Talk:Shakespeare authorship question

Simplify the article!

There is too much talk and little gist in the current article. The only thing that matters is the boot-shaped country.

1., Commoner William Shaksper of Stratford has never been to Italy. 2., The italian-themed "Shakspeare" works were written by a person who had been to Italy for a lenghty period. 3., Game over for stratfordians! 4., Optionally choose your favourite Oxenford or else to take the commoners place.

This is about as much as anybody needs to know about the authorship issue and any further words are futile. Computerized textual analysis proves the royal dramas about the english kings were written by the same person who wrote the italian-themed plays, therefore W.S. remains merely an amateur theatre performer and the real bard was? (probably Oxford). 87.97.98.167 (talk) 20:22, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Nice and short. I like it. I will replace the current article with your concise version as soon as you explain to my satisfaction how you came to know point 2. Bishonen | talk 23:18, 21 November 2010 (UTC).

And indeed how you know 1. Paul B (talk) 23:26, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

George Wilkins

The section on "Personal testimonies by contemporaries" includes the sentence "Inn-keeper and part-time dramatist and pamphleteer George Wilkins collaborated with Shakespeare in writing Pericles, Prince of Tyre, with Wilkins writing the first half and Shakespeare the second" Surely this needs some qualification. At least something like "believed by some authorities to have collaborated" needs to be inserted. In any case it is not an example of a "Personal testimony" and probably doesn't belong in this section. Tigerboy1966 (talk) 00:34, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

No one has defended the Wilkins section since I highlighted the problem. I am hesitant to delete as the author is obviously more knowledgeable than I am. I will give it another few days- till 10 December. Tigerboy1966 (talk) 08:01, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Check the article. The section was deleted the very day you suggested it [1]. There is no longer any Wilkins section! However, the known personal link between Wilkins and Shakespeare plus the good evidence of collaboration is relevant, though maybe too specific to include here. Paul B (talk) 10:37, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

You are quite correct about Wilkins ,Tigerboy. And beware the term "inn-keeper" Wilkins was a plain pimp and at least once convicted in court of viciously beating one of his tricks.Some of the documents were discovered a hundred years ago by Alfred Wallace who discreetly printed them only in a publication from his local university.Leslie Hotson discovered a second document linking Shakspere (to use Will's own preferred spelling) to the skin trade and other gangland connections(Leslie Hotson"Shakespeare vs. Shallow" 1936)but Hotson chose to ignore the obvious link to the earlier Wallace discoveries.These were fully utilized by Alden Brooks in "Will Shakspere,Factotum and Agent"(1937),"Will Shakspere and the Dyer's Hand"(1943),and "The Other Side of Shakespeare"(1963) and incorporated by myself into John Michel"s "Who Wrote Shakespeare?"(1995).Diana Price independently arrived at exactly the same conclusions a couple of years later.

In 2008 Stratfordian Charles Nichol published a book length documentation entitled "The Lodger",which was most enthusiastically received by the main stream press but not by David Kathman and his ever faithful Tom Reedy over at Hlas and at their definitely non-"mainstream" Shakespeare Authorship Page.They are still printing the Wilkins was an inn-keeper blarney.

By the way,a considerable number of apparent Shakespeare lines show up in the Wilkins novel,"Pericles".If the appearance of Shakespearean matter there proves that Shakespeare collaborated with Wilkiins than Paul should be arguing,if he is in any way capable of consistent logical argumentation,that the novel was likewise a collaboration between Shakespeare and Wilkins.

I have posted this information before but Tom keeps censoring it in hopes of concealing their slight intellectual mendacity.

Hope you get to read this before it goes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Charles Darnay (talk • contribs) 22:26, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Well well well. If it isn't my old buddy from out of the past. I thought that was you when I read your first comments on the Alden Brooks page, but I wasn't sure until now. I read an interesting paper of yours just yesterday about the history of Baconism in the Oxfordian, I believe it was. Your essays at least have the virtue of not being boring, which is rare for anti-Stratfordian literature.

