Talk:Shakespeare authorship question/Archive 14

Interesting Quote On the Bard
"Literature provides insights into the human condition in a way that no political treatise can match. Shakespeare’s greatness lies not in a gift for memorable phrase but in his matchless exploration of enduring human concerns that are not tied to a particular era or social system. A literary establishment that fails to convey that, fails altogether."

This is sort of VEry Pre-Derrida, wouldn't you say, huh, Nishidani?--BenJonson (talk) 03:46, 5 March 2010 (UTC)


 * 'We are turning towards a society which will, I believe, be neo-feudal in its outlook and spirit. It is a society which Shakespeare advocated at the end of the 16th Century; but he was not heeded. Men chose the mercenary route. . . . It's almost as if the Stratford myth has had the effect of putting the plays in a time-capsule for 400 years, so that Shakespeare's true message can be revealed to us today, alongside the author's identity, with the force of a revelation. Perhaps Nostradamus was referring to Shakespeare in The Centuries when he wrote:


 * ''For five hundred years no account shall be made
 * ''Of him who was the ornament of his time.
 * ''Then of a sudden he shall give so great a light,
 * ''That for that age he shall make them to be most contented.


 * Although Shakespeare is emotionally steeped in the feudal age, he is not advocating a simple return to the mediaeval system, but rather looks forward to a new society inspired by the ideals of feudalism.' Charles Vere, 'The Shakespeare Authorship Question:Why it matters'. (1995)


 * This is kinda VEry pre-Shakspe, wouldn't ya say, Ben, or is that Sir Politick Would-be?Nishidani (talk) 10:24, 5 March 2010 (UTC)


 * This is actually Looneyism. Most of his followers never read his political views that he lays out in his book. He yearned to go back to a time when a few privileged men held the political power, with a subservient underclass meekly obeying their betters. He claimed that this was Shakespeare's message; he had no gift for subtlety or irony. Tom Reedy (talk) 13:22, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

A couple of other things
1. At the top of the article is the following: For the purposes of this article the term “Shakespeare” is taken to mean the poet and playwright who wrote the plays and poems in question; and the term “Shakespeare of Stratford” is taken to mean the William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon to whom authorship is credited. I find this rather confusing and I'm not sure that these terms have been applied with sufficient rigour. Before I fell off my chair with boredom, I noted the following (and there are probably more):


 * William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon
 * William Shakespeare
 * the Stratford man
 * "Shakspere" of Stratford
 * Shakespeare of Stratford
 * the Stratford Shakespeare

"Shakespeare" by itself doesn't always "mean the the poet and playwright who wrote the plays and poems in question". Let's see - "Shakespeare's grave monument", "a fundamental principle of those who question Shakespeare’s authorship", "doubts about Shakespearean authorship", probably lots and lots more.

2. Given that there are at least 13 other articles that deal with the authorship question, many of which overlap substantially with parts of this one, it seems to me that this article could be cut quite radically (I think that this has been suggested by Nishidani and maybe others). For example, the History section could come first after the lead and the overlapping sections could be summarised more succinctly. Guillaume Tell17:40, 5 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Absolutely. We need to lose the debate style of back-and-forth argument and the section on each candidate should do little more than summarise the history of their candidacy and point to the appropriate Wikipedia article (all of which, BTW, need major overhauling, as now they are nothing but promotional screeds in violation of Wikipedia principles). Tom Reedy (talk) 17:51, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes. 13 articles on this? Is there a linkable list? Surtout pas trop de zèle.Nishidani (talk) 18:01, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Here you are.GuillaumeTell 18:09, 5 March 2010 (U


 * Not only are there 13 articles on this, this particular page is linked to hundreds of other articles. It's all part of the plan for a brighter, more Oxfordian-friendly tomorrow in which the Stratford yokel is relegated to the dustbin of literary history! Tom Reedy (talk) 18:12, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks, William Tell. You deserve an apple, and I a dunce's cap. I'll repay you with the pertinent riposte Odo Rigaldus would have made in this context: Frustra fit per plura quod potest fieri per unum, which Occam poached to earn himself the laurel.Nishidani (talk) 18:16, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Note to Schoenbaum
Don't try that again. Don't call what I did 'edit-warring', for this is meaningless, unless it is part of the game of 'documenting' a false charge for the distraction of future administrators in some plaintiff action. One edit, eliminating a piece of boosting for the candidate you, Smatprt and Benjonson are editing to showcase here, in the lead which I haven't touched for a while, is not 'edit-warring'.

Had you been both sincere and coherent, and had you desired to uphold the principle you have stumbled upon today in my regard, you would have reverted, for example, your colleague Ben Jonson here, who changed substantially the lead, which I had, in respect of the agreement, not interfered with for some time.


 * It was reverted []. Please try and pay attention in the future. Smatprt (talk) 21:15, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
 * By you, not by Schoenbaum, and it is Schoenbaum's double-standards I took to task. Nishidani (talk) 23:19, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Unlike some others, I don't suffer from ADS. Your revert has the edit summary: moving Ben's version to talk. Let's not jump the gun.' All a neutral observer need do is compare this to Schoenbaum's reaction to my parallel behaviour, 'Undid revision 347891093 by Nishidani (talk) Nishidani is edit warring over wording we agreed not to change prior to talk page consensus,' and (s)he will fish out the good cop/bad cop technique (here reversed from its usual order) being employed here. Nishidani (talk) 22:59, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

As it stands therefore, you challenge me with 'edit-warring' simply because I, taking note of the lack of objections from your side over BenJonson's breaking of the agreement (he was not the only one), thought the right he exercised extended to everyone, as no one complained. What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. There is no aristocratic privilege here. Nishidani (talk) 20:47, 5 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Again - you really need to look at the various edits before making your (false) accusations. Objection/complaint was noted from this "side", the edit was reverted []. Smatprt (talk) 21:15, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Ditto, as per above.Nishidani (talk) 23:00, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Nishidani, you wrote above: "I would remind you that [just because?] you have just accepted Tom's suggestion does not make it policy. Take your 'extreme bad faith' attributed to me, and place it in your own court, with its double standards, as I addressed them in a note below, before catching this. Thanks Nishidani (talk) 20:56, 5 March 2010 (UTC)" I neither said, nor implied, that it was "policy" just because I had accepted Tom's suggestion. It was "extreme bad faith" on your part because it was a change you made without consensus to something we were working at the time you made the change, and after we had all agreed to Tom's proposal to proceed one sentence at a time to try to reach consensus. If you don't consider yourself a party to that agreement, please say so. Otherwise, please adhere to it. Re: your allegation of a double standard because I didn't object to something Ben Johson changed, that's your problem. Take it up with him. I happened to notice your change because it was to what were were working on at the time. Re: "no aristocratic privilege here," damn right, and don't you ever forget it. Rules and agreements apply to you, too. Schoenbaum (talk) 01:09, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
 * You didn't say it was 'policy', you acted as though it were. As to changes without consensus, look at Smatprt's whole history. Yes, I confirm, your behaviour and that of Smatprt was one of protecting your own and going after the adversary. Double standards. I note that outside readers who might like to edit still have no section, as I requested, where they can view the provisory 'consensus' worked up over, it must be thousands of words and weeks, in the lead. You conduct the operation, know the state of the text, and yet coyly, below, ask me, of all people, to copy and paste, if I can find them, the three lines hidden like a needle in a haystack in all this drivel. I haven't agreed to anything, until I can see what is going on in the Nacht und Nebel of this relentless to-and-froing-Nishidani (talk) 08:32, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

The lead review. A defect in procedure.
Much of the consensus discussion line by line of the lead is lost in the great and unceasing to-and-fro of bolded versions, often pushed by the same editor. The average bystander will, I think, have little understanding of what has been agreed to.

A line-by-line review is only going to function if each line's provisorily consensual form is copied and pasted to a separate section, not to be edited in the meantime, where editors can see how the text is developing. Given that these negotiations are verbose and contentious, and run to thousands of words, what is being lost in the flow is the prior context within which each new line is being discussed.

The danger is that two sentences, and weeks down in prolonged discussion, the preceding consensual text is lost from view. If we agree to give some play to 'open/public' or 'de Verean prominence' in one line, then move on, and, weeks later, haggle over language about de Vere and 'public' debate and 'prominence', 'notables' without keeping constantly in mind the earlier sentences, chaos will ensue.

