Addenda

Following is the AUTHOR'S RESPONSE (in blue, indented) to a reader's review (PART 1) posted on Amazon.com (www.amazon.com.):

Deconstructing the Stratford Man, November 29, 2000 (see also the reader's follow-up from January 18, 2001)

Reviewer: Edward Thomas Veal from Chicago, Illinois USA

Despite the absence of the "new evidence" promised by its subtitle, this book can claim to apply a new method to the "controversy" over who wrote Shakespeare's works.

Among the new evidence and new arguments presented in this book are:

(1)Comparative analysis of literary papers trails for Shakespeare and his contemporaries (chapter 8, appendix);

(2) Analysis of theatrical documentation showing that Shakespeare was a theatrical financier and business agent (pp. 104-109);  

(3) Introduction of Sir William Dugdale's drawing, ca. 1634, of Shakespeare's funerary monument (pp. 154-158);

(4) Comparative analysis and interpretation of Groatsworth of Wit and Vertue's Commonwealth (pp. 54-56); and 

(5) Analysis of Jonson's "De Shakespeare Nostrati" and the significance of Jonson's classical source (pp. 196-209). There are several other “nuggets” throughout the book that I have not found in any other Shakespearean biography.

Diana Price uses the tools of modern literary theory to deconstruct contemporary references to Shakespeare.

My book is a re-construction, rather than a deconstruction, of the biography of Shakespeare, based on the evidence. Specifically, it is a challenge to the documentary biography of Shakespeare, not to literary theories about Shakespeare. I have taken into account the evidence used by biographers (principally Schoenbaum, Chambers, Honigmann, Bentley, Lewis, Lee, Honan, Kay, Chute, and Bradbrook), analyzed how they have used or considered evidence, and evaluated their reasons and conclusions. When I take issue with their reasoning or with their conclusions, I offer alternatives and my own reasoning. My book is not an exercise in, nor dependent upon any sort of literary theory. 

On the surface, this evidence straightforwardly attributes the famous plays and poems to an actor from Stratford-on-Avon.

This is the very premise that I challenge throughout the book. To pre-suppose that this evidence of attribution is “straightforward” is to employ circular reasoning.

Miss Price will have none of that. She searches for ambiguity and coded meanings, predictably finds them, and thus feels justified in substituting an implausible scenario, supported by no positive evidence at all, for Shakespeare's orthodox biography.

If the reviewer does not find any ambiguities in places where I do, that is his interpretation. However, he is ignoring the numerous orthodox critics whom I cite, both Shakespearean and Jonsonian, who have likewise found ambiguities in the allusions.

Among the positive evidence that I cite to support the unorthodox Shakespeare is his prominent position in the theatrical documentation, the passage from Vertue’s Commonwealth reinforcing my interpretation of Groatsworth of Wit, and the documentary records of Shakespeare bearing on and reinforcing his financial interests and skills (such as the Quiney letter, Shakespeare’s will, his various real estate investments, etc.) The comparative analysis of literary paper trails shows the absence of evidence supporting the statement “Shakespeare was a writer.”

Her thesis, in brief, is that William "Shakspere" of Stratford was an actor, theatrical investor and moneylender - but not a writer. Among his activities were arranging the printing of, and taking credit for, other men's plays. One of his victims was an anonymous nobleman, a supplier of scripts to the acting company with which Shakspere was associated. This author - just by coincidence - had adopted "William Shakespeare" as a pen name for his published poems, "Venus and Adonis" and "The Rape of Lucrece".

I do not argue that the author “just by coincidence” adopted “William Shakespeare as a pen name. I outline several scenarios and conditions, among which I propose is to be found the point of intersection between the name “William Shakespeare” as representing an unnamed aristocratic author in print, and the name of “William Shakespeare,” the man from Stratford. In particular, the allusions to “Battillus” and the precedent in the case of Terence, bears on the “coincidence” of the pseudonym and the name of the man from Stratford.

