Katherine Chiljan - Origins of the Pen Name, “William Shakespeare”
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- Опубликовано: 29 сен 2024
- The great author “William Shakespeare” told us that name was a pseudonym in “Venus and Adonis” (1593) and in the Sonnets. Many of his contemporaries believed it was a pen name too, as documented in published references and as indicated by sometimes hyphenating the surname. This talk explores why the author chose the pen name “Shakespeare” (or “Shake-speare”) and presents evidence of its existence before its 1593 print debut.
Katherine Chiljan is an independent historian who earned her B.A. in History at UCLA. She has studied the authorship question since 1985. Her book “Shakespeare Suppressed: The Uncensored Truth About Shakespeare and His Works” was published in 2011 and earned her an award in 2012 for distinguished scholarship at Concordia University (Portland, Oregon). She has also published two anthologies: “Dedication Letters to the Earl of Oxford” (1994) and “Letters and Poems of Edward, Earl of Oxford” (1998). She has debated professors on the authorship question at the Smithsonian Institution, the Mechanics’ Institute Library in San Francisco, and UC Berkeley.
This talk was presented on September 26, 2015, at the SOF Annual Conference in Ashland, Oregon.
For more on the Shakespeare authorship question see ShakespeareOxfordFellowship.org.
Excellent talk. Wish I had known of this event in 2015 so I could have come down to attend it. My late mother was in a performance at a Shakespeare play in Ashland with George Peppard years ago.
Excellent summary of all the relevant facts proving the longevity of the Shake-speare pen name. I have recently ordered Katherine's book.
The pen is mightier than the sword. Shaken and stirred What shakes the Stratfordians with fury stirs my soul with conviction wonder and joy to know the truth. Thank you!.
Choosing a pen name with a face living on the local theatrical fringe may have been prudent due to the sensitive political satire in the plays. Someone who was from out of town and unknown would have been the perfect blank palate. Did the existence of the player suggest the use of the pen name or did the pen name come first which seems more likely. Then again they may have thought it great sport to pin the authorship on poor illiterate Will. If it were not expedient to deflect the true authorship then the ruse would not have been continued after the authors death. Too bad we just can't seem to find that smoking gun. Good show.
It makes sense that his pen name was literally referring to the pen which he wrote with. The shaking spear perhaps likened to the dancing quill as he wrote.
Additionally it fits in with Stritmatters discoveries with the Oxford Bible. DeVere frequently highlighted passages that referenced words as weapons, IE "the pen is mightier than the sword". Or the "spear" is mightier than the sword. It's baffling to think the clues were so up front this whole time...
No people, oxfordians don't want to deny that Shakespeare the actor existed, they just want to prove that he didnt write the plays, sonnets and poems. That whole "but theres evidence that Shakespeare was born, bla bla bla" argument is pointless because thats not even what the discussion is about.
While I think oxfordians are far from having a definite answer regarding the real Shakespeare authorship, some stratfordians are too in love with tradition and the fiction they have constructed around the man from Stratford for their arguments to be totally truthful and reliable.
They have evidence, that cannot be denied, but that same evidence is flawed and biased, with many holes, assumptions and inconsistencies, so they can't hardly claim they know the absolute truth and that their answer is the only answer to this whole debate.
Analysis of writing suggests that some of the plays were team-written by several identifiable playwrights.
So ... are you saying that he sat down in the Mermaid Inn with these people, trying to come up with the best knob-gags to put in the plays? Or did he sneak into the Globe at midnight, with a first draft stuffed down his gaskins, and then get the other guys to comment?
Thing is, many, many playwrights had exactly the same background as Shakespeare. Which means that ... actually, there is no argument in the first place. If you think there are no contemporary documents and accounts linking Shakespeare with the work, then you haven't been looking
Maybe you should start here:
www.oxford-shakespeare.com/CecilPapers/CP_100-93.pdf
I'd post it here but, honestly, there are so many of them that it wouldn't fit.
It doesnt make sense that they choose the name Shakespeare as a pen name and with a massive coincidence theres a man called William shakespeare or a name very similar working at the globe where the plays bearing the name were being put on..
The earliest copies of his plays were published with no author name. Then they are being published as hyphenated, shake-speares. Then later, "william shakespeare". All this is happening around the time an actor named will shaksper who could barely write opens the globe theatre. He is obviously taking credit for someone else's work, who decided to change the spelling of his name for the poetic easter egg reference to Athena. They are in on in it together because the real author is wealthy and doesn't need the money or the fame.
