THIS THREAD IS CLOSED Recent Shakespeare News

The latest kerfluffle about the two texts of King Lear...
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/text-foolish-brian-vickerss-one-king-lear/

For the 400th Anniversary of his death, Shakespeare Documented:

http://www.folger.edu/press-release-shakespeare-documented

http://www.shakespearedocumented.org/?_ga=1.8861685.1330148708.1473196726

Recent astronomical news :

Our celestial world--

>2 Crypto-Willobie: I happened on the Shakespeare Documented site just after it was first made available last February and was fascinated by what it contained. In looking through it again just now, I see that the amount of content has increased quite a bit, and the information describing the significance of the documents has been further developed, though there is more work to be done.

The site gives non-scholars an opportunity to go over some of the same source material from the historical record that scholars use. It won't make us experts, but the opportunity is there for gaining further insight in Shakespeare's world.

Thanks for post that link.

It sometimes feels as if Brian Vickers is not only full of academic animosity in himself but the cause that animosity is in others.

Still, at least he stirs things up a bit bless him.

2>

I can no other answer make but thanks

>5 TheHumbleOne: Thou speakst true.
Vickers... so smart, so energetic, but prefers to wear blinders and butt his way forward than to open his eyes and look around him...

When he rebutted Taylor's arguments about Middleton's supposed extensive revisions in Macbeth, I mostly agreed with Sir, but he was so nasty to Taylor about it that I wanted to switch sides and defend him...

Free on-line issue of textual studies journal, this issue devoted to Shakespeare:

http://www.textjournal.com.au/speciss/issue36/content.htm

Latest issue of Early Modern Literary Studies, a peer-reviewed free online journal
https://extra.shu.ac.uk/emls/journal/index.php/emls/issue/view/14

Back issues
https://extra.shu.ac.uk/emls/journal/index.php/emls

>10 Crypto-Willobie: Thank you very much for posting that superb article. I've been hoping for additional illumination about Shakespeare's coat of arms for some time. Don't hope too much for epiphanies amongst deniers, however. I know of at least one who, on seeing newspaper articles about the new coat of arms discoveries last year, immediately claimed that it was absolute proof that someone other than Shakespeare wrote the plays.

"My mind is made up, don't confuse me with the facts..."

Here is how the evidence goes together.

Almost anyone who is described by others as a gentleman has a coat of arms. We know that Shakespeare’s coat of arms derives from the grant of arms to his father, John Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon, in 1596. On the one hand, then, we have William Shakespeare + coat of arms in multiple manuscripts, but in particular, in one that was begun by a herald on May 28, 1602 and appears to be completed well before the herald’s death in 1618, since the latest arms to appear in it were granted in 1615. On the other hand, we have William Shakespeare + gentleman + poet in a printed book in 1615. Unless there is more than one William Shakespeare who has a coat of arms and is referred to as a gentleman in the early 1600s, the poet and the Stratford gentleman actor are one and the same man.

Yeah, right.

Do learn to think. "Nail"? This doesn't even amount to a bent pin.

You people are cute, though, when you think you're on to something. It's sad, it's pathetic but it's kinda cute.


----------------------------------

"Gentleman"

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"In modern parlance, the term gentleman (from Latin gentis, belonging to a race or gens, and man, the Italian gentil uomo or gentiluomo, the French gentilhomme, the Spanish gentilhombre, the Portuguese homem gentil, and the Esperanto gentilmano) refers to any man of good, courteous conduct. It may also refer to all men collectively, as in indications of gender-separated facilities, or as a sign of the speaker's own courtesy when addressing others. The modern female equivalent is lady.

"In its original meaning, the term denoted a man of the lowest rank of the English gentry, standing below an esquire and above a yeoman. By definition, this category included the younger sons of the younger sons of peers and the younger sons of baronets, knights, and esquires in perpetual succession, and thus the term captures the common denominator of gentility (and often armigerousness) shared by both constituents of the English aristocracy: the peerage and the gentry. In this sense, the word equates with the French gentilhomme ("nobleman"), which latter term has been, in Great Britain, long confined to the peerage. Maurice Keen points to the category of "gentlemen" in this context as thus constituting "the nearest contemporary English equivalent of the noblesse of France".1 The notion of "gentlemen" as encapsulating the members of the hereditary ruling class was what the rebels under John Ball in the 14th century meant when they repeated:

When Adam delved and Eve span,
Who was then the gentleman?2

"John Selden, in Titles of Honour (1614), discussing the title gentleman, likewise speaks of "our English use of it" as "convertible with nobilis" (an ambiguous word, noble meaning elevated either by rank or by personal qualities) and describes in connection with it the forms of ennobling in various European countries.

