Responses to more Stratfordian Questions - 3 of 3 - Bacon Theater Acting

Responses to more Stratfordian Questions (Continued)  Part 3 of 3

Thank you again for your comments.  Again, I’ll use bold for your original words so other readers can keep up with the conversation.

“….Elizabethan theatre, far from being the start of a process was in fact the culmination of a tradition that led back to the mystery plays and included “Interludes” that were popular during the early 16th century.  Scenes in Shakespeare follow the format of Interludes hence the completeness that I had felt. “

I’ve heard of the idea of the genre of mystery plays are their evolvement. Francis Bacon was likely also familiar with them as he was with “interludes”. What I take from this is that “Shakespeare” was well acquainted with the history and nature of plays. And here is a quote from Bacon on this: "There be certain Pantomimi that will represent the voices of Players of Interludes so to the life as if you see them not you would think they were those Players themselves, and the voices of other men that they hear" ( Natural History).

1) the companies performed a huge number of plays per year (150 according to Henslowe’s diary for one year; 33 plays over a 37 week period) and

2) that the players were working from cue scripts only and had no access to the entire play. 

Yes, I often marvel how, when so many plays were created so rapidly and ran their course in so short of time, why a dramatist like Shakespeare would put so much time into each one. To me, that’s an indication of someone who did not seek to churn out plays in quick succession for a short run in the theater. Rather, each appears to be carefully crafted over a lengthy period so that each would or could become a classic.

That the players worked from cue scripts shows to me that the playwright likely had experience in directing or producing plays, as we know that Bacon did.

The link for me finally was the Plot Sheet which is almost identical to the Plot Sheets used by the Comedia del Arte troupes. 

And Bacon understood the usage of something like a Plot Sheet or prompt book as he called it, as shown in this statement of his:

   "…speaking of the Queen Dowager as having the personal grievances against Henry with regard to the treatment of her daughter, and none could hold the booke so well to prompt and instruct the Stage-Play, as she could."    Bacon’s History of the Reign of King Henry the Seventh. 

These indications can only be included by someone who is familiar with the realities of being on stage. 

As Bacon certainly was as indicated in his many references to the craft and his known experience in producing dramatic works. See answers #20 and #45 in the “Exposing an Industry in Denial” rebuttal.

https://doubtaboutwill.org/pdfs/sbt_rebuttal.pdf

"Will be ready to furnish a Masque" (Bacon in a Letter to Burleigh).

In this quote it’s apparent that Bacon was the ‘go to’ guy to see a Masque prepared for court.  Obviously his skill in planning such productions was recognized at the highest, or next to the highest, level of the government, just as it was at Gray’s Inn.

They are inherent in the way the verse is structured and – again as an actor – the difference between acting Jonson and Shakespeare is remarkable.  Shakespeare “directs” the actors in ways that no other playwright has ever achieved, through his use and specifically misuse of Iambic Pentameter. 

Okay, but if “no other playwright has ever achieved” then please consider that his skill came not from being a professional playwright.

The verse is massacred - all for acting reasons.  How could anybody who was not an actor himself achieve that?  And of all the playwrights of the period, only Shakespeare does this. 

Personally, I’d think that only a master rhetorician could massacre such verse and have it serve a higher purpose successfully.  Also, an actor may not be the best to analyze how to create such overall effects between all those playing parts. A couple more quotes from Bacon:

"A looker on often sees more than a Player" (Bacon in Advancement of Learning).

Bacon also studied and thought about the earliest forms of theater. Compare this from Hamlet to the following quote

Bacon also studied and thought about the earliest forms of theater. He gives an example from Tacitus of a player who: 

“…in a fiction, in a dream of passion,

Could force his soul so to his whole conceit

That, from her working, all his visage wann’d.

Tears in his eyes, distraction in ‘s aspect,

A broken voice, and his whole function suiting

To his conceit.”

Hamlet

Compare to the story that Bacon wrote:

“Vibulenus, formerly an actor, then a soldier….

Wereupon Vibulenus getting up to speak, began thus;

“These poor innocent wretches you have restored to light and life;

But who shall restore life to my brother, or my brother to me?   [this resembles “What is he to Hecuba or Hecuba to him”]

….”

Then Bacon comments that “With which words he excited such excessive jealousy and alarm, that, had it not shortly afterwards appeared that nothing of the sort had happened, nay, that he had never had a brother, the soldiers would hardly have kept their  hands off the prefect; but the fact was that he played the whole thing as if it had been a piece on the stage.

