+Tate Hildyard Yeah, he made the (wrong) assumption that straight audiences wouldn't be able to empathize with a main character who was 'too gay.' Of course, that's just Roland's way of saying that he's not good with this whole character-development thing, and he'd rather his lead be safe and bankable instead of...you know...interesting.
Actually, Shakespeare did write for the unwashed masses (hence his bawdy jokes everywhere), and stage performance did involve special effects to some extent (remember that this is an age where showing off technological advancement became a thing, like elaborate clocks and such). Also remember that Shakespeare's audience, while consisting mainly of the common folk, were pretty much THE most sophisticated, dedicated, and demanding theatre going public in history. The reason why so many of these plays are of such high quality was because that quality was demanded by a highly genre-savvy audience who would accept nothing less than the newest, most innovative plays.
Not to be contentious, Syste, but in my experience (which is long), bawdy jokes are appreciated by all classes. Also, I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure people of all classes went to see the plays. But I don't know who Shakespeare wrote for. I'm just glad he did write.
Oxfordians: the earl of oxford was Shakespeare. Stratfordians: no he wasn't Shakespeare worked hard! And now I dislike him. Me a rare stratfordian: EARL OF OXFORD IS EARL OF OXFORD!!! And he just like poetry.
Yeah, if I ever have an imaginary daughter I'm naming her Tudor Rose de La Mancha. Her friends can call her Tudy or TR, or if she wants she can go by Rose. And when she's old enough, her mom Dulcinea and I will sit her down and explain to her why she doesn't really exist. Because she has a right to know.
Hrothmeir I usually use variations of that to mock theories that think they’re clever but in reality relies on BS logical fallacies. In particular there’s a plot twists in the visual novel series Umineko no naku kori ni that made some fans unhappy (although to be fair there are still some plot holes and it wasn’t even properly explained until the manga) prompting many to go to “la la la” I’m not listening and make their own alternative theory. With one evidence basically being “BUT HOW CAN TRAP IF BIG BREASTS!!!”...no I won’t go into much detail than that, but yeah a character’s breast size is SERIOUSLY a piece of evidence in this counter argument
What's funny to me is that these Anti-Stratfordians ask how Shakespeare could possibly know about the things nobles do as leisure or as business, when Shakespeare worked for a company called the Lord Chamberlain's men, later to be renamed the King's Men! People of all classes went to see the plays put on, would it really be too much of a stretch to assume Shakespeare could ask them directly what their life is like, or maybe even eavesdrop? Or hell, maybe the Noble told him directly. Or, and this is just me spitballing, go to a library and find stories of this kind of thing?
The Lord Chamberlain exists as a deputy to the position of Lord Great Chamberlain. The position of Lord Great Chamberlain... was a hereditary possession of the De Vere family, passed down along with the Earldom of Oxford to the legal heir. The Lord Great Chamberlain during Elizabeth's reign was Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford aka that blonde guy Rhys Ifans is portraying. Isn't that embarrassing for you?
@@loandbaxhuku9617 "The Lord Chamberlain exists as a deputy to the position of Lord Great Chamberlain. " Wrong. The Lord Chamberlain is not a deputy to anyone. The Lord Chamberlain is the most senior position in the Royal Household. The Lord Chamberlain is an advisor to the crown and the main channel of communication with the House of Lords, and the office also organizes all ceremonial activities. Back in the early modern period, they also had the remit of overseeing court entertainments and determining which plays could be performed and published. The Lord Great Chamberlain is a merely ceremonial position. "Isn't that embarrassing for you?" No. However, the fact that you can't get anything right about this period should be embarrassing for you. You don't happen to be Roland Emmerich, are you?
+Fors Clavigera Derek Jacobi played the Master. The Master is the enemy of the Doctor. The Doctor is a friend of Shakespeare. Therefore Dereck Jacobi is anti-Stratfordian. Illumanti confirmed
Niel Jacoby I wish that were true, but he's pretty active about it and was one of the guys behind the "Declaration of Reasonable Doubt". It's a shame, really.
The anti-Stratfordian that really gets me is Mark Twain. If anyone would understand that a nobody from the backwaters without an education could still profoundly understand the human condition you'd think that it would be Samuel "Mark Twain" Clemens!
scaper8 Most of the evidence we can pull up with a few keystrokes was not available at the time. The will with its bequest to fellow King's Men written between the lines looked dodgy, and the official copy had not yet been found. Worst of all, Stratford was the worst sort of tourist trap. Even worse than it is today. You could buy Shakespeare "relics" carved from the mulberry tree he supposedly planted, and pay to scratch your name in the window through which the divine Will received light upon his writing desk. I don't blame Twain for being a skeptic. I do wonder what modern Anti-Strats are thinking, though. It's not like they have any shortage of evidence for Shakespeare.
@@scaper8 Twain recognized that Shakespeare's achievement far surpassed his own--that they were not kindred spirits. Admirable humility. Also, he understood that Elizabethan England was very different from his America--class differences mattered enormously. And, though Twain did not know things that would have reduced his doubt about Shakespeare, he also did not know things that would have intensified his doubt. Believe it or not, Twain's essay "Is Shakespeare Dead" is very enjoyable (I first read it before I had an inkling of doubt).
Don't hold back Kyle, tell us how you really feel. Seriously this theory is infuriatingly classist and I am glad to see someone eviscerate it so thoroughly.
The Stratford man, socially speaking, would have been a boar among thoroughbreds. The Poet was obviously an aristocrat. I favor William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby. As to your Stratford fellow: a successful businessman, sometime actor.
@@Talisguy Stanley's brother was the proprietor of an acting company--the one which became Shakespeare's company. Stanley was also a patron of that company, which might have enabled him to become acquainted with its players. Though a nobleman such as Stanley (whose mother and whose niece were heiresses to Elizabeth's crown) could move down to intermix with lowlife players, players could scarcely hope to engage in social climbing and assimilate such knowledge of affairs of state as the plays amply evidence. Hence, the Author could not have been a mere player.
@@kreek22 "players could scarcely hope to engage in social climbing and assimilate such knowledge of affairs of state as the plays amply evidence." This is literally the same as arguing that movies about the Presidents couldn't possibly have been written by anyone who didn't work in the United States government. Shakespeare's plays were written by someone with a solid knowledge of history (and a vested interest in portraying the current dynasty in a positive light).
@@kreek22 Your dismissive comment in no way addresses the point, to whit: people who write things know things that are common knowledge to write about them, because that's how writing works. Obviously Hollywood screenwriters aren't as good as Shakespeare. Shakespeare was a very good writer, and by definition, that means most people aren't as good at writing as he is.
As someone from a family of gardeners, I deeply appreciate you taking the time to point out the Tudor Rose thing. Roses come in many gorgeous and inspiring variations, but if you combine a red and a white rose you can be quite certain that the result will be some shade of pink. If something like the tudor rose had actually been producible back in the tudor days then we'd be overflowing with bizarre distinctively two-coloured roses because that shit would sell better than the fake blue roses made by putting white roses in coloured water. If Rrroland had bothered to google "two-coloured rose" he would have realized that the closest thing we can produce TODAY after centuries of refinement, is roses with different colours on the underside vs the topside of the petal, which can give a pretty interesting effect but still doesn't look like one rose is superglued in the center of a larger rose. What WOULD have been much more appropriate in the film would have been the Rosa Gallica, a pink rose and one of the earliest cultivars. Of course, by today's standards it looks outright dull. Five single petals, uniformly toned pink, traditionally gardened for its practical uses more than its looks (it was used both in medicine and perfume). But alas, what would Rrrroland care about something so boorishly realistic as a flower that actually existed in the time period.
Yeah I agree with you, that was the one moment during this - in my opinion - really fine piece of catching historical fiction or, let's say "offer on a bit of engaging creative-critical thinking on "the" history as we often asume it had to be". The Tudor Rose thing was lame, I got an idea on that problem to be solved: Edward/Rhys could've led Ben along a private portrait gallery of his graceful highstage home (where we find THE English Rose depicted on a portrait, with a member of the family or all by itself, whatever), accompanied by a longing speech of Edwards how great and adorable the dynasty / Elizabeth is and was and theeeeeeen - if you need the garden scene, for heaven's sake... - continue the walk into the gardens. Well, Emmerich could've worked out that one far better and would've for sure been quite impressed to hear all about the possibilities of early modern gardening from a specialist as I take you for your note on that. :-) thanks for sharing!!
It blows my mind that they could make that kind of mistake. Like, I can see them writing in the bit about Marlowe and not fact-checking, but the rose thing? How did that go down? "We need some Tudor roses for this set! Get me all the Tudor roses you can find!" "The what roses?" "The Tudor roses! You know, roses that are red on the outside and white on the inside!" "…but those don't exist." "What, you can't find any?" "No, I mean the Tudor rose isn't a real flower. You can't get a red and white rose; if you crossbreed a red rose with a white-" "Whatever, just go make some fake ones." "But shouldn't we just write them out of the movie? This is a historical drama, right? Wouldn't it be really dumb to include a flower that can't exist?" "Shut up and make me those flowers!"
+Great Eyewarp It's an even dumber mistake when you remember that the Tudor Rose is a combination of the two emblems of the House of York and the House of Lancaster, i.e. the War of the Roses. You know, that war that is *literally the plot of a Shakespeare play?!*
Lady Marmalade Just when I thought the writing for this movie could not have been any dumber... You think Roland even knew the most basic trivia-for example: Shakespeare was English? At this point, I’m betting someone had to point that out to him.
Anyone else want to see Emmerich do a biopic where Mark Twain frees all the slaves, Fitzgerald was the leader of a nationwide bootlegging racket, and Vonnegut was abducted by aliens during WW2? Wouldn't be any less insulting than this movie!
The netflix reviews of this movie have made me lose faith in humanity. "this is an absoloubtley true retelling of the events as they occured." "Shakespeare was a plagiarist, lifting stories from norse, greek and latin mythologies." My personal favourite- "Too academic. Couldn't relate."
+Thorntonian That's always the freaky part, when you read something that you'd only say in sarcasm.....then you realize the person talking/writing is serious... [facepalm]
You can tell that these reviews were made by people who couldn't make sense of this movie, but wanted to appear smart. There's a beautiful paradox in this movie. You need a good knowledge of both Shakespeare's work and the time period to follow this movie (due to the non-linear timeline). However, only with that knowledge would you be able to notice all the inconsistencies, errors and logic flaws. Even when Roland Emmerich gets served a conspiracy theory on a sliver platter, he still screws it up.
Seems Roland forgot that most, if not all, of Shakespeare's "original" stories were adaptations of pre-existing ones. Hamlet comes from the Norse sagas, Romeo and Juliet was a popular romance story in Italy and Titania, Oberon and Puck were established characters in Renaissance storytelling/art and (in Puck's case) English folklore. Either Edward de Vere lived the most allegorical life of anyone on Earth or Emmerich is just a piss poor historian as well as a shite writer. Going with the latter, ngl.
The panel show QI had an entire episode on Shakespeare where David Mitchell summarized the point against the idea of Shakespeare not being posh enough to write plays pretty well: "He's exactly as far up in society as you'd expect a major writer to be. It's not like the best novels right now are written by the Duke of Westminster." Which is exactly right. Once education became available to a wider class of people (which for the first time in Europe it was around that time) writers were predominantly emerging from the middle class.
@Ron Maimon There is no evidence that Shakespeare was "borderline illiterate." He had a very advanced primary education before entering his adulthood. Spelling at the time was flexible by today's standards, but he was hardly illiterate.
@@ChrisMaxfieldActs "very advanced primary education"--good one. But, it's a bit labored for an oxymoron. Of course, we don't know how literate he was: we have nothing in his hand beyond a few signatures (each different from the next).
Aurelia Verity Yeah I think that’s what it’s boils down to this. This is a pretty classist theory if you get down to it, even going by 16th century logic!
@@spookyrosev6467 It is an incredibly classist theory, and as Aurelia points out, is one that doesn't stand up to the barest look at what classes actually produce successful commercial writers.
@Ron Maimon So how come Marlowe's plays are nothing like Shakespeare's? Was he just not trying as hard when he wrote under his own name? And what evidence do you have that Shakespeare was illiterate?
There's a huge problem with that 'Hamlet is autobiographical' theory. There were DOZENS of pre-existing plays and legends very similar to Hamlet, which is likely where Shakespeare got the idea. Just like he did with almost every other play he wrote. People at the time made jokes about Shakespeare and his plot-stealing! But no, Shakespeare was perfect and HOW CAN FALCON IF NOT POSH?!
Also? Hamlet was probably a remake, "remastered version" of so-called Ur-Hamlet, which could have been written by Shakespeare, but is also attributed to another elizabethan playwright Thomas Kyd.
Okay, maybe I’m misremembering history, but didn’t Shakespeare’s son die as he was writing. This is relevant because his son was also named Hamlet. I think?
Kenny Brightwell Shakespeare’s son was named Hamnet, though the similarity to ‘Hamlet’ could probably be coincidental. The play ‘Hamlet’ is ultimately derived from the Scandinavian legend about prince Amleth of Jutland. It should be obvious that the name ‘Hamlet’ is derived from ‘Amleth’.
@@jamiee7367 Right now I'm reading Maggie O'Farrell's novel Hamnet (excellent so far), and it points out that the names "Hamnet" and "Hamlet" were interchangeable in English writings of the time. That's kind of at the heart of this story, or rather its resolution. The play was based on legends of a Danish prince called Amleth, but it seems to be more than a coincidence.
Shakespeare almost unquestionably named his twins, Hamnet and Judith after friends Hamnet and Judith Sadler. While the only records of Hamnet Shakespeare I know of, spell his name Hamnet, Hamnet Sadler's name was variously spelled as Hamlette and Hamlet as well. These were all considered the same name. Spelling was just not thought of the same as it is today. Shakespeare generally reworked existing texts, often altering the spelling or names. Hamlet comes from the story of Amleth. It's not a huge stretch that he decided to go with Hamlet as it was his son's name.
I'm not surprised to see that from the guy who made a "documentary" about the most important gay movement of history but replaced the main person behind it with a skinny white dude, because how are movie-goes suppose to identify with black trans women??? God I hate Emmerich.
+Penguin With Glasses I know you're being ironic, but I'll answer the question anyway. Because Human beings tend to identify with other human beings regardless of their facticity.
