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

Oy

[lnhammer]

Excellent linkage.

(BTW, I've always wondered about the joke in your tag-line -- might it be that Pontefract is actually pronounced "Pumfrey"?)

---L.

Re: Oy

[angevin2]

That is basically it, yeah. Or "Pomfret," as in Shakespeare. (Pontefract-cakes are a kind of licorice and are also called Pomfreys or Pumfreys, but I assume you know that part.)

Re: Oy

[lnhammer]

Ah -- I hadn't know the alternate names for them, no.

---L.

jumping in to add

[kindkit]

That Pontefract is no longer pronounced Pumfrey, or Pomfret, but PON-tee-fract. I got an odd look in England when I asked a train station ticket clerk whether the place was pronounced "Pomfret."

[wiliqueen]

Weirdly, when this came up on a trailers show (with no other context) a couple months back, I thought for the first few secondds that it was what it in fact is, but then ended up with the impression that it was some sort of funky alternate historical universe in which Shakespeare wrote the plays but they were truly anonymous (i.e., no front person) for some strange political-thriller reason.

I wish I'd been right, because THAT movie could be really cool. Once I found out it is in fact Oxfordian shenanigans, I was still hoping it would be at least somewhat as cool as the trailer looks (hey, I'm a Pre-Raphaelite geek who adores Desperate Romantics; I compartmentalize exceptionally well), but my hope is slipping away.

What POSSESSES filmmakers to say stupid shit about CHALLENGING THE MAN or turning the world on its ear or whatever? Seriously, your job is to tell a story. Tell your damn story and STFU. Don't make me waste energy ignoring your bullshit.

[reconditarmonia]

Also, there is nothing "challenging the man" about promoting the idea that great works of literature couldn't possibly have been written by a guy from the middle class who never went to university.

[wordweaverlynn]

Using identical logic, someone once proved that the plays of George Bernard Shaw were actually written by Winston Churchill.

[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.

[kindkit]

Oh, god, I keep seeing trailers for this thing and I just want to scream. The absolute muddle-headed wrongness of it all, not to mention the snobbery and the complete misunderstanding of what it meant, in the sixteenth-century, to have a grammar school education.

[dramaturgca]

Oh god, oh god, we're all gonna die. >.< I flatly refuse to pay any kind of money for this, but I suspect I will have to see it, if only to be able to refute every individual point.