tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post5414638707945745458..comments2024-03-29T05:14:33.223-07:00Comments on Steve Sailer: iSteve: ShakespeareUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger138125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-13385204944412677592010-10-18T04:06:00.359-07:002010-10-18T04:06:00.359-07:00As Schopenhauer says - genius is determined by pos...As Schopenhauer says - genius is determined by posterity. Great works of art, including literature, is that which endures beyond its own time and there is no way of knowing whether a work will become great and endure or whether it will be greatly lauded (because it is fashionable) and then promptly forgotten.<br /><br />It is laughable today how literary critics are always harping on about modern classics. The term is an oxymoron.<br /><br /><br />- BreezeAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-26023195058231188882010-10-13T08:16:20.238-07:002010-10-13T08:16:20.238-07:00I believe there is something in the isteve smallpr...<i>I believe there is something in the isteve smallprint that gives special dispnsation to Lucius Vorenus to use the term though.</i> <br /><br />Holy Cow - <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/print/248613" rel="nofollow">THE DERB IS BACK!!!</a> <br /><br />I knew he wouldn't have gotten that gun permit if he didn't sense that there was something worth living for [and, if necessary, worth dying for].<br /><br />And <a href="http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=derbyshire+skeet+shooting" rel="nofollow">the skeet shooting videos</a> just cinched it for me.Lucius Vorenusnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-50921149909755480502010-10-13T03:13:14.515-07:002010-10-13T03:13:14.515-07:00I've been reading some of de Vere's poems,...I've been reading some of de Vere's poems, and I wouldn't call them "drivel" at all. They strike me as technically and formally competent, emotionally pretty self-possessed, and often kind of sophisticated. What I don't think they display too often is the fiery originality of a first-rate poetic mind. They sound to me like the work of an educated guy who likes literature and writing, the sort who in our own times would publish in a good university literary magazine, and then go not much further.<br /><br />There are indeed a few places where I detect a style and sensibility quite similar to the author of the Sonnets. But more often than not what I detect is a talent that has more or less fully blossomed, but in a distinctly different style from that author, at once more technically elaborate and yet more artistically circumscribed. And for a guy trained in the law, he doesn't use many of those sophisticated legal terms that are supposed to point straight to him in the Sonnets, rather than to Shakespeare whom everyone admits spent a lot of time in court, suing people, so that we can assume Shakespeare was highly interested in legal proceedings. He was already doing legal schtick at an early age with Jack Cade in Henry VI.<br /><br />Here's the thing that bumps me. The de Vere poems seem to have been written circa late 1570s to maybe early 1580s, and as I say they evidence a mature style which explores a lot of different verse forms besides iambic pentameter, and indeed seems quite comfortable with complex diction and unusual rhythms.<br /><br />But Shakespeare comes on the scene in the late 1580s, and his early work like Titus Andronicus and the Henry VI plays employs the thundering clumpety-clumpety-clumpety rhythms that a man of the theater would have picked up from being around guys like Kyd and Marlowe. There isn't a lot of byzantine diction in early Shakespeare, there's mostly that very steady beat in the verse, and it's mostly emotionally very direct, and highly theatrical. In other words it all sounds like a young man testing his mettle for the first time, not like a guy who perhaps 15 years earlier was already a past master of much more subtle and complex forms. And it sounds like a man of the theater, not like an academic poet.<br /><br />In later plays like Twelfth Night Shakespeare is still making jokes about King Gorboduc; "Gorboduc" was the title of an old war-horse of a play that had been a hit years earlier, and that a young actor of say, Shakespeare's age, would very likely have cut his teeth on. It doesn't prove anything, but Shakespeare sure does make a lot of inside jokes of the sort that actors and directors make.<br /><br />As to whether a "country bumpkin" could write this stuff, here's a bit from Titus Andronicus...<br /><br />What, man! more water glideth by the mill<br />Than wots the miller of; and easy it is<br />Of a cut loaf to steal a shive, we know...<br />What, hast not thou full often struck a doe,<br />And borne her cleanly by the keeper's nose?