Shakespeare authorship thread.

[jackydee]

Sept 29, 2017 5:56:24 GMT Any of N said:

Argument #3: The Dating of the Plays

Anybody with passing familiarity of the controversy will think this an odd choice. The dating of the works is brought up very often when discounting this or that alternative claimant. You might be forgiven if you assume that the accepted chronology stands on rock solid ground. That assumption would be wrong, and it's a big problem for the Stratford guy.

The standard dating scheme was pretty much finalized in 1930 by the scholar Sir Edmund Chambers. Most collections follow his lead even today. It has the plays being written from 1589 to 1613 which would make the Stratford guy's age 25 to 49 as he was born in 1564. There isn't any room to move them forward in time as the dating sequence relies on stylistic development as well as on publication and performance records. So the standard-version Shakespeare started pumping out masterpieces at an early age. If the dates of composition are moved back in time by any significant amount, we'd be looking at a startling degree of precocity.

Since you brought up Ben Jonson as a reliable witness, I am happy to cite his relevant testimony. Shakespeare, it seems, was active in the 1580's. First let's go back to the First Folio.

For if I thought my judgment were of years,
I should commit thee surely with thy peers,
And tell how far thou didst our Lyly outshine,
Or sporting Kyd, or Marlowe's mighty line.

Lyly, Kyd, and Marlowe were peers active primarily during the 1580's. Sounds like a strong hint to me, but if you would like something more explicit, consider what Jonson has to say about the play Titus Andronicus in the induction to his own Bartholomew Fair in 1614.

He that will swear, Jeronimo [The Spanish Tradgedy] or [Titus] Andronicus , are the best plays yet, shall pass unexpected at here, as a man whose judgment shews it is constant, and hath stood still these five and twenty or thirty years. 

Thus the two plays were written in 1584 and 1589. The conventional dating for Titus Andronicus is 1593-94,

That is near-contemporaneous reporting from another well-regarded playwright. What is most interesting about this subtopic is what prominent scholars have had to say over the decades. The standard dating is pushed forward too far; the dating should be moved backward. Of course that makes them rouges and mavericks by definition. A sampling of their names: Peter Alexander, TW Baldwin, Andrew Carincross, John Crow, Russel Fraser, Ernest Honigmann, J Hunter,  RG White, and FP Wilson. I encourage everyone to look-up their credentials. 

All told, we're looking at a 5-10 year adjustment in the dating chronology which makes many of the works occur before the Stratford guy moved to London in the 1590's. The man was a genius, whoever he was, but can we please give him time for development? And the problems may be worse with Shakespeare's poetry.

A word about Shakespeare's source material. There are entire books on the subject with many, many supposed sources being written late enough to support the standard dating. (Such as, Source A was written in 1605, two years before Play X.) The easy rebuttal is that the influence could easily have gone in the opposite direction, with Shakespeare being a source for the other writer. The paltry few that are left can be countered on a case-by-case basis.


Sources:

The indispensable Diana Price again.

Moore P. The Abysm of Time: The Chronology of Shakespeare’s Plays. The Elizabethan Review. 1997;5:24-60.

Here I think Diana Price is putting up something of a strawman argument. Shakespeare's scholars will readily admit that accepted chronology does not stand on rock solid ground. Here's a link to the wiki article on the dating of Titus Andronicus. You'll read here scholars disagreeing on the dating of the play. This disagreement is neither sinister or unexpected. This is how scholarship works; there are arguments and counter arguments. Tentative conclusions are reached. Anyone claiming the dating of the plays is "rock solid" are deliberately exaggerating accepted scholarship. We can generally tell the early plays from his middle period plays from the later plays. Some plays are more easily dateable than others. That's about as far as most scholars will go on many of Shakespeare's plays.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titus_Andronicus#Date_and_text

The conventional dating of Titus Andronicus is to 1593-94; can I have a cite for the date of 1594? Most conventional scholars date the play to sometime in the very early 1590's. Virtually no scholar dates it's authorship to as late as 1594.

