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Anti-Stratfordians
Posted by: poetscientistdrinker (---.rdg.ac.uk)
Date: November 28, 2002 12:22PM
<HTML>Just been avoiding doing anything of a vaguely geographical nature by looking at a few anti-stratfordian websites, putting forward various reasons why shakespeare was only an illiterate shopkeeper from Warwickshire.
What's really weirtd is the number of Oxfordian and Baconian websites available, and the paucity of sites refuting them. I guess the web just breeds conspiracy theories...
Some of my favourite arguments so far include:
<i>"Look at his signature on his will - you can hardly read it!" </i>
Er, yes, but then I have yet to meet anybody who can read anything I write by hand. I hope that my posts here prove I am at least literate. As a test take your credit cards out and look at your signature. How many letters of your name can you actually make out? Thought so....
<i>"There's hidden codes in the lines"</i>
My favourite example of this referred to the opening of the Tempest. It reckoned that if you took the first letter of every line then you got a message reading 'Set the dial at NBW, F Bacon, Tobey'. It then helpfully presents the first few lines for us to see this hidden message. Uh-huh. Problem is you then have to rearrange them to get a sentence that makes no sense, and to get Bacon or Tobey (and no, I've got no idea either) requires taking several letters from elsewhere. It's like saying that the start of Jane Eyre obviously hides the message 'It wet me' - thereby proving that the book was written by the seaside...
The other thing with the alleged ciphers is that they trot out statistics to prove their case - 'The chnaces are 189,666,5433,000,000,000,000 to 1, or so'. Uh-huh. Really? You're trying to tell me that if I took a book at random and then picked out letters from somewhere in that book it would be impossible to make a sentence?
Okay, here goes:
<i>There was no possibility of taking a walk tha<b>t</b> day. We had been wandering, <b>i</b>nde<b>e</b>d, in <b>t</b>he leafless shrubbery an ho</b>ur in the morning; but since dinner (Mrs. Reed, when the<b>r</b>e <b>w</b>as <<b>no c</b>omp<b>a</b>ny, dined early) the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so som<b>b</b>re, and a rain so penetrating, that further out-door exercise was now out of the question.</i>
My word, it seems he wrote Jane Eyre too - and from the grave too - what a genius! (read the bold leters backwards). It wouldn't take much to find a mathematical sequence to fit these letters, and then I'd be able to rummage up some kind of significance to them.
<i>"There's no proof that Shakespeare had an education."</i>
Sorry guys, guess he must have lost his GCSE certificate. The problem with this line of argument is that it usually takes the form of 'How could he have heard of all these places he wrote about?" - conveniental ignoring Shakespeare's habit for 'wobbly' geography. They also claom that shakespeare can't have written them as they have legal metaphors, whereas Oxford trained as a lawyer. Which is fine, as arguments go, but then Shakespeare also uses maritime metaphors, and images from many other trades - how good a butcher was Oxford then? And a sailor?
<i>"Look - Bacon wrote some things using the same images"</i>
This relies on finding Bacon writing things that were similar to lines in the plays. Fair enough, except every instance I've seen so far has only served to convince me that Bacon had no poetry in his soul. The Shakespeare version is nearly always superior. In many cases shakespeare is actually using an image to say far more - it's like claiming that Pratchett and Mr Fforde are the same person as they've both used the word 'tree' somewhere in their books.
And possibly the funniest thing I've seen all day is the Baconian website that stated the 'only poem that was definitely attributed to him at the time was the one on his grave'. It then repeats this - but attributes it to Mark Twain. Er...
This wasn't really intended to go anywhere or prove anything, I just wanted to share it with somebody...</HTML>
What's really weirtd is the number of Oxfordian and Baconian websites available, and the paucity of sites refuting them. I guess the web just breeds conspiracy theories...
Some of my favourite arguments so far include:
<i>"Look at his signature on his will - you can hardly read it!" </i>
Er, yes, but then I have yet to meet anybody who can read anything I write by hand. I hope that my posts here prove I am at least literate. As a test take your credit cards out and look at your signature. How many letters of your name can you actually make out? Thought so....
<i>"There's hidden codes in the lines"</i>
My favourite example of this referred to the opening of the Tempest. It reckoned that if you took the first letter of every line then you got a message reading 'Set the dial at NBW, F Bacon, Tobey'. It then helpfully presents the first few lines for us to see this hidden message. Uh-huh. Problem is you then have to rearrange them to get a sentence that makes no sense, and to get Bacon or Tobey (and no, I've got no idea either) requires taking several letters from elsewhere. It's like saying that the start of Jane Eyre obviously hides the message 'It wet me' - thereby proving that the book was written by the seaside...
