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To: SpringheelJack

Perhaps it's not so wacky as that, considering:



http://www.onlineshakespeare.com/whowrote.htm

The source of all doubts about the authorship of the plays lies in the disparity between the greatness of Shakespeare's literary achievement and his comparatively humble origin, the supposed inadequacy of his education and the obscurity of his life. In Shakespeare's writings, people have claimed to discover a familiarity with languages and literature, with such subjects as law, history, politics and geography, and with the manners and speech of courts, which they regard as inconceivable in a common player, the son of a provincial tradesman. This range of knowledge, it is said, is to be expected at that period only in a man of extensive education, one who was familiar with such royal and noble personages as figure largely in Shakespeare's plays. And the dearth of contemporary records has been regarded as incompatible with Shakespeare's eminence and as therefore suggestive of mystery. That none of his manuscripts has survived has been taken as evidence that they were destroyed to conceal the identity of their author.


37 posted on 11/02/2005 9:02:57 PM PST by starbase (Seasons change.)
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To: starbase
Perhaps it's not so wacky as that, considering:

Yes it is wacky, and the passage you link to is nothing but bloviation. Take the illogic of this statement, "That none of his manuscripts has survived has been taken as evidence that they were destroyed to conceal the identity of their author." If that's evidence, then what are we to make of the lack of manuscripts for Christopher Marlowe, Robert Greene, Thomas Kyd, Thomas Nashe, John Webster, John Ford, ad nauseum?

And the statement is false anyways, since a portion of "Sir Thomas More" written by Shakespeare does survive in manuscript. An extremely rare bit of luck. If I remember correctly, out of thousands of plays written during Shakespeare's time only about 20 have been preserved in manuscript. People who make arguments such as the one you cite really know nothing of the period.

39 posted on 11/02/2005 9:20:45 PM PST by SpringheelJack
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To: starbase

Thanks for the useful summary of the question of authorship. It's easy to call the doubters "cranks," but they have some powerful arguments, particularly for Oxford. If I were going to dig up any bodies I'd start with his, not that of the guy who didn't leave even a pen to anybody in his will.


44 posted on 11/03/2005 5:00:17 AM PST by Graymatter
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