Talk:Shakespeare authorship question

Edits

I have reverted the edits that were made today without any discussion on the talk page. Since this article is under sanctions as a result of the ArbCom ruling, major edits such as these must be discussed on the talk page before being implemented. Some of the edits I thought were justifiable, but it is too time-consuming to weed the bad from the good and so I just reverted them all. Tom Reedy (talk) 21:28, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Right, I had no idea all this history had been going on, but I probably should have posted my reasons here anyway. I apologise for that. It's a shame as I thought I managed to clarify a few points both for and against the debate. I'd like to try and reintroduce the edits which really just served to smooth out the prose and sharpen the arguments for and against, but will I just incur some wrath? --ElviraCardigan (talk) 22:01, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Introduce them on this talk page instead of the article. That way they can be discussed and a consensus reached about their suitability. Tom Reedy (talk) 22:35, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Tom, you misunderstand how Wiki is supposed to work. I explained in my comment to my change to the first sentence why the change was made. "Clarified definition--not all who study the authorship question argue that someone else wrote the work." They simply raise the question-- it is a question, not an argument. If you want to revert my change, and if your reasons are complex, you should explain them here before making a change, not merely reject my change as not having gone through a procedure that you have defined for this page. My change reflects the view of perhaps the largest SAQ sentiment today, as expressed in the widely publicized "Declaration of Reasonable Doubt about the Identity of William Shakespeare," at http://doubtaboutwill.org/declaration.

On related issues, the article mentions the declaration, but there is no link to it, despite the declaration being a key aspect of the current status of the Shakespeare Authorship Question. Also, the declaration clearly indicates that it is unlikely that Shakespere of Stratford was, during his life, a front for the true writer. This is because a main reason for the question being raised is that there is no evidence of correspondence on literary matters between Shakespeare and anyone else in his day. If Shakespere had been a front, others would still have corresponded with him on literary matters. The journalists of the day would still have mentioned seeing him, or trying to contact him. In short, the first paragraph of the article does not convey to a Wiki reader an accurate view of the Shakespeare Authorship Question. Jdkag (talk) 06:24, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

I believe the misapprehension is on your part. Edits--especially major edits on an article that is under discretionary sanctions as a result of the ArbCom ruling--should be discussed on the talk page before they're made, not after they're reverted. You have been around Wikipedia long enough to know that.

Your points have been discussed on this talk page already, as you would know if you searched the talk page archives. It is unreasonable to expect that the editors of this page should continually produce the same explanations over and over for those who have not or will not search the archives. And if you follow the wiki link for argument, you will see that the word is the appropriate one to use. That point has also been discussed quite thoroughly.

We don't edit to "the largest SAQ sentiment today", we edit to the academic consensus. In short, the first paragraph of the article does indeed convey to a Wiki reader an accurate view of the Shakespeare Authorship Question.

The Declaration of Reasonable Doubt link goes to the appropriate Wikipedia page that links to the organization's Web page. "Wikipedia articles may include links to web pages outside Wikipedia (external links), but they should not normally be used in the body of an article." Have you read it? Nothing in it pertains to Shakespeare being a front or not being a front. And just FYI, there were no journalists in Elizabethan times who covered entertainment and playwrights, or anything else, for that matter, for the simple reason that there were no newspapers in that era. Tom Reedy (talk) 13:54, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Tom, by the term "journalists" I meant those keeping journals in Shakespeare's day, none of whom refer to having ever met the man. The problem with this article, which you control in violation of fundamental Wiki principles, is that you set up the concept of SAQ to appear unreasonable, whereas anyone who reads the Declaration of Reasonable Doubt understands that there are cogent reasons for the existence of SAQ. The SAQ entry should describe the cogent reasons, not the portrayal of SAQ "arguments" that you have decided are best suited to your purpose, which is to disparage the concept.Jdkag (talk) 07:28, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

"... anyone who reads the Declaration of Reasonable Doubt understands that there are cogent reasons for the existence of SAQ. The SAQ entry should describe the cogent reasons ..."

Please list what you believe those reasons to be that are not present in the article. Tom Reedy (talk) 20:45, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

The primary reason given in the DORD is that there is no "literary trail": Neither Shakespere nor any of his personal acquaintances left behind any personal writing indicating that he was an author, until the First Folio came out 7 years after he died. By claiming in the first sentence of this WIKI article that SAQ supporters think that Shakespere of Stratford was a front, you obscure the point that there is no literary trail, as the term "front" implies that some people during his time considered him to have been the actual author, which implies that there is evidence to this effect. If any evidence that he was viewed in this way were to come to light, this would comprise a literary trail and most signers of the DORD would be satisfied that the Stratfordian case had been redeemed. (By the way, Ben Jonson's poem in the First Folio indicates that whoever Shakespeare was, Jonson knew him intimitely. The lack of a literary trail indicates that Jonson was not referring to Shakespere of Stratford, but to the actual author.) Jdkag (talk) 03:51, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

For DORDers there is no literary trail. For historians and literary scholars there is. So it is a hermeneutic dispute. The amateurs won't accept what is standard evidence, and normative techniques for evaluating evidence in the courts of history. It is identical to trial law, where the crown proves its case beyond reasonable doubt, and tabloid kibitzers and authors of pop quickie theories misinterpret everything on the premise that all of the evidence has been tampered with. Nishidani (talk) 08:04, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Nishidani, my point is that this article should describe the case that DORDers make. After you present their case, you can provide the response of historians and literary scholars. If the case of DORDers is so poor, why do you and Tom insist on misrepresenting it? Present their case accurately before you refute it.Jdkag (talk) 15:53, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