When his pseudonym's namesake expropriated his works, he could not complain, because identification as a writer for the popular stage would have led to social stigmatization. The literary world was conscious of the imposture, however, and Miss Price finds the truth hidden in many a coded epigram, including the dedicatory poems to the First Folio.

For readers who are familiar only with the unfortunate theories about Great Cryptograms and other mystical ciphers proposed by some anti-Stratfordians, the above criticism may set off alarm bells. I do not argue that there are “codes” waiting only for a decoder ring to reveal their secrets. Rather, I argue that ambiguity is present in the prefatory material in the First Folio, and I support that argument with citations from numerous Jonsonian critics. Nor do I claim to “find the truth,” since that implies that I have solved the entire mystery and identified who wrote the works of Shakespeare. I claim to find sufficient ambiguity to cast doubt on the traditional attribution. I demonstrate that the First Folio material is not the straightforward testimony it is purported to be in traditional biography, and further demonstrate that because it is replete with ambiguous statements, its evidentiary value as “proof” of Shakespeare of Stratford’s authorship is questionable. I also show that allusions to Shakespeare collectively reflect ambiguity, whereas allusions to other writers of the day are often straightforward.

Like many creators of alternative Shakespeares, Miss Price seems to bear a grudge against the claimant from Stratford.

I have no grudge against Shakespeare, but his contemporaries did, and I report that without apology. Much of the evidence for Shakespeare is unflattering (including Groatsworth, the 1598 grain hoarding record, the warrant for arrest with Langley, the last will, the notes concerning his position regarding the Welcombe enclosures). It is interesting that this reviewer did not mention the passages in my book where I expose outright bias or distortion in the orthodox biographer’s treatment of evidence.

Her account of his career is jaundiced to a high degree, and she sees him as the figure behind practically every Elizabethan lampoon of braggart actors, plagiarizing poets or unscrupulous impresarios.

Nearly every satire or lampoon in which I identify Shakespeare as the target has been identified by orthodox scholars. I cite them when I introduce the satires.

"Facts" collected from such caricatures form much of the basis of her reconstruction of "Shakspere's" life, though the probability that they actually allude to him is generally small. For example, she is confident that the buffoon Sogliardo in Ben Jonson's "Every Man Out of His Humour" is a hit on Shakspere. She does not note that the play was written for the Lord Chamberlain's Men, of which the Stratford man was a principal shareholder. One somehow doubts that Shakspere was so tolerant as to finance a parody of himself.

The Sogliardo lampoon is not a particularly good example of an improbable satire of Shakespeare. It was first noticed as a “hit’ at Shakespeare by orthodox scholars and is cited by many biographers. Using that identification as a starting point, I extended the analysis.

To animus is joined partial scholarship. The author has read extensively but declines to confront evidence or analysis inconsistent with her views. To take a few instances:

The "stigma of print" is vital to her case, as it furnishes her sole explanation of why not only the noble author, but also every other contemporary, failed to unmask "Shakspere" as a fraud. In fact, this stigma was supposedly so powerful that the editors of the First Folio kept up the pretense after both Shakspere and the real playwright (who, Miss Price believes, died before 1609) were gone from the world.

But was there any such stigma? Steven May, the leading authority on the literary works of Tudor courtiers, lambasted the theory in "Tudor Aristocrats and the Mythical 'Stigma of Print'" (Renaissance Papers, 1980). Miss Price takes no notice of this article. Conceivably she overlooked it, but her bibliography does list Professor May's book "The Elizabethan Courtier Poets", which contains ample evidence that aristocrats of the era had no qualms about seeing their literary works, including their plays, in print under their own names.

I have read Prof. May’s article, and it has been on David Kathman’s Shakespeare Authorship Web page for some time. I do not view Prof. May’s article on this subject as the final word, nor do I agree with it entirely. Nor do the authorities whom I cite concerning the conception of a “stigma of print.”

