Pat Hamer
Period 6
Shakespeare Webquest
1. What is the Shakespeare authorship
problem?
·
The authorship
question has been pondered since the 1780s, when the Rev. James Wilmot spent
four fruitless years trying to link the
·
In the following
pages, the Shakespeare Oxford Society argues two related propositions:
·
1) It is highly
unlikely that Shakespeare's works could have been composed by the person to
whom they are traditionally assigned.
·
2) The
qualifications necessary for the true author of these works are more adequately
realized in the person of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl
of Oxford, than in the many other candidates proposed in the last two hundred
years.
·
It is remarkable
that not one of
·
The reasons for
doubt are many and varied. Primarily the doubts spring from the complete misfit
between the life of the alleged author and the character of the literary work which has been attributed to him.
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/doubleissue/mysteries/shakespeare.htm
http://www.shakespeare-oxford.com/guide.htm
http://www.shakespeareauthorship.org/
2. What literary, cultural, and political figures doubt that Shakespeare was
the sole author of the work?
- Delia Bacon, Mr. Justice Harry A. Blackmun,
Charlie Chaplin, Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Sigmund
Freud, Sir John Gielgud. Leslie Howard, Sir Derek Jacobi, Henry James, Malcom X,
David McCullough, Amb. Paul H Nitze,
Mr. Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr., Marc Raylance, Mr.
Justice John Paul Stevens, Orson Wells, and Walt Whitman.
3. Make a chronological history of the doubts that surround the authorship of
the Shakespearean canon.
1728 - Publication of Captain Goulding's
Essay Against Too Much Reading in which he comments on the background
Shakespeare would require for his historical plays and suggests that
Shakespeare probably had to keep "one of those chuckle-pated
Historians for his particular Associate...or he might have starvd
upon his History." Goulding tells us that he had
this from "one of his (Shakespeare's) intimate Acquaintance." 1769
- Publication of The Life annd Adventures of Common Sense, an
anonymous allegory which describes a profligate Shakespeare casting "his
Eye upon a common place Book, in which was contained, an Infinite Variety of
Modes and Forms, to express all the different Sentiments of the human Mind,
together with Rules for their Combinations and Connections upon every Subject
or Occasion that might Occur in Dramatic Writing..."1785 -
Rev. James Wilmot, D.D. attributed authorship to Sir Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam. 1786 - The Story of the
Learned Pig , an anonymous allegory by an "Officer of the Royal
Navy," in which The Pig describes himself as having variously been a
greyhound, deer, bear and a human being (after taking possession of a body) who
worked as horseholder at a playhouse where he met the
"Immortal Shakespeare" who's he reports didn't "run his country
for deer-stealing" and didn't father the various plays, Hamlet, Othello,
As You Like It, The Tempest , and Midsummer's Night Dream.
Instead the Pig confesses to be author. 1848 - In The
Romance of Yachting by Joseph C. Hart, a former American consul at
--Lord Palmerston, British statesman, 1784-1865.
--Lord Houghton, British statesman, 1809--1885 (better known as Richard Monckton
Milnes).
-- Samuel Taylor Coleridge, British critiic and poet, 1772-1834
--John Bright, British statesman, 1811-18889 ("Any man that believes that
William Shakespeare of
--Ralph Waldo Emerson, American philosophher and poet, 1803-1882
--John Greenlief Whittier, American poet, 1807-1892
("Whether Bacon wrote the wonderful plays or not, I am quite sure the man Shakspere neither did nor could.")
--Dr. W. H. Furness, eminent American schholar and father of the editor of the
Variorum, 1802-1891 ("I am one of the many who have never been able to
bring the life of William Shakepeare and the plays of
Shakespeare within planetary space of each other.")
--Mark Twain, American author and humorisst, 1835-1910
--Prince Otto von Bismarck, 1815-1898
1915 - The Derbyite theory,
suggesting that William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby was the true author behind
the Shakespeare name, was revived by Robert Fraser in The
Silent Shakespeare. 1919 - Abel Lefranc,
a French scholar, also supports the Derbyite theory
in his Sous le Masque de "William
Shakespeare": William Stanley, VI Comte de
4. Now do the same for the doubts surrounding the Stratfordian
attribution.
-There is no
reference during the lifetime of Shakepere of
Stratford (1564-1616) which either speaks of the author of the Shakespearean
works as having come from
-In an age of copious eulogies, none was forthcoming when
William Shakspere died in
-There is no mention in the documents of the time of a Shakespeare's, or a Shakspere's, intimate acquaintance with the inner court circles as has been implied by such contemporaries as Ben Jonson, later seventeenth-century commentators such as John Ward, the author's dedications to the Earl of Southampton of two poems, and internal evidence from Shakespeare's works.
