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Shakespeare a fake? What fools these mortals be.

Lucy Kippist

by Lucy Kippist

10 Nov 05:45am

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Filed under: Anonymous, History, Roland Emmerich, Shakespeare, Theatre

77 comments

My name’s Lucy and I’m a Stratfordian. Okay, not really. That’s just a fancy way of saying that I think William Shakespeare was real.

To believe or not to believe, that is the question. Photo: Geoff King.

That even though he was born to a middle class family, went to the local school and never set foot in a university - that he wrote every single one of his approximately 38 plays, 154 sonnets, and 2 epic narrative poems, with an unrivalled creativity, a wicked sense of humour and a serious passion for documenting the world around him.

It means that I think Shakespeare’s humble beginnings did not define him. That his quick wit drove his talent and his natural curiosity made him a star.

Not so, says new film Anonymous by German director Roland Emmerich, who has devoted 130 minutes to re-telling the ancient story of a literary hero - by claiming that he was someone else altogether.

Emmerich doesn’t buy Will’s common beginnings. He says that only someone with an impressive education and a well-connected family with lots of money could be the real Shakespeare.

Cue noblemen Edward de Vere, the hero of Anonymous and the well travelled, long standing member of Queen Elizabeth 1’s court, who matriculated at St John’s College, Cambridge.

THIS man says Emmerich, is the REAL Shakespeare. 

Emmerich’s idea is not a new one. Academics, history buffs and ye olde play goers alike have contested Shakespeare’s identity as far back as the early 1800s.

The unfortunately named J Thomas Looney most notable among them - for building an entire career out of trying to prove that Shakespeare was not the man behind all those words.

Just like Emmerich, Looney (who had several followers) believed that only someone of de Vere’s social status would have the time and inclination to produce so much literary work.

Christopher Marlowe and Francis Bacon were also contenders. But they’re wrong too.

You don’t have to be a rich guy with three parts to your name and a fancy education to be a creative genius - you just have to be passionate and clever.

According to Jonathan Bate an English professor at the University of Liverpool and avowed Stratfordian, people who use Shakespeare’s humble beginnings to debunk his existence underestimate his “deep involvement in the life of the theatre.”

Words, plays and acting were not just a hobby for old Will, says Bates. They were his profession. His passion. His reason for getting up in the morning. 

Men like Edward de Vere certainly wrote, their social standing gave them an entirely different perspective on Elizabethan life. They were privileged, comfortable and happy with the status quo. William Shakespeare on the other hand, was a common man and that’s what made his stories so universal. We want him to have written the stories because his “common” beginnings reflect most of our own.

Just last year I went to Shakespeare’s house in Stratford-Upon-Avon - ducking my head in the miniature doorways, and staring out the rickety, ancient windows, wondering if it would be possible to understand just what it was that inspired him.

To be honest, it was hard going. Take away the tourists and their vegetable pasties. The endless rows of umbrellas and the Tudor souvenir shops, what you caught most was a glimpse of life - the business of people just going about their day.

What, no castles? That couldn’t be it, I remember thinking to myself. But maybe that’s the point.

Arguing about how a provincial bloke could be moved to write stories of great battles and royal courts are to completely miss the point of a great story teller. Because at the end of the day and above all things, Will Shakespeare’s true gift was a fantastic imagination.

Most commented

77 comments

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    • Erick says:

      05:04am | 10/11/11

      All this anti-Shakespeare nonsense is just elitist egoism at work. Some people in the upper classes just can’t stomach the idea that a mere commoner could be a genius, so they’ll come up with elaborate conspiracy theories to deny it.

      As for the theory that only a man of leisure could write so much, that is simply nonsense. Shakespeare was prolific because he had to be - it was his job. If he didn’t write, he would literally starve.

      The Shakespeare conspiracy theorists are just like Illuminati believers and people who think the moon landing was faked.

      Reply

    • Hermano says:

      06:52am | 10/11/11

      Well said sir.  Well said indeed.