More to the point, the evidence that I cite in support of a “stigma of print” is, in my view, sufficiently strong as to leave the reader with no doubt that just such a social convention existed as an effective restraint in Shakespeare’s day. I would question Prof. May’s conclusion specifically on two counts. One, the very evidence that he cites to demonstrate how the “myth of the stigma of print” was first postulated is, in my view, evidence proving, not disproving, the “stigma of print.” (Among that evidence is the testimony found in The Arte of English Poesie, which I also cite.) Second , while May argues that there was more of a “stigma of verse” than a “stigma of print,” I would respond by suggesting that he does not sufficiently distinguish between genres, in particular the genres of poetry (considered “literary trifles") and plays written for the commercial stage, as distinct from the more serious, pious, or didactic works and translations, which were published with less restraint and/or less apology by the upper classes. Again, please refer to the works by Arthur Marotti and Richard Helgerson (see my fn. p 218).

Miss Price thinks that the real Shakespeare was dead by 1609, because the publisher's dedication to the Sonnets refers to "our ever-living poet". She cites Don Foster's article, "Master W.H., R.I.P.", to prove that the adjective "ever-living" was not customarily applied to people who were still alive. She does not cite the article's conclusion: that "ever-living" is applied most frequently to God, the "ever-living poet" Who is asked to bless the (living) sonneteer.

The reviewer has proposed an alternative reading to the dedication to the Sonnets. I have proposed mine.

Miss Price derides the notion that Shakespeare could have acquired classical and literary knowledge through private reading. Yet Ben Jonson did precisely that. Jonson's works are vastly more erudite than Shakespeare's, but his formal education did not go beyond a few years of grammar school.

Historians are able to trace at least part of Jonson’s education through his two explicit tributes to his mentor, William Camden. Jonson received an honorary degree from Oxford University noting that he was “happily versed in all humane literature” (Riggs, 262). For Shakespeare, there are no comparable records.

Moreover, Jonson pursued his independent studies in the face of dire poverty, whereas Shakespeare of Stratford appears always to have been at least modestly affluent (besides which, a family friend was one of London's most important booksellers). The facts about Jonson's self-education are set forth in a book cited several times by Miss Price in other contexts (David Riggs, "Ben Jonson: A Life", pp. 57-58).

This criticism only underscores my point. If Shakespeare had the means and the access to educational and cultural opportunities, why aren’t there any paper trails to trace his progress as a developing writer, as we can trace Jonson’s? This reviewer hardly mentioned the argument in my book that I consider the strongest: the comparative analysis of evidence supporting the literary biographies of Shakespeare and two dozen of his contemporaries. I found personal literary paper trails for everyone except Shakespeare.

To buttress her contention that Shakespeare left no "literary paper trail", Miss Price states flatly that no manuscripts in his hand survive. As a student of Elizabethan literature, she is surely aware of the famous "Sir Thomas More" manuscript, a portion of which is widely believed to be Shakespeare's autograph. That belief may, of course, be mistaken, but it should be refuted with arguments rather than silence.

The reviewer must have missed my reference (p. 127, also listed in the index) to the possibility that Hand D in Sir Thomas More is that of Shakespeare.

The reviewer, in introducing the pages from Sir Thomas More as possibly being in Shakespeare’s hand, tacitly acknowledges the deficiency of personal literary paper trails in Shakespeare’s traditional biography. As the reviewer seems to be aware, the evidence for Shakespeare’s as “Hand D” in the manuscript of Sir Thomas More is inconclusive. I note in passing that Anthony Holden identified -- without qualification -- the facsimile of a page of Sir Thomas More as the only fragment of a manuscript in Shakespeare’s handwriting (William Shakespeare: The Man Behind the Genius. A Biography. Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1999).

Any reader who is impressed by Miss Price's facade of scholarship should bear omissions like these in mind. Consciously or not, she has fashioned a brief for a preconceived opinion, not a fair-minded evaluation of facts and circumstances. She is less incoherent than Charlton Ogburn, Jr., and less bizarrely speculative (but also less entertaining) than Joseph Sobran, but her case against the Stratford man, like theirs, amounts to nothing more substantial than bile and overheated air.

