BS: Shakespeare: Henry Neville?

Subject: RE: BS: Shakespeare: Henry Neville?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 10 Nov 05 - 07:55 PM

Current copyright law would make a Shakespeare impossible, and it has the same effect on other art forms as well. That's far too high a price to pay for protecting intellectual property rights.

I hope that eventually the impact of the internet, and whatever the internet grows into, will sweep it away.

Subject: RE: BS: Shakespeare: Henry Neville?
From: M.Ted
Date: 10 Nov 05 - 06:40 PM

I think that a contemporary writer would risk significant legal trouble if they took your interpretation of copyright law to heart, Barnacle--still, there are pieces of text in Shakespeare that seems to have gone missing from the works of others--food for thought, at least--

Subject: RE: BS: Shakespeare: Henry Neville?
From: EBarnacle
Date: 10 Nov 05 - 04:51 PM

Curst be he who moves these bones!

As is acknowledged in copyright law, you can't copyright ideas, only solid text. It was even more common in that era to "borrow" the ideas of other playwrights and create your own presentation. the genius is in the execution, even more than in coming up with the idea. The fact that X was able to make them resonate with relevance, even now is enough to make the works great.

The importance of S's work is that, unlike almost all his contemporaries, his friends made an effort to send as much as they could down to us intact. Now, why would they do a thing like that?

Even were his work all adapted,
It would still be well enacted.

Subject: RE: BS: Shakespeare: Henry Neville?
From: M.Ted
Date: 10 Nov 05 - 10:47 AM

There is a difference between the plot and the story, and the Bard lifted more than that.
Lay your hands upon Da Porto and Bandello--you will learn why Italians call Shakepeare "The Plagarist"--the story details, the characters, and their personalities are there, as well as bits of surprisingly familar dialogue--(and, interestingly, some of the plot problems in the Shakespearean play are resolved in a more sensible way)--

Ben Jonson, who alone, wrote of the Bard by name, also left us this commentary:

                                ON POET-APE 

Poor POET-APE, that would be thought our chief,
   Whose works are e'en the frippery of wit,
From brokage is become so bold a thief,
   As we, the robb'd, leave rage, and pity it.
At first he made low shifts, would pick and glean,
   Buy the reversion of old plays ;  now grown
To a little wealth, and credit in the scene,
   He takes up all, makes each man's wit his own :
And, told of this, he slights it.  Tut, such crimes
   The sluggish gaping auditor devours ;
He marks not whose 'twas first : and after-times
   May judge it to be his, as well as ours.
Fool !  as if half eyes will not know a fleece
   From locks of wool, or shreds from the whole piece ?

Subject: RE: BS: Shakespeare: Henry Neville?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 10 Nov 05 - 08:26 AM

I don't think anyone has ever suggested that Shakespeare made up the plots of most, or even any, of his plays. (That's one reason why modernised versions which throw overboard the language and keep the plots are really rather a pointless exercise. Or rather, whatever point they have is nothing to do with Shakespeare.)

As Kipling wrote in respect of another storyteller:

When 'Omer smote 'is bloomin' lyre,
He'd 'eard men sing by land an' sea;
An' what he thought 'e might require,
'E went an' took, the same as me!

Subject: RE: BS: Shakespeare: Henry Neville?
From: robomatic
Date: 10 Nov 05 - 07:50 AM

Some small points:

The Bard's gift lay in his language and insight into his characters. His plots were mostly derived, and that includes his histories which were tributes to whoever was in power. This is not to detract from his genius which still enriches our lives.

Star Trek was originally pitched as: "Hornblower In Space".

There are many gifted actors who've done some good work going on to film and television exploits that have fallen short of expectation:

Halle Berry
David Caruso
Oliver Platt
Robin Williams
Sean Young

Subject: RE: BS: Shakespeare: Henry Neville?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 10 Nov 05 - 06:21 AM

Many years ago as a child, I was given some books by an old lady. There was an autograph embossed on the cover.

Snarlesboro Wickford.... I wondered who he was.

The weight of evidence points towards Charles Dickens. However if you feel the Snarlsboro Wickford autograph bears a bit of looking at, I think you may find it a more profitable avenue of investigation than the present one.

Subject: RE: BS: Shakespeare: Henry Neville?
From: HawkBill Hunter
Date: 10 Nov 05 - 05:44 AM

Geen Coon or Dorothy Fontana?

Actually, many Star Trek episodes were themselves adapted from previously existing stories. For example, "Arena" was based on Frederic Brown's famous science-fiction short story by the same name, "Operation: Annihilate!" was based on Robert Heinlein's novel The Puppet Masters, and "Balance of Terror" was based on a classic film about submarine warfare in World War II, 1957's The Enemy Below, which starred Robert Mitchum and Curt Jurgens.

In all such cases that I know of, the originals were good (or better than good), and so were the Star Trek adaptations (i.e., the TV scripts).* And for that matter, so were James Blish's short-story adaptations of the respective TV episodes!

But surely nobody thinks of James Blish (may he rest in peace) as the "author "of any of the stories in question, which of course was M.Ted's point. I disagree with its application to the plays in question -- which I think deserve to be considered great literary works in their own right, despite their derivative nature -- and I am fairly sure that people thought so of them even when they were first performed and published, but it remains an interesting point nonetheless.


