the shakespeare (or shagsper) conspiracy

[Basilio]

Ok, as a diversion from the wonderful world of free fall,CD, and holographic planes, Would someone like to discuss the mother of all conspiracy theorys:
That Shakespeare couldn't have written the plays/poetry attributed to him; he was a provincal hick with out the knowledge of law, geograpy, latin, fill in the blank, and so it had to be produced by Mr. (or Lord) X, becuase the internal evidence is so overwhelming.

Where I stand: modified Stratfordian, that is, He for the most part, or with one or two of his fellow playwrights or actors, colaboratively wrote the plays. Plenty of sources about, and many errors have been found in his supposed "infalible" knowledge of various disciplines. No great lords, earls, or dukes, who had to write under a nome de plume lest they incur the wrath of the court (for non-existant reasons).

Thoughts?

[rwguinn]

I believe that Wm Shakespeare's plays were not written by Shakespear, but by another man with the same name!

[T.A.M.]

Well if he were alive today, would he be called William Shakeuzi?

TAM;)

[dudalb]

No serious scholar of Elizabethan literature does anything but laugh at the various "theories" about who really wrote Shakespear's plays. That other theater people might have had a hand in them is a given but this whole idea that Bacon or some other court figure wrote the plays is silly.

[Redtail]

Ok, as a diversion from the wonderful world of free fall,CD, and holographic planes, Would someone like to discuss the mother of all conspiracy theorys:
That Shakespeare couldn't have written the plays/poetry attributed to him; he was a provincal hick with out the knowledge of law, geograpy, latin, fill in the blank, and so it had to be produced by Mr. (or Lord) X, becuase the internal evidence is so overwhelming.

Where I stand: modified Stratfordian, that is, He for the most part, or with one or two of his fellow playwrights or actors, colaboratively wrote the plays. Plenty of sources about, and many errors have been found in his supposed "infalible" knowledge of various disciplines. No great lords, earls, or dukes, who had to write under a nome de plume lest they incur the wrath of the court (for non-existant reasons).

Thoughts?

Man this was one of the biggest discussions in the Shakespeare classes we had in Grad school (acting concentration here). Not only from students but a few of our professors were into the theories about other people writing the plays. The most popular was the Duke of Oxford writing the plays.

We put on a production of William Gibson's A Cry for Players (a play about the life of Shakespeare before he left Stratford on Avon to act/write/become the object of snooty people's affection) and during the talkbacks for this show, without a doubt the number one question was "Did Shakespeare really write these plays?"

As for myself I have to agree with you. I simply haven't seen any solid evidence that anyone else wrote the plays.

[Marquis de Carabas]

I'm not promoting any particular theory, but I once saw one of "his" plays performed, and at the end, the curtains dropped at near freefall.

[Retrograde]

The most popular was the Duke of Oxford writing the plays.

And he used the name Shakespeare because The Oxford Edition of Oxford sounded too pretentious (I'd give credit to whomever I stole that from if I could remember)

I just finished Peter Ackroyd's Shakespeare: The Biography. I recommend it: since not all that much is known about Shakespeare, the author spends a lot of time talking about town and country life of the era, and how common Warwickshire words and references crop up all over Will's plays. He seems to have collaborated a lot more than I thought - or plagarized, if you will.

[annexw]

Well, the hick Shakespeare's will includes mention of actors from London.

This is by no means proof that he authored the plays but if he was just a shill for someone else he must have really liked Burbage, Heminges, and Condell's acting to mention them in the interlineation.

I have not yet seen compelling proof that anyone but Shakespeare was responsible for his works.

We need a Bacon-ist to speak forward and give us something to work with. :)

[brodski]

Well, the Globe did have two mysterious fires, but yet when i visited it this year there were fire extinguishers and fire alarms everywhere how could a file happen in a place like that LOL!!!
Also, over the site of the Rose theater, they built a GOVERNMENT BUILDING, one that deals with fire safety, coincidence?
And, ever noticed anything abbot Shylock? I'm Just Asking Questions here...

________________
there is, so far as I can see no evidence whatsoever that the person we know as Shakespeare (what little we do know of him) did not write his plays.

One of the interesting things about the Shakespeare CTs is how they are a product of the English class system, the Romantics went to great lengths to show that Shakespeare as uneducated, working class etc, as this played into their ideology. later "scholars" took them at their word, and then deduced that no working class uneducated man could possibly have written the played of Shakespeare, so it must have been someone at court.

[boloboffin]

I dallied with deVere for a while, but reading books like Will and the Word and A Year in the Life have completely cured me of alternate theories of authorship. For as little as we actually know about him, it's amazing what can be put together.

The thing for me is that there is no reason to involve the man from Stratford in the juicy business deals that he found himself in unless he was an active contributor to the group. There was no room for deadwood in these companies. If Will Kempe couldn't be kept on, the dude playing Hamlet's father just didn't rate that kind of payday, especially after the earl of Oxford had died.

[brodski]

I just finished Peter Ackroyd's Shakespeare: The Biography.
I'll have to check it out, his "london: a biography" is a fantastic book.

