Tucker Muse

 

Period 3

 

March 16, 2004

 

Will the real Shakespeare please stand up

 

1. What is the Shakespeare authorship problem?

It is believed that Shakespeare did not write all 38 plays and all the poems that it is claimed he did. Shakespeare had a limited education making it seem impossible to write these masterpieces. It is believed that other playwrites at that time was the actual author of the plays.

2. What literary, cultural, and political figures doubt that Shakespeare was the sole author of the work?

People such as Walt Whitman and Henry James doubted he was the sole author. Also others like Keanu Reeves doubt he wrote his own plays.

3. Make a chronological history of the doubts that surround the authorship of the Shakespearean canon.

1728 -

Publication of Captain Goulding's Essay Against Too Much Reading in which he comments on the background Shakespeare would require for his historical plays and suggests that Shakespeare probably had to keep "one of those chuckle-pated Historians for his particular Associate...or he might have starvd upon his History." Goulding tells us that he had this from "one of his (Shakespeare's) intimate Acquaintance."

1769 -

Publication of The Life and Adventures of Common Sense, an anonymous allegory which describes a profligate Shakespeare casting "his Eye upon a common place Book, in which was contained, an Infinite Variety of Modes and Forms, to express all the different Sentiments of the human Mind, together with Rules for their Combinations and Connections upon every Subject or Occasion that might Occur in Dramatic Writing..."

1785 -

Rev. James Wilmot, D.D. attributed authorship to Sir Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam.

1786 -

The Story of the Learned Pig , an anonymous allegory by an "Officer of the Royal Navy," in which The Pig describes himself as having variously been a greyhound, deer, bear and a human being (after taking possession of a body) who worked as horseholder at a playhouse where he met the "Immortal Shakespeare" who's he reports didn't "run his country for deer-stealing" and didn't father the various plays, Hamlet, Othello, As You Like It, The Tempest , and Midsummer's Night Dream. Instead the Pig confesses to be author.

1848 -

In The Romance of Yachting by Joseph C. Hart, a former American consul at Santa Cruz, provides Considerable anti-Stratfordian opinion. Favors Jonson as probable author of Shakespeare's plays.

1852 -

August issue of Chambers' Edinburgh Journal contained an anonymous article, 'Who Wrote Shakespeare" The author suggests that Shakespeare "kept a poet."

1856 -

Bacon is proposed as author of Shakespeare's plays in Putnam's Monthly (January issue) which contained "Shakespeare and His Plays: An Inquiry Concerning Them" by Delia Bacon, an American bearing no family relationship to Francis Bacon.

1857 -

Publication of The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakespeare Unfolded, a book by Delia Bacon in which she considers the possibility of several authors. Nathanial Hawthorne helped Delia Bacon publish this book, for which he contributed a preface.

1891/92 -

James Greenstreet, a British archivist, in a series of essays in The Genealogist, proposed that William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby was author of the Shakespeare plays.

4. Now do the same for the doubts surrounding the Stratfordian attribution.

Shakespeare, alone of all the great writers in Western civilization, is unique in the enigma he presents. Despite two hundred years of scholarly attempts to establish the Stratford man's credentials, doubts of the author's identity simply won't go away. The very multitude of candidates proposed in substitution for William Shakspere (or Shaxper) of Stratford defines the difficulties a growing number of people find in accepting his authorship. The reason is that as Henry James said, "The facts of Stratford do not 'square' with the plays of genius...":

-There is no reference during the lifetime of Shakepere of Stratford (1564-1616) which either speaks of the author of the Shakespearean works as having come from Stratford or speaks of the Stratford man as being an author. (The first indication that the author of Shakespeare's plays came from Stratford appears, ambiguously, in the prefatory materials of the 1623 First Folio.)

-In an age of copious eulogies, none was forthcoming when William Shakspere died in Stratford. William Camden in his book Remaines had praised the author "Shakespeare", but in his Annals for the year 1616 Camden omits mention of the Stratford man's death. Also, in the list of Stratford Worthies of 1605 Camden omits the Stratford man's name, even though Camden had previously passed on Shakspere's application for a family coat of arms. (The inference is that it did not occur to Camden that the author, "Shakespeare", and the Stratford man were the same person.) The first memorial verse to "Shakespeare" appears in the 1623 Folio.

-There is no mention in the documents of the time of a Shakespeare's, or a Shakspere's, intimate acquaintance with the inner court circles as has been implied by such contemporaries as Ben Jonson, later seventeenth-century commentators such as John Ward, the author's dedications to the Earl of Southampton of two poems, and internal evidence from Shakespeare's works.

-The author of Shakespeare's works had to be familiar with a wide body of knowledge for his time --on such subjects as law, music, foreign languages, the classics, and aristocratic manners and sports. There is no documentation that William Shakspere of Stratford had access to such information.

-Despite evidence of Shakspere's unspecified connection with the theater, documentation of any career as an actor is conspicuously absent. For example, there is no record of any part he may have played, and only two posthumous traditions to bit parts. Contrary to all this, the 1623 Folio lists 'William Shakespeare" at the head of "...the Principall Actors in all these Playes." Since the hint that the author came from Stratford is also made here for the first time, the dubiousness of the one claim should make us suspect the other as well.

-In the Stratford man's will, noteworthy for its detailed disposition of household furniture, there is no mention of books, library, manuscripts, or of any literary interest. Indeed, the only theatrical connection there appears as an interlined bequest to three actors.

-The only specimens of William Shakspere's handwriting to come down to us are six almost illegible signatures, each formed differently from the others, and each from the latter period of his life (none earlier than 1612). Three of these signatures are on his will, one is on a deposition in someone else's breach of promise case, and two are on property documents. None of these has anything to do with literature. The first syllable, incidentally, in all these signatures is spelled "Shak", whereas the published plays and poems consistently spell the name "Shake".

-There is no evidence that William Shakepere had left Stratford for London before 1585 (with the birth of his twins). This 1585 date is providing a great difficulty as more commentators find earlier dates for the composition of certain plays and poems.

 

5. Consider the logic/illogic of each position and evaluate the effectiveness of each argument.

There are both logical and illogical arguments surrounding the big question who wrote the Shakespeare. There is a lot to say he didn’t write it because of how good it was and how little education he had. However on the other hand it would be so hard to pull something off like this what could he possibly of done to contain these masterpieces.

6. Make a list of the six contenders for the authorship question. Then add to each as much significant evidence that is presented.

Some of the six possible constents would be