Bacon’s De Augmentis

There is also this Shakespeare speech:

"Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you,

trippingly on the tongue. But if you mouth it, as many of

your players do, I had as life the town crier spoke my

lines. Nor do  you not saw the air too much with your hand

thus, but use all gently, for in the very torrent, tempest,

and (as I may say) whirlwind of passion, you must

acquire and beget a temperance that may give it

smoothness." 

Hamlet

And then compare to:

"It is necessary to use a steadfast countenance, not wavering with action, as in moving the head or hand too much, which showeth a fantastical light and fickle operation of the spirit, and consequently like mind as gesture; only it is sufficient with leisure to use a modest action in either."

 Bacon Short Notes for Civil Conversation

"The colours that show best by candlelight are white, carnation, and a kind of sea water green, and ounches and spangs) (Essay of Masques).

"Naked and open daylight....doth not show the Masques and Mummeries half stately and daintily as candle lights." (Essay of Truth).

Firstly the lack of evidence or people remarking on Shakespeare as a personality in the period. Plays were not literature.  Nobody read them and the only contact people would have had with them was in the mouths of the players.

You don’t think any of them were ever printed and sold as quartos? It’s looks like there were 18 of the plays printed and sold before 1623, many of these being printed multiple times.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_texts_of_Shakespeare's_works

Since they actually seem to have been very popular even outside of the theater, it looks like they very well could also be accepted as literature to some portion of the public.

I firmly believe that, at the time, nobody realised just how brilliant these plays were.  Except maybe the players but that’s not even sure. 

I think that a minority of the Literati, and some of Bacon’s friends, realized their brilliance. I’ve posted quotes here by Tobie Matthews strongly suggesting this.

Heminges, and Jonson realised that Shakespeare’s were worthy of posterity but it was not a generally held notion.  Nobody had ever published a collection of plays before.

Didn’t Jonson publish many of his Works in a 1616 Folio?

I have a copy of the Norton Facsimile and quite frankly it’s a mess.

I have a copy too. I wish I had the time to read all the plays in it in their original style.

I insist it is not a question of social snobbery but academic snobbery. This is how I perceive it.  I have been lambasted for making the comment but I still have the feeling that, among certain members of the academic community, there is a  feeling that these plays could not have been written by someone who did not have their academic level.  That a mere “player” could never have achieved such works.  Personally I hold players in higher esteem than academics.  I would say a mere “academic” could never have written like that.  That goes for aristocrats too.  Now I’m being snobbish, I admit. 

Well, I’m glad you admit it and are self-conscious about it. Most of us with strong views based on experience or learning may have some amount of snobbery in us. It’s the extreme, habitual, unconscious, and self-serving snobbery that is ugly and distasteful.

I do feel that much of the “anti” argument revolves around the artistic merit of the plays.  As someone who has studied the period in great depth, I feel that this is a modern projection which can lead to false conclusions.  Plays were of no more artistic merit at that time than the scripts of Sex and The City are now. 

My sense is that plays generally, as you say, were not regarded as having much artistic merit. I’m also aware of the opinion of them by Sir Thomas Bodley. Interestingly, Sir Thomas made a rather odd comment about Francis Bacon, saying  “Bacon had wasted many years of his life on such study as was not worthy of him.”  Bodley could hardly have been thinking of Bacon’s philosophical works, or his Essays, or his writings on Natural History. But if he knew of his practice of penning plays, then his comment makes perfect sense.

Yet it was Bacon, who complained about this too, and saw the potential for plays to be more esteemed. Here’s another quote of his:

“Dramatic poesy, which has the theatre for its world, would be of excellent use if well directed. For the stage is capable of no small influence, both of discipline and of corruption. Now, of corruptions in this kind we have had enough; but the discipline has, in our times, been plainly neglected. And though in modern states play-acting is esteemed but as a toy, except when it is too satirical and biting, yet among the ancients it was used as a means of educating men’s minds to virtue. Nay, it has been regarded by learned men and great philosophers as a kind of musician’s bow, by which men’s minds may be played upon. And certainly it is most true, and one of the great secrets of nature, that the minds of men are more open to impressions and affections when many are gathered together, than when they are alone.”