[RedIbis]

Yes, even I need a break from the infamous "theory."

First, Shakespeare produced the plays and sonnets in roughly 12 years, after which he retired, dying a few years later.

This is a huge body of work to produce in such a short amount of time. Perhaps the greatest 16 months in any artistic career is when he produced Othello, Hamlet, Lear, and MacBeth.

This is just one of the many reasons people believe that one man is not responsible for all of the work. Certainly, the language, vocabulary and structure in the early work cannot compare to what he ends with.

The usual suspects who might have contributed are Thomas Kyd (who wrote The Spanish Tragedy, the source of Hamlet) Christopher Marlowe, or Ben Johnson.

Because Shakespeare's life is so difficult to study, due to a lack of biographical information, I tend to agree with the great critic Harold Bloom who said, "it does not matter who wrote Hamlet, only that someone wrote Hamlet."

[RedIbis]

Will in the World, published a few years ago, by Steven Greenblatt, is an excellent study of London at the tme of Shakespeare.

[Apollo20]

Was Hamlet named after Shakespeare's son Hamnet, who died at an early age (11?), and this is why Shakespeare allegedly played the ghost in the original production of the play?

[NotJesus]

And, ever noticed anything abbot Shylock?


How can a Jew be an abbot? That makes no sense.

[Retrograde]

One of the interesting things about the Shakespeare CTs is how they are a product of the English class system, the Romantics went to great lengths to show that Shakespeare as uneducated, working class etc, as this played into their ideology. later "scholars" took them at their word, and then deduced that no working class uneducated man could possibly have written the played of Shakespeare, so it must have been someone at court.

Actually, he was fairly well educated for his time, attending a local grammar school where he studied Latin, among other things, including the classics. Not Oxbridge, but not unlettered either. His father was a local official.

Want some conspiracy fodder? His family, particularly on his mother's side, were believed to have been ardent Catholics, a faith out of favor at the time. Some of his relatives and "former" associates may have been at least peripherally involved in the Gunpowder Plot. Applying Troofer logic, he's as good as guilty himself!

[RedIbis]

Was Hamlet named after Shakespeare's son Hamnet, who died at an early age (11?), and this is why Shakespeare allegedly played the ghost in the original production of the play?


Correct and correct.

Shakespeare tended to act in his own productions, and as the Ghost, he is interestingly placing himself as Hamlet's father, as he was Hamnet's father.

The name, Hamnet, dates back to a real Danish prince, 14th C I think.

The source for the plot of Hamlet, as I said above, is from Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy.

In only two plays does Shakespeare invent the plot.

[JamesB]

Do you really think that Hamlet could have been written by a man with a laptop in a cave in Afghanistan?

Oops, sorry, wrong thread...

[Sword_Of_Truth]

I believe that Wm Shakespeare's plays were not written by Shakespear, but by another man with the same name!

y8Kyi0WNg40

[Apollo20]

Does this mean, since Shakespeare did not really "create" Hamlet, that the old saying "Hamlet's father was Shakespeare's son" is stricly not true?

[JamesB]

And also I should add, everyone knows that Hamlet is much better in the original Klingon.

[RedIbis]

Does this mean, since Shakespeare did not really "create" Hamlet, that the old saying "Hamlet's father was Shakespeare's son" is stricly not true?

Hadn't heard that one.

If you really want to complicate the matter, Hamlet's father might not be the Ghost of King Hamlet, but Claudius.

You have to take a real close look at the graveyard scene to see how Shakespeare puts doubt into Hamlet's mind about who his real father was.

[kookbreaker]

No serious scholar of Elizabethan literature does anything but laugh at the various "theories" about who really wrote Shakespear's plays. That other theater people might have had a hand in them is a given but this whole idea that Bacon or some other court figure wrote the plays is silly.

Indeed. One must realize that this entire line of thinking stems from 19th century Victorian revisionism. The idea during that era was that poets/playwrights needed to be dramatic, flamboyant, haunted, and most importantly, noble. These are the traits that poets of the earlier part of that century had (Byron especially) and the fact that Shakespeare was some common son-of-a-glovemaker (we know now his dad was more than that) was responsible for these works irked many poetry admirers of that age.

However, Shakespeares works, while incredibly, were not born in a vaccum. many of them are derive from ancient greek plays. Others are propaganda pieces for the Tudor line. A couple are just vengence stories with pretty words.

The antics of some of the 19th century Shakespeare-didn't-do-it crowd are embarassing even by todays standards. More than a few counted the appearance of a word on a page divided by this or that, and found what they wanted. It was a silly Bible Code tactic that was made even more silly when you realized you could get different results by useing different editions: Shakespeare's plays were not written on paper while they were being performed. The 'paper trail' is so loose that we may never know what was said on stage during the first performances. Another one got a court order to exhume Shakespeares body (but went insane before it could be done), yet another managed to get English courts to declare that Shakespeare did not write the plays.

One must also remember that in his time and shortly therafter Shakespeare was not always well regarded. Glancing at Peyps diary once can see that the man hated every play written by Billy, wheras other plays long since dropped by the wayside were 'for the ages'.

