Who Wrote Shakespeare? | Sir Jonathan Bate & Alexander Waugh 

True. Shame he talks such unmitigated crap. The bit where he dismisses 'my name is Will' because it sounds silly out of context. IN context, the sonnet is a clever piece of punning word-play with the name Will, and 'my name is Will' at the end doesn't jar in any way. He imagines Christopher Marlowe saying 'my name is Chris'. which of course sounds stupid. Why? Because 'Chris' is a modern contraction Christopher Marlowe was known as 'Kit' as we all know. If 'Kit' actually worked as a multiple pun the same way the Will works does, then it would not jar in the slightest. If you think that the poet writing his name at the end is clumsy, then that's fine. I don't. But if it is a solecism, then it just shows that Shakespeare was having an off-day, not that he wasn't the man from Stratford. And it's not the only sonnet that plays with the word 'will'. The other one is also a rather saucy and flirtations bit of word play trading on the fact that the word 'will' was used for sexual organs then. Waugh has a Trumpian ability to dismiss the truth that works well in this setting. The way he dismisses William Camden's identification of Shakespeare as the writer is a good example of this. He should NOT be allowed to get away with his dismissal of the 'will' sonnet. According to Waugh " ...'he says my name is will, and then he says 'Among a number one is reckoned none'. Not true. 'My name is Will' is at the END of the sonnet. 'the one is reckoned none' line is much much earlier. There is no subsequent line to 'my name is will'. Let's be clear. This is a saucy poem about willies and fannies, cleverly playing with the word 'will'. It simply wouldn't work if the author's name WASN'T Will. It is Shakespeare laying claim to this own name, though it is unwitting testimony, because he clearly never imagined that a bunch of snobs a few centuries later would be trying to steal the credit from him and confer it on that unspeakable piece of shit, the Earl of Oxford. but don't take my word for it. Here is the sonnet IN FULL with the lines IN CONTEXT: "If thy soul check thee that I come so near, Swear to thy blind soul that I was thy Will, And will, thy soul knows, is admitted there; Thus far for love, my love-suit, sweet, fulfil. Will, will fulfil the treasure of thy love, Ay, fill it full with wills, and my will one. In things of great receipt with ease we prove Among a number one is reckoned none: Then in the number let me pass untold, Though in thy store's account I one must be; For nothing hold me, so it please thee hold That nothing me, a something sweet to thee: Make but my name thy love, and love that still, And then thou lovest me for my name is 'Will.' "

there's more on his YT: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-XqV44taFNUc.html&

Waugh is a very effective public speaker, more so than Bate perhaps, but that's about all he's got going for him. His arguments are very poor if you take the trouble to actually listen to him.

@@MrMartibobs Nothing that stops "Will" from being a pen-name. The poet disparages himself by calling himself "that nothing me" before he decides his name is "Will" In other Sonnets the poet asserts that he desires and deserves only anonymity, so the idea that "Will" must be his real name is antithetical to the rest of the general plot of the sonnets. Sonnet 71 "Do not so much as my poor name rehearse" Sonnet72 "My name be buried where my body is And live no more to shame nor me nor you" Sonnet 76 "That "Every Word" doth ALMOST tel my name" ("every word" is ALMOST an anagram for Edward Vere) add this little bit of Lear Lear Act 1 Scene 1 Regan: Sir, I am made Of the self-same metal that my sister is, And prize me at her worth. In my true heart I find she NAMES MY VERY DEED of love; NAMES MY = MY NAME'S DEED = ED DE VERY = VER (Y) NAMES MY VERY DEED = MY NAME'S EDY DE VER Ed is short for Edward, so is Eddie. Ned is short for Mine Ed so Ed came first Edy for Eddie is just obvious... and a 17 word string from All's Well that ends with a double anagram (in case you miss it the first time...) “If she, my liege, can make me know this clearly/I’ll love her dearly, ever, ever, dearly.” "dearly ever" = Earl dy Vere or Edy Vere, Earl "ever dearly" = Earl dy Vere or Edy Vere, Earl obviously there are more, but you get the idea...

@@stevenhershkowitz2265 Earl dy Vere? Pull the other one. I can't get over the fact that you people look at a wonderful work of art like 'Lear' and all you can do is look for pathetic anagrams. And of course, it's obvious that de Vere was called Eddie. Utter tosh and I think you know it. Here's an anagram from King Lear Act 4 scene 4: 'this is all the fiend ste hersh'. Can't take credit for it as it's by my son - who's far cleverer than me. People have been raking over this stuff for over a hundred years. Of course they'll find anagrams, if they're looking for them.

Believe it or not when we Americans have formal debates Say to not interrupt one another and most especially if it's simply 2 people. This is because one person gets the microphone and speaks and then the other 1 does so. Shocking if you look at our politics but in actual true debates There's hardly ever a way to enter roped in the 1st place but they're very polite. You could watch a Muslim and a Christian debate on RU-vid and USA and you will never see arguments or disrespect for the most part. Sounds crazy but it's true

They used to be.

@@choice12ozborne The reference Schatten Sand made was to Germany. Read before you leap.

Politicians do not have any respect for others and especially not for themselves because inside they are well aware that they are just lying to gain power and profit. Talking over anyone speaking has been made popular by the ignorant, especially Trump, who are mentally ill equipped or lacking the knowledge and intellect to make an intelligent argument. Mindless brainwashed trump cult zombies make it easy for him because they are also lacking education and knowledge to the point of illiteracy.

So.....you're not familiar with Bild Zeitung obviously ? You're correct about one thing. . Unlike media and politicians in Germany our Press does not censor itself with regard to certain issues . Apart from the BBC of course which is basically The Guardian with film reports ! ( partly explains why audience numbers are shrinking so fast ! )

Same!

Totally agree! 👍

The most curious thing is that you could be right! It will also be an extraordinary case for Sherlock indeed!

I prefer Hamlet in the original Silurian

Speaking of Doctor Who, in an interview with David Tennant, he was asked the question about who he thinks wrote Shakespeare. He answered: "I don't care who wrote it. It only matters that the works have been preserved and that we perform them" He also said that he disagreed with Julian Fellows, who proclaimed that only someone with an elite education could understand and perform Shakespeare. He pointed to himself, who had a modest education. In my lifetime of nearly 70 years, 40 plus years of which as an as an opera singer singing Wagner, Verdi etc., it wasn't until Judi Dench, David Tennant, and Catherine Tate performances that I really understood the text.

His title is Sir Jonathan. It's a peculiarity of English that the Knighthood refers to the Christian name, not the surname. Oh, and I'm an Oxfordian 😊

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ljM11ib4Apk.htmlsi=qc_F_iOf2Vo7Cvqi

Not only is this not even remotely true, it should be noted that Marlowe's name didn't appear on his plays until well after his death.

@@stevenhershkowitz2265 What part isn't remotely true? That Marlowe's name was spelled many different ways? Shakespeare's name appeared on his plays as spelt by compositors, and there is no evidence Shakespeare was involved in the printing. Like Marlowe/Marley, the printers spelled the name differently than the author's signature. BTW, on the spelling of Marlowe's name, here's a useful essay by the late Peter Farey, twice the winner of the Hoffman Prize: www.rey.prestel.co.uk/names.htm

@@bomagosh Marlowe's name did not appear on any play until after he was dead. He was not there to correct any record. As far as the "merlin" names...the writer of the article at your link leaves room for that to be an error of interpretation on his own part.. It is clear that Shakespeare was involved in the printing of Venus and Adonis in 1593 and The Rape of Lucrece in 1594, and both times the name is clearly William Shakespeare. Inexplicably the name of the author of those bestselling poems did not appear on any plays until 1598 - a full year after William of Stratford bought his house in Stratford. The name was frequently hyphenated by the printers, most notably on the cover of Shake-speares Sonnets printed in 1609 - late enough in the writer's career for printers to have a clear idea of how the name should be spelled. The name was never hyphenated when it refers to events in the town of Stratford, and in those cases it is spelled to be pronounced with a short A as in Shaxper. The name on the Last Will and Testament just months before his death is spelled Shackspeare.

@@stevenhershkowitz2265 So when you say it's not remotely true, you're saying that it's entirely true, but that you imagine that Marlowe would have corrected all the variant spellings of his name had he survived? I relied on the paper I cited to you, written by an acknowledged expert on Marlowe's biography. The name was hyphenated in fifteen quarto editions of Shakespeare's plays, but thirteen of those were in editions of just three plays (Richard II, Richard III, and 1 Henry IV) printed by Andrew Wise and the man who took over Wise's business in 1603, Matthew Law. It's correct that his name was not hyphenated in records related to Stratford because it was never hyphenated in any known manuscript, in Stratford or elsewhere, and none of the Stratford records were set in print. As for the pronunciation - are you familiar with the linguistic phenomenon that was occurring in England between 1400 and 1700 referred to as the Great Vowel Shift? Pronunciation of words with short and long "a" sounds was changing at exactly the time Shakespeare was alive. The modern pronunciation was still evolving; a long a sound was exactly that - the same sound as a short a, drawn out - an "ahhh" sound, rather than a short "a". So at the time, Shakespeare's name would sound like "Shack-speare" or "Shahk-speare." There was no standardized pronunciation or spelling; Elizabethans were taught to spell phonetically so the print compositors would either spell as they heard the name, or copy the spelling from a previous edition of the text. There is no reason to think they had a copy of Shakespeare's signature, or that they would feel the need to spell his name the same way. But that's not to say that the spelling of "Shakespeare" cannot be shown as applying to William of Stratford. That spelling was used in the text of the papers related to his purchase of the Blackfriars Gatehouse (though he signed the documents with an abbreviation to fit his name on a narrow vellum tab that attached an official seal to the document). It was used in the text of his affidavit in a London court case. If people were so careful about the spelling of their names, why does Edward de Vere frequently sign as "Oxenford" rather than "Oxford?" I sometimes wonder if Waugh is trying to see how much nonsense he can get the Deniers to accept.

@@stevenhershkowitz2265 Great summary of the evidence about when and where the name appears.

Great post, James. Yes, the moderator was way out of her depth, and poor old Jonathan came out with all the tired old quips about Delia Bacon going mad and Thomas Looney being a 'looney' and, more personally 'ad hominem', saying the Waughs are contrarians and lovers of aristocracts - so of course (implicitly) cannot be trusted to mount a serious, evidence-backed argument. And as for Jonathan's pathetic point about the introduction of candles into the theatre and thus generating the 'five-Act play' structure - what a load of hogswash! There is no single piece of hard evidence whatsoever that his risible point can muster in its defence (good to see Alexander mocking the point, as well it deserves). While I myself incline much more to Marlowe as the real Shakespeare (cf. Marlowe's literary style and greatness, parallel with Shakespeare's, and the compelling reasons for later concealing his identity, if indeed Marlowe faked his own 'death' to escape imminent torture and possible execution), there is a good deal of evidence that suggests Edward de Vere could well have been at least heavily involved in the Shakespeare works, if not indeed their author. I remain open to this very real possibility. There are just too many links between Edward de Vere and the Shakespeare works to give serious consideration to his candidacy. But the Stratfordians are completely closed to the possibility that the supreme poet could be anyone other than the man of no documented education, Will Shakspere. People really should by now be prepared to take a leap over the bounds of the literary-establishment box.

John, thanks for your good reply. It is refreshing to see someone with an open mind on this issue. The most important audience for this discussion is young people, who likely will not be introduced to it in their formal education today. Sadly, it appeared as though the vast majority of the audience for this debate was the old geezers.

Thanks, James, for your kind words. They are much appreciated. Yes, it is sad that most of the audience seemed to be of the older generation (not that I am denigrating the older generation - far from it, as they often possess a strong ability for critical thinking - but we do need 'young blood' in this debate). The hope I see is that the Internet is exposing even the youth to alternate candidates as the Shakespeare author. There are so many great videos on the Shakespeare Authorship Question on the Internet now that I am optimistic that the case for a serious re-assessment of who actually was behind the Shakespeare works will gradually and steadily reach more and more young students and young people in general (who like watching RU-vid videos). I suspect that within a generation, it will be common knowledge that there are good grounds for doubting that Will Shaksper was the real Shakespeare author. The Internet is our friend: it dares to put questions that the dinosaur Shakespeare scholars dare not ask (as they cannot convincingly answer them!).

