• de Vere--not

    From Dim Witte@21:1/5 to All on Wed Dec 8 22:48:20 2021
    For de Vere admirers and others, here's my rejoinder, "[ ]", to a
    lengthy article below, which even has "previous" and "next" pages for
    your delectation. https://absoluteshakespeare.com/trivia/authorship/authorship_de_vere.htm


    (quote)
    The case for Edward De Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford.

    Many Oxfordians believe that the true author of Shakespeare’s plays
    was an aristocrat named Edward De Vere. The evidence for this
    comprehensive, ranging from Edward de Vere’s aristocratic knowledge of
    the upper classes through to his education and the structural
    similarities between his poetry and Shakespeare’s. As regards
    authorship of Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets, it has been suggested
    that Edward wrote these under the pseudonym of Shakespeare, both to
    avoid breaking a voluntary convention against aristocrats publishing
    poetry and plays and to escape the consequences of the subject matter
    he was writing about. George Puttenham's 1589 book, The Arte of
    English Poesie explains this further.


    Below are the major reasons Oxfordians claim Edward De Vere was well
    qualified to write 37 plays and 154 sonnets.

    Edward De Vere and Elizabethan Theatre.

    Edward De Vere, Earl of Oxford is known to have composed, directed and
    acted in plays around the same time as Shakespeare. Like Shakespeare
    he was part of an acting troupe but unlike Shakespeare, Edward managed
    his acting troupe called "Oxford’s Boys". Furthermore, Edward De Vere
    was a leaseholder of the Blackfriars Theatre, a rival to The Globe.

    [My view is that de Vere published under his own name, as did Queen
    Elizabeth and many peers of the realm; but anyway, why would he choose
    the pseudonym "Shakespeare," when like Stratman he was a member of a
    theatre company, and Stratman also published in his own name?

    See the counter-argument at end, under Recent Studies.]


    Edward De Vere’s poetry and its similarities to Shakespeare.

    Whilst most academics agree that Edward De Vere’s poetry was better
    than the Sir Francis Bacon’s (the other contender for replacing
    Shakespeare), few believe it is of a standard necessary to prove De
    Vere wrote the 154 sonnets claimed to have been authored by
    Shakespeare.

    Similarities in Edward De Vere’s verse to Shakespeare’s suggest
    however that such a leap in poetry composing was possible.
    Specifically six-line pentameter stanzas in Venus and Adonis reoccur
    only in Edward de Vere’s early poems and yet are not repeated by other
    poets of Shakespeare’s time. Both Joseph Sobran and J. Thomas (sic)
    have noted the close similarities in form between Edward De Vere’s
    work and that claimed to be Shakespeare’s.

    ["Similarities" is very lame leaping and doesn't really matter.
    Statement admits de Vere did publish childish stuff.]

    Edward De Vere’s knowledge of Elizabethan Courts and his superior
    education.

    It is recognized by Oxfordians and Stratfordians alike that writing
    about royal courts, Italy and law required a certain prerequisite
    level of education. Edward De Vere fits the bill here since he is
    known to have graduated from Cambridge University at age 14, becoming
    master of arts at age of 16. Furthermore in view of plays like The
    Merchant of Venice which discussed law, De Vere studied law at Gray's
    Inn. Account books clearly showed that Edward De Vere had an extensive
    library underlining his qualifications to write as knowledgeably as Shakespeare.

    [Where did he get his geography of Italy? Did de Vere really
    understand Italy well? "It was fashionable, at one time, to say that Shakespeare knew nothing of Italian geography either: he has Prospero,
    in The Tempest, sailing from Milan to the Adriatic Sea and Valentine,
    in Two Gentleman of Verona, sailing to Milan from Verona." https://theshakespearecode.blog/2011/03/15/shakespeares-italian-mistakes/]


    Underlining this argument is the fact that Venus and Adonis, derived
    from Ovid's Metamorphoses, could only have been possible with Arthur
    Golding’s translation of this work. Arthur Golding was Edward De
    Vere’s uncle and his translation was said to be dedicated to Edward De
    Vere.

    [Not possible Stratman read Ovid at school or on his own? How about
    his publisher friend, Richard Field, also from Stratford.]

