Once again I must point out that you illustrate the fundamental difference between scholarship and Oxfordian argument. Remember the first one? http://www.shakespearefellowship.org/ubb...52087#Post52087 Your reply suggests you didn't understand my point. I doubt you'll understand this one, either.

I think I get your point. Pardon me for forgetting the special status conferred on you by being a Stratfordian, a member of the majority party. It is presumptuous to expect a Stratfordian to engage on an equal basis. The presumption of Stratfordians being correct must always go before. Oh, and you get to hand out assignments, and never take any. Is that about right?

The only special status Stratfordians have is working brains and a concept of what is involved in scholarship. Since you're not a Stratfordian, with all the rights, privileges, and special status appertaining thereof, I'll make it easy for you:

> The problem for Farey (and you) is to prove that my solution doesn’t work.

No, that's not the way scholarship works. The burden of proof is upon you, and the real task for a scientist or scholar is to try to falsify his own theory.

> What would be interesting to hear from you is a credible argument setting forth the long-held Stratfordian position that Shakespeare's "errors of geography" prove he was never in Italy. How about giving us just one.

Again, proving a negative is not something that is possible, at least not is "Stratfordian" scholarship.

Let me clarify things a bit.

There are now apparently significant contradictions to all the claims of Shakespeare's "errors of geography" produced by so called "Stratfordian" scholarship.

Thus this is just one of many illustrations that what is referred to as "scholarship" one might think perhaps need to be re-conceptualized.

A reasonable and intellectually honest person might also conclude based on the extraordinarily specific and detailed knowledge of Italian venues; that a necessary condition of the authorship of Shakespeare's works is very likely an actual presence in Italy.

In addition to the vast number of problems with the present model of authorship where virtually every aspect is an enigma.

But Stratfordian scholarship can only provide idiotic rationalizations and speculations that either he might have been during those "lost years" or more convoluted notions that this knowledge could have come from expatriates.

In addition of course to not having any other answers.

And this kind of improbable supposition and nonsense is what you refer to as scholarship.

Pistol,

You simply make my point. You do not engage in substantive back-and-forth discussion. You prance around with a chip on your shoulder, a self-made badge on your chest, and an imaginary billy-club in your hand. You assume that you are excused from engaging in actual discussion, that you (and Stratfordians) have an intrinsic right to put the “burden of proof” on the other side, regardless of facts, logic, and circumstance.

You have confused the world at large (and this forum) with Wikipedia where you do have special status and special authority, where you can dismiss dissenting arguments simply on the basis that they are dissenting and where you are able to trample on the facts at will. It’s not that you are utterly ignorant. You are reasonably well informed and you are, as you say, “clever”. However, here, and at Wikipedia, you put on the pretense of expertise. Your reaction to a problematic argument is to run and hide behind your presumed special status so that your knowledge will not be tested and so you will not be put at risk of losing. And, thereby, you lose.

Thank you Alan.

"It is enough to read Ben Jonson's Conversations with Drummond of Hawthornden to become convinced of the real existence of a playwright called Shakespeare who was greatly esteemed by his contemporaries."

The very odd thing though is that there is nothing to show that Jonson even NOTICED Shakespeare in S.'s lifetime. For a man so interested in contemporary poets and dramatists it is most peculiar that he never mentioned Shakespeare at all until long after he was dead. Donne also never noticed Shakespeare. Jonson estimed Donne the best of them all.

And I think Donald P. Hayes's conclusion:


will hopefully one day be recognized as an important application of Social Network Theory. As of now, it appears to be uncited.

Good to see that you're not one of those who think that Jonson's "On Poet-ape" was about Shakespeare or that he didn't satirise him in EMHH.

I'm sure the new paradigm is just around the corner. If only someone would make a movie about it, maybe that would do the trick.

It might help to simply/clarify the basic points of disagreement.

There is what we might call argument (A), the Oxfordian argument that Shakespeare’s knowledge of Italy first-hand, evidenced by the range and intimacy of detail.