<br /><br />Sounds to me like precisely the sort of stuff a country boy would know about.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-91389544506570937602010-10-13T00:09:02.711-07:002010-10-13T00:09:02.711-07:00Here's an excerpt from a fine scholarly study,...Here's an excerpt from a fine scholarly study, "Meet It Is I Set It Down: Scenes from the Amazing Life of Edward de Vere" (The Literalist Press, 1961)<br /><br />p. 83: "...furthermore, during his military service in Flanders, de Vere was captured for a few days by the enemy, who had him bound upon a wheel of fire, which his own tears did scald like molten lead. However, he was subsequently rescued and returned to his regiment, where he cleverly quipped, 'If this were played upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction.' He then proceeded to sit upon the ground, and tell sad stories of the death of kings."<br /><br />Now I ask you: how else could such lines _possibly_ have been written?<br /><br />The Oxfordians rest.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-7741181017686621282010-10-12T23:42:53.674-07:002010-10-12T23:42:53.674-07:00Moldbug: "All over the Stratford story, we f...Moldbug: "All over the Stratford story, we find wild improbabilities - the Sonnets..."<br /><br />What I'd like to know is, why does everyone persist in assuming that the Sonnets _must_ be autobiographical? Shakespeare was a playwright, he wrote in the voices of many characters. Was Lear autobiographical? How about Venus and Adonis? Is Rape of Lucrece autobiographical? If not, why not? After all, it's not a vulgar play, it's court verse, so that must make it personal. Right? Because vulgar plays aren't personal, except when de Vere writes them, and then they're always personal. From this we may infer that de Vere was a king of Scotland, and was also a vainglorious household steward, as well as a hunchback.<br /><br />Why is it so "improbable" or impossible to believe that, in a world full of taverns, and gossip, and intrigue, and tavern gossip about intrigue, a guy who was all ears might hear some interesting gossip about say a Dark Lady, and decide that the whole thing made for a great poetic voice 'in character'? Shakespeare seems to have had a voracious hunger for material. Why is it impossible he didn't just 'use' some things he overheard, to try out a new poetic format in mimicry, at which he evidently excelled? <br /><br />Again, de Vere's biographical details fail to impress me as a gotcha. If _you've_ heard all about them, then how is it impossible that Shakespeare didn't? <br /><br />SHAKESPEARE: So tell me, Your Grace -- what happened next on your sea voyage?<br />DE VERE: Why, lad, then I was taken captive by... pirates!!<br />SHAKESPEARE: Pirates?! Marry, do tell more! What did Your Grace do next? (aside to Mistress Quickly) Oh, this is good. Keep the drinks coming.<br /><br />Since de Vere had a theater bug most of his life, maybe he was eager to spill his stories and see them transformed on stage. He paid a lot of money and sort-of ruined his estate to hang out with actors and artists and writers.<br /><br />"There is no reason to give the "present and long-standing consensus" any logical weight in any discussion. This is simply the fallacy of the status quo."<br /><br />I wasn't giving anything any 'logical weight'. I'm pointing out that name-calling makes you guys sound petulant, and stooping to make your case by twisting and inventing words (see 'pro-choice' vs. 'pro-life' or the hijacking of the word "justice" in the spurious concept, "social justice").<br /><br />"The fallacy of the status quo is exactly what you're committing when you assign the heretical hypothesis a label, but refuse to assign the conventional hypothesis a label."<br /><br />The conventional hypothesis _has_ a label, and it's "Shakespearean."<br /><br />You guys carry on as if Shakespeare had committed some grave offense, and rail at him as a wicked malicious impostor; yet if your thesis is true, it must be the case that de Vere himself participated in the fraud, and indeed almost certainly must have instigated the fraud himself. Thus, regarding William S: no harm, no foul.<br /><br />And yet you folks persist in insulting him, accusing him, etc etc. ---Hey, where'd your whole "fallacy" schtick go all of a sudden?<br /><br />You have committed the fallacy of hunting for fallacies in other people's mere conversation. This is a blog, not the Royal Society.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-39707760337241645892010-10-12T20:52:02.842-07:002010-10-12T20:52:02.842-07:00Testimony? I was unaware that the introduction to ...<b>Testimony? I was unaware that the introduction to the First Folio was, um, an affidavit.</b><br /><br />Um, "testimony" is the standard term in literary scholarship for any information (usually the kind transmitted by a contemporary) about an author's life and works. I think you just perpetrated a howler, Mr. Moldbug.