* Actually, I think Geen Coon's version of "Arena" was actually much better than Frederic Brown's original. The enemy in the Star Trek version (kind-of a lizard-man) is not nearly as anatomically ridiculous as that in the original (a red, ball-shaped creature with retractable tentacles that rolls to and fro across the battlefield) -- although there's no denying that the costume used in the Star Trek version bespoke of cheesiness and a limited budget -- and the plot changes involving the Metrons made for a better story with a more surprising ending, in my opinion. (These changes also made the Metrons appear much more sophisticated and clever, and morally subtle, than the pan-dimensional buttinsky in Brown's version.) Furthermore, making the alien, rather than the human, the one with the advantage in physical strength -- so that the human had to out-wit it in order to survive and win -- also made the Star Trek version more interesting.

Subject: RE: BS: Shakespeare: Henry Neville?
From: M.Ted
Date: 09 Nov 05 - 09:38 PM

Whoa--that was strange! I double posted--but with slightly different ending--perhaps you can choose the one you like best(I only meant to send the second one, fearing that a "Star Trek" comparison would be viewed as trivializing the work of the great one--

Subject: RE: BS: Shakespeare: Henry Neville?
From: M.Ted
Date: 09 Nov 05 - 09:34 PM

I have been reading some interesting material of late--that is, Luigi da Porto's original Novella about the Capellettis and Montecchis, as well as Bandello's re-write of the same--the bard's popular play follows it so closely, that it is impossible to think of him as "The Author" in the way that we understand that word--

Also read the Saxo Grammaticus History of the Danes, that is, the part that is the story of Hamlet, and found that the man, and his "madness" are there, as are most all of his adventures, including Mom and Ophelia--his curious character fully developed, hundreds of years before the Bard set quill to paper--

The true reason that Shakespearean authorship is so imprecisely credited may simply be that, in the time that the plays were current, the stories were so familar, and the sources of the works were so well known that "authorship" of the Shakespearean plays was not regarded as much of a literary achievement--being, perhaps, viewed much as we might view the "novelization" of movie script or writing a "Made-for-TV" movie about a recent news story--

Subject: RE: BS: Shakespeare: Henry Neville?
From: M.Ted
Date: 09 Nov 05 - 09:02 PM

I have been reading some interesting material of late--that is, Luigi da Porto's original Novella about the Capellettis and Montecchis, as well as Bandello's re-write of the same--the bard's popular play follows it so closely, that it is impossible to think of him as "The Author" in the way that we understand that word--

Also read the Saxo Grammaticus History of the Danes, that is, the part that is the story of Hamlet, and found that the man, and his "madness" are there, as are most all of his adventures, including Mom and Ophelia--his curious character fully developed, hundreds of years before the Bard set quill to paper--

The true reason that Shakespearean authorship is so imprecisely credited may simply be that, in the time that the plays were current, the stories were so familar, and the sources of the works were so well known that "authorship" of the Shakespearean plays was not regarded as much of a literary achievement--being, perhaps, viewed much as we might view the "novelization" of a Star Trek episode--

Subject: RE: BS: Shakespeare: Henry Neville?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 09 Nov 05 - 07:26 PM

Malcom X - well that changes everything...

So it was only after he had been dead 50 years that anyone suggested that he hadn't written that stuff? Wow!

But you're right enough - "if Bill's mates said he did it, that is good enough for me". True enough. Especially since no one else seems to have contradicted them until they were long dead. Though I suppose if someone had ventured to do that, he'd have got a thick ear - that's one thing mates are good for.

Subject: RE: BS: Shakespeare: Henry Neville?
From: HawkBill Hunter
Date: 09 Nov 05 - 07:24 PM

David Caruso just makes incredibly snotty comments to people who have not yet been proven guilty -- even by forensic analysis, much less in court after a trial -- whereas William Peterson actually does forensics! The difference between the two shows is like that between night and day.


(Just once, I would like to see the guy they initially suspect and start being gratuitously, seriously and repeatedly rude to turn out to be exonerated by the evidence, and Caruso have to eat crow and apologize! I'd actually resume watching the show -- which I hopefully gave about a half-dozen tries before finally giving up -- if something like this were ever to happen, even once.

As it is, it's kind-of as though the Las Vegas gang were moved to Miami, but with even William Peterson reduced to being just a minor player -- and all the other CSIs correspondingly reduced in importance as well along with him, naturally -- and Paul Guilfoyle were made by far and away the center of attention!

Only even Guilfoyle is usually not quite as obnoxious as Caruso, and is a *much* better actor. Anyone who saw and remembers Guilfoyle's *stunning* performance on Wiseguy -- alongside future U.S. Senator Fred Thompson, who also gave an *incredible* performance -- knows this to be true, even though CSI doesn't even begin to let him show what he can do.

Not that I have anything against Caruso as an actor -- he's just fine in his own right. It's not his fault the director chooses to direct him the way he does!)


P.S. If Homer J said it, it's good enough for me!

(One can just imagine the inarticulate growl he would droolingly emit over the sight of Marg Helgenberger!)

Subject: RE: BS: Shakespeare: Henry Neville?
From: robomatic
Date: 09 Nov 05 - 04:18 PM

Well written Baldeagle the Two.

I suggest we put CSI on it. Not those Miami wimps either, the Las Vegas batch. William Petersen and Marg Helgenberger to the rescue.