In response to this there are two Stratfordian arguments which we designate (B1 and B2): B1) Shakespeare’s knowledge of Italy could have been obtained in London through books, pamphlets, and conversations; B2) errors in Shakespeare’s Italian geography indicate/prove that his knowledge of Italy was not first-hand.

There is, of course, the alternative Stratfordian argument (B3) that acknowledges Shakespeare’s first-hand knowledge of Italy and theorizes that he traveled to Italy. But, given the problems with that theory, Stratfordians have, in general rejected it, relying on arguments B1 and B2.

With regard to B1, I will be so bold as to predict that Roe’s book will not change the minds of many hard-core Stratfordians. However implausible B1 may seem to me, I know that Stratfordians are not likely to let loose of it. It is, like several other key Stratfordians arguments, ‘perfect’ in the sense that it can’t be absolutely disproven. It is enough for Stratfordians.

However, with regard to B2 we have a different situation. Here the Stratfordian argument rests on specific claims of “errors”. And so we have an opportunity here for productive debate. The challenge that Roe’s book presents to Stratfordians is quite simple and very clear; it is for them to defend (yes, “defend”) their general and specific arguments of “errors” in Shakespeare’s Italian geography.

We’ve seen the tactical “not my burden of proof” Stratfordian response combined with the usual name-calling. What we have not seen is any Stratfordian response on substance. Are there any “geographical errors” left? How many? Which one’s specifically? Is the general argument still viable, or are Stratfordians ready to concede that their “geographical errors” argument is a fable?

I hadn't realised just how hated the Scots still were in James' court at the time of the Spanish marriage negotiations; reason and time enough for patriotic Englishmen to reprint the Protestant WS plays as the FF, and for Jonson to arrange and edit it for Pembroke and his anti-Spanish faction.

Does this mean I have to accept the bits about the Bohemian Coast and the Queen's "membrana"?

Thanks for the clarification. I read it hastily. I'll respond to that post (and others soon.)

Ken

You have hit the nail on the head. Its part of what I was going to include in my response to Tom and and his answers on this in general. In citing "B",. Tom has been in that camp for a long time. I quoted him from HLAS (the problem with full archives) which has been a consistent position of his but here it is again:

"Once again, your statement (about Italian knowledge) is not the truth. Shakespeare scholars demonstrate that his knowledge was either _not that accurate_ or common to other playwrights of the time. **His mistakes in geography are well-documented and _not rebutted_, as far as I know, by any antiStrat.**

This is a flat out declaration by Tom and forces him to deal with B1 or B2. From his replies , here and at HLAS which I read one, he is trying to have it both ways. It feels like he (you Tom if you are reading this) is throwing things against the wall to see what will stick), avoiding the absoluteness of his position which through several posts through the years seems certain and assured.

Confronted with Roe, he cherry picks around the edges or seems to say, these arguments have been said before.

Yes, they have, and they were ignored or derided by you and by the very "scholars" you exalt specifically, who were wr...wr...wr..., what's that word?

Now what, Tom? I'm not sure what is your point, except to evade and obfuscate.

Sorry for the shifting pronouns. I think Nashe did that in "Preface to Menaphon".

Sogliardo-"not by Mustard." Liar in the middle. Guess in truth he idolized the man. A wonderful way to treat friends. That he was aware of him seems clear. How this relates to him as an author is another matter.

Now what? Now you'll have to wait until (a) I finish reading Roe; (b) I finish a work project that is taking up 12 hours a day for the next two weeks; (c) I formulate a response. The latter is usually not a quick process, and not one I look forward to spending the time to do, but I suppose I'll have to get around to it sooner or later. I was indifferent to Roger and Lynne's Tempest claims for a long time, until I finally made a decision to dive in head-first. There went two years of my life, so I hope you understand why I don't run out and answer every half-baked speculation some Oxfordian claims is THE smoking gun.

