© Gunnar Tómasson

4 March 2018

I.

Shakespeare Authorship Question

(Wikipedia)

The Shakespeare authorship question is the argument that someone other than William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon wrote the works attributed to him. Anti-Stratfordians—a collective term for adherents of the various alternative-authorship theories—believe that Shakespeare of Stratford was a front to shield the identity of the real author or authors, who for some reason did not want or could not accept public credit. Although the idea has attracted much public interest, all but a few Shakespeare scholars and literary historians consider it a fringe belief, and for the most part acknowledge it only to rebut or disparage the claims.

Shakespeare’s authorship was first questioned in the middle of the 19th century, when adulation of Shakespeare as the greatest writer of all time had become widespread. Shakespeare’s biography, particularly his humble origins and obscure life, seemed incompatible with his poetic eminence and his reputation for genius, arousing suspicion that Shakespeare might not have written the works attributed to him. The controversy has since spawned a vast body of literature, and more than 80 authorship candidates have been proposed, the most popular being Sir Francis Bacon; Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford; Christopher Marlowe; and William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby.

Supporters of alternative candidates argue that theirs is the more plausible author, and that William Shakespeare lacked the education, aristocratic sensibility, or familiarity with the royal court that they say is apparent in the works. Those Shakespeare scholars who have responded to such claims hold that biographical interpretations of literature are unreliable in attributing authorship, and that the convergence of documentary evidence used to support Shakespeare’s authorship—title pages, testimony by other contemporary poets and historians, and official records—is the same used for all other authorial attributions of his era. No such direct evidence exists for any other candidate, and Shakespeare’s authorship was not questioned during his lifetime or for centuries after his death.

Despite the scholarly consensus, a relatively small but highly visible and diverse assortment of supporters, including prominent public figures, have questioned the conventional attribution. They work for acknowledgment of the authorship question as a legitimate field of scholarly inquiry and for acceptance of one or another of the various authorship candidates.

Overview

The arguments presented by anti-Stratfordians share several characteristics. They try to disqualify William Shakespeare as the author and usually offer supporting arguments for a substitute candidate. They often postulate some type of conspiracy that protected the author’s true identity, which they say explains why no documentary evidence exists for their candidate and why the historical record supports Shakespeare’s authorship.

Most anti-Stratfordians say that the Shakespeare canon exhibits such breadth of learning and intimate knowledge of the Elizabethan and Jacobean court and politics that no one but a highly educated nobleman or court insider could have written it. Apart from literary references, critical commentary and acting notices, the available data regarding Shakespeare’s life consist of mundane personal details such as vital records of his baptism, marriage and death, tax records, lawsuits to recover debts, and real estate transactions. In addition, no document attests that he received an education. No personal letters or literary manuscripts certainly written by Shakespeare of Stratford survive. Despite the low survival rate for documents of this period, to sceptics, these gaps in the record suggest the profile of a person who differs markedly from the playwright and poet.  Some prominent public figures, including Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, Helen Keller, Henry James, Sigmund Freud, and Charlie Chaplin, have found the arguments against Shakespeare’s authorship persuasive, and their endorsements are an important element in many anti-Stratfordian arguments.

At the core of the argument is the nature of acceptable evidence used to attribute works to their authors. Anti-Stratfordians rely on what has been called a „rhetoric of accumulation“, or what they designate as circumstantial evidence: similarities between the characters and events portrayed in the works and the biography of their preferred candidate; literary parallels with the known works of their candidate; and hidden codes and cryptographic allusions in Shakespeare’s own works or texts written by contemporaries.  By contrast, academic Shakespeareans and literary historians rely mainly on direct documentary evidence—in the form of title page attributions and government records such as the Stationers’ Register and the Accounts of the Revels Office—and contemporary testimony from poets, historians, and those players and playwrights who worked with him, as well as modern stylometric studies. Scholars say all these converge to confirm William Shakespeare’s authorship. These criteria are the same as those used to credit works to other authors and are accepted as the standard methodology for authorship attribution.

