Thanks for the links. Unfortunately, none of them present any evidence
at all that a group of writers collectively wrote the works attributed
to Shakespeare. We already know other writers crafted parts of some of
those plays. Perhaps a snippet from one of the links you sent
summarizes the situation best: "Elizabethan theatre was fundamentally
collaborative in a way that the sole focus on Shakespeare has left most
professors and producers reluctant to acknowledge." The first part is
correct, but "most professors" are certainly not reluctant to
acknowledge it--at least not the ones I know. Derek Jacobi is a great
actor, but, as far as I know, he has not been involved in any research
on a collective that wrote the works of Shakespeare. The emphasis of
these conspiracy theories--as the BBC article calls them--is always on
_missing_ evidence. But all the positive evidence we have points to
Shakespeare as an author; there is no positive evidence of any
collective of writers producing Shakepeare's works. That--and not the
influence of the CIA--is why it is a conspiracy theory.
Tom
On Tue, Sep 18, 2018 at 6:51 PM Ron Andrico <[1][email protected]>
wrote:
No time to present more information because I'm busy scribbling,
but
here are some links to words by others who, like me, have
actually been
involved in theater.
[1][2]http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6985917.stm
[2][3]https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2012/may/01/shakespeare-had-
help-t
homas-middleton
[3][4]https://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/24/theater/l-shakespeare-by-co
mmitte
e-721050.html
__________________________________________________________________
From: [5][email protected] <[6][email protected]>
on behalf
of howard posner <[7][email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2018 2:43 AM
To: Lute net
Subject: [LUTE] Re: The awful English language
Ron Andrico <[8][email protected]> wrote:
>
> As for the less-than-eloquent William Shakespeare, it's just
plain
silly to think he actually wrote the canon commonly attributed to
his
name. He was a player, a station lower than that of a
professional
musician.
He was a landowner, a station rather higher than a professional
musician.
There are all sorts of indications in the Shakespeare plays that
the
author had working-class/agrarian/merchant background.
When Hamlet tells Horatio, "There's a divinity that shapes our
ends,
rough-hew them how we will," he uses terms that gardeners (or
hedge-workers, anyway) were still using in the 20th century, and
for
all I know, the 21st. His characters will talk of sheep as
actual
animals, rather than as metaphors for people easily led, which is
unusual if not unique at the time, but a natural thing for
someone who
was in the wool business. The word "cheveril" (glove leather,
which
needed to be more supple than any other leather) three times in
his
plays (Mercutio tells Romeo "O, here's a wit of cheveril, that
stretches from an inch narrow to an ell broad;" the Old Lady
remarks on
Anne Boleyn's "cheveril conscience" in Henry VIII; and Feste in
Twelfth
Night says "A sentence is but a cheveril glove to a good wit: how
quickly the wrong side may be turned outward") which is three
more
times than I've ever found it in other other author's words,
almost as
if the au!
thor's father was John Shakespeare the glove maker.
> I think there is strong evidence that the plays arose from the
circle
surrounding Lucy Countess of Bedford, including the likes of
John
Donne, Ben Jonson, Edmund Spenser, Samuel Danyel.
I don't even want to know what you'd consider "weak evidence."
> William Shakepeare the playwright is a successful bit of
propaganda
that paved the way for other enormous lies that the public buys.
Who would have been part of this disinformation conspiracy, and
why?
Besides Ben Jonson, of course, and a bunch of London publishers,
and
the theater companies in which Shakespeare was a partner, and the
university-educated writers who bitched about the uneducated
upstart,
and everyone else until the 19th century.
> A thinking person considers that tremendous output and weighs
it
against the physical reality of the amount of time required to
produce
all that scribbling in light of the work a player like William
Shakespeare was required to do in order to survive.
The Shakespeare canon is between 36 and 42 plays, depending on
one's
attitude about authenticity. Surely, Ron, as someone who has
churned
out a large volume of deathless, insightful prose as a sidelight
to
your busy life as a musician, you're not seriously suggesting
that a
gifted writer could not produce those plays over the 25 years we
know
Shakespeare was active. That's about a play and half per year,
and we
know that a number of plays were collaborations.
If you want to tell me that Telemann had to be identical
triplets, I'm
with you, but "Shakespeare couldn't have found the time" won't
hold
water.
To get on or off this list see list information at
[4][9]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
References
1. [10]http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6985917.stm
2.
[11]https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2012/may/01/shakespeare-had-he
lp-thomas-middleton
3.
[12]https://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/24/theater/l-shakespeare-by-comm
ittee-721050.html
4. [13]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
--
References
1. mailto:[email protected]
2. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6985917.stm
3. https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2012/may/01/shakespeare-had-help-t
4. https://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/24/theater/l-shakespeare-by-committe
5. mailto:[email protected]
6. mailto:[email protected]
7. mailto:[email protected]
8. mailto:[email protected]
9. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
10. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6985917.stm
11.
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2012/may/01/shakespeare-had-help-thomas-middleton
12.
https://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/24/theater/l-shakespeare-by-committee-721050.html
13. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