    • Vitaly says:

      07:23am | 10/11/11

      add ‘people who think 9/11 was faked’ (looks at Tin Foil John).

    • Dean says:

      07:35am | 10/11/11

      Above.

      [Round of applause emanates from the online audience]

    • Babe in the Woods says:

      07:55am | 10/11/11

      Well said Erick.  But hang on, you mean they really did land on the moon???

    • VVS says:

      08:00am | 10/11/11

      People should read Stephen King’s On Writing (fantastic read) to understand how those who are passionate about writing find the time to work full time jobs and still write (a lot).

      My recollection was King would write anywhere at any time—before work, after work, on his lunch break—he just loved writing.

      He apparently wrote The Running Man in a week (his claim).

    • Tedd says:

      08:00am | 10/11/11

      Some people just want the truth.

      Despite that, another truth is the works will always be revered.

    • SpagBol says:

      08:15am | 10/11/11

      I tell you, the feminists started this whole business…

    • Erick says:

      08:33am | 10/11/11

      @SpagBol - What a silly, pointless and irrelevant comment that was.

    • Notroll says:

      09:40am | 10/11/11

      @ Vitaly et al.

      9/11 was faked.  Anyone with an even slightly rational mind who has looked into it enough will come to that conclusion.

    • Nic says:

      09:59am | 10/11/11

      Nevermind that de Vere died long before Shakespear did and long before the Plays stopped

    • Sad Sad Reality says:

      11:12am | 10/11/11

      So true Erick. Well done.

    • Anne71 says:

      12:24pm | 10/11/11

      A standing ovation for you, Erick.  Could not have said it better.

    • sunny says:

      12:46pm | 10/11/11

      In a parallel universe Neil Armstrong wrote medieval literature.. “There’s many a man has more hair than wit but ‘tis one giant wit for mankind” and William Shakespeare landed on the moon..“Give me my robe, put on my crown; I’m King of the f**king moon!”

    • Outraged says:

      01:23pm | 10/11/11

      Shakespeare wasn’t a genius at all!

      He was the Aaron Spelling of his time! Churning out schlock that was gobbled up by the masses…

    • marley says:

      01:33pm | 10/11/11

      @outraged - oh yeah, there was a huge mass market back in 1590 for sonnets.  Illiterate peasants fought for copies of them.  Right.

    • St. Michael says:

      02:04pm | 10/11/11

      @ Outraged: Shakespeare, like many of his “popular” colleagues such as Charles Dickens, H. Rider Haggard, and H.G. Wells, has the great honour of still being read centuries after his work was originally published.  The “literati” of his time are not so honoured.  That is, to some extent, the mark of greatness, because what he wrote spoke not only to the closed, cosseted communities he came from (unlike the literati) but to generations of people down through history.

    • stephen says:

      09:39pm | 10/11/11

      Lots of commoners are very clever, and that some query Shakespeare’s credentials, is not to, as a snob might, imply that only an educated man -  officially, that is -  can have written S’s Opus.
      The question is not one that a Sociologist might ponder, or even a theorist.
      Rather, everyone would like to know, if S did not write them, then who did ?
      There are some extreme stylistic discrepancies between a number of the plays ... differences that some good literary theoreticians cannot explain.
      Walt Whitman seriously doubted S. was the author of the Plays.
      (And actually, if you think W. was not a good judge of times or places, then read his Prose.)
      I kind of hope S. didn’t write them ; I do not wish to read Macbeth as( because we now nothing of S’s life) nothing more than a unconscious diary.

    • acotrel says:

      06:08am | 10/11/11

      With his unique turn of phrase, Tony Abbott could become the next Shakespeare ?

      Reply

    • Lee Enfield says:

      07:02am | 10/11/11

      You are a dead set nutter with your unhealthy fixation of Abbott.  There is only one other person with a fixation worse than yours,  and that is the queen nutter,  Gillard herself.  You should get help and lots of it,  you seem to be lost in a world of hyperbowl.