The Review of English Studies (RES) occasionally recommends previously published articles in their "Instructions to Authors" as a model to follow in terms of Style. The RES has cited my article ("Reconsidering Shakespeare's Monument," May 1997) several times in such "Instructions." I expect if the editors of this highly respected journal considered my article merely a "facade of scholarship," they would not have accepted it in the first place, much less recommended it to prospective contributors.

Finally, I should be grateful if the reviewer would direct my attention to the particular pages on which he finds “bile and overheated air,” since he did not specify which passages gave offense.

 

Following is the AUTHOR'S RESPONSE (in boldface, indented) to the same reader's review (PART 2) posted on Amazon.com (www.amazon.com.)

PART 2. A Correction, January 18, 2001

Reviewer: Edward Thomas Veal from Chicago, Illinois USA

Diana Price has complained on her Web site that the last bullet point in my earlier review ignored her "reference (p. 127, also listed in the index) to the possibility that Hand D in Sir Thomas More is that of Shakespeare". Though my oversight was inadvertent, she is correct. By way of atonement, I reproduce in its entirety what "Shakespeare's Unorthodox Biography" says about Sir Thomas More and Hand D:

"The poor quality of Shakspere's penmanship is as suspicious as is the paucity of extant handwriting for a man who supposedly lived by the pen, and scholars continue to search for more specimens. Some have pored over manuscript pages of the play Sir Thomas More, hoping to find Shakspere's handwriting in it. Yet there remain only six inconsistent, blotchy signatures against which to make any comparisons. At best, the six signatures support the conclusion that Shakspere could sign or at least scrawl his name, but they do not support the conclusion that he was a professional writer."

A reader will not learn here that scholars have assembled an impressive (though not uncontroverted) body of evidence in support of the identification of "Hand D" with that of William Shakespeare. I'm sorry that I overlooked this passage, because it neatly illustrates my main point: Time and again, Miss Price, instead of seeking to refute inconvenient analyses, pretends that they don't exist. I noted a few examples in my review.

If I wanted to pretend that the case for "Hand D" in Sir Thomas More case did not exist, I would not have mentioned it in my book. However, the reader's criticism is that I did not offer a more complete discussion of the relative merits and demerits of the case for "Hand D" as Shakspere's. In retrospect, I have to agree with him. I've added a page to this website to address this subject; to go to that page, click on More.

If Amazon allotted infinite space to reviewers, I could add more, as well as describe other departures from scholarly practice. (One of my favorite instances: George Chalmers, an eccentric defender of William Henry Ireland's Shakespearean forgeries, is cited as a sound "orthodox" authority (p. 93)! Curiously, though Miss Price relies on him, she doesn't list his work in her bibliography.)

I mention Chalmers as a critic with whom an early Jonsonian editor, William Gifford, takes issue. (Chalmers is the orthodox critic who proposed Shakespeare as the target of Jonson’s “Poet-Ape.”) Gifford’s work, which I quote, is duly listed in the bibliography. Gifford shares the reader’s opinion of Chalmers as an unreliable critic. After citing Gifford's outrage at Chalmers's proposal, I go on to present my own reasons for accepting Shakespeare as the target of the allusion.

The anti-Stratfordians who have rallied around Miss Price's book should ponder whether gaining converts through the tactic of suppressio veri is a good long-run strategy. Their cause would be far better served by an author who was willing to confront, rather than shut her eyes to and sneer at, the other side of the case.

The identity of the reviewer on Amazon from Santa Fe is unknown to me, but from his or her comments, that reader was not pre-disposed to an anti-Stratfordian position. So it is not necessarily committed "anti-Stratfordians who have rallied around" my book. That reader describes his/herself as someone with an open mind who was persuaded by rational argument. And on a point of semantics, I do not consider the anti-Stratfordian position a “cause.” Nor am I looking for “converts.” I consider the authorship question essentially an academic issue that requires critical analysis and further research if it is to be resolved.

Please forward any replies or comments to : author@Shakespeare-authorship.com.