"By social courtesy the designation came to include any well-educated man of good family and distinction, analogous to the Latin generosus (its usual translation in English-Latin documents, although nobilis is found throughout pre-Reformation papal correspondence). To a degree, gentleman came to signify a man with an income derived from property, a legacy, or some other source, who was thus independently wealthy and did not need to work.not verified in body The term was particularly used of those who could not claim any other title or even the rank of esquire. Widening further, it became a politeness for all men, as in the phrase Ladies and Gentlemen,...."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentleman

-----------------------------

Forms of Address for Non-Nobles

Women of London and the Country

The term gentles should be reserved for those who are of gentle birth: nobles, knights, and their descendants (with or without titles). To address a crowd, say "good folk" or "good people" or some such thing, but not "good gentles".

The gentry are un-titled landholders, who come from noble families. In particular, they are descendents of younger sons of the nobility.

Gentility has to do with land owning and acenstry, not good manners, though manners may be considered a mark of gentility.

Only those of gentle birth are addressed as Master and Mistress.

Gentle birth also has little to do with money. You may be gentle and "land poor", meaning you have plenty of land but no cash. This sometimes applies to noble fmailies, though it is not fair to say that any merchant has more money than any nobleman.

Life In Elizabethan England
Author : Maggie Pierce Secara
Site Designer: Paula Katherine Marmor

http://www.elizabethan.org/compendium/37.html

And here we start again...

>10 Crypto-Willobie: Thanks for posting this! I keep forgetting to keep an eye on that site.

>13 proximity1:
Art thou there, bad penny?
I thought you had slunk off to insult, contradict and preach to folks over on Pro and Con. Go back now...

The other one was at least capable of being civil.

My tables! meet it is I set it down...

http://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/extraordinary-shakespeare-notebook-leaves-ant...

It sounds like that notebook is something that scholars weren't aware of before. Is that correct? I agree that it has enormous potential value. It also sounds like the roadshow people aren't aware that it has long been suspected that Shakespeare's plays weren't all solo authored by him, and that recent scholarship has convincingly confirmed it.

I found this article about the discovery. It doesn't add much to the video.

It appears to be what was then called a 'table-book' or 'tables' -- a small notebook one carried around to jot down quotations and other memoranda. Hamlet has a set of tables -- "My tables -- meet it is I set it down/ that one may smile and smile and be a villain!"

This one appears to have both scientific notations in Latin and quotations from Shakespeare's plays. It's not unlikely these quotations were copied from a book rather that from performances -- at least that's the case with some other table-books in manuscript collections.

Here are a couple recent articles on table-books.

https://www.academia.edu/6478667/Hamlets_Tables_and_the_Technologies_of_Writing_...

https://www.bl.uk/eblj/2004articles/pdf/article3.pdf

>19 Crypto-Willobie: I'm going to read your references, but I poked around and found more compact information about table-books here. That site says that the pages of table-books were waxed to receive a temporary impression from a stylus, much like \my analogy\ slate boards were used in early American schools. After the notes were copied elsewhere, the wax was smoothed over for reuse. The book in the Antiques Roadshow video looked like it had writing in ink, much like a commonplace book. I suppose that a table-book could be used either way.

In the photos I've seen, I couldn't see the open page of the book clearly enough to tell anything about what was written there, even when I expanded the screen image. Have you seen a sharper image somewhere?

Yeah, it's not an erasable tables as most were -- it's partway to being a commonplace book but pocket-size.

I wonder what the date is -- they say 17th century but that cold be 1601 or 1699. Pens with a reservoir of ink (later called fountain pens) came into use during the latter parts of the 17c, and could be used with this little notebook.

Or 1599 or 1700 or 1701 or ... The Antiques Roadshow guy said he based his date estimate on the style of handwriting. It'll be great to see what a thorough examination of the physical book and its contents reveals.

I assume that a pen with a built-in reservoir would have a pretty sharp nib to allow such fine writing. What I could see of the writing reminded me of the Quiney letter, though. The handwriting in it was also pretty fine and small. Poking around, I found that reed pens were sometimes used versus the widely popular goose quills and sometimes much stiffer swan quills. Check out this site. A reed pen with an ink horn might be effective for fine handwriting.

I'm no expert, but the writing appears not to be 'secretary hand' which is what Shakespeare used and was the most commonly used around 1600. During the 17c secretary faded and hands with Italian forms became predominant -- and that's what I seem to see here. So at a venture I'd guess later in the 17c.

Early note-taking "soft-ware"

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pencil#Discovery_of_graphite_deposit"> Early note-taking "soft-ware)


(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pencil#Wood_holders_added).

Fit for "recent Shakespeare "News"

>23 Crypto-Willobie: I'm even less of an expert to say the least. I tried my hand at transcribing documents on the Zooniverse: Shakespeare's World site for awhile last year, but wasn't able to contribute much. The only document that I was able to transcribe in its entirety was a recipe for some sort of poultice--actually three alternative recipes--for gout. Overall, I made a pretty poor showing.

More on the commonplace book (not really 'tables')
https://shaksper.net/current-postings/31989-roadshow-commonplace-book-3

An announcement has been made about the opening of a new online resource from the Folger Shakespeare Library, a Digital Anthology of Early Modern English Drama (EMED). Digital texts of 403 plays by Shakespeare's contemporaries are available for downloading or reading online.

