nineweaving is better at this than I am

[angevin2]

Because once again she's where I first saw the Stratfordian link of the day: Wouldn't It Be Cool if Shakespeare Wasn't Shakespeare?

Besides, no argument could ever possibly sway the Oxfordian crowd. They are the prophets of truthiness. “It couldn’t have been Shakespeare,” they say. “How could a semiliterate country boy have composed works of such

Comments

[a_t_rain]

... The comments section, however, is making me lose my faith in human reason. Although at least Oxfordian trolls are generally more literate than Tea-Party trolls.

[angevin2]

Yeah, I don't even read the comments. My tolerance for stupid is taxed out.

[melusinehr]

Thomas More sort of worked up the hunchback idea from John Morton, who wrote a nasty bio of Richard. I can't remember all the details (it's been a while and I'm away from my sources at the moment), but there's a fantastic discussion of how it got built up in Josephine Tey's The Daughter of Time.

[jsburbidge]

More was a page in Morton's household when he was young and it is a probability that he derived much of his source material from Morton (who was a player on the Woodville/Tudor side during Richard's reign).

[angevin2]

I know that! I'm just saying, I don't think either of them invented the characterization of Richard as a hunchback.

[jsburbidge]

He seems to have had one shoulder slightly higher than the other - the sort of thing that a good tailor can correct easily. It wasn't even all that unusual in a class that trained heavily in arms if you didn't take pains to train ambidextrously.

[likeadeuce]

Is Macbeth being inspired by the Gunpowder Plot actually a thing?

[angevin2]

Yeah, it is -- "inspired by" is probably too strong a phrase, like, it's unlikely that Shakespeare thought "I am going to write a play DEALING WITH THESE EVENTS" because that's not generally how Shakespeare works. But the play's interest in the concept of equivocation is usually thought to come out of the trials of the conspirators and to involve specific references -- especially the Porter's line about an equivocator that could swear in both the scales against either scale; who committed treason enough for God's sake, yet could not equivocate to heaven, which seems to be a reference to the Jesuit Henry Garnet, who was involved (sort of) in the plot and whose authorship of a treatise on the doctrine of equivocation had made him fairly notorious.

[likeadeuce]

Oh, hey, that is really cool! I had never heard of that connection before. (All I really know about the Gunpowder Plot is (a) V for Vendetta (b) a Percy might have been involved.)

Have now been reading the comments on that article and I have to say my favorite part is the notion that 1) a lack of evidence for details of Shakespeare's life is significant 2) Elizabeth actually having 6 children is part of the theory.

I . . . feel like of these 2 things, I would more expect the latter to have historical evidence.

This is all making me interested in Contested Will, which I take it that you find worth reading?

[angevin2]

I really liked Contested Will! It is fascinating -- it's all about the history of the "controversy" rather than spending its time debunking it (though Shapiro does give the short version of why there is no controversy), and that's really interesting though it will really, really make you want to punch Mark Twain.

And there are some versions of the theory that require Elizabeth to have had at least some illegitimate children (incl. Oxford), and for illegitimate children of a monarch to somehow be heirs to the throne. The stupid it burns.

[yunitsa]

Why, why did I read the comments? /o\

It's a great and concise article, though.

[angevin2]

Me too! I heart Tom Gauld. I put the "you're just jealous of my jetpack" cartoon on my SF syllabus.

[reconditarmonia]

ZOMG, that's what his name is. I have a bunch of his comics saved to my drive but could not remember who did them. Yay!