Shakespeare Vs. de Vere

kborsden · Feb 23, 2012

Anyone seen that gawdawful film, 'Anonymous'?

For those who haven't, or who are unaware of the conspiracy theory... it is supposed that William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon and Edward de Vere (the 17th Earl of Oxford) are in fact the same person. There is a huge amount of info on this across the net, and many books have been published claiming to resolve once and for all that William Shakespeare was actually a pen-name?!

It's an interesting theory, but in my view, absolute nonsense. I won't go into all the detail of why anyone would even begin to believe it a reasonable idea, nor will I go to relatively short lengths of disproving each of those.

Having said that, it was not uncommon in his time for other poets to steal phrases, end-rhymes and even a few words he had invented (over 500 of which we use commonly today)--W.S has written letters and poems on the very matter.

Away from the could bes, the only way to really know who you are reading is in the details, right? Poetic voice always shines through, above words grouped together.

Here's a sonnet:

Who taught thee first to sigh, alas, my heart ?
Who taught thy tongue the woeful words of plaint ?
Who filled your eyes with tears of bitter smart ?
Who gave thee grief and made thy joys to faint ?
Who first did paint with colors pale thy face ?
Who first did break thy sleeps of quiet rest?
Above the rest in court who gave thee grace ?
Who made thee strive in honour to be best ?
In constant truth to bide so firm and sure,
To scorn the world regarding but thy friends ?
With patient mind each passion to endure,
In one desire to settle to the end ?
Love then thy choice wherein such choice thou bind,
As nought but death may ever change thy mind.

and here's another:

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west;
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed, whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.
This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.

Anybody see the difference? It is huge! But which is which and whose is whose?

Ambrosia · Mar 4, 2012

I haven't seen the film. But now you have me curious.

The second one, without cheating, is Shakespeare.

And you are right, the voices are totally different.

I hadn't heard about the conspiracy theory. But conspiracy theories are fun, right?

kborsden · Mar 4, 2012

There are other candidates too, Francis Bacon being one. Despite his register and syntax being even further away from Will's than de Vere. There is some semblance in reference between WS and de Vere, but the simple fact that Shakespeare carried on having work published after the death of the Earl is strong evidence against them being the same person. There are undoubtedly works that are incorrectly attributed to Shakespeare, but they are few and far between.

One thing that Shakespeare did that no other poet of his day did was the exclusivity of metre as I've often discussed. In all plays save one (Richard III), rhymed trochaic metre is reserved for mysticals (witches, fairies, pixies etc) because of the immediate alien nature it offers them; pentametric blank verse is spoken by nobles; demotic and colloquial verse (think nursery rhyme type rhythm) is spoken by comic relief characters; commoners speak in flat verse or prosaic verse (almost regular speech with little attention to metre and device other than occasional assonance and alliteration).

One theory goes that Shakespeare could not have known or understood the scenarios he wrote about because of his background, and therefore a member of nobility must have written his plays--however, I don't see that same logic being applied to J.K. Rowling, do you?

It's a damn shame dead men can't sue!

mirandashell · Mar 4, 2012

I reckon the whole De Vere theory is plain snobbery.

kborsden · Mar 4, 2012

mirandashell said:
plain snobbery.

Exactly. De Vere's poetry is also very bad... there are a few highlights in his body of work, but as a courtier, they are mostly rehashed works of a chivalry thematic that belongs to the century before. Shakespeare and a few of his other peers (Barnes, Spenser) really pushed the boundaries of what was current in their time for both form and language. I don't see that same drive in de Vere's work. I'm not saying de Vere was a lazy poet, but his body of work certainly displays a degree of complacent arrogance plucked from status and wealth.

Maybe that was the man from Stratford's most cogent drive--the need to prove himself?

mirandashell · Mar 4, 2012

Wouldn't surprise me at all!

People in the West Midlands have been looked down for centuries. Especially by the nobs.

So if that pushed him to be the best he could be and prove them wrong, fair play to him.

Debbie V · Mar 5, 2012

I recall an article on this in Smithsonian. I'm sure it can be found in the archives for those who may be interested. It was a few years ago and referenced someone's book just out.

mirandashell · Mar 5, 2012

It gets into the news over here every time someone brings a book or a film out.