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-12476792510906398422010-10-12T19:58:49.702-07:002010-10-12T19:58:49.702-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.James Kabalahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02335302113772004687noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-61865999221208339492010-10-12T18:51:55.918-07:002010-10-12T18:51:55.918-07:00"The point is: when you look at Oxford's ..."The point is: when you look at Oxford's life, it always seems to fit, with very little sewing and stretching required."<br /><br />It seems to fit if you 'Want To Believe', like Mulder said in the X Files.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-157927001031846662010-10-12T18:48:55.233-07:002010-10-12T18:48:55.233-07:00"Moreover, Jonson is not Shakespeare"
I..."Moreover, Jonson is not Shakespeare"<br /><br />I agree. He was plainly better educated than Shakespeare. You would think someone tutored by the "greatest minds of the Elizabethan age" would have had a grasp of Greek and Latin than the son of a bricklayer.<br /><br /><br />"When I search for Neville, I find cryptograms and other Ignatius Donnelly material"<br /><br />When I search for Vere I don't find any direct evidence, either. Neville was born in 1564, and died in 1616. His nickname was Falstaff. He was a descendant of John of Gaunt, a distant relative of Shakespeare, a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Venture" rel="nofollow">director of the Virginia Company of London</a>. After choosing to go down this road, it’s difficult to know when to stop.<br /><br />"Francis Meres in 1598 praises Vere as a writer of comedies."<br /><br />Yes, court comedies. Which apparently he was writing in addition to all of the Shakespeare stuff.C. Van Carterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09918883799053031223noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-20241234798687232512010-10-12T18:41:47.754-07:002010-10-12T18:41:47.754-07:00What convinces me the most is that I hear Shakespe...<i>What convinces me the most is that I hear Shakespeare's poetic voice in the Oxford juvenilia.</i><br /><br /><br /><br /><i>You've lost your mind, Thursday.</i><br /><br />Alas, no, but you seem to have lost your literary taste.<br /><br />I've read the Oxford juvenelia and this statement is batshit crazy. At best Oxford's verse rises to the inoffensive, at its worst it's drivel, but never is it anything like Shakespeare.Thursdayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13002311410445623799noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-42426118763943805872010-10-12T17:54:01.889-07:002010-10-12T17:54:01.889-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.James Kabalahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02335302113772004687noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-54112865171534833672010-10-12T17:51:40.928-07:002010-10-12T17:51:40.928-07:00"Francis Meres in 1598 praises Vere as a writ..."Francis Meres in 1598 praises Vere as a writer of comedies."<br /><br />And treats Shakespeare as a separate person in the same passage. Apparently Meres moved from carefulness to recklessness about the hoax in the space of five minutes.<br /><br />http://www.elizabethanauthors.com/palladis.htmJames Kabalahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02335302113772004687noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-7040990240698905862010-10-12T14:33:08.629-07:002010-10-12T14:33:08.629-07:00Ben Jonson’s education: Westminster school, on to ...<em>Ben Jonson’s education: Westminster school, on to bricklaying, then a stint in the military.</em><br /><br />It's the exception that proves the rule. Westminster was and is the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westminster_School" rel="nofollow">finest public school in England</a>. Jonson didn't go to Cambridge, but many of his contemporaries thought he had - he certainly would have been prepared for it. The Stratford Free School does not stand any sort of comparison.<br /><br />Moreover, Jonson is not Shakespeare - when he gets classical and learned, he always feels like he's showing off. And furthermore, a personality like that of Jonson - a partial autodidact - jumps out at us from a bazillion records. If Shaxper, whose education is not even recorded, had been the same kind of autodidact, he also would have been a remarkable and well-recorded personality. Unless he was a recluse. But we know Shaxper was anything but a recluse. "Producer" and "recluse" are not synonyms.