and thou, the author of their obloquy, will have thy trespass cited up in rhymes

[angevin2]

So Roland Emmerich's feculent antistratfordian polemic Anonymous has been shown at the Toronto International Film Festival, and a couple of hardy souls in the Shakespeare blogiverse have been unfortunate enough to see it, but their misfortune is excellent for us, because out of it there have been a couple of fairly awesome blog posts. And, really,

Comments

[tree_and_leaf]

Though, in any case, he had a perfectly decent education. Better than many undergraduates today.

[angevin2]

And noblemen only really went to university for appearance's sake -- most people at that level of society were only there for basically upper-class finishing school. Someone of Shakespeare's social class might have been there to learn stuff, but the aristocrats didn't generally need to bother.

Incidentally, one of the things that also pisses me off about that movie is its treatment of Ben Jonson. Jonson was obviously a very learned man, and he made sure you knew it -- and he was self-taught and self-made, with no more formal education than Shakespeare had. Indeed, this is why people don't read him much nowadays. And then THIS FUCKING MOVIE has Oxford pick him as first choice for a front because "you don't have a voice."

FUCK YOU, MOVIE.

[angevin2]

Maybe he will CLAW HIS WAY OUT OF HIS WEIRD STANDING-UP GRAVE and EAT EMMERICH'S BRAINS. While delivering A WITTY AND LEARNED EPIGRAM ON THE SUBJECT.