Shakespeare beyonddoubtwebinar (1)

Proving Shakespeare

Paul Edmondson, Stanley Wells & Ros Barber

‘‘William William

Shakespeare, his Shakespeare, his

method of work’, method of work’, 1904 by Max Beerbohm

Shakespeare and Authorship

M.A. in Shakespeare Authorship Studies at Brunel University

Concordia University

No intellectual justification?Shakespeare Authorship Research Centre,

Concordia University, Portland Oregon

Part One: Sceptics

- ‘The Unreadable Delia Bacon’ by Graham Holderness

- ‘The Case for Bacon’ by Alan Stewart

- ‘The Case for Marlowe’ by Charles Nicholl

- ‘The life and theatrical interests of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford’

- ‘The Unusual Suspects’ by Matt Kubus

‘The Unreadable Delia Bacon’

Collaborative authorship, a ‘school’, led by Sir Walter Ralegh.

Style difficult to read; hypothesis never actually proven (and

unprovable); more like Gothic fiction...

Book The Philosophy of Shakespeare’s Plays, 1857.

Delia Bacon

‘The brave, bold genius of Raleigh flashed new life into that little nucleus of the Elizabethan development. The new 'Round Table,' which that newly-beginning age of chivalry, with its new weapons and devices, and its new and more heroic adventure had created, was not yet 'full' till he came in. The Round Table grew rounder with this knight's presence. Over those dainty stores of the classic ages, over those quaint memorials of the elder chivalry, that were spread out on it, over the dead letter of the past, the brave Atlantic breeze came in, the breath of the great future blew, when the turn came for this knight's adventure; whether opened in the prose of its statistics, or set to its native music in the mystic melodies of the bard who was there to sing it.’ p. 42

Whodunnit?Whodunnit?

Who else?

Roger Manners, 5th Earl of Rutland

Queen Elizabeth I Ben Jonson

Edward De Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford

Sir Walter Raleigh Lady Mary Sidney

William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby

Sir Henry Neville

Daniel Defoe

‘Mathematically, each time an additional

candidate is suggested, the probability

decreases that any given name is the true

author.’

Matt Kubus, ‘The Unusual Suspects’.

Part Two: Shakespeare as Author

‘Theorizing Shakespeare’s Authorship’ by Andrew Hadfield

‘Allusions to Shakespeare to 1642’ by Stanley Wells

‘Shakespeare as collaborator’ by John Jowett

‘Authorship and the evidence of stylometrics’ by Macdonald P. Jackson

‘What does textual evidence reveal about the author?’ by James Mardock and Eric Rasmussen

‘Shakespeare and Warwickshire’ by David Kathman

‘Shakespeare and School’ by Carol Chillington Rutter

‘Shakespeare Tells Lies’ by Barbara Everett

Evidence for Shakespeare: publications,

theatrical knowledge, references, memorial and posthumous evidence...

Evidence for Shakespeare: publications,

theatrical knowledge, references, memorial and posthumous evidence...

Publication EvidencePublication Evidence

Venus and Adonis (dedication

1593 and the 15 reprints up to

1636)

Lucrece (dedication 1594 and the 7

reprints up to 1632)

Henry VI Part 2 (Q3 1619)

Richard II (Q2 1598, Q3 1598, Q4

1608, Q5 1615)

Richard III (Q2 1598, Q3 1602, Q4

1605, Q5 1612, Q6 1622)

Love’s Labour’s Lost (Q1 1598)

Henry IV Part 1 (Q2 1599, Q3 1604,

Q4 1608, Q5 1613)

A Midsummer Night's Dream (Q1 1600, Q2 1619)

The Merchant of Venice  (Q1

1600, Q2 1619)

Henry IV Part 2 (Q1 1600 )

Much Ado About Nothing (Q1

1600)

The Merry Wives of Windsor (Q1

1602, Q2 1619)

Hamlet (Q1 1603, Q2 1604)

King Lear (Q1 1608, Q2 1619)

Shakespeares Sonnets (Q1 1609)

Pericles (Q1 1609, Q2 1609, Q3

1611, Q4 1619)

Troilus and Cressida (Q1 1609)

‘Shakespeare and School’‘Shakespeare and School’

‘The ‘ Kyng’s newe Scole’ was not exceptional. It was part of the Tudors’ post-Reformation expansion and reformation of the education system: a project so comprehensive that by 1660 only in two counties of England would a boy have lived further than twelve miles from a free grammar school. Ben Jonson was a grammar school boy. So, I believe, was William Shakespeare. And if the educational system that produced England’s greatest theologians, ambassadors, lawyers, physicians, moral philosophers and political thinkers also produced its best playwrights, Erasmus, for one, wouldn’t have been surprised.’

Carol Chillington Rutter, ‘Shakespeare and School’

Part Three: A Cultural Phenomenon ... Did Shakespeare Write Shakespeare?Part Three: A Cultural Phenomenon ... Did Shakespeare Write Shakespeare?

‘“This palpable device”: Authorship and Conspiracy in Shakespeare’s Life’ by Kathleen E. McLuskie

‘Amateurs and Professionals: Regendering Bacon’ by Andrew Murphy

‘Fictional treatments of Shakespeare’s Authorship’ by Paul Franssen

‘The Declaration of Reasonable Doubt’ by Stuart Hampton Reeves

‘“There won’t be puppets will there?”: “Heroic” authorship and the cultural politics of Anonymous’ by Douglas M. Lanier

‘“The Shakespeare Establishment” and the Shakespeare Authorship Discussion’ by Paul Edmondson

Anti-Shakespearian responses…

‘A Declaration of Reasonable Doubt’,

‘The “Declaration of Reasonable Doubt”’

‘The “Declaration of Reasonable Doubt”’

‘What, then, has the Declaration achieved in its (to date) five years of existence? What is it capable of achieving? […] The Declaration that [William] Leahy publicly signed in 2007 has, next to his name, spaces reserved for the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and the Shakespeare Institute, both of which are missing signatures (I could not find anyone at either institution that remembers being approached). [This] seems to be a gauntlet thrown down at the ‘orthodox’ Shakespearians, whom the Declaration seems to simultaneously deride for their small-mindedness and yet crave acceptance from.‘

Stuart Hampton-Reeves, ‘The “Declaration of Reasonable Doubt”

‘Afterword’ by James Shapiro‘Afterword’ by James Shapiro

‘The dismal box-office showing of Anonymous has undoubtedly been a setback for them; and Emmerich’s own admission that the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust shares the blame for his film’s rapid demise is an indication that an organized response contributed to that end, and was a much better strategy than the one for too long adopted by Shakespeareans, which was to ignore the problem and hope that it would go away. The facts and analysis presented in this volume will make responding to the next film, or the next campaign, or the next question posed about Shakespeare’s authorship by a student or a stranger or even a teacher that much easier.’

Questions

• www.shakespearebitesback.com

• www.60minuteswithShakespeare.com

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Proving Shakespeare

Paul Edmondson, Stanley Wells & Ros Barber