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David Miller
Byrne Robotics Member


Joined: 16 April 2004
Posts: 2997
Posted: 22 January 2021 at 11:34am | IP Logged | 1 post reply


 QUOTE:
Or perhaps he deliberately put in supposed errors to cleverly conceal his identity? Don't be silly.


It's not a conspiracy theory. Writers sometimes run with mistakes with no ulterior motives beyond service to the their muse. The Author could have put a clock into Julius Ceasar in the heat of creation and shrugged if he realized it was an anachronism, or thought it was amusing to keep, or maybe he was just so pig ignorant it never occurred to him clocks weren't invented in ancient Rome, which is something he'd have in common with like 90% of contemporary Americans.
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Steven Brake
Byrne Robotics Member


Joined: 01 January 2016
Posts: 562
Posted: 22 January 2021 at 11:42am | IP Logged | 2 post reply

As I've noted above, writers certainly can make mistakes. Rowling and her train platforms, Doyle and Watson's name - there's abundant examples. And, of course, there's poetic license.

But this isn't the same as fundamental errors that betray a lack of knowledge. And Shakespeare - or the plays, if you'd prefer - do this an awful lot.
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Mark Haslett
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Joined: 19 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 6059
Posted: 22 January 2021 at 1:37pm | IP Logged | 3 post reply

Steven, you insist that Shakespeare's errors are fundamental and repeated and conclusive, but your examples do not show this.

The chiming clock, as demonstrated, is clearly there for establishing time in the play for the audience.

Jonson's opinions on the matter are, as with anything Jonson says, complicated by his own personality. Nothing he says backs up your claim that no person with a nobleman's education would put these things in their plays.

This last is a strange point to cling to in light of the fact that noblemen weren't generally in the habit of writing plays under any circumstances. As such, there can hardly be a standard of authenticity used to apply to the Work and judge that a few errors prove that all the apparent mastery displayed by the author is actually imitation.

As to where Shaxper would get his hands on Hales v Pettit-- the question is not merely how did he get his understanding of it (since it is a case written using extremely difficult legal terms in another language about a death in Canterbury) -- but how did it even come to his attention, having been decided before he was born and last summarized in a legal report composed when Shaxper was the ripe old age of 7.

Without a legal education, what could have drawn Shaxper to make a subtle and elliptical joke about a legal case from 40 years earlier?

Perhaps, one could imagine some legal-minded friend suggesting a joke to Shaxper along these lines as they were discussing Ophelia over a drink and looking for metaphors? Sure.

It just doesn't track. On the one hand, then, we must allow Shaxper to be exceptional at legal research and at imagining what obscure topical references would delight legally educated noble audiences. But, on the other hand, we must cling to the idea that he had no advanced education.

Why?

Not because there is no evidence of advanced education in the work. This example alone is evidence to suggest it. And it is one of thousands.

But, because Shaxper had no advanced education, Stratfordians have to round up all the anachronisms and distortions, deem them "fundamental errors" and declare the author an excellent, but imperfect parrot.

It's just silly.
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Steven Brake
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Joined: 01 January 2016
Posts: 562
Posted: 22 January 2021 at 2:08pm | IP Logged | 4 post reply

Mark:

The chiming clock, as demonstrated, is clearly there for establishing time in the play for the audience.

------------------------------------------------------------ -------------------------------------------
There are other ways to denote time, if not the specific hour. Think of the shrieking owl in Macbeth, which beautifully adds to the air of dread and suspense.

Whoever wrote Julius Caesar used a chiming clock without being aware of its anachronistic nature. That doesn't prove it was Shakespeare, but it's not indicative of a well-educated mind.

Jonson, Greene (or the author of Groatsworth) and the author(s) of the Parnassus plays share a contempt or disdain for this Shakespeare fellow who presumes to write about subjects  that he's not qualified to do. Their criticisms may well have been motivated by jealousy, but that doesn't mean they can just be shrugged at.

Oxford was commended by Frances Meres in his Palladis Tamia in 1598 as being the among the best for comedy. Meres also commended Shakespeare, making it quite clear that they were different people.

Sir George Buc, as Master of the Revels, confirmed Shakespeare as the author of King Lear.

Heminges and Condell collected the plays that became the First Folio to commemorate the memory of the man they had known.

Shakespeare makes repeated mistakes in the plays. These aren't just errors, or poetic license, but fundamental errors of history, geography, and law. The plays are still wonderful.



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Mark Haslett
Byrne Robotics Member


Joined: 19 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 6059
Posted: 22 January 2021 at 2:20pm | IP Logged | 5 post reply

Steven: Whoever wrote Julius Caesar used a chiming clock without being aware of its anachronistic nature. That doesn't prove it was Shakespeare, but it's not indicative of a well-educated mind.