One thing often pointed out by Shakespeare supporters is that the figure named by the anti-Shakespeare crowd is often regarded as a noble who was responsible for everything good that happened in the Elizabethan era, one of them had their favorites writing plays while facing the Spanish Armada.

[Gravy]

I dallied with deVere for a while, but reading books like Will and the Word and A Year in the Life have completely cured me of alternate theories of authorship. For as little as we actually know about him, it's amazing what can be put together.I think you mean Will in the World, by Stephen Greenblatt, an excellent biography and study of his times.

[RedIbis]

I think you mean Will in the World, by Stephen Greenblatt, an excellent biography and study of his times.

See, we agree on some things. Somehow you missed that I said that in post #13.

[OldTigerCub]

To trooth, or not to trooth: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous logic,
Or to take arms against a sea of debunkers,
And by opposing convert them? To lie: to troll;
No more; and by a troll to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand factual shocks
That trooth is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To lie, to troll;
To troll: perchance to recruit: ay, there's the rub;
For in that fabrication of "facts" what noobies may come
When we have shuffled off to ground zero,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so many lies;
but which LC:FC shall, forsooth,
redeem us.


(Trooflet, act 3 scene 1)

My very very very sincere apologies to Shakespeare:blush:

[BenBurch]

I agree with the modified Stratfordian stance you mention. The plays as they come down to us are as their evolved on the stage, not as they were created originally. I believe he did write them, but they are not entirely his work.

[Major Major]

And he used the name Shakespeare because The Oxford Edition of Oxford sounded too pretentious (I'd give credit to whomever I stole that from if I could remember)

Richard Armour in Twisted Tales from Shakespeare.

[Major Major]

In 1613, the King's Men performed a play called "The History of Cardenio", based on a scene from the recently-translated novel Don Quixote, which had been published in Spain in 1605. The play is, unfortunately, lost. See

h t t p : / / e n . w i k i p e d i a . o r g / w i k i / C a r d e n i o
(remove spaces).

This puts a serious crimp in the Oxfordian theory. Edward de Vere shuffled off this mortale coyle vppon ye Yeare of our Lorde MDCIV --- oops, died in 1604. Even if one believes, as many Oxfordians do, that he had laid up plays in reserve, it still boggles the mind to imagine how he could write a play based on a novel that wasn't even published until after he died.

But I suppose they'll try.

[Redtail]

Hadn't heard that one.

If you really want to complicate the matter, Hamlet's father might not be the Ghost of King Hamlet, but Claudius.

You have to take a real close look at the graveyard scene to see how Shakespeare puts doubt into Hamlet's mind about who his real father was.

Since this is a personal question of course you don't have to answer but after the bolded I have to ask. Do you work in theatre or just study Shakespeare as a hobby? I ask because very few people outside of theatre seem to catch that.

[technoextreme]

Others are propaganda pieces for the Tudor line.
Not neccessairly. Henry V can be interpreted two completely different ways.

[RedIbis]

Since this is a personal question of course you don't have to answer but after the bolded I have to ask. Do you work in theatre or just study Shakespeare as a hobby? I ask because very few people outside of theatre seem to catch that.


I'm not trying to be cryptic, but I'm not too interested in divulging too many personal details, but I have studied Hamlet in particular, in depth.

If I remember correctly Bloom covers this in both The Invention of the Human and Poem Unlimited.

[Redtail]

I'm not trying to be cryptic, but I'm not too interested in divulging too many personal details, but I have studied Hamlet in particular, in depth.

If I remember correctly Bloom covers this in both The Invention of the Human and Poem Unlimited.

Understood, no problem.

ETA: It just does my heart good when I see anyone (theatre or no) look past the language of Shakespeare to the actual stories. (Which many of afore mentioned snooty people fail to do.)

[RedIbis]

Understood, no problem.

How did you come across that subtlety in the text? Actor?

[Spektator]

Actually, Shakespeare had a bit more than twelve years in which to write the body of his work. As early as 1592, Shakespeare had written 1 Henry VI, 2 Henry VI, and 3 Henry VI: the last two works were mentioned in a parodic way in Greene's Groatsworth of Wit, published in 1592, and the second play depends on the first, which must have pre-existed it. Stationer's Register records show that Shakespeare was regularly writing plays up until 1611, so his active career probably ran at least from 1591 (and probably from a couple of years or so before that) to 1611, a period of twenty years. The canon of his works for a long time comprised 37 plays; more and more it looks as though two others, Henry VIII and Cardenio were at least partly by Shakespeare, and some scholars think that a passage in Sir Thomas More is in Shakespeare's handwriting ("Hand D" in the manuscript). So Shakespeare had a career of about twenty years and in that time produced about forty plays (that we know of). He did have extraordinary bursts of creativity, sometimes producing more than his customary two plays a year or so, and in some periods he was really on, bringing out a string of superlative plays back to back.

Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy is in some respects like Shakespeare's Hamlet, and Shakespeare probably did use it as a source for his play, but there was an earlier play called Hamlet, author unknown (there are references to a play by that title going back as early as 1589 in an essay by Thomas Nashe). Scholars call this the Ur-Hamlet, and it, together with an English redaction of a Danish work by Saxo Grammaticus, probably formed the basis for the Shakespeare plot. By the way, Saxo's Danish prince was Amleth--Shakespeare, or the writer of the Ur-Hamlet, evidently came up with a more English-sounding version.

It's clear from various records of the Lord Chamberlain's Men (later the King's Men) that Shakespeare was an active actor and writer with that acting company for many years. And when his old acting comrades edited the First Folio of his works in 1623, a number of writers, including the indefatigable Ben Jonson, contributed prose and verse that clearly indicated they thought Shakespeare had written Shakespeare.

[boloboffin]

I think you mean Will in the World, by Stephen Greenblatt, an excellent biography and study of his times.

And if I had turned 180 degrees and looked at the book before typing, that's what I would have written. Thanks, Gravy.

[Redtail]

How did you come across that subtlety in the text? Actor?

Yes I am, but my Mom had a masters in English Lit. and several complete works of Shakespeare. (So I've been reading the plays and sonnets since I was about 8, with her helping me of course.) One day she noticed it herself and pointed it out to me, so that started me really paying attention to what was going on in the world of the play.

[Regnad Kcin]

No serious scholar of Elizabethan literature does anything but laugh at the various "theories" about who really wrote Shakespear's plays. That other theater people might have had a hand in them is a given but this whole idea that Bacon or some other court figure wrote the plays is silly.And yet you're entirely mistaken. Funny, innit?

[ktesibios]

The antics of some of the 19th century Shakespeare-didn't-do-it crowd are embarassing even by todays standards. More than a few counted the appearance of a word on a page divided by this or that, and found what they wanted. It was a silly Bible Code tactic that was made even more silly when you realized you could get different results by useing different editions: Shakespeare's plays were not written on paper while they were being performed.


Fletcher Pratt's 1939 book Secret and Urgent; the Story of Codes and Ciphers included a chapter about the Bible Code style games used by people trying to prove that Shakespeare didn't write Shakespeare's plays. IIRC, he cited the case of a skeptic who tried the very same methods that had just been published by someone who claimed to have found the proof- on a different play. He came up with the following message:

Heil Hitler! Roosevelt is C.I.O. He is using the FBI to turn the country Red.

[boloboffin]

OK, wait, what? Claudius might be Hamlet's father?

Quite willing to go there, but what in the graveyard scene has anything about Hamlet's parentage?

[westprog]

OK, wait, what? Claudius might be Hamlet's father?

Quite willing to go there, but what in the graveyard scene has anything about Hamlet's parentage?

I just read through the graveyard scene and nothing jumped out at me.

[Spektator]

I once attended a presentation by an Oxfordian who had evolved an elaborate numerical system to extract letters from the epitaph on Shakespeare's tomb:

Good frend for Jesvs sake forbeare,
To digg the dvst encloased heare.
Bleste be ye man yt spares thes stones,
And cvrst be he yt moves my bones.

By something resembling the illegitimate offspring of calculus and geometry (he drew a very lopsided eight-pointed star, since "de Vere's symbol was the eight-pointed star" {which by the way is not true}), and by counting letters near each point of the "star" (sometimes three to the left, sometimes one to the right, for no explained reason--and he ignored a yt because he said it was not a word, was part of the cipher meant to confuse people, and did not appear anywhere else in the English language, though actually it's carved on many monuments and stones right around the Shakespare tomb in Trinity Church itself, and he could have seen dozens of examples in Westminster Abbey), the speaker had tortured from the epitaph the message "de vere is the good shakesper".

Afterward, I showed him this odd code:

If you count five words in from the beginning of the first line, you get "sake";
if you then skip to the fourth line and count six words in, you get "spares";
if you then go to the second line and count first five, then six words in, you get "encloased here."

All together, "Sakespares enclaosed here." Sheer proof.

He said I wasn't taking him seriously.

[RedIbis]

There's something very similar in Psalm 46. 46 words from the beginning is "shake" and 46 words from the end is "spear."

Shakespeare would have been 46 at the time that the KJV was being revised, and of course the suspicion was that he had been working on it for his boss.

I always wondered how Shakespeare might have handled the gospels or OT. I suppose that question is answered 50 years later when Milton produces Paradise Lost.

[Mercutio]

What is it about October and Shakespear conspiracy theories?

Last year's thread. (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=65996)

And the previous year's. (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=1215157)

[SpaceMonkeyZero]

What is it about October and Shakespear conspiracy theories?

Last year's thread. (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=65996)

And the previous year's. (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=1215157)

This was covered, as well, back in August I believe, soon after I joined.

What is it about truthers trotting out the same CTs over and over and claiming they're "NEW AND IMPRUTHED TRUTH!"

[ChristineR]

Shakesphere is seasonal. He's performed in the summer and studied in the fall. Kind of hard to draw conclusions based on three or four threads though.