Thanks for mentioning the Arte of English Poesie, James. Here is an article that shows why it was probably written by Oxford himself-- shakespeareoxfordfellowship.org/wp-content/uploads/Waugaman-Arte.pdf

At the risk of becoming part of a "thank you" party, thank you Professor Norwood and John Richardson and Dr. Waugamun for speaking up.

If you claim that Dante was just a pen name and that Signore Alighieri was just a front man for some other writer, how do you prove that he was the author of La Comedìa? There are no surviving manuscripts in his hand. When people claimed "Dante" was the writer, they were just referring to the pen name, not the Florence man.

well I could do that, if I wish, because the Commedia is - in some sense - an autobiographical work whose author mentioned facts, experiences, people related to his own life (the battle of Campaldino, Cacciaguida, Casella and Forese Donati, etc) that for the most find a match in Dante Alighieri's documented biography. I have no particular interest in the Shakespeare Authorship Question, I find it strange that such a question does exist at all.

@@triumphbobberbiker It IS strange that it does exist at all, given how well Shakespeare is documented as a poet. I mean his deceased SON was named Hamlet. People and places from his home town appear in the plays. The only schoolboy character in all of Shakespeare's works is named William. In a sonnet, he says "My name is Will". In another, he makes a pun on his wife's last name. On occasion he accidentally wrote the names of his fellow actors instead of the characters they were meant to play. He owned the acting company which performed Shakespeare's plays and The theaters in which they were performed. Anti-Stratfordians ignore these details just as I could ignore the biographical details found in La Comedìa. If I had a candidate I wanted to promote as the REAL Dante, imagining justifications for why the aristocrat who was identified by the establishment was just a front would be a breeze. I mean, we have a fellow poet who knew Shakespeare well, and who even described Shakespeare's writing process. How do they get around such a solid witness? Ben Jonson was part of the plot. That's how.

The English are certainly weird, their classicist attitudes force them into pseudo-abstract speculation

This is a rarity and kind one of a one-off sadly. I do think the public is very slowly becoming open to the idea though.

@@Str8Maddeness no, it really doesn’t. And listen to Waugh. His argument is based on little, and he’s repeatedly - frankly shockingly sometimes - inaccurate and very dismissive of what are good, solid counterpoints

What are you talking about? He presented lots of arguments and evidence, why wouldn't he? Watch it again and listen this time!

Have a look at his RU-vid channel... much more evidence there. It is excellent.

gJb 1 What?

MrDavey2010 doesn't watch videos.

I would love to, but only if there's a cross examination. I would tear him to bits.

@@Jeffhowardmeade I doubt that. Not sure that de Vere wrote the plays. But did the man Shakespeare write the plays? Absolutely not.

@@dirremoire And you base this on what evidence?

What evidence did the "doubters" present?

@@Jeffhowardmeade none as always.

That's because the anti-Stratfordians are right.

But only one of them has made lying his profession.

@@rstritmatter i dont think waugh thinks he is lying... he is just a nut.

@@Stantheman848 more ad hominums. waugh won the debate fair and square. it was matter of damage limitation as far as bate was concerned. his arguments were pathetic and waugh did a good job of pulling them apart. the 'my name is will' bit was esp hilarious. i would feel sorry for stratters but they are lying sacks of shit conmen that need to be flogged for continuing to peddle one of the greatest frauds in history. maybe bate felt guilty and doubting his beliefs and wanted to show the world the poverty of the stratfordian hypothesis

​@@Stantheman848Another as hominem attack by a Stratfordian. You lot just can't argue with the evidence, can you?

The follow up was cancelled. The follow up was supposed to be about the Oxfordian case, but Bate backed out of it.

@@rstritmatter Thank you for letting us know.

It's because the Stratfordians bottled it.

I put this up a few days ago but it seems to have gone missing,

​@@dominickreyntiens7516 I just read it. And frankly, all you have established is that it was _potentially_ a dangerous business. Far more companies and playwrights spent their entire careers without falling afoul of the censors than those who actually did so. The stories where they did are more dramatic than the ones where they didn't, so they stick out. However, considering that theatre managed to survive three successive monarchs and only was shut down permanently in 1642 due to religious fanatics taking over, rather than the crown's own objections, it can be readily seen that theatre was a far less precarious profession than you're presenting it.

@@Nullifidian Read some Charles Nichol.

@@dominickreyntiens7516 Anything specific? Because I already have read some of his books, and as far as I'm aware he doesn't claim that incidents like the furor over _The Isle of Dogs_ were the norm. He generally sticks to what the documentary record actually says. _The Isle of Dogs_ is famous because it was the _worst_ case of theatrical repression. Also, you've got your facts wrong. Gabriel Spencer (whom Ben Jonson would later kill in a duel), Robert Shaa, and Jonson were sent to Marshalsea, but no other cast members were arrested. Orders were drawn up for their arrest, but they didn't follow through, which indicates the lack of interest the crown had in punishing the players. Shaa and Spencer were both released within days, and even Jonson was out of prison by October. Nashe was never arrested, even when he returned to London. And this is the _worst_ case scenario. Ben Jonson then offended King James I and VI with the anti-Scottish satire and the satire about the new creations of knights in _Eastward Ho_ and he was locked up in prison once again, along with George Chapman, but _not_ John Marston, the third co-author. The play is extant, so the authorities' displeasure didn't extend to suppressing the play. Thomas Middleton offended James with the satire about the failed marriage negotiations with Spain that attempted to get Prince Charles hitched to the Infanta Maria Anna that was called _A Game at Chess_ and yet... he got let off because the Master of the Revels approved the script. This play is also extant. Shakespeare's company put a foot wrong a couple of times too. When they were the Lord Chamberlain's Men, they played the infamous command performance of _Richard II_ on the eve of the Essex Rebellion. Augustine Phillips was called before the Privy Council to testify, but otherwise they faced no recriminations and were actually playing at court within two weeks of their 'offense'. And then when they were just created the King's Men, they decided to stage _The Tragedy of Gowrie_ , which was a play about a foiled assassination attempt on King James. Even though they doubtlessly flattered James shamelessly, an assassination attempt on a sitting monarch was way too touchy a subject to be staged. And yet once again, beyond getting their wrists slapped and the play never being published, there was no further punishment. King James could have withdrawn his patronage and killed the company (because no nobleman would take up the patronage of a company the king had cast off) with no sort of legal oversight. It was entirely within his own discretion. And yet he wasn't interested in punishing actors. The government generally was just not that bothered.

Shakespeare's acting company was the Lord Chamberlain's Men. Among the LC's duties was court entertainment. The Master of Revels worked for him. He was also the Queen's cousin. After she died, Shakespeare's company became The King's Men. Literally grooms extraordinary of the chamber to King James. Shakespeare's work was the epitome of establishment. The gravest danger he faced was failing to entertain HRH and therefore displeasing the Lord Chamberlain.

Ben Jonson left a literary paper trial. Look up Diana Price's Shakespeare's Unorthodox Biography

​@@joecurran2811 William Shakespeare also left a literary paper trail. His name is on every quarto of the Shakespeare canon that credits an author, his name is on every Folio publication, his name is in the Stationers' Register, his name is in the Master of the Revels' Accounts in association with the plays _Measure for Measure_ , _The Comedy of Errors_ , and _The Merchant of Venice_ , and his name is in contemporary literary anthologies like _Englands Helicon_ , _Englands Parnassus_ , and _Bel-vedere, or The Garden of the Muses_ . In addition, we have the testimony of _every_ contemporary who bothered to address the subject, including several who knew William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon personally and/or professionally. Diana Price places herself in the false position of having to deny all of this evidence without explicitly explaining why it's insufficient because it's not 'supposed to exist' in her ideology. The effect of which is that she gives an insufficient and biased presentation that ignores the salient evidence, and one is left perfectly at liberty to doubt why the gold standard for a historical fact is that should satisfy the slanted and ideologically motivated standards of Diana Price.

scriabiniste Convincing to whom? Not anyone with fully developed critical thinking skills.

So Mark Twain isn't a critical thinker????? It is preposterous to believe that this person from Stratford could have authored anything, a man whose formal education -- for which, incidentally there is no evidence -- at the Stratford Grammar school could never have equipped him with the vast, erudite and highly literary knowledge of the classics, allusions to which abound in the works of Shakespeare. The first work published under the name of Shakespeare, "Venus and Adonis" is so obviously and strikingly a court poem. Reading this, with no position about the author, it is virtually impossible to imagine it to be the product of the mind of the Stratfordian. But if Twain, Looney and Ogburn can't convince, I don't expect that I can. C'est la vie.

scriabiniste No, Mark Twain is not a critical thinker. A brilliant satirist and story teller, but no, not a great critical thinker. He also died before many of the pieces of evidence we now have were available. Oh, and if Venus and Adonis is so obviously a "court poem" why was it based on a story taught to school kids, printed by a friend of Shakespeare's, and then reprinted a dozen times in at least tens of thousands of copies in his lifetime. Just how large IS this mythical court of yours? Such poems were routinely written by middle-class authors and dedicated to noblemen. Your glaring ignorance of the era is telling.

Good places to begin, indeed.

If it was an obvious court poem, why would its author bother to use a pseudonym? The Oxfordian myth consists of a series of ad hoc rationalizations. Many of them are illogical on their race -- like an Earl having to use an allonym to publish a court poem -- and the rest are illogical in context.

Waugh was more interested in being a drama queen and playing the victim. He is a member of the De Vere Society. He frequently speaks about De Vere as Shakespeare. He was fully capable of putting forward the case for De Vere if he chose right then and there.

@@Bigwave2003 That wasn't the agreed topic for debate. The original agreement was for two debates, the first of them to focus on the existence of the question and the second to discuss the Oxfordian case. No second debate was held because Bate backed out. Next time, please study up.

There's a type of moderator that nearly always manages to screw things up. That's all I'm going to say on the subject.

@@Frip36 Prudent, no doubt. But in this case the problem lies not merely with the moderation but with the political pressures brought by the Shakespeare Industrial Complex to avoid international headlines that Bate had been bested by Waugh in a second round on the question of whether Oxford wrote the plays. Bate prudently fled rather than risk this outcome.

@@rstritmatter Have you considered going on the Mythvision podcast or Gnostic Informant on RU-vid? They cover religious myths but I think that is similar enough to Stratfordianism. I know you are a busy man but it is a way to reach an audience.

Maybe it could be properly investigated if there were some evidence to investigate. So far, all the evidence points to Shakespeare.

@@Jeffhowardmeade ...He said, hoping that you did not actually look at the evidence yourself.

@@floatingholmes I encourage everyone to find their nearest Anti-Stratfordian and ask him or her to present a single piece of contemporary documentary evidence which states that Shakespeare was not the author of his works, or that anyone else was. Most will be laughing their heads off before the Anti-Strat finishes "decoding" the first reference. On the other hand, there are piles of evidence that Shakespeare was the author, and no word puzzles are needed to read then.

​@@Jeffhowardmeade Circular logic.

As far as I can see most anti-stratfordians do not consider someone to have investigated anything unless that person has come to agree with them. If we take the more standard definition of investigate, then it seems to me people have investigated the claims of anti-Stratfordians and responded to them, and a response to that response might be offered. But if the response is “you did not investigate” then I have to say I don’t believe that’s true or constructive.

That answer was quicker than pointing out all of the things he got wrong about those places.

I keep on hearing about these "detailed accounts" of Helsingør, but so far nobody has actually been willing to state what "details" are there that would supposedly be inaccessible to someone who hadn't been there, and why Shakespeare couldn't have heard about them from the members of the Lord Chamberlain's Men who had been to Denmark, like Will Kempe. As for his "detailed knowledge" of Venice, he has a duke rather than a doge, has said duke judging a court case as if the political and legal organization of Venice was like Stratford, where Shakespeare's father was both magistrate and alderman, the elopement subplot of _The Merchant of Venice_ requires free movement for Jews at night even though Jews were locked inside the ghetto at night, and he manages to set an entire play in Venice without mentioning the canals, even though he mentions the Rialto, which is the oldest bridge over the Grand Canal. Nor does he mention St. Mark's Square. Ben Jonson shows much more accurate and detailed knowledge of Venice in _Volpone_ , but there's no evidence he'd ever been to Italy either. His travels seem to have been restricted to soldiering in the Low Countries.