What "point"? A black transwoman was changed into a skinny white dude, Noah said the reason was because "Human beings tend to identify with other human beings". How else was I supposed to take it?
"Roland doesn't like facts. He _does,_ however, like theories." Hear that grinding noise? That's the teeth of every bio major in the audience having Creationist flashbacks.
@@ECL28E As long as you understand that "theory" doesn't mean "synonym for wild-ass guess" we're fine. After all, Gravity is a scientific theory, too, and yet things still fall when you drop them.
@@ECL28E A scientific theory is basically as close as you can get to acknowledge something as truth. If say a hypothesis ends up being elevated to theory in science, natural science especially, it's because it has managed to stand up to scrutiny in studies and experiments conducted by many different people over the years to the point, that the only sensible conclusion is to acknowledge it as truth. So, whenever someone says "it's just a theory" about a scientific theory (like say evolution) it's kinda like saying "it's just facts."😁 In all seriousness though; I do suspect the confusion lies in that the word theory actually does have different meanings depending on the context. A theory in science is not the same as a theory in film studies f.ex. Theory in layman's terms is more akin to what you would call a hypothesis in science. When people use the "it's just a theory" argument about a scientific theory, they are essentially applying the layman's meaning to the word within the wrong context. Probably without them realising it.
I face-palmed the first time I saw "Fakespeare" with the "Tudor Rose". I had to pause with the video to yell; "It's not a real rose Roland, you moron! You can't actually breed roses like that; they'll just turn out pink!" My jaw went on to hit the floor when the film posed the idea that "Fakespeare" was Queen Elizabeth's illegitimate son and so on. That being said your final monologue is very moving.
I think ive rewatched this vid at least dozens of times over the years. The classist sentiments behind the anti stratfordians is bonkers, and your exasperation with them is still very funny
My issue with death of the author is that it goes both ways. For instance, there is enough evidence for reasonably claim that Machiavelli's The Prince was him subtly critiquing despotism by pointing out how inhumane and ruthless such a ruler would have to be for it to work. Now, doesn't it make the world seem a little bit brighter when you think that every callous powermonger who's taken Machiavelli to heart has actually just been the punchline of a joke?
+Crowley9 Speaking of that "death of the author" section.... Honestly, watching any Woody Allen film nowadays is kinda uncomfortable knowing the nitty-gritty of the sex scandal. However, if one were to take his films and his public behavior as autistic behaviors (his film persona is continually shy, is singularly obsessed over a small number of subjects, isn't coordinated, doesn't adapt to change well, and is neurotic to the bone; Woody's IRL persona seemingly knows no social skills based on him calling Mia Farrow a "bitch" during one of the most scrutinized media court cases pre-OJ, doesn't adapt well, has admitted to borrowing several of his film persona quirks from his IRL behavior, and is convinced that he's totally innocent and not in the Jimmy Gator "I don't know if I did" sense), then Annie Hall is a straight-up tragedy since it's about an autistic guy who thinks he has found his soulmate, but whose quirks continually undermine any long-term relationship the two may have. I think Woody Allen is not only autistic, but socially handicapped. Very much so. Hell, why do you think he doesn't go to the Oscars? It's not because Ed Harris is gonna roundhouse kick him in the chest - Elia Kazan went to the Oscars when he was still alive and wasn't attacked by Mr. Harris - but because he doesn't know how to act in a social setting. Now, with a small group of people and family members who trust him, of course he's gonna be more relaxed - he knows them more than these random famous faces. The thing about a child molester and/or monstrous rapist is that they try to be as outgoing as possible - i.e. Jared Fogle, Bill Cosby, BTK, Jimmy Savile, Gary Glitter. They try to continually show the world that they're good - that they wouldn't even harm a fly. Fogle had his Jared Foundation, Hot Cosby had his speaking engagements and the "pound cake" speech, Savile had all of those TV shows for kids on the BBC, and Gary Glitter was a goddamned glam rocker who ran restaurants and was constantly in the public eye up until he sent his computer in to PC World. Woody was never outgoing in the slightest - not even in the '60s and '70s, where you'd expect him to be moreso because he was handsome as fuck in those days. The closest he got to being outgoing was making some commercials for Seibu, but other than that, he wasn't tabloid fodder He just appears to be a dumb-ass guy socially - even in Mariel Hemingway's bio, she paints him more as a moron than a weaselly lecher for trying to drop the question on her this early in their relationship.
+Crowley9 I guess I'll add my two cents in on the "death of the author" section as well. I believe it is possible to separate the artist from the art. For example, Varg Vikernes. I know about his history and his racist ways, but when I listen to Burzum (his project), I don't think of that. I just think of his talent as a Black Metal artist. I could also use John Lennon and Micheal Jackson as examples of a literal death to the author/artist ordeal. It seems that once an artist or author has died, they are forgiven for any wrongdoings. When Kyle mentioned John Lennon, I chuckled, because most people forgot that he was a wifebeater. And now that it's been 6 years since he's died, no one really seems to bring up the child molestation charges of Micheal Jackson.
+Alexandre Martins thez point of death of the author is that the author doesn't matter...in that case, I really wonder how trying to find the author through his works would go hand in hand with that Idea. Death of the author means that we can only interpret what we see in the work, and if you are interested in alchemy and ancient science, the melancholic hamlet is a valid interpretation, wether shakespear believed in the thgeory of humors or just used it as a shorthand to start buiklding his character is ultimately irrelevant. So yes, overinterpretation and misinterpretation, sure: the whole goal is to free ouselves from analysis through the author's biography. The goal is basically to have fun and go wild, and i don't see anything wrong with that.
I've never liked when people associated the author's personal life with his work. I think Roman Polanski is a disgusting piece of shit rapist, but I still like his movies. Mel Gibson might be a shitty human being, but Lethal Weapon is still one of my favorite franchises. It's not about the artist, it's about the artwork.
Mattchester I'm always very split on that... going to the cinema to see a polanski movie helps him make a living. At the same time, should we prevent him from doing the one thing he does that makes the world more pleasant? This is gonna be much simpler when he is gone: then we will truly be able to separate the creator from his creations.
Shakespeare uses virtually every register of which English is capable. Chaucer, born into wealth and power, uses all sorts of language, including the sexually suggestive.
Clearly you don't know anything about de Vere a man described by his contemporaries as the most brilliant man of the generation, writing all of the plays long before they were published is something he easily could pull off, also Alexander Waugh has now proven oxford is in fact the play wright...
I can imagine Shakespeare's ghost seeing Anonymous. I have suspicions on what he probably thought. Probably, 'now I know how Richard III felt when I wrote that play.'
Honestly, the one conclusion I do believe in about Shakespeare that extrapolates from his work, is that one tumblr post where someone posits he definitely owned a cat because of how much his plays complain about them.
The achievements of Shakespeare and hip hop: totally analogous. Similarly, the achievements of Dan Gable and my junior high wrestling career: totally analogous.
Highly recommend "Acting Shakespeare" by Ian McKellen for anyone interested. It's on YT. He briefly brings up the authorship question, basically saying that, having acted in so much of Shakespeare's work, he is certain the author was a man of the theatre. Not exactly "proof", but it definitely rings true. Oh, and it's Ian McKellen, so it's just brilliant in general.
Your point is a lot like the one Kyle made about how Shakespeare had to have been an actor in the Chamberlain's Men- he knew what they were capable of. It's the same reason Monty Python and SNL are funny- they work closely with the actors and know what they're capable of, (some writers become performers themselves like Tina Fey, 'Wilma Shakespeare.') That's why the notion of some aristocrat sending in scripts to a company he knows nothing about FILLS ME WITH RAGE!!!!
The deconstruction of the true authorship of Independance Day...the use of Herb Alpert's Spanish Flea..."Stratfordians hate your freedoms!". I can't stop rewatching this. Classic Kyle.
The part about the Tudor rose just baffles me. They had to have either looked on the internet and found out they weren't real, or called a florist and found out the same thing. Which means either they didn't bother with research or didn't give a shit about something so obvious.
4:44 One of my favorite examples of proof that Shakespeare wrote the roles for specific actors in the company comes from Henry IV part 1. Lady Mortimer's wife only speaks in Welsh, but her lines aren't written in, instead a stage direction indicates that she says something in Welsh and another character translates it. This proves that the author knew the company had a boy actor who could speak Welsh (and that Shakespeare himself did not know Welsh, which is why he left it for the actor to figure out). Only an intimate of the company could have known that.
I actually looked up the history of "Croud surfing". The earliest reported incident of croud surfing happened in the 1970s and was related to Iggy Pop. The earliest confirmed recorded incident of croud surfing happened in the 1980s. It is also, of course, a variation of surfing, which (according to a quick look at Wikipedia just now) DID exist, but would not have been observed by white people untill about 1767, 151 years after Shakespeare's death. All of which confirms my initial reaction to that scene: "OH COME ON!!"
Did they actually say the word surfing in the movie? If so, that's impressive as it was invented in Hawaii, and by this time England had only just started tiptoeing into Virginia, much less the Pacific Islands!
De Ha knowing Emmerich's tendencies about history (just look at 10,000 BC), I'm surprised Shakespeare didn't smoke a joint and played Beach Boys songs before jumping into the crowd, though that would've made the movie more entertaining!
They literally say in the film that he was educated to a point where he learned to read and write. *Screams into pillow* I don't understand why they can't understand that intelligence isn't related to social status, especially if given the opportunity to LEARN HOW TO READ AND WRITE
Because access to reading and writing didn't give you access to books. Books were expensive at that time and libraries few and far between that would allow a commoner access.
he literally lived in a country and time where the printing industry was as old as the television industry is now. he would have been able to, i don't know, look stuff up
Social status and intelligence are related--and were in his time as well. But, the real problem is that his parents were illiterate, his daughters were illiterate, his wife was illiterate--and he mentions no books in his will. Books were still expensive back then, typically about $150 in today's dollars relative to American income. How does a young man deprived of books acquire the largest vocabulary of any poet in any language? He was a provincial, which guaranteed a provincial accent. But, somehow he was consorting with aristocrats before he'd even written anything impressive? The only way this standard old story works out is if something quite extraordinary happened to him during the "lost years." His main competitors, Marlowe and Jonson, had university educations--but, still couldn't match him.
kreek22 kreek22 I want to note that Shakespeare’s will not mentioning books isn’t very unusual for that time. For instance, Influential and learned writers Richard Hooker & Reginald Scot (We know for a fact Hooker had an extensive collection of books, & Scot would’ve probably owned books too) make no mention of books in their wills. In _Playhouse Wills, 1558-1642,_ a collection of wills of people connected with Elizabethan theater, of the 14 wills of playwrights collected, only 3 (William Bird, Samuel Rowley, Arthur Wilson) mention books. Also, the sort of Petty School & Grammar school education Shakespeare would’ve received in Stratford can be seen reflected in his plays. ( See T. W. Baldwin’s books _’William Shakespere's small Latine & lesse Greeke volumes 1 & 2’,_ and _’William Shakspere's petty school’_ ).
There are actually quite a few Shakespearean actors (some really great ones, even) who are dedicated to the authorship question. Jacobi is one. Mark Rylance is another. It makes me sad.
@@kreek22 Fair point, though he was the Bard; at least that is the most likely example. However it is also the case that Shakespeare would be unlikely to give a shit what a random actor thinks about him four centuries after his death. He didn't care about posterity as far as we can see. We only have the plays at all because Hemyngs and Condell collected them.
There are a few things about Oxfordianism in particular that have never been satisfactorily reconciled for me. First, why poetry? As your own video indicates, Edward de Vere wrote his own poetry and signed his name to it (and, frankly, it was pretty dire. That Looney thought it was on a par with Shakespeare's proves he was living up to his name). So why would he write Shakespeare's sonnets, "A Lover's Complaint", "Venus and Adonis", and "The Rape of Lucrece"? Why not just pass these works off as his own in a world where even Henry VIII and Elizabeth I wrote verse? Even if you accept the thesis that there was a giant social stigma against plays - though it didn't stop Thomas Sackville, the 1st Earl of Dorset, from co-writing _Gorboduc_ with Thomas Norton - there was no similar objection to lyric verse. Almost every nobleman in England was writing verse at various levels of skill. Skill in both verse and prose was part of the ideal courtier's toolkit according to Baldassare Castiglione, whose _The Book of the Courtier_ was translated into English in 1561 and set the fashion for life in Elizabeth's court. As an aside, _Gorboduc_ was the first blank verse play in English and it was first performed in 1561, three years before Shakespeare was even born. I can just picture Thomas Sackville in that scene of the film, off in his corner of the inn, mumbling over his pint, "You young whippersnappers! Don't you know I wrote the first blank verse drama?" I don't know if Thomas Norton would be there beside him. History tells me that he died in 1584, but if Marlowe could be alive in 1598 then why not Norton? It's also never been adequately explained why John Fletcher wanted to collaborate with a dead man. When de Vere died, Fletcher was only 24. His first play, written in collaboration with Francis Beaumont for the Children of the Revels, was _The Woman Hater_ . Scholars assign 1605 as the earliest date for it and most accept 1606. It was performed in 1607. So Oxfordians have to believe that the Earl sought out as a collaborator a man in his early 20s (22 or 23 at the latest in order to write at least three plays with Oxford before his death in June 1604) who had not yet written a single play and had no evident theatrical experience. One of those collaborations, _Cardenio_ , is based on the First Part of _Don Quixote_ , a book that wouldn't even be published until after Oxford's death and not until 1612 in English translation. However, the more crazed Oxfordians will tell you that Miguel de Cervantes did the Spanish translation and the Earl of Oxford wrote _Don Quixote_ in the original English. I wish I were kidding about this. After Oxford's death, Fletcher decided _not_ to keep on writing for the King's Men under his own name, even though it was by far the most prestigious company in London by virtue of its royal patron, but instead descended several rungs on the dramatist's career ladder to writing for children. The timeline makes sense if Fletcher were actually collaborating with Shakespeare, but it makes none at all if he were collaborating with a man who died in 1604. Finally, it's a matter of historical record that Edward de Vere had his _own_ theatre company, the Earl of Oxford's Men, until the company was subsumed by the Earl of Worcester's Men in 1602. If he were writing some of most popular plays of the age, why would he starve his own troupe of actors? If he had to use a front man, why not use a front man from the Earl of Oxford's Men rather than a member of a rival company? He could have made his company's fortune, as Shakespeare himself did with the Lord Chamberlain's Men/King's Men. So why didn't he do it?