I'll look up the Hotson paper; it sounds interesting, but Wilkins is referred to as a victualler and tavern keeper by Nicholl, see pp. 198-9. Why you find it surprising that an actor, playwright, and theatre sharer would rub shoulders with prostitutes, pimps, and gangsters is beyond me; the industry is still full to bursting with them. And just FYI, every comment and every edit on Wikipedia is archived and readily accessible by clicking on the "history" tab or the archive page link. Tom Reedy (talk) 05:21, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Obviously the novel was a de facto collaboration between Wilkins and Shakespeare, even if Shakespeare was not personally involved in its publication. As for whether or not Wilkins was a pimp, what difference does it make to his or Shakespeare's authorship? Is there some law that says pimps can't write? Paul B (talk) 19:19, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

I had a look at Hotson. Fascinating stuff. There's nothing in there that I can see about "the skin trade". Why you seem fixated on commercial sex is something of a mystery. Hotson's evidence suggests that a dispute between the thoroughly unpleasant William Gardiner and the slightly dodgy Francis Langley got out of hand and Shakespeare got caught up in it. Big deal. Paul B (talk) 20:07, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for drawing my attention to the change.Tigerboy1966 (talk) 03:46, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Can some good soul here point non-initiated novices on where to look for/(find?) the "Hotson paper" being alluded to above? Thanks. warshy^talk 00:48, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

It's called Shakespeare versus Shallow. It was published as a book, and can be found in several libraries. It can also be read online in whole or in part. [2] [3]. There is a summary of the argument on the Francis Langley page. Paul B (talk) 01:18, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

I got the book today from the remote stacks and have been reading it. So where's the gangland connection? I haven't found it yet. Tom Reedy (talk) 04:57, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

It's a bit of a mystery. I guess you promote Gardiner and his hapless stepson Wayte to the status of a mafia don and his henchman. With a bit of imagination Lee and Soer can become gum-chewing gangster's molls, on the basis of zero evidence. Paul B (talk) 12:38, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank you very much! warshy^talk 02:41, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Missing sentence

In the second paragraph of Shakespeare authorship question#Sir Francis Bacon part of a sentence is missing. It's between Sir Toby Matthew and Jesuit Southwell; a citaiton/footnote seems also to be damaged. Buchraeumer (talk) 17:30, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

That was introduced by one of Tom's edits. I've tried to give what I think was the intended sense and cited the Feil article, which first argued that Matthew was referring to Thomas Southwell. Paul B (talk) 20:41, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Looking good

As much as I abhor the edit warring and the incivility which has gone before, I must say... the article actually looks pretty good now! --GentlemanGhost (talk) 03:55, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it's amazing what can be done to a page when edit warring stops and peace reigns for the first time since its creation!

Thanks for the kind words. If you have the time, your input would be appreciated at the peer review.

Cheers GG. Tom Reedy (talk) 13:08, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Need to discuss edits

Nina, I welcome any edits or suggestions that tighten up the accuracy of this article, but you should discuss edits to this page, since almost every change is subject to challenge on this type of page. As per the Wadsworth cite, a vast conspiracy certainly falls under the category of "some type of conspiracy", and neither does he say all conspiracies are such. Also please double check your page numbers; all cites have to be accurate so that reviewers can check them easily.

One item I wish you would help with is the summary of the Oxford case. It is around 750 words right now, which is really about 50 words too much. Anything you could do to condense it further and weed out any inaccuracies would be appreciated, but it has to be a description of the case, not an argument for it. Tom Reedy (talk) 02:56, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Nina I asked you to please discuss any changes on the talk page. Ogburn is not the only anti-Start who makes that argument. This article is a tertiary source, and Ogburn is a primary source as far as this article is concerned, so the statements pertaining to the SAQ arguments have to be cited from secondary sources. You might want to take a look at how this article looked a year ago; that's what we don't want. We also don't want any edit warring, so please discuss your edits when they might be subject to challenge. Tom Reedy (talk) 03:45, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

You cannot delete sources, leave only one, and then write "according to [that one source]". The statements you attribute to Shapiro are cited in Schoenbaum and other sources. Tom Reedy (talk) 04:04, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Standards of Evidence Reedy writes: "By contrast, academic Shakespeareans and literary historians rely on the documentary evidence in the form of title page attributions, government records such as the Stationers' Register and the Accounts of the Revels Office, and contemporary testimony from poets, historians, and those players and playwrights who worked with him, as well as modern stylometric studies, all of which converge to confirm William Shakespeare's authorship.[24]"

