I have been on shakespeareauthorship.com a fair amount. I often find it a little frustrating due to what seems like a tendency to avoid confronting the most serious arguments and basically nit pick a lot. But it is a good resource. I didn't know there was de Vere thread on Amazon. I'll have a look.

Of course, it's very hard to find honest arguments about anything. To meet my definition of honest you have to occasionally concede a point.

Morella,

Hate to leave any unanswered questions, (in this case, why would de Vere pick an illiterate front man) but I don't really have an answer, however.

The movie, Anonymous, had a fanciful answer - de Vere picked Ben Jonson as the front but Ben allowed some money-grubbing lowlife (Shakespeare) to grab the credit.

I'm afraid I don't have a better answer than the one the movie came up with. Emmerich (the director) is basically saying "anything is possible" which is always true of course.

There is no good answer to the general point that a number of aspects of the de Vere authorship fall into the "bizarre" and "unprecedented" categories including the illiterate or semi-literate frontman.

Curiosities such as "our ever-living poet" are either enough to overcome the inherent improbability of an unprecedented event or they aren't and reasonable people can certainly disagree.

Matt, Charles Beauclerk gave an answer in The Shakespeare Conspiracy (DVD). There was a distant relationship, the man had the right name - and he couldn't write about it.

Not all Oxfordians think Will Shaksper was a front man. The attribution could just be an historical mistake.

The authorship may have been the worst kept secret in London, but who would write it down where it could be found over 400 years later?

In your opinion, what are the most serious arguments?



That is the difference between anti-Strats and Strats: anti-Strat theories depend on fanciful interpretations—basically, rejecting the historical record and making things up—while at the same time they insist that Strats hew strictly to the documentary record and disallow reasonable inferences (his attendance at the Stratford grammar school is a good example).

I grant that Pistol is correct that far too many Oxfordians have offered up far too many fanciful interpretations, but I have to add that that is exactly what the Stratfordian Tradition is.

Pistol wrote, "In your opinion, what are the most serious arguments?"

Briefly, the signatures and the "our ever-living poet" reference.

The "I (once gone) to all the world must die" line and other indications in the sonnets ("my name be buried where my body is", "every word doth almost tell my name", and the lament about "art made tongue-tied by authority."

If both Hamlet and de Vere were royal wards of Polonius/Burghley with troubled relationships with his daughter and if Hamlet is read as autobiographical this seems to point to de Vere. There's also the 18 unpublished manuscripts that sat around for so long and the fact that de Vere's family was apparently involved in the publication of the First Folio.

If one assumes that Southampton is the subject of the sonnets then the fact that the first 17 sonnets were pleas for marriage and the fact that Southampton was being pressured to marry de Vere's daughter also seem to point to de Vere.

I think I can provide mediocre counter-arguments for all of the above but I was embarrassed to find that I was rather clueless about Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern who are hardly the smoking gun that I imagined. Hence the question with which I started this thread.

So de Vere's brother in law was the only person in England who had heard of Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern?

And the only way anyone else could have heard about them was by reading his report?

Is that what you are saying?

Apparently (at least according to the Wikipedia entry which I'm willing to take as accurate), R and G were actually pretty common names so you're right, Shakespeare could easily have read about them somewhere other than in the report of de Vere's brother in law.

Moral (for me): Google first, ask questions later.

The fact that there is a connection between R and G and de Vere combined with the Hamlet parallels makes R and G an interesting tidbit but nothing more given the apparent commonness of the names. Also, the Wiki article claims men named R and G visited London in 1592. So much for my smoking gun!

What's your take on "our ever-living poet"?

Matt, I think you're going about this in the right spirit and you're being a good sport about this R&G thing.

I agree that one has to be prepared to concede points if one is engaging in fair discussion; otherwise it is possible that one is disingenuous, or simply stubborn beyond reason, or gives off that impression.

But, what does it say that your smoking gun was demolished within minutes?

What might an impartial bystander reasonably infer about the rigor of Oxfordian argument?

As for "ever living poet". I don't fully understand your position on this, largely due to my ignorance of Henry VI, but it seems that it can be interpreted in so many ways that it ends up being useless as evidence or proof of anything, on either side.

You could try the cannons. They're a smoking gun too. *cough,cough*

Kindly tell us the other ways that phrase could be interpreted, reasonably, and compellingly, based on literary convention at the time.

That's alright Matt, it's impossible to know everything that happened four hundred years ago, so much is lost in the mists of time. But I think that Oxfordians who espouse the idea of an illiterate frontman do their cause no good at all. It's like a great painter, you know, who has art exhibitions all over the world and such, but wants to stay anonymous, so picks some guy as a frontman who is color-bind and has hands so crippled with arthritis that he couldn't hold a matchstick never mind a brush.
Does that make any sense? How long would it take people to find out?

As to 'ever-living', here are some contemporary definitions from the OED:

1.

a. That lives or will live for ever.

1541 Coverdale tr. H.Bullinger Olde Fayth sig. Fvijv, Very God & man the onely and euerlyuyng sauyour.

1614 W. Raleigh Hist. World i. i. ii. §3. 28 The euer-liuing subiects of his [sc. God's] reward and punishment.

b. fig. Of a name, fame, etc.: Immortal.

