(345) The Shakespeare Authorship : The most perverse, irrational academic Taboo ever !

Time will inevitably come (whenever it occurs)

 that Academia has to rethink the life of the "True" author of Hamlet, Macbeth or Othello 

with the outcome of a different paradigm not a priori dismissed.

Prof.William Leahy

The "Shakespeare Authorship Question" and controversy (  ... who wrote Shakespeare's plays or who was the man we know as Shakespeare) 

-  represents the most absolute Academic Taboo !

In Prof. William Leahy's, ( Brunel University London) book "Shakespeare and His Authors: Critical Perspectives on the Authorship Question"  Leahy stated that the great bulk of serious biographies and studies of Shakespeare has been written by University academics (almost invariably professors and lecturers in English literature Departments)...and that ...

"...an iron wall of hostility prevents any possible discussion of the authorship question  among most english Literature academics.- It prevents even the admission that such a question might actually exist. 

- It seems inconceivable that a frankly Anti-Stratfordian paper could be presented, or accepted for presentation, at an academic conference organized by University english literature   Departments." -

By  contrast no investigative Authorship research of other  academic institutions (e.g. by historians, psychologists, forensic scientists, legal scholars, mathematicians  etc.) let alone  combined academic  efforts or investigations   have ever  been undertaken systemmatically.


It seems obvious that Literature Departments of Academia (...the   recognized establishment of professional scholars,  centered around universities, engaged in higher education and research)  alone 

do not have the mental capacities or ressources,   not  to refuse  the Shakespeare authorship problem .

---

(344) The key witness of the Shakespeare authorship problem (2)

Why Academic Research has never tried to interprete 

 Ben Jonsons poems and identifiy his Poet "so good a fame. ..suffers no name" 

In the epigrams 30, 38, 77 Ben Jonson wrote about a man with great fame whose name he does not reveal....

The  longer epigramm CXV(115)  characterizes the man more specifically.-(s.Text)

Is there any reason why academic research has never tried to interprete Jonsons poems and identifiy the Poet "so good a fame. ..suffers no name" ...

...and to develeop a coherent theory for the 4 epigrams XXX(30), XVIII(38), LXXVII(77), (CXV(115) - in which Jonson explicitly declares that he will not disclose a specific person, except under specific circumstances?

From virtually every single line you may extract some (hidden) information leading to the assumption that "The Town's Honest Man" was the Poet Genius with rhe pseudonym  "Shake-speare" .(...not to be confused with the Stratford business man) .-

(343) Ros Barber has turned into a hidden Marlowian: She would have endangered her career!

Have Former Marlowian  mutated ? 

            Kevin Gilvary,                          Ros Barber                               Alexander Waugh

 On the occasion of the  Annual Conference (24-27 September 2015) of the Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship (SOF) in Ashland (Oregon -  Home of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival) , Jeff Riley, News Director of  the "Jefferson Public Radio"(RPR)  made an
                              
                --> Radio Interview

with Kevin Gilvary, Ros Barber and Alexander Waugh (2 "Oxie's and 1 Anti-Strad') spending  the hour laying out the case of the SOF (i.e. that Oxford was the true Shakespeare. ) 

To my great surprise two questions of  Jeff Riley  made it clear, that Ros Barber is by no means (or no more) an open  Marlowian.!

Question Jeff  Riley (1) : "What do you see as some of the holes in the Oxford Arguments because you do not buy it is necessarily the Earl of Oxford."

Answer Ros Barber (1) . "Well I am open - you know - to the Oxfordian theory. I am kind of interested in - You know - trying to make the authorship case a valid question that's the most important thing as far as I am concerned..."

Question Jeff Riley (2): Is there a stronger case to be made for Marlowe [than for  Oxford]
Answer Ros Barber (2) [... not answering the question.....] I like the Marlowe case for a number of reasons, partly because he is a very successful writer up to the point where he is supposed to have died (.....) A very interesting dramatic character,  he is the kind of a person - you know- you may want to write these great works...

