If you think Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare... I've got a $1k power cord to sell you!

[Astoneroad]

The objectivist vs subjectivist debate has been raging for 100 years regarding the authorship question of "Who wrote Shakespeare". The first genuine academic exposure of the evidence leading to the conclusion that it was not the man from Stratford, was written by J. Thomas Looney in 1920. Then in 2001 the Ph. D. of Roger Stritmatter shows with very high statistical evidence that it was indeed Edward De Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford. This debate is known as the "Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship." So as fellow objectivists (my ASR assumption) I wanted to toss you another 500 year old "Expensive cables" myth that must be acknowledged. You guys always want data to support a position, you can review the source material of either Looney or Stritmatter if you're an academic paper reader, or an entertaining documentary on the topic, "Nothing is Truer than True" Anybody have an opinion, especially a contrary one to this position?

 

[Mart68]

I always liked the idea that it was Francis Bacon.

Case for Shakespeare is a bit dodgy, if you look at his family history it seems both his ancestors and his descendants were all illiterate.

As someone said, 'It goes - illiterate, illiterate, illiterate, greatest writer the world has ever known, illiterate, illiterate.'

 

[Astoneroad]

Well... you gotta like Bacon as a rogue, a pirate, seducer of Elizabeth... not unlike DeVere (except the pirate). But the key is DeVere's Geneva Bible housed in the Folger Library. That's the keystone to Stritmatter's thesis. It's amazing how a lot of really brilliant people believe, or say they do, the unbelievable Stratford myth. I wouldn't be surprised if P.S. Audio came out with an expensive line of power cords under this theme and call their flagship... "The Bard".

 

[Inner Space]

It's nonsense. It's English class- and region-based bias. "Obviously a transcendent genius can't have been the son of a tradesman from the Midlands! He had to have been an aristocrat from the south!"

Such critics are on the wrong side of the argument. It's the same thing as audiophiles saying, "Obviously nothing from China that costs a hundred bucks can be any good!"

 

[Astoneroad]

It's nonsense. It's English class- and region-based bias. "Obviously a transcendent genius can't have been the son of a tradesman from the Midlands! He had to have been an aristocrat from the south!"

Such critics are on the wrong side of the argument. It's the same thing as audiophiles saying, "Obviously nothing from China that costs a hundred bucks can be any good

Is your position that Looney & Stritmatter were biased and wrong? Got any evidence to support that, because the evidence supporting DeVere is verifiable and peer reviewed. How did the man from Stratford read Burghley's precepts and quote them... "To thine own self be true". That wasn't published and available to the public until decades after they were all dead. DeVere lived in the house were those precepts were written, read and stored. Or did I infer incorrectly?

 

[FrantzM]

Oh boy!

 

[BinkieHuckerback]

De Vere died in 1604.

 

[Astoneroad]

De Vere died in 1604.

And?

 

[BinkieHuckerback]

• Othello (1604–1605)
• King Lear (1605–1606)
• Macbeth (1605–1606)
• Antony and Cleopatra (1606–1607)
• Coriolanus (1607–1608)
• Timon of Athens (1607–1608)
• Pericles, Prince of Tyre (1608–1609)
• Cymbeline (1609–1610)
• The Winter's Tale (1610–1611)
• The Tempest (1611–1612)
• Henry VIII (1612–1613)
• The Two Noble Kinsmen (1612–1613)

 

[Astoneroad]

I'm hoping to hear something that looks like substantial evidence, since this site mocks opinions without numbers, charts or facts. The fact that Lear was written in 1606 doesn't mean anything. Michaelangelo's poetry wasn't published until 20 years after he died, does that mean that he didn't write them?

"Perhaps the most valuable recent work on the ShakespeareOxford connection is Roger Stritmatter’s unpublished PhD dissertation (University of Massachusetts-Amherst, 2001), available in a limited online version.1 Stritmatter compares Oxford’s hand-annotated bible with well-known (and some not so well known) biblical allusions in Shakespeare. He finds a significantly high correlation: of 1,043 passages marked by De Vere, 246 or 23.6 percent are cited or referred to in the Works"

"What’s interesting is that there is a very high correlation between these passages (often emphasized by a swiftly drawn manicule or hand with a pointing index finger) and their echo in the play’s and poems of Shakespeare. Stritmatter notes that One hundred and forty-one of these verses have been designated as influential for Shakespeare—either as source or parallel—by prior scholars (Noble 1935; Shaheen 1987, 1989, 1993; Milward 1987). The remaining number exhibit various degrees or types of significance within the Shakespeare canon, from minor examples which exhibit only a probable or subtle influence, to those which display definite or even pervasive influences in the canon… One hundred and thirty-seven more marked verses exhibit an influence previously undocumented by scholars of Shakespeare’s Bible knowledge."

 

[Ralph_Cramden]

The Shakespeare authorship question is the argument that someone other than William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon wrote the works attributed to him. Anti-Stratfordians—a collective term for adherents of the various alternative-authorship theories—believe that Shakespeare of Stratford was a front to shield the identity of the real author or authors, who for some reason—usually social rank, state security, or gender—did not want or could not accept public credit.[1] Although the idea has attracted much public interest,[2][a] all but a few Shakespeare scholars and literary historians consider it a fringe theory, and for the most part acknowledge it only to rebut or disparage the claims.[3]

Wikiwand - Shakespeare authorship question

The Shakespeare authorship question is the argument that someone other than William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon wrote the works attributed to him. Anti-Stratfordians—a collective term for adherents of the various alternative-authorship theories—believe that Shakespeare of Stratford was a...

www.wikiwand.com

 

[Astoneroad]

One thing that amazes me, is that some modern historians that I otherwise respect, Will Durant, Stephen Greenblatt, are totally dismissive of facts and spread the fantastic tale of the man from Stratford.