Shakespeare as a contemporary to Lyly, Marlowe and Kydd. It seems obvious Shakespeare career overlapped with these men, but he was a few years behind them in his literary and theatrical beginnings. I do not see a contradiction here. Jonson was not writing a detailed history of Elizabeth theatre or literature. Jonson writing 25 years later was accurate enough. He simply placed Shakespeare in the early wave of Elizabeth playwrights. Sure, Shakespeare wasn't the very earliest of Elizabethan playwrights, but he was probably early enough to be considered to be amongst the original wave of writers. Jonson, coming on the scene a decade later, was probably considered a new generation of playwright. Shakespeare by 1614 was probably considered one of the "old favorites".

Shakespeare moved to London in the 1590's: can I ask the source for this? The wording here(or rather dating) once again stands out to me. Many Shakespeare scholars believe he moved to London around 1590. Most would generally give a window of sometime between the late 1580's and 1591(maybe 92 at a push). I realise 1591 is obviously considered to be in the 1590's; however, when we are dealing with such tight a time period saying "Shakespeare moved to London in the 1590's" is not quite accurate enough for me. I think it is a sleight of hand move(i'll blame Price here and not you, Any of N). Imo anti-Stratfordians can be specific enough with dates when they wish to be, but when required they will happily place Shakespeare's move to London as "sometime in the 1590's". You and I both know the suspected move is generally accepted as around 1590-ish. Your wording suggests scholars would as happily place his move to London in 1595 as in 1591.

[Any of N]

Diana Price tends to be very specific in her language. So much so that you might forgive me for spelling her name as Diana Percise. (No disrespect to her intended.) She presents a timeline in Chapter 2 with the major events in the Stratford guy's life. It includes his first documented record in London as 1592. Price again states the 1592 date in Chapter 16 when she covers the dating issue.

My intent is not to exaggerate or mislead. Among other reasons, it's completely unnecessary as the case fares well on its own merits. If your guy arrived in London in 1592, did he hit the ground running or did it take a couple of years to ramp it up? Thus I referred generally to the 1590's. The point I was making still holds, I believe. But I will be more specific from the point forward to avoid any appearance of "sleight of hand.".

My goal was not to rely so much on Price, but her book makes it very easy to find and extract what I need. The argument about the dating drew (at least) as much from the late Peter Moore, my other source. Moore in particular stresses that orthodox scholarship knows the dating is "too late" but that "the establishment is unable to act on its knowledge, because to do so would wreck the Stratford theory."

Thinking again about Argument #3, let me bring up something I left out. There are historical records of earlier plays that posses the same or similar titles as Shakespeare's. Orthodox scholars assume they were composed by other writers but think that the great one, Shakespeare, may have based his work on theirs. There is the Ur-Hamlet, the Ur-Tempest, the Ur-Shrew, etc.  From an anti-stratfordian position, these works are possible early versions by Shakespeare. Just one class of evidence out there that suggest an earlier dating.
 
Sometimes orthodox scholars are quite open about the ambiguities involved in dating the plays. Sometimes they are not. In various authorship discussions, you might be forgiven in thinking the dating stood on "rock solid ground". It does not.
  

[jackydee]

Sept 30, 2017 3:39:01 GMT Any of N said:

Diana Price tends to be very specific in her language. So much so that you might forgive me for spelling her name as Diana Percise. (No disrespect to her intended.) She presents a timeline in Chapter 2 with the major events in the Stratford guy's life. It includes his first documented record in London as 1592. Price again states the 1592 date in Chapter 16 when she covers the dating issue.

My intent is not to exaggerate or mislead. Among other reasons, it's completely unnecessary as the case fares well on its own merits. If your guy arrived in London in 1592, did he hit the ground running or did it take a couple of years to ramp it up? Thus I referred generally to the 1590's. The point I was making still holds, I believe. But I will be more specific from the point forward to avoid any appearance of "sleight of hand.".

My goal was not to rely so much on Price, but her book makes it very easy to find and extract what I need. The argument about the dating drew (at least) as much from the late Peter Moore, my other source. Moore in particular stresses that orthodox scholarship knows the dating is "too late" but that "the establishment is unable to act on its knowledge, because to do so would wreck the Stratford theory."

