I know I said I'd quit hijacking this thread, but I can't let that pass without comment.
First, the idea that the Stratford actor was "never exposed" in any measure to "words, ideas [formal learning]" ... is as presumptious as anything I have read and again, a display of gross ignorance about the period. The only part that bears a little truth is the lack of formal training -- although from what we know of the Grammar school he almost certainly attended, he would have received a very solid educational foundation. We can guess this because of his Stratford friends and contemporaries.
Just two examples -- his neighbor, Richard Field, who was born and grew up four houses down from Shakespeare's dwelling. He was two years older to Shakespeare and was the son of a tanner; John Shakespeare, who probably used Henry Field's products to make his gloves, was essentially an executor to the elder Field's will, so I think it's safe to say they know each other. Richard Field was literate enough to go to London and become the most successful and properous publisher of his era. When you check the books he published, you find an amazing number of source materials for Shakespeare's plays.
Then there is Shakespeare's Stratford neighbor Richard Quiney, who stayed in Stratford and ended up as the town's Baliff. Again, he grew up at the same time as Shakespeare and received the same education. By a miracle, many of his letters survive-- including a famous one to Shakespeare. His letters are literate -- many in Latin -- and evidence of a well-rounded education. His oldest son married Shakespeare's daughter Judith.
I mention these to suggest the best evidence is that Shakespeare received a very solid public education growing up in Stratford. That's as much or more than most of his contemporary playwrights received. It's enough to enable a man of genius to take his education to the level where the author of the plays obviously did.
As for needing to "arise out of an aristocracy that has the leisure to cultivate the mind?" -- Marlowe was the son of a shoemaker ... Ben Jonson was the stepson of a bricklayer and worked at that trade for seven years before becoming a playwright.
And pardon me for being a democrat (small D in this case), but the idea that only the aristocratic classes have the "leisure to cultivate the mind" is patently absurd ... when you look at the most brilliant and accomplished minds in history, it's amazing how many come from non-aristocratic roots.
Samuel Clemens was grubbing his way as a poor newspaper reporter when he created Mark Twain and made himself rich ... Charles Dickens was working as a boot black after his father was thrown in debtor's prison ...Thomas Mann, the son of a not very successful grain merchant (one of John Shakespeare's professions) was training as a journalist ... Balzac was working as a notary clerk (for that matter Einstein had to support himself as a patent clerk) ... what about George Washington Carver, born into slavery? Ben Franklin, apprenticed as a printer ... Thomas Paine, left school when he was 12 and was apprenticed as a corsetmaker ... I could give you hundreds of these ... What kind of aristocratic background did Abraham Lincoln have? What kind of formal education? Yet, he became arguably the most brilliant man to ever occupy the presidency.
Now, you might wonder if this "democracy of the mind" applies to Shakespeare's time ... as I mentioned, it certainly applied to Marlowe (shoemaker) and Jonson (bricklayer), Shakespeare's two greatest contemporaries. Check out the next rank of successful playwrights -- John Ford, Francis Beaumont, John Fletcher, Thomas Kyd, Thomas Middleton, John Webster ... you'll be surprised how many came from backgrounds every bit as humble as Shakespeare. Outside the literary community you can find just as many middle and lower class success stories -- for instance the great sailor Francis Drake was the son of a small farmer/preacher. And just for those who find the lack of details about Shakespeare's life suspicious, you do know that we have no idea exactly when Drake was born ... more conspiracy?
Shakespeare -- the Stratford actor -- was recognized in his time as the most popular and successful playwright then working. It's a shame that his contemporaries didn't deify him as we have come to do. Maybe they would have treated him differently and left us more information than they in fact did (which was, it turns out, more than for most of his contemporaries). Instead, he was the Elizabethan equivilent to Adam Sorkin -- the successful (and much honored) writer of a popular low-brow entertainment.
There is a reason that serious Shakespeare scholars rarely participate in these debates ... because the evidence against the Stratford actor is so shallow and so often displays an ignorance of the subject that it's not worth debating -- for the same reason you don't get professional geographers arguing with the Flat Earth people.
I guess if you believe that genius can only be displayed by aristocrats, then the Oxfordian argument must exert a great appeal. But genius is where you find it -- in a log cabin with a dirt floor in Kentucky, in a printer's shop in Philadelphia, in a San Francisco newsroom ... or in a thach-roofed house in a rural English town on the Avon River.
Last edited by Olympic Fan; 07-20-2007 at 11:40 AM.
The discovery and opening of King Tut's tomb would be very exciting.
1) I've gotta go to Jerusalem at the time of Christ's execution
2) Gotta know what happened to the "Lost Colony"
3) Witness John meeting Paul
4) Hobknob at the "Algonquin round table"
5) Witness the final week up to signing of the Declaration of Independence
These are in no order of importance.
Turning it around, I would enjoy escorting Benjamin Franklin in a tour of the present day. What a cool guy to just hang around with.