It has described the case DORDers make. I don't think any of us has misrepresented Dorder misrepresentations. To the contrary we've made an effort to put their case more cogently than they have managed to do. We don't refute anything. Sources, that understand the subject Dorders don't, do.Nishidani (talk) 20:39, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

I think we've touched the fundamental issue. DORDers would unanimously agree that this article misrepresents their views, that is, their "Dorder misrepresentations." I don't understand why people so antagonistic to those views can honestly think that they can represent those views fairly. The article's emphasis on the view that Shakespeare was a front is one misrepresentation. Also, burying main points, such as the issue of the literary trail, far down in the article is a misrepresentation. The DORD is 18 KB. This article is 137 KB. You could have incorporated the entire DORD and still had 120 KB left to refute it, and it would have been a better article. But if the authors of the article had really wanted to create an objective article, they could have summarized DORD in 2-3 KB, listed some of the main arguments for each candidate in a few sentences each, given in a sentence or two the view of scholars, and then provided links to external sites that give the pros and cons in detail. It would all be less than 10 KB, and it would be intellectually honest.Jdkag (talk) 22:17, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Do DORDers agree amongst themselves on anything, except that 'Stratfordians' are wrong? DORDers are overwhelmingly Oxfordians, and complain about the article, which the record clearly shos they have consistentlyb tried to overwhelm with their presence. But the article is about all 75 candidates not just the unfortunate de Vere. 1,700 people are a minute constituency against several thousand books and 'major' articles written over 160 years, and the fundamental premise of your own concern confuses WP:Undue synchronically and diachronically. Nishidani (talk) 07:05, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

The SAQ article should give an emphasis to the current SAQ view, just as all other WIKI articles cover the current state of an issue before covering the history and development of the issue. Obviously DORDers do agree on basic concepts covered in the DORD. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jdkag (talk • contribs) 10:24, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Again you fail to understand the key point. There is no such entity as 'the SAQ view'. There is a DORD statement representing an exiguous number of people which makes a few points, but basically whinges about de Vere, between the lines. To showcase the DAW(E)DLERS POV would violate WP:Recentism and WP:Undue.Nishidani (talk) 12:02, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

NOT TRUE! Everyone who has raised the authorship question for the past several hundred years has pointed to the lack of a literary trail, the lack of any evidence that during his life the man of Stratford was known as a writer. That was Mark Twain's argument. That is the main argument of the DORD. Proponents for de Vere add that de Vere's biography matches elements in the plays, a point that is only made in paragraph 11 of the 14 paragraphs of the DORD, and made in such a way that no other candidate is precluded. Don't point me to WP recentism or undue, when this article so flagrantly violates NPOV.Jdkag (talk) 07:30, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

NOT TRUE! Everyone has not. In fact, it was not a feature of early anti-Stratfordianism at all. However, it's fair to say that it has become one of the arguments and it is duly included in this article, as is the rebuttal that the opposite is true - there is an extensive "literary trail". So it is difficult to see how the article "violates NPOV" when it makes these very points. You make the utterly spurious claim that the DORD "clearly indicates that it is unlikely that Shakespere of Stratford was, during his life, a front for the true writer. This is because a main reason for the question being raised is that there is no evidence of correspondence on literary matters between Shakespeare and anyone else in his day." Nowhere does the DORD make any such statement. Everything it says is just a rehash of familiar stuff, including utter absurdities like the claims about the monument. You are making this up. Paul B (talk) 10:00, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

'the past several hundred years has pointed to the lack of a literary trail,'. Sure, right. A century and a half of fringe polemic now becomes 4 centuries of major dispute. Really!

'the lack of any evidence that during his life the man of Stratford was known as a writer. That was Mark Twain's argument.'

Oh come now. Twain's 'argument' is a hundred years old, and was pilfered from Greenwood, whose arguments were demolished in 1913. If you think that the huge amount of work done before, and since then, confirming the traditional, utterly natural link between name, place and author is irrelevant, say simply that scholars are dumb, while amateurs, seamstresses, people in university administration, lawyers, journalists, movie directors, a judge or two, a handful of writers a century ago, mainly yanks, know the hermetic truth. An appeal to an authority whose competence is spurious because specious, not even plausible, falls on deaf ears, as it always 'Will'. Nishidani (talk) 10:13, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

'Authenticated' signatures?

Without realizing that this, uniquely, is a page in Wikipedia which one may not edit without special permission, I did so inadvertently, citing full references for the point in my footnote, and have been reverted. I apologise for this solecism and, as requested in Mr Reedy's edit summary (who has not the time to weed one sort of an edit from another, and so reverts them all), I now bring the discussion of this edit to the present forum.

Apropos the gargantuan douche that one of the editors is said to be (/duly erased)

Absolutely! Douche being a shower, the man pours torrents of cold water on the perfervid imaginations of the hermeneutic wetbacks trying to clamber into the temperate groves of academe.Nishidani (talk) 13:41, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

I wished to draw attention to the fact that the article describes the signatures attributed to W.S. as 'authenticated'. I introduced a footnote pointing out that their 'authenticity' has been challenged on the grounds that the signatures on the will, the mortgage and the deed of purchase have all been regarded by some as not by Shakespeare's hand, but in the secretarial hand of the Warwick solicitor Frances Collyns and (re the Blackfriars house) by the hands of clerks. Despite superficial likenesses there are strange epigraphic inconsistencies. I cited the work of Sir Edwin Durning-Lawrence, Bacon is Shakespeare (Gay & Hancock, London 1910), pp. 35-39, himself citing an article by Magdalene Thumm-Kintzel in Der Menschenkenner (Leipzig journal) of January 1909. Durning-Lawrence also recited the expressed opinions of the Librarian and Chairman of the Library Committee of the Corporation of London, and of certain authorities at the British Museum, who had physically placed the purchase deed and mortgage deed side by side to compare them in the originals. The Librarian and Chairman saw no reason to suppose that their deed bore a signature, rather than a scribal reproduction of the name, and the British Museum authority stated that they did not think the mortgage deed bore upon it a signature - for the same reason. Further on pp.161-65 (and ff) he discussed and illustrated with facsimiles the 'Answers to Interrogatories', arguing again that the name of Shakespeare is written by a scribal hand responsible for the text of the document.

