeade I'm not going to advocate for Marlowe, but - would you say there was nothing odd about his death? Nothing at all?
I don't know how probable it might be, but it doesn't seem impossible.
@@bozo5632 Given all of the odd things about his life, his death fits in quite well. He wasn't in any great judicial peril (he was at liberty, after all), and was hanging with some unsavory sorts. Dying in fights was a surprisingly frequent cause of death among members of the London theater scene.
A committee headed by Francis Bacon is the most convincing arguement I've heard. It could just be William Shakespeare though.
You all seem to concentrate on Hamlet and the worthy plays. What about the knockabout rude humour? The crowd pleasers? what about the comic routines with dogs? Does this sort of stuff have Francis Bacon's stamp on it?
The theory goes that the actor Shakespeare threw that stuff in as crowd pleasers and because he knew the actors would have fun with it.
@@EmoBearRights H'mm I'm not sure that an assertion like this can be dignified with the word 'theory' unless there's some evidence to back it up.
As it happens we have a first hand star witness in Ben Jonson:
"I REMEMBER the players have often mentioned it as an honor to Shakespeare, that in his writing, whatsoever he penned, he never blotted out a line. My answer hath been, “Would he had blotted a thousand,” which they thought a malevolent speech. I had not told posterity this but for their ignorance, who chose that circumstance to commend their friend by wherein he most faulted; and to justify mine own candor, for I loved the man, and do honor his memory on this side idolatry as much as any. ...
Many times he fell into those things, could not escape laughter, as when he said in the person of Cæsar, one speaking to him: “Cæsar, thou dost me wrong.” He replied: “Cæsar did never wrong but with just cause; and such like, which were ridiculous. But he redeemed his vices with his virtues. There was ever more in him to be praised than to be pardoned."
Either Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare or Ben Jonson was a liar. I have no reason to believe that Ben Jonson was a liar.
And if there was a 'stigma of print' then why did Oxford allow his poems to be published?
Fair enough I'm not married to any particular theory although Johnson did describe Shakespeare as a 'poet ape' who stitched things together from several different sources but then we know that a lot of Shakespeare's works were more liberal adaptations from older sources than original material. The important thing is we have this works and they're great.
@@EmoBearRights You've been listening to Alexander Waugh, haven't you?
Here's the verse in question:
"Poor Poet-Ape, that would be thought our chief,
Whose works are e'en the frippery of wit,
From brokage is become so bold a thief,
As we, the robb'd, leave rage, and pity it.
At first he made low shifts, would pick and glean,
Buy the reversion of old plays; now grown
To a little wealth, and credit in the scene,
He takes up all, makes each man's wit his own:
And, told of this, he slights it. Tut, such crimes
The sluggish gaping auditor devours;
He marks not whose 'twas first: and after-times
May judge it to be his, as well as ours.
Fool! as if half eyes will not know a fleece
From locks of wool, or shreds from the whole piece? "
So which is the bit that says 'William Shakespeare'? It's a huge leap to assume that Shakespeare MUST be the target. Believe it or not other playwrights were available. But ... suppose he is, then according to this, his works are "e'en the fripperies of wit". Meaning the plays of Shakespeare are shallow. I think that's a fair criticism of some of them.
Secondly, he is accusing Shakespeare of plagiarism - just as Robert Greene had. Again, I can believe that might sometimes be a reasonable accusation. He certainly DID base (for example) Henry V, Hamlet, and King Lear on existing plays.
So ... Shakespeare is being accused of being a flippant plagiarist, and of buying up the rights to old plays. Fair enough. So what? Some of the plays genuinely are crap. I'd go along with that. But in what way is this saying that somebody else wrote the stuff?
Because it seems to me, for all its bile, that if it IS directed at the bard (and there's no way of proving that) then he is saying that Shakespeare DID write the plays.
In fact he accuses the 'poet ape' of nicking other peoples' lines and forgetting that he stole them in the first place. And the audience are lovin' it. Which is just a roundabout way of saying ... that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare.
By the way .... writers are ALWAYS accusing other writers of plagiarism. Steven Spielberg NEVER opens the scripts sent to him, because if he if he ever wrote anything remotely like one of those precious manuscripts, there would be a law suit.
Writers bitch about each other. Now THERE'S a surprise.
The thing that always gets me about shakespear is, that the plays always seem to be more written for the page than for performance. They just seem.. "strained" , "unauthentic" when you consider that they were writen to be "cast" in the broad brush of performance, and to, a what was a largly uneducated audience at that. The sonnets yeah you can get away with it but to capture and maintain the attention of a rucus london audience with eruudite and at times dence verse seems to me to be pushing the boundries of what would realisticly viable. Also the first folio works seem to pat with what would surly have been works of progrees with bits added and retracted when parts were deemed to work in performance and other bits less so. These performances were not created for historys sake, but for the sake of putting bums on seats and making money. Which ment getting and keeping the attention of a common audience. This is problematic giving the denceaty of the tex
Sorry for my spelling im feslexic
I'm coming back to this after a year. You make a point about your involvement in Shakespeare, and how if it was revealed that the author was different it wouldn't have a negative effect on you, yes that's true, but there are some people who are intimately connected with Shakespeare as currently understood, whereas as far as I can see you're more of a general historian.
Finding out that if was actually someone who was already remarkable, like Francis Bacon, or a brilliant poet, like Christopher Marlowe, would not cause too much hand wringing. Too learn that Shakespeare was a profoundly defective human being like Edward De Vere might be a bit hard to take.
We would also be left scratching out heads as to how a bunch of whackadoodles figured it out using warped history, bad Latin, goofy ciphers, and a complete misunderstanding of what makes Shakespeare great.
@@Jeffhowardmeade Yeah true, I personally do think it was Francis Bacon. I'm happy for it to be the Stratford-upon-Avon I just feel that there isn't much that makes me think that. To me Francis Bacon makes a lot of sense
@@smoothbeak Ben Jonson would never have said that Bacon had "...small Latin and less Greek," though he might have told William Drummond in private conversation that Bacon "wanted art" (because Bacon truly had no poetry in him). Of course, given that Drummond would have been in on the secret, why refer to Shakespeare in his private notes, and not Bacon?
@@Jeffhowardmeade Perhaps you can clear a few things up for me.
First, are you saying that Ben Johnson said that Bacon had "small Latin and less Greek" or am I misinterpreting you?
If he said that, what does that mean exactly? Genuinely a bit confuses here ta
@@smoothbeak Jonson said of Shakespeare "And though thou hadst small Latine, and lesse Greeke, From thence to honour thee, I would not seeke."
Which is true. Shakespeare was not a scholar. His works demonstrate a heavy dependence upon Latin classics, nearly always in English translation. Poets like Jonson would pepper their works with allusions to Greek philosophy to show off their scholarship. Shakespeare couldn't even be bothered to follow the rules of Aristotelian poetics. Jonson later told fellow poet John Drummond "that Shakespeare wanted art."
And it wasn't just Jonson. Poet Francis Beaumont wrote "I would let slipp if I had any in me scholler shippe. and from all Learninge keepe these lines as deare as Shakespeares best are, is our heyres shall teare Preachers apt to their Auditors to show how farr somtimes a mortall man may goe by ye dimme light of Nature"
Vicar John Ward of Stratford noted in his journal that "I have heard that Mr. Shakespeare was a natural wit without any art at all."