So I suggest the two, or is it three sentences, which have a provisory consensus (no poll, at least as far as I am aware of, has been taken here, the method being an informal WP:AGF one) be copied and posted in a separate section:'Lead Work in Progress', so that as we deal with each further sentence, ready reference to context can be secured.Nishidani (talk) 23:12, 5 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Fine with me. Would you like to take the lead in doing that? Schoenbaum (talk) 04:34, 6 March 2010 (UTC)


 * You've managed and corralled, correctly,the whole review. I stopped looking at most of it after I saw about 4 different proposals by one editor in a few hours. It's a courtesy. You know what I don't, here.Nishidani (talk) 08:14, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

You can stop being jealous, Roger
I just received an e-mail from Brian Holderness, whose name you have been bandying about as one who has endorsed "the plausibility of the Earl of Oxford's authorship." You'll soon get a copy, if you haven't already. Here's an excerpt:


 * I don’t think Edward de Vere wrote Shakespeare’s plays and poems. I wouldn’t especially care if he did, or if the real author was proven to be a wandering Kentish tinker, or Queen Elizabeth I, or the Pope. I don’t have any strong personal investment in ‘the Stratfordian hypothesis’, but it does seem to me a reasonable one. Of course there are lacunae, and doubts and questions about ‘the man from Stratford’ (who is not in these circles permitted even to enjoy his own name). But they are nothing compared with the lacunae and doubts and questions that would apply to any other candidature. There may well be ‘reasonable doubt’ about Shakespeare. But how much reasonable doubt would one have to countenance to explain that someone else wrote those works? How much historical evidence would we have to dispel, how many conspiracy theories would we have to swallow?


 * [...]


 * To assert, as Oxfordians invariably assert, that only an aristocrat could have mastered such learning, acquired such favour and displayed such genius is surely to underestimate the lower orders, and to overestimate the upper class. Let’s list on our fingers all the great writers produced by the British hereditary aristocracy ... all right, then, just use one hand ...

He goes on, but I assure he in no way agrees with your public depiction of him, so you can stop being jealous of him now. Tom Reedy (talk) 22:02, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Hi Tom, I also got an email from Professor Holderness, and have engaged some interesting exchanges with him. Your rather crass headline assumes that my "jealousy" was predicated on some assumption about Holderness views on authorship. I was not surprised to receive a clarification that amounted to a retraction of his quoted remarks, and I'm still "jealous." --BenJonson (talk) 03:57, 7 March 2010 (UTC) Here's something you and -- especially -- Mr. Nishidani -- will enjoy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMuWmVUsg74&feature=player_embedded.


 * In fact Shakespeare came from exactly the social class from which the overwhelming majority of famous writers come - the aspirant but insecure "middling folk". That social uncertainty animates Jane Austen's preoccupation with threatened gentility and Dickens's need to imagine a dynamic but stable social hierarchy. It's far a more common agent of creativity than either aristocracy or poverty. There's the odd Byron and the odd Clare, but Shakespeare is far more typical of literary stars than either of them. Paul B (talk) 23:41, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
 * 'all right, then, just use one hand'. Sound advice, given what the other hand's probably doing!Nishidani (talk) 23:14, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Tom, Paul and Nishidani, as I said is response to earlier smears along these lines, "This is false, and a blatant mischaracterization of our views. Of course great writers come from humble origins... That's not the issue. Here's how it is stated in the Declaration of Reasonable Doubt: 'Scholars know nothing about how he acquired the breadth and depth of knowledge displayed in the works. This is not to say that a commoner, even in the rigid, hierarchical social structure of Elizabethan England, couldn't have managed to do it somehow; but how could it have happened without leaving a single trace?' That's the issue. It would have been a remarkable achievement, and it should have attracted a lot of attention, and left records.... Please stop mischaracterizing our views about whether commoners write works of genius." Now you are making these same false allegations about our views again. There's a name for such persistent, mean-spirted strereotyping. It's called bigotry. You are the class snobs and elitists in this group, who cannot let go of your stereotypes about who is capable of writing works of genius, not us. Schoenbaum (talk) 04:57, 6 March 2010 (UTC)


 * And yet . . . and yet . . . the alternative candidate always seems to be either a nobleman or someone who went to university. Passing strange, that. Tom Reedy (talk) 05:56, 6 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Schoenbaum, I did write a long reply to this and many other things, but decided against confirming the edit. The first point I made regarded blatant mischaracterization of our views.' That our seems like a direct proof that this is a WP:COI conflict again, because you are saying that yourself, BenJonson and Smatprt share a unified view, the major view within the fringe theory, that de Vere authored the works, and associate yourself with that Society. At least one of you is an academic with a personal investment in the theory. It was not a misrepresentation of your collective opinion, for suffice it to cite Looney, Ogburn Senior and Junior and Price and list the obloquy poured on the yokel (lists have been made) to show that your statement misrepresents the historic de Vere position, which is one of contempt for the 'man of Stratford'. Now, as this goes public, and one negotiates for recognition from the mainstream, this element of sneering contempt for the villager is elided, since it does not make a good impression, and perhaps you three sincerely embrace the airbrushed version being pushed. But this article concerns, among other things, the whole deVerean position since 1920, not the public packaging of the doctrine (87 years later in a delicately phased and cautious testament(2007)), with all the care taken to put one's best step forward, you now assure us about.Nishidani (talk) 08:22, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The 'mainstream' can document the long history of snobbism attached to your school, and therefore to state this is not an 'attack' but a responsible reminder of the evidence. I see no evidence to justify your attacking us as bigots, elitists and snobs, unless it is a proof of bigotry to note bigotry, and of elitism to remark on snobbery.Nishidani (talk) 08:26, 6 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Nishidani - the fact is that all three of us are "anti-stratfordian". Just as you, tom and paul are "stratfordians". According to your logic then, all 6 have wp:coi issues. Tom and Paul and Ben have all been published (thus a personal investment), so they should all be banned from editing?? Come on. Also, simply because you, Paul and Tom are anti-oxfordian, does not mean that Ben, Schoenbaum and I necessarily share the same beliefs about who we think actually wrote the plays. You'd be surprised.Smatprt (talk) 16:43, 6 March 2010 (UTC)


 * No-one is saying that you, Schoenbaum, are motivated by snobbery. The argument is that snobbery has played a significant role in anti-Stratfordian views over the years. This is a commonplace claim, which has been made in the literature for over a century, not some sneer invented by Wikipedia editors. Read, for example, Delia Bacon's comments about her visit to Stratford, or Hart's remarks about the "vulgar and unlettered man" from Stratford. For example, Holderness writes that the "alternative author" story arises from the elevation of Shakespeare's status as a writer: "Shakespeare was the son of a Stratford small-businessman. England's greatest poet must surely have had a more exalted parentage. So he became Lord Bacon, the Earl of Oxford, Sir Walter Raleigh, or Queen Elizabeth herself." (p.11) I don't know what "trace" of Shakespeare of Stratford's personal reading and conversations you expect to find. It would be remarkable indeed if there were a trace. It's not remarkable that there is none. Paul B (talk) 08:35, 6 March 2010 (UTC)


 * The accusation of snobbery is just another tool that Stratfordians have used to avoid actually debating facts. Far easier to launch personal attacks in an attempt to distract. But, frankly, whether one is a snob or not (since there are snobs on both sides, no doubt), what on earth does that have to do with the facts of the case? Answer: None.Smatprt (talk) 16:43, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
 * On the contrary. The anti-Statfordian case is based entirely on the idea that Shakespeare is somehow the "wrong" person to have written the plays. It was not based on the discovery of any evidence. It's not as if some document was found that suggested there was another author. Evidence was "discovered" - or invented - later to support particular candidates, but the basic argument was that Shakespeare of Stratford could not have written the works because he was the wrong class, too "vulgar", too ignorant. It is an entirely legitimate reply to that claim that it is essentially snobbery. You have every right to disgree with that reply, but it's not a smear or "personal attack"; it's a response to the central anti-Stratfordian argument. Paul B (talk) 03:55, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
 * (a) It was, to cite one of many examples, Schoenbaum's opinion.
 * (b) One doesn't debate 'facts', one ascertains them. One debates theories perhaps.
 * (c) There is nothing 'personal' in establishing known views of 'Stratfordian' scholars of eminence.
 * (d) The facts of the case include, among other things, many statements by authoritative scholars, that the de Verean literature betrays, or certainly in much of its past, betrayed a contempt for people of humble background. They called a spade a spade when employing the words 'snobbism' and 'elitism' to diagnose the temper of much of this polemical literature in the fringe.Nishidani (talk) 18:32, 6 March 2010 (UTC)