**

You claim the Author is not "aware of its anachronistic nature."

Your evidence is... he knew MacBeth couldn't have chiming clocks?

I'm sorry. That's silly.

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Mark Haslett
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Joined: 19 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 6059
Posted: 22 January 2021 at 2:28pm | IP Logged | 6 post reply

I enjoy this debate and your points all deserve to be addressed.

At this point, I would end up paraphrasing many accounts by other scholars/historians/lawyers/doctors who have already done so.

If you're interested in more on this, I encourage you to read one of the many good books about the Authorship Question (Diana Price is great) or, if this podcast for more lively presentation and discussion -- DON'T QUILL THE MESSENGER PODCAST

I don't mean to duck out on this completely, but you are beginning to get beyond the question of Shaxper's education which was already complicated. I'm not going to be able to find the time to keep up if we go much farther.
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Steven Brake
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Joined: 01 January 2016
Posts: 562
Posted: 22 January 2021 at 2:35pm | IP Logged | 7 post reply

There are lots of ways to denote the hour, without literally denoting the hour. I've given the example of MacBeth as an extremely effective and powerful one. 

I'm not sure how you can make the argument that the inclusion of a chiming clock in Julius Caesar, about 1500 years before their invention; or Ulysses in Troilus in Cressida quoting Aristotle 800 years before he was born proves a classically trained mind?

Why did the noble-born author think that Woodville, Rivers and Scales in Richard III, Act 2, scene 1 were three different people, rather than  one man with three titles? Did he just forget his entire education and status in society?
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Steven Brake
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Joined: 01 January 2016
Posts: 562
Posted: 22 January 2021 at 2:36pm | IP Logged | 8 post reply

@ Mark:

Sorry, just saw your second post! I'd like to say that I've enjoyed this too. I've sometimes found that authorship debates get a bit heated, but, while I think it's been lively on both sides, I've enjoyed reading your thoughts (and JBs, and the other posters).
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Cory Vandernet
Byrne Robotics Member

Henchman

Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: Canada
Posts: 848
Posted: 23 January 2021 at 3:14am | IP Logged | 9 post reply

In 1592 Robert Greene wrote in his Groatworth of Wit..

"Yes, trust them not, for there is an upstart crow, beautified by our feathers, that, with his tyger's heart wrapt in in a players hide supposes he is as well able to bumbast out a blanke verse as the best of you.."

Why would Greene be so angry at Shaxper?
A crow is thought of as a thief.
"beautified by our feathers" - plays sold to Shaxper?

Plays were sold to acting companies for a one-time price with no royalties or copyright, once sold, the play became the property of the acting company to do with what they will, change dialogue, change scenes, add chimes, hell, scratch out the author's name and put down your own if you want.

There are other authorship candidates besides Oxford,
Francis Bacon
John Fletcher
Robert Greene
Ben Johnson
Christopher Marlowe
Thomas Middleton
Henry Neville
William Stanley - may have had a hand in A Midsummer Night's Dream
All of the above

Now it is said that Shakespeare may have had collaborators, Marlowe and Middleton perhaps.

Something that may be of interest..

William Stanley the 6th Earl of Derby married Edward De Vere's daughter Elizabeth in 1595. Two Shakespeare authorship candidates in the same family. What are the chances?





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Steven Brake
Byrne Robotics Member


Joined: 01 January 2016
Posts: 562
Posted: 23 January 2021 at 3:37am | IP Logged | 10 post reply

It's a sobering thought that some of the lines in Shakespeare - and therefore some of the most famous lines in the English language - may not have been written by him at all.

Yet collaboration undermines the possibility that Shakespeare wasn't Shakespeare. Did all these people who worked with him over the years never suspect that he wasn't what he claimed to be? Or were they all bought off? And if so, by whom, and with what?



Edited by Steven Brake on 23 January 2021 at 7:02am
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John Byrne

Grumpy Old Guy

Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132135
Posted: 23 January 2021 at 7:16am | IP Logged | 11 post reply

There are other authorship candidates besides Oxford,

••

Yes, but none of them tick off as many boxes on the form.

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Cory Vandernet
Byrne Robotics Member

Henchman

Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: Canada
Posts: 848
Posted: 23 January 2021 at 3:01pm | IP Logged | 12 post reply

Oh, I fully believe that Oxford wrote plays attributed to Shakespeare. 
All of them? I'm not so sure, there's some stinkers in the folio.

The historical Shaxper was a bit of a dick, he sued a debtor for 14 pence, charged a visiting preacher for the wine he served him, hoarded grain during a famine.

Stealing plays would not be beneath him.
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