I meant to ask, "Elizabeth Winkler posits that there's a faith-based element in the circular thinking that Shakspere wrote Shakespeare." Winkler interviewed Sir Stanley Wells for her 2023 book, published by Simon & Schuster. It's a book I strongly recommend for anyone who is unaware of the massive amount of evidence that challenges the traditional authorship theory. And these doubts are nothing new. After all, in 1628, Thomas Vicars listed some half dozen prominent English poets. The only one he didn't mention by name was "that poet who takes his name from shaking and spear." That's consistent with a pseudonymous, or allonymous author. I'm grateful to the moderator for posing my question.
That isn't the connotation of "faith based" that would apply to Grazia's lecture since she focused on formal religion. Interesting that she talks so much about the cross cultural perspectives on this play, the first versions of which are too early for the Stratford man and are therefore categorized as apocrypha (like 24 other "Shakespeare plays"). Most relevant to her lecture, the first version of Hamlet is referred to as "Ur-Hamlet". Ur being a German prefix meaning "original". So in the Stratford-based theories, Shakespeare's best and most popular play is being performed too early for him to have written it so they have to either claim 1) yes he did write it, or 2) Ur-Hamlet was a totally different story despite having all the same major elements. Hamlet gets reworked all the way to 1604, becoming longer with each revision. The version printed in 1623 is almost never performed in its entirety since it would be over 5-hours long. Scholars have argued that the last revisions of the play were done with the mind that it was going to be read, not performed. Among the many distortions embedded in the Shakespeare myths is that 'groundlings paid a penny and loved every word of this five hour play.' Hamlet is great IF it is cut down to 2-hours and IF you have read it before seeing it performed. The idea that illiterate Londoners, with a wide variety of accents and dialects, understood and enjoyed the 5-hour version of Hamlet via performance alone seems at odds with reason. Evidence is usually inconvenient to the Stratford myths so a fun one to bring up is "Mucedorus". Written and performed during the period when Stratford Shakspere was allegedly prolific and "the most popular", Mucedorus is clearly documented as the most popular play of the era with 17 quarto printings and dozens of recorded performances. The play was assigned to Shakespeare in Edward Archer's play list of 1656 -- the period during which Stratfordians insist "there was no doubt about authorship you ignorant heretics!" ;-) "Mucedorus" was bound together with "Fair Em" and "The Merry Devil of Edmonton" in a book labelled "Shakespeare. Vol. I" in the library of King Charles II. As with all of the 24+ plays labelled apocrypha' the Stratfordians become anti-Stratfordians and declare that their magical boy with the tannery dung heap could NOT have written plays which were printed as being by "Shakespeare." IOW they say that someone put the name "Shakespeare" on the most popular plays of the era, specifically one they say was written not by Stratford Shakspere but by Peele, Greene and Lodge based on a work by Phillip Sydney. 24 down -- 37 to go!
Vickers was writing in Latin, and so rendered Shakespeare’s name in Latin. He didn’t write “takes his name” but rather “has his name” from Shake and spear. The Oxfordian translation is, typically, twisted toward a favorable reading.
Winkler's book is truly eye-opening and shows that Stanley Wells and other Stratfordians approach the question of authorship with a closed mind. The longer the belief is held that Will of Stratford was the author then the more entrenched the belief becomes. Look, for example, at the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Did that change anything about Christianity? Did anyone say "Hang on, that gospel needs to be changed"? No, of course not. However, a document showing that the 17th Earl of Oxford gifted land, in payment for something, to someone called William Shakespere might take some explaining - if such a document were to surface.
If ANY evidence that ANYONE besides Shakespeare wrote the works of Shakespeare it would take some explaining. Since that has never happened, no explanation is necessary. An open mind is a rubbish bin if you don’t know when to close it.
That’s the whole point of the authorship question. There’s no evidence Shakespeare (Shakespere) did write the works. There’s plenty evidence pointing towards other possible authors but bugger all indicating that an illiterate merchant and part time actor had the skills or the knowledge. Just because there is no evidence that I am not a Martian doesn’t mean that I am.
