With Shakespeare’s accepted birthday upon us it
seems appropriate to write a post to honor the author’s memory. Fortunately,
there’s some new material relevant to recent posts pointing out that it’s not
clear at all that the First Folio is
strong evidence for the Stratfordian authorship theory. We’ve shown that there
is much willful fabrication in the First
Folio such that the authorship attribution to the Stratford William cannot
be taken at face value.
But there are still two important pieces of evidence
which seem to strongly suggest his connection.
The first of these is Ben Jonson’s phrase “Sweet
Swan of Avon” being taken as a reference to Stratford-upon-Avon. A recent
counter-argument by Waugh is that this Avon actually refers to Hampton Court
with its Great Hall which was used for dramatic entertainments. That argument
can be read here:
Now, there has also been a counter-argument to this
proposal so I don’t know how well it’s standing up to scrutiny. However,
another possibility is that Jonson used ‘Avon’, as others have, in a more idealistic
manner as is found in Minerva Britannia:
Thy solitarie Academe should be
Some shadie groue, vpon the THAMES faire side,
Such as we may neere princely RICHMOND see,
Or where along doth silver SEVERNE slide,
Or AVON courtes, faire FLORA in her pride
Some shadie groue, vpon the THAMES faire side,
Such as we may neere princely RICHMOND see,
Or where along doth silver SEVERNE slide,
Or AVON courtes, faire FLORA in her pride
The
poem suggests a river in an imaginary location where poets can get away from
the city and connect with their muse, in a kind of academe of nature where
philosophical musings are encouraged. The words Thames, Avon, Swanne are
mentioned together along with the starry sky and Constellations and the art of
poetry, just as in the same passage in the First
Folio commendatory poem by Ben Johnson. And the town of Stratford may not
at that time have been distinguished as –upon-Avon”. This reduces the
confidence in Jonson’s ‘Avon’ as a reference to the town.
Still,
though, is the later direct reference to the “Stratford moniment” where a
monument to William Shakespeare is indeed found. Finally, here appears to be
the hard evidence for William’s authorship. The non- and post-Stratfordians
have had various challenges to this evidence too over the years. But what is
new is another revised interpretation by Alexander Waugh of this monument and
the accompanying inscriptions.
Waugh
reexamined the Dugdale drawing of 1634. In past years I’ve read the Strat and
non-Strat arguments about his drawing and the supposed changes to the monument
over the years. And I know that some prominent post-Stratfordians have
concluded that his drawing is likely a poor or false representation of what
existed when he was there, perhaps because of poor lighting or weak drawing
skills. But I’ve continued to lean to the argument that his drawing was likely
much more accurate than inaccurate. For one thing, I couldn’t dismiss the
detailed patterns on top of the two pylons on each side of the Shakespeare
figure. If the lighting was poor or he was an unskilled draughtsman then I
don’t think these would have had the careful detail he seems to have taken care
to get right.
So,
what Waugh discovered, was that immediately on top of each post, and below that
of the leopard heads, is what can be seen or interpreted as ape or monkey heads.
Now it took me one or more minutes of staring at the figures to finally see
them, but once you do it is then not difficult, for the unbiased, to see the
resemblance.
Waugh
then ties this in with Ben Jonson’s ‘On
Poet Ape’ epigram. To me it does seem plausible and unless and until I see
a good refutation I will hold it as a viable interpretation that answers
important questions in the authorship theory, at least from the
non-Stratfordian perspective.
And
incidentally, I don’t take his interpretation as any kind of insult to the
Stratford William, primarily since he was long deceased. Actors were often
referred to as apes since they imitated or voiced the words of the writers. Also,
the monument was designed with visitors or tourists in mind. Ben Jonson, among
others of the time, placed a very high value on people being well-read and
learned and perceptive. They didn’t take well to those, even other writers or
university graduates, who were smugly ignorant, or whom he considered as merely
‘gaping auditors’ of life. Like Hamlet he wanted people to be more judicious
than the unskillful auditors of the stage. Bacon referred to such superficial
and misdirected thinking as ‘Idols of the Marketplace’ or ‘Idols of the
Theater’. The German philosopher Nietzsche interpreted the first of these as
referring to “the way common folk are fooled by advertising, rhetoric, misleading
claims, etc.” He interpreted the second as having a “reliance on Authority,
experts, and swallowing the received wisdom, without questioning. The bigger
the lie, the more easily it is accepted.” So whatever your opinion is, it
should at least be a well-educated one.