 * It's also interesting to note that - simply using this page as an example - it's you three who consistently exhibit the very snobbery you are discussing. How many times have you three retorted with "go to college", "Learn to read", "you are idiots" and, of course "I've attended 4 universities". Isn't it really the stratfordian camp that is full of snobs?Smatprt (talk) 16:43, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
 * That's not snobbishness. If I listen to, or read, anyone descanting with an authoritative air about something they are unprepared about or ill-informed of, I make a mental note, and usually do not interject. If however, they challenge what the finest scholars do, while themselves remain rank amateurs unfamiliar with what scholarship requires (a lot of hard, unrewarded years of intense mental discipline and mastery of recondite techniques of analysis), and make a lot of noise before a public that may be unfamiliar with the subject they appropriate, and out of touch with what professional minds do and think, then I am usually tempted to speak up, on behalf of professionalism over amateurism. Outsiders can occasionally make acute contributions to a complex subject, but to quote, in its modern construal, the Renaissance proverb, the exception 'proves' the rule. In general, rush in where angels fear to tread, and one risks finishing up like that gente attuffata in uno sterco/che da li uman privadi parea mosso, that Dante wrote of. The last rule of all scholarship is, when you have learnt humbly from a master, the lesson is completed when you can challenge him. The only rule of fringe congregational amateurism in popular belief, is to find a master, and spend the rest of your days, annotating his obiter dicta, or refining his unquestioned theories. Nishidani (talk) 18:32, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Justice Scalia has his own take on this" "[Mrs. Scalia] thinks we Oxfordians are motivated by the fact that we can't believe that a commoner could have done something like this, you know, it's an aristocratic tendency....It is probably more likely that the pro-Shakespearean people are affected by a democratic bias than the Oxfordians are affected by an aristocratic bias," Smatprt (talk) 16:43, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
 * No, they are affected by the the fact that all the evidence says he wrote the plays. It's not any kind of class bias. The class bias comes in when you ignore the evidence because somehow it must be "wrong" that someone from that background wrote the plays. Do you find people with "a democratic bias" insisting that Lord Byron's poems were really written by his butler? Of course not. This supposed "democratic bias" does not create imaginary alternative authors. Paul B (talk) 03:55, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Justice Scalia's opinions on the topic would rank zero in a properly constituted court of scholarship on the Elizabethan era and its issues, just as my or any other kibitzer's opinions on constitutional law would be, justifiably, laughed off with a dismissive sneer, were one to broach Scalia with them. Nishidani (talk) 18:32, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Smatprt's edit corrected.
Re Smatprt's edit

The two sources say that:

(a) Altrocchi 'accepts that this new document proves that William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon was considered by his contemporaries to be or to have been the Roscius of his age, that is, an important actor on the public stage.

Nelson, a finicky, meticulous scholar, was in correspondence with Altrocchi, and assures us Altrocchi accepted that find as a 'proof' that the Stratford man was accepted by his contemporaries as an actor on the stage.

(b)Altrocchi wrote ‘By his annotation, the book’s owner is declaring himself a Stratfordian since he is attributing Stratford-on-Avon’s reputation to Shakespeare as well as to its two foster sons, John, Archbishop of Canterbury and Hugh Clopton, the only two Stratford “alumni” thought worthy of note by Camden.

(c)Altrocchi then further argues that the document he uncovered: confirm(s)the remarkable early success of what Oxfordians view as William Cecil’s clever but monstrous connivance:forcing the genius Edward de Vere into pseudonymity and promoting the illiterate grain merchant and real estate speculator, William Shaksper of Stratford, into hoaxian prominence as the great poet and playwright, William Shakespeare.

Smatprt's take on this is the gloss:'although Dr. Altrocchi stresses that the annotator makes no reference whatsoever indicating that Shakespeare of Stratford was known as a playwright.' The point is, Altrocchi takes it as confirming the identity of the two.

Does one really need to construe this to make it mean what Altrocchi intended?, namely that in his view, the document shows that William Shaksper of Stratford was taken by this contemporary at least to be the great poet and playwright, William Shakespeare?

Use the key language of the sources, do not paraphrase around what you find disagreeable to create a false impression of the RS, Smatprt.Nishidani (talk) 19:10, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Without even troubling himself to justify his edit against these objections, Smatprt once more attempted to intervene and influence the way readers may interpret this straightforward report of what a de Verean and an 'orthodox' scholar wrote here. Nishidani (talk) 20:02, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
 * It is you who is warping what Dr. Atrocchi meant and you know it: To quote Dr. Atrocchi:


 * "Since there is no evidence that Shaksper of Stratford was a famous actor and little or no valid evidence that he was an actor at all, this reference to “Roscius” raises an interesting question. Just what did the annotator know about Shaksper of Stratford? He believes Shaksper is famous enough to be mentioned as an important foster son of Stratford, but in what capacity? If the annotator knew the works of Shakespeare, why not call him “Our honey-tongued Ovid” or “Our mellifluous Virgilian wordsmith?” In the vast majority of cases, “Roscius” has been used to refer to great actors,  including Shakespeare’s two usages in 3 Henry VI and Hamlet. Calling Shaksper “Roscius” would seem to indicate that, despite the lack of evidence, there were some who thought he was an actor and that acting was how he “made it” in London." Smatprt (talk) 20:06, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Look, it is tiresome dealing with people who can't apparently construe English, or read sources in their totality. I've bolded your quote to help you reread what Altrocchi says here. I would suggest, before interfering with the text, that you reread, if you got that far, what he wrote further on in his conclusion, and then consider why his correspondent Alan Nelson, an impeccable RS, testified in his own paper that Altrocchi took this as proof of the identity of the two. Altrocchi says the document confirms the success of what he and others take to be a hoax, i.e. that people in Shakespeare's day took the 'illiterate grain merchant of Stratford' to be the 'great playwright'. This concluding remark goes beyond what Altrocchi himself discovered, i.e. the identity of Shaksper of Stratford with Shakespeare the actor according to a contemporary report (long denied by Ogburnians). Altrocchi here is asserting that his evidence means contemporaries linked all three - Shaksper the grain merchant, Shakespeare the actor, and Shakespeare the playwright. Don't interrogate, or cherrypick what you like to cancel parts you dislike in RS, or write around what RS say. Report them faithfully, fa Chrissake. Nishidani (talk) 20:20, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Bardolatry section
As per Nishidani's previous previous comments about simply deleting material instead of bringing the material here for discussion, I am bringing this recently added section off the article page and here to talk. I would like to understand the justification for adding such a long section on the possible influence of "Bardolatry" on the authorship question. First, it is extremely long and could be summed up in a sentence or two, with links to further history of that side issue. Second, while well written, it is merely a series of opinions on "why" authorship doubt exist. It is a theory that attempts to delve into the minds of authorship doubters and can in no way represent any hard facts. This is supposed to be summary history of the debate itself. If you want to go off on this tangent, then it should be in a separate article with the appropriate link. Finally, this article is already too long and needs to address this. Adding a large amount of additional material which, as I said, could be summed up in a sentence or two, is problematic. Here is the addition I have removed pending the outcome of this discussion:

'''The rise of bardolatry in the 17th and 18th centuries '''

'''Upon the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, Charles II reopened the theatres, and two patent companies—the King's Company and the Duke's Company—were established. 18 years of closed theatres had resulted in the loss of playwrighting as a profession, and so the existing theatrical repertoire—the works of Shakespeare, Jonson, and Beaumont and Fletcher—which had been preserved by folio publication, were divided between the two companies and revived for the stage. Sir William Davenant, reputedly Shakespeare’s godson and head of the Duke’s Company, was given the exclusive rights to perform 10 Shakespeare plays. As the director of the Duke's Company, Davenant was obliged to reform and modernize Shakespeare's plays before producing them, and the texts were "reformed" and "improved" for the stage.

'''During the 1660–1700 period, stage records suggest that Shakespeare, although always a major repertory author, was not as popular on the stage as were the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher, although in literary criticism he was acknowledged as an untaught genius even though did not follow the Frenchneo-classical "rules" for the drama and the three classical unities of time, place, and action. John Dryden argued in his influential Essay of Dramatick Poesie (1668) for Shakespeare's artistic superiority Ben Jonson, who does follow the classical unities, and as a result Jonson lands in a distant second place to "the incomparable Shakespeare", the follower of nature and the great realist of human character.  In the 18th century, Shakespeare dominated the London stage, and after the Licensing Act of 1737, one fourth of the plays performed were by Shakespeare. The plays continued to be heavily cut and adapted, becoming vehicles for star actors such as Spranger Barry and David Garrick, a key figure in Shakespeare's theatrical renaissance, whose Drury Lane theatre was the centre of the Shakespeare mania which swept the nation and promoted Shakespeare as the national playwright. At Garrick's spectacular 1769 Shakespeare Jubilee in Stratford-upon-Avon, he unveiled a statue of Shakespeare and read out a poem culminating with the words "'tis he, 'tis he, / The God of our idolatry".  In contrast to playscripts, which diverged more and more from their originals, the publication of texts developed in the opposite direction. With the invention of textual criticism and an emphasis on fidelity to Shakespeare's original words, Shakespeare criticism and the publication of texts increasingly spoke to readers, rather than to theatre audiences, and Shakespeare's status as a "great writer" shifted. Two strands of Shakespearean print culture emerged: bourgeois popular editions and scholarly critical editions. Nahum Tate and Nathaniel Lee prepared editions and introduced modern scene divisions in the late 17th century, and Nicholas Rowe's edition of 1709 is considered the first scholarly edition of the plays. It was followed by many good 18th-century editions, crowned by Edmund Malone's landmark Variorum Edition, which was published posthumously in 1821.  Dryden's sentiments about Shakespeare's matchless genius were echoed without a break by unstinting praise from writers throughout the 18th century. Shakespeare was described as a genius who needed no learning, was deeply original, and unique in creating realistic and individual characters (seeTimeline of Shakespeare criticism). The phenomenon continued during the Romantic era, when Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats, William Hazlitt, and others all described Shakespeare as a transcendent genius. By the beginning of the 19th century Bardolatry was in full swing and Shakespeare was universally celebrated as an unschooled supreme genius and had been raised to the statute of a secular god and many Victorian writers treated Shakespeare's works as a secular equivalent to the Bible. "That King Shakespeare," the essayist Thomas Carlyle wrote in 1840, "does not he shine, in crowned sovereignty, over us all, as the noblest, gentlest, yet strongest of rallying signs; indestructible".   Again - it looks like this should be it's own article. Smatprt (talk) 20:29, 6 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Smatprt. The correct way to write the possessive pronoun in English is 'its' not 'it's'.
 * There is no need to excise unilaterally a whole section of a text merely to discuss it here. When we are dealing with a swathe of material like this, the proper approach at best would be to copy and paste it here, as is being done with the Lead. No one removed the lead because it has severalproblems that were to be discussed on the talk page. I certainly did not suggest anyone take a measure like this, as you insinuate. As I have repeatedly noted, actions like this smack of a proprietorial WP:OWN attitude. Nishidani (talk) 20:47, 6 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I have restored the material. It is extremely relevant to the authorship question as it puts it into historical perspective. Anti-Stratfordism did not arise out of a vacuum, and almost every book outlining the history of it includes the historical context. This is a key component of balancing this article.
 * As to Smatprt's POV cuts earlier, I haven't reverted them because the material eventually will be integrated with the history, but the POV nature of the cuts are noted. (He's so predictable I can hear him now: "What POV? I cut Oxfordian material along with the Baconian.") Also the debate style back-and-forth will be rewritten when the material is merged, but I'm probably talking months before that is completed.
 * Whether the article is too long or not is immaterial at this point. It needs to sufficiently cover the topic. We can cut later. One good place to start would be all the Oxfordian debate sprinkled through the text under the guise of generic anti-Stratfordian commentary. Also the candidate sections should be cut down to a couple or three sentences with links pointing to the main article. Tom Reedy (talk) 21:06, 6 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree with Smatprt that this should have been discussed on the talk pages and a consensus reached before it was put in the article. I also agree that it's too long, and should be summarized in the article, with all the detail in a separate article. All this context has little to do with the authorship question. The main focus of the article should be on evidence. Cluttering it up with this background information looks like an attempt to distract from it. Schoenbaum (talk) 21:45, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