Open his grave!
Homer Simpson

Subject: RE: BS: Shakespeare: Henry Neville?
From: BaldEagle2
Date: 09 Nov 05 - 01:22 PM

But dear McGrath of Harlow, the doubts started within 50 years of his death and have continued to grow in volume year by year.   The list of academics, scholars, historians, authors, and other good folk just grows and grows.   ("Barking mad, all of them" I hear you riposte). Even Malcom X wrote about his doubts on our Bill.   (Ok, Malcolm X was not noted as a historian of Elizabethean legends, but he was, by all accounts, a pretty smart guy).

I suspect that the words "perfectly adequate" are merely a device used by those, so inclined, to stop themselve having to do any really deep examination of a topic.   It seems to me that you should be saying "if Bill's mates said he did it, that is good enough for me".   I would be inclined to join you, if some contemporary of Bill, other than his drinking buddies, had ever once written anything that even remotely suggested Bill was the author.

But you do have a good point, for I also have always held that my opinions are the only ones that matter, and to hell with any so-called fact or theory that casts a doubt on one of them.   :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Shakespeare: Henry Neville?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 09 Nov 05 - 12:57 PM

"... what is the basis of your belief?" Because they were attributed to him when they were published only a few years after his death, and there are no indications that anybody at the time, or for cednturies afterwards ever disputed his authorship.

Perfectly adequate grounds for accepting that he wrote the works in question, it seems to me, in the absence of pretty solid reasons for doubting it.

Subject: RE: BS: Shakespeare: Henry Neville?
From: BaldEagle2
Date: 09 Nov 05 - 11:17 AM

I am only back in town for 24 hours or so, so don't be miffed if any response to this post is left unanswered for another week or two.   While I was away, the discussion on whether our Bill wrote the sonnets and plays seems to have drifted off into a interesting, if somewhat sterile, side streams.   

Was it our Bill what wrote them masterpieces?   

Some argue that our Bill did not have the education or noble background to write so well, and others rightly dismiss this as being elitist nonsense.   The case that it might not of been him really rests on the facts that Bill never claimed authorship, never did anything in any way to support any claim that he was the author, and the people of Stratford who argue long and loud that Bill was the man: well, they rely on others who said they knew it was him.    What matters, really, is those others, back in the 1600's, who gave our Bill credit for authorship - if they were right to do so, our quest is over..

How did those others know?   Let me back-track for a moment.

We know that there are 154 sonnets and about 40 plays that were written by one person in the late 1580's early 1600's.   They were attributed to our Bill some 7 years after he died.

The earliest play seem to have been written before Bill arrived in London, and several are given co-authors who, from all contemporary records, were people who never actually met our Bill.   (Not necessarily suspicious - many works have been changed after their first issue by others who want to revise areas worthy of revision).   

Our Bill was a member of an informal club "The Mermaid Tavern" from about 1604 to 1613, (along with Ben Johnson, Francis Beaumont, John Fletcher and others).    Members of this group printed the first portfolio of plays and gave the author's name as William Shake-speare.   They did this 7 years after Bill had died.   The hyphen the typesetter put in our Bill's name was not of any significance.

Later editions of these early plays showed some revisions had taken place after Bill's death, which means that others definitely did have their hand in "correcting" those masterpieces.   This is accepted as being normal for the day.

The sonnets fall into two groups 1 to 126 addressed to a fair young man, and 127 to 154 to "a dark lady".   Most scholars agree that the fair young man is the Earl of Southampton, but where and when our Bill had an affair with him remains a mystery.   

The early reign of King James holds several tantalizing clues as to the court's attitude to our Bill.   When Edward De Vere, Earl of Oxford died, King James had ten of our Bill's plays performed in court, to honor Edward's life.   Later, when Edward's wife died, another dozen of our Bill's plays were performed in court.   (Hypothesis: King James recognized that the works had been written by a great author)

To produce a revised bible, King James summoned the finest English poets and writers of the day to work on the project, which lasted from 1604 to 1611.   Our Bill was not included.    One may wonder why.   (Hypothesis: King James did not include our Bill on his list of great authors).

In 1610, our Bill left London and returned to Stratford to become a Corn Merchant.   He died in 1616.   It was not until 1623 that his name was finally linked as the author of the plays and sonnets, and the people so saying were his good friends and colleagues from the Mermaid Tavern.   If those good people had correctly identified the author, we are still left with an overwhelming doubt as to their veracity: why had none of them ever written it down before in diaries, correspondence, play bills - anything at all?   They maintained an absolute and total silence on the topic throughout Bill's life, for another 7 years after his death, and then suddenly remembered that it was him, after all.

We have had a long and interesting discussion on whether Guilliam Shagspere, proved or did not prove anything by constantly signing himself with variations of the name Shackspere.    The absence of an "e" in Shack and the absence of an "a" in spere is worthy of discussion, but quickly turns into a circular chase.   Let us, instead, concentrate on why Bill's friends acted in such a bizarre manner over revealing his name.   Oh - we cannot can we?   All they have ever had to say on the topic was said in the one act of publishing the first portfolio.   Any discussion can only be based on theoretical conceptions, can't it?

Perhaps we face a situation which is rather like that Theory of Evolution: until we have hard and fast data to overwhelm any alternative, we will always have some people who genuinely believe in the concept of intelligent design.   Not that their belief is "correct" or "incorrect", it is the only belief they have to be going on with.    Ask our educators in Kansas, they can explain it better than I.

