Chapter 12 - Shakespeare and School
Now for chapter 12 for the Stratfordian book, this
chapter purports to demonstrate that William received such a fine education at
the town’s grammar school that he would have been equipped to read any modern
English and furthermore, like fellow Stratfordian Richard Field, be comfortable
with French, Italian, Spanish, and Welsh. In fact, it’s been said that he’d be
better educated than the average modern college graduate.
Well, Stratfordians make a lot of claims that don’t
stand up too well when we actually look at the evidence and judgment of others
who aren’t interested in such hyperbole. One such Shakespeare Scholar was James
Halliwell-Phillipps [1820-1889] who spent some 30 years looking into the
records of Stratford and vicinity. Regarding the town’s availability of
books he wrote there were “exclusive of bibles, psalters and educational
manuals, at no more than two or three dozen, if so many.” The now famous
grammar school there had one room for both the petty and upper classes. It held
about two dozen pupils. Does the school reflect in any way the town that built
it? Helliwell-Phillipps wrote that “its fetid ditches, dung-hills, pigsties,
mud walls and thatched barns must have presented [in Shakspere’s time] an
extremely squalid appearance”. But might he have been biased, even though even
he didn’t question William’s authorship? David Garrick [1717-1779], actor,
manager, producer, who began promoting the town as the birthplace of the great
playwright, described the town (more than 100 years after Shakespeare’s
time) as “the most dirty, unseemly, ill-paved and wretched-looking in all
Britain.” Quite a change from the beautiful town of modern times.
This is not to say that the town back then couldn’t
have provided a good education for a child, only that it’s not nearly as likely
as for those growing up in London in houses with large libraries and with
tutors and easy university access. Still, let’s pretend that none of that
matters. The claim is made that the school would have had taught Lily’s Latin
Grammar as well as many of the classics and that the children would develop
prodigious memories of all they read. But remember that’s only a claim. In
reality, the curricula was only prescribed by the school charter or was proposed
by educationalists. What book or books were actually available we don’t
know. They are very unlikely to have been freely available to any
student at any time. They were too expensive and valuable to risk as was paper.
There is a record for the town’s purchase of a chain bought for the school to
secure a book to a desk, suggesting its limited access. Pupils left school at
age 14. William at that age may have been under pressure to help his father
more. Nicholas Rowe thought so from the heresay he gathered, as he wrote that
William’s father’s circumstances “forced him to withdraw” from school.
But let’s pretend it was a great school with lots of
learning of Latin Grammar and the classics. Is that satisfactory for becoming
the greatest English writer in history? How did this schooling compare to that
of others in more favorable circumstances? In addition to what might have been
learned in the “ideal” grammar school, the students who attended a university
or, better yet, also had family tutors for many years, would also have studied
English history, English literature, modern languages, travel, and
geography. Many of them, such as Bacon and Oxford, would have studied
Astronomy, Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, etc. Poetry, playwriting, and acting
were very popular in some of the universities. In F.S. Boas’ Shakespere and
the Universities (1923) he wrote “There was hardly a tutor whose desk did
not contain a play he had written”. In The English People on the Eve of
Colonisation (1954) Notestein wrote “As always there were, especially at
Cambridge, young men of literary ambitions, who discussed poetry and plays, and
were trying their hands at writing them.”
Was it common for pupils at age 14 to leave the
Stratford grammar school with literary ambitions? Halliwell-Phillipps didn’t
seem to think so. In his Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare (1881) he
wrote: “I have the impression that the extent of the poet’s school acquirements
has been greatly exaggerated.” And Shakespeare biographer Marchette Chute
added: “Apart from teaching him Latin, Stratford Grammar School taught
Shakespeare nothing at all”. And though Richard Field, as a printer, worked
with type in different languages, does this imply that he had learned anything
about them at the grammar school? Did he acquire any of the advanced legal
knowledge or sophisticated literary skills by age 28 as the author Shake-Speare
did?
It appears that even under the best of grammar
school circumstances, that when he would have left school, young William still
wouldn’t have been equipped to learn several foreign languages (Ben Jonson
didn’t), become somewhat of an authority on medicine, the French court,
seamanship, and law, etc. etc. And to have become so as well as being a
sophisticated writer at the beginning of his career.
The presented evidence for William’s supposedly
sufficient education to be Shake-Speare is insufficient. There are far
too many unknowns for it to count for anything in his favor.
By the way, there are two new excellent reviews of
the first Shakespeare Beyond Doubt book.
The first if by “Macduff”:
And the other is by Diana Price:
And after someone reads the doubter version Shakespeare
Beyond Doubt? edited by Shahan and Waugh, there may not be any more
debates. The essays in the second book strip away every single piece of
evidence for the Stratfordian theory. You’ll find in it that there’s little or
no value in the evidence based on Ben Jonson, John Heminges, Henry Condell, the
mention of Stratford and the ‘moniment’ in the First Folio. Nor is the name of
William Shakespeare going to be of help. Actually the name is shown to count against
Stratfordian theory. Nor is any other documentation of William’s life useful to
their cause, certainly NOT his Will.
Proponents of the Stratfordian theory seem to
recognize this since there has not come hardly a word to challenge anything in
the doubter book. Not a word from Ian Wilson “Shakespeare the Evidence, Scott
McCrea “The Case for Shakespeare”, Bill Bryson “Shakespeare: The World as
Stage”, Irvin Matus “The Case for Shakespeare”, or others. What appears more
likely is an avoidance of any more talk of evidence and instead a doubling down
on demagoguery.
There was one Stratfordian review at least of the
doubter book. This is by Prof. Stanley Wells. He was upset that many
professionals in the anti-Stratfordian ranks are still bothered at being
slandered. And his refutation of the doubter book so far is that William
‘might’ have travelled in Italy—in essence conceding to the doubters that
William could not have learned all about Shake-Speare’s Italy by reading books
or talking to travelers. And if not Italy, then also not Law or Medicine or
many similar extensively learned knowledge areas. He took the doubter book
cover as a kind of mockery of the Stratfordian book. But that was not their
intent. Rather because it was a response to the Stratfordian book they wanted
to tie their book very closely to it since they represent the two sides to the
debate. They should both be read and examined in tandem. Anyway, Prof. Well’s
response for those who haven’t read it is here.
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