The other thing with the alleged ciphers is that they trot out statistics to prove their case - 'The chnaces are 189,666,5433,000,000,000,000 to 1, or so'. Uh-huh. Really? You're trying to tell me that if I took a book at random and then picked out letters from somewhere in that book it would be impossible to make a sentence?
Okay, here goes:
<i>There was no possibility of taking a walk tha<b>t</b> day. We had been wandering, <b>i</b>nde<b>e</b>d, in <b>t</b>he leafless shrubbery an ho</b>ur in the morning; but since dinner (Mrs. Reed, when the<b>r</b>e <b>w</b>as <<b>no c</b>omp<b>a</b>ny, dined early) the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so som<b>b</b>re, and a rain so penetrating, that further out-door exercise was now out of the question.</i>
My word, it seems he wrote Jane Eyre too - and from the grave too - what a genius! (read the bold leters backwards). It wouldn't take much to find a mathematical sequence to fit these letters, and then I'd be able to rummage up some kind of significance to them.
<i>"There's no proof that Shakespeare had an education."</i>
Sorry guys, guess he must have lost his GCSE certificate. The problem with this line of argument is that it usually takes the form of 'How could he have heard of all these places he wrote about?" - conveniental ignoring Shakespeare's habit for 'wobbly' geography. They also claom that shakespeare can't have written them as they have legal metaphors, whereas Oxford trained as a lawyer. Which is fine, as arguments go, but then Shakespeare also uses maritime metaphors, and images from many other trades - how good a butcher was Oxford then? And a sailor?
<i>"Look - Bacon wrote some things using the same images"</i>
This relies on finding Bacon writing things that were similar to lines in the plays. Fair enough, except every instance I've seen so far has only served to convince me that Bacon had no poetry in his soul. The Shakespeare version is nearly always superior. In many cases shakespeare is actually using an image to say far more - it's like claiming that Pratchett and Mr Fforde are the same person as they've both used the word 'tree' somewhere in their books.
And possibly the funniest thing I've seen all day is the Baconian website that stated the 'only poem that was definitely attributed to him at the time was the one on his grave'. It then repeats this - but attributes it to Mark Twain. Er...
This wasn't really intended to go anywhere or prove anything, I just wanted to share it with somebody...</HTML>
Re: Anti-Stratfordians
Posted by: Jon (---.abel.net.uk)
Date: November 28, 2002 01:08PM
<HTML>This lunacy (admirably described by Ben above) has it's roots in the work of one Delia Salter Bacon (1811-1859). Born in Ohio, she was a minor author and teacher in Connecticut when an illicit affair with a minister seems to have disturbed the balance of her mind. She became reclusive, and obsessed with proving Bacon wrote plays (even though she was no relation to Francis Bacon whatever). She was assisted in her endeavours by Hawthorne and Emerson (who ought to have known better), which gave a spurious respectability to her crackpot theories. That it was crackpot became very apparent when, after publishing her 'evidence' (1857), she became completely insane and ended her life in a funny farm.
Let it be clearly understood that before Delia's How to Write Rubbish Course, NOBODY had ever questioned the authorshop of Shaky's work; yet, once started, a whole anti-Shakespeare industry has proved very difficult to stop.
Two further points of pro-Stratford evidence; contemporary observers such as Robert Greene (who didn't like him) and Ben Jonson (who did) were in no doubt as to who Shagsberd was and what he wrote. Second, Delia's (and the other's) 'evidence' rests primarily on the Shakespeare-had-no-education line (i.e., he didn't go to Oxford or Cambridge). (In Delia's words, he was a 'stupid, ignorant, third-rate player'). Well, neither did Winston Churchill. Or John Bunyan. Or many another intelligent well-read writer. Why, I myself didn't go to university, and flunked teacher training college after a year (thank God), but get trapped next to me at a party and you''ll hear more about post-Roman Britian than you ever wanted to know, and then some.
In summary: William Shaxper wrote the plays under his name. There is no such thing as the Loch Ness Monster. Roswell is just a town in New Mexico. It was Lee Harvey Oswald. And Paul MacCartney is still alive.</HTML>
Let it be clearly understood that before Delia's How to Write Rubbish Course, NOBODY had ever questioned the authorshop of Shaky's work; yet, once started, a whole anti-Shakespeare industry has proved very difficult to stop.
