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Shakespeare

Who wrote the work attributed to Shakespeare?

  • Mr Shakespeare.

    Votes: 35 74.5%

  • Mr Marlowe.

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Mr Bacon.

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Lots of different people.

    Votes: 6 12.8%

  • Someone else entirely.

    Votes: 1 2.1%

  • Aliens.

    Votes: 5 10.6%
  • Total voters
    47
I read a book some years back that investigated the Shakespeare controversy.....I think it was by John Mitchell.
At any rate several of his points were intriguing.
-One was that he left no books or original play manuscripts to anyone in his family (nor have any ever turned up) yet this was Shakespeare after all...so where did they all go?
-There are apparently only 3 copies of his actual signature yet they are all different. To me that's a bit odd.
-How did a local business man/actor come to be so educated about noble court life and all that went with it?
There were many other points about Bacon, Marlowe, De Vere ,etc but I'm sure those have been covered in this thread and others here over the years.
Tied into the first point above where are all the original manuscripts he did of his plays before he presented them to the theater that the actors must have used and that he used as templates for his tales?
Perhaps one or two of the Shakespeare 'experts' here can enlighten me on their merit or lack of.
 
Not sure if this covers your question, but some relevant info is here:

Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies is the 1623 published collection of William Shakespeare's plays. Modern scholars commonly refer to it as the First Folio.[1]

Printed in folio format and containing 36 plays (see list of Shakespeare's plays), it was prepared by Shakespeare's colleagues John Heminges and Henry Condell. It was dedicated to the "incomparable pair of brethren" William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke and his brother Philip Herbert, Earl of Montgomery (later 4th Earl of Pembroke).

Although eighteen of Shakespeare's plays had been published in quarto prior to 1623, the First Folio is arguably the only reliable text for about twenty of the plays, and a valuable source text even for many of those previously published. The Folio includes all of the plays generally accepted to be Shakespeare's, with the exception of Pericles, Prince of Tyre, The Two Noble Kinsmen, and the two lost plays, Cardenio and Love's Labour's Won.

etc...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Folio
 
^ It answers how the first folios came to be as published works but why are there no working manuscripts that would have been used in the early presentations? None survived....not one..?
Why did he leave nothing to his wife and daughter in his will regarding his great works.....no books , etc?
What about his signature....spelled 3 different ways...? Where did he learn all that he knew about royalty ,etc..?
 
dr wu said:
Where did he learn all that he knew about royalty ,etc..?
Click to expand...

There were history books around back then (and many of Will's sources are on record), but also people then followed the lives of the Royals, much as they do now. More so, in fact - without the distraction of the internet and the media, gossip about the Royals was common and probably included material from previous generations too.

But there's also the consideration that Will was an apologist for the Tudor monarchy (and why wouldn't he be?!) and was churning out stuff to support the Status Quo.
 
Some of Shakespeare's work was heavily based on previous stories. He must have done a lot of research, or got others to do it for him. I suggest he sub-contracted some of that work to people who had access to books and knowledge of the activities of the Royal court.
 
dr wu said:
What about his signature....spelled 3 different ways...?
Click to expand...

I think this could be put down to artistic license on the part of the signatory. As long as the pronunciation was the same then the spelling might not be that important. He might have been experimenting on which one looked best on paper, or changed it throughout his life on a whim.
Or he might have just asked someone to sign for him.
 
dr wu said:
^ It answers how the first folios came to be as published works but why are there no working manuscripts that would have been used in the early presentations? None survived....not one..?
Why did he leave nothing to his wife and daughter in his will regarding his great works.....no books , etc?
What about his signature....spelled 3 different ways...? Where did he learn all that he knew about royalty ,etc..?
Click to expand...

1) There are no known handwritten manuscripts by any professional playwright of the era period. Not by Shakespeare, not by Johnson, not by Marlow, not by anyone. It would be remarkable if even one did exist!

2) Shakespeare's will mostly only deals with money and land. He does name a couple of items specifically for family members, but othetwise specifies that the all contents of his house be left to his daughter Judith. That would include books. Think about it; how many people own books? The vast majority. How many mention them specifically in their will? Dunno. But I'd guess hardly any.

3) Where does any author learn about royalty? Is there really anything on there that wouldn't be knowable? As Rynner points out, many stories are developments of older ones, written sources were available, also remember that London was tiny at that time. It barely reached as far as Westminster and had a population of c.200 000. As a prominent artist and businessmen with a network of patrons he would almost certainly have rubbed shoulders with people who would know. Also note that none of Shakespeare's work contains direct any contemporary reference to the royal court of the day, so what was there to get right or wrong exactly? Actually, hiw much did he 'get wrong' for that matter?
 
