Vickers' book is "Francis Bacon and Renaissance Prose." He also edited Bacon for The Oxford Authors, which is a kind of students' edition.
Oxford has been putting out a new edition. I haven't kept up with it, but I seem to have Volume VI on my shelf, which was sent to me for review. It's a very nice piece of work, Latin and English on facing pages and extensive notes and bibliography. You might want to use it as the new standard edition, at least as far as it's come out.
Well you know that second only in importance to the formulation of the problem or the hypothesis under consideration, is the problem of the qualification of relevant sources. The object of the game is not to rely on a single source, but to have corroboration from at least one other, and more would be welcome.
Baxter is a main source so far — but I’m early into the research. He raises some interesting points in regard to the “who” who actually wrote Shakespeare’s plays. More to our point, he compares the historical/social attainments/condition of one Wm. Shakspear of Stratford-on-Avon vis-à-vis what we would expect of a world-class author whose works are to this day considered foundational to Western culture in general, and to the English-speaking world in particular.
Trying to keep it short and sweet, Baxter raises issues about the basic fitness of the historical Wm. Shakspear of Stratford-on-Avon to be the author of the sublime poetic and dramatic works nowadays unquestionably attributed to William Shakespeare.
Shakspear was a born at Stratford-on-Avon, then a village of some 1400 souls. Shakspear’s father, a butcher by trade, could barely sign his name, and his mother couldn’t read or write at all.
The community was comprised of a mainly illiterate peasantry, farmers and crafts people. They had a church, and this was the glory of the town. They also had a “free school,” which W.S. attended as a boy; but didn’t stay in for too long, for his father got into financial difficulties, and required his son as a trade apprentice, so to help the family business.
Yet even if W.S. had stayed in the free school, he would not by any means have received a classical education there — and this is key, for the magnificent plays of William Shakespeare evidence the mastery of classical sources, plus facility in many languages, ancient and modern. Not only that, but they evidence a moral philosophy that it is difficult to conceive this W.S. of Stratford-on-Avon shared. He contracted a marriage with Anne Hathaway under highly unusual circumstances, and shortly thereafter effectively abandoned her and their twin daughters. He fled to London, for he got into difficulty with a local aristocrat for poaching deer on his lands. He was known to be a carouser, and is said to have died as the result of a binge.
Moreover, the plays attributed to William Shakespeare reveal an intimate knowledge of court life, of English legal customs and conventions, of international diplomacy and institutions, etc. How could the Wm. Skakspear of Stratford acquire such knowledge?
Then skipping over the middle part of W.S.’s life we get to his last will and testament. The person who wrote the plays was evidently a person of enormous culture and scholarship. Such a person would likely have books (very valuable commodities in those days). Plus if Shakspear were the author of the plays, you would think that the copyrights would be the most valuable part of his estate. Yet according to his will, Shakspear left no books, and there were no plays. His estate was a very small one, the most valuable item being a silver bowl, and a couple of beds. The “second best” bed he willed to Anne; but evidently she got nothing else.
So it’s a real puzzle, Cicero! On the basis of the documentary evidence, one can’t help but wonder who it was who “really” wrote Shakespeare’s plays. To me it’s understandable that Baxter is drawn to the theory (hotly contested now as ever) that the author was Francis Bacon. For Bacon was a man of soaring intellect, of immense education and culture; he was a courtier, an “insider” at Elizabeth’s court; he was a diplomat; he was highly educated in the law; he had Latin, Greek, French, Italian; and he was reputed to have a strong moral character.
Bacon, to me, is one of the most fascinating characters ever to grace the world stage, and his influence on future ages has been immense and profound.
Just have to leave it there, I guess. We’re not going to solve this puzzle today, and that’s for sure!
Thanks so much for writing, Cicero. And thank you so very much for the book recommendation — Vickers’ Francis Bacon and Renaissance Prose.” Sounds like a must-have to me!