The reason you don't think it belongs in an article about the authorship question is because you don't know much about the topic, so what you think about how it looks is irrelevant. Your comment, "The main focus of the article should be on evidence" shows that you think this is a debate, not an encyclopedia article. And since there is no evidence for any other author besides Shakespeare, feel free to delete everything from the article that is not evidence, because all there is from the anti-Stratfordian side is speculation, misreadings, strained interpretations, and special pleading. Tom Reedy (talk) 22:30, 6 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Tom, for reminding us again who are the real snobs when it comes to this issue. Schoenbaum (talk) 23:07, 6 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Schoenbaum, didn't you realize that Tom is an expert on the distinction between an Encyclopedia article and a debate? If you follow his logic carefully, you'll see what the difference is. In a debate you are allowed to use evidence. But in the genre of the Encyclopedia article as defined by the o so brilliant Tom Reedy, you can't. You can only present the dogma of the day according to Mr. Reedy, backed up by his his lovely comrade, Mr. Nishidani, the expert on Hebron, genocide, and Shakespeare. --BenJonson (talk) 04:02, 7 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Sorry, Tom, I apologize for that last remark, which I've taken down. It was very unlike me, and I just don't know what got into me. Thanks, Ben, very much, for enlightening me regarding Tom's expertise. Schoenbaum (talk) 17:42, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Edit warring resumes?
When you remove a large chunk of material, knowing that your removal does not have consensus, I believe you are edit warring. The same for the reverse. Please be aware that some admins continue to be interested in this article. There is no reason to make a large change here without first finding out on the Talk page the degree of support your change is likely to enjoy. EdJohnston (talk) 05:56, 7 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Tom, this is obviously directed at us - you for the addition of an entire new section of over 5,000 bytes, and me for reverting it. This could have been avoided if you attempted to form a consensus for this major addition of material. Judging from the discussion, however, there is nothing even approaching a consensus for your addition. I am asking you to remove it and work with the rest of us on the talk page to form a consensus on what, if any, of this material is appropriate for this article. Smatprt (talk) 07:12, 7 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I second Smatprt's motion. Please let's discuss this major addition to see if there's a consensus for it before putting it in the article. Schoenbaum (talk) 17:38, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Editorializing

 * "Like most issues having to do with the controversy, documenting the history of the Shakespeare authorship question is highly contentious. There is no consensus, academic or otherwise, as to when the theory was first proposed or alluded to."

Wholly unnecessary, expressing a personal opinion by Smartprt I assume, question-begging, undocumented, 'highly contentious' for whom?, what do you mean by academic consensus? (most historians date the rise of controversy to 1848, only you guys equivocate) unreferenced, and as usual jammed in there as bilge to make a talking point. Before I remove it, I'll give you a day or two to justify why a notoriously poorly writtenarticle needs more prosey waffle like this, tacked on it.(I hope this waffle was not jammed in to bait a natural revert action before admins eyes? ) Nishidani (talk) 10:09, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Your source says "no 'serious' doubts", using "serious" in that "oh please only idiots" way. Or do you think they were saying that there were "humorous" doubts??? Other researchers vehemently disagree and accuse your sources of ignoring evidence. Sounds pretty contentious to me - like everything having to do with this debate. And there is no consensus. Some scholars say it started in the 19th century, some in the 18th, some in the 16th. While it is true that all the sources that you agree with say one thing, that does not make it so. You say only we guys equivocate. No - its the scholars we have provided as sources - which you take a blind eye to. And again with the false accusations and attacks?Smatprt (talk) 05:56, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
 * You are confusing, as you do in almost every edit, sources that wikipedia asks be considered for their qualitative excellence, published by mainstream academics with a university imprint, with what 'researchers' i.e., amateur untrained (mostly) speculators on the fringe, argue. Get this into your head there is no serious contention or controversy in academic studies on Shakespeare about most of the material you adduce from the fringe, because it is below interest, curiosity or regard. It is true, your movement is desperate for 'engagement', it wants 'controversy and contention' as a form of recognition: but almost nothing it publishes excites the slightest desire to contend or controvert, because, well, nuclear physicists usually don't argue with a pub brawler convinced that the world was created from an egg, as some ancient Orphics thought. The 'consensus' you talk about is a fiction created, between the 'consensus' required on wiki, and a hypothetical 'consensus' to be attained between serious scholarship and people who, for example, think that a 'Mute Swan' was on Ben Jonson's mind in 1623 when the word, and the taxonomic distinction, wasn't introduced until 1785, and when in 1623 all men with a thorough or slight acquaintence with Greek and Latin languages and literature knew that the word 'swan' associated with a poet indicated 'great lyric powers'. Diana Price is not a 'scholar': she is an amateur researcher for a fringe theory. The dud bits of evidence for doubt you adduce, refer to two crummy pamphlets put out by otherwise unknown scribblers voicing ambiguously some comic skirmishing with Shakespeare's image. You guys don't equivocate. You simply don't understand what evidence means. That is why, except for some long-suffering oddbods in forums, or a few distracted and ill-informed people in the Supreme Court of the US, almost no one takes the 'evidence' seriously.
 * So just accept the fact that you have to describe, in so far as you understand what writing a lucid, synthetic, rationally coherent account requires, what you fringers have said over 160 years, without fudging up an impression for readers that somehow this 'alternative research' has the serious world of scholarship quivering with exasperation, fear, contention and grief at the meteoric analytical brilliance of the murmuring 'public' margins. Nishidani (talk) 08:44, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Pseudonymous or secret authorship in Renaissance England
I added new material to bring this section up to date and made some edits for clarity. It is important that this page reflect both a sound history of the authorship issue and also the insights which are being generated by contemporary scholarship. These changes include ommitting the name "Martin Mar-Prelate" from the list of hyphenated pseudonyms. To my knowledge, the name was never hyphenated. If someone has good evidence to the contrary, we can add the name back in. But for now, its out. More importantly, I added reference to Oxford's probable authorship of the Pasquill pamphlets. For those interested in a direct link to the new wiki entry which documents this, you can find it here: Pasquill Cavaliero.--BenJonson (talk) 14:50, 21 February 2010 (UTC)