And finally, the anonymous author of an amateur play at Oxford wrote that "Few of the University pen plays well... why here's our fellow Shakespeare puts them all down."
If Shakespeare were really Francis Bacon, none of this would have been true. Bacon was perhaps the most educated man of his era. Everything he wrote was infused with learning, and was at the same time stiff and lifeless. His "jests" weren't funny. His poetry was bland. His one play was boring. Jonson actually wrote of Bacon "No man ever spake more neatly, more presly, more weightily, or suffer'd lesse emptinesse, lesse idlenesse, in what hee utter'd."
Yet of Shakespeare, Jonson wrote "He was, indeed, honest, and of an open and free nature, had an excellent phantasy, brave notions, and gentle expressions, wherein he flowed with that facility that sometimes it was necessary he should be stopped. “Sufflaminandus erat,” as Augustus said of Haterius. His wit was in his own power; would the rule of it had been so, too. Many times he fell into those things, could not escape laughter, as when he said in the person of Cæsar, one speaking to him, “Cæsar, thou dost me wrong.” He replied, “Cæsar did never wrong but with just cause;” and such like, which were ridiculous. But he redeemed his vices with his virtues. There was ever more in him to be praised than to be pardoned."
Nothing any of these men wrote of Shakespeare could apply to Bacon. Nor did it. They were two different people.
Could J.S. Bach have constructed his canon without his musical heritage and education? No, he wouldn't have the tools. So it is with the Man from Stratford upon Avon. I don't buy this "innate knowledge" argument.
The guy was an actor and there were these things called “books”. What else did he need?
It’s not the issue that people disbelieve in the Stratford-mans innate ability, he just proves to have knowledge and since education was a commodity endowed to few people, dependent on not only wealth but on status aswell, there seems to be something askew. With the evidence we have everything indicates that the Stratford-man not only lacks these prerequisite fundaments from his backgrounds, but that theres none that indicates that he acquired that knowledge.
Can you point to anything specifically in the works of Shakespeare which a wealthy gentleman from the Elizabethan middle class could not have known?
Caius Martius Coriolanus Well, except for the varying knowledge on everything from law to medicine and so on, it’s more the range and variety that. But more significantly and to the point, he had knowledge of foreign countries that a middle class person wouldnt have had because they couldnt have travelled so widely.
@@erikuslatinevivit348 Thank you for that very general response. I'm looking for a specific example. What is one thing about the law that the son of a Justice of the Peace would not have known? What medical knowledge did Shakespeare possess that he couldn't have learned from his physician son-in-law? What knowledge of foreign countries did he display which couldn't have been acquired from books or members of his acting company who we know DID travel extensively?
Caius Martius Coriolanus Nescio quid tam insolenter debeas respondere amice. Theres an article about his knowledge of the law on the Shakespeareoxfordfellowship’s website which I can recommend. How would he learn from his son in law when he moved away to pursue his career basically at the birth of his children? Books were very expensive at the time. He had very accurate knowledge of geographical things in Italy, which is suspicious as second hand knowledge.
@@erikuslatinevivit348 Where did Ben Jonson learn about the law in order to write his play The Case is Altered? From this book:
lawlibrary.wm.edu/wythepedia/index.php/Commentaries,_or_Reports_of_Edmund_Plowden
The Common Law was a lot more common in those days. How else would a non-lawyer like John Shakespeare manage to become a justice of the peace?
Contrary to your assertion that books were expensive, the actor Edward Alleyn purchased a copy of "Shaksper Sonnets" for five pence. Other books, for example Holingshed's Chronicles, could cost a pound. Luckily for Shakespeare, he was raised well off, and became moreso as an adult. But if money - were - an impediment, he just happened to be friends with a printer by the name of Richard Field. Richard Field, it turns out, was the printer of a surprising number of Shakespeare's primary sources, as well as everything Shakespeare himself wrote for publication.
Shakespeare certainly had enough money--or access--to this book:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theatrum_Orbis_Terrarum?wprov=sfla1
The 1591 edition accidentally places Padua in Lombardy, rather than in Venice, where it belonged. Someone who had been to those places would not have made such a mistake.
But Shakespeare made those mistakes all the time. He gives both Venice and Vienna royal dukes. He has Valentine rushing to catch the tide from a city that was as far from the ocean as it was from his destination. Oh, and that trial in The Merchant of Venice (which has no canals) is a total farce. No lawyer would have written that.
In any case, I'm still waiting for you to give me an example of anything that William Shakespeare could not have known. Not areas of study, but SPECIFIC DETAILS. What medical information could he not have possessed? What law could he not have known? What detail about Italy was beyond his knowledge.
Give me specifics.
The question is important because HISTORY is important. That should be readily evident. Did the 24-year old butcher's assistant w/no documented education write Hamlet? Or, did the 17th Earl of Oxford write it as it contains dozens of aspects about his travel, incidents, conflicts, scholarship, playwright/poet, & life as a courtier? The Shadow of Stratford sounds like a myth. Able to read books (no libraries at the time) in ancient languages (where did he learn so many by age 24). I don't care who wrote the plays & sonnets. It definitely wasn't the Shadow as Shakpere man is called by dozens of writers of the day including Ben Jonson. You're wrong about the dislike. The Trust is invited to all of the Oxford Fellowships mtgs & activities. Derek Jacobi & Mark Rylance are sober and gentleman about this question. Stanley Wells admitted that there is no evidence Shakpere wrote the plays and the Trust has never accepted their invitation. Neither have they accepted the offer of 75,000 GBP to debate this issue.
"I don't care who wrote the plays and sonnets."
You also don't care about facts. You are repeating a bunch of false claims about both Shakespeare and Edward De Vere.
Doubts about the authorship did NOT begin in the 1800s and are not connected to the eugenics movement. That is a either a bald-faced lie or the worst scholarship ever. Along with the “snobbery” charge it’s just another ad hominem attack on Oxfordians to scare off anyone who dares to question the Stratford myth which supports a huge tourist industry and would be a giant embarrassment to orthodox Stratfordians if proved.
Many thanks, Dr. Kat. It's an interesting intellectual argument. I am in no way an expert but what I personally find most interesting is how and whether the sonnets and the tragedies might line up with their author's life history. The sonnets in particular are very difficult to make sense of at face value when I read them as a whole. My own impression is that Oxford's life story might line up very well. The "classist" argument seems way over the top - Will from Stratford may have been perfectly capable of writing these works, but it seems more likely to me that Oxford actually did write them. At the same time, the academic closed-mindedness on the controversy seems every bit as ridiculous. I'm happy to stay on the fringes, but it's a question that has intrigued a lot of bright people over centuries, and maybe for good reason. Anyway, I much appreciate your take on this and I could not agree more that it's the debate itself that I enjoy.
Most of the alignment with the biography of Oxford is assumed. The idea that he wished to persuade This person or that to marry his daughter supposes he gave a damn about them. There's no evidence in all of his extant letters that he cared one bit. He didn't raise them or pay for their keep. Their maternal grandfather, Lord Burghley, did that. It was he who tried to get Southampton and Pembroke to marry his granddaughters. He also hired poets to dedicate poetry to these earls. One of them was most likely William Shakespeare.
More fakery from Dimmy! You have no evidence to support any these fatuous statements.