Thinking again about Argument #3, let me bring up something I left out. There are historical records of earlier plays that posses the same or similar titles as Shakespeare's. Orthodox scholars assume they were composed by other writers but think that the great one, Shakespeare, may have based his work on theirs. There is the Ur-Hamlet, the Ur-Tempest, the Ur-Shrew, etc.  From an anti-stratfordian position, these works are possible early versions by Shakespeare. Just one class of evidence out there that suggest an earlier dating.
 
Sometimes orthodox scholars are quite open about the ambiguities involved in dating the plays. Sometimes they are not. In various authorship discussions, you might be forgiven in thinking the dating stood on "rock solid ground". It does not.
  

I would say very few, if any, Shakespeare scholars would place his arrival in London as late as 1592. 1592 is the first recorded evidence we have of Shakespeare in London. It's a pamphlet criticizing him as a writer and actor. If he's receiving literary criticism in 1592 then the chances are he's already been writing in London for a time. Most scholars date his arrival in London to 1590-ish.

Did Shakespeare hit the ground running or did it take him a couple of years to ramp it up? It seems to have been the latter. Marlowe hit the ground running. Of Shakespeare's earliest ten or so plays(or plays we think are his earliest) only two or three are performed today. It kinda looks as if his earliest output was the patchy output we'd expect of a young inexperienced writer.

I can't really comment on the Ur-Hamlet, Shrew etc. I don't think these plays are still in existence. We'll never know if Shakespeare wrote them or not. All I will say is that it wasn't uncommon for Playwrights to indulge in what we today would call plagiarism. Copying & improving similar works was seen as the ultimate skill. Original stories were not particularly sought after. It wouldn't be a surprise if Shakespeare were "copying" existing plays by other playwrights. This isn't proof but just to suggest it was not uncommon to re-write existing plays.

[Any of N]

Argument #4: Various Layers of the Sonnets

Shake-speare's Sonnets were published in 1609 and sold-out quickly. The Stratford guy was 45 years old and still busy. He remained involved in litigation that began the prior year in Stratford. (A debt of six pounds was owed him.) Standard chronology has it that another six or seven plays were yet to be completed.

The 154 sonnets and their publication pose multiple issues for orthodox scholarship. You might say those issues are layered, given their variety. Here are the high points.

Publishing: No Author Involvement

Multiple signs point away from involvement by the author. There are a huge number of printing errors, very unlike the two narrative poems by Shakespeare published 15 years earlier: Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece. Also unlike the two narrative poems, "Shakespeare" did not write the dedication. This one was written by the publisher, and rather awkwardly at that. The very title, Shake-speare's Sonnets, sounds like it was chosen by someone other than the author. Nothing exists in the record to explain why the Stratford guy would have been out of loop.

Content: An Autobiographical Vibe

The sonnets are the only known poetry written in the first person singular by Shakespeare. If they were merely a "literary exercise" as various scholars attest, then it seems like an unlikely set of choices. The publication missed a surge in popularity in sonnet cycles by over ten years. None of the characters are given a name. A theme of failure and disrepute runs throughout, which couldn't be more at odds with the raging success of the Stratford guy, and it doesn't seem like much of a fit for romantic poetry. The situations they convey were surely embarrassing for the narrator as we will see below.

Content: The Identity of the Likely Dedicatee

The dedication talks of "the only begetter of these ensuing sonnets, Mr. WH" with the first 126 being addressed to a lordly "Fair
youth." Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton, is a good fit as most orthodox scholars agree. He was about the right age in the early 1590's (born 1573) when the sonnets are thought to be written. His appearance was considered "fair" and he was being urged to marry at the time, corresponding to the first 16 sonnets urging the Fair Youth to do so. The two earlier narrative poems were dedicated to him, with the dedication in Lucrece paralleling the affection directed to the Fair Youth in the sonnets.

Now consider that Southampton was a noble. Shakespeare (the narrator) addresses him with great familiarity. "He praises, scolds, admonishes, teases, and woos him with the liberty of a social equal who does not have to worry about seeming insolent." (Sobran) This would never do for a commoner like the Stratford guy. This leads us to the sexual content.