May be it is a bit like that with this authorship debate.   Some have so long held the belief that our Bill wrote the plays - possibly gained from a school teacher who had gained the same view in a similar manner - that for it be untrue is quite unthinkable.    Until there is something that "proves" our Bill was not the author, they find it simpler to continue to accept the belief that he was.   It possibly helps them if they belittle and mock those with a different point of view, because making mock requires no critical thought.

Now, in my view, showing that others make more credible candidates for authorship simply magnifies the serious and continuing doubts about our Bill being the author.   

Was the real author De Vere or Neville?   I really don't know.   But De Vere certainly has more stuffing in his case than Bill ever had.   I have yet to read on the case for Neville, but early reviews suggest that it is merely based on chronology and little else.   

But was it our Bill?   

Let me turn it round and ask you the most basic of basic questions: "If you think William Shakespeare, citizen of Stratford upon Avon, wrote the sonnets and plays attributed to him after his death, what is the basis of your belief?"

Is it from some higher authority whose point of view you accept without question?   From historical evidence that overwhelming supports your view?   Or from some other basis?

Subject: RE: BS: Shakespeare: Henry Neville?
From: EBarnacle
Date: 09 Nov 05 - 09:23 AM

How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? We are arguing based upon supposition about the unprovable, lacking actual contemporary evidence.

Subject: RE: BS: Shakespeare: Henry Neville?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Nov 05 - 07:51 AM

who knows - perhaps his mates nicked his books - perhaps he gave them away - perhaps they were under the matress and nobody checked

Subject: RE: BS: Shakespeare: Henry Neville?
From: robomatic
Date: 09 Nov 05 - 07:22 AM

Facts schmacts. You can prove anything with facts!
Homer Simpson

Ron:

So much of the arguments made against Shakespeare in this thread and other venues are in favor of some nobleman, based on class and education. I find these arguments inherently suspicious, that a commoner just doesn't have the background, breeding, or education for great works. In this thread I have brought forth a couple of commoners, Samuel Johnson and Abraham Lincoln, people who outstripped the nobs of their day in literary and intellectual merit by their powers and application, breeding notwithstanding.

I once met an English gentleman who had a great deal of contempt for a gentleman's education. As far as a nobleman's education, I'm under the impression it was very optional.

As far as the rest of the 'theory' goes, it is over-reaching to draw conclusions from apparent gaps in years, lack of information, and coincidences in histories. People have been predicting the end of the world by just such information gleaned from Scripture. It is an even more profitable industry than writing books about who wrote Shakesepeare's material.

Subject: RE: BS: Shakespeare: Henry Neville?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 09 Nov 05 - 12:48 AM

Second-best bed-- I've read that was because the best bed was to be reserved for guests.

Subject: RE: BS: Shakespeare: Henry Neville?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 09 Nov 05 - 12:13 AM

All anybody can do in this discussion is cite facts. The point is there are precious few facts to establish that the writer of the plays is William Shakespeare of Stratford.

Robo--I only responded to your citing of the Gettysburg Address, which I believe to be a red herring in the discussion. I was prepared to drop the topic, at least temporarily--in fact the thread had fallen off the list--but you brought it back. I'm still interested in the Neville book, which it appears neither I nor anybody else has found.

Since it's back--

No books in Shakespeare's library to be bequeathed--but both Jonson and Donne had substantial libraries.

Not only no books--we have no proof of anything--including manuscripts, correspondence, or diaries written by him.

I notice nobody has addressed my other points--about the lack of bequest to the Stratford school, women's education, the 7-year gap before any literary figure commented on him (including his supposed friend, Ben Jonson). I've also read that Jonson was paid to write what he did (can't cite the source for that now).

There are a lot more questions--that's just scratching the surface. The Oxfordian argument is particularly intriguing.

"Just the facts, ma'am"---and the facts are scarce.

Greg--no mention of books in your will. I have to say I'm surprised--there will be in mine. To coin a phrase--"doesn't prove a thing".

Subject: RE: BS: Shakespeare: Henry Neville?
From: robomatic
Date: 08 Nov 05 - 04:22 PM

Mudcat - A vagrant thread title fell through a time warp and into my AMD powered little bit-buster. It's title is "Linux - written by Sir William Gates?" and purports to be about how after he created Microsoft Windows, Sir Bill went on to found the great Linux operating system. The tales that some student created it while on break are mere stuff of legend, obviously untrue. "What some vagrant student taught himself? Come On Then!"

There was something about how bicycle mechanics never invented the aeroplane, but I woke up then.

Subject: RE: BS: Shakespeare: Henry Neville?
From: greg stephens
Date: 08 Nov 05 - 01:01 PM

There's no mention of books in my will, but the house is full of them, shelves, boxes, under the beds, on the stairs. Doesnt prove a thing.

Subject: RE: BS: Shakespeare: Henry Neville?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 08 Nov 05 - 12:48 PM

Here's a site with Will's will.

No specific mention of books, but then why should there be? No specific mention of clothes either, but that doesn't mean we have to assume he walked around naked.

Subject: RE: BS: Shakespeare: Henry Neville?
From: greg stephens
Date: 08 Nov 05 - 09:20 AM

A lot of weight is being placed, in these arguments, on features of Shakespeare's will, and his erratic spelling. Trouble is, I (and I suspect most of us here) don't know what a normal playwright's, or business man's, will was like in those days. Or spelling, for that matter. We are asked to draw big conclusions from Shakespeare's not leaving plays and books to anyone in his will; the implcation being that he was therefore not a playwright. So, did other Elizabethan playwrights leave plays and books in their wills? And were they better, worse, or about the same when it came to spelling?
    And how about that leaving his second-best bed to his wife. What is the current theory on that suprficially rather strange bequest?