@@alexanderwaugh7036 One would expect Lord Clownhair to have a better understanding of his own hero. Professor Nelson transcribed De Vere's letters. None of them express an interest in the wellbeing of his daughters, who were in Burghley's keeping. After Burghley died, his son Robert wrote a letter to his granddaughters' guardian, a Mr. Hyckes, warning him to keep an eye out for De Vere, who might try to take possession of his daughter in order to get at the substantial legacy his father had provided to his nieces.
"Tell Mr Bellot, If the Erl of Oxford shold desire the custody he can not haue them of any body, for If he look vppon the Deeds, wherby my Lord hath conveied them their Lands, he shall find that for default of Isswe, their Land comes to the Heires of his body, nor whyther he that never gaue them groat, hath a second wyfe, and another Child be a fitt Gardien consider you
...I wish Mr Bellott to haue good care they be not stollen away by his meanes
..." (Nelson, 373)
In 1591, Burghley's secretary John Clapham dedicated a poem on Narcissus to Southampton. Adonis, Fair Youth, Narcissus? Yeah, everyone gets it. Burghley was the person who was most interested in Southampton's marriage. When the Dowager Countess wrote "I doo not fynde a disposition in my sonne to be tyed as yet
", she wrote it to Burghley, not Oxford.
Or by "no evidence" did you mean I couldn't find some cockamamie message encoded in Shakespeare's works?
If someone else did write them ,well they didn’t want to own them,so to me they belong to Shakespeare. The people of the times recognised him as the author,why don’t people in this day and age accept it?Some people just love a conspiracy theory methinks🤔
People of the times recognised him, because that was the purpose. Everybody had to think that shaxper wrote the plays otherwise De Vere's life whould be in danger. Thats all. Why is that so hard to believe? It was a hard time back than. Everywere snakes waiting to stab you in the back. At least around the court. And that was not the first time that people had to hide their identity. Think about China or north Korea today. Or the third Reich. Its obviously the reason back then. Today we have a word for that: Ghostwriter. It's a nessesary thing under certain circumstances.
@@novadarkknight9135 It's hard to believe because Shakespeare's works were the epitome of establishment. There was nothing whatsoever dangerous about them. Hell, he carried over the name of a character from a source play and discovered it offended a descendant, so he changed the name to Falstaff and apologized.
@@Jeffhowardmeade too much to write in a youtube response, but there were dangers, political and social, and De Vere was also involved in some serious social scandal which many authors, poets, play writes of his period made numerous allusions to ( as well as allusions as to de Veres writing under a pen name Shake-speare). If you are truly interested in this area, research ( maybe start with Oxford fellowship, read about the book "Shakespeare Identified" by Looney ) with an open mind and you might be amazed at the information there is out there . take care
@@lpt369 I have read it. I have heard all of the theories. Shakespeare's plays were preformed by the Lord Chamberlain's Men. The Lord Chamberlain, Baron Hunsdon, was Queen Elizabeth's cousin and her closest advisor. The Master of Revels who censored plays prior to public performance answered to him. Are you seriously suggesting that Hunsdon let dangerous or scandalous material be performed before the Queen? That he let it be performed in public? That this happened and nobody ever commented on it?
It would take more than an open mind for me to believe any of that drivel. I would have to forget everything I know about the Elizabethan era and about common sense. And in the case of Alexander Waugh and his ludicrous codes, I'd have to unlearn how cryptography works.
@@Jeffhowardmeade ruclips.net/video/K6zXC0d7ldk/видео.html
Wellllll, Dr. Kat, as long as we're playing nice, what about your introduction of Alexander Waugh as a mere eccentric -- English notwithstanding -- and grandson of a famous writer. You say you're not going to do a deep dive into the authorship, but that is precisely what the scholar Waugh has done, to my everlasting gratitude. Nobody wants to tear anybody off a pedestal and say "Well, actually, you're not that great." I just want the truth, because it is far more educational than centuries of mystery and speculation. So what if De Vere was the author of Shakespeare's works? It's a pretty big job to produce them, why can't we thank the glover's son for that, and give credit where credit is due?
Why not give him credit for writing them as well, since all of the actual evidence says he did?
@@jeffmeade8643 It's not my business what you choose to believe since you aren't interested in the truth, according to the actual evidence
@@EverTheTwain Feel free to present some of this actual evidence.
@@Jeffhowardmeade feel free to research it yourself
@@EverTheTwain I already have, at length. There isn't any.
Let's not forget Jesus was just a guy who knocked cabinets together. And he did OK.
He benefited from an excellent lineage, I've heard it said.
I can’t tell who is trolling whom here
@@ericloscheider7433 It might just be that everyone is just having a spot of fun.
Caius Martius Coriolanus I’ll drink to that
All I can say is that you must have really struck a nerve with this video because they’ve all come out the woodwork in this comments section 👀
I’m not one for conspiracy theories. I reckon Shakespeare wrote his plays 🤷🏻♀️ It might well be that as he became more famous and powerful he headed up sort of a studio of writers and collaborators so not every line / scene etc may have been written directly by him, but I think he definitely oversaw / supervised it all. I think if he didn’t write a particular scene / line himself, he would have reviewed, edited and approved it before publication, as he wouldn’t want low quality stuff out there damaging his reputation. He was certainly in charge of all the writings attributed to his name and furthermore probably wrote most of the body of work himself.
I think you’re definitely on to something with the elements of classism in thinking a lower class chap couldn’t possibly write the plays. It’s not even like Shakespeare was a peasant or anything - he had by the standards of the day a great education! He was literate for one thing, and that alone meant he was beating 90% of the country. Still attending school in his mid-teens instead of being put out to work in the fields or as an apprentice to his father! Sounds to me like his family were pretty well off actually 🤷🏻♀️
I appreciate what you, and others in this thread, say regarding the thoughts that it is not impossible for the man from Stratford to have written the plays. Nothing to say that he could not at all.
However it is important to work out, if possible, who wrote the plays where it not he. The biography of the writer will enable us to make far more sense of the sonnets and many aspects of the plays. I have watched too many youtube videos on this subject to not have come to the conclusion that it is extremely unlikely to have been the man from Stratford and none of this conclusion is derived from the misbelief in a Black Swan genius.
Unfortunately there the evidence that Shakespeare wrote the plays is sparse. The proof that he could even write exists in only a few signatures. Diana Price's work could not identify a single piece of such evidence in research which picked on many other known and far less known writers of the day - for all of which she could find such proof. Yes we have his name attributed to some works, but we have his name attributed to others works that clearly were the product of lesser hands (and there is a reason for all those hyphens Mr Shake-Speare?)
There are aspects of the plays that would not be accessible to someone who was not a member of the court, books to which he would not have had access, and a multitude of clues that his authorship was a known fraud written at the time.
The flip side? The whole story of how Stratford became the Disney Land of the works is well documented, the statue on the wall changed to that of a writer and the dubiousness of the 'Shakespeare properties' is not difficult to research. The provenance of the myth of Stratford raises the question not the unlikely genius of the author.
We all love mythology and once upon a time it was not questioned. Shakespeare of Stratford as author of the plays - you are 'T's ing us Dr K!
KP
The Earl of Rutland's steward made two interesting entries into his ledgers. One was a small payment to "Danyell the poet". Another was two large payments to "Mr. Shakespeare about my lord's impresa" 10 marks in gold, and a like sum to Richard Burbage "for making it." An impresa is a sort of shield with a witty motto painted on it, and a poem or song to accompany it. Burbage, who was the lead actor in Shakespeare's plays, was also known for his skill at painting.
