Just watched a video debate on the "authorship question" at the Shakespeare Adventure website (you can google it - I'm not going to link it because I really can't recommend the site, although the video in question is worth seeing) in which the Stratfordian side, led by the great Stanley Wells, absolutely wipes the floor with the Oxfordians, led by Roland Emmerich, the director of the upcoming "Anonymous". The debate actually provides a good summary of the evidence that exists, which is all, and I mean all, on the Stratford side. (Isn't it amazing that after all these years, and all of the allegations and accusations, that there is still not one piece of evidence for anything other than the established history?) It also shows the complete misunderstanding of art and literature that is put forward by the conspiracy theorists as proof of their contentions (the misreadings of the poems and plays that have gone into their arguments could be the subject of a hilarious book). I've still never met a conspiracy theorist that I would consider a strong reader of Shakespeare, and if that sounds a little harsh, so be it. As for Mr. Emmerich, I think that in the future he should stick with subjects such as Godzilla - in other words stories that have a possible, albeit tiny, hint of plausibility.

Further to Friday's post regarding the excerpt of Sir Thomas More, which may have been revised by Shakespeare, and Stanley Wells' book (Shakespeare: For All Time) which brought it to my attention (and which contains a reproduction of the manuscript) - a couple of things: 1. Wells rightly finds an echo of the last two lines ("... and men like ravenous fishes/ Would feed on one another") in a speech by Albany in 4.2 of King Lear ("Humanity must perforce prey on itself/ Like monsters of the deep"). And there are also Shakespearean touches in both the detailed descriptions of specific moments ("their babies at their backs") and the empathy that results. There is also the fact that the straightforward deployment of argument (as in debating) is so much a part of Shakespearean drama. Finally there is the example of word class conversion ("shark" as a verb) which shows Shakespeare's ability to transcend not only rules but expectations. I, for one, am convinced. The excerpt is the work of Shakespeare.

One of the most compelling moments in Stanley Wells' excellent 2002 book, Shakespeare: For All Time, is his discussion of the manuscript revision done to the anonymous play, Sir Thomas More, which may be Shakespeare's, and thus the only surviving literary work in his handwriting, aside from "half a dozen signatures". Wells explains that the play, never performed in its own time due to difficulties with the censors, contains many striking passages, including the following, which I'll let him introduce (I'll have some thoughts on it tomorrow):

"Since late in the nineteenth century many scholars have believed that one of the revisers was Shakespeare. The principal passage in what is known as Hand D impressively portrays events leading up to the riots of Londoners against foreign immigrants on 'Ill May Day', 1517. More, sent by the authorities as a peacemaker, subdues the rioters in powerful and humane speeches of controlled rhetoric: to the demand that foreigners - 'strangers' - be expelled he responds:

Grant them removed, and grant that this your noise

Hath chid down all the majesty of England.

Imagine that you see the wretched strangers,

Their babies at their backs, with their poor luggage

Plodding to th' ports and coasts for transportation,

And that you sit as kings in your desires,

Authority quite silenced by your brawl

And you in ruff of your opinions clothed:

What had you got? I'll tell you. You had taught

How insolence and strong hand should prevail,

How order should be quelled - and by this pattern

Not one of you should live an aged man,

For other ruffians as their fancies wrought

With selfsame hand, self reasons, and self right

Would shark on you, and men like ravenous fishes

Would feed on one another."