What an amazing uncourageous "spineless"  answer from a former Marlowian.- Perhaps we have to understand her, she was a polite  guest invited at the " Annual Oxford conference".

(342) Did the key witness of the Shakespeare authorship problem really remain silent? (1)

Ben Jonson never mentioned the name Shakespeare throughout Shakspere’s lifetime! 

Why?

He had promised a hidden poet (Marlowe alias Shakespeare?) not to reveal his identity

Ben Jonson

Without any doubt the most important historical key witness regarding a knowledge of the identity of Shakespeare must have been Ben Jonson. - 

 Shouldn’t we expect to find in his own collected First Folio (»The Workes"-1616) edited with great care at the death year of Shakspere (1616) some biographical or literary hints or allusions of the unique historical authorship mystery? 

The supposed lack led experts to conclude that a Shakespearean authorship issue does not exist. But traces could not be found as long as experts were looking for literary outputs under the name of "Shakespeare".

Ben Jonson (who never mentioned the name Shakespeare throughout Shakspere’s lifetime! Why?) had promised a hidden poet (Marlowe alias Shakespeare?) not to identify him and to reveal his name (s.Epigramm LXXVII
     "To One that desired not to name him").

---

One can assume, that Jonson throughout his life must have perceived his poet opponent as a overpowering threat and that there was a considerable rivalry between him and Shakespeare!
The epigramms XXX and XXXVIII seem to indicate that Jonson had him on toast?

Whom he could have meant in his epigrams 30, 38 and 77 ?
                   Is "the one, that desired not be named" a guilty person (according to the law)?

In 1616 is there any other option but

 the "true" Shakespeare [ Marlowe]?

____________________________

(341) Shakspere from Stratford is the weakest of all Shakespeare authorship candidates ...

_

John Michell : Shakspere from Stratford   is the weakest ….

…of all Shakespeare authorship candidates ... 

                                                                    _____________

John Michell

John Michell final Paragraph of Chapter X "The professional Candidate"[Marlowe]

__________________________________________________________________________
John Michell (1933 – 2009) , a fine English author, published  over the course of his life  books on an array of different subjects. An abiding preoccupation was the Shakespeare authorship question. 

His book  "Who Wrote Shakespeare? (1996) was reckoned by The Washington Post "the best overview yet of the authorship question.".

 In  Chapter 10 he dealt with  Marlowe as  a candidate . His last sentence in his Marlowe Chapter 10 attests a visionary power:  

If he [Marlowe] really did survive his  own murder, ... there is no limit to what he can be supposed to have done later.

---

In Michael Rubbo' s film "Much Ado about something" Michell made an essential statement:

Shakespeare, the man from Stratford, is the weakest...[of  the candidates discussed in the authorship debate and his book]

(340) Shakespeares authorship: The fatal error of Sir Stanley Wells!

There was no literary achievement of Shakspeare at all ,

prior to Marlowe's (alleged) death. 

 _______________

High-ranking Shakespeare expert Prof. Stanley Wells  said in a  Video-interview of Mike Rubbo's Documentary(2003) "Much Ado about Something"   (at Minute:28:00) about Marlowe :

"If Shakespeare had died at the age that Marlowe died,   [end of May 1593] I think we should now regard Marlowe as the greater dramatist.! 

The achievement of Marlowe by 1593, both born in the same year, by the time of the  death of Marlowe, was greater, I think, than that of Shakespeare by that age."

"Marlowe has a string of great Plays: Faustus, Edward II,  2 parts of Tamburlaine, The Jew of Malta, Marlowe's Poem Hero and Leander, a lot of good translations as well. 

He was a rapid developer, so far , one might say....."

Is Stanley Wells  aware of his unlogic ?  

Be aware there does not exist a single reliable source whatsoever of any  literary achievement of Shakespeare by the time of Marlowe's death?  (in Shakspere and Marlowe's 30th year of life!!)

How the achievement of Marlowe then  could be greater in 1593?

(339) The number of Shakespeare candidates is not the consequence but paradoxically the cause of the authorship problem!

Stanley Wells : "The very idea that so many people have been suggested as the author of Shakespeares works in itself to me is enough to show 

that it is a mad idea, it's just crazy !"

