As others have been pointing out, Donald Trump's TV spectacle where he exposed his daddy issues fantasies about retired marine-school teachers' six-shooter, clean-kill take downs of school shooters armed with AR-15s proves that his entire understanding of such things comes from shit TV shows and shit Hollywood movies. Clint Eastwood was mentioned more than once in what I read and heard about it. We have a president of the United States who effectively only knows what he sees on TV and so we have, in effect, a voluntary mental-defective as Chief Executive with all the horrific reality that that entails.
I think this is the secret of his success with the stubbornly reality resistant third of the country that supports him, that, being a fellow "Mike Teevee" they inhabit the same non-reality that was warned about in Gene Wilder's best movie without Zero Mostel. Our country is ruled by a man who doesn't know what an Ooompa Loompa knows because he was watching Dirty Harry and High Plains Drifter.
So, do you know now that all those lines about the innocuousness of the content of entertainment TV and movies that "civil libertarians" the "free speech - free press" shills were pushing from the early 60s till today (as they were being paid by the media to say it) was a huge lie? That is what got us here, what people got as their minds were formed more by TV and movies than they were by the schools in the few hours they used to have or the even fewer hours that the churches had to try to inform the thinking and influence the moral character of people?
Two years ago Mother Jones had an extremely good and important expose of the men behind the gun industry that has turned American schools into killing fields by putting their servants into office and onto courts - not without the help of the same "civil libertarians" etc. who sold that big lie mentioned above. It is terrifying and important reading which I'll probably reference in the future. But I want you to look at an older piece referenced in it because it is about that has taught Donald Trump and his supporters what to think on this topic. 6 Guns That Got a Barrage of Free PR From Hollywood From Dirty Harry’s monster revolver to Borat’s golden gun. I wonder if we do know if the PR was free of if there were payments for product placement or some buddy deal with Clint or someone else. You might notice that at least one of the companies expressed gratitude to Hollywood for greatly increasing sales. Since a number of these weapons have been used to murder people, it's clear we can credit Hollywood along with the gun manufacturers and sellers for doing their part to kill our children, as well as the lawyers and judges who have done so much to thwart Congress and state legislatures and local governments attempts - back before TV and hate talk radio put the servants of the gun industry in the seats servants of The People used to hold.
Bashing Trump for saying something supremely uninformed and ignorant? You really have a problem with men.
ReplyDeleteSee how stupid it sounds?
That Trump has a poor understanding of film as it relates to reality is typical. I know an especially stupid liberal who thinks that covered cough sound silencers make in the movies is real. Art that leaves nothing to the imagination is a dangerous thing as it encourages the viewer to conflate it with reality. Think of it like dessert - it's fine on occasion but too much and you'll be sorry.
And Wilder's best movie that isn't 'The Producers.' It is 'Stir Crazy' with the great Richard Pryor. Everyone knows that.
Is this about Diana Price? If you would produce the list of respected historians who have criticized her methodology, her methodological standards and her logic I might be interested in discussing what those historians said about it. You said you could and you haven't yet done that.
DeleteI will state that in her methods, her thoroughness and her reasoning, Diana Price is a superior scholar. She is certainly superior to any Stratfordian I'm aware of, her Shaksper (who she admits is a speculative construct) is more believable because it is supported by the known record. She didn't go as far as I might in creating a Shaksper, speculating that he was hired to act as a front during the period when the author of Richard II might have been in hot water and that his purchases of properties that are closely associated with Bacon's family (his mother, his brother Anthony and others) as well other close associates (one of the William Hatton) is quite suggestive of that person being Francis Bacon. The Stratford man came into quite a bit of money quite quickly at about the same time he decided to lay low in his home town. But that's not supported by documents, just a series of coincidences. I think they chose someone who would be an obvious non-writer who they would think was merely a "Shakescene" who stole credit for the work so he couldn't have it tortured out of him. I could imagine if they arrested him he'd say, "I can't even spell my own name, how could I have written that play?" Which is why it was attached to the play just about that time.
I freely admit I have a problem with men, I don't like them. And women, though not as many of them. But when I say something negative about their methods and logic and other things, I try to be able to say why I do. Of course, with most of them, their gender doesn't come into it.
I liked The Producers, "Stir Crazy" was made in 1980 after I'd pretty much stopped going to see movies because they didn't make enough adult movies. I saw Willie Wonka while baby sitting some of my nieces and nephews. I might make an effort to see it, now that you've endorsed it, I did like Richard Pryor's early work but didn't see a lot of his later stuff.
Yes. And I would not find her faux-scholarship any more forgiveable if she was a man. You keep asking for scholars who criticize her work but you don't address the points I make, so why assume you'd pay them any attention?
ReplyDeleteFor example: Price declare writers who didn't know Shakespeare personally are not to be considered as proof, but that is an argument no scholar would make. As I have mentioned, historians look for reliability, not that he was a drinking buddy with the subject.
But here, go to Google Books and read the first ten pages of Garry Wills' 'Verdi's Shakespeare.' A trained classicist, Wills breaks down why only Shakespeare could have written the plays based on the environment they were written in.
He never mentions Price, but he does provide a hurdle I've never seen an anti-Stratfordian ever manage over. If your only response is, "But his daughters couldn't read!" then you simply don't understand how history is done.
If Garry Wills was writing an essay about "why only Shakespeare could have written the plays," in 2011 and he didn't address Diane Price's book, which had been published by an academic press eleven years earlier, then he couldn't have done a very thorough job of researching the topic.
DeleteI have not read what you characterize but anyone making an argument to that effect clearly doesn't know the topic well enough to have made any claims about it to be taken seriously. I will see if I can find it, later.
However, you claimed that you could present a list of historians of the period who had torn Diana Price to shreds and you have not done that over, what is it, two weeks since you claimed to be able to do that. Presenting a conventional Stratfordian who ignores her research is not the same thing as presenting what you claimed to be able to.
What is this hurdle you mention? I have presented a lot more than the fact that the Stratford man made no provision for his children or his supposedly beloved granddaughter to learn to read, after supposedly writing such characters as Helena, Portia, Juliette, Miranda, Lady Macbeth, and others who were not only presented as literate but intellectually brilliant is only one of the many facts that impeach the Stratfordian myth.
OK, it was easier to find than I thought. Are you referring to Wills' assertion that Oxford and Bacon couldn't have figured out that actors needed time to get changed between scenes because, As Wills asserts, they wrote at home?
