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Shakespeare

Who wrote the work attributed to Shakespeare?

  • Mr Shakespeare.

    Votes: 36 75.0%

  • Mr Marlowe.

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Mr Bacon.

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Lots of different people.

    Votes: 6 12.5%

  • Someone else entirely.

    Votes: 1 2.1%

  • Aliens.

    Votes: 5 10.4%
  • Total voters
    48
The Tragedy of Macbeth: Some good scenes of horror but not as frightening as Justin Kurzel's 2015 version imho but then not everyone admirded that masterpiece of terror. Good performance by Denzel Washington as Macbeth but he doesn't bring anything new to the role while Frances McDormand as Lady Macbeth makes the part her own as a Frankenstein who finally comprehends the monster she has created. Kathryn Hunter plays The witches, first as one, a contortionist, morphing into three. Certainly worth seeing. Directed by Joel Coen, Screenplay by Joel Coen. 8/10.

In cinemas.
 
The authorship saga continues.

Doubting Shakespeare’s Identity Isn’t a Conspiracy Theory​

Elizabeth Winkler Argues the Mystery Behind the God of Iambic Thunder Is Part of the Thrill​


The Shakespeare authorship question—the theory that William Shakespeare might not have written the works published under his name—is the most horrible, vexed, unspeakable subject in the history of English literature.

Among Shakespeare scholars, even the phrase “Shakespeare authorship question” elicits contempt—eye-rolling, name-calling, mudslinging. If you raise it casually in a social setting, someone might chastise you as though you’ve uttered a deeply offensive profanity. Someone else might get up and leave the room. Tears may be shed. A whip may be produced. You will be punished, which is to say, educated. Because it is obscene to suggest that the god of English literature might be a false god. It is heresy.

This is curious, because many of our greatest writers and thinkers have suspected that the name was indeed a pseudonym for a concealed author. “I am ‘sort of’ haunted by the conviction that the divine William is the biggest and most successful fraud ever practiced on a patient world,” wrote Henry James.

“We all know how much mythus there is there is in the Shakspere question as it stands to-day,” Walt Whitman noted. Whitman, the poet of democracy, was no snob, but he was convinced that there was another mind behind the plays. ...

https://lithub.com/doubting-shakespeares-identity-isnt-a-conspiracy-theory/
 
ramonmercado said:
The authorship saga continues.

Doubting Shakespeare’s Identity Isn’t a Conspiracy Theory​

Elizabeth Winkler Argues the Mystery Behind the God of Iambic Thunder Is Part of the Thrill​


The Shakespeare authorship question—the theory that William Shakespeare might not have written the works published under his name—is the most horrible, vexed, unspeakable subject in the history of English literature.

Among Shakespeare scholars, even the phrase “Shakespeare authorship question” elicits contempt—eye-rolling, name-calling, mudslinging. If you raise it casually in a social setting, someone might chastise you as though you’ve uttered a deeply offensive profanity. Someone else might get up and leave the room. Tears may be shed. A whip may be produced. You will be punished, which is to say, educated. Because it is obscene to suggest that the god of English literature might be a false god. It is heresy.

This is curious, because many of our greatest writers and thinkers have suspected that the name was indeed a pseudonym for a concealed author. “I am ‘sort of’ haunted by the conviction that the divine William is the biggest and most successful fraud ever practiced on a patient world,” wrote Henry James.

“We all know how much mythus there is there is in the Shakspere question as it stands to-day,” Walt Whitman noted. Whitman, the poet of democracy, was no snob, but he was convinced that there was another mind behind the plays. ...

https://lithub.com/doubting-shakespeares-identity-isnt-a-conspiracy-theory/
Click to expand...
Quite a few proponents for Marlowe though, isn't there?
 
ramonmercado said:
The authorship saga continues.

Doubting Shakespeare’s Identity Isn’t a Conspiracy Theory​

Elizabeth Winkler Argues the Mystery Behind the God of Iambic Thunder Is Part of the Thrill​


The Shakespeare authorship question—the theory that William Shakespeare might not have written the works published under his name—is the most horrible, vexed, unspeakable subject in the history of English literature.

Among Shakespeare scholars, even the phrase “Shakespeare authorship question” elicits contempt—eye-rolling, name-calling, mudslinging. If you raise it casually in a social setting, someone might chastise you as though you’ve uttered a deeply offensive profanity. Someone else might get up and leave the room. Tears may be shed. A whip may be produced. You will be punished, which is to say, educated. Because it is obscene to suggest that the god of English literature might be a false god. It is heresy.