Content: Scandalous Nature

There is just no getting around Shakespeare's bisexuality, although the truth was resisted for a very long time. The author is clearly in love with the Fair Youth and is sexually infatuated with him. The author is also part of a love triangle with the youth and the "Dark Lady." The theme of a woman interfering with the sexual relationship between two men (often one younger and one older) also occurs in multiple plays. Examples include The Tempest, The Merchant of Venice, Twelfth Night, Romeo and Juliet, and Othello.

With the Protestant Reformation in process at the time, moral standards about sexuality were becoming rigid. In England homosexual behavior was officially illegal. "The mere accusation was enough to destroy a man’s honor and social standing." (Hamill) There is nothing in the historical record to suggest bisexuality for the Stratford guy, but then again, the records are scant outside of legal documents. But we're talking about amorous feelings between a commoner and a nobleman, if the Stratford guy is truly the author. Talk about a scandal.

Reception: The Silent Aftermath

Think about the scenario. A successful commoner and writer of popular plays is living in Stratford. A publisher issues a long sonnet sequence as written by him, apparently without his participation. The underlying storyline in the poetry involves a love triangle between two men and a woman, including sexual consummation. One of the three principals is addressed in terms that suggest a member of the nobility. What could possibly stop the gossip mill from churning among the literate set? Wouldn't some written records have survived? Yet no such records have turned up. Nor have any records of the publication being received poorly by the authorities or being suppressed. All anybody can do is make inferences.

Thirty-one years passed before a second edition was published while Venus and Adonis went through at least 16. In the second edition of Shake-speare's Sonnets, pronouns were changed, titles were added, and the sonnet ordering was rearranged. Thus the bisexuality was obscured. What was the reaction to the first edition? There are no records of any kind to suggest the Stratford guy suffered any ill consequences.

Conclusions

From the sloppy publishing, to the scandalous sexual content, to the silent aftermath, the sonnets are chock full o' problems. An uninvolved author, by itself, might be brushed away, but not in conjunction with the other issues. Certainly the relationships described were problematic as hell. Something was going on that falls outside of the received life of the commoner from Stratford. If the true author was actually a high-ranking anonymous nobleman, there is at least some semblance of possibility here.


Primary Sources

Note: The above is drawn directly from the sources, as the prior three arguments were drawn directly from their sources. As these are forum posts, I don't include citations on a per-line basis. If anyone is the least bit interested in the topic, I encourage you to start with the Hamill paper.

Hamill J. Shakespeare’s Sexuality and how it affects the Authorship Issue.’. The Oxfordian. 2005;8:25-59. [Link to PDF]

Sobran J. Alias Shakespeare: Solving the greatest literary mystery of all time. Free Press; 1997. [Link]

[cityofchill]

Enjoying the thread, guys. Looking forward to reading more as you comtinue your probe into authorship.

[Any of N]

Thanks, Chill.  Much appreciated.

BTW, look what happened to your post. I just had to de-Cinderfella my last one.

[jackydee]

Publishing, no author involvement: this seems quite likely. Nothing exists as to why the Stratford guy would have been kept out of the loop? Perhaps nothing in existance. However, we do know poems and sonnets were often published & printed without the authors agreement. Poems and sonnets were stolen. It's quite likely this was the case with the sonnets.

Autobiographical vibe; nothing is known as to how autobiographical the sonnets are. They may be very autobiographical, partly autobiographical or in no way autobiographical. We just don't know. Anyone suggesting they do know is either fibbing(this includes MANY orthodox Shakespeare scholars) or exaggerating.

Identity of the dedicatee. We just don't know who the dedicatee is. It could the young man many of the sonnets are addressed to or, it could be the person(begetter) who stole the sonnnets. The dedicatee being addressed as "Mr" however does suggest it wasn't Southampton. Im sure all sorts of nastiness would be inflicted on a commoner for addressing a noble as "Mr".