Subject: RE: BS: Shakespeare: Henry Neville?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 08 Nov 05 - 08:43 AM

Its also a matter of record that Robbie williams was in Mork and Mindy, years before Take That.

genius like that doesn't happen overnight and burst upon us unexplained - you can take my word on that!

Subject: RE: BS: Shakespeare: Henry Neville?
From: robomatic
Date: 08 Nov 05 - 08:12 AM

That one can name accomplishments of Lincoln in early life and cannot name anything about Shakespeare's advances no case.

Subject: RE: BS: Shakespeare: Henry Neville?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 08 Nov 05 - 07:08 AM

"You don't need to own a book to read a book."

The point was that Shakespeare did not leave any books in his will- thus ownership is the criteria. The claim has been made in this thread that, because he did not own books, he did not read them.

Subject: RE: BS: Shakespeare: Henry Neville?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 07 Nov 05 - 10:15 PM

Indeed, you did not need to be a noble in Shakespeare's time to get books. You may have had to have some money, which Shakespeare definitely did--he was quite successful as an impresario, actor, and later made good property investments.

However, sorry Robo, Lincoln doesn't help your case. According to David Herbert Donald, by the time Lincoln was 28 he had been:

1) militia captain
2) postmaster
3) surveyor
4) Illinois state legislator

And he was an attorney.

It's a reasonable conclusion that Lincoln's success was partly due to his mastery of the language, which was in turn due at least in part to his constant reading.

There is no evidence to support any literary accomplishment of Shakespeare until about age 28. If evidence surfaces of "Shakespeare's lost years" (birth to age 28), this may change.

Even after age 28, when the "paper trail" becomes more substantial, there are still gnawing questions about Shakespeare.

1) Although he had several admirable, articulate and independent women in his plays, he did not have his own daughters educated. Why?

2) Why did he not bequeath anything to the school he supposedly attended--in his home town, Stratford?

3) Yet again, why no plays or even any books in the will? (especially since, as McGrath says, you did not have to be a noble to have books).

Subject: RE: BS: Shakespeare: Henry Neville?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 07 Nov 05 - 07:52 PM

You don't need to own a book to read a book. You don't need a library to borrow a book. And that was as true in the 16th century as it is now. And the suggestion that you had to be "a noble" in order to get hold of books back then is just plain wrong.

Subject: RE: BS: Shakespeare: Henry Neville?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 07 Nov 05 - 07:18 PM

EB,

Check the availability of books in 1560 vs 1860.... Why was it that lending libraries were developed in the early 1800's ( in London)? The price of books had come down to the point that non-nobility could actually get hold of books.

Subject: RE: BS: Shakespeare: Henry Neville?
From: EBarnacle
Date: 07 Nov 05 - 07:03 PM

Ah, but how many books were in his library?

Subject: RE: BS: Shakespeare: Henry Neville?
From: robomatic
Date: 07 Nov 05 - 12:08 PM

Education is no substitute for genius. Consider the following short speech:

Nov. 19, 1863

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.


Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of it as a final resting place for those who died here that the nation might live. This we may, in all propriety do. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have hallowed it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.


It is rather for us the living, we here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth."

The person who wrote The Gettysburg Address had one year of formal education. He ruled a government of intelligent college graduates, many of whom thought, at first, that they should have his job. Most of them eventually realized their error and became his supporters and defenders.

So if a rustic backwoodsman from Illinois can be credited, as he is, with the above and other great writings, surely a superb playwright such as Shakespeare can be thought to have created his great works without the same formal education as the nobs of his era. He wrote almost as well as Lincoln, and probably had more access to the education of his time.

Subject: RE: BS: Shakespeare: Henry Neville?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Nov 05 - 06:46 PM

In that splendid book "No Bed for Bacon" by Caryl Brahms and SJ Simon there is a lovely running joke of Shakespeare constantly trying out different ways of spelling his name, and never able to satisfy himself as to which is best.

Incidentally, "No Bed for Bacon" was significantly drawn on by Tom Stoppard in the screenplay for Shakespeare in Love - I don't think he ever acknowledged that, but I could be wrong. Anyway it is well worth getting hold of and reading. Great fun.

Subject: RE: BS: Shakespeare: Henry Neville?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 05 Nov 05 - 12:27 PM

Could this be the same Neville that was in The Telegoons?

The names are very similar.

Subject: RE: BS: Shakespeare: Henry Neville?
From: HawkBill Hunter
Date: 05 Nov 05 - 09:23 AM

Many of the relevant arguments pro and con have already been recited here quite well -- in particular, by BaldEagle2 (BE2), Rapaire, and GUEST:Le Scaramouche. I join the discussion only to add two particular points, both of which tend to support the Oxfordian view that BE2 has already summarized and defended, and provided some useful links to:


(1) For whatever one thinks the point about spelling inconsistency is worth, Stratford Will's spelling of his own last name varied even more than BE2 has indicated. For one thing, he more often spelled the second syllable "spere" rather than "speare". (This fact becomes more significant -- perhaps -- in light of point #2, below.)

Moreover, while he usually began his last name with "Shak" or "Shack" -- without any e before the last syllable -- he also appears on occasion to have spelled the name with a g ("Shagspere") (I see now that BE2 mentioned this one in a later post I did not see before), or even with an x and no second s ("Shaxpere")!