I submit, that this reference and point is worthy of inclusion in the present article, because the word 'authenticated' is used without explanation or defence in the plain text as written, and without acknowledging this challenge to their authenticity. It does not of course mean that the documents are not authentic, but only that the so-called 'signatures' may not have been penned actually by the Bard himself. To avoid this nuance of bias, it might be better to acknowledge than to assert: particularly so, since, if William Shakespeare did not write these 'signatures', then they have no bearing upon whether or not he was 'literate' - their inconsistencies may be explained as scribal variations, a point neither for nor against the argument about his authorship.

The problem is, how can these supposed 'signatures' be authenticated, if they do not agree with one another, and there is nothing else with which to compare them? The word 'authenticated' is itself misleading. I should be content to dispense with my footnote if the word 'supposed' could be substituted for 'authenticated'. For this reason I am requesting a citation for the use of the word 'authenticated'./Eebahgum (talk) 20:25, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

(1) Yes, standard discretionary sanctions are enacted for this article and all articles related to the Shakespeare authorship question, although that condition is hardly unique.

(2) Your source is not WP:RS.

(3) A citation for information that is well-known in the field is not necessary, and frivolously calling for such smacks of gaming. The six signatures are all on legal documents and were attested to at the time of signing as being Shakespeare's. If you need assurance that Shakespeare academics accept the six signatures as authentic, please see Sam Schoenbaum's William Shakespeare: A Documentary Life, p. 157, and the section "The Authenticated Signatures" in the chapter entitled "Shakespeare's Handwriting" in his William Shakespeare: Records and Images.

(4) As to your request to use the qualifier "supposed", no. Please see Expressions of doubt. Tom Reedy (talk) 04:04, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment. I assure you there is nothing frivolous in my citation request. You invited me to bring my point to this page for discussion, and that's what I'm doing. Reliable or not, the contention that the names were not written by Shakespeare's own hand but by a clerical scribe has been laid, on certain specific grounds: it is quite different from the case that they were written by him in a poor hand. I do not seek to advance either case, but since the article presumes authenticity it silently dismisses one of these cases without comment. Hence it is not frivolous to ask for a footnote citation to support that presumption, because, even if it is the scholarly consensus, there may be many readers worldwide (not Shakespeare academics) who do not know that, and therefore it is a fact deserving to be referenced in an encyclopedia. Thanks, Eebahgum (talk) 10:31, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

So let me see if I understand your point. You say the contention (which is even a minority view among anti-Stratfordians) that the signatures were written by scribes (all who had remarkably similar handwriting when it came to his signature but completely different handwriting when they wrote out the documents to which he subscribed) should be implicit in the wording of the phrase instead of being mentioned explicitly. Is that about it? Tom Reedy (talk) 12:43, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Not quite. I am not the one using that word 'authenticated' - which has a meaning far more absolute than, say 'accepted'. I am asking that when it is used, the attribution which it inflexibly affirms should be separately verifiable by citation, as per article policy. It seems little enough to ask, that this statement about Shakespeare's signatures should have a footnote to a source indicating what consensus there may be about their authenticity. I neither affirm nor deny the epigraphical evidence, nor do I wish to smuggle in a tacit assertion either way, but only to proceed verifiably. To the point below (taken in abstract), one must answer that even 'experts' and 'authorities' often disagree: challenge and debate are in the nature of scholarship, and this article in particular is actually about opposing views of a subject, so there is nothing to fear from describing them. It is all about the Question(s). Eebahgum (talk) 14:07, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Cite provided. If you want to add the information that some anti-Stratfordians argue that he did not write his own signatures, please find a reliable source stating such. Tom Reedy (talk) 16:06, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! The note nods at the debate well enough for me. So ends my catechism. Eebahgum (talk) 17:36, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

The problem is that there are many contentious topics where people on both sides would like to keep adding points in favor of some view or another. That's why there are various policies like WP:DUE which require a scholarly approach regarding encyclopedic topics. There is a precise reference given just above (Schoenbaum) which (apparently—I haven't seen it) establishes that authorities in the field agree that the signatures are authentic. Yes, there are lots of non-experts who make all sorts of counter claims about hundreds of contentious topics, but their views are not automatically added to related articles. It is likely that every second sentence in this article could have a footnote pointing out that someone disagrees with the assertion, and the impasse is resolved by carefully reviewing what authorities have written on the matter (yes, that is unfair to non-authorities, but that is not Wikipedia's problem). Johnuniq (talk) 11:04, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Regarding the above discussion, Jane Cox, after serving as custodian of the records in the British Public Records Office and then retiring, wrote "Shakespeare's Will and Signatures" in 'Shakespeare in the Public Records', British Public Records Office, 1985, including the following statement: "It is obvious at a glance that these signatures, with the exception of the last two, are not the signatures of the same man. Almost every letter is formed in a different way in each. Literate men in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries developed personalized signatures much as people do today, and it is unthinkable that Shakespeare [i.e., author of the Shakespeare canon] did not. Which of the signatures reproduced here (next page) [sic] is the genuine article is anybody's guess."