Diana price gives SAMUEL Daniel credit for "being paid to write" though there's no indication it was Samuel or what the payment was for. William Shakespeare she gives bupkiss, though his was spelled out.
With the huge pile of documentary evidence that identifies Shakespeare as a poet, how does Price manage to give him zero credit? Simple: she crafted a list of requirements specifically designed to avoid all of the evidence that Shakespeare was a poet. The only way to pull that off is to know damn well what the evidence is and then carefully step around it.
You've watched enough videos on RUclips, you say? They don't tell you the other side of the story. They're carefully stepping around all the evidence as well.
You've been lied to.
Caius Martius Coriolanus. Thanks for the info on the impresa CMC, I clearly need to look deeper into the supporting evidence. This will be a good start. Having said that there appears to be more than a little disinformation from the Stratfordians eg on the authenticity of the Shakespeare properties and misleading references in their authoritative work 'Beyond Doubt'. The conflict of interest, coupled with the apparent meddling with their supportive evidence makes the subject inherently more provocative. But still I am happy to be guided, learn and come to a different conclusion. Many thanks fir your input.
KP
@@desmanage There's no question that Stratford was guilty of outright fraud once upon a time, but times have changed. About 20 years ago, the SBT located a survey which showed that the Arden farm was one door down from what was then known as "Mary Arden's Farm". The actual Arden farm was a much less well preserved structure which had been largely rebuilt in brick in the 19th Century. Nobody hid anything. The SBT announced the discover ly and renamed the Mary Arden Farm "Palmer's Farm" and now treat it as a living history museum.
There is solid documentation to show that John Shakespeare was living at the site of the "Birthplace" when Shakespeare was born. Some historians have suggested that house burned and was rebuilt around 1596. The SBT dismantled it in the 19th Century and restored it to what they thought a Tudor house would have looked like. Not everyone agrees with their results.
Once upon a time, you could buy "relics" made from the very mulberry tree which grew in Shakespeare's yard. Even today, tchotchke shops and ice cream parlors outnumber historical venues and bookstores in Stratford ten to one. That's tourism for you. They are generally honest and straightforward about what the evidence does and doesn't say. If you want to get the docents there all hot and bothered, start asking detailed history questions. They deal with ignorant tourists all day and LOVE to talk serious history.
The more I see of the arguments that the Stratford man did not write the works of Shakespeare, the more I become convinced that he did.
Lol you are so cute I love your T
Thanks for a very reasonable and much needed approach to the SAQ
The question of authorship did not emerge in the 19th century as she states, but has been a question ever since the works were written. Examine the contemporary literature. Does it matter who the author was? Does it matter who Beethoven was? Dickens? Michelangelo? If it doesn't matter who "Shakespeare" was, it doesn't matter who anybody is or was. What a stupid question.
Thank you for commenting.
There is no record of the authorship being questioned before Delia Bacon and Thomas Looney did so in the nineteenth century. What contemporary literature are you referring to?
I also did not say that the identity of the author does not matter - it does, however, have little impact on the work of academics of literary history. Unless they are working through biography, which is a tough ask in the case of Shakespeare as there is very little in the way of biography for him.
. And in her majesty’s time that now is are sprung up another crew of Courtly makers [poets], Noblemen and Gentlemen of Her Majesty’s own servants, who have written excellently well as it would appear if their doings could be found out and made public with the rest, of which number is first that noble gentleman Edward Earl of Oxford.”
The Arte of English Poesie by George Puttenham, 1598
Henry Peacham’s The Compleat Gentlemen (1622, and many re-prints) gives an exhaustive list of Elizabethan poets. Edward de Vere tops the list but no mention whatever is made of Shakespeare.
Thomas Vicars' makes coy reference, in an otherwise conventional list of writers, to that famous poet who takes his name from 'shaking' and 'spear' (Cheiragogia 1628),
@@ReadingthePast
Peacham and Puttenham list courtiers, nobles and gentlemen (at a push) who have their fingers in the pie of the literary arts - also excluded are Marlowe, Kyd, Dekker (to name a few). I cannot see how this exclusion is equivalent to the questioning of authorship. The exclusion is due to social rank, not poetic output.
@@ealdredaruspex5819 Vicars was writing in Latin, and had difficulty rendering Shakespeare's name. A more accurate translation is not that he TAKES his name from shake and spear, but rather that his name COMES FROM shake and spear. And it does.
One doesn't translate a name but gives it verbatim. Obviously, Vicars was making a point.
Thanks for the observations. I have read some of the theories but have never found it convincing that it was anyone other than the man from Stratford. I do admit I have become to be dimissive of the other side of the debate. thanks for noting the respect due to all.
Formal education can get in the way of creativity and originality. Not all great artists are tutored, and some are actual renegades who turn the system upside-down. It's possible to educate yourself through reading. So that argument doesn't hold up.
Genius , as potential is inherent, but to realize that potential to the actual heights of genius requires "knowledge": which requires a means to attain. It is this lack of means to attain the incredible depths of knowledge/expertise in so many diverse fields (which are plainly apparent in the works written under the pen name of Shakes-speare) that make it naive to accept the the Stratfordian view. See this wonderful little presentation on the distinction between inherent genius, and knowledge and the realization of genius. ruclips.net/video/QYuwJDxG4hs/видео.html
I think the thing which riles the Anti-Strats the most is that amateurs like myself are more than happy to take them on, but they can't get much of a response from the establishment. Stands to reason, though. THEY are a bunch of amateurs as well. If they want to debate the big boys, they need to spend a decade in school and then another several climbing the academic ladder. Granted, that's hard to do when you don't believe in evidence-based reasoning.
Thank you so much for commenting, it's really interesting for me to read your perspective on this! I have a couple of follow-up questions (hope that's ok) - are you comfortable with there being the barrier that you describe between the "establishment" and "amateurs"? Does someone who enjoys the privilege of these years of education have a responsibility to share their expertise with those who are looking to engage with them in a respectful discussion/debate?
@@ReadingthePast The responsibility of academia is to do the reasearch. The was a time when amateurs like Henry Folger and Charles Wallace could make meaningful additions to our knowledge of Shakespeare, but I think those days are past. Educating students on how to think logically and read analytically is a job for secondary school teachers. Dealing with people whose perspective is warped beyond logic or reason is a task for people with advanced degrees in psychology.
To address your concern that silence breeds dissent, these are people for whom the conspiracy is the draw. The opposition of authority merely reinforces their preconceived notions. They want to be the little dogs who discover the true wizard, and you are the curtain trying to hide him. The harder you try to obscure their precious Oxford, or Bacon, or Florio or whoever, the more you reinforce their conviction that they are on the right trail. It also lends them cachet to be opposed by academia, as if they merit equal standing.
In short, you forge the weapons. Let us wield them.
Thank you again for another concise and evocatively written response. You have made me consider a lot of things; including my own agenda in being interested in this debate. As criminal psychology is the focus of my hobby reading, you have made me acknowledge that the psychology of both sides may be the prime interest for me; rather than the meat of the debate itself. That being said, I am positively thrilled at the idea of being a figurative forger of weapons!!! Please let me know if there is any topic I could do a video on that you would like in your arsenal!!