DeleteI'll let some Oxfordian argue that issue for Oxford but, as I've pointed out to you, Francis Bacon was very experienced with both writing and mounting stage works, he wrote about practical aspects of stage production, not least of all in his Essays. He was involved with stage productions from his early adolescence right till the end of his life when it is documented that he was working on a "Life of Henry VIII" borrowing court documents to research it, you know, like the Life of Henry VIII that makes its appearance in the First Folio.
As someone who as looked into this issue a lot, Wills didn't know what he was talking about.
No no no. You're focusing on one insignificant aspect of the book: "That actors needed time to get changed between scenes." That is ONE component, but you're ignoring, deliberately, the rest.
ReplyDeleteThe actors choose the writer, not vice versa, and the writer had to write FOR the company specifically, tailoring the play to their strengths and weaknesses. He had to be there for rehearsals, to make sure that the actors could handle the lines and consider pacing, breaks, doubling by the cast, etc.
To quote Wills, "Nothing could be more absurd than the idea of the Earl of Oxford [You could add ANY other candidate's name here] writing a long woman's part without knowing whether the troupe had a boy capable of playing it."
Again, you are looking at stage production from a modern perspective, with Bacon writing a play for a producer who would hold auditions and pick the best candidates available for the roles. Whoever wrote these plays wrote them to be performed, not to sit on a shelf until the proper cast was ready to go. Being involved in stage production doesn't mean Bacon had the intimate knowledge of the Lord Chamberlain's men necessary to write the works. You are arguing with a straw man of your own design. Wills does not say Bacon had no theatrical experience, he writes that Bacon lacked the experience of working WITH the Lord Chamberlain's Men that was demanded of the writer of their plays. You're arguing that he studied and wrote about theatre, but that's not the same thing as being an active member of the company that performed Shakespeare's plays.
Again, if you study the ins and outs of Elizabethan production, you'd see that this was not at all like 1950s New York, so arguing that Edward Albee wrote in a study for a producer, ergo Bacon did too is anachronistic reasoning. Waiters were waiters during Liza's reign, not actors waiting for a part.
First, the statement "the actors chose the writer" is something I have never seen said anywhere else. And in at least some cases we know it isn't true. We know that acting companies were sometimes ordered by patrons to perform specific works. That's something that I can give you evidence of right of the the plays, such as when Hamlet requests a specific work be performed by the players, inserting lines he wrote into it. As the Google preview doesn't have the page with Wills' footnotes in it, I can't check to see who he is depending on to make the lame argument that he does. It is one of the lamer ones I've seen made by a Stratfordian, though as all of them are lame, based on wishful thinking instead of the actual documentary record.
DeleteHe mentions Henslowe in it, one of the witnesses who heard no dog in the night, even if there were something to Wills' argument, there would still have had to have been some record of William Shaksper being paid for his work as a writer and there is none. The companies that Shaksper was known to have been an investor in and, perhaps a bit actor, weren't the only ones performing the plays in the canon. There would have been payment for performances as he records elsewhere and there is none. That would make complete sense if the actual playwright was a member of the nobility or even aristocracy, it makes no sense for even Garry Wills' constructed Shakespeare.
The argument about boy actors is totally absurd. I'd love to hear you explain how the writer having written womens' parts which would have been played by boy actors in England has anything to do with Wm. Shaksper being the author. I doubt it would have escaped the notice of anyone who wrote plays, even those spuriously published under the name William Shake-Speare during the life of the Stratford man that they'd need boy actors to play womens' parts. And, by the way, as Mark Rylance's nearly universally praised playing of Olivia in Twelfth Night, some of those boys weren't necessarily boys when the roles were played.
The rest of the argument is ridiculous, as I pointed out different companies played the same plays. I think you and Wills are the ones who are mistaking modern practice for what was going on back then, you're pretending that whoever wrote THE plays, or any plays, were bound to writing roles for specific actors like in a sit-com or TV action drama. The publication history of the plays during the life time of the Stratford man right up to the publication of the First Folio proves that writers worked on plays, many of the lines in the plays would seem to have been written after the death of the Stratford man and well after he's documented as having been in London.
I don't think either Wills or you have studied "the ins and outs of Elizabethan production" which I'm sure wasn't like 1950s New York but which isn't like Wills describes, either. It looks to me to be an argument made for other purposes than understanding the works and to try to create a theatrical record for the Stratford man that so infamously isn't there. There is, actually, more documentation of Francis Bacon being involved in the actual production and writing of works for the stage than there is the Stratford man. We actually have him corresponding with people concerning HIM writing for the stage. The only documentation of him in association with specific works is a name something like his beginning to appear on works, some of them previously published anonymously, in the period when Bacon was involved in trying to get the positions in court that Elizabeth had promised him and as both Francis and Anthony Bacon were involved with what quickly turned from sweet to sour to deadly in the matter of the Earle of Essex. Both Bacons were already known to be "secret poets" both were in the thick of the aristocratic literary underground, not only in England but in France. During that period Bacon's name was associated by other writers with works such as the two early poems, even as they were in print with the Shakespeare name on them. The publishing history of Richard II is especially interesting in that it didn't get the name "Shakespeare" attached to it until its author could have found himself being racked or otherwise tortured to reveal conspirators. While I wouldn't expect there to have been a "smoking gun" document in which Shaksper agreed to act as a front for Bacon or some other author, that makes a lot more sense than Wills' argument you are depending on. Whoever was the author would have had to understand how a play works and how it would have been produced at the time. And being a part of a theater company was no guarantee of that.
DeleteBy the way, looking at what Wills claimed, again, you might want to look at his claim that the Stratford man knew, wrote for, acted with and coached the boy actor John Rice, which I've never seen listed in the documentary record of the Stratford man. As Rice seems to first appears in records in 1607, well after Shaksper had returned to live in Stratford and, as I recall, after the last record of Shaksper in connection with any theater that collaboration would seem to be quite improbable. If I'm wrong about that, let me know where the documentation even making it possible exists.
Delete“First, the statement ‘the actors chose the writer’ is something I have never seen said anywhere else.”
DeleteThat means nothing. Other than Price, you have provided no reference to back up your claims. As Wills is a trained classicist and professor of history at Northwestern who has provided a list of his sources (see below) and, unlike an arts administrator and a strategic business planner, has been trained in the art of historical research, I’m going to have to say his research is far more impressive.
“And in at least some cases we know it isn't true. We know that acting companies were sometimes ordered by patrons to perform specific works.”