Scandalous nature of the content: I think you exaggerate the scandalous nature of the content. The relationship between Shakespeare and the youth is quite opaque. What you see as a bisexual relationship I can interpret as an intense friendship between two males. These intense friendships were admired during the Rennaisance. On the other hand sonnets dedicated to the Dark Lady are undoubtedly sexual; so sexual that they border upon pornographic. There can be no doubt the author writes about "tupping" the female. The most "explicit" sonnets dedicated to the young man are far less sexual. Another reason I think you exaggerate the scandalous nature of the sonnets is that no-one mentions their scandalous nature, not once in public nor in private do we have records of anyone alluding to their controversy. If Elizabethan's didn't think them controversial then we shouldn't view them as controversial either.

The Silent aftermath; this is where I think anti-Stratfordians stand on shaky ground. You aren't explicit in saying it but you seem to be leaning towards the "big conspiracy" here; a conspiracy of the entire Elizabethan literati and authorities. I believe there are many things wrong with the anti-Strat conspiracies but this is where they most obviously run into trouble imo. They too easily widen the conspiracy to include dozens of individuals. Ben Jonson talked of Elizabeth I sleeping with black men(Jonson basically bad mouthed every Elizabethan he had ever met). If Jonson is repeating such scandalous rumors about Elizabeth I then I see no reason why he would be intimidated into silence about the goings on between Oxford, Southampton or Shakespeare.

I agree that the sonnets are a minor mystery. I think most of the mystery can be explained away by them probably being published without the authors agreement and the fact their reception was rather muted.

[Any of N]

There is much to cover, so I will split my reply over several posts. First, the nature of the relationships described in the sonnets.

Sonnet XX A woman's face with Nature's own hand painted Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion; A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted With shifting change, as is false women's fashion; An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling, Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth; A man in hue, all hues in his controlling, Much steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth.           And for a woman wert thou first created; Till Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting, And by addition me of thee defeated, By adding one thing to my purpose nothing. But since she prick'd thee out for women's pleasure, Mine be thy love and thy love's use their treasure.

Sonnet CXLIV Two loves I have of comfort and despair, Which like two spirits do suggest me still; The better angel is a man right fair, The worser spirit a woman colour'd ill. To win me soon to hell, my female evil Tempteth my better angel from my side, And would corrupt my saint to be a devil, Wooing his purity with her foul pride. And whether that my angel be turn'd fiend Suspect I may, but not directly tell; But being both from me, both to each friend, I guess one angel in another's hell: Yet this shall I ne'er know, but live in doubt, Till my bad angel fire my good one out.

Yes, the sonnets about the Dark Lady contain more sexually explicit references. The love for the Fair Youth, however, is celebrated while that for her is despaired. There is also the noble status (as argued) of the Fair Youth to consider, with the corresponding respect to be afforded him.

Things do get rather bawdy in Sonnet XX. It is very hard to read this sonnet as referring to idealized male friendship. We should always reserve the right to question the experts, especially when there is dissent among their ranks. More orthodox scholars today reject the notion that men celebrated their friendships in this manner during the Renaissance.

[Any of N]

As mentioned previously, the Stratford guy was involved in litigation in 1609. He was suing for six pounds owed him and being sued for 20 pounds owed to someone else. The records have survived. 

This sounds like a man who would blow a gasket (if gaskets were yet invented) over any unauthorized publications of his work. If he were the William Shakespeare, poet and playwright, then he certainly was capable of expressing himself. For the moment let's say that the scandalous nature of the sonnets is overstated. Even if that were true, wouldn't he be concerned about how they might be interpreted? To top in off, the publication is replete with printing erros.  Even more reasons to blow his stack.  Yet there is nothing to that effect in the record.

[Any of N]

On the silent aftermath and the nature of a conspiracy...

If anti-stratfordians are right and the authorship was concealed, they don't know how it was accomplished. Again it's a matter of conjecture. The point to be stressed, however, is that there are relatively mundane possibilities that do not involve wide-ranging conspiracies. 

Consider the following scenario:

• The true author, a nobleman, wanted to remain anonymous as stated previously.
• This nobleman was not the first one but almost certainly the most heavily involved in the theater among his class. But there were precedents.
• Nobles simply didn't talk openly about it, given the impropriety. In other words, they were discrete about such matters. They had particular motivation in this case, for reasons touched on already and will be summarized later.
  