[Basilio]

Shakesphere is seasonal. He's performed in the summer and studied in the fall. Kind of hard to draw conclusions based on three or four threads though.

Sorry, I did run a search for shakespeare, and didn't find a thread title (maybe Im a bad searcher!)

Actually, about 25 years ago I bought part of a professor's library that got broken up and went to several libraries (famous collector of early dictionaries) and had a wonderful casebook on the authorship question. Since then, as a skeptic and science backed person, it has amazed me that anyone can torture the tiniest unproven scrap of evidence into an "airtight" case that Shakespeare was a pen name, a front man, or a cad that appropriated the play from a noble who couldn't let their name be sullied with the play house.
I love the willyshakes web site http://willyshakes.com/allshakes.htm which also has a link to the Shakespeare authorship page. I like the new theory that Oxenford (his prefered spelling) was approached at age 8 to create the new literature and make England great. Thereafter he wrote almost every famous piece of poety, novel or play. From Spencer, Marlowe, Kid, Shakes, all were by him. Amazing that he ever had time for travel, whoreing, and pederasty. Really, when approached with real academic research, the "anti-stratfordians" say that the scholars relie on the plays and the attribution for their livelyhood, and so are biased. Oh, and you can't use mentions or Shakespeare after his death, because they were put there by the "conspiracy" Great reading!

[ChristineR]

The big problem with the Earl of Oxford is that he died in 1604 before many of the plays were written. The Oxfordians claim that the plays were written in advance and held in secrecy, despite considerable evidence that The Tempest at least could not have been written before July 15, 1610, the date of a letter describing a notable storm and shipwreck. Some Oxfordians go so far as to argue that The Tempest was not written by either Shakesphere or Oxford, but I'm unable to discover who this yet unknown dramatic master is supposed to have been. Tempests aside, it seems truly pointless that Oxford's heirs would continue to pay a front man to release works posthumously for years after his death.

[boloboffin]

The best I'm willing to grant Oxfordians these days is that Shakespeare may have used the Earl of Oxford's library (among others). He certainly didn't leave any books of his own anywhere.

[Spektator]

I don't actually think it much matters who wrote the plays, but from the research I've done, I'm convinced that William Shakespeare of Stratford was the author. It seems unlikely that a highly educated man would have made all the mistakes in the plays (Bohemia is a landlocked country, but he gives it a port city; he makes Mantua much closer to Verona than it really is, etc.). It seems unlikely that a nobleman would make the mistakes he does with titles (for example, Sir Edmund Mortimer was not an Earl--his nephew was). Many of the homelier phrases in his plays, too, are colloquialisms in Warwickshire, but not in the royal court.

But his friends in the theater would have known if he were a front man; and after his death in 1616 and the death of, say, Oxford in 1604 there would have been no point at all in keeping up the pretense. Indeed, the startling revelation that a nobleman wrote "Shakespeare" would have made the First Folio a best-seller.

[SpaceMonkeyZero]

I heard that Cervantes and Shakespeare were the same person. They died after all on the same day. Eyewitnesses heard things that sounded like "I'm Shakespeare! I'm Cervantes! There can be only one!" coming from the deceased's room.

There was also a less successful French playwright named Shakespierre.

[Disbelief]

I always thought it was a million monkeys with typewriters, but I may have heard wrong.

[Basilio]

The best I'm willing to grant Oxfordians these days is that Shakespeare may have used the Earl of Oxford's library (among others). He certainly didn't leave any books of his own anywhere.

Actually, a study of wills of contemporary poets and playwrights showed only one that left any books to a specific person, even though in letters, etc., they were known to have extensive libraries. Usually they wern't in a will, but in an associated household inventory, most usually have come unattached from their legal documents.

[RedIbis]

I don't actually think it much matters who wrote the plays, but from the research I've done, I'm convinced that William Shakespeare of Stratford was the author. It seems unlikely that a highly educated man would have made all the mistakes in the plays (Bohemia is a landlocked country, but he gives it a port city; he makes Mantua much closer to Verona than it really is, etc.). It seems unlikely that a nobleman would make the mistakes he does with titles (for example, Sir Edmund Mortimer was not an Earl--his nephew was). Many of the homelier phrases in his plays, too, are colloquialisms in Warwickshire, but not in the royal court.

But his friends in the theater would have known if he were a front man; and after his death in 1616 and the death of, say, Oxford in 1604 there would have been no point at all in keeping up the pretense. Indeed, the startling revelation that a nobleman wrote "Shakespeare" would have made the First Folio a best-seller.


That's very helpful info, thanks.

[Spektator]

I heard that Cervantes and Shakespeare were the same person. They died after all on the same day. Eyewitnesses heard things that sounded like "I'm Shakespeare! I'm Cervantes! There can be only one!" coming from the deceased's room.

There was also a less successful French playwright named Shakespierre.

Little bit of historical trivia:

Miguel de Cervantes and William Shakespeare died on the same date: April 23, 1616. Yet they died ten days apart. Spain had adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1582; their conversion from the Julian calendar required that ten days be subtracted from the current date on the day of conversion. England was still on the old Julian calendar and would be until they finally changed to the Gregorian calendar in 1752.