@@Nullifidian But wait! Didn't De Vere's brother-in-law Peregrine Bertie write a letter to William Cecil in 1582 about the Danes getting drunk and firing off cannons (though not at Helsingør Castle, which was undergoing reconstruction at the time)? And wasn't De Vere given free access to all of Cecil's state correspondence, despite the fact that he was a wastrel whom nobody trusted with anything governmental, and who was persona non-grata at Cecil House after murdering a servant (1567), then calling Cecil's daughter a whore and his child by her a bastard (1575) and disowning them for six years (to 1582), then knocking up one of Elizabeth's ladies-in-waiting (1580-1)? Or maybe he just heard about it from fellow Lord Chamberlain's Men George Bryan, Thomas Pope, or Will Kempe, who actually entertained King Frederick II at the recently expanded Kronborg in 1586.

His " accounts " of those places far from being detailed displayed what anyone interested could have picked up by glancing at the account of anyone who had ever visited the place ..

@@Jeffhowardmeade What did Shake-spear/de Vere get wrong about those places? Could you name only one of them? Thank you.

Which discovery? Google cannot find anything with the query: "shroud of avon" shakespeare

@@Magic-mystery-man That was a joke. The religion that has formed around Will is as fanatical as that around Jesus. Both are equally spurious.

​@@stephenjablonsky1941Jokes are supposed to be funny.

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ljM11ib4Apk.htmlsi=qc_F_iOf2Vo7Cvqi

​@@JeffhowardmeadeWell it got under your skin 😂

I believe your argument is entirely wrong. First of all it is impossible to prove something didn't happen only that something did. This is common sense. Additionally for all of Shakespeare's contemporaries there are forms of evidence/proof that they wrote their works, for example manuscripts etc. There is however no physical proof or evidence for that matter that the man from Stratford wrote any of the poems or plays. It's also entirely false to say that the authorship has been accepted for 400 years as this is also untrue, although it's the case that most of us were not aware of the authorship issue until the advent of the Internet. For example the famous American author Mark Twain wrote a book published in 1909 questioning the authorship, and he was by no means the 1st to do so.

@@Greg_Romford the idea that Shakespeare didn’t write the plays only exists in popular culture. Within actual academia this is not a question. As is the case with most conspiracy theories.

​​@@asielnorton345 Writing it off as a conspiracy theory is a bit ad hominem isn't it? Tectonic plates used to be academically fringe. Check out videos from Shakespeare Authorship Question and the Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship ans make your own mind up.

​@@joecurran2811Ad hominem. Joo keep using dat word. I don think it means what joo think it means.

Endearing. Endeeeeeering. You're precious.

Yea and she’s hot to boot too !

My father can barely turn on a computer, and yet he has two sons who are IT professionals. Since when is literacy hereditary?

So you say you "know" this. How do you _know_ that Shakespeare's parents and "daughter" (are you even aware he had two?) "were functionally illiterate"? What firm evidence do you have of their literacy?

Hmm......yes .It was someone else who was so modest that he refused to take any credit for his artistic endeavour . ?! He preferred anonymity...? Or was he just shy ?

@@Jeffhowardmeade false analogy. Computers are a relatively new invention so completely understandable that people of an older generation don't have the experience or knowledge required to use them. Conversely, the English language, both now and in the time of Shakspeare, is not a new invention. Asking why the person credited as the finest utiliser of the English language didn't bother to ensure his own children were able to read and write is an entirely legitimate question. Perhaps if you or your brother have children of your own you could confirm whether they are (or will be) computer illiterate? I would argue that this is a more appropriate analogy.

@@Greg_Romford Computers were around during my father's youth in what later became known as the Silicon Valley, just like literacy was around in rural Warwickshire. Both were just rare. Both became much more common as time went on, and so the children of (possible -- there is no evidence either way for John Shakespeare) illiterates learned skills their fathers did not possess. In any case, Susannah Shakespeare Hall was literate. We don't know either way about Judith. Given that only about one in ten women were literate in that era, for Shakespeare to have one daughter who could read and write went against the odds.

Its easy to knock down a straw man. Google is your friend.

We have evidence tying William Blake to his literary work. Not so for the Stratford man.

There is no comparison. Blake did not write about fields he could not by any human means have had knowledge about.

​@@YourGreatPotentialIt's amazing, you guys keep claiming this but if you could genuinely produce a single example then you'd get genuine academic attention. It's so easy. If you can find something the Stratford man couldn't possibly have known, you'll make international news. But you're gonna give me some stuff about Giulio Romano, and I'm gonna say 'travelogues'; you're gonna say something about law, I'm gonna say he performed at the Inns of Court enough times; you're gonna say medicine, I'm gonna say his son in law was a doctor. Don't make claims you can't back up.

He was also an actor, and according to everyone who expressed an opinion, a poet.

And after he died, 12 more Shakespeare plays came out 😂😂

Well don't bother actually looking at the evidence then. That would only confuse you further since none of it will agree with your prejudices.

@@floatingholmes So what is the _actual_ evidence-not speculation, fantasy, and supposition-that supports the claim that Edward de Vere wrote the works of Shakespeare? There is an extensive body of documentary evidence and contemporary testimony telling us that Shakespeare was a writer, so do you have anything equally good to establish de Vere as the true author of Shakespeare's plays?

@@Nullifidian There is nothing at all connecting William Shaxper of Stratford to the work. No documentary evidence. No contemporary testimony. Nothing. No one in Stratford ever once mentions that the soul of the age lives in their town. Shaxper's will and the writings of his relatives never once mention that the famous author of Venus & Adonis, a poem beloved by the nation and the Queen is this same man. There is no evidence at all that the plays and poems were not, as so many other works of the time were, the product of a concealed author. The first connection between Stratford and the work comes from a document created after Shaxper's death. His memorial monument portrays him with a sack of wool or grain. Shaxper died never having met the Earl of Southampton, the subject of the sonnets and dedicatee of the poems. He died never having left England, never having been a soldier or sailor or lawyer or doctor-- or any of the things written about so expertly in the works. He is never persecuted or jailed as so many contemporary playwrights were, including Marlowe, Kyd and Johnson-- acknowledged collaborators in the works. All evidence about Shaxper's life contradicts these connections to the works. The positive evidence of De Vere is meaningless if you believe that the case is closed despite all these holes in the Stratford man's story. Too many people who engage on this subject are belligerent and only post in order to troll. If you are actually interested, then maybe address some of these points and I'll connect you with evidence for De Vere. But I can't help pointing out there are an abundance of sites out there already grappling with these issues of evidence and proof. It's hard to believe this is a sincere question.

@@Nullifidian Maybe I muted this conversation. I can't seem to confirm if my reply posted to you or not. At any rate, your claims are not supported by the facts. There is no body of documentary evidence connecting Shaxper of Stratford with writing the works. Not a single example of writing, no reference to him as a writer, from anyone in his family or in the town. There is no contemporary testimony connecting the works to the man from Stratford. The first time Stratford and the works are connected is after Shaxper had been dead for 7 years (in the folio, where the reference is completely ambiguous). There is evidence that a lot of work is attributed to a William Shakespeare. But there is nothing to connect that to the Stratford man except by filling in blanks that are not actually present in the record and which make very little sense with everything else about the man that can be established without a doubt. Can De Vere beat that? By a mile. The evidence for De Vere includes that De Vere was a well loved playwright of his day, yet acknowledged as one who published under another (unknown) name. He had a patron's relationship with Kyd, Marlowe, and Greene and many more writers who are considered instrumental to the works (Shaxper has no documented relationship to any of them). References to De Vere in numerous epigrams and poems connect him to Shakespeare and to the other playwrights of the day as their "Apollo." So he is established by the evidence to be a well loved poet, playwright and musician working under an assumed name, with all the collaborators of Shakespeare and with immediate connections to all the living figures referenced in the works (Southampton, Cecil, Spencer, Florio, etc.) This is far more than can be said for the Stratford man. It is also just looking at some of the direct evidence. Investigating history requires the ability to judge evidence in many ways beyond what is direct. How likely is something to happen? What other explanations could fit? How likely are they? Anyone who looks at the actual evidence has to admit that it is utterly inconclusive and start from there.

Brilliant analysis

A) Because that country bloke's hometown was a Puritan stronghold and theatre had the equivalent level of respect that was given to the alehouses, bear-baiting pits, and brothels surrounding the public theatres in the liberties outside London. The present-day analogue would be bragging about the money you make from your chains of strip clubs and sex shops. B) He did let everyone back home know it was him in his funerary monument, and Lena Cowen Orlin has presented convincing evidence in her book _The Private Life of William Shakespeare_ that it was sculpted while Shakespeare was still alive. Naturally, given local prejudices, the monument didn't stress the dramatist angle, but the half-effigy depicted him with a sheet of paper on a cushion and a hand curved to hold a quill pen (the pen, which is not part of the sculpture, is now regularly replaced), dressed in the subfusc of a learned man, and with both a Latin and an English inscription that referenced his writing. The Latin inscription called him a "Virgil for art" ("arte Maronem"-Virgil's full name was Publius Vergilius Maro) and the English portion referred to "all yt [that] he hath writ | Leaves living art but page to serve his wit." At least six people referenced this monument in their own writings in the 17th century: John Weever, William Basse, Leonard Digges, Lieutenant Hammond, William Dugdale, and Gerard Langbaine. Weever and Dugdale copied both inscriptions (Langbaine only copied the Latin one); Digges, Hammond, Dugdale, and Langbaine mentioned Stratford; Basse called Shakespeare a "rare tragedian" and called for him to be re-interred with Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, and Francis Beaumont in Westminster Abbey; Langbaine said he had also been an actor; and all _six_ of them identified him as a poet. C) Oxford didn't have any reason to hide his identity. What on earth could it matter to him that he was known to be the author of plays? Indeed, Oxfordians often point to the references to Oxford in George Puttenham's _The Art of English Poesie_ and Francis Meres' _Palladis Tamia_ (Meres seems to have just copied Puttenham's praise, because he certainly wasn't old enough to have seen one of Oxford's works) to show that Oxford was known as a dramatist. But then if he was already known as a dramatist, why shouldn't he have been associated with Shakespeare's works? In fact, some of the madder Oxfordians claim that Shakespeare's plays were originally performed as de Vere's in court, but the Lord Chamberlain's Men played at court, so one can only assume that when the Queen and her courtiers were presented with Shakespeare's/de Vere's plays yet again that de Vere went around with that memory-wiping tech from _Men in Black_ to make sure that nobody made the connection. While public theatre plays might have been regarded as _déclassé_ , that reputation didn't affect closet dramas, which were a perfectly legitimate aristocratic pastime, plus closet dramas were easier to write because you didn't have to worry about bearing in mind the strengths, appearances, and numbers of everyone in the company. You didn't have to write extra-long passages to cover a difficult costume change or worry about divvying up the parts to permit doubling and tripling of roles. Edward de Vere could have just written closet dramas and had them published and there would have been no diminution of his reputation. in fact, it might have enhanced it because Queen Elizabeth appreciated a genuine artistic talent, which de Vere didn't actually have (seriously, his few attempts at verse are dreadful and nothing like Shakespeare). Indeed, _Venus and Adonis_ published under de Vere's own name with a fulsome and flattering dedication to Queen Liz would have been the means to promotion and money he was seeking at court through other means, chiefly by begging to be handed concessions on Cornish and Devonshire tin. D) If you love the plays, then I'd suggest watching James Shapiro's documentary series _The King and the Playwright_ . You can find all three episodes here on RU-vid. And as you watch it, remind yourself that _almost everything_ you're watching was written for a period when Edward de Vere was _dead_ . He died just one year into King James' reign. Before the King's Men's acquisition of the Blackfriars. Before the Gunpowder Plot. Before the Midlands Riots. Before the changes in Jacobean tastes that make Shakespeare's late plays recognizably distinct from his early- and middle-period works. Aside from the fact that they didn't write the same kind of English-Oxford spoke (and wrote, because people spelled words the way they sounded to them in this era) with a marked rustic Essex accent that is completely unlike Shakespeare's Midlands speech with numerous Warwickshire regionalisms in it-it's just impossible to fit Edward de Vere in the development of Jacobean drama, whereas Shakespeare went on writing for almost a decade after de Vere's death and with a couple of collaborators (George Wilkins and John Fletcher) who had _no_ active careers as writers prior to de Vere's death.

@@Nullifidian whew! Case closed. The Oxfordians are having their, what has become annual, symposium in November. New Orleans I think. I would love to hear what they say to your propositions. I remain undecided although the Oxford idea is interesting. Cheers.

