Shakespeare

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Tim May tcmay@got.net Wrote:

>I read part of a book about some pretty convincing evidence that the
>works of "Shakespeare" were probably written by a member of Queen
>Elizabeth's royal court.

I think that's unlikely, the myth probably started because some people can't
imagine a person without royal blood being a genius.

>This guy had the time, had the education, knew the workings of
>royalty, and was an accomplished writer...all things the nearly-illiterate
>(evidence shows) Wm. Shakespeare, a merchant, did not have.

There is little evidence that Shakespeare was  a merchant, although his
father was, he was a glover and a very successful one, at least until
Shakespeare was a teenager when his Father lost most of his money.
Although he doesn't seem to have gone to collage, as the son of
a rich man he did go to the equivalent of very good grade and high schools
where he certainly learned Latin and Greek and History.  In addition there
Is a 10 year gap between the time he finished "high school" and he when
he wrote his first play. Some think he traveled, some think he was in the
military, whatever he did he must have learned about the world. Also, I
don't see how an actor could be illiterate, true he did spell his name
differently on occasion but that wasn't unusual at a time before spelling
was standardized.

There was certainly an actor named William Shakespeare who got rich off the
royalties from plays he claimed to have written over a period of 20 years,
he made enough money to buy the second largest house in his hometown. If
Shakespeare didn't write them it's hard to understand why the real author
never objected but instead kept writing new plays to make another man even
more money.

>one of the biggest problems with applying computerized analysis
>to these works is the paucity of material known to be written by the
>"real" Wm. Shakespeare, the historical person.

If you look at all the words in Shakespeare's plays and poems you will find
that about 30% of the words he uses one time and never again in anything he
wrote. This percentage is vastly greater than any other writer of his day
or our own. I think this statistic is amazing and probably important, but I
confess I'm not quite sure what to make of it. Does it prove it was written
by a committee or by a genius who could always find exactly the right word?
I lean toward the genius theory.


PS; Tim this is the first time I've had the pleasure of responding to one of
your posts since you were on the Extropian List, I'm still on that list
because it has a much higher signal to noise ratio than most, feel free to
drop by for a visit, you would be welcome.

  John K Clark    jonkc@att.net


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On Mon, 7 Sep 1998, John Clark wrote:

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> 
> Tim May tcmay@got.net Wrote:
> 
> >I read part of a book about some pretty convincing evidence that the
> >works of "Shakespeare" were probably written by a member of Queen
> >Elizabeth's royal court.
> 
> I think that's unlikely, the myth probably started because some people can't
> imagine a person without royal blood being a genius.
> 

It is possible that you are both right, to some extent. Shakespeare has
often been accused of borrowing other's works, but the practice was quite
common in his day. If one author could not pull off a successful
presentation of a story line, another would often pick up the idea, refine
it, and present the concept in a somewhat different light. There were no
copyrights in those days. (it was also hard to come by an entire script - 
these were jealously guarded to discourage plagirism - if a play was 
"copied", it was more often from memory of a performance, or from the 
recollection of actors than from the actual script itself)

There were also two distinct forms of theatre; the small indoor
presentations (such as were presented to the royal court) were highbrow,
while the outdoor theatres were sustained by the commoners and varied 
from the serious to the bawdy (or downright vulgar -  the outdoor
theatres were not well received in some social circles, either). It is
entirely possible that a play that failed to gain acceptance, or even an
audience, at a more prestigeous indoor theatre was re-worked by another
author for the Theatre, or even the Curtain (a rowdy playhouse that often 
doubled as a bear pit). Shakespeare may very well have picked up the 
central theme for one(or more) of his works from an obscure indoor play, 
possibly written by a courtier; that doesn't diminish his genius.