Did Shakespeare Write It?

[Desiremakesmeweak]

I meant 'alertin...'

D'you see.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

There are secrets within the texts, that are known to high aristocrats, as a means - same as when Sheba visited Solomon - of entering places where you are either not yet known, or do not wish to be openly known.

The negative consequences of alertin ABSOLUTELY EVERYBODY to them, is that people will go about being 'lawyers' and arguing cases at the bar table when they really shouldn't try to.

'A young scholar from Padua' WHO HAS SOMEONE ANNOUNCE, OR OTHERWISE DECLARES HIS TUTORS - IS an academic and a lawyer.

For one example.

And it is a bad idea for me to go through all of them.

But I do note Johnson having just made some such declaration.

In my own case, I was tutored by Munro Leaf, and my own son is tutored by one of the Mansfields and a Harmsworth too (yep - Fleming and Charteris and all of that).

Its true. Here in the South my ancestors open doors my merits cant knock down. People who've never met me nor know anything about me open their homes and hearts if I drop the right name.

 

[TamLin01]

One of my ancestors came along a few years after Shakespeare, his name was Samuel Johnson, Dr. Johnsons uncle. My Samuel Johnson was a radical cleric and bomb throwing writer who hated Roman Catholics. On one occasion he publicly insulted JAMES II and got 330 lashes for it. JAMES was a Roman Catholic. Sam's son, James, had already fled to America. Sam was chaplain to Bertrand Russell's ancestor, I think the mans name was William Russell.

...and?

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

...and?

Its a puzzle to challenge you.

 

[Desiremakesmeweak]

Yuri Bezmenov, the 1970's Russian defector to Canada, said that the masses in the West had become so drawn into the political elite's propaganda which defined what they were meant or not meant to regard as 'the truth,' that, even when confronted with authentic information from authentic sources, they refused to change their minds because they had become so firmly brainwashed.

He's speaking about thou, TamLin01; he's speaking of you.

You are so captured by the propaganda that there is a prejudice by the aristocracy (whatever remains of it, or whatever it means anymore!) saying that no one lesser than an aristocrat could be a great writer - that you cannot see that you are doing the reverse; namely, you have an extreme prejudice that an aristocrat 'shouldn't' have been the true author of what is attributed to someone called 'William Shakespeare.'

Not a single manuscript exists - or has ever existed - written in his own hand.

Where and under what circumstances those authenticated original manuscripts which do exist were written - is already known by scholars, and it is very clear the meaning of their source.

The problem that you have, in establishing any case that a tenant farmer's son wrote the works of Shakespeare - but however, the same reason in fact, that there is this bitter argument between so-called modern era academia, and other learned people - is the remaining problem to this day, that sees English barristers and solicitors either trained at the Inns of Court, OR at an academic establishment.

No one from the Inns of Court gives a hang about any university taught lawyer, and no one from a university has the grace to admit their betters. The fact that the authenticated manuscripts all were written at Gray's Inn, where De Vere had rooms, is a problem for you, my son, not for the Oxfordians. And that is why no scholar will assert that 'William Shakespeare' was NOT Edward De Vere, the Earl of Oxford - who, by the way, looked like every single portrait claimed to have been sat by William Shakespeare, cast as a lord of Bohemia, whereas drawings of William Shakespeare made in Stratford depict a peasant. Shakespeare of S-U-A, spelled his name 80 different ways in a scrawl that was barely literate and often with alphabets transposed back to front.

And it is clear, that 'academics' have no or very limited knowledge of court secrets because they continually seem not to be able to discern them within the texts. These are mostly all barristerial secrets, or even high aristocratic court codes. William Shakespeare the tennant farmer's son, did not have access to any of them. Ever.

To be able to be granted access to such things, would be much the same as being asked to join the Cambridge Apostles - not something that you are giving yourself much of a chance to attain to.

 

[TamLin01]

You are so captured by the propaganda that there is a prejudice by the aristocracy (whatever remains of it, or whatever it means anymore!) saying that no one lesser than an aristocrat could be a great writer - that you cannot see that you are doing the reverse; namely, you have an extreme prejudice that an aristocrat 'shouldn't' have been the true author of what is attributed to someone called 'William Shakespeare.'

One: There is a difference between a prejudgement and a judgement. I judge that the Oxfordian argument is flawed and unconvincing--even downright silly.