-The author of Shakespeare's works had to be familiar with a
wide body of knowledge for his time --on such subjects as law, music, foreign
languages, the classics, and aristocratic manners and sports. There is no
documentation that William Shakspere of
-Despite evidence of Shakspere's
unspecified connection with the theater, documentation of any career as an
actor is conspicuously absent. For example, there is no record of any part he
may have played, and only two posthumous traditions to bit parts. Contrary to all this, the 1623 Folio lists 'William
Shakespeare" at the head of "...the Principall
Actors in all these Playes." Since the
hint that the author came from
-In the
-The only specimens of William Shakspere's handwriting to come down to us are six almost illegible signatures, each formed differently from the others, and each from the latter period of his life (none earlier than 1612). Three of these signatures are on his will, one is on a deposition in someone else's breach of promise case, and two are on property documents. None of these has anything to do with literature. The first syllable, incidentally, in all these signatures is spelled "Shak", whereas the published plays and poems consistently spell the name "Shake".
-There is no evidence that William Shakepere
had left
5. Consider the logic/illogic of each position and evaluate the effectiveness of each argument.
a.
Christopher Marlow- This is a logical because he wrote many plays in his
life. He also new many different languages because he
translated many of his works. He
also produced many as 200 plays in
b. Sir Francis Bacon- This is
logical because he also grew up in
c. Edward de Vere- This is logical because many of his works were written in Latin and Italian. Many of the books were written in these languages and about these cities so it is logical that he wrote it. It is illogical because he himself did not write many books or plays in his time. Overall this is not a good argument because it does not provide many examples of his life.
d. William Stanley-
This is logical because he new many different many languages and many
foreign lands. Many of the Shakespeare
books are written in many different languages and about foreign lands. He also was very familiar with theater. This is illogical because they say he wrote
comedies and not tragedies. They also
said that he performed the works of others.
Overall this is a very good argument in favor of William Stanley.
6. Make a list of the six contenders for the
authorship question. Then add to each as much significant evidence that is
presented.
Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of
Francis Bacon, Philosopher and Writer: Bacon has been a traditional favorite of the
anti-Stratford camp, and retains a high place on the list of potential
candidates. Bacon proponents point toward Bacon's learning,
his correspondences and memoirs (most notably, his notebook, Promus), as well as ciphers and other coincidences.
Although Bacon was an undisputed man of letters, his style and expression vary
greatly from that of Shakespeare's works. Bacon also produced such a voluminous
output of his own, it's hard to conceive of him finding spare time enough to
produce the quality output of work attributed to the Bard.
Christopher Marlowe, Playwright: Marlowe would be the ultimate ghost
writer, as he was stabbed to death in a tavern brawl in 1593. However, there
are those that say Marlowe really didn't die; according to some, he was
actually an occasional spy in the employ of the Crown. This eventually
necessitated a fake death, after which Marlowe went on for an undetermined
number of years penning poetry and plays under the nom de plume of
Shakespeare. PBS also aired a January 2003 "Frontline" episode
about Marlowe. Sir Francis Bacon "A man so rare in knowledge, of so
many several kinds, endowed with the facility of expressing it all in so
elegant, significant, so abundant and yet so choice and ravishing a way of
words, of metaphors, of allusion, as perhaps the world has not seen since it
was a world." So wrote Sir Tobie Matthew of Sir
Francis Bacon. Bacon graduated with a degree in law from
William Stanley Stanley,
the 6th Earl of Derby, possessed the university education, extensive European
travel, knowledge of foreign languages, involvement with the theatre and
literature, and familiarity with life in court necessary for authorship of the
canon. Two letters from the Jesuit spy George Fenner,
both dated June 1599, stated that
Was Shakspere
Shakespeare?
It is remarkable that not one of
Phase 2
1. Find other candidates not already
discovered in the background section and list why they should be considered as
contenders.
Edward de Vere,
17th Earl of
Francis Bacon, Philosopher
and Writer: Bacon has been a
traditional favorite of the anti-Stratford camp, and retains a high place on
the list of potential candidates. Bacon proponents point
toward Bacon's learning, his correspondences and memoirs (most notably, his
notebook, Promus), as well as ciphers and
other coincidences. Although Bacon was an undisputed man of letters, his
style and expression vary greatly from that of Shakespeare's works. Bacon also
produced such a voluminous output of his own, it's hard to conceive of him
finding spare time enough to produce the quality output of work attributed to
the Bard.