+novikfyz He's speaking in an unintelligable way to make Anti-Stratfordians and their point seem foolish. If he used a properly structered sentence, it would probably have been something like "but how can he write about falcons if he's not posh?" I hope this answer helps.
funny you bring the concept of "only rich people can falconry"...if anyone even reads books about falconry, they mention this lil fancy text called "Book of St Albans", which mentions and treats the subject of social class and corresponding birds. Peasants or servants could raise kestrels/sparrowhawks for the art of hawking (after all, passeriformes and such were included in the diet of Europeans back in the day). while the credibility of "Book of St Albans" can be questioned to no end due to anachronisms (mentions of emperor during times were such things didn't existed, for example), its not farfetched to think that the commonfolk did falconry, so yeah it pissed me off a lot as an excuse of "see pooooosh can't be low class!" ...I had to do a thesis of falconry. sorry.
@@ethanschoales6563 People have this idea that Falconry was really only for the rich because yes, keeping a hawk is expensive and needs serfs to work around along a proper trainer. We keep this idea, of course, but falconry is not just for the rich. It is expensive but if you want to hunt birds like sparrows, pigeons, doves and pheasants, one way you have is with falcons (kestrels and the such). Or nets, of course, which was way more cheaper and let you catch even more...if you were lucky, maybe even killing the bird be strangling it before you do it. Old times were brutal. Hunting for poultry or things like rabbits and such used to never really be recorded (the "everyone knows how to do this!" Phenomenon you get in History, where it turns out that no, not everyone knows and knowledge gets lost), so you mostly go around trying to figure out from illustrations and old texts what they did. When I did my small thesis on the subject the Medieval part was a nightmare, tbh. You want to include more but, having no records, what are you supposed to do? Modern falconry keeps a good record of everything that is done for and with the bird, so no problem there
Also, aside from the fact that falconry and hawking had the same language, the aristocrats didn't train their own falcons. They had servants for that. Therefore, it's telling that most of the falconry references in Shakespeare are to _training_ the animals rather than hunting with them. Also, Shakespeare makes numerous references to the poacher's dirty trick of liming-covering a branch in sticky birdlime so that any perching bird would be trapped-which would have been scorned by an aristocrat. Finally, Henry Carey, 1st Baron Hunsdon, who was the patron of Shakespeare's company under Elizabeth and therefore Shakespeare was his servant, wasn't only the Lord Chamberlain but also Master of the Queen's Hawks. Gee, I wonder if he could have picked anything up via his patron and the servants who would have been tasked with actually looking after the queen's birds.
I've often heard that Shakespeare was 'actually a lot more lowbrow than we think today'. Having watched a college production of the ol' Scottish Play (I know, the jinx is only for people _performing_ it, I'm just intentionally being silly), I have to say that... the Porter's unedited speech really, REALLY convinced me this was the case.
I love your rage in this video. Have you ever heard of the Shakespeare forgeries? In 1790, A man named William Henry Ireland claimed to have found many papers with Shakespeare's signature on them, only to later admit his forgeries. I've seen them in person as Indiana University's Lilly Library has many of the manuscripts and it is astonishing that people thought they were authentic. We have so few manuscripts with Shakespeare's actual handwriting as writing down plays was a cause for concern for playwrights and legal documents of the lower class weren't commonly kept, or for that matter, written on higher quality parchment or with good ink. Lower quality parchment tends to become brittle much faster and inks with a high iron content tended to actually eat the parchment after some time. Sorry for this long post. This is just one of those subjects I'm passionate about (The joys of being a Librarian).
Holy crap another person who knows about William Henry Ireland! I totally thought of him what with the whole idea Kyle touches on of seeing yourself in Shakespeare, because so much of what Ireland did in his forgeries presented Shakespeare in a way that made him even more admirable to the people of 18th century England, from the profession of faith Ireland wrote to remove suspicion that Shakespeare wasn't protestant to Ireland's 'improvements' of King Lear.
This is amazing! BTW, you can expect lots of hits because the link to this video has been shared in the FutureLearn course about Shakespeare and his time. That's how I got here, and I'm reallt grateful :D
KyleKallgrenBHH Here: www.futurelearn.com/courses/shakespeare-and-his-world/3 It's an amazing course, the leading educator is Jonathan Bate, a well known Shakespeare scholar, and the quality of the material they share is wonderful, all for free. One of the students shared your link to show the "Oxfordians" the silliness of their position: I don't think they liked it :) but I certainly enjoyed it a lot!
Some of my favourite Anti-Stratfordian bits to refuse: From Wikipedia: "For Christopher Marlowe to have written Shakespeare, he'd first have to survive his own death." I love this phrasing. "There is not a single mention of his hometown in any of his plays." First of all, it's a bit difficult to reference a small English town in any elegant way, when so many of the plays take place outside England. Second of all, you don't know that. Nobody does. If Shakespeare's friends went to see it, they might see a dead ringer for John the innkeeper in the personality of Polonius, or something like that. We just don't know enough about his contemporaries to be totally sure of what is a Stratford-upon-Avon reference or not.
In fact, there are some local references in Shakespeare's plays. For example, Christopher Sly in _The Taming of the Shrew_ refers to the "fat alewife of Wincot, Marian Hacket". And there was a Hacket family in that village in Warwickshire. George Bardolfe and William Fluellen ( _Henry IV_ / _Henry V_ ) are names that appear with John Shakespeare's in a list of defaulters who were absenting themselves from church for fear of being apprehended for debts. One of the schoolmasters, Thomas Jenkins, who taught at the King's New School (now King Edward VI School) in Stratford was Welsh, like Sir Hugh Evans in _The Merry Wives of Windsor_ , and the Latin lesson he gives young Will is drawn from William Lily's _A Short Introduction of Grammar_ , one of the basic texts of the grammar school curriculum.
Was John the Inkeeper's personal motto "One Heart One Way"? Maybe that would be why the character's name was changed from Corambis (two-hearted) to Polonius. Oh no, that's William Cecil, Oxford's legal guardian and father-in-law who also pushed his daughter unto Oxford the same way Polonius does Ophelia unto Hamlet.
@@loandbaxhuku9617 "Was John the Inkeeper's personal motto 'One Heart One Way'? Maybe that would be why the character's name was changed from Corambis (two-hearted) to Polonius." Corambis does *NOT* mean "two-hearted". "Two-hearted" would be _duplex corde_ or _duplici corde_ . _Ambis_ can mean "both" (but not "two") but then _cor_ would have to be inflected as _cordes ambis_ . And if you wanted to get as close as possible and screw the grammar, you could say that _cor_ is "heart" and _bis_ is "twice", but then there's no explanation for the letters "am". There is just no way to make the assertion work under the rules of Latin grammar. A far more likely explanation for "Corambis" is that it's a reference to twice-cooked cabbage - _coramble bis_ - a proverbially dull dish and a fitting name for a foolish, prating windbag. "Oh no, that's William Cecil, Oxford's legal guardian and father-in-law who also pushed his daughter unto Oxford the same way Polonius does Ophelia unto Hamlet." You know, it would help if you Shakespeare authorship deniers would actually *READ* the plays you want to shove off onto other people. Polonius *DOES NOT* push his daughter onto Hamlet but *JUST THE OPPOSITE* . He sees the romance burgeoning between them and orders his daughter to stop speaking to Hamlet and to demand the return of her letters and love tokens. That is why he blames himself for Hamlet's madness, which he mistakenly identifies as flowing from rejected love. You're trying so hard to conjure up a biographical parallel that you've turned the entire play inside out and upside down.
Emmerich doesn't like facts... which is particularly evident in his piece of shit Stonewall film. On a more amusing note, I recall an interviewer asking Ralph Fiennes how he felt about the Anti-Stratfordian notion of this film and he basically said in so many words that he didn't see the film and didn't give a shit about that theory.
And while we're at it, where is the Japanese kaiju enthusiast who wrote the Roland Emmerich-attributed Godzilla film? Or the Mayan princess who obviously made 2012? Why is this hack's name all over these works?
+Alan Smithee destroy gays with a virus ? Substitute computer with biological and you have the theory and concept for a terrible Roland movie, except this one will surely get him kicked out of Hollywood forever.
I have actually referenced this video in my final essay at uni - All accredited according to academic practice of course - and the idea of 'literary creationism' is perhaps the best way to summarise this way of thinking, that Shakespeare is 'perfect' and therefore only a 'perfect' person who fits the mold can be the author. Though my lecturer has made some compelling points about the problems surrounding our knowledge of Shakespeare's authorship, I don't buy any of the alternative authorship theories. This is a great video, kinda got me ahead of the game in my seminars. Plus it's just so funny. Thanks!
As far as we can tell, Shakespeare's own life did bleed into his own works sometimes. That is natural enough. HAMLET was written after his son died. THE TEMPEST was written as his daughter was becoming engaged to a theatre-opposing Puritan. The central characters of his plays generally get older as Shakspeare does himself--from the teenagers ROMEO AND JULIET to the middle-aged parents Leontes and Hermione in THE WINTER'S TALE. But this is just one factor out of many.
While I do try not to read too much into things it is hard not to note that the man's dead son was called Hamnet and that what turned out to be his last solo work ends with a wizard giving up his magic.
Thank you for pointing out how ridiculous the whole Anti Stratfordian thing is. I did a whole report debunking this nonsense in college and it’s bugged me ever since. Anti Stratfordians are the classical literature equivalent of flat earthers.
I haven't watched Brows Held High in recent years, but I was directed to this by someone talking about Emmerich's STONEWALL. Kyle, this is the best thing I've seen you do. It's making me think a lot about Barthesian theory and the roles an author can play in our lives. Thank you for making this!
The whole theory trying to link the story of Hamlet to the Earl of Oxfords life is also an even bigger insult if you think about it. Some scholors believe Shakespeare started writing Hamlet right around the time his son at the age of 11. So it is very possible the haunting words and themes on existence and the pain of living came from coping with his real life grief. Leading to ideas and sentiments that have transcended and stood the test of time. But these mouth breathing, classicist, Fakespeare assholes look at those same words and just go. "Nah! He too low class to write that."
Haunting words and themes of existence and the pain of living? You mean, the "To be or not to be" soliloquy, right? The one that is a reference to Cardanus Consolations, whose translation to English was commissioned by... Oh, this can't be right, Edward de Vere? That's crazy.
@@loandbaxhuku9617 The only similarity to _Cardanus Comforte_ (not "Consolations") is the purely generic fact that both recognize mortality as the end of life. There's a far more compelling case that Hamlet's soliloquy is based on the 1561 translation of Cicero's _Tusculan Disputations_ by John Dolman, but that doesn't suit the Oxfordians because they can't make use of the Oxfordian principle of proximity. Like a thief, the Oxfordians believe that if Edward de Vere gets close enough to something, he'll have it off you regardless of whether he has any rightful title to it or not.
7:31 So did Roland think the Tudor Rose went extinct or something? Didn't he consider changing that part of his movie once he realized he couldn't actually have his actor handle a real one?
+Brian Cole I think Roland thinks Tudor England was actually Wonderland, and that Elizabeth had someone going around painting white roses red - but only on the outer petals!
The Revolution Moviebob has always been known to be an apologist of Emmerich, and it’s often for the aspects of the movie that are overlooked by many people. As heinous as the movie’s history is, I’m certain that there are aspects of it that can be commended.
"fantastic analysis" well, fantastic yes--analysis no. He flies right on past the solid evidence as all Stratfordians are forced to do to hold onto their faith.
Actually, "Looney" is pronounced, according to his family, to rhyme with "moony." Charles Wisner Barrell came up with the alternate pronunciation to avoid mockery. It didn't work.
I can kinda get someone thinking Shakespeare wasn't the writer of the plays, but not thinking he _existed?_ How does someone, after looking at the plethora of documentation, come to that conclusion?
The theory fundamentally falls apart when you realize that, yes, there IS a distinction between lower-class and middle-class. A middle class sensibility is necessary to break the rules of language in the ways that he did. It's not impossible for him to know what was going on in the world because early forms of the mass media did exist at the time Shakespeare was writing; he would probably have relied on second-hand information from reading news pamphlets which were written by people with similar backgrounds to him.
Actually, Romans did have a clock. It was called 'clepsydra', and it was a type of mechanical water clock. It was even in a way similar to current form of clock. Try to look it up on wikipedia and google (I would put a link here, but for some reason I can't insert any coppied text or link in comment bar)
+TheStrangerTom In Julius Caesar Shakespeare wrote this scene: - Clock strikes BRUTUS Peace! count the clock. CASSIUS The clock hath stricken three. He's clearly assuming that ancient Rome had the same sort of mechanized clock that struck on the hour that one could find in medieval and early modern Europe. That was what I meant, though I could have phrased it better. "Shakespeare thought that ancient Rome had mechanized, gear-driven clocks" or something to that extent.
The thing is that clepsydras' were mechanized (kinda, sorta), and did strike an hour. Some types of it could, even in ancient times, strike the bell or gong (at least based on informations on the wikipedia - granted, not that verifiable). Even the first astronomical clocks (called horologion) were developed in ancient times, based on clepsydra mechanism. In case you would be interested, here is a link for a few pictures and wiki page: upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Clepsydra.jpg en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_clock#/media/File:Clepsydra-Diagram-Fancy.jpeg en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_clock#Greco-Roman_world Sorry if this reply is a bit overstretched. Anyway, a great video!
