The American Spectator

Tom Paine| 4.21.09 @ 5:22PM

No scholar of Renaissance literature I know gives any credence whatsoever to the Looney hypothesis.

Indeed, we know more about Shakespeare's life than we do about any of his contemporaries -- including his one peer, Spenser.

The author of Shakespeare's plays was the son of the glover, the man from Stratford, William Shakespeare.

Arguments to the contrary are lunacies based upon snobbery: the idea that a middle class boy could not grow up to be the greatest writer in history.

To believe the Oxford theory, you'd have to somehow argue that Edward de Vere died leaving 10 or 11 plays in his chest. Those plays were then somehow stolen or distributed, to be published and / or staged at pretty much the same rate as they were before his death.

It doesn't make any sense whatsoever. If Oxford wrote the plays, did he write the sonnets too? Why then did he pun on the name of Shakespeare's wife, Ann Hathaway? Why pun on the name "Will" repeatedly?

No, rest easy. Shakespeare was William Shakespeare, who died in 1616.

Spicy Joker| 4.21.09 @ 9:28PM

Time for Stevens to retire.

Andrew B.| 4.22.09 @ 7:21AM

I find myself, for perhaps the only time I can remember, agreeing wholeheartedly with Tom Paine. The Oxford theory is based on snobbery and not on history.

We can just as easily who "really" wrote the works of Chaucer, Milton or Johnson. None of them were aristocrats, so surely they couldn't have composed the works attributed to them.

And how about America's authors? Melville was a humble clerk, so I guess we will have to propose that John Jacob Astor or Daniel Webster actually wrote "Moby Dick."

ed del colle| 4.22.09 @ 9:08AM

some of you are foolish, and obscurantists. the soi-disant bard of avon is will shakspere, who could hardly write his name! i believe the portfolio, dedicated to an earl of southhampton who was a love interest of de-vere was annotated, shake-spear. again, de vere was an accomplished poet, his copy of the bible is heavily annotated with comments, as many biblical allusions are used in the plays. as the supreme court justice pointed out will of avon had no books for posterity, and i believe left his wife one well made bed. sobran is a brilliant individual not a loon, or crazy. twain wrote a very long essay raising common sense doubts concerning the author of the plays.

Tom Paine| 4.22.09 @ 9:33AM

ed del colle --

Twain was wrong. Looney was wrong. Oxfordians are wrong.

Look, as Andrew B. points out, the middle class has supplied English literature with most of its luminaries. Not just Chaucer and Milton and Johnson, but Ben Jonson, Spenser, Marlowe, and Thomas More were all of roughly William Shakespeare's social class.

That Shakespeare "could not spell his name" is false.

Shakespeare lived in a time where spelling did not mean what it does today. It is hardly surprising to anyone that reads 16th century manuscripts that Shakespeare spelled his name differently at different times.

William Shakespeare was much commented upon by his contemporaries.

Ben Jonson says he knew and loved Shakespeare "this side Idolatry." People also criticized him (especially Greene's famous remark about an "upstart crow" named Shakespeare.)

Shakespeare's fantastic ability cannot be explained. He's the Mozart of literature.

But he also came up in a town with a first rate education system. He studied as a child the art of memorizing and the art of emulating (or imitating). He was sent off into the world with an exhaustive classics education (Latin, not Greek) and a sponge-like ability to pick up on mannerisms of people different from himself. His education also prepared him for "argument," which is central to the dramatist's art.

Depend upon it: Shakespeare was the man from Stratford, William Shakespeare.

ed del colle| 4.22.09 @ 10:43AM

though paine is my favorite american you could measure what he read and knew through local schooling or as an autodidact. the modern tom paine here inflates will shaksper's educational attainment. there's now way for you to know, and he left no writings and books for posterity, that;s established. i didn't he couldn't spell, he could write his name, and spelling is absent today in ampsec, and any national paper. the sonnets have a dark, homo-erortic side to them and those like sobran, looney and others spoke to de vere's bi-sexuality. de vere also had legal training, the bard had none that is evident, nor did he ever visit any of the foreign ports of call present in the plays! so, please to dismiss this authorship question, is to say what the prophet of hyde park remarked about the science being apodictic concerning global warming!

edward del colle| 4.22.09 @ 11:19AM

re-reading andew b's drivel invites ignorance in here. this issue has been thought about for a very long time and has nothing to do with these other author's and poet's. gb shaw had his doubts abouth shaksper, which is how he spelled it, so did wells , i mean orson. some of you experts should start by reading alias shakespeare by sobran. absorb some contrarian, the CW is not sacrosanct!

Tom Paine| 4.22.09 @ 1:36PM

edward,

My dear sir. You don't know what the hell you're talking about.

NOBODY who studies the Renaissance or Shakespeare doubts the authorship question.

It is rank and unscholarly nonsense. It has no more intellectual legitimacy than speculation about life in outer space. It's all suppositions.

It is a myth that we know little about William Shakespeare's life. We have a wealth of knowledge. We can say beyond all reasonable doubt that the author of the plays was who everyone who comments on them in early-modern England says he was: William Shakespeare.

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