​@@jimsteele9559You don't need to wait. Alexander Waugh has a whole series of videos where he claims that all those who identified Shakespeare as the actor and gentleman from Stratford were in on the secret and left clues so subtle that they can only be understood by extreme contextualization.

@@Jeffhowardmeade Thank you. Yes I’ve seen some of Mr. Waugh’s work and others in the same vein and it’s fascinating. Unfortunately it will be dismissed as tricks and gimmicks. Too much conspiracy and esoteric nonsense they claim. There is more to Shakespeare author question than the establishment would care to admit however. I think the Symposium is coming up soon. New Orleans? November? Looking forward to see what they post on RU-vid etc. My own opinion remains open but leans heavily towards De Vere or multiple authors with De Vere as kinda the center. I could be wrong. Cheers.

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ljM11ib4Apk.htmlsi=qc_F_iOf2Vo7Cvqi

Totally agree. No matter how many times he repeats the word "rubbish", it does not strengthen his argument with me.

That right

Exactly ... if those scrawls on the last will and testament of the man of Stratford are any indication, he couldn't.

scriabiniste They aren't. Not only are they in secretary hand, which you can't read anyway, they were also written a few weeks before he died. Let's get together when you're on your deathbed and I'll test your handwriting. Deal?

Caius Martius Coriolanus And not one piece of evidence of handwriting from any other document : not a letter, nothing, from the star of his age. Hmmmm.

scriabiniste The "star of his age"? I'll bet you think Bach, Dickinson, Van Gogh and Melville were the stars of their ages as well. Almost nothing from anyone of Shakespeare's class survives. That fraudulent list Diana Price created? It would be almost empty were it not for a single document: Philip Henslowe's "diary". His son-in-law, Edward Alleyn, tossed it into a trunk with his other papers and stored it in the attic of a small school he founded, where it sat until the 1830s. By that time, paper was mostly made from wood pulp, and a trunk full of used rag paper was no longer a recyclable commodity. If it had been found a century earlier, that one document that fills out most of Price's list, would have been pulped. Henslowe, by the way, was associated with a rival playing company. there is no mention of ANY of the Lord Chamberlain's Men anywhere in his diary.

My favorite line is Waugh's "'if passenger had to go' -- Jonathan might remember -- 'if passenger thou canst but read stay' is a poem written by Ben Jonson -- what does it say on the Stratford monument to Shakespeare?"

Leif Grahamsson I'm not a video guy. I type on a keyboard. I have no Adobe Whatzit Suite skills. As for the cryptograms, it is quite simply impossible to defend against them, just as it is impossible to logically prove a negative. Waugh uses a multi-stage decryption to reach his intended goal. The fact that you can get from any random starting point to any desired ending point if you use enough short hops doesn't prove that some bored 17th Century poet didn't do just that. You can make the Bible say "Satan is God" if you're the one providing all the decryption. Just an example: Waugh's decrypts rely heavily upon the occurrence of four letter Ts in close approximation to one another. This, says he, is a symbol for St. Peter, who, after Christ and the two criminals crucified with him, was said to have been crucified upon the "fourth cross" (never mind that he was crucified upside down--not a T). This "Fourth Cross" denotes the burial place of the Author as the Collegiate Church of St. Peter, aka Westminster Abbey. Since Shakespeare was actually buried in Stratford, then he must not have been the Author. Not only is this logically tenuous, but it relies upon Waugh's identification of St. Peter with the "Fourth Cross". AND HE INVENTED THAT. There is no classical tradition of referring to St. Peter's cross as the "Fourth Cross". And Waugh is full of those inventions. He claims a slightly bent capital T is actually meant to evoke the zodiac symbol Taurus, which is a bull, of which an Ox is an example, and therefore it refers to Oxford. Can I prove that you can "decode" a text to say anything you want if you provide the convoluted method? Yes, I can. Can I prove that someone in 1609 or 1623 DIDN'T use precisely to method to hide a secret? No, I can't. Nobody can do that.

Right. Thanks for the post.

@@Jeffhowardmeade Also its difficult to make a video while hiding your identity.

@@rstritmatter You think making a video involves turning on your laptop camera and ranting at it for an hour. Sorry, but if I were to make a video about the SAQ, I would put some effort into it. And my name is Jeff Meade. I'm a police officer in California. It's not like I have to worry about someone doxxing me over my odd hobby. My sergeant already thinks I'm weird for being a Shakespeare geek.

@@Jeffhowardmeade Yes that's what I thought, Jeff, since you told me that a few years ago that was your name. Then someone else told me you were from Denton County, which I found odd. So I'm glad to get that cleared up that you're actually in California. Of course, you must be aware that some of your confederates, like the testosterone-overcharged Mr. Leadbetter, the Oxfraud "janitor," do go by multiple sock puppets and sometimes even hold conversations with themselves. Regarding your your "hobby" yes I get it that standing up for the Truth about Shakespeare gives you a real thrill. That makes a lot of sense. And the fact that you do it under the name of a character who betrayed his own country out of his misplaced confidence in the ideals of "honor at any cost" makes even greater sense.

So the people who have studied this issue in detail-i.e. people with genuine expertise-are arguing that Shakespeare wrote his own works, and you think that's reason to disregard them?

I'm not from his home town. I've only been there twice. Saw some good performances and ate some overpriced pub grub. I live nine time zones away, and will argue strongly that he was the author of the works attributed to him. The reason I will do that is because the evidence all says he did.

What is the motivation for these writers to not take credit for “their” writings?

Good writers have something called imagination.

I'm undecided . Would we doubt that the Beatles wrote their songs as they did not have a classical music training ?

At the rate you guys are going, you'll be the dominant paradigm in a few thousand more years! You could hurry the process up a bit if you could only find some actual evidence.

Glad you’re back! I been busy and really had little time to continue our debate on the F-acts. This debate however was not about Edward De Vere but simply what real evidence there is that Shakspere of Stratford was the real author. Although, Professor Bates did offer some interesting counter arguments, as the burden of proof was on him, he did not present a very convincing case for the Shakspere authorship. I just wonder if you ever read Hank Whittemore’s book “”100 Reasons Shake-speare was the Earl of Oxford” or Geoffrey Eyre’s “The Case for Edward de Vere as Shakespeare”?? I found these two books offering plenty of evidence for the real Shakespeare!! The Stratfordians have a such a limited fact based biography of Shakspere, and it seems mostly made up fictional third party anecdotes and over embellished exaggeration. As I stated many times before, the biographical information of De Vere’s life adds so much more meaning to many phrases that I once found either obscure or puzzling. On that alone, I prefer Oxford over Stratford. It was great to hear from you again and I see you are still on the defensive and not offering any primary facts yourself other than the old empty truism that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare or you Oxfordians did prove your case. Give me one, just one clincher. Thanks. Take care. ✌️🙏

@@johnwarner3968 First off, neither Sir Jonathan, nor any other Shakespeare scholar, has any burden if proof. Our man is the incumbent by a very long measure. But because I like arguing, especially when winning is a sure thing, here's John Stow, chronicler of his age, who knew everything and everyone in London at the turn of the 17th Century: shakespearedocumented.folger.edu/file/details/347 Page 811, right column, starting at line 9. From this, we learn that A) Shakespeare was considered an excellent poet, in the company of the other worthies listed, B) it is not a pen name, because Stow lists their ranks, and there was only one William Shakespeare who held the rank of gentleman, and C) this is in Stow's own knowledge, i.e. it answers Price et.al.'s challenge that there's no evidence of personal knowledge. Stow flat-out says "...in my owne knowledge..." Now there are only two escape routes from this. Either Stow was 1) uninformed, or 2) lying. It is quite impossible that John Stow knows nothing. He was the authority of the age, well placed and well connected. So that leaves him lying. Of course, any of the many people who knew Shakespeare and said he was the poet had to be lying. That's a article of faith of your dogma, right?

I have to agree with you to a certain extent. Sir Jonathan didn't put up a great defense of Shakespeare. As for his taking the fight to Waugh, I have no problem with that. Anti-Stratfordians are keen to have debates where they get to take shots at Shakespeare while not having to defend their own positions. I don't know why anyone would agree to a fight where they weren't permitted to hit back.

@@Jeffhowardmeade , No. Shakespeare of Stratford is the standard, accepted position. THAT is what needs defending. This debate was not a question of Stratford or Oxford. It was Stratford or NOT Stratford. Waugh admirably defended the position that Stratford was NOT the playwright. He did not have to prove a case for Oxford or anyone else. Sir Jonathan, on the other hand, only had the task of defending the generally accepted position, stating that the Stratford man WAS INDEED the playwright. let me put it this way- If Bate COULD NOT defend the Stratfordian position, except by reference to Oxford, then there clearly is not sufficient evidence for the defence. And this is the ongoing problem with the man from Stratford; there simply IS NOT sufficient evidence with which to defend his cause.

@@MandyJMaddison I get that that's the way you want it to be, but I don't care to be a professional spear catcher, and those who try to make the case for their candidate by hiding him (now also her) while taking pot shots at Shakespeare are, frankly, cowards. They know their candidates are so thoroughly bereft of documentary evidence that an open comparison with the evidence for Shakespeare would be humiliating. If Anti-Stratfordians feel that they cannot make their case without first tearing down Shakespeare, why can the case for Shakespeare not include the fact that it wasn't anyone else? There are a few Anti-Stratfordians who claim not to know who really wrote the works of Shakespeare, but they're lying. There's nothing in the documentary record to suggest that it WASN'T William Shakespeare of Stratford. Therefore, the only reason to doubt the piles of evidence that says he was is to believe it was someone else. Being permitted to show how poorly someone else's claim (indeed, EVERY other claim) stacks up against Shakespeare's is only fair. I would be more than happy to defend Shakespeare's documentary record in a debate where the spear chuckers have some actual skin in the game. Please explain why you are unwilling to openly defend your candidate.

@@Jeffhowardmeade What? My candidate is Christopher Marlowe! Why are you challenging me as to whether I am prepared to defend him? You and I have discussed Marlowe before. I am not here to deceive anybody. I was quite happy to have Waugh present my case AGAINST Stratford, as long as he kept Oxford right out of it, which he did.

@@MandyJMaddison We HAVE discussed Marlowe before, but you never said he was your boy. Like most Anti-Stratfordians, you spend most of your time trying to clear the deck so your candidate has some place to land. The only ones I see regularly trying to promote their own candidate are the Oxfordians, and, well, you've seen the goofballery they get up to with their hidden codes and poor math and Latin skills. I admit that a Shakespeare vs. Marlowe debate would be mostly about Shakespeare, because the case for Marlowe is so meager. I would probably need about two hours (without the obligatory cross-examination) to lay out all of the evidence that points to William Shakespeare as the author of his works. How long does it take to point out the supposed irregularities in Marlowe's coroner's inquest, similarities between his and Shakespeare's writing, and a coincidental publication date? Ten minutes? How long if you're limited just to documents or testaments which state explicitly or even by reasonable inference that Marlowe wrote Shakespeare?

And if one ignores that he's just making most of it up.

Richard Agemo I believe that's called "stuffing the ballot box". You can't seriously believe that A) the population as a whole would break anywhere close to evenly one this question, let alone with the Anti-Strats, and B) that even if it did, that would mean it was worthy of study by serious scholars. By that standard, Birthers, Moon Landing Hoaxers, and Hollow Earthers should be taken seriously, as they are far more numerous.

Maybe you missed the second sentence of my post, so I'll repeat it: Reasonable people who watch the debate should conclude that the Shakespeare Authorship Question is a legitimate subject for study and discourse, and ought not to be treated as taboo.

Richard Agemo No, I got that. You tried to justify your thesis by the outcome of the audience vote, which even so you discounted. Are you now saying that your preamble was mere dicta? In any case, I think you are correct. The Authorship Question IS a legitimate subject for study. Primarily by mental health professionals, but also for anyone who wishes to be fascinated by how much meaning some people can wring out of no evidence whatsoever. Oh, yes, and anyone who needs a good laugh.

Oh, Caius, you are such a master of insult. Congratulations.

Richard Agemo Thank you, but don't say that too loud. Falstaff might hear. He'll think I'm gunning for his job, and he's friends with the prince.

How does one prove a negative? That "You have no evidence" is pretty much self-evident.