    To further prove that Edward De Vere was qualified to write settings
    ascribed to Shakespeare, Edward De Vere is known to have traveled to
    Italy in the 1570s, putting him in an ideal position to write
    knowledgeably about Venice (The Merchant of Venice / Othello).

    [Where did he get his geography of Italy? Did de Vere really
    understand Italy well? "It was fashionable, at one time, to say that Shakespeare knew nothing of Italian geography either: he has Prospero,
    in The Tempest, sailing from Milan to the Adriatic Sea and Valentine,
    in Two Gentleman of Verona, sailing to Milan from Verona." https://theshakespearecode.blog/2011/03/15/shakespeares-italian-mistakes/]


    Similarities between Edward’s life and the character Hamlet.

    Similarities between Edward De Vere’s life and Hamlet suggest that
    Hamlet was almost an autobiographical play about the Earl’s life.
    Notably Polonius’ line of "young men falling out at tennis" is
    believed to refer autobiographically to Edward De Vere’s notorious
    tennis court squabble with Sidney. Notably Edward De Vere’s
    father-in-law, William Cecil, Lord Burghley is said to be have been
    parodied as the character Polonius. Only a person intimately
    knowledgeable of Lord Burghley’s life could parody this man
    convincingly in Hamlet.

    [Similarities again?]


    Furthermore only Edward De Vere fits the historical assertion in
    sonnet 125 that Shakespeare "bore the canopy" over Queen Elizabeth in
    her victory celebration over the defeat of the Spanish Armada.

    [Or was that a parody of de Vere by Stratman/]


    The parallels continue between Edward De Vere’s life and subject
    matter in Henry IV, Part One. It is known that in 1573 Edward De Vere
    and company did routinely play practical jokes on ill-fated travelers
    on the same stretch of road as Prince Hal does in the play.

    [Now we have "parallels" and routine practical jokes?]


    The similarities between life and sonnets, continues as Edward De
    Vere’s poem "Anne Vavasor's Echo", composed for Anne Vavasor is likely
    to have been the elusive "dark lady" of the Shakespeare’s sonnets.
    Furthermore, Anne Vavasor’s Echo has more than a passing resemblance
    to the echo verses in Venus and Adonis.

    ["Echoes" of similarities and resemblances?]

    Edward de Vere’s nickname resembles "Shakespeare".

    At court, Edward De Vere was nicknamed "Spear-shaker" due to of his
    ability both at tournaments and because his coat of arms featured a
    lion brandishing a spear. Perhaps coincidentally, Edward De Vere lived
    in the same area as Shakespeare, his Bilton Hall home being the Avon
    River and the Forest of Arden on another.

    [Not sure of de Vere as "Spear-shaker" at court. Sounds naughty to
    me, especially since "Shakespeare" has been studied as "shake-peer" by detractors.]

    Problems for Edward De Vere...

    De Vere died too early to complete the later plays.
    A large problem for Edward De Vere authoring Shakespeare’s work is the
    fact that he died in 1604. This was before roughly 12 plays ascribed
    to Shakespeare were composed. However even Sir Edmund K. Chambers, a
    noted Stratfordian, agrees that the standard dating of Shakespeare’s
    play is sketchy at best.

    [Now we have "sketchy" dating as evidence for de Vere's postmortem
    plays?]

    Tudor Aristocrats had no need to write under nom de plumes.
    A standard line for why Edward De Vere used the nom de plume of
    Shakespeare was to avoid breaking an aristocratic convention not to
    write. Unfortunately we now know that aristocrats such as Edward De
    Vere did publish and without fear of breaking convention. It appears
    that this convention was weakly enforced and that aristocratic
    publishing was frowned upon rather than punished, this convention
    weakening entirely in Elizabethan times to which Edward De Vere
    belonged.

    [Apology sounds like making a positive statement out of negative
    evidence and reasoning?]

    Recent studies.
    The recent Shakespeare Clinic, under the direction of Robert Valenza
    and Ward Elliott (Claremont-McKenna College), found little match
    between Edward De Vere’s poetry and William Shakespeare's.
    (unquote)

    Looks like Claremont-McKenna College and Concordia University are hubs
    of conflict in the U.S.. In the UK it's Brunel University and
    University of London. Several noted academics-become publishers have
    espoused the de Vere cause; not sure how successfully.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From marc hanson@21:1/5 to Dim Witte on Fri Dec 17 20:50:49 2021
    On Thursday, December 9, 2021 at 2:48:23 AM UTC-5, Dim Witte wrote:
    For de Vere admirers and others, here's my rejoinder, "[ ]", to a
    lengthy article below, which even has "previous" and "next" pages for
    your delectation. https://absoluteshakespeare.com/trivia/authorship/authorship_de_vere.htm


    (quote)
    The case for Edward De Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford.