The site also contains a variety of additional resource material. One item I found interesting was a bar chart showing how many extant plays were first published by year from 1576 through 1660. It shows a spike (15 plays) in 1594, three times as many as in any preceding year. Speculation suggests that acting companies, under pressure or failing because of the recent plague years, were selling scripts to raise cash.

There has been a big new find of documents in England's National Archives relating to John Shakespeare, William's father. Apparently he was being persecuted by professional informers for the crown. An article about the discovery can be found here.

"Big new find" ----

(The Guardian (London)) "Father's legal skirmishes shed light on bard's early years"

__________________________________________

This is, of course sheer speculation in which again, and, as always, something is simply presumed to be true, namely: the identity of William Shaksper as the rightful author of the work attributed to what is simply a name, "William Shakespeare." And that name is simply presumed to be rightly attached to a particular person of Stratford-Upon-Avon, but that, as a matter of fact is, again, only presumed to be the case. There is no clear and unambiguous documented evidence to show that William Shaksper of Stratford wrote any literature, much less the works of "William Shakespeare."

Now, as facts, John Shaksper's legal and financial difficulties are indeed potentially interesting in and of themselves. But they are in no way necessarily any sort of basis for the separate and unrelated issue posed as a question : "Who was the person behind the work attributed to "William Shakespeare"? -- nothing to do with that question or issue.

It's also very interesting that Stratfordians are so excited about a very banal fact--one which was until recently hardly commonly-accepted: there are many documents which remain to be "discovered" or, in this particular case, (LOL!) were, rather, previously known about but had simply fallen into neglect and forgotten about--because the shoddy scholarship of Stratfordians is what, much for the worse, predominates and sets priorities in this field. Oxfordians—many of them, myself included, of course, do take and have taken it for granted that there are of course untold numbers of important period documents which bear on important issues--as opposed to this rather trivial matter (except as it may throw interesting light on a relevant Oxfordian view). There are other examples which could be cited of Stratfordian scholarship finally coming around to views which are taken as plain common-sense views by Oxfordians but typically denied for a variety of expedient reason by Stratfordians.*

So, again, here, what's going on is that a heretofore accepted notion of Stratfordians' generally--namely that there's really just not all that much about the real issues which remains to be recovered or discovered in the historical record--seen that complacent assumption come up against hard reality. Facts show what Oxfordians think as correct. There is much to be recovered, discovered and properly interpreted; and much about, if not practically everything about, the Stratfordian theses which is flatly nonsense and refuted by Oxfordian arguments. Slowly, Stratfordians are themselves coming to admit things long asserted by Oxfordians. Lo! and behold! there are still things in the historical record which are too neglected and not rightly appreciated for their real significance.

What John Shakespeare's legal and financial problems show us is that he was subject to clear and powerful control of the state authorities. But, while that control and, indeed, manipulation, if need had been for that, was not only confined to the fact that his financial problems made him vulnerable to the authorities' use of their Exchequer prerogatives concerning court disputes, he was also vulnerable as a religious recusant--a person known to the authorities to have failed to meet attendance requirements at protestant church. This was a serious criminal offence and Shaksper was known to be liable to the charge that he had not been in attendance.

Where the Exchequer powers come into play,

"The documents Parry found include multiple writs against John Shakespeare, and record his debts to the Crown, including one for £132 – around £20,000 today. They reveal how his property remained at risk of seizure by the Crown, hampering his credit as an entrepreneur, and that this continued until 1583."

we find that Walter Mildmay was Chancelor of the Exchequer under Elizabeth from 1566 to his death in 1589 and Mildmay was one of the closest friends and political associates of Elizabeth's principal secretary and key advisor, William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley**. Elizabeth had no more powerful and influential figure at her court. There is every reason to suppose that Burghley himself was instrumental in Mildmay's appointment as Chancellor. So, if John Shakespeare was under the thumb of state authority for any reason--finances or failures to abide by requirements of protestant church attendance--the people concerned were certainly and most importantly, William Cecil and Walter Mildmay. So if either or both Mildmay and Cecil had wanted to manipulate John Shaksper, or, for that matter, his son, William, to do their bidding, they had every means to do that.

__________________________________________

* One, for example, that the author of the work attributed to "William Shakespeare" was, indeed, first, last and always conceived and produced as literary work to be read as what we have come to think of as literature even if "literature" didn't commonly mean exactly or all of the things which it has come to mean to us is— that is hardly news to Oxfordians. Much about their thesis simply takes this for granted. Edward, Earl of Oxford wrote his poetry and sonnets and, yes, his dramatic work to be read and contemplated, not merely or only to be consumed as drama viewed on the stage of a theatre. In that regard, we have Lukas Erne's Shakespeare as Literary Dramatist. Stratfordians have long resisted that, even ridiculed it. We are used to hearing that "Shakespeare's" work not only needn't concern us so much as literary works but also that this is because, as certain Stratfordians insist or have insisted (until such time as they come around to other Oxfordian's views),

1) he was really mainly and primarily interested in money, and so he wrote plays to to pander to plebeian tastes which satisfied the supposed main-stay of his audiences: commoners and, indeed, the common labouring classes over and above all others.

