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Bruce - say, just for fun, that the Earl of Oxford, a complex
ambisexual man, extremely intelligent and talented in many respects,
a favorite of Elizabeth, a court insider, (all of this true)
wrote the Shakespeare plays. Just for argument, let's say this
is true. Suddenly, the entire canon of Shakespeare (which according
to Harold Bloom is the best of THE canon, of Western civilization)
must be historically reconsidered. We have a court insider writing
veiled propaganda, cheerleading for England (Henry 5, Henry 6, King John)
bright comedies that entertained Elizabeth and met her standard
for the best in wit and courtly ideals, the love plays, which framed
the idea of romance in Elizabethan time, then the later, more difficult
plays, which began to probe ideas that lead to modern man. In context,
Shakespeare is a wheel around which Elizabethan history, and indeed world
history turns. He is not merely the observer or chronicler of the Elizabethan
renaissance, he is in part it's architect, or perhaps more accurately,
he carries out Elizabeth's plans, at least as far as the theater and arts.
The brightest of her jewels. Isn't the historical knowledge to be
gloamed from such a discovery immeasurable in terms of Shakespearean
scholarship? Naturally. This is the reason Oxfordians search and
probe and push sometimes, so relentlessly. Because the wealth of
the find would be enormous. I can't prove a thing here, nor can you.
Perhaps one day the smoking gun will be found, but what always baffles
me - and I've been through this whole discussion with many other
Stratfordians many many times, believe me - is the lack of interest
and the demand for hard proof from the Stratfordian side. There are
two ways to examine a truth. Inductive and deductive. Both have their
strengths. In this case, the inductive, the evidence of many specific
examples pointing to the picture of the whole, like an incomplete mosaic,
reveals so much more than a stubborn insistance that the spotty anecdotal
'story' which has been created around Shakespeare, (when the great
search of the late 1700's came up dry) is truth, eveidence to the contrary
be damned. In Shakespeare scholarship, if there were one hard piece of evidence
on the Stratfordian side, do you think anyone would be bothering with the authorship
question? No one is trying to prove Ben Jonson didn't write his plays. Why?
Because there is actual proof he did, documentary proof, proof of his education,
his letters, all sorts. He shows up in history. Shakespeare doesn't have anyting
like this. Here's question for you. Why didn't Shakespeare write a eulogy at the death
of Queen Elizabeth. Good God! But he didn't. Pretty bad manners. Why didn't London mourn
him in 1616, at his death? They didn't. Not a historical mention. He died like some drifting
beggar, for all the notice anyone took. At the trial of the Earl of Essex, for creating an
uprising, in an attempt to overthrow the Queen, a trial at which Francis Bacon presided and which
the Earl of Oxford attended, members of Shakespeare's players were brought in and questioned,
since Essex had requested them to put on a performance of Richard 2, supposedly to help
incite the revolt, and the playwright himself does not appear at court, is not questioned. Why?
Why is he always a blank? There is a whole in the world were he is supposed to be. But isn't.
There exists not a single letter in his hand, no manuscripts, nothing as hard as the evidence
of Kyd recanting the evil of Marlowe's written words. That document exists and solidly
sets Marlowe as a writer, as playwright. If there were any such documentation regarding
Shakespeare, I would not write another post to this page. But there isn't, and I've looked
under every rock and in every cranny. Everything about his is written from a distance of time,
or else the documents where his name shows up have no connection with writing. There isn't a bit
of proof Shakespeare wrote the plays. His name is on them, but that's about it. He is a shadow man,
existing in a vacumn, without real context, no one knows why he wrote, when he started, what his
early peoms and plays were like, (juvenalia) what his motivations were, his feelings about the subject,
nothing. Why do we have Bacon and Jonson writing all sorts of things about their IDEAS, and none from
Shakespeare? No apparent friends in London, at least none who wrote about being with him, or
recorded reminisences, anecdotes (none in his lifetime) not a single peek behind the curtain of the
gentleman genius. not ever from Stratford, after his retirement. No one seems to remember him as a playwright.
This is strange, passing strange. You keep asking for proof and evidence of the Earl's claim, and I have been
asking for some from the Stratford man for a decade now, and no one has cometo me with a single piece. I may
not have hard evidence for Oxford either, but least Oxford fits the man. Like and Italiante glove. Not a glover.
Posted by Bill Routhier on April 14, 1997 at 20:18:09
In Reply to "Nope." posted by Bruce Spielbauer on April 10, 1997 at 17:36:07
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