In the meantime, Ken, how about getting on LION and looking up the usage of sycamore trees in Early Modern literature? You might learn something. As far as that goes, have you seen how Shakespeare uses sycamore trees in any of his other plays? I thought not.

"Tooo busy"! Now there's a powerful argument!

Wait a minute! You took two years to come up with a response on The Tempest? Where is it?

Fine. I accept that you're busy and this needs some time. But you are putting words in MY mouth. I never said Roe was a "smoking gun" or a "paradigmn shifter". I said I was impressed with the book and thought it was challenging to established thought about Shakespeare and Italy, thoughts that YOU have been fully spportive of.

YOU were the one who first derided the book without reading it. When I looked up your archived responses on HLAS as best I could, it seems you have been rather consistent in declaring that any sugestion that Shakespeare had some intimate familiarity for Italy was bogus. Unlike others you did not go the B1 route (research) but B2, all fantasy, product of delusion that Strat scholars had adequately rebuffed.

Now I don't know what your position is but it does not seem to be resesrch but some combination of "Roe brings nothing new to the table" and "I am going to show how he really doesn't know what he is talking about", which is B2.

Go ahead take your time. I'm at work and will complete this post when I get home.

I appreciate your looking into this. I am concerned with the levels of what I perceive as denial that is endemic among orthodoxy that, God Forbid, any Anti Stratfordian might make a meaningful contribution to Shakespeare studies.

You apparently derided Grillo and now this. I will elaborate later and follow on your suggestions.

He really spent time with it. Not that I agree with his position. Similar to what he's doing now..

Reedy had something published in the Review of English Studies.
http://res.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2010/01/16/res.hgp107

Lynne and Roger's book,A Movable Feast: Sources, Chronology and Design of Shakespeare’s Tempest "will include detailed point-by-point rebuttals to two newly published critiques of our work: one by Alden Vaughan (2008) in Shakespeare Quarterly and another by Tom Reedy (2010) in Review of English Studies, showing how their misplaced confidence in traditional authority has led to misinterpretations of the evidence of the date and influence of Strachey’s manuscript." (http://shakespearestempest.com/)

I love the phrase "misplaced confidence in traditional authority". Sums up a whole lot of Strat arguments. We'd still be stuck in an earth-centric universe if scientists had the same mindset.

Denial? Oh please. What "orthodoxy" gets impatient with is the anti-Stratforidan denial of documented historical evidence while acting as if a hodge-podge of speculation without any evidence whatsoever is probative. That is the textbook example of denial.

Anti-Stratfordian arguments have been rebutted many times. If they had not, your view would be the orthodoxy by now. But for some strange reason, in the entire 150+ years of anti-Stratfordism, the overwhelming majority of scholars and the general public haven't found any of the many cases to be convincing.

A prudent and sensible person would look at that result and wonder if the theory was deficient in some way, but anti-Stratfordians just clutch their unfalsifiable theories tighter, continue to manufacture "evidence" such as codes and ciphers, and fire off charges of dishonesty and cover-up, all the while continuing to ignore or deny the historical record as a gigantic fraud perpetuated for 400 years, a fraud that strangely enough was only cracked in 1845, or 1851, or 1880, or 1920, or 1958, or almost any other year.

Let's stop with the generalities and deal with specifics. Because its just too Red State Blue State. 50% of Americans thought Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11. That was the official view, promoted by the authority of the state. Were they correct? I could care less about what is accepted "official" policy and what is not. I speak for myself and my core belief is that there is more here than meets the eye, no matter who wrote what and there are things to possibly learn that do not get play because the issue is too politicized. And we will never agree, that is clear.

I don't want to beat this particular theme to death too long but from my view you are way off on this. And perhaps you can clarify your position. Is it that Roe is completely wrong, or mostly wrong, as your appeal to authority which I quoted twice suggests, or is it that this has been rehashed before and has no substance, that Shakespeare's Italy is a literary construct of imagination, a variation of the other position? Otherwise why post the link?