---> Wikipedia lists  86 names of potential Shakespeare authorship candidates  (i.e.: that someone other than William Shakspere of Stratford-upon-Avon wrote the works) proposed until now. -   

Hardly anyone seems to be  aware of how totally absurd this situation is. - High-ranking Shakespeare expert Sir Stanley Wells was absolutely right when he said in a  Video-interview with the Swiss television (SF1) [no more available']

"The very idea that so many people have been suggested as the author of Shakespeare's works in itself to me is enough to show that it is a mad idea, it's just crazy !"

__________________________________________________________________

A comparison:

Imagine we  would know virtually nothing about the artistic background of  Mozart. We would essentially derive  his artistic biography from his music and we would search for other candidates with the absolutely unique format of the composer. Hardly anyone would expect or assume that there would have been another, a second candidate of Mozarts exceptionalism  at the same time , let alone the number of >75 composer-candidates.! .-

The same applies to Shakespeare! 

_____________________________________________________________________

Also Stanley Wells did fall into this trap 

of an unsurmountable paradox:

The number of Shakespeare authorship candidates is not the consequence

 but the cause of the problem.

In Shakespeare's time there was only one absolutely unthinkaby prolific talent and Genius (Christopher Marlowe). The number of so many candidates could arise only because the exceptional talent was forced and able to conceal his identity throughout his long life hiding himself behind  an  incredibly number of initials, alias-names, pen-names, cover-names,  pseudonyms, nom de plumes *1) etc.

 (such as William Shake-speare, Nicholas Breton, Henry Willobie (H. W.),William Clarke W. C., Peter Colse (P. C.), Barnabe Barnes, Bartholomew Griffin (B.G.), Richard Barnfield (R. B.), John Bodenham (J. B.),William Basse (W. B.), Gervase Markham (G. M.), Thomas Shelton (T. S.), Henry Petowe, John Taylor, George Wither, Thomas Heywood, John Davies[twice], Michael Drayton, Thomas Middleton, John Ford and more.- 

As unthinkable and absurd as it may sound, a paradox that apparently contradicts itself and yet alone will lead to a final solution of the seemingly intractable authorship problem.-

 

(338) The geat deception of Shakespeare's Authorship: The problem will not go away!

  The  geat deception  of Shakespeare's Authorship:

Despite the scholarly consensus, [that the Stratfordman William Shakspere was the author of "Hamlet" and "Macbeth") a relatively small but visible assortment of supporters, including prominent intellectuals and public figures, have questioned the conventional attribution.

A growing community of doubters claim  that the  work for acknowledgment of the authorship question is a legitimate field of scholarly inquiry.

Youtube video 

William Shakespeare: The Conspiracy Theories

, lately reappeared. 

More than 300.000 Youtube clicks [Start:17.10.2014 - 5.1.2016 : 

later temporarily cancelled , recently re-opened 

The Shakespeare authorship problem will not go away, 

until a plausible solution has been found.-

_______________________

William Shakespeare: 
The Conspiracy Theories

(337)Michael Rubbo's full documentary (2003) on the Marlowe-Shakespeare Thesis: Much Ado About Something

Much Ado About Something 

Mike Rubbo: [For Stratfordian Academics ]: " To debate the authorship question, ...is dangerous ....is a real problem, they won't end up with a new position. 

________________

The  Australian filmmaker Mike Rubbo  spent 4-5 years of his     life making the film. "Much Ado About Something.-

 (Original airdate: January 2, 2003.)  He felt that the authorship question must not be surrendered to the Stratfordians and those who would dismiss it as the province of conspiracy theorists. - Stratfordians  claim that the authorship question is a distraction from what really matters about Shakespeare, namely, the plays and poems..-

 Rubbo disagrees with this opinion.-

From  an Interview  with  Mike Rubbo  :


Rubbo: I have not met people [who are willing to live with the doubt and the mystery]. I have been travelling with the film and I cannot get the academics to come to my screenings. With one or two exceptions, they will not come. They don't want to engage in debate. Or if they do come -- I've also had public screenings in theaters, and I'm there after every screening to take questions -- they do not identify themselves.

