We just have to settle with "we just don't know for sure". I think it is important that we realize that everything we call true is based upon axioms or assumptions that most likely never can be verified.
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Is Shakespeare even bigger than we thought?
- Thread starter Scarlet Fever
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I'm not sure I understand why that realization is important. History is forever exploring the limits of what we know about the past. New questions can always be raised, but that doesn't necessarily mean that established knowledge is automatically overturned or even brought into serious question, unless the new questions are backed with new facts.
You should make a film called 46 where everything is tied to the number 46 and it makes the main character go insane.
Wouldn't that be 23*2, or 23 The sequel.
Many of Shakespeare's plays are known to borrow plots from other plays or histories that came before - Shakespeare was a trailblazer in his language and themes, but not so much in his broad plots. So to answer you query: he might have read it in a book. I'm pretty sure Michael Crichton never met any dinosaurs before writing Jurassic Park
.
I second that, but that wasn't my point. The so-called established truth is built on a loose foundation. As an example, just consider mathematics. Most people would say that math provides absolute truths. Still, math too is built upon axioms (assumptions). Moreover, Gödel showed that we can not prove mathematics from itself. That is, we are left in the darkness.
My point was that a pinch of healthy skepticism will make us understand our a world a bit better. That is, to keep question the established truth. That doesn't mean we should throw out what we know for true as soon as we find some facts that doesn't fit the model. I am not advocating conspiracy theory, rather the importance to keep challenging the established truth. In fact, I think it is vital for the evolution of knowledge.
Needless to say, information was very scarce in late 1500 early 1600. This is just 100 years after the invention of the printing press. To be fair, history is not my field, but as I remember it, England didn't have much interactions with Denmark at the time. (correct me if I am wrong)
Furthermore, the social status of actors/play-writers during this period was very low. England as well as other countries was extremely socially segregated. Interactions between someone very low at the social ladder and persons at the very top is more or less unheard of. Thus, the likelihood of a play-writer to have knowledge about a higher/much higher social class in different countries on continental Europe should be characterized as infinitesimal. The likelihood of you being invited to an oscars party next time you are in LA should be much larger, than Shakespeare striking up a conversation with a person knowledgeable about the danish court and obscure castle in Denmark (I live about 50 miles from it... not that impressive).
My personal opinion is that it is not totally unlikely that Shakespeare was a front for someone high up on the social ladder with an urge for writing but being scared about how it would look if it came out that he/she was associated with something that was more suitable for people at the bottom of the social ladder.
Still, I dont rule out that I am absolutely and completely wrong.
QEI attended Shakespeare's plays prior to 1600, which would most certainly have meant the Court would have followed her example. I believe Denmark would have had an ambassador assigned to the Court of St. James even during this quiet period of interaction. Therefore considering the circumstances, it was possible for a common man in the right place at the right time to gain knowledge of a foreign history and the workings of its royalty.Needless to say, information was very scarce in late 1500 early 1600. This is just 100 years after the invention of the printing press. To be fair, history is not my field, but as I remember it, England didn't have much interactions with Denmark at the time. (correct me if I am wrong)
Furthermore, the social status of actors/play-writers during this period was very low. England as well as other countries was extremely socially segregated. Interactions between someone very low at the social ladder and persons at the very top is more or less unheard of. Thus, the likelihood of a play-writer to have knowledge about a higher/much higher social class in different countries on continental Europe should be characterized as infinitesimal. The likelihood of you being invited to an oscars party next time you are in LA should be much larger, than Shakespeare striking up a conversation with a person knowledgeable about the danish court and obscure castle in Denmark (I live about 50 miles from it... not that impressive).
My personal opinion is that it is not totally unlikely that Shakespeare was a front for someone high up on the social ladder with an urge for writing but being scared about how it would look if it came out that he/she was associated with something that was more suitable for people at the bottom of the social ladder.
Still, I dont rule out that I am absolutely and completely wrong.
You also forget that patronage of artists by nobles was widespread during Elizabethan England. Shakespeare may have had access to the greatest libraries of the time via this route.
I give you that this is one possible explanation and there are most likely several other feasible explanations.
However, I doubt that QEI nor the danish ambassador after attending a play decided to exchange gossip with someone they must have perceived as one step above prostitutes on the social ladder. As I have understood it, attending a play was that periods equivalence of slumming.
But again, you might be correct. My point was just that before we ask ourselves whether Shakespeare wrote the Bible, we should establish that he actually wrote something at all.
Don't forget that
1) Hamlet is likely not to be an original plot.
2) Hamlet does not contain specialised information about the Danish court
3) While information may not have flowed like it was now, they weren't backwards either! Denmark is close to the UK and they had mutual political interests in a catholic-dominated Europe
1) Hamlet is likely not to be an original plot.