 * This material is not relevant to this particular article, and is more suitable to the Oxfordian article, although I think it's probably already been inserted there without checking.
 * Also the refs are not RS. Tom Reedy (talk) 17:18, 21 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Instead of just deleting material that you question the source of, the proper response is to put a fact tag on it. You and Nishidani keep deleting material claiming "not RS" but fail to tag it as such. Please refrain and follow proper procedures. Smatprt (talk) 01:57, 9 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Its interesting that you only noticed this now, Tom. The section has been part of the article for some time, albiet not very well worded and missing critical factual details, such as the fact that the Oxfordians have alleged a solution to the "Pasquill" question. As the anti-Stratfordian case is substantially based on the view that the use of the alleged pseudonym would be an instance of the evasion of censorship. As someone who is not an anti-Stratfordian, and therefore cannot be expected to understand the nature of the case, it is not surprising that you would object. You remind me that I need to add a link to Professor Winifred Frazer's recent Brief Chronicles article, which more fully explains the connection. Once I add the link, perhaps you could read the article and we could discuss your objection further. I have already added a link to the new Pasquill entry to the Oxford page. However, let's be clear about this: as far as I am concerned, a section on this page which discusses the prominent role of pseudonymous publication in the early modern period is simply not negotiable. --BenJonson (talk) 17:37, 21 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I noticed the section a long time ago, Roger, but for some reason have been forced to spend an inordinate amount of time on the introductory material. In fact, I've got notes for re-writes on most of the sections in this article. the one I have for that section begins "During the life of William Shakespeare and for more than 200 years after his death, no one seriously suggested that anybody other than Shakespeare wrote the works nor indicated that the name was a pseudonym. Despite this, anti-Stratfordians interpret . . . ." But all this in good time. Tom Reedy (talk) 18:07, 21 February 2010 (UTC)


 * No, Tom, you won't be able to begin a section that way. Explain the article theory first, than present the more "accepted ideas". And saying that a section on the role of pseudonymous publication in the Elizabethan age, in an article about an Elizabethan writer who may have published under a pseudonym, should be deleted or is irrelevant is just silly. I sincerely doubt you will be able to form a consensus to delete that section.Smatprt (talk) 18:32, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Once again you demonstrate your lack of basic reading comprehension. Very well, you boys have fun while you can. Tom Reedy (talk) 19:24, 21 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Threaten all you want.--BenJonson (talk) 03:13, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Here is an example of the hyphenated Mar-prelate.[]Smatprt (talk) 16:55, 21 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Nope. It might be a clue to one, but that's a 19th century title page. We need an Elizabethan example. For now I'll let your reversion stand, but I think we're on thin ice without a better example. See my point? coda: I was able to check a modern facsimile of the original title page of "Pap with a Hatchett (probably by John Lyly), and it is very different from the one given in that reprint and does not even include the name "Marprelate," let alone in hyphenated form. I think we should redelete this and leave it off unless something better is found to justify it. --BenJonson (talk) 17:39, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Can you check this one then? []? thanks. Smatprt (talk) 18:21, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
 * O, Stephen, now we're getting warm. This is a modern facsimile, but it looks to be pedantically reproducing the original text, which is what we need. I would say that to be entirely sure, someone needs to go to the EEBO text and verify that the hyphens are in the original. But I think you've got a good witness to the point. Note, though, that the examples (at least those I saw), are "Mar-Martin," not Martin Mar-prelate."
 * A few other comments on this section. As promised, as I added the citation to the very fine article by the late Professor Frazer. I also checked and verified the basis for the Elizabethan tradition of Terence as a front. Nishidani could not be more wrong. Roger Ascham, in the explanatory quote that I added to the section, clearly articulates the belief, attributing it to Cicero, that at least some works under Terence' name were written by aristocrats. Please let us all note and agree to stipulate that whether or not this is true or can be proven is totally irrelevant. The point is that it was believed by so prominent a figure as Roger Ascham, the most important classical scholar and educator of his generation. I also refined some other language in the section to make the materials fit more appropriately within the present article, in response to Tom's concerns. --BenJonson (talk) 19:10, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The text you guys were editing said Terence was seen by a plurality of Elizabethan scholars to be a frontman. I corrected the two errors. One of you guys bungled. In Ascham there is a distinction between a foreigner's Latin (Terence's in four of his plays) and a native Roman noble's. Ascham nowhere supports the view that Terence was not a playwright but a merely funnel for 'aristocratic' playwrights. Terence himself laughs at the rumour. Modern scholarship has a good explanation for this. Poets and writers at that time, as in Elizabethan times, were often locked up, exiled, and punished by the authorities. All the patrons whose influence is associated with Terence had magistratal functions. He was protecting his rear by cultivating friends. But, of course, this is 'orthodox' scholarship, and you people, with 'virtually no', sorry, 'small Latin and lesse Greek', know better. Nishidani (talk) 20:38, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Nishidani -- what the text once said is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is whether you are going to join us in making it better, or continue your harassment with these kinds of inappropriate comments, which seek to make the present editors responsible for wording that was supplied by others and to throw dust over the fact that your categorical pronunciamentos of yesterday have been proven wrong in the space of a couple of days. I'm sorry that you don't feel that you are getting your way here, but life is tough. Ascham is a very good witness to the fact that Elizabethans associated the idea of disguised authorship with the name Terence. That is all that is required. We have no way of assessing how widely this view was held. The rest is you creating straw men and then splitting their hairs. Let me once again suggest that you may wish to actually familiarize yourself with the topic in question. I recommend Ogburn or Anderson as good places to begin, although if you want to learn about Oxford,aside from the case for his authorship of the plays, B.M. Ward is still an excellent read. I would take you much more seriously if you could demonstrate a knowledge of even one of these works which transcended hearsay.--BenJonson (talk) 03:20, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, but nothing published by Brief Chronicles is WP:RS. Read this], especially the sentence, "Note that fringe journals exist, some of which claim peer review. Only a very few of these actually have any meaningful peer review outside of promoters of the fringe theories, and should generally be considered unreliable. Examples: The Creation Science Quarterly, Homeopathy, Journal of Frontier Science . . . and many others." If you insist on its use, we can take it to [[WP:RSN for an opinion.


 * Tom, aren't you the guy who a couple of days ago were arguing that Dave Kathman and Terry Ross's private website, which once contained abundant material supporting the superstar shooting star Donald Foster, should be considered an acceptable source? Your lack of consistency is pathetic--BenJonson (talk) 00:09, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

In addition, you need a ref for this edit or you need to delete it: "At least two of the proposed candidates for authorship, the Earls of Oxford and Derby, were known to be playwrights but have no extant work under their own name. Moreover, Oxford has been identified in some studies as the real author of three clearly pseudonymous publications which appeared in 1589-90 under the colorful nom de plum of 'Pasquill Cavaliero.'" The one you originally cited is not acceptable. If you wish we can take that for an opinion also, but I think you know what the objections are and how it will fare. Tom Reedy (talk) 19:41, 21 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Tom, I'm surprised that you don't know these references, but I would be happy to supply them. They are both common knowledge for anyone who has studied the authorship question, and while you may be pedantically correct that the should be added, their absence in the context of the many other edits required by the page, is hardly a matter for major concern. Why don't you supply them yourself; since you know so much about the history of the topic, it should be like taking candy from a baby for you. The citation that is provided is to two publications by Elizabeth Appleton, the second published by an academic press. It is not a citation intended to justify the fact that Oxford and Derby were known to be playwrights, as you should be able to see from its location, but to the theory that Oxford is the author of the Pasquill pamphlets, which was Appleton's argument. If you don't like her theory, your recourse is to write and publish a rebutall, and if it meets the appropriate scholarly standards, the page can link to it, to indicate the matter is not settled. Until you or someone else does that, the matter is in fact more or less settled, at the stage indicated by the new entry on "Pasquill" -- which notes that existing authorities like EEBO still cling to the Nashe attribution but that Roland McKerrow himself did not accept it. That being the case, at this point in time the only case for authorship of the pamphlets which consists of anything more than mere blind acceptance of tradition, is Appleton's.--BenJonson (talk) 00:09, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

You know damn well what I was referring to when I called for cites. Elizabeth Appleton has a phony PhD and her book was published by the Mellen Press, the bottom-feeding press of last resort used when nobody else will publish your book. She is not RS for anything, as you well know. Either supply a good ref or cut it. Tom Reedy (talk) 03:26, 22 February 2010 (UTC)