    Many Oxfordians believe that the true author of Shakespeare’s plays
    was an aristocrat named Edward De Vere. The evidence for this
    comprehensive, ranging from Edward de Vere’s aristocratic knowledge of
    the upper classes through to his education and the structural
    similarities between his poetry and Shakespeare’s. As regards
    authorship of Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets, it has been suggested
    that Edward wrote these under the pseudonym of Shakespeare, both to
    avoid breaking a voluntary convention against aristocrats publishing
    poetry and plays and to escape the consequences of the subject matter
    he was writing about. George Puttenham's 1589 book, The Arte of
    English Poesie explains this further.


    Below are the major reasons Oxfordians claim Edward De Vere was well qualified to write 37 plays and 154 sonnets.

    Edward De Vere and Elizabethan Theatre.

    Edward De Vere, Earl of Oxford is known to have composed, directed and
    acted in plays around the same time as Shakespeare. Like Shakespeare
    he was part of an acting troupe but unlike Shakespeare, Edward managed
    his acting troupe called "Oxford’s Boys". Furthermore, Edward De Vere
    was a leaseholder of the Blackfriars Theatre, a rival to The Globe.

    [My view is that de Vere published under his own name, as did Queen Elizabeth and many peers of the realm; but anyway, why would he choose
    the pseudonym "Shakespeare," when like Stratman he was a member of a
    theatre company, and Stratman also published in his own name?

    See the counter-argument at end, under Recent Studies.]


    Edward De Vere’s poetry and its similarities to Shakespeare.

    Whilst most academics agree that Edward De Vere’s poetry was better
    than the Sir Francis Bacon’s (the other contender for replacing Shakespeare), few believe it is of a standard necessary to prove De
    Vere wrote the 154 sonnets claimed to have been authored by
    Shakespeare.

    Similarities in Edward De Vere’s verse to Shakespeare’s suggest
    however that such a leap in poetry composing was possible.
    Specifically six-line pentameter stanzas in Venus and Adonis reoccur
    only in Edward de Vere’s early poems and yet are not repeated by other poets of Shakespeare’s time. Both Joseph Sobran and J. Thomas (sic)
    have noted the close similarities in form between Edward De Vere’s
    work and that claimed to be Shakespeare’s.

    ["Similarities" is very lame leaping and doesn't really matter.
    Statement admits de Vere did publish childish stuff.]

    Edward De Vere’s knowledge of Elizabethan Courts and his superior education.

    It is recognized by Oxfordians and Stratfordians alike that writing
    about royal courts, Italy and law required a certain prerequisite
    level of education. Edward De Vere fits the bill here since he is
    known to have graduated from Cambridge University at age 14, becoming
    master of arts at age of 16. Furthermore in view of plays like The
    Merchant of Venice which discussed law, De Vere studied law at Gray's
    Inn. Account books clearly showed that Edward De Vere had an extensive library underlining his qualifications to write as knowledgeably as Shakespeare.

    [Where did he get his geography of Italy? Did de Vere really
    understand Italy well? "It was fashionable, at one time, to say that Shakespeare knew nothing of Italian geography either: he has Prospero,
    in The Tempest, sailing from Milan to the Adriatic Sea and Valentine,
    in Two Gentleman of Verona, sailing to Milan from Verona." https://theshakespearecode.blog/2011/03/15/shakespeares-italian-mistakes/]


    Underlining this argument is the fact that Venus and Adonis, derived
    from Ovid's Metamorphoses, could only have been possible with Arthur Golding’s translation of this work. Arthur Golding was Edward De
    Vere’s uncle and his translation was said to be dedicated to Edward De Vere.

    [Not possible Stratman read Ovid at school or on his own? How about
    his publisher friend, Richard Field, also from Stratford.]