Christopher Marlowe,
Playwright: Marlowe would be the
ultimate ghost writer, as he was stabbed to death in a tavern brawl in 1593.
However, there are those that say Marlowe really didn't die; according to some,
he was actually an occasional spy in the employ of the Crown. This eventually
necessitated a fake death, after which Marlowe went on for an undetermined
number of years penning poetry and plays under the nom de plume of
Shakespeare. PBS also aired a January 2003
"Frontline"
episode about Marlowe.
Other notable candidates have
included William Stanley, Earl of Derby; Ben Johnson; Thomas Middleton; Sir
Walter Raleigh (with or without collaboration by Francis Bacon); and even Queen
Elizabeth I herself. There have been dozens of other such nominations since the
Bard's death, and none have yet presented proof enough to discredit the man
from
http://www.bardweb.net/debates.html
2. What is the controversy that surrounds Shakespeare's bust and its
inscription as it applies to Sir Francis Bacon?
Francis Bacon, Philosopher and Writer: Bacon
has been a traditional favorite of the anti-Stratford camp, and retains a high
place on the list of potential candidates. Bacon proponents
point toward Bacon's learning, his correspondences and memoirs (most notably,
his notebook, Promus), as well as ciphers and
other coincidences. Although Bacon was an undisputed man of letters, his
style and expression vary greatly from that of Shakespeare's works. Bacon also
produced such a voluminous output of his own, it's hard to conceive of him
finding spare time enough to produce the quality output of work attributed to
the Bard.
3. What did Mark Twain have to say about the debate issue?
Scattered here and there through the stacks
of unpublished manuscript which constitute this formidable Autobiography and
Diary of mine, certain chapters will in some distant future be found which deal
with "Claimants"--claimants historically notorious: Satan, Claimant;
the Golden Calf, Claimant; the Veiled Prophet of Khorassan,
Claimant; Louis XVII., Claimant; William Shakespeare, Claimant; Arthur Orton,
Claimant; Mary Baker G. Eddy, Claimant--and the rest of them. Eminent
Claimants, successful Claimants, defeated Claimants, royal Claimants, pleb Claimants, showy Claimants, shabby Claimants, revered
Claimants, despised Claimants, twinkle star-like here and there and yonder
through the mists of history and legend and tradition--and, oh, all the darling
tribe are clothed in mystery and romance, and we read about them with deep
interest and discuss them with loving sympathy or with rancorous resentment,
according to which side we hitch ourselves to. It has always been so with the
human race. There was never a Claimant that couldn't get a hearing, nor one
that couldn't accumulate a rapturous following, no matter how flimsy and
apparently unauthentic his claim might be. Arthur Orton's claim that he was the
lost Tichborne baronet come to life again was as
flimsy as Mrs. Eddy's that she wrote SCIENCE AND HEALTH from the direct
dictation of the Deity; yet in England nearly forty years ago Orton had a huge
army of devotees and incorrigible adherents, many of whom remained stubbornly
unconvinced after their fat god had been proven an impostor and jailed as a
perjurer, and today Mrs. Eddy's following is not only immense, but is daily
augmenting in numbers and enthusiasm. Orton had many fine and educated minds
among his adherents, Mrs. Eddy has had the like among
hers from the beginning. Her Church is as well equipped in those particulars as
is any other Church. Claimants can always count upon a following, it doesn't
matter who they are, nor what they claim, nor whether
they come with documents or without. It was always so. Down out of the long-
vanished past, across the abyss of the ages, if you listen, you can still hear
the believing multitudes shouting for Perkin Warbeck and Lambert Simnel.
A friend has sent me a new book, from
What man dare, _I_ dare!
Approach thou WHAT are you laying in the leads for? what a
hell of an idea! like the rugged ease her off a
little, ease her off! rugged Russian bear, the armed
rhinoceros or the THERE she goes! meet her, meet her! didn't you KNOW she'd smell the reef if you crowded in like
that? Hyrcan tiger; take any ship but that and my
firm nerves she'll be in the WOODS the first you know! stop
he starboard! come ahead strong on the larboard! back the starboard! . . . NOW then, you're all right; come
ahead on the starboard; straighten up and go 'long, never tremble: or be alive
again, and dare me to the desert DAMNATION can't you keep away from that greasy
water? pull her down! snatch
her! snatch her baldheaded! with
thy sword; if trembling I inhabit then, lay in the leads!--no, only with the
starboard one, leave the other alone, protest me the baby of a girl. Hence
horrible shadow! eight bells--that watchman's asleep
again, I reckon, go down and call Brown yourself, unreal mockery, hence!