2) since his work was either published shoddily in its earliest forms (quartos and often based on much-used play-scripts of varied versions) or simply left unpublished, that he therefore really didn't care much for posterity or his own enduring reputation as an author of a body of writing.

3) since he was from very common social origins and we have ZERO documented basis for the supposition that he ever attended any formal schooling of any kind, however elementary, he thus wasn't someone who could or should be taken as an exemplar of literary taste or talent, much less genius. Stratfordians, in their schizophrenic approach to this author's supposed character, often tie themselves in knots working to demonstrate that he just wasn't really that much of a man of exceptional genius.

All of that is rejected as having nothing to do with the real author's characteristics--as demonstrated from his literary work.

Now we've got a supposedly fresh take from Lukas Erne by which, at last, the author is really to be recognized as a person with first-order literary talents and motivations.

No kidding!? So now some Stratfordians are ready to get behind the possibility that, after all, "Shakespeare" wasn't just a shoddy and careless money-grubbing scribbler of low-brow entertainments? Wow! Who knew!?

"Now in a new (May 2013) edition, Lukas Erne's groundbreaking study argues that Shakespeare, apart from being a playwright who wrote theatrical texts for the stage, was also a literary dramatist who produced reading texts for the page. Examining the evidence from early published playbooks, Erne argues that Shakespeare wrote many of his plays with a readership in mind and that these 'literary' texts would have been abridged for the stage because they were too long for performance. The variant early texts of Romeo and Juliet, Henry V and Hamlet are shown to reveal important insights into the different media for which Shakespeare designed his plays. This revised and updated edition includes a new and substantial preface that reviews and intervenes in the controversy the study has triggered and lists reviews, articles and books which respond to or build on the first edition." (emphasis added)
___________________________________
( from Cambridge University Press site's page on Shakespeare as Literary Dramatist )

** Sir William Cecil (named Lord Burghley in 1571) was her chief adviser and supervised the whole administration. He was also Secretary of State from 1558 to 1572 and Lord Treasurer from 1572 to his death in 1598. (Wikipedia)

It is worth emphasizing something that was buried at the end of the article about the newly discovered documents concerning John Shakespeare. Eventually, they will join Shakespeare Documented's digital collection of historical documents concerning Shakespeare, his family, and his career as an actor, writer, and sharer.

Presumably, the new trove of documents announced last year about Shakespeare's father's coat of arms, even more solidly connecting Will with Stratford than had already been long established, will become available there, too, some day.

When detectives seeking to solve a crime identify the right suspect(s), they understand that, by delving into the details of the suspect’s life and daily habits, they may be able to construct a theory of the crime by which they can hypothesize as-yet-undiscovered evidence and, looking for it—where, logically, if their theory of the crime and their suppositions concerning the favorite suspect are correct—find this evidence, and maybe also other relevant people and things there where their reason tells them these ought to be found.

That same methodology ought to apply in the effort to uncover data and evidence about the rightful author of the literary work wrongly attributed to what is merely the real author’s pen-name, ‘William Shakespeare’.

Orthodox scholars often dismiss mysterious aspects of the surviving work as indicative of William Shakespeare’s carelessness about his craft and the products of his efforts. Thus, they routinely put otherwise inscrutable problems down to the author’s sloppy errors or his ignorance and carelessness instead of supposing that, as a careful genius, these mysterious things which pose interpretive problems are due to other things—transcription errors on the part of scribes or type-setters, for example.

Oxfordians ought to be able to demonstrate that their theory of the author provides them with practical advantages in parsing the author's work and understanding its meanings because getting his identity right can be an aid to doing that.

In The Tempest, for example, the shoddy scholarship of Stratfordian orthodoxy has left us with the oddity of a term, invariably produced in modern editions—including the most recent university-press editions—at Act II, scene ii, where Caliban is heard to say,

I prithee, let me bring thee where crabs grow;
And I with my long nails will dig thee pignuts;
Show thee a jay's nest and instruct thee how
To snare the nimble marmoset; I'll bring thee
To clustering filberts and sometimes I'll get thee
Young scamels from the rock. Wilt thou go with me?

Now, what the hell does “young scamels from the rock” mean here and why does that make any sense as written?

Here’s the entry data from the Oxford English Dictionary

† ˈscamel, n.

Obsolete. rare—1.

Meaning uncertain: the statement in quot. 1866 is of doubtful value. Some have proposed to read staniel.

a1616 SHAKESPEARE Tempest (1623) II. ii. 171 And sometimes I'le get thee young Scamels from the Rocke.

(1866 H. STEVENSON Birds Norfolk I. 260 At Blakeney Mr. Dowell states that bar-tailed godwits are known to the local gunners by the singular appellation of ‘Picks’ and ‘Scamells’... He believes by ‘Scamells’ are meant the females and those found singly in autumn.)

As Oxfordians would do, let’s assume that if this term “young scamels” appears as nonsense, the problem does not stem from our author’s having been stupid, ignorant or careless but, rather, from someone else having been one or more of these and having put in “young scamels from the rock” where the author clearly had something else in mind.