@@ReadingthePast Not sure if it's your bailiwick or not, but I'd love to see a video about of The Great Vowel Shift and how that explains why English speakers don't have the same vowels as every other Indo-European language. If you're looking for a psychological hook, I think it may have something to do with the naturally independent nature of the English mind. There is no Académie Française for speakers of English. Our dictionaries describe rather than proscribe. All the different sounds two Os make, stacked end on end, would sound like a distressed cow. Seriously, what's the matter with us?
Also, how about one on the anglophone obsession with murder mysteries?
Wow! Those are some brilliant ideas - thank you! I'm certainly going to look into creating some content on those topics ... it's research time!
May I share with your viewers an ACTUAL poem by Edward de Vere? It is easily the worst published poem I have ever read in my long life. I imagine that there are regions of some distant galaxy where there is worse poetry, but I doubt it.
It is worse than Baldric, worse than William Magonagall. my favourite couplet is 'a thousand cupids fly/about her gentle eye.'
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!!!!!
I mean ... really this is just hilariously funny. The idea that the moron who produced this drivel was the writer of the works of William Shakespeare is a JOKE.
It goes like this:
“These Beauties Make Me Die”
1 What cunning can express
2 The favour of her face,
3 To whom in this distress
4 I do appeal for grace?
5 A thousand Cupids fly
6 About her gentle eye.
7 From whence each throws a dart,
8 That kindleth soft sweet fire,
9 Within my sighing heart,
10 Possessed by desire;
11 No sweeter life I try,
12 Than in her love to die.
13 The Lily in the field,
14 That glories in his white,
15 For pureness now must yield
16 And render up his right;
17 Heaven pictured in her face
18 Doth promise joy and grace.
19 Fair Cynthia’s silver light,
20 That beats on running streams,
21 Compares not with her white,
22 Whose hairs are all sunbeams;
23 Her virtues so do shine,
24 As day unto mine eyne.
25 With this there is a Red
26 Exceeds the Damask Rose,
27 Which in her cheeks is spread,
28 Whence every favour grows;
29 In sky there is no star
30 That she surmounts not far.
31 When Phoebus from the bed
32 Of Thetis doth arise,
33 The morning, blushing red,
34 In fair carnation wise,
35 He shows it in her face
36 As Queen of every grace.
37 This pleasant Lily white,
38 This taint of roseate red,
39 This Cynthia’s silver light,
40 This sweet fair Dea spread,
41 These sunbeams in mine eye,
42 These beauties make me die.
Not quite Vogon poetry, but pretty close.
@@Jeffhowardmeade It just the Vogon subject matter that lets them down. Cynthia sounds marginally more attractive than a lump of green armpit-putty.
Point 1: the poem was written by a teenager;
Point 2: the imagery is pure Shakespeare -
"With this there is a Red
Exceeds the Damask Rose,
Which in her cheeks is spread,"
vs.
Sonnet 130
"I have seen roses damask'd, red and white, /
But no such roses see I in her cheeks."
It's like the two poems were written by the same person, only separated by 25 years or so...So either Will Shakespeare plagiarized de Vere or they are the same person. The two poems seem to indicate the same person has grown, matured, and changed his opinion about The Rose.
Point 3: The self-revealing style is pure Shakespeare. The two poets seem unable to contain themselves, spilling out their guts whenever possible.
How do you do it? You take a poem that is almost obviously the work of young Shakespeare and then use it to argue the exact opposite...you are something else!!!
@@stevenhershkowitz2265 You think two different poets referencing "rosy cheeks" demonstrates they are the same person?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
(Phew!)
Good one, dude.
@@Jeffhowardmeade Obviously it does. You think it doesn't? How then do you explain that Shakespeare is copying Vere's imagery? Coincidence? And the word you are looking to explain is DAMASK
p.s. I like the way you devolve into nervous laughter when you ain't got nothing. It's cute.
I think there is a good amount of information about the Earl of Oxford to make it possible he was the author. But since Shakespeare, the man from Stratford could very well have been educated at a rather nice school in Stratford (that was run by professors educated at Oxford college)... and we know he was at least educated enough to read and write... there is no reason he couldn't have been able to be the author. He was also an actor and producer for plays. He was in that life. Could that be why someone would use his name. Sure. But it also means that he was given a lot of education through other peoples works, access to people who traveled, and even sponsorship of those who knew the ways of court. He had access to all the information that was necessary to be able to write the plays himself. I do not rule out the Earl of Oxford, but I also say that until more proof comes out that it isn't the man from Stratford-Upon-Avon.... I won't say he isn't the true writer.
What a very balanced and sensible comment. I would just add that ... actually there are many playwrights of the time who had exactly the same background as the Man from Stratford. Ben Jonson and Thomas Dekker come to mind (humble origins, no university education). Which makes me wonder .... why pick on Shakespeare? Even Marlowe was of humble origins, and though he went to university, he only got a degree because of government pressure (he'd been working as a spy, which was why he barely turned up for his studies).
There is no evidence he went to the Grammar School in Stratford nor that he could read or write. His parents could do neither and - think about this one - neither could his offspring.
Once you start looking this becomes an amazing story in itself
KP
@@desmanage
1 Girls didn't go to grammar school. I'm surprised I have to tell people this. Upper class girls had tutors. Middle class girls didn't. There were no grammar schools for girls. They only went to elementary school, and normally only learned to read.
2 Of course there's no proof. There's no evidence that Thomas Wolsey went to grammar school in Ipswich. But we have to assume he did, because he went to university and became a cardinal. (oooooh! unless Wolsey was just a FRONT for some aristocrat who wanted to avoid the stigma of being a Cardinal and Lord Chancellor. Is that what you're saying?)
3 There is no evidence that William Shakespeare ever had a shit. There is literally not a single turd which has been certified as emerging from the bardal behind. But guess what? I'm going to stick my neck out and assume that he had intestines and defecated in the usual way. And I'm going to assume that the son of a wealthy alderman and mayor went to the grammar school 100 yards from his door, along with all the other middle class kids.
Stratford-born Richard Field (printer/publisher) later published Shakespeare's work ... but ... wait! There's no evidence that HE went to the school either ... so Richard Field was obviously just a front for somebody ELSE who actually did the typesetting. Probably the Earl of bleeding Essex.
There's no evidence of John Webster's death. According to your logic, he therefore didn't die, and is now 420 years old. Probably writing zombie movies now.
William Shakespeare is listed in the cast of two plays by Ben Jonson. Ben Jonson knew him. After Shakespeare's death he spoke affectionately of him NAMING HIM AS A WRITER, and mentioning his version of Julius Caesar!!
What is YOUR evidence that Ben Jonson was a liar?
My very basic and non-historical opinion is this: If William Shakespeare is not the author, then whoever is the author wished his name to be used as author. Otherwise there would've been an uproar at the time of publication (if that's the correct term). What does it matter if he is or is not the author? The works are amazing and should be lauded in their own right.
Dear Dr Kat I commented a few months ago, I would like to follow up. I picked up on "you're not that great actually"....... some of the work being done on the sonnets and the plays helps us understand a little about his genius. There is evidence that he read widely in various languages, and had a good grasp of Latin and Greek. The plays such as the early Hamlet, the True History Henry V and others, instead of seeing them as Shakespeare's works that he has modified over time they are seen as the work of someone else. To make the narrative fit into the life and times of the man from Stratford, we hear things such as, he was a plagiarist or he only wrote some parts himself, he made mistakes, his Latin was grammar school and his Greek wasn't that great. So instead of praising the author of the works of Shakespeare as an innovative, learned genius, who developed his craft throughout the 1570's and 1580's then perfected and began publishing under the name of Shakespeare in the 1590's, we have this man who came to London in the late 1580's and started copying and collaborating. So we seem to have a choice? Accept that Shakespeare is a pseudonym and the true author was a really great genius,or we accept what scholars such as Jonathon Bate are telling us that the man from Stratford wrote part of the works and copied from earlier writers. Then perhaps he wasn't that great after all.
