Shakespeare was a woman: Expert

PTI via, The Times of India ^ | 28 May, 2008 | PTI

[BenLurkin]

[visualops]

My father is a Shakespeare expert and I know he doesn’t believe this drivel!

[SunkenCiv]

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	Gods Graves Glyphs	I guess this explains why Ben Jonson called Shakespeare "sweet swan of Avon"... oh wait, no it doesn't... To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. GGG managers are Blam, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach
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[SunkenCiv]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophelia_(character)

[snip] A possible historical source for Ophelia is Katherine Hamlet, a young woman who fell into the Avon river and died in December 1579. Though it was eventually concluded that she had overbalanced while carrying some heavy pails, rumors that she was suffering from a broken heart were considered plausible enough for an inquest to be conducted into whether her death was a suicide. It is possible that Shakespeare - sixteen at the time of the death - recalled the romantic tragedy in his creation of the character of Ophelia. [end]

(Katherine HAMLET? Gee, the story must have been known all over Italy. A man with the same name as Shakespeare’s father hanged himself in a nearby town, in the same general time frame)

[RightWhale]

Could be Shakespeare knew this woman and published some of her works for her. He obtained material from many sources and reworked it for his performance company, in which he was one of the actors.

[null and void]

Red Dwarf Ping!

DAVE: --only everything's ... opposite?
DEBBIE: Oh, I don't know if everything's opposite. It seems like that.
DAVE: So you come from a female-orientated society?
DEBBIE: Well, it's not exactly female-orientated anymore, not since the sixties. You know, the equal-rights-for-men marches. You know, they burned their jockstraps and all that.
DAVE: Stop!
DEBBIE: Haven't you read "The Male Eunuch" by Jeremy Greer?
DAVE: So, your history is parallel to ours as well? So, hang on... erm, who was the first person on the moon?
DEBBIE: Nellie Armstrong.
LISTER: NELLIE Armstrong? So... who wrote Hamlet?
ARLENE: (Entering with ARNOLD) Will Shakespeare.
DAVE: Ah, so he was a bloke.
DEBBIE: No, she was a woman. Wilma Shakespeare.
ARLENE: Yeah, she wrote all the greats: "Racheal the Third," "The Taming of the Shrimp."

[SunkenCiv]

An epic battle on Homer’s gender
The Australian | July 03, 2006 | Dalya Alberge (The London Times)
Posted on 07/02/2006 7:46:38 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1659530/posts

[Monkey Face]

Oh my achin’ silliness. They’ve gone too far.

(I somehow knew the Avon Lady had a masculine ring....)

[9YearLurker]

If you prick me, do I not bleed?

Actually a fairly sympathetic portrayal for the time, I believe. Just as ol’ ‘Will’ wrote as if he were a big-time feminist: lots of valorous ladies overcoming the limitations of their social roles.

[Dr. Sivana]

Just as ol’ ‘Will’ wrote as if he were a big-time feminist: lots of valorous ladies overcoming the limitations of their social roles.

Hmm... on the basis of that, maybe Chaucer will be found to have been a woman, as well.

This stuff has been going on for some time. Several dorm mates of mine in the 80's at U of Chicago had to tackle the topic of whether Homer was a woman! (Something in the Odyssey about where the ship was going or some such rot.)

[Dr. Sivana]

I had not seen your post on Homer, but this discussion has been going on for at least 25 years in college circles. Pfui!

[SunkenCiv]

AFAIK, Samuel Butler started the Homer was a woman discussion, around 100 years ago. :’)

[SunkenCiv]

The idea that Shakespeare didn’t write Shakespeare arose in a nutty book around 1850 I think, and the arguments haven’t improved with age. :’)

[twigs]

Actually, there is some interesting evidence that makes this a very credible argument. My guess is that it’s probably true.

[Monkey Face]

There is no logic to the claim, no matter how “they” spin it. Some folks just aren’t happy until they become the epitome of stupidity.

[Altura Ct.]

Well I’m an expert too and this woman is FOS. Revisionist history will continue until all vestiges of Western Culture is obliterated & demeaned or We stand up and say enough and GFY.

[twigs]

I believe that it began with a descendent of one of the people suspected of being the “real” Shakespeare. And of course, for many people, it’s simply an intellectual snob’s argument. Shakespeare wasn’t educated well enough to be so talented, you see. Humph.

[andy58-in-nh]

What exactly is the evidence that Shakespeare was a Jewish woman? Hmmmm...

Romeo's mother didn't think Juliet was good enough for him.

Macbeth went into his father's business and his wife drove him crazy.

When Petruchio met Katharina, he is heard to remark: "Funny, you don't look Shrewish..."

[Pharmboy]

Nevis, actually.

[Blind Eye Jones]

Why don’t we ask, “Who was not Shakespeare?” Modern scholarship will throw everything but the kitchen sink at you in hopes that something sticks (to mix metaphors). Because nobody at the time had ever recorded seeing Shakespeare write anything he will always be a mystery, and the fact that people have not seen him work also remains a mystery. If only there could be something from Marlowe or Johnson such as, “That scribbler Shakespeare writing such dreck, looting every good idea from the past as his own, writing about that infernal prince Hamlet who we all know to be a parody of Bacon and his Ophelia as that sluttish trollop bar maid that dotes on him at the tavern... why can’t he just give it up! He has a very poor muse. The stuff will never last the coarse of time.”