Two: The argument in this thread actually is simply elitist prejudgment. Some other argument elsewhere may be otherwise, true. But that's both immaterial to this argument, and also, incidentally, still wrong, albeit for other reasons (see point number one).

Not a single manuscript exists - or has ever existed - written in his own hand.

No manuscript of the plays written in anyone else's hand exists either.

The problem that you have, in establishing any case that a tennant farmer's son wrote the works of Shakespeare - but however, the same reason in fact, that there is this bitter argument between so-called modern era academia, and other learned people - is the remaining problem to this day, that sees English barristers and solicitors either trained at the Inns of Court, OR at an academic establishment.

John Shakespeare was not a "tenant farmer." Although, again, were he, it wouldn't matter. On what grounds could a "tennant farmer's son" not be a writer? Keeping in mind you've already denied an elitist agenda.

The fact that the authenticated manuscripts all were written at Gray's Inn, where De Vere had rooms, is a problem for you, my son, not for the Oxfordians. And that is why no scholar will assert that 'William Shakespeare' was NOT Edward De Vere, the Earl of Oxford -

Isn't Gray's Inn is the pet of Baconites, not Oxfordians?

Who, by the way, looked like every single portrait claimed to have been sat by William Shakespeare, cast as a lord of Bohemia, whereas drawings of William Shakespeare made in Stratford depict a peasant.

You're contradicting yourself: Images of Shakespeare looks like "a peasant," except for the ones that apparently look like De Vere. Why the artist would pass off a painting of De Vere as a painting of a man of much lower station is beyond me, not to mention what De Vere would think of it. The best you might allege is that somewhere along the line we've mistaken a painting of someone else as being of Shakespeare. But that would prove nothing about the authorship of the plays.

Shakespeare of S-U-A, spelled his name 80 different ways in a scrawl that was barely literate and often with alphabets transposed back to front.

If by 80 you mean six, sure. How his messy handwriting relates to his talent is, again, a mystery to me.

And it is clear, that 'academics' have no or very limited knowledge of court secrets because they continually seem not to be able to discern them within the texts. These are mostly all barristerial secrets, or even high aristocratic court codes.

No there aren't. This is no different from the "Bible Code" or shapes in clouds. You're falling for confirmation bias.

William Shakespeare the tennant farmer's son, did not have access to any of them. Ever.

Can't imagine who you're talking about, since, again, Shakespeare's father was not a tenant farmer. You're thinking of his grandfather. Your background on this might not be as solid as you thought.

 

[Desiremakesmeweak]

Yeah I think you should stop asserting things that you know absolutely nothing about. Apart from the fact that indeed 'tenant' is spelled 'tenant,' the rest of what you say is nugatory.

I personally articled under Mr. James C., Lincoln's Inn so I think I should know a little about the inner folklore of the place.

De Vere had rooms both in Gray's Inn itself as well at Furnival's - which is part of 'greater' Gray's. Gray's Inn at the time, was famous for producing high quality and authoritative translations of Latin and Greek, and especially as the place where scribes sat who could produce written texts on contract. Writers gravitated to Gray's rather than any of the other Inns because this was where the documentary texts were virtually a speciality - including, as in the case of Bacon's works, creative writing.

Sir Thomas More was at Furnival's, so too eventually Dickens.

There is a straightforward tradition of writers being at, or going to Gray's Inn to get editorial work or basic copies made. 'Shakespeare' plays were performed for Queen Elizabeth - a not cheap undertaking AT ALL - especially the parchment paper which could be sold to bankers it was that valuable. Way outside the budget of a simple farm boy who couldn't spell his name the same way 80 times at least that we know of.

Portrait paintings are not the same as simple drawings. William Shakespeare of S-U-A didn't have the money or the social pull to have high quality portraits made of himself. All the high quality paintings look like De Vere.

There is a huge difference between 'bible code' and court etiquette - a fact that EVERYONE (except not you) has always completely accepted concerning the internal etiquette codes and signals within the Shakespearean texts.

You are completely prejudiced against the whole notion that there is a powerful 'upper' class - and that is why you can't seem to focus on any of the well-known questions about how some of the upper class social knowledge got into the hands of a farm boy. Some of - I might add - the extremely confidential stuff.

The more you tilt at the arguments the more you are coming across as socially prejudiced, and embittered about the upper crust somehow.