This is false, as there is no documentary evidence whatever that William Shakspeear of Stratford wrote anything at all. In fact, no literary manuscripts in his hand exist. Bibliographic evidence - such as title page attributions - does not constitute documentary evidence. Modern stylometric studies are also not documentary evidence, but analyses of bibliographic materials (the printed plays and poems) conducted by scholars. Further, there is no "testimony" by Shakespeare's contemporaries in legal documents that Shakespeare of Stratford wrote the plays, poems and sonnets--there is the "testimony" of legal records of a William Shakespeare as an actor and theater investor-owner, but not playwright. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.176.71.250 (talk) 05:29, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

There are in fact title page attributions, government records such as the Stationers' Register and the Accounts of the Revels Office, and contemporary testimony from poets, historians, and those players and playwrights who worked with him—all which are classified as documentary evidence by historians. Tom Reedy (talk) 09:27, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Tom, I'm happy to discuss specific edits, but it's a lengthy and time-consuming process, and what seems to be needed, according to IronHand's comments on the Peer Review page is an overhaul of the entire article to make it more neutral:

Comments from Ironhand41 This article is not written from a neutral point of view and therefore is not ready for peer review. First, it is biased rhetoric. For example, the authors of the article go to some length to make those who don't accept the traditional attribution look odd and quirky by using negative adjectives to describe them. Second, the article casts the dispute as between academics and non academics. But there are a few academics who agree with the doubters and their number is growing. Additionally, there is a significant list of non academic intellectuals who have looked into the controversy and decided that the academics have it all wrong. The "us-versus-them" framework of the article as presently written creates a false dichotomy. Good arguments don't rely on appeals to authority and the claim that scholars and academics are neutral is an insult to anyone who has attended a university. Third, there are those of us who don't have a large stake in the authorship controversy, but whose interest and participation has increased precisely because of the underhanded ways a few academics and traditionalists have attempted to skew the argument in their favor. It would seem that waving a hand and declaring there is no doubt about who wrote the Canon doesn’t work well anymore. This probably explains Plan B; the effort to dress the skeptics’ arguments in a Stratfordian pinafore and claim with a straight face that it represents a neutral point of view.

I think you might be surprised at the extent to which you and I agree on many of the major issues concerning the authorship question. For example, for years I've been perhaps THE strongest opponent of the Prince Tudor theory and any of its variations because of the lack of historical evidence for it. I therefore find it odd that the SAQ article (and Shapiro's book) give the Prince Tudor theory such prominence without citing Christopher Paul's article which refutes it on the historical evidence (Shapiro cites Paul's article on p. 313 ('For an Oxfordian critique of the theory etc.'), but doesn't even mention evidence against the Prince Tudor theory in the text of his book). If anything will eventually overwhelm the Stratfordian position on the authorship, it's acceptance by the general public of the Prince Tudor theory when Roland Emmerich's film Anonymous is released next year. Hardy Cook realized this, and asked on his Shaksper list for suggestions for strategies which academics could use when the film is released. In the interest of neutrality, the SAQ article should mention the evidence against the PT theory, not merely the claims for it.

But on a more general note, it seems to me that the SAQ article doesn't come to grips in a neutral way with the real issue, which is the fact that the controversy has existed for so long, and simply won't go away, is that although the evidence in historical documents for Shakespeare of Stratford's career as an actor and theatre shareholder is strong (a strength in the Stratfordian position which Shapiro barely mentions), the historical documents for Shakespeare of Stratford as the author of plays and poems is much weaker, and subject to endless argument because when Stratfordians argue that a particular documents (such as an entry in the Stationers' Register) refers to Shakespeare of Stratford the author of plays and poems, anti-Stratfordians argue that it refers to the pen-name. The SAQ article doesn't really focus on these key points.

On another more general note, it seems to me that the SAQ article is living in the past. I haven't read Wadsworth, but however valuable his book might have been in 1958, it's not going to be read much today by anyone. Even Schoenbaum is pretty outdated. Shapiro now holds the field, and although his defense of the Stratfordian position is strangely weak, he provides a good overview of the authorship controversy.NinaGreen (talk) 15:58, 16 December 2010 (UTC)