Lord knows why though.

kborsden · Mar 5, 2012

It seems every time someone wants to be interesting, they haul this out of the trenches of absurdity. I brought it up because I caught the film and it pissed me off!

There are entire websites and wikis associated with these theories, each more ridiculous than the last--and always treated as a factual database whenever someone does publish/publicize it.

Nobody else has answer my OP question though.

Deleted member 42 · Mar 5, 2012

You will note that the major, genuine Shakespearean and Early Modern English scholars—Foakes, Braunmuller, Kahn, Greenblatt, Vendler etc.--do not give this "theory" even a second's passing interest.

No one who has read widely in primary texts form the era gives this theory anything more than a few snickers. It is stupid.

mirandashell · Mar 5, 2012

When the film came out, the BBC did an interivew on the news with a Shakespeare scholar and a couple of people who believed the 'theory'. The scholar ripped them to pieces with a reasoned argument.

So they got blustery and rude and he got more and more icily contemptuous. It was brilliant fun!

InquisitveOne · Apr 7, 2012

Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare, and De Vere wrote De Vere. The poetical differences between the two are seemingly infinite. I can pick a Shakespearean piece of poetry from out of a clutter of other's poetry by the very clearness of its imagery whereby Shakespeare links his own natural surroundings via his love, and in so doing shines more brightly than any others who use this very same device or procedure.

In the two examples above, Shakespeare tells his story in a much more straightforward manner and clearness of thought than in De Vere's murky efforts, as one has to struggle to find a clear message or series of messages within De Vere's poem, and his other poems are equally unmoulded, unformed, and are therefore very unlikely to be the work of a refined and smooth master craftsman who never left (or hardly ever) left a poem's meaning and meanings unclear, but shone both his light and love throughout all of his great works.

Billytwice · Apr 8, 2012

Edward de Vere?

Perchance there maybe yet another candidate, and not too far from here...

Melville · Apr 8, 2012

Sigh...
There have been "Shakespeare was really... fill in the blank" theories since the 1700s. Edward de Vere is a top choice, right up there with Francis Bacon. Last count, I dug up about 30 viable candidates. My personal favorite, of course, is Christopher-I'm-Not-Really-Dead-Marlowe. You know, he had to pretend he was dead in order to avoid his enemies yet he couldn't quell that urge to write the "mighty line".

I didn't mind the movie ANONYMOUS, but than I'm a sucker for any movie that features Elizabeth I. I thought the depiction of Marlowe, was, well, offensive, however. I picture Marlowe as more like the late (almost-died-at-the-same-age) Heath Ledger -- you know, blonde, impassioned, talented and doomed.

The fact that an infant child was born to John Shakespeare and Mary Arden in Stratford-Upon-Avon in 1564 is not disputed. Such a person existed.

Anybody with half a brain who has seen the 37 Shakespeare-attributed plays will have no doubt whatsoever that the same man wrote them all. There has never been a writer like him before or since and probably never will be. Who cares what his name is/was? It's the same guy. You know, "a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."

Call him Edward de Vere, Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe -- who cares? Just don't call him Robert Greene. If there's any evidence of William Shakespeare's existence and his talent as a playwright, Greene's I'm-so-envious-could-spit Groatsworth is probably the best evidence of all.

Discord · Apr 8, 2012

To be honest, I get pretty impatient with conspiracy theories of Shakespeare's life. I think what he thought about, what he approved and disapproved of, what his insights were into life and culture, these are what is important, and these are all in his plays. What a waste of academic time and education, to wonder if he was gay, or if he was sleeping with this courtier or that one, when they could be using those brains on studying the plays themselves.

Shakespeare is pretty much a mythical literary figure, the historian's celebrity, and people have been worshipping and studying the man himself for ages. To me, that's missing the point, and it's almost like literary tabloid culture. It can be worthwhile to study literary works from a point of authorship, but I think it's something of a high school english class phenomenon that people are trained to be so focused on "what the author was thinking", and "Did he intend it to be taken this way?", when really it doesn't matter all that much. The work can speak for itself.