    • Babe in the Woods says:

      07:58am | 10/11/11

      @actorel, how on earth is your post relevant?

    • Nilbog says:

      08:15am | 10/11/11

      I agree with Lee Enfield - absolute nutcase with an unhealthy obsession.

    • Max Redlands says:

      09:16am | 10/11/11

      Indeed:

      Friends, Australians, countrymen, lend me your ears;
      I come to bury Gillard, not to praise her.

    • RyaN says:

      09:39am | 10/11/11

      @Lee Enfield: I think comrade acotrel is in love.

    • Max Redlands says:

      09:41am | 10/11/11

      that’s right ackers:

      “Friends, Australians, country men : lend me your ears (even tho my are quite big)

      I come to bury Gillard , not to praise her.”

    • Ben C says:

      11:46am | 10/11/11

      When Tony Abbott reveals he has a stalker, Ithink we all know who to pint the finger at.

    • The Spirit Of Australia says:

      01:57pm | 10/11/11

      Tony Abbott has copied the communication style of Tony Blair.

      Where is Tony Abbott? The Australian Despot Dictator has fled Australia in disgrace and is now in hiding in a friendly country.

    • Tony A. Shakespeare says:

      02:06pm | 10/11/11

      Acrotel is right! Tony Abbott is William Shakespeare!
      Abbott is all fiction , all drama, all old ideas, all old language, all fake, all controversy, all crap, and all boredom.
      Is Tony Abbott the character of King Lear Or the character Of Caliban in The Tempest ? Before the decade is out, Tony Abbott could become Julius Caesar in The Coalition Parties!

    • Eric The Red says:

      03:09pm | 10/11/11

      @ Tony A. Shakespeare, I like your style, is it, “To Be Or Not To Be” I bloody hope so.

    • Scarlett Street Rocker says:

      06:30am | 10/11/11

      Shakespeare real / not real? Why bother?

      Reply

    • S.L says:

      06:46am | 10/11/11

      A friend of my mums wrote a few top 40 songs in the 50s and one became a hit worldwide. 50 years later she still gets a reasonable royalty cheque.
      Doors guitarist Robby Krieger had never picked up a musical intrument in his life and had to learn fast when his mates decided to form a band. His first major contribution was to have a go at writing a song. His first effort was “Light my Fire!” which has been covered by a gazillion other artists as well as his band.
      Some people have “IT” and most don’t!

      Reply

    • David says:

      07:35am | 10/11/11

      Whats with the ‘Shakespeare’s humble beginnings’ stuff?  His father was relatively wealthy, well connected, and influential.

      Reply

    • MarkS says:

      08:22am | 10/11/11

      But not from the “right” sort of family. If you believe in “breeding”, then only people from the “right” sort of family could do something great. Therefore as he was not from the “right’ sort of family he could not have done it. All delusion but it makes the fools feel better.

    • Max Redlands says:

      09:06am | 10/11/11

      Shakespeare was the son of John Shakespeare, an alderman and a successful glove maker, and Mary Arden, the daughter of an affluent landowning farmer.

    • Anne71 says:

      12:35pm | 10/11/11

      David, at that time (and indeed, until relatively recently) anybody who actually had to *work* for their money was automatically regarded as inferior by the gentry and nobility.  One was only considered a “gentleman” if he did no work at all.
      The only acceptable occupations were the Church and the Army because, after all, even younger sons had to survive somehow.

    • Kika says:

      12:36pm | 10/11/11

      Exactly. Back then to be middle class WAS a big deal. Now the middle class is the majority, whereas back then you were either poor or rich. Even to be a tradesman in Bethnal Green in the late 1800’s was a big deal!

    • KH says:

      07:44am | 10/11/11

      It is entirely possible - and likely -  that Shakesepare overcame the disadvantage of his birth - as people do today, funnily enough…......