Also doesn't make sense that the man called William Shaksper's two children signed their name with an "X" because they where illiterate, I guess their father was too busy writing these masterpieces.
Is it really so unlikely? Orthodox scholars like Samuel Schoenbaum tell us the surname "Shakespeare" (with all its spelling variations) was actually not an uncommon name at the time (and obviously "William" was very common). There was a "John Shakespeare," apparently no relation, who was a bit-maker for the horses of King James. Some orthodox scholars think he was the one involved in the much-discussed 1613 "impresa" (which may have had nothing to do with either actor or author "Shakespeare").
There were two English poets (totally unrelated and coincidental) during the late 1500s and early 1600s, both named "John Davies" (J.D. of Hereford and Sir J.D., MP; and apparently a third "John Davies," unrelated to either of them, who was one of the Essex Rebellion conspirators in 1601). We know that eventually (by design or happenstance) people did start associating the actor Shakespeare with the works, as in the seemingly mocking and sardonic reference, c. 1601, in the last of the three anonymous "Parnassus" plays (one of only three linkages, at most, and very unclear, ambiguous, and doubt-generating, during the actor's lifetime). But it may not have been planned that way all along. Things sometimes do happen by "random walk" coincidence and convenience.
Another oddity is that the actor NEVER DID consistently conform the spelling of his name to the extremely consistent spelling of the author's published name (which appeared 95% of the time as "Shakespeare" or "Shake-speare"). To the end of his life and beyond, he and the family spelled it most often as "Shakspere." By contrast, Ben "Jonson" very deliberately and consistently dropped the "h" in his surname to "brand" himself better.
Shortly after Shakspere of Stratford died in 1616, his daughter Judith gave birth to a son, baptized "Shaksper" apparently in honor of his late grandfather. The infant died six months later, buried as "Shakspere." If you were naming an infant for a famous deceased grandfather, wouldn't you use the spelling consistently used in 95% of the published works? Orthodox scholars are uncomfortable with this, so they typically adopt the simple expedient of rewriting history by altering the spelling of the grandson's name to "Shakespeare," even putting it in quotation marks! Literally "making stuff up"! (To use the polite formulation.)
The Globe was not built until 1599.
Gis daughter susanna married dr hall. She signed her name neatly as susannah hall. William's brother gilbert also neatly signed his name
The name ‘Shakes-Speare’ referred to the goddess Athena, the spear-shaker, as said here.
More importantly, Athena was Britannia - the symbol and icon of nation - and she is even depicted upon Romo-British coins of the 3rd century. Greek coins of Athena are identical to British coins of Britannia (not sure how Britain inherited Athena). What better an author for such national works, than Great Britain herself?
Furthermore, Elizabeth I dressed in the armour of Athena-Britannia, to repel the Spanish Armada with her fiery and famous speech. So these plays were actually dedicated to the royal patron of this famous but hidden author - to Elizabeth herself.
Ralph.
Excellent and detailed presentation, Katherine!
I had thought that Stratford Shaksper was a front man, but here I learned differently. A very helpful presentation that impressed me with three main points: the term and concept of "shake spear" had some circulation and familiarity at that time and was not highly unusual or unique; there is some evidence direct and circumstantial that Edward DeVere had some exposure and connection to the term in its English and Latin uses and derivatives, and that it would fit him suitably; and, most interestingly, the pen name was in use before the Stratford man came on the scene, so he was not serving as DeVere's front man. Judging by the disparaging comments by writers and foul allusions to Shaksper in plays by Jonson and Shakespeare the author, it seems very unlikely he would have been a suitable front man.
In the case of Bellot v Mountjoy, a key witness was William Shakespeare (that spelling) recorded by the clerk as coming from Stratford upon Avon in the county of Warwick. This man had appeared in the plays of Ben Jonson, and had been paid for performances at court.
What a clever pseudonym. It had resided at Stratford, and had then been capable of performing onstage and at court, taking lodgings with Monsieur Bellot, and appearing in court.
Probably the cleverest pseudonym since Pseudy the pseudonym had a pseudonymous fight with rapier and dagger and managed to kill his man.
Or ALTERNATIVELY de Vere just happened by coincidence to pick as pseudonym the name of a man who just happened to be working in very theatre where by an amazing quirk of fate, de Vere was busting a gut to get his plays performed.