He certainly was a good reader, and
splendidly thrilling and stormy and tragic, but it was a
damage to me, because I have never since been able to read Shakespeare
in a calm and sane way. I cannot rid it of his explosive interlardings,
they break in everywhere with their irrelevant, "What in hell are you up
to NOW! pull her down! more! MORE!--there now, steady as you go," and the other
disorganizing interruptions that were always leaping from his mouth. When I read Shakespeare now I can hear them as plainly as I did in
that long-departed time--fifty-one years ago. I never regarded Ealer's readings as educational. Indeed, they were a
detriment to me.
His contributions to the text seldom
improved it, but barring that detail he was a good reader; I can say that much
for him. He did not use the book, and did not need to; he knew his Shakespeare
as well as Euclid ever knew his multiplication table.
Did he have something to say--this
Shakespeare-adoring
Yes. And he said it; said it all the time,
for months--in the morning watch, the middle watch, and dog watch; and probably
kept it going in his sleep. He bought the literature of the dispute as fast as
it appeared, and we discussed it all through thirteen hundred miles of river
four times traversed in every thirty-five days--the time required by that swift
boat to achieve two round trips. We discussed, and discussed, and discussed,
and disputed and disputed and disputed; at any rate, HE did, and I got in a
word now and then when he slipped a cog and there was a vacancy. He did his
arguing with heat, with energy, with violence; and I did mine with the reverse
and moderation of a subordinate who does not like to be flung out of a
pilot-house and is perched forty feet above the water. He was fiercely loyal to
Shakespeare and cordially scornful of Bacon and of all the pretensions of the Baconians. So was I--at first. And at first he was glad
that that was my attitude. There were even indications that he admired it;
indications dimmed, it is true, by the distance that lay between the lofty
boss-pilotical altitude and my lowly one, yet
perceptible to me; perceptible, and translatable into a compliment--compliment
coming down from about the snow-line and not well thawed in the transit, and
not likely to set anything afire, not even a cub-pilot's self- conceit; still a
detectable complement, and precious.
Naturally it flattered me into being more
loyal to Shakespeare-- if possible--than I was before, and more prejudiced
against Bacon--if possible--that I was before. And so we discussed and
discussed, both on the same side, and were happy. For a
while. Only for a while. Only for a very little
while, a very, very, very little while. Then the atmosphere began to change;
began to cool off.
A brighter person would have seen what the
trouble was, earlier than I did, perhaps, but I saw it early enough for all
practical purposes. You see, he was of an argumentative disposition. Therefore
it took him but a little time to get tired of arguing with a person who agreed
with everything he said and consequently never furnished him a provocative to
flare up and show what he could do when it came to clear, cold, hard, rose-cut,
hundred-faceted, diamond-flashing REASONING. That was his name for it. It has
been applied since, with complacency, as many as several times, in the Bacon-Shakespeare
scuffle. On the Shakespeare side.
Then the thing happened which has happened
to more persons than to me when principle and personal interest found
themselves in opposition to each other and a choice had to be made: I let
principle go, and went over to the other side. Not the entire way, but far
enough to answer the requirements of the case. That is to say, I took this
attitude--to wit, I only BELIEVED Bacon wrote Shakespeare, whereas I KNEW
Shakespeare didn't. Ealer was satisfied with that,
and the war broke loose. Study, practice, experience in handling my end of the
matter presently enabled me to take my new position almost seriously; a little
bit later, utterly seriously; a little later still, lovingly, gratefully,
devotedly; finally: fiercely, rabidly, uncompromisingly. After
that I was welded to my faith, I was theoretically ready to die for it, and I
looked down with compassion not unmixed with scorn upon everybody else's faith
that didn't tally with mine. That faith, imposed upon me by
self-interest in that ancient day, remains my faith today, and in it I find
comfort, solace, peace, and never-failing joy. You see how curiously
theological it is. The "rice Christian" of the Orient goes through
the very same steps, when he is after rice and the missionary is after HIM; he
goes for rice, and remains to worship.
Ealer did a lot of our "reasoning"--not to say
substantially all of it. The slaves of his cult have a passion for calling it
by that large name. We others do not call our inductions and deductions and
reductions by any name at all. They show for themselves what they are, and we
can with tranquil confidence leave the world to ennoble them with a title of
its own choosing.