I meant to ask, "Elizabeth Winkler posits that there's a faith-based element in the circular thinking that Shakspere wrote Shakespeare." Winkler interviewed Sir Stanley Wells for her 2023 book, published by Simon & Schuster. It's a book I strongly recommend for anyone who is unaware of the massive amount of evidence that challenges the traditional authorship theory.
And these doubts are nothing new. After all, in 1628, Thomas Vicars listed some half dozen prominent English poets. The only one he didn't mention by name was "that poet who takes his name from shaking and spear." That's consistent with a pseudonymous, or allonymous author.
I'm grateful to the moderator for posing my question.
That isn't the connotation of "faith based" that would apply to Grazia's lecture since she focused on formal religion.
Interesting that she talks so much about the cross cultural perspectives on this play, the first versions of which are too early for the Stratford man and are therefore categorized as apocrypha (like 24 other "Shakespeare plays"). Most relevant to her lecture, the first version of Hamlet is referred to as "Ur-Hamlet". Ur being a German prefix meaning "original". So in the Stratford-based theories, Shakespeare's best and most popular play is being performed too early for him to have written it so they have to either claim 1) yes he did write it, or 2) Ur-Hamlet was a totally different story despite having all the same major elements.
Hamlet gets reworked all the way to 1604, becoming longer with each revision. The version printed in 1623 is almost never performed in its entirety since it would be over 5-hours long. Scholars have argued that the last revisions of the play were done with the mind that it was going to be read, not performed. Among the many distortions embedded in the Shakespeare myths is that 'groundlings paid a penny and loved every word of this five hour play.' Hamlet is great IF it is cut down to 2-hours and IF you have read it before seeing it performed. The idea that illiterate Londoners, with a wide variety of accents and dialects, understood and enjoyed the 5-hour version of Hamlet via performance alone seems at odds with reason.
Evidence is usually inconvenient to the Stratford myths so a fun one to bring up is "Mucedorus". Written and performed during the period when Stratford Shakspere was allegedly prolific and "the most popular", Mucedorus is clearly documented as the most popular play of the era with 17 quarto printings and dozens of recorded performances. The play was assigned to Shakespeare in Edward Archer's play list of 1656 -- the period during which Stratfordians insist "there was no doubt about authorship you ignorant heretics!" ;-) "Mucedorus" was bound together with "Fair Em" and "The Merry Devil of Edmonton" in a book labelled "Shakespeare. Vol. I" in the library of King Charles II. As with all of the 24+ plays labelled apocrypha' the Stratfordians become anti-Stratfordians and declare that their magical boy with the tannery dung heap could NOT have written plays which were printed as being by "Shakespeare." IOW they say that someone put the name "Shakespeare" on the most popular plays of the era, specifically one they say was written not by Stratford Shakspere but by Peele, Greene and Lodge based on a work by Phillip Sydney. 24 down -- 37 to go!
Vickers was writing in Latin, and so rendered Shakespeare’s name in Latin. He didn’t write “takes his name” but rather “has his name” from Shake and spear. The Oxfordian translation is, typically, twisted toward a favorable reading.
Winkler's book is truly eye-opening and shows that Stanley Wells and other Stratfordians approach the question of authorship with a closed mind. The longer the belief is held that Will of Stratford was the author then the more entrenched the belief becomes. Look, for example, at the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Did that change anything about Christianity? Did anyone say "Hang on, that gospel needs to be changed"? No, of course not. However, a document showing that the 17th Earl of Oxford gifted land, in payment for something, to someone called William Shakespere might take some explaining - if such a document were to surface.
If ANY evidence that ANYONE besides Shakespeare wrote the works of Shakespeare it would take some explaining. Since that has never happened, no explanation is necessary.
An open mind is a rubbish bin if you don’t know when to close it.
That’s the whole point of the authorship question. There’s no evidence Shakespeare (Shakespere) did write the works. There’s plenty evidence pointing towards other possible authors but bugger all indicating that an illiterate merchant and part time actor had the skills or the knowledge. Just because there is no evidence that I am not a Martian doesn’t mean that I am.
Wait... you think there's NO evidence that Shakespeare was the actor and gentleman from Stratford?
Boy, where have you been?