Alexander Waugh presents books of evidence do you work for the Shakespeare town of Stratford because i've noticed your repeated questions on 100's of videos?

I get that a lot. I'm a police officer in the US. I've been to Stratford once in my life, and I thought it was a tourist trap. Still, the Birthplace Trust does hold one of the larger collections of historical documents relating to Shakespeare. You know, those records which declare that Shakespeare was the author of his works. The ones that nobody else has any of for their candidates. Debunking conspiracy theorists is just a hobby. Nobody pays me for the pleasure.

Oh Tom, cop is the perfect job for you. How much evidence do you plant in a given time period? And just exactly what document states explicitly that William from Stratford is actually William Shake-speare the writer?@@Jeffhowardmeade

@@the17thearlofoxford38 My name is not Tom, it's Jeff. All of the documents which identify the author as "Mr.", "Master", "Gent.", or "Gentleman", of which there are several, identify William Shakespeare, who was born and died in Stratford but spent most of his life in London, as the author. There was more than one William Shakespeare in England, but only one was a gentleman. The amount of time your camp spends trying to justify the "Front Man" hypothesis is a tacit admission that Shakespeare was publicly acknowledged as the author of the works attributed to him. Seriously, you folks should clean up your self-contradictory arguments.

You think? Welcome to the skeptic's club.

Waugh *claiming* that there were doubts at the time and his *showing* it are two different things. One has to accept a series of undocumented and mostly ridiculous logical leaps to believe them. The whole theory that Ben Jonson was a mastermind, misdirecting people from the "real" author by writing ambiguous inscriptions and poems falls apart when you know that Waugh also believes that Jonson had monkey faces carved on the pillars of Shakespeare's monument in Stratford, a few hundred yards from the front door of his family's large home. At other points he claimed that Jonson did not know Shakespeare at all. Seems like a lot of trouble to go to for someone he doesn't know and that nobody at the time associated with the theater, doesn't it?

I wasn't shocked because there is no hard evidence whatsoever to support the Stratfordian. Some of you may remember the wonderful Folger editions of the individual plays of Shakespeare, in which a biographical essay preceded the work: a biography that had nothing to support it but which, as schoolchildren, we took for granted.

You really do need to look at Shakespeare documented site. Your statement of no evidence is very untrue.

Steve Bari And I recommend that you read Diana Price's exhaustive reexamination from an un -idelogical perspective to boot.

And you reached this conclusion, how, John Harrington? Through long and arduous study of the relevant history? Through a detailed close reading of the numerous textual enigmas in the Shakespeare canon? Didn't think so.

@@rstritmatter, even if you refuse to accept my credentials (and I do have them), I'll point out that the vast majority of people who have spent their lives studying Shakespeare find the arguments of people like Waugh utterly, absurdly ridiculous, which is exactly the estimation they deserve.

Gee, thanks a lot! Now I have to add The Phenomenon of Man to my ever-growing pile of books to read!

@@Jeffhowardmeade Actually, I was quoting from Peter (P. B.) Medawar's review of the book, not from _The Phenomenon of Man_ itself. If you want an addition to your ever-growing pile, however, the review can be read in full in Medawar's collection of essays, _Pluto's Republic_ . Medawar is a spectacular science writer with a great sense of humor. The book is out-of-print, but it can be found inexpensively in secondhand copies, and it's also available at the Internet Archive's Open Library.

Might be simpler if you just added a copy of " How To Talk About Books You Haven't Read " by Pierre Bayard . ? Very useful ..

his spiel about the candles was also annoying because it completely fails to acknowledge the realities of attempting to light an indoor space in that period, which us lot in our modern electrically-lit luxury have forgotten. You'd need _loads_ of candles. loads of them. You couldn't have a few huge ones that would 'burn for 5 years' - the fact elite households also didn't do this should be revealing enough in itself - because they'd be ridiculously expensive (tallow candles might be cheaper, but then the whole place would stink of fat) and also terribly inefficient. Lots and lots of smaller candles makes infinitely more sense to try and light a space, especially a theatre. To put it into perspective, the show Wolf Hall stayed true to period lighting, and the actors had to learn and adjust to moving around the sets because of how dark they were, and they kept walking into things! But Waugh hasn't put thought into the actualities and practicalities of the early modern world he's talking about (and this becomes very apparent. when he said that early modern people were 'incredibly precise' about how they spelt their names i think i could've leapt through the screen and throttled him. Infuriatingly, he says Bate was 'incorrect' to suggest otherwise, and i was desperately hoping someone would point out how wrong Waugh truly was. Oh for a historian to be sat there too!)

He's still buried in Hackney. Nobody has moved his body, because they wouldn't be able to find it. His burial place is unmarked.

Just go find out at Alexander Waugh's YT: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-XqV44taFNUc.html&

Per Oskarsson, Oxford is buried at Hackney. The fact that Waugh says he is buried at Westminister does not mean this is true.

Not to mention that retort just betrays Waugh's ignorance of the early modern era, since the diminutive for "Christopher" in his day was "Kit". This fact is so well-known it's even on Marlowe's Wikipedia page.

What people today cannot understand is that Shakespeare hid from fame or notoriety.

Hi Jack, thanks for weighing in. The Oxfordian case is "much more convincing" than the cliches put out by Jonathan Bate. Check it ou! shakespeareoxfordfellowship.org/

@@rstritmatter Then why hasn't it convinced more people? Your "100 Years of Looney" party had cake left over.

​@@jeffmeade8643 It's picking up in fairness. It's been a slow burner but it's coming.

@@joecurran2811 Too bad none of our grandchildren will live to see the big reveal.

...ha, like his dad (Evelyn) who died of massive heart in the toilet

It brought me such joy

😂

The 17th Earl of Oxford needed a male heir and didn’t have one. He made an agreement with his mistress and his best friend .., those two produced a male child and Oxford passed it off as his own. This was a big BIG lie that affects all kinds of inheritance issues. That is the reason underpinning the need to remain quiet, even after his death, about authorship. But many people knew who he was and referred as cryptically as they could in their own writings or forwards.

@@amazinggrace5692 I may be being very dull here, but what on _earth_ does this alleged issue with primogeniture have to do with Oxford's supposed authorship? And do you have any evidence for this story other than the fact that you've concocted it to explain the silence around why people didn't identify the Earl of Oxford as a playwright, which can just as easily be explained by the fact that he wasn't?

It is very difficult to make something out of your comment. That said, de Vere could not have his own company play his plays because this way everyone could make the connection and the real name of the one who signed William Shakespeare would have been exposed. "There is also no debate that Shakespeare had 7 missing years in his life." First time I hear this, and I have been studied this topic intensely. Also, assuming he got "quite an education" during that time is no evidence he did. Once again, he came from a family of illiterates, there is no proof he went to Grammar School or any kind of school, his wife and children were illiterate. Not a big fun of getting an education, one would have to think. "Shakespeare wasn’t considered the greatest writer in the world while he was alive." You're right, and isn't that funny? The one considered the greatest writer in the world was Edward de Vere, and most everyone was hinting at the fact that de Vere was Shakespeare. "If you believe in your evidence, why did Alexander not debate it?" Not sure what you refer to here, but if you are interested in knowing the facts and your opinion is not carved in stone, read Alexander Waugh "Shakespeare in Court." You can read it over the weekend, and it is the best and most clear anti-Stratfordian argument.

@@sorellman "The one considered the greatest writer in the world was Edward de Vere..." HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! PHEW! Good one, man! Precisely three people praised De Vere's writing -- one for being "best for comedy". If his extant poetry is anything to go by, they were being generous.

​@@Jeffhowardmeade You're being misleading. Comedies are a type of play, or certainly in the Elizabethan age. You know, to make people laugh.

The irony of people who have such a vivid imagination that they can concoct an elaborate conspiracy believing that Shakespeare had none.

stercaland Price's book is a con game. She carefully constructed her list of what constitutes "literary evidence" in order to steer clear of all of the evidence that exists for Shakespeare. It's basically the same trick used by illusionists to make objects disappear. Of course, there's so much evidence that it becomes difficult for even a master illusionist to make it all disappear, so when that occurs, she nitpicks each piece of evidence to explain why it doesn't qualify. Her most common nitpick is to say an item is "disputed", when in reality it is she who is disputing it. The ultimate goal of her book is to be able to say "there's no evidence for Shakespeare", not because there is none, but because she has hidden it.

@@Jeffhowardmeade where is the evidence? do you have multiple examples?

@@FootballAndSuch Examples of evidence that Shakespeare is the author, or examples of Price playing games to try to hide it? Oh, wait. I have both. Let's start with eulogies. Shakespeare is one of the best eulogized poets of the era. John Hemminges, Henry Condell, William Basse, Ben Jonson, Leonard Digges, William Davenant, Hugh Holland, John Weever, and James Mabbe all eulogized Shakespeare. Diana Price decided to cut all eulogies off at one year after death in order to avoid all of these post mortem mentions which cannot be accurately dated, though none was later than 1622. Why cut eulogies off after a year unless it's to be able to pretend that they don't exist?

@@Jeffhowardmeade i'll bite. Because the eulogies are not helpful in biographical identification and would be of no use: none of the eulogies specifically connect Shakespeare and Stratford, unless you want to quote Jonson. We can argue all day about that. Here's the thing: Price's entire project is to find one piece of evidence that Stratford is the playwright. The eulogies would not accomplish this. They are posthumous for one, two they only prove that the writers of the eulogies are familiar with the works of Shakespeare. If you can cite in any of those eulogies which were redacted a passage that proves identification then I would agree with you. But you won't be able to so I don't have to. Please, I implore you to show one piece of definitive evidence that Stratford is WS. The key part of your task is understanding the difference between circumstantial and definitive. I leave that to you.

@Chance Colbert Why are eulogies not helpful? Did the people who eulogized Shakespeare (most of whom had documented ties to him) somehow forget who he was? Price INCLUDES eulogies on her list of acceptable evidence, but cuts them off a a year so as to avoid the inconvenient truth that LOTS of people identified Shakespeare as the poet in eulogy. Specifically: Leonard Digges was the stepson of the overseer of Shakespeare's will. He mentions Shakespeare's Stratford monument. He wrote an inscription in a book demonstrating his familiarity with Shakespeare's works. He knew both the man and the works. James Mabbe was a friend of Leonard Digges and described Shakespeare in theatrical terms, including referring to the afterlife as a "tyring roome". Mabbe knew that the poet was the actor. Hugh Holland also referred to death as a "tyring house", named Shakespeare as an actor and even named his theater. Holland knew that the poet was Shakespeare the actor. Ben Jonson... do we even need to go there? Sure, whatever. He referred to Shakespeare as having limited education. He called Shakespeare the "Sweet Swan of Avon". The swan was the symbol of his first patron, the Baron Hunsdon, and the Avon flows less than a hundred feet from Shakespeare's grave. It's in the name of the town he was born and died in. A few years earlier, he described Shakespeare as the fellow of actors to William Drummond. Hemminges and Condell -- they knew Shakespeare the poet was their fellow actor. William Davenant said Shakespeare stopped off at his parents' tavern once a year on his way back to Stratford. His brother confirmed this to Aubrey. Davenant, later poet laureate, said his first poem was a eulogy called "In Remembrance of Master Sgakespeare" which he wrote at age 12 (about 1618). It mentions the banks of the Avon. William Basse suggests that Shakespeare should have been buried in Westminster next to Spenser and Beaumont. The title of his memorial poem specifies Shakespeare's date of death. John Stow (who knew EVERYTHING), wrote the following about Shakespeare. It was published after his death but while Shakespeare was still alive: "Our moderne, and present excellent Poets which worthely flourish in their owne workes, and all of them in my owne knowledge lived togeather in this Queenes raigne, according to their priorities as neere as I could, I have orderly set downe (viz) George Gascoigne Esquire, Thomas Church-yard Esquire, sir Edward Dyer Knight, Edmond Spenser Esquire, sir Philip Sidney Knight, Sir Iohn Harrington Knight, Sir Thomas Challoner Knight, Sir Francis Bacon Knight, Sir Iohn Dauie Knight, Master Iohn Lillie gentleman, Maister George Chapman gentleman, M. W. Warner gentleman, M. Willi. Shakespeare gentleman, Samuell Daniell Esquire..." Not only does he point out that he knows these poets personally, but he includes their social rank, so that there can be no confusion about who the Willi. Shakespeare in question was. John Weever was a certified Shakespeare fanboy who had written an epigram on his hero. He visited Stratford in about 1618 and transcribed the epitaph on Shakespeare's monument. He labeled this entry "Willm. Shakespeare the famous poet." Richard Field was from Stratford, raised just up the street from one another. His father and Shakespeare's were friends in allied trades. He printed everything Shakespeare ever wrote specifically for publication. He printed Shakespeare's claims to the authorship in the dedications to Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece. Am I missing any? Probably. Several poets and publishers produced plaudits to Shakespeare and identified him as an actor and a gentleman. When these well-placed individuals identify Shakespeare as being the gentleman and actor, they are referring to the man from Stratford, who was the only William Shakespeare to bear either of those labels. They are DEFINING him as the Stratform man. That makes their identifications definitive. You're welcome.

