Science Forums 2

[CraigD]

Originally Posted by freeztar

The book entitled, "The Shakespeare Conspiracy", raises some interesting questions on the authorship and private life of William Shakespeare.

The authorship of the works of Shakespeare, have, I gather from every class and discussion I’ve had on the subject, been a subject of contention for as long as they existed.

Some of this is due to the nature of writing and acting plays: playwrights now and in the Shakespeare’s day (1600-1700s) often based their scripts on folk stories and popular fiction, but in Shakespeare’s day, negotiating copyrights and royalties were arguably less common than today, and outright literary theft more; scripts were known to “evolve” during rehearsals, with lines being added, cut, and altered with actors and bystanders ad-libs; in being published in print, editors are faced with selecting from multiple working scripts, so arguably are themselves part of the writing process. Also, several of Shakespeare’s plays were acknowledged to be collaborations with other playwrights.

Some of the contention is along the line of Buffy’s

Originally Posted by Buffy

I think its important to note that the arguments against Shakespeare have more to do with the *ability* to gather the requisite knowledge rather than aspersions to any inherent mental inferiority of being a "farm boy." Stratford-Upon-Avon in the late 16th century was a *LONG* way from London, even if its only about an hour drive today. There was no equivalent of Google, and most libraries were basically closed to those outside the upper classes: it is hard for us today to even conceive of what expensive luxuries books were until well into the 18th century.

however, I think this contention incorrectly characterizes William Shakespeare’s family background and Stratford-Upon-Avon’s late 17th century cultural and educational resources. Will wasn’t a “farm boy” – he was a “wealthy merchant boy”. SUA wasn’t London, but had an expensive and prestigious “grammar school”, King Edward VI School Stratford-upon-Avon, which most scholars believe Will attended, so he would have at least been able to read and write English and Latin, and have read a government-dictated curriculum of Latin classics – Latin version of the stories of Homer, the philosophy of Socrates, the histories of Cicero, etc. The main difference in the education of a merchant-class boy like Will and an aristocrat boy like Edward Earl of Oxford would, as best I can tell, have been that Oxford would have had more martial arts training – sword fighting, etc. – and have had firsthand experience in royal courts. Neither background, IMHO, would more or less allow predispose its possessor to developing the skills of a playwright and poet.

As far as Graham Phillips’s “Elizabethan James Bond” idea, I must withhold judgment until I’ve seen his specific claims and evidence. Based just of Phillips’s bibliography, I’m skeptical of his credibility: One of his previous most popular co-authored books is 1983’s “The Green Stone: a True Story of Paranormal Adventure”, a “non-fiction” account of the “green stone” 1980-1990s UK social phenomena. Perhaps I’ll wait for the movie.