So Shakespeare's April 23 was ten days later than Cervantes' April 23. According to the Gregorian calendar, Shakespeare's birthday--and deathday--would have been May 3.

This leaves aside the question of the actual birthday of Shakespeare, which we do not know; we do know when he was baptized in Trinity Church (April 26, 1564), but April 23 is a pretty much arbitrary guess as to the day on which he was born (at least according to the Julian calendar). One reason it's widely accepted is that it is also St. George's Day; another is that it is the day on which Shakespeare died fifty-two yers later.

[Mel Odious]

I reread the graveyard scene and I didn't see anything to suggest that Claudius might be Hamlet's father either.

RedIbis or Redtail, how about a hint. Is the clue we're looking for to be found in Hamlet's conversation with the clown, or later, during the burial of Ophelia and confrontation with Laertes?

[Redtail]

Whoops! Sorry, things are hectic here and I forgot about this thread. It's about 2am here so please forgive the typos.

Ok, Bare in mind that I'm coming at this from an actor point of view. Redibis may be coming from a critic's/dramaturge/something else... point of view, so it may differ from mine.

I'm going to be using "theatre terms" so if you need clarification please ask.:)

Ok, here are some hints.

It comes from the "actors'/director's choice", there is nothing really overt as far as I can see. (granted every time I read/perform Shakespeare,I find something new.)

It is "nailed down" in the graveyard scene but it doesn't begin there.

The ONLY way this can work is with VERY good actors and an audience that is "hip" and willing to go there.

Ok, for those that don't want to try to figure it out, here are the spoilers. (this is kind of long.)

It starts in Act 1; scene 5.

Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast,
With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts,--
O wicked wit and gifts, that have the power
So to seduce!--won to his shameful lust
The will of my most seeming-virtuous queen:
O Hamlet, what a falling-off was there!
From me, whose love was of that dignity
That it went hand in hand even with the vow
I made to her in marriage, and to decline
Upon a wretch whose natural gifts were poor
To those of mine!
But virtue, as it never will be moved,
Though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven,
So lust, though to a radiant angel link'd,
Will sate itself in a celestial bed,
And prey on garbage.

Now this can be presented as what happened after the murder or before the murder. Remember that his father King hamlet was a warrior. He was gone a lot while Claudius was really good at handling the day to day "pencil pushing".

Also The Ghost says:

But, howsoever thou pursuest this act,
Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive
Against thy mother aught: leave her to heaven
And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge,
To prick and sting her.

Again, this can be presented as "Don't tell your mother because she will then know. That I know that you are not my son." Hamlet doesn't get it yet but it is planted in both his and the audience's minds. Also this could be a point of "She can still ask forgiveness and go to heaven" or "Both of them will wind up here with me and I can have some amusement."

Now then, in the graveyard scene, we have the Clown's intro, Hamlet and Horatio, and then the back and forth between Hamlet and the first Clown then:
(I'm going to try to add commentary so ya'll can understand where the actors would be coming from but remember it a play, thus it is meant to be seen. Also I'm not a writer by trade.:o)

First Clown
Of all the days i' the year, I came to't that day
that our last king Hamlet overcame Fortinbras.

HAMLET
How long is that since?

First Clown
Cannot you tell that? every fool can tell that: it
was the very day that young Hamlet was born; he that
is mad, and sent into England.

HAMLET
Ay, marry, why was he sent into England?

First Clown
Why, because he was mad: he shall recover his wits
there; or, if he do not, it's no great matter there.
{He's nuts and in England they won't notice! LOL!}

HAMLET
Why?
{Really?} Stone cold eyes, clinched jaw

First Clown
'Twill, a not be seen in him there; there the men
are as mad as he.
{Well, um... yeah. [Why is he upset?]}

HAMLET
How came he mad?
{Keeeeeep digging little man}

First Clown
Very strangely, they say.
{WHAT!?!?! The guy went nuts... You a friend of....}

HAMLET
How strangely?
{So you KNOW why he went nuts!?!?!}

First Clown
Faith, e'en with losing his wits.
{YEAH!!! So what!!??!}

HAMLET
Upon what ground?
{You SURE!?!?!}

First Clown
Why, here in Denmark: I have been sexton here, man
and boy, thirty years.
{Yes!! Damn sure!!!}

HAMLET
How long will a man lie i' the earth ere he rot?
{You do realize I can kill you?}

First Clown
I' faith, if he be not rotten before he die--{Oh crap!}as we
have many pocky corses now-a-days, that will scarce
hold the laying in--he will last you some eight year
or nine year: a tanner will last you nine year.
{He's Hamlet!!! Find an out! Find an out! Find an Out!}

HAMLET
Why he more than another?
{Yeah.. You know who I am now huh!??!}

First Clown
{Find an out!!! WAIT!!! Change his line of thinking! I heard that he thinks he saw his "father's" ghost. So tell him about what happened when daddy was gone fighting.}
Why, sir, his hide is so tanned with his trade, that
he will keep out water a great while; and your water
is a sore decayer of your whoreson dead body.
{At this point Hamlet show that he figures out that the ghost may NOT be his Dad and: OH CRAP I JUST CALLED HIS MOTHER A WHORE!! CHANGE THOUGHT AGAIN!!!}