It is certainly handicapped. But what would you expect? They are the butt of the biggest joke of the last four hundred years of English literary history.

basilrose We have a great sense of humor. We think Anti-Strats are hilarious, for example.

@Caius Martius Coriolanus -- Good one! So in the play Coriolanus is motivated by vengeance and in the end is destroyed by his co-conspirators -- an ideal analogy for Stratfordians! Well Done!

basilrose See, there you go! I picked the name because it's my favorite Shakespeare play, and because I must confess to seeing myself in the scarred, over-proud warrior who cannot bring himself to lie to the rabble for their approval. Yet you read untold layers of unintended meaning into it. No wonder 2+2 never equals 4 in your world.

@Caius Martius Coriolanus -- I apologize, no offense intended, it was an attempt at banter based on your previous comment. Thank you for your service. It does perplex me, though, why there is so much resistance among Stratfordians to the raising of reasonable questions. It seems anti-scholarly to me, frankly.

We claim the idea is sooooo ridiculous because it is. You're dismissing piles of evidence so that you can claim an alternate author for whom there is no evidence whatsoever.

They react this way because they have no better answer. Thus, the solution is to ignore the problem until it smacks them in the face, and they complain that the post-Stratfordians are rude.

Exactly, the eulogies of his dear friends and colleagues should be all the evidence anyone needs. Are we to suppose that such heartfelt words of grief and praise were all a put-on?

LOL!!! Who is "him?" You, and all Stratfordians, assume, without any supporting evidence, that "him" is Will of Stratford, the one who could barely sign his name, was born into a family of illiterates, and had wife and children illiterate.

When Will of Stratford died, there was no eulogy, as it happened in the case of all other writers of the time. This Ben Johnson verse was written 7 years after WoS died, and no one knows to whom exactly it is dedicated. One thing is clear from what Johnson wrote in the opening of the First Folio, he was not going to reveal the real name of the one who signed his works with "Shakespeare", or "Shake-spear'' A history fact, Avon was how the Hampton Court was once known, and Hampton Court was where the Queen or the Kind attended plays.

@@sorellman There's no record of a Shakespeare play ever being performed at Hampton Court. The only reference to it being called Avon is in a surreal fantasy called Cygnea Cantio (1545) by John Leland, who just made it up. There isn't a single historical document which names Hampton Court "Avon". You also don't know if there were any eulogies when Shakespeare died in Stratford, not London. He did get a nifty monument identifying him as a great poet which was in place within a couple of years. What about De Vere's monument? His wife left money for one, but it never got built. Guess his son was just as bad about blowing money as he was.

@@Jeffhowardmeade In 1603 William Shakespeare's 'King's Men' first performed Hamlet and Macbeth for the new Stuart King, James I. Prior to that, under Queen Elizabeth's reign, the theatre flourished. Many great playwrights got their start under her rule. Playhouses were built, and a large number of performances were done privately for the queen herself. The Queen was an avid consumer of theater productions. Elizabeth and her entourage would never go to a public theater though. The private shows took place at Hampton Court or at other privately own locations, castles and such. A true Stratfordian associated with the fraud known as The Birthplace Trust, you speak with conviction of things you know nothing about and use your ignorance as supporting argument.

So why do you think they are biased towards Waugh, are they all his friends and family? Or is it that his arguments are more convincing?

@UCDq0vQuuP8CEAFT35Fk3nJA You're right if you perceive "anti" as derogatory.

@@rafthejaf8789 Waugh stacked the audience.

Mr Waugh can't be allowed to get away with his dismissal of the 'my name is Will' sonnet. It is one of a pair of sonnets that play cleverly (and often lewdly) with the name 'Will', mostly in the interests of seduction. Waugh wants this to be a huge profound 'hidden message' operation, and mocks the idea that the 'Will' at the end is a reference to the poet's name. Which is odd because it actually says in so many words, 'my name is "Will' He mocks this idea by suggesting that it would sound ridiculous if Christopher Marlowe said 'my name is Chris' at the end of a poem. Or if de Vere said 'my name is Ed'. Well yes. That WOULD sound ridiculous. It would also be ridiculous if the poem ended with 'my name is Bill'. Why? Because these are modern contractions. As we all know, Marlowe was actually known as 'Kit'. So if he wrote a poem punning about his own name and ended it with 'my name is Kit' it would not sound in the least ridiculous. Just as the final 'for my name is Will' line doesn't sound the least bit ridiculous in context. But ... to be honest .... IF it did sound stupid (and I don't think it does) then .... what Waugh is doing is criticising the poet. The idea that it's about the poet's name stays intact even if you think it's a bad poem. Because it is absolutely unequivocal that the poet IS punning about his own name. Which means that whether it sounds silly or not (and it doesn't) is beside the point. The poet says 'my name is Will'. So unless you are arguing that black is white, up is down, truth is a lie, then the poet was saying that his name ... was Will. But don't take my word for it. Here are the sonnets in full: (to get the full force of the first sonnet you have to be aware that 'will' at the time could be a reference to the sexual organs of either gender.) 135 Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy Will, And Will to boot, and Will in overplus; More than enough am I that vex thee still, To thy sweet will making addition thus. Wilt thou, whose will is large and spacious, Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine? Shall will in others seem right gracious, And in my will no fair acceptance shine? The sea, all water, yet receives rain still, And in abundance addeth to his store; So thou being rich in Will add to thy Will One will of mine, to make thy large Will more. Let no unkind, no fair beseechers kill; Think all but one, and me in that one Will. 136 If thy soul check thee that I come so near, Swear to thy blind soul that I was thy Will, And will, thy soul knows, is admitted there; Thus far for love, my love-suit, sweet, fulfil. Will, will fulfil the treasure of thy love, Ay, fill it full with wills, and my will one. In things of great receipt with ease we prove Among a number one is reckoned none: Then in the number let me pass untold, Though in thy store's account I one must be; For nothing hold me, so it please thee hold That nothing me, a something sweet to thee: Make but my name thy love, and love that still, And then thou lovest me for my name is 'Will.' Both these sonnets play quite unequivocally on the idea that the poet's name is William. Mr Waugh knows all this, so he is being .... to put it kindly .... disingenuous.

@@MrMartibobs Thank you. Excellent reasoning.

So then why did so many contemporaries identify William Shakespeare of Stratford, gentleman, and groom of the chamber to King James, as the author?

@@Jeffhowardmeade Well: the names were similar, making mistaken identity easy. But two people having the same/similar names is no basis for identifying them as identical. Just look at JULIUS CAESAR: are Cinna the poet and Cinna the conspirator one and the same person?

@@JLFAN2009 The names weren't just similar, they were identical. The College of Heralds, the clerks of not one but TWO royal households, the publisher of Ben Jonson's plays, the clerk in the Bellott v. Mountjoy deposition, the publisher of the Second Return from Parnassus, Antiquarian John Weever, the clerk of the Earl of Rutland, and Master of Revels George Buc, all referred to the man born in Stratford as "Shakespeare". That John Weever guy, who had published poems lauding the poet, was standing over Shakespeare's grave (which identified him as a great poet) in about 1618 as he wrote "Willm. Shakespeare the famous poet" in his notebook. But there's more! William Shakespeare bore the social rank of "gentleman". There was only one such Shakespeare in England at the time. After the man from Stratford was bestowed that title, the poet began to be referred to as "Mr." and "gent." Strange coincidence, don't you think? And of course the poet was often referred to as also being an actor, which described only William and his brother. And then there's everyone in the First Folio. They knew Shakespeare and identified him as the guy from Stratford. It's not mistaken identity. Everyone who opined identified the guy from Stratford.

The most plausible fact is that the actor William Shaksper was a cover up for the upstart crow, the Tyger wrapt in a Players hide, 'absolute Johannes factotum' aka Giovanni Florio. Ah. And the same Florio edited the First Folio, before publication. It was his work after all. www.theguardian.com/books/2013/jul/12/who-edited-shakespeare-john-florio

@@antoeckhart That's the second most plausible HYPOTHESIS (not fact), and it's a distant second. The most plausible theory is that the author was the man everyone said it was. There was no need for anyone to have a front man, and there's no evidence that William Shakespeare was one.

But it is altered for many others: shakespeareoxfordfellowship.org/category/how-i-became/ If you haven't considered the problem, then of course it doesn't matter to you. It did matter to the author, however.

@@rstritmatter no I’ve considered it, but eventually I just realized I didn’t care. Of course it matters to the author, that goes without saying. To each their own.

@@Melissab704 "O lest the wise world should task you to recite what merit lived in me/ after I am gone dear love forget me quite/ . . . Lest the wise world should look into your moan and mock you with me after I am gone." Some people respond to it, and others don't.

@@rstritmatter I’m not sure what you mean by that but that was a sonnet written to his friend meditating on the anxiety of death. It’s a normal thing to feel, and many people hope they can somehow become immortalized by leaving something behind that lives on, especially as an artist- I think it’s really part of the fear of death, and is ego driven. However, to me, dead is dead. Shakespeare or the true author of the works can’t think anymore to care either way. Not since they’ve died. That’s just my perspective.

@@Melissab704 No, the words explicitly admonish the "fair youth" -- and of course all the other incarnations of "you" who are today's readers, not to say the author's real name, or they will be hounded and mocked. Many other sonnets sound this same theme. In other words, what I mean is that your distinction between the man and the works is itself an artifact of fallacious assumptions about authorship. I had a conversation similar to this one with a colleague of mine in graduate school in Comparative Literature in 1990. She'd been Greenblatt's student at Berkeley, and she knew enough to ask the toughest questions imaginable, but she was fair and she listened to the responses, and she had a first rate literary mind. I told her to go read the sonnets with the authorship question in mind. Two weeks later she came and said "the book sort of falls apart in your hands when you do that, huh?" In my more than sixteen years total of grad school, Jaimee was one of the two smartest and most well prepared students I met. She dropped out to become a carpenter after she saw the way I and others were treated in graduate school over this question. But I get it. You just don't care. Have a nice day anyway.

On what evidence do you claim the bust was holding a sack of grain?

@@Jeffhowardmeade If you look at the earliest drawings of the monument, from around the 1660s I think, it shows him resting on a sack of something which was later changed to resemble a cushion, no quill etc. It has been changed a lot over the years. This would be correct of course as the Stratford chap was a grain merchant and money lender, nothing in his lifetime linking him to being a playwright and no one in his lifetime in Stratford mentions him being a playwright.

@@stuartlloyd1746 The earliest drawing is from somewhere between 1634 and 1653, by William Dugdale. That awful sketch was used by Wenceslaus Hollar to make an engraving for Dugdale's 1656 Antiquities of Warwickshire. Both images can be found on the Wikipedia page for Shakespeare's funerary monument. Both, you will note, refer to him as William Shakespeare the famous poet, which seems like a silly thing to call a guy clutching a grain or wool sack. Both include the tassles at the corners found there today, which were a feature of pillows, but not of grain or wool sacks. What is notably missing is the quill, which is an actual quill. It is ceremonially replaced every year, and was clearly missing when Dugdale made his sketch. You can even see in his sketch where the right thumb and index finger are clasped together. In 1748, the monument was remodeled, though the figure of Shakespeare wasn't altered. The artist who made the repairs painted it before he started work, and the bust appears as it does now. The "demi-bust" style of memorial was only popular for a couple of decades. There are many similar examples, complete with tassled pillows. They all memorialize learned men. None are dedicated to merchants or tradesmen. Though there IS the occasional church memorial dedicated to an artisan and displaying his tools (most couldn't afford such things), there isn't a single one anywhere in England with a merchant clutching a bag of his wares. Not that it would be possible to portray such a thing, since a wool sack of the era was huge and weighed 364 lbs, and a grain sack was 280 lbs. And didn't have tassles. Over the years after Shakespeare died, many who knew him stopped in at Holy Trinity and made note of his funerary monument. Nobody ever mentioned the incongruity of it depicting a grain or wool merchant.