You’re conflating a norm with an absolute. Most playing companies survived by performing popular theatre. It doesn’t mean they were exclusively doing so.
“As the Google preview doesn't have the page with Wills' footnotes in it…”
Charlotte Carmichael Stopes – ‘Burbage and Shakespeare’s Stage’
T.W. Baldwin – ‘The Organization and Personnel of the Shakespearean Company’
F.P. Wilson – ‘The English Drama’
G.E. Bentley – ‘The Profession of Player in Shakespeare’s Time’
Neil Carson – ‘A Companion To Henslowe’s Diary’
T.J. King – ‘Casting Shakespeare Plays’
Have fun.
“He mentions Henslowe in it, one of the witnesses who heard no dog in the night, even if there were something to Wills' argument, there would still have had to have been some record of William Shaksper being paid for his work as a writer and there is none.”
If you’re going to argue that, you need to provide some data to support it. Like your claim about Shakespeare’s daughters, you seem to be desperately suggesting how the past SHOULD have been rather than what it is as proof of something.
“The companies that Shaksper was known to have been an investor in and, perhaps a bit actor, weren't the only ones performing the plays in the canon. There would have been payment for performances as he records elsewhere and there is none. That would make complete sense if the actual playwright was a member of the nobility or even aristocracy, it makes no sense for even Garry Wills' constructed Shakespeare.”
But the author did not own the plays, ergo, his name wouldn’t be necessary.
And Steven May, a Renaissance literature professor, has provided numerous examples of nobles and aristocrats publishing during that era. So the whole “stigma of print” isn’t really a viable argument.
“The argument about boy actors is totally absurd. I'd love to hear you explain how the writer having written womens' parts which would have been played by boy actors in England has anything to do with Wm. Shaksper being the author.”
DeleteBecause it means whoever wrote the plays had to be an active participant in the writing and rehearsals to ensure the boy actor playing a woman had the appropriate skills to do it properly. No writer would have written such a part as Cleopatra, for example, unless he was sure a boy could handle such a large role.
“I doubt it would have escaped the notice of anyone who wrote plays, even those spuriously published under the name William Shake-Speare during the life of the Stratford man that they'd need boy actors to play womens' parts.”
Again, the sources he references are provided. If you think they are all wrong, please explain why and cite your own to document this.
“And, by the way, as Mark Rylance's nearly universally praised playing of Olivia in Twelfth Night, some of those boys weren't necessarily boys when the roles were played.”
…another anachronistic argument.
“I think you and Wills are the ones who are mistaking modern practice for what was going on back then, you're pretending that whoever wrote THE plays, or any plays, were bound to writing roles for specific actors like in a sit-com or TV action drama.”
Shakespeare wrote for his actors the way Duke Ellington wrote for his musicians. He knew their attributes and limitations and composed to their strengths.
To repeat: Sources are given for Wills’ argument.
Please provide your own.
“The publication history of the plays during the life time of the Stratford man right up to the publication of the First Folio proves that writers worked on plays, many of the lines in the plays would seem to have been written after the death of the Stratford man and well after he's documented as having been in London.”
Published posthumously does not mean written posthumously.
“I don't think either Wills or you have studied "the ins and outs of Elizabethan production" which I'm sure wasn't like 1950s New York but which isn't like Wills describes, either.”
DeleteWell, sources were provided to support his argument. Your sureness, no offense, isn’t really how history is done.
So the ball is in your court. And remember, exceptions do not make a rule invalid anymore than polydactylism is proof most people don't have ten fingers.
“It looks to me to be an argument made for other purposes than understanding the works and to try to create a theatrical record for the Stratford man that so infamously isn't there.”
We have numerous writers praising Shakespeare as a writer during and after his lifetime. That things were not done on your clock isn’t an argument that there is something sketchy going on.
“There is, actually, more documentation of Francis Bacon being involved in the actual production and writing of works for the stage than there is…”
And absolutely none of that means he wrote those plays and poems. You know, the ones that were published as being by Shakespeare? You keep trying to argue by distraction. I have provided a list of Wills sources and references. If you feel they are inadequate, please present why.
That boys played women on the English stage would have been known to anyone who went to plays at the time, it would have been expected by anyone who wrote a part for a woman in a play that a boy would play the part. Bacon certainly knew that, as I never have to stop reminding you, unlike the Stratford man, there is direct contemporaneous evidence of him writing for the stage.
DeleteThe argument Wills made on that signifies nothing in regard to the authorship question as whoever was the author would have known it. The fact that women have played the same roles with total success for the last three centuries disproves the assertion that you need boys to play them successfully, so the parts aren't so taylor made for that circumstance.
It is a fact that William Shakespeare is not mentioned as a writer in any records of the theater at the time, Henslowe, foremost among those extant.
You should read Diana Price's paper on the stigma of print which, unfortunately for you people who want to deny its existence, is specifically mentioned by writers at the time. She answers May's claims and the even more extreme claims made on his behalf by others with contemporaneous documentation of writers talking about the class based restrictions on the publications of certain classes of works, including creative poems on a non-religious theme or stage plays, what she says about the difference between chamber plays and plays for the theater is quite revealing.
http://www.shakespeare-authorship.com/?page=stigma
I can say for certain that Wills statements about John Rice, on which he depends so much, is complete fabrication. There is no evidence that he played Cleopatra, as 1607 was the first of four years he played in the company, as Hemmings' apprentice, I doubt he'd have been entrusted with such an important role. There is no evidence that he ever so much as met the Stratford man or that the Stratford man was involved in theatrical productions at the time. There is no record of him being in London that year or, if I remember correctly, any of the years in question. I'd have to check his citations but if they're of that quality I doubt they'd support what he said. Since there is no evidence at all that Shaksper wrote any of the work, there is no evidence to support any of Wills' arguments. I have read every document collected by Dr. Ros Barber in her complete collection of the documentary record. If anyone Wills cites bases their claims on the documents, in so far as the Stratford man's authorship is concerned, it couldn't support what Wills claims.
There is no way for you to transfer the rather completely documented work life of Duke Ellington back in time to the Stratford man, what you said about that is entirely irrelevant. There are composers who write for specific performers - in many cases Duke Ellington borrowed from the members of his band, Johnny Hodges was known to, when he recognized his improvisations in Ellington's pieces made a point of asking for compensation. That doesn't mean other composers didn't write pieces without specific performers in mind when they wrote them.