1595 W. Clarke in C. M. Ingleby & L. T. Smith Shakespeare's Cent. Prayse (1879) 15 Everliving praise to her loving Delia.

a1616 Shakespeare Henry VI, Pt. 1 (1623) iv. iii. 51 That euer-liuing man of Memorie, Henrie the fift.

a1625 J. Fletcher Humorous Lieut. i. i, in F. Beaumont & J. Fletcher Comedies & Trag. (1647) sig. Qqq2/2, So many idle houres, as here he loyters, So many ever-living names he loses.

2. quasi-n.

1601 N. Breton Longing Blessed Heart sig. F4, While the hand of heauen is giuing, Comfort from the euerliuing?

Seems to me that 'ever-living' doesn't have to be used in connection with God, divinity, or the deceased. I don't think W. Clarke (Covell) was - you could substitute 'lasting', maybe. Perhaps the same with John Fletcher - the quotation refers to the character Demetrius who is alive. I haven't read this play and don't know the context for 'ever-living names', but it might mean that Demetrius will fail to achieve lasting heroic epithets for himself if he doesn't lead his troops into battle. I stand to be corrected.

Sure, Henry V was dead but Thorpe may have been making a sly, playful reference to the sonnets author who was "in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country".

I found a couple of usages in contemporary letters. I originally wrote this over at the Forest of Arden:

"this is taken from a letter Queen Elizabeth wrote to James VI of Scotland on the 25th November,1591:

" As my care for your weal, my dear brother, hath been full long the desire of my endeavours, so though my many letters do not oft cumber your eyes with the reading them, yet my ever-living watch-full head hath never been neglected; as by proof, even now, the errand that this bearer brings you, may make you know; ......"

Here 'ever-living' seems to function like an adverb - meaning constantly or perpetually 'watch-full' - and therefore could also serve as a synonymous adjective for constant or perpetual".

I later found another example in a letter from Sir Henry Wotton to Francis Bacon, dated (I think) 1620:

"I have your lordship's letters, dated the 20th of October, and I have withal, by the care of my cousin, Mr. Thomas Meawtis, and by your own special favour, three copies of that work, wherewith your lordship hath done a great and ever-living benefit to all the children of nature, and to nature herself in her uttermost extent and latitude....."

Again, I think you could substitute here 'lasting' or 'perpetual' - it doesn't have to have a 'religious' context.

So no, I don't think the 'ever-lasting poet' is God or a dead writer, but an author who is (or believes himself to be!) a legend in his own lifetime, and will be beyond the grave.


Morella.

I just have, although my post ended up being addressed to you rather than Matt.

What is your book, by the way?


Morella.

Morella, that's wonderful! Just what I was looking for.

If one is going to not read "our ever-living poet" as a eulogy then my favorite option of the ones you presented is from Queen Elizabeth's letter in which she talks about her "ever-living watch-full head."

I'm going to see if I can find the whole letter.

Morella,

Thank you. I think you mean examples or usages rather than ‘definitions’, though usage is really what we’re looking for. But, it must be kept in mind that both the exact phrasing and context are critical. There is, so far as I have found, no contemporary example of comparable context phrasing that is not memorial, that is, speaking of someone who is dead. The theory that the phrase referred to God is not supported by examples from this context. This is discussed in my book.

Steve

Morella,

My book is, I Come To Bury Shaksper, under the pseudonym, Steven McClarran. Available as ebook and paperback at Amazon. Thank you for asking.

Steve

Matt - you'll find it in History of Scotland: Volume 9 edited by Patrick Fraser Tytler and available at Googlebooks.

Morella.

Actually Steve, I had just found out, and believe it or not, I already have a copy, but no time to read it as yet, I'm afraid.


Morella.

http://spenserians.cath.vt.edu/TextRecord.php?action=GET&textsid=32815

Search for "ever-living Empresse", referring to Elizabeth I.

Covell certainly wouldn't have been anticipating Elizabeth's demise and would only be speaking of her in the current state of being very much alive - it was high treason to compass or imagine the death of a monarch.


Morella.

I'll have to read it, but I can tell you that I accept that God isn't being referenced.

There seems no reason why Thorpe couldn't turn convention on its head - after all, the sonnets did!


Morella.

I'm very happy with the responses so far to R and G and to "ever-living poet." I am hoping to be able to present both sides in outline form and have a listener not know which side I favor and I'm getting there. Not that depth is a bad thing . . .

There are the signatures which indicate to some observers that the man couldn't write his own name. In two of the signatures, it looks like someone else wrote his first name. The sigs do not seem to compare favorably to those of his contemporaries.

Of course, I have terrible handwriting and I'm literate. Still, none of my signatures has the first name apparently written by someone else. Then again . . . well, I'm sure some kindly Stratfordians will fill in the blank.

Here is an image.

And this: http://research.hrc.utexas.edu/bookshopdoor/thedoor.cfm?side=a#1

Click on each panel.