Before taking her name as an epithet, Athena accidentally killed Pallas. Like De Vere accidentally killed that guy in Burghley's household. Hmm.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pallas_(daughter_of_Triton)
Good spot
Chiljan would have us believe Oxford invented the pen name "William Shakespeare" after a man named William Shakespeare was already working on the London stage. Why wouldn't Oxford invent another name? There was no brand loyalty: nothing was published or performed by William Shakespeare until William Shakespeare moved to London from Stratford to join the company later patronized by King James, who identified William Shakespeare as its leading player. Of course, William Shakespeare was also the company's leading playwright until William Shakespeare returned to Stratford in 1614, a decade after Oxford died.
Why am I repeating "William Shakespeare" so often? Because Chiljan claims there were 2 of them, and I'm going to use her talk the next time I teach logical fallacies to my philosophy students because it's a perfect example of the logical fallacy known as Occam's Razor or the Law of Parsimony. It states that once you have a causal explanation, it's illogical to invent additional hypotheses that rely on unnecessary assumptions.
Chiljan illogically argues that William Shakespeare of Stratford wasn't the "true" William Shakespeare and the "true" William Shakespeare was actually Edward de Vere. She has no evidence for her claim. She also has no evidence--none--that would cause us to reject the extensive and unequivocal record that identifies William Shakespeare of Stratford as playwright, poet, and player.
We have more documentary evidence for Shakespeare than we do for the majority of writers and artists who also lived before 1614. If we followed Chiljan into rejecting the evidentiary record for Shakespeare's authorship, we'd have to reject most of what we know about our cultural heritage. We'd also have to reject the evidentiary record for Edward de Vere's earldom. The same historical methods and materials that establish one fact also establish the other. Oxfordians can't have it both ways.
You can factcheck my claim of "extensive and unequivocal evidence" of Shakespeare's authorship by examining images of 491+ contemporaneous documents online at Shakespeare Documented. You can find the only extant manuscript in Shakespeare's handwriting at the website of the British Library. The research for the attribution is massive, meticulous, & multidisciplinary, but "Shakespeare's Handwriting" on Wikipedia is a good place to begin. (Links below.)
--- FACTCHECKING CHILJAN & OXFORDIANS ---
1. NO SPELLING WAS REGULARIZED, INCLUDING SURNAME SPELLING.
De Vere signed his letters "Edward Oxenford" or "Edward Oxenforde." The 3-syllable spelling was more common in his native Essex than elsewhere. Shakespeare always spelled the title "Oxford."
De Vere's surname had at least 42 variant spellings, about 4 times the variant spellings of Shakespeare. It could begin with a D (Devere, Dhever, Duever), an M (McDever), a V (Ver, Vears, Vare, Vandevere), or a W (Weir). It could have 1, 2, or 3 syllables (Ver, de Vere, Vandever).
"Shakespeare" had about 11 variants, always began with an S, and always had 2 syllables.
2. PRIMARY-SOURCE DOCUMENTS FOR THE SHAKESPEARES OF STRATFORD USE THE SPELLING "SHAKESPEARE."
Spend 2 minutes clicking through primary source records at Shakespeare Documented to debunk the completely absurd claim that the spelling "Shakespeare" was never associated with you-know-who. I cite 2 examples from palace records below.
3. SHAKESPEARE'S NAME APPEARED ON MORE TITLE PAGES IN HIS LIFETIME AS "SHAKESPEARE" THAN AS "SHAKES-PEARE."
Between 1593-1622, poems and plays by Shakespeare were printed 62 times. Printers put his name on the front cover 36 times: 17 used a hyphen; 19 did not.
Writers didn't have copyright protections, and most publications at the time were unauthorized. Printers decided how to spell the author's name. The 2-syllable hyphen could be practical (as it now allows printers to maintain a fixed right margin), but some printers used it every chance they got. The publisher Waldegrave was a big fan. He always typeset his own name as Walde-Grave.
4. SHAKESPEARE'S SIGNATURE LOOKS LIKE OTHER SIGNATURES IN THE STANDARD HANDWRITING OF HIS DAY, THE SECRETARY HAND.
It's completely illogical to assume a messy signature is evidence of illiteracy, as Oxfordians do, and I encourage them to run that baby by their doctors and see how the conversation goes.
Shakespeare's signatures and his manuscripts were written in the secretary hand, which is much different from our own. University graduates at the time wrote in secretary hand, and I've attached other famous secretary hand signatures below. Oxford was privately tutored and wrote in what was then the rarer Italian style.