For a concise listing of the many spellings encountered, see, e.g.:

               Shakspere Documentary Evidence: Brief.

For a version that includes photographs of Shakspere's many, varying hand-spellings, see:

               William Shakspere Documentary Evidence.


(2) It is far from clear that the evidence cited by Rapaire actually points to the conclusion he thinks. Note that the majority (though admittedly not all) of the attributions he cites hyphenate the author's last name, whereas the fellow from Stratford never appears to have spelled his name that way in anything that he wrote by hand, and only once (that I know of) had it spelt with a hyphen by someone else (the author of a playbill from 1603).

(See previous URLs. The playbill appears to have been typeset.)

Moreover, all of the attributions cited by Rapaire spell the second syllable of the author's last name with an a -- Shakespeare -- whereas, as noted in point 1 above, Stratford Will almost always -- or at least usually -- spelled his last name without the second a: Sha[c]kspere. And a quick bit of Googling + recourse to a number of on-line dictionaries (esp. YourDictionary.com and OneLook.com) confirm that "spere" is not an alternative spelling of "spear". It can mean (among other things) sphere, ankle, or spoor, or to search, to pry, or to inquire, but it does not appear ever to have been an alternative English spelling of the name of that long pointed device used for thrusting, stabbing or throwing.

(YourDictionary.com provides Indo-European root etymologies, and OneLook.com pulls up definitions from a bunch of different dictionaries all at once.)

So what is the significance of the hyphen? Well, I would suggest -- as others have before me -- that it highlights the pun that was involved in de Vere's eventual choice of nom de plume.

As BE2 pointed out, de Vere had long before chosen for himself a coat of arms that depicted a spear being shaken. Moreover, de Vere is known to have been especially fond both of Ovid and of Ovid's Metamorphoses, both in the original Latin and as translated into English by one of his uncles, Arthur Golding, who was one of de Vere's tutors when he was growing up, and the Metamorphoses contain a prominent passage about the goddess Minerva (Roman) or Pallas Athena (Greek) shaking a spear. These ancillary points all feed into the two main points, which are that de Vere is well known to have identified personally with the imagery of a spear being shaken, and that he was likewise so identified by others in his day. Although he also was referred to on occasion as a spear-breaker, due to his apparent prowess at jousting -- see, e.g.,

               Why I'm Not an Oxfordian: Bacon Versus De Vere

-- he was often referred to as "spear-shaker", with or without a definite or indefinite article.

Most tellingly of all, in 1578 a fellow of Trinity College at Cambridge University by the name of Gabriel Harvey wrote and published a long and tedious poem in praise of de Vere. In this poem, Harvey addressed de Vere and said of him (albeit in Latin):

               "Thy will shakes spears."

Here we find not only corroboration of the identification of de Vere with the shaking of a spear, but a published phrase that would account for de Vere's choice of pseudonymous first name as well!

(See

               The True Story of the Shakespeare Publications

for full quotation and citation.)

This is just speculation on my part, but I imagine that this incredibly sycophantic, butt-smooching poem by Gabriel Harvey probably embarrassed de Vere more than a little, and became something of a standing joke among him and his friends -- something about which they would teasingly remind him in later years by calling him "spear-shaker". Thus, the subsequent practice of referring to de Vere as "spear-shaker" probably was, at least in part, something of a standing, inside joke.

In any event, what a happy accident it must have been when, many years later, de Vere learned of the existence of an actor in London by the name of Will -- or sometimes William -- Shakspere! And how easily this must have suggested to de Vere the pseudonym of Will -- or William -- Shake-speare.

          *          *          *

All that said, I remain most curious to learn what points might be made in support of this Henry Neville character, of whom I have never heard before.

Also, I have to admit that, as I was using Google to refresh my recollection of some of these details, and to find specific sources to cite, I came across some arguments against de Vere and in favor of Francis Bacon that I found at least superficially powerful. Of greatest force was an argument about The Tempest having been unmistakably based on a shipwreck that took place some 5 years after de Vere's death -- an argument similar to one already recounted here, about Macbeth being based on (or at least alluding to) an incident that took place the year after de Vere died. While it is not impossible per se that some of the plays de Vere wrote could have been published only after his death, it is obviously impossible that any of them could have been written after his death and still be written by him. Thus, Macbeth and The Tempest both provide a very serious problem or challenge for the Oxfordian thesis.

All the same, though, I still have a hard time imagining anyone else having so many facts add up so compellingly in his or her* favor as de Vere.


* Queen Elizabeth I herself has been considered as a possible candidate. She was remarkably well educated (and traveled?) in many of the same ways that de Vere was, and reportedly was fluent in as many as 6 languages in addition to English. (Sources appear to differ on the number of languages, and on the degree of fluency in some of them, but it appears that she definitely was fluent in Latin, French and Italian, probably in Greek, and possibly in Spanish as well. It appears that German would have been the sixth language, but I am not sure of her degree of fluency therein.) I mention this not because I believe that Elizabeth should be seriously considered as a possible author of the plays and poems, but only because it is an interesting fact.

Subject: RE: BS: Shakespeare: Henry Neville?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 04 Nov 05 - 07:59 AM

Yes at the time, I pointed out the flaw in Frisby's theory -not mine - I'm not that clever or original.

he mentioned Shaw as a non actor himself - the exception I thought of was Beckett

Ah yes! he said, but he writes shit plays.....