It’s our task to credit the author with sound sense and try to figure out what someone who’s careful and smart probably intended there instead of apparent nonsense.

Caliban’s words provide us with context which is invaluable in that interpretive task. He has already made it clear that he’s referring to the flora and the fauna of the island.

But, about “scamels”—why “young” and why only “sometimes” rather than, as with crabs, pignuts, jay's nests, nimble marmosets or clustering filberts, just any old damn time? Are “young scamels," whatever they are, only desirable sometimes? If so, why is that?

Like a detective searching for clues, if we could identify the right suspects, we might be led to look for the right clues and evidence in places which, according to a correct theory of the crime, we ought to expect to find them.

Thus, in 16th-century England, we’d expect that people would bring a certain amount of common-knowledge about flora and fauna to the theatre where they’d hear Caliban speaking of crabs, pignuts, jay's nests, nimble marmosets or clustering filberts. We want terms which sound something like “young scamels” but better fit the context. So we should be looking for flora and fauna which fill the bill. And the bill requires us to understand why the author would have indicated “sometimes” when it seems oddly superfluous. Whatever was intended instead of “young scamels” was something which would be sometimes useful and desirable but not necessarily always useful and desirable.

Taking up the published works of the day concerning plants and animals and checking alphabetically for things which start with the same letters as “scamels” we find a candidate-term in

Scammony ˈskaməni/
noun
1. a plant of the convolvulus family, the dried roots of which yield a strong purgative.
__________________________________

(Wikipedia) “Convolvulus scammonia, known commonly as scammony, is a bindweed native to the countries of the eastern part of the Mediterranean basin; it grows in bushy waste places, from Syria in the south to the Crimea in the north, its range extending westward to the Greek islands,”

There, now, “young scammony”, said quickly, (as perhaps, “scam,ney”) could have led a confused person to have written down just enough of a phonetic clue for use in a later search for some term or phrase, having had no idea what the pronounced terms referred to and no opportunity to clarify this at the time of transcription; and the person could have reached desperately for “young scamels” as the nearest thing which came to mind.

“Scammony”, as a common weed, was a source of what was then well-known to produce a very quick-acting and effective purgative when its root's milk was taken and subjected to a procedure described in herbal handbooks of the day. This product, in an age where purgatives, when required, were really “needed” and, so, important ⁽¹⁾—would satisfy the points which account for being mentioned in the first place as something quite useful to have handy and growing on the island, and, in addition, something which is only ”sometimes” needed and wanted. One doesn’t, let us hope, need a powerful purgative plant just every day. But when one does need it, the need can be quite important, after all. And, stranded on a remote island as these people were, they’d be obliged to find and fashion their own native-grown pharmacy stock-items. “Scammony” was one of these and the method of turning the plant-root into the purgative was familiar knowledge in many ordinary households of 16th-century England.

But how do we account for “young”? Is there something particularly interesting or important about the plant’s age? What difference does “young” or “old” scammony make and, in any case, how would one know about the plant’s being young or old? “Young” is, like “scamels”, probably misheard and written down later in error after a search for possible terms.

So we need a substitute candidate for “young” which fits the context and doesn’t leave us scratching our head about the author’s having made sense. I suggest that what the author wrote and what was said but misheard by a scribe was “yon scammony from the rock” –indicating a particular patch of scammony and doing that by mentioning a conspicuous rock on the island where scammony was known to be found. Thus,

“And sometimes I’ll get thee yon scammony from (near) the rocke.”

This, I think, makes better sense of what is otherwise something rather nonsensical. And our detective’s theory of the crime is better served by this than by a nonsense result.

___________________________

⁽¹⁾ :

“The other aspect of a surgeon’s practice that will astonish you is the degree to which he will depend on laxatives. The first thing Joseph Binns does when faced with a new case is to prescribe a suppository, clyster or enema—anything to empty the patient’s bowels. Headache? You’ll be needing a laxative, sir. Broken bone from a cart accident? Laxative. Gunshot wound? Laxative first, then I’ll remove the bullet. An ale-drawer at the Castle tavern in Paternoster Row goes to see Binns after he has been smashed in the head with a tankard. Binns prescribes a suppository. Then he lets blood. And only after these two things have been done does he remove the splintered bone, dress the wound using warm medications and bandage up the patient’s head. Before the patient leaves, Binns writes him a prescription of a suppository every day. The man recovers—as do the majority of Binns’s patients, to be fair—but you suspect that if they gathered at the Castle to discuss their experience, they would all remark on how keen their surgeon is to make them shit like crazy.”