First about the Sycamores. I didn't get to LION but you are kidding right about Shakespeare's usage? He uses "sycamore" three times in 36 plays, the same as "elm". The only reference to Sycamore geographically is in the passage he cites and they are exactly where the author places them. I'll get to Yew in a second. You might have done better with "Oak". Shakespeare uses Oak 26 times in the canon, 8 times in Merry wives alone with a reference to a specific Oak. Since it is not Italy, Roe was not interested. Is it real? I don't know. But of the 26 usages of Oak, only one refers to a place. All the others are metaphors or adjectives for attributes. Of course the one "Place" is "The Duke's Oak" in MND which along with the "Temple" gives a compelling argument to a real place. So if "sycamore" in R&J is supposed to be fantasy or pure literary invention, I think you are reaching badly and have struck out. But that seems to be your modis operandi with this book anyway, reaching and striking out.

Here is a post of yours from HLAS which you did not post here.

"At the risk of pissing off Ken, I have a few other comments aboutRoe's book.

First, to revisit Roe's failure to mention the yew trees in the churchyard in which Juliet's tomb is placed, here's a quotation from Roe,
pg. 18: "I felt almost certain that everything the author 'sneaks
into' his Italian plays can be found on the ground." And on the same page: "I wanted a completely fresh approach. ... I underlined *only*
what I could glean about the settings from the words spoken by the playwright's characters--as Benvolio had done with the sycamore trees."

So contrary to Crowley's criticism, it is perfectly reasonable to
point out Roe's failure to say anything about the yew trees in the grave yard. They are mentioned by two different characters Roe believes that the more times a certain feature is mentioned the more the playwright was trying to call attention to it, no doubt for future authorship researchers to find), and in addition they are not mentioned by any of the sources Shakespeare used to write the play."

This is a valid point but as I will express later, I hope you are not pulling a Ross and using a few minor points to invalidate an entire thesis. Roe could have missed the Yew trees, or he may have looked for them and found a mall and no records. There is a way to find out rather than your pontifications. Have someone (Anti Stratfordian like Michael York or a Strat Prof) call to Verona who is in Shakespeare studies and check it out. Or as you suggested with Sycamore (which ARE there) Yew also has strong universal connotations and could have been a literary device of the author.
From www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=11&ved=0CIUBEBYwCg&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.whitedragon.org.uk%2Farticles%2Fyew.htm&ei=zgINT4KNNOPo0QH8qLTfBQ&usg=AFQjCNHEAl6c5iJiry0yg1hovj0R-HoO_g&sig2=Arsykw8fnZRjDQRH1fvyNg

"The Yew is sacred to Hecate, and the Crone aspect of the Triple Goddess; both are guardians of the Underworld, death and the afterlife. A lot of our ancient Yews are found in churchyards but there is no doubt that they were there before the churches were built. Many churches and churchyards once stood in a circle of Yews, which were probably a legacy of the Druids' sacred groves. At Amesbury in Wiltshire, there are 14 Yews in a churchyard and 18 at Bradford-on-Avon. All are growing on blind springs. The 99 Yews in a churchyard at Painswick in Gloucestershire were also found to be on nodes or springs. It seems likely that the Yews were planted with the intention of marking and protecting these powerful spots. A new system of dating Yews suggests that some of our most ancient and protected Yews are 4,000 years old and not 1,500 years old as previously thought."


Now on to Two Gentlemen of Verona.

I can honestly say that Roe has proven that it was possible to travel from Verona to Milan via water (Bully for you-Ken, thanks)(I won't go into the details, but instead leave it up to readers to find out themselves). However, he does not prove that Verona has a seacoast, which is what anyone closely reading the play would think the playwright assumed. Really-if you say so) Roe
himself unknowingly proves that the playwright was ignorant of Italian geography (or--more likely--he didn't care about it).