Here's a skull now; this skull has lain in the earth
three and twenty years.
{Remmeber that guy you hung out with when your dad was gone?}

HAMLET
Whose was it?
{Stunned: Huh?}

First Clown
A whoreson mad fellow's it was: whose do you think it was?
{That was the Whoreson milord!}

HAMLET
Nay, I know not.
{Still stunned , but is seen as pissed by Clown. Huh!??!}

First Clown
A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! a' poured a
flagon of Rhenish on my head once. This same skull,
sir, was Yorick's skull, the king's jester.
{Ignore me!!!!!}

HAMLET
This?
{That guy? That's good.}

First Clown
E'en that.
{Whew!}

HAMLET
Let me see.

Takes the skull

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow
of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath
borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how
abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rims at
it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know
not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your
gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment,
that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one
now, to mock your own grinning? quite chap-fallen?
Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let
her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must
come; make her laugh at that. Prithee, Horatio, tell
me one thing.

{Hamlet reverts to childhood to avoid the fact that his mother was... frisky}

Again this is done by actors'/director's choice.

This can be broken down more but it's 3 am now so I'm gonna stand down for tonight. I'll be glad to expand on this tomorrow though.

[boloboffin]

That's a very subtle reading of the graveyard scene, but it actually is rooted in the first Ghost-Hamlet dialogue as you lay it out. Like I said, I am certainly willing to go there, and even if Shakespeare doesn't think it actual, Hamlet certainly could suspect so.

And it ties right in with a couple of themes - his suspicion of women, and his misanthropy in general which has him railing against himself in the same type of language that he rails against Claudius.

And elder Hamlet - everytime we hear a story about him, he is off smoting the sledded Polack, isn't he? Leaving that lust-filled woman back home...

And if you believe, as I do, that Ophelia was pregnant by Hamlet (equating Claudius and he in lust), and that Ophelia took her share of the rue she gathered and used it as an abortifaciant before killing herself (and how the Queen hid all of this so well, so well - sweets to the sweet), then that sounds like a chip off the old block, doesn't it?

ETA: Well, my goodness, you've got me thinking tonight.

Since I do believe Ophelia's pregnant, another bit just slipped into place. That great monologue of hers where she describes Hamlet walking away from her in his madness? What if that's a monologue because it didn't happen?

It could be a gambit, meant to break her father's lockdown and possibly force a marriage because she's about to start showing. She creates that romantic encounter from her own fantasy, and Hamlet MUST love her because of it, and her father has to accept it. But she has no idea that her father is protecting Claudius from his murder of elder Hamlet (the things you learn behind a curtain - has there been any other time, I fain would know that). Polonius is ironically pleased that Hamlet is mad for love because it means Hamlet is not mad for suspicion of Claudius' crime. And so Ophelia must provoke Hamlet's madness by being as cruel as she dares, and when Hamlet says "Where's your father?", he hasn't seen Polonius at all.

Oh, I won't get any sleep tonight. The fairer rest is mine.

Very interesting.

[RedIbis]

The indications that Hamlet has doubt about his parentage begin from the moment he steps on stage.

In all the ways that the line (forgive me if I misquote, I don't the text in front of me), "I am too much in the sun" can be interpreted, one might be, I was my father's son, now I'm my uncle's step son, I am too many fathers' son. Of course, he's also saying that I am to much the center of the solar system, and the more literal, I'm too bright and cheery for how gloomy and dark you think I look.

However, in the graveyard scene the first clown offers Hamlet some very strange coincidences. That's the clue.

Several events happened at the same time. If you want me to just spell out the theory, I will, but if you want the opportunity to look through the dialogue between Hamlet and the clown, go ahead and see if you can see how coincidental these very important events are.

[SpaceMonkeyZero]

Little bit of historical trivia:

Miguel de Cervantes and William Shakespeare died on the same date: April 23, 1616. Yet they died ten days apart. Spain had adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1582; their conversion from the Julian calendar required that ten days be subtracted from the current date on the day of conversion. England was still on the old Julian calendar and would be until they finally changed to the Gregorian calendar in 1752.

So Shakespeare's April 23 was ten days later than Cervantes' April 23. According to the Gregorian calendar, Shakespeare's birthday--and deathday--would have been May 3.

This leaves aside the question of the actual birthday of Shakespeare, which we do not know; we do know when he was baptized in Trinity Church (April 26, 1564), but April 23 is a pretty much arbitrary guess as to the day on which he was born (at least according to the Julian calendar). One reason it's widely accepted is that it is also St. George's Day; another is that it is the day on which Shakespeare died fifty-two yers later.

10 Days. That gives him enough time to fake his death in Spain, then secretly travel to England and really die.

Woooo!

Great info.