This is curious, because many of our greatest writers and thinkers have suspected that the name was indeed a pseudonym for a concealed author. “I am ‘sort of’ haunted by the conviction that the divine William is the biggest and most successful fraud ever practiced on a patient world,” wrote Henry James.

“We all know how much mythus there is there is in the Shakspere question as it stands to-day,” Walt Whitman noted. Whitman, the poet of democracy, was no snob, but he was convinced that there was another mind behind the plays. ...

https://lithub.com/doubting-shakespeares-identity-isnt-a-conspiracy-theory/
Click to expand...
Elizabeth Wrinkler, who, for what it's worth, writes for The Wall Street Journal, has authored a book called Shakespeare Was A Woman and Ohther Heresies - from which the above piece was adapted.There's an interesting - if subtly sniffy - review of this book in The Spectator (which is not paywalled!)

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/shakespeare-sceptics-are-the-new-literary-heroes/

I take no position on this issue. However, I did study English Literature at college and one of our tutors was a `Stratfordian` and I can definitely confirm the casually dismissive contempt with which any doubting of Shakespeare's authorship elicited ( as alluded to both in Wrinkler's piece above and in The Spectator review) I had read something (which was in the college library after all!) which speculated that Christopher Marlowe may have been the author of at least some of Shakespeare's works - and it seemed to provide scholarly substance to this position.
I raised this in a seminar.
`Oh, come on, Zeke!` - was the simple withering response to this and we moved decisively on - and this from a tutor who usually expected, and delivered, long thought out and respectful answers to all academic queries.
There are strictly defined no-go areas in the Liberal Arts just as much as there are in the sciences.
 
Stage That Once Hosted Shakespeare Found, Claims Norfolk Theatre

St George's Guildhall in King's Lynn is the oldest working theatre in the UK, dating back to 1445.

During recent renovations, floorboards were found under the existing auditorium, and they have been dated back to the 15th Century.

7d4e2869b1b886d2b33b979184674473


The theatre claims documents show that Shakespeare acted at the venue in 1592 or 1593.

At the time, acting companies left the capital when theatres in London were closed due to the plague. The Earl of Pembroke's Men - thought to include Shakespeare - visited King's Lynn.

The floorboards were uncovered last month during a renovation project at the Guildhall. They had been covered up for 75 years after a replacement floor was installed in the theatre.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-67007980

maximus otter
 
To my knowledge their are no documents that say he acted anywhere specific, he's listed as a player in a couple of Jonson plays - though no performance dates or locations. There might be documentation that says or at least suggests that one of his troupes performed in King's Lynn in the correct sort of period but that would be about it.
 
maximus otter said:
Stage That Once Hosted Shakespeare Found, Claims Norfolk Theatre

St George's Guildhall in King's Lynn is the oldest working theatre in the UK, dating back to 1445.

During recent renovations, floorboards were found under the existing auditorium, and they have been dated back to the 15th Century.

7d4e2869b1b886d2b33b979184674473


The theatre claims documents show that Shakespeare acted at the venue in 1592 or 1593.

At the time, acting companies left the capital when theatres in London were closed due to the plague. The Earl of Pembroke's Men - thought to include Shakespeare - visited King's Lynn.

The floorboards were uncovered last month during a renovation project at the Guildhall. They had been covered up for 75 years after a replacement floor was installed in the theatre.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-67007980

maximus otter
Click to expand...
From the looks of that picture, they didn't have to try too hard to 'find' the floor. They knew it was there. They're just having a look at it.
 
New adaptation of Macbeth

Ralph Fiennes and Indira Varma, two of Britain's most acclaimed actors, are in a warehouse in Liverpool, sitting in the middle of a wasteland of charred trees, giant lumps of blackened rubble and a burned-out car.

This immersive set has been built for the pair's new version of Shakespeare's Macbeth, which is avoiding traditional theatres in favour of different kinds of venues. In their mock war zone, it feels a far cry from the West End. Audience members must walk through this modern reimagining of Macbeth's battlefield, which sets the scene before they take their seats in the makeshift auditorium.

"Hopefully [it] gives them a sense of the destruction of war - the devastation and the chaos and the mess and the horror," explains Fiennes, who is in the title role.

As the simulated scene of urban destruction suggests, this is a contemporary staging of the play. Combat fatigues for the cast are packed on racks outside the dressing rooms at the Liverpool venue. The Depot was built in 2021 by the city council as a film and TV studio, but between now and Christmas an audience of 900 people a night will watch Macbeth here live.

