For
instance, in the last post in the series “Was Shakespeare a Lawyer” there was
this quote from Shakespeare's Legal Language: A Dictionary (2000) by
Sokal and Sokal:
Another
area, not yet covered here, is Shakespeare’s precise knowledge and use of the
terminology in seamanship. This came to my attention by a recent blog post
article by Oxfordian Hank Whittemore. He quotes experts in this field who
attest to Shakespeare’s “accurate knowledge of naval matters” and who say
things such as that he “made exact use of the professional language of
seamanship” and who believed that “the Bard’s knowledge in this area could
not have come from books alone.” A reviewer wrote that “… only those who
actually served at sea could acquire a profound knowledge of the practice of
seamanship and the correct meaning and use of the terms proper to the working
of ships”. As usual, there is no evidence whatever that the businessman/actor
from Stratford was ever on a ship.
He
also quotes Dan Brayton from Shakespeare’s Ocean (2012) who wrote “Most
current scholarship fails to note the sophistication of Shakespeare’s maritime
imagination”.
Similarly,
in this same volume, Brayton, in mentioning the work of John Gillies,
says “Gillies argues that “Shakespeare is demonstrably conversant with quite a
variety of geographic discourses and … cartographic genres”. (as was shown for
Bacon in the previous post). This can be found at the end of the book in his
Notes for chapter 7 “Prospero’s Maps”:
[Bacon
is also known to have visited Elizabethan scholar John Dee who was then a
respected cartographer].
Samuel
Johnson suggested that Shakespeare’s naval dialogue may have been the first to
be exhibited on the stage. Lord Mulgrave believed “that the Poet must either have drawn his technical knowledge of seamanship from accurate personal observation, or else have had a remarkable power of applying the information gained from others [skills Bacon was known to have]. And he thinks Shakespeare must have conversed with some of the best seamen of the time, as “no books had then been published on the subject.” [Bacon was sent by Queen Elizabeth to sail with the English diplomat Sir Amias Paulet to Paris so he likely sailed with some of England’s best sailors; he was also friends with Sir Walter Raleigh, the Earl of Essex, and others with much sailing expertise].
Then
there was a previous book:
Another
expert,
W. B. Whall (b. 1837, d. 1925?), who was educated at Oxford before
becoming a seaman in 1861 and served with shipmates who were “old men-of-war’s
men who had served at sea before 1815”, and then he himself ended up a Master
mariner who studied old naval terminology -- “having made a study of these
archaic terms” and wrote about sea life and sailor songs. Since no one had yet
written about Shakespeare’s knowledge of sailing and his use of naval language,
he researched it and wrote Shakespeare’s Sea Terms Explained, 1910.
Confirming what has already been said above, Whall writes “Now it is small
wonder that a playwright in such times should make use of sea words, but the
wonder is that without professional acquaintance he should always use these
terms correctly. No modern writer is able to do this. An author who
ventures in that direction invariably “gives himself away” unless he is a
sailor author: this the writer of the plays never does. ….”For be it
noted he essays to write as a sailor, and does so successfully.” He
later says “… but the mystery is that sea expressions crop up in quite
unexpected places, and that they are all phrased as by a sailor.” He
also writes regarding Shakespeare: “His sea terms are always absolutely
correct.” Also, “One thing is certain, that the sea expressions scattered
through the plays cannot be understood by the ordinary reader without some help
of the kind given here.” And “How did the writer obtain sufficient knowledge
of the sea to write like a sailor? That is a question which cannot be
answered.” Notice this is the same ability that Shakespeare has with using
legal terminology and with the language used in other fields.
He
foresees that some will say that anyone of the time could use naval terms. So
he writes “It may be advanced that, our modern, colloquial English being so
full of sea phrases, there is nothing to be wondered at that the plays are full
of them; but these phrases are not used in a technical, professional sense, as
Shakespeare uses them,”
And
then he continues on pages 21-22 with “There is the further curious fact
that only one other Elizabethan writer lards his writings with technical
sea terms, and that one is Bacon.” And then a little further on “Shakespeare
and Bacon, however, never make a professional mistake, but write like sailors.”
Keep
in mind that Whall does not make any reference to the “authorship question” nor
does he show any awareness that there was such a thing.
You
can find Whall’s book here:
Bacon’s
writing on Winds and Sails of Ships can be read here:
And
yet there still does not seem to be a single mainstream Shakespearean scholar
that is willing to say publicly that all authorship evidence should be fairly
examined. Perhaps this is the only field in all of academia where a beloved
theory is desired for its own sake rather than a seeking of historical or
scientific evidence-based truth.