DeleteWhat Wills says about the work habits of the author of the plays in question is completely speculative and, as he tries to use his speculations to "prove" the man he's speculating about wrote the works, it's an example of circular reasoning. That's pretty much the shape of the Stratfordian "Shakespeare" it's all a creation of circular reasoning. Price's Shakspere isn't like that, it's constructed on the basis of the documentation, not on circular reasoning.
I gave an example of one of Wills' assertions being based on nothing - the John Rice assertions - and that what he said is not only not supported by the documentation, it is counter to the documented presence of the Stratford man.
DeleteThere is entirely more evidence of Francis Bacon having experience in the production of stage works and WRITING THEM than there is for the Stratford man having done it and, unlike the Stratford man, people specifically associating him with the earliest of the published works by name, during the very years in question. Even Stanley Wells has had to admit that such a record of attribution specifically to the Stratford man doesn't exist until seven years after his death. So you're going to have to take that point up with the high-priest of Stratfordian orthodoxy.
You dismiss a trained historian yet offer no citations to support your claims. That is not how history is done.
DeleteUm, excuse me, but when a trained historian makes claims that are unsupported by the documentary record, such as in the criticism I made of Garry Wills re John Rice, they have stopped following the legitimate methods of history and are well into writing historical fiction. That's a habit of even otherwise real historians when it comes to the Stratford man's supposed literary career because there is nothing to make up one out of in the documentary record. It is one of the things I respect about Diana Price that when she does that, she admits that's what shes doing AND SHE'S PROBABLY THE ONE OUT OF ALL OF THOSE WHO HAVE CREATED A NARRATIVE FOR THE STRATFORD MAN WHO HAS STAYED CLOSEST TO WHAT CAN BE SUPPORTED BY THE DOCUMENTARY RECORD.
DeleteThat is how history is done, not accepting what Garry Wills says that is not only not supported in any way by the historical record but which the historical record undermines because he wants to create a quaint tale of "Shakespeare". You might as well call what Tom Stoppard did history, as so many a college credentialed idiot believes it is.
Why Wills does that to write a book about opera, I haven't got the slightest idea. I didn't read what he wrote about the music but I suspect that I'd find lots in there which is wrong - which almost always happens when non-musicians write about music.
To use Wills' college credentials and his history of writing on other topics as a replacement for him supporting his claims with the primary documentary record to dismiss the work of Price and Barber and so many others who base their claims on the documentary record is an appeal to authority that modern scholarship is supposed to consider illegitimate. I'm rather fascinated by the not infrequent lapses of modern academic practice of exactly that type because it is so widespread and it is matched by an arrogance based on claims of fidelity to the truth that even a passing review doesn't support. People with PhDs are as apt to hold even absurd ideas as the blue collar people they disdain and the poor people they condescend to. And it's cost us a lot to maintain the conceit of those with degrees who probably should never have had them.
I gave you the list of the sources he uses to support his claims. You have offered no corroborating scholarship to buttress yours and you have not provided any documented evidence that what he says is not true. Just because you insist they are "based on nothing" does not make it so.
DeleteHave you read Charlotte Carmichael Stopes and T.W. Baldwin and Neil Carson and the rest and find them lacking? Have you examined the primary documents and feel their interpretation is lacking? OK, how so. Truth to tell, you have only cited one person, Diana Price, whom you appear to believe is the sole honest Renaissance Literature historian on earth based on the way you constantly defer to her. And the link you provided was for a site to buy her book. A book that, funny enough, includes one blub of praise on the back, from an actor who has ample experience performing the plays but someone I've never heard talk about his background as an historian.
Wills cites his sources [plural]. If you have a [singular] source, then you've got no argument.
"which almost always happens when non-musicians write about music."
So when non-musicians write about music, they're wrong, but only a non-historian can write accurately about history?
Again, you wish to claim Wills uses his reputation and accreditation as "a replacement for him supporting his claims with the primary documentary record," you must support that statement with evidence, as he has done, and not merely insist ad nauseum that Diana Price says there is no evidence, ergo there is none.
I have provided you with his sources. If you have read them and find his assessment of them lacking, I await your explanation. All you've done so far is boast how he is wrong and only Diana Price is right.
In the case of his claims about John Rice I have cited Dr. Ros Barber's Shakespeare The Evidence, which is a comprehensive collection of all of the known contemporaneous mention of the Stratford man
Deletehttps://leanpub.com/shakespeare
I furthermore cited Diana Prices' Shakespeare's Unorthodox Biography, he paper on the Stigma of Print, and other papers. In making other arguments I've cited other authors, some, if not all of them, published by academic presses and journals.
I have also cited the works of Francis Bacon.
In making arguments I prefer to go with the relevant primary source such as the actual documents that constitute the primary record of the Stratford man, That of Francis Bacon, what other contemporaneous records of life in and around the theater say. As important are the records of those who knew the Stratford man, such as his son-in-law Dr. John Hall, who left records commenting on the minor literary figures he knew but who was silent about the alleged literary career of his own father-in-law, who is alleged to be the greatest writer in the English language.
When it is a question of defending the work of Diana Price, her work becomes the primary documentary record of that.
I have not had the chance to look at the things you say that Garry Wills cites, none of which are primary sources and if they are anything like the run of the mill scholarship surrounding the Stratford man, they probably are riddled with the same kind of trouble that Wills' assertions are. I'd have to read all of what any of them say and fact check them before I would know if they are reliable or the same kind of tripe.
I've had a few minutes to look over Baldwin's The Organization and Personnel of the Shakespearean Company and see all kinds of problems with the claims he made re the Stratford man. Among the odder ones is his ascribing definitely known meaning of what roles he's alleged to play on the basis of the deeply ambiguous epigram of John Davies which can be read too many ways to ascribe such denotative confidence to. That's so true I've read Stratfordian, Oxfordian and Baconian uses of it that couldn't be faulted because the text is so vague, as is so often true of epigrams.
DeleteA lot of what Baldwin said is couched in the kind of conditional language that is a hallmark of the circular reasoning that has to be relied on to construct an authorship for the Stratford man. I'd have to look to see, specifically, how Wills cites the book to judge the particular points for credibility. As so often in this, it's necessary to be very specific in judging specific claims.
"The publishing history of Richard II is especially interesting in that it didn't get the name 'Shakespeare' attached to it until its author could have found himself being racked or otherwise tortured to reveal conspirators."
ReplyDeleteThe Essex Rebellion was in 1601. The 1598 quarto (the second one printed) was published with "William Shakespeare" as the author.