Now and then when Ealer
had to stop to cough, I pulled my induction-talents together and hove the
controversial lead myself: always getting eight feet, eight and a half, often
nine, sometimes even quarter-less-twain--as _I_ believed; but always "no
bottom," as HE said.
I got the best of him only once. I prepared
myself. I wrote out a passage from Shakespeare--it may have been the very one I
quoted awhile ago, I don't remember--and riddled it with his wild steamboatful interlardings. When
an unrisky opportunity offered, one lovely summer
day, when we had sounded and buoyed a tangled patch of crossings known as
Hell's Half Acre, and were aboard again and he had sneaked the PENNSYLVANIA
triumphantly through it without once scraping sand, and the A. T. LACEY had
followed in our wake and got stuck, and he was feeling good, I showed it to
him. It amused him. I asked him to fire it off-- READ it; read it, I
diplomatically added, as only HE could read dramatic poetry. The compliment
touched him where he lived. He did read it; read it with surpassing fire and
spirit; read it as it will never be read again; for HE know how to put the
right music into those thunderous interlardings and
make them seem a part of the text, make them sound as if they were bursting
from Shakespeare's own soul, each one of them a golden inspiration and not to
be left out without damage to the massed and magnificent whole.
I waited a week, to let the incident fade;
waited longer; waited until he brought up for reasonings
and vituperation my pet position, my pet argument, the one which I was fondest
of, the one which I prized far above all others in my ammunition-wagon-- to
wit, that Shakespeare couldn't have written Shakespeare's words, for the reason
that the man who wrote them was limitlessly familiar with the laws, and the
law-courts, and law-proceedings, and lawyer-talk, and lawyer-ways--and if
Shakespeare was possessed of the infinitely divided star-dust that constituted
this vast wealth, HOW did he get it, and WHERE and WHEN?
"From books."
From books! That was always the idea. I
answered as my readings of the champions of my side of the great controversy
had taught me to answer: that a man can't handle glibly and easily and
comfortably and successfully the argot of a trade at which he has not
personally served. He will make mistakes; he will not, and cannot, get the
trade-phrasings precisely and exactly right; and the moment he departs, by even
a shade, from a common trade- form, the reader who has served that trade will
know the writer HASN'T. Ealer would not be convinced;
he said a man could learn how to correctly handle the subtleties and mysteries
and free- masonries of ANY trade by careful reading and studying. But when I
got him to read again the passage from Shakespeare with the interlardings,
he perceived, himself, that books couldn't teach a student a bewildering
multitude of pilot-phrases so thoroughly and perfectly that he could talk them
off in book and play or conversation and make no mistake that a pilot would not
immediately discover. It was a triumph for me. He was silent awhile, and I knew
what was happening--he was losing his temper. And I knew he would presently
close the session with the same old argument that was always his stay and his
support in time of need; the same old argument, the one I couldn't answer,
because I dasn't--the argument that I was an ass, and
better shut up. He delivered it, and I obeyed.
O dear, how long ago it was--how
pathetically long ago! And here am I, old, forsaken, forlorn, and alone,
arranging to get that argument out of somebody again.
When a man has a passion for Shakespeare, it
goes without saying that he keeps company with other standard authors. Ealer always had several high-class books in the
pilot-house, and he read the same ones over and over again, and did not care to
change to newer and fresher ones. He played well on the flute, and greatly
enjoyed hearing himself play. So did I. He had a
notion that a flute would keep its health better if you took it apart when it
was not standing a watch; and so, when it was not on duty it took its rest, disjointed,
on the compass-shelf under the breastboard. When the
http://users.telerama.com/~joseph/shake.html
4. Why should the Marlowe spy
theory be reviewed?
The poems and plays attributed to William Shakespeare demonstrate a powerful intellect, backed up by extraordinary learning and a wide exposure to what goes on at the very top of political, scientific, philosophical and artistic society. There is, however, no evidence
at
all of the man from
There is no actual evidence of Shakespeare having written
anything at all before his thirtieth year when, immediately following Marlowe's
death, brilliant poetry and some two or three plays a year started flowing from
his pen. What was he doing before that? And how is it that the Sonnets
reflect nothing of what we know about the Stratford Shakespeare? Saying that
they were not intended to be autobiographical must surely be a reaction to this
strange gap, rather than a genuine response to the poems themselves.
On the other hand, there is no need to assume because of
this that William Shakespeare of
However, it is generally accepted that he collaborated with
another writer both at the start and at the end of his career, so why not for
the rest of the time?