Two further points of pro-Stratford evidence; contemporary observers such as Robert Greene (who didn't like him) and Ben Jonson (who did) were in no doubt as to who Shagsberd was and what he wrote. Second, Delia's (and the other's) 'evidence' rests primarily on the Shakespeare-had-no-education line (i.e., he didn't go to Oxford or Cambridge). (In Delia's words, he was a 'stupid, ignorant, third-rate player'). Well, neither did Winston Churchill. Or John Bunyan. Or many another intelligent well-read writer. Why, I myself didn't go to university, and flunked teacher training college after a year (thank God), but get trapped next to me at a party and you''ll hear more about post-Roman Britian than you ever wanted to know, and then some.
In summary: William Shaxper wrote the plays under his name. There is no such thing as the Loch Ness Monster. Roswell is just a town in New Mexico. It was Lee Harvey Oswald. And Paul MacCartney is still alive.</HTML>
Re: Anti-Stratfordians
Posted by: ScarletBea (---.be.jnj.com)
Date: November 28, 2002 01:10PM
<HTML>Not that I dont love reading all this, but nobody should be allowed to have this amount of free time ;)
*says Bea, loaded in work*</HTML>
*says Bea, loaded in work*</HTML>
Re: Anti-Stratfordians
Posted by: poetscientistdrinker (---.rdg.ac.uk)
Date: November 28, 2002 01:14PM
<HTML>That time isn't free - it's costing somebody a lot of money for me to be this lazy....
For anybody fancying a really good take on Shakespeare though - including every tall tale, scandalous rumours and a bit of lesbian bonking (and I can't wait for Andrew Davies to try this adaptation) - read 'The Late Mr Shakespeare' by Robert Nye.
His version of Faust also adds a little to the version you normally get...</HTML>
For anybody fancying a really good take on Shakespeare though - including every tall tale, scandalous rumours and a bit of lesbian bonking (and I can't wait for Andrew Davies to try this adaptation) - read 'The Late Mr Shakespeare' by Robert Nye.
His version of Faust also adds a little to the version you normally get...</HTML>
Re: Anti-Stratfordians
Posted by: Jon (---.abel.net.uk)
Date: November 28, 2002 01:19PM
<HTML>Yes, the Nye book's pretty good, but anyone not well up on the Shaky story might have a little trouble disentangling the 'facts' from the myths.
And it isn't free time. Just not very well paid.</HTML>
And it isn't free time. Just not very well paid.</HTML>
Re: Anti-Stratfordians
Posted by: poetscientistdrinker (---.rdg.ac.uk)
Date: November 28, 2002 01:39PM
<HTML>The myths are probably more fun though....</HTML>
Re: Anti-Stratfordians
Posted by: Jon (---.abel.net.uk)
Date: November 28, 2002 03:21PM
<HTML>Good pro-Shagsberd site discovered; [shakespeareauthorship.com];
Re: Anti-Stratfordians
Posted by: Jon (---.abel.net.uk)
Date: November 28, 2002 03:56PM
<HTML>And on this site I discover that the founding father of the Oxford heresy was one J. Thomas Looney. The defence rests, m'lud.</HTML>
Re: Anti-Stratfordians
Posted by: poetscientistdrinker (---.cache.pol.co.uk)
Date: November 28, 2002 10:14PM
<HTML>Nominative determinism strikes again....</HTML>
Re: Anti-Stratfordians
Posted by: Ooktavia (---.nv.iinet.net.au)
Date: November 30, 2002 12:37PM
<HTML>I blame M'siuer Gullotine, myself. Or Sir Henry Blunt-Instrument.</HTML>
Reverse nominative determinism
Posted by: Sarah H Egginton (---.vip.uk.com)
Date: December 01, 2002 02:50PM
<HTML>Two words on this subject. Dennis Wise. ;-)</HTML>
Re: Reverse nominative determinism
Posted by: poetscientistdrinker (---.cache.pol.co.uk)
Date: December 01, 2002 10:58PM
<HTML>Captain, the theory has hit an iceberg.</HTML>
Re: Reverse nominative determinism
Posted by: poetscientistdrinker (---.rdg.ac.uk)
Date: December 02, 2002 11:34AM
<HTML>Actually, we may not be sunk. Eugene Moos was under-secretary for agriculture at some stage, according to this here article what I'm reading.
See - I do work sometimes...</HTML>
See - I do work sometimes...</HTML>
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