<br /><br />In contrast, for the last 10 years of Oxford's life, he appears to be holed up in a castle doing nothing, receiving a gigantic pension from Queen Elizabeth. Maybe he was holed up in a castle doing nothing. Maybe he was drinking, or smoking opium. Or maybe he was writing the Shakespeare plays. The point is: when you look at Oxford's life, it always seems to fit, with very little sewing and stretching required.<br /><br /><em>They are able, somehow, to rule out Sir Henry Neville, for example.</em><br /><br />When I search for <a href="http://www.henryneville.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=28&Itemid=9" rel="nofollow">Neville</a>, I find cryptograms and other Ignatius Donnelly material. This does not inspire confidence.<br /><br /><em>They ignore the implausibility of someone of Edward de Vere's background involving himself in the writing of plays.</em><br /><br />Francis Meres in 1598 <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/unbound/flashbks/shakes/beth.htm" rel="nofollow">praises Vere</a> as a writer of comedies.Mencius Moldbughttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16472157249344139282noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-31089781529419800892010-10-12T14:16:29.180-07:002010-10-12T14:16:29.180-07:00To assess the contending hypotheses of Stratford a...To assess the contending hypotheses of Stratford and Oxford is to assess their respective probability. All over the Stratford story, we find wild improbabilities - the Sonnets; Italy; dying without books; the signatures; intimate knowledge of the law; lack of literary remains; etc, etc, etc. Each of these requires considerable energy to explain away, as we've seen. But on the pro side, we have honest Ben Jonson, plus Aubrey and his "from Mr Beeston," plus a number of Elizabethan title pages.<br /><br />Since an Elizabethan literary hoax is hardly a rara avis to begin with, when we multiply all the other improbables, it becomes the most probable explanation. We are then in the position of discarding the attributions and searching for a plausible author, as if the Shakespeare canon had been published anonymously.<br /><br />When solving this problem, we find a lot of very convincing coincidences pointing to the Earl of Oxford, and we do not see the kinds of improbables we have in connecting Stratford to Shakespeare. The case for other notables of the time, such as Bacon, is considerably weaker.<br /><br />What convinces <em>me</em> the most is that I hear Shakespeare's poetic voice in the Oxford juvenilia. (<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=B004AAAAIAAJ" rel="nofollow">Looney</a>, the original discoverer of Oxford, is particularly eloquent on this point - if you have a strong opinion on the subject and you haven't read Looney, why not?) This is an extremely subjective assessment, and will not convince anyone not convinced that he has an ear.<br /><br />But it's no doubt why so many writers have expressed skepticism about the Stratford story. Most of the best Stratford skeptics before Looney have no preferred candidate; after Looney, Baconians and the like become a small minority. (Bacon really does not sound anything like Shakespeare.)<br /><br /><em>or the fact that Oxford was dead before many of the plays were performed.</em><br /><br />Um, so? You've lost your mind, Thursday.Mencius Moldbughttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16472157249344139282noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-76280230939363847872010-10-12T14:16:19.851-07:002010-10-12T14:16:19.851-07:00Yet, the Oxfordians don't seem to take much no...<em> Yet, the Oxfordians don't seem to take much notice of major problems with their theory like Ben Jonson's testimony</em><br /><br /><em>Testimony</em>? I was unaware that the introduction to the First Folio was, um, an <em>affidavit</em>.<br /><br />The introduction to the First Folio is by far the strongest evidence linking Shagspere to Shakespeare. It's quite clear that if the two are different, we are looking at... an Elizabethan literary hoax. In which honest Ben Jonson is involved. <br /><br />Not Ben! But I trusted him so completely. Fire up the infinite improbability machine! What is the improbability of... an Elizabethan literary hoax? Now, what is the improbability of an otherwise anonymous actor from Stratford, 3 years older than the Earl of Southampton, dedicating elegant, didactic courtly love poems to him? You'll find a gap of several orders of magnitude between these.<br /><br />[cont]Mencius Moldbughttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16472157249344139282noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-27215840416464130282010-10-12T13:28:46.026-07:002010-10-12T13:28:46.026-07:00Thursday:
Ben Johnson never wrote word about his ...Thursday:<br /><br />Ben Johnson never wrote word about his supposed good friend/rival, the Stratford man, till long after his death. I don't know why, and neither do you. It says nothing either way. There are lots of reasons DeVere might not have wanted his identiy revealed. Our argument does not depend on establishing those reasons. Our argument rests principally on the uncanny congruence between the works of Shakespeare and the life of DeVere, which Stratfordians pathetically attempt to counter with niggardly objections that are easily swatted down, as Moldbug has done on this thread. <br /><br />And, forgive me for being snarky but: I don't know how time works in the universe in which you live, but the fact that the first records of public performances of some of the Shakespearian ouvre were not entered until DeVere died does not disqualify DeVere (ever hear of "Rent"). Surely I need not explain this point further. Or do I? <br /><br />I'm snarky only because I'm human, and, as an imperfect human, it infuriates me that you charge us with being "completely crazy or contrarian for the sake of being contrarian" rather than find a true refutation of our arguments. Keep trying, though.<br /><br />And before you accuse me of racism, onlookers, look up the word "niggardly." <br /><br />OK, I think I'm done.Jim Ohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01912710881278409532noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-56998606968533067582010-10-12T11:59:58.913-07:002010-10-12T11:59:58.913-07:00Mencius: Shakespeare was unlikely, but then the mo...Mencius: Shakespeare was unlikely, but then the most singular literary genius of all time can't help but be unlikely. <br /><br />“How was this genius created? A quality of education that no longer exists”<br /><br />Ben Jonson’s education: Westminster school, on to bricklaying, then a stint in the military. <br /><br />"What you're doing is refusing to consider the alternative interpretations on equal terms."<br /><br />Oxfordians don't give equal weight alternatives that work against them. They are able, somehow, to rule out Sir Henry Neville, for example. They ignore the implausibility of someone of Edward de Vere's background involving himself in the writing of plays.C. Van Carterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09918883799053031223noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-54478227591357786792010-10-12T10:03:55.242-07:002010-10-12T10:03:55.242-07:00The fallacy of the status quo is exactly what you&...<i>The fallacy of the status quo is exactly what you're committing when you assign the heretical hypothesis a label, but refuse to assign the conventional hypothesis a label. What you're doing is refusing to consider the alternative interpretations on equal terms.</i><br /><br />This is not a matter of logical fallacies, and it's not a question of "Stratfordians" refusing. It's a question of Oxfordians appearing to take a cheap shot at their opponents and arrogate to themselves legitimacy that they may not yet have earned. To a layman like me, it makes Oxfordians look like desperate crackpots. They would be doing themselves a favor if they would just concede the conventions of nomenclature and let their arguments speak for themselves.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-13033145757968995012010-10-12T09:51:15.401-07:002010-10-12T09:51:15.401-07:00Mencius Moldbug, ladies and gentlemen, on fire.Mencius Moldbug, ladies and gentlemen, on fire.Sam I Amnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-36941616824955571602010-10-12T07:01:44.035-07:002010-10-12T07:01:44.035-07:00Mencius: If only an aristocrat could have written...Mencius: If only an aristocrat could have written a Shakespeare, then who wrote Marlowe, Spenser, Jonson, Milton (born before the Civil War), etc.? Or are you a bit of a bardolater yourself, arguing that he was not merely better than those other poets, but better by several orders of magnitude?<br /><br />And now, although my earlier (broken) promise was mocked by Moldbug as cowardice, I really will retire from the field. I don't hope to have convinced any committed Oxfordians, but I hope at least I provided some facts (and one dumb mistake about Venice) for the neutral or uncommitted reader.James Kabalahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02335302113772004687noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-91216464813589629532010-10-12T06:55:18.066-07:002010-10-12T06:55:18.066-07:00Yes, I made one really dumb mistake - obviously it...Yes, I made one really dumb mistake - obviously it should have struck me that there must be some way to get around on the islands of Venice themselves, not simply between the islands. That hardly compares with the many tendentious assertions Oxfordians make all the time. <br /><br />Here's an example: Birth of Shakespeare to birth of Franklin - 142 years (154 years for Oxfordians). Birth of Franklin to my own year of bith (substituted for Moldbug's since I don't know his age) - 274 years. Oops!<br /><br />And of course, even if Shakespeare did know of the canals, that hardly proves that he visited Venice.