___________________________________________

Ian Mortimer, The Time Traveller's Guide to Restoration Britain: A Handbook for Visitors to the Seventeenth Century: 1660-1699 (2018) pp. 318-319

RE "herbals", 16th-century :

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/proximity1&deepsearch=herbals

and :

The herball or Generall historie of plantes. Gathered by Iohn Gerarde of London Master in Chirurgerie very much enlarged and amended by Thomas Iohnson citizen and apothecarye of London (1597)
Author: Gerard, John, 1545-1612.

on Bindweed, ("Convolvulus") See pages 865 866, etc. :
(Collection: Early English Books Online)

See also: https://www.henriettes-herb.com/eclectic/cook/CONVOLVULUS_SCAMMONIA.htm

https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/blogs/?page=1

>32 Crypto-Willobie: Thanks. That is a site worth following.

>32 Crypto-Willobie: >33 Podras.:

"News"? How is this "news"?

The "Blogging Shakespeare" project,

"Blog for Shakespeare

Since launching Blogging Shakespeare in 2010, our community has grown dramatically with thousands of individuals in 146 countries accessing the site to learn more about Shakespeare. We are now looking for regular contributors to Blogging Shakespeare"

Paul Edmondson* writes,

"I thought you might like to see this guest-post by Edward Pettit, who has been leading his own authorship campaign and speaking up for Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon….

'I had always been aware of the Shakespeare authorship conspiracy, but always felt it was such a weird little fringe movement that I needn’t pay it any mind. I’m not a professional Shakespeare a scholar, but I am deeply devoted to Shakespeare’s works and also a writer who publishes mainly on matters of literary history, so how an author’s works are received and read over time interests me. And I think literary history matters, as much as political history.

'So when I heard about the Anonymous film, I thought it was high time I did something about it. It’s one thing to have a few crackpots with their pretend literary history talking only to themselves (I’m sorry, but the more experience I have with Shakesconspiracists, the sillier I find them). It’s quite another when a Hollywood studio releases a historical costume drama that will be seen by millions and send the message that there is an actual controversy or debate about Shakespearean authorship.'

'I began organizing talks at public libraries in and around Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I even had a prominent Oxfordian agree to do an event at which we would square off, much like American Presidential candidates, in a no-holds-bar “debate”, with lots of press. Alas, the Oxfordian’s feet suddenly became very cold and he backed out before the first press release.' ...

(Emphasis added)
____________________________

* Paul Edmondson: "Head of Research and Knowledge and Director of the Stratford-upon-Avon Poetry Festival for The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust."

born of the desperation of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and its friends at the steady progress which independent bloggers have been making in presenting the case for the real author, Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford.

LOL!

Here’s Arthur Acheson ⁽¹⁾ writing (at page 215-216) in 1903 about the Shakespeare authorship controversy—Acheson’s a confirmed Stratfordian but at least he doesn’t try to simply deny that there is an authorship controversy (from his “Conclusion”) :

… “It has often been remarked that the greatest of all our English poets is to us only a name. This is true in more senses than one: applied to a grasp of his personality, it is true with even students of Shakespeare; applied to a knowledge of his works, it is true with respect to a great many people who consider themselves well read. It has grown into habit with such people to acknowledge Shakespeare’s preeminence and let it rest there. The woeful lack of even an elementary knowledge of the poet and his work is exemplified by the comparatively large amount of interest which has been evoked, in recent years, by an attempted recrudescence of what has been called the ‘Baconian theory.’

“The interest which this theory temporarily evoked has, however, been sufficient to kill it, so that it has, after all, done more good than harm, in bringing many people to a study of the poet’s works who would otherwise have neglected them.”

and here's Acheson, again, sounding something like Edward Pettit, above, though Acheson's laments were written one hundred and fifteen years ago:

… ”If any one or two of these things were actually proved, a new keynote to research would be struck, but at present these are all still matters of opinion and dispute. The probability that they would always remain so, (sic) has tempted some pseudo-Shakespearians into wild and extravagant inventions, (sic) and some honest critics into strange fantasies regarding them.”

And then, in continuing, Acheson allows us a bit of the sort of candor which we simply have no hope of expecting from the more modern Mr. Edward Pettit:

“The lengths to which these types of critics have been carried have so reacted upon many others, of a more careful and scientific mind, that they, fearful of being accused of extravagance, have withdrawn behind the barriers of settled fact, (sic) and fearfully venture fearful opinions of all that lies beyond their defenses; or else, with the reactionary and stultifying tendency of aging conservatism, sink back upon the conclusions of the older master critics, looking askance, if deigning to look at all, at whatever differs from them.” …
_____________________
(from the Preface, p. iv.)
(emphasis added)

(1) : Shakespeare and the rival poet : displaying Shakespeare as a satirist and proving the identity of the patron and the rival of the sonnets : with a reprint of sundry poetical pieces by George Chapman, bearing on the subject. --
by Acheson, Arthur, 1864-1930; Chapman, George, 1559?-1634

Publication date 1903 | (at archive.org)

further examples, if needed:

Boycotted Shakespeare facts : being a preliminary report upon the admissable but hitherto unallowed for evidence affecting the problem of the poet Shakespeare's identity
by Parsons, John Denham Publication date 1920 | (at archive.org)

_______________________________

Contemporary evidence of Shakespeare's identity
(Pamplet No. 5, read before The Shakespeare Society of Philadelphia)
by Ashhurst, Richard Lewis, 1838-1911 | (at archive.org)

_______________________________

Not strictly "Shakespeare" news, but news of the late-sixteenth, early-seventeenth century world of play texts:

from The Times Literary Supplement | Literature | 12 APRIL 2019 (page 16)

(article) "At the Court of the Amazones" | The discovery of an unknown seventeenth-century play about martial women. By Sebastiaan VERWEIJ

A scholar has claimed to have found the exact location of Shakespeare's London home in the parish of St. Helens.