[Retrograde]

10 Days. That gives him enough time to fake his death in Spain, then secretly travel to England and really die.

Makes sense to me. Have you ever noticed that no one in history ever really dies when they're supposed to? Napoleon faked his death on St. Helena and moved to New Orleans (who can blame him?), Hilter's in Argentina, and of course JFK and Elvis are living in a nursing home in Texas - I saw it in a movie!

[SpaceMonkeyZero]

Makes sense to me. Have you ever noticed that no one in history ever really dies when they're supposed to? Napoleon faked his death on St. Helena and moved to New Orleans (who can blame him?), Hilter's in Argentina, and of course JFK and Elvis are living in a nursing home in Texas - I saw it in a movie!

And together they battled an Egyptian Mummy. Heroes... to the end!

[gumboot]

I think it's worth point out that aside from Shakespeare's hideous grasp of geography and foreign cultures (for example the fact that regardless of where each play is set, the characters always have similar sounding names), his plays also contain a huge amount of incredibly crass low-brow humour aimed at pleasing the slovenly masses.

That's a sure sign that the author was not a lord.

-Gumboot

[Spektator]

I wish I could remember where I heard it--it very well might have been on the public TV show "The Story of English"--but there was a recording or at least a reminiscence of two Warwickshire farmers who were preparing fence posts or something similar. One of them remarked, "I just rough-hews them. He shapes their ends."

"There is a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will" (Hamlet 5.2.10-11)

[brodski]

That's a sure sign that the author was not a lord.


Have you had much experience of the aristocratic sense of humour?
Highbrow it ain't. :)

[RedIbis]

I think it's worth point out that aside from Shakespeare's hideous grasp of geography and foreign cultures (for example the fact that regardless of where each play is set, the characters always have similar sounding names), his plays also contain a huge amount of incredibly crass low-brow humour aimed at pleasing the slovenly masses.

That's a sure sign that the author was not a lord.

-Gumboot

Not necessarily an appeal to the masses. Shakespeare juxtiposes high art and low art to accentuate the enormous, scope, philosophy and beauty of the langauge. In this way he's like an artist who uses some dark colors to make the predominate bright colors appear brighter.

[RedIbis]

"There is a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will" (Hamlet 5.2.10-11)

Abe Lincoln had this quote emblazoned on a piece of wood and hung over his desk when he was presient.

[Walrus32]

An excellent dissection of the Oxfordian nonsense can be found in "Shakespeare in Fact" by Irvin Leigh Matus.

And, as the late A. L. Rowse pointed out many years ago, far more is known about Shakespeare's life than of any other playwrite of his time.

[Spektator]

An excellent dissection of the Oxfordian nonsense can be found in "Shakespeare in Fact" by Irvin Leigh Matus.

And, as the late A. L. Rowse pointed out many years ago, far more is known about Shakespeare's life than of any other playwrite of his time.

I'd almost agree Rowse with the single exception of Ben Jonson. He was a tireless self-promoter and left some autobiographical writings behind. But we certainly know much more about William Shakespeare than we do about, say, Robert Greene, Thomas Kyd, Christopher Marlowe, or John Webster.

[Walrus32]

(An aside - which is proper - "playwrite" or "playwright"? Or is "playwright" proper but also becoming archaic?)

[Slayhamlet]

(An aside - which is proper - "playwrite" or "playwright"? Or is "playwright" proper but also becoming archaic?)

It's "playwright". "Playwrite" is a misspelling.

[Regnad Kcin]

An excellent dissection of the Oxfordian nonsense can be found in "Shakespeare in Fact" by Irvin Leigh Matus.Ceptin' the sense is non non.

And, as the late A. L. Rowse pointed out many years ago, far more is known about Shakespeare's life than of any other playwrite of his time.Could you set the bar any lower?

[technoextreme]

Not necessarily an appeal to the masses. Shakespeare juxtiposes high art and low art to accentuate the enormous, scope, philosophy and beauty of the langauge. In this way he's like an artist who uses some dark colors to make the predominate bright colors appear brighter.
Not only that but he uses clever irony. He uses the narrator in Henry V to say how everyone was thinking about honor and chivalry and then cuts to the Eastcheap gang talking about raping France.

[Walrus32]

It's "playwright". "Playwrite" is a misspelling.

Thank you. Now I know the present tense of "wrought".

[Spektator]

(An aside - which is proper - "playwrite" or "playwright"? Or is "playwright" proper but also becoming archaic?)
As others have pointed out, it's "playwright." It comes from an Old English word, wryhta (it has a kind of Germanic pronunciation: something like REECH-ta, where the ch is the Germanic ch of ich). The word means "a builder, a maker, someone who creates something."

You see it mainly in compounds nowadays: cartwright (maker of carts), wheelwright (maker of wheels), and playwright (maker of plays). Of course you could also say "a play writer," but playwrite is nonstandard.

[NotJesus]

Ceptin' the sense is non non.

Could you set the bar any lower?

Gee, your snide one-liners are awfully convincing.

[Walrus32]

Ceptin' the sense is non non.

Here's a fellow frights English out of his wits. -Merry Wives of Windsor, Act 2, Sc.1


...by William Shakespeare