The production - burning car and all - will then move on to similar spaces in Edinburgh, London and Washington DC.

Why do it in these warehouse venues?

"As a punter myself going to see plays, I love being taken out of my comfort zone," Fiennes replies. "It's exciting to me. I think that is a shared feeling when audiences are provoked [and] encouraged to go outside the normal theatres they know, or theatre occasions they're familiar with."

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-67442687
 
I’m rather new to all the authorship shenanigans but a few questions

Is there any written evidence that someone of that name actually existed? Church baptism records etc?

Why would some other playwright not take credit for the works?

He has a grave, had it ever been investigated

Talking of graves is there a record of his death and funeral? If he existed he would have been quite famous I would have thought, did the grave just appear?
 
Robbrent said:
I’m rather new to all the authorship shenanigans but a few questions

Is there any written evidence that someone of that name actually existed? Church baptism records etc?

Why would some other playwright not take credit for the works?

He has a grave, had it ever been investigated

Talking of graves is there a record of his death and funeral? If he existed he would have been quite famous I would have thought, did the grave just appear?
Click to expand...
I'm no expert but from reading in the past,,,,and online info:
His birthday is not known exactly but he was Baptized according to Church records on April 26 1564
No idea why another writer would not take credit unless it had to do with nobility issues if someone important was involved.
His grave has not been open/exhumed but allegedly ground radar shows his head missing so some speculated it was stolen centuries ago .
Died April 23 1616 buried at Church of the Holy Trinity Stratford Upon Avon.... His burial in Holy Trinity Church is recorded in Stratford-upon-Avon's parish register on 25 April 1616. ( Buried with his wife and a son in law also). There are some questions on how he died.
 
Robbrent said:
I’m rather new to all the authorship shenanigans but a few questions

Is there any written evidence that someone of that name actually existed? Church baptism records etc?

Why would some other playwright not take credit for the works?

He has a grave, had it ever been investigated

Talking of graves is there a record of his death and funeral? If he existed he would have been quite famous I would have thought, did the grave just appear?
Click to expand...

There was a man from Stratford who almost exclusively went under the name "William Shaksper" with that spelling being on almost all of the 80ish documents pertaining to his life. Most of those legal documents have nothing to do with the theatre, those that do show he had a financial interest in The Globe theatre and did at least a little acting, he's in the cast list for two Ben Johnson plays I think.

He certainly existed, was a successful and tight fisted business man, operating sometimes just outside the law: he sued people for small amounts of money, was caught and fined for hoarding grain at least twice, there was also what was effectively a restraining order placed against him as well. He appears to have lived in London and done business both there and Stratford.

He's believed to be buried under the monument in Stratford, I think a geophysical survey was done recently and there seems to be small space underneath, one not long enough for a corpse to be fully laid out. He may be there or elsewhere unmarked. I think the monument was erected well after his death.
 
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To me, a very strange thing: no matter what the ruling passions of the time, Shakespeare seemed to 'float' above these, as if uncommitted. His (possible) Catholicism is discussed in James Shapiro's books 1599 and 1606, along with evidence of his family members' far more evident faith, but William's true beliefs/feelings remain a mystery. He so often seems a man out of his time, in so many respects; it's perhaps one of the reasons why his works never really age.
 
Come to think of it, it should hardly have surprised me if WS kept his beliefs hidden during such a turbulent, dangerous and ever-shifting time for religious people.
 
How Shakespeare's 'blood cult’ became poet Ted Hughes’s fatal obsession

He believed he’d found the secret key to unlock all of Shakespeare’s work. Twenty years after Hughes’s death, this is the story of the lifelong fixation he feared would destroy him

'Hughes had plucked out “Shakespeare’s heart”, he said, and identified “the myth” within the poet’s work – the religious and psychological conflict caused by the Puritan suppression of old Catholicism in which the goddess of pagan beliefs still flourished.'

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2...blood-cult-became-ted-hughess-fatal-obsession
 
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I've always believed that Shakespeare was an atheist. Which was frowned upon almost as much as Catholicism really.

I have no idea what led me to that belief, whether it was something I read or was told in my impressionable years (which was pretty much when I was reading Shakespeare). It may have been that I drew the conclusion that the death of his son led to a death of faith. It's really strange, because I can't remember why I ever thought this - but I've always read his work through a 'disbeliever' lens.
 
At a time when people of various beliefs were being burned alive, it must have been tempting for intelligent people to write religion off as a foolish, fascistic and destructive thing.
 
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