>36 Podras.:
We'll see, when his findings are actually published. Newspaper articles usually claim too much. For instance, Romeo and Juliet is usually dated to 1594-95, but doesn't the research specify his lodgings from 1597?

As it happens I may be meeting Marsh at the SAA meeting next week.

>37 Crypto-Willobie: I know what you mean about excessive claims. Some of the articles I've seen (I posted the most bare bones one I could find) virtually claim that other known residents in the area represent the holy grail of inspiration for his plays.

The 1597 date must come from the tax role for St. Helen's parish, the earliest document (specific date Nov. 15, 1597) that gives us a clue to where Shakespeare lived in London. According to S. Schoenbaum's Compact Documentary Life, pages 220-3, the assessment was made in Oct. 1596, putting him there at least a year earlier. The tax role listed only defaulters, so from what we know, it's possible that Shakespeare could have been living there earlier yet; conceivably at the time R&J was written. What people believe depends on how much weight they want to give to unsupported speculation. It's worth noting that Shakespeare's full assessment on £5 of goods would have been 13s 4d payable in two installments, the first of which was 8s 4d. He was listed as defaulting on only 5s, so the first installment must have been paid.

I'd love to hear more about what Marsh has to say next week.

You could ask Marsh how the hell anyone knows or could know that the named "William Shakespeare" has anything to do with the person erroneously thought to have authored poems and plays under that name--(as a pseudonym).

NO, don't bother. We know what his bullshit answer would be.

The irony here is that we know, indeed, that the real author of "Shakspeare's (or Shakespeare's or Shakspere's) works did indeed live nearby the Theatre, in the Shoreditch area. We know this because the real author, Edward, Earl of Oxford, lived there for a time--esp. toward the latter part of his life.

Note that, RE "According to Marsh, evidence suggests Shakespeare had lived in a property overlooking the churchyard of St. Helens as a tenant of the Company of Leathersellers, a guild that organized the Elizabethan leather trade."

(Wikipedia) "St Helen's was one of only a few City of London churches to survive both the Great Fire of London of 1666 and the Blitz during World War II."

So, where are the Leathersellers Comapny's records of business transactions from the 1500s to the 1600s? And, where, in them, is any mention of this same "William Shakespeare"? There ought to be a wealth of such entries in the journals and accounting records of this livery company. It's inconceivable that the company had a tenant living in one of its properties and kept no record of this. And that's only one of many such places where, logically, one ought to find copious records mentioning "William Shakespeare."--if the mythology about him were all that its defenders crack it up to be. So, are they there? Of course they aren't.

_______________________________________________


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Helen%27s_Church,_Bishopsgate

https://leathersellers.co.uk/the-company-city-livery/leathersellers-hall/

https://leathersellers.co.uk/the-company-city-livery/

https://openhouselondon.open-city.org.uk/listings/3489

https://www.st-helens.org.uk/about/history-buildings/

https://www.st-helens.org.uk/about/contact/

________________________________________________

RE >38 Podras.:

" It's worth noting that Shakespeare's full assessment on £5 of goods would have been 13s 4d payable in two installments, the first of which was 8s 4d. He was listed as defaulting on only 5s, so the first installment must have been paid."

Where do you get this information?

and, can you explain the "affid" (for affidavit) annotation next to the name W.S. ? I'm looking for background information on what the abbreviated annotations to these records would have meant and indicated. In this one, there was an affidavit concerned. I'd like to know the import of that.

>37 Crypto-Willobie: Here's another article about Marsh's claim from a skeptic; a very common sense one.

>40 Podras.:

I didn't hear Marsh make any of those claims in so many words at the seminar. He analyzed names and addresses in tax and parish records at the suggestion of Alan H. Nelson and William Ingram. Marsh and other scholars know that these are indications and possibilities about neighbors, leathersellers etc, not astounding revelations, even if he has let himself be drawn out by the media. He said it would probably be a few years until it all made it into a book.

Here's something directly from Marsh himself in the TLS:
https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/public/shakespeare-1590s-st-helens-bishopsgat...

More from the current TLS:
https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/public/william-shakespeares-church-window/

(not sure how long these links will be free)

See also
https://www.shaksper.net/archive-news/mailid-1401?key=EjbJvkpR&subid=555-584...