    To further prove that Edward De Vere was qualified to write settings ascribed to Shakespeare, Edward De Vere is known to have traveled to
    Italy in the 1570s, putting him in an ideal position to write
    knowledgeably about Venice (The Merchant of Venice / Othello).

    [Where did he get his geography of Italy? Did de Vere really
    understand Italy well? "It was fashionable, at one time, to say that Shakespeare knew nothing of Italian geography either: he has Prospero,
    in The Tempest, sailing from Milan to the Adriatic Sea and Valentine,
    in Two Gentleman of Verona, sailing to Milan from Verona." https://theshakespearecode.blog/2011/03/15/shakespeares-italian-mistakes/]


    Similarities between Edward’s life and the character Hamlet.

    Similarities between Edward De Vere’s life and Hamlet suggest that
    Hamlet was almost an autobiographical play about the Earl’s life.
    Notably Polonius’ line of "young men falling out at tennis" is
    believed to refer autobiographically to Edward De Vere’s notorious
    tennis court squabble with Sidney. Notably Edward De Vere’s
    father-in-law, William Cecil, Lord Burghley is said to be have been
    parodied as the character Polonius. Only a person intimately
    knowledgeable of Lord Burghley’s life could parody this man
    convincingly in Hamlet.

    [Similarities again?]


    Furthermore only Edward De Vere fits the historical assertion in
    sonnet 125 that Shakespeare "bore the canopy" over Queen Elizabeth in
    her victory celebration over the defeat of the Spanish Armada.

    [Or was that a parody of de Vere by Stratman/]


    The parallels continue between Edward De Vere’s life and subject
    matter in Henry IV, Part One. It is known that in 1573 Edward De Vere
    and company did routinely play practical jokes on ill-fated travelers
    on the same stretch of road as Prince Hal does in the play.

    [Now we have "parallels" and routine practical jokes?]


    The similarities between life and sonnets, continues as Edward De
    Vere’s poem "Anne Vavasor's Echo", composed for Anne Vavasor is likely
    to have been the elusive "dark lady" of the Shakespeare’s sonnets. Furthermore, Anne Vavasor’s Echo has more than a passing resemblance
    to the echo verses in Venus and Adonis.

    ["Echoes" of similarities and resemblances?]

    Edward de Vere’s nickname resembles "Shakespeare".

    At court, Edward De Vere was nicknamed "Spear-shaker" due to of his
    ability both at tournaments and because his coat of arms featured a
    lion brandishing a spear. Perhaps coincidentally, Edward De Vere lived
    in the same area as Shakespeare, his Bilton Hall home being the Avon
    River and the Forest of Arden on another.

    [Not sure of de Vere as "Spear-shaker" at court. Sounds naughty to
    me, especially since "Shakespeare" has been studied as "shake-peer" by detractors.]

    Problems for Edward De Vere...

    De Vere died too early to complete the later plays.
    A large problem for Edward De Vere authoring Shakespeare’s work is the fact that he died in 1604. This was before roughly 12 plays ascribed
    to Shakespeare were composed. However even Sir Edmund K. Chambers, a
    noted Stratfordian, agrees that the standard dating of Shakespeare’s
    play is sketchy at best.

    [Now we have "sketchy" dating as evidence for de Vere's postmortem
    plays?]

    Tudor Aristocrats had no need to write under nom de plumes.
    A standard line for why Edward De Vere used the nom de plume of
    Shakespeare was to avoid breaking an aristocratic convention not to
    write. Unfortunately we now know that aristocrats such as Edward De
    Vere did publish and without fear of breaking convention. It appears
    that this convention was weakly enforced and that aristocratic
    publishing was frowned upon rather than punished, this convention
    weakening entirely in Elizabethan times to which Edward De Vere
    belonged.

    [Apology sounds like making a positive statement out of negative
    evidence and reasoning?]

    Recent studies.
    The recent Shakespeare Clinic, under the direction of Robert Valenza
    and Ward Elliott (Claremont-McKenna College), found little match
    between Edward De Vere’s poetry and William Shakespeare's.
    (unquote)

    Looks like Claremont-McKenna College and Concordia University are hubs
    of conflict in the U.S.. In the UK it's Brunel University and
    University of London. Several noted academics-become publishers have espoused the de Vere cause; not sure how successfully..

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)