Roger Stritmatter - Witty Numbers: Ben Jonson’s Shakespeare First Folio Jest in Focus 

A fine example of an artistic presentation of great scholarship. Excellent, as we have come to expect. Thank you, Roger.

Your work on this is deeply appreciated. Each pesentation sheds new light on this and opens new paths to follow.

Wonderful talk. Thank you.

Congratulations. Looking forward to your next presentation!

Excellent!

Wonderfully interesting and informative thank you. The events surrounding Elizabeth Stuart and her husband Frederick V Elector Palatine of Heidelberg when they moved briefly to Prague in 1619 and left in haste in 1620 may account for the timing of the Stratford monument and of the First Folio. Given their love of theatre it is possible that they were also grand possessors of many of the hitherto unpublished plays. Heidelberg castle fell in September 1622. General Horace Vere was then stationed at nearby Mannheim with an expeditionary force. It is possibly not the failure of the Spanish match so much as the reason for its failure that is relevant here.

Wonderful lecture, thanks. 56:20 I recommend E. J. Moeran's beatiful setting of Nashe's poem, especially the rendition by the National Chamber Choir of Ireland.

Fantastic presentation, that was fascinating. Regarding Trithemius's Steganographia, I remember there was a letter from John Dee to William Cecil, about Dee being excited to have found a copy of the book in the Low Countries to bring back to England. (Of course I'm imaging that Jonson ended up with Dee's copy!) One thought I had: maybe the key for choosing which feet of the poem to select would be a little more persuasive if it was presented as something like "count to the 11th and 9th feet of the poem 2 times"? At first I was wondering why just use the value of the "I" and the combined values of the letters, why isn't the value of the "B" used? When I saw that the poem is composed of two sections of twenty feet, that made sense to me. Amazing that this poem has forty feet! Keep up the great work, can't wait to hear more about Jonson and his work.

I thoroughly enjoyed this presentation. Others may have noted this, but the body of the To the Reader poem has 17 capital letters. The 17th word from the end of the poem is "ever." As you point out, there are 40 feet in the poem. So, in keeping with the rule of threes, there may be two more 40s and one more 17! 🤔

Jonson was posthumously associated with the mythological figure Virbius. Given that this figure involves the idea of doubling, I guess it is possible that those who associated Virbius with Jonson were evoking (amongst other things) Jonson’s shapes within shapes notion.

Percy Allen noted that the 10-line "To the Reader" poem echoes the 49th stanza of VENVS AND ADONIS: Look, when a painter would surpass the life In limning out a well-proportion'd steed, His art with nature's workmanship at strife, As if the dead the living should exceed; So did this horse excel a common one In shape, in courage, colour, pace, and bone. This Figure, that thou here seest put, It was for gentle Shakespeare cut; Wherein the Grauer had a strife with Nature, to out-doo the life: O, could he haue but drawne his wit As well in brasse, as he hath hit His face; the Print would then surpasse All, that vvas euer vvrit in brasse. But, since he cannot, Reader, looke Not on his Picture, but his Booke. The First Folio is a collection of the Shakespeare plays, and thus does not include VENVS AND ADONIS or LUCRECE, or the SONNETS & A LOVER'S COMPLAINT. Jonson had to have been relying on the Readers' awareness of those earlier works -- or, of VENUS at least -- in order to understand his allusion to that telling stanza. A "graver" and a "painter" do essentially the same thing, in that they create artistic representations of some living subject -- be it a HORSE painted by a painter, or a MAN whose image is 'cut' by a Graver (or Engraver) -- to be viewed by the public in an art gallery or on a printed page. Both poems contrast the artist with 'nature'/'Nature' (which created both the Horse in V&A and 'Shakespeare' in B.I.'s poem), the 'painter' attempting to 'surpass' the life (i.e. the living horse), his painting 'exceed'-ing the subject of his workmanship, and the 'Grauer' attempting also to 'surpasse' by 'out-doo'-ing the life of 'Shakespeare'. Both poems rhyme 'life' with 'strife' -- both reference an artist being at strife with Nature. There can be no doubt that Jonson was deliberately echoing this V&A stanza, inviting us to compare the true 'gentle Shakespeare' with the 'Figure' which is meant to represent him in brass by referring back to the "well-proportion'd steed' that did "excel a common one" -- the word 'gentle' here meaning 'Noble' (as Roger mentions), AS OPPOSED TO 'common'. Shakspere was the commoner from Stratford -- and 'Shakespeare', by implication, was a Nobleman who -- by definition -- excels, or ranks higher than, a fellow from the lower classes. And that nobleman's name, indeed, was Edward de Vere.

Wonderful presentation, thank you. (Im only a third of the way through, but wanted to share that the book "Triumphal forms; structural patterns in Elizabethan poetry" by Fowler (which I think is on Archive) provides some fascinating insights into the literature, especially poetry, of the Elizabethan period.

thank you!

Great presentation, Roger. A quick, small edit - your slide of the two "noble Henries" has the date circa 1523, but should be 1623. This is great background on the FF!

"...hit His face"....hid His face.

Speaking of the pronunciation of names... in the UK, Pembroke is pronounced Pembrook; Buckingham is Bucking - um,; Derby is Darby.

Proud to say I now have Charlotte Armstrong's book...

Please feel free to leave questions or challenges. For more on the authorship question, here's my website: shake-speares-bible.com/

Love the presentation, but can’t quite follow the decryption of Jonson. If we have B = 2 and I = 9 How do we get 11 feet, then 9 feet, etc.? Why not 2 feet then 9 feet or 11 feet then 2 feet? Sorry if I missed it.

26:10 - I presume the caption should read "circa 1623".

30:12 - "... iambic tetrameters ... de-da de-da de-da de-da de-da de-da ... ??

Just think, I could go to university to learn about this nonsense and end up with a huge debt and be largely unemployable. All this knowledge can be found for free on the internet or for the price of a few secondhand books. Better to become an autodidact and avoid attending tedious lectures at 9 am and ending up with a worthless English degree.