 (...)It is a problem. To debate the authorship question, you have to study it. And for the Stratfordians this is both dangerous and a waste of time. To give it the time, of course, is to acknowledge that it has some worth. And to what end? What does it get them? The problem for them, and it's a real problem, is

 they won't end up with a new position. 

---

      Frontline: MUCH ADO ABOUT SOMETHING

                                         You may read  The Transcript of the film!

(335) The Earl of Oxford a mediocre poet and plagiarist ?

Are we really to believe 

that the most favorized  Shakespeare authorship candidate 

 (Edward de Vere,  The Earl of Oxford ) was such a mediocre poet and plagiarist ? - 

Oxfreudian Richard Waugaman

Article in "Shakespeare matters (2011)

                                                        

Oxfordian Richard Waugaman, in 2011 wrote an interesting article about Marlowe's influence on Shakespeare's works in "Shakespeare matters": He demonstrated - line by line - that nearly every line of Shakespeare's Sonnet 80 echoes words and phrases in Christopher Marlowe's poem "Hero and Leander (printed 1598 for the first time) s. also Blog 332. and Video below

Since Waugaman believes that the real (true) Shakespeare is Edward de Vere (17th Earl of Oxford), he interpretes the multiple contextual parallels as a principal example of the Rival Poets Poem [Marlowe] that "engendered such intense admiration and jealousy in de Vere".


I learned that one of Leander’s speeches (I:199-294) contains a hundred lines with many striking parallels with the first 17 Sonnets of Shakespeare. (as noted by previous scholars).

Waugaman's falsely  concludes : "The borrowings illustrate the
 mutual literary influence of de Vere and Marlowe on each other."

Should we really believe that Shakespeare (if  he was Edward de Vere ) was such  a mediocre poet, plagiarist and  literary theft?

Why Waugaman is not (even) rudimentary able to consider the  Marlowe = Shakespeare Thesis at least  as an alternative plausible working hypothesis ?

                                                 Video : The Hero and Leander Triple

(334) The false Shakes[eare and the Second edition of Shakespeares Sonnets 1640

The linguistic and pictorial Antics - in 1640 can only be understood, 

if you take the contemporary Shakespeare Authorship Situation into consideration: 

for  full  details  s.Video  below!

____________________________

Second Edition of Shakespeares Sonnets in 1640

Shakespeare's engraving portrait of the Second Edition of Shakespeares Sonnets (1640) is
mirrored compared to The First Folio Portrait. The Editor's name of this second Edition, John  Benson is also mirrored, compared to Ben Jonson of the First Folio. The shade of the head is illuminated, compared to normal shades. The laurel does not wreath the poets forehead compared to real poets such as Ben Jonson) .
                                                  and so on , and so on.....


Conclusions: The significance of these linguistic and pictorial Antics - in 1640 can only be understood, if you take the contemporary Shakespeare authorship situation into consideration:

It is not the man on the figure but his famous shadow who has written the sonnets.
The man illustrated on this figure is no poet, he is not allowed to be wreathed with a laurel on his fronthead, but only to hold the laurel in his gloved hands. "Nature" (Shakspere/ Stratford) joy'd to wear the dressing of his (Shakespeare/alias Marlowe's) lines.

                                                             (VIDEO)

                            The false Shakespeare and the

  second Edition of the Sonnets

_______

(333) Shakespeare Authorship - W.Begley: "I suggest Bacon until the veritable author be clearly discovered!"

It is difficult to imagine that Shakespeare, in 1593  out of nowhere in his 30th year of life wrote his perfect masterpiece opus.1:   

"Venus and Adonis".