Bacon was surely one person at that time that could use plays as a kind of musician’s bow. Again he says:

“It is a thing indeed, if practiced professionally, of low repute; but if it be made a part of discipline it is of excellent use. I mean stage playing – an art which strengthens the memory, regulates the tone and effect of the voice and pronunciation, teaches a decent carriage of the countenance and gesture, gives not a little assurance, and accustoms young men to bear being looked at.”

So, I would think that you can at least appreciate that Bacon’s views on the potential usages of the theater and the benefit that plays can be to actors and the public, to be similar to your own, whether or not you would ever believe that he actually was involved in writing the Shakespeare works. And I would think that this shows that someone who wasn’t one of the actors in an acting group might very well have been able to understand what’s necessary to write for all the various actors involved.

Take care,

Clay

Responses to more Stratfordian Questions, Part 1 of 3

Responses to more Stratfordian Questions,   Part 1 of 3

Thank you for bringing your perspective to this question. Again, I’ve kept your words in Bold and then added my responses. I think it’s best to respond over two separate posts, just due to the amount of text involved. And it might be helpful to readers to have easy access to the original statements, so I’m keeping those. 

----------------------------------

One of the things that fascinates me endlessly in “the authorship debate” is the odd feeling that one is arguing / debating backwards. 

The extant references to Shakespeare from the period are numerous if not extensive. Francis Meres Palladis Tamia, Wits Treasury being but one example. 

Yes, there are many references to Shakespeare. That is not in dispute. The claim is that “Shakespeare” and “William Shakespeare” was actually a pen name that deliberately coincided with (or closely resembled) the  name of the man from Stratford who was also an actor. What seems to many of us as the biggest problem in this debate is that the Orthodox group (normally called the Stratfordians) generally don’t want to acknowledge these two hypotheses before trying to argue their case. They want to insist that any mention of Shakespeare is automatically a direct and knowing reference to William of Stratford as the person(s) who wrote the Shakespeare works. A fair argument would allow the two hypotheses and then whatever documentary evidence and argument could be marshaled would be examined and compared.

Anti Stratfordians seem to have decided that, as there is insufficient evidence to substantiate the Stratfordian claim,

True

that perforce Shakespeare of Stratford cannot have written the works

Not true. Anti-Stratfordians, as far as I can tell, are not absolutists. They provide evidence and arguments attempting to show that one particular hypothesis, or theory, is stronger than another.

and then go on to perform extensive research to “prove” their already preconceived theory. 

They attempt to come as close to proof as they can, even as the Stratfordians have tried.

Many hundreds or thousands of hours of research have provided them with details that substantiate their claims,  because they were looking for them .  One gets the feeling that their research is not destined at discovering the truth but at finding facts to support a theory.

I think there is much truth in this, but they see it nearly the same as the Stratfordians have always done. Though most anti-Stratfordians, I think, would be happy to have conclusive proof one way or another. Many of them are at least trying to discover the truth, and they feel a need to do this partially because the bulk of Shakespeare scholars do not want to research this question. At least, the anti-Stratfordians do not seem to have a financial or career threatening conflict of interest in the matter that would bias their interest.

I am sure that given the time and the inclination (of which I have neither) I could probably do the same thing and find sufficient evidence to doubt that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was the composer of the works attributed to him; rather that his father, Leopold – seeing his reputation as a composer starting to whither - decided that if he could pass his compositions off as the work of a 5 year old, there would be more interest in them.  Wolfgang was a brilliant performer and his father exploited this to give his compositions the attention he felt they deserved.   As his early biographer Niemetschek wrote, "there was nothing special about [his] physique. [...] He was small and his countenance, except for his large intense eyes, gave no signs of his genius."

If it were that easy, to just have the time and inclination, and then that sufficient evidence could be found to prove a theory, one would think it would have already occurred for the Stratfordian position, and to the full satisfaction of all, or nearly all, reputable observers. But this hasn’t been done despite over a hundred years of painstaking searching for evidence by many, many dedicated researchers very motivated to find such proof.

This is a totally spurious and somewhat pointless exercise and I will dwell no further on it;  but I use it as an example of how, if one wants to prove a point, selective research can always make it possible. 

The Anti Stratfordians bombard the debate with researched facts that support their case.  As there are at least 3 major contenders in the race (DeVere, Bacon and Neville) these facts often become contradictory.  The Baconites, for example, cite references to Cambridge University as evidence.  How does this sit with the Oxford case?  One argument from the Oxford camp has been that his coat of arms contains a lion shaking a spear.

I don’t know how the Oxfordians respond to the Cambridge evidence. Maybe they think they have good counter evidence or arguments for it. Then again, I’ve never seen any Stratfordian counter arguments for it either. There are at least three groups of the anti-Stratfordians that can relate their candidate to the name Shakespeare through the image of “shaking a spear” – the Baconians, the Oxfordians, and the supporters for the Earl of Rutland. So that supports their case, but is far from sufficient to prove it.

The doubters shower us with facts and then ask us to explain their research.  But their facts all turn around “absence”. 

Not true in the least, about the facts primarily being about ‘absence’. The evidence and argument they present is often ‘present’ evidence for their specific candidate. And they don’t usually ask Stratfordians to ‘explain’ the anti-Stratfordian evidence, except maybe on a comment website somewhere, and that because that’s about all they can do. What they really want is a scholarly examination of all evidence, either by a panel of experts, or by encouraging scholarly research on the authorship question in academic institutions.

OK here’s one “fact”.  Heminges was a member of a company called the Queen’s Men. In 1587 they were touring Oxfordshire and Warwickshire with an anonymous play called “The Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth”  This is documented due to the tragedy of the death of William Knell in Thame.  Much of this play turns up in Shakespeare’s Henry IV and V, some of it reworked, some of it almost verbatim.  Shakespeare and Heminges are inextricably linked  (many documents exist to that effect) for all of the known careers of both.  The plays belonged to the companies at that period.  So explain how Oxford (or Bacon or Neville) obtained a copy of “The Famous Victories …” in order to plagiarise or rewrite it.  Any explanation could only be through conjecture but there is a direct, documented link to Shakespeare and this play.  Coincidentally it is documented that The Queen’s Men performed at Stratford in the summer after William Knell’s death in June 1587.  And that Heminges married Knell’s widow.  And the last mention of Shakespeare in Stratford is 1585, the birth of the twins. 

To rephrase, there is a direct, documented link to the playwright ‘Shakespeare’, whoever he may have been, since he must have had access to “The Famous Victories…” to write Henry IV an V. Logically, the actor would have had access to this early play. Since as you say any explanation can “only be through conjecture” it seems hardly worth the bother. But since Stratfordians have long accepted pretty much any conjecture that suits their theory, I’ll just conjecture that Heminges lent a copy of the play to Francis Bacon who asked if he could read it. What for I can’t imagine. On the other hand he may have obtained a copy from printer Thomas Creede, who not only printed Famous Victories of Henry the fifth, but who also printed Bacon’s  “The tvvoo bookes of Francis Bacon. Of the proficience and aduancement of learning, diuine and humane: To the King”. At London : Printed [by Thomas Purfoot and Thomas Creede, for Henrie Tomes, and are to be sould at his shop at Graies Inne gate in Holborne, 1605.]   Notice also that Henrie Tomes had a bookshop at Graies Inne gate, an easy walk from Gray’s Inn where Bacon studied and later lived for a major portion of his life.

My eternal question to the doubters is “Why?”  What is it that motivates them to do all this research and to dedicate so much time and effort into trying to find an alternative to the man from Stratford? 

I wonder the same thing about astronomers. Why do they keep trying to find undiscovered planets or to explain the universe? Why?  Why did Copernicus, Galileo, and many others question the Geocentric theory of the universe?? Wasn’t there a very good theory already available that the authorities accepted and that could be used for the execution of heretics that thought otherwise?

They cite facts like the lack of contemporary comments on his death.  Mozart suffered much the same ignominy. They dwell on the fact that there is no mention of books in his will.  But they fail to give importance to the fact that in the will are bequests to John Heminges and Richard Burbage.  The latter of these two facts links Shakespeare of Stratford to the playhouses of London, the former tells us absolutely nothing.  So why is something that tells us nothing at all more important than a documented link? 

It is not just that there was a lack of contemporary comments on William’s death. It’s just a pattern of a lack of positive authorship evidence for him that seems to stand out. I don’t think that they fail to give any importance to the bequests to Heminges and Burbage. There’s been quite a bit of thoughtful analysis about it. It does show they were friends to the end at least. But one of the recent comments I read, from an Oxfordian website, was why William didn’t leave them more than just the rings?  There’s an argument, though I didn’t save it, suggesting that if William had been the playwright Shakespeare, that it would have been more likely to leave more for them and say more about them as friends in his will.