"In making arguments I prefer to go with the relevant primary source such as the actual documents that constitute the primary record of the Stratford man"
But that's not how history is done, especially from an era where paper was such an ephemeral property.
There were an estimated 3,000 plays performed between 1558 and 1642. Of those, we have 600 extant, and only 6 holographs. Hence, the historian's job is to review the documents and try to see the past through the filter they create. But, here's the rub, you demand primary and direct evidence for Shakespeare but not for any other candidate.
You insist "Poet Ape" is clearly Shakespeare but you damn well know there are other interpretations of that poem. And the perspective you cite isn't even large enough to be called a minority opinion.
You mention Dr. John Hall never noting that Shakespeare was a writer, but he also never brings up that he was the broker for "the greatest writer in the English language" either.
Here is your syllogism:
Dr. Hall doesn't mention that his father-in-law was a writer.
Dr. Hall doesn't mention that his father-in-law was a play broker.
Ergo, Dr. Hall is saying that his father-in-law was a play broker.
Really man, you can't have it both ways. Your entire argument against Shakespeare is propped up on special pleading. Yes, Jonson calls Shakespeare a writer, but he was being ironic. Yes, numerous writers during his lifetime called him a great poet, but they also didn't know him personally so far as we could prove, so they could be wrong. All of them. Yes, we have a Revels Account from 1604 which lists plays performed by the King's Men alongside the "poets which made the plays" and Shakespeare is listed as the author of 'Measure For Measure,' 'The Comedy of Errors,' and 'The Merchant of Venice' but his son-in-law never mentioned him being a writer, you know.
And regarding "the deeply ambiguous epigram of John Davies," Hall and Marston's quotes are just as, if not more, ambiguous. So, again, you're oscillating wildly here from demanding primary sources then hinging your own claims on vague references open to interpretation.
I'm going to end with this, because you need time to read those sources that so so wrong: You often fall into arguing with a straw man, lamenting the "Shakespeare Industry" and those who wish to keep it going. But you are pretending that the same motivation for attention, potential monetary gains, scholarly fame, etc. isn't what guides anti-Stratfordians.
Price was an anonymous strategic business planner from Ohio who gets to hob-nob with the famous and wealthy. That's not a motivation? It's revealing that the main quote endorsing her book comes not from a scholar but an actor who is skilled at performing but seemingly has no background in Renaissance Literature scholarship. Clearly, who is she trying to impress?
Your syllogism is not any argument I made. The fact that no one who is certain to have known the Stratford man connected him with writing the plays and poems is incidental to the argument that him being a playbroker makes better sense of the evidence than the Stratfordian story. You should learn to distinguish between what was said instead of what you wish had been said.
DeleteTell me exactly what the Davies epigram in question means and why it means what you claim it does.
The issue of Richard II is a far longer one than that. Here's a paper about it that is from a Stratfordian viewpoint that is correct that the plays dealing with usurpation were political dynamite in the context of Elizabeth's rule, though I, of course, don't agree with the premise of the argument about it.
https://opencommons.uconn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1122&context=srhonors_theses
It is so funny that you keep harping on Ms. Price's profession (and misrepresenting it) when her record of publication in reviewed journals and academic press is quite remarkable for an independent scholar. You do so because you can't really find a legitimate reason to challenge her work. A lack of credentials is especially hilarious coming from a Stratfordian who can't even put a book in his guys hands as a reader, nevermind a pen in his hand of a writer of anything except six shaky signatures which are more drawn than written. The total lack of any credentials for the Stratford man was the original and continuing and perpetual first problem with the claims made for his authorship. Well, there's no doubt that Diana Price wrote the books and papers she has written, there is no doubt as to her sources and her methods. That is the only source of legitimate criticism of her work, that is any honest criticism of her work.
I'm not "lamenting" the Shakespeare industry, I find it a fascinating phenomenon that shows how big a fraud you can pass off in academia over generations and centuries, especially in the allegedly scientific and secular academia that is one of the major conceits of modernism. If such a thing as the Greenblatt or Schoenbaum book, "Shakespeare Beyond Doubt" are what can be peddled in Renaissance Literature scholarship, then it's got some very basic, very fundamental problems of basic honesty and integrity. And it's clear it does.
"Your syllogism is not any argument I made. The fact that no one who is certain to have known the Stratford man connected him with writing the plays and poems is incidental to the argument that him being a playbroker makes better sense of the evidence than the Stratfordian story. You should learn to distinguish between what was said instead of what you wish had been said."
ReplyDeleteHere's another explanation: Hall was a Puritan, his wife's dad wrote popular theatre. So why do you think it suspicious he never brings him up in his writings? You probably don't know much about the Puritans.
You also note Hall comments "on the minor literary figures" he knew, but "minor" to who? This is a fair question. While Shakespeare's name is now synonymous with great writing, there are any number of writers (Lord Byron, Bernard Shaw, Leo Tolstoy) who were downright dismissive of his work. Maybe his son in law had lesser taste?
Not only that, but Shakespeare's reputation as "the greatest writer in the English language." was not until much later, after even the theatres were reopened during the Restoration. They were closed by the Puritans. In case you didn't know.
You're looking at the past through the present, but that's not how the people then saw it. Furthermore, you're offering your own interpretation as being the only logical one where then are myriad ways to interpret Hall's not mentioning Will's profession.
"Tell me exactly what the Davies epigram in question means and why it means what you claim it does."
I think it obvious. You may disagree. But, that's the point. You can't just declare, like you do with "Poet Ape," that it's the ONLY interpretation. Quote Price, "biographers find Davies's poem almost incomprehensible." All of them, or just the one (singular) she references?
Second, the dominant image of Terence during the era was as the best of the Latin dramatists, not a front for writers (not that it wasn't known at the time) in the same way Bach, during his lifetime, was better know as an organist than a composer. Terence, at the time, was known as a dramatist, not a front.
"It is so funny that you keep harping on Ms. Price's profession (and misrepresenting it)"
ReplyDeleteFirst, that is her profession, by her admission. She even said, and I quote, "I don't have the proper formal training." No shit.
Secondly, considering the number of times you've brought up musicians who don't meet your approval and make snide remarks about how non-musicians don't really understand what they're writing about? It's called the gander-sauce theory.
"when her record of publication in reviewed journals and academic press is quite remarkable for an independent scholar."
But writing about the plays is not the same thing as writing about the historical context in which it was written. Not even close.