Continuing
with Waugh’s interpretation of the plaque inscriptions. He works out what seems
a plausible unravelling of the allusive:
Judicio Pylium, genio Socratem, arte
Maronem
Terra tegit, populus maeret, Olympus habet
Terra tegit, populus maeret, Olympus habet
Which he argues should be more
correctly read as:
Earth covers, people mourn and Olympus holds
Pylius with his judgement, Socrates with his genius and Maro with his art.
Pylius with his judgement, Socrates with his genius and Maro with his art.
And then worked out a solution to the puzzle so
that it can be seen to refer “ . . . not to Shakespeare, but
to three great English poets, respectively Beaumont, Chaucer and Spenser whom
‘Earth covers [in ‘Poets’ Corner’], people mourn and Olympus holds”. And from
there to the additional Oxfordian documentation that Lord Oxford also ‘ . . .
lieth buried at Westminster’.
Please
read his whole argument at the link listed at the end.
I
really don’t have a problem with much of any of this. It shows that this last
piece of hard evidence is as debatable as that of the First Folio front matter, and perhaps even stronger for the
post-Stratfordian side. But part of the
strength depends on how well it can be tied to any particular alternative
candidate for authorship. Waugh has shown it can be applied to Oxford.
I
can say that for Francis Bacon the Latin inscription works at least as well,
perhaps even more straightforwardly.
For ‘Pylius
(Nestor) with his judgement’, and more than that since Nestor was also
known for his ancient wisdom, great oratorical skills, and being a respected
advisor and counselor. So was Bacon known for all these same attributes and he
was also, in a post-mortem tribute, specifically referred to as ‘Nestor’s
own senior’.
For
‘Socrates
with his genius’ we have another tribute to Bacon which included these
lines:
“None
greater in genius;
Who
of richer eloquence?
A
judgment most piercing”
Also,
in the 2015 book The Political Philosophy
of Francis Bacon by Tom van Malssen, he writes on pages 266-67 that Socrates “called philosophy away from
heaven to establish it in the cities, to introduce it into the households, and
to compel it to inquire about men’s lives and manners as well as about the good
and bad things” and that “Bacon’s meaning [for his own philosophy] approximates
what in almost identical terms was said about Socrates”.
Interestingly,
in Joseph Hall’s Virgidemiarum (Book
IV, 1597/98) he mentions “As bolder Socrates in the comedy” which is explained
as “It is related of Socrates, that when present at the representation of The Clouds, a celebrated comedy of
Aristophanes, in which the character of the philosopher is introduced in a
ridiculous light, he [Socrates] good-naturedly stood up in order to give the
spectators an opportunity of contrasting the original, with the caricature
drawn by their favourite comedian.”
Then
as for the reference to Virgil – ‘Maro for his art’ there is another
tribute to Bacon, and as a plaintive cry:
“But,
who shall write thy great story, who, pray, of thy life or thy death?
Give
place, Oh Greece! Yield thee Maro, first tho thou be in Rome’s story.
Eloquence
thine in supremacy; powerful of pen, great in all things,”
Which seems to say “Virgil/Maro, step aside for a
greater writer than thee”.
And finally, in response to ‘Olympus holds’, another
tribute to Bacon includes these lines:
“Thinkest
thou, Oh! Foolish traveler that this cold marble is hiding
Phoebus’
own chorister; -- leader of the great band of the Muses?
Thou
art deceived then! Avaunt thee! Verulam [Lord Bacon] shines in Olympus
And
lo! The boar (part of his family’s crest), great Jacobo, glitters in thy
constellation.”
[Great
Jacobo = King James, but I have no idea about his ‘constellation’.]
We
can all see then that the Stratford monument, for the judicious viewer, can be
associated to at least two other authorship candidates, and both at least as
plausibly as for Stratford’s William. It looks to me more like a monument, as a
charade or spoof to invite further inquiry, to Bacon’s (or possibly Oxford’s)
authorship mask than to a straightforward honoring of William.
Here
now is the link to Waugh’s article:
Another,
earlier and thoughtful article on the same topic from another Oxfordian, with
many excellent points, one of which is that:
Nestor, Socrates, Maro and Olympus are all
remarkable for their absence from Jonson’s dedication in the First Folio.
Can be
read here:
