Who Wrote Shakespeare? | Sir Jonathan Bate & Alexander Waugh

[Applause] hello and welcome we're here tonight to debate the question of Shakespeare's authorship and a question which is so explosive and potentially radical that it's very rare for the academia the groves of a khadeem to discuss it at all so we are very honored to have with us sir jonathan bait the preeminent Shakespeare scholar who will be making the case for the man from Stratford as the author of the plays and poems so Jonathan is professor of English literature at Oxford University he has published on Shakespeare in Ovid on Shakespeare and his collaborators on Shakespeare and the romantics he edited the Royal Shakespeare Company complete works a monumental book as well as a best-seller of sorts and he is his influence is such that his odd in addition in 1995 of Titus Andronicus totally revised our feelings about the play he is going to really make his case for Shakespeare and on the other hand we have here aleksander war in the red corner the chairman of the de Vere Society who is in demand around the world as a spokesperson for the theory that the 17th Earl of Oxford Edward de Vere was the author of Shakespeare's work war himself is also a distinguished editor of the 42:42 volume 43 volume complete work for even more his grandfather he is the author of such modestly title books as God time and also a biography as the Vic and Stein family he is also the author of a very pertinent Shakespeare in court which is published on Kindle and the two I believe are great friends and never discuss the Shakespeare question they will each speak for 15 minutes then they will rebut one another's arguments and answer each other's arguments and then we shall move to questions from the floor so I shall light the fuse and stand well back Alexander oh thank you very much thank you thank you thank you I we're not actually here tonight as far as I understand it oh I'm got it completely wrong we're not here to discuss Edward de Vere or any other candidate we're here to discuss whether the man from Stratford William SHAKSPER as I'm going to call him not to not to Bates Jonathan but I'm gonna call him William Shakespeare to be clear because it's very boring when people say of course Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare to make any sense so I'm gonna call him William Shakespeare that's how he tended to think of himself and so did his friends and I'm gonna say William Shakespeare when I mean the author which I'm absolutely convinced is a pseudonym and first of all I would like to say thank you very very very much to Jonathan actually because it is wonderful that he's here the English literature Academy is a little little tight little group of people in America in England are very ferocious about this subject they don't like it discussed and I happen to know there are certain professors among them who are appalled that Jonathan has agreed to appear today and Jonathan has put it on record that he says that academics must be challenged and I completely support him in that and it is absolutely wonderful that he's here now just before everyone swans off thinking oh yes but he had such wonderful introduction Jonathan bate he's handsome Jonathan bate he's all these things and who's this scrupulous idiot on the other side III just want to try and clarify a little bit here English literature if you study it at university you do not study Shakespeare and biography what you study is a rather sort of creative criticism usually using a lot of jargon that nobody understands so III am NOT trying to demean Jonathan I have a huge respect for people who study English literature but I want it clear in everybody's heads that the study of English literature does not give you um not only over the question of who wrote Shakespeare that is a question which belongs to historians who understand the concept of history and where things sit within historical context and of course it belongs to people whose life is spent studying evidence and that is lawyers and it's very difficult in fact to find a historian who is on the side of the Stratfor Tian's it is absolutely impossible to find a lawyer who is inside of the Stratfor Tian's and the reason is that where they look at evidence and they understand evidence and they say this simply doesn't hold up and what we find in America's most extraordinary case where the highest lawyers in the free world that is what are called the Supreme Court justices all of those who have declared on the subject of William Shakespeare every single one of them has says this does not hold up and we cannot support the idea that Stratford shacks pose I'm now going to call him wrote those plays now and people say to me why why do you know that William Shakespeare is a pseudonym and the on-track she's very simple we know it's a pseudonym because everybody at the time said it was a pseudonym now this is the area where I get really really vexed actually by the Inglot us because I've just said you know that their skill set is not really about history it's not about evidence it's about reading texts and this is where they could be really really useful but actually it's taboo with Inglot it's absolutely taboo to discuss the matter of William Shakespeare's identity I know I know three professors who are not allowed to print anything in the in the peer-reviewed journals because they don't agree with the case I know five personally I know five people who have done their English literature doctorates and were told by their mentors if you mention the fact that you don't agree that William Shakespeare wrote these things you will fail your doctorate it's that bossy and ghastly that's why I'm serious when I think Jonathan was turning up today it's a horrible little tight world of whipping and censorship and dogma and so that's what we're trying to break out off now what are all these people who are telling us that William Shakespeare was a pseudonym well it's everybody at the time and and this is where the evidence lies it's at the time you have to look at the time there's no interest in what anybody says in the 19th century or late in that you have to look at the period when William SHAKSPER of Stratford died that's 19 sorry 1616 within about a generation of his death that's all that matters and that's what we've got to look at today okay so what who are all these people who are saying it's a pseudonym well they're saying it in a very slightly disguised way and the reason they're doing that is gonna get the huge trouble and they'll in fact be pulled up in front of the Star Chamber if they're caught at it so they say it a little bit subtly so for instance we have a fellow called Edwards Thomas Edwards in 1595 and he describes Shakespeare as masking through he calls him and he's actually talking about obviously some quite high up person because he's saying he's robed in purple robes disdain'd he's someone who is a disgraced nobleman and he's masking through now what does masking mean towards him means he's in disguise of some sort now we get a man called Weaver John Weaver quite a famous epigrammatic is very very good historian and he calls Shakespeare a certain writer spurious well we all know what spurious means spurious means not deriving or not proceeding from the from its recognised source in other words it's spurious means he's not the author weaver actually goes on another poem to talk about William Shakespeare and he says hello Shakespeare I thought when I read your works that actually they're written by Apollo not by you well of course anyone in the day at the time you just look up which which contemporary playwright and poet is actually being referred to as Apollo and you know quite simply who it is and it's a little joke and then we're getting a lot of these jokes that come through of people heavily suggesting that we're dealing with issued in him as a man called William Covel now this guy I'm talking about anybody want to name him tonight but there is a guy who was known as the Apollo of his day the great sort of patron and playwright of his day and this man William Koval he puts dis man's name he writes the name just like that and then he squeezes in between it the letters of a secret and then he puts a module note right by the side of it saying sweet Shakespeare so he's telling you right there and then that this man is Shakespeare now I'm writing a book at the moment which has all of the Shakespeare allusions in it with an American professor who's one of these professors who were banned from the Academy for having a difficult view and and this fellow he said to me the other day it's like shooting fish in a barrel it really is that easy you pick up every single one of these things and they're telling you that it's a pseudonym time and time and time again but you will not find that in any of the books written by the academicians who are told that under no circumstance they allowed to put it in there so for instance we do not hear of a man who says who called Shakespeare in 1636 that English Earl who loved a play and a player it's simply banned I was I was on I was on radio in America I give $1,000 in crisp notes to anyone who can find that and standard in a standard biography Shakespeare it was in and it was used in a very early book of Shakespearean allusions and whipped out ever since and been taken away we have plenty of examples of that we have a man called William Davenant who in 1636 said if you go to stratford-upon-avon in remembrance of master William Shakespeare your eyes will be mocked he said the only playwright you're going to find there is full greville Lord Brook who had a house on the Omni even so and and I would like to just mention a Ben Jonson a very very important person he's a wonderfully on on one side I'm pleased to say the first folio of Shakespeare which 36 plays published in 1623 so this is about seven years after William Shakespeare of Stratford died and Ben Jonson tells you if you're going to read to the sense as George Daniel of Bezeq told you to do when you see a poem read to the Sense time just sit looking at the surface of it what does he actually telling you Ben Jonson writes a poem and it says to my beloved VIII author and huge great big letters mr. Williams Experion tiny letters what does that mean well it's pretty obvious what it means it means he thinks that the author is much more important than the name and he confirms as the minute he starts his poem he says to draw no Envy Shakespeare in brackets on thy name now how do you draw Envy on a person's name very very simple you praise it now what he's saying is he's not going to praise Shakespeare's name he's refusing to do it why is he refusing to do it well he's very kindly lays out the whole arguments of why he's not going to do it he says because those of silliest ignorance will assume that what they hear which is only an echo is actually a direct sound he says those of blind affection will be sent groping in the darkness towards the truth and then he says and those of crafty malice will pretend to praise just so they can sink the poor fellow who actually wrote it he goes on for 16 lines like this line 17 now I shall begin my Shakespeare rise and now he's talking about the author and of course he tells you that that author was writing plays in the in the 1580s with long before Stratford Shakespeare had little hair on his chin and and that he was and he calls him sweets one of Aven and then of course what we have is the Inglot division comes in sweet son of Haven that's Eve and that must be the Haven there with the seven rivers Gaul David no no it's got to be the one in Stratford no it hasn't even doesn't mean that even there's any learning person in those days meant it meant Hampton Court it sounds peculiar I agree with you but that you'll find that in Leyland and you'll find it in Camden you'll find in all the people learning people of those days knew now what does he say sweets one of Avon what a sighted were to see thee in our waters yet appear and make those flights upon the banks of Thames that so did take Eliezer in our James where did Elizabeth and James go to the theatre and no they did not go to the globe and they did not go to any of the public theatres ever the most famous theatre of course was Hampton Court and so what he's telling you Ben Jonson is that he's a courtier poet and this is what Johnson's doing all the time now we know Johnson wrote a poem which starts if passenger had to go Jonathan might remember if passenger thou canst but read stay is a poem written by Ben Jonson what does it say on the Stratford monument to Shakespeare stay passenger read if thou canst this is one of many many examples that is telling us that Ben Jonson wrote the Stratford Monument Ben Jonson wrote the first folio Ben Jonson wrote the Hemings and Crandall letters which appear in the first folio and what I think we're gonna hear I don't - jump what Jonathan's gonna say what expect he's gonna say it's look Johnson says this look Hemings and consoles say this look these stratford monument says that but they're all Ben Jonson it's the same person we have no evidence that Ben Jonson knew William SHAKSPER in his lifetime we have no evidence that William SHAKSPER knew one single playwright during his lifetime and this is a grotesque and complicated embarrassment there's a man called Frances Mears who in 1598 drew up a great list of all the great playwrights of his day so these are the great people now you take those people out of that list and put them together and look at the documentary record and find who actually knew whom at that time very quickly you can find documentary evidence that kid knew Nash that Nash knew mater Nash new people knew and you can you can draw an enormous nexus from the documentary evidence of all the playwrights who knew each other but there's one the most famous one right in the middle of the whole thing and nobody knows who he is nobody and then what this evidence is telling us of absence absence of evidences is telling you very clearly that there was no one called William Shakespeare at the time walking around as a playwright that I think is the fastest most garbled attempt that I've given to do this we had only had 15 minutes but I tell you I'm going to sit down now but I tell you I have just showing you a glimpse of a damn wall and what is behind there would flood the whole of this place with the vast amount of evidence that tells you that William Shakespeare is a pseudonym thank you [Applause] fantastic thank you so much we have their evidence of the taboo of Shakespeare denial we have a vast amount of contemporary evidence and really a beginning of a demolition of the First Folio there I think that's very very good thank you I would call on so Jonathan bate to make his case if you please Thank You Himani this is a debate now the key to the spirit of debate is this are you prepared to change your mind do you believe in evidence-based argument or do you prefer coincidences conspiracies and cryptograms hidden codes I am here to speak for historical evidence for truth for fact but in our post truth world I know that I will not persuade the believers in the fake news that Shakespeare did not write Shakespeare to change their minds I will not persuade the cultists of Oxford who have put bits of paper on your chairs cultists allow emotion and wishful thinking to rule over evidence and common sense I am here to address the agnostics among you the true believers in the false story are a lost cause but I'm rather fond of them they add to the gaiety of Nations especially Alexander war Alexander is a dear friend but you must know two things about the walls number one they love to be contrarians his father Oberon was one of our great contrarians number two they love an aristocrat read his grandfather's novels now here's the most important fact of tonight nobody nobody for 240 years after Shakespeare's death expressed any doubt that William Shakespeare the actor from stratford-upon-avon was the author of the plays and poems the first person to doubt it was a woman called Delia bacon she ended up in a private lunatic asylum she thought that the author was Francis Bacon bacon I wonder why she thought that and then over the years subsequent proposals came in among the dozens of candidates we've had the first Earl of Salisbury the second Earl of Essex the third Earl of Southampton the fifth the Earl of Rutland the 6th Earl of Derby the seventh Earl of Shrewsbury the 8th floored Mountjoy the 17th Earl of Oxford the bastard son of the Earl of Hartford and Lady Catherine Gray and not to mention Queen Elizabeth and King James everybody loves an heiress to Kratt why at some point in the 19th century did people start thinking an aristocrat might have written the works of Shakespeare well there's a simple answer to that it was because serious biographical work about Shakespeare began to emerge in the late 18th century and we found his life was rather boring he made money out of his plays he was shrewd enough unlike the other playwrights who merely got paid on a piecework basis he was shrewd enough to become a shareholder with the actors and take a share of the box-office profits and it allowed him to buy a big house back home in Stratford now in the 19th century the Romantic period everybody wanted great authors to be glamorous and was famous author of the age was Lord Byron so they wanted Shakespeare to be a glamorous aristocrat like Lord Byron alas though he wasn't the true story of Shakespeare is a story about how you can come from the middle classes and with a Grammar School education no university education Shakespeare was much mocked for not having a university education you can become a great writer right let's begin with facts in the will of William Shakespeare shacks burst shags bird people were very very relaxed about spelling in those days in the will of the man from Stratford he leaves morning rings to his friends John Hemings Henry Condell Richard Burbage the leading actors of his Acting Company the Lord Chamberlain's later for King's Men on his tomb he is described as a great writer praised for his wit he is said on his funeral monument in Stratford Church to combine the wisdom of Socrates with the art of Virgil that monument was transcribed within a year of his death it's alluded to in poems of praise it's copied by pilgrims going to Stratford from the 1620s onwards people are going to Stratford saying this is the home of the great writer his monument of course shows him holding a pen and paper other writers in his lifetime praised him spoke about his writing techniques Ben Jonson fellow dramatist Shakespeare acts in many of Ben Johnson's plays we have the cast lists of half-a-dozen Johnson plays and Shakespeare's acting there Johnson when he goes north to meet the writer Drummond talks about Shakespeare's writing techniques he also does so in his private notebooks others to Frances Bowmont William Camden John Davis of Hereford Sir George buck Leonard Diggs Frances Mears became bridge author of the Parnassus plays they all talk about Shakespeare as a writer now the antistrophe audience will say where then are his manuscripts why don't we have the manuscripts to prove the signatures but survival real in Shakespeare are the same unfortunately no manuscripts of any of the 600 published plays by any authors from the period survived once a manuscript went to the printer the printer either recycled it'll threw it away however a tiny number of theatre manuscripts survived because they were of plays that weren't performed one of those was a collaborative play caliber in the theater then as in television and film now the art of writing was a collaborative art collaboration was the norm Shakespeare contributed a scene to a collaborative play about the life of Sir Thomas Moore that was banned because it was too politically sensitive and handwriting experts have looked at the hand in that manuscript and I've held it in the British Library and found six particular features of handwriting which they've then compared with Shakespeare signatures and with a handwriting of 250 other writers from the period and there are six features that only match Shakespeare's letters people say well why don't we have Shakespeare's letters well we do have a couple of Shakespeare's letters they were appended to his poems but poems which made his name Venus and Adonis and rape of Louise and they are rather servile they are saying please give me patronage milord Southampton the idea that an Earl like Oxford one of the great Earl's of the land would have written these servile flattering letters to a mere junior aristocrat Oh a twenty-year-old whippersnapper like Southampton is inconceivable the theory about Oxford having to or some other aristocrat having to write under a pseudonym because they were worried about being associated with the theatre is frankly bizarre the Earl of Oxford was patron sponsor of a theatre company Oxford's men they toured in the provinces in the 1580s and 90s if Oxford was proud of involvement with the theatre why didn't he write the plays for Oxford's men if he was ashamed then why did he have an Acting Company we hear that Shakespeare's father was illiterate it's funny then that there's a a will and city in which someone leaves him some some books a strange thing to leave to an illiterate man why were the notebooks in Shakespeare's will well look at the Wills of Heywood Beaumont Fletcher messenger Middleton Webster Ford Mastan snow books in any of their wills he wouldn't on the whole specify books in their wills now one of Alexander's big arguments is that the person who wrote the plays must have gone to Italy because there's lots of detail about Italy in the plays those would be the plays where two of them are set in Venice and there's no single mention of a canal there are certain details about Italy that seemed to be authentic but equally Ben Jonson never went to Italy and yet in Volpone he knows the location of the portico - the procurator John Webster never went to Italy yet in the Duchess of Milan he knows the location of a lay-in behind st. Mark's Church you can pick up knowledge from books and conversations we might just as well say how did Shakespeare know about the details of the platform at Elsinore in Hamlet the answer would be that three of his fellow actors in the Acting Company Brian Pope and Kemp went to Elsinore and told him about it the Earl of Oxford never went to Elsinore how could this humble middle-class boy from the Grammar School have known so much about aristocratic households according to John Dryden a 17th century writer much closer to aristocratic households of the time that than we are he writes that Shakespeare understood very little of the conversation of gentleman Shakespeare was actually pretty useless at representing what aristocratic households with retain hundreds of retainers were really like just have a look at Romeo and Juliet where the the character of Capulet leading aristocrat is his daughter's about to be married to Paris a kinsman to the prince he's down in the kitchen speaking to the staff know that sort of thing didn't happen Shakespeare didn't know about Italy you didn't know about our aristocratic households what did he know about he knew about wolf trading and leather manufacture his father was a glove maker the plays refer to calf skin sheepskin lambskin Fox skin dog skin gear deerskin kids skin knits leather leather for a bridle Shakespeare was above all a countryman look at the countrymen in The Winter's Tale speaking about Todd's yielding pounds and shillings for wool this is Countryman's language 600 plays from the period survived the only ones that mention Warwickshire and Gloucestershire are those by Shakespeare he's a little problem for the argument about the Earl of Oxford writing Shakespeare he died in 1604 a large number of Shakespeare's plays were written thereafter in the plays that Shakespeare wrote in the reign of Queen Elizabeth he always talks about England because she was Queen of England in the plays that he wrote for King James after James came to the throne in 1603 he wrote about Britain because King James wanted to unite England and Scotland into Britain Macbeth King Lear and Cymbeline are specifically linked to the Jacobean project similarly in 1608 Shakespeare's Acting Company acquired an indoor Playhouse so that instead of acting outside in natural daylight they had to have candles so in his late plays he starts introducing act divisions for five act structure so there's a break so the candles can be replaced all that early boxer was a clever chap he realized that four years after his death that would be an indoor theater so he must have written some plays like The Winter's telomer tempest with act breaks just preparing for it and then most interestingly of all the end of Shakespeare's career he's got to decide who's gonna take over as the leading playwright of the Acting Company and he chooses a young dramatist called John Fletcher who came onto the scene in 1607 and Shakespeare's last three plays the two noble kinsmen Henry the eighth's and the partially lost play card nao are co-written with Fletcher for 150 years scholars have been able to identify the different linguistic fingerprints of Shakespeare and Fletcher Shakespeare says you Fletcher says ye Shakespeare says them Fletcher obliviate stir em ' II M feminine endings an unstressed syllable at the end of the line very different patterns in Shakespeare and Fletcher so we know as Shakespeare and Fletcher sat down to write Henry the eighth's two noble kinsmen together which scenes with Shakespeare which were Fletcher's I'm struggling to imagine how Oxford did that from beyond the grave let alone how he collaborated with Fletcher in the play of Cardini Oh which was based on Don Quixote 1605 after Oxford's death and indeed has allusions to the 1612 English translation I still want to celebrate the work of the antistrophe audience and to thank them because there is a long history whereby forgery and fiction has assisted the work of true scholarship because we get asked hard questions of scholars and we have to find better answers so it was there were two very interesting scholars in California called Elliot and valensa one a statistician one a computer scientist who became convinced that Shakespeare couldn't have been Shakespeare but they developed well established techniques of linguistic fingerprinting everybody has their own linguistic fingerprint the little turns of phrase the little choices we all make and they run through their computers not only the entire corpus of surviving drama of the period Shakespeare shall experience plays but also for surviving writings of the Earl of Oxford and all those other candidates and they came to the conclusion that it is a mathematical certainty that none of those are the candidates could have written the work of Shakespeare but thanks to those advances in stylo metric study we now know things we didn't know before for instance we know when Shakespeare early in his career wrote Titus Andronicus he collaborated with George Peale and we know that because Peale used leatheran as the plural of brothers and Shakespeare used brothers and we know from that Peale wrote the first act Shakespeare the rest so it's something of something to be celebrated that we have these debates because eventually the truth will out [Applause] thank you so much thank you sir Johnathan bait we have here the vivifying effect of the counter-argument we have plenty of evidence of Shakespeare's own handwriting identified as hand D on the text of Sir Thomas More the counter-argument often portrays Shakespeare as illiterate so I'd be interested to hear the response to that to the response to the Warwickshire dialect in the verse and so many other the diet there was a mention of those moments for questions from the floor will come afterwards please but there was a point about dialect and there was a point about styler metrics and the monument in Stratford thank you look I'm sorry don't clap see I'm got time this then there's so much here that's wrong and we haven't got very much time and I'm in a poorer because because I I felt it was quite rushed to 15 minutes and there were lots and lots of things I wasn't able to put in so I'm grateful to John and it's always good to start with thank yous for all the things that you didn't mention that I never even said anyway saying about Italy of course it'll ISM is a major problem we we have Shakespeare plays based on Italian works by sintió and Mandela and works that were not translated into English and somehow this amazing person managed to read Italian and managed to read French because I mean Hamlet's based on a French thing by Bella Forest we have all these absolute knowledge of the fact that he's using foreign things and so thank you for bringing that up it is a problem for the Stratford ins and it should be now shall I go through some of the errors or shy I mean look my notes are everywhere now just a few errors right what did Jonathan say on his tomb is praised as a great wit no he's not I mean it's as simple as that it's very interesting I said it's by Ben Jonson that tomb and the tomb is really clever because what it's you know again it's it's Johnson wants you to read to the sense and Johnson is very guilty and he writes about what he's done about Shakespeare in his way you know I I've I've let people think things that own they came from me and it was wrong and literatures being misunderstood and he he actually says in this great sort of weeping statement before he talks about shakespeare the actor he says accused himself really being guilty of idolatry the setting up of false idols Johnson's a wonderful person and he didn't get these things wrong he didn't praise Shakespeare as a great wit and anyone who's read the stratford monument will see exactly what johnson's doing very clever and very funny first thing he's doing is he's telling you the real shakespeare is actually buried in Westminster Abbey the second thing he's doing is saying that Shakespeare of Stratford the only thing he's got is this enormous name that is worth so much worth more than cost he says and it's just the title page he's worth but one page that's all that Shakespeare stands for ok listen what did Jonathan say nobody nobody expressed doubt about Shakespeare before 1838 John Dowdell history of Shakespeare watery rails against though who and I quote had the hardihood to question Shakespeare's identity 1786 as a whole book published saying that he that poaching story was absolute rubbish and then he goes on to say with equal falsehood has he been fathered with many spurious dramatic pieces Hamlet Othello as you like it I could go on and on 1796 the thief of all thieves was a Warwickshire feast 1759 tyranny Shakespeare Shakespeare who wrote it why Ben Jonson 1728 Golding in all probability Shakespeare could not write English it's just absolute rubbish to say that started I'm sorry John but it's absolute right and anyway it's irrelevant to the argument and this is what my worry is that this is how this argument happens we get we get shifted away we're here to talk about where the Stratford shacked but could wrote those plays we haven't even discussed whether he could even write now we're told that we're told that on the on the will he's has these wonderful signatures no he doesn't those signatures are highly contested by people who have looked at them Jane Cox who was the was the head of Renaissance manuscripts at the National Archives put it on record saying that these are all done by different hands they are all spelt differently they all look different and then he said that some manuscript called Thomas More oh yes absolutely definitely Shakespeare's hand because we're using a control sample of some debated signatures now come on I don't need to be talking to a room of Paley ologist here to understand that you cannot have a control sample of signatures that are debated anyway which are 20 years later than this this thing they're saying is by Shakespeare of Stratford and anyway there are no dots on the eyes on that one there on that and the B is completely different on that and you haven't been reading Jonathan I'm sorry but you have not read all the latest literature on this there's a huge article in the absolutely Stratfor daeun book which is called the shakespeare quarterly by Michael L Hayes which completely rubbishes this idea that that's by him there was a huge article in Renaissance English Studies lately by by diana price completely rubbish is it it's finished that argument about about the Thomas More manuscript I'm sorry Oxford wrote under a pseudonym you say there's no evidence that Oxford wrote under a pseudonym again this is is it a simply just not knowing the fact there's a man called John Bonham who in 1600 wrote a book in which he says that the Earl of Oxford's works appear under other people's names they are published on to other people says I'm not here to argue about the Earl of Oxford now what was all this thing about candles you started saying oh Shakespeare started writing five act plays so that so that so that you could have a candle break as a candle soon loss I mean look now there are second rule makers but we all know that you can have a candle this big that lasts for fourteen years if you want to or a little one that lasts ten minutes I mean it's just absolutely rubbish and and there is no evidence at all there is not a single piece of evidence in Shakespeare's lifetime the one Shakespearean play was performed at the Blackfriars theatre which he says is where he changed all his view of how to write five at comedies can I just remind you Jonathan of the plays that Shakespeare wrote in five acts before the Blackfriars frozen was built the comedy of errors Romeo and Juliet richard ii much ado about nothing come on five act plays John Lilly was writing five act plays in 1585 act place of the standard form that we inherited from Seneca and from plautus I mean it's the most famous thing to say five-act place because the candle was gonna burn out I just can't III really can't deal with all this okay what else do you write Oh Italy I mean this either dealt with it city nobody-nobody have said that a huge number of kin said that look come on guys this I think I think I think Jonathan and I both agree that this debate needs a lot more time and this is the frustration I'm feeling this evening I'm enjoying it it's fun I'm glad you're all here but honestly to get through all of this stuff which is wrong it takes a serious sit down and I'm going to sit down now but I'm going to say - everybody's remotely interesting subject please go on the internet please look up the facts and you'll find very quickly that William Shakespeare it was a pseudonym thank you [Applause] [Music] [Applause] well Alexander said some some very curious things I mean the just going back to those those early plays if you look at how they were printed in the court oh they do not have a v extraction they have a scene after scene after scene the v act structures were imposed retrospectively in the first folio as for the signatures nobody has ever questioned Shakespeare's signature on the D position on the bailout Mountjoy case a case a law case of 1612 which has a distinctive way of writing a letter a without finishing the curl of it so it looks like a you which is exactly like a feature in the manuscripts of Sir Thomas Moore and Giles Dawson one of the world's leading handwriting experts has examined two hundred and fifty Elizabethan hands including Oxford's and many others and none of them have that and what is more there are several misprints in Shakespeare's printed plays that come from the result of the composite of the printer reading his a as a you because of that particular handwriting technique now what are these things that an Alexander has said he's they're full of conspiracies and mysteries this idea that Cavell William William cavil covertly mentioned the Earl of Oxford it's nonsense if you look at the context of what he writes there it's in a letter published letter praising the universities of Cambridge and Oxford when he talks about Oxford he's talking about Oxford University and he says as Cambridge his greatest writer is Edmund Spenser so Oxford's greatest writer is Samuel Daniel and then what he does in the margins is he puts the names of a bunch of also-rans writers who were not the greatest writers from Oxford or Cambridge but still are to be praised I think the main point I want to to make about the anti Stratford Ian fallacy is that although Shakespeare's plays were admired in their time they were not uniquely admired Johnson was admired as much Beaumont and Fletcher were admired as much many other dramatists as well even after the restoration of the theaters bowmen lectures plays were put on twice as often as Shakespeare's why is it that people don't want to say AHA Ben Jonson didn't write the works of Ben Jonson or Fletcher didn't write the works of Fletcher the what would I hate about the that the idea that an actor could not have written the plays is that it seems so counterintuitive to the way that we all know that theatre works theater works collaboratively Shakespeare was a member of the Acting Company writing plays for particular actors in the company and writing collaboratively at the beginning and end of his career so this idea that this aristocrat sort of swans in and sort of oh here it is you used silly actors you just perform it that's not how theatre works it's a grave disrespect to the theatre to think like that as I say there are many other great writers in the period and Alexander said in his talk that he he does not know of any historians of the period who are strapped for Diaz I don't know of any historians for theory to her auntie Stratfor Tian's apart from one a man named William Rubenstein and he's not a believer in the Earl of Oxford so I think we do need to take everything that Alexander says with a very large pinch of salt but I agree with Alexander go to the Internet in particular go to the site called ox fraud which gives you one hundred and two reasons why Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare and the Earl of Oxford didn't [Applause] well I'm delighted to say that we have the results of your entrance poll the votes were cast thus that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare we have 78 believers that someone else wrote Shakespeare's work we have a hundred and seven votes and don't know it it exudes these 86 that we are most interested to watch perhaps which way they might move after this Berlin debate we also would be interested to break down the someone else vote could I hear perhaps a response vocally for who here might think that somebody else would be Sir Francis Bacon I'm not I'm glad to know that the feeling from the audience is very focused on tax payer versus Shakespeare so we will we will we will continue if we don't have any strong feelings that's brilliant to know because at this point we're going to throw the debate open to the floor and I would like to take questions thank you sir as thank you I wouldn't even shout now as having received the grammar school education as I understand it this is based on the following shakespeare must obviously have been educated Shakespeare lived in Stratford there was a Grammar School in Stratford therefore shacks were went to Stratford grab us thank you sir is not that I would like to hear what natural evidence there is that shacks we went to Stratford or any other school thank you simple dance that is that Johnny Shakespeare Shakespeare's father was on the Town Council he became Chamberlain of Stratford and members of the town council were entitled to send their children to the grammar school for free also there is a funny little scene in Merry Wives of Windsor which precisely did but comically portrays a lesson in a grammar school with a Welsh schoolmaster it happens there was a schoolmaster of Welsh origin when Shakespeare was at Stratford just as another of his schoolmaster was man called John Brown's Raju was a rather distinguished Latin poet and in that the little boy who's a bit cheeky is called will it's the most autobiographical moment in Shakespeare there is evidence it is true that the the role is lost from the period the role of who were the boys in the school is lost but there is no confusing the fact that John Shakespeare his father was on the town council and that the members of the town council would entitled to send their children to the school for free it could have happened and do you want to comment on whether there's no record that shacks borough Stratford had any education at all either at university or there now he possibly was at the Stratford to Grammar School I'm not gonna say he wasn't there long as he was but of course what happens with these opportunism when you're decided that shacks piss trap but then of course he has to have been there but there is no evidence and and and just a second Jonathan when you when you look at the absence of education the absence of his having written anything the absence of anyone saying that he's written anything the absence of his family don't say he's a writer he never says he's a writer all this line of zero zero zero zero nothing and compared it to every other writer of his day where they've got some big evidence Diana prize did a good study on this then you realize that the zero for the most famous writer on all these most important points is evidence of something some like his his neighbor Leonard Diggs talks about him is nobody who says Thomas Haywood was a writer there is nobody who says John Webster was a writer nonsense absolutely John Webster you go to you go to hens lows Diaries and he's sitting I'm paying John Webster for writing a play in the henslowe stars he says it I'm sorry he's writing page four writing a play that's contemporary evidence that Webster as a writer we don't have any problem with that we have a problem with William Shakespeare the most famous writer of the lot we have no evidence that he was a writer in his lifetime it's a big problem sorry thanks dad my impression of this discussion and I'm very pleased it's taking place is that from an outsider's point of view and I'm not an outsider I'm an ox Audion but if I'm listening with an outsider's ears neither person putting the cases has scored a knockout punch and in the light of this I would like to ask you both but particularly you sir Jonathan are we moving towards an epoch where in the discussion of this question both parties will be able to take each other's discussion seriously and forego the hominem attacks that have so characterized this all business on both sides can are we moving into an epoch of discussion where a degree if you like of agnosticism on both sides may become possible I think I can say with a good conscience I have only ever once made an and ad hominem reference in in this whole debate which was with reference to an anti Stratfor diem who was also Holocaust to denier and that seemed to me a matter of where it was important to be ad hominem other than that I I don't think I have ever been I because I believe passionately in the importance of truth and of historical evidence but I do worry I do worry that but we but what I was saying there is that we we love the wars because they are contrarians we do and because they love honest to Christ there's a question coming from the red stars go fix some clarity on a point that the Earl of Oxford died in before a number of Shakespeare plays were written just answer that point directly please who is this address to well I would you address directly the point about the date of death of the Earl of Oxford yes but with a heavy heart I'm here to discuss Shak spur of Stratford and whether he wrote those plays I've said to the organizers of this event that if the motion is carried tonight I'm very happy to come back with Jonathan and argue the case for the Earl of Oxford I'm also told the organizers tonight that I've made this sensational discovery which is the Earl of Oxford is buried directly underneath the monument in in Westminster Abbey to William Shakespeare and I'm prepared to give this society the very first look at that extraordinary unpublished evidence I'm not really wanting to stand here now and defend the Earl of Oxford but believe you me I'm not so stupid and no ox fortunes of that stupid that if it were proven that any Shakespeare play were written after 1604 of course we wouldn't be ox40 ins so there's quite clearly a very strong argument that that's wrong and I don't have what is yeah I mean I do find Oxford Ian's oddly quiet about the Fletcher collaborations and the clear style Styler metric evidence of two noble kinsmen and Henry the eighth's as being two writers working very close together what what is the Oxfordian position on the fletcher collaboration the oxford position is extremely clear that Oxford wrote an awful lot of plays we know perfectly well if we actually read Hayward's apology to the actors that we know that the court plays are being constantly revised and up done and and made topical and we know that in Shakespeare's case Oxford died in 1604 and it is very very obvious that his plays were absolute brilliant and that people like Middleton and people like Fletcher who were the big cheese's in those days were told come along chaps let's get this out and actually if you read again reading to the sense Jonathan which I ask you to do read the prologue of two noble kinsmen that was published in 1634 as by Shakespeare and Fletcher and see what he's really saying because the Stratford Ian's again that they're lazy about this and they think they're just talking about Chaucer he's not he's talking about the dead Shakespeare and he's saying I really hope the dead Shakespeare isn't upset that I'm revising this thing look at it read it carefully and you'll understand exactly the Oxfordian point of view of Oxford surviving poems they're really beautiful to Abby because at present the Earl of Oxford is thought to have been buried and hackneyed is that right well there are two occasions there are two there are two accounts we have we have a thing thing he's been acting and we have his first cousin saying he is buried in Westminster so we are now resolved it and I know exactly ways but it's really really exciting and overnighting and I'll come and show everybody here if they won't come back may I have a question here thank you um I wondered if if I could ask Sir Jonathan and Alexander to speak about the sonnets which have always struck me to be something very raw and personal and I may have understood misunderstood you Jonathan because I've heard you talk about them being a technical exercise and that that we must be weary to look back on that period of writing with modern ideas of how poets write but in my experience of poets those poets those poems cannot help but betray something personal in the way you've acknowledged the biographical detail of young will with his schoolmaster but could you speak about the authorship of the sonnets for a moment thank you very much yeah no it's a very good question at a great place were to come from the this is a really really tricky question because if you look at what people say about sonnet writing in Elizabethan and Jacobean England and every writer had a batch of sonnets it was something you had in your repertoire you will find that some people describe sonnets as a form of exercise a form of fantasy of Giles Fletcher not John Fletcher Charles Fletcher sort of says but who is my beloved in the sonnets it might be a real person it might not it might be the spirit of poetry itself I'm addressing so but then on the other hand there is no doubt that many sonnets sequence do seem to arise out of particular circumstances so there is a mystery around Shakespeare's sonnets there is still a debate as to whether when they were published in 1609 they were authorized or unauthorized and obviously though there's an element of scandal that potentially attached to them when they were reprinted in 1640 the gender of some of the sonnets addressed of a lovely boy was changed there addressed her she instead of he but my gut instinct any writer at some level makes use of their experience but what great art is about his transforming experience into art my gut feeling is that Shakespeare did have what I would describe as a bisexual imagination and that the sonnets are in many ways reflecting that but the sonnets are above all debates about the complex nature of love and in particular the sort of the tension between the idealizing spiritual aspect of love which is projected onto the lovely boy and the more erotic and sexual aspect of love projected onto the dark lady what fascinates me about the sonnets and what where I think I find the greatness of the sonnets is in the way that you get drawn into them and although they they very very rarely seem to mention names for example I mean they do at one point say my name is will which maybe suggests that the person who wrote called William but unlike other sonnet sequences of a time they don't give the name of the beloved they're very mysterious in that regard and I mean I have to say I we talked about agnosticism I am still agnostic as to whether some of them were written for the patronage of the Earl of Southampton and some for the Earl William Herbert the Earl of Pembroke or whether they were all for Southampton all for Pembroke there is a mystery about them and but that's where this is went to come back in weight of a question about whether we can have a debate where we can certainly have a debate is we can recognize that there are gaps and uncertainties around many aspects of Shakespeare's life but so - there are around the lives of so many other writers of the time I must throw this wonderful question thank you so much to Sir Mark Rylance it's absolutely brilliant to have a great actor here this evening and I must offer the question about the ante strap for daeun view of the sonnets to Alexander walk thank you I I mean the sonnet says everybody here probably knows 154 poems which is linked by theme and they're written in the first person generally speaking the Stratford Ian's run him run him away from them they're actually terrified of them because the first person is obviously quite a sort of a courtier he's addressing another courtier and but I'm gonna confine my remarks on the sonnets now to the question that we're here to debate is William Shakespeare a pseudonym now I've given you a great number of contemporaries who say yes it is a pseudonym we haven't actually heard from William Shakespeare himself and he tells you that really but it's a pseudonym in those sonnets if you follow the theme that he's talking about his name and his person he says if you read this line remember not the hand that writ it in me each part will be forgotten my name be buried where my body is as Jonathan knows better than anyone here because he's written a brilliant book on it Shakespeare was obsessed by Ovid and this idea that you metamorphose you actually turn you disappear and turn into your works now he's just brought out this subject absolutely crazy saying that Shakespeare says in the sonnets my name is will no she Jonathan and I know is so sensitive and so understanding of Shakespeare even though he's got the wrong fellow but too stupid to suggest that a poet of Shakespeare stature would write a line as fatuous as my name is will is completely bonkers is it possible that Marlowe would write a poem saying my name is Kris is it is it possible but the Tennyson my name is Alf or Spenser my name is ed no it's not happening and you have to look at this in context and again it's very weird that I'm having to tell a major person who understands English literature how to look at this thing in context now what does Shakespeare say he says my name is will and then he says and my will one an among a number one is reckoned none then in the number let me past untold I am very pleased to be able to say that of all the people I've brought forward to say that Shakespeare is a pseudonym it's very good to have the man himself making it that plain thank you [Applause] it's just to say it's my name is it's so fat ewis is it almost as fat to us as that poem which goes I been John across for island song I been Johnson yes this is vouchers did writes hi Ben Johnson isn't Shakespeare thank you there's a lot of discussion about ox40 ins and strat for D ins and yet you don't want to say exactly who you think he is if he isn't the Shakespeare that we think he is so could you Alexander talk to us a bit more about the Earl of Oxford I'm sorry I didn't see the lovely questioner but lovely voice very pretty I've made it III I've made it plain I'm not here to talk about the other box and I will come back and I will talk about the own boxford and I guarantee that I would I will convince an audience of this size that I'm correct about who wrote this but I'm not here to talk about this we're trying to talk about William SHAKSPER of Stratford was he a writer or was he not and so far we haven't heard any of good evidence that he was and there's nothing from his lifetime saying he was and it's highly improbable and implausible the evidence that they've got I'm sorry thank you we have questions at the front please thank you thank you if William SHAKSPER of Stratford who was born and baptized as Shakespeare who was married as Shakespeare who died Shakespeare had three children who were baptized as shax pair who had seven brothers and sisters who were all baptized as Shakspere if he was the right of the place are you not saying that he was actually using a pseudonym himself no because the point was people were very erratic in the spelling of their names at that time he he himself was look at look at look no look I'm not gonna look at you you need to look at his let's let's look again at that we'll let's ask ourselves why in that will he is leaving morning rings to John Hemings Henry Condell and Richard it's incorrect it's incorrect what you've just said people were actually very precise about the way names were spelt and you look at someone like Walter Raleigh and his name is spelt four different ways drawing his life and what they're doing is it's like differencing in a coat of arms so in fact there's Walter Raleigh's pulse as we were used to spelling and that was what his great grandfather when his great grandfather died he moved up a line and we have this with Edward de Vere we've been talking about so that the actual hold of the head of the family will will will will will spell it in a particular way so in fact what you're saying it's actually very very indicative that there is a problem that Shaq's misspelling but more than that in half that's something we haven't actually touched upon tonight is that Shakespeare the writer has has a - in 45% of those quarters five times it's hyphenated in the first folio of 1623 shake - spear now the man from Stratford never never used that and and he wouldn't I mean absurd idea if you're called Ramsbottom you don't say Rams - bottom is a silly and and but but obviously what's going on here is that shake - spear is I'm afraid say a very obvious it's a very obvious pseudonym because it refers to Pallas Athena who is the patron goddess of playwrights as we are told by Stubbs in 1583 as we are told by gossin in 1582 as we are told by someone called og that they're all complaining at the time that the modern playwrights in the late 16th century are being absolutely disgraceful because they're invoking the Greek god Pallas Athena who was born from the head of Zeus shaking spear and it was her will that shook a spear Shakespeare like many things in Shakespeare is a lovely witty joke at his own expense indeed it's a joke he enjoyed so much that he went along to the heralds office in order to get a coat of arms for his family so they could call themselves gentlemen and chose to have a diagonal spear on his coat of arms and then one of the offices and the Herald's officer wrote on the application for the coat of arms complaining that Shakespeare the player was applying for a coat of arms another of the heralds came back and said no Shakespeare came from a very respectable family in stratford-upon-avon his mother was Mary Arden who was related to the Arden's who were an important family and that man who defended Shakespeare Shakespeare the player Shakespeare of stratford-upon-avon was called William Camden who a year after that wrote a book in which he said that William Shakespeare was one of the greatest writers of the time it's a very important piece of evidence that yeah well we've just heard there is someone gasps a coat of arms that resembles his name that's called canting that's very common indeed we were also told that a man called Camden says over here that William Shakespeare was a great writer and over here calls him the player very important he obviously sees them as two different people I'm sure we're all aware here that there's an extremely famous act in Canada who goes by the name of Graham Greene who suggested here I think as I understand it unclear is that if I write over here about Graham Greene jolly interesting Canadian actor and then I write over here about the English novelist the assumption is that I assume the Graham Greene the Canadian actor wrote our man in Havana well that's obviously nonsense and I don't and they're two different people in Camden was very aware of that and the important thing about Camden very important is Camden wrote a history of Britain and he went to all the places in Britain and he noticed stratford-upon-avon in he writes about stratford-upon-avon he said is a little market town that owes all its consequence to two people and they are John De Stratford Archbishop of Canterbury and who clocked and whoops who's missing others visited Stratford as early as 1618 1623 and 1626 and said that this town is famous for one reason because the famous William Shakespeare stuff naughty naughty naughty naughty no Alexander invented I will I will email you Thursday's tomorrow date 6 16 18 6 16 20 before 1623 because it was published in 1623 and another one a manuscript where the hand belongs to the 1620s I'll send you the reference system I want them on my desk by tomorrow morning we only have time for three more questions I'm sorry so who is a burning issue could we get a microphone to this lady here who's been wanting to ask for a long time in the plays of William Shakespeare there seems to me to be such a great love of women because he writes women so well and even in the Taming of the Shrew there are examples of women being educated by tutors in the scenes I wonder how do you reconcile the fact that William SHAKSPER didn't educate his daughter because there's an example of her writing where she signs her name with an X which would suggest she doesn't know how to write even her own name thank you many many interesting late interestingly men many people who could sign their names did only sign with an X um so that's not evidence that she was illiterate the important thing to remember about Susana is that she was married to a very learned doctor and on her tomb it says she was a woman of great wit wit means intelligence means a kind of literary nasai a wit as her father sorry very briefly on the daughters very interesting in The Tempest we have Prospero Norma's pride he takes in the fact that he's educated his daughter Miranda we have William SHAKSPER Stratford's daughter Judas who signs her name in a little mark the father John sands his name in a mark the mother can't write the daughter Susanna is visited by a man called James Cook who was embarrassed because she can't recognize her husband's writing we have a pedigree here an extraordinary pedigree that goes illiterate illiterate greatest writer in the world illiterate I'm sorry I think you don't have to come from a literary family but a we I don't buy that no at the back question please thank you Jonathan I'd like to ask you Kirsten going back to the will that you mentioned that Enoch Powell made who was a classical philologist as you know was a Shakespeare of Stratford outer and he points to the will he says that the names of Hennig and kondal that connects the will to the First Folio have been interpolated into the will and while we're on Powell Powell is who probably knows the the the grandson oi Manor is a grandson of a scrap metal merchant and so forth so it's not quite right that whereas Alexander and the walls might be interested in in love and arrow strata I don't think that Enoch Powell was coming from the perspective of of doubting Stratford on snobbish grounds alone [Applause] scholars have examined Shakespeare's will for a long long time for more you know 100 years - at 200 years there there are interleavings in the world in particular the famous second best bed isn't interleaving but there is absolutely no evidence that the Hemings kondal burbage the quest is interleaved I'm afraid Powell great man but he was a simply wrong about that now it's not interleaved it's the wrong word what it is is an inter lineal what he's written is between the lines and we don't need to argue about that it's written in between the lines and and when you write something in between the lines of a will then you should endorse it and there are no endorsements on these things now I'm not saying that that shacks Burroughs traveller Maps he confident the shacks Burt Stratford did have connections to Hemings Hemings was someone who Wade Cole and Wade will and stuff and they would do businessman and they were investing in theater I'm not denying that but to say that we absolutely know that the will wasn't tampered with I think is a little bit dangerous and I'll give you one piece of evidence that I think I think he's very strong namely the William SHAKSPER of Stratford had a friend called Hamlet Sadler and Hamlet said his wife was called Judith and we know they're great friends and and shacks burrow Stratford called his two twins after them Judith and ham net Hamnet signs the will hamnet's adler was an executor of that will and someone and the name hamlet is in the text because he's left something and someone has overwritten where it says Hamnet and put an L to say Hamlet to make it sound a bit more like chaser so I do think there is some evidence which needs to be taken reasonably seriously that somebody has tampered with that will now I'm not going to say I'm saying it's all a fraud obviously but that is some evidence that needs to be properly assessed and not just thrown aside and said yeah it's a problem it's a common item Hamnet are indeed variant spellings well the Prince of Denmark there are documents through documents in Stratford records where Hamlet Sadler is Hamnet Sadler and other ones where he's Hamlet said yes and I wonder why and this is a key what I'm asking well who's put those ELLs over the top of the ends this is the problem a final question and then we're going to move to a vote so please consider your positions as I'm up first and them is something as summing up afterward after the vote okay thank you well I thought the debate was about was who wrote Shakespeare and Alexander war I came to hear you make the case for who wrote Shakespeare you are the leading Oxfordian and I believe a leading on Audion and I haven't heard anything about if Shakespeare didn't write checks / didn't write Shakespeare who did the only reason for asking that question is you have a good alternative candidate no-one says who wrote homer but there is no alternative obviously there is an alternative candidate and I think you have chickened out Alexander of making the case for Oxford and that makes me think the case for Oxford is weak I'm very happy for you to think the case for ox for this week if that's what you want to think because I haven't presented the case for ox so you can think what you like about it the the the the simple the simple fact of the matter is I had no idea who was going to be in the audience tonight and there are some people for whom the Shakespeare authorship question is a very new thing now we have sentiment and tradition on the side of Shakespeare of Stratford that goes back many many years and for many people it's very difficult to be told the sentiment and tradition that you've