Personally I do not know what to suggest concerning this testimony. Is the former custodian of the Stratford Shakespeare signatures, writing in a book issued and sponsored by the British Public Records Office, a reliable source? It may be appropriate that we investigate to determine if that Office has published spurious statements. If such is the general view, perhaps the above findings should be adjudged not RS. I leave it to more experienced editors in this recondite but significant field. Zweigenbaum (talk) 17:03, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

I've no idea. Does being the custodion of the records make her an expert? Not in itself. We would need evidence that she has some knowldge of the history of signatures. I rather doubt it given the pop-culture standard of the remarks quoted. Paul B (talk) 18:09, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

These might answer the question: What she wrote. Analysis of what she wrote. Tom Reedy (talk) 07:11, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Respectfully request your credentials to evaluate the writer and the subject. Lacking any, your opinion has the same weight as mine, none. My plenary request was for Jane Cox's paleography/legal credentials to be established, or alternatively an endorsement of her statement from the British Records Office, thus RS. Paul Barlow expressed similar views, whether being "custodion" [sic] implies credentialed authority. It appears to be a significant view if reliable. Zweigenbaum (talk) 09:27, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia SAQ article in the news

Blakemore, Bill (14 October 2011). "'Anonymous': New Hollywood Film Shows William Shakespeare as Someone Else". ABC News. Retrieved 2011-10-16. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help) "Wikipedia, says Shapiro, has (as of this writing) a compact, illuminating and trustworthy treatment of 'The Case for Shakespeare's Authorship' to be found under the entry, 'Shakespeare Authorship Question'."

Here. Be sure to read all the comments. Tom Reedy (talk) 23:31, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Surprisingly interesting article, and good to see that Shapiro has given SAQ a tick. I guess it won't be long before the "Teacher's Guide" mentioned is used as a "reliable source". I just encountered a discussion at Jimbo's talk where a passage from an old review of a Carl Sagan book is quoted. I read the whole of that article because it's also interesting. Its relevance here is that an evolutionary biologist was writing about the common dismissal of science (specifically evolution vs. creationism), with this conclusion:

Conscientious and wholly admirable popularizers of science like Carl Sagan use both rhetoric and expertise to form the mind of masses because they believe, like the Evangelist John, that the truth shall make you free. But they are wrong. It is not the truth that makes you free. It is your possession of the power to discover the truth. Our dilemma is that we do not know how to provide that power.

Johnuniq (talk) 00:38, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

If you have a copy, you might like looking ovr the last chapter of Jacob Bronowski's The Ascent of Man, which I had to rebrowse last night after finishing Niall Ferguson's dreadful Ascent of Money. It's too long to quote, but makes a similar if distinct point. 'If we are anything, we must be a democracy of the intellect. We must not perish by the distance between people and government, between people and power, by which Babaylon and Egypt and Rome failed. And that distance can only be conflated, can only be closed, if knowledge sits in the homes and heads of people with no ambition to control others, and not in the isolated seats of power.' ((1973) 1975 p.435 etc.Nishidani (talk) 13:01, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

A national scandal. A spokesman for a Texas police force, a practicing Alister Crowley freak,and a guy who is ashamed to sign his name to his "scholarship" got dozens of other editors bumped from the board. Almost all of whom have better academic qualifications than do the Gang of Three

Wow! Charley! I recognized Tom as Deputy Dawg (the old Marshall battery advert), but I struggled with identifying PB as an Aleister (please note, since you guys make a lot over Shakespeare's putative inability to spell his name) Crowley hierophant, and the description of myself as someone ashamed to sign his name to 'scholarship' left me bemused, especially as the accusation comes from an anonymous 'scholar' who jams Shakespeare forums with scribblings countersigned as the Dickensian 'Charles Darnay'!) I could only console myself with a guess that there was an allusion, given the evangelical-fideistic cast of 'mind' of these groupies, to the Gospels (καὶ ταῦτα λέγοντος αὐτοῦ κατῃσχύνοντο πάντες οἱ ὰντικείμενοι αὐτῷ, I'm sure none of the de Verean crowd need the crutch of chapter and verse citation to get the point). Hyperbole might lie behind that 'dozens of other editors', referring to 2 former editors, until one recalls that mathematics is not the strongpoint of the conspiratorial coterie despite years at the cypher mill grinding out codes that putatively 'explain' what the evidence can't, and provide 'facts' that history has not transmitted.

I appreciate the 'Gang of Three' rather narcisstically as a bow in my direction for help in phrasing, since I introduced that analogy ironically to describe several of us almost 2 years ago. 'Better academic qualifications?' Good grief. If that were true, why is it that they smack of pseuds from pseuds' corner in every comment they make?

Finally, Charlie, that Darnay handle wears thin. Try Mr Pickwick, sir. All of your collective persiflage is more a less what we grew to expect from certain quarters after a childhood acquaintance with the Pickwick Club's learned elucubrators and their astonishing researches.

And yeah Nina, delighted to read that, 'Tom Reedy and Nishidani, neither of whom has any academic qualifications or employment, and neither of whom has any substantial record of academic publication.' If you can't get simple contemporary data right, it would explain the mess you make of Elizabethan period data. Ho hum, time for lunch, and a bit of work in the garden.Nishidani (talk) 10:59, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

It's really hard to blame her since she doesn't know who you are. In the absence of any evidence she can only revert to the Oxfordian technique of transforming her own speculations into fact. Tom Reedy (talk) 03:10, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

My sole link to The Great Beast is the fact that I created the Wikipedia page on the god-awful film Chemical Wedding. This was only because someone had stuck the content in a different page, so I created the new page to get rid of it. It seems that there is a "Paul Barlow" who rejoices in the email address "paul.barlow@embracerofdarkness.co.uk" [1]. I assume he is the Crowleyite. Anyway, I have to perform an invocation to Horus now... Paul B (talk) 16:39, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Well, that's cleared up things. I think the guy they confused you with, to judge by the self-description under his name, was some byblow of Ken Barlow, whom all long-in-the-tooth watchers of Coronation Street will recall. (If only they studied the text of Shakespeare as they apparently do the internet telephone directory for 'truth-telling' analogies that lead to a virtual paper trial to finger the dirt on their imagined antagonists, perhaps they would develop the technical ability to reason on evidence, rather than forage for what the lack of it might tell them). Still, wiki might notify Mr Wales that, at least according to Shapiro,

Wikipedia, ... has (as of this writing) a compact, illuminating and trustworthy treatment of "The Case for Shakespeare's Authorship" to be found under the entry, "Shakespeare Authorship Question."