>42 Crypto-Willobie: & >43 Crypto-Willobie: All interesting articles. Marsh's article about the parish of St. Helen's is particularly good, not just for what it tells us about St. Helen's but about how London was subdivided. I can see where tabloid-style headlines got their claim about R&J being written there. But I think that it is important to distinguish between what is known from the record versus what is speculation, regardless of how solid it may be. We know from the tax roles that Shakespeare lived in St. Helen's in Oct. 1596, the time the original tax assessment was made. No matter how reasonable it may be to believe that he had been living there for at least a few years earlier, that is still just speculation.

>44 Podras.:

" We know from the tax roles that someone named "Shakespeare" may have lived in St. Helen's in Oct. 1596, the time the original tax assessment was made."

( Fixed it for you.)
_____________________

"No matter how reasonable it may be to believe that he had been living there for at least a few years earlier, that is still just speculation."

Just as speculative as the absurd idea that "Shakespeare" on the document necessarily refers to the person you believe to have been the author of work attributed to a name which occasionally appeared on the sonnets and other poetry and some editions of plays.

The Folger Shakespeare Library has just released an updated version of its web site. Here's an excerpt from their announcement:

The Folger Shakespeare Library is pleased to announce the initial release of the Folger Shakespeare site, the successor to Folger Digital Texts. You’ll notice that the Folger Shakespeare site has everything that Folger Digital Texts has, with an updated interface that works well on your phone, and additional essays taken straight from the books.

What you won’t see is that the site is rebuilt from the ground up on a sustainable technical architecture, and that its structure is more friendly to search engines so even more people will be enticed to visit. It's a down payment on many future updates and improvements, both to the content and the infrastructure on which it resides.

Enjoy!

But what about Rastell's stage in Finsbury Fields c1530?

>48 Crypto-Willobie:

Wasn't that just an outdoor stage built on his grounds, not an actual playhouse?

On the history of the London stage and the first purpose-built theatres in London and its environs.

(https://politicworm.com/background/birth-of-the-london-stage/1576-a-date-to-remember/bishopsgate-history-and-map/did-oxford-help-design-burbage’s-theatre)

>49 lilithcat:

Depends on how we define "play-house". Without looking it up I seem to recall that the Red Lion does not seem to have been an enclosed "house" but rather a stage placed against the wall of a farmhouse (which served as a tiring house?) with scaffolding erected adjacent. And we know so little about Rastell's stage that we can't safely say what it did and didn't have. Was there scaffolding? something that functioned as a tiring house? But it does seem to have been something that was 'purpose-built' for repeated use.

Part of my point is how the media (and theatre history) likes to deal in absolutes and superlatives -- the 'first', the greatest' etcetc -- where the reality is more nuanced. It used to be The Theatre was THE first playhouse. Then the Red Lion. Then...?

>50 proximity1:

"Did Oxford design Burbage’s Theatre?"

She's so delusional it's a wonder her pages don't simply burst into flames.

>51 Crypto-Willobie:

Part of my point is how the media (and theatre history) likes to deal in absolutes and superlatives

They do, indeed. Particularly problematic when it's something like this where there are many unknowns, maybes, probablys, etc.

New podcast series launches...
Conversations about Shakespeare’s place in the modern world...
https://www.shaksper.net/current-postings/33840-new-podcast-series-launches

A researcher has concluded that Shakespeare's monument in Stratford's Holy Trinity Church really is an accurate representation of what he looked like in life. An article in The Guardian explains the reasoning.

LOL!!!

More Stratfordian junk-"scholarship."

Your researcher has clear and flagrant conflicts of interest.

I wonder how she managed to declare in her publication that there were none.

(Quote)
The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) states in its Guidelines on Good Publication Practice (2003) that:

‘Conflicts of interest arise when authors, reviewers, or editors have interests that are not fully apparent and that may influence their judgments on what is published. They have been described as those which, when revealed later, would make a reasonable reader feel misled or deceived.’

Many scholars, researchers and professionals may have potential conflicts of interest, that could have an effect on – or could be seen to – have an effect on their research. As a result, some SAGE journals require a formal declaration of conflicting interests enabling a statement to be carried within the paginated published article.

A potential conflicting interest might arise from relationships, allegiances or hostilities to particular groups, organizations or interests, which may influence excessively one’s judgments or actions. The issue is particularly sensitive when such interests are private and/or may result in personal gain.
( end quote)

__________________________

This cited text's source: https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/declaration-of-conflicting-interests-policy

in keeping with typical Stratfordian intellectual bankruptcy.

..."She conducted part of her research at the SBT, where she is a trustee. She will reveal her findings in this year’s Shakespeare birthday lecture on 23 April, organised annually by the SBT and the Shakespeare Institute at the University of Birmingham. She will include them in a book, The Private Life of William Shakespeare, to be published by Oxford University Press in July."

..."Tickets for the lecture, priced at £5, are available from the SBT."

"G-I-G-O."

LOL !!!!!!!!!!!

Anyone wishing to see what rational skepticism looks like should check out the discussion of Shakespeare's Stratford monument on Facebook's Oxfraud group page. So far, none has been expressed here.

I'm looking forward to hearing what Prof. Orlin has to say in her April 23rd presentation before making up my mind whether to accept the claim, reject it, or clump it with the many other probable but unproven claims that exist.