That would depend on what makes them "great", wouldn't it? It's beyond question that he took his plots from other writers. We have them clearly identified for all but a few plays. If what made him great was his judgment in selecting plots, his genius at poetry, his ability to create fully-formed, three dimensional characters, his brilliant humor and wit, and his deep understanding of theater practice, then the only thing he wasn't so great at was geography. In that he was terrible.
Oh, and he wasn't great a Greek. His works contain almost no Greek classical references and his friend Ben Jonson said he barely knew Greek.
You say that it's telling that the first instances of people saying it wasn't him was in the 19th century, except Alexander Waugh's arguments include works from the earliest references to Shakespeare. I'm interested in people debating that because I don't see how anyone could accept the Stratfordian theory without denying his arguments and there are way too many points to chalk it up to coincidence. It'd be nice to hear someone actually discuss those points.
Waugh is a charlatan who makes up historical "facts" to suit his purpose. Try fact checking him sometime.
I’ve just finished reading Elizabeth Winkler’s book after sort of following this debate for fifty years. My question is why does the notion that a nobleman had the specific knowledge base that matches the plays diminish them? Does our appreciation of these plays rest upon the marvel that a humble man of minor importance and almost zero documentation extant from his era somehow produced them?
If either of your claims were true, we could discuss the consequences. But neither is. Shakespeare's plays comport well to the education of a middle-class gentleman, and he is very well documented as the actor and gentleman from Stratford.
Being a yank...who lives England and has friends all over it, I've been to Stratford and it never occurred to me that he wasn't the author. There a plenty of creative prodigies who are uneducated and brilliant. But Dr. Kar, I agree that both sides could do better proving and disproving their arguments. We have Q-anon on the www. I guess anything is possible... Liz Barton
I stopped your video at 8:02, before your conclusions, to add my own two cents. As an American, I can say that, with the exception of the small, specialist academic community here, Americans just don’t really CARE “who” Shakespeare really was. As a lifetime (50-year plus) reader of British literature, and viewer of British popular media like films and television, I have come to the conclusion that there is rarely a STORY of any type, in any British medium, that doesn’t contain an element of class consciousness or struggle. I think the questioning of the “real identity” of Shakespeare is a product of post-world-wars’ Britain’s self-criticism of, the breaking down restrictions on, and the general increased mobility within, its class system, including the abolition of hereditary legal privilege, and perhaps, to a lesser extent, with its population’s interest in socialism/communism, which was much stronger there than here. American consciousness and culture almost completely lacks class-conscious, except for the general acceptance that some people have more or less education and/or money. For example, our differences in accent are regional, not social-class, variations (but grammar and vocabulary are different-that’s where social background shows). When I was a teenager and in my early twenties, I inadvertently offended several British persons when I asked about their accents, I didn’t realize that they thought I was trying to place them socially! No wonder they looked sour. We never had legal privileges of any kind since before our revolution, when, of course, these were granted by the distant UK government. Now, I can’t wait to hear what you say!
That's an interesting theory. How do you square it with the fact that anti-Stratfordism is virtually a purely American invention? The first anti-Stratfordian literature came from the American Joseph C. Hart, followed closely by Delia Bacon, also an American.
Such broad generalizations about Americans when we are so deeply divided due to white supremacy and yes, about the Shakespeare authorship question as well.
Wholeheartedly agree with your premise. We mustn't denigrate any credible argument put forward. This is the very spirit of debate. Personally, however, I have failed to subdue my raised eyebrow at those who contend that the son of a glovemaker lacked the education and the talent to write the plays attributed to Shakespeare. To me, it smacks of elitism. If the de Vere Society is able to prove definitely that these plays were authored by the Earl of Oxford, I will be the first to stand up and cheer. Until then, a rigorous self-examination of their own motives and biases is called for--before its more vehement members are accused of literary QAnonism.
"Iiterary QAnonism"
I'M TOTALLY STEALING THAT ONE!
The Stratford attribution hasn’t been “proved definitively” either. There is evidence on both sides. IMO there is much more evidence Oxford was the writer if you are willing to look at it.
@@enheduannapax7988 There is no actual "evidence" that Oxford wrote anything attributed to Shakespeare, as the real world understands the word. Codes which only work when a hoaxter makes up context, vague plot similarities between characters and this life or that, bad Latin translations and the like are not evidence. Every contemporary who ever weighed in on the matter said Shakespeare was the gentleman from Stratford. Not a single person ever said otherwise.
Interesting I find no interest in further research. Obviously a brilliant and thoughtful person.
However, it stops with the disinterest in further readings or study. Other then Shapiros
could of would should of of his Book.
Pontificating does not make it true?
I wonder why she has no ?
doubt?
It seems to stop at Shakespeares school door Stratford on Avon. Which is not his school door.
How do you know?
Why are we even questioning the authorship ?
19th century snobbery!
Having devoted a lot of time to this controversy this video disappoints me. The reason you give as to why there is controversy is traditional in the Stratfordian camp but totally outdated. Essentially, this is the idea the "genius" is enough to explain what seems unlikely to critics. This view is very naive and unrealistic.
I also note that in addition to Ed. De Vere, you constantly name Queen Elisabeth )???) Marlowe as possible authors as if the time for research was still very active. Obviously, once a few Shakespeare's admirers began to doubt that the man from Stratford could be the real author, they had to look elsewhere and they examined many more or less probable candidates. Finally, after several decades, Ed. De Vere's hypothesis appeared to be the most probable and the most realistic. It is the one that has best withstood criticism and the one that sticks best to the new facts established by researchers.
Finally, If this controversy is so interesting it is not only because it allows to completely renew the field of studies on Shakespeare but also because of its human dimension: it opposes the spirit of orthodoxy and the modern critical spirit. And [this is a more personal reason ]it has many important similarities with the controversy over the real historical origins of Islam, one of my main research topics.
The only thing "genius" explains is poetical talent. No matter who Shakespeare was, he needed that genius. The only question is whether a well-off middle-class gentleman had everything else he needed to write the works attributed to him. If all of his peers are anything to judge by, he did.
@@Jeffhowardmeade My answer:
ruclips.net/video/GEQNWpo1PSs/видео.html
@@esprit-critique "The progress and development of a genius should not be completely untraceable."
What "progress and development" do we have for Christopher Marlowe? For Robert Greene? For Ben Jonson, himself? We only have an off-handed comment where he refers to "Camden" as his master, and this is assumed to be William Camden who was headmaster of the Westminster grammar school. As far as documentation is concerned, Marlowe, Greene, and Jonson all arrived, fully formed, upon the London stage.
Shakespeare's "development" is easy to trace, if you start with his rather simplistic early works, such as Two Gentlemen, Titus, and The Comedy of Errors, and move on to Love's Labors Lost and Julius Caesar, then to the height of his powers with Hamlet, Macbeth, Lear, and Othello, then to his tired-and-resting-on-his-laurels works like Pericles and Kinsmen, his development is obvious.