Roe makes a big deal out of the fact that Shakespeare never uses the word "seaport", and he gives a long-winded explanation of the meaning of "road", as in "roadstead" (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadstead).He also praises the playwright's knowledge and use of nautical terms.

However, Roe is mistaken in his idea that a road pertains to inland canals, even though he tries to make it so: "Along select channels of the seas, and in the large and smooth rivers the world over, there are wide places for ships to anchor called 'roads' (though some recent dictionaries call them 'roadsteads'). Roads are the preferred places for ships to ride at anchor, either to be served by lighters, or else to come up, in turn, to a nearby quay, to load or unload passengers or cargo" (37). Roe even provides a photograph of what he believes a road to be on page 58, with the cutline, ".... Landings, or 'roads,' were located inside cities and at regular intervals along the length of each canal, much like modern bus stations."

Roe is mistaken. Roads, or roadsteads, are places for ships to anchor outside harbors. Roads are not canal quays or docks, nor are they harbors. The playwright clearly refers to roads, and if he is as accurate in his use of nautical terms as Roe claims, he **cannot have meant a dock or a quay.**

Roe also ignores another term that Shakespeare has Valentine say, even though he himself quotes it: I rather would entreat thy company | Tosee the wonders of the world abroad, | Than, living dully sluggardized at home, | Wear out thy youth with shapeless idleness. The term"abroad" can mean in another country, but it is very commonly used to mean "overseas" also."

Your first criticism is specific, the second ambiguous. And why at this moment should I accept you as an authority on this? Roe was in Italy. If I am to use this point of yours I would have to seek a third unbiased party, familiar with terms in the 16th century.

You should have read further before this comment. In the beginning of TOS the dialogue from Lucentio, as the men arrive in Padua, turning in an off stage direction, raising his voice to someone we haven't yet seen
"If Biondello, THOU WERT COME ASHORE,
We could at once put us in readiness,
And take lodging fit to entertain
such friends as Padua shall beget."
(Roe)" This business of coming ashore in Padua has led to such nonsense as the observation in the Riverside Shakespeare that 'like a number of other inland cities, Padua is endowed by Shakespeare with a harbor".'

So much for "Shakespeare scholars demonstrate that his knowledge was either _not that accurate_ or common to other playwrights of the time. **His mistakes in geography are well-documented and _not rebutted_, as far as I know, by any anti Strat.**"

You have just affirmed the intricate canal system and inland water routes of Italy you have previously denied and here Roe points out the author's use specifically of that knowledge. He goes onto focus on the dialogue which pinpoints the the near proximity of the Inn and finds such an exact conjunction. It is archetypical enough in detail to serve as the real location or model for the location of the opening scene (post "induction".)


Reedy-"Proteus also says later on in the same scene: Go, go, be gone, to save your ship from wreck, | Which cannot perish having thee aboard, |Being destined to a drier death on shore.

"Shore" is universally used to mean the land bordering a sea or a
lake. The land bordering a river or a canal is generally called a
bank. Shakespeare uses the term to mean both that and--in at least one place--to mean a shore of an island, but he never uses the term"shore" to mean a river or canal bank."

But, Tom, I just wrote the dialogue from TOS,
""If Biondello, THOU WERT COME ASHORE,"

Are you sure you still want to argue this point when the author has contradicted you and Roe has affirmed his knowledge and usage?

Strike two.

"I'm sure I'll have more comments later on--my book looks like a wall of graffiti with all the notes I've scrawled in the margins--but I'm not gonna pick every little nit

Let's hope not. Let's hope you can focus on the larger picture. Take your time. I've read 80% of it. You haven't.

You admit the river and canal system and travel by INLAND water.
You admit the location of the Sycamores.
You admit the truth of "St. Gregory's Well", an historical fact Roe had to move heaven and Earth to find out about.