• Most commoners were illiterate and didn't know what was going on. Or necessarily care.
• Commoners were patriotic and respected the nobility. Literate commoners respected their privacy.
• Openly speaking ill of the nobility could get someone in serious trouble. Writing about it was worse. English commoners from that era didn't enjoy freedom of speech. An enemy could do you grave harm by relaying your words to the authorities. Speaking disrespectfully was all it took.
  
• The level of discretion practiced by all who were involved led to many observers suspecting various things but not being sure exactly what was going on. There are some very vague hints in various works, but nothing that makes it obvious, and they all suggest different things that often conflict with each other.
  
• Commoners involved with the theater wanted to preserve the gravy train. A supply of quality plays was quite valuable. Writers also didn't want to risk their future patronage and thus their livelihoods and careers. Loose lips could blow things up for everybody.
  

Under these circumstances it wouldn't be difficult to preserve the nobleman's anonymity. We're talking about an open secret among a very small number of people and a matter of conjecture among another small number of people. Both groups knew better than to talk or write about it openly. It was also a matter of patriotic principle to stay quiet.

As stated in the second bullet point, part of the conjecture is that other nobles participated in the arts as well. Choosing a commoner to serve as a front may have been done before. A simple strategy to minimize questions. Keep in mind that communication in that era was very slow.

All this would be enough for people to keep their mouths shut about the sonnets. Especially if the insiders and quasi-insiders snapped up the limited number of copies quickly.

The above scenario was drawn primarily from the writings of anti-stratfordians Diana Price, Stephanie Hopkins Hughes, and Nina Green. They don't necessarily agree with each other on the particulars, and so this is like a blending of some of their views.   

[jackydee]

Oct 3, 2017 2:02:32 GMT Any of N said:

There is much to cover, so I will split my reply over several posts. First, the nature of the relationships described in the sonnets.

Sonnet XX A woman's face with Nature's own hand painted Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion; A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted With shifting change, as is false women's fashion; An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling, Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth; A man in hue, all hues in his controlling, Much steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth.           And for a woman wert thou first created; Till Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting, And by addition me of thee defeated, By adding one thing to my purpose nothing. But since she prick'd thee out for women's pleasure, Mine be thy love and thy love's use their treasure.

Sonnet CXLIV Two loves I have of comfort and despair, Which like two spirits do suggest me still; The better angel is a man right fair, The worser spirit a woman colour'd ill. To win me soon to hell, my female evil Tempteth my better angel from my side, And would corrupt my saint to be a devil, Wooing his purity with her foul pride. And whether that my angel be turn'd fiend Suspect I may, but not directly tell; But being both from me, both to each friend, I guess one angel in another's hell: Yet this shall I ne'er know, but live in doubt, Till my bad angel fire my good one out.

Yes, the sonnets about the Dark Lady contain more sexually explicit references. The love for the Fair Youth, however, is celebrated while that for her is despaired. There is also the noble status (as argued) of the Fair Youth to consider, with the corresponding respect to be afforded him.

Things do get rather bawdy in Sonnet XX. It is very hard to read this sonnet as referring to idealized male friendship. We should always reserve the right to question the experts, especially when there is dissent among their ranks. More orthodox scholars today reject the notion that men celebrated their friendships in this manner during the Renaissance.

"Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion;
.........
.........
But since she[nature] prick'd thee out for women's pleasure,
Mine be thy love and thy love's use their treasure."

These first two lines I quoted above are probably the two most problematic lines of sonnet 20. Master-mistress is a term that makes most of us who argue Shakespeare may be heterosexual wince. However, later in the sonnet the poet says there is a problem; that the young man cannot be an object of sexual passion by the poet. I believe a myriad of interpretations can go on here. This shouldn't come as a surprise; it's not for the likes of us to say for sure what Shakespeare, who happens to have been the greatest wordsmith in the language, was literally admitting to. In a court of law I think Shakespeare could fall back  upon plausible denialbility. I will say again though; no-one has a clue if this is a hetero poet or bisexual poet. All that can be said is that it can be interpreted either way, but no-one at the time is known to have accused the pair of homosexuality.