2) Hamlet does not contain specialised information about the Danish court
3) While information may not have flowed like it was now, they weren't backwards either! Denmark is close to the UK and they had mutual political interests in a catholic-dominated Europe
And
4) England was fast on its way to becoming the dominant naval power in Europe and was already the hub of the burgeoning trade to and from North America. Merchants of all European nations would most definitely have lived in London during the period, including Denmark.
Right. And further, the assumption is being made that Hamlet accurately portrays the Danish Royal Court. Shakespeare scholars have pointed out that his portrayals of royal courts, in his plays on a whole, isn't necessarily accurate. It wasn't intended to be accurate, it was intended to be dramatic. Shakespeare was a playwright, not an historian.
This is the problem underlying the theories of the alternative playwright theorists. Their arguments are based primarily in points such as, "William Shakespeare of Stratford could not have had any knowledge of Danish royalty," when in fact Hamlet does not demonstrate that the playwright did have any knowledge of Danish royalty!
Under the early Elizabethan reign, the English fleet grew substantially in numbers, mostly to ensure we had enough ships to pester the Spanish in the Caribbean whilst maintaining our own growing trade routes and for defence. The growth of the fleet and its effect on Spanish dominance was one of the reasons why Philip II, who up until this time really had ruled the waves, launched the unsuccessful Armada attack in 1588. Post 1588, it was really just us and the Dutch until the Industrial Revolution allowed us to pull even further ahead (despite the failed Drake-Norris of 1589 it should be noted).
I remember seeing a list of coincidences about that when I was younger.
Yup. Found some of them.
1) Lincoln was elected in 1860, Kennedy in 1960, 100 years apart
2) Both men were deeply involved in civil rights for African Americans.
3) Both men were assassinated on a Friday, in the presence of
their wives.
4) Each wife had lost a child while living at the White House.
5) Both men were killed by a bullet that entered the head from behind.
6) Lincoln was killed in Ford's Theater. Kennedy met his death while
riding in a Lincoln convertible made by the Ford Motor Company.
7) Both men were succeeded by vice-presidents named Johnson who were
southern Democrats and former senators.
8) Andrew Johnson was born in 1808. Lyndon Johnson was born in 1908,
exactly one hundred years later.
9) The first name of Lincoln's private secretary was John, the last
name of Kennedy's private secretary was Lincoln.
10) John Wilkes Booth was born in 1839 [according to some sources] Lee
Harvey Oswald was born in 1939, one hundred years later.
11) Both assassins were Southerners who held extremist views.
12) Both assassins were murdered before they could be brought to trial.
13) Booth shot Lincoln in a theater and fled to a warehouse. Oswald
shot Kennedy from a warehouse and fled to a theater.
14) LlNCOLN and KENNEDY each has 7 letters.
15) ANDREW JOHNSON and LYNDON JOHNSON each has 13 letters.
16) JOHN WlLKES BOOTH and LEE HARVEY OSWALD each has 15 letters.
17) A Licoln staffer Miss Kennedy told him not to go to the Theater. A Kennedy
staffer Miss Lincoln, told him not to go to Dallas.
Hmm, I must have slept through that class...lol
I was under the impression the Portuguese and Spaniands ruled until late 1500. The failure of the armada eventually led to a dutch supremicy which lasted from early 1600 until early 1700 when you guys took over... and then the Yanks entered the scene during the Theodore Roosevelt administration with the white ships.
Well, as I said before it is not completely unlikely that I am wrong
In a way you're right. The Elizabethan surge sat idle for a while, first thanks to the English Civil War then the Black Death, but once we got the country focussed again we tied up with the French and set upon the Dutch. Ironically however, the series of wars that followed finally finished when William of Orange was asked by Parliament to become King of England following his marriage to Mary Stewart, the conveniently Protestant daughter of James IIHmm, I must have slept through that class...lol
I was under the impression the Portuguese and Spaniands ruled until late 1500. The failure of the armada eventually led to a dutch supremicy which lasted from early 1600 until early 1700 when you guys took over... and then the Yanks entered the scene during the Theodore Roosevelt administration with the white ships.
Well, as I said before it is not completely unlikely that I am wrong
Welcome to the world of Anthony Burgess. Burgess wrote a biography, a novel and a series of short stories on Shakespeare. This is just one of the theories he plays with, and which thanks to him has entered the popular consciousness. He was less interested however in the truth of the matter than its comic value. The fact that you found this in a book of toilet humour is very apt because one of Burgess's most famous comic creations was Enderby a poet that wrote in the toilet.