Subject: RE: BS: Shakespeare: Henry Neville?
From: alanabit
Date: 04 Nov 05 - 06:45 AM

Ah, some wires crossed here, Greg. I did indeed read your comments about formal education not being the only source of knowledge for an aspiring writer. The point I was trying to make, is that not all acting is done in theatres (which you hinted at yourself) and that not all music is presented in concert halls. Following on from that, I believe that just about any form of performing should wise up a potential writer about what should go in front of an audience.
With regard to the wimpy buskers, I will raise my hands and confess that I have seen them too - in the subways and at the soup kitchens. I guess we will always have slow learners among us. The experience certainly sharpened me up a bit though. I think those performing hours were irreplaceable in my case.

Subject: RE: BS: Shakespeare: Henry Neville?
From: greg stephens
Date: 04 Nov 05 - 06:02 AM

Alanabit:I have argued elsewhere in this thread that formal education is no prerequisite to be a genius. I certainly dont see anything in Shakespeare's plays that lead me to suppose he must have been to Ozbridge or whatever. But I do see technical things in the plays that make me believe that he knew the acting trade, bu that is quite a separate thing. There are plenty of crap plays written by actors who know the theatre backwards, too!
    No: busking is not a cure for being a wimpy introvert songwriter: there are loads of wimpy introvert songwriters polluting our streets. Busking does teach you a lot about projection and performance, though. If you are wimpy and introverted, when you've busked a bit you are going to look really really really wimpy and introverted.

Subject: RE: BS: Shakespeare: Henry Neville?
From: alanabit
Date: 04 Nov 05 - 05:50 AM

A telling last line there Greg, which actually leads to the opposite conclusion, to the one I believe you wanted to make when you began your post. It may be that formal theatre - or at least just being an actor - was not the only way to acquire that knowledge and skill.
I am thinking back to what I read of Brecht's early career. He had already gathered some experience of singing his (offensive) ballads in pubs (and getting slung out for his pains) before he produced his first play, "Baal". He certainly knew a bit about theatre and he had plenty of in yer face performing experience.
Would you agree that busking, for instance, is a good cure for wimpy, introvert songwriters?

Subject: RE: BS: Shakespeare: Henry Neville?
From: greg stephens
Date: 04 Nov 05 - 05:42 AM

Wee Little Drummer: that's a very interesting theory, but I'm not sure if it totally stands up. I'm absolutely sure that Shakespeare knew the theatre backwards, from the way his plays work. But I think it's perfectly possible for a playwright to produce a great play, even with no personal acting experience. For a start, any intelligent writer that goes to the theatre as a punter will start getting some ideas of how it ticks. Take "The Importance of Being Ernest", for example. That is an unbelievably well-made play that acts perfectly on the stage. Oscar Wilde wasn't an actor, though, as far as I know(except all the time, in his life!).

Subject: RE: BS: Shakespeare: Henry Neville?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 04 Nov 05 - 05:17 AM

Many years ago I hitched a lift with the playwright Terence Frisby. Naturally as I was an English Lit student, we started talking about plays and how someone became successful as a playwright.

He explained to me that if you want to write plays, you've got to act. theres no other way. you tread the boards , you see what actors are capable of, what works, what doesn't work, you do it for years - everything else you can fake. You can write about kings , emperors, miners, gangsters, anything - but you have to have a firm grasp of what keeps the audience from dropping off to sleep.

could be you are underestimating how long Shakespeare had to work at his craft - and overestimating how much he had to know about history, poetry etc

Subject: RE: BS: Shakespeare: Henry Neville?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 03 Nov 05 - 10:12 PM

E Barnacle--

I did say that all sides in our discussion agree, I believe--( I certainly do--) that the person who wrote the Shakespeare canon was a genius. Our only point of dispute is who that person was.

As to whether the successful actor, impresario, and landowner of Stratford was also the person in question, there are many problems.

We're asked to assume:

1) Shakespeare taught himself virtually all he knew on a huge array of subjects.
2) He however had no need for books on a permanent basis--had none to bequeath (nor plays, of course)
3) His genius was totally hidden until he burst on the scene at about age 28.
4) When he died, although he was a genius and had written many popular plays, no literary figure took any notice for several years (7 years?) (including Ben Jonson, alleged to be a good friend.)

etc.

After a while the assumptions just become too great.

Subject: RE: BS: Shakespeare: Henry Neville?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 Nov 05 - 04:37 PM

Equivocation just means that in a tight situation you can misdirect a questioner without actually lying, by saying something that is ambiguous. The idea is that the questioner take the obvious meaning rather but that the take one meaning and not the other.

A very useful technique at times.

It would have been something of a vogue word around the time, and as such would have been a word likely to get used a few times by a man writing a play in a hurry. (In the same way that someone writing a political pay in the UK today would be very likely to use an expressoon such as "spin").

Macbeth is a play open to a number of ways of understanding it, and I don't think there's any way you can get much of a clue as to how the author would have seen the Gunpowder Plot.

After all, it ends up with an anointed King being killed by a subject, in the course of a rebellion carried out with the assistance of a foreign country. The same basic plot as Richard III, giving the impression that the author had few problems with the concept of justified rebellion against an unjust ruler.

Subject: RE: BS: Shakespeare: Henry Neville?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 03 Nov 05 - 12:05 PM

It's the bit like that James Thurber story The Macbeth Murder Mystery. so if Guy Fawkes was the fall guy for Duncan, who was it Inspector?

who do you suspect.....everybody!