@@petehill7280 Actually Marlow's death has all sorts of complications associated with it. No one that knew him was there the day he died nor did they identify the body. A bunch of witnesses, who disappeared after the event were a group of strangers, including the one who killed him. It's why there is the theory that he didn't die, his death was faked and someone else's body was buried. The fact that he was possibly a spy (his college schooling paid for by the Spymaster of the court) and adept at multiple languages is why he's pointed at as a source of some of the plays. Alternatively there is the theory that Marlowe died but had a couple of unfinished plays when he died which Shakespeare got ahold of and finished as his own. So, not a case of Shakespeare didn't write plays, only that he stole/plagiarized a few of them. He was known to borrow (Romeo & Juliet evidently steals its plot from an earlier work apparently. "Romeo and Juliet belongs to a tradition of tragic romances stretching back to antiquity. The plot is based on an Italian tale translated into verse as The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet by Arthur Brooke in 1562 and retold in prose in Palace of Pleasure by William Painter in 1567." See also: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romeo_and_Juliet
I'm almost a decade late with this - but I think your Shakespeare is one of meaning before meter. So many great Shakespearean actors, I think, fall in love, well likely first with a few of the individual pieces of his genius that speak most to them - but more concretely with his mastery of the poetic quality of plays of his day and so more often than not, they're delivered in a way that's astonishingly beautiful (and over which you can certainly overlay the required emotions...) ...and yet I finally realised why your version of the Chorus' speech from Henry V is my favourite that I've ever seen. You read it naturalistically, and it honestly knocked my brain sideways the first time I heard it because, while there isn't _that_ much archaic wording in that speech and it's not _that_ hard to parse anyway, there's still some and, for the first time, the entire speech was readily understandable without having to consciously parse it _at all._ That's just... more enjoyable an experience than a more poetic reading that makes the gears in my brain clash occasionally because the gear-clashing, somewhat ironically, is more disruptive of the gravitas the poetic approach creates than it would be of the more... intimate connection to the meaning behind the words created by the more naturalistic one. That makes perfect sense to me. There's far more to conveying meaning in real life than the words, the tone and dynamics with which you say them, and your body language. Varying stress and pacing _far_ more than a typical reading would allow has huge impact - your brain instantly registers, "someone expressing frustration that they can't do what they want to and what people would like so, in humility, asks the people to meet him halfway." You could have read it in Klingon and I'd have got that. Once you know the overall meaning, it's kind of staggering how easily a brain can fill in the specific meaning of words and phrases that aren't in your lexicon using the context of the ones that are. ...and the best part? The poetic quality isn't lost - a good poem _doesn't_ lose its beauty just because you don't read it with regimented stress and pacing. Parts of Tennyson's 'Ulysses' works so much better for me when not in close to rigid iambic pentameter pentameter, while some parts are quite the reverse - as we see in your reading when you revert to a more standard meter both to lead strongly into into the play and as the Chorus is thinking, "phew, I feel like they bought that." With great poetry, the aesthetics that _make_ it great are baked in and not easily damaged by the delivery. Just a thought I should have had a long time ago. Both this video and the Henry V one are long-time comfort viewing for me; this one because it's herniatingly hilarious and the Henry V one because the point you make about the ultimate emptiness of Henry's glorious rhetoric (at least in-story) kind of breaks my heart, in a good way, every time. That speech _is_ staggeringly inspiring and yet, "Henry's a fuckin' liar" is so painfully accurate - and that pain is never feels _not_ worth feeling for someone who so admires great rhetorical skill, detests sophistry and knows all to well that _no-one_ can spot sufficiently good sophistry _every_ time on the first listen.
At least that portrayal was played for Comedy. Elizabeth's portrayal is played seriously and is framed as a 100% True, 'Warts and All' Depiction (even though we already have Glenda Jackson filling that image perfectly already).
This is one of my favourite videos and i forced everyone in my uni Shakespeare class to watch it. When me and my friend found a second-hand copy we had to get it. We decided to make it into a drinking game in which we would drink every time we spotted a historical inaccuracy. I don't think I've ever played such a lethal drinking game and for the life of me, I can't remember a single thing about the film apart from the double inbred bastard plot.
9:56 The so-called "sack of grain" was almost certainly a representation of a pillow, indicative of eternal sleep. It was a common motif in grave markers of the time (for those who could afford same).
Exactly so. Even in the inaccurate sketch by William Dugdale, you can tell that the so-called "sack of grain" has tassels on it, and Dugdale explicitly noted in his _Antiquities of Warwickshire_ that this was the grave of "Shakespeare, the Poet, his Monument and Epitaph" and he also copies out the inscriptions, like the Latin one saying that he was "in art, a Virgil [ _arte Maronem_ ]" and the English lines that refer to "all that he hath writ".
Nearly a decade on and I *still* find myself saying "BUT HOW CAN FALCON IF NOT POSH!?" to myself, and upset no one in my real life can't understand the reference
The problem with the Edward De Vere theory is that he died in 1604, meaning he couldn't of written Macbeth, Antony and celopatra, Coriloanus, Perclies, Cymbline, Winter's tale henry 8th, tempest and two noble kingsmen.
That's okay. Just arbitrarily plop them down a couple of decades before they were actually written like the Oxfordians do. You don't have to worry about any Oxfordian checking up on you because they barely know Shakespeare beyond what they studied in high school, let alone knowing anything of the development of Bankside theatre generally in the Jacobean era. For example, I had one of them claim that _Henry VIII_ must have been written when Elizabeth was still alive because of the praise for her in the play during the christening scene at the end. I pointed out, to their discomfiture, that they had clearly missed the praise for Elizabeth's successor that is also in this passage.
Well we can't determine how much an author puts his own life into their work, but we CAN determine what kind of tropes that like to use or what themes they like to examine. For example, we can't determine Yasuhiro Imagawa's life from stuff like G Gundam, Tetsujin 28 or Giant Robo, but a common theme in those is how the dark experiments of the older generation (Domon, Shotaro and Ginrei's fathers for example.) has consequences that the younger generation has to deal with... and he really likes Giant Robots.
As a writer myself, I can assure you that SOME of the author is put into each and every work. The trick is just concerning the commonalities to figure it out.
I'm a writer myself too, so I aware that a creator puts parts of themselves into their work. However, I do think we need to be careful in how we analyze someone's works in relation to their lives. It's like the point shown in the Beginner's Guide game; sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, know what I mean?
The irony is that he decided to make a movie about his "truth" concerning Shakespearean authorship by constructing a subplot that has an English Queen entering into a sexual relationship with her own son, without any evidence for that either.
I remember watching this movie when it came out when I was a teenager (I was like 14 or 15). I just kind of shrugged my shoulders at it and promptly forgot about it. Fast forward to now. I have just graduated with two masters degrees in Shakespeare and this movie has now transformed into one of the funniest things I've ever seen. The sheer amount of contrivances, inaccuracies, and blatant misunderstandings of how early modern England and early modern playwrighting worked are just so hilariously stupid and mind boggling. I still think the fact that Roland apparently thought the Tudor Rose was a real flower is one of the funniest bits, because I imagine some poor prop maker having to hot glue artificial white petals to a plastic rose. Like, it takes one google search to tell you that it was just a symbol created by Henry VII to symbolize the uniting of the Houses of Lancaster (Red) and York (white).
@Jeffhowardmeade So I attended Mary Baldwin University, which is in Staunton, Virginia. They have a three year, double Masters program in Shakespeare and Performance. The first two years earn you a Master of Letters and the third year earns you an MFA. I adored the program. It was easily one of the best times I've ever had in my life. If you love Shakespeare, I highly, HIGHLY recommend it.
@@MrMrMrprofessor Thanks! MBU is high on my list. I was going to see Julius Caesar at the Blackfriars there tomorrow, but came down with something last night. 🤬 I've read a couple of Prof. Menzer's books and enjoyed them.
@Jeffhowardmeade Dr. Menzer is one of the most intelligent men I've ever met, and his lectures are an absolute treat. And I hope you get to see JC! That theater is a work of art, as far as I'm concerned. If you join the S&P program, you get to perform on that stage many times. It is one of a kind. If you're looking for a Shakespeare program, there really isn't a better program in the US, as far as I'm concerned. More than happy to talk about it.
@@MrMrMrprofessor I was looking more in the direction of dramaturgy, and the ASC's use of original practices reveals so much about Shakespeare's stagecraft. I just picked up a copy of Shakespeare's Professional Skills by Coghill and it's amazing to see just how precise and methodical Shakespeare was being even while writing what appears on stage as chaos. Is MBU appropriate for someone who couldn't even convincingly act sick to get out of work?
As one of my father's professors said, re the theory that Bacon wrote Shakespeare, "If he wrote Shakespeare, when did he have the time to write Bacon?"
I saw Anonynomous last night. You didn't even mention a couple of the things that I personally thought were the MOST bullshit. If I didn't know better I'd say you left them out so that I can see them myself and yell "OH COME ON!" Of my own accord. If so, well played Kyle. *tips hat*
It's also possible he was trying his best not to go too off-topic; the criticism he focuses on in this video is rebuking the Anti-Stratfordians' arguments, so some of the stuff you got mad about might've strayed away from that.
BUT HOW CAN FALCON IF NOT POSH????
4:49
"Emmerich's bad science is more interesting than his bad history."
/stares at Stonewall and breathes deeply to settle blood pressure.
ShootingStarNeo Oh god. I just googled it and it's real. I thought it was just something he wanted to make but never got to yet.
You'd think Emmerich would have done a more respectful job of adapting this event to film, because he himself is gay!
Well I'm sure it wasn't made with mal intent. I'm sure it was handled with respect, just not competence.
+Tate Hildyard Yeah, he made the (wrong) assumption that straight audiences wouldn't be able to empathize with a main character who was 'too gay.' Of course, that's just Roland's way of saying that he's not good with this whole character-development thing, and he'd rather his lead be safe and bankable instead of...you know...interesting.
So yeah, just incompetence.
Actually, Shakespeare did write for the unwashed masses (hence his bawdy jokes everywhere), and stage performance did involve special effects to some extent (remember that this is an age where showing off technological advancement became a thing, like elaborate clocks and such). Also remember that Shakespeare's audience, while consisting mainly of the common folk, were pretty much THE most sophisticated, dedicated, and demanding theatre going public in history. The reason why so many of these plays are of such high quality was because that quality was demanded by a highly genre-savvy audience who would accept nothing less than the newest, most innovative plays.
Just look at A comedy of errors where the fatness of one woman is compared to an entire country. Dumb fun but in Shakespeare form. XD
Sytse Durkstra Ah yes, catering to the masses with Yo Momma jokes, that's my Shakespeare
Just goes to show that you can get away with ANY joke if you tell it well enough.
Not to be contentious, Syste, but in my experience (which is long), bawdy jokes are appreciated by all classes. Also, I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure people of all classes went to see the plays. But I don't know who Shakespeare wrote for. I'm just glad he did write.
@@pixels2u context, Elizabethan England
Kyle feels about this movie, like archaeologists feel about Ancient Aliens.
I genuinely facepalmed when they showed a literal Tudor Rose. Holy shit.
7:32 gotta love the guy in the background there with the ._. face
@@Flowtail it's true lol
Oxfordians: the earl of oxford was Shakespeare.
Stratfordians: no he wasn't Shakespeare worked hard! And now I dislike him.
Me a rare stratfordian: EARL OF OXFORD IS EARL OF OXFORD!!! And he just like poetry.
Yeah, if I ever have an imaginary daughter I'm naming her Tudor Rose de La Mancha.
Her friends can call her Tudy or TR, or if she wants she can go by Rose.
And when she's old enough, her mom Dulcinea and I will sit her down and explain to her why she doesn't really exist. Because she has a right to know.
And you know they had to have done it with CGI or something so there’s no way they thought it was a real thing.
Is there yet a "How can falcon if not posh?" T-shirt, for if so, I should wish to purchase one.
Not that I know of-but you could have one made. If done right, it could be good.
I want one, too!
I want one!
I want one for “ I am cockblockion the magnificent “
Hrothmeir I usually use variations of that to mock theories that think they’re clever but in reality relies on BS logical fallacies.
In particular there’s a plot twists in the visual novel series Umineko no naku kori ni that made some fans unhappy (although to be fair there are still some plot holes and it wasn’t even properly explained until the manga) prompting many to go to “la la la” I’m not listening and make their own alternative theory. With one evidence basically being “BUT HOW CAN TRAP IF BIG BREASTS!!!”...no I won’t go into much detail than that, but yeah a character’s breast size is SERIOUSLY a piece of evidence in this counter argument
What's funny to me is that these Anti-Stratfordians ask how Shakespeare could possibly know about the things nobles do as leisure or as business, when Shakespeare worked for a company called the Lord Chamberlain's men, later to be renamed the King's Men! People of all classes went to see the plays put on, would it really be too much of a stretch to assume Shakespeare could ask them directly what their life is like, or maybe even eavesdrop? Or hell, maybe the Noble told him directly. Or, and this is just me spitballing, go to a library and find stories of this kind of thing?
Yeah it’s not like this stuff was top secret!
The Lord Chamberlain exists as a deputy to the position of Lord Great Chamberlain.
The position of Lord Great Chamberlain... was a hereditary possession of the De Vere family, passed down along with the Earldom of Oxford to the legal heir. The Lord Great Chamberlain during Elizabeth's reign was Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford aka that blonde guy Rhys Ifans is portraying.
Isn't that embarrassing for you?
@@loandbaxhuku9617 "The Lord Chamberlain exists as a deputy to the position of Lord Great Chamberlain. "
Wrong. The Lord Chamberlain is not a deputy to anyone. The Lord Chamberlain is the most senior position in the Royal Household. The Lord Chamberlain is an advisor to the crown and the main channel of communication with the House of Lords, and the office also organizes all ceremonial activities. Back in the early modern period, they also had the remit of overseeing court entertainments and determining which plays could be performed and published. The Lord Great Chamberlain is a merely ceremonial position.
"Isn't that embarrassing for you?"
No. However, the fact that you can't get anything right about this period should be embarrassing for you. You don't happen to be Roland Emmerich, are you?
I saw a bumper sticker that explains that mentality: “Everything is a conspiracy theory if you don’t know how anything works.”
It blows my mind that Derek Jacobi is an Anti-Stratfordian. I can only imagine the withering looks he must get from Kenneth Branagh.
+Fors Clavigera Derek Jacobi played the Master. The Master is the enemy of the Doctor. The Doctor is a friend of Shakespeare. Therefore Dereck Jacobi is anti-Stratfordian. Illumanti confirmed
I don't think he's Anti-Stratfordian, just pro-paycheck
Niel Jacoby I wish that were true, but he's pretty active about it and was one of the guys behind the "Declaration of Reasonable Doubt". It's a shame, really.
+Fors Clavigera well shit
He also played Claudius in a very well made mini series
The anti-Stratfordian that really gets me is Mark Twain. If anyone would understand that a nobody from the backwaters without an education could still profoundly understand the human condition you'd think that it would be Samuel "Mark Twain" Clemens!
scaper8 Most of the evidence we can pull up with a few keystrokes was not available at the time. The will with its bequest to fellow King's Men written between the lines looked dodgy, and the official copy had not yet been found. Worst of all, Stratford was the worst sort of tourist trap. Even worse than it is today. You could buy Shakespeare "relics" carved from the mulberry tree he supposedly planted, and pay to scratch your name in the window through which the divine Will received light upon his writing desk. I don't blame Twain for being a skeptic.