[jackydee]

Oct 3, 2017 3:05:17 GMT Any of N said:

As mentioned previously, the Stratford guy was involved in litigation in 1609. He was suing for six pounds owed him and being sued for 20 pounds owed to someone else. The records have survived. 

This sounds like a man who would blow a gasket (if gaskets were yet invented) over any unauthorized publications of his work. If he were the William Shakespeare, poet and playwright, then he certainly was capable of expressing himself. For the moment let's say that the scandalous nature of the sonnets is overstated. Even if that were true, wouldn't he be concerned about how they might be interpreted? To top in off, the publication is replete with printing erros.  Even more reasons to blow his stack.  Yet there is nothing to that effect in the record.

Well we know another circumstance where his sonnets were stolen(The Passionate Pilgrim, 1599) and I don't believe there is a record of him complaining. His Plays were also regularly "stolen".  I use stolen in quotation marks as I don't think they were legally stolen under Elizabethan law. They were however printed without his permission. The usual practice as far as I can tell was to mumble and moan a bit in literary form. Suing was certainly not an option as far as I know.

How did Shakespeare react to the sonnets being published? It has been put forward that he reacted by retiring back to Stratford-upon-Avon. It's not necessarily an interpretation I agree with but it has been put forward as a "reaction".

[jackydee]

Oct 3, 2017 4:20:26 GMT Any of N said:

On the silent aftermath and the nature of a conspiracy...

If anti-stratfordians are right and the authorship was concealed, they don't know how it was accomplished. Again it's a matter of conjecture. The point to be stressed, however, is that there are relatively mundane possibilities that do not involve wide-ranging conspiracies. 

Consider the following scenario:

• The true author, a nobleman, wanted to remain anonymous as stated previously.
• This nobleman was not the first one but almost certainly the most heavily involved in the theater among his class. But there were precedents.
• Nobles simply didn't talk openly about it, given the impropriety. In other words, they were discrete about such matters. They had particular motivation in this case, for reasons touched on already and will be summarized later.
  
• Most commoners were illiterate and didn't know what was going on. Or necessarily care.
• Commoners were patriotic and respected the nobility. Literate commoners respected their privacy.
• Openly speaking ill of the nobility could get someone in serious trouble. Writing about it was worse. English commoners from that era didn't enjoy freedom of speech. An enemy could do you grave harm by relaying your words to the authorities. Speaking disrespectfully was all it took.
  
• The level of discretion practiced by all who were involved led to many observers suspecting various things but not being sure exactly what was going on. There are some very vague hints in various works, but nothing that makes it obvious, and they all suggest different things that often conflict with each other.
  
• Commoners involved with the theater wanted to preserve the gravy train. A supply of quality plays was quite valuable. Writers also didn't want to risk their future patronage and thus their livelihoods and careers. Loose lips could blow things up for everybody.
  

Under these circumstances it wouldn't be difficult to preserve the nobleman's anonymity. We're talking about an open secret among a very small number of people and a matter of conjecture among another small number of people. Both groups knew better than to talk or write about it openly. It was also a matter of patriotic principle to stay quiet.

As stated in the second bullet point, part of the conjecture is that other nobles participated in the arts as well. Choosing a commoner to serve as a front may have been done before. A simple strategy to minimize questions. Keep in mind that communication in that era was very slow.

All this would be enough for people to keep their mouths shut about the sonnets. Especially if the insiders and quasi-insiders snapped up the limited number of copies quickly.

The above scenario was drawn primarily from the writings of anti-stratfordians Diana Price, Stephanie Hopkins Hughes, and Nina Green. They don't necessarily agree with each other on the particulars, and so this is like a blending of some of their views.   