"You do so because you can't really find a legitimate reason to challenge her work."
On the contrary, you just dismiss any proof I give as inadequate by the standards SHE created. Or, she sets the rules and expects everyone to follow.
For example, I pointed out that her claim that "Poet Ape" was a "Shakespearean Sonnet," one of the few times Jonson wrote in that format, is a clue as to the identity of the subject is absurd because the term "Shakespearean" was not applied until after Jonson died. You refused to even concede that she had made that error and went off about how Francis Bacon wrote about theatre...
I bring it up, you just dodge it. If that's an illegitimate criticism, please explain why.
Also, I listed half a dozen writers who praised Shakespeare unambiguously during his lifetime and you said they don't count because we can't prove they knew him personally. I have asked you, and will continue to, to present me with ONE trained historian who argues any such sources should be stricken from the record. You can't find one because they don't exist. History is about reading all available (or as much as one can) documentation from the era and forming a picture of age. Not some binary matrix where a source either knew the subject and is reliable or didn't and thus cannot be trusted.
"That is the only source of legitimate criticism of her work, that is any honest criticism of her work."
See above. You refuse to answer them.
“I'm not ‘lamenting’ the Shakespeare industry,”
Go back and look over the number of times you’ve brought it up with zero prompting. It’s your Lena Dunham.
“I find it a fascinating phenomenon that shows how big a fraud you can pass off in academia over generations and centuries, especially in the allegedly scientific and secular academia that is one of the major conceits of modernism.”
Exploitation of popular themes for monetary gain is hardly new. Religious, political and historic sites the world over do that. It’s nothing novel nor, unfortunately, going anywhere soon. But that has nothing to do with what Ben Jonson wrote or the impresa payment or the numerous references to Shakespeare as a writer during his lifetime.
“If such a thing as the Greenblatt or Schoenbaum book, "Shakespeare Beyond Doubt" are what can be peddled in Renaissance Literature scholarship, then it's got some very basic, very fundamental problems of basic honesty and integrity. And it's clear it does.”
ReplyDeleteYou’re veering off the rez again. I’ve stated, at least thrice, how Greenblatt’s work is more speculative fiction than historical review. One could say the same thing about ‘The Swerve.’ But, here’s the thing – when Price says she and her husband were able to determine when the writer was speaking through the play because they grabbed each other at the same time, that’s just as obnoxious and dumb to me. To repeat: I find both exercises and thought processes arrogant and foolish. That some people are enchanted by Greenblatt’s imaginings does nothing for me, nor do I think it qualifies Price to do the same. Understand, I am arguing that Shakespeare wrote the poems and plays. That is all. The “industry” that surrounds the man has nothing to do with me.
It wasn't published or sold or honored as speculative fiction, it was published, sold and honored in no small part due to Greenblatt's standing as an academic specializing in literature. It has a standing in reality that isn't far from just about all of the Stratfordian literature as "speculative fiction" because that's the only Stratfordian "Shakespeare" you can get because the historical record doesn't support any other kind. Garry Wills' "Shakespeare" is pretty much the same.
DeleteEvery single Stratfordian, including the most eminent and allegedly academic one of them who uses lines in the poems and plays to construct different Shakespeares does exactly what you accuse Price and her husband of doing - only they do it in academic publication, not as an anecdote told during an interview.
Your Shakespeare is no less a product of imaginary construction. If the speculations that Shaksper of Stratford acted as either a front for the real author or even as a play broker or "shake scene" who stole other peoples' work to pass it off as his own, then people hundreds of years later being gulled into believing as you do would be consistent with a successful ruse. Which makes entirely more sense than that the greatest writer of his time could have failed to do what some of the worst writers writing for the stage managed to do, leave documents during his life that attach the man to the work. I mean, Price was able to do it using a consistent method for people like Thomas Dekker (whose masterpiece, the Shoemaker's Holiday is crap) Thomas Kyd, Robert Greene . . . but using a consistent methodology over 25 authors, methods that other literary biographers use to judge the reliability of documents, she couldn't do it for the alleged writer of the most distinguished of all whose works were already famous during the lifetime when no one who knew him connected him to those works, not his neighbors in Stratford, not his one, known literate relation, his son-in-law.
“It wasn't published or sold or honored…”
DeleteWhy do you keep harping on this? I’m arguing one point: Shakespeare wrote the plays. All of your unhinged ravings about the “industry” have nothing to do with my position.
Wills is an historian with a degree who has cited his sources. If you disagree with them you must present cause and explanation using the standards of historical research, otherwise your dismissal is as valid as an anecdote about grabbing your partner during a performance.
“Every single Stratfordian, including the most eminent and allegedly academic one of them who uses lines in the poems and plays to construct different Shakespeares does exactly what you accuse Price and her husband of doing - only they do it in academic publication, not as an anecdote told during an interview.”
I think it’s a stretch to say that EVERY Stratfordian has pointed to one particular line in a play and declared, “This, I know, is when this character is speaking for the author.” Greenblatt and Bloom and Co., who fancy themselves special readers able to discern such things, are not unanimously supported by the scholarly community for such overstepping their bounds. James Shapiro, to cite one example, has openly criticized them for engaging in the same esoteric speculation so many anti-Stratforidans do.
“Which makes entirely more sense than that the greatest writer of his time could have failed to do what some of the worst writers writing for the stage managed to do, leave documents during his life that attach the man to the work.”
Again, Shakespeare was not considered “the greatest writer of his time” until long after he shuffled off his mortal coil, so that argument is a non-starter from an historian’s perspective. Gaining such posthumous reputation is not as uncommon as you might think. John Donne, for example, was considered a minor, insignificant poet by his contemporaries and even after (Pope was dismissive of his work). It wasn’t until Coleridge, born nearly 150 years after Donne’s death, that his reputation became what it remains today.
“I mean, Price was able to do it using a consistent method for people like Thomas Dekker (whose masterpiece, the Shoemaker's Holiday is crap) Thomas Kyd, Robert Greene . . . but using a consistent methodology over 25 authors, methods that other literary biographers use to judge the reliability of documents, she couldn't do it for the alleged writer of the most distinguished of all whose works were already famous during the lifetime when no one who knew him connected him to those works, not his neighbors in Stratford, not his one, known literate relation, his son-in-law.”
And she ignores, eagerly, evidence that disputes her thesis. Per her 7th standard: While she might find Davies’ poem “almost incomprehensible,” finding ONE scholar to support this position does not do away with the VAST majority of those who find the poem decipherable and direct in its praise.