He did seem rather sceptical, and querulous about the trustworthiness of several of us.Nishidani (talk) 17:03, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Horus is proving very uncooperative today. I'll stick with Azazel in future. He's always up for anything. Of course I am also a well known artist, chemist, freelance web designer and Chrysanthemum expert.[2] It's a very busy life, I can tell you. No wonder I need the aid of magick. My forays into psychic vampirism may help to uncover the truth about Shakespeare, but sadly cannot predict the future of Statfordianism. As I wrote, "according to an online friend of mine (whom I consider to be an expert in matters such as astral projection and psychic vampirism, and whom I shall not name for her privacy), one can astrally project into the past but not into the future. Therefore a psychic vampire is more than likely devoid of any precognition abilities.[3]" And if you can believe I really wrote that, you can believe the author of Love compared to a tennis-play also wrote Venus and Adonis. Paul B (talk) 21:28, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Well it appears that the wind has gone out of the sails of merging Oxfordian Theory – Parallels with Shakespeare's Plays with the Oxfordian theory, so I thought I'd bring a bit of reality to it. When the historical errors are corrected the "parallels" might not seem quite so compelling. Tom Reedy (talk) 20:39, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Taking a hint from a reportedly unqualified editor (an assertion that we can be sure is correct as the reporter posted it twice ... hmmm, that reminds me of someone), I have added the news link to the header above (search for "This page has been mentioned"). Johnuniq (talk) 07:11, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

"So, who did write Hamlet?"

Today's Grauniad features a knockabout comedy act between Trevor Nunn and DORDer Mark Rylance here. --GuillaumeTell 20:47, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Shakespeare the ghost-playwright

Given that Shakespeare is known to have turned 'stories from other sources' into plays - how plausible is it that he was the 16th century version of a ghostwriter? 'All the usual suspects' gave him their stories and he turned then into plays: and he knew whom to consult to get information on subjects outside his remit. (The equivalent of the modern film director's 'Information on x provided by y.' — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jackiespeel (talk • contribs)

All writers turn stories from other sources into their fictions. That does not make them ghostwriters. A ghost writer writes what is then attributed to another person. By your own definition above, this is not what Shakespeare did, since he was the writer, mainly, of most of the works attributed to him. And no one finds anything odd in this, except a handful of somebodies who burn the midnight oil, and their brief candles, trying to prove that the obvious is odd.

By ghostwriter you mean, someone who provided Shakespeare with the plays and poems which were then published under his name, or attributed to him. There are 79 candidates for the ghostwritership. All are welcome to take their pick and join Arthur Koestler's SFTKODH. Nishidani (talk) 18:40, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

I was trying to think of a term - the books which are 'written by X as told to y' (who has the writing skills)/or the scriptwriter who transforms a story into a filmscript. Perhaps a modern example would be the film 2001 - with Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke's quite different short story upon which it is based. Jackiespeel (talk) 15:59, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

The page is written strictly from academic sources with expertise on the subject. So none of us, and we all have our private views, think up angles to put in. We just keep reading technical books, and when fresh information comes along, weigh up its inclusion. There's no scope for personal takes at all. If you can come up with material from Elizabethan scholarship which is close to your contemporary analogy, by all means edit it in, or refer it to us. Nishidani (talk) 16:03, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Why has the entry for Mary Sidney been deleted / Who controls the information?

I suggest that the entry for Mary Sidney (as well as that for Group Theory) be edited and reinserted into the article in the section under Alternative Candidates, as both of these entries "round out" the article by providing valid and widely-held theories. The arguments in favor of Mary Sidney's authorship outweighs those in favor of Marlow, and are certainly on par with the arguments in favor of all the other candidates listed---and, in addition, over the past years she has gained the backing of several British scholars, including Ben Alexander.

The way this article has been hijacked (by a few people and their opinions) represents the same kind of inflexibility, status quo thinking, and narrowness that marks the Startfordian position. Now, is that something we want?

The original entry on Mary Sidney (which needs to be tightened before included in the article)reads as follows:

"Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke

Several recent works by independent scholars have argued for Mary Sidney as the primary author of the Shakespeare plays. According to Robin P. Williams, author of Sweet Swan of Avon: Did a Woman Write Shakespeare?,[440] Mary Sidney had the scholarship, ability, motive, means and opportunity to write the plays. Williams outlines the extensive connection between Sidney and original source materials used for most of the plays. Williams also argues that Sidney, as an aristocratic woman had more impelling motivation to write under a pen name than the male candidates. Fred Faulkes, in his book, The Tiger Heart Chronicles [441]provides a comprehensive study of all the English literature at the time of Shakespeare and shows that Mary Sidney was at the center of the culture creating that literature. He concludes that she was in the best position to have written the plays.

A further argument in favor of Mary Sidney, put forth on the website of independent scholar Jonathan Star,[7] is based upon an analysis of Ben Jonson's eulogy to the Author, which appears in the prefatory material of the First Folio, published in 1623. Star shows that virtually every reference in the eulogy can be linked to Mary Sidney, while few, if any, of the references in the eulogy can be linked to William Shakspere of Stratford, or to The Earl of Oxford, or to any of the other candidates. Jonson's integral involvement in the editing and preparation of the First Folio, and his personal eulogy, suggest that he positively knew the author's true identity. Star argues that the measure for any authorship candidate is, therefore, how closely that candidate can be linked to Jonson's eulogy."