5. ALL ELIZABETHAN ACTORS HAD TO BE LITERATE.
Shakespeare was 1 of 10 adult players in the Lord Chamberlain's (later the King's) Men from about 1590 to 1614. They performed every afternoon except Sunday before audiences of up to 3,000. Plays lasted about 3 hours--Hamlet runs 4--and each actor played multiple roles in each play. The company varied the plays they were performing at any given time, so each actor had to memorize and keep straight multiple roles for multiple plays at any given time.
There was stiff competition between companies, and plays were performed as soon as they were written. Actors received their lines on rolls, with only a few words as their "cues" to tell them when to begin to speak. There were very few rehearsals. A player's career was determined in part by his eyesight: if he couldn't read his roll, he couldn't memorize his lines.
"William Shakespeare"--note spelling--was the 1st name in the patent issued by King James on 19 May 1603, which upgraded the Lord Chamberlain's Men to the King's men. In 1604, the palace awarded red fabric to the "3 leading playing companies of the realm. ... The individual known to have been the leading player of each company is listed first. Thus the King’s players were headed by William Shakespeare, the Queen’s players by Christopher Beeston, and the Prince’s players by Edward Alleyn." Again, note spelling. See images of the original documents on Shakespeare Documented, link below.
Oxfordians have a mean streak. They ignore evidence of Susanna Shakespeare's signature, of her work as her father's executor, which required the filing of multiple documents, and of her role in ensuring her late physician-husband's book was published, and declare with glee that she was illiterate. Um, guys? Adults can WRITE even if their kids can't READ.
6. ACADEMICS ARE HAPPY TO CHANGE OUR MINDS! Just show us EVIDENCE.
Shakespeare teachers & scholars are adding co-authors to multiple plays in the First Folio. We know Shakespeare wrote with Chettle, Dekker, Fletcher, Heywood, Jonson, Marlow, Middleton, Munday, Peele, and Wilkins, and computer-assisted analysis has played a key role in helping us identify not simply which writing teams worked on which plays, but which scenes were likely the work of 1 man or another.
New editions of the plays include these co-authors. If you think English professors cling to The Canon, you don't know any English professors.
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Contemporaneous surname variants: De Vere, DeVer, Davair, Devery, De Vauz, De Var, Davaire, Devrae, Devar, Devare, Dever, Devery, Devere, Devora, Devorah, Devera, Devers, Deavers, Deaver, Devero, Devor, Deever, Dhever, Duever, Diver, Dyer, McDever, Van de Ver, Van de Vere, Vandevere, Vandever, Vaux, Ver, Vere, Veer, Vear, Veare, Vears, Vaire, Vair, Vare, Weir = 42
Shakespere, Shackspeare, Shakespear, Shakspere, Shagspur, Shaxspere, Shaxper, Shakspeare, Shackespeare, Shackspere, Shackespere = 11
Handwriting & signatures of Shakespeare's contemporaries:
Sir Walter Raleigh (spelled name Rawlee, among other variants)
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sir_Walter_Raleigh_Signature.svg
Marlowe (spelled name Marley, among other variants)
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Christopher_Marlowe_Signature.svg
Edmund Spenser
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Edmund_Spenser_Signature.svg
Michael Drayton
www.flickr.com/photos/internetarchivebookimages/14593299460/
Thomas Wyatt (spelled name Wiat, among other variants)
blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2019/07/writing-wyatt.html
Secretary hand alphabet: griffonagedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2018/07/secretary-alphabet.jpg
Shakespeare's handwriting: monologue for "Sir Thomas More," British Library.
www.bl.uk/collection-items/shakespeares-handwriting-in-the-book-of-sir-thomas-more
"Account of the Master of the Great Wardrobe," 15 May 1604.
shakespearedocumented.folger.edu/resource/document/account-master-great-wardrobe-recording-issue-red-cloth-shakespeare-and-his
Shakespeare Documented: shakespearedocumented.folger.edu
I think the answer is pretty simple and easy to express. de Vere was already using William Shakespeare as his pen name before the commodity dealer from Stratford who was named Shaksper/Shakspere/Shakspeare decided to try his hand at entertainment financing. The later changed his name to exploit the coincidence.
Thank you for your thoughtful response. Why do you think the authorship issue had been so persistent?
And that expkains williams father having his named spelled as Shakispere, shakyspere in the 1550s and as shakespeare in the first two drafts of his application for a coat of arms. ?
@@mariemeyer Where's the evidence for De Vere using WS as his pen name?
@@tvfun32 What is the evidence that William Shakspere of Stratford wrote under the name William Shake-speare?
Terrific presentation, filling in yet more of the puzzle!
what puzzle? middle class kid from stratford turns out the be a good writer? And the puzzle is?