 

[BinkieHuckerback]

"What’s interesting is that there is a very high correlation between these passages (often emphasized by a swiftly drawn manicule or hand with a pointing index finger) and their echo in the play’s and poems of Shakespeare.

That's evidence?

 

[Astoneroad]

The Shakespeare authorship question is the argument that someone other than William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon wrote the works attributed to him. Anti-Stratfordians—a collective term for adherents of the various alternative-authorship theories—believe that Shakespeare of Stratford was a front to shield the identity of the real author or authors, who for some reason—usually social rank, state security, or gender—did not want or could not accept public credit.[1] Although the idea has attracted much public interest,[2][a] all but a few Shakespeare scholars and literary historians consider it a fringe theory, and for the most part acknowledge it only to rebut or disparage the claims.[3]

Wikiwand - Shakespeare authorship question

The Shakespeare authorship question is the argument that someone other than William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon wrote the works attributed to him. Anti-Stratfordians—a collective term for adherents of the various alternative-authorship theories—believe that Shakespeare of Stratford was a...

www.wikiwand.com

Really, I quote Looney & Stritmatter and you quote wikiwand? Let's have Amir throw this on the analyzer and check the stats. Or, refute the stats presented in the correlation between DeVere's Geneva translation of the bible and what's in the plays and sonnets. Some hit 88% correlation. This isn't any more opinion as the results of a review on a regenerator. Where is that big objectivist core that draws us to ASR? On this we don't ask for facts and figures... we just believe it. Show me your numbers, your facts, your evidence, I'm shown you my peer reviewed publications from Looney & Stritmatter. I ready to believe if you can present an objectively supported position. Thanks for engaging.

 

[Astoneroad]

"What’s interesting is that there is a very high correlation between these passages (often emphasized by a swiftly drawn manicule or hand with a pointing index finger) and their echo in the play’s and poems of Shakespeare.

That's evidence?

That correlation is as high as 88%. Yes, that's evidence.

 

[BinkieHuckerback]

'printed copies of his plays and sonnets with his name on them, theatre company records and comments by contemporaries like Ben Jonson and John Webster.' So that's evidence too.

Did Shakespeare Really Write His Own Plays? | HISTORY

Nothing has been found documenting the composition of the more than 36 plays and 154 sonnets attributed to William Shakespeare.

www.history.com

 

[Inner Space]

I'm hoping to hear something that looks like substantial evidence, since this site mocks opinions without numbers, charts or facts.

Do we have numbers, charts or facts that prove aliens didn't build the pyramids? It's an Occam's Razor thing. The greatest-ever Englishman was the middle-class son of a grubby glove-maker from an obscure Midlands town. It amazes me that people find that so hard to deal with. But, whatever. Over and out on this issue.

 

[Astoneroad]

'printed copies of his plays and sonnets with his name on them, theatre company records and comments by contemporaries like Ben Jonson and John Webster.' So that's evidence too.

Did Shakespeare Really Write His Own Plays? | HISTORY

Nothing has been found documenting the composition of the more than 36 plays and 154 sonnets attributed to William Shakespeare.

www.history.com

Ben Jonson's comment... "The sweet swan of Avon"... Avon was Hampton Court's original name. Look at the signatures that we have for the man from Stratford, he didn't ever spell is name the same way. I posted this to see if the same adamant fervor emerged on this topic as reactions to Paul's vids by members of ASR. Just because a myth lasts for 5 centuries, doesn't mean it's true.... people believed in Newton's gravity until a Swiss patent clerk disproved it. I'm guessing that the blowback here hasn't actually reviewed either paper I'm citing. How is this not just like someone that doesn't believe the results of Amir's tests because they can "hear" the difference?

 

[BinkieHuckerback]

Ben Jonson's comment... "The sweet swan of Avon"... Avon was Hampton Court's original name. Look at the signatures that we have for the man from Stratford, he didn't ever spell is name the same way. I posted this to see if the same adamant fervor emerged on this topic as reactions to Paul's vids by members of ASR. Just because a myth lasts for 5 centuries, doesn't mean it's true.... people believed in Newton's gravity until a Swiss patent clerk disproved it. I'm guessing that the blowback here hasn't actually reviewed either paper I'm citing. How is this not just like someone that doesn't believe the results of Amir's tests because they can "hear" the difference?

Wow. What's in this for you? The evidence suggests that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare.

 

[Astoneroad]

Do we have numbers, charts or facts that prove aliens didn't build the pyramids? It's an Occam's Razor thing. The greatest-ever Englishman was the middle-class son of a grubby glove-maker from an obscure Midlands town. It amazes me that people find that so hard to deal with. But, whatever. Over and out on this issue.

Actually, applying Occam's Razor, DeVere is much more likely to have written the plays, given his travel to Italy and intimate knowledge of foreign courts... fewer leaps than for the "middle-class son of a grubby glove-maker from an obscure Midlands town" Well... this seems parallel to the willingness to disregard measurements and facts to justify ones' investment in massively expensive speaker cables. I can certainly understand a difference of opinion, but not the willingness not reexamine a position when faced with evidence challenging that position. I'd expect that on PS Audio's blog, but I thought I'd get the "just the facts" from this group... I guess whoever wrote the play was spot on with the observation of "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."