I also believe that the following entry (which as deleted) represents a valid and popularly-held view---and certainly represents a valid view in terms of the Shakespeare Authorship Questions---and should be put back into the article.

Group theory

In the 1960s, the most popular general theory was that Shakespeare's plays and poems were the work of a group rather than one individual. A group consisting of De Vere, Bacon, William Stanley, Mary Sidney, and others, has been put forward, for example.[442] This theory has been often noted, most recently by renowned actor Derek Jacobi, who told the British press "I subscribe to the group theory. I don't think anybody could do it on their own. I think the leading light was probably de Vere, as I agree that an author writes about his own experiences, his own life and personalities."[443][444] [edit] Minor candidates

JonathanStar (talk) 23:13, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

There is no reason to pick out Mary Sidney. Her supporters are very few in number. If she garners a significant following, it may become appropriate to add a section on her, but that's a long way off. Reliable sources list Marlowe, Oxford, Derby and Bacon as the main "alternative" candidates. Your own personal view of how persuasive the evidence is cannot affect our judgement. BTW, the "British scholar" Ben Alexander is a management consultant with no expertise in the field whatever. It may be appropriate to expand the currently brief mention of Sidney on the History page. Paul B (talk) 08:52, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

I understand that you cannot post every candidate on this site, but sad is the day when truth, and real debate, is determined by a popularity contest and by those who know how to peddle their opinions better than those who know how to formulate them. I was hoping that Wiki would be have broken away from this stale, status quo, approach, but alas, not yet. If you look at the material that has been written in support of Mary Sidney over the past few years you will find that it outweighs Marlow and Stanley (although I have not made a formal study of the matter). If a person actually reads the material in support of Mary Sidney, he/she will see that it has considerable merit. In addition, Ben Alexander wrote a book on the authorship of the sonnets (The Darling Buds of Maie), and has given a few lectures on the Authorship Question in UK, recently. Leveling the opinion that he has "no expertise in the field whatever" (and is a management consultant, and not a university professor) is just a demonstration of more in-the-box thinking given by someone who is obviously in a position to render judgment as to who or who does not have expertise on a given subject. For God's sake, we're talking about the already-subversive Authorship Question: the Stratfordians are great at wanting to close down every opinion that is not in line with their own parochial way of thinking, let's not operate on this side of the debate with the same concretized mindset. JonathanStar (talk) 16:01, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

It's not my personal view that his lack of expertise is an issue. It's Wikipedia policy. We have a rule called WP:RS, which states that we judge the reliability of sources by the expertise of authors or editors. We also have a rule, WP:OR, which states that we cannot evaluate evidence ourselves. We must rely on the consensus view of experts - giving what is known as "due weight" to disagreements among them. These are the rules by which we are constrained. The reason for this is simple. My evaluation of the evidence may be different from yours. How are we to decide who is right? We can argue till we have bloodstained typing fingers, but unless we finally agree, all that will happen is an edit war. Now, I agree with you that Sidney is an increasingly popular candidate these days, though I really can't say whether or not she has more support than either Derby or Marlowe. It's certainly true that there is a body of "Sidneyite" literature. I would not be opposed to a brief mention here, but it's dangerous precedent, as we will then get demands for other names to be added. We would really need an RS ("reliable source") stating that her popularity is increasing. I will add a bit more on her to the History of the Shakespeare authorship question page. Paul B (talk) 16:51, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

A lot of new authors would like to position their work here as an advertisement, as indeed the Oxfordians once did. We have tried to cover 79 candidates. Despite your concerns with the 'truth' wikipedia is concerned only with verifiability, due weight, reliable sources, and these methods exclude peddling opinions. A lot of editors have made a formal study of the relevant literature, and their collective work has passed the highest review processes here. The group theory in its old form may deserve some expansion, though it died on its feet over a century ago, for two simple reasons. There is no example in the history of literature of composite composition of a canon of work ascribed to one known author, except in the restricted field of preliterate oral epic. Secondly, the precision of modern stylometric analysis, following on the traditional methods of philology and Sprachgefuehl, yield an authorial hand or distinctive signature or thumbprint that enables us with some degree of assurance to detect who wrote what. Thus in attribution studies, we can tease out Shakespeare's collaborators for certain plays, often scene by scene. The best work on this has consistently come up with results that exclude both the main candidates and many minor nominations, while affirming a unified authorial identity in the style, which is peculiar to someone who does not figure linguistically or grammatically as any of these people, i.e. 'Shakespeare' is none of the people proposed. To speak of parochial thinking in an academic field where careers are made by innovation, and where several major insights have come from antiStratfordians who, as they pursued their research, became convinced of the essential cogency of the traditional identification, is to grasp the knife by the wrong end, or as the frogs say, it's an instance where la pitié se moque de la charité.Nishidani (talk) 16:53, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Concur with PB. I should think, given recent events, that an eye or several hundred will now be trained on this material as a neglected byway worthy of academic analysis, and a little patience will be rewarded, undoubtedly, by RS on Sidney within a year or two. Until we can secure quality secondary sources for her, she won't warrant a mention here, given the stringent criteria adopted.Nishidani (talk) 16:58, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for, at least, being diligent in your response. And, the fact that "Anonymous" is opening this week---and slanted only toward Oxford---makes the Wiki page, and its unbiased contents (and a full examination of the issue) of extreme importance. As you know, the first hit under "Shakespeare Authorship Question" is the Wiki page.