And, again, I’ve asked for ONE historian who compliments her claim that posthumous documents don’t count even when they are well within living memory of the deceased. You have provided none.
You really need to work on your reading if YOUR syllogism is what you got out of what I said. John Hall didn't mention any play brokers in his journals, he did mention minor literary figures who he treated and who he had known, he never mentioned his father-in-law who he apparently got on with as they both cooperated in stealing the commons from the townspeople of Stratford from and they traveled on business together. Your supposition that he was a Puritain who would not have mentioned his father in law neglects to notice that at the time of the Stratford man, the author was famous for more than the plays, he'd written two long and very well regarded poems and the Sonnets as well as other poems. And one of the authors who John Hall DID mention in his journal was Michael Drayton who was famous in his time as a playwright, often in collaboration with others, such as Thomas Dekker. He was known as one of the authors of "Sir John Oldcastle" a satirical comment on Falstaff. As I recall, the documentation of those collaborations are part of the corpus for the writers in question, including some of the most obscure writers Price was able to find a literary paper trail for, even as she could find none for the Stratford man.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe I've brought up musicians in discussing the authorship of the plays and poems, you have. I'm able to distinguish one person from another and the circumstances of their creative life and the record of that which they left. As Price points out, there's no question as to whether or not Jonson, Kyd, Marlowe, Greene, etc. were authors because there is documentary evidence that connects those people with the works they are known to have written and even to works which are recorded as being by them but which no longer exist. You can say the same about all kinds of musicians, you can do that based on contemporaneous documentation of their authorship. You can't say it for the Stratford man with any honesty or without special pleading or bending the rules that are applied to other authors.
DeleteHistory isn't a cumulative skill in the same way as mathematics or physics, anyone who looks at the primary documentation honestly, thoroughly and in accordance with the accepted methodology of historical testing and reason can produce valid historical information. Prior professional experience, while it might be helpful in helping with that, isn't necessarily relevant to the results which have to be tested on their own merits. As I pointed out in regard to Garry Wills' assertions about John Rice and the total lack of evidence to support his contentions about the Stratford man nurturing his talent and writing roles such as Cleopatra for his specific talents are a complete violation of those standards because there is no documentary evidence to base them on.
I don't really get why you keep bringing up Lena Dunham to me, I did a search of my blog and come up with nine times I mentioned her, none of them positive, most of them to slam Salon magazine for being obsessed with her and her self-publicity campaign. Really, I think you're the one who has a thing about Lena Dunham, not me. I don't believe I once mentioned her to you except to respond with with surprise that you brought her up. You can look through my blog. I think you must be confusing me with someone who cares what Lena Dunham says or does.
Wednesday, November 5, 2014
DeleteBig News The Week of the Election Debacle
Call me skeptical but I doubt a magazine which is currently telling me why I should even know who Lena Dunham is, never mind that I should care about her Honey Boo Boo level publicity moves, fodder for just such publicity buzz generators, will ever do anything much to make positive political change.
Did anyone know who Lena Dunham was before she talked about looking into her baby sister's vagina and dying her hair green? Really, who notices people who die their hair green anymore? I'd never heard of her before this week. I mean, Salon, really? Four "Most Read" stories about Lena Dunham?
From May 26, 2015
I don't recall this story of a massive international pedophilia operation involving the rape of hundreds of children being busted getting as many pixels as the Josh Duggar story. Or, for that matter, Lena Denham's publicity confession, only that one was concentrated on by the right, the pseudo-left's outrage being confined to the outrage of the right making hay on it.
May 23, 2015
Asking why the summer reading of a man who is, pretty much, a business man should interest me is my response. I'm about as interested in that as I am in what Lena Dunham's latest bid for attention is.
January 17. 2015
Anyone who thinks an age which is destroying the very basis of life, with science, with technology, in the pursuit of fortunes too big for their owners to ever spend in a thousand lifetimes and tacky, gaudy baubles and masses of bling that would make a Pharoh gag at the excess, is some kind of great advance on the past is probably distracted by the wall screen and the one in their hand and on their phone, on which they're probably catching their latest show and other brilliant products of the intellect as they check on what's new about Honey Boo Boo's mother and Lena Dunham's latest hair color.
November 20, 2014
About the various accusations about him that have pushed Lena Dunham and Honey Boo Boo's mother off of the online tabloid front pages, I take the same position I did when PZ Myers and his posse were going after someone else I didn't much admire. RAPE ACCUSATIONS BELONG IN THE HANDS OF THE POLICE AND PROSECUTORS AND IF THEY FAIL IN THE HANDS OF RESPONSIBLE INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISTS, THAT WOULD BE REPORTERS NOT "OPINION" ""JOURNALISTS"". Certainly not in the trash bin of alleged journalism, the gossip typists of Salon and the other online tabloids.
You might get the drift
“You really need to work on your reading if YOUR syllogism is what you got out of what I said. John Hall didn't mention any play brokers in his journals, he did mention minor literary figures who he treated and who he had known, he never mentioned his father-in-law who he apparently got on with as they both cooperated in stealing the commons from the townspeople of Stratford from and they traveled on business together.”
DeleteTo repeat: Minor to YOU. You are not John Hall and you don’t share his tastes or view of literature. Now, if Hall went on and on in his journals about ‘King Lear’ or ‘Hamlet’ and never mentioned his father-in-law’s contributions then maybe you’d have a point.
“And one of the authors who John Hall DID mention in his journal was Michael Drayton who was famous in his time as a playwright, often in collaboration with others, such as Thomas Dekker. He was known as one of the authors of ‘Sir John Oldcastle’ a satirical comment on Falstaff.”
But not the plays his father-in-law didn’t write?
“As I recall, the documentation of those collaborations are part of the corpus for the writers in question, including some of the most obscure writers Price was able to find a literary paper trail for, even as she could find none for the Stratford man.”
Plenty of actual historians have. Considering how many of her arguments rest on special pleading I would insist she couldn’t find any because she wasn’t looking and wanted to impress her father, a loony (not Looney) Oxfordian. [Note – again, from her words. I’m just reasonably extrapolating and making jokes]. That you find her narrowed and selective approach to history valid is your choice, but if she were asked to defend her book as a dissertation in front of real historians she'd be laughed out of the building and probably go into hiding, or an asylum. Maybe even start digging up graves looking for manuscripts.