 * No, Tom, I don't "know damn well..." that Appleton has a "phony PhD," whatever that means. You don't have any kind of PhD, however, so I don't really know where you get off passing judgment on other people's qualifications. Appleton's technical qualifications are not at issue here. The issue is that she has made a powerful case for Oxford's authorship of the Pasquill pamphlets. Now, I can understand why this would upset you, since if she is right, it establishes a pattern of pseudonymous publication by Oxford, and that is something which, above all else, would be problematic for your dogma. You can cite RS all you want, Tom, but unlike you have I have not only read Appleton's book (and reviewed it, as you may know), but have read the Pasquill pamphlets themselves, Roland McKerrow's scholarship on them (he says they are not by Thomas Nashe), and Oxford's correspondence. I'm not really that interested in getting into a pissing match with you about whether Appleton's reference can stay on this page. There are far less reliable references -- e.g. your buddy Kathman -- about which you have raised no objection. Appleton's work will not be the last on the Pasquill question, and -- mark my words, Tom -- will be upheld by other scholars. So go ahead and revert all you want. It might make you feel better but it will not affect the final outcome.--BenJonson (talk) 02:10, 1 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Tom I've supplied two references, one for Oxford and the other for Derby, indicating that they were known as playwrights. These are not to be taken as comprehensive, as they are not. For instance, I did not supplement Meres with William Webbe, who also notes Oxford's reputation as a comic dramatist as early as 1586. When I get some more time, I'll add this as well -- the present refs should alleviate your concern. As mentioned, I'm a bit surprised that someone who professes to have the knowledge you claim of this subject is not aware that these are common knowledge among scholars of the authorship question. But I do agree with you that the article is better with the cites, so I spent some time looking them up and carefully providing them. --BenJonson (talk) 03:13, 22 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I think Tom is incorrect and doubt if he has checked the Brief Chronicles editorial review board here []. Hardly the same as the examples listed at WP:PARITY (note the correct way to link, Tom)where one used "blogs" as the peer review. BC is one of those "few" that actually has "meaningful peer review". And after all the criticism heaped on me for opposing the Kathman website for my attempts to stifle knowledge, it's surprising to see just how much hypocrisy is coming from the mainstream side.Smatprt (talk) 21:04, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I think three of you are abusing 'peer review'. All I have seen is a dozen odd de Verean names, some attached to universities, or graduates of them, sitting on boards for internet sites or newsletters of their own 'anti-stratfordian' cut and then reviewing each other. This is not what is understood in English or WP:RS as peer review. It's fringers reviewing their own marginalia. Tom is correct therefore. This article must distinguish between RS for a fringe viewpoint, which are fringe websites and pamphlets and books, and RS for critical scholarly peer review and sources on Shakespeare. The distinction is being blurred by sleight-of-hand and the slow tenacious drift of the momentous drivelling in here.Nishidani (talk) 21:13, 21 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Nishidani, actually, you are abusing our patience with your gratuitously condescending and insulting claptrap. Its time for you to start specifying what your own qualifications are. Have you published in this field? If not, how dare you pass judgment on the distinguished scholars who comprise the editorial board of *Brief Chronicles* by calling them "fringers reviewing their own marginalia"? Actually, very few journals in the humanities practice to the standard used at BC, of double-blind peer review. But please tell us something about yourself. Paul asked who the hell I was, and I told him. How about you? Where do you *stand*, guy? Unfold yourself. This is 2010, not 1995. Do you have a clue? Apparently not. What is your publication record? What anti-Stratfordian books have you read?  Have you ever heard of Professor David Richardson?  Is he a "fringie"?   For my part, I have participated regularly, both as a reviewer and reviewed, in a range of academic publications (about eight or ten in all). I can assure you that the standards of review that are used at Brief Chronicles equal those found at any academic journal and are in fact considerably more balanced than those currently prevailing at a number of publications. The only difference is that the reviewers, all established academicians, have at least got a clue about the actual dynamics and history of the authorship question.  You persist in arguing through labels that are wholly irrelevant. There is no sleight of hand, just as there is no "fringe viewpoint."  There is fight between established belief and a well articulated, coherent and credible alternative.  It is clear where you stand in that debate, and that's fine. You don't have to like the alternative. You damn well DO have to respect it if you want to have any impact on editing this page. --BenJonson (talk) 00:09, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
 * 'our patience', the pluralis maiestatis, again. The judgements I pass, as a wikipedian, are those I formed on my reading widely in this area, and which I found confirmed by the best scholars in the field, who say people who embrace this crackpot nonsense 'give the Baconians a run for madness' (the real Schoenbaum), some tall order. Who am I? None of your, or wikipedia's business, and you break protocols to insist I reveal my identity to justify my edits here. Your personal indiscretion only invites unfortunate ripostes, of the kind, 'I haven't lectured at Coppin State University where you teach, but I have done so, by invitation, at Oxford', the real place, not the fictional world of de Verean 'Oxfordians' who appropriate the historic name to fudge up the impression to a gullible and not too attentive public that somehow they are connected to one of the highest centres of learning in the world. So enough of this bragging. For, 'I'll cite no further than the initiate know', to quote Gerard Manley Hopkins, bearing in mind Montaigne's advice:
 * "Car de servir de spectacle aux grands et faire è l'envy parade de son esprit et de son caquet, je trouve que c'est un mestier tres-messeant à un homme d'honneur' ( Albert Thibaudet (ed.), Montaigne: Essais, Pléiade, Paris 1937 p.894)"


 * Now "Oxfordians" are using the name "Oxford" for deceptive purposes?? Will you attacks never cease? Smatprt (talk) 16:04, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
 * It's not an attack, it's well known, and pretty obvious. 'Oxfordians' attracts naive eyes, deVereans does not. It's all part of the agitprop.Nishidani (talk) 17:19, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
 * As to Professor David Richardson, what's he got to do with the price of fish? Not one page of Looney or Ogburn, or Price would withstand more than 5 minutes of critical analysis in any reputable school of humanities, in terms of methodological coherence and rigour. I'm not impressed with English departments these days, crammed stiff as they are with people who no longer, as was once the case,  have a thorough secondary education grounding in Latin and Greek, nor acquire at least reading fluency in German, French, Italian and Spanish, when they venture into premodern textual studies. So pal, don't come the raw prawn with me. This self-promotion is a bluff, as is the whole fringe theory shebang it represents. It is not conducive to intelligent dialogue if one approaches it with resentment and offended honour, which is a bad thing to carry into a technical discussion. Neither I nor anyone else has to 'respect' the subject of a page to 'have an impact' as editor. Were that so, we would have no WP:NPOV pages on Hitler, Mussolini, Lenin, Ignatius Donnelly,  Torquemada, Berlusconi, George W. Bush, Ayn Rand, Hirohito or Ariel Sharon or any other of tens of thousands of historical figures. We would only have fanpages, on a par with the present travesty you are collectively composing. Nishidani (talk) 13:31, 22 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Ive said it before, and I'll say it again, you do go on and on with your irrelevant parallels and your angst about modern education. I'm happy for you that you've lectured at Oxford. But, as you just said, what does that have to do with the price of fish. I enjoy Coppin. But I also enjoyed lecturing at the Huntington Library, the University of Massachusetts, where I got my PhD in Comparative Literature (not English). --BenJonson (talk) 02:10, 1 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Just a final note on Brief Chronicles - you will be interested to note that the publication has been selected for indexing by two international bibliographies in the humanities of which you are all familiar - The MLA International Bibliography and The World Shakespeare Bibliography. I imagine you are also familiar with their standards. Smatprt (talk) 22:32, 21 February 2010 (UTC)


 * But, Smatprt, are you authorized to say that? Don't bother Nishidani with facts. The fact that the contents of the journal are accepted by the World Shakespeare Bibliography is irrelevant. We're talking about Wikipedia here. Our standards are professional ones....[slaps forhead] "Ay Carumba." --BenJonson (talk) 00:09, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Regardless, I have posted an opinion request here. Tom Reedy (talk) 03:19, 22 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I made further edits to this section, mostly for clarity and brevity. Nishidani is correct about at least one thing, although wrong about most: the article as presently written is stylistically handicapped in a way that does no good to anyone. We will not correct this overnight, but I made a few more edits in this particular section toward that end, which cut out of a lot of extraneous deadwood which had accumulated. I also added a reference to Detobel and Ligon's article on Meres. I'm not really sure that it belongs here; Stephen, what do you think?  Thanks for your clarification on this point.


 * I also put in a link to for the name "Martin-Marprelate," which we should do to link this discussion to the Marprelate page. However, because of the hyphen it doesn't work. We need to figure out a strategy for dealing with this. Since we still don't have an authenticated hyphenated form of the name (only a hyphenated alternative, which actually refers not to Martin himself but to one of his opponents), we should keep our options open. --BenJonson (talk) 19:34, 21 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I think you missed this one - it's in the first graph of ther reference linked:
 * Wherein the rash and vndiscreete hea-
 * dines of the foolish youth, is sharp-
 * ly mette with, and the boy hath his
 * lesson taught him, I warrant you, by
 * his reuerend and elder brother,
 * Martin Senior, sonne and heire vnto
 * the renowmed Martin Mar-prelate
 * the Great.
 * Hopefully this solves it. Smatprt (talk) 20:38, 21 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I did indeed. If this is verified, then what we need to do is make the version "Martin Mar-Prelate" resolve to the "Martin Marprelate" page. Do you know how to make this happen? Thanks for setting me straight.--BenJonson (talk) 21:14, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Deletions of material
Deletions of material by TomReedy:(5 day period only)


 * [] - Deleted:" The survey was based on a random sample of colleges and universities in the United States that offer degree programs in English. " and "but when asked if they "mention the Shakespeare authorship question in your Shakespeare classes?", 72% answered "yes"."


 * [] - Deleted (including tags: "The mainstream view is that during the life of William Shakespeare, no one suggested that anybody other than Shakespeare wrote the works, nor indicated that the name was a pseudonym. Some orthodox critics believe that during the 200 year period after his death, the issue of alternative authorship was never even discussed.