I do wonder what modern Anti-Strats are thinking, though. It's not like they have any shortage of evidence for Shakespeare.
Fair points.
Doesn't mean I like it, but I can understand it.
@@scaper8 Twain recognized that Shakespeare's achievement far surpassed his own--that they were not kindred spirits. Admirable humility. Also, he understood that Elizabethan England was very different from his America--class differences mattered enormously. And, though Twain did not know things that would have reduced his doubt about Shakespeare, he also did not know things that would have intensified his doubt. Believe it or not, Twain's essay "Is Shakespeare Dead" is very enjoyable (I first read it before I had an inkling of doubt).
You beat me to it!
Thank You!!!
Damnit Clemens...
Your metaphorically discounting yourself...
Don't hold back Kyle, tell us how you really feel.
Seriously this theory is infuriatingly classist and I am glad to see someone eviscerate it so thoroughly.
The Stratford man, socially speaking, would have been a boar among thoroughbreds. The Poet was obviously an aristocrat. I favor William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby. As to your Stratford fellow: a successful businessman, sometime actor.
@@Talisguy Stanley's brother was the proprietor of an acting company--the one which became Shakespeare's company. Stanley was also a patron of that company, which might have enabled him to become acquainted with its players. Though a nobleman such as Stanley (whose mother and whose niece were heiresses to Elizabeth's crown) could move down to intermix with lowlife players, players could scarcely hope to engage in social climbing and assimilate such knowledge of affairs of state as the plays amply evidence. Hence, the Author could not have been a mere player.
@@kreek22 "players could scarcely hope to engage in social climbing and assimilate such knowledge of affairs of state as the plays amply evidence."
This is literally the same as arguing that movies about the Presidents couldn't possibly have been written by anyone who didn't work in the United States government.
Shakespeare's plays were written by someone with a solid knowledge of history (and a vested interest in portraying the current dynasty in a positive light).
@@wppb50 A fellow once compared (literally!) Hollywood screenwriters to Shakespeare.
It is to laugh.
@@kreek22 Your dismissive comment in no way addresses the point, to whit: people who write things know things that are common knowledge to write about them, because that's how writing works.
Obviously Hollywood screenwriters aren't as good as Shakespeare. Shakespeare was a very good writer, and by definition, that means most people aren't as good at writing as he is.
As someone from a family of gardeners, I deeply appreciate you taking the time to point out the Tudor Rose thing. Roses come in many gorgeous and inspiring variations, but if you combine a red and a white rose you can be quite certain that the result will be some shade of pink. If something like the tudor rose had actually been producible back in the tudor days then we'd be overflowing with bizarre distinctively two-coloured roses because that shit would sell better than the fake blue roses made by putting white roses in coloured water. If Rrroland had bothered to google "two-coloured rose" he would have realized that the closest thing we can produce TODAY after centuries of refinement, is roses with different colours on the underside vs the topside of the petal, which can give a pretty interesting effect but still doesn't look like one rose is superglued in the center of a larger rose.
What WOULD have been much more appropriate in the film would have been the Rosa Gallica, a pink rose and one of the earliest cultivars. Of course, by today's standards it looks outright dull. Five single petals, uniformly toned pink, traditionally gardened for its practical uses more than its looks (it was used both in medicine and perfume). But alas, what would Rrrroland care about something so boorishly realistic as a flower that actually existed in the time period.
Would the virus that makes tulips splotchy be able to infect a rose?
Yeah I agree with you, that was the one moment during this - in my opinion - really fine piece of catching historical fiction or, let's say "offer on a bit of engaging creative-critical thinking on "the" history as we often asume it had to be". The Tudor Rose thing was lame, I got an idea on that problem to be solved: Edward/Rhys could've led Ben along a private portrait gallery of his graceful highstage home (where we find THE English Rose depicted on a portrait, with a member of the family or all by itself, whatever), accompanied by a longing speech of Edwards how great and adorable the dynasty / Elizabeth is and was and theeeeeeen - if you need the garden scene, for heaven's sake... - continue the walk into the gardens. Well, Emmerich could've worked out that one far better and would've for sure been quite impressed to hear all about the possibilities of early modern gardening from a specialist as I take you for your note on that. :-) thanks for sharing!!
It blows my mind that they could make that kind of mistake. Like, I can see them writing in the bit about Marlowe and not fact-checking, but the rose thing? How did that go down?
"We need some Tudor roses for this set! Get me all the Tudor roses you can find!"
"The what roses?"
"The Tudor roses! You know, roses that are red on the outside and white on the inside!"
"…but those don't exist."
"What, you can't find any?"
"No, I mean the Tudor rose isn't a real flower. You can't get a red and white rose; if you crossbreed a red rose with a white-"
"Whatever, just go make some fake ones."
"But shouldn't we just write them out of the movie? This is a historical drama, right? Wouldn't it be really dumb to include a flower that can't exist?"
"Shut up and make me those flowers!"
+Great Eyewarp It's an even dumber mistake when you remember that the Tudor Rose is a combination of the two emblems of the House of York and the House of Lancaster, i.e. the War of the Roses.
You know, that war that is *literally the plot of a Shakespeare play?!*
Lady Marmalade Just when I thought the writing for this movie could not have been any dumber...
You think Roland even knew the most basic trivia-for example: Shakespeare was English? At this point, I’m betting someone had to point that out to him.
Anyone else want to see Emmerich do a biopic where Mark Twain frees all the slaves, Fitzgerald was the leader of a nationwide bootlegging racket, and Vonnegut was abducted by aliens during WW2? Wouldn't be any less insulting than this movie!
Zak Kizer The Fitzgerald one would be kind of cool.
Zak Kizer: Do all three. At once. With time travel.
Well it does involve Vonnegut so not unreasonable really!
How Can Falcon If Not Posh needs to be on a T-shirt
+Organic Fantasy Agreed.
+Organic Fantasy I was going to suggest the same!
Agreed
+Organic Fantasy And the words "Shakespeare Truthers actually believe this" should be placed on the back.
+Organic Fantasy I reckon the Tories would like one.
The netflix reviews of this movie have made me lose faith in humanity.
"this is an absoloubtley true retelling of the events as they occured."
"Shakespeare was a plagiarist, lifting stories from norse, greek and latin mythologies."
My personal favourite- "Too academic. Couldn't relate."
Maybe they're sarcastic ?
simone robson The sad thing is, I honestly can't tell the sarcastic ones from the real ones.
+Thorntonian That's always the freaky part, when you read something that you'd only say in sarcasm.....then you realize the person talking/writing is serious... [facepalm]
If lifting stories from mythology was actually considered plagiarism, good-bye fiction category of any media ever. You were my favorite category.
You can tell that these reviews were made by people who couldn't make sense of this movie, but wanted to appear smart.
There's a beautiful paradox in this movie. You need a good knowledge of both Shakespeare's work and the time period to follow this movie (due to the non-linear timeline). However, only with that knowledge would you be able to notice all the inconsistencies, errors and logic flaws.
Even when Roland Emmerich gets served a conspiracy theory on a sliver platter, he still screws it up.
jet fuel can't write sonnets
... i shall screencap this, print it, frame it and put it on my wall to admire this every day of my life until i die, thank you
selling the text
delivering the text
interpreting the text
reworking the text
exploiting the text
ignoring the text
INSULTING THE TEXT
+Robert Pysh Or in this case, questioning the text.
DivineAll Insulting the text was referring to thus movie
Also disregarding the author
Seems Roland forgot that most, if not all, of Shakespeare's "original" stories were adaptations of pre-existing ones. Hamlet comes from the Norse sagas, Romeo and Juliet was a popular romance story in Italy and Titania, Oberon and Puck were established characters in Renaissance storytelling/art and (in Puck's case) English folklore. Either Edward de Vere lived the most allegorical life of anyone on Earth or Emmerich is just a piss poor historian as well as a shite writer. Going with the latter, ngl.
The panel show QI had an entire episode on Shakespeare where David Mitchell summarized the point against the idea of Shakespeare not being posh enough to write plays pretty well: "He's exactly as far up in society as you'd expect a major writer to be. It's not like the best novels right now are written by the Duke of Westminster."
Which is exactly right. Once education became available to a wider class of people (which for the first time in Europe it was around that time) writers were predominantly emerging from the middle class.
@Ron Maimon There is no evidence that Shakespeare was "borderline illiterate." He had a very advanced primary education before entering his adulthood. Spelling at the time was flexible by today's standards, but he was hardly illiterate.
@@ChrisMaxfieldActs "very advanced primary education"--good one. But, it's a bit labored for an oxymoron. Of course, we don't know how literate he was: we have nothing in his hand beyond a few signatures (each different from the next).
Aurelia Verity Yeah I think that’s what it’s boils down to this. This is a pretty classist theory if you get down to it, even going by 16th century logic!
@@spookyrosev6467 It is an incredibly classist theory, and as Aurelia points out, is one that doesn't stand up to the barest look at what classes actually produce successful commercial writers.
@Ron Maimon So how come Marlowe's plays are nothing like Shakespeare's? Was he just not trying as hard when he wrote under his own name? And what evidence do you have that Shakespeare was illiterate?
There's a huge problem with that 'Hamlet is autobiographical' theory. There were DOZENS of pre-existing plays and legends very similar to Hamlet, which is likely where Shakespeare got the idea. Just like he did with almost every other play he wrote. People at the time made jokes about Shakespeare and his plot-stealing!
But no, Shakespeare was perfect and HOW CAN FALCON IF NOT POSH?!
Also? Hamlet was probably a remake, "remastered version" of so-called Ur-Hamlet, which could have been written by Shakespeare, but is also attributed to another elizabethan playwright Thomas Kyd.
Okay, maybe I’m misremembering history, but didn’t Shakespeare’s son die as he was writing. This is relevant because his son was also named Hamlet. I think?
Kenny Brightwell Shakespeare’s son was named Hamnet, though the similarity to ‘Hamlet’ could probably be coincidental. The play ‘Hamlet’ is ultimately derived from the Scandinavian legend about prince Amleth of Jutland. It should be obvious that the name ‘Hamlet’ is derived from ‘Amleth’.
@@jamiee7367 Right now I'm reading Maggie O'Farrell's novel Hamnet (excellent so far), and it points out that the names "Hamnet" and "Hamlet" were interchangeable in English writings of the time. That's kind of at the heart of this story, or rather its resolution. The play was based on legends of a Danish prince called Amleth, but it seems to be more than a coincidence.
Shakespeare almost unquestionably named his twins, Hamnet and Judith after friends Hamnet and Judith Sadler. While the only records of Hamnet Shakespeare I know of, spell his name Hamnet, Hamnet Sadler's name was variously spelled as Hamlette and Hamlet as well. These were all considered the same name. Spelling was just not thought of the same as it is today. Shakespeare generally reworked existing texts, often altering the spelling or names. Hamlet comes from the story of Amleth. It's not a huge stretch that he decided to go with Hamlet as it was his son's name.
I'm not surprised to see that from the guy who made a "documentary" about the most important gay movement of history but replaced the main person behind it with a skinny white dude, because how are movie-goes suppose to identify with black trans women???
God I hate Emmerich.
+Penguin With Glasses I know you're being ironic, but I'll answer the question anyway. Because Human beings tend to identify with other human beings regardless of their facticity.
What "point"? A black transwoman was changed into a skinny white dude, Noah said the reason was because "Human beings tend to identify with other human beings". How else was I supposed to take it?
Emmerich is one of the best directors/satirist alive you guys are being ridiculous
No.
Harvey Milk?
"Roland doesn't like facts. He _does,_ however, like theories."
Hear that grinding noise? That's the teeth of every bio major in the audience having Creationist flashbacks.
Timothy McLean you'd might want to include those who are scientifically literate in that grouping as well.
And potentially everyone who understands what the scientific definition of 'theory'actually is.
Well, Evolution is still a theory. A sound, sensible theory, but a theory none-the-less
@@ECL28E As long as you understand that "theory" doesn't mean "synonym for wild-ass guess" we're fine. After all, Gravity is a scientific theory, too, and yet things still fall when you drop them.
@@ECL28E A scientific theory is basically as close as you can get to acknowledge something as truth. If say a hypothesis ends up being elevated to theory in science, natural science especially, it's because it has managed to stand up to scrutiny in studies and experiments conducted by many different people over the years to the point, that the only sensible conclusion is to acknowledge it as truth.
So, whenever someone says "it's just a theory" about a scientific theory (like say evolution) it's kinda like saying "it's just facts."😁
In all seriousness though; I do suspect the confusion lies in that the word theory actually does have different meanings depending on the context. A theory in science is not the same as a theory in film studies f.ex. Theory in layman's terms is more akin to what you would call a hypothesis in science. When people use the "it's just a theory" argument about a scientific theory, they are essentially applying the layman's meaning to the word within the wrong context. Probably without them realising it.
I face-palmed the first time I saw "Fakespeare" with the "Tudor Rose". I had to pause with the video to yell; "It's not a real rose Roland, you moron! You can't actually breed roses like that; they'll just turn out pink!" My jaw went on to hit the floor when the film posed the idea that "Fakespeare" was Queen Elizabeth's illegitimate son and so on. That being said your final monologue is very moving.
I think ive rewatched this vid at least dozens of times over the years. The classist sentiments behind the anti stratfordians is bonkers, and your exasperation with them is still very funny
Same. This is probably my 10th time watching this. Kyles anger is a gateway to so much wit and such good timing, it has so much rewatch value.
i adore the movie...
My issue with death of the author is that it goes both ways. For instance, there is enough evidence for reasonably claim that Machiavelli's The Prince was him subtly critiquing despotism by pointing out how inhumane and ruthless such a ruler would have to be for it to work. Now, doesn't it make the world seem a little bit brighter when you think that every callous powermonger who's taken Machiavelli to heart has actually just been the punchline of a joke?
+Crowley9 Speaking of that "death of the author" section....
Honestly, watching any Woody Allen film nowadays is kinda uncomfortable knowing the nitty-gritty of the sex scandal. However, if one were to take his films and his public behavior as autistic behaviors (his film persona is continually shy, is singularly obsessed over a small number of subjects, isn't coordinated, doesn't adapt to change well, and is neurotic to the bone; Woody's IRL persona seemingly knows no social skills based on him calling Mia Farrow a "bitch" during one of the most scrutinized media court cases pre-OJ, doesn't adapt well, has admitted to borrowing several of his film persona quirks from his IRL behavior, and is convinced that he's totally innocent and not in the Jimmy Gator "I don't know if I did" sense), then Annie Hall is a straight-up tragedy since it's about an autistic guy who thinks he has found his soulmate, but whose quirks continually undermine any long-term relationship the two may have.