      Reply

    • Flutz says:

      07:44am | 10/11/11

      It’s like saying J.K Rowling couldn’t possibly have written the Harry Potter series as she’s not a wizard.  Or J. R. R. Tolkien couldn’t have written the Hobbit/Lord of the Rings series as he’s not a hobbit.  The argument has no credence.

      Regardless, who cares - why can’t we all just enjoy the genius and entertainment that is the works of Shakespeare.

      Reply

    • Patrick says:

      11:56am | 10/11/11

      Rowling IS a wizard, she’s prepping us for when the magical community makes It’s presence known to the muggle world.

      Tolkien came across some ancient manuscript dating from pre historic times.

    • Anne71 says:

      12:36pm | 10/11/11

      @Patrick - wow, so Legolas is real? I can hear the fangirls squealing from here! wink

    • Alicia says:

      02:41pm | 10/11/11

      I’m prepared, Patrick! Bring ‘em out I say!

    • palone says:

      07:45am | 10/11/11

      “Such is the excellent foppery of man”.
      I come from a family of actors, and played a few bit parts, and got what I thought was a break when Beresford cast me as Will Scarlet in the ‘98 remake of Robin Hood. I only lasted two days, then tossed it in. Cest la vie. I probably could have gone on with it but this bastard in charge of the Sheriff’s men kept yelling out, “Shoot at Will, shoot at Will!” Bugger that!

      Reply

    • jay-ded says:

      11:55am | 10/11/11

      hahahaha - very clever palone.  wink

    • Anne71 says:

      12:38pm | 10/11/11

      LOL, palone!  Whenever he heard the line “Fire / shoot at will”, my dad used to say “Poor old Will!”
      I find myself doing it now smile

    • NESLIHAN KUROSAWA says:

      08:53am | 10/11/11

      Hi Lucy,

      As far as I can remember, ll those artists, painters, sculptors & writers from the past always began with very humble beginnings.  Actually during their life times, not many took them seriously, nor did they make much money. Like Monet, Van Gogh, Renoir & Picasso to name a few, they just happen to become famous after their deaths, unfortunately!

      If you consider the misery most people faced before the French Revolution & the Class System in England you can not help to say no wonder!! Upstairs & Down Stairs was a very good example of the great divide between the rich & poor.  I am certain the classical writers & artists did not have it so easy during that period.  I am sure they happen to be highly talented, but they did not make much money during their life times.

      However, what Shakespeare wrote about centuries ago, does it actually relate to our lives today?? Surely, I want to ask every one from the English background, do they actually get everything he wrote about??  I am not certain if Mr Shakespeare was real or fake, however reading his novels & seeing his plays do not make us any more or less cultured.  It is a just a choice you have to make!!  You either like or loathe his work.  Also in comparison, there are many more writers like Emile Zola, Tolstoy, Victor Hugo & Dostoevsky,  they also tried to portray the real life struggles misery of their people in a a more natural & realistic way.  I personally find all that so much easier to comprehend & digest.  Best regards to your editors.

      Reply

    • Anne71 says:

      12:40pm | 10/11/11

      The only way artists, writers, even scientists could survive in those days was by finding a wealthy patron to subsidise them, and to ensure that their work was seen by the right people.  Even so, it was still a struggle for them.

    • Steve Putnam says:

      06:21pm | 10/11/11

      Shakespeare is the most read, most acted, most quoted, most translated and most taught in schools writer of them all. Not reading him does make you less cultured in the same way as not having heard Mozart’s music or not having seen Rembrandt’s painting does.
      I would say the same of all the authors you list, but not to the extent Shakespeare does. I don’t know of anyone who wasn’t a blockhead that actually loathed Shakespeare. He is as relevant today as he was during his lifetime, perhaps even more so. He is for the ages!

    • marley says:

      09:27am | 10/11/11

      Didn’t this all start with Ben Jonson and his line about Shakespeare having little Latin and less Greek?  Which made some wonder how Shakespeare could have known some of the stories or written some of his lines. 