 * [] - Deleted: "Anti-stratfordians also note that Shakespeare of Stratford's relatives and neighbors never mentioned that he was famous or a writer, nor are there any indications his heirs demanded or received payments for his supposed investments in the theatre or for any of the more than 16 masterwork plays unpublished at the time of his death. "
 * [] - Deleted: Price explains that while he had a well-documented habit of going to court over relatively small sums, he never sued any of the publishers pirating his plays and sonnets, or took any legal action regarding their practice of attaching his name to the inferior output of others.
 * [] - Deleted: "But Roger Stritmatter argued, in an article published in Cahiers Élisabéthains, that the Edwards passage contains unmistakable reference to a 1583 Blackfriars duel in which Oxford was famously wounded. Elizabethan satirists, Joseph Hall in 1597 and John Marston in 1598 have been interpreted to imply that Francis Bacon was the author of Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece, although such references might also allude to another concealed author of the same works. Around the turn of the seventeenth century, Gabriel Harvey, Cambridge don and scholar, wrote marginalia in his copy of Chaucer's works that are interpreted as implying he believed Sir Edward Dyer was the author of at least Venus and Adonis. Authorship researcher Diana Price hypothesizes that an authorship debate existed in Elizabethan times, and argues that this evidence is to be read as veiled references to that debate, which was otherwise never explicitly stated. "


 * [] - Deleted: "Anti-Stratfordian researchers also cite one contemporary document that strongly implies that Shakespeare, the Globeshareholder, was dead prior to 1616, when Shakespeare of Stratford died. "


 * [] - Deleted attributions: "Stratfordian Scott McCrea argues that", "Stratfordian Jonathan Bate argues that the "

Now who is being accused of deleting material?Smatprt (talk) 21:23, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
 * [] - Deleted: "More recent developments include a new academic journal devoted specifically to study of the authorship question, a special issue of a leading established journal, Critical Survey, devoted to authorship, and a leading British scholar, University of Hertfordshire Professor Graham Holderness, endorsing the plausibility of the Earl of Oxford's authorship.

I'm still waiting for the list of all the material I've deleted from the article. Smatprt (talk) 01:54, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Revert warring
Reverts by Tom Reedy: (5 day period only.)


 * []


 * []


 * []


 * []


 * []


 * []

And who is being accused of reverting?Smatprt (talk) 21:23, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
 * []


 * I know you're trying to set up your case, Smatprt, but it won't work. The fact of the matter is that you are trying to make it impossible for anyone other than yourself and your allies to edit this page, and rest assured it has been noted and your patterns of interaction have been documented. That's all I will say for now, but if I were you I'd begin to study WP:NPOV, WP:UNDUE, WP:N, and WP:COI, among others, and mend my ways accordingly. It would be much better for everyone if you became a good, unbiased Wikipedia editor. Your ridiculous examples of reverts and deletions you went to all that trouble to gather are laughable when seen in context. I know you've done all you can to resist, but as I told you when I first began editing here, sooner or later this page will be balanced and biased account of the authorship controversy. You might as well face that fact. Tom Reedy (talk) 21:58, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Tom, more false accusations don't help, and listing a series of wiki policies and guidelines, without any context, is a sign of wiki-lawyering. This is far different than me pointing out the use of weasel words, examples, and directing you to that guideline. I was pretty sure you never heard of wp:AVOID, so I provided it to you and Nishi to point the way to several words you two were arguing over. You might still check that out in regards to your use of "controversial" and how it can only be used when it equates to "debate". And I'm not sure why you would want to quote wp:COI when, in reality, you have published an anti-stratfordian article [] on the very SFP website that you fought at the RS noticeboard so very hard to use. What on earth is my conflict - that I direct the occasional Shakespeare play?? Smatprt (talk) 03:11, 1 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks for keeping track of this, Stephen. Its important to keep careful records. Tom, unfortunately, has no idea where this whole thing is going, so he keeps fighting battles that he cannot win.--BenJonson (talk) 02:17, 1 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Based on their involvement at the BC deletion proposal, it now appears that TomReedy and Nishidani may be hounding wp:hound you as well.Smatprt (talk) 15:53, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Dagnabbit! I'll be deputy-dawg in this new hypothetical scenario of a wiki conspiracy against the conspiracy-mongers!Nishidani (talk) 17:24, 3 March 2010 (UTC)


 * It's too bad you won't acknowledge any of your inappropriate actions. WP:HOUND is serious. And yet you make a joke out of it. Smatprt (talk) 01:54, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Trash
I note this is getting attention.
 * Another recent article in the Oxfordian online journal Brief Chronicles applies numerical analysis of Francis Mere's Palladis Tamia ("The Servant of Pallas Athena") to argue that although on the surface he seems to be attributing a dozen plays to Shakespeare of Stratford, he is esoterically identifying Oxford as the real author.

My point is, how much froth from the net and current newsletters, on obscure speculations by amateur nobodies and manic methodists can we harvest for a general article? What is needed is a general overview, the history of the debate, key points, theories according to the various exponents, and a general note on what mainstream scholarship thinks or dismisses. Personally were that done objectively, I would consider even reducing all mainstream references to the fringe hypothesis to a final section. I really don't think any of the material here requires much 'counter argument', since it is a bizarre mishmash of bits and pieces from all over the place, with no systematic or conceptual development at all. But certainly, someone there must decide how much to include. The above essay is crap of the purest variety, of which we have an abundance also from the Baconian school's long history to draw from, and seems to be here merely to give prominence to the journal. A brilliant Arabist, Margoliouth, once wrote (1920?) a short work on cyphers in Homer, saying the poet had identified himself in the opening lines of the Iliad and Odyssey. I read a lonely copy of it in a huge library one afternoon in my youth. Once he got going there was no stopping the rot: Sophocles, Aeschylus, Euripides, they all had the cryptograms. He is justly remembered for his semitic scholarship, which was dazzling. If the finest minds fail, imagine the mess when journos and amateurs try their hands.Nishidani (talk) 14:18, 5 March 2010 (UTC)


 * "obscure speculations by amateur nobodies and manic methodists" -- Keep it up Nishidani. Your foul mouth does not cover the sins of your errors, as noted below.--BenJonson (talk) 23:24, 9 March 2010 (UTC)


 * The Brief Chronicles are producing a rather lengthy chronicle at the journal's AfD... :-) --Crusio (talk) 14:26, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, we all know! Anyone who is familiar with this sort of scholarship knows full well how reliable this article is likely to be. K.C. Ligon is a nice person, but an amateur. The nature of the discussion at the AfD is indicates how difficult it is to discuss this topic reasonably. Paul B (talk) 14:37, 5 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, Oxfordians are traveling down the same path the Baconians trod. Since there's no evidence for their man, they turn to ciphers and strained interpretations of allusions. the Marlovians are breathing down their necks, although they can't see it.
 * I agree that all these arguments need to be weeded out. There's no scheme to them, and even if there were, they don't belong in a general article about generic anti-Stratfordism. The reference is really supporting nothing more than its own statements, and as such violates has no scholarly purpose other than promotion, and this particular example violates several Wikipedia standards, such as WP:PRIMARYTOPIC (All interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source, rather than original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors.) and one other that I can't find right now that prohibits the inclusion of novel interpretations that haven't been discussed outside of its initial publication. Tom Reedy (talk) 15:11, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I will say this. After wasting a few hours over it, I found one nugget of information worth noting, Enoch Powell had lectured on Meres to the de Verean society. His was one of the most extraordinary, but wasted, minds of the century in classical scholarship. If he was a true believer, the pro-fringers should put him in. He was far brighter than the judges and actors in the 'notables' list.Nishidani (talk) 15:50, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Powell was certainly sympathetic to anti-Stratfordianism. I don't know whether or not he subscribed to any version of it. Paul B (talk) 10:48, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

speculated/hypothetical
(1) Smatprt changes
 * ‘including an earlier version of Hamlet (known today as the ur-Hamlet).

to


 * including a hypothetical early version of Hamlet (known today as the ur-Hamlet).


 * His latest version in an apparent attempt to get me to edit-war, is 'it is speculated'.


 * 'it is speculated that there was an earlier version, which has not survived, known today as the ur-Hamlet.'


 * Well, no. I objected to hypothetical, because the evidence shows that several testimonies exist to something called Hamlet being played on London stages. 'Hypothetical' has been used by some editors in their various editions, true, for example Ann Thompson, Neil Taylor (eds.) Hamlet, Arden, 3rd ed.2006, p.70 and  A. R. Braunmuller (ed.) The tragical history of Hamlet prince of Denmark, 2001 p.xxx but context is important 'it is generally held that there was an earlier Hamlet play, the so-called Ur.Hamlet'(Arden p.44):‘it seems likely that an English-language Hamlet play was being performed in the late 1580s or 1590s’ Braunmuller, p.xxix.


 * The speculation surrounds who wrote it (Kyd? cf.'he is reknowned for having written the lost play of Hamlet(pre-1589), which was the source of Shakespeare's play, but it cannot be proved that he wrote it.' Philip Edwards, (ed.) The Spanish Tragedy, (1958) Manchester Uni reprint 1977 p.xvii). Speculations about how it may be related to Shakespeare of Stratford's Hamlet abound, as do hypotheses.