Anonymous Author: "The Arte of  English Poesie"

Shakeespeare "Venus and Adonis"

Shakeespeare "Lucrece"

                 1589                                          1593                                                1594

 The work was printed by Richard Field who, years ago, had moved from Stratford to London.
Field had already printed in 1588 for William Cecil "The Copy of a Letter sent out of England to Don Bernardin Mendoza".
A close relationship between Field and Cecil must have existed:" The Arte of English Poesie" (1589) of an obscure anonymous author begins with an impressive dedication (by a certain R.F. - Richard Field?) to William Cecil ...and the Queen. -


Strange to say, for a long time Stratfordian experts tell the world that George Puttenham was the author of "The Arte of English Poesie"

In his 3 volume book (1905) Walter Begley strongly disagreed with this view:

Walter Begley (1905): "...To sum up the case for the Puttenhams. It seems as if George could not possibly be responsible for ›The Arte of English Poesie‹ (…) I therefore suggest Bacon as a working hypothesis, until the veritable author be clearly discovered."

Does anybody really believe that within a short time span an obscure, anonymous author (using the same title-Emblem, the same Printer than the author of "V&L" and "Lucrece", linked to William Cecil) wrote one of the most sophisticated non-fiction book about the "Art of English Poesie" (at the climax of the life of dramatist and poet Shakespeare....) and that no better working hypothesis of the "veritable author" could be discovered?

                             
                                                                    you-Tube Video

                        Shakespeares "Venus&Adonis"(1593) & "Lucrcece" (1594)

                                                        by Christopher Marlowe 

(332) "The Hero & Leander Triple"

"The Hero & Leander Triple"

 2 independent authors (Chapman / Petowe) within the year of  the first release of Marlowe's "Hero and Leander" in print (1598) felt the need and were able to complete and expand Marlowes epic poem!

1.  Is that plausible?

    
Marlowe's epic poem "Hero and Leander" (H&L) for the first time appeared in print in 1598, not yet  structured into 2 Sestiads [s.Fig left-]

It was expanded and printed in the same year 1598 , by George Chapman with 4 new Sestiads *1) of the same poetic style and quality, with an additional dedication [to the wife of Marlowe's Patron Thomas Walsingham Lady Audrey Shelton], with new structured headings and summaries [s.Quarto, middle figure] and in the same year 1598 it was additionally enhanced by Henry Petowe [s.Quarto, right] with a second part ("conteyning their further Fortunes"), in which the author Marlowe is praised and the metaphor "behind" Hero and Leander is interpreted .
How is it conceivable (...is it conceivable at all?) that two independent authors within the year of the  the first release of Marlowe's "Hero and Leander" in print (1598) felt the need and were able to complete and expand Marlowes epic poem?  Can you think of another, more plausible explanation ? What does all this have to do with Shakespeare?

---

An attempt at  interpretation: 

The original H&L by Christopher Marlowe was registered autumn 1593 (shortly after his alleged murder)  but only allowed to be printed in 1598.  (printed for Edward Blount , Co-Editor of the First Folio 1623). Marlowe's Poem 1593 seems to represent the  spontaneous immediate parable  or  poetic metaphor of Leander's (alias Marlowe's) fate: 

Leander asked his poetic muse Hero to light a lamp in her window, and he promises to swim the Hellespont each night to be with her. She complies. On his  swim Leander is spotted by Neptune who confuses him with Ganymed and carries him to bottom of the ocean. - Discovering his mistake Neptune returns him to the shore (Marlowe's rescue) with a bracelet supposed to keep him safe from drowning.-

 (No Consensus exists on the issue: if Marlowe would have finished the Poem ..Marlowe's original H&L end with the latin words "Desunt Nonnulla" , meaning , something is absent, or missing or wrong. It could well mean, that in Ovids original Story, Leander (alias Marlowe) came to death! (But not in Marlowe's version)

Marlowes original Poem (registered 1593 but printed 1598)  was structured (into  Sestiad 1 and 2 ) and enlarged by 4 new sestiads (3-6   1598)   (with the continuation of his life story, 5 years later) , written by himself under the pseudonym George Chapman, and a second part (s.Faksimile, "conteyning their further fortunes") under the pseudonym Henry Petowe  a totally unknown figure in England. 



*1) In a 1600 Reprint of "Hero and Leander" (6 sestiads) , Marlowe is listed as the sole Author

Video 

"The Hero and Leander Triple"