 

[Desiremakesmeweak]

As for editions of plays actually existing - even just looking at the excellent entry under First Folio in Wikipedia will open up the issue and really start to expose the problems about thinking a poor farm boy got anywhere near producing actual printed and published plays.

Are there handwritten texts?

For that, you might have to personally go to Gray's Inn library yourself and ask.

I am sure you would otherwise gainsay even what eyewitnesses would tell you.

I think the printed texts have been valued at upwards of fifteen million pounds. Perhaps you would like to invite some terrorist to burn down an old building filled with handwritten ones.

Are there handwritten texts of Shakespeare dating from 1600 whatever?

The only reason people say there are six signatures is because there are six definitively (witnessed or attested legal document signatures) confirmed ones - all of which are on legal documents - produced at the Inns of Court more or less. There are up to eighty other signatures said to be of Shakespeare by Shakespeare.

Are there handwritten Shakespeare plays or parts thereof or pages of from that precise time - yes, there are. And there is one said to have been a page written by Shakespeare based on the idea that it appeared in a similar hand to that of the known signatures.

'Secretary hand' means a style actually used by secretaries - which was a paid profession. As someone who often needed money, there is no record that William Shakespeare ever worked as a secretary...

On the other hand, most plays and fiction texts (that) were written in secretary hand - actually by 'secretaries.' Until the Italianate running script became used. Marco Polo was illiterate and employed such secretaries although his stories are attributed to him because it was known he travelled extensively on formal official missions, and he was known as a relater of tales, considered tall at the time. Sir John Mandeville - of whom I think we again know very little of his true identity, was said to at least have been literate and a compiler of the stories that were attributed to him as the writer, although I don't think that was his real name either.

There is considerable evidence that De Vere was the author of Shakespeare's works with some possible contribution by others. The places he actually visited, the times and durations there, the people he knew, the dates of publication and presentation of the various plays coinciding with his recent experiences, and the fact that he was highly literate, used the Latin and Greek that is seen in the plays, was very familiar with the court especially as in 'legal court' jargon, was a very fast and adept handwriter, was personally known to Queen Elizabeth who saw many of the plays, indeed those plays were put on especially FOR her - and the fact that all the modified works (altered by the writer and re-issued) stopped upon his death.

And he certainly had the money to do all of it. Moreover, it is a fact that he received money from the Queen to continue to write and to produce plays although it is never specified in the Royal accounts what specific works he ever actually produced. And this stipend went on until his death.

I dunno - sounds pretty decent of a case ta me.

As opposed to - what? Exactly?

 

[Desiremakesmeweak]

The argument that is continually trotted up about the quality of a standard education that Will the farm boy might have got - is also one of the principal reasons Oxfordians laugh it out.

Shakespeare might have learned some Latin and Greek: 'Amo, Amas, Amat, Amamus, Amatus, Aminibus.'

To this day even modern (standardly) educated people missuse the phrase 'habeus corpus,' for example, because they are not properly legally trained in THAT type or level of legalese Latin.

'Quadripedente, putrim sunitu, quatit ungular campum!' Shakespeare has Henry V actually depict this segment of the Latin poet Horace in a special context - BECAUSE HE UNDERSTANDS THE FULL MEANING.

And he does it again in Anthony and Cleopatra - which is completely ridiculous to assert that the farm boy knew its implication to a regent.

No way, no day, did farm boy Willy have a clue about these kinds of things. Ignorant presumptious upstart mercantile classes, always pretend any old Latin or Greek will do when comparing a standard education to a real one. And that's what keeps them in their place; their militant stupidity.

 

[Desiremakesmeweak]

'I don't see it, I don't see it.'

Of course you don't see it.

'It's a conspiracy theory.'

Well no it's not a theory. It is a fact that the aristocracy of the intelligencia, conspire against the militantly stupid and ignorant all the time.

Why wouldn't they? And what would be wrong with them doing it anyway?!!

So, you think and you believe William Shakespeare, the farm boy peasant (but standardly educated one) wrote the Shakespeare plays, do you.

Smithsonian say his portraits are 'dubious.' University of Brunel says De Vere. So does Jacobi and Richardson.

I have never heard the name of a single prominent person who thinks otherwise. Sure, there are unknowns - and many academics among them too - who whinge and whine about the Oxfordian snobbishness and want it not to be true.

Except it is true.