Most commentators acknowledge the enormous debt owed by
Shakespeare to Christopher Marlowe. As I mentioned earlier, Jonathan Bate's latest book, The Genius of Shakespeare, has a
whole Chapter devoted to this fact. In this, he shows how Shakespeare first
tended to imitate Marlowe, then parody him, and finally to improve upon his
approach. This, I suggest, would have been all the more probable had they been
working together on the plays. Now, with the evidence of Marlowe's survival, we
can see that this would indeed have been possible.
The huge question this begs, of course, is the nature of
that collaboration. How much of the result was Marlowe, and how much
Shakespeare?
http://www2.prestel.co.uk/rey/chap4.htm
5. How has technology, most notably the computer, made its presence known in
this controversy?
For three years a Shakespeare Clinic of Claremont Colleges undergraduates has been using computers
to see which of 58 claimed "true authors" of Shakespeare's poems and
plays actually matched Shakespeare's style. The focus in the Clinic's final
year was on 27 poet-claimants, [note 1] using
both a new, modal test and a battery of more conventional tests. None of the
poets tested matched Shakespeare. Walter Raleigh, the closest to Shakespeare by
modal test, was 2.4 standard errors distant from Shakespeare's mean modal
score, with not much better than a two percent chance of common authorship. [note
2] [note 3] John Donne, the most distant claimant, was 36.6
standard errors distant from Shakespeare. None of the three "leading"
candidates with organised followings today -- Francis
Bacon, Christopher Marlowe, and Edward de Vere, 17th
Earl of Oxford -- came out anywhere near Shakespeare. This paper concentrates
on
Modal testing divides a text into blocks, counts for 52 keywords in each
block (middling common words such as 'about', 'again', 'ways', and 'words'),
and measures and ranks eigenvalues, or modes. Modes
do not directly represent keyword occurrences; instead they measure complex
patterns of deviation from a writer's normal rates of word frequency. They
measure the way an author uses, or avoids using, words together. In
Shakespeare's poems, modal analysis has revealed a few very strong,
characteristic modes, quickly tailing off into many weak modes. All 90 blocks
of Shakespeare's poems, and a block or two of sonnets taken from his plays,
show the same characteristic pattern, while many blocks of other authors do
not. Thus, Shakespeare's lowest and 'best' modal score is minus 25.36; his
highest and worst score is 187.65; his mean score is 56.23; his standard
deviation 40.09.
The Clinic also performed five more conventional tests on
We found Shakespeare's patterns to be strikingly consistent, and often strikingly at variance with those of other Elizabethan poets. Only two of our 75 conventional tests on (roughly) 3,000-word blocks of Shakespeare fell outside of Shakespeare's profile, while almost half of our 170 conventional tests on other poets fell outside the profile. Table 1, comparing the poems of the Earl of Oxford and of 'Meritum Petere Grave' (a number of poems in the 1573 Hundreth Sundry Flowers are signed by this Latin phrase, which is considered by some Oxfordians to be an Oxfordian "posy") provides examples of the contrasts:
http://shakespeareauthorship.com/elval.html
6. What type of logic/illogic is used to
support these claims?
Argumentum ad logicam (argument to logic). This is the fallacy of assuming that something is
false simply because a proof or argument that someone has offered for it is
invalid; this reasoning is fallacious because there may be another proof or
argument that successfully supports the proposition. This fallacy often appears
in the context of a straw man
argument.
This is another case in
which the burden of proof determines whether it is actually a fallacy or not.
If a proposing team fails to provide sufficient support for its case, the
burden of proof dictates they should lose the debate, even if there exist other arguments (not presented by the proposing team)
that could have supported the case successfully. Moreover, it is common
practice in debate for judges to give no weight to a point supported by an
argument that has been proven invalid by the other team, even if there might be
a valid argument the team failed to make that would have supported the same
point; this is because the implicit burden of proof rests with the team that
brought up the argument. For further commentary on burdens of proof, see argumentum
ad ignorantiam, above.
Complex question. A complex question is a question that implicitly
assumes something to be true by its construction, such as "Have you
stopped beating your wife?" A question like this is fallacious only if the
thing presumed true (in this case, that you beat your wife) has not been
established.