(I guess that trumps those who say he could write his own name.)

So that definitely means he couldn't write his own name? Who are these observers?


On what do you base this notion? (Are you a handwriting expert?) Why would they write his first name and then not bother with the rest of it? Was old Will watching on, getting inspiration?


And therefore ... ? The implication being ... ?

What are you driving at?


The sigs seem to this untrained eye to get worse with age. Another possibility: Parkinson's. Arthritis. I posit no evidence for this, there being none; but it is possible.


I'm not seeing how these signatures are much proof of anything other than bad handwriting.

Assuming there is no problem with the dating our authenticity of the Covell document, I tip my hat to Pistol whose experts have supplied him with something useful, something that both Diana Price and David Kathman (and I) had overlooked. I will not stoop to quibbling and strained interpretations (as some do at Wikipedia) to avoid the obvious.

However, while conceding the point, there is a distinction to be made in the context of the usage. Covell was proposing a kind of monumentalization for English poetry of the era of Eliza’s reign, in a sense, incorporating Elizabeth (and a number of poets) into that monument. He was looking back on a reign that, by that time, was monumental and, obviously (if not to be stated openly) nearing its end (Elizabeth being 62 and having been Queen for 37 years). In contrast, it can hardly be said that, by 1609, Shakespeare had achieved monumental status (as Spenser or Sidney arguably had) or that his “reign” (life) was nearing its end (Shaksper being 45 years old and the documented career (ostensibly) as a poet spanning 16 years), or that he deserved to be “eternized”. And, having conceded the point that there is one example, that example still stands very isolated against conventional usage of “ever-living”. Benson echoes the phrase “ever-living” in the epistle to his 1640 edition of the Sonnets. Perhaps, like ‘Schrödinger’s cat’, Shaksper was both alive and dead in 1609? To be sure the ‘cat’ was dead. Benson tells us this another way. Benson says:

“I here presume (under favour) to present to your view, some excellent and sweetly composed Poems, of Master William Shakespeare, Which in themselves appeare of the same purity, the Author himself then living avouched; they had not the fortune by reason of their Infancie in his death, to have the due accommodation or proportionable glory, with the rest of his ever-living Workes.”

The Sonnets are generally believed to have been written between 1590 and 1604 (Collin Burrow). We know they were published in 1609. Peter Dickson (Bardgate) points out that by 1609 the Sonnets would no longer have been in their “infancie”, and, even if they were, Shaksper’s death in 1616 obviously couldn’t have precluded “due accommodation” in 1609.

So, while, with Covell, Stratfordians have found a straw to cling to, it won’t carry them to “ever-living” dry land.

Here are a few more:











The "Williams" in the last two sigs on the will are strikingly different. The Williams on the second and sixth signature are much better formed than any of the other Williams. I think he wanted to sign his name to make the documents official, did not want to sign with a mark, accepted help with the first name, and then struggled through his last name.

There may be other ways to explain the remarkable differences in the "Williams".

Shakespeare wrote more than a million words in a time before typewriters and his facility with the pen was notably inferior to that of Ben Jonson, Francis Bacon, Edward Oxenford, Christopher Marlowe, and Edmund Spenser.

Maybe he was a genius with terrible handwriting who spent all his time reading and dictating. Maybe he had arthritis. Perhaps even a handwriting expert (I'm not one) would not be able to say anything definitive.

If only he had left a library of books behind in that big house of his complete with marginal notes and circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one to be used as evidence for Shakespeare . . . but then silly people like me who think they are handwriting experts would not be able to engage in wild speculation.

Here's one more.

And this is supposed to mean what, exactly?

Briefly:

The Belott-Mountjoy signature looks perfectly fluent to me. Hastily scribbled, perhaps, but showing no signs of the 'illiteracy' you clearly want to be present. It's in secretary hand, of course, so is bound to look a little strange to our eyes.

The remaining five are all from late in his life, when many have guessed that he may have been suffering from some illness. This is particularly relevant to the three will signatures, when he may well have been dying. The Blackfriars signatures are both crammed into very small spaces, and I've read somewhere that the material he was writing on – waxed paper, in one case? – would have made any kind of clarity more difficult.

The fact that, to my eyes, the 'William' in signatures 2 and 6 look so similar – note the formation of the 'll' and the 'W' with a dot in the loop in both cases (and in the first signature) – is a good indication to me that the same man wrote them, not that they were 'drawn for him'. In fact in the final signature the fluency of the 'William' begins with 'By me' and continues into the 'Shak' part of the surname, making it even more unlikely that someone wrote the 'good' part of the signature and then handed over the pen for him to scribble the 'spere' bit. It looks to me like the signature of a man whose strength is failing, one who has perhaps summoned up the energy to begin the signature reasonably confidently but who cannot sustain the effort to finish it. (I find it rather poignant, actually, but maybe that's just me.)

There. A bit of speculation from someone who is not a handwriting expert. But do feel free to point out why my speculations are not credible.

Matt, have you read this yet?

http://www.shakespearefellowship.org/virtualclassroom/stateofdebate/detobel%20signatures.htm