In response to Paul B, who said "reliable sources list Marlowe, Oxford, Derby and Bacon as the main "alternative" candidates" I can only ask, which sources? And who has judged them reliable? To test this statement, I did a Google Search under “Shakespeare Authorship Candidates,” and several major sites came up on the first page. The first page to come up was The Shakespeare Authorship Trust. They list the following as the major candidates: Bacon, deVere, Manners, Marlowe, Neville, Shakspere, Sidney, Stanley, and Group Theory. Next was the Shakespeare Resource Center. They list: Oxford, Bacon, and Marlow. Next was the Shakespeare Authorship Roundtable. They list, Marlow, Bacon, deVere, Raleigh, Stanley, Greville, Sidney Next was “Candidates for Shakespeare”: They list: Bacon, deVere, Marlow, Stanley, Manners, Herbert.

Each page lists different "major candidates" but three out of four list Mary Sidney. (I think that “Candidates for Shakespeare” got it right: Bacon, deVere, Marlow, Stanley, Manners, Herbert. In keeping with official policy, Wiki could and should adopt this same list, one one similar to it).

In terms of Mary Sidney, the fact that her two sons were the dedicatees of the First Folio (and that her son William Herbert paid for the publication of the First Folio) should be evidence enough to list her as a major candidate (especially considering all the other supportive evidence). Again, in light of the recent upsurge of interest in this issue, I urge the "committee" to look at the material, again, and to allow this article to be revised so as to present a more broad-reaching view of the issue, and specifically to list a few "other" major candidates and the arguments that support their candidacy. JonathanStar (talk) 18:30, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Progress will only result when procedures that are standard for Wikipedia are followed: What reliable secondary sources support what change to the article? Given that there are lots of candidates, this article cannot provide an outline for each—what scholarly sources support a proposal to change the candidates described here? Johnuniq (talk) 22:20, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

None of the websites you list are reliable sources by our standards, except perhaps Shakespeare Resource Center. The rules are laid out in WP:RS. Paul B (talk) 16:31, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

SOURCES: Sources in support of Mary Sidney as an Authorship candidate:

(Primary Source)

1. Book: Who Wrote Shakespeare? by John Michell, which is one of the foremost books on the Authorship Question. He includes a picture of Mary Sidney in his book and also writes:

Far more interesting is the case of Mary Herbert. She was sister of Sir Philip Sidney, married the Earl of Pembroke and gave birth to ‘the most Noble and Incomparable Paire of Brethren, William Earl of Pembroke . . . and Philip, Earl of Montgomery’, to whom the First Folio was dedicated. In Gilbert Slaters’ Seven Shakespeares Mary Herbert, Countess of Pembroke, is proposed as one of the most likely candidates for Authorship. There is, said Salter, clear evidence of a woman’s hand in Shakespeare. Lady Pembroke was intimate with many of the young philosophers and poets of the time, and was herself a poet, much praised by her contemporaries. She lived at Wilton House,, situated upon the banks of the Wiltshire River Avon. A further coincidence, which Slater missed, is that the village across the Avon from Wilton is called Stratford-sub-Castle. She could therefore have been described, equally as well as Will Shakspere, as a resident of Stratford-on-Avon. Slater posed the question: ”Does the title “Sweet Swan” better fit the money-lending malster of Stratford of the “peerless Ladie bright,” of Wilton? Which of the tow would Jonson most naturally think of as “My Beloved”? Slater naturally preferred the claims of Mary Sidney.

2. Book: Seven Shakespeares by Gilbert Slater

(Secondary Source)

3. Book: Sweet Swan of Avon: Did a Woman Write Shakespeare? by Robin Williams

4. Book: The Tiger Heart Chronicles by Fred Faulkes.

5. Web: Mention of Mary Sidney as a “Major Candidate” on many of the most-popular and most established websites on the Authorship Question (several of which were listed in a previous post).

6. Web: Website by Jonathan Star. The website is not a secondary source but the material on the site was written by an established author who has had several books published with major New York publishers, including PenguinPutnam and Bantam. JonathanStar (talk) 14:18, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

>> Instead of debating which candidates meet the criteria to be listed as "Major Candidates" I suggest that the article be expanded, so as to include two sections: a) MAJOR CANDIDATES (which will be the four already mentioned), and b) SECONDARY CANDIDATES, which would be comprised of several candidates worth mentioning and who have a good amount of support. A short list could include Sidney, Manners, and Raleigh. The article would be made more complete, more useful, and more instructive---and be more accurate---if there were a section that included several minor candidates. JonathanStar (talk) 14:32, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

(a) To repeat. The protocols governing this article exclude sources by 'independent researchers' unless they are under a strong imprint and their work has been critically reviewed by competent area specialists. The books you mention fail this test.

(b) The article (this was an issue at FA) is already at the limits for acceptable length, and to create the additional sections and sub-sections you suggest would seriously strain that tolerance, by having one or two paragraphs about Sidney and Ralegh, and if that was a precedent we would have to include Roger Manners, Michelangelos Florio, and Henry Neville.

(c) wikipedia has links, and a click takes you to sister pages where all of these contenders can be examined or written about at length. Clutter is not an option.