Complex questions are a well
established and time-honored practice in debate, although they are rarely so bald-faced as the example just given. Complex questions
usually appear in cross-examination or points of information when the
questioner wants the questionee to inadvertently
admit something that she might not admit if asked directly. For instance, one
might say, "Inasmuch as the majority of black Americans live in poverty,
do you really think that self-help within the black community is sufficient to
address their problems?" Of course, the introductory clause about the
majority of black Americans living in poverty may not be true (in fact, it is
false), but an unwary debater might not think quickly enough to notice that the
stowaway statement is questionable. This is a sneaky tactic, but debate is
sometimes a sneaky business. You wouldn't want to put a question like that in
your master's thesis, but it might work in a debate. But be careful -- if you
try to pull a fast one on someone who is alert enough to catch you, you'll look
stupid. "The assumption behind your question is simply false. The majority
of blacks do not live in poverty. Get your facts straight before you
interrupt me again!"
Cum hoc ergo propter hoc (with this, therefore because of this). This is the familiar fallacy of mistaking
correlation for causation -- i.e., thinking that because two things occur
simultaneously, one must be a cause of the other. A popular example of this
fallacy is the argument that "President Clinton has great economic
policies; just look at how well the economy is doing while he's in
office!" The problem here is that two things may happen at the same time
merely by coincidence (e.g., the President may have a negligible effect on the
economy, and the real driving force is technological growth), or the causative
link between one thing and another may be lagged in time (e.g., the current
economy's health is determined by the actions of previous presidents), or the
two things may be unconnected to each other but related to a common cause
(e.g., downsizing upset a lot of voters, causing them to elect a new president
just before the economy began to benefit from the downsizing).
It is always fallacious to
suppose that there is a causative link between two things simply because they
coexist. But a correlation is usually considered acceptable supporting evidence
for theories that argue for a causative link between two things. For
instance, some economic theories suggest that substantially reducing the
federal budget deficit should cause the economy to do better (loosely
speaking), so the coincidence of deficit reductions under
Post hoc ergo propter hoc (after this, therefore because of this). This is the fallacy of assuming that A caused B
simply because A happened prior to B. A favorite example: "Most rapists
read pornography when they were teenagers; obviously, pornography causes
violence toward women." The conclusion is invalid, because there can be a
correlation between two phenomena without one causing the other. Often, this is
because both phenomena may be linked to the same cause. In the example given,
it is possible that some psychological factor -- say, a frustrated sex drive --
might cause both a tendency toward sexual violence and a desire for
pornographic material, in which case the pornography would not be the true
cause of the violence.
http://www.csun.edu/~dgw61315/fallacies.html#Why%20learn%20fallacies
a. Marlowe
was a child of the English Renaissance and the Reformation, which was also that
troubled period called by the great scholar Dame Frances Yates, "the false
dawn of the Enlightenment," which was doomed to suppression and delay. He
shared his birth year,1564, with Galileo
(and with Shakespeare, but that fact is never mentioned by the Shakespearean
academic authors). It was a dangerous time in which to express an eager
interest in the new scientific discoveries that were exciting the minds of
intellectuals all over
4. What
similarities exist between Marlowe's writing and Shakespeare's writing?
(consider style and structure)
a. Marlowe would be the ultimate ghost writer, as he was stabbed
to death in a tavern brawl in 1593. However, there are those that say Marlowe
really didn't die; according to some, he was actually an occasional spy in the
employ of the Crown. This eventually necessitated a fake death, after which Marlowe
went on for an undetermined number of years penning poetry and plays under the nom
de plume of Shakespeare. PBS also aired a January 2003 "Frontline" episode about Marlowe.
5. What
type of logic/illogic is used to support these claims?
a. That
marlowe was stabbed to death
and that could make him the ghost writer. That he was a spy for the queen, and they made a fake death could be the illogic in
which it is not none but could have happened. Also he could have faked his
death if he was found out that he was a spy.
http://www.marlowe-society.org/
De Vere Wrote Shakespeare
Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare
1. How
is the spelling and pronunciation of Shakespeare's name important to
investigate?
One of the most common articles of Oxfordian
faith is that there is great significance in the various spellings of
Shakespeare's name. The spelling "Shakespeare," according to most Oxfordians, was used to refer to the author of the plays
and poems, while the spelling "Shakspere"
(or "Shaksper," in the version sometimes
promoted by more militant Oxfordians such as Charlton
Ogburn) was used to refer to the Stratford man. A
milder version of this claim acknowledges that Elizabethan spelling was not
absolute, but still says that the usual and preferred spelling of the
As it turns out, though, all of the above claims are false. Specifically:
http://shakespeareauthorship.com/name1.html
2. What are the Oxfordian claims that Shakespeare is responsible for
everything he produced? Can these claims be refuted?