II.

The Life of Shakespeare

Nicholas Rowe, 1709

(Amazon.com)

Carefully researched and energetically written by the pioneering editor of the plays, Nicholas Rowe, himself one of the most distinguished tragedians of his age, this biography is the source for most of the facts and some of the legends of Shakespeare’s life. Rowe interviewed widely to collect as much reliable information about Shakespeare as he could, and his text is as close as we will ever get to contact with the people who knew and worked with Shakespeare. Never before reprinted, except as an appendix to Alexander Pope’s later edition of the plays, Rowe’s biography remains a fascinating document not just about Shakespeare himself, but also for the growth of his reputation, and the expanding interests of critics and the world of letters at the beginning of the 18th century. Rowe (whose translation of Lucan’s Pharsalia was hailed by Samuel Johnson as „one of the greatest productions of English poetry“) writes a vivid, elegant English that is a constant pleasure to read. This edition is introduced by Charles Nicholl, who places this fascinating text in its time, and reads it with the insight of a fellow sleuth into the world of the Globe and its dramatist.

III.

The Golden Verses of Pythagoras

Nicholas Rowe, 1707

(Second half)

658933

22268 = Man, wretched Man, thou shalt be taught to know,

23953 = Who bears within himself the inborn Cause of Woe.

16941 = Unhappy Race!  that never yet could tell

20275 = How near their Good and Happiness they dwell.

17740 = Depriv’d of Sense, they neither hear nor see;

16072 = Fetter’d in Vice, they seek not to be free,

17950 = But stupid to their own sad Fate agree.

25196 = Like pond’rous Rolling-stones, oppress’d with Ill,

21053 = The Weight that loads ’em makes ’em roll on still,

15792 = Bereft of Choice, and Freedom of the Will.

18066 = For native Strife in ev’ry Bosom reigns,

17850 = And secretly an impious War maintains:

19029 = Provoke not THIS, but let the Combat cease,

16118 = And ev’ry yielding Passion sue for Peace.

23006 = Wouldst thou, great Jove, thou Father of Mankind,

16365 = Reveal the Demon for that Task assign’d,

20915 = The wretched Race an End to Woes would find.

13682 = And yet be bold, O Man, Divine thou art,

15669 = And of the Gods Celestial Essence Part.

16846 = Nor sacred Nature is from thee conceal’d,

18826 = But to thy Race her mystick Rules reveal’d.

17583 = These if to know thou happily attain,

19994 = Soon shalt thou perfect be in all that I ordain.

23807 = Thy wounded Soul to Health thou shalt restore,

14688 = And free from ev’ry Pain she felt before.

18437 = Abstain, I warn, from Meats unclean and foul,

16826 = So keep thy Body pure, so free thy Soul;

17633 = So rightly judge; thy Reason, so, maintain;

18256 = Reason which Heav’n did for thy Guide ordain,

16921 = Let that best Reason ever hold the Rein.

16695 = Then if this mortal Body thou forsake,

16669 = And thy glad Flight to the pure Æther take,

17175 = Among the Gods exalted shalt thou shine,

14884 = Immortal, Incorruptible, Divine:

19453 = The Tyrant Death securely shalt thou brave,

16300 = And scorn the dark Dominion of the Grave.

658933

IV.

Among the Gods exalted shalt thou shine¹

(Virgil, Fourth Eclogue)

271148

16609 = Ultima Cumaei venit iam carminis aetas;

20087 = Magnus ab integro saeclorum nascitur ordo.

18681 = Iam redit et Virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna,

18584 = Iam nova progenies caelo demittitur alto.

20229 = Tu modo nascenti puero, quo ferrea primum

18431 = Desinet ac toto surget gens aurea mundo,

17698 = Casta fave Lucina: tuus iam regnat Apollo.

18480 = Teque adeo decus hoc aevi te consule, inibit,

18919 = Pollio, et incipient magni procedere menses;

22004 = Te duce, si qua manent sceleris vestigia nostri,

20495 = Inrita perpetua solvent formidine terras.