That is also a joke. I don't dislike her because of chromosomes, I dislike her because she wants the credit but doesn't want to do the work. She could easily have applied, years ago, for a graduate program and tried presenting her book as a thesis for a degree. She has not and I'm promising you the reason why is she knows what will happen if the board is comprised of literary historians and not the actors whose company and praise she seeks. It would not be pretty.
“I don't believe I've brought up musicians in discussing the authorship of the plays and poems, you have. I'm able to distinguish one person from another and the circumstances of their creative life and the record of that which they left.”
DeleteIf you dismiss someone’s opinionn because of their taste in music and then wonder why someone would dismiss a non-historian who chooses to work outside the parameters and practices of the discipline, you’re blind to your own biases. We all have them, but if you think those are different things I probably wouldn’t be able to explain it to you in a hundred years.
“As Price points out, there's no question as to whether or not Jonson, Kyd, Marlowe, Greene, etc. were authors because there is documentary evidence that connects those people with the works they are known to have written and even to works which are recorded as being by them but which no longer exist.”
And the vast majority of historians say the same thing about Shakespeare. For all the names you like dropping, none of them is an actual literary historian.
“You can't say it for the Stratford man with any honesty or without special pleading or bending the rules that are applied to other authors.”
Horse. Shit. I have asked you for that historian for this I believe the third time in my responses that shares the view that posthumous comments by associates are not valid evidence and you have refused to provide him. To dismiss the folio, Jonson’s comments in ‘Timber,’ and the numerous laudatory verses to “Shakespeare” under the rationale that the latter group doesn’t include “from Startford-upon-Avon, worked as an actor” in the verse is special pleading worthy of Webster’s.
“History isn't a cumulative skill in the same way as mathematics or physics, anyone who looks at the primary documentation honestly, thoroughly and in accordance with the accepted methodology of historical testing and reason can produce valid historical information.”
And Price’s lack of respect from historians is telling, isn’t it? You might be caused to think it has something to do with the errors in her approach.
“As I pointed out in regard to Garry Wills' assertions about John Rice and the total lack of evidence to support his contentions about the Stratford man nurturing his talent and writing roles such as Cleopatra for his specific talents are a complete violation of those standards because there is no documentary evidence to base them on.”
You pointing something out doesn’t make it so. Offer proof. Evidence. He cited his sources. Where are yours?
“I don't really get why you keep bringing up Lena Dunham to me”
What did I write? I wrote that the “industry” you always bring up is your Lena Dunham, or, as you would say it, the raspberry in your teeth. You bring it up, constantly, without any prompting, while ignoring the questions I do ask and points I make. I say, “Price asserts ‘Poet-Ape’ is clearly about Shakespeare but I think her reasoning flawed because…” and you go off on how stupid Anne Hathaway’s Cottage is!
Yes, Shakespeare’s reputation has been exploited, often in unsavory ways, in Stratford. Hell, my mother went to Italy years ago and in Verona they had, “Juliet’s Balcony,” which my mother asked about and pointed out Juliet was a fictional character, so how could she have a balcony. They shooed her away.
But that doesn’t mean Shakespeare didn’t write ‘Romeo and Juliet.’
You mean when I tease Simps over the mop heads and Mick and his old stones? Hey, that's an old fight and that jerk started it, not me.
DeleteI don't dismiss people over their taste in music, that's his thing. I figure they can listen to whatever they want to as long as they don't try to bully people over what they listen to.
For most of my life the "vast majority" of academics who said anything about it claimed that Darwin had nothing to do with eugenics or social Darwinism and that the Nazis didn't cite natural selection as the motivation of their genocides, but when I read Darwin's writing, the eugenicists and Nazi theorists who cite it, I found out that was absolutely and obviously not true. It was the same when I looked into the documentary record of the life of the Stratford man and discovered that the biographies, even those written by academics as academic publication were full of lies and lore and illogic divorced from the actual documentary record, both the one that exists and the one that is missing that would support the Stratfordian myth.
There is no record that the Stratford man ever knew, met, cast or laid eyes on John Rice, there is no record of him being involved with the acting company or,from what I can see of the documentation, even in London for the 4 years John Rice was Hemming's apprentice. To think that the very first year he was with the company that they would have given the neophyte boy actor the role of Cleopatra is quite a stretch beyond where Garry Wills, an historian, went with that yarn. The responsibility for an academic making such a positive claim on which they base their argument that the Stratford man was the "only" person who could have written the plays and poems to prove their point is theirs. My only responsibility in the matter is to point out that the documentary evidence not only doesn't support Will's claim, it makes it seem unlikely.
Lena Dunham is the equivalent of the Shakespeare industry? You really should stop grasping at straws on that point and just let it drop.
The entire conventional line of Stratfordian biography, the Shakespeare Trust, the peddling of spurious manuscripts to provide him with a literary record, the stuff the Folger puts out in that same line is entirely unsavory as that one guardian of the Stratford con job in the late 19th century admitted. The academic side of that produces more make believe than Tom Stoppard did in that movie script, the difference being that he admitted what he created was fiction. Not that I'd excuse him from it because if there's one thing we know, even people with college credentials are pretty stupid about distinguishing movies for history. Which is one of the reasons I have come to think using real people as characters in fiction is a malignant thing.
"But not the plays his father-in-law didn’t write?"
DeleteI don't understand what you mean.
As for Diana Price, she has fully documented her work, the methods of standard, responsible, modern, academic literary biography, handwriting analysis, testing claims and evaluating its strength. She surpasses the common practice in Shakespeare scholarship by a wide margin. Your bringing up her father only lets me point out that she's not an Oxfordian, she's not a Baconian or an advocate for any of the other theorized candidates, she merely looked at the documentary evidence that the Stratford man left behind, all of it, the evidence of the attributions to "Shakes-speare" and "Shakespeare" on published work (which she says are good circumstantial evidence that links the Stratford man to the plays - something which I think she's a bit over-generous to do) but considering the totality of that evidence, it appearing in forms that indicate it is a pseudonym, it appearing on works that have nothing to do with the author of Hamlet or King Lear, her alternative that it is evidence that the businessman was a play broker or play stealer makes more sense than that a man of no education could have written the works that would have required an extensive education. Even a genius requires an education for that genius to be expressed. When it is some of the most erudite writing in the history of literature with the largest vocabulary, showing extensive learning in many fields, including those which someone with Shakspere's known biography would not have had access to, that education has to have had a particular scope which even the rich and well connected would have been hard put to obtain.