Subject: RE: BS: Shakespeare: Henry Neville?
From: BaldEagle2
Date: 03 Nov 05 - 11:47 AM

Dear Conspiracy-Theory Fanatics

I shall be absent from this forum for a week or more.

The ensuing (possibly welcome) silence from my quarter is not really an admission of total defeat in this discussion: I shall be away because of circumstance beyond my control.   I would hate you to think that I had thrown in the towel and was hiding in disgrace.   :-)

And for those of you who celebrate the event, do have a safe Guy Fawke's bonfire on November 5th.

Regards

BE2

Subject: RE: BS: Shakespeare: Henry Neville?
From: EBarnacle
Date: 03 Nov 05 - 11:09 AM

Ron, it's a matter of context. If you arrive in a situation which allows you to flower at age X, then you will flower at age X. It's all a matter of fertilizer. Until the manure is applied and the seed is water'd t'won't grow.

Part of our reality is that unless we come up with contemporary documentation or invent a time machine we will never know the truth.

As a middle class youth, WS almost certainly went to school. A recent email reinforced for me that the nature of basic education has changed. If a country boy went to school, he would have had a good grounding for learning more. If he went to one of the colleges, he would have been exposed to much of the material he would have needed as background for his work.

Consider that, as an artifact, we have a lot of material from the reign of "Good Queen Bess" and others of that era. If we had the same level of retention from the classical Greek period, there would be a similar thread going about whether or not Plate or Euclid wrote their philosophical treatises...or did someone else do it in their names.

What we do know is that someone of genius wrote S's plays, etc. Are we all on the same page about that?

Subject: RE: BS: Shakespeare: Henry Neville?
From: BaldEagle2
Date: 03 Nov 05 - 10:46 AM

MacBeth is Guy Fawkes.   Wow.

How is the connection made?    (Bear with me, it is a little convoluted)

For our American and other colleagues: It is alleged that Guy Fawkes and his Catholic co-conspirators attempted to blow up the Houses of Parliament (at a time the King's supporters were desperate for the Catholics to do something like this, in order to shore up the waning support for the Episcopalian church).   But let us assume current doubts about the validity of the plot actually happening had no bearing on Bill, because he wouldn't know about our current doubts.

When one of the co-conspirators (Francis Tesham) was captured, we was in possession of a book called "A Treatise of Equivocation".    This treatise was a primer which was used to teach Catholics how to avoid prosecution under English Law.

Evocation can be described using deliberately misleading statements based on true events and accepted definitions.   (cf Bill Clinton explaining his relationships with lady friends).

Now, in Act two, scene three, of Macbeth, after the discovery of Duncan's death, the porter says:

PORTER: "Faith, here's an equivocator, that could swear in both the scales against either scale, who committed treason enough for God's sake, yet could not equivocate to heaven: O, come in, equivocator"
               
Translation: This is a direct reference to Father Garnet, one of the conspirators involved in the Gunpowder Plot.   The Porter is saying (in easily broken code) that Garnet equivocated by saying that the Gunpowder Plot was justified because it would have liberated the Catholics living in England.   

And there you have it.

Furthermore, there are several other direct references to equivocation in this play!   Several!

Case proven, you will no doubt agree.

Once you see that, it then becomes clear that the three witches are really closet Jesuits reveling in the coming destruction of King James and his court (which would also explain why the author may have been a tad nervous of sticking his name on the work until the heat died down).

Every schoolboy knows, there could never, ever be a reason that the author would have used evocation several times in a play, unless it was because he wanted to refer the Gunpowder Plot.

And since DeVere died before the Gunpowder Plot took place .... well, you get the drift.   Against such superb rhetoric, I am once again reduced to being just another Stupid Conspiracy-Theory Fanatic.

Oh - wait a minute.   I might have a loop-hole.   The use of evocation to justify bad deeds was known to Aristotle and others of his day ... perhaps ... perhaps ....    No.   No - that's just clutching at straws.   I am hosed. Pure toast.

(exits stage left, head bowed, a broken man)

Subject: RE: BS: Shakespeare: Henry Neville?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 02 Nov 05 - 11:43 PM

Peter--you recall perhaps that I said I do not believe the assertion Neville was Shakespeare is a "slam dunk". I said in fact that at this point I am convinced neither by the Stratfordian argument nor the Neville one--but I'm interested to read the Neville book. I'm fascinated to read the Oxfordian evidence also--and there's a lot.

It's interesting that some are already condemning the Neville book--has anybody here read it? I didn't know it was even available yet.

What's clear to me at this point is that the comfortable assumption that the Stratford man wrote the Shakespeare canon is itself shaky.

Greg--

Thanks for clarifying what you meant by your "educated but stupid" remark.   It was, however, a reasonable interpretation that the phrase was aimed at Shakespeare skeptics, since was in this context that it was made. Thanks also for your characterization of such skeptics' views as "a very telling case".

Now we can go on.

I would point out that Mozart is not a good pro-Shakespeare example. His genius was evident at a very early age. All sides in our discussion, I believe, agree that the writer of the "Shakespeare canon" was also a genius. Yet there is absolutely no evidence before he was-- what, 28?--, of that colossal talent, which, it is asserted, needed little schooling.   Autodidacticism is all well and good but in a genius it seems reasonable to see some results before age 28.