18330 = Ille deum vitam accipiet divisque videbit

20448 = Permixtos heroas et ipse videbitur illis

22153 = Pacatumque reget patriis virtutibus orbem.

271148

III + IV = 658933 + 271148 = 930081

V + VI = 878864 + 51217 = 930081

V.

To be, or not to be; that is the question.²

 (Hamlet, Act III, Sc. i, First Folio)

878864

  5415 = Enter Hamlet.

Hamlet

18050 = To be, or not to be, that is the Question:

19549 = Whether ’tis Nobler in the minde to suffer

23467 = The Slings and Arrowes of outragious Fortune,

17893 = Or to take Armes against a Sea of troubles,

16211 = And by opposing end them: to dye, to sleepe

13853 = No more; and by a sleepe, to say we end

20133 = The Heart-ake, and the thousand Naturall shockes

19800 = That Flesh is heyre too?  ‘Tis a consummation

17421 = Deuoutly to be wish’d. To dye to sleepe,

19236 = To sleepe, perchance to Dreame; I, there’s the rub,

19794 = For in that sleepe of death, what dreames may come,

21218 = When we haue shufflel’d off this mortall coile,

20087 = Must giue vs pawse. There’s the respect

13898 = That makes Calamity of so long life:

24656 = For who would beare the Whips and Scornes of time,

24952 = The Oppressors wrong, the poore mans Contumely,

18734 = The pangs of dispriz’d Loue, the Lawes delay,

16768 = The insolence of Office, and the Spurnes

20720 = That patient merit of the vnworthy takes,

17879 = When he himselfe might his Quietus make

21696 = With a bare Bodkin? Who would these Fardles beare

17807 = To grunt and sweat vnder a weary life,

17426 = But that the dread of something after death,

21935 = The vndiscouered Countrey, from whose Borne

20927 = No Traueller returnes, Puzels the will,

19000 = And makes vs rather beare those illes we haue,

20119 = Then flye to others that we know not of.

20260 = Thus Conscience does make Cowards of vs all,

18787 = And thus the Natiue hew of Resolution

21086 = Is sicklied o’re, with the pale cast of Thought,

17836 = And enterprizes of great pith and moment,

22968 = With this regard their Currants turne away,

18723 = And loose the name of Action.  Soft you now,

16746 = The faire Ophelia? Nimph, in thy Orizons

9726 = Be all my sinnes remembred.

Ophelia

5047 = Good my Lord,

17675 = How does your Honor for this many a day?

Hamlet

17391 = I humbly thanke you: well, well, well.

Ophelia

15437 = My Lord, I haue Remembrances of yours,

14927 = That I haue longed long to re-deliuer.

12985 = I pray you now, receiue them.

Hamlet

12520 = No, no, I neuer gaue you ought.

Ophelia

19402 = My honor’d Lord, I know right well you did,

24384 = And with them words of so sweet breath compos’d,

19172 = As made the things more rich, then perfume left:

14959 = Take these againe, for to the Noble minde

24436 = Rich gifts wax poore, when giuers proue vnkinde.

 5753 = There my Lord.

878864

VI.

Right Measure of Man

(Construction G. T.)

51217

To be:

        1 = Monad

11359 = Snorri Sturluson

9814 = Sturla Þórðarson

5385 = Francis Bacon

7936 = Edward Oxenford

Sacred Triangle of Pagan Iceland

Pagans’ Path to Christianity

(Einar Pálsson)

7196 = Bergþórshváll

6067 = Miðeyjarhólmr

3027 = Helgafell – Holy Mountain

Christian

 432 = Right Measure of Man

51217

Or not to be:

51217

Stratfordian

17252 = Gulielmus filius Johannes Shakspere

2602 = 26 April – 2nd month old-style

1564 = 1564 A.D. – Baptismal Name and Date

-4000 = Dark Sword – Man-Beast

10026 = Will Shakspere, gent.

