I appreciate the approach you took here. I am someone who started out a deep skeptic of the mainstream narrative about Shakespeare. But I learned more about the extensive role that that Shakespeare the actor and manager seems to have had in actively developing the plays, and as I actually got to know the plays themselves (which feel so clearly to have the perspective of an actor), my thinking slowly changed. I moved towards thinking that the most likely scenario was that Shakespeare the actor was a talented storyteller, writer and collaborator; and that he worked with others to develop his plays. A trickier question for me is who wrote the poems attributed to Shakespeare, which seem more clearly to be the product of a single writer, and which it is difficult for me to square with the absence of any poems eulogizing Shakespeare's son Hamnet.
For what it's worth, I find nearly all deep skeptics of Shakespeare authorship to be sloppy in their epistemology -- to treat the case as a relentless accumulation of distinct facts, rather than a consistent investigation of what various evidence actually means. For example, the relationship between spelling and literacy was far different in Shakespeare's time than in ours; there was little popular concept of the correct way to spell the bastard tongue that is English, and the earliest written versions of Shakespeare plays are inconsistent in their spelling, as well. It's misleading to mention the inconsistency in Shakespeare's signature without including that in your thinking.
I appreciate your thoughts. What is completely misleading about them, however, is not admitting the significance that the preponderance of evidence on the identity question is overwhelmingly for Edward de Vere as author of both the poems and the plays - yes, collaborationist, virtually everyone agrees, as many hands latched onto the plays at one point or another, for many documented reasons.
That is, the preponderance of evidence (times ten, taken to the nth degree, in this case, as it is not a remotely close call, since "everything fits and nothing fits," essentially) - the preponderance of evidence both rules in Edward de Vere and rules out William Shakspere (and everyone else). And this thoroughgoing preponderance of evidence includes any and all considerations of the state of non-standardized spelling and other issues of literacy in Shakespeare's time.
Lots of other things besides spelling were different during that time as compared to ours that could be pointed out too that might potentially confuse things. No one should assume otherwise.
To put it mildly, the "sloppy" to the point of being fraudulent or nonexistent "research" and baseless analysis is produced by those who claim Shakspere as author. The best, most thorough and professional research and analysis has been presented in extensive and well contextualized detail by those who understand Edward de Vere to be the author.
Well, if diving deeply into the subject would make me convinced of the Oxfordian thesis, I would love to get there and stop being wrong. If you were to suggest how I might spend 2 hours most productively coming to understand the arguments for and against de Vere, what would you suggest I read or watch? Most of the arguments I have read or watched seem to have glaring blind spots, and not to be credible epistemologically -- though of course that does nothing to rule out the theory, and it's certainly also true of most of the arguments I've seen for Stratfordianism!
That's the thing - the Shakspere argument is so baseless that they cannot credibly establish that Shakspere was literate, let alone literary. He's out, so who's in? Edward de Vere's life is tightly linked to the works, by all evidence. And no one else. If my post and the links in my post don't serve as a compelling starting point, I don't know what does.
This is exactly the sort of sloppy rhetoric that makes me roll my eyes at most Shakespeare authorship commentary. Most things that were true in 1600 can't be credibly established today -- that doesn't mean those facts are "out"!
"Most things"? That's a bit sloppy, isn't it. It's not a question of "most things." It's a question of the life and writings of Edward de Vere - no invisible figure - and that of the works of "Shakespeare" and the literary world and the life of William Shakspere. The evidence is overwhelming for the identity; whereas, for "most things" not so much.
I appreciate the approach you took here. I am someone who started out a deep skeptic of the mainstream narrative about Shakespeare. But I learned more about the extensive role that that Shakespeare the actor and manager seems to have had in actively developing the plays, and as I actually got to know the plays themselves (which feel so clearly to have the perspective of an actor), my thinking slowly changed. I moved towards thinking that the most likely scenario was that Shakespeare the actor was a talented storyteller, writer and collaborator; and that he worked with others to develop his plays. A trickier question for me is who wrote the poems attributed to Shakespeare, which seem more clearly to be the product of a single writer, and which it is difficult for me to square with the absence of any poems eulogizing Shakespeare's son Hamnet.
For what it's worth, I find nearly all deep skeptics of Shakespeare authorship to be sloppy in their epistemology -- to treat the case as a relentless accumulation of distinct facts, rather than a consistent investigation of what various evidence actually means. For example, the relationship between spelling and literacy was far different in Shakespeare's time than in ours; there was little popular concept of the correct way to spell the bastard tongue that is English, and the earliest written versions of Shakespeare plays are inconsistent in their spelling, as well. It's misleading to mention the inconsistency in Shakespeare's signature without including that in your thinking.
I appreciate your thoughts. What is completely misleading about them, however, is not admitting the significance that the preponderance of evidence on the identity question is overwhelmingly for Edward de Vere as author of both the poems and the plays - yes, collaborationist, virtually everyone agrees, as many hands latched onto the plays at one point or another, for many documented reasons.
That is, the preponderance of evidence (times ten, taken to the nth degree, in this case, as it is not a remotely close call, since "everything fits and nothing fits," essentially) - the preponderance of evidence both rules in Edward de Vere and rules out William Shakspere (and everyone else). And this thoroughgoing preponderance of evidence includes any and all considerations of the state of non-standardized spelling and other issues of literacy in Shakespeare's time.
Lots of other things besides spelling were different during that time as compared to ours that could be pointed out too that might potentially confuse things. No one should assume otherwise.
To put it mildly, the "sloppy" to the point of being fraudulent or nonexistent "research" and baseless analysis is produced by those who claim Shakspere as author. The best, most thorough and professional research and analysis has been presented in extensive and well contextualized detail by those who understand Edward de Vere to be the author.
Well, if diving deeply into the subject would make me convinced of the Oxfordian thesis, I would love to get there and stop being wrong. If you were to suggest how I might spend 2 hours most productively coming to understand the arguments for and against de Vere, what would you suggest I read or watch? Most of the arguments I have read or watched seem to have glaring blind spots, and not to be credible epistemologically -- though of course that does nothing to rule out the theory, and it's certainly also true of most of the arguments I've seen for Stratfordianism!
That's the thing - the Shakspere argument is so baseless that they cannot credibly establish that Shakspere was literate, let alone literary. He's out, so who's in? Edward de Vere's life is tightly linked to the works, by all evidence. And no one else. If my post and the links in my post don't serve as a compelling starting point, I don't know what does.
This is exactly the sort of sloppy rhetoric that makes me roll my eyes at most Shakespeare authorship commentary. Most things that were true in 1600 can't be credibly established today -- that doesn't mean those facts are "out"!
"Most things"? That's a bit sloppy, isn't it. It's not a question of "most things." It's a question of the life and writings of Edward de Vere - no invisible figure - and that of the works of "Shakespeare" and the literary world and the life of William Shakspere. The evidence is overwhelming for the identity; whereas, for "most things" not so much.