      In fact, I understand Shakespeare would have had reasonable Latin, given the type of education he received - but he didn’t have the classical education that Jonson had.  Nonetheless, Jonson certainly believed he wrote the plays and sonnets.

      Reply

    • Max Redlands says:

      09:30am | 10/11/11

      @  NESHILAN “However, what Shakespeare wrote about centuries ago, does it actually relate to our lives today??”

      I does to mine. I go to Shakespeare quite a bit for his philosophy as well as his way with words.

      Here are two of my favourites which some of you may know:

      “I have of late—but wherefore I know not—lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o’erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.

      What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not me: no, nor woman neither…

      Hamlet

      Act II, scene ii

      To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
      Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
      To the last syllable of recorded time,
      And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
      The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
      Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
      That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
      And then is heard no more: it is a tale
      Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
      Signifying nothing.

      Macbeth

      Act V, scene v

      Reply

    • Kika says:

      12:38pm | 10/11/11

      Too ‘wordy’ Sheesh! We need to read things in less than 100 characters these days for it to compute.

    • Anne71 says:

      01:03pm | 10/11/11

      Beautiful, Max.  I love Shakespeare because of his wonderfully descriptive writing. This quote from “Hamlet” is one of my favourites:

      “I could to thee a tale unfold that would shrivel up thy spine, freeze thy young blood in thy veins,  make thine eyes, like stars, start from their spheres, and thy knotted and combined locks to separate and stand on end like quills upon the fretful porpentine.”
      These days, it would probably be written as “Hey, wanna hear something that’ll REALLY freak you out?”

    • Max Redlands says:

      01:03pm | 10/11/11

      Well that would be your loss not mine.

    • Kersten says:

      09:39am | 10/11/11

      I once saw a movie about a talking unicorn. I don’t think the person who made the movie truly believed unicorns talked.

      But I guess I could be wrong.

      Reply

    • stevem says:

      09:42am | 10/11/11

      When I studied Shakespeare (both plays and sonnets) we studied the words, the stories and how these related to society in Shakespeare’s time. Never did we examine his life. Whether Shakespeare, de Vere or Bacon wrote does not change the writing.
      Who he was may be of passing interest but Shakespeare is defined by his writings.

      Reply

    • amy says:

      10:08am | 10/11/11

      well Im sure if I wanted to look into it this movie would give me a totally factual and totally NOT dramatised veiw on things…

      Reply

    • Babe in the Woods says:

      10:48am | 10/11/11

      Not by any means a snob here, but at school we read Shakespeare as well as Marlowe.  The two styles are completely different.  I can’t see poor old Marlowe being the bard.  There are two tremendous books, by the way, by Anthony Burgess on both Marlowe and Shakespear called Dead Man in Deptford and Nothing Like the Sun.  They bring the times and the characters to life in a wonderful way.  Worth looking at, IMHO

      Reply

    • Hermano says:

      12:13pm | 10/11/11

      Those Burgess books are great.
      As is Bloom’s “Shakespeare: the invention of the human”.

    • Babe in the Woods says:

      03:21pm | 10/11/11

      @Hermano, not read that, but I will go have a look.  Yep, Burgess was amazing. Try 1985.  Wow!

    • Kika says:

      04:50pm | 10/11/11

      The only Shakespeare I ever read was at uni! In a contracts class! (Merchant of Venice)

    • Cherry Gripe says:

      10:55am | 10/11/11

      But does it really matter who wrote the plays? Barthes said in 1967 that the author was dead and some days I even agree with him. I know the idea keeps being disproved by literary hoaxes, when readers get ticked off at being taken in by some wicked writer’s evil ruse to sell more books by pretending the story is… gasp… true! For all I care, William Shakespeare could be just as fictional as Jesus Christ. After all, the play’s the thing.