I think Woody Allen is not only autistic, but socially handicapped. Very much so. Hell, why do you think he doesn't go to the Oscars? It's not because Ed Harris is gonna roundhouse kick him in the chest - Elia Kazan went to the Oscars when he was still alive and wasn't attacked by Mr. Harris - but because he doesn't know how to act in a social setting. Now, with a small group of people and family members who trust him, of course he's gonna be more relaxed - he knows them more than these random famous faces.
The thing about a child molester and/or monstrous rapist is that they try to be as outgoing as possible - i.e. Jared Fogle, Bill Cosby, BTK, Jimmy Savile, Gary Glitter. They try to continually show the world that they're good - that they wouldn't even harm a fly. Fogle had his Jared Foundation, Hot Cosby had his speaking engagements and the "pound cake" speech, Savile had all of those TV shows for kids on the BBC, and Gary Glitter was a goddamned glam rocker who ran restaurants and was constantly in the public eye up until he sent his computer in to PC World. Woody was never outgoing in the slightest - not even in the '60s and '70s, where you'd expect him to be moreso because he was handsome as fuck in those days. The closest he got to being outgoing was making some commercials for Seibu, but other than that, he wasn't tabloid fodder He just appears to be a dumb-ass guy socially - even in Mariel Hemingway's bio, she paints him more as a moron than a weaselly lecher for trying to drop the question on her this early in their relationship.
+Crowley9 I guess I'll add my two cents in on the "death of the author" section as well.
I believe it is possible to separate the artist from the art. For example, Varg Vikernes. I know about his history and his racist ways, but when I listen to Burzum (his project), I don't think of that. I just think of his talent as a Black Metal artist.
I could also use John Lennon and Micheal Jackson as examples of a literal death to the author/artist ordeal. It seems that once an artist or author has died, they are forgiven for any wrongdoings. When Kyle mentioned John Lennon, I chuckled, because most people forgot that he was a wifebeater. And now that it's been 6 years since he's died, no one really seems to bring up the child molestation charges of Micheal Jackson.
+Alexandre Martins thez point of death of the author is that the author doesn't matter...in that case, I really wonder how trying to find the author through his works would go hand in hand with that Idea.
Death of the author means that we can only interpret what we see in the work, and if you are interested in alchemy and ancient science, the melancholic hamlet is a valid interpretation, wether shakespear believed in the thgeory of humors or just used it as a shorthand to start buiklding his character is ultimately irrelevant.
So yes, overinterpretation and misinterpretation, sure: the whole goal is to free ouselves from analysis through the author's biography. The goal is basically to have fun and go wild, and i don't see anything wrong with that.
I've never liked when people associated the author's personal life with his work. I think Roman Polanski is a disgusting piece of shit rapist, but I still like his movies. Mel Gibson might be a shitty human being, but Lethal Weapon is still one of my favorite franchises. It's not about the artist, it's about the artwork.
Mattchester I'm always very split on that... going to the cinema to see a polanski movie helps him make a living.
At the same time, should we prevent him from doing the one thing he does that makes the world more pleasant?
This is gonna be much simpler when he is gone: then we will truly be able to separate the creator from his creations.
This theory never made sense to me. Shakespeare uses a vulgar variant of English... why would someone of high class use those words?
He also made up a bunch of words just to make sure that he could get it to fit his meter while retaining meaning.
Smokescreen?
Shakespeare uses virtually every register of which English is capable. Chaucer, born into wealth and power, uses all sorts of language, including the sexually suggestive.
The man wrote the firsy "your mom" joke in history. Yet people call him "posh"
And Edward de Vere died in 1604 before a third of the plays were produced. Thanks for the video.
And there are other candidates besides de Vere and the Stratford accountant.
No, that's a common error; he faked his death and went into hiding so he could focus on his writing.
Even Orthodox scholars admit that dating the plays is “problematic”.
Clearly you don't know anything about de Vere a man described by his contemporaries as the most brilliant man of the generation, writing all of the plays long before they were published is something he easily could pull off, also Alexander Waugh has now proven oxford is in fact the play wright...
@@dzonbrodi514 with Elvis, you forgot to mention.
I can imagine Shakespeare's ghost seeing Anonymous. I have suspicions on what he probably thought. Probably, 'now I know how Richard III felt when I wrote that play.'
And Macbeth.
@@JimmySteller hard to argue with that.
Honestly, the one conclusion I do believe in about Shakespeare that extrapolates from his work, is that one tumblr post where someone posits he definitely owned a cat because of how much his plays complain about them.
Poors can't art good. That instantly discredits 80% of the creative art world. Hell, 100% of hip-hop
Be like in 350 years from now that four group of guys from Liverpool without any sort of musical education could have become the Beatles.
The achievements of Shakespeare and hip hop: totally analogous. Similarly, the achievements of Dan Gable and my junior high wrestling career: totally analogous.
“100% of hip hop”
Does vanilla ice mean NOTHING to you?!
@@Glassandcandy Like you even have to ask.
@@kreek22 listen to Gangta’s Paradise, Hail Mary, and Stan
"All hail her Majesty, Eric Cartman 1st"
Top Hat “WHATEVA! WHATEVA! AH’M THE QUEEN! AH DO WHUT AH WANT!”
Highly recommend "Acting Shakespeare" by Ian McKellen for anyone interested. It's on YT. He briefly brings up the authorship question, basically saying that, having acted in so much of Shakespeare's work, he is certain the author was a man of the theatre. Not exactly "proof", but it definitely rings true. Oh, and it's Ian McKellen, so it's just brilliant in general.
i read this in his voice and it was magical
@Jeremy Brookes I know I'm disappointed in Jacobi.
Your point is a lot like the one Kyle made about how Shakespeare had to have been an actor in the Chamberlain's Men- he knew what they were capable of. It's the same reason Monty Python and SNL are funny- they work closely with the actors and know what they're capable of, (some writers become performers themselves like Tina Fey, 'Wilma Shakespeare.') That's why the notion of some aristocrat sending in scripts to a company he knows nothing about FILLS ME WITH RAGE!!!!
Artists don't live on experience and dreams... They live on *E X P O S U R E*
Artists make their living exposing themselves?
and now *_NOT EVEN THAT_* yaaaaaaay
@@louisduarte8763. So you're saying writers don't have imagination?
@@OfficialROZWBRAZEL. Meaning?
The deconstruction of the true authorship of Independance Day...the use of Herb Alpert's Spanish Flea..."Stratfordians hate your freedoms!". I can't stop rewatching this. Classic Kyle.
The part about the Tudor rose just baffles me. They had to have either looked on the internet and found out they weren't real, or called a florist and found out the same thing. Which means either they didn't bother with research or didn't give a shit about something so obvious.
Just wanna say, my uncle wrote the book you're holding in the opening. Thanks for doing this video; you definitely know your stuff.
4:44 One of my favorite examples of proof that Shakespeare wrote the roles for specific actors in the company comes from Henry IV part 1. Lady Mortimer's wife only speaks in Welsh, but her lines aren't written in, instead a stage direction indicates that she says something in Welsh and another character translates it. This proves that the author knew the company had a boy actor who could speak Welsh (and that Shakespeare himself did not know Welsh, which is why he left it for the actor to figure out). Only an intimate of the company could have known that.
Good catch!
I feel Emmerich's biggest sin here is that he's asking us to take this seriously when his entire filmography invokes the MST3k Mantra.
This conspiracy theory also isn't nearly as much fun as "what if aliens pretended to be gods and built the pyramids"
I take it you mean: films have to be made by filmmakers 😆
I actually looked up the history of "Croud surfing". The earliest reported incident of croud surfing happened in the 1970s and was related to Iggy Pop. The earliest confirmed recorded incident of croud surfing happened in the 1980s. It is also, of course, a variation of surfing, which (according to a quick look at Wikipedia just now) DID exist, but would not have been observed by white people untill about 1767, 151 years after Shakespeare's death.
All of which confirms my initial reaction to that scene: "OH COME ON!!"
Did they actually say the word surfing in the movie? If so, that's impressive as it was invented in Hawaii, and by this time England had only just started tiptoeing into Virginia, much less the Pacific Islands!
No he just did it.
De Ha knowing Emmerich's tendencies about history (just look at 10,000 BC), I'm surprised Shakespeare didn't smoke a joint and played Beach Boys songs before jumping into the crowd, though that would've made the movie more entertaining!
They literally say in the film that he was educated to a point where he learned to read and write.
*Screams into pillow*
I don't understand why they can't understand that intelligence isn't related to social status, especially if given the opportunity to LEARN HOW TO READ AND WRITE
Because access to reading and writing didn't give you access to books. Books were expensive at that time and libraries few and far between that would allow a commoner access.
@@josephteller9715 but access to the works of other playwrights
he literally lived in a country and time where the printing industry was as old as the television industry is now. he would have been able to, i don't know, look stuff up
Social status and intelligence are related--and were in his time as well. But, the real problem is that his parents were illiterate, his daughters were illiterate, his wife was illiterate--and he mentions no books in his will. Books were still expensive back then, typically about $150 in today's dollars relative to American income. How does a young man deprived of books acquire the largest vocabulary of any poet in any language? He was a provincial, which guaranteed a provincial accent. But, somehow he was consorting with aristocrats before he'd even written anything impressive? The only way this standard old story works out is if something quite extraordinary happened to him during the "lost years." His main competitors, Marlowe and Jonson, had university educations--but, still couldn't match him.
kreek22 kreek22
I want to note that Shakespeare’s will not mentioning books isn’t very unusual for that time. For instance, Influential and learned writers Richard Hooker & Reginald Scot (We know for a fact Hooker had an extensive collection of books, & Scot would’ve probably owned books too) make no mention of books in their wills. In _Playhouse Wills, 1558-1642,_ a collection of wills of people connected with Elizabethan theater, of the 14 wills of playwrights collected, only 3 (William Bird, Samuel Rowley, Arthur Wilson) mention books.
Also, the sort of Petty School & Grammar school education Shakespeare would’ve received in Stratford can be seen reflected in his plays. ( See T. W. Baldwin’s books _’William Shakespere's small Latine & lesse Greeke volumes 1 & 2’,_ and _’William Shakspere's petty school’_ ).
6:42
Doesn't it seem kind of a betrayal for a Shakespearean actor to essentially be the spokesman of accusation against the Bard?
+Anthony Clay (Steel Accord) I was just thinking that.
There are actually quite a few Shakespearean actors (some really great ones, even) who are dedicated to the authorship question. Jacobi is one. Mark Rylance is another. It makes me sad.
Well, only if you assume the Stratford fellow *was* the Bard. What you've done is called circular reasoning.
They did not accused the Bard, they simply think he is a different from whom we think he is
@@kreek22 Fair point, though he was the Bard; at least that is the most likely example. However it is also the case that Shakespeare would be unlikely to give a shit what a random actor thinks about him four centuries after his death. He didn't care about posterity as far as we can see. We only have the plays at all because Hemyngs and Condell collected them.
That line about Roland's bad history hits even harder after his godsawful _Stonewall_ movie
At least Michael Bay stopped doing history pieces after Pearl Harbor.
But on another note, even Roland's "bad science" is starting to become painful to watch. Looking at you "Independence Day: Resurgence" and "Moonfall".
@@jbvader721 Unfortunately Michael Bay also made a movie about Benghazi.
@@wratched. Really?
@@erikbihari3625 Really.
There are a few things about Oxfordianism in particular that have never been satisfactorily reconciled for me.
First, why poetry? As your own video indicates, Edward de Vere wrote his own poetry and signed his name to it (and, frankly, it was pretty dire. That Looney thought it was on a par with Shakespeare's proves he was living up to his name). So why would he write Shakespeare's sonnets, "A Lover's Complaint", "Venus and Adonis", and "The Rape of Lucrece"? Why not just pass these works off as his own in a world where even Henry VIII and Elizabeth I wrote verse? Even if you accept the thesis that there was a giant social stigma against plays - though it didn't stop Thomas Sackville, the 1st Earl of Dorset, from co-writing _Gorboduc_ with Thomas Norton - there was no similar objection to lyric verse. Almost every nobleman in England was writing verse at various levels of skill. Skill in both verse and prose was part of the ideal courtier's toolkit according to Baldassare Castiglione, whose _The Book of the Courtier_ was translated into English in 1561 and set the fashion for life in Elizabeth's court.
As an aside, _Gorboduc_ was the first blank verse play in English and it was first performed in 1561, three years before Shakespeare was even born. I can just picture Thomas Sackville in that scene of the film, off in his corner of the inn, mumbling over his pint, "You young whippersnappers! Don't you know I wrote the first blank verse drama?" I don't know if Thomas Norton would be there beside him. History tells me that he died in 1584, but if Marlowe could be alive in 1598 then why not Norton?
It's also never been adequately explained why John Fletcher wanted to collaborate with a dead man. When de Vere died, Fletcher was only 24. His first play, written in collaboration with Francis Beaumont for the Children of the Revels, was _The Woman Hater_ . Scholars assign 1605 as the earliest date for it and most accept 1606. It was performed in 1607. So Oxfordians have to believe that the Earl sought out as a collaborator a man in his early 20s (22 or 23 at the latest in order to write at least three plays with Oxford before his death in June 1604) who had not yet written a single play and had no evident theatrical experience. One of those collaborations, _Cardenio_ , is based on the First Part of _Don Quixote_ , a book that wouldn't even be published until after Oxford's death and not until 1612 in English translation. However, the more crazed Oxfordians will tell you that Miguel de Cervantes did the Spanish translation and the Earl of Oxford wrote _Don Quixote_ in the original English. I wish I were kidding about this.
After Oxford's death, Fletcher decided _not_ to keep on writing for the King's Men under his own name, even though it was by far the most prestigious company in London by virtue of its royal patron, but instead descended several rungs on the dramatist's career ladder to writing for children. The timeline makes sense if Fletcher were actually collaborating with Shakespeare, but it makes none at all if he were collaborating with a man who died in 1604.