Or did you want his childhood notebooks with his juvenile rhymes?
I understand that when Elizabethan children started grammar school, they were not taught how to read; they were expected to know how to read already. But his parents were illiterate, so they could not have taught him. His brothers were illiterate, too. So how did he get into grammar school? The records from that time are lost, so we don't know for certain that he did attend. So that's one basic question. A larger question is this: if somehow WS did break the cycle of illiteracy, why did he not teach his children how to read? Because they were illiterate too. So the family line was, illiterate, illiterate, illiterate, world's greatest writer, illiterate. For me, this stretches credulity. As to the motivation of the Stratfordians, consider the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. They have an enormous financial motive to protect the booming Stratford tourist industry.
What evidence do you have that any one of these people were illiterate? Are you just taking someone's word for it?
Oh, and they had what are known as "dame schools" which taught basic literacy to younger children. In the 16th Century, a Stratford woman testified at the trial of another Stratford woman that they were friends from school.
If it were not possible to ever learn something that one's parents did not know, nobody would ever learn anything new.
I believe that "Shakespeare" was Walter Raleigh
I think it really is the complete lack of a normal paper trail for a writer that has a lot of us doubting the man from Stratford. ..plenty of working class children turned out to be extraordinarily talented, like Michael Faraday and Christopher Marlowe...though probably a lack of money is very unhelpful for practically everything. But someone like Edward de Vere seemed to be funding a lot of writers, so how much is his own work, or a collaboration? Was he being sort of anonymous because the plays were propaganda? Doesn't Henry V say something like 'we band of Brothers', and then he expects everyone to go and fight and die for him...not let them all sleep over in his palace, with free food and whatever else people usually share with their siblings.
Shakespeare has a perfectly good paper trail. Whoever told you he didn't was fibbing. Here's a clue: when someone rules out evidence because it only refers to someone by their NAME, because that might be a pseudonym, they are trying to hide it and pretend it doesn't exist.
Shakespeare is well documented as a poet, as an actor, and as a gentleman from Stratford. The evidence exists in spades.
One documentary mentioned he also went under the name of Sly (?) and had another family in Birmingham,
there was a marriage application by him the day before the one to Anne Hathaway to someone else , did that also happen with this other name? Sly turns up in Italy in one of the plays, mentioned by a lawyer checking whether the descriptions of Italy were correct..they were. Listening to the sonnets, they do fit well with 17EO, but I was imagining the Dark Lady as Goddess Kali, or Hekate, and the other lovers as various other Gods , it's very easy to project onto them whatever we like.@@Jeffhowardmeade
@@traceyolsen308 No "documentary" mentions that, because there are no documents that say that. Not sure where you got that.
Please name one thing about Italy that Shakespeare got correct.
"It's very easy to project them..."
For some people, perhaps. Not for anyone rooted in the real world
I watched the program on RUclips a few days ago. A man had set up a little museum in Birmingham(?) and claimed to be a descendent of the family, there was a portrait he said came from one of the Shakespeare (Shakspeare) houses of this ancestor, and he and the news team were remarking on the similarity of the likeness of himself and this person. He said SW's(?) other used name was Sly(?) and he had another family in Birmingham. The other documentary/talk was from a Harvard Lawyer going around Italy with her Lawyer husband trying to convince him that the plays were written by 17EO, showing old maps of canals etc working at the time of EdV, all of the journeys and references seemed correct, In one of the locations, quoting a play, she mentioned someone called Sly(?)..at least that was what it sounded like.. and it reminded me of the other program I'd seen a earlier ...but I've not researched any of these subjects myself, and am only mentioning things that seem easily available on the computer. @@Jeffhowardmeade
@@traceyolsen308 Like the old John Fogerty song said: "I know it's true, 'cause I saw it on TV."
Shakespeare never mentions canals in any of his works.
Check out the work of Dennis McCarthy. Unlike Oxfordians, McCarthy has actual evidence/proof that Shakespeare didn’t write anything- but he did adapt the work by others to the stage.
You are misunderstanding McCarthy's claim. He thinks North wrote plays which Shakespeare then rewrote.
Very disappointing, this. "You're not that great, actually." When did that sentiment become part of the questioning of authorship? It's precisely because the "you" in question is so inconceivably, inexplicably great that one questions the authorship in the first place. Maybe your favorite of the handful of the Bard's signatures should accompany your erudition.
I'd prefer the three pages of Sir Thomas More in Shakespeare's handwriting.
You keep referring to Shakespeare as the "son of a glover," but you fail at the most basic task of a historian to put the past into perspective. Here is what Nathan Rosenberg and L. E. Birdzell Jr. wrote about the pre-industrialized world in "How the West Grew Rich": "The artisan-owners were an elite among the work force. In the towns, they were the leading citizens, not the rank and file." That accurately describes John Shakespeare, a well-respected member of his community who steadily rose up though the ranks of municipal governance to become High Bailiff (the equivalent of mayor), Justice of the Peace, and Alderman. BTW, in some American towns the mayor's office still incorporates a judicial function. If you want to challenge a speeding ticket you got in Bexley, you'll go to the Bexley Mayor's Court.
In his patent of arms, issued by the College of Heralds, John Shakespeare's status as a Justice of the Peace was highlighted among his accomplishments.
None of the factual arguments approached. Again labeling is used to prequalify the speaking persons instead of paying tribute to the facts. Of course the question is cruel to the acad stuff: either you are not specialists in the question, or you are.... in case you close the eyes on the facts you take the part of antigagliley people or anicopernicus who preferred speculations instead of looking at the stars through the telescope or analyzing the facts on the table. Love can only be attributed to people, not texts, as I understand Shakespeare, so what if the the child was substituted or replaced... it’s a question of love by the end... and of course it’s a tremendous possibility to attract today’s commoners to read and discuss Shakespeare, instead of petrifying him under possibly a false statute. Shakespeare being the New Testament of Etics of our times cannot be ignored as the author and a real man of character, so more we discuss the persons who might have written the testament, more we love the real author. The challenge was issued in 2013 by Shahan and Waugh in the book-answer “Shakespeare beyond doubt?” Mirroring another book of a similar title prepared by the Shakespeare Trust. The challenge seems to be unanswered ... so who are the knights of the truth?
Say facts. Hard facts. Don't argue please by smearing people. By that you degrade your own argument, and by extension your point of view.
To smear, meaning to attempt to damage someone’s reputation with false accusations / slander… so who did I smear in this?
The implication that those who consider it impossible for someone who could not have had the opportunities to learn all the things that the Author DID know, has something -- Anything -- in common with the Eugenics views that were the foundation for the sterilization and ultimate genocide of 'inferior' people . . . is just reprehensible. The Author had to have known not only works written in then-contemporary English that were unavailable to the unprivileged (there being no public libraries at the time), but works not-yet-translated from French, Italian, Latin, German, and even Old English (there are elements of BEOWULF in Hamlet). Few people in Elizabeth's time would have had access to such works -- even many of the prolific writers of the time. Certainly not a commoner from a market town!
Will Shakspere would have had to have been a telepathic savant with an eidetic memory to accomplish such a feat, whereas Edward de Vere was the one person uniquely qualified -- with access to the source materials we know were used by the Author -- to have written the Works.