However, against that we have, to cite just a few sources, where the editors write without loosely using 'hypothesis'

And since you harp on Harold Bloom:
 * (a) ’Hamlet is haunted by the ghost of his father, so is tragedy is haunted by the ghost of an earlier play, the Ur-Hamlet, as it is called, of which no text survives’ G.R.Hibbard, (ed) Shakespeare. Hamlet, Oxford 1987 p.12
 * (b) ‘it seems tolerably certain that a Hamlet was being acted in London in 1589 and quite certain that one existed by 1594.’ John Dover Wilson,(ed.) The Tragedy of Hamlet Prince of Denmark, Cambridge, 1969p.xvi
 * (c) ‘Shakespeare’s immediate source for Hamlet was an earlier English play . .this earlier Hamlet-Ur-Hamlet, as it has come to be called,’ O.J Campbell, A.Rothschild, S.,Vaughen, (eds.)Hamlet, Bantam Books 1961 p.278
 * (d)By 1589 there seems to have been a Hamlet on the London stage. This play, conventionally known as the Ur-Hamlet, is usually thought to be the work of Thomas Kyd. It was never published and has not survived.’William F.Hansen, Saxo Grammaticus and the Life of Hamlet, Nebraska University Press,1983 p.67
 * (e)'Several references from 1589 onwards show that a play about Hamlet already existed,' Stanley Wells, Shakespeare: The Poet & His Plays, (1994) 1997 Methuen p.199
 * (f)'Kyd arouynd 1587 may have written 'Hamlet, the missing revenge tragedy now famous as 'ur-Hamlet' since it must have been a source for Shakespeare's later tragedy', Park Honan, Shakespeare: A Life,''p.129
 * (g)Harold Bloom, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, 1988 pp.395ff., is arguing that the Ur-Hamlet itself was written by Shakespeare.

All these writers, careful in their language, accept as a shown and known fact that a prior version, the Ur-Hamlet, did exist.

All I can see is an attempt to use 'hypothetical' or 'speculative' as adjectives suitable to questioning the mainstream viewpoint, which here, does not 'speculate' or hypothesize that an Ur-Hamlet existed, but rather, by a strong margin of consensus, accepts the testimony that a pre-1602 play of that kind existed, and speculates about it, who wrote it, and its possible links to the play we have by Shakespeare's hand. You've made me waste another hour, simply because you prefer editing wiki to your tastes, to reading sources bearing upon wiki articles. Congratulations, it's called stalling attrition, wikilawyering, wasting people's time, and is very effective.Nishidani (talk) 21:23, 7 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Or, you could have just left "hypothetical" and saved an hour. Because, after all, it is speculation that an "Ur-Hamlet" even existed. As Cairncross speculated, it might have been Shakespeare's Hamlet in the first place. Paul's version may have left that possibility open, but in the context of the sentence that preceded it, that possibility was, at the very least, unclear. Smatprt (talk) 05:44, 8 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I left it unclear because it is unclear. However the views of Cairncross et al are irrelevant here and serve only to interrupt the flow of the passage. Don't you care about clear exposition and readability? Nevertheless, contrary to what you say, even Cairncross does not deny that the Ur-Hamlet existed and was an earlier version of the play, which is exactly what the passage says (and what even your confrere BenJonson says in his recently created article on Andrew Cairncross). Paul B (talk) 11:25, 9 March 2010 (UTC)


 * As Paul Barlow explains below, a perfectly acceptable, neutral statement was finessed and frigged about with by your idle edit, creating confusion, which other editors then had to waste time to fix. Cairncross speculates,etc. The point I made was that the mainstream consensus is that there was a 'Hamlet', the Ur-hamlet, beig played in London. The mainstream does not exhaust the patience of everyone by denying the evidence from several sources pre.1602 that such a play existed. It speculates who may have written it, or when it came on stream in the productions, it makes hypotheses about what structure and content it may have had'''. You cannot see this, you keep replying to evidence by refusing to listen to it, and this mode of behaviour you exemplify is a bullodozing, classic instance of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT Nishidani (talk) 09:38, 8 March 2010 (UTC)


 * When I wrote the original passage ("including an earlier version of Hamlet (known today as the ur-Hamlet).") I deliberately phrased it so that it did not say that the earlier version was necessarily written by someone other than Shakespeare, but Smatprt has to turn a concise and simple phrase into a confused and turgid one, jumping from past to present tense as he does so. Nothing in the original version contradicts the minority opinion of Bloom et al. But Smatprt just can't see that. The whole point of this sentence is to explain - very concisely - that scholars had identified this source problem by this date. The earlier Hamlet is specifically mentioned by Hart in his book as evidence that Shakespeare was a mere adaptor. Unfortunately Tom has added to the confusion by oddly excising the reference to D. Bacon's first publication and Smith's response to it (his 1857 publication specifically replies to Hawthorne and others who had asserted DB's priority). To be compreensive we ought also include the anonymous 1852 Chambers essay, which adopts arguments similar to Hart's (viz: Shakespeare was a theatrical entrepreneur who employed one or more anonymous starving poets). Paul B (talk) 01:58, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The sentence that I changed said that Delia Bacon had identified Bacon as the true author in the 1856 Putnam's essay, but she did not. She went on about what an uneducated lout Shakespeare was, but she never named anyone as the author. She was supposed to do so in the next installment, but the editor killed it. It wasn't until the next year that she published her book, which stated the works were written by a coterie of playwrights directed by Ralegh and inspired by Bacon, who wanted to spread his philosophy through implicit as well as explicit means. After she published, Smith expanded his letter and published the version as Bacon and Shakespere (IIRC), and claimed priority because of his earlier letter and also said he had been holding his tongue for 20 years.
 * This illustrates the need to fully explain the phenomenon, as well as the bardolatry that was the precursor. According to Schoenbaum and Smatprt, all this is unnecessary because the important thing is that the True Author has been identified and everything previous to Looney is just so much prologue. The only reason anyone ever doubted Shakespeare is because the evidence doesn't add up; bardolatry had nothing to do with it, just like slavery had nothing to do with the American Civil War; it was over states' rights, and American foreign policy had nothing to do with 9/11; it happened because Islamofascist terrorists hate freedom. Tom Reedy (talk) 03:35, 8 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, I know DB does not identify an author in the essay - she doesn't even clearly identify one in the book. My problem is that you deleted the sentence about the essay instead of improving it. Also, Smith clearly says that he is responding to claims about DB's earlier essay, not to the book. He is insisting that he had not read, or even heard of, the essay when he wrote his privately circulated letter. Paul B (talk) 11:11, 8 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I've restored the material and added a section on the Chambers essay. It's actually quite intriguing that Hart and the anonymous Chambers' author are essentially describing the experience of poor journalists having to write for the journals and serial publications typical of their own day - such as Chambers Magazine itself, or other serials such as those created by Charles Knight and Samuel Beeton, who published numerous books under their own name that were actually written by various anonymous researchers/writers paid by the line. (even Mrs Beeton's famous cook-book was first published as "Beeton's Book of Household Management", part of the "Beeton's book of.." series). Shakespeare is portrayed as the owner of a sort of literary franchise, creating "Shakespeare's book of Hamlet" (part of ongoing the "Shakespeare's book of..." series), and employing anonymous writers who haven't got the capital to publish on their own. The fact that Robert Chambers himself was the secret author of Vestiges of Creation, anonymously expressing radical philosophical ideas, may also be relevant to the development of Delia Bacon's model. His likely authorship was widely discussed at the time. It would be good to know if anything RS is published on this context. Paul B (talk) 13:30, 8 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Again, you attribute to Schoenbaum, a belief that is strictly in your minds. He has stated that every edit he has made has been as an "anti-Stratfordian" and not to benefit any candidate. By essentially calling him a liar, you do not assume good faith and continue to make unproved accusations, which is your history. And you misquote both of us when you say that "all" of the bardolatry section was unnecessary. What both of us said was it was way too long and deserved its own article. Quite different than how you have misrepresented us. We also objected to your making a major change in the article with no discussion and no consensus for what, even you must admit, is a major addition of material. Smatprt (talk) 05:44, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
 * "Again, you attribute to Schoenbaum, a belief that is strictly in your minds". Baloney. Only an Oxfordian would write this, and you know it. Paul B (talk) 22:52, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I guess we have to agree to disagree. Schoenbaums' rebuttal was "What could be more relevant than evidence that the real author died long before Wm. Shakspere of Stratford died?" It's one of the strongest anti-Strat arguments simply because it rules out the Stratford man. The fact that it fails to rule Oxford out is a plus for Oxford, but so what? It would also be a plus for any candidate that died before 1609, such as QE1, Marlowe, or any new candidate that might come along that meets that criteria. (And no, I'm not saying the Queen is a strong candidate, but she has been nominated, yes?Smatprt (talk) 01:13, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
 * You know QEI is not a serious candidate. She has no body of followers. And Marlowe did not die before 1609 in Marlovian theory, so it does not rule him out. In fact Schoenbaum clearly refers negatively to "other candidates", as you know, but chose not to quote: "The supporters of other authorship candidates need the author not to be dead by 1609, despite all the evidence he was. Oxfordians don't "need" the author to be dead; they merely point to all of the evidence he was." What is the point of this persistent disingenuousness? Paul B (talk) 09:01, 9 March 2010 (UTC)