Finally, it's a matter of historical record that Edward de Vere had his _own_ theatre company, the Earl of Oxford's Men, until the company was subsumed by the Earl of Worcester's Men in 1602. If he were writing some of most popular plays of the age, why would he starve his own troupe of actors? If he had to use a front man, why not use a front man from the Earl of Oxford's Men rather than a member of a rival company? He could have made his company's fortune, as Shakespeare himself did with the Lord Chamberlain's Men/King's Men. So why didn't he do it?
"But, How can Falcon if not Posh?!?" That always gets me!
I lost it at that part.
+EthalaRide can someone please explain me this line? it really confuses me, since i'm not native english speaker
+novikfyz He's speaking in an unintelligable way to make Anti-Stratfordians and their point seem foolish. If he used a properly structered sentence, it would probably have been something like "but how can he write about falcons if he's not posh?" I hope this answer helps.
+Túrin Turambar yes, thank you a lot!
Yes
funny you bring the concept of "only rich people can falconry"...if anyone even reads books about falconry, they mention this lil fancy text called "Book of St Albans", which mentions and treats the subject of social class and corresponding birds. Peasants or servants could raise kestrels/sparrowhawks for the art of hawking (after all, passeriformes and such were included in the diet of Europeans back in the day). while the credibility of "Book of St Albans" can be questioned to no end due to anachronisms (mentions of emperor during times were such things didn't existed, for example), its not farfetched to think that the commonfolk did falconry, so yeah it pissed me off a lot as an excuse of "see pooooosh can't be low class!"
...I had to do a thesis of falconry. sorry.
Let me guess...Shakespeare knows nothing about falconry in the first place and makes many basic mistakes?
@@ethanschoales6563 People have this idea that Falconry was really only for the rich because yes, keeping a hawk is expensive and needs serfs to work around along a proper trainer.
We keep this idea, of course, but falconry is not just for the rich. It is expensive but if you want to hunt birds like sparrows, pigeons, doves and pheasants, one way you have is with falcons (kestrels and the such). Or nets, of course, which was way more cheaper and let you catch even more...if you were lucky, maybe even killing the bird be strangling it before you do it. Old times were brutal.
Hunting for poultry or things like rabbits and such used to never really be recorded (the "everyone knows how to do this!" Phenomenon you get in History, where it turns out that no, not everyone knows and knowledge gets lost), so you mostly go around trying to figure out from illustrations and old texts what they did.
When I did my small thesis on the subject the Medieval part was a nightmare, tbh. You want to include more but, having no records, what are you supposed to do?
Modern falconry keeps a good record of everything that is done for and with the bird, so no problem there
Also, aside from the fact that falconry and hawking had the same language, the aristocrats didn't train their own falcons. They had servants for that. Therefore, it's telling that most of the falconry references in Shakespeare are to _training_ the animals rather than hunting with them. Also, Shakespeare makes numerous references to the poacher's dirty trick of liming-covering a branch in sticky birdlime so that any perching bird would be trapped-which would have been scorned by an aristocrat.
Finally, Henry Carey, 1st Baron Hunsdon, who was the patron of Shakespeare's company under Elizabeth and therefore Shakespeare was his servant, wasn't only the Lord Chamberlain but also Master of the Queen's Hawks. Gee, I wonder if he could have picked anything up via his patron and the servants who would have been tasked with actually looking after the queen's birds.
"Her Majesty Eric Cartman the 1st!" This is the part that ALWAYS gets me laughing uncontrollably!
I've often heard that Shakespeare was 'actually a lot more lowbrow than we think today'. Having watched a college production of the ol' Scottish Play (I know, the jinx is only for people _performing_ it, I'm just intentionally being silly), I have to say that... the Porter's unedited speech really, REALLY convinced me this was the case.
The sonnet that’s basically a string of dick jokes was what convinced me.
I love your rage in this video. Have you ever heard of the Shakespeare forgeries? In 1790, A man named William Henry Ireland claimed to have found many papers with Shakespeare's signature on them, only to later admit his forgeries. I've seen them in person as Indiana University's Lilly Library has many of the manuscripts and it is astonishing that people thought they were authentic. We have so few manuscripts with Shakespeare's actual handwriting as writing down plays was a cause for concern for playwrights and legal documents of the lower class weren't commonly kept, or for that matter, written on higher quality parchment or with good ink. Lower quality parchment tends to become brittle much faster and inks with a high iron content tended to actually eat the parchment after some time. Sorry for this long post. This is just one of those subjects I'm passionate about (The joys of being a Librarian).
IamEssence personally my shakespear is george carlin
+IamEssence that story sounds like the german story about the hitler diaries lmao
Holy crap another person who knows about William Henry Ireland! I totally thought of him what with the whole idea Kyle touches on of seeing yourself in Shakespeare, because so much of what Ireland did in his forgeries presented Shakespeare in a way that made him even more admirable to the people of 18th century England, from the profession of faith Ireland wrote to remove suspicion that Shakespeare wasn't protestant to Ireland's 'improvements' of King Lear.
So a lack of writing due to being not posh?
Does anyone else agree that 'Vortigern and Rowena' should be staged more often?
This is amazing! BTW, you can expect lots of hits because the link to this video has been shared in the FutureLearn course about Shakespeare and his time. That's how I got here, and I'm reallt grateful :D
+Miriam GP Oh really? That's great. Where can I see this course?
KyleKallgrenBHH Here: www.futurelearn.com/courses/shakespeare-and-his-world/3 It's an amazing course, the leading educator is Jonathan Bate, a well known Shakespeare scholar, and the quality of the material they share is wonderful, all for free. One of the students shared your link to show the "Oxfordians" the silliness of their position: I don't think they liked it :) but I certainly enjoyed it a lot!
tvm
+KyleKallgrenBHH THere's a revamp of this course coming and it's free, too!
Some of my favourite Anti-Stratfordian bits to refuse:
From Wikipedia: "For Christopher Marlowe to have written Shakespeare, he'd first have to survive his own death." I love this phrasing.
"There is not a single mention of his hometown in any of his plays." First of all, it's a bit difficult to reference a small English town in any elegant way, when so many of the plays take place outside England. Second of all, you don't know that. Nobody does. If Shakespeare's friends went to see it, they might see a dead ringer for John the innkeeper in the personality of Polonius, or something like that. We just don't know enough about his contemporaries to be totally sure of what is a Stratford-upon-Avon reference or not.
In fact, there are some local references in Shakespeare's plays. For example, Christopher Sly in _The Taming of the Shrew_ refers to the "fat alewife of Wincot, Marian Hacket". And there was a Hacket family in that village in Warwickshire. George Bardolfe and William Fluellen ( _Henry IV_ / _Henry V_ ) are names that appear with John Shakespeare's in a list of defaulters who were absenting themselves from church for fear of being apprehended for debts. One of the schoolmasters, Thomas Jenkins, who taught at the King's New School (now King Edward VI School) in Stratford was Welsh, like Sir Hugh Evans in _The Merry Wives of Windsor_ , and the Latin lesson he gives young Will is drawn from William Lily's _A Short Introduction of Grammar_ , one of the basic texts of the grammar school curriculum.
not to mention if shakespeare didn't write shakespeare then how can we know if John Fletcher wrote the plays that he co wrote with shakespeare.
Was John the Inkeeper's personal motto "One Heart One Way"? Maybe that would be why the character's name was changed from Corambis (two-hearted) to Polonius.
Oh no, that's William Cecil, Oxford's legal guardian and father-in-law who also pushed his daughter unto Oxford the same way Polonius does Ophelia unto Hamlet.
@@loandbaxhuku9617 "Was John the Inkeeper's personal motto 'One Heart One Way'? Maybe that would be why the character's name was changed from Corambis (two-hearted) to Polonius."
Corambis does *NOT* mean "two-hearted". "Two-hearted" would be _duplex corde_ or _duplici corde_ . _Ambis_ can mean "both" (but not "two") but then _cor_ would have to be inflected as _cordes ambis_ . And if you wanted to get as close as possible and screw the grammar, you could say that _cor_ is "heart" and _bis_ is "twice", but then there's no explanation for the letters "am". There is just no way to make the assertion work under the rules of Latin grammar.
A far more likely explanation for "Corambis" is that it's a reference to twice-cooked cabbage - _coramble bis_ - a proverbially dull dish and a fitting name for a foolish, prating windbag.
"Oh no, that's William Cecil, Oxford's legal guardian and father-in-law who also pushed his daughter unto Oxford the same way Polonius does Ophelia unto Hamlet."
You know, it would help if you Shakespeare authorship deniers would actually *READ* the plays you want to shove off onto other people. Polonius *DOES NOT* push his daughter onto Hamlet but *JUST THE OPPOSITE* . He sees the romance burgeoning between them and orders his daughter to stop speaking to Hamlet and to demand the return of her letters and love tokens. That is why he blames himself for Hamlet's madness, which he mistakenly identifies as flowing from rejected love. You're trying so hard to conjure up a biographical parallel that you've turned the entire play inside out and upside down.
It's like Roland Emmerich watched his movie, 10,000 BC, and thought "how do I insult history even more."
Well, you recently showed the Anti-Stratfordians were right; there was no way Wil'yam Sheq'spir was from Stratford :P
So...He was from Mars?
InoMercy Q'ronoS, actually.
InoMercy You haven’t experienced Sheq’spir until you’ve read it in the original Klingon
Salty Ysera It is unfortunate, Horey’so!
Emmerich doesn't like facts... which is particularly evident in his piece of shit Stonewall film.
On a more amusing note, I recall an interviewer asking Ralph Fiennes how he felt about the Anti-Stratfordian notion of this film and he basically said in so many words that he didn't see the film and didn't give a shit about that theory.
And while we're at it, where is the Japanese kaiju enthusiast who wrote the Roland Emmerich-attributed Godzilla film? Or the Mayan princess who obviously made 2012? Why is this hack's name all over these works?
I predict that Roland's next two projects will be about the mole people and about Vaccines
Alan Smithee really? i hope at least keeps the conspiracy stuff to a minimun
Alan Smithee or something like Gays are Invaders from outher space
Alan Smithee hahaha, will those fellas ever learn
+Alan Smithee destroy gays with a virus ? Substitute computer with biological and you have the theory and concept for a terrible Roland movie, except this one will surely get him kicked out of Hollywood forever.
+The Raul Guerrero G He'll make John Quincy Adams a national hero(yes, a president of America actually believed in the Mole Men)
I have actually referenced this video in my final essay at uni - All accredited according to academic practice of course - and the idea of 'literary creationism' is perhaps the best way to summarise this way of thinking, that Shakespeare is 'perfect' and therefore only a 'perfect' person who fits the mold can be the author. Though my lecturer has made some compelling points about the problems surrounding our knowledge of Shakespeare's authorship, I don't buy any of the alternative authorship theories. This is a great video, kinda got me ahead of the game in my seminars. Plus it's just so funny. Thanks!
Given HGRoland's recent comments on how "as a director you have to insert yourself in the story," this is SUPER spot on. Way to go, Kyle.
It just breaks my heart that Derek Jacobi participated in this travesty.
It's also a bit ironic isn't it.
Especially since he's one of the Finest King Claudius we will ever have.
And THIS is why we shouldn't be too hard on "Amadeus".
As far as we can tell, Shakespeare's own life did bleed into his own works sometimes. That is natural enough. HAMLET was written after his son died. THE TEMPEST was written as his daughter was becoming engaged to a theatre-opposing Puritan. The central characters of his plays generally get older as Shakspeare does himself--from the teenagers ROMEO AND JULIET to the middle-aged parents Leontes and Hermione in THE WINTER'S TALE. But this is just one factor out of many.
While I do try not to read too much into things it is hard not to note that the man's dead son was called Hamnet and that what turned out to be his last solo work ends with a wizard giving up his magic.
Thank you for pointing out how ridiculous the whole Anti Stratfordian thing is. I did a whole report debunking this nonsense in college and it’s bugged me ever since. Anti Stratfordians are the classical literature equivalent of flat earthers.
I haven't watched Brows Held High in recent years, but I was directed to this by someone talking about Emmerich's STONEWALL. Kyle, this is the best thing I've seen you do. It's making me think a lot about Barthesian theory and the roles an author can play in our lives. Thank you for making this!
The whole theory trying to link the story of Hamlet to the Earl of Oxfords life is also an even bigger insult if you think about it.
Some scholors believe Shakespeare started writing Hamlet right around the time his son at the age of 11.
So it is very possible the haunting words and themes on existence and the pain of living came from coping with his real life grief. Leading to ideas and sentiments that have transcended and stood the test of time.
But these mouth breathing, classicist, Fakespeare assholes look at those same words and just go.
"Nah! He too low class to write that."
His son Hamnet (a name also spelled Hamlet at the time).
Haunting words and themes of existence and the pain of living? You mean, the "To be or not to be" soliloquy, right? The one that is a reference to Cardanus Consolations, whose translation to English was commissioned by... Oh, this can't be right, Edward de Vere? That's crazy.
@@loandbaxhuku9617 The only similarity to _Cardanus Comforte_ (not "Consolations") is the purely generic fact that both recognize mortality as the end of life. There's a far more compelling case that Hamlet's soliloquy is based on the 1561 translation of Cicero's _Tusculan Disputations_ by John Dolman, but that doesn't suit the Oxfordians because they can't make use of the Oxfordian principle of proximity. Like a thief, the Oxfordians believe that if Edward de Vere gets close enough to something, he'll have it off you regardless of whether he has any rightful title to it or not.
Iambic pentameter can't melt steel beams.
Well, time for my yearly re-watch of this masterpiece.
7:31 So did Roland think the Tudor Rose went extinct or something? Didn't he consider changing that part of his movie once he realized he couldn't actually have his actor handle a real one?
+Brian Cole I think Roland thinks Tudor England was actually Wonderland, and that Elizabeth had someone going around painting white roses red - but only on the outer petals!
@@bewilderbeastie8899 "We're painting the roses red/We're painting the roses red/We dare not stop/Or waste a drop/So let the paint be spread..."
I can't believe Moviebob called this movie 'often overlooked'.
+The Revolution Moviebob says a lot of things.
SexualYeti Definitely. That's why I'm pretty mixed about him.
The Revolution Moviebob has always been known to be an apologist of Emmerich, and it’s often for the aspects of the movie that are overlooked by many people. As heinous as the movie’s history is, I’m certain that there are aspects of it that can be commended.