I think the main reason that Shakespeare is said, by some, not to be the author of the plays and sonnets in his name is because of snobbery. I can well believe that other playwrights were jealous and resentful of a man who without the benefit of a university education could write so well. I think this attitude still holds today. The notion that a creative writer who came from a poor background, and who had no higher formal education after grammar school could become such a great playwright is something they cannot believe or accept. A good grammar school education as Shakespeare obviously had - of course his father would take advantage of a free grammar school education for his son, what father wouldn't want the best for his son? - would have opened Shakespeare's mind and he would have read a great deal, talked with many people who were well educated and had travelled. Shakespeare had a great creative mind, empathy, understanding and humour. He was a great playwright and poet. It exasperates me that his name is being diminished by those who claim he did not write his great plays, and who seek to attach other's names to his works. Sir Jonathon Bate put forward indisputable evidence and facts to prove that Shakespeare is the playwright who is credited with all his great works.

@@justacrocodile9486 Some of it is just that his vocabularly couldn't have been anything but that of an aristocrat or royal courtier of some kind - dozens of royal tennis, falconry and legal terms that there's no evidence that the Stratford Shakespeare would have truly been knowledgeable about. Contemporary legal scholars have asserted that it's only a lawyer who could have written them due to their accuracy for the times. There's also an abundance of military terms that probably weren't around in books at this period, and that kind of high military awareness was generally only known to the aristocracy in that period. Then there's the often intricate knowledge of Italy, where so much of his work has been set, with no evidence that the alleged Shakespeare ever went there.

@@ReturnOfTheJ.D. "dozens of royal tennis, falconry and legal terms that there's no evidence that the Stratford Shakespeare would have truly been knowledgeable about." There is no such thing as "royal tennis"; there is only tennis, and it was played by the middle-classes as well. As for falconry, the language of falconry and the language of hawking were the same. Shakespeare's analogies to falconry are simple and mostly have to do with _training_ the birds (e.g. , rather than hunting with them. Needless to say, the nobility didn't train their own falcons; they had servants named falconers for that. So even if you take it as read that Shakespeare had to be familiar with falconry itself, rather than merely hawking, the nature of the analogies _undermines_ the idea that the author was a member of the nobility. Furthermore, Shakespeare frequently makes reference to the practice of liming, which the nobility disdained because it involved trapping birds by using a sticky substance called "birdlime", whereas falconry is all about using the falcon to hunt birds in mid-flight. Liming was a disreputable practice employed by lower-class poachers. Also, this is another instance when anti-Shakespeareans reveal their ignorance of other writings of the era, because there's more convincing detail on falconry in a few pages of _A Woman Killed with Kindness_ by Thomas Heywood than there are in the entirety of the Shakespeare canon. "Contemporary legal scholars have asserted that it's only a lawyer who could have written them due to their accuracy for the times." You don't actually cite any specific sources for "legal scholars" who assert that the author of the works attributed to Shakespeare must have been a lawyer, so I will cite one: George W. Keeton, author of _Shakespeare's Legal and Political Background_ , in which he concludes that Shakespeare exhibits no greater knowledge of law than any other Bankside playwright of his day, though he concedes that Shakespeare's understanding of the relatively small amount of law he knew was more accurate than his fellows. Keeton was not only a trained lawyer himself, but also an expert in the history of the Court of Chancery (and international law, but that's not relevant here), so he knew what the law was in early modern England and he took the step of evaluating Shakespeare's knowledge against his contemporaries, rather than just assuming, as anti-Shakespeareans tend to do, that any reference at all automatically proves Shakespeare's expertise. "There's also an abundance of military terms that probably weren't around in books at this period," "Probably". In other words, you're basing your entire argument on an unfounded assumption. But in point of fact, there were many books on the art of war and the duties of the soldier in wartime because it was a belligerent age. There were campaigns within the British Isles against the Irish and Scottish, wars in the Low Countries, the Spanish Armada, etc. Ordinary people had every reason to be broadly familiar with warfare just as much as they did during the Napoleonic Wars and World Wars I and II. "...and that kind of high military awareness was generally only known to the aristocracy in that period." Because only the aristocracy fought battles. It was just a few dozen of them going at it while ordinary working-class people stayed at home. No ordinary person was ever impressed into the wars by the thousands, nor did they ever take up the career of a soldier when prospects were bad at home. And they certainly didn't haunt the stalls at St. Paul's looking for work, licit or illicit, once they were turned off from the wars on the continent, where anyone could have asked them for the price of a pint of beer about their experiences of war. "Then there's the often intricate knowledge of Italy, where so much of his work has been set, with no evidence that the alleged Shakespeare ever went there." Indeed, such intricate knowledge that he wrote two plays with Venetian settings and never mentioned the canals. When he mentions the Ponte di Rialto in _Merchant of Venice_ , it's obvious he thinks it's a public square and doesn't understand that it's a bridge (he indeed leaves off the word "Ponte", which means "bridge"). However, he doesn't mention the one major Venetian public square that actually existed: St. Mark's. Shakespeare not only thinks that it's feasible to get to Milan from Verona by ship, but also that this waterway has tides. (He was analogizing from the Thames, which does have tides.) Verona and Milan are both inland cities. He placed Padua in Lombardy rather than the Veneto, because he was copying a popular atlas of the day. Shakespeare thought of Italy as England in summer and doesn't put as much accurate information in his plays as John Webster and Ben Jonson did in their Italianate plays, and neither of them can be proven to have visited Italy either. Once again, anti-Shakespeareans simply don't read Shakespeare's contemporaries, nor do they read his sources, so they don't know how to distinguish exceptional erudition from commonplaces of the time.

@@Nullifidian What do you say to the fact that his daughters were illiterate and could only sign their own names with an X? And that he left no books or manuscripts in his will, just his "second best bed" to his wife? And that his bust in his tomb had a sack of grain originally and not a quill, because he was known in Stratford as a grain trader? And that the Quatros he published under his own name are clearly inferior copies of real Shakespearan works, suggesting he initially tried to make them slightly different than the originals, in order to sell them as his own, but couldn't keep their quality by doing that? And that during that era, it was commonplace to publish under another name if you were a member of the aristocracy, because the standard punishment for insulting a king was a public beheading (hence the phrase which hails directly from that time: "off with their heads"). A whole range of simple utterances that would be thought of today as trivial were punishable by order of the King or Queen with instant death. What aristocrat could risk that? To besmirch the name of his House and even end the line of succession, over mere words in a play?

@@ReturnOfTheJ.D. Part 1: "What do you say to the fact that his daughters were illiterate and could only sign their own names with an X?" I say that you're clearly basing this question purely on what you've been told by anti-Shakespearean cranks and haven't looked at the evidence yourself, because _neither_ of his daughters signed with an X and one of them, Susanna Hall, _did_ leave an extant signature together with that of her daughter. Moreover, there is an account of Susanna demonstrating her knowledge of one of her late husband's books to a potential buyer even though it was in Latin, her epitaph praises her as "witty above her sex" and says "something of Shakespeare was in that", and she's thought to be the person who composed the epitaph for her mother, Anne. shakespearedocumented.folger.edu/resource/document/susanna-hall-signs-settlement-estates-which-she-inherited-her-father-william Judith Shakespeare signed with a mark, but that mark _wasn't_ an X but a kind of doodle that consisted of two connected loops. shakespearedocumented.folger.edu/resource/document/judith-shakespeare-william-shakespeare-s-daughter-witnesses-mark-deed-conveyance Since many otherwise literate people signed with marks at this time, nothing about Judith's literacy can be inferred from this, and it's certainly not a mark against Susanna's literacy, which was demonstrated above. But even if _both_ his daughters had been provably illiterate, it would still be irrelevant to the subject of his authorship for two reasons. First, female literacy, though it was increasing in the early modern era, wasn't seen as important as male literacy, so if Shakespeare's daughters were illiterate it would simply have made him a man of his times. Second, Shakespeare was in London for most of the year, and was only free to travel to London in the winter months when it was too cold to play in the outdoor theatres, or when the theatres were closed by the city for other reasons, so he was in no position to personally oversee his daughters' education even if he wanted to. "And that he left no books or manuscripts in his will, just his 'second best bed' to his wife?" I would say that you can't prove that he didn't leave any books in his will, and he wouldn't likely have had manuscripts to leave because they were the property of the theatre, not his personal property. This argument just goes to show how little anti-Shakespeareans bother to understand the theatrical and printing practices of the time. As soon as the manuscript was delivered to the theatre, it was then turned into cue scripts (as well as prompt books for the person we'd now call the stage manager) by scriveners paid by the theatre. Later, these papers might be turned over to printers for the publication of plays, in which case the manuscripts were no longer important because a print copy was available. However, we can infer that many manuscripts had to be accessible _somewhere_ , whether in the care of someone affiliated with the King's Men, or among Shakespeare's private papers at New Place because 17 plays in the First Folio are printed there for the first time, so they had to be prepared from some kind of manuscript copy, and a further few are more authoritative than the quarto versions, indicating that they were also prepared from manuscripts, or at least that manuscript copies informed the editing of the text. Now, getting back to why I said you can't prove he didn't leave books in his will is that wills are not inventories. They do not exhaustively itemize everything that a person possesses. They only identify legatees and the items that go to them. If a person dies possessed of items not mentioned in the will, then they go to the residuary legatee(s). In this case, the residuary legatees were Dr. John Hall and Susanna Hall (née Shakespeare), who also inherited New Place. So if Shakespeare had books to leave, they would be on the shelves of the home going to his residuary legatees anyway. So why mention them? You should read _Playhouse Wills: 1558 - 1642_ by E. A. G. Honigmann and Susan Brock, where the authors analyze the wills of dozens of people associated with the theatre. Their book includes coverage of the wills of fifteen playwrights, Shakespeare included. Of these fifteen, only _three_ playwrights bother to mention books in their wills. That's why this argument from absence of evidence is futile. Also, he left a hell of a lot more than just the second-best bed, which I'm sure you're mentioning to disparage him, but this ignores that Anne would have been entitled to 1/3 share of the value of the estate, though perhaps not the real property, as her widow's dower and the second-best bed was probably the marital bed, since the guest would have gotten the best bed. Guests in Shakespeare's time were always given the best of everything-a rule of hospitality that was modeled on that of the ancient Greeks.

It's 'Da Vinci'

😅

Yes, I thought that point alone proves that Shakespeare was the author of his works. The audience did not want to hear Sir Jonathon Bate's arguments, although all his facts and evidence knocked Waugh's woolly rambling well off the stage.

And do you believe he wrote it in 1918?

@@axsos It's not as good as his mature works, but it does seem rather sophisticated for a 12 year-old. Remember, though, that a grammar school education back then didn't bother with history or math. It was all rhetoric and Latin. Davenant would have read a LOT of poetry by age 12.

@@Jeffhowardmeade oh please, give me a break. You and your nonsense comments on every anti-Stratfordian videos on youtube.

@@axsos What about my comment is nonsense? Please, be specific.

To begin with, it was published in 1638, when Devenant would have been 32. Other than that, he claimed all sorts of things, such as that he was the son of Shakespeare. It appears he too was confused about who wrote what and under what name. Last but not the least the one who signed his works Shakespeare (Shake-speare) was Edward de Vere, not William of Stratford. We never find him signing his name that way, his signature being the only thing written in his own hand we have today.

Why would someone so precise with his language write plays which were the exact opposite?

you dont know his work then, or to mention it, the highly scolarly work of others in his field. Do some research and you will begin to understand.

The SQ begins in 1594.

@@rstritmatter That's your interpretation, but it's at odds with the reading of practically every scholar for the last several centuries. It's not that you've discovered any new evidence related to the Shakespeare authorship debate; you've just decided that, as long as we assume the Looney theory has merit, you can interpret an ambiguity not to rule out your version. Really, you need to address the prima facie case for Shakespeare's authorship. That takes more than claiming that the evidence can be read to be ambiguous.

Many errors YOU say ? Mr. Bate is bought and paid for by the “Shakspear” crowd in Stratford upon Avon , both are fairy tales , like an illiterate writing the works of “Shakespeare” . Mr. Bate ain’t no scholar ……or even close .