2502 = 25 April

1616 = 1616 A.D. – Burial Name and Date

But New Man

Creation/World

  8990 = Brave New World

JHWH’s Holy Name

Restored in Creation

10565 = JHWH – Hebrew gematria, 10-5-6-5

FINIS

  100 = The End

51217

***

Calculator for converting letters to cipher values is at:

http://www.light-of-truth.com/ciphersaga.htm

¹A New Breed of Men Sent Down From Heaven

Now the last age by Cumae’s Sibyl sung has come and gone, and the majestic roll of circling centuries begins anew: justice returns, returns old Saturn’s reign, with a new breed of men send down from heaven.  Only do thou, at the boy’s birth in whom the iron shall cease, the golden race arise, befriend him, chaste Lucina; ‘tis thine own Apollo reigns.  And in thy consulate, this glorious age, O Pollio, shall begin, and the months enter on their mighty march.  Under thy guidance, whatso tracks remain of our old wickedness, once done away, shall free the earth from never-ceasing fear.  He shall receive the life of gods, and see heroes with gods commingling, and himself be seen of them, and with his father’s worth reign o’er a world of peace.

²The Once And Future King

(Giorgio Santillana)

This is meant to be only an essay.  It is a first reconnaissance of a realm well-nigh unexplored and uncharted.  From whichever way one enters it, one is caught in the same bewildering circular complexity, as in a labyrinth, for it has no deductive order in the abstract sense, but instead resembles an organism tightly closed in itself, or even better, a monumental „Art of the Fugue.“

The figure of Hamlet as a favorable starting point came by chance.  Many other avenues offered themselves, rich in strange symbols and beckoning with great images, but the choice went to Hamlet because he led the mind on a truly inductive quest through a familiar landscape – and one which has the merit of its literary setting.  Here is a character deeply present to our awareness, in whom ambiguities and uncertainties, tormented self-questioning and dispassionate insight give a presentiment of the modern mind.  His personal drama was that he had to be a hero, but still try to avoid the role Destiny assigned him.  His lucid intellect remained above the conflict of motives – in other words, his was and is a truly contemporary consciousness.  And yet this character whom the poet made one of us, the first unhappy intellectual, concealed a past as a legendary being, his features predetermined, preshaped by long-standing myth.  There was a numinous aura around him, and many clues led up to him.  But it was a surprise to find behind the mask an ancient and all-embracing cosmic power – the original master of the dreamed-of first age of the world.

Yet in all his guises he remained strangely himself.  The original Amlóði, as his name was in Icelandic legend, shows the same characteristics of melancholy and high intellect.  He, too, is a son dedicated to avenge his father, a speaker of cryptic but inescapable truths, an elusive carrier of Fate who must yield once his mission is accomplished and sink once more into concealment in the depths of time to which he belongs:  Lord of the Golden Age, the Once and Future King.

This essay will follow the figure farther and farther afield, from the Northland to Rome, from there to Finland, Iran, and India; he will appear again unmistakably in Polynesian legend.  Many other Dominions and Powers will materialize to frame him within the proper order.

Amlóði was identified, in the crude and vivid imagery of the Norse, by the ownership of a fabled mill which, in his own time, ground out peace and plenty.  Later, in decaying times, it ground out salt; and now finally, having landed at the bottom of the sea, it is grinding rock and sand, creating a vast whirlpool, the Maelstrom (i.e. the grinding stream, from the [Icelandic] verb mala, „to grind“), which is supposed to be a way to the land of the dead.  This imagery stands, as the evidence develops, for an astronomical process, the secular shifting of the sun through the signs of the zodiac which determines world-ages, each numbering thousands of years.  Each age brings a World Era, a Twilight of the Gods.  Great structures collapse; pillars topple which supported the great fabric; floods and cataclysms herald the shaping of a new world. (Hamlet’s Mill – An Essay on Myth and the Frame of Time, 1969; Second Paperback Edition, David R. Godine, Publisher, Boston, 1983, pp. 1-2.)