^Thanks for the comments emina.....that helped clear up some points I have always wondered about.
 
Here's a real cross-threader! But it fits here as well as anywhere else:
Brexit, pursued by a bear: Boris Johnson shelves his Shakespeare biography
Originally scheduled for an October release, Johnson’s Shakespeare: The Riddle of Genius has been put on ice due to its author’s new commitments
Andrew Dickson
Saturday 23 July 2016 11.00 BST

Zounds! S’blood! BoJo’s Bard biog shuffles off this mortal coil! On Monday it was announced that Boris Johnson’s widely anticipated biography of Shakespeare is on ice, indefinitely. Originally scheduled for release this October – rather late for the 400th anniversary of the playwright’s death back in April – Shakespeare: The Riddle of Genius “will not be published for the foreseeable future”, says its publisher, Hodder & Stoughton. Regrettably for those inclined to schadenfreude, they declined to confirm reports that Johnson will be forced to pay back his advance. Et tu, Boris, et cetera.

Among professional Shakespeareans – think the conspirators in Julius Caesar, only with sharper daggers – there has been a mixture of glee and remorse. On the one hand, many thought the biography wasn’t likely to be very good. On the other, everyone would have had a great deal of fun saying so. Even before the announcement, speculation was rife that not a word had actually been written, and that several prominent academics had been begged for last-minute assistance. Hodder won’t be drawn on these rumours, either.

The fact that Shakespeare should be yet another casualty of Brexit seems mournfully appropriate. Britain’s national poet he may be, but – as the scholar Michael Dobson remarked in a talk at the British Council in Paris – the playwright was un vrai Européen. Not only are most of his scripts set in mainland Europe, particularly Italy (Venice, Verona, Padua, Sicily), but many are drawn from French and Italian sources, some of which he appears to have read in the original languages. Ben Jonson’s suggestion that his colleague had but “small Latine and lesse Greeke” may have been accurate, but Shakespeare clearly knew enough French to write much of a scene in Henry V in the language, poking gentle fun at Henry’s inability to master the tongue while wooing Princess Catherine of Valois. It’s also likely that he was on nodding terms with the great Italian translator John Florio, and from around 1602 he lodged with a French immigrant family, the Mountjoys, in Bishopsgate.

In 2014 Dobson and others visited Brussels, on a mission to have Shakespeare crowned European laureate – a fitting tribute to a writer whose works unite so many worlds. That project, too, seems to be on ice.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2...shakespeare-biography-brexit-riddle-of-genius
 
rynner2 said:
Here's a real cross-threader! But it fits here as well as anywhere else:
Brexit, pursued by a bear: Boris Johnson shelves his Shakespeare biography
Originally scheduled for an October release, Johnson’s Shakespeare: The Riddle of Genius has been put on ice due to its author’s new commitments
Andrew Dickson
Saturday 23 July 2016 11.00 BST

Zounds! S’blood! BoJo’s Bard biog shuffles off this mortal coil! On Monday it was announced that Boris Johnson’s widely anticipated biography of Shakespeare is on ice, indefinitely. Originally scheduled for release this October – rather late for the 400th anniversary of the playwright’s death back in April – Shakespeare: The Riddle of Genius “will not be published for the foreseeable future”, says its publisher, Hodder & Stoughton. Regrettably for those inclined to schadenfreude, they declined to confirm reports that Johnson will be forced to pay back his advance. Et tu, Boris, et cetera.

Among professional Shakespeareans – think the conspirators in Julius Caesar, only with sharper daggers – there has been a mixture of glee and remorse. On the one hand, many thought the biography wasn’t likely to be very good. On the other, everyone would have had a great deal of fun saying so. Even before the announcement, speculation was rife that not a word had actually been written, and that several prominent academics had been begged for last-minute assistance. Hodder won’t be drawn on these rumours, either.

The fact that Shakespeare should be yet another casualty of Brexit seems mournfully appropriate. Britain’s national poet he may be, but – as the scholar Michael Dobson remarked in a talk at the British Council in Paris – the playwright was un vrai Européen. Not only are most of his scripts set in mainland Europe, particularly Italy (Venice, Verona, Padua, Sicily), but many are drawn from French and Italian sources, some of which he appears to have read in the original languages. Ben Jonson’s suggestion that his colleague had but “small Latine and lesse Greeke” may have been accurate, but Shakespeare clearly knew enough French to write much of a scene in Henry V in the language, poking gentle fun at Henry’s inability to master the tongue while wooing Princess Catherine of Valois. It’s also likely that he was on nodding terms with the great Italian translator John Florio, and from around 1602 he lodged with a French immigrant family, the Mountjoys, in Bishopsgate.