I see "E of O" has responded to my (partial) rebuttal with the usual Oxfordian smoke and mirrors. I don't have the time or the energy for a complete point-by-point rebuttal of his rebuttal, but I'll try to hit the highlights. Onward into the breach:
First, the Hamlet parallels. All right, maybe I should clarify. When I said that all the elements of Hamlet come from Shakespeare's sources, I didn't mean that they were all in Saxo Grammaticus and Belleforest, which is where the basic story came and some of the incidentals came from. A more immediate source was Kyd's Spanish Tragedy, which has a ghost, a play-within-a-play used for an ulterior motive at court, a hero who reproaches himself for delay and considers suicide, a woman whose love is opposed by her father and brother, a woman who goes mad and kills herself, and an avenger and his intended victim who have a public reconciliation before an ultimately tragic end. More generally, the elements of Hamlet were fairly common motifs of Elizabethan tragedy which the audience would recognize and expect in their afternoon's entertainment. Inevitably, some of these motifs can be seen as bearing resemblances to real-life people, especially when those people are members of the nobility, but the sheer number of such proposed parallels (some of them quite ingenious but many of them mutually exclusive) tends to make scholars very skeptical in the absence of external evidence, and with good reason.
For the specific case of Hamlet, I mentioned King James and the Earl
of Essex, so let me outline the cases for them as Hamlet. James's father, Lord Darnley, had been murdered; his mother had been suspected
in the scandal of his death, and she soon married the supposed murderer, Bothwell (who was a heavy drinker, just like Claudius).
Mary's meddling chief counselor, Rizzio, was murdered
in her presence, and his body was disposed of secretly by means of a
stair-case. Sound familiar? James was a melancholy, indecisive prince,
interested in learning, a poet, married to a woman (Queen Anne) who he treated
shabbily, and a likely successor to the throne of
Ah, but what about the other plays, "E of O" says? Well, there are
fistfuls of parallels to
One more thing on this topic. "E" drags out the standard Oxfordian argument that Polonius was modeled on Burghley, and how could a commoner like Shakespeare know enough about Burghley to lampoon him, let alone get away with such impudence? Well, we had this argument last year on SHAKSPER, and I don't want to repeat all that, so I'll just say this. I don't know whether Polonius was partly modeled on Burghley; some of the Oxfordian arguments on this point are a mighty stretch, but you can make a respectable case. Even if he was, that is absolutely no reason to say or imply that William Shakespeare could not have written Hamlet. First of all, we have abundant evidence that court gossip was extremely popular at all levels of Elizabethan society, and that Burghley was one of its most popular topics. For example, John Manningham's Diary, written in 1602-3, has several unflattering anecdotes about Burghley, and the man had been dead for four years. (The diary of Manningham, a commoner, is full of court gossip, as are the letters of John Chamberlain, another commoner.) Spenser's Mother Hubbard's Tale, published in 1591, contained a vicious parody of Burghley in its fable of the Fox and the Ape, and we know from external evidence (a letter dated March 19, 1591) that Burghley was widely known to be the target. Thomas Nashe also parodied Burghley in Pierce Pennilesse, and D. Allen Carroll has recently made a strong case that Burghley was attacked in the notorious Greene's Groatsworth of Wit. If these commoners could attack Burghley, why couldn't Shakespeare, who as a member of the Chamberlain's Men often played at Court, where he undoubtedly had access to the latest gossip?
http://shakespeareauthorship.com/ox2.html
3. Why is it important to preserve the
authorship status of William Shakespeare?
It is important to
preserve the authorship status of William Shakespeare because without the status not only do the plays lose their sense of style and
specialty but also their credibility as a real and genuine play or novel. Also publishers and everyone else who had
made money off of Shakespeare’s supposed plays will lose their money and
scripts because people will no longer believe and support them.
4. What is the most convincing evidence
that leads us to believe that Shakespeare, did in fact, write
Shakespeare?
The most obvious evidence that William Shakespeare wrote the works attributed to him is that everyone at the time said he did: he was often praised in writing as a poet and playwright, he was named as the author of many of the works while he was alive, and seven years after his death the First Folio explicitly attributed the rest of the works to him.
http://shakespeareauthorship.com/#3
5.
What type of logic/illogic is used to support these
claims?
One type of illogic that is popularly used to support these claims is
because there are many experts who believe Shakespeare did indeed write the
plays then he must have written the play. Another popular logic used is false
dilemma that since noone else could have written the
plays then Shakespeare must have written them.
Also the appeal to popularity and bandwagon are types of logic that are
used because since the majority of people believe that he wrote the plays then
he must have. This could also show the
illogic of supporting these claims that just because everyone else believes
then it is correct.