The Earl of Oxford famously sexually abused a horse. Or did he? One of his noble contemporaries accused Oxford of bestiality with a horse. I have no idea if the accusation is true, but the accusation was made. I think anti-Stratfordian exaggerate the esteem Nobility were held in. Sure, a commoner would be wary of upsetting a Noble openly, but in private commoners were probably as gossipy and accusatory against nobles as they came. However, the nobility hated one another. They fought, plotted and bad mouthed each other constantly. They dug up dirt on one another. We must have rumours and accusation against every major Noble in the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. These men were looked up to, but they were also the subject of intense scrutiny and conjecture. Yet no-one managed to dig up any dirt on Oxford's career as Shakespeare.

Again, I point you to Ben Jonson as the type of gossipy Elizabethan; a man who made outrageous slanders against almost everyone in Elizabethan and Jacobean England. Now, I don't think Jonson is representative of every commoner, but he is representative of many. These people new their station in life but they were also human. They talked and wrote, especially about controversies of their day. No-one talked or wrote of Oxford as being Shakespeare, yet we have people talking about Oxford as an abuser of horses and Queen Elizabeth as being little more than a whore. Now, it could be an honest blank in the historical record that we have no examples of Oxford being mentioned as Shakespeare. It could just be one of those minor mysteries. However, the reason we have no record is unlikely to be because of fear, intimidation, patriotism or a respect of privacy. After all, if someone can accuse Oxford of being a sodomite then an accusation of being a playright easily follows if those rumours of Oxford being a behind the scenes playwright were ever swirling around.

I hope im not being too lewd in my above post. I just wanted to give a flavor of some of the more juicy accusations and rumors going around about Elizabethan nobility and royalty. Elizabethans were almost as gossipy as we are today. The Jacobeans were even worse gossips than the Elizabethans! Yet, no-one says a thing about the authorship with any degree of candidness.

[Any of N]

Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford was indeed notorious. I was going to make the fifth argument before I got to him. (That will only be one main post.) You're right, Oxford was accused of damn near everything with the exception of being a poet and a playwright. If he was indeed the author of the Shakespeare canon, why would that be?

There's actually a pretty good answer, one that is at least partially satisfying. Queen Elizabeth loved the theater. Many plays were performed for her in court, and many were composed by the notorious earl who was at one time her favorite but later fell out of grace. Nobles could get away with participation in the arts but were supposed to stay quiet about it, as the argument goes. Criticizing Oxford for writing entertainments for the Queen would be like slapping her in the face. And, yes, she must have approved of letting the plays seep into the public theaters. After Oxford impregnated one of the Elizabeth's maids of honor and was exiled from court, another nobleman might get away with accusing him of many things. But not for writing the plays and poetry which she loved.

Oxford's life overlapped a bit with the reign if King James, and he loved the Shakespeare plays as well.

I will readily admit that not all the answers are known. There were likely other factors in play that are also subject to conjecture and theorizing. But I think we have a good start.

[jackydee]

I think anti-Stratfordians misrepresent Elizabethan society and court. Elizabeth I was regularly slapped in the face politically and once almost physically by the Earl of Essex. She was not a dictator, but she was typically authoritarian within certain limitations. Her court, her nobles, and her commoners were usually indulging in in-fighting, political warfare and intrigue. She, like many other Kings and Queens before her, found it difficult to control her court. A few of her nobles openly & violently rebelled, many more privately rebelled, almost everyone were politically backstabbing each other. Every Noble at court had at least one corresponding enemy(and often numerous enemies). One of the favourite tactics of underming the Monarch was to criticize her favorites. If the Queen couldn't be criticized then someone close to her usually took criticism instead. With all the gossip, intrigue and hatred going on at court it would have been nothing to accuse Oxford of leading a "disgraceful life" by writing Plays.

None of this disproves the theory that Oxford wrote the Plays. However, I do hope to disprove the theory that criticizing Oxford or the Queen would have been off limits. Elizabeth and James were both regularly criticized and even ridiculed. Yet no-one thought it worthwhile to write down that they believed, or suspected, that Oxford wrote Shakespeare's plays. At the Elizabethan & Jacobean Courts there certainly were plenty of open secrets. However, they were usually recorded by someone; from Elizabeth bearing children to James having improper relations with male favorites. Individuals had a tendency to write these juicy accusations down. One accusation not written down was the "open secret" that Oxford was Shakespeare.