To be fair, that statement could possibly be interpreted as saying nothing about the quality of the work itself
That "Our Shakespeare" ramble at the end of this video nearly brought me to tears. So brilliant and so true.
"... Because poor people can't art good" wow Anti-Stratfordians seem like such classists
"FDR? Totally faking it"
That's a half-truth. He was faking it...by that I mean he was faking not being disabled
Fantastic analysis of Shakespeare, both as a person and an idea
"fantastic analysis" well, fantastic yes--analysis no. He flies right on past the solid evidence as all Stratfordians are forced to do to hold onto their faith.
@@kreek22 It's not too hard to miss the "solid evidence" when even the people who assert its existence won't provide any.
This is actually the video which first got me to watch and subscribe to the Brows Held High series. :) I've watched this video so many times.
Same
:D
*****
Hopefully. :)
A depressed single mother wrote Harry Potter. So, how hard is it to believe that Shakespeare wrote his own plays?
I collect extremely dumb comparisons. But, some are too dumb even for my collection.
@@kreek22 Because insults are a valid substitute for argumentation?
@@thelittleredhairedgirlfrom6527 He never gave a non-answer to you, so let's just guess "Yes" in his book
Actually, "Looney" is pronounced, according to his family, to rhyme with "moony." Charles Wisner Barrell came up with the alternate pronunciation to avoid mockery. It didn't work.
Besides, if anyone wants a cheap laugh at Looney's expense, all they have to do is read _Shakespeare Identified_ .
It's getting worse, I had a friend tell me that Shakespeare wasn't even a really person. I had to send him your video.
I can kinda get someone thinking Shakespeare wasn't the writer of the plays, but not thinking he _existed?_ How does someone, after looking at the plethora of documentation, come to that conclusion?
The theory fundamentally falls apart when you realize that, yes, there IS a distinction between lower-class and middle-class. A middle class sensibility is necessary to break the rules of language in the ways that he did. It's not impossible for him to know what was going on in the world because early forms of the mass media did exist at the time Shakespeare was writing; he would probably have relied on second-hand information from reading news pamphlets which were written by people with similar backgrounds to him.
Actually, Romans did have a clock. It was called 'clepsydra', and it was a type of mechanical water clock. It was even in a way similar to current form of clock. Try to look it up on wikipedia and google (I would put a link here, but for some reason I can't insert any coppied text or link in comment bar)
+TheStrangerTom In Julius Caesar Shakespeare wrote this scene:
- Clock strikes
BRUTUS
Peace! count the clock.
CASSIUS
The clock hath stricken three.
He's clearly assuming that ancient Rome had the same sort of mechanized clock that struck on the hour that one could find in medieval and early modern Europe. That was what I meant, though I could have phrased it better. "Shakespeare thought that ancient Rome had mechanized, gear-driven clocks" or something to that extent.
The thing is that clepsydras' were mechanized (kinda, sorta), and did strike an hour. Some types of it could, even in ancient times, strike the bell or gong (at least based on informations on the wikipedia - granted, not that verifiable). Even the first astronomical clocks (called horologion) were developed in ancient times, based on clepsydra mechanism.
In case you would be interested, here is a link for a few pictures and wiki page:
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Clepsydra.jpg
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_clock#/media/File:Clepsydra-Diagram-Fancy.jpeg
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_clock#Greco-Roman_world
Sorry if this reply is a bit overstretched. Anyway, a great video!
One inaccuracy you didn't point out. In real life, Christopher Marlow was (apparently) stabbed in the eye. In Anonymous, he isn't.
He also puts pistols in Henry IV part 1. (Hal asks for pistol, Falstaff hands him holster with alcohol)
@@petehill7280 Actually Marlow's death has all sorts of complications associated with it. No one that knew him was there the day he died nor did they identify the body. A bunch of witnesses, who disappeared after the event were a group of strangers, including the one who killed him. It's why there is the theory that he didn't die, his death was faked and someone else's body was buried. The fact that he was possibly a spy (his college schooling paid for by the Spymaster of the court) and adept at multiple languages is why he's pointed at as a source of some of the plays.
Alternatively there is the theory that Marlowe died but had a couple of unfinished plays when he died which Shakespeare got ahold of and finished as his own.
So, not a case of Shakespeare didn't write plays, only that he stole/plagiarized a few of them. He was known to borrow (Romeo & Juliet evidently steals its plot from an earlier work apparently.
"Romeo and Juliet belongs to a tradition of tragic romances stretching back to antiquity. The plot is based on an Italian tale translated into verse as The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet by Arthur Brooke in 1562 and retold in prose in Palace of Pleasure by William Painter in 1567."
See also: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romeo_and_Juliet
I'm almost a decade late with this - but I think your Shakespeare is one of meaning before meter.
So many great Shakespearean actors, I think, fall in love, well likely first with a few of the individual pieces of his genius that speak most to them - but more concretely with his mastery of the poetic quality of plays of his day and so more often than not, they're delivered in a way that's astonishingly beautiful (and over which you can certainly overlay the required emotions...)
...and yet I finally realised why your version of the Chorus' speech from Henry V is my favourite that I've ever seen. You read it naturalistically, and it honestly knocked my brain sideways the first time I heard it because, while there isn't _that_ much archaic wording in that speech and it's not _that_ hard to parse anyway, there's still some and, for the first time, the entire speech was readily understandable without having to consciously parse it _at all._ That's just... more enjoyable an experience than a more poetic reading that makes the gears in my brain clash occasionally because the gear-clashing, somewhat ironically, is more disruptive of the gravitas the poetic approach creates than it would be of the more... intimate connection to the meaning behind the words created by the more naturalistic one.
That makes perfect sense to me. There's far more to conveying meaning in real life than the words, the tone and dynamics with which you say them, and your body language. Varying stress and pacing _far_ more than a typical reading would allow has huge impact - your brain instantly registers, "someone expressing frustration that they can't do what they want to and what people would like so, in humility, asks the people to meet him halfway." You could have read it in Klingon and I'd have got that. Once you know the overall meaning, it's kind of staggering how easily a brain can fill in the specific meaning of words and phrases that aren't in your lexicon using the context of the ones that are.
...and the best part? The poetic quality isn't lost - a good poem _doesn't_ lose its beauty just because you don't read it with regimented stress and pacing. Parts of Tennyson's 'Ulysses' works so much better for me when not in close to rigid iambic pentameter pentameter, while some parts are quite the reverse - as we see in your reading when you revert to a more standard meter both to lead strongly into into the play and as the Chorus is thinking, "phew, I feel like they bought that." With great poetry, the aesthetics that _make_ it great are baked in and not easily damaged by the delivery.
Just a thought I should have had a long time ago. Both this video and the Henry V one are long-time comfort viewing for me; this one because it's herniatingly hilarious and the Henry V one because the point you make about the ultimate emptiness of Henry's glorious rhetoric (at least in-story) kind of breaks my heart, in a good way, every time. That speech _is_ staggeringly inspiring and yet, "Henry's a fuckin' liar" is so painfully accurate - and that pain is never feels _not_ worth feeling for someone who so admires great rhetorical skill, detests sophistry and knows all to well that _no-one_ can spot sufficiently good sophistry _every_ time on the first listen.
Upstart Crow, very satisfyingly, has Marlow stealing Shakespeare's plays and passing them off as his own.
This is my favorite of the movie reviews. Thank you for making and sharing it.
On the bright side, Queenie from Blackadder is no longer the most insulting portrayal of Elizabeth I. ever.
At least that portrayal was played for Comedy. Elizabeth's portrayal is played seriously and is framed as a 100% True, 'Warts and All' Depiction (even though we already have Glenda Jackson filling that image perfectly already).
This is one of my favourite videos and i forced everyone in my uni Shakespeare class to watch it. When me and my friend found a second-hand copy we had to get it. We decided to make it into a drinking game in which we would drink every time we spotted a historical inaccuracy. I don't think I've ever played such a lethal drinking game and for the life of me, I can't remember a single thing about the film apart from the double inbred bastard plot.
My sexual orientation is Kyle eviscerating Shakespeare-denialists.
9:56 The so-called "sack of grain" was almost certainly a representation of a pillow, indicative of eternal sleep. It was a common motif in grave markers of the time (for those who could afford same).
Exactly so. Even in the inaccurate sketch by William Dugdale, you can tell that the so-called "sack of grain" has tassels on it, and Dugdale explicitly noted in his _Antiquities of Warwickshire_ that this was the grave of "Shakespeare, the Poet, his Monument and Epitaph" and he also copies out the inscriptions, like the Latin one saying that he was "in art, a Virgil [ _arte Maronem_ ]" and the English lines that refer to "all that he hath writ".
I wonder if Kyle knows that Derek Jacobi is also an Anti-Stradfordian, and him & Ian McKellen have had this feud for years
Nearly a decade on and I *still* find myself saying "BUT HOW CAN FALCON IF NOT POSH!?" to myself, and upset no one in my real life can't understand the reference
Wow! Hilarious, insightful, and entertaining. So glad I came across your channel. Thanks for a great vid.
The problem with the Edward De Vere theory is that he died in 1604, meaning he couldn't of written Macbeth, Antony and celopatra, Coriloanus, Perclies, Cymbline, Winter's tale henry 8th, tempest and two noble kingsmen.
That's okay. Just arbitrarily plop them down a couple of decades before they were actually written like the Oxfordians do. You don't have to worry about any Oxfordian checking up on you because they barely know Shakespeare beyond what they studied in high school, let alone knowing anything of the development of Bankside theatre generally in the Jacobean era.
For example, I had one of them claim that _Henry VIII_ must have been written when Elizabeth was still alive because of the praise for her in the play during the christening scene at the end. I pointed out, to their discomfiture, that they had clearly missed the praise for Elizabeth's successor that is also in this passage.
Just want to make sure you know that this video was assigned in my college shakespeare class this week! Thanks for doing what you do!
Well we can't determine how much an author puts his own life into their work, but we CAN determine what kind of tropes that like to use or what themes they like to examine.
For example, we can't determine Yasuhiro Imagawa's life from stuff like G Gundam, Tetsujin 28 or Giant Robo, but a common theme in those is how the dark experiments of the older generation (Domon, Shotaro and Ginrei's fathers for example.) has consequences that the younger generation has to deal with... and he really likes Giant Robots.
As a writer myself, I can assure you that SOME of the author is put into each and every work. The trick is just concerning the commonalities to figure it out.
I'm a writer myself too, so I aware that a creator puts parts of themselves into their work. However, I do think we need to be careful in how we analyze someone's works in relation to their lives. It's like the point shown in the Beginner's Guide game; sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, know what I mean?
@@kingofthegundam7974 agreed, sometimes tropes, even recurring ones, are just there because the author likes them.
Four years on, this is still one of my faves and I still dont regret forcing my friends to watch it
'Real, Corgi loving human' made me crack up.
The irony is that he decided to make a movie about his "truth" concerning Shakespearean authorship by constructing a subplot that has an English Queen entering into a sexual relationship with her own son, without any evidence for that either.
that part where the Earl picks up the TUDOR ROSE LOL WHAT THE FUCK
Love to rewatch this review.
Oh, and HOW I LOATHE THE ANTI STRATFORDIAN ARGUMENT MORE AND MORE!
You are much mistaken in your singular noun. There are many such arguments, the Derbyite being the best of the bunch.
"BUT HOW CAN FALCON IF NOT POSH?!?!?!" I spit out my coffee
Obviously a zombie Henry VII wrote Richard III
and that's why there is is no "Shakespearean" Henry VII - brilliant!
I remember watching this movie when it came out when I was a teenager (I was like 14 or 15). I just kind of shrugged my shoulders at it and promptly forgot about it.
Fast forward to now. I have just graduated with two masters degrees in Shakespeare and this movie has now transformed into one of the funniest things I've ever seen. The sheer amount of contrivances, inaccuracies, and blatant misunderstandings of how early modern England and early modern playwrighting worked are just so hilariously stupid and mind boggling.
I still think the fact that Roland apparently thought the Tudor Rose was a real flower is one of the funniest bits, because I imagine some poor prop maker having to hot glue artificial white petals to a plastic rose. Like, it takes one google search to tell you that it was just a symbol created by Henry VII to symbolize the uniting of the Houses of Lancaster (Red) and York (white).
Where did you study? I’m looking for an MA program in Shakespeare.
@Jeffhowardmeade So I attended Mary Baldwin University, which is in Staunton, Virginia. They have a three year, double Masters program in Shakespeare and Performance. The first two years earn you a Master of Letters and the third year earns you an MFA. I adored the program. It was easily one of the best times I've ever had in my life. If you love Shakespeare, I highly, HIGHLY recommend it.
@@MrMrMrprofessor Thanks! MBU is high on my list. I was going to see Julius Caesar at the Blackfriars there tomorrow, but came down with something last night. 🤬 I've read a couple of Prof. Menzer's books and enjoyed them.
@Jeffhowardmeade Dr. Menzer is one of the most intelligent men I've ever met, and his lectures are an absolute treat. And I hope you get to see JC! That theater is a work of art, as far as I'm concerned. If you join the S&P program, you get to perform on that stage many times. It is one of a kind.
If you're looking for a Shakespeare program, there really isn't a better program in the US, as far as I'm concerned. More than happy to talk about it.
@@MrMrMrprofessor I was looking more in the direction of dramaturgy, and the ASC's use of original practices reveals so much about Shakespeare's stagecraft. I just picked up a copy of Shakespeare's Professional Skills by Coghill and it's amazing to see just how precise and methodical Shakespeare was being even while writing what appears on stage as chaos. Is MBU appropriate for someone who couldn't even convincingly act sick to get out of work?
As one of my father's professors said, re the theory that Bacon wrote Shakespeare, "If he wrote Shakespeare, when did he have the time to write Bacon?"
I only found this video last week and I can't stop watching it. Send help.
I saw Anonynomous last night. You didn't even mention a couple of the things that I personally thought were the MOST bullshit. If I didn't know better I'd say you left them out so that I can see them myself and yell "OH COME ON!" Of my own accord.
If so, well played Kyle. *tips hat*
It's also possible he was trying his best not to go too off-topic; the criticism he focuses on in this video is rebuking the Anti-Stratfordians' arguments, so some of the stuff you got mad about might've strayed away from that.
Good point. Yeah what made me yell "OH COME ON!!" At the TV was the Croudsurfing scene. And some other shit.
De Ha - So Shakespeare is supposed to be like the original Iggy Pop now?