had for many years is actually wrong the facts are wrong and I tell you what this guy did it all in the same night you could see the problem I had in my first 15 minutes just just that have time to show the huge amount of evidence in Stratford checks but is wrong to add on top of that oxyde I didn't think it was going to work and I've said and I said for the last time I'm very happy to come back here I were more than happy after this debate to do an Oxford debate and and really hammer that one home because it's a great case and and thank you and sorry is a key moment the see well I have to say you know but that's our Tydfil the de Vere society are out in force they've they've left bits of paper on the seats they're selling their books in the foyer I mean mmm well maybe they maybe Jonathan there's been a misunderstanding because I mean I was at the very clear opinion that the emotion of this debate was William Shakespeare of Stratford did not write a single play or poem that's my understanding the motion that's exactly what I've been doing this is what I was I was told by the so I don't know what this is who did that come clean who's guilty I do think lets you know when that let's come back to the you know the rules of evidence the principle of Occam's razor you can really only start a counter argument if you've got a good alternative case because the all the evidence all the evidence from the period all those people at the time such as Leonard Diggs such as George Buck who associate Shakespeare with the place the the idea though it wasn't him for them only comes later when people start fantasizing about cryptograms and hidden codes and conspiracies this is a move towards the summing up and I want to hear you continue with your argument first I would like to so Jonathan baked to some sum up his argument for three minutes and then we will move to Alexander wall do you think I'm going to take three minutes out because I just want to say something very very very simple which is that in the end everybody has a distinctive linguistic register and as I said before one one of the things that I think the the the authorship debate has been very good at is really getting people working in a much more sophisticated way on the authorship of the plays in the period this used to be done impressionistic Lee the first person who thought that the Earl of Oxford wrote to the works of Shakespeare was a delightful Edwardian schoolmaster called Jay Thomas Looney who who was convinced and it was convenient please don't adroit it's extremely rude who was convinced that Delia bacon was wrong but still convinced that Shakespeare didn't write Shakespeare so he started reading plays and poems by other people from the time to try to find who was Shakespeare and he alighted on the poems of the Earl of Oxford and in an impressionistic way thought he saw similarities with Shakespeare now what has happened a hundred years old is that the entire corpus of poetic and dramatic literature of the age of Shakespeare has been put onto databases so that we can now work out authorship in a much much more sophisticated more nuanced way almost scene by scene we can see how playwrights are collaborating with each other everybody has their own linguistic fingerprint and that seems to me to be an enormous ly valuable tool but there is still work to be done I mean there's you know there are there are plays around the fringes of the Canon but we still don't know to what extent they have a little bit of Shakespeare as well as someone else it now looks as though it was Shakespeare not Ben Jonson who wrote the wonderful additional mad scenes in the revision of kids Spanish tragedy here on ammo being mad again Samarco so there it would be absolutely wonderful playing those scenes and they have actors although they have their doubts they I think in their gut would know this is not kid this is not Johnson this is Shakespeare so I just want to leave you with to remind you that of the six hundred surviving plays from the period the only ones to mention the counties of Warwickshire and Gloucestershire and course Stratford is on the border of Gloucestershire and if you read the scene and justice shallows orchard you have to know that's written by a cot soul and then also this but is local dialect in inventories of manuscript inventories and people from stratford-upon-avon a cake of wax is called a Keach Shakespeare uses that word there's a distinctive term called Cradle cloth in which to wrap an infant Shakespeare uses that word down a soft feather is down rather than down Shakespeare uses down Derry is de de why Shakespeare uses that word it's that kind of little minut local detail that means that much as I love the debate I have no doubt William of Stratford was the man okay in this is a summing up so I'll try and make it as summing up but I did notice that Jonathan introduced a little bit of extra information there so I'll just I'll just quickly squash that one roz barber who's a very very clever scholar has been an enormously long essay in the journal of early modern studies at Stratford Ian's loved to say that Shakespeare used Warwickshire words he didn't actually that that's what's called wishful thinking or special pleading Shakespeare used 31,000 different words of which 20 have been identified by certain Stratford as belonging to Warwickshire Rose Barbour went through every single one of those 21 after the other and showed quite clearly that they were used by people long before Shakespeare they had nothing to do with Warwickshire or anything to do with anything at all so I'm afraid I'm not gonna accept that but I don't want to do this is rebuttal and something I meant to be doing his summing up so let's let's actually just try to sum up for a second Jonathan have brought up the matter of a man who he thinks is hysterically funny that he was called loony very unfortunate if you're born with a name called loony and most people would be kinda nice to someone who's called loony but never mind Jonathan's called bait so I'm sure he's had some some suffering occasionally now while he tries to squash loony and give that sort of impression that any single person who's an ancestor at 14 is a loony I only need to remind you that some of the greatest people in the history of our world and our fort and our culture have doubted William SHAKSPER of Stratford will Whitman who's probably the greatest American poet Rafe Waldo Emerson who surely is one of the greatest essayists Henry James who's one of the cleverest novelists there existed Orson Welles our own Shakespearean actors Sir Mark Rylance a Derek Jacobi Sir John Gielgud these four people who really understand Shakespeare Sigmund Freud the founder of psychoanalysis says it's all rubbish guess who else is an anti Stratford in one of our greatest poets Ted Hughes did that appear in Jonathan's biography no whoops he swept it under the carpet what about Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor John Paul Stevens Supreme Court as we're talking about the highest lawyers in the whole of the free world now anyone whose mind is capable of thinking independently will see the evidence for what it is overwhelming and will reach the same conclusion as so many great minds when faced with the same evidence namely that William of Stratford could not possibly have written those plays now unfortunately we know that an independent mind is not given to everyone however I'm confident this evening there are enough people in this room with an independent mind who can jump outside that little box of sentiment and tradition and vote to pass this motion thank you [Applause] and they're the judgment moment a final vote please if you believe that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare would you raise your hand now Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare exactly thank you 78 I think they've remained loyal to their faith who believes that someone else wrote the work that is a strong majority it was a hundred and seven when we came in and it possibly is a few Mona who of the don't knows the 86 don't know is amongst us who now would go for Shakespeare Shakespeare writing Shakespeare some some I would say maybe 10 and who of the don't knows would now think someone else wrote Shakespeare just about though every one man one vote or one woman one vote I think around the same so in a moment of Concord to end this fraught and fascinating evening we have we're all brought here by our love of Shakespeare now we have a basically a tie which is a wonderful [Applause] you

Channel: How To Academy Mindset

Views: 109,199

Keywords: William Shakespeare, Shakespeare, Sir Jonathan Bate, Jonathan Bate, Alexander Waugh, Hermione Eyre, Emmanuel Centre, Stratfordian, anti-Stratfordian, Mark Twain, Sigmund Freud, Shakespeareans, Mark Rylance, Deborah Warner, Derek Jacobi, How To: Academy, Shakespear, Shaksper, Shaxberd, Enigmatic Will, Ben Jonson, Swan of Avon, Sir Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe, Literary mystery, House of Wittgenstein, Shakespeare in Court, RSC Shakespeare, Globe Theatre, Sonnets

Id: HgImgdJ5L6o

Length: 84min 27sec (5067 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 27 2017