You haven't come yet to "tranect" which existed.
Or Shylock's "penthouse" (pentice) in the Jewish Ghetto (its there-next to a BANK)
The correct geography and topography of Northern and Western Milan.
The street route Bertram takes in his entrance to the city.
You glossed over the Strat mistake of "fruitful Lombardy"
The Strat misunderstanding that Milan had an Emperor.

The verbal parallels between Cinthio's source and Othello and how the author got them.

And a really potentially important find, "The Duke's Oak", not in Greece but specifically in detail in Sabbioneta.

These are just part of Roe's research that demonstrate that the statement

""Shakespeare scholars demonstrate that his knowledge was either _not that accurate_ or common to other playwrights of the time. **His mistakes in geography are well-documented and _not rebutted_, as far as I know, by any anti Strat.**" is horribly misguided.

And you go Ross on me with Sycamores, which are placed exactly where they grow in Verona???

During the Iraq War it was the proclivity of the mainstream press to hide the lies and denials of the administration and it was the rare reader to look at one of the many truthful books about that war such as Thomas Ricks "Fiasco".

My experience of Shakespeare Orthodoxy is the same. Anything that smacks of good work by an anti Stratfordian is denied, dismissed, derided. And you have been a chief offender. This for ME has nothing to do with who wrote what. It has to do with other things which people like you, Steese, Shapiro (who did find the Wilmot forgery on his own but refuses to acknowledge he didn't get there first and put Rollet in a footnote and never mentions him in talks-kind of being second to the top of Everest and claiming to be first)and the rest sneer at.

Go to it. There's enough in Roe to discredit your foundational position abundantly.

How the author got his knowledge is a different subject. If Shapiro wrote this book it would be feted. And therein lies the dishonest.

But go for it. You did not piss me off.

I'm about done with this.

Strike three.

P.S. The knowledge of the "mercantant" in TOS and Antonio's use of foreign vessels in MOV.

Hell of a researcher.

Ken

I don't know what your background is, but you might want to ask somebody about the logical mistakes you make in your argument above. There are good reasons why you're an anti-Stratfordian and I'm not. You also might want to look at my later posts in that HLAS thread you cited.

I have already told you I will deal with Roe's arguments at a later time. However, I will deal with your points above either later today or tomorrow.

I also noticed you said not one word about my post just previous to yours. Classic denial.

From http://www.memidex.com/roadstead
"Roadstead: a place outside a harbor where a ship can lie at anchor. It's an enclosed area with an opening to the sea, narrower than a bay or gulf. It has a surface that cannot be confused with an estuary. **It can be created artificially by jetties or dikes.."**
and

"roadstead: a place less enclosed than a harbor where ships may ride at anchor

and
roadstead:a protected place near shore, not as enclosed as a harbor, where ships can anchor

From http://www.thefreedictionary.com/road

road (rd)
n.
1.
a. Abbr. Rd. An open, generally public way for the passage of vehicles, people, and animals.
b. The surface of a road; a roadbed.
2. A course or path: the road to riches.
3. A railroad.
4. **Nautical A roadstead. Often used in the plural.**

and
From http://dictionary.reverso.net/english-synonyms/road

road
1 avenue, course, direction, highway, lane, motorway, path, pathway, roadway, route, street, thoroughfare, track, way
2 Nautical) anchorage, roadstead


First three sites I looked up.

Obviously Roe elaborated more.

Pistol,

You said (to Ken), “I don't know what your background is, but you might want to ask somebody about the logical mistakes you make in your argument above. There are good reasons why you're an anti-Stratfordian and I'm not.”

Has the irony of employing a logical fallacy to argue superior logic never occurred to you?

First, if we're having a discussion here, why not transfer them here, since at the moment this is primarily between me and you and I'm not interested in a gang of piranhas entering the conversation.

Otherwise I have to transfer every time you post.

Second remind me which post you want the reply to, the "Poet Ape" or the Anti Anti Strat expression.

About "road". After I read the other threads, I'll respond more fully.

Thanks

I'm too busy right now. I'll post a summary this weekend.

A road is essentially a parking lot for ships.