So, yes, I would agree that, even if he did use a pen name, so what? Even if those plays we know as Shakespeare's were written by any number of the proposed ghost writers that people have come up with over the years, no amount of conjecture can tell us as much about the man as just reading his plays.

InquisitveOne · Apr 8, 2012

Billytwice said:
Edward de Vere?

Perchance there maybe yet another candidate, and not too far from here...

Prey tell, I stretcheth mine eye throughout the infinte cosmos, yet it seems, I spy him not...ha ha.

Shakesbear · Apr 9, 2012

Melville said:
Anybody with half a brain who has seen the 37 Shakespeare-attributed plays will have no doubt whatsoever that the same man wrote them all.

I have seen all the plays - some of them many times in various productions - and have read them all. I have also read all the sonnets and the poems. I have no doubt that William Shakespeare wrote the plays - some in collaboration with other writers. I seriously think it impossible that m'Lord Oxford had anything to do with them in any way. He was a snob and a social climber. He used his title and 'nobility' as shield against those who he insulted. Someone of that ilk, imo, totally lacked the insight into humanity, the compassion, empathy and humour that make Shakespeare's works so relevant today.

The gossip John Aubrey has a nice little story about m'Lord Oxford:

This Earle of Oxford, making of his low obeisance to Queen Elizabeth, happened to let a Fart, at which he was so abashed and ashamed that he went to Travell, 7 yeares. On his returne the Queen welcomed him home, and sayd, My Lord, I had forgott the Fart.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Aubrey

Discord · Apr 9, 2012

Shakesbear said:
This Earle of Oxford, making of his low obeisance to Queen Elizabeth, happened to let a Fart, at which he was so abashed and ashamed that he went to Travell, 7 yeares. On his returne the Queen welcomed him home, and sayd, My Lord, I had forgott the Fart.

THAT IS THE BEST STORY I EVER HEARD.

Billytwice · Apr 9, 2012

InquisitveOne said:
Prey tell, I stretcheth mine eye throughout the infinte cosmos, yet it seems, I spy him not...ha ha.

Forsooth, thou triest too hard me thinks, look instead into yonder silvered glass...

.

(I'm almost tempted to start writing like o'l Will myself.)

InquisitveOne · Apr 9, 2012

Melville said:
Call him Edward de Vere, Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe -- who cares? Just don't call him Robert Greene. If there's any evidence of William Shakespeare's existence and his talent as a playwright, Greene's I'm-so-envious-could-spit Groatsworth is probably the best evidence of all.

Well said! Greene also had it in for another playwright besides Shakespeare. Can't remember the exact words, but it was in one of his earlier pamphlets circa 1588, and went something to the effect of "and the candle wax was situated on his beard (an unnamed playwright/poet), and it was situated on his beard in a most peculiar way"...

Professional jealousy, it seems, hasn't changed from age to age, but I'd call Greene's jealous ramblings more like amateur jealousy rather than a professional jealousy, as I find most of Greene's own work somewhat amateurish and unremarkable compared to Shakespeare's works, but I could be deemed to be a little unfair as Shakespeare's and Greene's types of writing were in fact quite different, in that, Greene's writing back then is considered to be in the form of what we now call novels, whereas with Shakespeare he was more a playwright and a poet, so the two forms were not really mutually exclusive.

There is also a problem with the way in which English was phrased during Elizabethan times—as today it seems almost as if it were some type of a foreign language, and it can sometimes make for a very hard read indeed. At times when one reads a work of Greene's for instance, one has to reread certain passages over and over three or four times before any meaning is eventually squeezed out of it.

Along with this very time consuming form of reading, together with Greene's lacklustre stories, characters etc it makes one have a feeling of a sense of dread if one has to read any of his works at all.

If Greene had only given credit to where credit was most assuredly due, then Greene's name may have been more fondly remembered today, but unfortunately he was just plain jealous of Shakespeare, of his abilities, of his poetic art and of his mastery over words of which same mastery Greene could only, at best, poorly imitate.

Unfortunately, I think the following saying sums it up quite well for Mr Greene: "Those who can — do. Those who can’t — criticize", and it seems that this particular saying was absolutely tailor- made for Greene's jealousy-fueled hatred for William Shakespeare.