In 2014 Dobson and others visited Brussels, on a mission to have Shakespeare crowned European laureate – a fitting tribute to a writer whose works unite so many worlds. That project, too, seems to be on ice.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2...shakespeare-biography-brexit-riddle-of-genius
Click to expand...

Drat!

That would have been fun.
 
Shakespeare and Marlowe as co-authors! :)

"Using old-fashioned scholarship and 21st-century computerised tools to analyse texts, the edition’s international scholars have contended that Shakespeare’s collaboration with other playwrights was far more extensive than has been realised until now.

"Henry VI, Parts One, Two and Three are among as many as 17 plays that they now believe contain writing by other people, sometimes several hands. It more than doubles the figure in the previous New Oxford Shakespeare, published 30 years ago."
 
The World News Daily Report site has a lot of dubious stuff on it.
Has a long-lost Shakespeare play been found? They say so but I can find no other reports. :huh:

Except on similar dubious sites!

NB: Other online references to the play concern Theobald's version. He is sometimes assumed to have had access to a copy of the lost work, which he reworked according to the fashions of his time. Attempts have been made to reconstruct the original from his version. The discovery of an original published version seems to be codology, drawing on the desire to have one!
 
Shakespearean notepad stuns Antiques Roadshow expert
1 April 2017
[Video]

A 17th century Shakespearean notebook with "enormous scholarly value" has been described as one of the most remarkable items to ever feature on the Antiques Roadshow.
The tiny pad, featuring "scientific scholarly notes" written during the Bard's lifetime, left manuscripts specialist Matthew Haley "trembling".
The notebook is believed to have come from the collection of 18th Century antiquarian John Loveday of Caversham.
It will be shown on Sunday's episode.

The book was found by the five times great grandson of Loveday among his mother's belongings.
Mr Haley said it included detailed notes in Latin and suggested the jottings could have been the work of a student analysing the playwright's work.
"There is so much research that can be done on this item," said Mr Haley, who appraised the item at Caversham Park in Berkshire.
"It's amazing, it's almost completely illegible, but you can pick out the odd word, and you can pick out phrases that appear in Shakespeare."
He said it was "one of the best things" he had seen on the programme "by a fairly good stretch".
"I was completely knocked for six," he added.

The estimated value of the notebook will be revealed on Sunday's show, which will be broadcast at 20:00 on BBC One.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-berkshire-39452558
 
I'd've thought it pretty hard to establish its provence beyond reasonable doubt, i'faith.
 
If it an April Fool, it is a very convincing one!

I wonder when we will get to see a transcription . . . :)
 
Andy_X said:
I'd've thought it pretty hard to establish its provence beyond reasonable doubt, i'faith.
Click to expand...
It's not from Provence, as far as I know.
 
Wouldn't it be great if the notepad were genuine?
 
Mythopoeika said:
It's not from Provence, as far as I know.
Click to expand...

Spelling Nazi, eh? Don't blame me. Blame autocorrect.

escargot1 said:
Wouldn't it be great if the notepad were genuine?
Click to expand...

Yes, it would be awesome. But can its provenance be reliability established? In any case, what the heck is a 'Shakespearean' notebook? That doesn't make sense...

I'd say it was an April fool, in which case why the writer couldn't bring themselves to describe it as 'a notebook belonging to William Shakespeare' is beyond me.

If genuine, I hope it ends up in a British Museum 'Stationary That Changed the World' exhibition alongside the Churchillian paperclips.
 
Fuck. I've only been and gone and spelt 'reliably' wrong too.

*sigh*
 
Andy_X said:
why the writer couldn't bring themselves to describe it as 'a notebook belonging to William Shakespeare' is beyond me.
Click to expand...

I don't think it is claimed as a Shakespeare manuscript but a notebook kept by an enthusiast for the plays. It raises a lot of questions - especially since there is a dearth of critical material from the period. If it is an April Fool, the decision to broadcast the story on the second day of the month is mysterious. :huh:
 
Andy_X said:
Spelling Nazi, eh? Don't blame me. Blame autocorrect.



Yes, it would be awesome. But can its provenance be reliability established? In any case, what the heck is a 'Shakespearean' notebook? That doesn't make sense...

I'd say it was an April fool, in which case why the writer couldn't bring themselves to describe it as 'a notebook belonging to William Shakespeare' is beyond me.

If genuine, I hope it ends up in a British Museum 'Stationery That Changed the World' exhibition alongside the Churchillian paperclips.
Click to expand...
Fixed that for you.
 
Nice one. I'll be there.

Are you connected to the BM then?
 
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