      Reply

    • Tanya says:

      11:02am | 10/11/11

      I’m a believer too, Lucy. I studied Elizabethan literature and I remember being shocked and a little bit upset by the idea there was any question around his identity. It’s the height of snobbery and ignorance to even suggest he needed to be a member of the English aristocracy to write what he wrote and there are plenty of historical documents that support the common understanding of his heritage anyway. But there’s also the academic debate about his sexuality and his fixation with the fair young man in the sonnet cycle… sigh…

      Reply

    • The Spirit Of Australia says:

      11:17am | 10/11/11

      William Shakespeare was “The Real Thing ” as Russell Morris would say.
      William Shakespeare wrote the greatest drama plays, greatest poems, and the greatest pop music songs of all time.
      William Shakespeare would dominate The Punch website if he was alive today.

      Reply

    • St. Michael says:

      11:22am | 10/11/11

      The sad part about this film getting any green light is because it’s wholly the bastard child of the Internet.  Emmerich’s said in interviews he “researched” the question on the “Internet” and found “a lot of stuff out there about this concept”.

      Before the time of the Net, the authorship of Shakespeare—especially the De Vere argument—was one of those things only discussed among people who got dressed up in medieval chain mail on the weekends and tinfoil radiation blockers during the week.

      The Internet’s changed that.  Much as with the antivax movement, crackpot conspiracy theories now stand alongside carefully-researched and verifiable data, and due to the way the attention economy works we don’t have sufficient time or material to discern the one that’s filled with horseshit from the one that actually has some scholarly discipline behind it.

      If you go along to watch this film, just bear in mind the film you’re actually watching is “The Da Vinci Code”.  With all that implies.

      Reply

    • zoe says:

      11:25am | 10/11/11

      As much as I love a good conspiracy theory I like the idea of someone sticking it to the upper classes more so I’m a Stratfordian.

      Reply

    • The Spirit Of Australia says:

      11:26am | 10/11/11

      Comrade Shakespeare has rescued Labor! Thats all that counts!

      Reply

    • baal says:

      11:34am | 10/11/11

      @we already know Will collaborated in his writing. Of course he did. He was a part of a vibrant community. Many of his plots are borrowed but it the way he gave life to these universal stories is what is amazing.
      He is a legend now.

      Reply

    • JOe says:

      11:59am | 10/11/11

      Actually, Lucy Kippist didn’t write this story either….

      Reply

    • St. Michael says:

      12:32pm | 10/11/11

      Indeed, the style, tone, turn of verb, and historical context strongly suggests Tory Shepherd as the more likely author.  Perhaps Tory has, as “Anonymous” suggests, knifed Lucy and assumed her identity?

    • Erick says:

      01:02pm | 10/11/11

      @St Michael - I think a careful analysis of the text will reveal that the so-called “Lucy Kippist” never actually existed. This name was merely a pseudonym for Julia Gillard - a woman whose political ambitions stood in the way of her one true desire, writing for a blog.

      Clearly only a redhead could write such prose (even if dye was required).

    • Wynston Cruso says:

      01:29pm | 10/11/11

      I believe this article was written by a thousand monkeys on a thousand typewriters.

    • St. Michael says:

      01:44pm | 10/11/11

      @ Erick: I have just been e-mailed by an anonymous source that he has definitive proof of red drops of something on one of the original folios of one of Tory Shepherd’s works.  Whether it is medieval red dye or blood spilled by Julia Gillard as she plunged the knife into Shepherd’s back—which would be consistent with her historical behaviour—requires further forensic examination.

    • Kika says:

      02:06pm | 10/11/11

      Shakespeare Schmakespeare = Anti SEMITE!