@@rayjvify are you sticking with straight ad hominem attack on Sir Jonathan, or are you interested in proving Waugh was correct?

They didn't exist until a century after he died.

I coudln't find anything on the internet yet, which is strange. Either it didn't happen or it was so nonsense that nobody considered it worth reporting.

MG The Guardian did a write up few days before, where he outlined his "discovery", and of course declared it to be conclusive, as he does with everything he's "discovered". He didn't provide any details, but it seems to be a cipher combined with a secret map made up of the periods (or full stops, if you will) that Thorpe used as spaces in his dedication page, then superimposed over a floor plan of Westminster, or something like that. It makes his claim that the Star Chamber was enforcing the gag order on outing De Vere seen almost sane by comparison.

There are several videos posted by Waugh on RU-vid: Where is Shakespeare REALLY Buried? 1/4 Dec 25, 2017 ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-XqV44taFNUc.html

zeerust2000 He does provide at least five examples.

No, he doesn't. His first example mentions a writer who uses the phrases "masking through" and "in purple robes disdained" in relation to Shakespeare. Is this writer claiming that Shakespeare was an imposter? No, of course not. Waugh is reading into vague poetic phrases what he wants to read. It's nowhere near good enough.

Time constraints .. please see his well spoken fact based reasonings on h RU-vid channel

​@@zeerust2000 He is saying he is posh, an Earl as he said earlier...

So your posts about Bate's character rather than his argument is because he doesn't understand what an ad hominem argument is. Got it.

Richard Waugaman I believe that "add" as in to append, and "ad" as in an abbreviation for "advertisment" are both Ad homonyms.

Richard. I don't think Sir Jonathan cares how you address him but if you you could manage to address him as someone very much smarter and more knowledgable than yourself, you'll look less crazy.

I bet he's smart enough to know what a coprophagic smirk is.

ethelburga Only need two words to address him really: snob or knob

That's an argument from authority. Logical fallacy.

​@@joecurran2811It's not an argument. It's a statement of fact. And appeal to authority is only a logical fallacy in certain circumstances. Logical fail on your part.

He's never going to convince anyone anyway. People believe in conspiracy theories because they want to believe them. The world is one big lie and they are the clever few who can see the truth. There's an old joke about an Anti-Stratfordian who dies and goes to Heaven. God gives him the orientation tour and asks if he has any questions. He says "Who wrote the play Hamlet?" God answers "That would be William Shakespeare of Stratford." The Anti-Strat says "Wow! I knew the conspiracy was deep, but I didn't think it went this far up!"

@@Jeffhowardmeade "The world is one big lie and they are the clever few who can see the truth." Hands down the most ironic (and least self-aware) statements I've ever seen come from a Stratfordian. Well done. Well done indeed. Truth is truth after all. "Than this is all as true as it is strange: Nay, it is ten times true; for truth is truth To the end of reckoning. " Shakespeare "“But I hope truth is subject to no prescription, for truth is truth though never so old, and time cannot make that false which was once true.” Some Guy Who lived at the same time and in the same place as Shakespeare.

@@stevenhershkowitz2265 Apparently your sarcasm detector is about as operational as your history fact checker.

@@Jeffhowardmeade I thought everything you wrote was a sarcastic torturing of history. You should pull it all down.

@@stevenhershkowitz2265 Have you ever met anyone who though it was a good idea to take advice from you?

Perhaps he was paid to allow this work to be published under his own name and keep quiet about the fact. Both the Earl of Oxford and Marlowe's supporters/co-conspirators had the means and potential motivation.

He was a wool-merchant.

@@RalphEllis He was a "wool merchant" who became remarkably wealthy remarkably quickly. Within months, he went from being sued for non-payment of rent in London to buying the largest house in Stratford Upon Avon. This is not how normal business works.

@@jamesbassett1484 I think you are confusing father with son. There IS a little-known theory that Will went to London as an agent for his father at the start of his career, and it's interesting, but evidence-free. You can look this stuff up you know. His father was a brogger (dodgy wool merchant) If you have evidence that Will was then you need to publish it. It would make headlines.

Shakespeare made his money purely from the box office receipts. He was a shareholder in the Lord Chamberlain's Men and, later, the King's Men. The fact that King James was willing to be their patron speaks volumes.

Shakespeare used to be considered a definite front man, most likely being paid by De Vere or [insert chosen secret author here] to act in that capacity. This would explain why everyone who referred to Shakespeare seemed to be referring to the actor from The Lord Chamberlain's and King's men. These days there's more of an effort to show that it was already a pen-name, and the attribution to the actor from Stratford was accidental, a result of his own business savvy, or perhaps applied post-mortem (usually at the instigation of Ben Jonson) to hide the true author's identity from posterity.

@@Jeffhowardmeade thank you.. that is very interesting.. it would account for Shakespeare becoming very rich while in London.. the whole pen name idea is interesting but its quite incredible to believe that there was this pen name and there just so happened to be a man working within the theater world who could front these plays who had a name that was so similar..

@@lryoung3655 Maybe take a look at Sabrina Feldman's book, "The Apocryphal William Shakespeare". It's as good a hypothesis as any, maybe even a tad more compelling.

I think that Oxford's plays were being performed and that the actor Will Shakespeare knew the author couldn't come forward so sometimes he bragged that he was the author. Oxford got wind of it and thought it would be a grand joke to slap Will's name on Venus and Adonis, in the sense of 'let the bumpkin say he wrote this', knowing it was a bit of absurdity. When the poems became popular he just kept using the name hyphenated or not. So basically Will's bragging got him 'slapped' by getting him called out and his name put on an erudite Ovidian epic poem so everyone could rag on him about what a great poet he was. But eventually because Oxford could not put his name to the work what started off as a lark eventually led to all of Oxford's work being published under the Shakespeare name, and after both men were dead Ben Johnson and the publishers of the folio could only put the plays out with the Shakespeare name because Oxford had living relatives and children. Therefore they figured Will of Stratford would get the credit so they put up a monument and did what they could to start the Stratford game because the plays-- if they were to survive and not be suppressed by the court-- had to be separated as much as possible from DeVere.

@@gordoknott7830 For God's sake, grow up!

@Joe Twist Thus explaining de Vere's slender literary legacy. He knew virtually nothing, so he wrote virtually nothing.

@Joe Twist He had first-hand knowledge of Tudor London, King Arthur's Court, The Hundred Years War, Africa, and Adam and Eve? Who knew?

@Joe Twist You should look up Occam's Razor. I don't think you get the concept.

@Joe Twist And common sense says dead men can't write plays.

@Joe Twist He made it past elementary school but not much further.

You academics and your research. You take all the mystery out of history.

@@Jeffhowardmeade Waugh claims a 1595 book serves Oxfordians as a "veritable knockout punch," "based on common sense, requiring no formal training to recognize it." Actually, it collapses in a single Google search and a single Wikipedia article. Waugh's claim is about the book "Polimanteia," published by Cambridge and printed in the common 2-columns-per-page format. In the narrow column: "All praise worthy. / Lucretia / Sweet Shak / speare. / Eloquent / Gaveston" [1]. The paragraph directly beside that note refers to "my Virgil, thy petrarch, divine Spencer," “dearlie beloved Delia,” and “fortunatelie fortunate Cleopatra." It continues: "Oxford thou maist extoll thy courte-deare-verse happie Daniell, whose sweet refined muse, in contracted shape, were sufficient..." Waugh notes that the "odd hyphenated phrase 'court-deare-verse" appears directly below the word Oxford "with letters and words which, in correct sequence, spelled out OUR DE VERE. [c-OUR-t-e-DE-e-a-r-e VERsE.] Moreover, the remaining seven letters (c-t-e-a-r-e-s) formed a perfect anagram of A SECRET." "IN THE CORRECT SEQUENCE" is my favorite part. That does seem a rather "odd hyphenated phrase." Let's see if we can make any sense of it. The text references Virgil, Petrach, Spenser, and Shakespeare, so we know the subject is poetry. Shakespeare's "The Rape of Lucrece" had been published in 1594. The author considers it praiseworthy, along with Drayton's 1595 poem "The Legend of Piers Gaveston" [2]. Search Google for "Delia, Cleopatra, Daniell," and the first hit is "Delia and Rosamond Augmented: Cleopatra" by the poet Samuel Daniel. The hyphenated phrase describes HIM as a court-favorite, verse-happy fellow. Samuel Daniel's Wikipedia page tells us he attended Oxford University. "Oxford thou maist extoll thy courte-deare-verse happie Daniell" = Oxford University, you may praise your court-favorite, verse-happy poet Daniel. Search Google for "thy courte-deare-verse happie Daniell." (Use quotation marks, so Google knows to look for those words IN THE CORRECT SEQUENCE). You'll find multiple sites with the full passage. The author says Greece can praise its poets from Athens, Italy can praise its poets from Florence, and Oxford University can extol its graduate Samuel Daniel. A couple of clicks, and the conspiracy disappears. In the debate linked here, Waugh (wrongly) insists that surname spelling was "precise." Except when he doesn't want it to be, as in "Polimanteia": Here he says, "The spelling ‘Shakspeare’ - missing the medial ‘e’ - is here forced by lack of space. Adding an ‘e’ after the ‘k’ would make it collide with the main text. No other significance should be attached to this spelling." It's OTHER variant spellings of "Shakespeare" that Waugh claims are evidence of a conspiracy that went hidden until 1920 when Looney "discovered it" by reading the Dictionary of National Biography, looking for someone socially superior to Shakespeare and crowing him the "true" author of the poems and plays. In fact, there were more contemporaneous variants of "de Vere" than of "Shakespeare" [3]. No one doubts that "Edward Oxenford," as Vere always spelled his name, and "Edward, Earl of Oxford" were the same people precisely because there was no regularized spelling. Shakespeare, by the way, always spelled the title "Oxford," and unlike Vere, his characters always pronounced the word with 2 syllables (as his iambic pentameter proves) [4]. "What we have here - based on common sense, requiring no formal training to recognize it - is a veritable knockout punch" of the widespread conspiratorial claim that the 1595 book "Polimanteia" reveals Edward de Vere as the "secret" author of Shakespeare's poems and plays. ----------------------------------------------------------- 1. Image of "Polimanteia" paragraph about poets Shakespeare, Drayton, and Oxford University's Samuel Daniel. I modernized spelling and added slashes to show line breaks. hankwhittemore.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/scan-of-polimanteia.jpeg 2. If you didn't know that Drayton wrote about Gaveston, a search for "Samuel Daniel" + Gaveston provides the answer. You don't even have to open the link. Drayton's Wikipedia entry references Samuel Daniel. Daniel's Wikipedia entry confirms he was a court favorite. 3. Contemporaneous variants of "de Vere" include Vere, Veer, Vear, Veare, Vears, Ver, Weir; de Vere, de Veer, de Ver (etc.); Devere, Deveer, Dever (etc.). No one's ever argued there must've been a secret Earl simply because Edward's surname is sometimes spelled "Dever" and sometimes "Weir." Spelling was not regularized, period. Look up your own surname in this database: www.surnamedb.com/Surname/De%20Vere www.surnamedb.com/ 4. Rigorous comparison of the ways Shakespeare and Oxenford spelled and said words: oxfraud.com/HND-spellbound

@@Jeffhowardmeade You probably debunked "Polimanteia" long ago. I'm new to this insanity. I just checked "Shakespeare Beyond Doubt" out of the library and am headed out to the hammock. How'd Shapiro turn out? p.s. Three points for the triple rhyme (mystery/history), btw. I consider it evidence that everyone should have a bard buddy.

@@jillpiggott2017 I only made it up to the Astor Place Riot (aka the Shakespeare Riot). My son who was uneasy about getting off the plane in a truly foreign (Canada and the UK don't count) country, has had the time of his life in Mexico and is loathe to leave. He has dragged me all over Puerto Vallarta. I intend to spend the weekend in my barcalounger, under a fan, reading.

@@Jeffhowardmeade The Oxfordian conspiracy can't be all bad. It has me vicariously enjoying a Mexican vacation from Maine. I just noticed there's a jumbo moon balanced on the big hill across the road. If it rolls, it's coming your way, so you should probably glance up from your book now & then. I'd hate to see you squashed. It would definitely put a crimp on our tag-team eye rolling.