<br /><br />I have to make an own goal (as the British say) here, however - Marlowe's homosexuality is based mainly on rumor (and the textual evidence of not just Edward II but Hero and Leander), and some scholars doubt it.James Kabalahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02335302113772004687noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-7883303947288536762010-10-11T21:45:32.365-07:002010-10-11T21:45:32.365-07:00What if bootleg recordings of one [radio DJ] came ...<i>What if bootleg recordings of one [radio DJ] came to be recognized in another generation or two as works of genius? People would wonder why almost nobody had noticed when the great genius disk jockey had been fired. </i><br /><br />Phil Hendrie.Wandererhttp://img517.imageshack.us/img517/280/growthideologywp7.jpgnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-59105810207386853472010-10-11T20:28:51.211-07:002010-10-11T20:28:51.211-07:00Stuff like this happens all the time when you disc...<i>Stuff like this happens all the time when you discuus the subject with Stratfordians long enough.</i><br /><br />Oxfordians major in minor stuff like this. Take pleasure in your victory on a very minor point over some guy on the internet.<br /><br />Yet, the Oxfordians don't seem to take much notice of major problems with their theory like Ben Jonson's testimony or the fact that Oxford was dead before many of the plays were performed.<br /><br />The more I look into this the more I think one has to be completely crazy or contrarian for the sake of being contrarian in order to believe in the Oxfordian theory.Thursdayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13002311410445623799noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-18872144247776061792010-10-11T19:50:46.149-07:002010-10-11T19:50:46.149-07:00[cont]
Intellectuals in our own era, or even Frank...[cont]<br />Intellectuals in our own era, or even Franklin's, practice styles in which natural talent is relatively more important, and training relatively less. Whoever had the natural talent to write the Shakespeare works could probably have written decent modern free verse, without much training. The Sonnets? Gimme a break.<br /><br />Much of the shock of understanding the Oxford hypothesis is the realization that, 400 years ago, the English Renaissance produced a level of human achievement which no longer exists. Oxford was by no means unique as a "Renaissance man." Consider, for instance, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Admirable_Crichton" rel="nofollow">Admirable Crichton</a>...Mencius Moldbughttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16472157249344139282noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-56400179574459496872010-10-11T19:50:37.264-07:002010-10-11T19:50:37.264-07:00Look, Ben Franklin got no education beyond the age...<em>Look, Ben Franklin got no education beyond the age of ten.... Lincoln... Keats...</em><br /><br />Didn't I post some of Lincoln's "poetry" earlier?<br /><br />This sort of argument, again, illustrates the extreme difficulty even the educated modern reader has in projecting back to the Elizabethan era. The distance in time between Shakespeare and Franklin is not much less than the distance between us and Franklin. These are not both the ancient, pre-iPhone past - they are very different societies. Furthermore, the intellectual achievements of Franklin and Shakespeare could hardly be more different.<br /><br />The intellectual ideals of the English Renaissance- ideals the Shakespeare canon most certainly lives up to, if not in fact defines - involved a level of literary cultivation which can only be compared to the training of a professional sports player today. Anyone here read Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy? Much of the point of this boring, infuriating, and intermittently wonderful work is that the author has read pretty much the entire Greek and Latin corpus. <br /><br />If you see, say, a professional tennis player today, you can be certain that this individual (a) has the best genes imaginable for tennis, and (b) has been intensively coached since first grade or so. This is what we see when we look at Shakespeare - top-notch talent and top-notch training.<br /><br />It is very possible to play very good tennis in a world in which professional tennis doesn't exist. Someone with the right genes and some instruction could become a very good tennis player in this world. He could never compete with Roger Federer.<br /><br />This is what makes the Stratford hypothesis so implausible - it's like a random ballboy entering the US Open and beating Roger Federer. Genes are not sufficient. You need Nick Bolletieri.Mencius Moldbughttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16472157249344139282noreply@blogger.com