(d) WP:Recentism militates against giving WP:Undue weight to a flurry of books that may just represent a passing fad, or freak of publicity, which in the Chou En-lai retrospect of time, may prove to be blips. We are dealing with 160 years of history here, which has taught us to be patient with 'new' discoveries, or recyclings of old theories. We just wait a year or so, until some reliable academic source evaluates the primary books, and allows us to then cite them. In this case, as several have pointed out, you are jumping the gun, bending the rules, and ignoring the protocols, I would suggest, in order to get your (wo)man showcased on this main page. I may be wrong, of course. Nishidani (talk) 16:02, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

OK, rules are rules. I appreciate the time and diligence everyone has offered with their responses. In closing, I have no real stake in having Mary Sidney showcased on the Wiki page; and she is not "my" woman---well, I guess in a way she is---but, moreover, she is a legitimate authorship candidate. Time will tell on this one. Thanks again, everyone! JonathanStar (talk) 16:55, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

"See also" additions by user: Lung salad

Can anyone tell me (and by "anyone" I mean User:Lung salad) why the undiscussed proliferation of "See also" sections on SAQ project pages? why not a "see also" to the Oxfordian theory, the Baconian theory, and every other SAQ page? The links are readily available in the text on in the SAQ template; giving a link its own section violates WP:WEIGHT and continuing to put them in without discussion violates protocol for editing the page, which is under sanction by ArbCom. Tom Reedy (talk) 16:40, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

• "See also" is a good section to have on all Wikipedia articles. I always access them when I go to Wikipedia articles, irrespective whether the link is in the body of the article. It shows-at-a-glance related articles that the reader can jump to. Lung salad (talk) 16:44, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Regardless of whether you think it is a good idea, Wikipedia has a manual of style which gives guidelines for when they are appropriate: WP:SEEALSO. Since the links are included in the article in two places, another section is not called for. In addition, this page is under editing sanction by the arbitration committee, the template of which I posted to your talk page and which you deleted. What that means is that if you do not conform to editing protocol and cooperative editing you can be blocked by an admin without going through the tedious process of dispute resolution. Please do not add sections or revert without discussion on the talk page.

As to "It shows-at-a-glance related articles that the reader can jump to", that is what the authorship template is for. Tom Reedy (talk) 16:53, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough, so you don't like and want to zap "See also" links. Lung salad (talk) 16:56, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

That's not the point. If you discuss the addition with the other editors and they agree with you on adding them and what links should be included, then they can stay. The point is that this is a collaborative project; there are many things I would like to add that I don't because it either violates Wikipedia policy or I could not get a consensus; editors can't add whatever they want just because they think it's a good idea, and I'm not objecting just because I "don't like and want to zap". The reasoning behind the process is to avoid the POV battlefield this page was for so long. Tom Reedy (talk) 17:02, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

There are problems with this article because references are missing Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship Lung salad (talk) 17:08, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

See here, here and here. Tom Reedy (talk) 17:12, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I was referring to this article Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship - there is a reference missing, Lung salad (talk) 17:37, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

You need to discuss that on that article talk page. Tom Reedy (talk) 17:42, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Weight issues

The additions to the Anonymous section add too much weight IMO. None of the other items have that amount of detail, and it really doesn't move the history of the SAQ along, so I'm gonna cut it down a bit. Tom Reedy (talk) 19:58, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Rutland

Following the discussion above about Mary Sidney, I think it might be appropriate to add at least an extra sentence or so on Rutland, whose name is only mentioned once. The Reader's Encyclopedia of Shakespeare (1966), from which Elliot & Valenza get their list of candidates thinks that there are five main theories (Oxford, Derby, Rutland, Bacon, Marlowe). Rutland is discussed in the main sources - Gibson, McCrea etc. It's true his star has faded. I see no sign that there are any active Rutlandists out there, though he is mentioned, as Jonathan said, in a number of websites on the issue [4] [5], and he clearly had a notable following for a period. Paul B (talk) 10:38, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

If there are no active Rutlanders, why would we give him more room when we give no mention of Mary Sidney and Henry Neville, who do have supporters? I could see expanding the sentence to say he had a notable following at one time, but that's implied by his mention and it's obvious he has few, if any, followers today. Tom Reedy (talk) 13:18, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

That's exactly what I intended. Paul B (talk) 13:33, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Page views

Over the weekend with the opening of Anonymous page views peaked at 4,700 a day and have held steady at around 3,000 a day since then. That's way up from the average of around 600-700. Good job, guys.

The Oxfordian theory article page views have also gone up. It still needs a lot of work, but it's not as bad as it was even a month ago. Tom Reedy (talk) 13:26, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Edit

In the interest of brevity, since the SAQ page length has been noted, I made a small edit to the last line of the first paragraph to eliminate redundancy with fringe theory, leaving all references intact. Apologies for not posting it here first - I'm new to this.Fallsandback (talk) 19:19, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

I support this edit...much cleaner now.--Rogala (talk) 20:22, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

It's not any 'cleaner', just an attempt to eliminate criticism. Standard stuff. How remarkable that you suddenly reappear after six months of utter silence and no interest in any other topic. Paul B (talk) 20:43, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

In my opinion it is cleaner and should stand...I think the entire article needs trimming as it is verbose. BTW, on a purely personal note, thanks for noticing my absence, and for the kind “welcome back”. It is true that I completely abandoned Wikipedia editing after my interactions with yourself, Tom Reedy and Nishidani this past April. I decided to return after I read the insightful comments from Jimmy Wales which were directed towards this topic, but I hesitated (until yesterday) to actually return. Good to be back.--Rogala (talk) 21:13, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

I disagree. Fallsandback, though made in good faith, this edit removed meaningful content, not, as I see it, "redundancy". The omitted clause was part of what the article was trying to convey, and it was considered correct after months of wrestling with the content of such a prominent early paragraph. Rogala, it may be "cleaner", but at the expense of some substance. I have therefore restored the excised clause. --Alan W (talk) 04:09, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Poll regarding proposed merge of Oxfordian theory

Two articles relating to the Shakespeare authorship question are:

• Oxfordian Theory – Parallels with Shakespeare's Plays (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Please consider the poll here which asks whether the first above article should be merged with the second (the poll mentions Oxfordian Theory which is a redirect to the second article above). Johnuniq (talk) 10:47, 10 November 2011 (UTC)