In the Sonnets, "Shakespeare" referred to himself using the phrase "I am that I am" -- the very name of God, according to the book of Exodus -- a rather ballsy, even blasphemous thing to do . . . and, lo and behold, in a letter to his father-in-law (William Cecil, the most powerful man in England), Edward de Vere does the exact same thing -- he uses the phrase "I am that I am" to refer to himself.
It is standard practice for Stratfordians to trot out all the many 'candidates' for the Authorship -- be it Marlowe or Bacon or Neville or eve the Queen herself! -- as if to imply that so many others have been proposed as the Bard that NONE of them should topple the grain-hoarder from Stratford from his pedestal . . . but De Vere, and ONLY him, ever used the phrase "I am that I am" to refer to himself. If a Marlovian could point to a letter written by Marlowe where he had done so, it would be trumpeted as a 'proof' of his identity as "Shakespeare" -- and the same goes for any other 'candidate', be it Bacon or Neville, whoever.
It was Edward de Vere. He is the only man -- bar none -- who could have accomplished it. It is not a damn coincidence that "Shakespeare" and De Vere BOTH referred to themselves with the same nomenclatural epithet, "I am that I am." 'They' both did because they were the same man.
"Dr. Kat" name-drops Alexander Waugh's claim to know that De Vere was Shakespeare . . . and then artfully avoids confronting the mass of evidence that he has been posting on his RUclips videos that quite literally prove the case for Oxford. We get the build-up to the sickening slander around the 8-minute mark, linking doubters of Shakspere to pro-Eugenics advocates from the Victorian Era who paved the way for the bloody Holocaust.
It was bad enough when Anti-Stratfordians were compared to Holocaust deniers, but this???
Utterly disgusting! And it just goes to prove that the Stratfordians will do or say anything to prop up their idol, and keep the tourist wealth flowing into the Stratford cash-cow, the truth be damned.
Go research the "Ireland Shakespeare forgeries" to see how Stratfordian lies got into the swing of things, all to prop up the hoax of the millennium. The hoax that is the Stratfordian Theory of Authorship. Shakspere wasn't Shakespeare. Edward de Vere was the true author, writing under a pseudonym. The Oxfordian case has been proven, and Alexander Waugh's contributions on RUclips provide much of the cutting-edge proof that clinches the case. If you care one DAMN about the truth about the writer of the most celebrated dramas of the English-speaking world, you owe it to yourself to learn about De Vere.
The Stratfordians have NOTHING. Nothing but a history of shoddy scholarship and downright forgeries, the epitome of disgracefulness masquerading as literary inquiry.
While I believe that the man from Stratford wrote the plays (perhaps with more collaboration than we know) I am happy to engage with those who respectfully disagree. A frequent complaint is that "the Academy" shuts down such discussion with nefarious intent. To be clear I have no financial or reputational dog in this fight - the plays exist and they teach us wonderful things about the society and culture in which they were produced.
I have read the arguments and evidence for the various other candidates. They are yet to reach the burden of proof and frequently underestimate the capacity for information to be shared orally or for the potential of texts being accessible through a variety of means. Making biographical links with elements found in the texts doesn't do it for me.
As we're "tone policing", ad-hominem and straw-man attacks also don't help to foster respectful discussion.
James Shapiro flagrantly compared Shakspere doubters with Holocaust deniers. As I said before, around the 8-minute mark you imply those who question Shakspere's ability to write the Shakespeare canon due to the impossibility of his having access to the sources the Author had to have been acquainted with . . . with the Victorian-era eugenics proponents? How is that "ad-hominem" or a "straw-man" attack? The "discussion" on your part was inherently disrespectful from the get-go -- a vicious slander.
Believe what you want regarding the Authorship of the canon. There IS a respectful conversation that can be had on that topic. But when one side tries to link believers on the other side with Holocaust Deniers, that's beyond the pale, and needs to be called out for what it is. As is your subtle dig attempting to link Anti-Stratfordians with those who intellectually paved the way for the sterilization and genocide of 'undesirables'.
Forget "tone-policing" and just admit that your attempt to link Anti-Stratfordians to Pro-Eugenicists from the Victorian era was a slander for which there should be no place in "respectful" discussion.
My interest exploration of the debate over the authorship, as I clearly stated, is, in large part, focused on the context in which it first appeared. That included the political landscape and scientific movements of the time. As no one claimed to have palpated William Shakespeare's skull, the 19th-century interest in phrenology seemed less related.
However, none of this is anywhere close to forming an argument that connects those who question the authorship with those who deny the Holocaust. That is a straw-man attack. If I were to state that a bear lives in the woods and had defecated in the woods, it doesn't mean I am claiming the woods are made of faeces.
Also, I'm not working under a pseudonym, so putting my title and name in quotation marks is unnecessary and seems to be an accusation or an ad-hominem attack on my veracity. Is that your intention?
Wow---what a rude diatribe.
Makes me wonder how wrong Kat may be on all her other videos?
A lot of an endless bla bla bla...or a type of pompousness
The arguments you put forth are the 19th century arguments. More has come to light in more recent decades. Clues built into the fabric of buildings and codes, as was the fashion of the Elizabethan times. But I do appreciate your open-mind.
Oh, they are still kicking around those nineteenth century arguments, believe me. And they're still crap.
As to codes ... well, if you deliberately go looking for something that backs your preference, you will find it. Hence the codes seem to confirm that Marlowe did it. Or Neville, or Oxford, or Bacon, or the bloody Queen... There is literally NO reason to doubt William Shakespeare's authorship. None.
@@MrMartibobs that’s a pseudosceptical argument and very dismissive. There’s finding patterns in clouds and then there is mathematical odds beyond random chance that you simply cannot dismiss. You forget that in the 17th century it was very much the rage amongst those in court to use codes in an age where court intrigue was at its pique. To simply say there is ‘literally NO reason to doubt William Shakespeare’s authorship’ seems to be an assertion that neither you, not I can ever be 100% certain of, and frankly, there is plenty of circumstantial evidence that challenges the orthodoxy you so eloquently zeal for.
@@Problembeing Your reply is eloquent, articulate, and lacks nothing except the little matter of evidence.
If you lay a passage of YOUR choosing in a grid size of YOUR choosing and you find 'vere scratched my arse' in it, then it convinces nobody except conspiracy theorists.
Tom Hanks doesn't eat babies. Ted Cruz's dad didn't shoot JFK. And Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare.
And Occam and his razor are in total agreement with me.
@@MrMartibobs the evidence is available for those that want to actually look at it rather than proclaiming lack of evidence merely by proclamation. It is the height of laziness to cast absolutely everything you simply refuse to engage with as a ‘conspiracy theory’. Again, I remind you, the Elizabethan and Jacobean period WERE a time of conspiracies, not only because it was fashionable in court, but because it was at a time of the inception of the secret service within the court, to which a number implied to be the authors were highly likely to be privy too (Bacon, De Vere, et al). Throwing out daft false equivalences does nothing to bolster your braggadocious and intellectually dishonest stance.
Misusing a profoundly misunderstood ‘Occam’s Razor’ argument is as fallacious as it is misapplied. It does not make for good optics when your fundamental argument is exposed as one based in ill-conceived origins based upon ignorance to the subject matter at hand as it is presented boastfully and with religious-like zeal.
@@Problembeing Maybe you can provide an Elizabethan example of someone describing how codes worked. Bacon doesn't count, because his biliteral cipher was meant for handwritten documents, not printed publications in which two contrasting typefaces would have stood out like a sore thumb.
Got a source?