      Reply

    • palone says:

      03:01pm | 10/11/11

      Kika, you obviously have not read the Master’s works. He excused Shylock in the same way that the intelligent people here responding excuse Abbott. They are products, (Shylock and Abbott), of an ideology that demands that each respond in the way that history has witnessed. Shylock, (take what you can as long as you can from as many as you can), and Abbott, (take everything from the dispossessed and give it to your friends in Rome, the top end of town, or anyone else who supports the Party that Menzies started and now has been corrupted.
      The magic man had Lear say to Cordelia, “Nothing will come of nothing”. Of course, as most people know, he was referring to the need for a father, or a leader, needing to be praised. Even though he was a bloody idiot. Like Abbott.
      She was smart, (thru the Bard), who maintained that which Abbott can’t comprehend. No-one *must* praise him. “I can not heave my heart into my mouth”
      We, the working man’s Party, the caring Party, are not here to praise Abbott. We are here to bury him. With his help, of course.

    • Kika says:

      04:47pm | 10/11/11

      You, Palone, have obviously not watched Seinfeld.

      No way. Shylock was right to demand his lump of flesh. Antonio breached his contract (which he signed)... He had full right to his flesh! I

      The anti semitic tones in that particular play was clear. Asking for death for someone breaching contract is extreme and unlikely to have really occurred. It’s well known Usury was a detestable occupation back then and because Christians couldn’t loan, Jews did. They were the scapegoats and hated because they did the work that they were only allowed to do - the jobs Christians refused.

      Comparing dear old Shylock to Abbott makes me cringe… Poor Shylock. What a comparison.

    • stephen says:

      04:20pm | 10/11/11

      But what a story it would make if shakespere didn’t write the plays, and Ben Jonson, Christopher Marlowe, Mr. Bacon, Eddie de Vere and a handful of noblemen and women were in on it.
      Jonson wrote an introduction to, I think, the First Folio, and when I read it - the introduction - it struck me as fake.
      Either Jonson was mocking the editors, (he was a mighty talent himself, but every man secretly hates a better rival) or he was party to a fraud.
      OK, it’s a big step to assume that a disingenuous intro. is evidence of the biggest literary fraud of all time, and there is the matter - and it is allimportant - of motive, but the resultant swag of burnt scholarly texts, (if found true, and shakespeare did not write anything) would dwarf Krakatoa.
      There’s lots of other oddities too, not least that, when looking for the items which may disprove authorship, the opposite evidence, in the texts themselves, come most readily, almost too readily, to light, as if they were placed there as proof that the only linguistic evidence that posterity needs for Shakespere to be declared the author, is all - and I mean ALL - here in his plays.
      I love an intrigue, and this one is still on the burner.

      Reply

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      08:57am | 16/11/12

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      Reply
 
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Malcolm Farr

farrm51 25 May 13 09:41PM

RT @CrawfordFund: @farrm51 u may like 2 help spread word of our #foodsecurity journo award http://t.co/FwbMWwJmLf

Daniel Piotrowski

drpiotrowski 25 May 13 12:59PM

RT @adamroy37: Just received a phone call from a young girl apologizing for her actions. Lets support her please #racismitstopswithme#Indi…

tory_maguire

_Tors 25 May 13 12:42PM

RT @adamroy37: Just received a phone call from a young girl apologizing for her actions. Lets support her please #racismitstopswithme#Indi…

Daniel Piotrowski

drpiotrowski 25 May 13 12:03PM

Australia. Where you die for your country and get a rest area named after you http://t.co/hO6LpfwDvI

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Nosebleed Section

choice ringside rantings

From: Hasbro, go straight to gaol, do not pass go

Tim says:

They should update other things in the game too. Instead of a get out of jail free card, they should have a Dodgy Lawyer card that not only gets you out of jail straight away but also gives you a fat payout in compensation for daring to arrest you in the first place. Instead of getting a hotel when you… [read more]

From: A guide to summer festivals especially if you wouldn’t go

Kel says:

If you want a festival for older people or for families alike, get amongst the respectable punters at Bluesfest. A truly amazing festival experience to be had of ALL AGES. And all the young "festivalgoers" usually write themselves off on the first night, only to never hear from them again the rest of… [read more]

Light weight

Gentle jabs to the ribs

Superman needs saving

Superman needs saving

Can somebody please save Superman? He seems to be going through a bit of a crisis. Eighteen months ago,… Read more

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