And let me be the first to say: nya nya nya nya nyah. So there.

 

[Desiremakesmeweak]

And thus let us move on to consider the hidden meanings of Hamlet or the Tempest...

Bwahahahahahahaha.

The most useful rendition by a member of the GUMs of what the play Hamlet is about comes in er, Police Academy 1, I think it was: 'a liddle biddy pig.'

Its use is known to a certain Mr. Leslie Chow. Another potentially great Shakespearian thespian, imo.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

The argument that is continually trotted up about the quality of a standard education that Will the farm boy might have got - is also one of the principal reasons Oxfordians laugh it out.

Shakespeare might have learned some Latin and Greek: 'Amo, Amas, Amat, Amamus, Amatus, Aminibus.'

To this day even modern (standardly) educated people missuse the phrase 'habeus corpus,' for example, because they are not properly legally trained in THAT type or level of legalese Latin.

'Quadripedente, putrim sunitu, quatit ungular campum!' Shakespeare has Henry V actually depict this segment of the Latin poet Horace in a special context - BECAUSE HE UNDERSTANDS THE FULL MEANING.

And he does it again in Anthony and Cleopatra - which is completely ridiculous to assert that the farm boy knew its implication to a regent.

No way, no day, did farm boy Willy have a clue about these kinds of things. Ignorant presumptious upstart mercantile classes, always pretend any old Latin or Greek will do when comparing a standard education to a real one. And that's what keeps them in their place; their militant stupidity.

You make a good point. Because I have a psychological education words like MOTIVE and AFFECT mean something different to me than to laymen. There are so many contexts within Shakespeare's plays, as you suggest, that he being a polymath is warrantless. I think of he and Alfred Hitchcock belonging to the same industry.

 

[TamLin01]

Shakespeare's father was not a farmer. He was a glover and civil servant. You're thinking of Richard Shakespeare. It's okay though, because all these sneering references to a fictitious "farm boy" don't sound condescending or elitist at all.

Of course, pretending that Shakespeare was an illiterate hick (an allegation that is simply impossible) is important if you want to argue that, for example, he couldn't afford to get copies made, since being a well-to-do middle class type would necessarily hinder that argument. Why he'd be financing such things all by himself instead of with the help of his, ya know, theater company, is beyond me. Or he could have enlisted his patron, a Gray's Inn member. So much for that.

Again, you seem to be contradicting yourself: You contend there are no copies of the works written in Shakespeare's hand, then you come along and insist, indeed, there are, but they somehow prove that it was someone else writing them. The much simpler explanations that whatever perceived discrepancies you've latched onto are the result of the documents being, say, fakes, or written by somebody else because they were copies or dictation, are apparently less palatable than a conspiracy. As you will.

This entire nonsense is predicated on the baffling idea that a man would spend his entire life writing an enormous volume of work, insist that some other man put his name on it, never credit himself for his own work, and on top of that (this is key), thousands of other people played along for seemingly no reason, to the point of putting the wrong guy's name on paintings. As you do.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Shakespeare's father was not a farmer. He was a glover and civil servant. You're thinking of Richard Shakespeare. It's okay though, because all these sneering references to a fictitious "farm boy" don't sound condescending or elitist at all.

Of course, pretending that Shakespeare was an illiterate hick (an allegation that is simply impossible) is important if you want to argue that, for example, he couldn't afford to get copies made, since being a well-to-do middle class type would necessarily hinder that argument. Why he'd be financing such things all by himself instead of with the help of his, ya know, theater company, is beyond me. Or he could have enlisted his patron, a Gray's Inn member. So much for that.

Again, you seem to be contradicting yourself: You contend there are no copies of the works written in Shakespeare's hand, then you come along and insist, indeed, there are, but they somehow prove that it was someone else writing them. The much simpler explanations that whatever perceived discrepancies you've latched onto are the result of the documents being, say, fakes, or written by somebody else because they were copies or dictation, are apparently less palatable than a conspiracy. As you will.

This entire nonsense is predicated on the baffling idea that a man would spend his entire life writing an enormous volume of work, insist that some other man put his name on it, never credit himself for his own work, and on top of that (this is key), thousands of other people played along for seemingly no reason, to the point of putting the wrong guy's name on paintings. As you do.

Shakespeare is improbable for his time and our's. The closest we have is Hillary's numerous autobiographies.