Vixon · Apr 9, 2012

"In this curious case there is nothing to connect the man from Stratford with the plays and poems he is supposed to have written - no manuscripts or letters or any documentation of any literary life. The early plays did not even have his name on them. He left no manuscripts or libraries in his otherwise detailed will and, in a time of great public eulogies, his death went unremarked. The clear mismatch between the man and his work adds to the mystery. 'Shakespeare's' plays depict in detail Elizabethan court life, displaying a wide knowledge of law, music, the arts, classics, foreign languages and travel. Yet our Stratford man was no nobleman. He was of lower middle class stock, coming from a provincial background and possessing no university education."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/unsolvedmysteries/story/0,14238,1155649,00.html

Shakesbear · Apr 9, 2012

Vixon said:
"In this curious case there is nothing to connect the man from Stratford with the plays and poems he is supposed to have written - no manuscripts or letters or any documentation of any literary life.

It is not known what he left - his wife and daughters may have destroyed all his manuscripts - or hidden them and they have yet to be found.

The early plays did not even have his name on them.

Many of the early editions of his plays were pirate editions and did not need his name on them.

He left no manuscripts or libraries in his otherwise detailed will and, in a time of great public eulogies, his death went unremarked.

He was remembered seven years after his death when his colleagues, Hemminges and Condell, compiled the First Folio. The dedications at the beginning of the Folio make it clear that Shakespeare wrote the plays. Seven years after his death and with a different monarch on the throne it really would not have been necessary to maintain any pretence about the writer of the plays.

The clear mismatch between the man and his work adds to the mystery. 'Shakespeare's' plays depict in detail Elizabethan court life, displaying a wide knowledge of law, music, the arts, classics, foreign languages and travel. Yet our Stratford man was no nobleman. He was of lower middle class stock, coming from a provincial background and possessing no university education."

PISH! What an intellectual snob is here! This cannot just be applied to Shakespeare. This implies that it is not possible to find out, via study and research, the information needed to write a play (or novel, or a column in a newpaper) of substance. Think on - we are all writers - the implication is that nif we do not come from the higher echelons of scoiety, live in a large city and have a university education we are incapable of writing in our chosen genres and should not be able to write anything out of our social sphere and personal experience. I say again PISH!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/unsolvedmysteries/story/0,14238,1155649,00.html

InquisitveOne · Apr 10, 2012

Discord:

To be honest, I get pretty impatient with conspiracy theories of Shakespeare's life. I think what he thought about, what he approved and disapproved of, what his insights were into life and culture, these are what is important, and these are all in his plays.

This is what Shakespeare was totally about, for the interior Shakespeare, his inner world, or his insights into man and himself, and the consequences of man and of man's sometimes questionable actions—brought to us the plays that the world today so admires.

no amount of conjecture can tell us as much about the man as just reading his plays.

Shakespeare wrote of man's condition in a world of alienating difficulties, and expressed it in a way far beyond the normal vocabulary of any of the men of his age.

InquisitveOne · Apr 15, 2012

Billytwice said:
Forsooth, thou triest too hard me thinks, look instead into yonder silvered glass...

.

(I'm almost tempted to start writing like o'l Will myself.)

Prey tell, I liftest up the largest mountains with mine littlest finger—'tis no effort, and the silvered glass that thou speaketh of, well it seemeth to reflecteth two bills in't—(Easy as).

Steppe · Apr 15, 2012

I have read that Ben Johnson was a friend of Shakespeare as well as several of the great men and women of the age. Surely they would have let it slip as to who Shakespeare was if the name was only a pen name.

Shakespeare Vs. de Vere

kborsden

Has a few recurring issues

Ambrosia

Grand Duchess

kborsden

Has a few recurring issues

mirandashell

kborsden

Has a few recurring issues

mirandashell

Debbie V

Mentoring Myself and Others

mirandashell

kborsden

Has a few recurring issues

Deleted member 42

mirandashell

InquisitveOne

Billytwice

Melville

Reader first, writer second

Discord

InquisitveOne

Shakesbear

knows a hawk from a handsaw

Discord

Billytwice

InquisitveOne

Vixon

Shakesbear

knows a hawk from a handsaw

InquisitveOne

InquisitveOne

Steppe

...